Dispatch #4 - FFR: Fiction Fusion Reaction

Foreign Correspondent in Disguise

by Lupe Fernandez

In October, thanks to my various confidential contacts, I attended Family Day at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory here in Northern California. Formerly a Navy air station, the Lawrence Livermore Lab was founded in 1952 by physicist Ernest Lawrence for "strengthening the United States’ security through development and application of world-class science and technology..."

The Sun

One facility that intrigued me was the National Ignition Facility. No, it's not used to develop a better cigarette lighter, but to create a self-sustaining nuclear fusion reaction - the power of the sun.

Official Sticker

Unfortunately, no cameras were allowed on the lab property, so this foreign correspondent had to smuggle out a technical drawing.

Top Secret Diagram of NIF Device

The design of the NIF brought to mind the various elements required to be targeted to create literary chain reaction.

The Lawrence Livermore Lab has yet to create a fusion reaction, imitating the nuclear furnace of the stars. But the writer must target various elements toward a common goal of creating a manuscript, and then, if a literary chain-reaction occurs, a successful novel.

Hypothetical Literary Fusion Diagram

As the NIF calibrates and tests its lasers to fuse hydrogen atoms into helium atoms, thus liberating energy, what other artistic beams must the writer aim, calibrate, test, dismantle, fund, construction, calculate and ponder to fuse such different literary elements into a a stellar novel?

This writer would like to think X. Xxxxx and X. Xxxxxxxx (names obfuscated for national security) for allowing me access to the lab.