From the very beginning of writing this story, I was fascinated by the idea of engineering silence—what it would mean to construct a chamber so quiet, so perfectly insulated, that a human mind might begin to touch something truly unknown. This is the evolution of the Meditation Core as seen through Lata’s eyes. From cluttered labs in Navi Mumbai to the quiet of deep space, here is how the impossible became real. Manoj K. Early Prototype — GAISE HQ, Navi Mumbai The first years at GAISE HQ. Illustration: A rough, single-shell prototype inside a cluttered garage-like lab We’re still in the west wing lab—cramped, humid, full of the noise of fans and failing power supplies. The first shell stands awkwardly on a rolling cart. Its hexagonal plates are uneven, mismatched. Some are printed with cheap composite filament, others…
Continue Reading Zero Dimensional Space – Episode 07: The Making of the Meditation Core
Sometimes I step back and listen to my characters, and it’s as if they’re more real than I am; in a matrix-kinda-way, they are all real. So here, I’m handing the mic to Nilima, the captain of the Anarva. She’s smarter than me, and definitely more awesome than me.– Manoj K. < Transmission Log: 2039/23/852 – Nilima’s voice, calm and conversational, with the ambient hum of the Anarva behind her.> So here’s what most people get wrong. When they hear “advanced propulsion,” they imagine something flashy—warp bubbles, antimatter annihilation, gravity wells spinning like gyroscopes in zero-g. And I get it. It sounds cool. Sexy, even. But the truth is, the Anarva doesn’t run on fantasy. It runs on something a lot more… stubborn. Velocity. Absolute, relativistic velocity. Do you know what the largest machine ever built by humans is? Not…
Continue Reading Zero Dimensional Space – Episode 01: The Cycler Drive