Darkness Within (2)

Flight data logs, CS Gutpunch, MET 184-11+04:17: Text entry, Capt. Isif Alclair

This is Acting Captain Isif Alclair, CS Gutpunch, two hours after regaining consciousness and approximately eleven hours after the kinetic impact that destroyed the ship.

Herewith an asset/liability analysis while I devise some sort of plan. Assets, first:

Well, not being dead and splattered across the bulkheads in bloody chunks is probably the big one.

The emergency life support built into each crew pod lasts twelve hours. This one is almost exhausted, but since no-one else seems to have made it to their pods, I have five more sets of tanks and scrubbers to cannibalize.

I do have a fully-charged vacuum suit in here with me, so I can move around.

(Have you ever tried donning a vacuum suit inside a crew pod? [If by some chance whoever ends up reading this isn’t a spacer, try putting on a wetsuit inside a wardrobe. In the dark. Covered in sticky goo.] The Bureau of Equipment assures us that they have been carefully tested for this exact scenario. I should very much like to know if the Bureau of Equipment have ever tried it for themselves.)

Some jackass in a watchvid I saw said “At least we’re still flying half a ship.” If what I’m getting from mesh probes and the surviving cameras is accurate, I have something under a quarter. Gutpunch on this deck now consists of the port crew pods, an airlock that now opens from vacuum to vacuum and its conning station, and the for’ard mess – which may even still hold air, and does hold emergency rations. On the mid-deck, there’s a chunk of the mass driver barrel, part of the server room, and the auxiliary battery room. Breakers have tripped on the mains, so at least there’s plenty of power stored. And most of the hangar remains attached below, surviving contents unknown.

Liabilities, though.

As far as I can tell from the remaining aft-facing cameras, the debris of the after section has drifted far enough away to not be visible as more than a speck. So as far as I’m concerned, it and all its surviving resources might as well be in another system – blind-jumping after it would just be a slow way to die stupid, and I should at least aspire to die smart.

So. No sensor domes. No communications section. No reactors, no fuel tanks, no life support systems, no…

Enough of that.

No accurate navigation fix, and no way to get one. Although since even this much of the ship survived the impact, we can’t be too far off the brachy course to the Kerjejic stargate.

Whoever hit us could still be prowling about out there, waiting to attack any rescue vessels, or any wreckage that shows a sign of life. But that’s not worth worrying about, because it’s not like I could do anything about them even if they were hove to at spit range.

And flying high on cranial trauma, painkillers, zoom-juice, and mixed euphoriants. Which always helps.

Trope-a-Day: Screw The Rules, I Make Them!

Screw The Rules, I Make Them!: Averted inasmuch as while an Enabling Act, in the Imperial context, permits one to violate any law that isn’t actually part of the Fundamental Contract or the Imperial Charter, it is itself a legislative instrument – i.e., The Rules – and subject to all the same formalities as any other such instrument.

Darkness Within

Narijic (Freeport Loop) System
CS Gutpunch

I woke to the worst stabbing, throbbing headache of my life, nausea, and the stink of burnt insulation, stomach twitching with the electronically-repressed urge to vomit – all of which was helped immensely by the ship screaming at me, the piercing electronic screech of the general quarters signal.

At least the ship shut the hell up when I told it to.

— Isif? Are you back on-line? –

Sort of. Almost. What – I went to rub my eyes, encountering the gummy feel of clotting blood and another jolt of pain – aaah! What the hell?

— Your internal diagnostics suggest that you have a concussion and many contusions. Repairs are underway, but you shouldn’t move yet. –

No choice. Can you damp this pain, maybe clear the fog out of my brain?

— Pain damping is already enabled at the highest automatic level. And it would be most inadvisable to administer stimulants in your present position. –

Something must have happened to the ship. Maximum damping and a shot of zoom-juice. Override code… agh. Override code whatever. Hit me.

— This is against my better judgment. Enabled. –

I opened my eyes as the relief flowed in, blinking them against a light that wasn’t there. My pod was dim, lit only by the faint glow of starlight. That was a relief; some of the sticky wetness must be the bio-gel from the emergency light, rather than my blood, although the splatter across the deckhead looked dark enough.

Do you know what happened?

— I recorded three sharp kinetic transients. They were what knocked us both off-line. No further information. –

Can you raise the bridge? Or damage control central?

— No. Isif, the ship’s mesh isn’t responding. The carrier is up, and a few local nodes, but none of the servers are responding.  I can’t find any crew presence, even on broadcast. –

My finger stopped half an inch from the hatch release. Starlight gleamed weakly silver through the translucent door of my pod, but the crew pods opened into an internal corridor. That suggested it would be a really bad idea to open the door, even before checking the pressure warning…

…and then it caught up with me. I couldn’t hear anything.

The general quarters signal had stopped.

The general quarters signal had stopped when I told it to.

But an Ensign can’t do that. That meant the local processors had run down the command-succession tree, and not found –

“Well, shit.”

 

Trope-a-Day: Screw The Money, I Have Rules!

Screw The Money, I Have Rules!: The subject of any of a few thousand plutarch fairy tales concerning the nature of money as a symbol, and the worthlessness of a symbol without the things that give it meaning.  (The Market Liberty Oversight Directorate, in particular, is particularly harsh on anyone whose approach to money or markets is harmful to said money or markets.)

(And given the very long lives most plutarchs can expect to have in a universe with immortagens, everyone understands that they’re playing the indefinite-iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, in which the winning superrational strategy is not to defect.)

Okay, This One *Is* A Bleg

Much as I hate to make one.

But it turns out that being an SF author anywhere but the Amazon Top 100 Sellers isn’t actually all that lucrative (who knew?) and that self-employment ties up much of your capital in product (who knew?) and that, well, sometimes the nature of an entropy-based universe and a scarcity economy means that shit happens and leaves you having a very, very broke couple of months (who knew, amirite? I demand to see life’s manager!)

In short, Your Humble Author needs to raise some cash, and would prefer to raise some cash in a way that doesn’t mean he has to take a whole bunch of time off from being Your Humble Author.

So, if you don’t already have a copy of Vignettes of the Star Empire or The Core War and Other Stories, and you would like to have one, or for that matter if you do but would like to give one to a friend, let me just say that now would be a great time for me, and hey, if you want a signed copy, I can do that for you for Amazon price plus further postage. Just leave a comment so I can contact you and we’ll sort it out.

Apart from that, if you’re enjoying what you read here and you haven’t seen my Patreon, let me point you at it. I do enjoy and intend to keep writing, and I am appreciative of all my readers, but, well… writers (and their dogs) have to eat, y’know?

Moar please?

May I have some more?

And as such I will be super-extra-appreciative of those readers who’d like to appreciate my writing in cash, belike. (Or, if you can’t or don’t want to sign up to a recurring deal, I have a PayPal link over on the right, too. And y’all will also be much appreciated.)

Commission

From the Office of the Admiralty
with the Voice and Authority of those Appointed as
Lords of Admiralty
and charged with executing the Aforesaid Office under Power of Authority
descending From Their Imperial Majesties, under the Great Seal.

Ríän Múranios-ith-Murann Elisná

We do hereby constitute and appoint you to the rank of

Sublieutenant

in Their Divine Majesties’ Navy
Requesting and Requiring you in the Voice of their Divine Majesties
and in Accordance with the Imperial Charter
in that rank or in any higher rank to which you may be promoted
to comport yourself as an Officer of the Empire and a Daryteir,
to faithfully observe and execute the Imperial Rules of War,
and Admiralty Instructions for the Governance of Their Divine Majesties’ Naval Service,
and, as the exigencies of war require,
all such Orders and Instructions as you shall from time to time receive from Us
or from your Superior Officers for Their Divine Majesties’ Military Service;
and likewise Requesting and Requiring all Officers, Spacehands, and Spacecraftsmen
subordinate to you according to the said Rules, Instructions, or Orders
to conduct themselves with all due Respect and appropriate Obedience to you,
under the Rules of War.

Given under Our Hands and the Seal of the Office of the Admiralty
this day Gradakhmath 17 in the 7921st year of the Empire

Eyes and Ears

So, let’s now turn to the topic of sensors, and what exactly is in that Cilmínár Spaceworks AE-35 “standard navigational sensor suite” built into the majority of current-era starships. There are two primary groups of sensors incorporated into such a suite, referred to as “navigational” and “tactical” – even on civilian vessels – sensors, respectively, along with cross-feeds from the communications systems.

Navigational

The first of these groups, the navigational sensors, are those primarily used to locate the starship itself in space and, to a lesser extent, time. Included in a standard suite are the following:

Orbital Positioning System

The Orbital Positioning System, considered the primary source of navigational data within settled space, makes use of beacons located on stargates, and orbiting in designated positions within the system, each broadcasting a unique identifying code and sequence signal. By correlating signals received from these satellites with the reference data published in astrogators’ ephemerides, or downloaded from the stargate navigation buoy on system entry, a starship’s position within the inner and the majority of the outer system can be determined precisely, although accuracy does fall off as the Shards are reached.

Star Tracker

As a backup to the Orbital Positioning System, and as the primary method of navigation in undeveloped star systems, the navigational suite includes a star tracker. This system maintains a sunlock, a continuous bearing to the local system primary, and a number of starlocks, continuous bearings to a number of well-known nearby stars, identified spectrometrically. Again, by correlating these bearings with ephemeris data, a starship’s position can be determined with considerable accuracy.

Pulsar Navigational Reference

A final backup is provided by the Pulsar Navigational Reference, which maintains continuous bearings to a number of pulsars located within the local galaxy, using the same principles as the star tracker. While unsuitable for fine navigation (due to the low available parallax of such distant reference points) it is of use in providing confirmatory gross position data.

Inertial Tracking Platform

The inertial tracking platform provides a continuous check on all other forms of navigation, a bridge during switches between beacons and starlocks, and a navigational reference for fine maneuvering; using a complex of accelerometers and gyroscopes linked to the starship’s drive systems, the ITP integrates angular velocity and linear acceleration into a continuous record of change of position and change of velocity. In the latter role, it operates alongside the timebase receiver to provide the relativistics officer with the information required to differentiate wall-clock time and empire time.

Imperial Timebase Receiver

The timebase receiver receives the continuous timebase reference signal transmitted by all stargates, based on their temporal consensus, which defines the empire time reference frame: i.e., the pseudo-absolute time frame without reference to the relativistic maneuvering of individual starships (or indeed celestial bodies); it provides an external temporal reference separate from the starship’s internal wall-clock time.

Tactical

The second of these groups, the tactical sensors, are those which concern themselves rather with the environment around the starship than with the starship’s position. Those commonly included, which is to say ignoring specialized scientific sensors, include:

All-Sky Passive EM Array

The sensor with the most general utility is assuredly the all-sky passive EM array. The latest ASPEMA designs consist of a complex array of receptor elements woven through the outer layers of much of a starship’s hull surface, operating together to function as a single large sensor. An ASPEMA’s elements are designed to maintain a consistent watch across the majority of the EM spectrum, from low-frequency RF through infrared, visible light, and up to gamma-rays. A properly configured ASPEMA gives the sensor operator a clear, moderate-resolution view of everything radiating EM within the star system, which is everything worth speaking of.

Passive EM Telescope

When higher resolution is required for identification, or profiling of a target or its emissions, the sensor suite also incorporates one or more passive EM telescopes capable of significantly higher resolution and sensitivity which can be pointed at specific targets.

Active EM Radar

When precise ranging is called for, or the emissions of the target are insufficient to permit profiling with the passive EM telescope, it is possible to “go active”. The active EM radar usually makes use of the same reception hardware as the passive EM telescope; it merely transmits a directional RF pulse and receives its reflection from the target, the time of travel providing the ranging information. The disadvantage of this technique, of course, is that the use of the active EM radar announces one’s presence to all other starships in the system, even beyond typical passive detection ranges.

Gravitometer

The gravitometer provides an effective and highly sensitive way to measure the local degree of space-time curvature, both absolute and differential. This can be used to provide a variety of information, including current depth with the gravity well (or altitude) when near objects of known mass, bearings to high-mass objects, and detection profiles of gravity waves, including those generated when a stargate is used by another starship in-system.

Neutrino Detector

The neutrino detector chiefly provides supplementary information. Nucleonic reactions are rich sources of neutrinos; as such, other than when swamped by stellar emissions, neutrino emissions can indicate the presence of operating fusion reactors, torch drives, or other nucleonic equipment commonly found aboard starships. While providing limited additional data on its own, although aiding in the profiling of starships by their power plant, it has the advantage over other sensors that neutrinos interact very little with other matter, and as such the neutrino detector can determine the presence of a signal otherwise occluded by a lunar or planetary body.

Docking Radar

A high-frequency omnidirectional radar system designed for use at short range, the docking radar is a specialized radar system intended to provide precise location and range information while docking, operating near habitats, or otherwise in crowded orbits.

Imaging Lidar Grid

Offering a significantly higher resolution than radar, a starship lidar grid is primarily used for two purposes: first, producing a surface map of asteroids or potential landing sites, or a hull map of an unidentified vessel or hulk to look up in the database; and second, since being hit with a high-intensity lidar pulse will overwhelm most EM-based sensors and can even trigger hull thermal alarms, as a very effective way to yell “Hey, stupid!” at starships which aren’t answering standard hails.

Communications (integrated)

Fed across from the communications subsystem are two other important sources of navigational data:

Transponder

The first of these is transponder data received from other starships. A transponder broadcast must include that starship’s identity, the current time, and certain important parameters (safety distance from its drives, whether it’s carrying certain hazardous cargoes, registration, and so forth).  Ships currently operating under positive control include a subcode – a “squawk” – designated by space traffic control authorities for their reference, and a transponder can also signal various status codes, indicating distress situations in progress, communications failures, hijackings, and other such. The majority of transponders also transmit the ship’s own determination of its position.

IIP Interface

While an extranet feed may seem frivolous for astrogation purposes, it is an essential feature of…

Longscan

The most notable common characteristics of all of these sensor systems is that they operate at the speed of light, or more slowly, and that they operate from a single point in space, which imposes a tremendous limitation on what information an astrogator may have available. The solution to this is longscan.

Using defined extranet protocols, cooperating starships broadcast their sensory gestalt to other starships in the system via the standard IIP communications relays, as do other sources of sensor data, such as habitats, stargates, and navigation satellites. Using this information, along with predictive AI and astrogator-assisted extrapolations of what each starship or other object visible has done or will do since the last update, the longscan system on each starship produces an overview of the current situation including that information which that ship could not itself sense, or which is still in transit to it, duly annotated with probability and reliability estimates for their future actions.

– Technarch Apt’s How-It-Works: Starships

Trope-a-Day: You Can’t Fight Fate

You Can’t Fight Fate: According to everything known about temporal mechanics, the universe is a block universe – which is to say, while local causality violations are possible (effects can, sometimes, precede causes), global causality violations are not (effects, nonetheless, always have causes).  Or to put it another way, while predestination paradoxes are permitted – and enforced – grandfather paradoxes are not.  The probability of any event-chain that might lead to a global causality violation is always zero, and anything which happened in the past, even if it involves the future of your personal timeline, will necessarily happen.

You can sometimes fiddle fate, because what you think you know about the past is not always what actually happened in the past; but you can’t fight it head on.  Free will may be stronger than destiny, but it’s not stronger than causality.

Introduction: Golden Vizier

FLIGHT OPERATIONS MANUAL

COLD START (PAYLOAD SECTION) CHECKLIST

41-1115 KALANTHA-CLASS FREE TRADER: FLIGHTS 14-22

Islien Yards
Flight Dynamics Division

Issue 04

APPROVED FOR RELEASE

PANEL GLOSSARY

CCMS    Flight Commander’s station, communications panel.
CINF      Flight Commander’s station, overhead computer panel.
CKEY      Flight Commander’s station, computer interface.
EAUX     Flight Engineer’s station, auxiliary reactor panel.
EOVR     Central bridge overhead panel.
EPWR    Flight Engineer’s station, power control panel.
ESD        Flight Engineer’s station, system diagnostics panel.
ETHR      Flight Engineer’s station, thermal management panel.
FLHS      Flight Director’s station, left-hand panel.
SUB        Underside of Flight Commander’s central panel.

PRESTART PROCEDURES

…install fresh panel auxiliary cell, if required (undervolt)

SUB        PANEL AUX CELL – ON

…wait for control panels to illuminate…

EOVR     BRDG CENT LIGHT – DIM
EOVR     INST LIGHT – ON
EOVR     VDU BACKLT – ON

…check umbilical voltage nominal (144 V) on panel EPWR…

EPWR    ESS BUS SRC->(ALL) – OFF
EPWR    ESS (1, 2, 3) BRDG – ON

EPWR    MAINT SAFE – OFF

EPWR    EXT/ESS (1, 2, 3) – ON

SUB        PANEL AUX CELL – OFF

EPWR    ACC A/ESS 1 – RECHARGE
EPWR    ACC B/ESS 2 – RECHARGE
EPWR    ACC C/ESS 3 – RECHARGE

…MASTER ALARM and ACC LOW warnings will illuminate amber-caution; alarm will sound…

ESD        FAULT ACK – PRESS

…wait until ACC CAPACITY indicates >12% for ALL accumulators on panel EPWR…

EPWR    ACC A/ESS 1 – NORM
EPWR    ACC B/ESS 2 – NORM
EPWR    ACC C/ESS 3 – NORM

EPWR    EXT/ESS (1, 2, 3) – OFF

…MASTER ALARM and ACC DISCH warnings will illuminate amber-caution; alarm will sound…

ESD        FAULT ACK – PRESS

FUEL CELL STARTUP

EPWR    ESS (1, 2, 3) SRC->FCM – ON

EPWR    O2 MANIFOLD – OP
EPWR    H2 MANIFOLD – OP

EPWR    O2 SRC SEL – per manifest
EPWR    H2 SRC SEL – per manifest

EPWR    FC A REAC – OP
EPWR    FC A – START

…wait for and LOAD RDY light to illuminate blue-go (cell temp and voltage have stabilized at nominal values)…

EPWR    FC A – RUN
EPWR    FC A/ESS 1 – ON

…repeat above procedure for FC B/ESS 2 and FC C/ESS 3…

ESS BUS INTERCHG – BALANCE

CANNED LIFE SUPPORT STARTUP

EPWR    ESS (1, 2, 3) SRC ELS – ON

ELIFE      O2 SYS AUX – OP
ELIFE      O2 SYS EMER – CL

ELIFE      INERT SYS AUX – OP
ELIFE      INERT SYS EMER – CL

ELIFE      PPO2 SENSE – AUTO

ELIFE      O2/INERT REG AUX – AUTO
ELIFE      O2/INERT REG EMER – OFF

ELIFE      H2O SEP AUX – ON
ELIFE      H2O SEP EMER – OFF

ELIFE      TEMP REG AUX – ON
ELIFE      TEMP REG EMER – OFF

ELIFE      BLOWERS MST – ON

THERMAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS STARTUP (LOW HEAT SINKS)

EPWR    ESS (1, 2, 3) SRC TM CNTL – ON
EPWR    ESS (1, 2, 3) SRC TM PMP – ON

ETHR      LOW LOOP (1, 2, 3) MODE – SINK

ETHR      LOW LOOP (1, 2, 3) PRESS – TEST

…wait 12 sec. for TMS PRESS TEST 1-3 lights to illuminate blue-go…

ETHR      LOW LOOP (1, 2, 3) PRESS – NORM
ETHR      LOW LOOP (1, 2, 3) CIRC – AUTO

ETHR      LOW LOOP ENABLE – ON

…wait for heat flow stabilization as indicated by consistent readings on panel ETHR…

ETHR      TMS LOOP INTERCHG – BALANCE

…if at any later point heat sink capacity (on panel ETHR) >80% or heat sink temperature exceeds amber-line, proceed IMMEDIATELY to step “THERMAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS STARTUP (LOW RADIATORS)” and complete that section before continuing…

AUXILIARY REACTOR STARTUP

EPWR    MN (A, B, C) SENSE – OFF

EPWR    ESS 1 SRC AUXPRC A – ON
EPWR    ESS 2 SRC AUXPRC B – ON
EPWR    ESS 3 SRC AUXPRC C – ON

EAUX     EMCONT (A, B, C) – LOW

EAUX     CONTROL (A, B, C) – STARTUP

EAUX     PREHEAT (A, B, C) – ON

EAUX     D MANIFOLD – OP
EAUX     HE MANIFOLD – OP

EAUX     D SRC SEL – per manifest
EAUX     HE SRC SEL – per manifest

…wait for CORE RDY lights to illuminate blue-go (core containment and core temperature have entered operating zone)…

EAUX     EMCONT (A, B, C) – RUN
EAUX     PREHEAT (A, B, C) – OFF

EAUX     MANIFOLD ISOL (A, B, C) – OFF
EAUX     ENABLE (A, B, C) – AUTO

EAUX     FUSE INIT (A, B, C) – PRESS

…wait for FUSE SUSTAIN lights to illuminate blue-go (core temperature/pressure have entered running zone)…

EAUX     PLASMA ISOL (A, B, C) – OP
EAUX     MHD (A, B, C) – ON

…wait for MHD output to reach nominal on panel EAUX…

EAUX     MHD/MN (A, B, C) – ON

EPWR    MN A/ESS 1-2 – FEED
EPWR    MN B/ESS 2-3 – FEED
EPWR    MN C/ESS 3-1 – FEED

EPWR    MN (A, B, C) SENSE – MONITOR

FUEL CELL STANDBY

EPWR    FC (A, B, C) – HOT STBY

THERMAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS STARTUP (LOW RADIATORS)

ETHR      RAD (0°, 120°, 240°) PRESS – TEST

…wait 24 sec. for RAD PRESS TEST (0°, 120°, 240°) lights to illuminate blue-go…

ETHR      RAD (0°, 120°, 240°) PRESS – NORM

ETHR      RAD (0°, 120°, 240°) ISOL – OP

ETHR      LOW LOOP (1, 2, 3) MODE – AUTO

INFORMATION FURNACE STARTUP

EPWR    ESS 1 SRC IF A – ON
EPWR    ESS 2 SRC IF B – ON
EPWR    ESS 3 SRC IF C – ON

EPWR    IF (A, B, C) MN PWR – ON

CINF      IF A MODE – NORM
CINF      IF B MODE – NORM
CINF      IF C MODE – BKUP

CINF      IF (A, B, C) IPL – PRESS

…wait for boot and diagnostic messages to finish scrolling on master systems monitor…

CKEY      Insert Flight Commander’s Key and enter shipholder’s password when prompted.

CKEY      Enter command “set-sismode run”

…wait for SIS interface to appear on station CKEY…

STC REGISTRATION

FLHS      NAV LIGHT (ALL) – ON

CCMS    COMMS ENABLE – ON
CCMS    COMMS MODE – EXT

CCMS    IIP REG – PRESS

…wait 6 sec. for IIP UP light to illuminate…

CCMS    check in with local space traffic control as a vessel under command

…wait for STC acknowledgment.

IF FOLLOWING NOMINAL STARTUP PROCEDURE
PROCEED TO CHECKLIST
“COLD START (PROPULSION BUS)”

IF NO PROPULSION BUS PRESENT
PROCEED TO CHECKLIST
“PRIMARY SYSTEMS INITIALIZATION”

Trope-a-Day: Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale

Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale: Okay, well, first, disclaimer.  I am bound to screw something up here, eventually.  Despite my best intentions and dedication to at least trying to run the numbers before committing myself to paper, to err is human, and indeed, to err is probably sophont.  Mea maxima culpa, and all that, but c’est la vie.  Point it out at the time and I’ll fix it.

But I have, in general, at least tried to avert this, or at least provide explanations rooted in my Minovsky Physics.  Space is bloody huge.  The only thing that makes interstellar travel practical in the first place is the combination of extremely long lifespans, fusion and antimatter torches (with all the ensuing consequences as to how much power said ships have available, and what that means for interstellar warfare), and the availability of exotic materials (muon metals) to let you crank your lighthugger up to high c-fractions without lethally irradiating yourself; and secondarily, the existence of wormholes which first have to be towed into position by the aforementioned lighthuggers.  This makes expansion c-bound, and slow.

(Which is to say that all the mighty congery of civilizations that is the Associated Worlds and its Wonder of the Known Galaxy, the stargate plexus, nonetheless occupy an insignificantly small fraction of one galactic arm; and the Elsewhere Society‘s headline project aside, other galaxies are right out.  This is also why I handwave a relatively life-rich universe into being; if life was not common in the universe, no-one would have found any yet given these parameters.)

And even then, space within solar systems is still bloody huge.  In-system travel by starship takes days to weeks (relatively low-thrust by SF standards – although high-thrust by present-day Earth standards – reaction drives or vector-control drives, and even if they weren’t, no-one is crazed enough to try to hit even low c-fractional speeds in-system), and interstellar travel even by wormhole incurs these delays for every system through which you pass.  (And even planets are huge; granted, it’s hard to get lost on a raw planet because even on a “friendly” garden world, it’s unlikely to be so Edenic that survival doesn’t require power, which shows up very handily from space.  But on any civilized planet… well, if you’re looking for someone who doesn’t want to be found and you don’t already have their address, have fun hiring detectives.  Lots of them.)

(As a military side-note, “engagement range” starts at millions of miles out for spinal mounts and AKV duels, and goes down to thousands of miles.  Formations use hundred- or thousand- mile spacings.  Anything under twenty thousand miles is “knife fight” range, and unless you’re engaged in a fixed-point battle for a stargate, planetary orbit, or suchlike, should be avoided at all costs because engaging at that range with anything but absolute surprise is almost always a matter of mutual annihilation for ships.  It often is for fixed installations, too, but another reason why you don’t want to close with them is that they can mount lots more generator, screen, and gun when they don’t have to move ’em about.)

To avoid spending pages Showing My non-distance Work In Detail, just a couple of points:

Time-wise, while the Empire does have a multi-millennial history, lots of things happened over those millennia, and I like to think I’ve been fairly good at staying out of unexplained stretches of historical deep time.  There is, of course, the Fermi Paradox/simultaneity problem, but… not sure there’s a way to play in Space Opera without that one.

To comment on one major material problem: neither of the canonically-detailed Dyson Spheres are the impractical solid type.  The Esilmúr facility is a fabric bubble supported by light pressure and the solar wind; that at Corícal Ailek is only semi-complete, but is intended to be a dynamic/modular structure that’s never intended to be rigid under stress.

And, yes, I know exactly how much energy powering things like lighthuggers up to 0.9c would take.  That’s why facilities like Esilmúr exist; to manufacture antimatter in quantities that have a lot of zeroes in them.  They have a good idea how dangerous this is, too.

Masks

There are two, among those organizations known universally in the Empire, that traditionally wear full-face-hiding masks.

The first of these is the Masked Order of the Unnamed, eikone of seals, secrets, and mysteries. The intrigants who serve the Unnamed wear masks of the same serene, beautiful face, anonymous within their night-purple robes. The masks do differ in materials: masks of polished silver, of pale ivory, of rose porcelain, blue wood, or midnight onyx. These have meaning – the Unnamed permits nothing less – but centuries of studies by scholars outside the Order have not revealed it. (And besides, if they did, the Unnamed’s Inner Circle would imbue them with a further esoteric meaning, if they do not already possess one or more.)

The second is the Eupraxic Order of Reason, who wear masks of smoky glass beneath hooded robes of gray, upon closer inspection a twisting fractal pattern of black and white intertwined in deep complexity, but never blended. As is their practice, they declare their meaning openly: they go masked and cloaked that those who seek their counsel will see nothing, perceive nothing, consider nothing but the argument itself, and that no personal characteristic of theirs may be permitted to taint this in the eyes of their clients.

Intimidation, however, is evidently not considered a problem by either group.

Trope-a-Day: School of Seduction

School of Seduction: The Circle of Silken Flowers (see: Platonic Prostitution, Band of Brothels) has its Velvet Academies (which concentrate just as hard on the arts of the salon and many other required topics, of course), and so forth.  Rather classier, I suspect, than most of the examples given; after all, these are professional organizations with an emphasis on quality.

The People Who Sing Them Have No Social Conscience

So, I’m a little thrown off my stride today by receiving another e-mail from a reader who is of the opinion that, while okay, maybe not message fiction, but that I need to be more socially conscious in my writing, perhaps a bit less impractically utopian and touching on/incorporating a few of the real-world issues of the day, especially those ending in -ism.

Well, here’s why that’s not going to happen, said here so that I can use it as a FAQ for future reference.

Firstly, while it is often said by various people, especially in the critical sector, that the purpose of fiction in general and science fiction in general is to reflect on real life, I do not hold with that. (Yes, granted, I have fallen off the wagon once or twice.) A world should exist for its own sake and have its own issues arising from its internal logic, otherwise it lacks integrity. It may, in some ways, be applicable – in whatever people draw from it – to real life and its issues, but it shouldn’t be purposive in being it, or else it’s always somehow hollow.

Secondly, I am aware of the the various issues ending in -ism – and oh so many more that have not yet been granted such a word – and the pettiness, ugliness, and menial brutality deriving therefrom and perpetrated upon all sides. That’s the gloriously shitty monkey heritage of mankind, folks, and if you live on Earth, whether you grow six layers of callus, spend your days wrapping yourself in cotton wool, or plunge straight into the putrid mass, it’s virtually impossible not to have to acknowledge that it’s there. But I see no particular virtue in keeping my imagination there, too.

If I wanted to write poison, I’d be a journalist. If I wanted to read sewage, I’d follow the news. If you’re looking for worlds featuring the per-diem grotesqueries of human existence, you are shopping in the wrong store, and sorry to say, you always will be.

Because I am an impractical Utopian, and I do write in a universe where the protagonists’ culture, by and large, has escaped – or never had – our genetic and memetic/cultural impulses to be total bastards; in which life is good; people are happy and refrain, by and large, from being assholes to each other; Light and Dark (if not the rather fuzzier Good and Evil) are clearly defined; and the ethically, axiomatically, mathematically-wrong people who perpetrate those sorts of things exist largely to be punched in the face by the (metaphorical or literal) spacemagic fists of doom of bright, shining idealists, thereupon ceasing to be a problem. The literature of hope, and all that, and yes, also the literature of escapism. And proud of it. Sometimes people need to stop looking around and take a moment to look up.

Because, thirdly and in turn, if you can’t even imagine a better world, what damn chance have you ever got of building one?

Trope-a-Day: Scavenger World

Scavenger World: Leaving aside companies like Probable Technologies, ICC and their professional xenoarchaeology-for-profit efforts, this is subverted; while there are any number of vultures happy to pick over cemetery worlds to loot them of recoverable goods or materials, or indeed of waiting around worlds about to become such worlds (i.e., in the throes of internal war or collapse) to get a good head start on the picking over, most of these are offworlders.  Most major disasters either let people pick up in a decade or two, or else kill too many people too fast to let the survivors live into a scavenger-world scenario, at least not for long.

Traveler’s Charge

Many of the settlers of Talentar, who would later become dirt farmers and ecopoetic line techs, were drawn from rural areas of Eliéra, seeing an opportunity to apply their sophisticated knowledge of modern agriculture and silviculture to the problems of making this new world blossom.

It is from these settlers that a local variation in the rights and customs of hospitality has become ubiquitous. Many of the foresters and line techs of the Delzhía Terra region in particular were drawn from the wooded upland valleys of the Vintiver region. An age-old custom there was the “traveler’s bite”; a traveler riding through could stop at any farmstead and rap at the kitchen window, receiving in exchange for a few taltis a fill of working-man’s beer for their mug, a handwheel of cheese, a pocket-loaf, and perhaps some trimmings of the day’s roast.

On Talentar, this evolved into the custom of the “traveler’s charge”. A traveler by foot or rover can stop at any of the small domes or prefabs dotting the dusty plains, signal at the service hatch, and receive a charge for their powercells, a fresh oxygen tank for an expended one, and a packed handmeal of the local produce – an invaluable service for traveling light, or in a pinch.

– “Sophontology of the Talentar Settlers”
Mirial Quendocius

Trope-a-Day: Scars Are Forever

Scars Are Forever: Averted. The self-repair systems of the natural immortals – and included in just about all commercial immortagens – don’t do scarring. No point in living forever if you can break down by degrees, after all.

There’s actually a minor cosmetic-medicine industry in arranging for people who want reminders or honor-marks to keep the cosmetic effects of their scars, while still letting them heal properly underneath.

It’s a Shanty!

Reminded of it by seeing it posted on Google+ today, here’s something I’d been meaning to post to the “relevant-to-our-interests” section for a while: the nearest Earth equivalent to one of the old space shanties enjoyed, no doubt, by old spacers and spacehands of the Imperial Merchant Navy everywhere…

(We recommend that only trained professionals should attempt to sip their sippin’ whiskey from mid-air blobs.)

Trope-a-Day: Scale of Scientific Sins

Scale of Scientific Sins: All of them.  Absolutely all of them.

Automation: Of just about everything, as exemplified by the sheer number of cornucopia machines, AI managers and scurrying utility spiders.  Unlike most of the people who got this one very badly wrong, however, in this Galaxy, almost no-one is stupid or malicious enough to make the automation sophont or volitional.

Potential Applications: Feh.  Anything worth doing is worth doing FOR SCIENCE!  (Also, with respect to 2.2 in particular, Mundane Utility is often at least half of that point.)

GE and Transhumanism: Transsophontism Is Compulsory; those who fall behind, get left behind.  Or so say all we – carefully engineered – impossibly beautiful genius-level nanocyborg demigods.  (Needless to say, Cybernetics Do Not Eat Your Soul.)

Immortality: Possibly cheating, since the basic immortality of the eldrae and galari is innate – well, now it is, anyway – rather than engineered.  Probably played straight with their idealistic crusade to bring the benefits of Avoiding That Stupid Habit You Have Of Dying to the rest of the Galaxy, though.

Creating Life: Digital sapience, neogens (creatures genetically engineered from scratch, rather than modified from an original), and heck, even arguably uplifts, too.

Cheating Death: The routine use of vector stacks and reinstantiation is exactly this.  Previously, cryostasis, and the entire vaults full of generations of frozen people awaiting reinstantiation such that death would bloody well be not proud.  And no, people don’t Come Back Wrong; they come back pretty much exactly the same way they left.

Usurping God: This one is a little debatable, inasmuch as the Eldraeverse does not include supernatural deities in the first place.  On the other hand, if building your own complete pantheon of machine gods out of a seed AI and your own collective consciousness doesn’t count towards this, what the heck does?