Project Zion
Project Zion is an ongoing scientific project into the effects and potential uses of an object found during the testing of Project Microburst, which opened up the possibility of experimentation into the subject of "Intense Spatio-Temporal Anomalies" (ISTAs). While at the original outset of the project the mission goal was rather nebulous, the goals of the team of Ciric scientists and researchers evolved over a few days of testing to focus upon the application of the anomalous effects of ISTAs on gravitons and upon the apparent ability of ISTAs to cause quantum entanglement between nearby quantum particles and quantum particles at range. The main prospects of this project were military-related, but the researchers presented early theories that ISTAs could lead to an infinite propulsion source through their graviton manipulation.
Background
During the testing of Project Microburst, scientists working for the Ciric Confederacy discovered a spatial anomaly nearby the Mobius Research Station that disappeared approximately five minutes after discovery. Imaging and detection devices and software in the station allowed the scientists to detect the presence of a very small, very similar anomaly under the ice cap, roughly five hundred metres below the surface. An excavation begun, and, eventually, the team uncovered very old technology of entirely unknown origins. Among the recovered pieces of equipment were a ring-like gate structure that had a permanent atom-sized ISTA inside of it, and a box two metres by two metres by two metres filled with intricate wiring (curiously, the wiring and electrics were crystal-based rather than metal-based). The box bore an interactive panel on its side, which (after a series of brute force experiments involving no less than three explosions) generated a fist-sized ISTA above itself. The ISTA was locked to the box, staying in place when the box was turned and rolled, but moving when the box moved laterally and vertically. The box proved a challenge for scientists to work out, but the research culminated in the reverse engineering of the circuitry inside, substituting the unknown crystal compound with astracite, which is molecularly similar, and producing the first prototype of the VISTA (Verakium-ISTA) engine, which would be used in further experiments regarding gravitational technology.
Graviton Manipulation
The first forays into quantum manipulation performed by the scientists was into the field of gravitational manipulation through the control of gravitons, the subparticular quantum particles that control gravitational fields. The working theory at the time of the project's beginning was that ISTAs create localised gravity wells, similar to micro-black holes, though the ISTAs would be far more stable with a suitable grounding base (using verakium and astracite), which could possibly allow scientists to negate the gravity of the planet with a large enough ISTA. The possibility of the ISTA destroying anything nearby was posited in early research, resulting in the tests being carried out far underground in a bunker surrounded by ferris fortis, and a blasting charge on the grounding base of the ISTA-generating device.
