Terepedia : Selected Articles

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Terepedia
The Free Encyclopedia

Terepedia is a multilingual online encyclopedia created and maintained as an open collaboration project by a community of volunteer editors using a tere-based editing system. It is the largest and most popular general reference work on the World Wide Web. It features exclusively free content and no commercial ads, and is owned and supported by the Teremedia Foundation, a non-profit organisation funded primarily through donations. Selected paragraphs from articles have been retrieved from Terepedia to provide context; more will be forthcoming as Quiet Skies progresses, or as readers request.

The Dying War
United Nations
Transphasic Materials

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The Dying War
Retrieved : January 01, 2052

World War III (often abbreviated to WWIII or WW3), also known as the Dying War, was a global conflict that occurred in 1968. It was fought along ideological lines principally between the two competing world superpowers and their allies - the United States and NATO, versus the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. The Dying War was characterised by the large-scale deployment of weapons of mass destruction against both military and civilian targets and is the deadliest conflict in human history. An estimated 570 million people perished in the initial nuclear exchange, and a further 2.23 billion deaths are attributed to radiation poisoning and the large-scale famines that broke out in the aftermath of the war. The conflict devastated large tracts of North America and Eurasia, with the United States, the Soviet Union, and Europe being largely depopulated.

The Dying War is generally said to have begun on 22 November 1968, when Warsaw Pact forces initiated the Invasion of France following years of deteriorating relations and the commencement of the NATO military exercise Red Knight '68, erroneously perceived to be a ruse obscuring preparation for a nuclear first strike. The first use of nuclear weapons occurred on 24 November 1968, when seven 500 kiloton bombs were used to destroy Soviet armoured columns that had breached the Messmer Line. The Soviet Union responded by nuking NATO airfields in Western Europe, and a general escalation followed. On November 25, NATO forces launched a limited nuclear first strike against Warsaw Pact airfields and missile silos in Central Europe with short-range ballistic missiles. This prompted a massive Soviet counter-value strike against the United States and its allies, forcing a retaliatory NATO launch against the Warsaw Pact and China. In total, it is estimated that more than 27,000 warheads were detonated, representing an energy release of nearly twenty gigatons of TNT.

On 28 December, with their nations in ruins and their military forces largely annihilated, the surviving leadership of the United States and the Soviet Union negotiated a ceasefire. Most urban agglomerations with a pre-war population in excess of 10,000 in both nations had been destroyed. Large portions of Europe had by this point collapsed into anarchy and wildfires ripped across Eurasia, sending billions of tons of soot and ash into the atmosphere. Temperatures across the world plunged eight degrees in the ensuing nuclear winter, with some key agricultural regions in the northern hemisphere experiencing drops of more than twenty degrees. With industrial sites and supply networks decimated, mass starvation set in by late 1969 and the world entered a period of rapid population decline, a trend that would not reverse for nearly two decades.

The Dying War had significant geopolitical and economic consequences, and permanently traumatised human society. A series of bloody revolutions and regional power struggles broke out in the immediate aftermath, with intermittent warfare lasting till well after the nuclear winter lifted and the ash settled. In the decades that followed, the technological regression and global recession of the lost decades eventually gave way to economic recovery and a period of gradual re-industrialisation and globalisation, with the surviving nations banding together under the aegis of the Union of Nations to foster peace and prevent conflict.

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United Nations
Retrieved : January 01, 2021

The United Nations of Earth (commonly abbreviated to the UNE or UN), or simply the United Nations, is a confederation of 52 sovereign nations and is the central governing authority of Earth and its entire human population of 1.022 billion. The United Nations was initially founded as an intergovernmental organisation after the Second World War in 1945, but was mostly dissolved after the Dying War in late 1968. The modern iteration of the United Nations was established on 26 May 1974 in Singapore by the Commonwealth of Nations and the South American Confederation, largely reusing most of the surviving apparatus of the original United Nations but with several major revisions. It initially had limited membership, but its jurisdiction has since expanded to cover the entirety of Earth's surface.

Preliminary (1974-1982)

The Commonwealth of Nations was a supranational union between the states of New Zealand and Australia formed on 12 July 1972 after the Dying War for mutual security and trade. As an industrialised southern hemisphere nation, the Commonwealth retained significant food production capability despite the nuclear winter and had survived the initial nuclear exchange fairly unscathed. It had significant bargaining power on the international scene and quickly emerged as a major power alongside India, Brazil, and Argentina. Singapore joined the Commonwealth in 1973, followed by India being granted associate status in 1974. The Commonwealth staged armed interventions in numerous conflicts throughout the 1970s and played a pivotal role in the Indonesian Civil War and the ensuing secession and integration of Papua within the Commonwealth. The South American Confederation was formed on 4 August 1975 within the larger Latin American Cooperative Organisation as an association of Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia. Sharing most of the advantages of the Commonwealth with a significantly larger population, the South American Confederation proceeded to rapidly industrialise and exert its influence amongst the warring states of Central America, and was instrumental in ending the Colombian Conflict. By 1980, an increasingly integrated Greater Commonwealth emerged as a Great Power alongside the South American Confederation, and the model of nations agglomerating into larger blocs for mutual benefit had firmly entrenched itself into geopolitics.

The United Nations during the 1970s had largely been delegated to servicing the role of a humanitarian organisation - it was responsible for softening the blow of the Dying War induced nuclear winter, which still ravaged the Earth even a decade after the initial nuclear exchange. The reformed organisation had the reconstruction of Earth enshrined in its charter on 18 February 1976, and was tasked with stabilising the situation in Europe. United Nations task forces were responsible for securing the surviving nuclear ordnance in Europe and the erstwhile USSR and it was instrumental in preventing the total collapse of the United States in 1979. On June 29 1979, an international treaty banning the production and use of weapons of mass destruction was signed and ratified by 57 nations. The Eurasian Provisional Government was established on 5 March 1981 under United Nations supervision, and the organisation's mandate was expanded to expedite the development and industrialisation of the Third World.

Treaty of São Paulo (1982-1995)

On 6 January 1982, a nuclear device was detonated near Tianjin as part of an offensive by the Socialist Republic of Manchuria during the ongoing Chinese Civil War, which had been raging since 1969. The bomb was traced back to Soviet stockpiles thought destroyed and immediately led to worldwide condemnation. A United Nations task force was established with a large number of nations contributing people and materiel and was given the task of seizing and destroying weapons of mass destruction. With the situation in China dangerously unstable, the United Nations brokered a peace settlement in January 1983 dividing China into six independent states, with peacekeeping forces from eight nations monitoring the situation. The second charter revision, on April 26, 1983, established the United Nations Security Forces, a permanent joint task force composed of units from thirteen nations assigned with the task of establishing peace and deterring conflict worldwide. The Security Forces staged an intervention in South Africa in 1986 to shut down the illicit African nuclear weapons program, involving more than a hundred thousand soldiers from twelve nations, an action which firmly established the authority of the United Nations.

Structural Evolution (1995-2004)

By 1990, the aftershocks of the Dying War had largely faded, and the worldwide population decline of the lost decades had slowly reversed itself. Global temperatures were still three degrees below average but they were rising fast, and the southern hemisphere had largely recovered. The War for Greater China broke out in late 1991 while the Security Forces were extremely stretched halting armed bush conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa, which had devolved into a mass of warring tribes by 1970 as colonial authority collapsed, famine set in and ethnic conflicts boiled over. The Arab League federalised on 23 December 1993, followed by the formation of the intergovernmental  African Union on 17 May 1995. On 19 October 1995, a third charter revision established accountability for the United Nations, which had developed into an intergovernmental organisation that held sweeping powers and significant authority in world affairs. The General Assembly was converted into an elected legislature with members directly elected by the citizens of member states every five years, with an Election Commission empowered to conduct these elections. The fifteen member Security Council was instead elected directly by voting amongst the national leaders of all member nations, and the Secretary General was appointed by the General Assembly for five year terms.

The Eurasian Federation was established on 12 July 1996 after more than a decade of rebuilding and the provisional government was abolished. The vast majority of Earth's population by this point resided in large regional confederations or super-states, among them the Commonwealth of Nations, the South American Confederation, the Republic of India, the Arab League, and the Eurasian Federation. United Nations intervention finally ended the War for Greater China in late 1997, and resulted in the creation of a unified Chinese state. By the turn of the millennium, the vast majority of the conflicts sparked in the aftermath of the Dying War had quieted, and the world was moving towards increasingly greater political, economic, and social integration. By late 2001, worldwide temperatures had reached pre-Dying War averages, with the most regions on the path to recovery.

Singapore Agreement (2004-Present)

Radio transmissions from Venus were intercepted on 5 March 2004. The existence of the Venusian civilisation had been identified during the early phase of the Cold War, but the persistent cloud cover of the planet had made surface observations difficult. Even so, they were estimated to have been at least three hundred years behind technologically in the 1960s and their rapid rate of advancement triggered greatly increased human investment into science and spaceflight. The United Nations charter was revised on 24 August 2005 to establish the United Nations as a confederation of states and the sole governing authority of Earth and of all humanity, with supreme jurisdiction over all non-terrestrial affairs.

The discovery of the Thornton-Nasser effect and transphasic matter in 2008 revolutionised science and triggered a period of unprecedented technological advancement, leading to a rapid expansion of human activities in space. Diplomatic communication with the Sublime Venusian Mandate was established in late 2009, after years of effort translating their communications protocols and language. It soon became apparent that the Mandate possessed rudimentary knowledge of transphasic materials and had been using them in industrial applications for decades, but nevertheless had little understanding of the fundamental underlying principles. Following a period of extended negotiations, the Treaty of Kanima was ratified on 23 February 2011, restricting all United Nations and Sublime Mandate activities in space to within the Hill Sphere of their respective homeworlds until 1 January 2021. The suited both sides - the United Nations needed time to modernise their existing industry, while the Sublime Mandate was still less technologically advanced and needed time to catch up. By December 2020, the United Nations and the Sublime Mandate had both spent nearly a decade preparing for the expiration of the treaty and the inevitable confrontation.

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Transphasic Materials
Retrieved : 01 January 2021

Transphasic materials are a type of naturally-occurring exotic matter, consisting of a core of weakly interacting massive particles (alternatively, dark matter or wimpy matter) trapped inside a baryonic crystal lattice by the weak nuclear force. First isolated on 13 December 2008 by an international team of researchers in Perth, Australia, the existence of transphasic matter had been theorised since the discovery of the Thornton-Nasser effect at the University of Western Australia by the research team of Emily Thornton and Omar Nasser in February 2008.

Dark matter in the free state is ubiquitous in the universe, but, owing to its unique lack of chemistry and the fact that it interacts with baryonic matter exclusively through the graviweak force, its exact nature was not conclusively identified till late 2009. While non-baryonic matter outmasses baryonic matter 3 :1, it has a tendency to clump around celestial bodies of sufficient mass forming long 'strands' that are arranged radially outward, typically beginning at some distance from the surface and extending outward several thousand or even millions of kilometre and kept in place by graviweak forces.

While the exact process of formation of tranphasic matter remains elusive, it is wildly theorised to be a result of strands of wimpy matter being perturbed into intersecting a mass of baryonic matter of specific composition and characteristics, resulting in dark matter particles forming transphasic crystal structures. The perturbation is generally gravitic and induced by large stellar masses - transphasic materials are theorised to be abundant in small solar system bodies in eccentric orbits and can be quantitatively and qualitatively estimated with the aid of highly sensitive gravimetric sensors using the Kumar-Tanaka-Mankowski technique.

Exposure to near vacuum results in transphasic materials undergoing rapid decay with the disassociation of wimpy matter and baryonic particles, requiring a complex series of processes to stabilise them. They tend to occur at depths exceeding ten kilometres due to the specificity of the formation process. Due to their exceedingly high densities, transphasic materials sink rapidly into the mantle and cores of large planetary bodies, rendering their extraction difficult and cumbersome. Nevertheless, their unique properties underpin modern technology and industry, with wide-ranging applications.

There are eleven distinct types of tranphasic materials that have been identified as of 1 January 2021, and these are classified as monowimpy,  tetrawimpy and polywimpy based on the number of dark matter particles trapped in each crystal unit. They are listed below in order of discovery.

Duranium
Duraniums were the first type of transphasic materials to be isolated in December 2008 and are generally monowimpy complexes of iron and related transition metals. They are relatively easy to stabilise and manipulate, and enhance the strength and durability of an array of common alloys when used as an additive. Duraniums are widely used in industrial activities  and are a principal construction material in spaceborne applications. Duraniums are the most abundant transphasic material, with twenty-three distinct types known.

Mercasssium
Mercassiums were first isolated in February 2009, and are monowimpy complexes of lanthanides displaying esoteric  catalytic activities. They are used primarily in high-precision instruments and laboratory facilities, with seventeen mercassiums known.

Sorium
Soriums were first isolated in March 2009, and are monowimpy complexes of carbon-based volatiles. The Sage-Kampfer process is used to break down the large scale structure of soriums in refineries to produce starship fuel. They are the only known transphasic material that can survive in near vacuum condition; seven soriums are known.

Gallicite
Gallicites were first isolated in April 2009 and the first identified transphasic materials with more than one dark matter particle per crystal unit. They are tetrawimpy complexes of noble metals. Gallicites are used principally in distortion engines, with nine types known.

Corundium
Corundiums were first isolated in April 2010 and greatly enhanced the rate of extraction of transphasic materials. They are monowimpy complexes of rare earth elements with twelve known types. Corundiums are essential in the extraction of transphasic materials and play an important role in the stabilisation process.

Tritanium
Tritaniums were first isolated in May 2010 and are monowimpy complexes of alkalis, with only two known types. They are extremely unstable and can be induced to rupture explosively, generating focused streams of high energy particles.

Boronide
Boronides were first isolated in May 2010 and are polywimpy complexes of boron group elements. They have a highly complex structure and have the most massive crystal unit of all known transphasic materials. Boronides are used extensively as fusion catalysts, with three types known.

Vendarite
Vendarites were first isolated in May 2010 and are tetrawimpy complexes of tungsten and related heavy transition metals. They are lightweight for transphasic materials and extremely strong, with fifteen known types. Vendarites are used widely in aerospace applications and in high performance machinery.

Uridium
Uridiums were first isolated in June 2010 and are monowimpy complexes of carbon group elements, principally silicon. They are extensively used in computational architecture and in gravitimetric communication systems and sensors, with fourteen types known.

Corbomite
Corbomites were first isolated in July 2010 and are tetrawimpy complexes of rare earth elements, with seventeen known types. They are notable for the Corbomite Barrier Effect but have limited industrial use.

Neutronium
Neutroniums were first isolated in September 2010 and are monowimpy complexes of carbon with a diamondoid structure. They are extremely hard and hyperdense, and are used in industrial lathes. Five neutroniums are known.