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Epistolary Experiment (26/30)

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From: Adm. [blank], Imperial Naval Intelligence
To: Imogen Andracanth, VP Research, Ring Dynamics
Cc: CINCCORE; Grand Admiral Inesmir Muetry-ith-Muetry
Subject: Unknown object
Security: EYES ONLY UNSEEN KEY/FERVENT SPAN

The enclosed is an excerpt from sensor logs of the Battle of Viridit. Our analysts are having difficulty identifying the large structure the Republic fleet appears to have under tow in the center of their formation. Is this something in your bailiwick? Please advise on possible threat level and/or collateral danger.

(enc.)

LANDING, SARAGÓS – “The mood on Saragós was celebratory today with the final withdrawal of Iltine forces from the planet. Despite the long task of rebuilding ahead, the Saragónes are both proud of the achievements of their militias in defeating Iltine ground forces, and thankful to the Imperial task force that made it possible by removing their orbital support from the system.

“A joint statement of the local governances expressed thanks specifically to Admiral Gileon Cularius for pressing forward to the Veneri System and obtaining generous reparations for Saragós on their behalf, to be administered in escrow by Gilea & Co. A spokesman for this group later announced that in addition to funding reconstruction efforts, part of these reparations would be expended to hire mercenaries to blockade the inbound routes from Union space, and to construct and cadre a new condominium system defense fleet for the Saragós system.

“This is Xaríä Cieng, Telememe News.”

VENERI (OSIS DEEP) – The Central Committee of the Iltine Union condemns in the strongest possible terms the recent unauthorized military adventurism, carried out by certain reactionary elements within the Ministry of Pacification without the knowledge and permission of the People of Ilth, and further condemns their use of illegal and immoral weapons systems developed in secret with the assistance of and at the instigation of corrupt offworld apotheosians. The Union assures all star nations that the Iltine Union desires only to live in peace with its neighbors, and that those responsible shall be punished for their actions with the full stringency of the People’s Law.

The Central Committee offers its hand in friendship and good will to the people of Saragós, also victimized by the treacherous actions of these criminal freebooters, and will lend any aid it can to the cause of rebuilding their world.

[APPROVED FOR DISSEMINATION – Meer har-Tal Ankór, Office of Desirable Truths and Detestable Falsehoods]

– That Bullshit Right There, Independent Worlds Router

Rejoice and know no fear, People of Ilth, for the rumors of invasion and war are no more than dust in the wind. The Imperial starships seen in the Veneri System are making a goodwill visit, escorting negotiators to make application to the Central Committee. The Ministry of Pacification remains ever watchful for outworld treachery.

Fear and rumormongering poison the People’s Will. Defeatists and traitors pollute the People’s Genes. Be vigilant!

– Office of the People’s Wisdom, Iltine Union: INTERNAL DISSEMINATION ONLY

From: Imogen Andracanth, VP Research, Ring Dynamics
To: Adm. [blank], Imperial Naval Intelligence
Cc: CINCCORE; Grand Admiral Inesmir Muetry-ith-Muetry
Subject: Re: Unknown object
Security: EYES ONLY UNSEEN KEY/FERVENT SPAN

Possibly. Unfortunately, that’s as far as I can go.

I’ve run it past Operations and Engineering as well as my team. Our consensus is that it might be a weylforge. The toroids resemble frame buffer-dampers; the configuration of the radiators and nearby equipment suggests a facility for producing boson condensate. But that’s all circumstantial; the design is sufficiently alien from our equivalent equipment that there’s not an ideal resemblance, and we can think of at least a dozen other geometry-manipulation possibilities, several with significant offensive connotations. And that’s assuming they either have automation for it or understand how to operate it correctly in manual mode, which latter would be most unlikely.

As it is, we believe potential collateral damage considerations would suggest not being within two light-minutes of it if it’s destroyed. If it is charged – and we strongly believe that that would require both an external power source and a time period measured in, at minimum, cycles – you’d want to be at light-cycles of range.

State of the Me

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Incidentally, just to let you all know, the twin problems that have afflicted my productivity for a while – first, computer breakages and the repair thereof, followed in swift succession by second, mind-fuzzying incompetence-generating plague – look to be all done with, or at the least, clearing up rapidly.

Normal service in these parts, or at least normal fiction posting frequency, should therefore be resumed shortly.

Basic Delta-V Worksheet

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So, as those who follow my Google+ account will know, I use PTC Mathcad to do the various calculations behind the scenes to reality-check my work, starship designs, orbital parameters, etc., etc. And being the kind and generous soul that I am, I thought I might clean up and share my tools for the benefit of, well, everyone who wants to do this kind of thing.

Here, then, is the first of those cleaned-up sheets – a basic calculator that does the ground-to-orbit-or-escape delta-v calculation, as illustrated by Atomic Rockets here.

Here’s what it looks like (printed as XPS); and here’s the live version for those of you who have PTC Mathcad (requires only the free-for-life Express version).

Apologies…

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…for the delay in bringing you various things.

I regret to say that my writing is presently being interrupted by, ah, irritating hardware problems, which honestly, I’m not all that thankful for.

Unlike, say, my readers, for whose patience I am particularly thankful right now…

Kalatri

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KALATRI
Biocode: O-LDL-D11

The kalatri, best known as the dominant sophont species of the Voniensa Republic, are a warm-blooded oxygen-breathing species, originating from a protein-lipid biochemistry with nucleic-acid based genetic information storage. In terms of standard interspecies morphology, they are upright bipedal lacertians, possessing a squamous integument in shades of blue or green, with a crest of short, stiff white pseudo-fur along the line of the spine from skull to mid-back; this actually serves as a chemosensor. Having evolved from hexapedal ancestors on their homeworld of Vonis Prime, they possess a double pair of arms, the mid-arm of which has migrated towards the head creating a complex double-shoulder joint; the outer arms, referred to as the major arms, possess three-fingered hands and are used for tasks requiring strength and grip; they are also used as secondary transportation limbs for brachiation. The inner arms, the minor arms, have developed six-fingered hands used for fine manipulation. The tail common in lacertomorphs is largely vestigial in kalatri, and when occasionally present is considered a genetic atavism and typically removed surgically shortly after birth. Nutrition, originally biochemically compatible post-mortem plant and animal matter, but in the modern era more commonly corresponding synthetics, is ingested through a single multi-toothed mouth located on the anterior surface of the inferior portion of the head. Excretion, copulation, and parturition take place through a single combined cloaca located upon the ventral surface of the inferior terminus of the torso.

The kalatri head (containing the brain and primary sense organs) is also lacertian in form, although relatively platyopic. It bears no respiratory orifices; kalatri respiration makes use of neck vents. The kalatri possess dual, stereoptic eyes on the anterior surface of the superior portion of the head. Immediately lateral to these are a pair of large auditory tympana. Kalatri visual range covers from galle to mid-blue, and aural range from 45 Hz to 29 kHz.

Kalatri are a bisexed, usually pair-bonding, dianisogamic, and ovoviviparous species, K-strategy, typically producing a single offspring at a time, which requires fourteen to sixteen years to reach physical maturity. Offspring are functionally helpless and require parental care for the first several years of their lives. Unmodified kalatri lifespan extends to between 90 and 130 years, with gross physiological deterioration setting in the last 20 years.

Psychologically1, against baseline average, kalatri can be considered moderately ludic, mildly xenophobic/chauvinist (although commonly-seen kalatri cultural elements decry this), moralist, moderately precautionary and uninnovative, low-trust, and susceptible to an unusually high degree to conscious and subconscious peer norming, with consequent prosocial/counteregoic tendencies.

By the standards of the Associated Worlds, Republican kalatri are a near-baseline species: While their technological base in other areas remains relatively well-developed, Republic law prohibits a variety of technologies, including but not limited to volitional machine intelligence (or, rather, the development of volitional machine intelligence, and the full recognition of the personhood of machine sophonts is dubious), seed AI, the uploading of organic sophonts into algorithmic form (such uploaded sophonts are denied personhood within Republic space, except by special treaty arrangement) and its concomitants, synnoetic integration of organic and machine intelligence, bionic enhancement, the majority of non-industrial-grade nanotechnology, biotechnology, genetic enhancement of sophonts and most other forms of genetic manipulation except under strict controls, immortagens and other high-grade anagathics, and intelligence enhancement by technological means. Those kalatri who have abandoned the Republic for one of the few independent kalatri colonies in Worlds space are not externally prohibited from using these technologies, but usually find it hard to shake off their cultural conditioning.

– A Comprehensive Index of Sophonts, ed. Trestat hr-Mirek, Third Order Publishing

1: Authorial aside: Given that the kalatri are also about as close to psychologically human as anyone in-setting can be, interested readers can occupy themselves reverse-engineering what the Worlds’ modal sophont species is like from this…

Goin’ Up To Minmus (Filk)

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(This has absolutely nothing to do with my writing, and everything to do with the fact that I play far too much Kerbal Space Program, and am ridiculously susceptible to earworms.

And maybe writing it down will at least help with the latter.)

The Minmus Colonial Anthem
(ttto: the South Park theme music)

Jebediah Kerman:

We’re going up to Minmus,
Gonna have ourselves a time.

Bill Kerman:

Kethane drilling everywhere,
Shuttlecraft from every station.

Jebediah Kerman:

Going up to Minmus,
Gonna leave my woes behind.

Bob Kerman:

Parking orbits day and night,
Asteroids without rotation.

Jebediah Kerman:

Headin’ on up to Minmus,
Gonna see if I can’t unwind.

Gene & Wernher von Kerman

[couplet in Kerbalish]

Jebediah Kerman:

So come on up to Minmus
And help us build a mine!

[rocket-thrust sound]

Trope-a-Day: Ghost in the Machine

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Ghost In The Machine: Averted.  Souls are software objects; there are no supernatural qualities whatsoever to sophont life, and even if you can pull out the software, recompile it, and stick it in another body, the only thing that’s being transferred is data.

It would always be possible to consider the logos/personality organization algorithm, the weird non-deterministic chunk of mathematics that appears to produce volition as something of this sort, I suppose; or in a weak Cartesian-theater sense the consciousness loop, even if all it does is organize your cognitive processing into a narrative thread, and it’s entirely possible to build minds without them if you’re okay with the resulting weirdness.  But in no case is there any ghost present; it’s just the “program in the machine”.

(That all being said, of course, when asked geth-type questions like “Does this unit have a soul?”, the Imperial answer is unambiguously yes. Inasmuch as “soul”, in modern sophotechnologist jargon, is slang for “personality organization algorithm”, which is to say, that thing which makes you you.)

So book. Much sale. Wow.

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So, I’ve been having fun with dogecoin recently, the cryptocurrency, which has a really awesome community vibe to it, and I’d like to do something to help it along.  And, of course, I’ve no objection at all to “doing well by doing good”.  So here’s what I’m going to do – a special sale for this week, ending Sunday 19th. My first book usually costs $2.99 on Amazon Kindle – but if you pay in DOGE, I’m going to offer it to you at 1/3rd off – which at the time of writing, and for the duration of this sale, I’m going to say is 10,000 DOGE.

If you want to take advantage of this offer, here’s what to do:

  1. E-mail me with the e-mail address you want the book to go to, and the dogecoin address that you’re sending payment from, so that I know it’s you;
  2. Send the 10,000 DOGE to DKoZtfVXT6BAJMU1RwgpxLbQ2snL6VRfcG ;
  3. I’ll send you the .mobi e-book file within 24 hours of confirmed payment.

To the moon!

Jumps

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2

The second stage of jump procedure using a Ring Dynamics stargate is obtaining a reference-frame trap, thus ensuring that you arrive in your destination system in the same sequence and association to the empire time frame that you were in when you left, thus preserving chronological consistency.

In urban myth and pulp fiction, this is the procedure that prevents you from wondering why the dinosaurs are warning you off their nice carboniferous planet when you were told to deliver a load of colony prefabs, or from having your extropy sucked out by the ice giants at the end of the universe who are so glad you turned up to feed ‘em high temperatures and ordered states.

In theory, this is the procedure careful adjustment of which permits you to indulge in predestination paradoxes, knight’s-move oracles, and other cunning manipulations of the informational content of your future light-cone.

In practice, this is the procedure that stops you from coming out the other end of the wormhole as a light-year long smear of exotic particles. The universe hates time travel, and is not shy about telling you this.

Do the Eldrae Have Beer?

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…is a question I’ve been asked recently.

(Aside to the querent: sorry to miss your IM – was away from the computer.)

Well, the few past references aside, it depends on what exactly you mean by beer.

In the fine tradition of SF “translations” that avoid torturing the language too much and thus reading like scientific papers, I indulge in using “bird” to represent the whole complex of morphologically similar “avioids”, “fish” to represent many similar bony sea creatures likewise, and so forth. (In Eldraeic, of course, there are separate sets of words to represent these groups vis-a-vis taxonomically grouped critters, thus avoiding the whole problem.) By a similar rule, “beer”, in this case, represents the entire general class of fermented, non-distilled, naturally carbonic alcoholic beverages produced from “grains” of one sort or another.

That said, the answer is still “yes and no”, so far as booze from Eliéra is concerned, due to the curious hybrid origins of its biosphere. Yeasts exist, both the beer and bread kinds, although obviously evolved and bred in different directions. Hops per se don’t exist, but developments from the same family of plants do that are, ah, close enough for brewmasters’ work. Also, there are alternatives which are used for both flavoring and preservation.

Now, the grains. Wheat (landesh) exists *there*, so you can walk into a bar on Eliéra and get a wheat beer almost indistinguishable from something you might drink on Earth. Barley doesn’t, however, so the majority of the beer there is brewed from irdesh, a bluelife grain whose sugar profile makes it eminently suitable for the task.

The combination of these factors means that while the constituents and styles are different, there’s a strong family resemblance. An eldrae and a human who walked into a bar and swapped drinks would probably recognize them both as “beer”, albeit as not a familiar style to them. (Well, except possibly for some of the particularly outré examples, like the thick and heavy stouts the dar-bandal favor, yeasty sediment included, or one of those fruit beers with a rich purple color from their xaról-berry flavoring, etc., in lieu of hops.)

 

Why I Worldbuild Feverishly

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A random thought I posted elsewhere, on the importance of worldbuilding to (my) writing:

I know writers differ on this point, but for myself, I can’t have Líse Varavélen walk down the street without knowing what the street looks like – is it gravel, or concrete, or slabs of black diamondoid treated to be non-slick with a rainbow-striped flowstone slidewalk running down the middle?  (In town, it’s the last one.)  Is she walking, standing on the flowstone strip and gliding along with the traffic, or psychokinetically hovering a foot or so above the ground?  (Depends on her mood and the weather.)  If her dog needs to go, does she leave it, does she clean it up, or does a tiny robot dash out of the nearest robot hotel, clean it up for her, polish the street to its customary perfection, and bill her three millis for the privilege?  (Again, it’s the last one, and three millis is a good price for municipal poop-robo service.)  I must know these things, or my scene-setting imagination just sits there and goes poit!

Posted also, I am not ashamed to admit, because I am rather pleased by the phrase “municipal poop-robo service”.

I Aten’t Dead

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Not that you’d know that from my posting frequency as of late.

But no, aten’t dead.  Just more or less taken over by a large project in my Areas Of Work Other Than Writing, that has left me with precious little time and energy to be about my matters fictional, alas.  But as it happens, that project has headed into something of a lull, around about now, so hopefully things hereabouts will pick up again as I can scavenge some time back from other work.

So, that’s what’s been going on.

(And in the meantime, check out this book review!)

Trope-a-Day: Earth Shattering Kaboom

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Earth Shattering Kaboom: The Ulijen Disaster.  If you’re going to build an experimental power plant that taps power from your sun using a wormhole, don’t build it on the planetary surface!

Also, relativistic kill vehicles and really big strangelet bombs, or even antimatter bombs; and in theory, some other esoterica like twist-pinch bombs and causal weapons.  All of which are utterly, utterly illegal to use (which doesn’t stop everyone with a sense of paranoia from maintaining a relativistic deterrent fleet, of course) under pain of serious obliteration.

Now On Kindle

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As another note, this blog is also now available through the Kindle, for those who would prefer to subscribe that way.  You can find it on Amazon, here.

Of course, it’s $0.99 per month rather than free if you subscribe there, but in exchange, you gain more convenient access if you’re a Kindle user, plus the satisfaction of knowing that you’re encouraging this starving writer with the percentage of your almost-a-dollar that comes through to him, so really, it’s a win on both ends.

Subscribe today!