'City of Fresno'
-
Nik_SpeakerToCats
- Posts: 2317
- Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2022 10:56 am
City of Fresno #127
City of Fresno #127
A day and a half later, 'Cwm Fahr' made a preliminary close pass of the on-coming 'bright' asteroid, deep-sweeping a swathe with Radar at multiple frequencies. We took station to sunward, let the Tug's excellent sensor suite accumulate data as the lumpy, 87 kilometre object turned 'below'.
Silicates, silicates, silicates. The generic 'asteroidal' grey, its texture a palimpsest of bolide strikes, was again overlain by multiple brighter loops and swirls of now-familiar size and form. After a day, Olwyn piloted 'Cwm Fahr' almost to the surface. I went out in 'Big Mac', collected some representative samples.
There were no 'Grossly Distressed' traces we might strip-mine, so we set course for the next candidate. 75 kilometre, lumpier, visibly triaxial, else much the same. Then a 105 kilometre, some-what rounder. A 92 kilometre, a 120 kilometre, a 115 kilometre...
My carefully documented 'Rockery' duly expanded.
Even with careful 'Mini-Max' routeing, took us a while to catch up with the next 'bright' asteroid we'd flagged. This 'Odd Bod' looked rather different to those we'd studied earlier. In fact, its 'brightness' seemed limited to one hemi-sphere. This, we soon realised, was the region that had survived a subsequent, cataclysmic impact. Though the asteroid was still about 50 kilometres across, at least a third of the original, perhaps much more, had been smashed, smitten, smote away. The remaining 'bleme' was bigger in proportion than 'Stickney Crater' on Mars' Phobos. Some 'ejecta recovery' clearly followed: Too little to mask the vast scar, enough to more or less trample, distress wide swathes of most bright patches. Enough survived, however, that we could probably fill a dozen cargo pods...
We exchanged nods. Yes, yes, we'd wait for a formal 'okay' from 'Fresno', but this might be 'pay-dirt'.
We were now two full light-hours in-system from 'Fresno'. Five long hours along, came terse reply, 'Looking good, discussion begun. Continue upload latest data, please.' A few minutes later, another message, 'Will need more time to discuss: Stay Safe !'
My log showed it took until well after noon the next day, 'Fresno-time', before their 'okay' came.
Olwyn took 'Cwm Fahr' down to the surface. There, the Rock Tug's Field Poles and ice-slicer turrets provided bolide protection while I went out in 'Big Mac' and carefully collected a grid of samples. Beyond subsequent study of the mega-impact's 'over-turn', this also established optimal excavation depth. My 'Rockery' extended, we got down to business.
As the part-asteroid had minimal gravity, so much dust and gravel would go flying that I was very glad I could watch from 'indoors'. At the Tug's stern, the cargo pod's big end-hatch swung open. The mantis grapple swapped its space-crate 'grab' for a clam-shell 'scoop.' It began at the left edge of our planned forty metre width glean zone. Half a cubic metre at a time, it scraped a patch of surface to optimal depth. Raised to the cargo pod's maw, it opened. The rim-ring of small 'Pump' poles sent material flying to the other end. A nearer axial scoop followed, a third, a fourth.
After these, the mantis grapple swung slightly right. Four axial scoops, then shift right. Four axial scoops, then shift right. This continued until the frontage was cleared. Then the Tug and its cargo pod shifted forward by a dozen metres, revealing a fresh area. Again, the scoop began at the left edge of our glean zone, slowly, slowly worked across to the right...
Yes, the Tuggers had set up a 'Macro', but that had to be supervised lest some 'Murphy Mishap' bit. Nearly four slow 'watches' along, the material no longer flew into the cargo pod. Based on the excavated material's reduced density, plus mass estimates from both the mantis grapple's telemetry and iterative Tug moves, the pod was 'Topping Out'.
Sure, we could probably coax a few more tonnes aboard, but enough was enough: We had a full dozen kilo-tonnes. It was time to return to 'Fresno'.
A day and a half later, 'Cwm Fahr' made a preliminary close pass of the on-coming 'bright' asteroid, deep-sweeping a swathe with Radar at multiple frequencies. We took station to sunward, let the Tug's excellent sensor suite accumulate data as the lumpy, 87 kilometre object turned 'below'.
Silicates, silicates, silicates. The generic 'asteroidal' grey, its texture a palimpsest of bolide strikes, was again overlain by multiple brighter loops and swirls of now-familiar size and form. After a day, Olwyn piloted 'Cwm Fahr' almost to the surface. I went out in 'Big Mac', collected some representative samples.
There were no 'Grossly Distressed' traces we might strip-mine, so we set course for the next candidate. 75 kilometre, lumpier, visibly triaxial, else much the same. Then a 105 kilometre, some-what rounder. A 92 kilometre, a 120 kilometre, a 115 kilometre...
My carefully documented 'Rockery' duly expanded.
Even with careful 'Mini-Max' routeing, took us a while to catch up with the next 'bright' asteroid we'd flagged. This 'Odd Bod' looked rather different to those we'd studied earlier. In fact, its 'brightness' seemed limited to one hemi-sphere. This, we soon realised, was the region that had survived a subsequent, cataclysmic impact. Though the asteroid was still about 50 kilometres across, at least a third of the original, perhaps much more, had been smashed, smitten, smote away. The remaining 'bleme' was bigger in proportion than 'Stickney Crater' on Mars' Phobos. Some 'ejecta recovery' clearly followed: Too little to mask the vast scar, enough to more or less trample, distress wide swathes of most bright patches. Enough survived, however, that we could probably fill a dozen cargo pods...
We exchanged nods. Yes, yes, we'd wait for a formal 'okay' from 'Fresno', but this might be 'pay-dirt'.
We were now two full light-hours in-system from 'Fresno'. Five long hours along, came terse reply, 'Looking good, discussion begun. Continue upload latest data, please.' A few minutes later, another message, 'Will need more time to discuss: Stay Safe !'
My log showed it took until well after noon the next day, 'Fresno-time', before their 'okay' came.
Olwyn took 'Cwm Fahr' down to the surface. There, the Rock Tug's Field Poles and ice-slicer turrets provided bolide protection while I went out in 'Big Mac' and carefully collected a grid of samples. Beyond subsequent study of the mega-impact's 'over-turn', this also established optimal excavation depth. My 'Rockery' extended, we got down to business.
As the part-asteroid had minimal gravity, so much dust and gravel would go flying that I was very glad I could watch from 'indoors'. At the Tug's stern, the cargo pod's big end-hatch swung open. The mantis grapple swapped its space-crate 'grab' for a clam-shell 'scoop.' It began at the left edge of our planned forty metre width glean zone. Half a cubic metre at a time, it scraped a patch of surface to optimal depth. Raised to the cargo pod's maw, it opened. The rim-ring of small 'Pump' poles sent material flying to the other end. A nearer axial scoop followed, a third, a fourth.
After these, the mantis grapple swung slightly right. Four axial scoops, then shift right. Four axial scoops, then shift right. This continued until the frontage was cleared. Then the Tug and its cargo pod shifted forward by a dozen metres, revealing a fresh area. Again, the scoop began at the left edge of our glean zone, slowly, slowly worked across to the right...
Yes, the Tuggers had set up a 'Macro', but that had to be supervised lest some 'Murphy Mishap' bit. Nearly four slow 'watches' along, the material no longer flew into the cargo pod. Based on the excavated material's reduced density, plus mass estimates from both the mantis grapple's telemetry and iterative Tug moves, the pod was 'Topping Out'.
Sure, we could probably coax a few more tonnes aboard, but enough was enough: We had a full dozen kilo-tonnes. It was time to return to 'Fresno'.
If you cannot see the wood for the trees, deploy LIDAR.
-
Nik_SpeakerToCats
- Posts: 2317
- Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2022 10:56 am
City of Fresno #128
City of Fresno #128
'Cwm Fahr' had come a long, long way from 'Kieffer', zig-zagging clear across the 'Inner System'. Sadly, along our more direct return route, effectively sampling a different sector, the Tug's sensors still reported only 'Generic' or 'Bright' Silicate asteroids. There was not a single 'Iron' or 'Stony Iron', nor even hint there-of. Yes, this was disappointing, very disappointing. Perhaps such were too small to notice ? Still, we'd accumulated a lot of orbital data to supplement Fresno's distant scans. Importantly, we had precise orbital parameters for 'Odd Bod', referenced to easily spotted 'Kieffer' and 'Marsette'. Even with time dilation / compression effects of FTL, should 'Fresno' return for a later glean, we could readily find 'Odd Bod' again.
Although the wide, wide asteroid belt was much sparser than 'congested', its population of 'small-ish' stuff still restricted our speed. Had we flown faster, there was just too much in the nasty mass range between 'Timely spotted by Radar' and 'Readily Repelled by Tug Fields'. So, we patiently 'Stood' and logged our Bridge watches. We did maintenance to be sure, to be sure. A few sessions of Geology coaching exhausted our Silicates' limited variety.
Slowly, slowly, as 'Kieffer' loomed large, 'Cwm Fahr' adjusted course towards 'Anchorage' and 'Fresno'. Our laser-comm data-rate steadily rose. By the time 'Fresno' resolved, we'd up-loaded all our data. Ben, who had the watch, carefully delivered our laden cargo pod to 'Engineering Country'. Then, we headed for our berthing drum's docking leg. Connected, secured, confirmed, the lock opened. A nubile blur flew through. One precise bounce, then Ms. Betrys was hugging her parents like an amiable anaconda. Anne-Marie followed at a more considered pace, grinning widely. Our hug was epic. When we came up for air, I realised she was wearing a whiff of perfume. Perfume ? Yes, it was her favourite, but now priceless.
"Jake," she stated, "Sorry, you have a reception committee: Try not to squirm..."
I did not understand until we 'locked through' to the docking leg. That was crowded, but, as Anne-Marie raised my left hand, the arrayed Luthiers struck up enthusiastically, stilling the applause. Back aboard 'Fresno', my Comm-augment again had full access to the Library. Still, took me a couple of bewildered seconds to identify, confirm my un-wanted 'play-in'.
The theme from 'Rocky' ??
Oh, dear...
Yes, I had to endure it, plus the Luthiers' progressively 'jazzed' ornamentation, derivatives, riffs and improvisations. Finally, finally, amidst fresh cheering, Anne-Marie declared 'Force Majeure' and, with that certain twinkle in her eyes, led me away. As usual, the 'Big Mac' crates had followed by the time my partner was sated, and we were thoroughly, delightfully showered.
"Jake," Anne-Marie stated, briskly towelling a shapely curve, "I've so much news, I'm not sure where to start. Yes, your two 'stray' Xanadu cargo pods do have complete makings for horticultural Nissen Huts. Also, the Chaparral 'Gifts & Goodies' pods finally yielded some potentially useful equipment and other materiel. Including some nice seeds and bulbs. I'll tell you about them later...
"I'm sure you had a lot to do with it, but Davyd's 'Progressive Compression' trick worked wonders. Lt. Svenson and his team managed to deconvolute, stack enough 'patch' scans to suggest some common inner structure.
"We're fairly sure those shells were *grown*--"
"Huh ? Dozens of kilometres on a side ??"
"Even allowing for size differences, angles." As I sought reply, failed, Anne-Marie towelled her lovely hair dry, began brushing the mop to its usual neat bob. She continued. "Miss Katlyn, one of the 'Cooberra' adolescents, is a budding entomologist. Breeds stick insects, cultivates their preferred greens. Knows her stuff. Really, really knows her stuff: I reckon she's another 'Miss Betrys' in the making...
"Also, between pollinators, pests and their predators, I'm the nearest 'Fresno' has to a 'Generic' Bug expert: We agreed if it wasn't for their non-segmentation and outrageous size, these shells tick so many boxes for arthropoidal exo-skeletons, out-grown, then shed...
"But, Jake, Katlyn spotted a better possibility: These could have been 'egg-shells'--"
"Huh ??"
"Yes, that near-fractally fibre reinforced silica 'shell' material is very strong, very stiff. Remarkably stiff. But, so big ? There's no way it could be rigid. Even pressurised to the safe limit of a fractional Bar, the Engineers' models warn it would still flex, wibble and wobble like a very, very big soap-bubble.
"Katlyn saw the optimal 'fit' would be leathery, 'Soft-Shell' eggs: Lizards, snakes, tuataras and platypus. Perhaps like sea-turtles gather at favourite 'laying' beaches ? Hatchlings leave their split 'shells' behind ?"
"From the lack of 'gradation' or 'over-lay'," I dared interject, "they seem 'Of An Age'..."
"They do." Anne-Marie agreed. "So, perhaps, a 'One-Off' event, not a 'Return' site ? A passing 'flock' or 'herd' ? Which begs so very many questions: Why here ? How big, how many were the beasties that laid them ? And, yes, how did they travel ??"
'Cwm Fahr' had come a long, long way from 'Kieffer', zig-zagging clear across the 'Inner System'. Sadly, along our more direct return route, effectively sampling a different sector, the Tug's sensors still reported only 'Generic' or 'Bright' Silicate asteroids. There was not a single 'Iron' or 'Stony Iron', nor even hint there-of. Yes, this was disappointing, very disappointing. Perhaps such were too small to notice ? Still, we'd accumulated a lot of orbital data to supplement Fresno's distant scans. Importantly, we had precise orbital parameters for 'Odd Bod', referenced to easily spotted 'Kieffer' and 'Marsette'. Even with time dilation / compression effects of FTL, should 'Fresno' return for a later glean, we could readily find 'Odd Bod' again.
Although the wide, wide asteroid belt was much sparser than 'congested', its population of 'small-ish' stuff still restricted our speed. Had we flown faster, there was just too much in the nasty mass range between 'Timely spotted by Radar' and 'Readily Repelled by Tug Fields'. So, we patiently 'Stood' and logged our Bridge watches. We did maintenance to be sure, to be sure. A few sessions of Geology coaching exhausted our Silicates' limited variety.
Slowly, slowly, as 'Kieffer' loomed large, 'Cwm Fahr' adjusted course towards 'Anchorage' and 'Fresno'. Our laser-comm data-rate steadily rose. By the time 'Fresno' resolved, we'd up-loaded all our data. Ben, who had the watch, carefully delivered our laden cargo pod to 'Engineering Country'. Then, we headed for our berthing drum's docking leg. Connected, secured, confirmed, the lock opened. A nubile blur flew through. One precise bounce, then Ms. Betrys was hugging her parents like an amiable anaconda. Anne-Marie followed at a more considered pace, grinning widely. Our hug was epic. When we came up for air, I realised she was wearing a whiff of perfume. Perfume ? Yes, it was her favourite, but now priceless.
"Jake," she stated, "Sorry, you have a reception committee: Try not to squirm..."
I did not understand until we 'locked through' to the docking leg. That was crowded, but, as Anne-Marie raised my left hand, the arrayed Luthiers struck up enthusiastically, stilling the applause. Back aboard 'Fresno', my Comm-augment again had full access to the Library. Still, took me a couple of bewildered seconds to identify, confirm my un-wanted 'play-in'.
The theme from 'Rocky' ??
Oh, dear...
Yes, I had to endure it, plus the Luthiers' progressively 'jazzed' ornamentation, derivatives, riffs and improvisations. Finally, finally, amidst fresh cheering, Anne-Marie declared 'Force Majeure' and, with that certain twinkle in her eyes, led me away. As usual, the 'Big Mac' crates had followed by the time my partner was sated, and we were thoroughly, delightfully showered.
"Jake," Anne-Marie stated, briskly towelling a shapely curve, "I've so much news, I'm not sure where to start. Yes, your two 'stray' Xanadu cargo pods do have complete makings for horticultural Nissen Huts. Also, the Chaparral 'Gifts & Goodies' pods finally yielded some potentially useful equipment and other materiel. Including some nice seeds and bulbs. I'll tell you about them later...
"I'm sure you had a lot to do with it, but Davyd's 'Progressive Compression' trick worked wonders. Lt. Svenson and his team managed to deconvolute, stack enough 'patch' scans to suggest some common inner structure.
"We're fairly sure those shells were *grown*--"
"Huh ? Dozens of kilometres on a side ??"
"Even allowing for size differences, angles." As I sought reply, failed, Anne-Marie towelled her lovely hair dry, began brushing the mop to its usual neat bob. She continued. "Miss Katlyn, one of the 'Cooberra' adolescents, is a budding entomologist. Breeds stick insects, cultivates their preferred greens. Knows her stuff. Really, really knows her stuff: I reckon she's another 'Miss Betrys' in the making...
"Also, between pollinators, pests and their predators, I'm the nearest 'Fresno' has to a 'Generic' Bug expert: We agreed if it wasn't for their non-segmentation and outrageous size, these shells tick so many boxes for arthropoidal exo-skeletons, out-grown, then shed...
"But, Jake, Katlyn spotted a better possibility: These could have been 'egg-shells'--"
"Huh ??"
"Yes, that near-fractally fibre reinforced silica 'shell' material is very strong, very stiff. Remarkably stiff. But, so big ? There's no way it could be rigid. Even pressurised to the safe limit of a fractional Bar, the Engineers' models warn it would still flex, wibble and wobble like a very, very big soap-bubble.
"Katlyn saw the optimal 'fit' would be leathery, 'Soft-Shell' eggs: Lizards, snakes, tuataras and platypus. Perhaps like sea-turtles gather at favourite 'laying' beaches ? Hatchlings leave their split 'shells' behind ?"
"From the lack of 'gradation' or 'over-lay'," I dared interject, "they seem 'Of An Age'..."
"They do." Anne-Marie agreed. "So, perhaps, a 'One-Off' event, not a 'Return' site ? A passing 'flock' or 'herd' ? Which begs so very many questions: Why here ? How big, how many were the beasties that laid them ? And, yes, how did they travel ??"
If you cannot see the wood for the trees, deploy LIDAR.
-
Nik_SpeakerToCats
- Posts: 2317
- Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2022 10:56 am
City of Fresno #129
City of Fresno #129
My wits were still spinning as we made our way towards the Diner. At least I noticed how much 'fresher' the air now seemed, how much recent growth had developed on planters' previously sparse frames. After pausing to sniff several now-vigorous examples, I thought to ask, "The 'Ponics ?"
"Going really well," Anne-Marie stated. "Once we figured our plants' roots' humic acids were 'Secondary Leaching' their new-to-them bedding, driving 'Ion Exchange', we just had to compensate, wait it out. All done.
"Second big crop of root-veg came in last week. Enough to add ten percent to some ration allowances."
Unsaid, that was barely two heaped sporks, but progress is progress is progress...
"Plus," she whispered, "some overage we've freeze-dried and cached."
"Very sensible," I agreed, equally quietly. "Rebuild contingency resilience."
"Ah, today's menu has one of the new 'Diner Coder' offerings ! It is quite nice."
Novelty aside, the faux 'Mixed Grille' of this under-sized 'All Day Breakfast' would have tasted much, much better with a dash of generic tomato ketchup or mild mustard relish. Or, preferably, both. Sadly, such must still be 'pending'. I wasn't prepared to spoil the mood by quizzing their time-line. Between brisk, if bland mouthfuls, I did wonder, "Any ideas what we can do with the asteroid's silicate regolith glean ?"
"Depends on micro-composition," Anne-Marie thoughtfully replied. "Jake, you did really good work with those preliminary analyses, but a lot of the regolith 'trace' elements are parts per zillion. We'll have to variously leach, concentrate, see what goodies are lurking in the long tail...
"And, yes, figure what is unwanted, depleted or missing...
"Separating pure, bright silica crumbs from the generic grey regolith, though ? Well, the Engineers and 'Citizen Science' teams reckon half a dozen ways, and counting. Still trying to figure if they can or should craft useful tubs, planters, tanks from it. That scary-high melting point is the problem..."
"No soda-glass to dilute it to 'workable', no Boron for toughness," I agreed. And, yes, the other diners were clearly hanging on every word uttered by us. Logically, I asked, "Will we want more ?"
"Yes, please," Anne-Marie stated. "About twice more. At least if we have it, we can work around its quirks."
"Hmm. Those first 'iceteroid' gleans had a most unwelcome extended commute. And 'Kieffer' gas-dives needed a long time 'On Station'." I took a breath. "With 'Odd Bod' getting further and further away around its orbit, the Tuggers would not be happy."
"That was discussed." My beloved partner nodded. "I'm told 'Loudly'. Just shy of 'Table Banging'. So, a compromise was agreed: The mantis scoop does not need an 'iceteroid' slicing pod's forty-some metre gape. Happens there's a part-stripped 'Evac' pod: Emptied, minus auxiliary air-locks, with a couple of 'pump poles' set around one end's bigger, centre-line port, it would happily swallow a dozen kilo-tonnes of loose stuff."
"With a regular 'glean' pod for the same again ?" I suggested.
"Exactly." Anne-Marie nodded. "And, by the time the 'Evac' pod has been fully stripped, modified, your 'Odd Bod' will have swung around the far side of the star, be heading back..."
"Ah..." I chased, sporked the last crumbs off my plate. "Ample time for another 'Training Opportunity', then."
"Exactly."
My wits were still spinning as we made our way towards the Diner. At least I noticed how much 'fresher' the air now seemed, how much recent growth had developed on planters' previously sparse frames. After pausing to sniff several now-vigorous examples, I thought to ask, "The 'Ponics ?"
"Going really well," Anne-Marie stated. "Once we figured our plants' roots' humic acids were 'Secondary Leaching' their new-to-them bedding, driving 'Ion Exchange', we just had to compensate, wait it out. All done.
"Second big crop of root-veg came in last week. Enough to add ten percent to some ration allowances."
Unsaid, that was barely two heaped sporks, but progress is progress is progress...
"Plus," she whispered, "some overage we've freeze-dried and cached."
"Very sensible," I agreed, equally quietly. "Rebuild contingency resilience."
"Ah, today's menu has one of the new 'Diner Coder' offerings ! It is quite nice."
Novelty aside, the faux 'Mixed Grille' of this under-sized 'All Day Breakfast' would have tasted much, much better with a dash of generic tomato ketchup or mild mustard relish. Or, preferably, both. Sadly, such must still be 'pending'. I wasn't prepared to spoil the mood by quizzing their time-line. Between brisk, if bland mouthfuls, I did wonder, "Any ideas what we can do with the asteroid's silicate regolith glean ?"
"Depends on micro-composition," Anne-Marie thoughtfully replied. "Jake, you did really good work with those preliminary analyses, but a lot of the regolith 'trace' elements are parts per zillion. We'll have to variously leach, concentrate, see what goodies are lurking in the long tail...
"And, yes, figure what is unwanted, depleted or missing...
"Separating pure, bright silica crumbs from the generic grey regolith, though ? Well, the Engineers and 'Citizen Science' teams reckon half a dozen ways, and counting. Still trying to figure if they can or should craft useful tubs, planters, tanks from it. That scary-high melting point is the problem..."
"No soda-glass to dilute it to 'workable', no Boron for toughness," I agreed. And, yes, the other diners were clearly hanging on every word uttered by us. Logically, I asked, "Will we want more ?"
"Yes, please," Anne-Marie stated. "About twice more. At least if we have it, we can work around its quirks."
"Hmm. Those first 'iceteroid' gleans had a most unwelcome extended commute. And 'Kieffer' gas-dives needed a long time 'On Station'." I took a breath. "With 'Odd Bod' getting further and further away around its orbit, the Tuggers would not be happy."
"That was discussed." My beloved partner nodded. "I'm told 'Loudly'. Just shy of 'Table Banging'. So, a compromise was agreed: The mantis scoop does not need an 'iceteroid' slicing pod's forty-some metre gape. Happens there's a part-stripped 'Evac' pod: Emptied, minus auxiliary air-locks, with a couple of 'pump poles' set around one end's bigger, centre-line port, it would happily swallow a dozen kilo-tonnes of loose stuff."
"With a regular 'glean' pod for the same again ?" I suggested.
"Exactly." Anne-Marie nodded. "And, by the time the 'Evac' pod has been fully stripped, modified, your 'Odd Bod' will have swung around the far side of the star, be heading back..."
"Ah..." I chased, sporked the last crumbs off my plate. "Ample time for another 'Training Opportunity', then."
"Exactly."
If you cannot see the wood for the trees, deploy LIDAR.
-
Nik_SpeakerToCats
- Posts: 2317
- Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2022 10:56 am
City of Fresno #130
City of Fresno #130
As usual, my first priority after an extended deployment was running the laundry. While Anne-Marie headed back to the 'Ponics, I booked two machines. After checking there were no 'Immediate Action' messages among the many, many text-mails, I gathered the needful. My go-bag's clothes, all rather stale despite my best efforts aboard 'Cwm Fahr', formed most of one wash. There was just room for my partner's 'Round-To-It' baggy of smalls and tees. The other machine swallowed a set of bedding. However confident Anne-Marie seemed, the evidence of her long days, short nights and chore triaging showed.
Both laundrette view-screens were showing rolling compilations of asteroid surface footage: My routine 'Rockery' collection, Tuggers and trainees 'Finding Their Feet', those very unsettling hints of stratification within my targeted sondages.
Then, a summary of Lt. Svenson's team's findings came up. They'd managed to co-ordinate, over-lay enough variously angled scans to clarify that 'suggestion' of internal structure we'd surmised. And, yes, the alarming hypothesis of giant 'Soft-Shell' eggs was suddenly all too credible.
These 'Anomalous Patches', be they out-grown 'Exo-Skeletons' or discarded 'Soft-Shell' eggs, were old, old, old. Without a robust estimate of 'farming rate' by the local impactor flux, I could only reckon much, much older than Sol's, the Convention's or Sylvan Alliance stars' entry to the 'Local Bubble'. Wide error-bars allowed for any-when between a dozen million years and at least ten times that...
As yet, nothing like them had been reported within 'Convention' space, nor in the extensive region known to the Sylvans or their various allies. The xenocidal 'Others' were not talking, but enough data had been slowly salvaged from the 'Taggli' wrecked during that first 'City of Lincoln' encounter off Sankey to exclude their discovery. Like-wise, the Anwyc had not noticed anything comparable during their initial, far-ranging period.
As ever, of course, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence...
Which sort-of circled back to our 'Priors'...
Like us, the Sylvans and their allies had been utterly astonished to discover most of their habitable planets had been terraformed between five and a dozen million years ago, then seeded from Earth. We had their 'Back Story' fossils, the original species. Despite sundry extinctions and much evolution, some were still uncannily recognisable. Even those unfortunate, pre-industrial worlds recently razed by the 'Others' all matched. Also, several planets where terraforming relapsed, or was abandoned, held unsettling 'Earth' fossils.
I'd distant cousins on 'Nova, in the Epsilon Eridani system. When found by 'Venturer' during that star-ship's wondrous 'First Mission', that planet had been a 'Runaway Greenhouse'. Not hot as Venus, nor such acid clouds, yet only the proximity of twice-Jovian 'Gantur' and its vast zoo of ammonia / water ice-moons and moonlets made the 'Nova Project' practicable. To begin their 'Quench', the team spent a decade gleaning and delivering a 'train' of cubic kilometre ice-slices from 'Berga', a convenient triaxial 15 km diameter outer moonlet. Then, an approaching conjunction between 'Gantur' and 'Baltern', the sub-Neptunian, gave them a 'Once in a Generation' opportunity to 'pump' Berga's already wide orbit, coax its remaining 1550-ish cubic kilometres 'Over the Pass' onto a Hohmann-transfer...
Sliced and diced, 'Berga' did not 'Break' 'Nova's clouds, but showed how a couple more such ice-moons would. And did...
The initial settlers had to breathe Heliox, live in sub-surface habitats. Their processors took in the cooling atmospheric 'fug', chilled it to condense water. Electrolysing this, most of the hydrogen was reacted with 'fug' nitrogen and CO2 to form Ammonium Carbonate and Carbamate. Beyond fertilising extensive 'Ponics, this was stockpiled for planned 'bubble' green-houses. Supplemented by nocturnal Oxygen, those duly flourished. When atmospheric 'Free Oxygen' reached the necessary level, vast pine plantations were progressively established. Besides 'naturally' drawing down the CO2, this silviculture fuelled an extensive 'agrochemical' industry...
You may imagine the settlers' surprise when ground-work unearthed a curious range of plant and animal fossils, apparently of Earthly origin. Initially suspected to be mischievous hoaxes, these proved to 'document' the cruel failure of 'Nova's 'Prior' eco-system, the run-away relapse of that partial terraform around five million years ago...
What had gone wrong ?? Several rather virulent 'Schools of Thought', now mellowed to 'Bitter Rivals', still sought robust evidence to support or falsify their proposed failure modes. Sadly, each possibility was so very scarily plausible...
Like 'Plato's Shadows', we only knew what the 'Priors' were not. The lack of 'Seeded' reptiles and related Avians was profoundly unsettling: Was their absence due to 'non-interference' with kin ? Such as that last tribe of former 'hominins', independently evolved unto 'Palaeolithic', rescued by the Sylvans from the 'Nuclear Winter' of their 'Other' attack ? Or the converse, some deep loathing there-of ? Was the ancient 'K/T Extinction' of Earth's magnificent Dinosauria targeted, per the Others' xenocidal jihad but writ large ?
One thing was certain: Beyond those 'terraforms', the mega-ribbon of Mighty Antar's 'Silver Snag' and sundry small, as yet unidentifiable or incomprehensible finds, such as mine, we'd not a clue to 'Prior' size(s), shape(s) or form(s)...
As usual, my first priority after an extended deployment was running the laundry. While Anne-Marie headed back to the 'Ponics, I booked two machines. After checking there were no 'Immediate Action' messages among the many, many text-mails, I gathered the needful. My go-bag's clothes, all rather stale despite my best efforts aboard 'Cwm Fahr', formed most of one wash. There was just room for my partner's 'Round-To-It' baggy of smalls and tees. The other machine swallowed a set of bedding. However confident Anne-Marie seemed, the evidence of her long days, short nights and chore triaging showed.
Both laundrette view-screens were showing rolling compilations of asteroid surface footage: My routine 'Rockery' collection, Tuggers and trainees 'Finding Their Feet', those very unsettling hints of stratification within my targeted sondages.
Then, a summary of Lt. Svenson's team's findings came up. They'd managed to co-ordinate, over-lay enough variously angled scans to clarify that 'suggestion' of internal structure we'd surmised. And, yes, the alarming hypothesis of giant 'Soft-Shell' eggs was suddenly all too credible.
These 'Anomalous Patches', be they out-grown 'Exo-Skeletons' or discarded 'Soft-Shell' eggs, were old, old, old. Without a robust estimate of 'farming rate' by the local impactor flux, I could only reckon much, much older than Sol's, the Convention's or Sylvan Alliance stars' entry to the 'Local Bubble'. Wide error-bars allowed for any-when between a dozen million years and at least ten times that...
As yet, nothing like them had been reported within 'Convention' space, nor in the extensive region known to the Sylvans or their various allies. The xenocidal 'Others' were not talking, but enough data had been slowly salvaged from the 'Taggli' wrecked during that first 'City of Lincoln' encounter off Sankey to exclude their discovery. Like-wise, the Anwyc had not noticed anything comparable during their initial, far-ranging period.
As ever, of course, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence...
Which sort-of circled back to our 'Priors'...
Like us, the Sylvans and their allies had been utterly astonished to discover most of their habitable planets had been terraformed between five and a dozen million years ago, then seeded from Earth. We had their 'Back Story' fossils, the original species. Despite sundry extinctions and much evolution, some were still uncannily recognisable. Even those unfortunate, pre-industrial worlds recently razed by the 'Others' all matched. Also, several planets where terraforming relapsed, or was abandoned, held unsettling 'Earth' fossils.
I'd distant cousins on 'Nova, in the Epsilon Eridani system. When found by 'Venturer' during that star-ship's wondrous 'First Mission', that planet had been a 'Runaway Greenhouse'. Not hot as Venus, nor such acid clouds, yet only the proximity of twice-Jovian 'Gantur' and its vast zoo of ammonia / water ice-moons and moonlets made the 'Nova Project' practicable. To begin their 'Quench', the team spent a decade gleaning and delivering a 'train' of cubic kilometre ice-slices from 'Berga', a convenient triaxial 15 km diameter outer moonlet. Then, an approaching conjunction between 'Gantur' and 'Baltern', the sub-Neptunian, gave them a 'Once in a Generation' opportunity to 'pump' Berga's already wide orbit, coax its remaining 1550-ish cubic kilometres 'Over the Pass' onto a Hohmann-transfer...
Sliced and diced, 'Berga' did not 'Break' 'Nova's clouds, but showed how a couple more such ice-moons would. And did...
The initial settlers had to breathe Heliox, live in sub-surface habitats. Their processors took in the cooling atmospheric 'fug', chilled it to condense water. Electrolysing this, most of the hydrogen was reacted with 'fug' nitrogen and CO2 to form Ammonium Carbonate and Carbamate. Beyond fertilising extensive 'Ponics, this was stockpiled for planned 'bubble' green-houses. Supplemented by nocturnal Oxygen, those duly flourished. When atmospheric 'Free Oxygen' reached the necessary level, vast pine plantations were progressively established. Besides 'naturally' drawing down the CO2, this silviculture fuelled an extensive 'agrochemical' industry...
You may imagine the settlers' surprise when ground-work unearthed a curious range of plant and animal fossils, apparently of Earthly origin. Initially suspected to be mischievous hoaxes, these proved to 'document' the cruel failure of 'Nova's 'Prior' eco-system, the run-away relapse of that partial terraform around five million years ago...
What had gone wrong ?? Several rather virulent 'Schools of Thought', now mellowed to 'Bitter Rivals', still sought robust evidence to support or falsify their proposed failure modes. Sadly, each possibility was so very scarily plausible...
Like 'Plato's Shadows', we only knew what the 'Priors' were not. The lack of 'Seeded' reptiles and related Avians was profoundly unsettling: Was their absence due to 'non-interference' with kin ? Such as that last tribe of former 'hominins', independently evolved unto 'Palaeolithic', rescued by the Sylvans from the 'Nuclear Winter' of their 'Other' attack ? Or the converse, some deep loathing there-of ? Was the ancient 'K/T Extinction' of Earth's magnificent Dinosauria targeted, per the Others' xenocidal jihad but writ large ?
One thing was certain: Beyond those 'terraforms', the mega-ribbon of Mighty Antar's 'Silver Snag' and sundry small, as yet unidentifiable or incomprehensible finds, such as mine, we'd not a clue to 'Prior' size(s), shape(s) or form(s)...
If you cannot see the wood for the trees, deploy LIDAR.
-
Nik_SpeakerToCats
- Posts: 2317
- Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2022 10:56 am
City of Fresno #131
City of Fresno #131
After neatly line-hanging the mostly-dried washing in our suite, I tackled my remarkable backlog of text-mails. Medically prioritised to front and centre were blood-donation reminders from Doc. Meredith, plus two alerts that my 'First Aid' training renewal would soon come due. As 'form letters', both alerts also asked if I'd consider extending my basic skills unto Nursing Assistant, Nurse, Trauma / Paramedic, even a full Medical degree. Thanks, but no thanks: I'd enough on my plate !!
The Engineers variously invited me to attend more Workshop training modules and, yes, help with the 'Business End' of the planned asteroid regolith glean pod. It seems that wrangling the Tuggers' Hab turrets' mis-matched 'Field Poles' had earned me a reputation. In truth, their 'fix' just needed deep-trawling umpteen arcane appendices, then connecting those apparently irrelevant scraps sorta-widdershins...
On a lighter note, I'd been added to the circulation list for the new 'D&D' news-letter edited by Pete Prentice. Jargon-rich, this mostly chronicled 'Campaign', 'Foray' and 'Side-Quest' reports, 'Experience Points' awards and 'Re-Ranking' citations. Beyond, there were numerous advertisements for 'Team Building' vacancies and trading materiel. Many trade goods were still 'Virtual' or 'Symbolic', but there'd clearly been a cross-over with the growing 'Luthier' group. Logically, any 'Bard' who could passably strum a bloomin' lyre or lute, actually play pan-pipes or flute, out-ranked merely 'nominal' claims. Like-wise, 'Real World' competence up-ranked any 'Luthier' who could craft an instrument, any 'Artisan' or 'Artificer' who could produce tangible artefacts...
Amused curiosity aside, my eye was caught by the pair of 'Traditional Artificers' seeking venue, materials and recruits for a 'Turning' workshop. An experimental lathe with wide 'swing' over its bed had just too much flexure for 'serious' engineering tasks. Unable to precision-machine 'hard' stock, it was relegated to working 'engineering plastic' or soft alloy. Happens this limit yet embraced turning most timber types, and carefully 'finishing' pottery to stand level or take a lid. If, of course, we had the makings for those...
Hmm...
Two thoughts occurred: First, though crafting 'much' laboratory 'glass-ware' from pure silica would be non-trivial, making 'some' made sense. Warily grinding, honing, lapping their ball-joints, flanges and tapers suited such a set-up.
Second, though now long ago and far, far away, I still vividly remembered that day with Mum in the Marrakech street market. Yes, my small-bore pistol and precise shooting had 'broken' the street gang. Yes, Mum's larger weapon had then strewn the lane with their dead. Hey, who do you think taught me 'Pistol Fu' ? But I also remembered the next lane, with its wondrous pottery. Regardless of near-by gun-play, umpteen Artisans were hand-spiralling, jigging, wheel-turning, glazing, decorating. They made small pots and cups, flat-ware and bowls in a dozen utile or ornamental sizes, handy storage jars and pots, even 'Amphora' and 'Pithos' analogues scaled from 'jerrycan' via 'Hide Within' to 'IBC'...
A very neat 'half-gallon-ish' storage pot caught my eye. Its proportions were simply 'right' on so many levels. Mum briskly bargained, bought it as my holiday souvenir. Yes, she was pre-empting possible PTSD. And, yes, this pot proved much, much less alarming than the previous year's trophy, the crocodile's 'lethally distressed' skull. Remembering my school's out-cry, Mum wisely warned that I *must not* mention our clinical culling of that hapless street gang...
After neatly line-hanging the mostly-dried washing in our suite, I tackled my remarkable backlog of text-mails. Medically prioritised to front and centre were blood-donation reminders from Doc. Meredith, plus two alerts that my 'First Aid' training renewal would soon come due. As 'form letters', both alerts also asked if I'd consider extending my basic skills unto Nursing Assistant, Nurse, Trauma / Paramedic, even a full Medical degree. Thanks, but no thanks: I'd enough on my plate !!
The Engineers variously invited me to attend more Workshop training modules and, yes, help with the 'Business End' of the planned asteroid regolith glean pod. It seems that wrangling the Tuggers' Hab turrets' mis-matched 'Field Poles' had earned me a reputation. In truth, their 'fix' just needed deep-trawling umpteen arcane appendices, then connecting those apparently irrelevant scraps sorta-widdershins...
On a lighter note, I'd been added to the circulation list for the new 'D&D' news-letter edited by Pete Prentice. Jargon-rich, this mostly chronicled 'Campaign', 'Foray' and 'Side-Quest' reports, 'Experience Points' awards and 'Re-Ranking' citations. Beyond, there were numerous advertisements for 'Team Building' vacancies and trading materiel. Many trade goods were still 'Virtual' or 'Symbolic', but there'd clearly been a cross-over with the growing 'Luthier' group. Logically, any 'Bard' who could passably strum a bloomin' lyre or lute, actually play pan-pipes or flute, out-ranked merely 'nominal' claims. Like-wise, 'Real World' competence up-ranked any 'Luthier' who could craft an instrument, any 'Artisan' or 'Artificer' who could produce tangible artefacts...
Amused curiosity aside, my eye was caught by the pair of 'Traditional Artificers' seeking venue, materials and recruits for a 'Turning' workshop. An experimental lathe with wide 'swing' over its bed had just too much flexure for 'serious' engineering tasks. Unable to precision-machine 'hard' stock, it was relegated to working 'engineering plastic' or soft alloy. Happens this limit yet embraced turning most timber types, and carefully 'finishing' pottery to stand level or take a lid. If, of course, we had the makings for those...
Hmm...
Two thoughts occurred: First, though crafting 'much' laboratory 'glass-ware' from pure silica would be non-trivial, making 'some' made sense. Warily grinding, honing, lapping their ball-joints, flanges and tapers suited such a set-up.
Second, though now long ago and far, far away, I still vividly remembered that day with Mum in the Marrakech street market. Yes, my small-bore pistol and precise shooting had 'broken' the street gang. Yes, Mum's larger weapon had then strewn the lane with their dead. Hey, who do you think taught me 'Pistol Fu' ? But I also remembered the next lane, with its wondrous pottery. Regardless of near-by gun-play, umpteen Artisans were hand-spiralling, jigging, wheel-turning, glazing, decorating. They made small pots and cups, flat-ware and bowls in a dozen utile or ornamental sizes, handy storage jars and pots, even 'Amphora' and 'Pithos' analogues scaled from 'jerrycan' via 'Hide Within' to 'IBC'...
A very neat 'half-gallon-ish' storage pot caught my eye. Its proportions were simply 'right' on so many levels. Mum briskly bargained, bought it as my holiday souvenir. Yes, she was pre-empting possible PTSD. And, yes, this pot proved much, much less alarming than the previous year's trophy, the crocodile's 'lethally distressed' skull. Remembering my school's out-cry, Mum wisely warned that I *must not* mention our clinical culling of that hapless street gang...
If you cannot see the wood for the trees, deploy LIDAR.
-
Nik_SpeakerToCats
- Posts: 2317
- Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2022 10:56 am
City of Fresno #132
City of Fresno #132
Lt. Richards and Lt. 'Logistics' Baxter together extended their compliments on my Xanadu Pods' nimble data-base. Enabled by Fresno 'Holding Station' off 'Anchorage', nimbly tag-teamed by Miss Betrys and Cadet Collins, the tiers' contents had been progressively accessed, scanned, entirely identified. As Anne-Marie implied, we now had the makings for a 'Useful' number of complete horticultural Nissen Huts, variously equipped and glazed. Sadly, though there were several 'Usefully Sized' stock-tanks, albeit 'Some Assembly Required', they were much, much too small for 'Serious' Aquaponics. They could serve as 'Pilot Plant', of course...
And, yes, some of the newly gleaned Silica could perhaps be cast to 'Light Pipes', fully isolating our now-precious luminaires from aqueous media that could, over time, 'creep' to rival helium...
Next came an update on the two Chaparral 'Gifts & Goodies' Pods. I was surprised to see they were still being explored, un-packed, documented. At least, beyond umpteen 'Open at {DATE}' parcels with personal and family gifts, there was some actual hardware. Their growing assortment of 'small' stuff, such as baggies of flexible washers, O-rings and gaskets for domestic appliances etc, would find good use.
More welcome were three (3) tunnelling rigs. Pre-used but in excellent condition, these 'Tunnel Boring Machine' (TBM) front-ends came complete with excellent 'User' and 'Service' manuals. Two, of rival makes, cut three metres diameter, matching the 'Lateral' borers deployed on Chaparral. The third's cut was five metres, for 'Shafts', mid-sized 'Adits' or 'Generic' spaces. Happens this model had much commonality with one of the smaller. So, made sense to keep them paired. And, all three were sufficiently similar to Chaparral's that we'd the skills and expertise to deploy them as-is.
Of course, our good luck did not extend to their extensive zoo of consumables, those many fixings, spares and accessories any significant tunnelling required. A 'token' provision was all these TBMs had. At least, as they used generic power and plumbing connectors matching the Evac pods', we had the lead-time to adapt, devise, provide the rest of their needful. Even significantly down-rated, compared to our near-frantic, 'Limit of Sustainability' work on Chaparral, they provided options.
Sadly, that still left us without any skid-steer loaders, Jumbo derricks, face multi-drills, wall-bolters, pilot-corers, debris conveyors, grinder/sorters or so much other ancillary equipment. There was certainly no 'Rock Grubber' lurking elephantine amidst the many, many remaining space crates and parcel cages...
However, such TBM front-ends were potentially much, much more versatile than a glance would suggest: Although they usually made a circular or ring face-cut, for a new or enlarged tunnel, TBMs could also chord-cut. Below ground, a pass would side-widen circular to oval bores. On the surface, a chord-cut gave an arcuate trough. Multiple passes would deepen the cut, or widen to clear extensive strata and inconvenient out-crops. In fact, turned side-ways and boom-mounted, a TBM could serve as a small 'Bucket Wheel Excavator'...
To the evident glee of my partner and her 'Ponics team, a goodly number of 'Gift' parcels had included packets of seeds and bulbs. Although there was some overlap with Fresno and Tugger holdings, never mind Anne-Marie's eclectic collection of cell-lines, these 'kitchen garden', orchard and 'decorative' cultivars were very, very welcome. As yet, I knew we lacked the facilities to grow most of them beyond token trays and planters but, given time...
More importantly, these cultivars provided vital genetic diversity. Even slight differences could be 'leveraged' to provide a welcome variety of size, flavour etc. These traits could be cross-bred, back-crossed to enhance appearance, flavour, environmental tolerance and disease resistance. Such manipulation was grist to my beloved partner's mill. As a child, I'd been astonished to learn that our familiar 'ginger' carrots had been 'bred up' from a natural Pre-Burn mutant 'Sport': Like purple beet-root, its ancestors had been white, resembling turnips, parsnips, mangel-wurzels, white radish or sweet-beet.
There was another aspect: The seeds included an interesting range of Brassica. Beyond nutritional stuff, not to mention their welcome variety of textures and flavour, some Brassica had the curious knack of pulling non-essential trace elements out of the soil. In fact, their cultivation as food-stuffs on tainted ground was unwise due to their scarily efficient concentration of toxins. The flip side was they could be used to clean up such land, even glean those elements.
At home, I'd seen how mineral seams variously favoured or deterred different plants. When you 'got your eye in', you could often read the sub-surface as clearly as a Geo-Phys sweep. I learned that 'Phyto-mining' was the term for collecting metals from a type of plants called hyper-accumulators. Rare and unusual, they could absorb certain metals from the soil, store very high concentrations in their leaves and stems. These levels would be toxic to most plants. Some held so much, it was possible to harvest, dry and incinerate their biomass to generate high-grade bio-ore.
These plants may have evolved the function of hyper-accumulating metals as a defence mechanism against herbivores or pathogens. As usual, 'The Dose Maketh The Poison'. Still, where Pre-Burn mining had poisoned the land, had tainted waterways, 'Phyto-mining' was often the only practicable remedy. And, yes, the only viable way to access the stripped remnants of those former ore-bodies. In parallel, microbial bio-leaching was now the preferred way to sanitise, remediate acid-dribbling adits, vast, weeping spoil-heaps and the lurking menace of tall-tiered tailing ponds...
Lt. Richards and Lt. 'Logistics' Baxter together extended their compliments on my Xanadu Pods' nimble data-base. Enabled by Fresno 'Holding Station' off 'Anchorage', nimbly tag-teamed by Miss Betrys and Cadet Collins, the tiers' contents had been progressively accessed, scanned, entirely identified. As Anne-Marie implied, we now had the makings for a 'Useful' number of complete horticultural Nissen Huts, variously equipped and glazed. Sadly, though there were several 'Usefully Sized' stock-tanks, albeit 'Some Assembly Required', they were much, much too small for 'Serious' Aquaponics. They could serve as 'Pilot Plant', of course...
And, yes, some of the newly gleaned Silica could perhaps be cast to 'Light Pipes', fully isolating our now-precious luminaires from aqueous media that could, over time, 'creep' to rival helium...
Next came an update on the two Chaparral 'Gifts & Goodies' Pods. I was surprised to see they were still being explored, un-packed, documented. At least, beyond umpteen 'Open at {DATE}' parcels with personal and family gifts, there was some actual hardware. Their growing assortment of 'small' stuff, such as baggies of flexible washers, O-rings and gaskets for domestic appliances etc, would find good use.
More welcome were three (3) tunnelling rigs. Pre-used but in excellent condition, these 'Tunnel Boring Machine' (TBM) front-ends came complete with excellent 'User' and 'Service' manuals. Two, of rival makes, cut three metres diameter, matching the 'Lateral' borers deployed on Chaparral. The third's cut was five metres, for 'Shafts', mid-sized 'Adits' or 'Generic' spaces. Happens this model had much commonality with one of the smaller. So, made sense to keep them paired. And, all three were sufficiently similar to Chaparral's that we'd the skills and expertise to deploy them as-is.
Of course, our good luck did not extend to their extensive zoo of consumables, those many fixings, spares and accessories any significant tunnelling required. A 'token' provision was all these TBMs had. At least, as they used generic power and plumbing connectors matching the Evac pods', we had the lead-time to adapt, devise, provide the rest of their needful. Even significantly down-rated, compared to our near-frantic, 'Limit of Sustainability' work on Chaparral, they provided options.
Sadly, that still left us without any skid-steer loaders, Jumbo derricks, face multi-drills, wall-bolters, pilot-corers, debris conveyors, grinder/sorters or so much other ancillary equipment. There was certainly no 'Rock Grubber' lurking elephantine amidst the many, many remaining space crates and parcel cages...
However, such TBM front-ends were potentially much, much more versatile than a glance would suggest: Although they usually made a circular or ring face-cut, for a new or enlarged tunnel, TBMs could also chord-cut. Below ground, a pass would side-widen circular to oval bores. On the surface, a chord-cut gave an arcuate trough. Multiple passes would deepen the cut, or widen to clear extensive strata and inconvenient out-crops. In fact, turned side-ways and boom-mounted, a TBM could serve as a small 'Bucket Wheel Excavator'...
To the evident glee of my partner and her 'Ponics team, a goodly number of 'Gift' parcels had included packets of seeds and bulbs. Although there was some overlap with Fresno and Tugger holdings, never mind Anne-Marie's eclectic collection of cell-lines, these 'kitchen garden', orchard and 'decorative' cultivars were very, very welcome. As yet, I knew we lacked the facilities to grow most of them beyond token trays and planters but, given time...
More importantly, these cultivars provided vital genetic diversity. Even slight differences could be 'leveraged' to provide a welcome variety of size, flavour etc. These traits could be cross-bred, back-crossed to enhance appearance, flavour, environmental tolerance and disease resistance. Such manipulation was grist to my beloved partner's mill. As a child, I'd been astonished to learn that our familiar 'ginger' carrots had been 'bred up' from a natural Pre-Burn mutant 'Sport': Like purple beet-root, its ancestors had been white, resembling turnips, parsnips, mangel-wurzels, white radish or sweet-beet.
There was another aspect: The seeds included an interesting range of Brassica. Beyond nutritional stuff, not to mention their welcome variety of textures and flavour, some Brassica had the curious knack of pulling non-essential trace elements out of the soil. In fact, their cultivation as food-stuffs on tainted ground was unwise due to their scarily efficient concentration of toxins. The flip side was they could be used to clean up such land, even glean those elements.
At home, I'd seen how mineral seams variously favoured or deterred different plants. When you 'got your eye in', you could often read the sub-surface as clearly as a Geo-Phys sweep. I learned that 'Phyto-mining' was the term for collecting metals from a type of plants called hyper-accumulators. Rare and unusual, they could absorb certain metals from the soil, store very high concentrations in their leaves and stems. These levels would be toxic to most plants. Some held so much, it was possible to harvest, dry and incinerate their biomass to generate high-grade bio-ore.
These plants may have evolved the function of hyper-accumulating metals as a defence mechanism against herbivores or pathogens. As usual, 'The Dose Maketh The Poison'. Still, where Pre-Burn mining had poisoned the land, had tainted waterways, 'Phyto-mining' was often the only practicable remedy. And, yes, the only viable way to access the stripped remnants of those former ore-bodies. In parallel, microbial bio-leaching was now the preferred way to sanitise, remediate acid-dribbling adits, vast, weeping spoil-heaps and the lurking menace of tall-tiered tailing ponds...
If you cannot see the wood for the trees, deploy LIDAR.
-
Nik_SpeakerToCats
- Posts: 2317
- Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2022 10:56 am
City of Fresno #133
City of Fresno #133
After arranging an appointment, I culled another swathe of irrelevant text-mails then strolled along to Doc. Meredith's lair. He took my donation, checked the usual flags, shook his head. "Mr. Kinson, I swear you have a gift for stumbling across anomalies, if not full-blown weirdness. At least, as Jenny, my Senior Nurse-Practitioner grumbled, 'Proves we're not in Kansas any more !' "
I shrugged politely. What could I say ?
"What are your plans now ?"
"Small stuff. The Engineers have invited me for some more Workshop training modules. Also, help them re-purpose a dozen small 'Field Poles', to set around the centre-line loading port of a stripped Evac Pod as 'Regolith Conveyor Pumps'..."
"Sounds complicated..."
"Not really." I shook my head. "We had to improvise some to clear spoil from those deeper Chaparral shelter Adits: Not full 'Industrial' efficiency, but 'Good Enough'."
"Hmm. I'm told you did wonders coaxing the Tuggers' systems..."
"Their Habs' 'Ice-Slicer' turrets ?" I shook my head again. "No. That just took a lot of stubborn digging to find what was *really* causing the contention, then a few soft-ware tweaks to resolve. No big deal."
"They think it was..."
"Not if you work the problem backwards."
Doc. Meredith just looked at me for long, long seconds, then laughed once. He admitted, "For a moment there, I thought you were joking !"
I shrugged, said, "Us Geologists do a lot of 'Back-Solving', trying to figure how things came to be. Does help to have both ends of the puzzle, which usefully constrains the parameters."
"I'll take your word for it," he allowed. "These 'Patches', though: Lt. Svenson said there's nothing like them in 'Convention' space. Is that so ?"
"Nothing like them reported," I corrected. "Just like we're still trying to figure why the Priors preferred some star systems over others: We may have simply looked in the wrong places."
"Huh ?"
"Seriously," I admitted. "The 'Convention' got lucky: Plenty of local stars that were neither too bright nor dim. Enough had 'moderate' solar activity, with at least one potentially habitable planet in or near the 'Goldilocks Zone'. Astrometry plus stellar Doppler usually showed if a system might be welcoming or not. So, after the two original 'Venturer' survey missions, those first home-steaders grabbed the 'low hanging fruit', skipped most of the others. They shunned flare-prone 'Dim Reds', both the 'Moderns' and the truly ancient, low-metallicity 'Population II'. By-passed systems whose 'Hot Jupiter', 'Brown Dwarf' and/or evolved 'White Dwarf' had cleared planets from the 'Zone'.
"Yes, with time, prospectors began to range out from 'settled' systems. Mining, gas-diving stations and 'support' communities developed. Given so many other, competing priorities, their routine reports to the 'Astrophysical Survey' arrived piece-meal, often short on detail. Though students' Science Projects were better, most only ran for a few years before their young operators went off to college. Though 'Rock-Hoppers' collected a lot of 'In-System' data, very, very few documented it well." As both a professional Geologist and active amateur Astronomer, that irked on multiple levels. "And stellar monitoring ? Yes, settlers did watch their own star or stars for any anomalies or 'tantrums', but most reports came from 'City Class' star-ships logging their regular routes. Wasn't until the Others' Taggli raids became more serious, so ships tried to be less predictable, that the 'Survey' began to get status updates for many neighbouring systems."
Doc. Meredith raised a quizzical eye-brow, but I was on a roll.
"Huh: If it wasn't for the 'City of Tulsa' navigator's decision to dog-leg via 'Ember', there would not have been time or resources to build more than scant few 'Chaparral' deep shelters. Most residents' only option was a full evacuation..."
After arranging an appointment, I culled another swathe of irrelevant text-mails then strolled along to Doc. Meredith's lair. He took my donation, checked the usual flags, shook his head. "Mr. Kinson, I swear you have a gift for stumbling across anomalies, if not full-blown weirdness. At least, as Jenny, my Senior Nurse-Practitioner grumbled, 'Proves we're not in Kansas any more !' "
I shrugged politely. What could I say ?
"What are your plans now ?"
"Small stuff. The Engineers have invited me for some more Workshop training modules. Also, help them re-purpose a dozen small 'Field Poles', to set around the centre-line loading port of a stripped Evac Pod as 'Regolith Conveyor Pumps'..."
"Sounds complicated..."
"Not really." I shook my head. "We had to improvise some to clear spoil from those deeper Chaparral shelter Adits: Not full 'Industrial' efficiency, but 'Good Enough'."
"Hmm. I'm told you did wonders coaxing the Tuggers' systems..."
"Their Habs' 'Ice-Slicer' turrets ?" I shook my head again. "No. That just took a lot of stubborn digging to find what was *really* causing the contention, then a few soft-ware tweaks to resolve. No big deal."
"They think it was..."
"Not if you work the problem backwards."
Doc. Meredith just looked at me for long, long seconds, then laughed once. He admitted, "For a moment there, I thought you were joking !"
I shrugged, said, "Us Geologists do a lot of 'Back-Solving', trying to figure how things came to be. Does help to have both ends of the puzzle, which usefully constrains the parameters."
"I'll take your word for it," he allowed. "These 'Patches', though: Lt. Svenson said there's nothing like them in 'Convention' space. Is that so ?"
"Nothing like them reported," I corrected. "Just like we're still trying to figure why the Priors preferred some star systems over others: We may have simply looked in the wrong places."
"Huh ?"
"Seriously," I admitted. "The 'Convention' got lucky: Plenty of local stars that were neither too bright nor dim. Enough had 'moderate' solar activity, with at least one potentially habitable planet in or near the 'Goldilocks Zone'. Astrometry plus stellar Doppler usually showed if a system might be welcoming or not. So, after the two original 'Venturer' survey missions, those first home-steaders grabbed the 'low hanging fruit', skipped most of the others. They shunned flare-prone 'Dim Reds', both the 'Moderns' and the truly ancient, low-metallicity 'Population II'. By-passed systems whose 'Hot Jupiter', 'Brown Dwarf' and/or evolved 'White Dwarf' had cleared planets from the 'Zone'.
"Yes, with time, prospectors began to range out from 'settled' systems. Mining, gas-diving stations and 'support' communities developed. Given so many other, competing priorities, their routine reports to the 'Astrophysical Survey' arrived piece-meal, often short on detail. Though students' Science Projects were better, most only ran for a few years before their young operators went off to college. Though 'Rock-Hoppers' collected a lot of 'In-System' data, very, very few documented it well." As both a professional Geologist and active amateur Astronomer, that irked on multiple levels. "And stellar monitoring ? Yes, settlers did watch their own star or stars for any anomalies or 'tantrums', but most reports came from 'City Class' star-ships logging their regular routes. Wasn't until the Others' Taggli raids became more serious, so ships tried to be less predictable, that the 'Survey' began to get status updates for many neighbouring systems."
Doc. Meredith raised a quizzical eye-brow, but I was on a roll.
"Huh: If it wasn't for the 'City of Tulsa' navigator's decision to dog-leg via 'Ember', there would not have been time or resources to build more than scant few 'Chaparral' deep shelters. Most residents' only option was a full evacuation..."
If you cannot see the wood for the trees, deploy LIDAR.
-
jemhouston
- Posts: 6416
- Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2022 12:38 am
Re: 'City of Fresno'
Once again odd knowledge is worth gathering.
-
Nik_SpeakerToCats
- Posts: 2317
- Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2022 10:56 am
City of Fresno #134
City of Fresno #134
The following weeks' Engineering course modules were good fun: It would be fair to call these topics 'Fancy Work'. We had already qualified to turn 'Internal' and 'External' threads for both 'Standard' profile and the low-backlash / pre-loaded positioning types used for 'Lead' and 'Ball Screws'. Now, we made their 'Left-Handed' equivalents, handy for turn-buckles, plus adaptors, reducers, replacement connectors, valves and manifolds for both common and un-common 'plumbing' connectors. Also, the Engineers had found two shelved 'shoe-boxes' with an interesting assortment of fittings and fixings.
One held Sylvan and Akkkan materiel, plus extensive documentation. The other had some salvaged 'Other' items plus terse 'cover notes'. Yes, driven by loading, material differences, their threads' diameter, pitch, depth and profiles did vary. Yet, though our engineering histories and mensuration systems differed markedly, what works still works: 'Convergent Evolution' had produced remarkable similarities. We became skilled at machining these, and their matching spanners, too.
Yes, some-one asked about Anwyc tech. That, apparently, presented a problem. There was not much material, and all from a scant few salvaged Bio-Raider 'Needle Ships'. No larger Anwyc craft had been encountered, apparently such only serviced their few remaining 'Inner Colonies'. Worse, few of the studied 'Needle Ships' were exactly alike. At first, they were thought the product of multiple ship-yards. As 'differs' accumulated, an alternative explanation strengthened: They were of different ages, very different ages. Beyond decades, some approached a century...
But, we would be getting Anwyc-tech specific training. First, a serious dose of theory...
Gears: Like a lot of tech, they look so simple, yet are anything but. In fact, gears are a text-book example of 'The Devil is in the Detail'. Coaxing more than 'modest' efficiency, power transfer and life-span from even the apparently simplest, 'traditional' spur gearing demanded careful tolerances plus surprisingly subtle profiling. Beyond that lay nested complexity comparable to a resurgent caldera's rising magma's evolution. Still, assembling a basket of gears to a differential or epicyclic set was remarkably satisfying...
Beyond generic lathe and mill-drill work, we also studied 'specialist' approaches more suited to repeat or batch manufacture. Gear 'Hobbing' needed a hybrid machine. About half-way between lathe and mill-drill, its two skew spindles were variously synchronised by careful gearing. Could be small, could be large, could be utterly massive. Then there was thread 'Rolling', from the many low-load utility fixings used for our cabin partitions, to 'indefinite' length via skewed rollers. As these threads were not 'lathe-cut' but 'pressed', they were inherently stronger, with scant waste. Like 'Hobbing', though, 'Rolling' only became 'Cost Effective' for big, big batches...
After wrapping our wits around complex gears, re-purposing Evac Pods' 'Pump Poles' for the planned regolith gleaning proved almost trivial. We delivered the adapted Evac Pod early, its maw's 'Pump Poles' better synchronised than hoped: Wasn't hard, just took some very, very wary iterative tweaking. As their tuning improved, we needed fewer and fewer 'Poles'. So, our group had ample time and space to 'play', sand-boxing other applications. With an eye to the future, we used most of the rest to craft 'conveyors' to complement our serendipitous 3-metre and 5-metre TBMs. The remaining 'Poles', we quietly weaponised. Several concatenated to a 'High Pressure Pump' gave us a pair of rather scary 'Rail Guns'. These could launch ordnance at disconcerting speed. One was optimised for hefty, hand-loaded metal darts, the other took a 'Spin Gun' magazine. Serious weapons on a 'pintle' mount, they could be upgraded with several more 'Poles' and some nimble software, become 'Luggable' weapons with minimal recoil.
The following weeks' Engineering course modules were good fun: It would be fair to call these topics 'Fancy Work'. We had already qualified to turn 'Internal' and 'External' threads for both 'Standard' profile and the low-backlash / pre-loaded positioning types used for 'Lead' and 'Ball Screws'. Now, we made their 'Left-Handed' equivalents, handy for turn-buckles, plus adaptors, reducers, replacement connectors, valves and manifolds for both common and un-common 'plumbing' connectors. Also, the Engineers had found two shelved 'shoe-boxes' with an interesting assortment of fittings and fixings.
One held Sylvan and Akkkan materiel, plus extensive documentation. The other had some salvaged 'Other' items plus terse 'cover notes'. Yes, driven by loading, material differences, their threads' diameter, pitch, depth and profiles did vary. Yet, though our engineering histories and mensuration systems differed markedly, what works still works: 'Convergent Evolution' had produced remarkable similarities. We became skilled at machining these, and their matching spanners, too.
Yes, some-one asked about Anwyc tech. That, apparently, presented a problem. There was not much material, and all from a scant few salvaged Bio-Raider 'Needle Ships'. No larger Anwyc craft had been encountered, apparently such only serviced their few remaining 'Inner Colonies'. Worse, few of the studied 'Needle Ships' were exactly alike. At first, they were thought the product of multiple ship-yards. As 'differs' accumulated, an alternative explanation strengthened: They were of different ages, very different ages. Beyond decades, some approached a century...
But, we would be getting Anwyc-tech specific training. First, a serious dose of theory...
Gears: Like a lot of tech, they look so simple, yet are anything but. In fact, gears are a text-book example of 'The Devil is in the Detail'. Coaxing more than 'modest' efficiency, power transfer and life-span from even the apparently simplest, 'traditional' spur gearing demanded careful tolerances plus surprisingly subtle profiling. Beyond that lay nested complexity comparable to a resurgent caldera's rising magma's evolution. Still, assembling a basket of gears to a differential or epicyclic set was remarkably satisfying...
Beyond generic lathe and mill-drill work, we also studied 'specialist' approaches more suited to repeat or batch manufacture. Gear 'Hobbing' needed a hybrid machine. About half-way between lathe and mill-drill, its two skew spindles were variously synchronised by careful gearing. Could be small, could be large, could be utterly massive. Then there was thread 'Rolling', from the many low-load utility fixings used for our cabin partitions, to 'indefinite' length via skewed rollers. As these threads were not 'lathe-cut' but 'pressed', they were inherently stronger, with scant waste. Like 'Hobbing', though, 'Rolling' only became 'Cost Effective' for big, big batches...
After wrapping our wits around complex gears, re-purposing Evac Pods' 'Pump Poles' for the planned regolith gleaning proved almost trivial. We delivered the adapted Evac Pod early, its maw's 'Pump Poles' better synchronised than hoped: Wasn't hard, just took some very, very wary iterative tweaking. As their tuning improved, we needed fewer and fewer 'Poles'. So, our group had ample time and space to 'play', sand-boxing other applications. With an eye to the future, we used most of the rest to craft 'conveyors' to complement our serendipitous 3-metre and 5-metre TBMs. The remaining 'Poles', we quietly weaponised. Several concatenated to a 'High Pressure Pump' gave us a pair of rather scary 'Rail Guns'. These could launch ordnance at disconcerting speed. One was optimised for hefty, hand-loaded metal darts, the other took a 'Spin Gun' magazine. Serious weapons on a 'pintle' mount, they could be upgraded with several more 'Poles' and some nimble software, become 'Luggable' weapons with minimal recoil.
If you cannot see the wood for the trees, deploy LIDAR.
-
Nik_SpeakerToCats
- Posts: 2317
- Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2022 10:56 am
City of Fresno #135
City of Fresno #135
At last, we got that careful look at the reports on Anwyc tech. There was not much, and all from a few salvaged Bio-Raider 'Needle Ships'. Even so, every datum point, every last scrap was the subject of on-going, almost recursive study, all very, very carefully documented. To date, comparing notes with the Sylvan Alliance, our Convention reckoned the Anwyc were the first culture within our 'Local Bubble' to develop FTL and still be 'extant'. Yes, there were subtle, if debatable hints that at least one star-faring culture, possibly two, may have arisen but fell and vanished between the Priors' era and the Anwyc. Had such been subsumed ? Was there deliberate tech-transfer ? Reverse Engineering ? We did not know. Also, as ever, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence...
FTL is hard, very hard. Beyond almost trivial size, the 'Simple' Alcubierre 'Bubble' approach demands apparently impracticable power and materiel requirements. For our so-modular 'City-Class', the Convention had side-stepped such issues by crafting a Limaçon of Pascal 'Double Bubble'. By contrast, the Anwyc, Sylvans and Others developed various 'Heroic' solutions. The Others' 'NIMBY' anti-matter fuel became their 'Achilles Heel'. After the 'City of Lincoln' Incident, that first Convention-space Other attack off Sankey / tau Ceti, the Lincoln's awed / terrified Chief Engineer famously described 'Taggli' power generation systems as 'Juggling Sweaty Gelignite On A Very Hot Day !!'
The Sylvans simply built big enough to leverage 'Square / Cube' scaling. The Anwyc deployed exotic, near-fractal nano-alloys that behaved like hypothesized 'Higher Isle of Stability' Trans-Uranics, minus their half-life glow. These bore a 'passing' resemblance to some 'Prior' finds, but on a much, much coarser scale. Derived ? Convergent ? We did not know. Nor could we reproduce them beyond thumb-nail scraps...
Initially riding big, barely FTL ships, those early, far-ranging Anwyc explorers managed to rile every sapient species encountered. Proclaiming 'Manifest Destiny', they colonised 'Enthusiastically'. Their victims' aural history described casual atrocity escalating unto genocide. Those Anwyc settlers repeatedly surpassed even Earth's unforgiveable excesses, variously perpetrated by the 'Spanish Conquistadores', in the 'Belgian Congo' or during the 'World & Cold Wars' era.
A century or two later, though, things began to go very wrong. Beset by medical issues, with centrally administered bureaucratic grid-lock compounded by their ancient Imperial capital's courtiers' Byzantine, near-fractal rivalries and jealousies, the Anwyc 'Outer Colonies' progressively collapsed. Those big ships were stripped of FTL capability, re-purposed as luxurious 'in-system' Ferries. 'Puddle Jumpers' serviced the 'Inner Colonies', their central administration handled via remarkably compact 'Needle-Ship' Couriers. Subsequently stretched, re-purposed for 'Bio-raiding', the latter added fresh injury to legacy insult, had probably prompted the Others' xenocidal 'Jihad'.
Sadly, how the Anwyc developed FTL was unclear. We only knew scant scraps of their 'back-story'. Grossly over-simplified, riddled by triumphant pomposity, the 'official' version stank of recursive expurgation. This file had been recovered from the pair of 'Needle Ships' salvaged from the six that attacked Venturer at Sankey / tau Ceti during the 'First Expedition'. Venturer was far, far from 'harmless', but both ferried 'Trojan Class' Rock Tugs had been explicitly specified to run down and swat such raiders.
One problem with those 'Needle Ships' as source material was their limited size. I could not follow 'Field Pole' math beyond rudiments, but it seemed there was a 'Sweet Spot' for 'Really Small' FTL. The Convention used it for 'Message Torps'. If smaller, FTL essentials did not fit aboard. If larger, everything had to be bigger and stronger, bigger and stronger, quickly spiralling unto 'negative payload'. Yet, whittle every support system to 'Minimal', accept marginal shielding and scant margins, you could, albeit 'barely', generate a very compact 'Simple' Alcubierre 'Bubble' without 'Heroic' engineering. We could not crew 'Message Torps' but, by dint of centuries of enhancement and refinement, the Anwyc had managed. The resulting design was remarkable.
'Needle Ships' did not have external access panels as such. Docked, their entire tapered bow and stern shells had to be dismounted, slid off axially away from the narrow mid-section band which supported the hatch and other 'piercings'. The internal complexity thus revealed resembled a 'Thousand Piece' solid puzzle, minus guide picture. Most systems were 'Close Coupled' unto 'eye-watering', with scant-few serviceable parts. For example, the singular 'Uni-Pole' of a 'Needle Ship' was a cubic metre of obsidian 'obelisk', threaded by control, power and coolant feeds 3-D printed unto atomic scale. Unlike our 'Poles', briskly deposited on re-usable diamond slabs, a 'Uni-Pole' was utterly 'solid state'. They could not be dismantled, never mind modified or repaired. I'd read estimates that each such 'Crystal Fu' device might take four or even five decades to craft. How was in-process testing and quality control achieved ? What was the failure rate ?
Such compactified 'Needle Ship' arcana took several generations for the Convention to 'mostly' figure. Some of the tech still stood at the very, very limit of our current capabilities, while those hyper-exotic alloys lay far, far beyond. In fact, the last 'significant' break-through had been by my 'Great Uncle Tony' while marooned on Autumn. After laser-editing flash-over scarring of their sabotaged Scout Craft's traumatised 'Field Poles', he'd contrived kludgy, replacement 'Pole Drivers' by cross-wiring a mix of their cargo's air-car spares. At some point, he realised short-cycle pulsing 'Field Poles' might permit sub-light-second 'hops' significantly within the usual g-well FTL limit. In fact, this could explain the 'bizarre' internal arrangement of those Anwyc 'Uni-Poles'...
Though he and co-pilot Greg the Sanku got to Autumn Base with their Scout perforce riding 'Surface Effect', thus was the 'Blink Drive' born.
And, yes, inspired his passion for 'improved' inter-operability...
Down-side, a 'Needle Ship' had scant crew space, cargo volume or internal access to ship-systems. By comparison, Earth's early Vostok, Voskhod, Mercury and Gemini capsules were almost capacious. The pair of Anwyc crew-men --Never, ever Humans !!-- were much more 'plugged in' than me in 'Big Mac'. And they stayed thus for their entire flight of many months. Despite isometrics and electrode webs providing muscle and bone stimulation, plus heroic medication to mitigate bone-loss, maintain sanity, it would take each crew a year to recover from the return journey.
Which suggests how valuable each Bio-Raid glean really was. Also, yes, what a blow the Anwyc elite took when yet-another increasingly precious 'Needle Ship' was intercepted...
At last, we got that careful look at the reports on Anwyc tech. There was not much, and all from a few salvaged Bio-Raider 'Needle Ships'. Even so, every datum point, every last scrap was the subject of on-going, almost recursive study, all very, very carefully documented. To date, comparing notes with the Sylvan Alliance, our Convention reckoned the Anwyc were the first culture within our 'Local Bubble' to develop FTL and still be 'extant'. Yes, there were subtle, if debatable hints that at least one star-faring culture, possibly two, may have arisen but fell and vanished between the Priors' era and the Anwyc. Had such been subsumed ? Was there deliberate tech-transfer ? Reverse Engineering ? We did not know. Also, as ever, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence...
FTL is hard, very hard. Beyond almost trivial size, the 'Simple' Alcubierre 'Bubble' approach demands apparently impracticable power and materiel requirements. For our so-modular 'City-Class', the Convention had side-stepped such issues by crafting a Limaçon of Pascal 'Double Bubble'. By contrast, the Anwyc, Sylvans and Others developed various 'Heroic' solutions. The Others' 'NIMBY' anti-matter fuel became their 'Achilles Heel'. After the 'City of Lincoln' Incident, that first Convention-space Other attack off Sankey / tau Ceti, the Lincoln's awed / terrified Chief Engineer famously described 'Taggli' power generation systems as 'Juggling Sweaty Gelignite On A Very Hot Day !!'
The Sylvans simply built big enough to leverage 'Square / Cube' scaling. The Anwyc deployed exotic, near-fractal nano-alloys that behaved like hypothesized 'Higher Isle of Stability' Trans-Uranics, minus their half-life glow. These bore a 'passing' resemblance to some 'Prior' finds, but on a much, much coarser scale. Derived ? Convergent ? We did not know. Nor could we reproduce them beyond thumb-nail scraps...
Initially riding big, barely FTL ships, those early, far-ranging Anwyc explorers managed to rile every sapient species encountered. Proclaiming 'Manifest Destiny', they colonised 'Enthusiastically'. Their victims' aural history described casual atrocity escalating unto genocide. Those Anwyc settlers repeatedly surpassed even Earth's unforgiveable excesses, variously perpetrated by the 'Spanish Conquistadores', in the 'Belgian Congo' or during the 'World & Cold Wars' era.
A century or two later, though, things began to go very wrong. Beset by medical issues, with centrally administered bureaucratic grid-lock compounded by their ancient Imperial capital's courtiers' Byzantine, near-fractal rivalries and jealousies, the Anwyc 'Outer Colonies' progressively collapsed. Those big ships were stripped of FTL capability, re-purposed as luxurious 'in-system' Ferries. 'Puddle Jumpers' serviced the 'Inner Colonies', their central administration handled via remarkably compact 'Needle-Ship' Couriers. Subsequently stretched, re-purposed for 'Bio-raiding', the latter added fresh injury to legacy insult, had probably prompted the Others' xenocidal 'Jihad'.
Sadly, how the Anwyc developed FTL was unclear. We only knew scant scraps of their 'back-story'. Grossly over-simplified, riddled by triumphant pomposity, the 'official' version stank of recursive expurgation. This file had been recovered from the pair of 'Needle Ships' salvaged from the six that attacked Venturer at Sankey / tau Ceti during the 'First Expedition'. Venturer was far, far from 'harmless', but both ferried 'Trojan Class' Rock Tugs had been explicitly specified to run down and swat such raiders.
One problem with those 'Needle Ships' as source material was their limited size. I could not follow 'Field Pole' math beyond rudiments, but it seemed there was a 'Sweet Spot' for 'Really Small' FTL. The Convention used it for 'Message Torps'. If smaller, FTL essentials did not fit aboard. If larger, everything had to be bigger and stronger, bigger and stronger, quickly spiralling unto 'negative payload'. Yet, whittle every support system to 'Minimal', accept marginal shielding and scant margins, you could, albeit 'barely', generate a very compact 'Simple' Alcubierre 'Bubble' without 'Heroic' engineering. We could not crew 'Message Torps' but, by dint of centuries of enhancement and refinement, the Anwyc had managed. The resulting design was remarkable.
'Needle Ships' did not have external access panels as such. Docked, their entire tapered bow and stern shells had to be dismounted, slid off axially away from the narrow mid-section band which supported the hatch and other 'piercings'. The internal complexity thus revealed resembled a 'Thousand Piece' solid puzzle, minus guide picture. Most systems were 'Close Coupled' unto 'eye-watering', with scant-few serviceable parts. For example, the singular 'Uni-Pole' of a 'Needle Ship' was a cubic metre of obsidian 'obelisk', threaded by control, power and coolant feeds 3-D printed unto atomic scale. Unlike our 'Poles', briskly deposited on re-usable diamond slabs, a 'Uni-Pole' was utterly 'solid state'. They could not be dismantled, never mind modified or repaired. I'd read estimates that each such 'Crystal Fu' device might take four or even five decades to craft. How was in-process testing and quality control achieved ? What was the failure rate ?
Such compactified 'Needle Ship' arcana took several generations for the Convention to 'mostly' figure. Some of the tech still stood at the very, very limit of our current capabilities, while those hyper-exotic alloys lay far, far beyond. In fact, the last 'significant' break-through had been by my 'Great Uncle Tony' while marooned on Autumn. After laser-editing flash-over scarring of their sabotaged Scout Craft's traumatised 'Field Poles', he'd contrived kludgy, replacement 'Pole Drivers' by cross-wiring a mix of their cargo's air-car spares. At some point, he realised short-cycle pulsing 'Field Poles' might permit sub-light-second 'hops' significantly within the usual g-well FTL limit. In fact, this could explain the 'bizarre' internal arrangement of those Anwyc 'Uni-Poles'...
Though he and co-pilot Greg the Sanku got to Autumn Base with their Scout perforce riding 'Surface Effect', thus was the 'Blink Drive' born.
And, yes, inspired his passion for 'improved' inter-operability...
Down-side, a 'Needle Ship' had scant crew space, cargo volume or internal access to ship-systems. By comparison, Earth's early Vostok, Voskhod, Mercury and Gemini capsules were almost capacious. The pair of Anwyc crew-men --Never, ever Humans !!-- were much more 'plugged in' than me in 'Big Mac'. And they stayed thus for their entire flight of many months. Despite isometrics and electrode webs providing muscle and bone stimulation, plus heroic medication to mitigate bone-loss, maintain sanity, it would take each crew a year to recover from the return journey.
Which suggests how valuable each Bio-Raid glean really was. Also, yes, what a blow the Anwyc elite took when yet-another increasingly precious 'Needle Ship' was intercepted...
If you cannot see the wood for the trees, deploy LIDAR.
-
jemhouston
- Posts: 6416
- Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2022 12:38 am
Re: 'City of Fresno'
Interesting history
-
Nik_SpeakerToCats
- Posts: 2317
- Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2022 10:56 am
City of Fresno #136
City of Fresno #136
To my surprise, after the Engineers' training was complete, at least for now, Lt. Richards asked if I could run some basic Geology and Astronomy sessions. As there was ample material in Fresno's library for self-teaching to that level and beyond, this seemed a little odd. To his credit, the Lieutenant seemed embarrassed, took a while to find words. Seems my gleaning exploits, with spectacular ice-slicing geysers, assorted asteroids, then 'Odd Bod', had created a lot of interest in such topics. And, yes, a surprising number of people suddenly realised that they knew a lot about what they'd been doing, but lacked the wider background to safely tackle our new situation. For, as Jenny, Doc. Meredith's Senior Nurse-Practitioner grumbled, 'We're not in Kansas any more !'
Lt. Svenson nailed the issue: It was the difference between a 'Master Mariner' and an 'Oceanographer'-- And 'Fresno' needed both !!
I consulted Anne-Marie, who warned I should clarify the scope: Was this but a few fun tutorials ? Or, given Doc. Meredith's repeated invitations for open-ended medical training, a first step towards something larger ? Perhaps much larger ?? Lt. Richards took his time responding. After several days, which allowed me to do some urgent research and planning, he replied that, yes, like it or not, we needed to create a 'University of Fresno'. My beloved partner, who'd made that canny call, nodded politely. I sighed with relief, as it matched one of my high-probability contingencies.
Given the potential complexity, I requested and was granted at least four weeks to prepare an outline of my core curriculum and the necessary administrative support. Smiling, Anne-Marie quipped, 'We Are All Star-Dust !!', then bid me found a combined faculty of 'Astro-Geology'. As both disciplines embraced 'Deep Time', she stated I must also cover 'Archaeology' until that became 'free-standing'. Naturally, she laid claim to what would become our 'Faculty of Agronomy'. Professor Partridge's wondrous, now progressively annotated 'Ponic binders, complemented by her 'Fifth Edition' reference book, would form one tried, tested leg.
Combining 'Ornamental' for ambiance, 'Patio Fruit Canes, Bushes & Vines' for general morale plus 'Herb Garden' for taste and traditional mild medicinals, the growing number of hall-way and public-room planters, their tall trellises increasingly verdant, formed another leg. And, yes, some trellises would soon be extended across their over-heads to hang fruit. As 'Fresno' had limited head-room in spun zones, 'Non-Dwarf' Silviculture would have to wait. But, yes, that still allowed a useful range between 'Bonsai' and 'Standard', given optional lateral training. Although I'd solved the location issues for Aquaponics, we lacked the tankage. Like-wise, extending our 'Ponics and planters beyond intensive 'Horticulture' to field-scale 'Agriculture' needed expansive floor-space we utterly lacked.
A brisk exchange of text-mails soon agreed that 'Physics', 'Textiles', 'History', 'Languages' etc. would be held 'in abeyance', given a current lack of candidates. The Luthiers would facilitate music and related 'Performing Arts'. Doc. Meredith would lead our 'Medical' faculty, including the Gillespies' Sociology, Abnormal Psychology and such. 'Medical' would also cover Bio-Research, Nutrition and, significantly, segue unto 'Veterinary'. While this encompassed the Tuggers' 'Petting Zoo', from stick insects to cats, it could extend to ETs.
The faculty of 'Engineering' similarly embraced a wide spectrum of disciplines, from 'IT' to 'Artisanal'. Complementing those, the faculty of 'Mathematics and Statistics' would become Lt. Baxter's. As her implacable 'Logistics, Logistics, Logistics' segued into 'Contingency Planning', that aspect would also harbour 'Recreational Math' and 'Game Theory', including Pete Price and his adopted 'D&D' enthusiasts...
To her astonishment, Ms. Betrys was short-listed to head the nascent 'Chemistry' faculty, which would incorporate and complement the 'Citizen Science' team and their endeavours. Further, the sprawling Avalon Technical College she'd expected to attend was affiliated to Avalon's Sector University, so her prospectus included a basic map of the shared campus' administrative structure. Yay !! Although most of those many boxes would stay 'TBA', multi-hatted or 'Acting' until needed, this outline saved the rest of us a lot of time, by-passed much difficult, potentially acerbic discussion.
Lt. Richards was delighted that the various parties had so-promptly agreed. A few days later, on the eve of 'Cooberra' departing to intercept 'Odd Bod' and glean some thirty kilo-tonnes of Silica-rich regolith, he contacted me to confirm our reclusive Captain Owens had 'Given the Nod'.
Also, Lt. Richards reported, with a definite eye-twinkle, that Syndilla 'Mater' Harris had gotten wind of developments. She'd again insisted that she was the best qualified civil administrator aboard 'Fresno'. So, yes, she was again politely reminded that the proposed 'University' would ultimately report to Fresno's Captain. As she had *still* not submitted her 'Skill Census', she was ineligible for consideration...
To my surprise, after the Engineers' training was complete, at least for now, Lt. Richards asked if I could run some basic Geology and Astronomy sessions. As there was ample material in Fresno's library for self-teaching to that level and beyond, this seemed a little odd. To his credit, the Lieutenant seemed embarrassed, took a while to find words. Seems my gleaning exploits, with spectacular ice-slicing geysers, assorted asteroids, then 'Odd Bod', had created a lot of interest in such topics. And, yes, a surprising number of people suddenly realised that they knew a lot about what they'd been doing, but lacked the wider background to safely tackle our new situation. For, as Jenny, Doc. Meredith's Senior Nurse-Practitioner grumbled, 'We're not in Kansas any more !'
Lt. Svenson nailed the issue: It was the difference between a 'Master Mariner' and an 'Oceanographer'-- And 'Fresno' needed both !!
I consulted Anne-Marie, who warned I should clarify the scope: Was this but a few fun tutorials ? Or, given Doc. Meredith's repeated invitations for open-ended medical training, a first step towards something larger ? Perhaps much larger ?? Lt. Richards took his time responding. After several days, which allowed me to do some urgent research and planning, he replied that, yes, like it or not, we needed to create a 'University of Fresno'. My beloved partner, who'd made that canny call, nodded politely. I sighed with relief, as it matched one of my high-probability contingencies.
Given the potential complexity, I requested and was granted at least four weeks to prepare an outline of my core curriculum and the necessary administrative support. Smiling, Anne-Marie quipped, 'We Are All Star-Dust !!', then bid me found a combined faculty of 'Astro-Geology'. As both disciplines embraced 'Deep Time', she stated I must also cover 'Archaeology' until that became 'free-standing'. Naturally, she laid claim to what would become our 'Faculty of Agronomy'. Professor Partridge's wondrous, now progressively annotated 'Ponic binders, complemented by her 'Fifth Edition' reference book, would form one tried, tested leg.
Combining 'Ornamental' for ambiance, 'Patio Fruit Canes, Bushes & Vines' for general morale plus 'Herb Garden' for taste and traditional mild medicinals, the growing number of hall-way and public-room planters, their tall trellises increasingly verdant, formed another leg. And, yes, some trellises would soon be extended across their over-heads to hang fruit. As 'Fresno' had limited head-room in spun zones, 'Non-Dwarf' Silviculture would have to wait. But, yes, that still allowed a useful range between 'Bonsai' and 'Standard', given optional lateral training. Although I'd solved the location issues for Aquaponics, we lacked the tankage. Like-wise, extending our 'Ponics and planters beyond intensive 'Horticulture' to field-scale 'Agriculture' needed expansive floor-space we utterly lacked.
A brisk exchange of text-mails soon agreed that 'Physics', 'Textiles', 'History', 'Languages' etc. would be held 'in abeyance', given a current lack of candidates. The Luthiers would facilitate music and related 'Performing Arts'. Doc. Meredith would lead our 'Medical' faculty, including the Gillespies' Sociology, Abnormal Psychology and such. 'Medical' would also cover Bio-Research, Nutrition and, significantly, segue unto 'Veterinary'. While this encompassed the Tuggers' 'Petting Zoo', from stick insects to cats, it could extend to ETs.
The faculty of 'Engineering' similarly embraced a wide spectrum of disciplines, from 'IT' to 'Artisanal'. Complementing those, the faculty of 'Mathematics and Statistics' would become Lt. Baxter's. As her implacable 'Logistics, Logistics, Logistics' segued into 'Contingency Planning', that aspect would also harbour 'Recreational Math' and 'Game Theory', including Pete Price and his adopted 'D&D' enthusiasts...
To her astonishment, Ms. Betrys was short-listed to head the nascent 'Chemistry' faculty, which would incorporate and complement the 'Citizen Science' team and their endeavours. Further, the sprawling Avalon Technical College she'd expected to attend was affiliated to Avalon's Sector University, so her prospectus included a basic map of the shared campus' administrative structure. Yay !! Although most of those many boxes would stay 'TBA', multi-hatted or 'Acting' until needed, this outline saved the rest of us a lot of time, by-passed much difficult, potentially acerbic discussion.
Lt. Richards was delighted that the various parties had so-promptly agreed. A few days later, on the eve of 'Cooberra' departing to intercept 'Odd Bod' and glean some thirty kilo-tonnes of Silica-rich regolith, he contacted me to confirm our reclusive Captain Owens had 'Given the Nod'.
Also, Lt. Richards reported, with a definite eye-twinkle, that Syndilla 'Mater' Harris had gotten wind of developments. She'd again insisted that she was the best qualified civil administrator aboard 'Fresno'. So, yes, she was again politely reminded that the proposed 'University' would ultimately report to Fresno's Captain. As she had *still* not submitted her 'Skill Census', she was ineligible for consideration...
If you cannot see the wood for the trees, deploy LIDAR.
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jemhouston
- Posts: 6416
- Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2022 12:38 am
Re: 'City of Fresno'
I was wondering if Mater Harris was still being an issue. 
I suppose the airlock option is still no go?
I suppose the airlock option is still no go?
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Nik_SpeakerToCats
- Posts: 2317
- Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2022 10:56 am
Re: 'City of Fresno'
Given her conniving Deputy seems to have played her like ruddy bagpipes, 'Diminished Responsibility' applies.
For now...
For now...
If you cannot see the wood for the trees, deploy LIDAR.
-
Nik_SpeakerToCats
- Posts: 2317
- Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2022 10:56 am
City of Fresno #137
City of Fresno #137
After those preliminaries, my log showed I spent many, many long days preparing, delivering two lectures a week. Given our circumstances, I was careful to flag the accumulating differences between the Convention's 'Local Bubble' and the current galactic region. Again and again, I cautioned that we dared assume nothing: Absence of evidence was not evidence of absence ! Beyond the obvious factor of a 'mostly pristine' interstellar medium un-sullied, un-thinned by the multiple, 'recent' super-nova remnants expanding our 'Local Bubble', there was ample unfamiliarity.
Though this region might lack obvious 'Prior' interference, we had those utterly un-settling 'Anomalous' asteroids: Were their bright deposits truly the discarded, collapsed 'Soft-Shell' eggs of giant Alien 'Star-Whales' or 'Space Bats' ?? And, yes, we had this star's 'metals' enhancement compared to its silicate-rich asteroid belt or 'Kieffer' atmospheric trace variations across 'Belts', 'Bands' and 'Zones'. If 'Kieffer' retained its 'primordial' composition, at least to a first approximation, then this system's 'K4' star displayed significant 'Excess Metallicity'. Yes, we had gas-dived, refuelled from 'Kieffer', ticked that urgent box. But, given the stellar spectrum, we had hoped to glean a range of ores and minerals from the inner system. Instead, we'd been fooled. Almost certainly, this 'K4' star had swallowed the anticipated 'Rocky', perhaps 'Habitable' planet. But, could we prove it ? And, could we potentially identify, avoid other star-systems similarly stricken ??
Between planning, expounding my Astro-Geology course, I spent a lot of time scouring my references and the 'Fresno' library for even scant clues. As, yes, did Lt. Svenson. Plus, he'd gone one better: He'd looked at the near-by stars, used our mapping legs' Astrometry findings to identify any sharing 'Common Proper Motion' with this system. Such stars could be 'Litter Sibs' formed from the same nebula. If so, again to a first approximation, they might share very similar constituent proportions. There were two probable candidates. The first was a singleton 'K-type' with a 'Hot Jupiter', the second a cooler 'M-type' in a wide binary with a 'Brown Dwarf' companion. 'Fresno' had now been in 'Kieffer' orbit long enough for him to patiently stack a zillion high-resolution spectra for each of them. It was good data. In my opinion, given the care he'd taken to correct, align for even minimal Doppler shift, it was excellent data.
What evidence did we have ? Rocky planets are enriched in refractory elements, those that condense from a hot gas at high temperatures, like iron, silicon, and aluminium. When a star swallows such a planet, it becomes enriched in these elements relative to volatile elements like carbon and oxygen, which condense at lower temperatures. So, a planet-eater’s chemistry tilts toward the elements that make up rocky worlds and their cores. If one sib simply absorbed extra nebula material, all 21 major elements should shift up together with no particular pattern. But, if it ate a rocky planet with a differentiated metallic core, the boost should be skewed.
Lt. Svenson and I duly plotted abundance differences against each element’s condensation temperature. That's where an element transitions from gas to solid in a cooling proto-planetary disk, akin to the better known 'Ice Line' for water. A clean upward trend, with rock-builders enriched and gas-formers unchanged, should be the actual fingerprint of later swallowing a planet: To a first approximation, that positive slope indicated pollution by rocky material.
Easy-peasy ? Sorry, condensation temperature trends alone may mislead due random variations from slightly different birth environments and formation history. Worse, the 'Crime Scene' was old, old, old. 'Main Sequence' stars are progressively smaller and cooler from blue-ish 'Mid-F', through Sol's yellow 'G-type', this system's orange 'K-type' to the dim, red 'M-types', with internals that are more and more convective rather than radiative. Better stirred, they do not so rapidly age, 'layer', bloat to 'Red Giant' then core-collapse like the much bigger, much, much hotter, pure radiative internals of 'O', B, 'A' and 'Early-F' types. We reckoned Sol's intermediate 'G2' was good for another four or five billion years before dangerous 'layering' developed. By comparison, the thorough internal stirring of dim, red 'M-type' stars should keep them kindly fuelled, 'middle-aged', for dozens of billions of years.
A process called atomic diffusion lets heavier surface elements slowly, slowly sink deeper into any 'Main Sequence' star, potentially hide enhancement. But convection can do it much, much faster. So, was input recent but mild, or old but extensive ? Lt. Svenson's wary analysis of what silicate asteroid orbits we'd documented suggested they were sufficiently stable for any upset to be 'Non-Recent'. That provided one probable book-end on the time-line. It also implied the star had made a hefty meal.
At that point, both Lt. Svenson and I were 'Mathed Out'. Delighted, Lt. Baxter weighed in. She briskly developed an arcane Bayesian analysis, a statistical framework to compare how well different models explained the data. Was it planetary ingestion ? A flat (null) model with no real trend and any differences just 'noise' ? Ancient atomic diffusion ? Only stars where ingestion was strongly favoured over both alternatives could be flagged as probable planet-eaters.
After applying our three criteria, Lt. Baxter agreed that, yes, unlike its 'Probable Sibs', this 'K4' had surely eaten a 'Rocky' planet. Her 'Best Fit' for ingested material averaged around 4 Earth masses. This lay at the higher end of my amateur estimate. And, if a single object, a super-Earth. Far from a small-ish snack, this was a substantial planet...
Credit:
Cosmic Cannibalism: When Stars Eat Their Planets
https://astrobites.org/2026/05/04/cosmic-cannibalism/
After those preliminaries, my log showed I spent many, many long days preparing, delivering two lectures a week. Given our circumstances, I was careful to flag the accumulating differences between the Convention's 'Local Bubble' and the current galactic region. Again and again, I cautioned that we dared assume nothing: Absence of evidence was not evidence of absence ! Beyond the obvious factor of a 'mostly pristine' interstellar medium un-sullied, un-thinned by the multiple, 'recent' super-nova remnants expanding our 'Local Bubble', there was ample unfamiliarity.
Though this region might lack obvious 'Prior' interference, we had those utterly un-settling 'Anomalous' asteroids: Were their bright deposits truly the discarded, collapsed 'Soft-Shell' eggs of giant Alien 'Star-Whales' or 'Space Bats' ?? And, yes, we had this star's 'metals' enhancement compared to its silicate-rich asteroid belt or 'Kieffer' atmospheric trace variations across 'Belts', 'Bands' and 'Zones'. If 'Kieffer' retained its 'primordial' composition, at least to a first approximation, then this system's 'K4' star displayed significant 'Excess Metallicity'. Yes, we had gas-dived, refuelled from 'Kieffer', ticked that urgent box. But, given the stellar spectrum, we had hoped to glean a range of ores and minerals from the inner system. Instead, we'd been fooled. Almost certainly, this 'K4' star had swallowed the anticipated 'Rocky', perhaps 'Habitable' planet. But, could we prove it ? And, could we potentially identify, avoid other star-systems similarly stricken ??
Between planning, expounding my Astro-Geology course, I spent a lot of time scouring my references and the 'Fresno' library for even scant clues. As, yes, did Lt. Svenson. Plus, he'd gone one better: He'd looked at the near-by stars, used our mapping legs' Astrometry findings to identify any sharing 'Common Proper Motion' with this system. Such stars could be 'Litter Sibs' formed from the same nebula. If so, again to a first approximation, they might share very similar constituent proportions. There were two probable candidates. The first was a singleton 'K-type' with a 'Hot Jupiter', the second a cooler 'M-type' in a wide binary with a 'Brown Dwarf' companion. 'Fresno' had now been in 'Kieffer' orbit long enough for him to patiently stack a zillion high-resolution spectra for each of them. It was good data. In my opinion, given the care he'd taken to correct, align for even minimal Doppler shift, it was excellent data.
What evidence did we have ? Rocky planets are enriched in refractory elements, those that condense from a hot gas at high temperatures, like iron, silicon, and aluminium. When a star swallows such a planet, it becomes enriched in these elements relative to volatile elements like carbon and oxygen, which condense at lower temperatures. So, a planet-eater’s chemistry tilts toward the elements that make up rocky worlds and their cores. If one sib simply absorbed extra nebula material, all 21 major elements should shift up together with no particular pattern. But, if it ate a rocky planet with a differentiated metallic core, the boost should be skewed.
Lt. Svenson and I duly plotted abundance differences against each element’s condensation temperature. That's where an element transitions from gas to solid in a cooling proto-planetary disk, akin to the better known 'Ice Line' for water. A clean upward trend, with rock-builders enriched and gas-formers unchanged, should be the actual fingerprint of later swallowing a planet: To a first approximation, that positive slope indicated pollution by rocky material.
Easy-peasy ? Sorry, condensation temperature trends alone may mislead due random variations from slightly different birth environments and formation history. Worse, the 'Crime Scene' was old, old, old. 'Main Sequence' stars are progressively smaller and cooler from blue-ish 'Mid-F', through Sol's yellow 'G-type', this system's orange 'K-type' to the dim, red 'M-types', with internals that are more and more convective rather than radiative. Better stirred, they do not so rapidly age, 'layer', bloat to 'Red Giant' then core-collapse like the much bigger, much, much hotter, pure radiative internals of 'O', B, 'A' and 'Early-F' types. We reckoned Sol's intermediate 'G2' was good for another four or five billion years before dangerous 'layering' developed. By comparison, the thorough internal stirring of dim, red 'M-type' stars should keep them kindly fuelled, 'middle-aged', for dozens of billions of years.
A process called atomic diffusion lets heavier surface elements slowly, slowly sink deeper into any 'Main Sequence' star, potentially hide enhancement. But convection can do it much, much faster. So, was input recent but mild, or old but extensive ? Lt. Svenson's wary analysis of what silicate asteroid orbits we'd documented suggested they were sufficiently stable for any upset to be 'Non-Recent'. That provided one probable book-end on the time-line. It also implied the star had made a hefty meal.
At that point, both Lt. Svenson and I were 'Mathed Out'. Delighted, Lt. Baxter weighed in. She briskly developed an arcane Bayesian analysis, a statistical framework to compare how well different models explained the data. Was it planetary ingestion ? A flat (null) model with no real trend and any differences just 'noise' ? Ancient atomic diffusion ? Only stars where ingestion was strongly favoured over both alternatives could be flagged as probable planet-eaters.
After applying our three criteria, Lt. Baxter agreed that, yes, unlike its 'Probable Sibs', this 'K4' had surely eaten a 'Rocky' planet. Her 'Best Fit' for ingested material averaged around 4 Earth masses. This lay at the higher end of my amateur estimate. And, if a single object, a super-Earth. Far from a small-ish snack, this was a substantial planet...
Credit:
Cosmic Cannibalism: When Stars Eat Their Planets
https://astrobites.org/2026/05/04/cosmic-cannibalism/
If you cannot see the wood for the trees, deploy LIDAR.
-
Nik_SpeakerToCats
- Posts: 2317
- Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2022 10:56 am
City of Fresno #138
City of Fresno #138
'Cooberra' had a much more powerful Radar system than 'Cwm Fahr', so made a swifter passage to 'Odd Bod' than we'd managed on our return leg. The Tug needed less than a week there to brim-fill both pods, then headed back. Meanwhile, aboard 'Fresno', the last 'Anchorage' surface and shuttle certification trainees were signed off.
As usual, the Tugger families threw a party to celebrate. The Engineers reported we now had forty-two kilo-tonnes of silicates, including much as 'Pure Silica' shards. The rest of us continued securing 'Fresno' for the next leg of our journey. Lt. Svenson triple-checked our target's spectra, plus several stops beyond. He reckoned, and I agreed, that, 'Beyond Reasonable Doubt', those candidate systems lacked the metallicity enhancements which had fooled us here.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, 'Fresno' eased away from 'Anchorage'. The ship climbed above the plane of Kieffer's major moons, above the loose toroid of the many minor satellites, above the gaggle of 'retrogrades'. Then, the ship set course across the chord towards the loose group of Kieffer's 'Trojans' that currently lay nearer the un-named Neptunian. This wary pass would be partly curiosity, partly a test of Fresno's instrument suite. Alas, none of these many, many 'Trojan' objects were 'metallic'. They proved a generic mix of silicate lumps, presumably captured from the inner system, and old iceteroids, from far beyond the 'ice-line'. Noticeably, none of the silicates were 'anomalous': Perhaps those giant 'Space Whales' or 'Space Bats' did not care to 'nest' in such frosty cold ?
Survey sweep complete, 'Fresno' changed course, took a long outward diagonal towards the Neptunian. This was a combination of curiosity and sensor testing: How detail developed would surely be very useful. Day by day, 'hints and glints' slowly resolved to a busy iceteroidal zoo of minor moons and moonlets. There were no 'Big Boys', a curious datum. Scant few 'silicate' lumps had got this far and stayed around, although there were some in high-Neptunian orbit and among its many 'Trojans'. The planet itself was utterly generic, its axis tilted a dozen degrees, mass easily reckoned from inner moonlets' orbits.
Again, 'Fresno' changed course, steadily climbing, angling to intercept the Trans-Neptunian, which lay almost inconveniently far across the system. This resembled Sol's Pluto and Sedna, but was rather larger. Though about Mars sized, its two small moonlets' orbits established mass, density as a very big iceteroid rather than an ejected 'rocky' planet. There was a whiff of nitrogen atmosphere, nothing more. There might be a conductive, salty-mush core to support its minimal magnetic field and so-faint aurora, but nothing more, certainly nothing for us.
After that, 'Fresno' steered for the system's edge, towards the next candidate system. Safely beyond the usual over-drive limit, with careful scans showing no Kuiper Belt objects ahead, no lurking Oort Cloud 'Fellow Travellers', we 'netted down'.
FTL began about Lunar gravity then slowly rose to the routine quarter-Terran. After so many weeks holding station off 'Anchorage', it was almost weird to have additional axial acceleration. Unusually, we only got three days of that before 'Fresno' settled to 'cruise' mode. Perhaps an interstellar dust-bank's MasCon lay ahead ? A stellar 'Bow Shock' ? Nothing was posted. Certainly, my Nav' augment gave no hint of anything odd. And, polite enquiries via the Tuggers found they were equally puzzled. Still, we were on our way...
'Cooberra' had a much more powerful Radar system than 'Cwm Fahr', so made a swifter passage to 'Odd Bod' than we'd managed on our return leg. The Tug needed less than a week there to brim-fill both pods, then headed back. Meanwhile, aboard 'Fresno', the last 'Anchorage' surface and shuttle certification trainees were signed off.
As usual, the Tugger families threw a party to celebrate. The Engineers reported we now had forty-two kilo-tonnes of silicates, including much as 'Pure Silica' shards. The rest of us continued securing 'Fresno' for the next leg of our journey. Lt. Svenson triple-checked our target's spectra, plus several stops beyond. He reckoned, and I agreed, that, 'Beyond Reasonable Doubt', those candidate systems lacked the metallicity enhancements which had fooled us here.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, 'Fresno' eased away from 'Anchorage'. The ship climbed above the plane of Kieffer's major moons, above the loose toroid of the many minor satellites, above the gaggle of 'retrogrades'. Then, the ship set course across the chord towards the loose group of Kieffer's 'Trojans' that currently lay nearer the un-named Neptunian. This wary pass would be partly curiosity, partly a test of Fresno's instrument suite. Alas, none of these many, many 'Trojan' objects were 'metallic'. They proved a generic mix of silicate lumps, presumably captured from the inner system, and old iceteroids, from far beyond the 'ice-line'. Noticeably, none of the silicates were 'anomalous': Perhaps those giant 'Space Whales' or 'Space Bats' did not care to 'nest' in such frosty cold ?
Survey sweep complete, 'Fresno' changed course, took a long outward diagonal towards the Neptunian. This was a combination of curiosity and sensor testing: How detail developed would surely be very useful. Day by day, 'hints and glints' slowly resolved to a busy iceteroidal zoo of minor moons and moonlets. There were no 'Big Boys', a curious datum. Scant few 'silicate' lumps had got this far and stayed around, although there were some in high-Neptunian orbit and among its many 'Trojans'. The planet itself was utterly generic, its axis tilted a dozen degrees, mass easily reckoned from inner moonlets' orbits.
Again, 'Fresno' changed course, steadily climbing, angling to intercept the Trans-Neptunian, which lay almost inconveniently far across the system. This resembled Sol's Pluto and Sedna, but was rather larger. Though about Mars sized, its two small moonlets' orbits established mass, density as a very big iceteroid rather than an ejected 'rocky' planet. There was a whiff of nitrogen atmosphere, nothing more. There might be a conductive, salty-mush core to support its minimal magnetic field and so-faint aurora, but nothing more, certainly nothing for us.
After that, 'Fresno' steered for the system's edge, towards the next candidate system. Safely beyond the usual over-drive limit, with careful scans showing no Kuiper Belt objects ahead, no lurking Oort Cloud 'Fellow Travellers', we 'netted down'.
FTL began about Lunar gravity then slowly rose to the routine quarter-Terran. After so many weeks holding station off 'Anchorage', it was almost weird to have additional axial acceleration. Unusually, we only got three days of that before 'Fresno' settled to 'cruise' mode. Perhaps an interstellar dust-bank's MasCon lay ahead ? A stellar 'Bow Shock' ? Nothing was posted. Certainly, my Nav' augment gave no hint of anything odd. And, polite enquiries via the Tuggers found they were equally puzzled. Still, we were on our way...
If you cannot see the wood for the trees, deploy LIDAR.
-
Nik_SpeakerToCats
- Posts: 2317
- Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2022 10:56 am
City of Fresno #139
City of Fresno #139
The next weeks would be 'Hurry Up and Wait'. Our target, a dozen light-years distant, presented as a very, very ordinary orange 'K2' star, slightly bigger, hotter, brighter than the 'K4' in the system we'd just left. Spectral Doppler had found no 'Close Binary' or 'Hot Jupiter'. Astrometry did not flag any sizeable partner or 'Common Motion' near-neighbour. Our angled approach, about 32º off the estimated system plane, was unlikely to show even inner-system 'transits'. But, given lack of that subtle, planet-swallowing spectral finger-print, now apparent in about 10% of 'local' stars, we had hopes of finding a 'Rocky' we could glean.
Between cosseting sundry planters of 'interesting' and/or 'tasty' herbs, Anne-Marie and her team expected to spend their time coaxing our now-happy root-crops, striving to maximise their yield of 'Carbs'. I'd compile lectures and tutorials for both Geology and Astronomy, with careful emphasis on potentially 'Unfamiliar' environments. Miss Betrys and I would comb her text-books and Fresno's library, model simple, then increasingly complex laboratory 'glass-ware' and accessories in the Engineers' preferred CAD package. As this recognised both 'Pure Silica' and generic 'Borosilicate' as 'Library' materials, it could predict stress / strain etc, flag potential failure modes. Where possible, we'd make ample provision for up-scaling and interconnection.
How such 'virtual' items could actually be crafted remained a serious head-scratcher: I'd done some 'bench chemistry', but lacked the skill to 'work' even soda-glass beyond the utter basics. 'Blowing' small, fragile bubbles, 'drawing' short capillaries had been my limits. No-one aboard 'Fresno' yet owned to better. And, of course, we lacked Boron to toughen soda glass to the robust stuff we could trust.
Thinking laterally, I contacted Pete Price, posted a recurring item in his D&D news-letter's 'Wanted' section asking if any-one had worked stained glass, cabuchons, glass figuring or such...
Meanwhile, our extended 'Citizen Science' group continued to explore the 'Fresno' library, plan practicable 'Bench' then 'Pilot' scaled routes from what we had towards a range of 'More Useful' chemicals. Their efforts were split three ways: Up-cycling iceteroid side-streams to more familiar feed-stock, separating 'Main' and 'Long Tail' elements from iceteroid / asteroid regolith and, en-route towards pure synthetic drugs, extracting 'simple' traditional medicines from herbs and such.
The latter project's initial target was Aspirin, to be acetylated from Salicylic Acid leached from certain shrubs' 'Oil of Wintergreen'. Then there was Digoxin, the classic heart-drug, extracted from the Foxglove plant (Digitalis purpurea and Digitalis lanata). Happens Anne-Marie had cell-lines for such, as they were 'pretty' plants. Though these seemed odd priorities, Doc. Meredith had quietly warned that another decade or so might see a scary up-tick in medical issues. Crucially, his stock of drugs for treating heart and related circulation ailments was very, very limited. He could handle a few 'acute' cases but, as things stood, maintenance of 'chronic' or 'progressive' would be 'problematic'...
So, Miss Betrys and I talked at length with the 'Citizen Science' group. The complex custom glass-ware they'd need for tasks such as 'Essential Oil' extraction via 'Steam Distillation', 'Soxhlet' leaching, fractional / column distillation, low-pressure Analytical / Preparatory Column Chromatography and such was duly modelled. Mostly rated 'HIGH' for 'Topological Difficulty', these were added to our increasingly intimidating 'Wish List'.
Given equipment constraints, the 'Citizen Science' group's various projects seemed to be progressing 'Well Enough'. The connectivity was growing. More and more jig-saw pieces were identified, where possible matching an essential synthesis' 'waste' to another process' welcome feed-stock. Lacking 'heavy' industrial infrastructure, much was necessarily via 'clever' tech, often electrolytic, catalytic and/or photolytic.
Happens those bench-top prototypes suited simple Silica vessels. For which, of course, we now had a ready supply of the makings. No matter pure Silica had such a scary-high melting point: The Engineers approached it like 'Alloy Casting', pouring the fluid into simple moulds which were cooled very, very slowly. Residual internal stresses could be assessed using 'Crossed Polarisers' and warily annealed unto 'Benign'. With wide necks ground 'even', these 'clunky' flasks finessed the 'Glass-ware' problem, as everything 'complicated' could be hung from their broad lids. A 'Second Variety' had a short, flat-faced 'neck' on one side, near the base. This allowed two such flasks to be twinned, with or without a semi-permeable membrane or sintered glass filter clamped in between. A 'Third Variety' had that short neck on both sides to allow multi-stage processing.
Sadly, the persistent problem was personnel. Yes, 'Fresno' had a lot of clever, even *very* clever people aboard: No argument there ! Sadly, as the 'Old Saw' warns, 'Talent hits targets others cannot hit, but Genius hits targets others cannot *see*.' And, beyond Engineer Joe McDonald, we had a shortage of actual genius, especially the rare, so-precious ability to hop-scotch grid-locks. The rest of us had to 'sweat' solutions, grind our problems down. Even me. Especially me. Despite the Tuggers' awed claims, my neat 'Hab-Turret' fix used a mix of intensive study, lateral thinking and very welcome serendipity. In truth, what seemed 'Outside The Box' thinking was but me turning the multi-dimensional puzzle-box about to locate, reveal its obscure opening. Okay, un-spoken, we'd hopes that some of the nimble-witted young 'Tuggers' or 'D&D' enthusiasts might yet 'step up'...
The grim corollary was that our nascent 'University of Fresno' must, must seriously leverage existing skills, encourage, empower and boot-strap the next generation of problem solvers...
The next weeks would be 'Hurry Up and Wait'. Our target, a dozen light-years distant, presented as a very, very ordinary orange 'K2' star, slightly bigger, hotter, brighter than the 'K4' in the system we'd just left. Spectral Doppler had found no 'Close Binary' or 'Hot Jupiter'. Astrometry did not flag any sizeable partner or 'Common Motion' near-neighbour. Our angled approach, about 32º off the estimated system plane, was unlikely to show even inner-system 'transits'. But, given lack of that subtle, planet-swallowing spectral finger-print, now apparent in about 10% of 'local' stars, we had hopes of finding a 'Rocky' we could glean.
Between cosseting sundry planters of 'interesting' and/or 'tasty' herbs, Anne-Marie and her team expected to spend their time coaxing our now-happy root-crops, striving to maximise their yield of 'Carbs'. I'd compile lectures and tutorials for both Geology and Astronomy, with careful emphasis on potentially 'Unfamiliar' environments. Miss Betrys and I would comb her text-books and Fresno's library, model simple, then increasingly complex laboratory 'glass-ware' and accessories in the Engineers' preferred CAD package. As this recognised both 'Pure Silica' and generic 'Borosilicate' as 'Library' materials, it could predict stress / strain etc, flag potential failure modes. Where possible, we'd make ample provision for up-scaling and interconnection.
How such 'virtual' items could actually be crafted remained a serious head-scratcher: I'd done some 'bench chemistry', but lacked the skill to 'work' even soda-glass beyond the utter basics. 'Blowing' small, fragile bubbles, 'drawing' short capillaries had been my limits. No-one aboard 'Fresno' yet owned to better. And, of course, we lacked Boron to toughen soda glass to the robust stuff we could trust.
Thinking laterally, I contacted Pete Price, posted a recurring item in his D&D news-letter's 'Wanted' section asking if any-one had worked stained glass, cabuchons, glass figuring or such...
Meanwhile, our extended 'Citizen Science' group continued to explore the 'Fresno' library, plan practicable 'Bench' then 'Pilot' scaled routes from what we had towards a range of 'More Useful' chemicals. Their efforts were split three ways: Up-cycling iceteroid side-streams to more familiar feed-stock, separating 'Main' and 'Long Tail' elements from iceteroid / asteroid regolith and, en-route towards pure synthetic drugs, extracting 'simple' traditional medicines from herbs and such.
The latter project's initial target was Aspirin, to be acetylated from Salicylic Acid leached from certain shrubs' 'Oil of Wintergreen'. Then there was Digoxin, the classic heart-drug, extracted from the Foxglove plant (Digitalis purpurea and Digitalis lanata). Happens Anne-Marie had cell-lines for such, as they were 'pretty' plants. Though these seemed odd priorities, Doc. Meredith had quietly warned that another decade or so might see a scary up-tick in medical issues. Crucially, his stock of drugs for treating heart and related circulation ailments was very, very limited. He could handle a few 'acute' cases but, as things stood, maintenance of 'chronic' or 'progressive' would be 'problematic'...
So, Miss Betrys and I talked at length with the 'Citizen Science' group. The complex custom glass-ware they'd need for tasks such as 'Essential Oil' extraction via 'Steam Distillation', 'Soxhlet' leaching, fractional / column distillation, low-pressure Analytical / Preparatory Column Chromatography and such was duly modelled. Mostly rated 'HIGH' for 'Topological Difficulty', these were added to our increasingly intimidating 'Wish List'.
Given equipment constraints, the 'Citizen Science' group's various projects seemed to be progressing 'Well Enough'. The connectivity was growing. More and more jig-saw pieces were identified, where possible matching an essential synthesis' 'waste' to another process' welcome feed-stock. Lacking 'heavy' industrial infrastructure, much was necessarily via 'clever' tech, often electrolytic, catalytic and/or photolytic.
Happens those bench-top prototypes suited simple Silica vessels. For which, of course, we now had a ready supply of the makings. No matter pure Silica had such a scary-high melting point: The Engineers approached it like 'Alloy Casting', pouring the fluid into simple moulds which were cooled very, very slowly. Residual internal stresses could be assessed using 'Crossed Polarisers' and warily annealed unto 'Benign'. With wide necks ground 'even', these 'clunky' flasks finessed the 'Glass-ware' problem, as everything 'complicated' could be hung from their broad lids. A 'Second Variety' had a short, flat-faced 'neck' on one side, near the base. This allowed two such flasks to be twinned, with or without a semi-permeable membrane or sintered glass filter clamped in between. A 'Third Variety' had that short neck on both sides to allow multi-stage processing.
Sadly, the persistent problem was personnel. Yes, 'Fresno' had a lot of clever, even *very* clever people aboard: No argument there ! Sadly, as the 'Old Saw' warns, 'Talent hits targets others cannot hit, but Genius hits targets others cannot *see*.' And, beyond Engineer Joe McDonald, we had a shortage of actual genius, especially the rare, so-precious ability to hop-scotch grid-locks. The rest of us had to 'sweat' solutions, grind our problems down. Even me. Especially me. Despite the Tuggers' awed claims, my neat 'Hab-Turret' fix used a mix of intensive study, lateral thinking and very welcome serendipity. In truth, what seemed 'Outside The Box' thinking was but me turning the multi-dimensional puzzle-box about to locate, reveal its obscure opening. Okay, un-spoken, we'd hopes that some of the nimble-witted young 'Tuggers' or 'D&D' enthusiasts might yet 'step up'...
The grim corollary was that our nascent 'University of Fresno' must, must seriously leverage existing skills, encourage, empower and boot-strap the next generation of problem solvers...
If you cannot see the wood for the trees, deploy LIDAR.