Historic Context
It is taught that the Babushka Probe Series was a product of mankind's desire to explore the universe; of it's instinct to find answers to the unknown; and to improve itself.
This is not entirely true.
While all those reasons were generally relevant, the main driving force was the discovery of a deep space signal that strongly indicated the existence of other intelligent life. Not unexpectedly this resulted in great excitement but even greater fear.
The then British Government decided to be cautious with the knowledge their relatively new space science industry had discovered. Following consultation with other world leaders across the globe, it was agreed to severely limit the information given to the general public of the world. This was much later considered a very wise decision given people in that era were subject to fear, spurious conspiracy theories, scare mongering, and occasionally deficient in morality.
What follows is the officially taught version of the 'history' of the probes. It is an accurate account with the exception of leaving out the true nature of the catalyst that spawned the project.
Network
In the early 22
nd century faster than light (FTL) travel was achieved. Test after test had been conducted in laboratories across the world until the theory became a verifiable fact. The universe was opened for humanity to explore.
It wasn't until 2147 that a probe the size of an old London bus was projected somewhere into deep space. Pioneer Beta 5 was
spun from the newly built Global Space Station (GSS) on a one-way ticket. That it was intact after its historic journey was verified by a faint signal the GSS picked up less than one month on from the historic launch.
With the possibility of exploring and even colonizing space now a real mission option, the question then became -
where to go? Early on, it was decided to launch further probes into deep space to scan their environment in the hope this may reveal options. The range of the Pioneer Series was too limited for any reasonable expectation of success in this objective.
However, data received from Pioneer Beta 5 and its offspring proved vital in the development of a 'probe network' design, the brainchild of Professor Yahontov, Head of the Korolev institute in New Moscow.
He developed a method of producing nested probes. Each original probe was in fact one hundred nested probes of decreasing size placed one inside another and these were christened
The Babuskha Series.
Upon arrival at its destination, and after initial testing to ensure its successful operation, the probe opened up revealing a further probe inside. This was then launched to the next destination and the same process repeated.
In this fashion each group of probes was launched and when the final, and smallest, remaining probe was in position the network was complete - each probe now in contact with its nearest siblings.
"Long gone are the days of tinfoil satellites. We now have at our disposal spacecraft that can survive the stresses of FTL travel and see far beyond our Solar System into the wider wonders of the Galaxy". - Professor Yahantov speaking to the Planetary Council in 2199.
A whole series of Babushka probes were launched at trajectories away from Earth. There were additional, specifically targeted probes, aimed at areas of space thought of as more likely to be able to support life (as well as towards a star system of specific interest).
The satellites' physical net encompassed 2,000,000 light-years in all directions from Earth. The space that it could monitor stretched far beyond that.
Tranmissions
As physical space craft capable of FTL travel were built, superluminal communication was developed in parallel.
The long endured conundrums surrounding
quantum entanglement had finally been resolved. This was largely due to sudden and exponential advancements in artificial intelligence, which itself identified how the interaction between entangled particles could be manipulated in complex ways and measured, even whilst those particles remained light years apart from each other.
As such there is no specific human to which these astounding discoveries can be accurately attributed. In relevant scientific literature the credit is generally given to ANNIE (the Artificial Neural Net Intelligence & Engineering system).
The speed of these measurable interactions were not instantaneous and then also required interpretation by
A.N.N.I.E. However, overall these
signals (loosely termed) from the Babushka probes revealed their observations back on Earth within a matter of days, even from the outer reaches of their network. As an additional bonus, the operators on Earth noted that this speed of transmission and interpretation shortened over a period of time. Although unexplained, it was postulated that ANNIE had developed a more efficient link with the Babushka probes as they worked together.
The network was in place, and the world eagerly awaited news...
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