Chronal Energy Displacement System
Chronal Energy Displacement System - Executive Summary
The Chronal Energy Displacement System (CEDS) project goal was to create a field that would prevent decay and spoilage, allowing for extended storage of consumable material. Variation in crop yields over time resulots in significant economic inefficiencies, with leaner years causing prices to rise while abundent years result in price crashes. Tax revenue would be more stable and economic planning would be significantly easier if excess stores could be put away to cover leaneer years with no risk of spoiling. Long term expectations are that the smoother supply chain will allow for efficient use of arable land to ensure that all nutritional needs are met with a minimum amount of land and labor being lost to the task. Due to the current political climate, the focus of the testing has been expanded beyond simple foodstuffs to living beings.
Initial testing of the CEDS has been positive, although concerns still exist in relation to the new mandate. Food storage for an indefinite period has been successfully achieved in multiple tests. Bulk grain has been stored for year-long periods before being removed, further processed, and baked into bread, which was then distributed to the various food kitchens in the workers' districts, with no casualties in the past five years. After two years of successful grain trials, slaughtered livestock were added. These were also processed after stasis and distributed with no ill effects. The most recent testing has consisted of fully prepared meals placed in stasis immediately after preparation. These have been brought out and served to test volunteers who found them to be as good as expected.
Unfortunately, the expanded scope has not been as successful. Livestock kept in the stasis field cannot be revived after an extended time, and it is apparent that this drawback will likely persist in the testing of sapient beings. Cattle and swine left in the field for longer than a week die within two days of being revived, and their meat becomes tough and stringy. Fowl lasts longer, although two weeks has been the longest any have stayed in stasis and still survived. They also experience the problem of tough meat, but stewing makes it acceptable. The food quality is much improved if the slaughtering is done first.
Research into weaponization is an understandable direction but outside the budget constraints of the current project. We recommend winding down CEDS and redirecting the resources to a project dedicated to alternate uses of the technology.
Utility
The CEDS encloses an area with a field that ties into a silver pool, creating a link between the Astral plane and the area. Chronal energy is directed through the link into the Astral plane. With the time absorbed into the bulk of the Astral plane, the field ceases to interact with the rest of the world. Unlike in the Astral, where time still advances even though nothing is affected by it, nothing within the pocket area experiences any movement in time.
The initial use of the system was to preserve agricultural surplus for future use in lean years. As the invading armies began to close in on Solbarra, the research shifted to preserving sapient life and to weaponizing the technology. Neither use saw much success before the Empire fell.
The CEDS is based on using Berralite attuned to a silver pool to open up a stable bridge between the planes. Intricate runes directing the energy are necessary to sever the connection between the area enclosed by the field and what the Solbarrans describe as the "fundamental plane of time".
A group of researchers from the Arcane Development Group were the first on the Terrene to reach the Astral plane. The strange property of the plane that keeps it tethered to time advancing while nothing within feels its impact intrigued the group, and they set about trying to replicate it.
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