Breach Shield

One of the key technologies that enabled the exploration of other realities, while preserving Baseline from Dimensional Fracture , was the Breach Shield. By control and modulation of this field, a Breach could be sealed, held open for an indefinite duration, or re-opened as desired. By 2018, large-scale suppression generators were placed around the world, including floating on ocean buoys, in order to keep the number of random breach openings down to a bare minimum (fluctuations in the field mean suppression is not perfect, but it's being looked at). The broad, unfocused, suppression fields do not prevent deliberate breach creation, as long as the Breach Stabilizer is set to counter the frequency. There is a noticeable field fluctuation, and many shields are monitored to see that all such anomalies correspond to licensed and expected activity.

From a high of dozens a day, uncontrolled breaches now occur perhaps once every week, typically in unpopulated (and thus unshielded) areas. It seems the widespread use of stabilizers has helped protect Baseline generally, in that the unshielded areas are still experiencing much lower rates of activty.

Utility

Standard

They are typically slightly-tapered cylinders or obelisks 4-6 feet high. Remote shields will be mounted on buoys in the ocean (they could be underwater, but that makes repair and replacement more difficult, and if the locale is deep enough, reduces effective coverage) or placed in secure bunkers on land, usually underground with limited access and few markers.

These have few external controls, mostly just monitors reporting power levels and fluctuations indicating a potential breach is occurring (and hopefully being suppressed), along with a few ways to produce reports or configure remote access.

Hacking

If physical access to a breach shield is gained, it can be hacked to not register a deliberate breach, or to change the frequency (imposing anywhere from a -1 to -10 on normal breach operations). Use the lower of Hacking or Electronics Operation (Parachronic).

Rules

See Stabilizer Operation

Manufacturing

Rare earths, high-temperature superconductors manufactured under 'jupiter core' pressures, and interlocked qubits all form parts of the mechanism. Power is also needed -- usually, solar cells are preferred for independent operation of remote units, but major government and corporate installations just plug into the grid... with battery backup and a lot of failover protection.

Access & Availability

In theory, PAIN and similar global organizations ought to control, maintain, and distribute stabilizers. In reality, the underlying technology was leaked globally, leading to many less-than-perfect knockoffs.

Complexity

Ridiculously high. Even the design team admits they are not entirely sure how or why some aspects work; they just know they do and say they "got lucky" early in their trial and error experiments. Despite this, the engineering is well within TL 8 technology, which is why the data leak was so problematic.

Discovery

The basic technology was developed by CERN in 2014, with notable assistance from Dr. Tian Chun. There are some questions about the entire development process, as multiple fields of theoretical physics had to synergize precisely in a short period of time to produce the first working prototypes.