Probelem? (A story)

[Whirligig Girl]

The Starship "Carpe Diem" Approached the huge gravitational well of the Black Hole. The engines fired to slow down the orbit of the ship into a circular orbit, inertial dampers generated by the warp field holding the ship and it's crew together in spite of the 15-gee accelleration. An important science experiment was finally going to be done.

For the first time ever, a black hole has been discovered naked. No accretion disc. The only starship in the area was the Carpe Diem, a simple privately-owned exploration ship. The Interplanetary Congress of United Stellar Systems offered a large prize for close-up observation of the black hole. The Carpe Diem's crew jumped at the chance, and were in large part simply happy to be chosen to explore the strange nature of the black hole phenomenon.

The ship had slowed to orbit. It was time to deploy a probe. The Probe is a small unmanned Faster-Than-Light vessel loaded with science equipment for the survey of planetary systems and anomalies. It has a small hydrazine rocket engine for steering and minor maneuvering. The mystery of the space between physics would soon be solved. Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity would finally be reconciled with each other.

The probe was released. Assuming a safe distance from the Carpe Diem, the Probe's warp engines were spooled up, and the probe slowly descended towards the Black Hole.

Sensors on.

Starting to collect data.

The probe began to slow down eerily, and became red-shifted.

They never actually saw the probe descend into the black hole, it just disappeared.

The probe saw everything.

It's sensors recorded everything it could, watching as the universe died before its cameras. The warp drive spooled up to high power simply to keep The Probe together, keeping the tidal effect from ripping it apart. The probe went through the event horizon. Nothing could go back. At least, nothing that could go slower than light. The Probe descended further, warp engines at power to keep it from descending any further. All of the science experiments were done. The Goo turned into spaghetti. The Gravitation Detector went through the roof. The Probe watched as the universe was going backwards in time, from its death winding back to the point at which the probe was launched. But because the Probe was hovering inside the black hole instead of continuing to fall, it saw the past happen as well. It was T+2m 35s. The Probe's timer told the warp drive to spool back up to climb out. But there was a failure. The Probe began to spiral in toward the singularity. The Inertial Dampers kept The Probe together as it tried to warp around it. The Probe was ejected into deep space, warp engines at full, until they ran out of fuel near a planetary system. For millions of years The Probe orbited the star, until finally its journey came to an end. An inhabited planet was in view. The AutoScience system was engaged. But The Probe was damaged. It fell into the planet below, landing in a town. The Probe started to relay its information. The people had seen The Probe fall from the sky, and fell down to their knees when they saw The Probe. The Probe was now stuck on part of its data. "PROBE. PROBE. PROBE. PROBE." The Probe chanted. The people followed. "Probe! Probe! Probe! Probe!"

The Good Word of The Almighty Probe spread quickly, and the words of The Probe written in a holy text known as The Orbit Bible. It recounts the creation and destruction of the universe.

"The Probe loves all of us." A mother might say to her child. "The Probe is life."

[Vanamonde]

Not sure what this is, but it doesn't belong in Science Labs. And so, moved.

[Whirligig Girl]

Not sure what this is, but it doesn't belong in Science Labs. And so, moved.

Well, clearly its a story, one that I meant to post to Space Lounge. So, oops.