65 million years ago, Venus
Nikola Tesla's residence and workshop were both on the 33rd floor of the same hotel. His residence was Room 3327, and the adjoining Room 3328 was his workshop.
Dean Abbott had been ordered to work with Tesla to come up with a plan to save Venus from its crisis as quickly as possible. He simply moved into the hotel, too, and Room 3328 became their shared workshop.
Tesla's plan was both bold and challenging, with far too many factors to consider.
As the head of the Academy of Sciences, overseeing all scientific research on Venus, Abbott carefully sifted through the details and insisted that the team prioritize the most critical questions, the ones that would determine whether the plan succeeded or failed.
When Mars exploded, it would instantly hurl millions of fragments into space and release enormous energy. How would the other planets in the Solar System, including Venus and Earth, be affected? Where would each planet need to be in its orbit to remain safe?
According to Tesla's plan, they were going to extract genes and upload consciousness, weren't they? Weren't those questions just as important? Why focus first on the so-called safety of the planets?
The answer was simple. Mars had to be exploded to stabilize—or, in other words, save—the structure of the Solar System. If the planets weren't safe, what hope was there for the Venusians?
"Nikola, when Mars explodes, where should the planets be in their orbits to suffer the least impact?" Abbott asked.
"Of course, they should be far from Mars, but not on the opposite side of the Sun. In that case, the planet, Mars, and the Sun would form a straight line, triggering a superluminal-wave reaction between planets in opposition. So the safest angle would be eight hours apart across the 24-hour celestial sphere—that is, 120 degrees of celestial longitude," Tesla replied.
Abbott knew celestial mechanics inside and out, and analyzed the problem further. "The effects of being 120 degrees ahead of Mars in its orbit should be completely different from being 120 degrees behind it."
"Exactly. When Mars explodes, centrifugal force will send the fragments outward and backward. Clearly, being 120 degrees ahead of Mars will be safer."
"According to your plan, Earth is to be our home in the future, so we have to protect it above all. We should trigger the explosion when Earth is 120 degrees ahead of Mars, right?" Abbott asked.
"Yes. When Mars explodes, Earth must not only lead it by 120 degrees in longitude, but also be far from the ecliptic plane in latitude. Ideally, we should choose the winter solstice in Earth's Northern Hemisphere. Compared with the summer solstice, Earth is then closer to perihelion, which means farther from Mars," Tesla explained.
"There's another problem. Saturn's enormous mass of ice acts like a lens, and Venus happens to lie at the focal point of the superluminal-wave diffraction. If Venus and Saturn were also 120 degrees ahead of Mars, the shock wave from the extra energy released by Mars's explosion would trigger extremely powerful solar activity and destabilize Earth's orbit," Abbott said.
Tesla admired his old friend's expertise. "Yes. We need to put Venus and Saturn 120 degrees behind Mars in its orbit. The advantage is that when the extra energy from Mars disturbs the Sun, it will release a powerful flare in the direction where Venus and Saturn are aligned, making the direction of Earth much safer."
Tesla connected to the external brain through the Lightning Ball to verify his and Abbott's calculations. The external brain's answer largely matched their own.
It added just one thing: Mercury also needed to be in line with Venus and Saturn, to absorb and block the vast amount of energy the Sun would release in the form of flares.
The two men opened a holographic celestial globe and calculated the planets' orbital periods and relative positions. On Earth's winter solstice, Mars would be 120 degrees from Earth, while Venus, Mercury, and Saturn would share the same longitude, 120 degrees away on the other side of Earth. Earth, Mars, and Venus would divide the celestial sphere's 360 degrees of longitude evenly, forming a perfect equilateral triangle.
They were calculating the celestial coordinates so urgently because placing the planets in the right orbital positions was purely theoretical. The planets traveled along their own orbits, and the moment they would form the ideal arrangement depended on their synodic periods.
Tesla connected to the external brain once more and called up the relevant planets' synodic periods. Taking the winter solstice in Earth's Northern Hemisphere as the fixed point, and Earth's orbital period as 365 days, the synodic periods of Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Saturn relative to Earth were 117, 584, 780, and 378 days, respectively.
The least common multiple of the five periods was 7,174,440 days, or about 19,643 Earth years. That was the synodic period for a perfect, degree-by-degree alignment. If they allowed a slight deviation in the planets' positions—say, plus or minus one degree—they would still count as aligned. Tesla calculated that the synodic period would then be about 5,125 years.
"What? We can't wait more than 5,000 years! Let's quickly check when the most recent alignment like this occurred." As he spoke, Abbott rapidly shifted the time corresponding to the celestial coordinates.
Was it a coincidence? Good fortune? Abbott had no time to dwell on it. He stopped the celestial globe at a certain point and shouted:
"Thirteen years! Heaven help the Venusians—this alignment will happen in just thirteen years!"
Nikola Tesla had already gotten the answer from the external brain, but hadn't had a chance to say it. Seeing his old friend so delighted, he couldn't hide his own excitement. Before Abbott could ask anything else, he volunteered the other thoughts the external brain had helped him work out:
"Although Earth will be in the so-called safe position, 120 degrees ahead of Mars in its orbit, some of the debris from the explosion will inevitably hit it. We have to protect the Tower Island power station on Earth, so we need to choose an impact point on the opposite side of the planet."
"We Venusians have only used Earth as a place of exile. We haven't even defined its prime meridian. If we designate Tower Island in the New Tethys Ocean as 90 degrees east longitude, then the impact site we choose should be at 90 degrees west, right?" Abbott asked.
"Yes. I've only been to Earth's Eastern Hemisphere, including the Victoria Wetlands and Tower Island in the New Tethys Ocean. The spot on the other side of Tower Island is right here in the Western Hemisphere." Tesla pointed to a bay between two continents.
"Those two continents are crawling with dinosaurs. Neither you nor any of us Venusians has been there, so the place has no name. Why don't you name the impact site we've chosen?" Abbott said.
Tesla couldn't think of a name right away. The moment he connected to the Lightning Ball, the external brain supplied one: MAYA.
After considering the safety of the planets and the structure of the Solar System, Dean Abbott began to think about the safety of the vessels that would carry the Venusians' genes and consciousness. He asked:
"According to the plan, before Mars explodes, we need to successfully extract the Venusians' genes and upload their consciousness. The vessels will also need to be guarded by researchers and engineers, including you and me. Where will we hide?"
"Yes. When Mars explodes, Jupiter and every planet inside its orbit will be scorched by the flames. We have to get far away from that region," Tesla said.
Tesla's plan was to extract the genes and upload the consciousness of most Venusians before Mars exploded. These samples would be carefully preserved, and taken along with the researchers and engineers aboard a spacecraft to a moon in the Saturn System, where they could escape the impact.
The moon Tesla had chosen was Titan. It orbited Saturn every 79 days, at a semimajor axis of 3.56 million kilometers, far from Saturn's ice mass, which was nearly a million kilometers across.
When the spacecraft landed on Titan, Saturn and its enormous ice mass would be directly between the moon and the blast from Mars, shielding Titan from the impact. Tesla had aptly called it a safe house.
In theory, the plan seemed basically feasible. Abbott asked, with a hint of sadness, "To protect Earth, we're putting Venus right at the focal point of the two shock waves—the one from Mars's explosion and the solar wind. What will happen to it afterward?"
As a Venusian, Tesla understood Abbott's attachment to and reluctance to part with their mother planet. He didn't immediately give him the despairing answer. Instead, he began by describing what would happen to Mars.
After Mars exploded, only a thin part of its outer crust would break away. The rest would remain a planet, and could still be called Mars.
Neither its orbit nor its rotation would change much. The external brain predicted that Mars's eccentricity would increase from around 0.01, similar to Earth's, to 0.09, making its orbit a more elongated ellipse.
Abbott stared into Tesla's eyes, as if asking: What about Venus?
Tesla spread his hands helplessly and said in a low voice, "Venus's rotation axis will reverse. It will lose all its rotational speed, then begin rotating in the opposite direction."
According to Tesla, after Mars exploded, Venus's rotation period would stretch to more than 240 days. It would take Venus longer to rotate once on its axis than to complete an orbit around the Sun.
Couplet poem:
The jade dipper collides, and all is changed. —Song, Su Jiong
In a moment, fortune and ruin are decided in this world. —Ming, Huang Jin
Don't ask if you've yet reached the end of your journey. —Song, Yang Wanli
Reach up and grasp the stars; you can call down the heavens. —Ming, Shi Runzhang
Before you continue