Email to: eXcalibur

[xp_forge]

From: Forge
To: eXcsl
Subject: Portal containment

Howdy folks. If my paranoid brain is gonna keep me up I'm gonna share the love.

Right now, if something big and nasty comes through the portal, what if anything can we do about it? We've got sensors galore so at least we'll have good data as the beastie eats all of our faces.

So - brainstorming time. What do you think we should do the next time something pops out of the portal and it's not as benevolent as April?

I've got ideas but someone with very pointy elbows is reminding me that obtaining feedback and brainstorming before I go ahead and implement what I want might be a good idea.

Said pointy-elbowed person is also reminding me that just setting up a killzone is also probably Not On.

I think someone on Team Magic may have set up a mystical ward. Illyana, can I ask you to take a look and judge if the ward's any good? You're the dimensional traveler, after all.

Comments

[xp_hawkeye]

To: [Replay All: eXcalibur]
From: [Clint]
Subject: Re: Portal containment


I'm glad your brain's paranoid. Mine is, too, so I've been mulling over potential solutions, myself. I've come up with two or three possibilities, but translating them from brain to reality might be an issue purely based on availability of materials.

I think we need something like a three part containment system.

1. Room containment - meaning literally locking down the room. The problem right now is that our equipment and everything we need are inside the room with the portal. Renovating things in the subbasement will take a while, but would probably be worth it in the long run, as we can plan out for the next two parts. This would be easily triggered, eventually, by what I hope is a large button. Note: this would also require some kind of reinforcement of the room itself. We do have access to the lake down here, thanks to our spill/kill containment in the labs, and we wouldn't want anything getting out into the world if it managed to exit the room and then claw it's way through the walls and the dirt, etc. REMIND ME: talk to Amanda and Topaz about setting up containment wards so being with ill-intent can't leave the Chapel.

2. Bubble containment - something that's always up in case the portal activates unexpectedly but we're not sure it's hostile. Large enough so people can stand and breathe unhindered, etc, but still contained within the initial room itself. Forge, I dunno what you know about force fields and how to make them, but the best I've got is something magnetic maybe, so help me science that out. It's obvious that sound can be used to harden air to a degree, but I'm not sure how that translates from a mutant ability (to fly, to put up various fields, etc) into something actually useable in this kind of setting. Controlling it might be an issue? Same for any shield-related powers/abilities.

3. Shield containment - (Matt's gonna love this) putting up something directly in front of the portal itself like they did on Stargate, but making it... actual science. I think vibranium would be the most likely metal to work, but obviously there's a supply issue there. Adamantium in theory, but again, availability seems like it'd be an issue. We could attempt to make an alloy using both metals, which would stretch them farther, but it's still a supply issue and we don't actually know that they'd alloy well or even what quantities to attempt it with. I'm 100% open to any and all ideas on this front. I don't claim to be a metals expert, but those are the two that came immediately to mind, given their respective properties. Anyway, this would be an option once we know that the people/things coming through the portal are actually hostile. Something to close the portal with to prevent further incursion while we deal with whatever came through.

Beyond those things, I've got some other ideas that might work or might not, but they're not fleshed out enough for me to want to share them yet. I'm still working with Megan to incorporate various things into our suits when we go out. Liquid Kevlar's all well and good, but sometimes getting it into the right molds and fabrics is a pain.

[xp_forge]

Then why don't we get together, you and me and Molly, and start roughing out what we want to do with the space. Portal itself isn't gonna be movable but we presumably have more flexibility around it, modulo the lakebed. Kill/spill is all well and good but when we want it to happen, not just because we wanted to change up the space.

Once we have that, the rest of the planning can be informed based on what we come up with.

[xp_hawkeye]

To: [Replay All: eXcalibur]
From: [Clint]
Subject: Re: Portal containment

I'm down for whenever. Love a good brainstorming sesh. And we Molly might know something about energy-to-energy-shield conversion, she hung out with Sif for... a while? I'm not actually sure how long. She's our Asgardian tech expert.

Maybe we should start out with a list of the things we really need/want. Then see what we can actually do with that. Like Love It or List It.

It's been a few years since we had a major renovation in the Chapel. I think our budget for that's built up again, but I'll have to check the numbers again. What we really need is an actual structural engineer.