Chapter 5 (Tower Island Power Station 1): Side Effects

65 million years ago, Venus

Nikola Tesla, Abbott, and Colonel Fairman stepped out of the space elevator onto the outdoor platform of Power Station One, situated at the equator of Venus.

“Is this the site I once chose for the superluminal wave power station, Tower Island?” Tesla asked Abbott.

“Yes, this is Tower Island on the Venusian equator,” Abbott replied gravely.

“The old Tower Island was only fifty meters above sea level and quite small. Now it’s all land here—has the sea receded, or did the mountain grow taller?”

“The superluminal wave power station caused the sea to recede. We now stand three thousand meters above sea level, so you could say the mountain grew taller.”

Tesla could hardly believe his ears and cried out, “It’s only been a few decades—how could this happen?”

The Venus of Nikola Tesla’s memory was a paradise: pleasant climate, relatively stable geological plates, ideal for human habitation.

Venus, orbiting the Sun at 108 million kilometers, held the prime spot in the solar system’s habitable zone. With an axial tilt near zero, it experienced almost no seasonal changes throughout the year.

Temperature variation did exist, but not over time—only by latitude: hot at the equator, cold at the poles.

At sixty degrees north and south, daily minimum and maximum temperatures averaged ten and twenty-five degrees Celsius, respectively. The northern hemisphere’s landmass outweighed the south, making the band near sixty degrees north the main settlement area for Venusian humanity.

Rifenburg stood at fifty-nine degrees north in Venus’s eastern third zone—a seat of the Venusian Alliance’s administration. Locals jokingly linked its name to a potent spirit, calling the city “Fifty-Nine Degree Vodka.”

Their autonomous vehicle halted before the administrative building of the Venusian Alliance. The door swung open, and Colonel Fairman stepped forward, professionally and courteously guiding Tesla and Abbott inside.

“Director Diston, this is Nikola Tesla. We’ve succeeded in awakening him and brought him before you,” Abbott introduced Tesla to the director of the Alliance’s office.

Director Diston was tall, his skin dark with a reddish hue, short curls crowning his head, his gaze deep.

“Nikola, it’s wonderful you’re awake and ready to help us. To prevent public panic, our conversation today must remain strictly confidential,” Diston gestured to Abbott, who began to explain Venus’s predicament to Tesla.

Abbott activated a holographic projection, revealing a globe of Venus marked with detailed topography before Tesla’s eyes.

Ninety years ago, at age forty, Nikola Tesla, after inventing alternating current, began to study the question of energy.

He believed every physical event and its governing laws could be expressed in terms of energy.

Energy determined all; energy was everything.

Tesla proposed the superluminal wave hypothesis: the universe was suffused with an even, omnidirectional energy wave, its velocity immense, frequency above ten to the power of sixteen, wavelength about 170,360 kilometers.

If an object’s diameter exceeded this wavelength—such as a star—it would experience powerful energy reactions from superluminal wave incidence. If smaller, it would be diffracted and feel nothing, unaware of the wave’s presence.

Tesla wrote a paper on this theory, “The Dynamic Principle of Gravity.” Submitted to the Academy of Sciences of the Venusian Alliance, most physicists and astronomers were skeptical, except Abbott, who was not yet director. Abbott championed the theory and organized extensive verification experiments.

In the following years, Tesla shifted toward applying superluminal wave energy, seeking a site for the planned power station.

With the abundant electricity provided by superluminal waves, he and his girlfriend Maria—a bioengineering expert—hoped to convert the ideal of “ultimate immortality” into a feasible engineering project.

Their plan was:

To achieve bodily immortality through gene cloning technology;
To achieve immortality of consciousness through brain-machine interface technology.

At forty-three, Tesla invented a non-contact, high-speed brain-machine connector he called the “Lightning Sphere.” During an experiment, an accident left him in a coma—a vegetative state lasting eighty-six years.

“Abbott, I remember everything before I slept. Tell me what happened afterward!” Tesla pressed Abbott.

In the decades following Tesla’s coma, Venusian technology advanced rapidly, moving from the electrical era he founded into the age of information.

Abbott’s superluminal wave research group, through observing solar activity, discovered the periodic influence of celestial bodies such as Xuanyuan Fourteen and Jupiter blocking the Sun, indirectly confirming the superluminal wave theory.

Sixty years ago, the Venusian Alliance’s space agency launched two space tugs to drag an eighteen-thousand-kilometer-long “rope,” which received energy from superluminal wave incidence—direct evidence for the wave’s existence.

An artificial structure that long could accommodate a full superluminal wavelength, becoming an inexhaustible energy source—the superluminal wave power station.

Abbott and the project team feared possible side effects, so they didn’t build the power station directly on Venus but in the distant Saturn system, stretching an eighteen-thousand-kilometer structure between Saturn and its largest moon, Sedna, creating the first superluminal wave power station in Venusian history.

The Saturn station provided ample energy for Venusian space activity. After years of observation, no side effects were found.

Sedna, the largest satellite in the solar system, was covered by a thick ice shell. Perhaps influenced by the station’s super heat source, only minor sublimation of solid ice into water vapor was detected.

Venusian scientists who once doubted the superluminal wave theory now, faced with irrefutable evidence, supported constructing more stations to bridge the gap between rising computational needs and scarce electricity supply.

Following Tesla’s suggestion, Abbott and colleagues extended the original ninety-thousand-kilometer-high space elevator on Tower Island at the equator to one hundred eighty thousand kilometers, building Venus’s first superluminal wave power station.

Superluminal energy, independent of the Sun, was truly inexhaustible. Along Venus’s equator, Stations Two and Three soon followed. Venus’s computational power had secure energy for artificial intelligence models to expand exponentially.

Sadly, the good times didn’t last. The side effects of the superluminal wave power stations began to emerge. As the thermoelectric conversion rate couldn’t reach the theoretical one hundred percent, residual heat accumulated beneath Tower Island’s rocks, deep within Venus.

In just a few decades, Venusian plate activity intensified, the landscape transformed violently, volcanoes erupted in multiple places, and earthquakes above magnitude eight struck repeatedly.

Unbelievably, the Tower Island region, under fierce plate collisions, surged upward, its elevation rising from fifty meters to over three thousand meters, exposing land and causing sea recession.

Rocks emerging from the sea released massive amounts of carbon dioxide under solar irradiation, accumulating in Venus’s atmosphere and triggering severe greenhouse effects.

Frequent volcanic eruptions drove atmospheric sulfide levels sharply higher. In many regions, people had to wear gas masks outdoors.

“How could this happen? We should immediately disconnect the eighteen-thousand-kilometer structure and shut down the station!” Tesla said anxiously.

“We’ve already shut down all the superluminal wave stations except Station One. Computational demand for electricity is rigid—if we close Station One, many familiar intelligent tools will collapse,” Abbott replied, wringing his hands and shaking his head in dilemma.

“The side effects of Station One are so severe—leaving it running isn’t an option. Do you have a follow-up plan?” Tesla asked.

“Nikola, it’s not just about shutting down Station One. The situation is far more serious than you imagine—that’s why I went to Mars to awaken you.”

Abbott pointed to the dense volcanoes on Venus’s surface. “Volcanic eruptions, atmospheric deterioration, skyrocketing temperatures—Venus may no longer be fit for human habitation.”

“You mean, even if we shut down Station One now, Venus can’t return to its former state?” Tesla asked.

“Regrettably, we are small before nature. The degradation of Venus’s environment is irreversible and unstoppable. Soon, Venus will no longer be habitable for Venusian humanity,” Diston took over, revealing this unbearable secret.

He continued, “That’s why we urgently awakened you. We hope you and Director Abbott can face this colossal crisis together.”

Tesla trembled, raising his voice, “Ah? If we shut down Station One immediately, have you calculated how much time Venusian humanity has left to escape?”

Abbott gazed at Tesla, his tone low and mournful. “From now, the countdown begins. We have about fifty Venusian years left.”

&

Collected verse:

Responding to peril with skill,
Suddenly the cable snaps; nothing can support.
A clear stream outside the gate,
Who knows if the tide will return?