Smart Material
In the Netherlands, in the town of Uden stands an ancient abbey called Mary's Refuge which holds a small number of religious relics of Saint Brigitta and her older sister Saint Ingrid, Saviour of Humanity. The scientifically shocking item in the collection is known as the "Spear Tip of Saint Ingrid".
Smart Material
When the spear tip was put in the care of Nobel Labs in Stockholm to carbon date the relic to verify or debunk its authenticity in A.D. 1896, microscopic examination showed that its manufacture was like no method known to have been used on Earth at any time in prior history. On the microscopic scale, the spear tip appeared to be made like chainmail, that is, a continuum of nodules connected by links. The resulting mesh was pliable under pressure, allowing it (hypothetically) to be molded into any shape given time, such a construct would be too soft to hold an edge when pitted against any of the weapons or shields of the A.D. 1000 era in which Saint Ingrid lived, according to her legends. This puzzle left no way of dating the material, except to a future date with advanced manufacturing technology. By happenstance, it was found that application of a magnetic field locked the links of the material into a very hard matrix, potentially exceeding the material properties of any shielding in use at the time if a sufficient magnetic field were applied. Furthermore, it was theorized that a shaped magnetic field of sufficiently fine resolution may have been what shaped the spear tip into its current shape, and hence, could change the shape of the material to nearly any desired shape. Theoretical designs for smart material (also called smart-metal and smart-fabric) spread through the fringes of science, (turning into lower-resolution smart metal wings for 22nd century airplanes which could alter shape to optimize lift and drag in all flight conditions, saving significant fuel), but it wouldn't be until the 23rd century when viable high-resolution smart material entered common usage thanks to the more advanced micro-manufacturing methods of that time, and the 24th century came before smart material would significantly replace other constant-shape metal parts.The twisted road to Discovery
Norwegian biological scientists of the 1850's began a petition to the Pope of the Universal Church of Thor Christ asking for access to the religious relic said to be the skull of Saint Brigitta (Bridget), who legends beloved by the Norwegian people say was not of this world but another one of more advanced science. The Church had never made a statement for nor against the veracity of the legends, but common thought among members of the Church (who owned the relic) was that neither Ingrid nor Brigitta probably ever made such a fantastical claim, and they were just ordinary humans of such tremendous faith that they influenced all those around her, causing her followers to search for any special attribute to explain their "greatness" rather than accept that any ordinary person could become so influential. As human conversation among groups frequently does, a firm "No" on the study of the skull (which would need to destroy several small samples of bone to verify whether it was fully homo sapiens or not) turned into a "Meh" answer to the question of whether another item in the reliquary could be studied. The spear tip, thought to be of ordinary steel with an unknown outer coating could reveal significant information, it was assumed, about its date and location of manufacture. Thus the discovery was entirely unanticipated.Legend of the Spear Tip
According to the legends of Saint Ingrid, after she defeated three evil sorceresses, she gained two items of their magic, but the remainder of their evil magic devices died with them, but not their living minions. (It is common in her tales and the myths of many legendary heroes that whenever she defeated an enemy she gained some extremely useful information or increasingly powerful treasures, which storytellers use to point out the value of hard work to younger listeners.) The two items were a spear and shield of exceptional strength which obeyed her orders to increase or decrease in size as applicable to the specifics of the battle. The legends state that the shield was captured with her and destroyed in her heroic martyrdom to win the climactic battle against the man-eating forces of evil monsters. The spear, however, she gave to her beloved assistant and vassal, Gisle, (whose name appropriately meant, "hostage", and also, "the handle of a spear"), with stern orders to only use it in defense when she sent him on a mission to deliver a strategically important message to the leaders of many varied armies of Europe about her impending final self-sacrificing explosion so that her allied forces would not be consumed in the maelstrom.Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
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