post_text stringlengths 0 10k | post_title stringlengths 8 313 | chosen stringlengths 1 39.5k | rejected stringlengths 1 13.8k |
|---|---|---|---|
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Well, you know how in the old Simpsons opening scene Bart grabs the back of the bus on his skate board?
That. We do that. We use magnetic attachments and stealth tech (cos if they saw us they'd shake us off) and we hang on till we get to where we want to go. Then we disengage and wander off like we just happened to be there... Nobody realised till a couple of months ago when someone's stealth tech malfunctioned. Poor Delfanit bastards still cop it whenever they dock: 'better check you haven't got A WHOLE FUCKING SHIP ATTACHED'
At least the Delf have a sense of humor, the Salec passed legislation last week stating any hitchers would be executed. So here we are waiting for a chance to disengage and get away from a ship that travels faster than light in a junker that has a half rod of fuel and like half its working parts.
OH! And we only have 2 cans of WD40 and 5 rolls of duct tape, so even if we do manage to pull off a miracle and escape our ship is gonna stop working anyway! But hey, we get to go down in history as the first idiots to die from this legislation so my Ma will have something to frame on the wall at home I guess.
Fuuuuuck.
| "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The *Sunseeker*'s control room was dead silent except for the low *beep-beep-beep* of the deep space radar. The screen lights flashed a dim blue against the vast blankness of space, but nothing else moved, or breathed in the cavernous space.
A line of blue light appeared in the middle of the room, then expanded into a doorway from which stepped out three figures. If a human had still been present in the control room, they would have looked askance as the figures were too tall, too thin, and moved too fluidly to be one of their own. A living human might have been thrilled to catch their first glimpse of extraterrestrial life.
The humans in the control room, however, were far past caring the issue. Glassy eyes stared numbly at their consoles, and heads looked on fixedly, their motor muscles frozen instantly by the nerve pulse.
The first figure scanned the room for remaining traces of the weaponized blast, then sighed into its microphone.
"Looks like we got another dead crew. It seems like they still don't get it."
"Give them some credit, none of their crews has returned from a trip this long."
"Still, after sixty years of exploration? You'd think they would have given up."
One of the other figures shrugs. The movement brings its narrow shoulders all the way to the crown of its head.
"Humans will be humans. They are a stubborn species, that's for sure."
"Well, as long as it prevents them from leaving that backwater of theirs, I'm all for it."
The other figure hunches over to examine one of the dead crew members.
"Still, don't you think we should tell them by now? That their FTL drive can only decelerate up to a certain point before releasing that tachyon wave?"
"Weren't you listening? Leaving them ignorant is exactly the point. As long as they're stuck at 2c, it'll take them centuries to reach civilized space. Hopefully they'll have learned some manners by then. Bloody primitives..."
The hunched figure sighs, claps its hands together in the *macto*, then turns back to the gateway. The three aliens depart as quietly as they came.
** Three days later**
The alien ship is long gone, and the human vessel still floats in the vast expanse of space. It has waited the full three days allotted to its crew, before its automated safeguards took over.
The ship flashes blue, glowing like a briefly lived supernova, then disappears into the strange dimensions of FTL travel. After sixty years, the Human Exploration Corps finally developed a ship that could travel back to Earth on its own, and carry with it a recording of the tales of its crew. | "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | *What is that you said? They use* **Explosions**?*
*"Yes"* - - **"explosions"***
*"You mean chemical reactions using the laws of thermodynamics?"*
*"Yes, in larger scales - that's what the humans refer to as* **explosions**, *their entire civilization was built around using them but not watching them for some reason. Eventually they worked out how to split Neutrons off atoms to create even bigger chain explosions."*
*"So how did they barely achieve FTL travel and only just recently?"*
*"Well to put it simply - for a while they made it illegal to use these Thermonuclear* **explosions** *to propel themselves into space."*
*"It seems that would've been the most efficient way to get out of planetary orbit."*
*"Why in the Universes Logic would they make it illegal?"*
*"Well considering their entire civilization was based around* **explosions** *they encouraged a culture around destroying each other with them. "nuking from orbit" they claimed was far too unsportsmanlike to wage war."*
*"Well no wonder they never left the solar system until now."*
*"Fucking humans, so stupid - If they could get the most versatile material in the whole galaxy they'd turn it into a Frisbee."* | "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "Surely you can't be serious?" Said one of the Xygian scientists to the Human delegation.
"I am serious, and don't call me Shirley." Replied Dr. Filmer before receiving a high-five from one of the other members of the delegation.
The Xygians continued "We cannot, in good faith, approve of this travel mechanism. Your planned use of toroidal quartz crystal will not be allowed by the Planetary Planning Board."
"We are guaranteed by our rights, as dictated by the fifty seventh Interplanetary Conference for the Well-Being of Life in the Universe, to have access to faster than light space travel for the uses of commerce and exploration."
"Doctor, we are well aware of the rights you are guaranteed, but we cannot, in good faith, approve of this method of travel just as we could not approve of your, what was it? Oreo Project?"
"Project Orion, Sir."
"Yes, that one... We are sorry, but we cannot approve these plans."
"Our small scale tests have shown that this is a very efficient and safe mode of travel, our simulations have shown the same, as did the large scale test on our moon. Based on the evidence provided, you cannot disapprove of our plan."
Yes, but there is currently concern coming from the Ethics Board on the matter and they are worried about it's possible implications for war as well as the potential ethical concerns over some of the mechanical aspects of your device. For the spoken record, Doctor, could you please explain the technical aspects of your device to the rest of the comity gather here today?"
"Our current model for achieving faster than light travel is based around the use of a coil-gun, or static discharge cannon, powered by the static charge gathered by a toroidal quartz crystal we would put into orbit around our planet. The crystal would be spun by solar winds generated by our local star and the power would be converted into high amplitude, low frequency, radio waves so the power can be transmitted wirelessly to a capacitor bank on our moon where the cannon would be located."
"That being all well and good, could you state, for the record, the medium you are using to generate the static electricity?
"Um, cats, Sir. Members of the feline species native to our planet. We have found their ability for generating static electricity has no rivals. But if you would like, for the sake of the Ethics Board, we can run some tests on other organic materials and possibly synthetics materials."
"Thank you, we'll see you again in two Florms. Meeting adjured." | "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "You need to stop this. Now." ~UTHQ
It seemed like a strange message from the UT at first, the United Terrans organization, formed by the world's leading space agencies to represent all of humanity and the Earth as we ventured out of the solar system for the first time.
But this wasn't from the UT.
It couldn't be. TRAPPIST-1 was 40 light years away from Earth. It had taken only 32 years to travel here in the DocBrown, a name chosen thanks to somebody's bright idea to let internet polls do the picking. Theoretically, the ship could travel even faster, possibly greater than 2c, but due to the still relatively unknown nature of matter at speeds >1c, the speed was capped at 1.25c for this mission. Earth would have had to have sent this message *8 years* before they left.
The tension in the recycled air was so palpable it was hard to breathe, a mixture of separate emotions so intense you'd feel like you might implode and explode all at the same time.
They had first braved the pounding tension of the "photobraking" deceleration maneuver as they approached the star system, where the DocBrown's FTL drive was shut down to allow *space-time itself* to decelerate the ship below lightspeed, the first-ever such attempt in human history. It certainly sounds sensible when you have a room full of mathematicians and physicists drawing it out for you, but while trapped in a ship barreling through the galaxy at +1c, you begin to wonder why they aren't sitting in your seat instead. The ship instantly began to rumble as soon as the engines were cut, louder and louder at a rising frequency. As speed dropped closer to 1c, gunpowder crackling sounds and bangs like metallic bones snapping abused the outside the hull. The blueshifted light through the front windows, turning more and more white, increased in luminosity, until in a blinding flash a deafening ***THUD*** broke the ship's runaway speed like driving into a brick wall. The ship's speed now read 0.87c, and all was quiet. Spacetime, and light, it seems, has something akin to sonic booms that come from violating the universe's speed limits.
To slow down further, the fuel tank, capable of holding 5% of the Moon's mass, had to be thrown away in a trajectory that would not impact any of the exoplanets dancing around TRAPPIST-1. The mechanism to do this was a nuclear warhead, and a 10km tether to draw out the acceleration force from being instantaneous. "Don't ask," one engineer said, working on developing this technology. "We've tested it. It works..."
After the maneuver left the ship's speed at a little over 0.51c, DocBrown's traditional engines took over to do the rest of the legwork, but the beauty shining in through the windows was so loud now it overpowered all engine noise into deafening silence. The cool dwarf star's system was a fertile playground of seven exoplanets, three of which were Earth-like. They had atmospheres, and their surface was a swirl of colors so exotic, made possible only by the mysterious artistry of the universe, that Jeb had to keep wiping the water from his eyes just to keep looking at it.
He looked over at Deb, who was also crying, and then at the rest of the team, they all laughed and came together to embrace.
In the joy and excitement of the moment, Jeb thought he had heard a barely-audible *ding,* but it was likely nothing. After the celebration settled down, Jeb went to the ship's console to make sure the warning wasn't something serious to do with the DocBrown's deceleration burn.
But it wasn't an engine warning. It was a direct message, from UT, from home.
"You need to stop this. Now." ~UTHQ
The emotions flowing in this moment made it difficult to discern what this meant, how is this possible? Is it possible? Jeb put his head in his hands and the team saw him struggling; they came over to see what the issue might be. Each member read the message and the ship once again became overwhelmed by a crushing silence, as each crewmate contiplated the unreal, impossible nature of what they were looking at. It *wasn't* possible.
Just as contemplations began to wander into darker, more impossible possibilities, their predictions were quickly narrowed down, by another received message: *(ding)*
"This is a warning." ~UTHQ
----------
**Edit: Part 2/3**
The tense atmosphere led Marcus, systems engineer for the mission, to sit down at the console.
"Who is this?" ~DocBrown
Their laser communications system was pointed directly at Earth, and it would take 40 years for the message to arrive there. The messages had been digitally signed with UT's signature. The team contemplated that their communications have been cracked, and hijacked.
"What do they want? Why the warning?" Mel sounded panicked, the lead biologist for the mission. "They want us to stop doing something..." Marcus mumbled, reading over the messages.
After a pause, Mel jumped up. "Do you think they live here? Do you think this is their system?" Dale, the radioastronomer, shrugged. "No chatter from this place. Our radio leak out to space for over 1200 year before we come here."
Marcus shrugged, and seeing no harm in trying, typed out:
"Is this sun your home?" ~DocBrown
As the message sent out, the team entertained a thought that maybe UT would be getting some funny messages in 40 years.
*(ding)*
"No." ~UTHQ
A chill fell over the air. Marcus got out of his seat and moved away. "What do they want?", Mel cried. Jeb spoke up, "Hold on, so far we're just talking. We don't know who they are yet, or what they want. They want us to stop doing something, so maybe we broke a rule, we just don't know about it yet."
Mel sniffed, but she was contemplating. "Maybe there's already life here, and it's against the law to mess with it?" Dale scoffed, "They mess with us!"
Marcus turned around, focused. "We need to know what we did wrong." He sat down at the console,
"What did we do wrong?" ~DocBrown
The crew watched as the message was sent out, anticipating the passing seconds.
*(ding)*
"Dumblfuckery." ~UTHQ
----------
**Edit 2: see below for Part 3/3**
| "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The First Ambassador to Humanity swirled idly in its container and moved to the next item on its list.
"Your FTL technology", it asked the panel of assembled human leaders, "How does it work?"
The humans exchanged surprised looks. The one at the end of the panel eventually speaking.
"You mean the Confounder?"
"If that is what you call it, yes."
"Well it... it slows the light down."
The First Ambassador frowned. Or at least, it came as close to frowning as one can when one is a mass of liquid in a hermetically sealed tank.
"I do not understand", it replied, "How does this help?"
It was a different human who replied this time, the large one at the head of the panel
"It slows the light down so we can overtake it", he snapped. "What's so hard to understand about that?"
The Ambassador thickened as it took a moment to process this statement.
"This... does not reduce your travel time".
"Who said anything about that?", the chief human asked irritably. "It's not about getting places, it's about showing the light who's boss! It's about proving a point!". He jabbed his thumb against his chest. "We wanted to be the fastest thing in the universe, and now we are!".
The Ambassador thickened further, rapidly losing faith in this species' fitness to join the intergalactic community.
"Let me rephrase my question," it said. "You received a summons to this meeting approximately five of your days ago. How did you travel the light years between this point and your planet in that time?".
"Ooh". A third human spoke this time. "It wants to know about the Shuffle".
A collection of mutters resounded among the rest of the panel, the large one saying something about "...not really *travel* is it?". Once they had stilled the third human continued speaking.
"It's quite simply really. Getting to faraway places is hard, so the Shuffle just swaps bits of space around until the part we want is next to us". She gave the Ambassador a vacant smile.
Its slow swishing motion gradually stilled as understanding set in. The ships that found themselves light years from their destination, stranded without food or air. The civilised worlds torn from their orbits and flung into deep space. The black holes appearing from nowhere, devouring entire star systems of inhabited plants. Literally boiling with anger, the First Ambassador closed it's communication channel to the humans and opened a new one to the Galactic Council.
*There would be war* | "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | “We must keep the Humans believing that their FTL system is unsafe, unorthodox and damn stupid. That is the point of this of this Special Hearing of The Supreme Council of the New Species Traveling Faster than Light. I am Farlack, Supreme Councilor of the Organization of Galactic Legal Advisors. ^(legal disclaimer: Norepresentationismadethatthequalityofthelegalgalacticservicestobeperformedisgreaterthanthequalityoflegalservicesperformedbyotherlawyers).
“Scarlacc, will you please read the minutes from the last session to allow this Supeme Council to aware of the latest current legal status of the Humans.?”
“Of course. That would be Sub-Section 7 of Section 30 of the 5th meeting of the Council of Dealing with and Controlling the Humans.
“It has been discovered that the Humans have developed a completely new FTL travel, with no related or similar technologies in the known Galaxy. The core of this FTL is a bubble of a universe where the speed of light is 1000 times faster than the speed of light is in our legally defined universe is pulled to our universe. The Human ships then travel at .1 c in this alternate universe. Upon exiting this alternate universe, the human ships have travelled 1000 times the distance in our universe. The energy expense of travelling in the alternate universe is the same as travelling in our univ-“
“Sarlacc, this Council is not interested in the technical aspects of the Humans FTL Technologies. That discussion is for the Galactic Council of Technology Equalization and/or The Council of Equalization of Galactic Technologies and/or Council of Galactic Technology Equalization. Ballzacc, will you present the Summary of the Social Legal Issues of the Humans Council meeting?”
“Of course. Due to the extremely dangerous situation these Humans create for us, I will dispense with extraneous discussion and proceed to the summary of the meeting, as permitted in The Rules and Guides of the Supreme Galactic Committee and The Guides and Rules of the Supreme Galactic Committee, version 2 of edition 5, Copyrighted.
“The Humans have a social system that may lead to our death and destruction. The humans developed their FTL without our influence and guidance, so we were unable to control their technology with the powers of the Galactic Patent Office. This failure was due to their rapid technological development. In the span of 6 human generations, they progressed from animal driven power to FTL travel. During the final Human pre-FTL travel, Humans revolted against their legal system and killed all lawyers allow-“
“They did WHAT?” interrupred Farlack. “How do they maintain their society without legal protections?”
“They became disgusted with a legal system that required warning labels to not drive their “automobile” with the windshield sunscreen in place. As I was saying, this allowed generations of research and development to be done in half a generation. And we can not control their technology.” Ballzacc completed his summary, terror beginning to creep into its face.
“Oh my supreme being. When the common people of the Galaxy learn of this… no lawyers…no lifelong Legal Guidance fees…” Farlack began to understand the lack of his future.
“Yes. This Council and all others, we will be destroyed”
“Yes, their technology is unorthodox, unsafe, and damn stupid, but for reasons the Galaxy must never understand.”
| "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | We saw the opportunity and by the gods, we took it.
FTL travel was always a ways off for earth's scientists, I mean sure, we had near-lightspeed travel for now but frankly, ever since Humanity blundered into contact with the other races, they've been stingy with the secrets to FTL travel, considering us "crude" and "uncultured". Still, some of the lesser races reluctantly traded with us, and we came across what they considered to be a trivial piece of information, a rather efficient method of converting normal matter to exotic matter, if only for an instant, before reverting back to regular matter.
They used it as a way to fuel their dark matter weaponry, and of course, we had nowhere near the technology required for that, and they knew it. They held back their freakish laughter as the dumb humans traded valuable resources for something that not only everyone in the galaxy knows, but they couldn't even use!
Well, turns out that's not entirely true.
A few years went by with earth's scientists playing with their new "toy", a few neat innovations and basic uses had cropped up, but all in all, it seemed that the inability to keep exotic matter around without it reverting was rather limiting.
One man stepped forward with an idea, however. An idea that was hushed and slated to impossibility by the earth's various governing bodies. "There's no way we could do that" they whispered. "It's **insane**".
But, with humanity being left behind diplomatically against the rest of the galaxy, could we really afford to be left out? To be left in the dust as other races walked over us like we were nothing?
Eventually, reluctantly, approval was gained, and the project initiated. It would take years, several thousand matter conversion stations.
A project to dwarf all others.
The man had proposed a wormhole. Not an alien concept to the other races, obviously, but one that had only been toyed with by humanity, an unrealistic method of FTL. The amount of exotic matter needed alone would be.. well it would be insane! We had nowhere near enough useable mass near our homeworld, or so we had thought.
It was worth it, I think, the expression on the diplomats faces as we crashed the galaxy's latest diplomatic conference made it all worth it. Their horrified expressions as they understood just what we had done, looking agape (and the several alien equivalents) at the monstrous bastard we had piloted.
Humanity had finally made it's statement as a real, crazy force in the universe.
An entire moon's worth of statement. dwarfing even the largest diplomatic citadel. A moon, our moon, converted into a bastardized FTL vessel. Our reckless abandonment of sensibilities and border-idiotic determination would be the staple of Humanity for eons after that.
"Crude", they were definitely right about that.
| "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "So, about the humans..." Said a voice with diplomatic neutrality.
Groans from a myriad of different species' voices could be heard throughout the conference hall. There was a meeting being held on how to properly welcome these new, strange creatures now that they had, technically, at least, achieved Faster Than Light travel.
"We organised this meeting to discuss them! When are you all going to stop pussyfooting around the issue!?" The same voice declared, with a level of anger hard to believe considering their tone mere seconds ago.
"Blarpart, I know you're a workaholic and all that but have you SEEN these...creature's form of FTL "travel"?" A gruff voice from somewhere in the hall responded over the din of arguing and groans of "are we really fucking doing this?"
"I agree that it's...unconventional but-"
The word "unconventional" being used to describe human beings' method of intergalactic travel caused an uproar among the crowd.
"Hey! HEY! HEYYYYYY!" Interjected Blarpart with an odd mixture of rage, impatience and exhaustion. "It works for them, who are we to judge?"
"Don't you get it? They use possibly the most unstable thing in the universe, a wormhole, and pump it with a load of who knows what to make it last more than a nanosecond and to a greater size than a few atoms and just *sigh* go through it and hope for the best"
"As I said, uncon-" Blarpart thought better of using *that* word again and instead chose to deflect the conversation in the hopes of finishing and grabbing something from a Space Denny's on the way home.
"Ok, how about we just ignore them? They're not going to last long as a species if THAT'S how they traverse space. From our observations, their 'wormhole jumping' has about an 80% chance of failure. All in favour?"
A chorus of relieved "aye"s reverberated throughout the room.
"All opposed?"
...
"Well then, that settles i-"
"YOU FUCKING WOT, M8?" A voice shouted from just outside the hall.
"Can I go without being interrupted for ONE MINUTE?" Blarpart said in an exasperated sigh.
And with that, a duo of humans, one tall with brown hair and the other short with black hair, burst into the hall with their bottles of what they call "Mountain Dew" and bags of "Doritos" and started going on about how we can't "diss" them like that.
"You know what? Fuck these alien squares, wanna go piss into a black hole?" The taller one said.
"Yeah, dude. Definitely." The shorter one replied with an almost endearing level of excitement at the prospect.
And with that, the duo left as quickly as they had entered.
"What just happened?" A member of the crowd ask with a disbelieving tone.
"...Humanity. Humanity happened" said Blarpart, with yet another sigh.
Spelling and removing the pretentious "fin". | "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Kalgor looked at the pale skined human in utter shock. 'They couldn't be serious in thinking that the rest of the galactic community would simply accept the use of this kind of technology'
“Mr. Adams...” Kalgor began.
“Doctor Adams if you don't mind Count Kalgor.” Dr. Adams corrected, he knew that if he didn't demand respect now that it would be harder to earn it back later. As it stood he could tell that the reptilian xeno that stood before him was not pleased with what had been unveiled only a hour ago in the space dock that was right outside his office window right now.
“Yes Dr.Adams. You must understand that of the various forms of FTL drive in use in the galaxy what you have unveiled here today is at best going to be seen as unsafe at best or outright dangerous to some in the galaxy.” He was struggling to keep the panic out of his voice, but despite his many deca-cycles of experience in diplomacy the very skill that had made him chosen as the Galactic Senate's emissary to the up and coming human race, he was begin to fail.
“Count with all due respect I fail to see what the overall difference is between our own hyperdrive and the Delfanit pulse tube drive or the Kantian gate system they all use hyperspace gravity waves to achieve FTL speeds.”
Kalgor's voice broke. “But you are punching holes in space to reach hyperspace!”
“So?” the Doctor responded nonchalantly.
“The Kantian's use a physical gateway to control entry into hyperspace and the Delfanit's use natural gravity currents to slip into hyperspace. Your system just punches holes into the fabric of space! Even our scientists can't tell if making those holes will not bring about the complete tearing of reality as we know it.”
Kalgor again reasserted some control over himself and continued.
“I know that this is a major milestone for humanity and means that you will not have to pay for the use of other species drive systems in your ships which will transform your economy and your military forces. But this is too dangerous besides, what possible advantages could this drive have over the other forms of FTL?”
Adams knew that this moment would be coming sooner or later and that he had to make the most it.
“So glad you could ask Count. The Kantian's gate system requires a massive amount of energy in order to not only open the entryway to hyperspace both for incoming and outgoing traffic, but to hold it open long enough for ships to get through. While they have relatively few systems in their Empire those that they have are spread out thus why the gate was developed. Once in system they use regular sub-light fusion drive to go from the gate to their ultimate planetary destination.”
Kalgor nodded his head as the Doctor continued.
“However due to the power requirements of just one of those gates not to mention the operating costs it would be uneconomical to have a gate at each planet.
Another thing is the time that the gate is held open effects the toll paid by merchant traffic thus why you don't see any Kantian merchant vessels over 1.5km in length. Beyond that length the ratio between hold space, engine size, and time to accelerate becomes uneconomical. They can't get moving from a stand still fast enough to go through the gate without occurring serious tolls and they can't dedicate more engine size because it cuts into their profits from loss of tonnage hauled.”
“Well... yes those are valid points but...” Kalgor stammered out but Adams didn't let up.
“The Delfanit pulse tube solves the power requirement issue and the infrastructure issue but those “tubes” where the gravity band waves are stable enough to sail on until they hit hyperspace are very restricting as they only occur naturally in a few places. This is why their Kingdom if you look at their history had periods of rapid expansion followed by long periods of solidification because goods had to travel often dozens of light years in sublight from system hubs that had these tubes thus slowing growth.”
Kalgor knew he was quickly losing ground and had little recourse as any other drive system that was used in the galaxy had similar glaring issues that were simply accepted.
The Maltiun wave-riders used massive 20km+ gravity sails to ride the same gravity waves as the Delfanit but instead of entering hyperspace they rode ever more powerful waves and were not limited in where they could go for the most part. But the system was high maintenance and very tonnage sensitive as the larger the vessel the longer it took for that vessel reach FTL speeds. The largest ships the species built took at least a standard week to get up to speed and then another week to slow down.
Salec skip drives on the other hand actually sent gravity anchor beams to latch onto hyperspace currents and pull the ship along technically “skipping” on the envelope between real space and hyperspace. The down side is that the anchors can only hold for so long and the power requirements while nothing like Kantians as this wasn't actually entering hyperspace. Meant that they could only skip anywhere from 20 to 100 lightyears depending on the ships configuration before having to recharge their anchoring system, which could take a standard day or up to a week on the largest shipping vessels. Still faster than going at sub light speeds for sure but it meant long travel times for goods.
“Our system allows us to enter hyperspace at will, with no concerns about ship mass, size, or power production beyond engine thrust which combined with our already recognized and accepted superior fusion engine designs, means that we can potentially travel from one side of the galaxy to the other in a month. At least if you are willing to burn that much H3 fuel which even then is more a matter of being inconvenienced with having to stop for fuel rather than any sort of cost consideration.”
The silence in the office was deafening as Kalgor stepped towards the window and looked upon the vessel.
“But the holes Doctor! You may have a system that doesn't have the others drawbacks but we are talking about ripping apart space itself.”
“Count Kalgor I am growing weary of this repeated falsehood. We have be using the same points in orbit to develop this system for over a standard year, and every time we have gone we have had to open a new hole as the last one closed once the vessel is through. Beyond the gravity wake left by the opening you can't tell any thing happened at all after 24 to 36 hours. It is safe.”
“The Senate will not accept this...” Kalgor started hoping he was right to bank on the repugnant nature of this very concept.
“They might not now but they will when they see the Eli Whitney.” Adams spoke ominously. He turned on the large holotank in the middle of the room. The image displayed a monstrous vessel.”
Kalgor turned around and his eyes went wide at the image.
“Is this a warship?” He asked as the ever growing list of implications in his head grew with each passing second.
“No my Count, it is not. It is a merchant vessel commissioned by the Wal-Mart Cartel. She is 75km long, over 2km tall with 12 50-Petawatt fusion reactors with a top estimated FTL speed of 50 but will likely run at 10 to save on fuel costs as such speed is generally unneeded. The whole vessel weighs over 500 million tons 490 of which is hold space capable of hauling virtually anything you can think of. She is going out for trials in a hour then if all goes well she will make a fully loaded iron ore run from the Sol system to Peraxus VII and its heavy industry there. And given that the Senate is on Peraxus V the Eli will make a pass and see if there is anything that needs to be shipped back here to Earth on the return trip.”
As the Doctor finished Kalgor could feel his heart tighten at the size of the vessel and its speed. It would be in the Peraxus system in 3 days, even if he left now in one of the fastest vessels money could buy now he couldn't hope to get there in anything less than 12 days.
“You humans are reckless and unorthodox beyond anything I have ever heard of in my life. But I can't argue with the results.” Kalgor finally stated any hope of resistance gone as the pragmatic side of him knew that economically humanity had, in 10 years after first contact blown every other power in the galaxy out of the water. Another voice his is head whispered about what would happen if mankind made warships on such a scale.
“Well Doctor I don't see any point in arguing anymore but if you can let me on this vessel and join me in the senate with your research especially on the whole hole-punching-then-closing-up-perfectly part, then maybe we can avoid starting a bigger galactic panic then what we absolutely have to.”
“Of course Count I'm already packed and I have made such arrangements already. We can leave once the ship has gone through its final trials.” The Doctor proudly stated. | "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Uyreah swung the hoe one last time, burying it with a satisfying thud deep in the dirt and letting it stand there. He wiped sweat from his brow, cursing again the rarity and costliness of proper mechanised tools in this world. He stretched his back, grimaced at the toll his age was taking on him, and turned for the other side of the valley.
As he walked, his thoughts were a numb buzzing in his oblong skull, and as always, heeded not his demand for them to be still. He did his best to ignore them, placing one three-toed foot in front of the other. It didn't matter what might be going on on Homeworld. It was not his business.
The sky's blue began to give way to pink, and he knew that his son would be on the roof, settling in to watch the coming aurora. The boy was getting to that age where he wondered what was beyond the limits of their farming community, and Uyreah was not prepared to answer him.
At least, not since the last moonshiner had died with his secrets. Uyreah had wished to apprentice to him, for he recognised how important intoxicants were to the community, but his own father had forbade it. Tretton, as his father was called, had been sober his entire life, and believed only hard work and dedication could keep their colony alive until help could come. Any time resting or relaxing had to be spent in study, or weaving, or some other productive but untaxing activity.
Tretton was not mourned.
The house was coming into view now, a hive of small semi-spherical buildings attached in a web, and sure enough, the boy Ghgets was atop the tallest one, ankles crossed and weight resting on his palms behind him. Uyreah smiled a private smile, and pushed against his aching bones to climb the rest of the hill.
"Just in time, Dad!" Ghgets waved, then seemed to hesitate. "Dad? Can we talk?"
Uyreah froze, swallowed, looked left and right as though seeking an escape route. He was, he realised. He steeled himself, and without responding, moved to drop his bag of root-vegetables at the door. He stood there for a little longer than he probably should have.
"Let's wait for the lights," he said at last, and began scaling the abode. "Wouldn't want you to miss the lights."
"The lights are on all night every night," Ghgets responded in a sulky tone, but shifted over to make room for his father. "They're hard to miss."
"Yet you're out here every night, at the same time." Uyreah grumbled, dropping down heavily. He leaned over and pressed his head against his son's, and trilled, which seemed to placate the boy. They turned back to the sky in silence, and in moments, it erupted in shimmering waves of green, magenta, and cyan.
Even now, in his twilight years, Uyreah loved them.
"You want to know about what's up there."
"I want to know where we came from."
"It's the same question, really. Why now? Why wait all these years to ask?"
Ghgets' skin darkened, and he began picking at some loose dirt on the roof. "Because Grampa always said to ignore it. 'Keep your eyes on the soil,' he said. 'The soil is our life. What's up there is not for us.'"
Uyreah nodded, the sounds of those same words from when he was told them ringing through his head. He rolled his head from one side to the other lazily, mulling over what to say next. He wished his bond-mate was still with them.
"We're from Homeworld," he said at last. "Not you or I, but our people. They came here in great ships, and set up mining operations. Some brought their families. Then, one day..." He gestured at the sky. "This."
"What is 'this'," Ghgets demanded petulantly, tearing off a fist-sized clod of dirt.
Uyreah, annoyed, did his best to keep his voice level. "This was hundreds of years ago, and even back then, we only had a few scientists in this region of space. You know the six stars, right?"
That seemed to soften the boy's mood. He loved what little astronomy he was privy to. "Titungus, the rager. Pilipin, the dancer. Qott and Sett, the twins." He pointed now, at a bright point in the ocean of dancing colours, and named the star, "Revin, the bold. And our sun, Illerv, the seeker."
"And among those," Uyreah spoke, "Illerv, Titungus, and Revin are the prime stars, with colonies under their light. Titungus-3 was the first established, and that was where the scientists dwelt. When the light curtain appeared, it isolated the six stars from the rest of space with its impassable barrier. For a time after that, there was chaos, and murder, and despair. All communications with Homeworld, and indeed, any other colony, was severed. But after a year, one of the scientists sent a broadcast out. We call it 'Liric's proclamation', for that was her name."
Ghgets sat enraptured, staring unblinking at his father with wide, porcelain eyes. It was only then Uyreah realised how little he had taught his son, and silently cursed himself and his father both.
"She said that they had heard of an experiment being undertaken by a species called Human, of a new faster-than-light drive they were developing. Liric claimed that this drive had folded the space around this area, trapping us in a pocket dimension. Presumably, the ship was supposed to traverse the shortened distance, and then unfold the pocket. Yet, here we are, hundreds of years later."
Uyreah could see his boy processing all of this, with the same plodding determination he had used. He turned back to the lights above, trying to recall if he had missed anything important.
"So... What causes the lights?"
Uyreah scratched his chin, fighting to bring back those lectures of old. "Well, because our space is compressed, light moves through it faster than it normally should. That causes... something. I don't recall. We have even fewer scientists now than those we started with."
"Is that why we don't have a harvester?"
"Aye, noone remembers how to build one."
"I'd like to join you in the field tomorrow, Dad."
Uyreah smiled. | "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | “Shit, there goes another one.” General Turr mumbled to, Taek, his first officer, “They’re getting a lot more accurate, they used to miss by a few thousand kilometres.”
Turning the ship towards the newly arrived HomoSapien space liner, the Exerprise H56, the Kantian war ship set about tracking the liner and getting all of its clearances and passes checked.
“Yeah, but they are still missing the safe zones. If it weren’t for the jelly shields of the Salec’s their FTL travel would’ve been banned.”
The liner is easily one of the smallest ships currently docked at the way spacion, the HomoSapiens had only discovered their FTL travel 20 years ago. The Kantian’s, Salec’s, Maltuin’s and Delfanit’s were shocked, never thinking that a species with only two arms could create such technology.
“It’s Unorthodox, Unsafe and Damn Stupid! It UUDS!” The council meetings had been plagued with these words for ages.
Taek, going through each clearance code with a meticulousness that only he could, motions to the debris trail left behind the liners “If we shared our technology with them, they could travel through the gates.”
“It would also decrease the bloody clean-up required each time.”
“You know we can’t, the treaty stands and the human ships aren’t dense enough to handle the radiation.” The general replies, not mentioning that the few ships that have tried it crashed into each other.
“How, exactly do they even travel this far anyway? It would seem that their ships and bodies wouldn’t be able to handle the forces.” Taek asks for the millionth time.
“Well, they have this theory of relativity, which says the faster you travel the more mass you have. It overcomplicated all of their scientific endeavours.” The general begins, earning a collective moan from everyone awake in the warships control room.
“So when they started travelling at close to light speed they just assumed that they couldn’t travel as fast or faster. They built engines that can get to 80% the speed of light, which is something our ships do with impulse engines.”
“That only took them to the edge of their own solar system, something admirable but it still confined them to their own corner. The Salec wave riders were considering helping them to travel faster, however, about 21 years ago when they sent a probe ship, they found rings the size of moons being placed on the edges of their solar system.” He pauses to ensure that Taek is still listening, which of course he is.
“Curious the Salec’s stood back and watched. The humans had somehow discovered how to warp space but only between two set places. Their warp drives also temporarily increased their speed to 3 FTL, which they still haven’t entirely realised.”
This next bit is where the council is still struggling to accept the HomoSapiens as a race, the council usually worked well together on making decisions, but dangerous travel that still worked was a grey area. Every other race were too cautious to attempt something unkown.
“Well, to start traversing through space, the humans would travel from their home planet at the maximum speed they can travel. Aiming straight for the warp gates, at first, but eventually at different angles. This caused them to easily travel to new solar systems. It also made it difficult for them to actually stop.”
“Which is why their first three ships flew straight into, in order or severity, the council war fleet, the council’s moon of operations and the dwarf star of the Antraci system. Total count of death combined was well over 100-million.”
“Of course after catching the attention of the council and several other alien races the HomoSapiens eventually made contact with us and we were able to stop their exploration ships before more damage could be caused. The thing that surprised most races was that after three failed attempts the humans were still attempting FTL travel.”
“It wasn’t until first contact that the Salec’s realised that humans were still using Radio waves to communicate across vast distances. But, that advancement in their tech is a whole different story and involves several strange messages that either offended everyone or caused peace treaties to be made with the Andromeda Galaxy.”
- Recorded on the bridge of the JJK98 Farbelus Warship, 200 0000 km long, conversation between General of Knowledge Turr and his First Officer of memory Taek. Annotations and missing information filled in my Salec History Keeper Urder V, the second.
| "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "Idiot fuk human design shit-tier spaceship get all Brogga friend kill't. End all. Stoopt fuk. E'ryon kno warp spacetime. E'ryon kno break litspeeding. E'ryon kno crate warm hole. E'ryon kno cut mass half. E'yron cept idiot fuk humans. Y d'sign dumb shit-tier drive can't fi'ure out nuttin'. Cant warp spacetime. Cant break litspeeding. Cant crate warm hole. Cant cut mass. 'Stead idiot fuk human burrow down subquark stangelet bullshit risk implode entire quadrant for fuk newmatter. Y? Too dumb, tha's y. Now Brogga stuk dumb idiot fuk human ship on oth'r side galactic spinward fr'home. Idiot fuk human get Brogga kill't, get Brogga friend kill't..."
The muttering was cut off by a bang, followed by curses unutterable by the tongues of men. Poor old Brogga had been clanking about underneath the hullward dash for the last three days, almost without a break, muttering the entire time.
Say what he would, Brogga was nothing short of a mechanical genius, being the only Broggan capable of working on the Subquark-plated external combustion Engine. It took a particularly pliable mind to make an external combustion engine work, particularly when one was compressing- and burning- pure vacuum. The only real downside was the slight chance of creating decay, but if that happened it wouldn't matter as the entire tanker would be destroyed within seconds. I supposed it would have mattered to the rest of the Universe, but Brogga wouldn't have cared for he would have been the first to go.
Well, okay, there was a second slight problem. See, by burning pure vacuum they wore away a little strip of the cosmos. It was so small that it probably didn't matter, and the Universe was expanding anyways, but certain routes did get more traffic and engines were getting more efficient all the time.
"Idiot fuk human shit design fuk"
More clattering and banging from underneath the hullward dash.
"Idiot fuk human, try now"
Brogga's curses were rewarded with a shuttering rumble as the external combustion engine roared to life.
"Well that's curious" Captain Froy remarked, staring in disbelief at the guages.
Normal external combustion engines were able to operate somewhere between 10,000% and 100,000% efficiency, and for every joule of vacuum energy burned 100% efficiency would yield 10 kilo-joules.
The digital display read 10^89 % efficiency.
"Brogga, I think this gauge is busted."
"Idiot fuk human replace it then. Brogga sleeps."
Then, with customary swagger Captain Froy shoved the throttle open and pulled out, easing back into his seat for a cozy nap. However, when Captain Froy awoke several hours later he was not where he expected. In fact, he was not sure where he was at all.
You see, Brogga had accidentally upgraded their engine. Nobody saw the display, but if they had, they would have seen Brogga, Froy, and the rest of the crew tearing ass across the Universe, ripping a cosmic-scale gash in the vacuum like God's holy zipper. Of course this hole rapidly closed up, but in the time it would normally take them to travel a few hundred lightyears they had soared clear of the "observable Universe" several times over.
In fact, they had traveled so far they weren't entirely sure how to get back.
Thus began the journey of Brogga and the idiot fuk humans who wasted 600 years of his life and destroyed his capacity to speak properly. | "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Terrestrial Warp Drives. First proposed by Miguel Alcubierre two hundred formlats ago, The equivalent of forcing space into a shape which closely resembles two black holes stacked fore to aft. It requires insanely large sums of energy to produce the warp effect, equivalent to at least the mass of a small moon converted to energy. To get around this, the Terrestrials use catalytic mass converter engines. A device which has been discredited by the rest of the universe for the complete and utter destructive potential should such a reactor melt down on a planet. They work by converting matter to energy with a catalyst particle. However, they also produce a certain percent of catalyst particles. When this process runs away, it has been known to destroy planets, heavily damaging entire solar systems.
Under order 4,900,232 section III, Human spacecraft are to be classified as "NOT TO BE TOUCHED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES" on or near a planet, and "DESTROY AT ALL COSTS" in interplanetary space. This is not done as a measure against humans, but as a safety measure across the galaxy. This will be done until a treaty can be made with the terrestrial humans such that they will cease using catalytic mass converters.
Examination of a captured Terrestrial FTL Engine under the Federal Standard Gravity Model suggests that some fairly simple improvements to the Alcubierre-type drive can be made to reduce the energy requirements to what can be managed by fusion and antimatter reaction technology. They need not give up their unique drive. As dangerous as the Terrestrial Drive is, it presents no risk to those outside the vessel. | "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "I'm sorry...there must be a glitch with this translator. You do *what* now?"
"Fiddle with the Higgs Field around our ships."
"And your 'Higgs Field' is where a particle essentially gives an object its mass via its interaction with other particles, yes?"
"Yup!"
"And you...fiddle with it?"
"Yeah, it ain't too precise. Zero Point Drives have a decent range of power that fluctuates, but they work!"
"Just...walk me through it again."
"Alright, well the ZPD activates and it creates a field around the ship that essentially begins to stop bosons. The ship essentially loses matter now that it now longer interacts with the Universe, approaching a 'Zero Point' or 'ground state' of existence. Everyone and everything inside is fine due to the field creating a sort of pocket within the ship."
"And acceleration?"
"Well our quantum vacuum thrusters—"
"And those are?"
"Oh! QVTs use quantum vacuum fluctuations of energy in space to propel itself using virtual plasma. As I was saying, once the ZPD fires up, those kick to go faster than light, and the lack of mass means its possible to do so."
"So first you alter the existence of your ship and then you tap into the still vastly misunderstood vacuum of virtual particles, risking destabilizing all matter aboard the vessel and risking fusing into an object once you complete your jump."
"We keep the spacelanes clear of debris just in case."
"And when it does happen?"
"Live and Learn. For those of us not aboard that ship of course. They're dead."
"..." | "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "I'll try to explain ... the problem is ... it's not THAT you can travel faster than light." the small alien said, sheepishly. "It's how you do it."
She continued, "To be honest, it's creepy."
Doug stared at her blankly. "Go on ..."
"Ok , you know how FTL works for the rest of us, right?" She cocked her head a bit.
Doug listened to her, but wasn't really paying attention - his mind was on her, specifically, how similar she was to him and every other human. Aliens, or rather 'intelligent beings' it turns out, had generally fallen in to two categories: humanoid, and swarm. For the most part, all humanoids looked the same: slender, upright, various colors of skin and eyes depending on the their home star's primary color, even oddly similar genitalia. Evolution, it seemed, preferred a certain shape. Humans were a little bit odd by galactic standards because of their size relative to other humanoids - roughly three times the size and five times the mass of other humanoids.
"... are you listening at all?", She snapped. Her shrill tone popped Doug back in to the situation.
"Yeah! No .. got it .. creepy." He paused for a moment. "But it's not like we're actually doing that, right? No one is watching anyone in the shower, or in some secret war room, or anything like that."
Most alien FTL drives worked by manipulating spacetime in such a way as to compress the space in front of the ship, or expand the space behind it, or warp it n such a way that the local (to the ship) speed of light wasn't exceeded; it was space itself that was altered and the ship just rode the wave. A lot of alien corporation marketed this technology in many ways under many names, Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy.
Rather than warp anything, humanity's FTL solution was, essentially, to flatten the universe relative to the ship, allowing the ship to view the universe as a sheet of paper. In doing so, the ship could pick a point in the universe and appear there nearly instantly. Most of the transit time was spent simply finding a place to go.
There was, a side effect. By pushing a ship up in this way, the entire universe became viewable down to the atom. Meaning that at any point, someone in a human ship could be watching someone else take a shower, or plan a war, or really -- anything, anytime, anywhere. It was unsettling, to almost everyone.
"I get your point though." Doug said.
She was fairly attractive as far as aliens go, and one of the taller species around. He figured he'd peek in on her next transit. Surely she takes showers.
| "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Xandar was fuming. 20 smismars he'd been waiting in the bowels of that horrible assembling of junk and metal the humans proudly called their *flagship of intergalactic friendship*. It was bad enough when those hairless pink monkeys made it to outer space but now they had developped a functioning FTL drive and that made them *worthy* of introduction into the Galactic Alliance.
In all his bismars as official technological investigators of the Galactic Alliance's scientific division, Xandar had never seen such a pathetic excuse for a ship. Neither he or any of his colleagues wanted to partake in this scientific inspection. They actually had to draw straws and to his utter disappointment, Xandar lost. Xarcy tried to cheer him up, noting that the human FTL drive was probably a dud anyway. Their first long distance drive was barely a stupid bedsheet catching solar wind, how could they have build a fully functioning FTL drive is such little time since.
21 smismars, where the hell was that pink ape that was supposed to show him the drive ? Xandar only wanted to get done with this and leave. The human vessel was small, cramped and much too warm for his taste. It also didn't help that everything was made to accomodate 6ft tall apes, at 9ft tall, a respectable height for a noble Glaxian like him, he was constantly banging his upper appendage on the ceiling and door frames.
Finally a metal door opened and 2 hairless apes ran toward him. The first one, pink and the second one dark brown. Fascinating thought Xandar, I've never seen such a dark colored ape. At least some decent scientific information. Maybe the science council would let him abduct such a specimen later on for testing. Humans usually didn't mind a few abduction here and there as long as you didn't touch the cows sleeping in the fields.
The 2 apes escorted Xandar to the engine room. The first thing that caught Xandar's attention was the intense heat coming from the doorway, much worst than the rest of the already hot vessel.
>Right this way Dr Xandar, you're gonna love this!
Words could barely describe the sights that laid in front of Xandar when he crossed into the room
*What the hell kind of piece of shit is that?*
>What, the FTL drive ?
>>Quite the beauty isn't she ?
The drive in question looked like a random pile of junk with tubes coming out of the sides, hot steam rising from them. The whole thing was red hot and there was a very annoying sound of pressured gas being shot into the machine at close interval. On top of the device sat 2 giant glowing green tubes.
*Are those Arthosian power cores ?*
>Yes, you have a good eye Dr Xandar.
*Where in the 5 stars did you get these ? Only a handful were ever created and the Arthosian guard them very closely*
>>We found them!
>Of yeah, came upon a space wreck near Alpha Centory IV and we managed to recover quite a lot of technology from it.
*Wait wait... you stole them from a broken ship ?*
>Not stole, never. We found them.
>>Space salvage!
*Does the Arthosian empire know you're using stolen tech ?*
>I dunno, they never complained about it before you brought it up.
Xandar was flaggerbasted, these hairless apes weren't just stupid, they were a menace.
*Fine, walk me trough it*
>Oh you're gonna love this doc. By stripping the neutrino element of the 2 power cores and jerryrigging them together, we managed to create a power unit strong enough to blast trough the fabric of spacetime, and into the slipstream.
*Wait a minute, you stripped the power core of its protective shielding ?*
>Why yes.
>>It was really annoying really, hiding all the good stuff.
*ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS! Those a radiation shielding, this stuff is extremely dangerous*
>I know that, we all know that
>>It needed to be done. Beside, we added some plasma shielding to it.
>Yes, it should do the job... enough.
*Jesus fucking christ.... continue*
>Well, as I was saying, the drive allows us to punch our way into the slipstream and from there we can modify the flow of radiation emited by the power cores, enabling us to navigate different planes of the stream.
>>It's like a chose you own adventure travel book. Add a gamma variant to the radiation cocktail and you can move faster, replace it by a theta variant and you can navigate, for lack of a better word, "UP" into the 4th dimension.
*How do you exit the slipstreem ?*
>Well, we found that injecting a low level ion isopote directly into the power core will create an instability in the stream that causes the ship to be ejected, albeith rather violently.
>>Yes, the first test vessel exploded on exit.
*My god, this is catastrophic*
>We thought so to, so insted we just shut off the drive and the ship gets ejected much more softly.
*What... no! I mean... this whole system is horrible...*
>It's not so bad once you work out the kinks
*But how.... this must be ridiculously unstable !?*
>Oh boy... that's an understatement
>>You have to understand, all this only works if we keep the core overheated to exactly 3,568 degrees.
>Oh yes, any variation of over 2.75 degrees and the whole thing would go kablewy
*This is nuts, how do you maintain the temperature ? I see no adaptive secluar temporal module anywhere*
>Don't have one
>>Yeah, this fancy stuff is much too complicated and too hard to get your hands on.
>For now we use a system of pressure injected water and nitrogen
*You forcecool it under pressure ?*
>Exactly! I knew you'd get it doc.
>>We alternate between injecting pressurized water and nitrogen to cool off the core with a 1.5 seconds interval between each injection
*What?.... that's....how!?*
>You know.... too hot, blast it with nitrogen. Too cold, switch to water. Perfect temperature, do nothing. We evaluate the temperature every 2 seconds and Frank over there pulls the switch to inject the correct cooling substance.
*So none of this is automated ?*
>Nah, we're hoping to find a suitable automated cooling mechanism soon though.
*Like what? A water tin can on a string with a hole on the bottom ?*
>>Well no that's.... hey that's actually a good idea
>Yeah, we should look into that.
*Allright.... not taking into consideration the immense safety concern, not to mention decent common sens, this thing appears extremely dangerous and also in violation of at least a dozen galactic regulations on plasma use and timestream protocoles, and that's just for starters*
>Really?
>>Well that's a bummer for sure
*I must ask, with all this violent punching around the slipstream, how does your system deal with excess radiations and temporal aftershock effects ?*
>Come again ?
*The extreme side effects of your shitty system!!*
>Oh that. I dunno, whatever happens in the slipstream stays in the slipstream I guess.
>>Yeah, I mean it's not like we plan on living in the stream you know. It's just a highway. You roll down the window and throw your trash out.
*Over 15 sentient species live in the stream, 4 of wich are official members of the Galactic Alliance.*
>Really, people live in there ?
*YES, THEY DO!*
>Well that's fucking stupid.
>>yeah, who in their right mind lives in a galactic highway ? That's dangerous, somebody could get hurt!
>And they call US crazy ? | "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The chamber illumination dimmed and the milky sim tank faded to life. A thousand eyes stared intently from the council benches, and a trillion more from across the five galaxies.
A deep voice, set on edge with urgency and well-contained fear, began its narration of the sim.
"The Brevis' star system surveillance node 47 has, it has been reported, recorded first contact with the species self-identifying as Humans. This much has already been announced. What has not yet been announced is that an analysis of the event has been completed, and their method of travel has thrown a black flag, gamma zero priority. Observe."
The sim showed a small moon below, surrounded by a halo of probes similar to the one that must be recording the image. In the far distance, the volumetric compensation showed a grossly enlarged blue planet on another orbital track, the Brevis' home world Herol. The orbital motion of the probes had been smooth and obvious, but now they slowed.
"We are showing the event at a reduced speed. Watch carefully."
Without warning, the entire projection dimmed as a single point of incredible, actinic light burst from the space next to the moon and raced away from its surface. As one, the closer orbiting probes glowed white-hot and began to disintegrate. The image wavered and then froze.
"Now, focus your attention on the exact location this phenomenon appeared, and keep your attention on that spot as the light moves away."
The image reversed, and the killing glow moved back to its original location. It slowly crept back outwards as the sim zoomed in. There, in the wake of the glow, was a ship, shaped like a mushroom with its cap to the light. Vaporised hull matter streamed from the smooth side facing the light, some sort of ablative heat shielding.
"We had never seen this effect before. We assumed it was some sort of deceleration technique, until we looked at it from the planetary defence network."
The perspective in the sim shifted, as if travelling to the distant planet. The moon and its halo of probes shrank, then grew again due to the volumetric compensation. The sim was normal again for a moment, before that terrible light appeared, an incredible distance from the moon this time, and immediately split into two lights, travelling away from each other at greater than the speed of light.
An audible click reverberated around the chamber as each of the species in attendance simultaneously inhaled on their breathing apparatuses.
"As you can see, the motion of the light is a relativistic illusion. The light doesn't travel, it exists simultaneously at all points in a column for a moment, then dissipates. The energy requirement is staggering. After calculating an intercept to the closest habitable world on the trajectory described by the light column, it appears their world is four hundred light-years away. The humans claim a similar distance, and their navigational data also confirm it. From this we can calculate the energy release as being consistent with a type III civilisation."
What had previously been a gentle series of clicks was now a cacophony, the seats shaking with the bodily gyrations of the assembled dignitaries. Some wailed, others laughed, most were silent.
"We have brought the leader of the human expedition here, with her agreement, of course."
The noises of discomfort reached a crashing crescendo, as several of the delegates jumped out of their seats and bolted for the exit.
The disembodied voice thundered, "ORDER!"
"I present to you, Chakor, Human, of planet Earth."
The creature that stepped into the chamber was unimpressive, physically. Bipedal, endoskeletal, wearing some sort of almost completely covering clothing with various decals affixed to it. The remaining delegates seemed to calm a little, their agitation lowering to a gentle swaying. The Human addressed the crowd.
"Greetings, delegates of the local group. My name is Chakor, I represent my species, Human, and wish to express our honour in meeting you all. We come in peace."
The room quietened further, and the booming voice sounded again. "Chakor will now take moderated questions from the floor. Please enter your queries for analysis and amalgamation."
A few awkward moments passed, Chakor looking out among the delegates. They varied from bipeds with heads and arms of various number to floating creatures in some sort of water tanks, through to creatures much more... alien.
"First question. The energy output of your drive technology is beyond immense. You must be capturing the energy output of most of a galaxy, somewhere. How can it be that we have not noticed the birth of a type III civilisation under our watch?"
Chakor paused to think before she replied, clearly confused. "We are not a type III civilisation. We are barely a type I. We just discovered a way to manipulate the nature of reality."
The voice didn't even wait to consult the accumulating list of vetted questions. "What?! How?"
"When we accidentally created and shot a cluster of miniature black holes through our particle collider's detectors, we discovered that the vacuum of space was not at the true ground state of the universe. This lent is an opportunity to use the difference in energy levels to complete an until-then hypothetical method of propulsion."
The room exploded into roars, gurgles, and screeches of outrage.
"Your drive is powered by triggering a collapse of fundamental reality?!"
"Not quite, if you'd let me finish. After we discovered the false vacuum was the current skein of the universe, we found that at the moment of triggering a vacuum state collapse, it was possible to entangle an arbitrary length of vacuum in a beam away from the source, and trigger the collapse simultaneously and instantaneously along that path."
Guards in the chamber drew their weapons as several delegates rose on their hindlimbs as if to attack.
"Chakor, this is madness! Your drive cannot work as you describe, or we wouldn't have any video of your arrival. A vacuum collapse would spread from wherever it started at the speed of light, unmaking the universe in its path!"
"Oh, yes we knew that. It turns out that the vacuum collapse provides enough energy to fold space into itself. In local proximity, one side of the event becomes the other. The space in between is clipped off like a twisted balloon, erased from having any bearing on existence. Our ship is instantaneously folded from one side of the beam to the other, and internal fields save us from having any biological changes. Of course, the collapse has to happen first by a few fractions of a microsecond, so there is some... energy leakage."
The chamber went suddenly silent.
The probe and planetary defence system had recorded an abomination, a gross violation of reality itself. The demonic light fleeing the Humans' strange vessel was the energetic corpse of a monster, come to open its maw and swallow the universe, inexorably, at the glacial speed of light. A fitting technology for a pursuit predator like the humans.
"You risk all our existence just to travel. How can we leave you free run of the galaxies?"
Chakor grinned. "We could always run one last wide beam to the ends of the universe and neglect to fold it away. How can you not?" | "You wish really really hard and then you push the button."
"Really really hard? What does the wishing do?"
"Frustrates the hell out of the new recruits when they realize that the incredibly genuine way we insist that they wish as hard as they can is just a ploy to make them look silly to amuse the rest of the crew."
"That seems mean"
"Humans are occasionally mean, we do it for laughs and after the hazing is over we make it up to them; its not perfect but it satisfies their need for schadenfreude in a mild way. It brings the crew together through a shared experience."
"That seems complex for a team building exercise. Why would it work? Don't the new recruits see right through it?"
"Because its really embarrassment even if its very contrived."
"So what system does the button engage? What does it cause?"
"Take a look, the bulkhead below it has been removed"
She draped her sixteen fingers and a vast forest of flagella under the counter. She pulled out a small squat brass jug-ish looking object with a pop and thwop as it released suction from the rubber.
"So the button does nothing but simulate pressing a button connected to something. Where is the real way you activate your faster than light travel"
Smirking he didn't reply but started half laughing, half singing an old Christina Aguilera song:" I feel like I've been locked up tight..." He trailed off. "When the old veterans find out about the button its the commands turn to have a laugh. Its best to let old R.W. rest though when he's grumpy things can get nasty." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Trendsetti was looking at the report on the testing of forward-pushed wormhole system, and he wasn't happy.
On paper, FPWS should have been perfect. A space ship does a couple of certain calculations about its destination, sends the results into its Yadari-Futara particle launcher, fires a reversed Yadari particle projectile from it in destination's general direction, and the projectile goes on its way and creates a wormhole for the FTL travel.
In practice, it turned out to work just fine. The downside, as the report states, is that physical objects don't like it when the projectile goes through them, something Yadari and Futara apparently overlooked. Apparently, when the projectile, basically a kind of a miniature black hole, makes a contact with a physical object (say, an alien race's space ship with the emperor of that entire alien race currently on board), the object gets this nasty desire to collapse into itself and blow up (something that alien race is most certainly not going to like).
Trendsetti thought it was funny. Mankind wanted to find a way to travel faster than light but accidentally invented a superweapon instead. Too bad they're probably going to have to use it as such very soon. | The inhabitants of Oflesq station heard what they had come to learn was the characteristic sound of imminent human arrival. No one understood it. A vast mooing, defying the supposed absence of sound travel in empty space. A mooing that sent chills down both of their spines; as if it were the old gods that had come, calling at last for the reckoning of all things. Two humans galloped into the hangar.
They were quickly escorted into the conference room, and after being joined by a single alien, the thick door was shut and locked. "This is the man?" Efroi asked. "Correct," said the tall, large human. Efroi knew the type; this one could be trusted, given the right compensation. But the other one...
"Hi, I'm Joey." Joey absentmindedly spit onto the floor.
Efroi made an assessment. This human was not like the others that it had seen; there was a certain change of mannerism, at once both carefree and uncomfortable with a complete lack of social grace and general awareness. This seemed to be his first time wearing a suit. It's first impression was of an uneducated common worker, yet it could detect that he probably did have an intimate knowledge of cows.
"Hi Joey, we would like to talk about your cows today. Could you... explain? I would like to know how they work and how you created them."
"Welp, you see, we humans 'ad made large advancements towards time travel. But it's impossible, see. You can change tha rate of time flow, but ya can't twist it back on itself. So I got to thinkin. I got these cows, see. Me and my family been breedin cows a long time. Tryina get the better cows, the best cows. I figure, why not speed up the process a little bit. So I throw some cows in there, in the device I mean, and an AI for the selective breedin. Set the dial the farthes it would go. I open the thing up two seconds later and boom. FTL cows."
*That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.* Efroi looked over to the other human, who remained expressionless. "So, um, how did you aquire one of these time manipulating devices, Joey?"
"I made it m'self. Not commercially available, see. Read up on the principles of it and got to work. Took a bit of work, too. To enclose the whole area, y'know. Set up a self sustainin environment, self sustainin robotics. Don't get me started on the energy source. People saw what I was doin, called me crazy. Now they're ridin *my* cows. They're the best cows in the universe, I reckon."
Efroi wouldn't believe it, none of it, if these humans hadn't just rode into the hangar on a couple of space cows. This man must be one of the best his species has to offer. "So, how do these cows work? What principle allows them to travel faster than light? How do they survive the vacuum of space, and the humans who ride on top of them? How do they fill the voids of space with their mooing?"
"Honestly, I ain't got a clue. No one does. The cows are in-comprehensible. Evolution works in mysterious ways. And the cows were in there quite a long time, see."
"How long... do you estimate?" Efroi began to feel even more unwell.
"Well, my internal clock ran out of memory space. It was only 64 petabytes but it was only designed to record the exponent of 10 for the number-"
"This is insane." Efroi stood up. "The cows are perfect beings, at least in this one respect. Do you realize the potential of this method? What it could do to the universe? You humans have kept this secret, yes? This information cannot be revealed again. This cannot be done again."
"But it ha-"
"Thank you for having us, Efroi. But this is all the information we are willing to disclose at this time," The tall human interrupted. "The cows are sacred beings who chose the simple dairy farmer Joey as their prophet, to usher in a new age for humanity. That is the official story, and you would do well to maintain that, Efroi," The tall man said. *That's the second stupidest thing I've ever heard.*
For the rest of its days, Efroi was forever haunted by the mooing that echoed amongst the stars, and the prophecy that it foretold. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The *Sunseeker*'s control room was dead silent except for the low *beep-beep-beep* of the deep space radar. The screen lights flashed a dim blue against the vast blankness of space, but nothing else moved, or breathed in the cavernous space.
A line of blue light appeared in the middle of the room, then expanded into a doorway from which stepped out three figures. If a human had still been present in the control room, they would have looked askance as the figures were too tall, too thin, and moved too fluidly to be one of their own. A living human might have been thrilled to catch their first glimpse of extraterrestrial life.
The humans in the control room, however, were far past caring the issue. Glassy eyes stared numbly at their consoles, and heads looked on fixedly, their motor muscles frozen instantly by the nerve pulse.
The first figure scanned the room for remaining traces of the weaponized blast, then sighed into its microphone.
"Looks like we got another dead crew. It seems like they still don't get it."
"Give them some credit, none of their crews has returned from a trip this long."
"Still, after sixty years of exploration? You'd think they would have given up."
One of the other figures shrugs. The movement brings its narrow shoulders all the way to the crown of its head.
"Humans will be humans. They are a stubborn species, that's for sure."
"Well, as long as it prevents them from leaving that backwater of theirs, I'm all for it."
The other figure hunches over to examine one of the dead crew members.
"Still, don't you think we should tell them by now? That their FTL drive can only decelerate up to a certain point before releasing that tachyon wave?"
"Weren't you listening? Leaving them ignorant is exactly the point. As long as they're stuck at 2c, it'll take them centuries to reach civilized space. Hopefully they'll have learned some manners by then. Bloody primitives..."
The hunched figure sighs, claps its hands together in the *macto*, then turns back to the gateway. The three aliens depart as quietly as they came.
** Three days later**
The alien ship is long gone, and the human vessel still floats in the vast expanse of space. It has waited the full three days allotted to its crew, before its automated safeguards took over.
The ship flashes blue, glowing like a briefly lived supernova, then disappears into the strange dimensions of FTL travel. After sixty years, the Human Exploration Corps finally developed a ship that could travel back to Earth on its own, and carry with it a recording of the tales of its crew. | The inhabitants of Oflesq station heard what they had come to learn was the characteristic sound of imminent human arrival. No one understood it. A vast mooing, defying the supposed absence of sound travel in empty space. A mooing that sent chills down both of their spines; as if it were the old gods that had come, calling at last for the reckoning of all things. Two humans galloped into the hangar.
They were quickly escorted into the conference room, and after being joined by a single alien, the thick door was shut and locked. "This is the man?" Efroi asked. "Correct," said the tall, large human. Efroi knew the type; this one could be trusted, given the right compensation. But the other one...
"Hi, I'm Joey." Joey absentmindedly spit onto the floor.
Efroi made an assessment. This human was not like the others that it had seen; there was a certain change of mannerism, at once both carefree and uncomfortable with a complete lack of social grace and general awareness. This seemed to be his first time wearing a suit. It's first impression was of an uneducated common worker, yet it could detect that he probably did have an intimate knowledge of cows.
"Hi Joey, we would like to talk about your cows today. Could you... explain? I would like to know how they work and how you created them."
"Welp, you see, we humans 'ad made large advancements towards time travel. But it's impossible, see. You can change tha rate of time flow, but ya can't twist it back on itself. So I got to thinkin. I got these cows, see. Me and my family been breedin cows a long time. Tryina get the better cows, the best cows. I figure, why not speed up the process a little bit. So I throw some cows in there, in the device I mean, and an AI for the selective breedin. Set the dial the farthes it would go. I open the thing up two seconds later and boom. FTL cows."
*That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.* Efroi looked over to the other human, who remained expressionless. "So, um, how did you aquire one of these time manipulating devices, Joey?"
"I made it m'self. Not commercially available, see. Read up on the principles of it and got to work. Took a bit of work, too. To enclose the whole area, y'know. Set up a self sustainin environment, self sustainin robotics. Don't get me started on the energy source. People saw what I was doin, called me crazy. Now they're ridin *my* cows. They're the best cows in the universe, I reckon."
Efroi wouldn't believe it, none of it, if these humans hadn't just rode into the hangar on a couple of space cows. This man must be one of the best his species has to offer. "So, how do these cows work? What principle allows them to travel faster than light? How do they survive the vacuum of space, and the humans who ride on top of them? How do they fill the voids of space with their mooing?"
"Honestly, I ain't got a clue. No one does. The cows are in-comprehensible. Evolution works in mysterious ways. And the cows were in there quite a long time, see."
"How long... do you estimate?" Efroi began to feel even more unwell.
"Well, my internal clock ran out of memory space. It was only 64 petabytes but it was only designed to record the exponent of 10 for the number-"
"This is insane." Efroi stood up. "The cows are perfect beings, at least in this one respect. Do you realize the potential of this method? What it could do to the universe? You humans have kept this secret, yes? This information cannot be revealed again. This cannot be done again."
"But it ha-"
"Thank you for having us, Efroi. But this is all the information we are willing to disclose at this time," The tall human interrupted. "The cows are sacred beings who chose the simple dairy farmer Joey as their prophet, to usher in a new age for humanity. That is the official story, and you would do well to maintain that, Efroi," The tall man said. *That's the second stupidest thing I've ever heard.*
For the rest of its days, Efroi was forever haunted by the mooing that echoed amongst the stars, and the prophecy that it foretold. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "You need to stop this. Now." ~UTHQ
It seemed like a strange message from the UT at first, the United Terrans organization, formed by the world's leading space agencies to represent all of humanity and the Earth as we ventured out of the solar system for the first time.
But this wasn't from the UT.
It couldn't be. TRAPPIST-1 was 40 light years away from Earth. It had taken only 32 years to travel here in the DocBrown, a name chosen thanks to somebody's bright idea to let internet polls do the picking. Theoretically, the ship could travel even faster, possibly greater than 2c, but due to the still relatively unknown nature of matter at speeds >1c, the speed was capped at 1.25c for this mission. Earth would have had to have sent this message *8 years* before they left.
The tension in the recycled air was so palpable it was hard to breathe, a mixture of separate emotions so intense you'd feel like you might implode and explode all at the same time.
They had first braved the pounding tension of the "photobraking" deceleration maneuver as they approached the star system, where the DocBrown's FTL drive was shut down to allow *space-time itself* to decelerate the ship below lightspeed, the first-ever such attempt in human history. It certainly sounds sensible when you have a room full of mathematicians and physicists drawing it out for you, but while trapped in a ship barreling through the galaxy at +1c, you begin to wonder why they aren't sitting in your seat instead. The ship instantly began to rumble as soon as the engines were cut, louder and louder at a rising frequency. As speed dropped closer to 1c, gunpowder crackling sounds and bangs like metallic bones snapping abused the outside the hull. The blueshifted light through the front windows, turning more and more white, increased in luminosity, until in a blinding flash a deafening ***THUD*** broke the ship's runaway speed like driving into a brick wall. The ship's speed now read 0.87c, and all was quiet. Spacetime, and light, it seems, has something akin to sonic booms that come from violating the universe's speed limits.
To slow down further, the fuel tank, capable of holding 5% of the Moon's mass, had to be thrown away in a trajectory that would not impact any of the exoplanets dancing around TRAPPIST-1. The mechanism to do this was a nuclear warhead, and a 10km tether to draw out the acceleration force from being instantaneous. "Don't ask," one engineer said, working on developing this technology. "We've tested it. It works..."
After the maneuver left the ship's speed at a little over 0.51c, DocBrown's traditional engines took over to do the rest of the legwork, but the beauty shining in through the windows was so loud now it overpowered all engine noise into deafening silence. The cool dwarf star's system was a fertile playground of seven exoplanets, three of which were Earth-like. They had atmospheres, and their surface was a swirl of colors so exotic, made possible only by the mysterious artistry of the universe, that Jeb had to keep wiping the water from his eyes just to keep looking at it.
He looked over at Deb, who was also crying, and then at the rest of the team, they all laughed and came together to embrace.
In the joy and excitement of the moment, Jeb thought he had heard a barely-audible *ding,* but it was likely nothing. After the celebration settled down, Jeb went to the ship's console to make sure the warning wasn't something serious to do with the DocBrown's deceleration burn.
But it wasn't an engine warning. It was a direct message, from UT, from home.
"You need to stop this. Now." ~UTHQ
The emotions flowing in this moment made it difficult to discern what this meant, how is this possible? Is it possible? Jeb put his head in his hands and the team saw him struggling; they came over to see what the issue might be. Each member read the message and the ship once again became overwhelmed by a crushing silence, as each crewmate contiplated the unreal, impossible nature of what they were looking at. It *wasn't* possible.
Just as contemplations began to wander into darker, more impossible possibilities, their predictions were quickly narrowed down, by another received message: *(ding)*
"This is a warning." ~UTHQ
----------
**Edit: Part 2/3**
The tense atmosphere led Marcus, systems engineer for the mission, to sit down at the console.
"Who is this?" ~DocBrown
Their laser communications system was pointed directly at Earth, and it would take 40 years for the message to arrive there. The messages had been digitally signed with UT's signature. The team contemplated that their communications have been cracked, and hijacked.
"What do they want? Why the warning?" Mel sounded panicked, the lead biologist for the mission. "They want us to stop doing something..." Marcus mumbled, reading over the messages.
After a pause, Mel jumped up. "Do you think they live here? Do you think this is their system?" Dale, the radioastronomer, shrugged. "No chatter from this place. Our radio leak out to space for over 1200 year before we come here."
Marcus shrugged, and seeing no harm in trying, typed out:
"Is this sun your home?" ~DocBrown
As the message sent out, the team entertained a thought that maybe UT would be getting some funny messages in 40 years.
*(ding)*
"No." ~UTHQ
A chill fell over the air. Marcus got out of his seat and moved away. "What do they want?", Mel cried. Jeb spoke up, "Hold on, so far we're just talking. We don't know who they are yet, or what they want. They want us to stop doing something, so maybe we broke a rule, we just don't know about it yet."
Mel sniffed, but she was contemplating. "Maybe there's already life here, and it's against the law to mess with it?" Dale scoffed, "They mess with us!"
Marcus turned around, focused. "We need to know what we did wrong." He sat down at the console,
"What did we do wrong?" ~DocBrown
The crew watched as the message was sent out, anticipating the passing seconds.
*(ding)*
"Dumblfuckery." ~UTHQ
----------
**Edit 2: see below for Part 3/3**
| The inhabitants of Oflesq station heard what they had come to learn was the characteristic sound of imminent human arrival. No one understood it. A vast mooing, defying the supposed absence of sound travel in empty space. A mooing that sent chills down both of their spines; as if it were the old gods that had come, calling at last for the reckoning of all things. Two humans galloped into the hangar.
They were quickly escorted into the conference room, and after being joined by a single alien, the thick door was shut and locked. "This is the man?" Efroi asked. "Correct," said the tall, large human. Efroi knew the type; this one could be trusted, given the right compensation. But the other one...
"Hi, I'm Joey." Joey absentmindedly spit onto the floor.
Efroi made an assessment. This human was not like the others that it had seen; there was a certain change of mannerism, at once both carefree and uncomfortable with a complete lack of social grace and general awareness. This seemed to be his first time wearing a suit. It's first impression was of an uneducated common worker, yet it could detect that he probably did have an intimate knowledge of cows.
"Hi Joey, we would like to talk about your cows today. Could you... explain? I would like to know how they work and how you created them."
"Welp, you see, we humans 'ad made large advancements towards time travel. But it's impossible, see. You can change tha rate of time flow, but ya can't twist it back on itself. So I got to thinkin. I got these cows, see. Me and my family been breedin cows a long time. Tryina get the better cows, the best cows. I figure, why not speed up the process a little bit. So I throw some cows in there, in the device I mean, and an AI for the selective breedin. Set the dial the farthes it would go. I open the thing up two seconds later and boom. FTL cows."
*That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.* Efroi looked over to the other human, who remained expressionless. "So, um, how did you aquire one of these time manipulating devices, Joey?"
"I made it m'self. Not commercially available, see. Read up on the principles of it and got to work. Took a bit of work, too. To enclose the whole area, y'know. Set up a self sustainin environment, self sustainin robotics. Don't get me started on the energy source. People saw what I was doin, called me crazy. Now they're ridin *my* cows. They're the best cows in the universe, I reckon."
Efroi wouldn't believe it, none of it, if these humans hadn't just rode into the hangar on a couple of space cows. This man must be one of the best his species has to offer. "So, how do these cows work? What principle allows them to travel faster than light? How do they survive the vacuum of space, and the humans who ride on top of them? How do they fill the voids of space with their mooing?"
"Honestly, I ain't got a clue. No one does. The cows are in-comprehensible. Evolution works in mysterious ways. And the cows were in there quite a long time, see."
"How long... do you estimate?" Efroi began to feel even more unwell.
"Well, my internal clock ran out of memory space. It was only 64 petabytes but it was only designed to record the exponent of 10 for the number-"
"This is insane." Efroi stood up. "The cows are perfect beings, at least in this one respect. Do you realize the potential of this method? What it could do to the universe? You humans have kept this secret, yes? This information cannot be revealed again. This cannot be done again."
"But it ha-"
"Thank you for having us, Efroi. But this is all the information we are willing to disclose at this time," The tall human interrupted. "The cows are sacred beings who chose the simple dairy farmer Joey as their prophet, to usher in a new age for humanity. That is the official story, and you would do well to maintain that, Efroi," The tall man said. *That's the second stupidest thing I've ever heard.*
For the rest of its days, Efroi was forever haunted by the mooing that echoed amongst the stars, and the prophecy that it foretold. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | “We must keep the Humans believing that their FTL system is unsafe, unorthodox and damn stupid. That is the point of this of this Special Hearing of The Supreme Council of the New Species Traveling Faster than Light. I am Farlack, Supreme Councilor of the Organization of Galactic Legal Advisors. ^(legal disclaimer: Norepresentationismadethatthequalityofthelegalgalacticservicestobeperformedisgreaterthanthequalityoflegalservicesperformedbyotherlawyers).
“Scarlacc, will you please read the minutes from the last session to allow this Supeme Council to aware of the latest current legal status of the Humans.?”
“Of course. That would be Sub-Section 7 of Section 30 of the 5th meeting of the Council of Dealing with and Controlling the Humans.
“It has been discovered that the Humans have developed a completely new FTL travel, with no related or similar technologies in the known Galaxy. The core of this FTL is a bubble of a universe where the speed of light is 1000 times faster than the speed of light is in our legally defined universe is pulled to our universe. The Human ships then travel at .1 c in this alternate universe. Upon exiting this alternate universe, the human ships have travelled 1000 times the distance in our universe. The energy expense of travelling in the alternate universe is the same as travelling in our univ-“
“Sarlacc, this Council is not interested in the technical aspects of the Humans FTL Technologies. That discussion is for the Galactic Council of Technology Equalization and/or The Council of Equalization of Galactic Technologies and/or Council of Galactic Technology Equalization. Ballzacc, will you present the Summary of the Social Legal Issues of the Humans Council meeting?”
“Of course. Due to the extremely dangerous situation these Humans create for us, I will dispense with extraneous discussion and proceed to the summary of the meeting, as permitted in The Rules and Guides of the Supreme Galactic Committee and The Guides and Rules of the Supreme Galactic Committee, version 2 of edition 5, Copyrighted.
“The Humans have a social system that may lead to our death and destruction. The humans developed their FTL without our influence and guidance, so we were unable to control their technology with the powers of the Galactic Patent Office. This failure was due to their rapid technological development. In the span of 6 human generations, they progressed from animal driven power to FTL travel. During the final Human pre-FTL travel, Humans revolted against their legal system and killed all lawyers allow-“
“They did WHAT?” interrupred Farlack. “How do they maintain their society without legal protections?”
“They became disgusted with a legal system that required warning labels to not drive their “automobile” with the windshield sunscreen in place. As I was saying, this allowed generations of research and development to be done in half a generation. And we can not control their technology.” Ballzacc completed his summary, terror beginning to creep into its face.
“Oh my supreme being. When the common people of the Galaxy learn of this… no lawyers…no lifelong Legal Guidance fees…” Farlack began to understand the lack of his future.
“Yes. This Council and all others, we will be destroyed”
“Yes, their technology is unorthodox, unsafe, and damn stupid, but for reasons the Galaxy must never understand.”
| The inhabitants of Oflesq station heard what they had come to learn was the characteristic sound of imminent human arrival. No one understood it. A vast mooing, defying the supposed absence of sound travel in empty space. A mooing that sent chills down both of their spines; as if it were the old gods that had come, calling at last for the reckoning of all things. Two humans galloped into the hangar.
They were quickly escorted into the conference room, and after being joined by a single alien, the thick door was shut and locked. "This is the man?" Efroi asked. "Correct," said the tall, large human. Efroi knew the type; this one could be trusted, given the right compensation. But the other one...
"Hi, I'm Joey." Joey absentmindedly spit onto the floor.
Efroi made an assessment. This human was not like the others that it had seen; there was a certain change of mannerism, at once both carefree and uncomfortable with a complete lack of social grace and general awareness. This seemed to be his first time wearing a suit. It's first impression was of an uneducated common worker, yet it could detect that he probably did have an intimate knowledge of cows.
"Hi Joey, we would like to talk about your cows today. Could you... explain? I would like to know how they work and how you created them."
"Welp, you see, we humans 'ad made large advancements towards time travel. But it's impossible, see. You can change tha rate of time flow, but ya can't twist it back on itself. So I got to thinkin. I got these cows, see. Me and my family been breedin cows a long time. Tryina get the better cows, the best cows. I figure, why not speed up the process a little bit. So I throw some cows in there, in the device I mean, and an AI for the selective breedin. Set the dial the farthes it would go. I open the thing up two seconds later and boom. FTL cows."
*That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.* Efroi looked over to the other human, who remained expressionless. "So, um, how did you aquire one of these time manipulating devices, Joey?"
"I made it m'self. Not commercially available, see. Read up on the principles of it and got to work. Took a bit of work, too. To enclose the whole area, y'know. Set up a self sustainin environment, self sustainin robotics. Don't get me started on the energy source. People saw what I was doin, called me crazy. Now they're ridin *my* cows. They're the best cows in the universe, I reckon."
Efroi wouldn't believe it, none of it, if these humans hadn't just rode into the hangar on a couple of space cows. This man must be one of the best his species has to offer. "So, how do these cows work? What principle allows them to travel faster than light? How do they survive the vacuum of space, and the humans who ride on top of them? How do they fill the voids of space with their mooing?"
"Honestly, I ain't got a clue. No one does. The cows are in-comprehensible. Evolution works in mysterious ways. And the cows were in there quite a long time, see."
"How long... do you estimate?" Efroi began to feel even more unwell.
"Well, my internal clock ran out of memory space. It was only 64 petabytes but it was only designed to record the exponent of 10 for the number-"
"This is insane." Efroi stood up. "The cows are perfect beings, at least in this one respect. Do you realize the potential of this method? What it could do to the universe? You humans have kept this secret, yes? This information cannot be revealed again. This cannot be done again."
"But it ha-"
"Thank you for having us, Efroi. But this is all the information we are willing to disclose at this time," The tall human interrupted. "The cows are sacred beings who chose the simple dairy farmer Joey as their prophet, to usher in a new age for humanity. That is the official story, and you would do well to maintain that, Efroi," The tall man said. *That's the second stupidest thing I've ever heard.*
For the rest of its days, Efroi was forever haunted by the mooing that echoed amongst the stars, and the prophecy that it foretold. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "So, about the humans..." Said a voice with diplomatic neutrality.
Groans from a myriad of different species' voices could be heard throughout the conference hall. There was a meeting being held on how to properly welcome these new, strange creatures now that they had, technically, at least, achieved Faster Than Light travel.
"We organised this meeting to discuss them! When are you all going to stop pussyfooting around the issue!?" The same voice declared, with a level of anger hard to believe considering their tone mere seconds ago.
"Blarpart, I know you're a workaholic and all that but have you SEEN these...creature's form of FTL "travel"?" A gruff voice from somewhere in the hall responded over the din of arguing and groans of "are we really fucking doing this?"
"I agree that it's...unconventional but-"
The word "unconventional" being used to describe human beings' method of intergalactic travel caused an uproar among the crowd.
"Hey! HEY! HEYYYYYY!" Interjected Blarpart with an odd mixture of rage, impatience and exhaustion. "It works for them, who are we to judge?"
"Don't you get it? They use possibly the most unstable thing in the universe, a wormhole, and pump it with a load of who knows what to make it last more than a nanosecond and to a greater size than a few atoms and just *sigh* go through it and hope for the best"
"As I said, uncon-" Blarpart thought better of using *that* word again and instead chose to deflect the conversation in the hopes of finishing and grabbing something from a Space Denny's on the way home.
"Ok, how about we just ignore them? They're not going to last long as a species if THAT'S how they traverse space. From our observations, their 'wormhole jumping' has about an 80% chance of failure. All in favour?"
A chorus of relieved "aye"s reverberated throughout the room.
"All opposed?"
...
"Well then, that settles i-"
"YOU FUCKING WOT, M8?" A voice shouted from just outside the hall.
"Can I go without being interrupted for ONE MINUTE?" Blarpart said in an exasperated sigh.
And with that, a duo of humans, one tall with brown hair and the other short with black hair, burst into the hall with their bottles of what they call "Mountain Dew" and bags of "Doritos" and started going on about how we can't "diss" them like that.
"You know what? Fuck these alien squares, wanna go piss into a black hole?" The taller one said.
"Yeah, dude. Definitely." The shorter one replied with an almost endearing level of excitement at the prospect.
And with that, the duo left as quickly as they had entered.
"What just happened?" A member of the crowd ask with a disbelieving tone.
"...Humanity. Humanity happened" said Blarpart, with yet another sigh.
Spelling and removing the pretentious "fin". | The inhabitants of Oflesq station heard what they had come to learn was the characteristic sound of imminent human arrival. No one understood it. A vast mooing, defying the supposed absence of sound travel in empty space. A mooing that sent chills down both of their spines; as if it were the old gods that had come, calling at last for the reckoning of all things. Two humans galloped into the hangar.
They were quickly escorted into the conference room, and after being joined by a single alien, the thick door was shut and locked. "This is the man?" Efroi asked. "Correct," said the tall, large human. Efroi knew the type; this one could be trusted, given the right compensation. But the other one...
"Hi, I'm Joey." Joey absentmindedly spit onto the floor.
Efroi made an assessment. This human was not like the others that it had seen; there was a certain change of mannerism, at once both carefree and uncomfortable with a complete lack of social grace and general awareness. This seemed to be his first time wearing a suit. It's first impression was of an uneducated common worker, yet it could detect that he probably did have an intimate knowledge of cows.
"Hi Joey, we would like to talk about your cows today. Could you... explain? I would like to know how they work and how you created them."
"Welp, you see, we humans 'ad made large advancements towards time travel. But it's impossible, see. You can change tha rate of time flow, but ya can't twist it back on itself. So I got to thinkin. I got these cows, see. Me and my family been breedin cows a long time. Tryina get the better cows, the best cows. I figure, why not speed up the process a little bit. So I throw some cows in there, in the device I mean, and an AI for the selective breedin. Set the dial the farthes it would go. I open the thing up two seconds later and boom. FTL cows."
*That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.* Efroi looked over to the other human, who remained expressionless. "So, um, how did you aquire one of these time manipulating devices, Joey?"
"I made it m'self. Not commercially available, see. Read up on the principles of it and got to work. Took a bit of work, too. To enclose the whole area, y'know. Set up a self sustainin environment, self sustainin robotics. Don't get me started on the energy source. People saw what I was doin, called me crazy. Now they're ridin *my* cows. They're the best cows in the universe, I reckon."
Efroi wouldn't believe it, none of it, if these humans hadn't just rode into the hangar on a couple of space cows. This man must be one of the best his species has to offer. "So, how do these cows work? What principle allows them to travel faster than light? How do they survive the vacuum of space, and the humans who ride on top of them? How do they fill the voids of space with their mooing?"
"Honestly, I ain't got a clue. No one does. The cows are in-comprehensible. Evolution works in mysterious ways. And the cows were in there quite a long time, see."
"How long... do you estimate?" Efroi began to feel even more unwell.
"Well, my internal clock ran out of memory space. It was only 64 petabytes but it was only designed to record the exponent of 10 for the number-"
"This is insane." Efroi stood up. "The cows are perfect beings, at least in this one respect. Do you realize the potential of this method? What it could do to the universe? You humans have kept this secret, yes? This information cannot be revealed again. This cannot be done again."
"But it ha-"
"Thank you for having us, Efroi. But this is all the information we are willing to disclose at this time," The tall human interrupted. "The cows are sacred beings who chose the simple dairy farmer Joey as their prophet, to usher in a new age for humanity. That is the official story, and you would do well to maintain that, Efroi," The tall man said. *That's the second stupidest thing I've ever heard.*
For the rest of its days, Efroi was forever haunted by the mooing that echoed amongst the stars, and the prophecy that it foretold. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Kalgor looked at the pale skined human in utter shock. 'They couldn't be serious in thinking that the rest of the galactic community would simply accept the use of this kind of technology'
“Mr. Adams...” Kalgor began.
“Doctor Adams if you don't mind Count Kalgor.” Dr. Adams corrected, he knew that if he didn't demand respect now that it would be harder to earn it back later. As it stood he could tell that the reptilian xeno that stood before him was not pleased with what had been unveiled only a hour ago in the space dock that was right outside his office window right now.
“Yes Dr.Adams. You must understand that of the various forms of FTL drive in use in the galaxy what you have unveiled here today is at best going to be seen as unsafe at best or outright dangerous to some in the galaxy.” He was struggling to keep the panic out of his voice, but despite his many deca-cycles of experience in diplomacy the very skill that had made him chosen as the Galactic Senate's emissary to the up and coming human race, he was begin to fail.
“Count with all due respect I fail to see what the overall difference is between our own hyperdrive and the Delfanit pulse tube drive or the Kantian gate system they all use hyperspace gravity waves to achieve FTL speeds.”
Kalgor's voice broke. “But you are punching holes in space to reach hyperspace!”
“So?” the Doctor responded nonchalantly.
“The Kantian's use a physical gateway to control entry into hyperspace and the Delfanit's use natural gravity currents to slip into hyperspace. Your system just punches holes into the fabric of space! Even our scientists can't tell if making those holes will not bring about the complete tearing of reality as we know it.”
Kalgor again reasserted some control over himself and continued.
“I know that this is a major milestone for humanity and means that you will not have to pay for the use of other species drive systems in your ships which will transform your economy and your military forces. But this is too dangerous besides, what possible advantages could this drive have over the other forms of FTL?”
Adams knew that this moment would be coming sooner or later and that he had to make the most it.
“So glad you could ask Count. The Kantian's gate system requires a massive amount of energy in order to not only open the entryway to hyperspace both for incoming and outgoing traffic, but to hold it open long enough for ships to get through. While they have relatively few systems in their Empire those that they have are spread out thus why the gate was developed. Once in system they use regular sub-light fusion drive to go from the gate to their ultimate planetary destination.”
Kalgor nodded his head as the Doctor continued.
“However due to the power requirements of just one of those gates not to mention the operating costs it would be uneconomical to have a gate at each planet.
Another thing is the time that the gate is held open effects the toll paid by merchant traffic thus why you don't see any Kantian merchant vessels over 1.5km in length. Beyond that length the ratio between hold space, engine size, and time to accelerate becomes uneconomical. They can't get moving from a stand still fast enough to go through the gate without occurring serious tolls and they can't dedicate more engine size because it cuts into their profits from loss of tonnage hauled.”
“Well... yes those are valid points but...” Kalgor stammered out but Adams didn't let up.
“The Delfanit pulse tube solves the power requirement issue and the infrastructure issue but those “tubes” where the gravity band waves are stable enough to sail on until they hit hyperspace are very restricting as they only occur naturally in a few places. This is why their Kingdom if you look at their history had periods of rapid expansion followed by long periods of solidification because goods had to travel often dozens of light years in sublight from system hubs that had these tubes thus slowing growth.”
Kalgor knew he was quickly losing ground and had little recourse as any other drive system that was used in the galaxy had similar glaring issues that were simply accepted.
The Maltiun wave-riders used massive 20km+ gravity sails to ride the same gravity waves as the Delfanit but instead of entering hyperspace they rode ever more powerful waves and were not limited in where they could go for the most part. But the system was high maintenance and very tonnage sensitive as the larger the vessel the longer it took for that vessel reach FTL speeds. The largest ships the species built took at least a standard week to get up to speed and then another week to slow down.
Salec skip drives on the other hand actually sent gravity anchor beams to latch onto hyperspace currents and pull the ship along technically “skipping” on the envelope between real space and hyperspace. The down side is that the anchors can only hold for so long and the power requirements while nothing like Kantians as this wasn't actually entering hyperspace. Meant that they could only skip anywhere from 20 to 100 lightyears depending on the ships configuration before having to recharge their anchoring system, which could take a standard day or up to a week on the largest shipping vessels. Still faster than going at sub light speeds for sure but it meant long travel times for goods.
“Our system allows us to enter hyperspace at will, with no concerns about ship mass, size, or power production beyond engine thrust which combined with our already recognized and accepted superior fusion engine designs, means that we can potentially travel from one side of the galaxy to the other in a month. At least if you are willing to burn that much H3 fuel which even then is more a matter of being inconvenienced with having to stop for fuel rather than any sort of cost consideration.”
The silence in the office was deafening as Kalgor stepped towards the window and looked upon the vessel.
“But the holes Doctor! You may have a system that doesn't have the others drawbacks but we are talking about ripping apart space itself.”
“Count Kalgor I am growing weary of this repeated falsehood. We have be using the same points in orbit to develop this system for over a standard year, and every time we have gone we have had to open a new hole as the last one closed once the vessel is through. Beyond the gravity wake left by the opening you can't tell any thing happened at all after 24 to 36 hours. It is safe.”
“The Senate will not accept this...” Kalgor started hoping he was right to bank on the repugnant nature of this very concept.
“They might not now but they will when they see the Eli Whitney.” Adams spoke ominously. He turned on the large holotank in the middle of the room. The image displayed a monstrous vessel.”
Kalgor turned around and his eyes went wide at the image.
“Is this a warship?” He asked as the ever growing list of implications in his head grew with each passing second.
“No my Count, it is not. It is a merchant vessel commissioned by the Wal-Mart Cartel. She is 75km long, over 2km tall with 12 50-Petawatt fusion reactors with a top estimated FTL speed of 50 but will likely run at 10 to save on fuel costs as such speed is generally unneeded. The whole vessel weighs over 500 million tons 490 of which is hold space capable of hauling virtually anything you can think of. She is going out for trials in a hour then if all goes well she will make a fully loaded iron ore run from the Sol system to Peraxus VII and its heavy industry there. And given that the Senate is on Peraxus V the Eli will make a pass and see if there is anything that needs to be shipped back here to Earth on the return trip.”
As the Doctor finished Kalgor could feel his heart tighten at the size of the vessel and its speed. It would be in the Peraxus system in 3 days, even if he left now in one of the fastest vessels money could buy now he couldn't hope to get there in anything less than 12 days.
“You humans are reckless and unorthodox beyond anything I have ever heard of in my life. But I can't argue with the results.” Kalgor finally stated any hope of resistance gone as the pragmatic side of him knew that economically humanity had, in 10 years after first contact blown every other power in the galaxy out of the water. Another voice his is head whispered about what would happen if mankind made warships on such a scale.
“Well Doctor I don't see any point in arguing anymore but if you can let me on this vessel and join me in the senate with your research especially on the whole hole-punching-then-closing-up-perfectly part, then maybe we can avoid starting a bigger galactic panic then what we absolutely have to.”
“Of course Count I'm already packed and I have made such arrangements already. We can leave once the ship has gone through its final trials.” The Doctor proudly stated. | The inhabitants of Oflesq station heard what they had come to learn was the characteristic sound of imminent human arrival. No one understood it. A vast mooing, defying the supposed absence of sound travel in empty space. A mooing that sent chills down both of their spines; as if it were the old gods that had come, calling at last for the reckoning of all things. Two humans galloped into the hangar.
They were quickly escorted into the conference room, and after being joined by a single alien, the thick door was shut and locked. "This is the man?" Efroi asked. "Correct," said the tall, large human. Efroi knew the type; this one could be trusted, given the right compensation. But the other one...
"Hi, I'm Joey." Joey absentmindedly spit onto the floor.
Efroi made an assessment. This human was not like the others that it had seen; there was a certain change of mannerism, at once both carefree and uncomfortable with a complete lack of social grace and general awareness. This seemed to be his first time wearing a suit. It's first impression was of an uneducated common worker, yet it could detect that he probably did have an intimate knowledge of cows.
"Hi Joey, we would like to talk about your cows today. Could you... explain? I would like to know how they work and how you created them."
"Welp, you see, we humans 'ad made large advancements towards time travel. But it's impossible, see. You can change tha rate of time flow, but ya can't twist it back on itself. So I got to thinkin. I got these cows, see. Me and my family been breedin cows a long time. Tryina get the better cows, the best cows. I figure, why not speed up the process a little bit. So I throw some cows in there, in the device I mean, and an AI for the selective breedin. Set the dial the farthes it would go. I open the thing up two seconds later and boom. FTL cows."
*That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.* Efroi looked over to the other human, who remained expressionless. "So, um, how did you aquire one of these time manipulating devices, Joey?"
"I made it m'self. Not commercially available, see. Read up on the principles of it and got to work. Took a bit of work, too. To enclose the whole area, y'know. Set up a self sustainin environment, self sustainin robotics. Don't get me started on the energy source. People saw what I was doin, called me crazy. Now they're ridin *my* cows. They're the best cows in the universe, I reckon."
Efroi wouldn't believe it, none of it, if these humans hadn't just rode into the hangar on a couple of space cows. This man must be one of the best his species has to offer. "So, how do these cows work? What principle allows them to travel faster than light? How do they survive the vacuum of space, and the humans who ride on top of them? How do they fill the voids of space with their mooing?"
"Honestly, I ain't got a clue. No one does. The cows are in-comprehensible. Evolution works in mysterious ways. And the cows were in there quite a long time, see."
"How long... do you estimate?" Efroi began to feel even more unwell.
"Well, my internal clock ran out of memory space. It was only 64 petabytes but it was only designed to record the exponent of 10 for the number-"
"This is insane." Efroi stood up. "The cows are perfect beings, at least in this one respect. Do you realize the potential of this method? What it could do to the universe? You humans have kept this secret, yes? This information cannot be revealed again. This cannot be done again."
"But it ha-"
"Thank you for having us, Efroi. But this is all the information we are willing to disclose at this time," The tall human interrupted. "The cows are sacred beings who chose the simple dairy farmer Joey as their prophet, to usher in a new age for humanity. That is the official story, and you would do well to maintain that, Efroi," The tall man said. *That's the second stupidest thing I've ever heard.*
For the rest of its days, Efroi was forever haunted by the mooing that echoed amongst the stars, and the prophecy that it foretold. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "Idiot fuk human design shit-tier spaceship get all Brogga friend kill't. End all. Stoopt fuk. E'ryon kno warp spacetime. E'ryon kno break litspeeding. E'ryon kno crate warm hole. E'ryon kno cut mass half. E'yron cept idiot fuk humans. Y d'sign dumb shit-tier drive can't fi'ure out nuttin'. Cant warp spacetime. Cant break litspeeding. Cant crate warm hole. Cant cut mass. 'Stead idiot fuk human burrow down subquark stangelet bullshit risk implode entire quadrant for fuk newmatter. Y? Too dumb, tha's y. Now Brogga stuk dumb idiot fuk human ship on oth'r side galactic spinward fr'home. Idiot fuk human get Brogga kill't, get Brogga friend kill't..."
The muttering was cut off by a bang, followed by curses unutterable by the tongues of men. Poor old Brogga had been clanking about underneath the hullward dash for the last three days, almost without a break, muttering the entire time.
Say what he would, Brogga was nothing short of a mechanical genius, being the only Broggan capable of working on the Subquark-plated external combustion Engine. It took a particularly pliable mind to make an external combustion engine work, particularly when one was compressing- and burning- pure vacuum. The only real downside was the slight chance of creating decay, but if that happened it wouldn't matter as the entire tanker would be destroyed within seconds. I supposed it would have mattered to the rest of the Universe, but Brogga wouldn't have cared for he would have been the first to go.
Well, okay, there was a second slight problem. See, by burning pure vacuum they wore away a little strip of the cosmos. It was so small that it probably didn't matter, and the Universe was expanding anyways, but certain routes did get more traffic and engines were getting more efficient all the time.
"Idiot fuk human shit design fuk"
More clattering and banging from underneath the hullward dash.
"Idiot fuk human, try now"
Brogga's curses were rewarded with a shuttering rumble as the external combustion engine roared to life.
"Well that's curious" Captain Froy remarked, staring in disbelief at the guages.
Normal external combustion engines were able to operate somewhere between 10,000% and 100,000% efficiency, and for every joule of vacuum energy burned 100% efficiency would yield 10 kilo-joules.
The digital display read 10^89 % efficiency.
"Brogga, I think this gauge is busted."
"Idiot fuk human replace it then. Brogga sleeps."
Then, with customary swagger Captain Froy shoved the throttle open and pulled out, easing back into his seat for a cozy nap. However, when Captain Froy awoke several hours later he was not where he expected. In fact, he was not sure where he was at all.
You see, Brogga had accidentally upgraded their engine. Nobody saw the display, but if they had, they would have seen Brogga, Froy, and the rest of the crew tearing ass across the Universe, ripping a cosmic-scale gash in the vacuum like God's holy zipper. Of course this hole rapidly closed up, but in the time it would normally take them to travel a few hundred lightyears they had soared clear of the "observable Universe" several times over.
In fact, they had traveled so far they weren't entirely sure how to get back.
Thus began the journey of Brogga and the idiot fuk humans who wasted 600 years of his life and destroyed his capacity to speak properly. | The inhabitants of Oflesq station heard what they had come to learn was the characteristic sound of imminent human arrival. No one understood it. A vast mooing, defying the supposed absence of sound travel in empty space. A mooing that sent chills down both of their spines; as if it were the old gods that had come, calling at last for the reckoning of all things. Two humans galloped into the hangar.
They were quickly escorted into the conference room, and after being joined by a single alien, the thick door was shut and locked. "This is the man?" Efroi asked. "Correct," said the tall, large human. Efroi knew the type; this one could be trusted, given the right compensation. But the other one...
"Hi, I'm Joey." Joey absentmindedly spit onto the floor.
Efroi made an assessment. This human was not like the others that it had seen; there was a certain change of mannerism, at once both carefree and uncomfortable with a complete lack of social grace and general awareness. This seemed to be his first time wearing a suit. It's first impression was of an uneducated common worker, yet it could detect that he probably did have an intimate knowledge of cows.
"Hi Joey, we would like to talk about your cows today. Could you... explain? I would like to know how they work and how you created them."
"Welp, you see, we humans 'ad made large advancements towards time travel. But it's impossible, see. You can change tha rate of time flow, but ya can't twist it back on itself. So I got to thinkin. I got these cows, see. Me and my family been breedin cows a long time. Tryina get the better cows, the best cows. I figure, why not speed up the process a little bit. So I throw some cows in there, in the device I mean, and an AI for the selective breedin. Set the dial the farthes it would go. I open the thing up two seconds later and boom. FTL cows."
*That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.* Efroi looked over to the other human, who remained expressionless. "So, um, how did you aquire one of these time manipulating devices, Joey?"
"I made it m'self. Not commercially available, see. Read up on the principles of it and got to work. Took a bit of work, too. To enclose the whole area, y'know. Set up a self sustainin environment, self sustainin robotics. Don't get me started on the energy source. People saw what I was doin, called me crazy. Now they're ridin *my* cows. They're the best cows in the universe, I reckon."
Efroi wouldn't believe it, none of it, if these humans hadn't just rode into the hangar on a couple of space cows. This man must be one of the best his species has to offer. "So, how do these cows work? What principle allows them to travel faster than light? How do they survive the vacuum of space, and the humans who ride on top of them? How do they fill the voids of space with their mooing?"
"Honestly, I ain't got a clue. No one does. The cows are in-comprehensible. Evolution works in mysterious ways. And the cows were in there quite a long time, see."
"How long... do you estimate?" Efroi began to feel even more unwell.
"Well, my internal clock ran out of memory space. It was only 64 petabytes but it was only designed to record the exponent of 10 for the number-"
"This is insane." Efroi stood up. "The cows are perfect beings, at least in this one respect. Do you realize the potential of this method? What it could do to the universe? You humans have kept this secret, yes? This information cannot be revealed again. This cannot be done again."
"But it ha-"
"Thank you for having us, Efroi. But this is all the information we are willing to disclose at this time," The tall human interrupted. "The cows are sacred beings who chose the simple dairy farmer Joey as their prophet, to usher in a new age for humanity. That is the official story, and you would do well to maintain that, Efroi," The tall man said. *That's the second stupidest thing I've ever heard.*
For the rest of its days, Efroi was forever haunted by the mooing that echoed amongst the stars, and the prophecy that it foretold. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Terrestrial Warp Drives. First proposed by Miguel Alcubierre two hundred formlats ago, The equivalent of forcing space into a shape which closely resembles two black holes stacked fore to aft. It requires insanely large sums of energy to produce the warp effect, equivalent to at least the mass of a small moon converted to energy. To get around this, the Terrestrials use catalytic mass converter engines. A device which has been discredited by the rest of the universe for the complete and utter destructive potential should such a reactor melt down on a planet. They work by converting matter to energy with a catalyst particle. However, they also produce a certain percent of catalyst particles. When this process runs away, it has been known to destroy planets, heavily damaging entire solar systems.
Under order 4,900,232 section III, Human spacecraft are to be classified as "NOT TO BE TOUCHED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES" on or near a planet, and "DESTROY AT ALL COSTS" in interplanetary space. This is not done as a measure against humans, but as a safety measure across the galaxy. This will be done until a treaty can be made with the terrestrial humans such that they will cease using catalytic mass converters.
Examination of a captured Terrestrial FTL Engine under the Federal Standard Gravity Model suggests that some fairly simple improvements to the Alcubierre-type drive can be made to reduce the energy requirements to what can be managed by fusion and antimatter reaction technology. They need not give up their unique drive. As dangerous as the Terrestrial Drive is, it presents no risk to those outside the vessel. | The inhabitants of Oflesq station heard what they had come to learn was the characteristic sound of imminent human arrival. No one understood it. A vast mooing, defying the supposed absence of sound travel in empty space. A mooing that sent chills down both of their spines; as if it were the old gods that had come, calling at last for the reckoning of all things. Two humans galloped into the hangar.
They were quickly escorted into the conference room, and after being joined by a single alien, the thick door was shut and locked. "This is the man?" Efroi asked. "Correct," said the tall, large human. Efroi knew the type; this one could be trusted, given the right compensation. But the other one...
"Hi, I'm Joey." Joey absentmindedly spit onto the floor.
Efroi made an assessment. This human was not like the others that it had seen; there was a certain change of mannerism, at once both carefree and uncomfortable with a complete lack of social grace and general awareness. This seemed to be his first time wearing a suit. It's first impression was of an uneducated common worker, yet it could detect that he probably did have an intimate knowledge of cows.
"Hi Joey, we would like to talk about your cows today. Could you... explain? I would like to know how they work and how you created them."
"Welp, you see, we humans 'ad made large advancements towards time travel. But it's impossible, see. You can change tha rate of time flow, but ya can't twist it back on itself. So I got to thinkin. I got these cows, see. Me and my family been breedin cows a long time. Tryina get the better cows, the best cows. I figure, why not speed up the process a little bit. So I throw some cows in there, in the device I mean, and an AI for the selective breedin. Set the dial the farthes it would go. I open the thing up two seconds later and boom. FTL cows."
*That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.* Efroi looked over to the other human, who remained expressionless. "So, um, how did you aquire one of these time manipulating devices, Joey?"
"I made it m'self. Not commercially available, see. Read up on the principles of it and got to work. Took a bit of work, too. To enclose the whole area, y'know. Set up a self sustainin environment, self sustainin robotics. Don't get me started on the energy source. People saw what I was doin, called me crazy. Now they're ridin *my* cows. They're the best cows in the universe, I reckon."
Efroi wouldn't believe it, none of it, if these humans hadn't just rode into the hangar on a couple of space cows. This man must be one of the best his species has to offer. "So, how do these cows work? What principle allows them to travel faster than light? How do they survive the vacuum of space, and the humans who ride on top of them? How do they fill the voids of space with their mooing?"
"Honestly, I ain't got a clue. No one does. The cows are in-comprehensible. Evolution works in mysterious ways. And the cows were in there quite a long time, see."
"How long... do you estimate?" Efroi began to feel even more unwell.
"Well, my internal clock ran out of memory space. It was only 64 petabytes but it was only designed to record the exponent of 10 for the number-"
"This is insane." Efroi stood up. "The cows are perfect beings, at least in this one respect. Do you realize the potential of this method? What it could do to the universe? You humans have kept this secret, yes? This information cannot be revealed again. This cannot be done again."
"But it ha-"
"Thank you for having us, Efroi. But this is all the information we are willing to disclose at this time," The tall human interrupted. "The cows are sacred beings who chose the simple dairy farmer Joey as their prophet, to usher in a new age for humanity. That is the official story, and you would do well to maintain that, Efroi," The tall man said. *That's the second stupidest thing I've ever heard.*
For the rest of its days, Efroi was forever haunted by the mooing that echoed amongst the stars, and the prophecy that it foretold. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Xandar was fuming. 20 smismars he'd been waiting in the bowels of that horrible assembling of junk and metal the humans proudly called their *flagship of intergalactic friendship*. It was bad enough when those hairless pink monkeys made it to outer space but now they had developped a functioning FTL drive and that made them *worthy* of introduction into the Galactic Alliance.
In all his bismars as official technological investigators of the Galactic Alliance's scientific division, Xandar had never seen such a pathetic excuse for a ship. Neither he or any of his colleagues wanted to partake in this scientific inspection. They actually had to draw straws and to his utter disappointment, Xandar lost. Xarcy tried to cheer him up, noting that the human FTL drive was probably a dud anyway. Their first long distance drive was barely a stupid bedsheet catching solar wind, how could they have build a fully functioning FTL drive is such little time since.
21 smismars, where the hell was that pink ape that was supposed to show him the drive ? Xandar only wanted to get done with this and leave. The human vessel was small, cramped and much too warm for his taste. It also didn't help that everything was made to accomodate 6ft tall apes, at 9ft tall, a respectable height for a noble Glaxian like him, he was constantly banging his upper appendage on the ceiling and door frames.
Finally a metal door opened and 2 hairless apes ran toward him. The first one, pink and the second one dark brown. Fascinating thought Xandar, I've never seen such a dark colored ape. At least some decent scientific information. Maybe the science council would let him abduct such a specimen later on for testing. Humans usually didn't mind a few abduction here and there as long as you didn't touch the cows sleeping in the fields.
The 2 apes escorted Xandar to the engine room. The first thing that caught Xandar's attention was the intense heat coming from the doorway, much worst than the rest of the already hot vessel.
>Right this way Dr Xandar, you're gonna love this!
Words could barely describe the sights that laid in front of Xandar when he crossed into the room
*What the hell kind of piece of shit is that?*
>What, the FTL drive ?
>>Quite the beauty isn't she ?
The drive in question looked like a random pile of junk with tubes coming out of the sides, hot steam rising from them. The whole thing was red hot and there was a very annoying sound of pressured gas being shot into the machine at close interval. On top of the device sat 2 giant glowing green tubes.
*Are those Arthosian power cores ?*
>Yes, you have a good eye Dr Xandar.
*Where in the 5 stars did you get these ? Only a handful were ever created and the Arthosian guard them very closely*
>>We found them!
>Of yeah, came upon a space wreck near Alpha Centory IV and we managed to recover quite a lot of technology from it.
*Wait wait... you stole them from a broken ship ?*
>Not stole, never. We found them.
>>Space salvage!
*Does the Arthosian empire know you're using stolen tech ?*
>I dunno, they never complained about it before you brought it up.
Xandar was flaggerbasted, these hairless apes weren't just stupid, they were a menace.
*Fine, walk me trough it*
>Oh you're gonna love this doc. By stripping the neutrino element of the 2 power cores and jerryrigging them together, we managed to create a power unit strong enough to blast trough the fabric of spacetime, and into the slipstream.
*Wait a minute, you stripped the power core of its protective shielding ?*
>Why yes.
>>It was really annoying really, hiding all the good stuff.
*ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS! Those a radiation shielding, this stuff is extremely dangerous*
>I know that, we all know that
>>It needed to be done. Beside, we added some plasma shielding to it.
>Yes, it should do the job... enough.
*Jesus fucking christ.... continue*
>Well, as I was saying, the drive allows us to punch our way into the slipstream and from there we can modify the flow of radiation emited by the power cores, enabling us to navigate different planes of the stream.
>>It's like a chose you own adventure travel book. Add a gamma variant to the radiation cocktail and you can move faster, replace it by a theta variant and you can navigate, for lack of a better word, "UP" into the 4th dimension.
*How do you exit the slipstreem ?*
>Well, we found that injecting a low level ion isopote directly into the power core will create an instability in the stream that causes the ship to be ejected, albeith rather violently.
>>Yes, the first test vessel exploded on exit.
*My god, this is catastrophic*
>We thought so to, so insted we just shut off the drive and the ship gets ejected much more softly.
*What... no! I mean... this whole system is horrible...*
>It's not so bad once you work out the kinks
*But how.... this must be ridiculously unstable !?*
>Oh boy... that's an understatement
>>You have to understand, all this only works if we keep the core overheated to exactly 3,568 degrees.
>Oh yes, any variation of over 2.75 degrees and the whole thing would go kablewy
*This is nuts, how do you maintain the temperature ? I see no adaptive secluar temporal module anywhere*
>Don't have one
>>Yeah, this fancy stuff is much too complicated and too hard to get your hands on.
>For now we use a system of pressure injected water and nitrogen
*You forcecool it under pressure ?*
>Exactly! I knew you'd get it doc.
>>We alternate between injecting pressurized water and nitrogen to cool off the core with a 1.5 seconds interval between each injection
*What?.... that's....how!?*
>You know.... too hot, blast it with nitrogen. Too cold, switch to water. Perfect temperature, do nothing. We evaluate the temperature every 2 seconds and Frank over there pulls the switch to inject the correct cooling substance.
*So none of this is automated ?*
>Nah, we're hoping to find a suitable automated cooling mechanism soon though.
*Like what? A water tin can on a string with a hole on the bottom ?*
>>Well no that's.... hey that's actually a good idea
>Yeah, we should look into that.
*Allright.... not taking into consideration the immense safety concern, not to mention decent common sens, this thing appears extremely dangerous and also in violation of at least a dozen galactic regulations on plasma use and timestream protocoles, and that's just for starters*
>Really?
>>Well that's a bummer for sure
*I must ask, with all this violent punching around the slipstream, how does your system deal with excess radiations and temporal aftershock effects ?*
>Come again ?
*The extreme side effects of your shitty system!!*
>Oh that. I dunno, whatever happens in the slipstream stays in the slipstream I guess.
>>Yeah, I mean it's not like we plan on living in the stream you know. It's just a highway. You roll down the window and throw your trash out.
*Over 15 sentient species live in the stream, 4 of wich are official members of the Galactic Alliance.*
>Really, people live in there ?
*YES, THEY DO!*
>Well that's fucking stupid.
>>yeah, who in their right mind lives in a galactic highway ? That's dangerous, somebody could get hurt!
>And they call US crazy ? | The inhabitants of Oflesq station heard what they had come to learn was the characteristic sound of imminent human arrival. No one understood it. A vast mooing, defying the supposed absence of sound travel in empty space. A mooing that sent chills down both of their spines; as if it were the old gods that had come, calling at last for the reckoning of all things. Two humans galloped into the hangar.
They were quickly escorted into the conference room, and after being joined by a single alien, the thick door was shut and locked. "This is the man?" Efroi asked. "Correct," said the tall, large human. Efroi knew the type; this one could be trusted, given the right compensation. But the other one...
"Hi, I'm Joey." Joey absentmindedly spit onto the floor.
Efroi made an assessment. This human was not like the others that it had seen; there was a certain change of mannerism, at once both carefree and uncomfortable with a complete lack of social grace and general awareness. This seemed to be his first time wearing a suit. It's first impression was of an uneducated common worker, yet it could detect that he probably did have an intimate knowledge of cows.
"Hi Joey, we would like to talk about your cows today. Could you... explain? I would like to know how they work and how you created them."
"Welp, you see, we humans 'ad made large advancements towards time travel. But it's impossible, see. You can change tha rate of time flow, but ya can't twist it back on itself. So I got to thinkin. I got these cows, see. Me and my family been breedin cows a long time. Tryina get the better cows, the best cows. I figure, why not speed up the process a little bit. So I throw some cows in there, in the device I mean, and an AI for the selective breedin. Set the dial the farthes it would go. I open the thing up two seconds later and boom. FTL cows."
*That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.* Efroi looked over to the other human, who remained expressionless. "So, um, how did you aquire one of these time manipulating devices, Joey?"
"I made it m'self. Not commercially available, see. Read up on the principles of it and got to work. Took a bit of work, too. To enclose the whole area, y'know. Set up a self sustainin environment, self sustainin robotics. Don't get me started on the energy source. People saw what I was doin, called me crazy. Now they're ridin *my* cows. They're the best cows in the universe, I reckon."
Efroi wouldn't believe it, none of it, if these humans hadn't just rode into the hangar on a couple of space cows. This man must be one of the best his species has to offer. "So, how do these cows work? What principle allows them to travel faster than light? How do they survive the vacuum of space, and the humans who ride on top of them? How do they fill the voids of space with their mooing?"
"Honestly, I ain't got a clue. No one does. The cows are in-comprehensible. Evolution works in mysterious ways. And the cows were in there quite a long time, see."
"How long... do you estimate?" Efroi began to feel even more unwell.
"Well, my internal clock ran out of memory space. It was only 64 petabytes but it was only designed to record the exponent of 10 for the number-"
"This is insane." Efroi stood up. "The cows are perfect beings, at least in this one respect. Do you realize the potential of this method? What it could do to the universe? You humans have kept this secret, yes? This information cannot be revealed again. This cannot be done again."
"But it ha-"
"Thank you for having us, Efroi. But this is all the information we are willing to disclose at this time," The tall human interrupted. "The cows are sacred beings who chose the simple dairy farmer Joey as their prophet, to usher in a new age for humanity. That is the official story, and you would do well to maintain that, Efroi," The tall man said. *That's the second stupidest thing I've ever heard.*
For the rest of its days, Efroi was forever haunted by the mooing that echoed amongst the stars, and the prophecy that it foretold. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The chamber illumination dimmed and the milky sim tank faded to life. A thousand eyes stared intently from the council benches, and a trillion more from across the five galaxies.
A deep voice, set on edge with urgency and well-contained fear, began its narration of the sim.
"The Brevis' star system surveillance node 47 has, it has been reported, recorded first contact with the species self-identifying as Humans. This much has already been announced. What has not yet been announced is that an analysis of the event has been completed, and their method of travel has thrown a black flag, gamma zero priority. Observe."
The sim showed a small moon below, surrounded by a halo of probes similar to the one that must be recording the image. In the far distance, the volumetric compensation showed a grossly enlarged blue planet on another orbital track, the Brevis' home world Herol. The orbital motion of the probes had been smooth and obvious, but now they slowed.
"We are showing the event at a reduced speed. Watch carefully."
Without warning, the entire projection dimmed as a single point of incredible, actinic light burst from the space next to the moon and raced away from its surface. As one, the closer orbiting probes glowed white-hot and began to disintegrate. The image wavered and then froze.
"Now, focus your attention on the exact location this phenomenon appeared, and keep your attention on that spot as the light moves away."
The image reversed, and the killing glow moved back to its original location. It slowly crept back outwards as the sim zoomed in. There, in the wake of the glow, was a ship, shaped like a mushroom with its cap to the light. Vaporised hull matter streamed from the smooth side facing the light, some sort of ablative heat shielding.
"We had never seen this effect before. We assumed it was some sort of deceleration technique, until we looked at it from the planetary defence network."
The perspective in the sim shifted, as if travelling to the distant planet. The moon and its halo of probes shrank, then grew again due to the volumetric compensation. The sim was normal again for a moment, before that terrible light appeared, an incredible distance from the moon this time, and immediately split into two lights, travelling away from each other at greater than the speed of light.
An audible click reverberated around the chamber as each of the species in attendance simultaneously inhaled on their breathing apparatuses.
"As you can see, the motion of the light is a relativistic illusion. The light doesn't travel, it exists simultaneously at all points in a column for a moment, then dissipates. The energy requirement is staggering. After calculating an intercept to the closest habitable world on the trajectory described by the light column, it appears their world is four hundred light-years away. The humans claim a similar distance, and their navigational data also confirm it. From this we can calculate the energy release as being consistent with a type III civilisation."
What had previously been a gentle series of clicks was now a cacophony, the seats shaking with the bodily gyrations of the assembled dignitaries. Some wailed, others laughed, most were silent.
"We have brought the leader of the human expedition here, with her agreement, of course."
The noises of discomfort reached a crashing crescendo, as several of the delegates jumped out of their seats and bolted for the exit.
The disembodied voice thundered, "ORDER!"
"I present to you, Chakor, Human, of planet Earth."
The creature that stepped into the chamber was unimpressive, physically. Bipedal, endoskeletal, wearing some sort of almost completely covering clothing with various decals affixed to it. The remaining delegates seemed to calm a little, their agitation lowering to a gentle swaying. The Human addressed the crowd.
"Greetings, delegates of the local group. My name is Chakor, I represent my species, Human, and wish to express our honour in meeting you all. We come in peace."
The room quietened further, and the booming voice sounded again. "Chakor will now take moderated questions from the floor. Please enter your queries for analysis and amalgamation."
A few awkward moments passed, Chakor looking out among the delegates. They varied from bipeds with heads and arms of various number to floating creatures in some sort of water tanks, through to creatures much more... alien.
"First question. The energy output of your drive technology is beyond immense. You must be capturing the energy output of most of a galaxy, somewhere. How can it be that we have not noticed the birth of a type III civilisation under our watch?"
Chakor paused to think before she replied, clearly confused. "We are not a type III civilisation. We are barely a type I. We just discovered a way to manipulate the nature of reality."
The voice didn't even wait to consult the accumulating list of vetted questions. "What?! How?"
"When we accidentally created and shot a cluster of miniature black holes through our particle collider's detectors, we discovered that the vacuum of space was not at the true ground state of the universe. This lent is an opportunity to use the difference in energy levels to complete an until-then hypothetical method of propulsion."
The room exploded into roars, gurgles, and screeches of outrage.
"Your drive is powered by triggering a collapse of fundamental reality?!"
"Not quite, if you'd let me finish. After we discovered the false vacuum was the current skein of the universe, we found that at the moment of triggering a vacuum state collapse, it was possible to entangle an arbitrary length of vacuum in a beam away from the source, and trigger the collapse simultaneously and instantaneously along that path."
Guards in the chamber drew their weapons as several delegates rose on their hindlimbs as if to attack.
"Chakor, this is madness! Your drive cannot work as you describe, or we wouldn't have any video of your arrival. A vacuum collapse would spread from wherever it started at the speed of light, unmaking the universe in its path!"
"Oh, yes we knew that. It turns out that the vacuum collapse provides enough energy to fold space into itself. In local proximity, one side of the event becomes the other. The space in between is clipped off like a twisted balloon, erased from having any bearing on existence. Our ship is instantaneously folded from one side of the beam to the other, and internal fields save us from having any biological changes. Of course, the collapse has to happen first by a few fractions of a microsecond, so there is some... energy leakage."
The chamber went suddenly silent.
The probe and planetary defence system had recorded an abomination, a gross violation of reality itself. The demonic light fleeing the Humans' strange vessel was the energetic corpse of a monster, come to open its maw and swallow the universe, inexorably, at the glacial speed of light. A fitting technology for a pursuit predator like the humans.
"You risk all our existence just to travel. How can we leave you free run of the galaxies?"
Chakor grinned. "We could always run one last wide beam to the ends of the universe and neglect to fold it away. How can you not?" | The inhabitants of Oflesq station heard what they had come to learn was the characteristic sound of imminent human arrival. No one understood it. A vast mooing, defying the supposed absence of sound travel in empty space. A mooing that sent chills down both of their spines; as if it were the old gods that had come, calling at last for the reckoning of all things. Two humans galloped into the hangar.
They were quickly escorted into the conference room, and after being joined by a single alien, the thick door was shut and locked. "This is the man?" Efroi asked. "Correct," said the tall, large human. Efroi knew the type; this one could be trusted, given the right compensation. But the other one...
"Hi, I'm Joey." Joey absentmindedly spit onto the floor.
Efroi made an assessment. This human was not like the others that it had seen; there was a certain change of mannerism, at once both carefree and uncomfortable with a complete lack of social grace and general awareness. This seemed to be his first time wearing a suit. It's first impression was of an uneducated common worker, yet it could detect that he probably did have an intimate knowledge of cows.
"Hi Joey, we would like to talk about your cows today. Could you... explain? I would like to know how they work and how you created them."
"Welp, you see, we humans 'ad made large advancements towards time travel. But it's impossible, see. You can change tha rate of time flow, but ya can't twist it back on itself. So I got to thinkin. I got these cows, see. Me and my family been breedin cows a long time. Tryina get the better cows, the best cows. I figure, why not speed up the process a little bit. So I throw some cows in there, in the device I mean, and an AI for the selective breedin. Set the dial the farthes it would go. I open the thing up two seconds later and boom. FTL cows."
*That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.* Efroi looked over to the other human, who remained expressionless. "So, um, how did you aquire one of these time manipulating devices, Joey?"
"I made it m'self. Not commercially available, see. Read up on the principles of it and got to work. Took a bit of work, too. To enclose the whole area, y'know. Set up a self sustainin environment, self sustainin robotics. Don't get me started on the energy source. People saw what I was doin, called me crazy. Now they're ridin *my* cows. They're the best cows in the universe, I reckon."
Efroi wouldn't believe it, none of it, if these humans hadn't just rode into the hangar on a couple of space cows. This man must be one of the best his species has to offer. "So, how do these cows work? What principle allows them to travel faster than light? How do they survive the vacuum of space, and the humans who ride on top of them? How do they fill the voids of space with their mooing?"
"Honestly, I ain't got a clue. No one does. The cows are in-comprehensible. Evolution works in mysterious ways. And the cows were in there quite a long time, see."
"How long... do you estimate?" Efroi began to feel even more unwell.
"Well, my internal clock ran out of memory space. It was only 64 petabytes but it was only designed to record the exponent of 10 for the number-"
"This is insane." Efroi stood up. "The cows are perfect beings, at least in this one respect. Do you realize the potential of this method? What it could do to the universe? You humans have kept this secret, yes? This information cannot be revealed again. This cannot be done again."
"But it ha-"
"Thank you for having us, Efroi. But this is all the information we are willing to disclose at this time," The tall human interrupted. "The cows are sacred beings who chose the simple dairy farmer Joey as their prophet, to usher in a new age for humanity. That is the official story, and you would do well to maintain that, Efroi," The tall man said. *That's the second stupidest thing I've ever heard.*
For the rest of its days, Efroi was forever haunted by the mooing that echoed amongst the stars, and the prophecy that it foretold. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The *Sunseeker*'s control room was dead silent except for the low *beep-beep-beep* of the deep space radar. The screen lights flashed a dim blue against the vast blankness of space, but nothing else moved, or breathed in the cavernous space.
A line of blue light appeared in the middle of the room, then expanded into a doorway from which stepped out three figures. If a human had still been present in the control room, they would have looked askance as the figures were too tall, too thin, and moved too fluidly to be one of their own. A living human might have been thrilled to catch their first glimpse of extraterrestrial life.
The humans in the control room, however, were far past caring the issue. Glassy eyes stared numbly at their consoles, and heads looked on fixedly, their motor muscles frozen instantly by the nerve pulse.
The first figure scanned the room for remaining traces of the weaponized blast, then sighed into its microphone.
"Looks like we got another dead crew. It seems like they still don't get it."
"Give them some credit, none of their crews has returned from a trip this long."
"Still, after sixty years of exploration? You'd think they would have given up."
One of the other figures shrugs. The movement brings its narrow shoulders all the way to the crown of its head.
"Humans will be humans. They are a stubborn species, that's for sure."
"Well, as long as it prevents them from leaving that backwater of theirs, I'm all for it."
The other figure hunches over to examine one of the dead crew members.
"Still, don't you think we should tell them by now? That their FTL drive can only decelerate up to a certain point before releasing that tachyon wave?"
"Weren't you listening? Leaving them ignorant is exactly the point. As long as they're stuck at 2c, it'll take them centuries to reach civilized space. Hopefully they'll have learned some manners by then. Bloody primitives..."
The hunched figure sighs, claps its hands together in the *macto*, then turns back to the gateway. The three aliens depart as quietly as they came.
** Three days later**
The alien ship is long gone, and the human vessel still floats in the vast expanse of space. It has waited the full three days allotted to its crew, before its automated safeguards took over.
The ship flashes blue, glowing like a briefly lived supernova, then disappears into the strange dimensions of FTL travel. After sixty years, the Human Exploration Corps finally developed a ship that could travel back to Earth on its own, and carry with it a recording of the tales of its crew. | Trendsetti was looking at the report on the testing of forward-pushed wormhole system, and he wasn't happy.
On paper, FPWS should have been perfect. A space ship does a couple of certain calculations about its destination, sends the results into its Yadari-Futara particle launcher, fires a reversed Yadari particle projectile from it in destination's general direction, and the projectile goes on its way and creates a wormhole for the FTL travel.
In practice, it turned out to work just fine. The downside, as the report states, is that physical objects don't like it when the projectile goes through them, something Yadari and Futara apparently overlooked. Apparently, when the projectile, basically a kind of a miniature black hole, makes a contact with a physical object (say, an alien race's space ship with the emperor of that entire alien race currently on board), the object gets this nasty desire to collapse into itself and blow up (something that alien race is most certainly not going to like).
Trendsetti thought it was funny. Mankind wanted to find a way to travel faster than light but accidentally invented a superweapon instead. Too bad they're probably going to have to use it as such very soon. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "You need to stop this. Now." ~UTHQ
It seemed like a strange message from the UT at first, the United Terrans organization, formed by the world's leading space agencies to represent all of humanity and the Earth as we ventured out of the solar system for the first time.
But this wasn't from the UT.
It couldn't be. TRAPPIST-1 was 40 light years away from Earth. It had taken only 32 years to travel here in the DocBrown, a name chosen thanks to somebody's bright idea to let internet polls do the picking. Theoretically, the ship could travel even faster, possibly greater than 2c, but due to the still relatively unknown nature of matter at speeds >1c, the speed was capped at 1.25c for this mission. Earth would have had to have sent this message *8 years* before they left.
The tension in the recycled air was so palpable it was hard to breathe, a mixture of separate emotions so intense you'd feel like you might implode and explode all at the same time.
They had first braved the pounding tension of the "photobraking" deceleration maneuver as they approached the star system, where the DocBrown's FTL drive was shut down to allow *space-time itself* to decelerate the ship below lightspeed, the first-ever such attempt in human history. It certainly sounds sensible when you have a room full of mathematicians and physicists drawing it out for you, but while trapped in a ship barreling through the galaxy at +1c, you begin to wonder why they aren't sitting in your seat instead. The ship instantly began to rumble as soon as the engines were cut, louder and louder at a rising frequency. As speed dropped closer to 1c, gunpowder crackling sounds and bangs like metallic bones snapping abused the outside the hull. The blueshifted light through the front windows, turning more and more white, increased in luminosity, until in a blinding flash a deafening ***THUD*** broke the ship's runaway speed like driving into a brick wall. The ship's speed now read 0.87c, and all was quiet. Spacetime, and light, it seems, has something akin to sonic booms that come from violating the universe's speed limits.
To slow down further, the fuel tank, capable of holding 5% of the Moon's mass, had to be thrown away in a trajectory that would not impact any of the exoplanets dancing around TRAPPIST-1. The mechanism to do this was a nuclear warhead, and a 10km tether to draw out the acceleration force from being instantaneous. "Don't ask," one engineer said, working on developing this technology. "We've tested it. It works..."
After the maneuver left the ship's speed at a little over 0.51c, DocBrown's traditional engines took over to do the rest of the legwork, but the beauty shining in through the windows was so loud now it overpowered all engine noise into deafening silence. The cool dwarf star's system was a fertile playground of seven exoplanets, three of which were Earth-like. They had atmospheres, and their surface was a swirl of colors so exotic, made possible only by the mysterious artistry of the universe, that Jeb had to keep wiping the water from his eyes just to keep looking at it.
He looked over at Deb, who was also crying, and then at the rest of the team, they all laughed and came together to embrace.
In the joy and excitement of the moment, Jeb thought he had heard a barely-audible *ding,* but it was likely nothing. After the celebration settled down, Jeb went to the ship's console to make sure the warning wasn't something serious to do with the DocBrown's deceleration burn.
But it wasn't an engine warning. It was a direct message, from UT, from home.
"You need to stop this. Now." ~UTHQ
The emotions flowing in this moment made it difficult to discern what this meant, how is this possible? Is it possible? Jeb put his head in his hands and the team saw him struggling; they came over to see what the issue might be. Each member read the message and the ship once again became overwhelmed by a crushing silence, as each crewmate contiplated the unreal, impossible nature of what they were looking at. It *wasn't* possible.
Just as contemplations began to wander into darker, more impossible possibilities, their predictions were quickly narrowed down, by another received message: *(ding)*
"This is a warning." ~UTHQ
----------
**Edit: Part 2/3**
The tense atmosphere led Marcus, systems engineer for the mission, to sit down at the console.
"Who is this?" ~DocBrown
Their laser communications system was pointed directly at Earth, and it would take 40 years for the message to arrive there. The messages had been digitally signed with UT's signature. The team contemplated that their communications have been cracked, and hijacked.
"What do they want? Why the warning?" Mel sounded panicked, the lead biologist for the mission. "They want us to stop doing something..." Marcus mumbled, reading over the messages.
After a pause, Mel jumped up. "Do you think they live here? Do you think this is their system?" Dale, the radioastronomer, shrugged. "No chatter from this place. Our radio leak out to space for over 1200 year before we come here."
Marcus shrugged, and seeing no harm in trying, typed out:
"Is this sun your home?" ~DocBrown
As the message sent out, the team entertained a thought that maybe UT would be getting some funny messages in 40 years.
*(ding)*
"No." ~UTHQ
A chill fell over the air. Marcus got out of his seat and moved away. "What do they want?", Mel cried. Jeb spoke up, "Hold on, so far we're just talking. We don't know who they are yet, or what they want. They want us to stop doing something, so maybe we broke a rule, we just don't know about it yet."
Mel sniffed, but she was contemplating. "Maybe there's already life here, and it's against the law to mess with it?" Dale scoffed, "They mess with us!"
Marcus turned around, focused. "We need to know what we did wrong." He sat down at the console,
"What did we do wrong?" ~DocBrown
The crew watched as the message was sent out, anticipating the passing seconds.
*(ding)*
"Dumblfuckery." ~UTHQ
----------
**Edit 2: see below for Part 3/3**
| Trendsetti was looking at the report on the testing of forward-pushed wormhole system, and he wasn't happy.
On paper, FPWS should have been perfect. A space ship does a couple of certain calculations about its destination, sends the results into its Yadari-Futara particle launcher, fires a reversed Yadari particle projectile from it in destination's general direction, and the projectile goes on its way and creates a wormhole for the FTL travel.
In practice, it turned out to work just fine. The downside, as the report states, is that physical objects don't like it when the projectile goes through them, something Yadari and Futara apparently overlooked. Apparently, when the projectile, basically a kind of a miniature black hole, makes a contact with a physical object (say, an alien race's space ship with the emperor of that entire alien race currently on board), the object gets this nasty desire to collapse into itself and blow up (something that alien race is most certainly not going to like).
Trendsetti thought it was funny. Mankind wanted to find a way to travel faster than light but accidentally invented a superweapon instead. Too bad they're probably going to have to use it as such very soon. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | “We must keep the Humans believing that their FTL system is unsafe, unorthodox and damn stupid. That is the point of this of this Special Hearing of The Supreme Council of the New Species Traveling Faster than Light. I am Farlack, Supreme Councilor of the Organization of Galactic Legal Advisors. ^(legal disclaimer: Norepresentationismadethatthequalityofthelegalgalacticservicestobeperformedisgreaterthanthequalityoflegalservicesperformedbyotherlawyers).
“Scarlacc, will you please read the minutes from the last session to allow this Supeme Council to aware of the latest current legal status of the Humans.?”
“Of course. That would be Sub-Section 7 of Section 30 of the 5th meeting of the Council of Dealing with and Controlling the Humans.
“It has been discovered that the Humans have developed a completely new FTL travel, with no related or similar technologies in the known Galaxy. The core of this FTL is a bubble of a universe where the speed of light is 1000 times faster than the speed of light is in our legally defined universe is pulled to our universe. The Human ships then travel at .1 c in this alternate universe. Upon exiting this alternate universe, the human ships have travelled 1000 times the distance in our universe. The energy expense of travelling in the alternate universe is the same as travelling in our univ-“
“Sarlacc, this Council is not interested in the technical aspects of the Humans FTL Technologies. That discussion is for the Galactic Council of Technology Equalization and/or The Council of Equalization of Galactic Technologies and/or Council of Galactic Technology Equalization. Ballzacc, will you present the Summary of the Social Legal Issues of the Humans Council meeting?”
“Of course. Due to the extremely dangerous situation these Humans create for us, I will dispense with extraneous discussion and proceed to the summary of the meeting, as permitted in The Rules and Guides of the Supreme Galactic Committee and The Guides and Rules of the Supreme Galactic Committee, version 2 of edition 5, Copyrighted.
“The Humans have a social system that may lead to our death and destruction. The humans developed their FTL without our influence and guidance, so we were unable to control their technology with the powers of the Galactic Patent Office. This failure was due to their rapid technological development. In the span of 6 human generations, they progressed from animal driven power to FTL travel. During the final Human pre-FTL travel, Humans revolted against their legal system and killed all lawyers allow-“
“They did WHAT?” interrupred Farlack. “How do they maintain their society without legal protections?”
“They became disgusted with a legal system that required warning labels to not drive their “automobile” with the windshield sunscreen in place. As I was saying, this allowed generations of research and development to be done in half a generation. And we can not control their technology.” Ballzacc completed his summary, terror beginning to creep into its face.
“Oh my supreme being. When the common people of the Galaxy learn of this… no lawyers…no lifelong Legal Guidance fees…” Farlack began to understand the lack of his future.
“Yes. This Council and all others, we will be destroyed”
“Yes, their technology is unorthodox, unsafe, and damn stupid, but for reasons the Galaxy must never understand.”
| Trendsetti was looking at the report on the testing of forward-pushed wormhole system, and he wasn't happy.
On paper, FPWS should have been perfect. A space ship does a couple of certain calculations about its destination, sends the results into its Yadari-Futara particle launcher, fires a reversed Yadari particle projectile from it in destination's general direction, and the projectile goes on its way and creates a wormhole for the FTL travel.
In practice, it turned out to work just fine. The downside, as the report states, is that physical objects don't like it when the projectile goes through them, something Yadari and Futara apparently overlooked. Apparently, when the projectile, basically a kind of a miniature black hole, makes a contact with a physical object (say, an alien race's space ship with the emperor of that entire alien race currently on board), the object gets this nasty desire to collapse into itself and blow up (something that alien race is most certainly not going to like).
Trendsetti thought it was funny. Mankind wanted to find a way to travel faster than light but accidentally invented a superweapon instead. Too bad they're probably going to have to use it as such very soon. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "So, about the humans..." Said a voice with diplomatic neutrality.
Groans from a myriad of different species' voices could be heard throughout the conference hall. There was a meeting being held on how to properly welcome these new, strange creatures now that they had, technically, at least, achieved Faster Than Light travel.
"We organised this meeting to discuss them! When are you all going to stop pussyfooting around the issue!?" The same voice declared, with a level of anger hard to believe considering their tone mere seconds ago.
"Blarpart, I know you're a workaholic and all that but have you SEEN these...creature's form of FTL "travel"?" A gruff voice from somewhere in the hall responded over the din of arguing and groans of "are we really fucking doing this?"
"I agree that it's...unconventional but-"
The word "unconventional" being used to describe human beings' method of intergalactic travel caused an uproar among the crowd.
"Hey! HEY! HEYYYYYY!" Interjected Blarpart with an odd mixture of rage, impatience and exhaustion. "It works for them, who are we to judge?"
"Don't you get it? They use possibly the most unstable thing in the universe, a wormhole, and pump it with a load of who knows what to make it last more than a nanosecond and to a greater size than a few atoms and just *sigh* go through it and hope for the best"
"As I said, uncon-" Blarpart thought better of using *that* word again and instead chose to deflect the conversation in the hopes of finishing and grabbing something from a Space Denny's on the way home.
"Ok, how about we just ignore them? They're not going to last long as a species if THAT'S how they traverse space. From our observations, their 'wormhole jumping' has about an 80% chance of failure. All in favour?"
A chorus of relieved "aye"s reverberated throughout the room.
"All opposed?"
...
"Well then, that settles i-"
"YOU FUCKING WOT, M8?" A voice shouted from just outside the hall.
"Can I go without being interrupted for ONE MINUTE?" Blarpart said in an exasperated sigh.
And with that, a duo of humans, one tall with brown hair and the other short with black hair, burst into the hall with their bottles of what they call "Mountain Dew" and bags of "Doritos" and started going on about how we can't "diss" them like that.
"You know what? Fuck these alien squares, wanna go piss into a black hole?" The taller one said.
"Yeah, dude. Definitely." The shorter one replied with an almost endearing level of excitement at the prospect.
And with that, the duo left as quickly as they had entered.
"What just happened?" A member of the crowd ask with a disbelieving tone.
"...Humanity. Humanity happened" said Blarpart, with yet another sigh.
Spelling and removing the pretentious "fin". | Trendsetti was looking at the report on the testing of forward-pushed wormhole system, and he wasn't happy.
On paper, FPWS should have been perfect. A space ship does a couple of certain calculations about its destination, sends the results into its Yadari-Futara particle launcher, fires a reversed Yadari particle projectile from it in destination's general direction, and the projectile goes on its way and creates a wormhole for the FTL travel.
In practice, it turned out to work just fine. The downside, as the report states, is that physical objects don't like it when the projectile goes through them, something Yadari and Futara apparently overlooked. Apparently, when the projectile, basically a kind of a miniature black hole, makes a contact with a physical object (say, an alien race's space ship with the emperor of that entire alien race currently on board), the object gets this nasty desire to collapse into itself and blow up (something that alien race is most certainly not going to like).
Trendsetti thought it was funny. Mankind wanted to find a way to travel faster than light but accidentally invented a superweapon instead. Too bad they're probably going to have to use it as such very soon. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "Idiot fuk human design shit-tier spaceship get all Brogga friend kill't. End all. Stoopt fuk. E'ryon kno warp spacetime. E'ryon kno break litspeeding. E'ryon kno crate warm hole. E'ryon kno cut mass half. E'yron cept idiot fuk humans. Y d'sign dumb shit-tier drive can't fi'ure out nuttin'. Cant warp spacetime. Cant break litspeeding. Cant crate warm hole. Cant cut mass. 'Stead idiot fuk human burrow down subquark stangelet bullshit risk implode entire quadrant for fuk newmatter. Y? Too dumb, tha's y. Now Brogga stuk dumb idiot fuk human ship on oth'r side galactic spinward fr'home. Idiot fuk human get Brogga kill't, get Brogga friend kill't..."
The muttering was cut off by a bang, followed by curses unutterable by the tongues of men. Poor old Brogga had been clanking about underneath the hullward dash for the last three days, almost without a break, muttering the entire time.
Say what he would, Brogga was nothing short of a mechanical genius, being the only Broggan capable of working on the Subquark-plated external combustion Engine. It took a particularly pliable mind to make an external combustion engine work, particularly when one was compressing- and burning- pure vacuum. The only real downside was the slight chance of creating decay, but if that happened it wouldn't matter as the entire tanker would be destroyed within seconds. I supposed it would have mattered to the rest of the Universe, but Brogga wouldn't have cared for he would have been the first to go.
Well, okay, there was a second slight problem. See, by burning pure vacuum they wore away a little strip of the cosmos. It was so small that it probably didn't matter, and the Universe was expanding anyways, but certain routes did get more traffic and engines were getting more efficient all the time.
"Idiot fuk human shit design fuk"
More clattering and banging from underneath the hullward dash.
"Idiot fuk human, try now"
Brogga's curses were rewarded with a shuttering rumble as the external combustion engine roared to life.
"Well that's curious" Captain Froy remarked, staring in disbelief at the guages.
Normal external combustion engines were able to operate somewhere between 10,000% and 100,000% efficiency, and for every joule of vacuum energy burned 100% efficiency would yield 10 kilo-joules.
The digital display read 10^89 % efficiency.
"Brogga, I think this gauge is busted."
"Idiot fuk human replace it then. Brogga sleeps."
Then, with customary swagger Captain Froy shoved the throttle open and pulled out, easing back into his seat for a cozy nap. However, when Captain Froy awoke several hours later he was not where he expected. In fact, he was not sure where he was at all.
You see, Brogga had accidentally upgraded their engine. Nobody saw the display, but if they had, they would have seen Brogga, Froy, and the rest of the crew tearing ass across the Universe, ripping a cosmic-scale gash in the vacuum like God's holy zipper. Of course this hole rapidly closed up, but in the time it would normally take them to travel a few hundred lightyears they had soared clear of the "observable Universe" several times over.
In fact, they had traveled so far they weren't entirely sure how to get back.
Thus began the journey of Brogga and the idiot fuk humans who wasted 600 years of his life and destroyed his capacity to speak properly. | Trendsetti was looking at the report on the testing of forward-pushed wormhole system, and he wasn't happy.
On paper, FPWS should have been perfect. A space ship does a couple of certain calculations about its destination, sends the results into its Yadari-Futara particle launcher, fires a reversed Yadari particle projectile from it in destination's general direction, and the projectile goes on its way and creates a wormhole for the FTL travel.
In practice, it turned out to work just fine. The downside, as the report states, is that physical objects don't like it when the projectile goes through them, something Yadari and Futara apparently overlooked. Apparently, when the projectile, basically a kind of a miniature black hole, makes a contact with a physical object (say, an alien race's space ship with the emperor of that entire alien race currently on board), the object gets this nasty desire to collapse into itself and blow up (something that alien race is most certainly not going to like).
Trendsetti thought it was funny. Mankind wanted to find a way to travel faster than light but accidentally invented a superweapon instead. Too bad they're probably going to have to use it as such very soon. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Terrestrial Warp Drives. First proposed by Miguel Alcubierre two hundred formlats ago, The equivalent of forcing space into a shape which closely resembles two black holes stacked fore to aft. It requires insanely large sums of energy to produce the warp effect, equivalent to at least the mass of a small moon converted to energy. To get around this, the Terrestrials use catalytic mass converter engines. A device which has been discredited by the rest of the universe for the complete and utter destructive potential should such a reactor melt down on a planet. They work by converting matter to energy with a catalyst particle. However, they also produce a certain percent of catalyst particles. When this process runs away, it has been known to destroy planets, heavily damaging entire solar systems.
Under order 4,900,232 section III, Human spacecraft are to be classified as "NOT TO BE TOUCHED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES" on or near a planet, and "DESTROY AT ALL COSTS" in interplanetary space. This is not done as a measure against humans, but as a safety measure across the galaxy. This will be done until a treaty can be made with the terrestrial humans such that they will cease using catalytic mass converters.
Examination of a captured Terrestrial FTL Engine under the Federal Standard Gravity Model suggests that some fairly simple improvements to the Alcubierre-type drive can be made to reduce the energy requirements to what can be managed by fusion and antimatter reaction technology. They need not give up their unique drive. As dangerous as the Terrestrial Drive is, it presents no risk to those outside the vessel. | Trendsetti was looking at the report on the testing of forward-pushed wormhole system, and he wasn't happy.
On paper, FPWS should have been perfect. A space ship does a couple of certain calculations about its destination, sends the results into its Yadari-Futara particle launcher, fires a reversed Yadari particle projectile from it in destination's general direction, and the projectile goes on its way and creates a wormhole for the FTL travel.
In practice, it turned out to work just fine. The downside, as the report states, is that physical objects don't like it when the projectile goes through them, something Yadari and Futara apparently overlooked. Apparently, when the projectile, basically a kind of a miniature black hole, makes a contact with a physical object (say, an alien race's space ship with the emperor of that entire alien race currently on board), the object gets this nasty desire to collapse into itself and blow up (something that alien race is most certainly not going to like).
Trendsetti thought it was funny. Mankind wanted to find a way to travel faster than light but accidentally invented a superweapon instead. Too bad they're probably going to have to use it as such very soon. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Xandar was fuming. 20 smismars he'd been waiting in the bowels of that horrible assembling of junk and metal the humans proudly called their *flagship of intergalactic friendship*. It was bad enough when those hairless pink monkeys made it to outer space but now they had developped a functioning FTL drive and that made them *worthy* of introduction into the Galactic Alliance.
In all his bismars as official technological investigators of the Galactic Alliance's scientific division, Xandar had never seen such a pathetic excuse for a ship. Neither he or any of his colleagues wanted to partake in this scientific inspection. They actually had to draw straws and to his utter disappointment, Xandar lost. Xarcy tried to cheer him up, noting that the human FTL drive was probably a dud anyway. Their first long distance drive was barely a stupid bedsheet catching solar wind, how could they have build a fully functioning FTL drive is such little time since.
21 smismars, where the hell was that pink ape that was supposed to show him the drive ? Xandar only wanted to get done with this and leave. The human vessel was small, cramped and much too warm for his taste. It also didn't help that everything was made to accomodate 6ft tall apes, at 9ft tall, a respectable height for a noble Glaxian like him, he was constantly banging his upper appendage on the ceiling and door frames.
Finally a metal door opened and 2 hairless apes ran toward him. The first one, pink and the second one dark brown. Fascinating thought Xandar, I've never seen such a dark colored ape. At least some decent scientific information. Maybe the science council would let him abduct such a specimen later on for testing. Humans usually didn't mind a few abduction here and there as long as you didn't touch the cows sleeping in the fields.
The 2 apes escorted Xandar to the engine room. The first thing that caught Xandar's attention was the intense heat coming from the doorway, much worst than the rest of the already hot vessel.
>Right this way Dr Xandar, you're gonna love this!
Words could barely describe the sights that laid in front of Xandar when he crossed into the room
*What the hell kind of piece of shit is that?*
>What, the FTL drive ?
>>Quite the beauty isn't she ?
The drive in question looked like a random pile of junk with tubes coming out of the sides, hot steam rising from them. The whole thing was red hot and there was a very annoying sound of pressured gas being shot into the machine at close interval. On top of the device sat 2 giant glowing green tubes.
*Are those Arthosian power cores ?*
>Yes, you have a good eye Dr Xandar.
*Where in the 5 stars did you get these ? Only a handful were ever created and the Arthosian guard them very closely*
>>We found them!
>Of yeah, came upon a space wreck near Alpha Centory IV and we managed to recover quite a lot of technology from it.
*Wait wait... you stole them from a broken ship ?*
>Not stole, never. We found them.
>>Space salvage!
*Does the Arthosian empire know you're using stolen tech ?*
>I dunno, they never complained about it before you brought it up.
Xandar was flaggerbasted, these hairless apes weren't just stupid, they were a menace.
*Fine, walk me trough it*
>Oh you're gonna love this doc. By stripping the neutrino element of the 2 power cores and jerryrigging them together, we managed to create a power unit strong enough to blast trough the fabric of spacetime, and into the slipstream.
*Wait a minute, you stripped the power core of its protective shielding ?*
>Why yes.
>>It was really annoying really, hiding all the good stuff.
*ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS! Those a radiation shielding, this stuff is extremely dangerous*
>I know that, we all know that
>>It needed to be done. Beside, we added some plasma shielding to it.
>Yes, it should do the job... enough.
*Jesus fucking christ.... continue*
>Well, as I was saying, the drive allows us to punch our way into the slipstream and from there we can modify the flow of radiation emited by the power cores, enabling us to navigate different planes of the stream.
>>It's like a chose you own adventure travel book. Add a gamma variant to the radiation cocktail and you can move faster, replace it by a theta variant and you can navigate, for lack of a better word, "UP" into the 4th dimension.
*How do you exit the slipstreem ?*
>Well, we found that injecting a low level ion isopote directly into the power core will create an instability in the stream that causes the ship to be ejected, albeith rather violently.
>>Yes, the first test vessel exploded on exit.
*My god, this is catastrophic*
>We thought so to, so insted we just shut off the drive and the ship gets ejected much more softly.
*What... no! I mean... this whole system is horrible...*
>It's not so bad once you work out the kinks
*But how.... this must be ridiculously unstable !?*
>Oh boy... that's an understatement
>>You have to understand, all this only works if we keep the core overheated to exactly 3,568 degrees.
>Oh yes, any variation of over 2.75 degrees and the whole thing would go kablewy
*This is nuts, how do you maintain the temperature ? I see no adaptive secluar temporal module anywhere*
>Don't have one
>>Yeah, this fancy stuff is much too complicated and too hard to get your hands on.
>For now we use a system of pressure injected water and nitrogen
*You forcecool it under pressure ?*
>Exactly! I knew you'd get it doc.
>>We alternate between injecting pressurized water and nitrogen to cool off the core with a 1.5 seconds interval between each injection
*What?.... that's....how!?*
>You know.... too hot, blast it with nitrogen. Too cold, switch to water. Perfect temperature, do nothing. We evaluate the temperature every 2 seconds and Frank over there pulls the switch to inject the correct cooling substance.
*So none of this is automated ?*
>Nah, we're hoping to find a suitable automated cooling mechanism soon though.
*Like what? A water tin can on a string with a hole on the bottom ?*
>>Well no that's.... hey that's actually a good idea
>Yeah, we should look into that.
*Allright.... not taking into consideration the immense safety concern, not to mention decent common sens, this thing appears extremely dangerous and also in violation of at least a dozen galactic regulations on plasma use and timestream protocoles, and that's just for starters*
>Really?
>>Well that's a bummer for sure
*I must ask, with all this violent punching around the slipstream, how does your system deal with excess radiations and temporal aftershock effects ?*
>Come again ?
*The extreme side effects of your shitty system!!*
>Oh that. I dunno, whatever happens in the slipstream stays in the slipstream I guess.
>>Yeah, I mean it's not like we plan on living in the stream you know. It's just a highway. You roll down the window and throw your trash out.
*Over 15 sentient species live in the stream, 4 of wich are official members of the Galactic Alliance.*
>Really, people live in there ?
*YES, THEY DO!*
>Well that's fucking stupid.
>>yeah, who in their right mind lives in a galactic highway ? That's dangerous, somebody could get hurt!
>And they call US crazy ? | Trendsetti was looking at the report on the testing of forward-pushed wormhole system, and he wasn't happy.
On paper, FPWS should have been perfect. A space ship does a couple of certain calculations about its destination, sends the results into its Yadari-Futara particle launcher, fires a reversed Yadari particle projectile from it in destination's general direction, and the projectile goes on its way and creates a wormhole for the FTL travel.
In practice, it turned out to work just fine. The downside, as the report states, is that physical objects don't like it when the projectile goes through them, something Yadari and Futara apparently overlooked. Apparently, when the projectile, basically a kind of a miniature black hole, makes a contact with a physical object (say, an alien race's space ship with the emperor of that entire alien race currently on board), the object gets this nasty desire to collapse into itself and blow up (something that alien race is most certainly not going to like).
Trendsetti thought it was funny. Mankind wanted to find a way to travel faster than light but accidentally invented a superweapon instead. Too bad they're probably going to have to use it as such very soon. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The chamber illumination dimmed and the milky sim tank faded to life. A thousand eyes stared intently from the council benches, and a trillion more from across the five galaxies.
A deep voice, set on edge with urgency and well-contained fear, began its narration of the sim.
"The Brevis' star system surveillance node 47 has, it has been reported, recorded first contact with the species self-identifying as Humans. This much has already been announced. What has not yet been announced is that an analysis of the event has been completed, and their method of travel has thrown a black flag, gamma zero priority. Observe."
The sim showed a small moon below, surrounded by a halo of probes similar to the one that must be recording the image. In the far distance, the volumetric compensation showed a grossly enlarged blue planet on another orbital track, the Brevis' home world Herol. The orbital motion of the probes had been smooth and obvious, but now they slowed.
"We are showing the event at a reduced speed. Watch carefully."
Without warning, the entire projection dimmed as a single point of incredible, actinic light burst from the space next to the moon and raced away from its surface. As one, the closer orbiting probes glowed white-hot and began to disintegrate. The image wavered and then froze.
"Now, focus your attention on the exact location this phenomenon appeared, and keep your attention on that spot as the light moves away."
The image reversed, and the killing glow moved back to its original location. It slowly crept back outwards as the sim zoomed in. There, in the wake of the glow, was a ship, shaped like a mushroom with its cap to the light. Vaporised hull matter streamed from the smooth side facing the light, some sort of ablative heat shielding.
"We had never seen this effect before. We assumed it was some sort of deceleration technique, until we looked at it from the planetary defence network."
The perspective in the sim shifted, as if travelling to the distant planet. The moon and its halo of probes shrank, then grew again due to the volumetric compensation. The sim was normal again for a moment, before that terrible light appeared, an incredible distance from the moon this time, and immediately split into two lights, travelling away from each other at greater than the speed of light.
An audible click reverberated around the chamber as each of the species in attendance simultaneously inhaled on their breathing apparatuses.
"As you can see, the motion of the light is a relativistic illusion. The light doesn't travel, it exists simultaneously at all points in a column for a moment, then dissipates. The energy requirement is staggering. After calculating an intercept to the closest habitable world on the trajectory described by the light column, it appears their world is four hundred light-years away. The humans claim a similar distance, and their navigational data also confirm it. From this we can calculate the energy release as being consistent with a type III civilisation."
What had previously been a gentle series of clicks was now a cacophony, the seats shaking with the bodily gyrations of the assembled dignitaries. Some wailed, others laughed, most were silent.
"We have brought the leader of the human expedition here, with her agreement, of course."
The noises of discomfort reached a crashing crescendo, as several of the delegates jumped out of their seats and bolted for the exit.
The disembodied voice thundered, "ORDER!"
"I present to you, Chakor, Human, of planet Earth."
The creature that stepped into the chamber was unimpressive, physically. Bipedal, endoskeletal, wearing some sort of almost completely covering clothing with various decals affixed to it. The remaining delegates seemed to calm a little, their agitation lowering to a gentle swaying. The Human addressed the crowd.
"Greetings, delegates of the local group. My name is Chakor, I represent my species, Human, and wish to express our honour in meeting you all. We come in peace."
The room quietened further, and the booming voice sounded again. "Chakor will now take moderated questions from the floor. Please enter your queries for analysis and amalgamation."
A few awkward moments passed, Chakor looking out among the delegates. They varied from bipeds with heads and arms of various number to floating creatures in some sort of water tanks, through to creatures much more... alien.
"First question. The energy output of your drive technology is beyond immense. You must be capturing the energy output of most of a galaxy, somewhere. How can it be that we have not noticed the birth of a type III civilisation under our watch?"
Chakor paused to think before she replied, clearly confused. "We are not a type III civilisation. We are barely a type I. We just discovered a way to manipulate the nature of reality."
The voice didn't even wait to consult the accumulating list of vetted questions. "What?! How?"
"When we accidentally created and shot a cluster of miniature black holes through our particle collider's detectors, we discovered that the vacuum of space was not at the true ground state of the universe. This lent is an opportunity to use the difference in energy levels to complete an until-then hypothetical method of propulsion."
The room exploded into roars, gurgles, and screeches of outrage.
"Your drive is powered by triggering a collapse of fundamental reality?!"
"Not quite, if you'd let me finish. After we discovered the false vacuum was the current skein of the universe, we found that at the moment of triggering a vacuum state collapse, it was possible to entangle an arbitrary length of vacuum in a beam away from the source, and trigger the collapse simultaneously and instantaneously along that path."
Guards in the chamber drew their weapons as several delegates rose on their hindlimbs as if to attack.
"Chakor, this is madness! Your drive cannot work as you describe, or we wouldn't have any video of your arrival. A vacuum collapse would spread from wherever it started at the speed of light, unmaking the universe in its path!"
"Oh, yes we knew that. It turns out that the vacuum collapse provides enough energy to fold space into itself. In local proximity, one side of the event becomes the other. The space in between is clipped off like a twisted balloon, erased from having any bearing on existence. Our ship is instantaneously folded from one side of the beam to the other, and internal fields save us from having any biological changes. Of course, the collapse has to happen first by a few fractions of a microsecond, so there is some... energy leakage."
The chamber went suddenly silent.
The probe and planetary defence system had recorded an abomination, a gross violation of reality itself. The demonic light fleeing the Humans' strange vessel was the energetic corpse of a monster, come to open its maw and swallow the universe, inexorably, at the glacial speed of light. A fitting technology for a pursuit predator like the humans.
"You risk all our existence just to travel. How can we leave you free run of the galaxies?"
Chakor grinned. "We could always run one last wide beam to the ends of the universe and neglect to fold it away. How can you not?" | Trendsetti was looking at the report on the testing of forward-pushed wormhole system, and he wasn't happy.
On paper, FPWS should have been perfect. A space ship does a couple of certain calculations about its destination, sends the results into its Yadari-Futara particle launcher, fires a reversed Yadari particle projectile from it in destination's general direction, and the projectile goes on its way and creates a wormhole for the FTL travel.
In practice, it turned out to work just fine. The downside, as the report states, is that physical objects don't like it when the projectile goes through them, something Yadari and Futara apparently overlooked. Apparently, when the projectile, basically a kind of a miniature black hole, makes a contact with a physical object (say, an alien race's space ship with the emperor of that entire alien race currently on board), the object gets this nasty desire to collapse into itself and blow up (something that alien race is most certainly not going to like).
Trendsetti thought it was funny. Mankind wanted to find a way to travel faster than light but accidentally invented a superweapon instead. Too bad they're probably going to have to use it as such very soon. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Well, you know how in the old Simpsons opening scene Bart grabs the back of the bus on his skate board?
That. We do that. We use magnetic attachments and stealth tech (cos if they saw us they'd shake us off) and we hang on till we get to where we want to go. Then we disengage and wander off like we just happened to be there... Nobody realised till a couple of months ago when someone's stealth tech malfunctioned. Poor Delfanit bastards still cop it whenever they dock: 'better check you haven't got A WHOLE FUCKING SHIP ATTACHED'
At least the Delf have a sense of humor, the Salec passed legislation last week stating any hitchers would be executed. So here we are waiting for a chance to disengage and get away from a ship that travels faster than light in a junker that has a half rod of fuel and like half its working parts.
OH! And we only have 2 cans of WD40 and 5 rolls of duct tape, so even if we do manage to pull off a miracle and escape our ship is gonna stop working anyway! But hey, we get to go down in history as the first idiots to die from this legislation so my Ma will have something to frame on the wall at home I guess.
Fuuuuuck.
| \- You say it runs on what? - I asked human, staring with all four of my eyes in disbelief.
\- Magic! - She replied with pride - Look, I'm not making a fun of you, it literally just runs on magic. Or at least something that by all accounts fits the definition of magic. See that fella over there in weird cloaks slumping by the bar? The one next to big wooden stick? He's my mage, he's making all the things tick just right. Here, let me explain to you. - the human captain started drawing three stick figures with beer stains, lastly she encircled all of them - Let's say these two are you and me. You want me to do something, let's say move that box over there, so you ask me to do so. Now, if you're a dick about it, I gonna flip ya a bird
\- Why would you topple avian creature...?
\- figure of speech, not relevant to the story. Anyway, you can be also polite about it, and I might hear your request. Or might not. Or you might hold gun to my head and then I won't have much choice.
\- I still don't see how's that relevant to mages and this whole "mahic" deal.
\- You see, that's what mages do, except instead of asking you or me to do stuff for them, they're asking Universe. In terms it can't ignore...
\- Wait, no... - my eyes widened in terror. She could not possibly mean what I think she means!
\- ...by holding a proverbial gun to Universe's proverbial head - she finished her sentence, there was something slightly psychotic in her smile. What kind of race could be self-absorbed enough to think they can talk to universe and that it will answer? Worse, what kind of race would then **threaten** universe, once they discovered it's possible?! | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The *Sunseeker*'s control room was dead silent except for the low *beep-beep-beep* of the deep space radar. The screen lights flashed a dim blue against the vast blankness of space, but nothing else moved, or breathed in the cavernous space.
A line of blue light appeared in the middle of the room, then expanded into a doorway from which stepped out three figures. If a human had still been present in the control room, they would have looked askance as the figures were too tall, too thin, and moved too fluidly to be one of their own. A living human might have been thrilled to catch their first glimpse of extraterrestrial life.
The humans in the control room, however, were far past caring the issue. Glassy eyes stared numbly at their consoles, and heads looked on fixedly, their motor muscles frozen instantly by the nerve pulse.
The first figure scanned the room for remaining traces of the weaponized blast, then sighed into its microphone.
"Looks like we got another dead crew. It seems like they still don't get it."
"Give them some credit, none of their crews has returned from a trip this long."
"Still, after sixty years of exploration? You'd think they would have given up."
One of the other figures shrugs. The movement brings its narrow shoulders all the way to the crown of its head.
"Humans will be humans. They are a stubborn species, that's for sure."
"Well, as long as it prevents them from leaving that backwater of theirs, I'm all for it."
The other figure hunches over to examine one of the dead crew members.
"Still, don't you think we should tell them by now? That their FTL drive can only decelerate up to a certain point before releasing that tachyon wave?"
"Weren't you listening? Leaving them ignorant is exactly the point. As long as they're stuck at 2c, it'll take them centuries to reach civilized space. Hopefully they'll have learned some manners by then. Bloody primitives..."
The hunched figure sighs, claps its hands together in the *macto*, then turns back to the gateway. The three aliens depart as quietly as they came.
** Three days later**
The alien ship is long gone, and the human vessel still floats in the vast expanse of space. It has waited the full three days allotted to its crew, before its automated safeguards took over.
The ship flashes blue, glowing like a briefly lived supernova, then disappears into the strange dimensions of FTL travel. After sixty years, the Human Exploration Corps finally developed a ship that could travel back to Earth on its own, and carry with it a recording of the tales of its crew. | \- You say it runs on what? - I asked human, staring with all four of my eyes in disbelief.
\- Magic! - She replied with pride - Look, I'm not making a fun of you, it literally just runs on magic. Or at least something that by all accounts fits the definition of magic. See that fella over there in weird cloaks slumping by the bar? The one next to big wooden stick? He's my mage, he's making all the things tick just right. Here, let me explain to you. - the human captain started drawing three stick figures with beer stains, lastly she encircled all of them - Let's say these two are you and me. You want me to do something, let's say move that box over there, so you ask me to do so. Now, if you're a dick about it, I gonna flip ya a bird
\- Why would you topple avian creature...?
\- figure of speech, not relevant to the story. Anyway, you can be also polite about it, and I might hear your request. Or might not. Or you might hold gun to my head and then I won't have much choice.
\- I still don't see how's that relevant to mages and this whole "mahic" deal.
\- You see, that's what mages do, except instead of asking you or me to do stuff for them, they're asking Universe. In terms it can't ignore...
\- Wait, no... - my eyes widened in terror. She could not possibly mean what I think she means!
\- ...by holding a proverbial gun to Universe's proverbial head - she finished her sentence, there was something slightly psychotic in her smile. What kind of race could be self-absorbed enough to think they can talk to universe and that it will answer? Worse, what kind of race would then **threaten** universe, once they discovered it's possible?! | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "You need to stop this. Now." ~UTHQ
It seemed like a strange message from the UT at first, the United Terrans organization, formed by the world's leading space agencies to represent all of humanity and the Earth as we ventured out of the solar system for the first time.
But this wasn't from the UT.
It couldn't be. TRAPPIST-1 was 40 light years away from Earth. It had taken only 32 years to travel here in the DocBrown, a name chosen thanks to somebody's bright idea to let internet polls do the picking. Theoretically, the ship could travel even faster, possibly greater than 2c, but due to the still relatively unknown nature of matter at speeds >1c, the speed was capped at 1.25c for this mission. Earth would have had to have sent this message *8 years* before they left.
The tension in the recycled air was so palpable it was hard to breathe, a mixture of separate emotions so intense you'd feel like you might implode and explode all at the same time.
They had first braved the pounding tension of the "photobraking" deceleration maneuver as they approached the star system, where the DocBrown's FTL drive was shut down to allow *space-time itself* to decelerate the ship below lightspeed, the first-ever such attempt in human history. It certainly sounds sensible when you have a room full of mathematicians and physicists drawing it out for you, but while trapped in a ship barreling through the galaxy at +1c, you begin to wonder why they aren't sitting in your seat instead. The ship instantly began to rumble as soon as the engines were cut, louder and louder at a rising frequency. As speed dropped closer to 1c, gunpowder crackling sounds and bangs like metallic bones snapping abused the outside the hull. The blueshifted light through the front windows, turning more and more white, increased in luminosity, until in a blinding flash a deafening ***THUD*** broke the ship's runaway speed like driving into a brick wall. The ship's speed now read 0.87c, and all was quiet. Spacetime, and light, it seems, has something akin to sonic booms that come from violating the universe's speed limits.
To slow down further, the fuel tank, capable of holding 5% of the Moon's mass, had to be thrown away in a trajectory that would not impact any of the exoplanets dancing around TRAPPIST-1. The mechanism to do this was a nuclear warhead, and a 10km tether to draw out the acceleration force from being instantaneous. "Don't ask," one engineer said, working on developing this technology. "We've tested it. It works..."
After the maneuver left the ship's speed at a little over 0.51c, DocBrown's traditional engines took over to do the rest of the legwork, but the beauty shining in through the windows was so loud now it overpowered all engine noise into deafening silence. The cool dwarf star's system was a fertile playground of seven exoplanets, three of which were Earth-like. They had atmospheres, and their surface was a swirl of colors so exotic, made possible only by the mysterious artistry of the universe, that Jeb had to keep wiping the water from his eyes just to keep looking at it.
He looked over at Deb, who was also crying, and then at the rest of the team, they all laughed and came together to embrace.
In the joy and excitement of the moment, Jeb thought he had heard a barely-audible *ding,* but it was likely nothing. After the celebration settled down, Jeb went to the ship's console to make sure the warning wasn't something serious to do with the DocBrown's deceleration burn.
But it wasn't an engine warning. It was a direct message, from UT, from home.
"You need to stop this. Now." ~UTHQ
The emotions flowing in this moment made it difficult to discern what this meant, how is this possible? Is it possible? Jeb put his head in his hands and the team saw him struggling; they came over to see what the issue might be. Each member read the message and the ship once again became overwhelmed by a crushing silence, as each crewmate contiplated the unreal, impossible nature of what they were looking at. It *wasn't* possible.
Just as contemplations began to wander into darker, more impossible possibilities, their predictions were quickly narrowed down, by another received message: *(ding)*
"This is a warning." ~UTHQ
----------
**Edit: Part 2/3**
The tense atmosphere led Marcus, systems engineer for the mission, to sit down at the console.
"Who is this?" ~DocBrown
Their laser communications system was pointed directly at Earth, and it would take 40 years for the message to arrive there. The messages had been digitally signed with UT's signature. The team contemplated that their communications have been cracked, and hijacked.
"What do they want? Why the warning?" Mel sounded panicked, the lead biologist for the mission. "They want us to stop doing something..." Marcus mumbled, reading over the messages.
After a pause, Mel jumped up. "Do you think they live here? Do you think this is their system?" Dale, the radioastronomer, shrugged. "No chatter from this place. Our radio leak out to space for over 1200 year before we come here."
Marcus shrugged, and seeing no harm in trying, typed out:
"Is this sun your home?" ~DocBrown
As the message sent out, the team entertained a thought that maybe UT would be getting some funny messages in 40 years.
*(ding)*
"No." ~UTHQ
A chill fell over the air. Marcus got out of his seat and moved away. "What do they want?", Mel cried. Jeb spoke up, "Hold on, so far we're just talking. We don't know who they are yet, or what they want. They want us to stop doing something, so maybe we broke a rule, we just don't know about it yet."
Mel sniffed, but she was contemplating. "Maybe there's already life here, and it's against the law to mess with it?" Dale scoffed, "They mess with us!"
Marcus turned around, focused. "We need to know what we did wrong." He sat down at the console,
"What did we do wrong?" ~DocBrown
The crew watched as the message was sent out, anticipating the passing seconds.
*(ding)*
"Dumblfuckery." ~UTHQ
----------
**Edit 2: see below for Part 3/3**
| \- You say it runs on what? - I asked human, staring with all four of my eyes in disbelief.
\- Magic! - She replied with pride - Look, I'm not making a fun of you, it literally just runs on magic. Or at least something that by all accounts fits the definition of magic. See that fella over there in weird cloaks slumping by the bar? The one next to big wooden stick? He's my mage, he's making all the things tick just right. Here, let me explain to you. - the human captain started drawing three stick figures with beer stains, lastly she encircled all of them - Let's say these two are you and me. You want me to do something, let's say move that box over there, so you ask me to do so. Now, if you're a dick about it, I gonna flip ya a bird
\- Why would you topple avian creature...?
\- figure of speech, not relevant to the story. Anyway, you can be also polite about it, and I might hear your request. Or might not. Or you might hold gun to my head and then I won't have much choice.
\- I still don't see how's that relevant to mages and this whole "mahic" deal.
\- You see, that's what mages do, except instead of asking you or me to do stuff for them, they're asking Universe. In terms it can't ignore...
\- Wait, no... - my eyes widened in terror. She could not possibly mean what I think she means!
\- ...by holding a proverbial gun to Universe's proverbial head - she finished her sentence, there was something slightly psychotic in her smile. What kind of race could be self-absorbed enough to think they can talk to universe and that it will answer? Worse, what kind of race would then **threaten** universe, once they discovered it's possible?! | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | “We must keep the Humans believing that their FTL system is unsafe, unorthodox and damn stupid. That is the point of this of this Special Hearing of The Supreme Council of the New Species Traveling Faster than Light. I am Farlack, Supreme Councilor of the Organization of Galactic Legal Advisors. ^(legal disclaimer: Norepresentationismadethatthequalityofthelegalgalacticservicestobeperformedisgreaterthanthequalityoflegalservicesperformedbyotherlawyers).
“Scarlacc, will you please read the minutes from the last session to allow this Supeme Council to aware of the latest current legal status of the Humans.?”
“Of course. That would be Sub-Section 7 of Section 30 of the 5th meeting of the Council of Dealing with and Controlling the Humans.
“It has been discovered that the Humans have developed a completely new FTL travel, with no related or similar technologies in the known Galaxy. The core of this FTL is a bubble of a universe where the speed of light is 1000 times faster than the speed of light is in our legally defined universe is pulled to our universe. The Human ships then travel at .1 c in this alternate universe. Upon exiting this alternate universe, the human ships have travelled 1000 times the distance in our universe. The energy expense of travelling in the alternate universe is the same as travelling in our univ-“
“Sarlacc, this Council is not interested in the technical aspects of the Humans FTL Technologies. That discussion is for the Galactic Council of Technology Equalization and/or The Council of Equalization of Galactic Technologies and/or Council of Galactic Technology Equalization. Ballzacc, will you present the Summary of the Social Legal Issues of the Humans Council meeting?”
“Of course. Due to the extremely dangerous situation these Humans create for us, I will dispense with extraneous discussion and proceed to the summary of the meeting, as permitted in The Rules and Guides of the Supreme Galactic Committee and The Guides and Rules of the Supreme Galactic Committee, version 2 of edition 5, Copyrighted.
“The Humans have a social system that may lead to our death and destruction. The humans developed their FTL without our influence and guidance, so we were unable to control their technology with the powers of the Galactic Patent Office. This failure was due to their rapid technological development. In the span of 6 human generations, they progressed from animal driven power to FTL travel. During the final Human pre-FTL travel, Humans revolted against their legal system and killed all lawyers allow-“
“They did WHAT?” interrupred Farlack. “How do they maintain their society without legal protections?”
“They became disgusted with a legal system that required warning labels to not drive their “automobile” with the windshield sunscreen in place. As I was saying, this allowed generations of research and development to be done in half a generation. And we can not control their technology.” Ballzacc completed his summary, terror beginning to creep into its face.
“Oh my supreme being. When the common people of the Galaxy learn of this… no lawyers…no lifelong Legal Guidance fees…” Farlack began to understand the lack of his future.
“Yes. This Council and all others, we will be destroyed”
“Yes, their technology is unorthodox, unsafe, and damn stupid, but for reasons the Galaxy must never understand.”
| \- You say it runs on what? - I asked human, staring with all four of my eyes in disbelief.
\- Magic! - She replied with pride - Look, I'm not making a fun of you, it literally just runs on magic. Or at least something that by all accounts fits the definition of magic. See that fella over there in weird cloaks slumping by the bar? The one next to big wooden stick? He's my mage, he's making all the things tick just right. Here, let me explain to you. - the human captain started drawing three stick figures with beer stains, lastly she encircled all of them - Let's say these two are you and me. You want me to do something, let's say move that box over there, so you ask me to do so. Now, if you're a dick about it, I gonna flip ya a bird
\- Why would you topple avian creature...?
\- figure of speech, not relevant to the story. Anyway, you can be also polite about it, and I might hear your request. Or might not. Or you might hold gun to my head and then I won't have much choice.
\- I still don't see how's that relevant to mages and this whole "mahic" deal.
\- You see, that's what mages do, except instead of asking you or me to do stuff for them, they're asking Universe. In terms it can't ignore...
\- Wait, no... - my eyes widened in terror. She could not possibly mean what I think she means!
\- ...by holding a proverbial gun to Universe's proverbial head - she finished her sentence, there was something slightly psychotic in her smile. What kind of race could be self-absorbed enough to think they can talk to universe and that it will answer? Worse, what kind of race would then **threaten** universe, once they discovered it's possible?! | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "So, about the humans..." Said a voice with diplomatic neutrality.
Groans from a myriad of different species' voices could be heard throughout the conference hall. There was a meeting being held on how to properly welcome these new, strange creatures now that they had, technically, at least, achieved Faster Than Light travel.
"We organised this meeting to discuss them! When are you all going to stop pussyfooting around the issue!?" The same voice declared, with a level of anger hard to believe considering their tone mere seconds ago.
"Blarpart, I know you're a workaholic and all that but have you SEEN these...creature's form of FTL "travel"?" A gruff voice from somewhere in the hall responded over the din of arguing and groans of "are we really fucking doing this?"
"I agree that it's...unconventional but-"
The word "unconventional" being used to describe human beings' method of intergalactic travel caused an uproar among the crowd.
"Hey! HEY! HEYYYYYY!" Interjected Blarpart with an odd mixture of rage, impatience and exhaustion. "It works for them, who are we to judge?"
"Don't you get it? They use possibly the most unstable thing in the universe, a wormhole, and pump it with a load of who knows what to make it last more than a nanosecond and to a greater size than a few atoms and just *sigh* go through it and hope for the best"
"As I said, uncon-" Blarpart thought better of using *that* word again and instead chose to deflect the conversation in the hopes of finishing and grabbing something from a Space Denny's on the way home.
"Ok, how about we just ignore them? They're not going to last long as a species if THAT'S how they traverse space. From our observations, their 'wormhole jumping' has about an 80% chance of failure. All in favour?"
A chorus of relieved "aye"s reverberated throughout the room.
"All opposed?"
...
"Well then, that settles i-"
"YOU FUCKING WOT, M8?" A voice shouted from just outside the hall.
"Can I go without being interrupted for ONE MINUTE?" Blarpart said in an exasperated sigh.
And with that, a duo of humans, one tall with brown hair and the other short with black hair, burst into the hall with their bottles of what they call "Mountain Dew" and bags of "Doritos" and started going on about how we can't "diss" them like that.
"You know what? Fuck these alien squares, wanna go piss into a black hole?" The taller one said.
"Yeah, dude. Definitely." The shorter one replied with an almost endearing level of excitement at the prospect.
And with that, the duo left as quickly as they had entered.
"What just happened?" A member of the crowd ask with a disbelieving tone.
"...Humanity. Humanity happened" said Blarpart, with yet another sigh.
Spelling and removing the pretentious "fin". | \- You say it runs on what? - I asked human, staring with all four of my eyes in disbelief.
\- Magic! - She replied with pride - Look, I'm not making a fun of you, it literally just runs on magic. Or at least something that by all accounts fits the definition of magic. See that fella over there in weird cloaks slumping by the bar? The one next to big wooden stick? He's my mage, he's making all the things tick just right. Here, let me explain to you. - the human captain started drawing three stick figures with beer stains, lastly she encircled all of them - Let's say these two are you and me. You want me to do something, let's say move that box over there, so you ask me to do so. Now, if you're a dick about it, I gonna flip ya a bird
\- Why would you topple avian creature...?
\- figure of speech, not relevant to the story. Anyway, you can be also polite about it, and I might hear your request. Or might not. Or you might hold gun to my head and then I won't have much choice.
\- I still don't see how's that relevant to mages and this whole "mahic" deal.
\- You see, that's what mages do, except instead of asking you or me to do stuff for them, they're asking Universe. In terms it can't ignore...
\- Wait, no... - my eyes widened in terror. She could not possibly mean what I think she means!
\- ...by holding a proverbial gun to Universe's proverbial head - she finished her sentence, there was something slightly psychotic in her smile. What kind of race could be self-absorbed enough to think they can talk to universe and that it will answer? Worse, what kind of race would then **threaten** universe, once they discovered it's possible?! | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Kalgor looked at the pale skined human in utter shock. 'They couldn't be serious in thinking that the rest of the galactic community would simply accept the use of this kind of technology'
“Mr. Adams...” Kalgor began.
“Doctor Adams if you don't mind Count Kalgor.” Dr. Adams corrected, he knew that if he didn't demand respect now that it would be harder to earn it back later. As it stood he could tell that the reptilian xeno that stood before him was not pleased with what had been unveiled only a hour ago in the space dock that was right outside his office window right now.
“Yes Dr.Adams. You must understand that of the various forms of FTL drive in use in the galaxy what you have unveiled here today is at best going to be seen as unsafe at best or outright dangerous to some in the galaxy.” He was struggling to keep the panic out of his voice, but despite his many deca-cycles of experience in diplomacy the very skill that had made him chosen as the Galactic Senate's emissary to the up and coming human race, he was begin to fail.
“Count with all due respect I fail to see what the overall difference is between our own hyperdrive and the Delfanit pulse tube drive or the Kantian gate system they all use hyperspace gravity waves to achieve FTL speeds.”
Kalgor's voice broke. “But you are punching holes in space to reach hyperspace!”
“So?” the Doctor responded nonchalantly.
“The Kantian's use a physical gateway to control entry into hyperspace and the Delfanit's use natural gravity currents to slip into hyperspace. Your system just punches holes into the fabric of space! Even our scientists can't tell if making those holes will not bring about the complete tearing of reality as we know it.”
Kalgor again reasserted some control over himself and continued.
“I know that this is a major milestone for humanity and means that you will not have to pay for the use of other species drive systems in your ships which will transform your economy and your military forces. But this is too dangerous besides, what possible advantages could this drive have over the other forms of FTL?”
Adams knew that this moment would be coming sooner or later and that he had to make the most it.
“So glad you could ask Count. The Kantian's gate system requires a massive amount of energy in order to not only open the entryway to hyperspace both for incoming and outgoing traffic, but to hold it open long enough for ships to get through. While they have relatively few systems in their Empire those that they have are spread out thus why the gate was developed. Once in system they use regular sub-light fusion drive to go from the gate to their ultimate planetary destination.”
Kalgor nodded his head as the Doctor continued.
“However due to the power requirements of just one of those gates not to mention the operating costs it would be uneconomical to have a gate at each planet.
Another thing is the time that the gate is held open effects the toll paid by merchant traffic thus why you don't see any Kantian merchant vessels over 1.5km in length. Beyond that length the ratio between hold space, engine size, and time to accelerate becomes uneconomical. They can't get moving from a stand still fast enough to go through the gate without occurring serious tolls and they can't dedicate more engine size because it cuts into their profits from loss of tonnage hauled.”
“Well... yes those are valid points but...” Kalgor stammered out but Adams didn't let up.
“The Delfanit pulse tube solves the power requirement issue and the infrastructure issue but those “tubes” where the gravity band waves are stable enough to sail on until they hit hyperspace are very restricting as they only occur naturally in a few places. This is why their Kingdom if you look at their history had periods of rapid expansion followed by long periods of solidification because goods had to travel often dozens of light years in sublight from system hubs that had these tubes thus slowing growth.”
Kalgor knew he was quickly losing ground and had little recourse as any other drive system that was used in the galaxy had similar glaring issues that were simply accepted.
The Maltiun wave-riders used massive 20km+ gravity sails to ride the same gravity waves as the Delfanit but instead of entering hyperspace they rode ever more powerful waves and were not limited in where they could go for the most part. But the system was high maintenance and very tonnage sensitive as the larger the vessel the longer it took for that vessel reach FTL speeds. The largest ships the species built took at least a standard week to get up to speed and then another week to slow down.
Salec skip drives on the other hand actually sent gravity anchor beams to latch onto hyperspace currents and pull the ship along technically “skipping” on the envelope between real space and hyperspace. The down side is that the anchors can only hold for so long and the power requirements while nothing like Kantians as this wasn't actually entering hyperspace. Meant that they could only skip anywhere from 20 to 100 lightyears depending on the ships configuration before having to recharge their anchoring system, which could take a standard day or up to a week on the largest shipping vessels. Still faster than going at sub light speeds for sure but it meant long travel times for goods.
“Our system allows us to enter hyperspace at will, with no concerns about ship mass, size, or power production beyond engine thrust which combined with our already recognized and accepted superior fusion engine designs, means that we can potentially travel from one side of the galaxy to the other in a month. At least if you are willing to burn that much H3 fuel which even then is more a matter of being inconvenienced with having to stop for fuel rather than any sort of cost consideration.”
The silence in the office was deafening as Kalgor stepped towards the window and looked upon the vessel.
“But the holes Doctor! You may have a system that doesn't have the others drawbacks but we are talking about ripping apart space itself.”
“Count Kalgor I am growing weary of this repeated falsehood. We have be using the same points in orbit to develop this system for over a standard year, and every time we have gone we have had to open a new hole as the last one closed once the vessel is through. Beyond the gravity wake left by the opening you can't tell any thing happened at all after 24 to 36 hours. It is safe.”
“The Senate will not accept this...” Kalgor started hoping he was right to bank on the repugnant nature of this very concept.
“They might not now but they will when they see the Eli Whitney.” Adams spoke ominously. He turned on the large holotank in the middle of the room. The image displayed a monstrous vessel.”
Kalgor turned around and his eyes went wide at the image.
“Is this a warship?” He asked as the ever growing list of implications in his head grew with each passing second.
“No my Count, it is not. It is a merchant vessel commissioned by the Wal-Mart Cartel. She is 75km long, over 2km tall with 12 50-Petawatt fusion reactors with a top estimated FTL speed of 50 but will likely run at 10 to save on fuel costs as such speed is generally unneeded. The whole vessel weighs over 500 million tons 490 of which is hold space capable of hauling virtually anything you can think of. She is going out for trials in a hour then if all goes well she will make a fully loaded iron ore run from the Sol system to Peraxus VII and its heavy industry there. And given that the Senate is on Peraxus V the Eli will make a pass and see if there is anything that needs to be shipped back here to Earth on the return trip.”
As the Doctor finished Kalgor could feel his heart tighten at the size of the vessel and its speed. It would be in the Peraxus system in 3 days, even if he left now in one of the fastest vessels money could buy now he couldn't hope to get there in anything less than 12 days.
“You humans are reckless and unorthodox beyond anything I have ever heard of in my life. But I can't argue with the results.” Kalgor finally stated any hope of resistance gone as the pragmatic side of him knew that economically humanity had, in 10 years after first contact blown every other power in the galaxy out of the water. Another voice his is head whispered about what would happen if mankind made warships on such a scale.
“Well Doctor I don't see any point in arguing anymore but if you can let me on this vessel and join me in the senate with your research especially on the whole hole-punching-then-closing-up-perfectly part, then maybe we can avoid starting a bigger galactic panic then what we absolutely have to.”
“Of course Count I'm already packed and I have made such arrangements already. We can leave once the ship has gone through its final trials.” The Doctor proudly stated. | \- You say it runs on what? - I asked human, staring with all four of my eyes in disbelief.
\- Magic! - She replied with pride - Look, I'm not making a fun of you, it literally just runs on magic. Or at least something that by all accounts fits the definition of magic. See that fella over there in weird cloaks slumping by the bar? The one next to big wooden stick? He's my mage, he's making all the things tick just right. Here, let me explain to you. - the human captain started drawing three stick figures with beer stains, lastly she encircled all of them - Let's say these two are you and me. You want me to do something, let's say move that box over there, so you ask me to do so. Now, if you're a dick about it, I gonna flip ya a bird
\- Why would you topple avian creature...?
\- figure of speech, not relevant to the story. Anyway, you can be also polite about it, and I might hear your request. Or might not. Or you might hold gun to my head and then I won't have much choice.
\- I still don't see how's that relevant to mages and this whole "mahic" deal.
\- You see, that's what mages do, except instead of asking you or me to do stuff for them, they're asking Universe. In terms it can't ignore...
\- Wait, no... - my eyes widened in terror. She could not possibly mean what I think she means!
\- ...by holding a proverbial gun to Universe's proverbial head - she finished her sentence, there was something slightly psychotic in her smile. What kind of race could be self-absorbed enough to think they can talk to universe and that it will answer? Worse, what kind of race would then **threaten** universe, once they discovered it's possible?! | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "Idiot fuk human design shit-tier spaceship get all Brogga friend kill't. End all. Stoopt fuk. E'ryon kno warp spacetime. E'ryon kno break litspeeding. E'ryon kno crate warm hole. E'ryon kno cut mass half. E'yron cept idiot fuk humans. Y d'sign dumb shit-tier drive can't fi'ure out nuttin'. Cant warp spacetime. Cant break litspeeding. Cant crate warm hole. Cant cut mass. 'Stead idiot fuk human burrow down subquark stangelet bullshit risk implode entire quadrant for fuk newmatter. Y? Too dumb, tha's y. Now Brogga stuk dumb idiot fuk human ship on oth'r side galactic spinward fr'home. Idiot fuk human get Brogga kill't, get Brogga friend kill't..."
The muttering was cut off by a bang, followed by curses unutterable by the tongues of men. Poor old Brogga had been clanking about underneath the hullward dash for the last three days, almost without a break, muttering the entire time.
Say what he would, Brogga was nothing short of a mechanical genius, being the only Broggan capable of working on the Subquark-plated external combustion Engine. It took a particularly pliable mind to make an external combustion engine work, particularly when one was compressing- and burning- pure vacuum. The only real downside was the slight chance of creating decay, but if that happened it wouldn't matter as the entire tanker would be destroyed within seconds. I supposed it would have mattered to the rest of the Universe, but Brogga wouldn't have cared for he would have been the first to go.
Well, okay, there was a second slight problem. See, by burning pure vacuum they wore away a little strip of the cosmos. It was so small that it probably didn't matter, and the Universe was expanding anyways, but certain routes did get more traffic and engines were getting more efficient all the time.
"Idiot fuk human shit design fuk"
More clattering and banging from underneath the hullward dash.
"Idiot fuk human, try now"
Brogga's curses were rewarded with a shuttering rumble as the external combustion engine roared to life.
"Well that's curious" Captain Froy remarked, staring in disbelief at the guages.
Normal external combustion engines were able to operate somewhere between 10,000% and 100,000% efficiency, and for every joule of vacuum energy burned 100% efficiency would yield 10 kilo-joules.
The digital display read 10^89 % efficiency.
"Brogga, I think this gauge is busted."
"Idiot fuk human replace it then. Brogga sleeps."
Then, with customary swagger Captain Froy shoved the throttle open and pulled out, easing back into his seat for a cozy nap. However, when Captain Froy awoke several hours later he was not where he expected. In fact, he was not sure where he was at all.
You see, Brogga had accidentally upgraded their engine. Nobody saw the display, but if they had, they would have seen Brogga, Froy, and the rest of the crew tearing ass across the Universe, ripping a cosmic-scale gash in the vacuum like God's holy zipper. Of course this hole rapidly closed up, but in the time it would normally take them to travel a few hundred lightyears they had soared clear of the "observable Universe" several times over.
In fact, they had traveled so far they weren't entirely sure how to get back.
Thus began the journey of Brogga and the idiot fuk humans who wasted 600 years of his life and destroyed his capacity to speak properly. | \- You say it runs on what? - I asked human, staring with all four of my eyes in disbelief.
\- Magic! - She replied with pride - Look, I'm not making a fun of you, it literally just runs on magic. Or at least something that by all accounts fits the definition of magic. See that fella over there in weird cloaks slumping by the bar? The one next to big wooden stick? He's my mage, he's making all the things tick just right. Here, let me explain to you. - the human captain started drawing three stick figures with beer stains, lastly she encircled all of them - Let's say these two are you and me. You want me to do something, let's say move that box over there, so you ask me to do so. Now, if you're a dick about it, I gonna flip ya a bird
\- Why would you topple avian creature...?
\- figure of speech, not relevant to the story. Anyway, you can be also polite about it, and I might hear your request. Or might not. Or you might hold gun to my head and then I won't have much choice.
\- I still don't see how's that relevant to mages and this whole "mahic" deal.
\- You see, that's what mages do, except instead of asking you or me to do stuff for them, they're asking Universe. In terms it can't ignore...
\- Wait, no... - my eyes widened in terror. She could not possibly mean what I think she means!
\- ...by holding a proverbial gun to Universe's proverbial head - she finished her sentence, there was something slightly psychotic in her smile. What kind of race could be self-absorbed enough to think they can talk to universe and that it will answer? Worse, what kind of race would then **threaten** universe, once they discovered it's possible?! | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Terrestrial Warp Drives. First proposed by Miguel Alcubierre two hundred formlats ago, The equivalent of forcing space into a shape which closely resembles two black holes stacked fore to aft. It requires insanely large sums of energy to produce the warp effect, equivalent to at least the mass of a small moon converted to energy. To get around this, the Terrestrials use catalytic mass converter engines. A device which has been discredited by the rest of the universe for the complete and utter destructive potential should such a reactor melt down on a planet. They work by converting matter to energy with a catalyst particle. However, they also produce a certain percent of catalyst particles. When this process runs away, it has been known to destroy planets, heavily damaging entire solar systems.
Under order 4,900,232 section III, Human spacecraft are to be classified as "NOT TO BE TOUCHED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES" on or near a planet, and "DESTROY AT ALL COSTS" in interplanetary space. This is not done as a measure against humans, but as a safety measure across the galaxy. This will be done until a treaty can be made with the terrestrial humans such that they will cease using catalytic mass converters.
Examination of a captured Terrestrial FTL Engine under the Federal Standard Gravity Model suggests that some fairly simple improvements to the Alcubierre-type drive can be made to reduce the energy requirements to what can be managed by fusion and antimatter reaction technology. They need not give up their unique drive. As dangerous as the Terrestrial Drive is, it presents no risk to those outside the vessel. | \- You say it runs on what? - I asked human, staring with all four of my eyes in disbelief.
\- Magic! - She replied with pride - Look, I'm not making a fun of you, it literally just runs on magic. Or at least something that by all accounts fits the definition of magic. See that fella over there in weird cloaks slumping by the bar? The one next to big wooden stick? He's my mage, he's making all the things tick just right. Here, let me explain to you. - the human captain started drawing three stick figures with beer stains, lastly she encircled all of them - Let's say these two are you and me. You want me to do something, let's say move that box over there, so you ask me to do so. Now, if you're a dick about it, I gonna flip ya a bird
\- Why would you topple avian creature...?
\- figure of speech, not relevant to the story. Anyway, you can be also polite about it, and I might hear your request. Or might not. Or you might hold gun to my head and then I won't have much choice.
\- I still don't see how's that relevant to mages and this whole "mahic" deal.
\- You see, that's what mages do, except instead of asking you or me to do stuff for them, they're asking Universe. In terms it can't ignore...
\- Wait, no... - my eyes widened in terror. She could not possibly mean what I think she means!
\- ...by holding a proverbial gun to Universe's proverbial head - she finished her sentence, there was something slightly psychotic in her smile. What kind of race could be self-absorbed enough to think they can talk to universe and that it will answer? Worse, what kind of race would then **threaten** universe, once they discovered it's possible?! | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Xandar was fuming. 20 smismars he'd been waiting in the bowels of that horrible assembling of junk and metal the humans proudly called their *flagship of intergalactic friendship*. It was bad enough when those hairless pink monkeys made it to outer space but now they had developped a functioning FTL drive and that made them *worthy* of introduction into the Galactic Alliance.
In all his bismars as official technological investigators of the Galactic Alliance's scientific division, Xandar had never seen such a pathetic excuse for a ship. Neither he or any of his colleagues wanted to partake in this scientific inspection. They actually had to draw straws and to his utter disappointment, Xandar lost. Xarcy tried to cheer him up, noting that the human FTL drive was probably a dud anyway. Their first long distance drive was barely a stupid bedsheet catching solar wind, how could they have build a fully functioning FTL drive is such little time since.
21 smismars, where the hell was that pink ape that was supposed to show him the drive ? Xandar only wanted to get done with this and leave. The human vessel was small, cramped and much too warm for his taste. It also didn't help that everything was made to accomodate 6ft tall apes, at 9ft tall, a respectable height for a noble Glaxian like him, he was constantly banging his upper appendage on the ceiling and door frames.
Finally a metal door opened and 2 hairless apes ran toward him. The first one, pink and the second one dark brown. Fascinating thought Xandar, I've never seen such a dark colored ape. At least some decent scientific information. Maybe the science council would let him abduct such a specimen later on for testing. Humans usually didn't mind a few abduction here and there as long as you didn't touch the cows sleeping in the fields.
The 2 apes escorted Xandar to the engine room. The first thing that caught Xandar's attention was the intense heat coming from the doorway, much worst than the rest of the already hot vessel.
>Right this way Dr Xandar, you're gonna love this!
Words could barely describe the sights that laid in front of Xandar when he crossed into the room
*What the hell kind of piece of shit is that?*
>What, the FTL drive ?
>>Quite the beauty isn't she ?
The drive in question looked like a random pile of junk with tubes coming out of the sides, hot steam rising from them. The whole thing was red hot and there was a very annoying sound of pressured gas being shot into the machine at close interval. On top of the device sat 2 giant glowing green tubes.
*Are those Arthosian power cores ?*
>Yes, you have a good eye Dr Xandar.
*Where in the 5 stars did you get these ? Only a handful were ever created and the Arthosian guard them very closely*
>>We found them!
>Of yeah, came upon a space wreck near Alpha Centory IV and we managed to recover quite a lot of technology from it.
*Wait wait... you stole them from a broken ship ?*
>Not stole, never. We found them.
>>Space salvage!
*Does the Arthosian empire know you're using stolen tech ?*
>I dunno, they never complained about it before you brought it up.
Xandar was flaggerbasted, these hairless apes weren't just stupid, they were a menace.
*Fine, walk me trough it*
>Oh you're gonna love this doc. By stripping the neutrino element of the 2 power cores and jerryrigging them together, we managed to create a power unit strong enough to blast trough the fabric of spacetime, and into the slipstream.
*Wait a minute, you stripped the power core of its protective shielding ?*
>Why yes.
>>It was really annoying really, hiding all the good stuff.
*ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS! Those a radiation shielding, this stuff is extremely dangerous*
>I know that, we all know that
>>It needed to be done. Beside, we added some plasma shielding to it.
>Yes, it should do the job... enough.
*Jesus fucking christ.... continue*
>Well, as I was saying, the drive allows us to punch our way into the slipstream and from there we can modify the flow of radiation emited by the power cores, enabling us to navigate different planes of the stream.
>>It's like a chose you own adventure travel book. Add a gamma variant to the radiation cocktail and you can move faster, replace it by a theta variant and you can navigate, for lack of a better word, "UP" into the 4th dimension.
*How do you exit the slipstreem ?*
>Well, we found that injecting a low level ion isopote directly into the power core will create an instability in the stream that causes the ship to be ejected, albeith rather violently.
>>Yes, the first test vessel exploded on exit.
*My god, this is catastrophic*
>We thought so to, so insted we just shut off the drive and the ship gets ejected much more softly.
*What... no! I mean... this whole system is horrible...*
>It's not so bad once you work out the kinks
*But how.... this must be ridiculously unstable !?*
>Oh boy... that's an understatement
>>You have to understand, all this only works if we keep the core overheated to exactly 3,568 degrees.
>Oh yes, any variation of over 2.75 degrees and the whole thing would go kablewy
*This is nuts, how do you maintain the temperature ? I see no adaptive secluar temporal module anywhere*
>Don't have one
>>Yeah, this fancy stuff is much too complicated and too hard to get your hands on.
>For now we use a system of pressure injected water and nitrogen
*You forcecool it under pressure ?*
>Exactly! I knew you'd get it doc.
>>We alternate between injecting pressurized water and nitrogen to cool off the core with a 1.5 seconds interval between each injection
*What?.... that's....how!?*
>You know.... too hot, blast it with nitrogen. Too cold, switch to water. Perfect temperature, do nothing. We evaluate the temperature every 2 seconds and Frank over there pulls the switch to inject the correct cooling substance.
*So none of this is automated ?*
>Nah, we're hoping to find a suitable automated cooling mechanism soon though.
*Like what? A water tin can on a string with a hole on the bottom ?*
>>Well no that's.... hey that's actually a good idea
>Yeah, we should look into that.
*Allright.... not taking into consideration the immense safety concern, not to mention decent common sens, this thing appears extremely dangerous and also in violation of at least a dozen galactic regulations on plasma use and timestream protocoles, and that's just for starters*
>Really?
>>Well that's a bummer for sure
*I must ask, with all this violent punching around the slipstream, how does your system deal with excess radiations and temporal aftershock effects ?*
>Come again ?
*The extreme side effects of your shitty system!!*
>Oh that. I dunno, whatever happens in the slipstream stays in the slipstream I guess.
>>Yeah, I mean it's not like we plan on living in the stream you know. It's just a highway. You roll down the window and throw your trash out.
*Over 15 sentient species live in the stream, 4 of wich are official members of the Galactic Alliance.*
>Really, people live in there ?
*YES, THEY DO!*
>Well that's fucking stupid.
>>yeah, who in their right mind lives in a galactic highway ? That's dangerous, somebody could get hurt!
>And they call US crazy ? | \- You say it runs on what? - I asked human, staring with all four of my eyes in disbelief.
\- Magic! - She replied with pride - Look, I'm not making a fun of you, it literally just runs on magic. Or at least something that by all accounts fits the definition of magic. See that fella over there in weird cloaks slumping by the bar? The one next to big wooden stick? He's my mage, he's making all the things tick just right. Here, let me explain to you. - the human captain started drawing three stick figures with beer stains, lastly she encircled all of them - Let's say these two are you and me. You want me to do something, let's say move that box over there, so you ask me to do so. Now, if you're a dick about it, I gonna flip ya a bird
\- Why would you topple avian creature...?
\- figure of speech, not relevant to the story. Anyway, you can be also polite about it, and I might hear your request. Or might not. Or you might hold gun to my head and then I won't have much choice.
\- I still don't see how's that relevant to mages and this whole "mahic" deal.
\- You see, that's what mages do, except instead of asking you or me to do stuff for them, they're asking Universe. In terms it can't ignore...
\- Wait, no... - my eyes widened in terror. She could not possibly mean what I think she means!
\- ...by holding a proverbial gun to Universe's proverbial head - she finished her sentence, there was something slightly psychotic in her smile. What kind of race could be self-absorbed enough to think they can talk to universe and that it will answer? Worse, what kind of race would then **threaten** universe, once they discovered it's possible?! | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The chamber illumination dimmed and the milky sim tank faded to life. A thousand eyes stared intently from the council benches, and a trillion more from across the five galaxies.
A deep voice, set on edge with urgency and well-contained fear, began its narration of the sim.
"The Brevis' star system surveillance node 47 has, it has been reported, recorded first contact with the species self-identifying as Humans. This much has already been announced. What has not yet been announced is that an analysis of the event has been completed, and their method of travel has thrown a black flag, gamma zero priority. Observe."
The sim showed a small moon below, surrounded by a halo of probes similar to the one that must be recording the image. In the far distance, the volumetric compensation showed a grossly enlarged blue planet on another orbital track, the Brevis' home world Herol. The orbital motion of the probes had been smooth and obvious, but now they slowed.
"We are showing the event at a reduced speed. Watch carefully."
Without warning, the entire projection dimmed as a single point of incredible, actinic light burst from the space next to the moon and raced away from its surface. As one, the closer orbiting probes glowed white-hot and began to disintegrate. The image wavered and then froze.
"Now, focus your attention on the exact location this phenomenon appeared, and keep your attention on that spot as the light moves away."
The image reversed, and the killing glow moved back to its original location. It slowly crept back outwards as the sim zoomed in. There, in the wake of the glow, was a ship, shaped like a mushroom with its cap to the light. Vaporised hull matter streamed from the smooth side facing the light, some sort of ablative heat shielding.
"We had never seen this effect before. We assumed it was some sort of deceleration technique, until we looked at it from the planetary defence network."
The perspective in the sim shifted, as if travelling to the distant planet. The moon and its halo of probes shrank, then grew again due to the volumetric compensation. The sim was normal again for a moment, before that terrible light appeared, an incredible distance from the moon this time, and immediately split into two lights, travelling away from each other at greater than the speed of light.
An audible click reverberated around the chamber as each of the species in attendance simultaneously inhaled on their breathing apparatuses.
"As you can see, the motion of the light is a relativistic illusion. The light doesn't travel, it exists simultaneously at all points in a column for a moment, then dissipates. The energy requirement is staggering. After calculating an intercept to the closest habitable world on the trajectory described by the light column, it appears their world is four hundred light-years away. The humans claim a similar distance, and their navigational data also confirm it. From this we can calculate the energy release as being consistent with a type III civilisation."
What had previously been a gentle series of clicks was now a cacophony, the seats shaking with the bodily gyrations of the assembled dignitaries. Some wailed, others laughed, most were silent.
"We have brought the leader of the human expedition here, with her agreement, of course."
The noises of discomfort reached a crashing crescendo, as several of the delegates jumped out of their seats and bolted for the exit.
The disembodied voice thundered, "ORDER!"
"I present to you, Chakor, Human, of planet Earth."
The creature that stepped into the chamber was unimpressive, physically. Bipedal, endoskeletal, wearing some sort of almost completely covering clothing with various decals affixed to it. The remaining delegates seemed to calm a little, their agitation lowering to a gentle swaying. The Human addressed the crowd.
"Greetings, delegates of the local group. My name is Chakor, I represent my species, Human, and wish to express our honour in meeting you all. We come in peace."
The room quietened further, and the booming voice sounded again. "Chakor will now take moderated questions from the floor. Please enter your queries for analysis and amalgamation."
A few awkward moments passed, Chakor looking out among the delegates. They varied from bipeds with heads and arms of various number to floating creatures in some sort of water tanks, through to creatures much more... alien.
"First question. The energy output of your drive technology is beyond immense. You must be capturing the energy output of most of a galaxy, somewhere. How can it be that we have not noticed the birth of a type III civilisation under our watch?"
Chakor paused to think before she replied, clearly confused. "We are not a type III civilisation. We are barely a type I. We just discovered a way to manipulate the nature of reality."
The voice didn't even wait to consult the accumulating list of vetted questions. "What?! How?"
"When we accidentally created and shot a cluster of miniature black holes through our particle collider's detectors, we discovered that the vacuum of space was not at the true ground state of the universe. This lent is an opportunity to use the difference in energy levels to complete an until-then hypothetical method of propulsion."
The room exploded into roars, gurgles, and screeches of outrage.
"Your drive is powered by triggering a collapse of fundamental reality?!"
"Not quite, if you'd let me finish. After we discovered the false vacuum was the current skein of the universe, we found that at the moment of triggering a vacuum state collapse, it was possible to entangle an arbitrary length of vacuum in a beam away from the source, and trigger the collapse simultaneously and instantaneously along that path."
Guards in the chamber drew their weapons as several delegates rose on their hindlimbs as if to attack.
"Chakor, this is madness! Your drive cannot work as you describe, or we wouldn't have any video of your arrival. A vacuum collapse would spread from wherever it started at the speed of light, unmaking the universe in its path!"
"Oh, yes we knew that. It turns out that the vacuum collapse provides enough energy to fold space into itself. In local proximity, one side of the event becomes the other. The space in between is clipped off like a twisted balloon, erased from having any bearing on existence. Our ship is instantaneously folded from one side of the beam to the other, and internal fields save us from having any biological changes. Of course, the collapse has to happen first by a few fractions of a microsecond, so there is some... energy leakage."
The chamber went suddenly silent.
The probe and planetary defence system had recorded an abomination, a gross violation of reality itself. The demonic light fleeing the Humans' strange vessel was the energetic corpse of a monster, come to open its maw and swallow the universe, inexorably, at the glacial speed of light. A fitting technology for a pursuit predator like the humans.
"You risk all our existence just to travel. How can we leave you free run of the galaxies?"
Chakor grinned. "We could always run one last wide beam to the ends of the universe and neglect to fold it away. How can you not?" | \- You say it runs on what? - I asked human, staring with all four of my eyes in disbelief.
\- Magic! - She replied with pride - Look, I'm not making a fun of you, it literally just runs on magic. Or at least something that by all accounts fits the definition of magic. See that fella over there in weird cloaks slumping by the bar? The one next to big wooden stick? He's my mage, he's making all the things tick just right. Here, let me explain to you. - the human captain started drawing three stick figures with beer stains, lastly she encircled all of them - Let's say these two are you and me. You want me to do something, let's say move that box over there, so you ask me to do so. Now, if you're a dick about it, I gonna flip ya a bird
\- Why would you topple avian creature...?
\- figure of speech, not relevant to the story. Anyway, you can be also polite about it, and I might hear your request. Or might not. Or you might hold gun to my head and then I won't have much choice.
\- I still don't see how's that relevant to mages and this whole "mahic" deal.
\- You see, that's what mages do, except instead of asking you or me to do stuff for them, they're asking Universe. In terms it can't ignore...
\- Wait, no... - my eyes widened in terror. She could not possibly mean what I think she means!
\- ...by holding a proverbial gun to Universe's proverbial head - she finished her sentence, there was something slightly psychotic in her smile. What kind of race could be self-absorbed enough to think they can talk to universe and that it will answer? Worse, what kind of race would then **threaten** universe, once they discovered it's possible?! | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "You need to stop this. Now." ~UTHQ
It seemed like a strange message from the UT at first, the United Terrans organization, formed by the world's leading space agencies to represent all of humanity and the Earth as we ventured out of the solar system for the first time.
But this wasn't from the UT.
It couldn't be. TRAPPIST-1 was 40 light years away from Earth. It had taken only 32 years to travel here in the DocBrown, a name chosen thanks to somebody's bright idea to let internet polls do the picking. Theoretically, the ship could travel even faster, possibly greater than 2c, but due to the still relatively unknown nature of matter at speeds >1c, the speed was capped at 1.25c for this mission. Earth would have had to have sent this message *8 years* before they left.
The tension in the recycled air was so palpable it was hard to breathe, a mixture of separate emotions so intense you'd feel like you might implode and explode all at the same time.
They had first braved the pounding tension of the "photobraking" deceleration maneuver as they approached the star system, where the DocBrown's FTL drive was shut down to allow *space-time itself* to decelerate the ship below lightspeed, the first-ever such attempt in human history. It certainly sounds sensible when you have a room full of mathematicians and physicists drawing it out for you, but while trapped in a ship barreling through the galaxy at +1c, you begin to wonder why they aren't sitting in your seat instead. The ship instantly began to rumble as soon as the engines were cut, louder and louder at a rising frequency. As speed dropped closer to 1c, gunpowder crackling sounds and bangs like metallic bones snapping abused the outside the hull. The blueshifted light through the front windows, turning more and more white, increased in luminosity, until in a blinding flash a deafening ***THUD*** broke the ship's runaway speed like driving into a brick wall. The ship's speed now read 0.87c, and all was quiet. Spacetime, and light, it seems, has something akin to sonic booms that come from violating the universe's speed limits.
To slow down further, the fuel tank, capable of holding 5% of the Moon's mass, had to be thrown away in a trajectory that would not impact any of the exoplanets dancing around TRAPPIST-1. The mechanism to do this was a nuclear warhead, and a 10km tether to draw out the acceleration force from being instantaneous. "Don't ask," one engineer said, working on developing this technology. "We've tested it. It works..."
After the maneuver left the ship's speed at a little over 0.51c, DocBrown's traditional engines took over to do the rest of the legwork, but the beauty shining in through the windows was so loud now it overpowered all engine noise into deafening silence. The cool dwarf star's system was a fertile playground of seven exoplanets, three of which were Earth-like. They had atmospheres, and their surface was a swirl of colors so exotic, made possible only by the mysterious artistry of the universe, that Jeb had to keep wiping the water from his eyes just to keep looking at it.
He looked over at Deb, who was also crying, and then at the rest of the team, they all laughed and came together to embrace.
In the joy and excitement of the moment, Jeb thought he had heard a barely-audible *ding,* but it was likely nothing. After the celebration settled down, Jeb went to the ship's console to make sure the warning wasn't something serious to do with the DocBrown's deceleration burn.
But it wasn't an engine warning. It was a direct message, from UT, from home.
"You need to stop this. Now." ~UTHQ
The emotions flowing in this moment made it difficult to discern what this meant, how is this possible? Is it possible? Jeb put his head in his hands and the team saw him struggling; they came over to see what the issue might be. Each member read the message and the ship once again became overwhelmed by a crushing silence, as each crewmate contiplated the unreal, impossible nature of what they were looking at. It *wasn't* possible.
Just as contemplations began to wander into darker, more impossible possibilities, their predictions were quickly narrowed down, by another received message: *(ding)*
"This is a warning." ~UTHQ
----------
**Edit: Part 2/3**
The tense atmosphere led Marcus, systems engineer for the mission, to sit down at the console.
"Who is this?" ~DocBrown
Their laser communications system was pointed directly at Earth, and it would take 40 years for the message to arrive there. The messages had been digitally signed with UT's signature. The team contemplated that their communications have been cracked, and hijacked.
"What do they want? Why the warning?" Mel sounded panicked, the lead biologist for the mission. "They want us to stop doing something..." Marcus mumbled, reading over the messages.
After a pause, Mel jumped up. "Do you think they live here? Do you think this is their system?" Dale, the radioastronomer, shrugged. "No chatter from this place. Our radio leak out to space for over 1200 year before we come here."
Marcus shrugged, and seeing no harm in trying, typed out:
"Is this sun your home?" ~DocBrown
As the message sent out, the team entertained a thought that maybe UT would be getting some funny messages in 40 years.
*(ding)*
"No." ~UTHQ
A chill fell over the air. Marcus got out of his seat and moved away. "What do they want?", Mel cried. Jeb spoke up, "Hold on, so far we're just talking. We don't know who they are yet, or what they want. They want us to stop doing something, so maybe we broke a rule, we just don't know about it yet."
Mel sniffed, but she was contemplating. "Maybe there's already life here, and it's against the law to mess with it?" Dale scoffed, "They mess with us!"
Marcus turned around, focused. "We need to know what we did wrong." He sat down at the console,
"What did we do wrong?" ~DocBrown
The crew watched as the message was sent out, anticipating the passing seconds.
*(ding)*
"Dumblfuckery." ~UTHQ
----------
**Edit 2: see below for Part 3/3**
| Well, you know how in the old Simpsons opening scene Bart grabs the back of the bus on his skate board?
That. We do that. We use magnetic attachments and stealth tech (cos if they saw us they'd shake us off) and we hang on till we get to where we want to go. Then we disengage and wander off like we just happened to be there... Nobody realised till a couple of months ago when someone's stealth tech malfunctioned. Poor Delfanit bastards still cop it whenever they dock: 'better check you haven't got A WHOLE FUCKING SHIP ATTACHED'
At least the Delf have a sense of humor, the Salec passed legislation last week stating any hitchers would be executed. So here we are waiting for a chance to disengage and get away from a ship that travels faster than light in a junker that has a half rod of fuel and like half its working parts.
OH! And we only have 2 cans of WD40 and 5 rolls of duct tape, so even if we do manage to pull off a miracle and escape our ship is gonna stop working anyway! But hey, we get to go down in history as the first idiots to die from this legislation so my Ma will have something to frame on the wall at home I guess.
Fuuuuuck.
| |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | “We must keep the Humans believing that their FTL system is unsafe, unorthodox and damn stupid. That is the point of this of this Special Hearing of The Supreme Council of the New Species Traveling Faster than Light. I am Farlack, Supreme Councilor of the Organization of Galactic Legal Advisors. ^(legal disclaimer: Norepresentationismadethatthequalityofthelegalgalacticservicestobeperformedisgreaterthanthequalityoflegalservicesperformedbyotherlawyers).
“Scarlacc, will you please read the minutes from the last session to allow this Supeme Council to aware of the latest current legal status of the Humans.?”
“Of course. That would be Sub-Section 7 of Section 30 of the 5th meeting of the Council of Dealing with and Controlling the Humans.
“It has been discovered that the Humans have developed a completely new FTL travel, with no related or similar technologies in the known Galaxy. The core of this FTL is a bubble of a universe where the speed of light is 1000 times faster than the speed of light is in our legally defined universe is pulled to our universe. The Human ships then travel at .1 c in this alternate universe. Upon exiting this alternate universe, the human ships have travelled 1000 times the distance in our universe. The energy expense of travelling in the alternate universe is the same as travelling in our univ-“
“Sarlacc, this Council is not interested in the technical aspects of the Humans FTL Technologies. That discussion is for the Galactic Council of Technology Equalization and/or The Council of Equalization of Galactic Technologies and/or Council of Galactic Technology Equalization. Ballzacc, will you present the Summary of the Social Legal Issues of the Humans Council meeting?”
“Of course. Due to the extremely dangerous situation these Humans create for us, I will dispense with extraneous discussion and proceed to the summary of the meeting, as permitted in The Rules and Guides of the Supreme Galactic Committee and The Guides and Rules of the Supreme Galactic Committee, version 2 of edition 5, Copyrighted.
“The Humans have a social system that may lead to our death and destruction. The humans developed their FTL without our influence and guidance, so we were unable to control their technology with the powers of the Galactic Patent Office. This failure was due to their rapid technological development. In the span of 6 human generations, they progressed from animal driven power to FTL travel. During the final Human pre-FTL travel, Humans revolted against their legal system and killed all lawyers allow-“
“They did WHAT?” interrupred Farlack. “How do they maintain their society without legal protections?”
“They became disgusted with a legal system that required warning labels to not drive their “automobile” with the windshield sunscreen in place. As I was saying, this allowed generations of research and development to be done in half a generation. And we can not control their technology.” Ballzacc completed his summary, terror beginning to creep into its face.
“Oh my supreme being. When the common people of the Galaxy learn of this… no lawyers…no lifelong Legal Guidance fees…” Farlack began to understand the lack of his future.
“Yes. This Council and all others, we will be destroyed”
“Yes, their technology is unorthodox, unsafe, and damn stupid, but for reasons the Galaxy must never understand.”
| Well, you know how in the old Simpsons opening scene Bart grabs the back of the bus on his skate board?
That. We do that. We use magnetic attachments and stealth tech (cos if they saw us they'd shake us off) and we hang on till we get to where we want to go. Then we disengage and wander off like we just happened to be there... Nobody realised till a couple of months ago when someone's stealth tech malfunctioned. Poor Delfanit bastards still cop it whenever they dock: 'better check you haven't got A WHOLE FUCKING SHIP ATTACHED'
At least the Delf have a sense of humor, the Salec passed legislation last week stating any hitchers would be executed. So here we are waiting for a chance to disengage and get away from a ship that travels faster than light in a junker that has a half rod of fuel and like half its working parts.
OH! And we only have 2 cans of WD40 and 5 rolls of duct tape, so even if we do manage to pull off a miracle and escape our ship is gonna stop working anyway! But hey, we get to go down in history as the first idiots to die from this legislation so my Ma will have something to frame on the wall at home I guess.
Fuuuuuck.
| |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "So, about the humans..." Said a voice with diplomatic neutrality.
Groans from a myriad of different species' voices could be heard throughout the conference hall. There was a meeting being held on how to properly welcome these new, strange creatures now that they had, technically, at least, achieved Faster Than Light travel.
"We organised this meeting to discuss them! When are you all going to stop pussyfooting around the issue!?" The same voice declared, with a level of anger hard to believe considering their tone mere seconds ago.
"Blarpart, I know you're a workaholic and all that but have you SEEN these...creature's form of FTL "travel"?" A gruff voice from somewhere in the hall responded over the din of arguing and groans of "are we really fucking doing this?"
"I agree that it's...unconventional but-"
The word "unconventional" being used to describe human beings' method of intergalactic travel caused an uproar among the crowd.
"Hey! HEY! HEYYYYYY!" Interjected Blarpart with an odd mixture of rage, impatience and exhaustion. "It works for them, who are we to judge?"
"Don't you get it? They use possibly the most unstable thing in the universe, a wormhole, and pump it with a load of who knows what to make it last more than a nanosecond and to a greater size than a few atoms and just *sigh* go through it and hope for the best"
"As I said, uncon-" Blarpart thought better of using *that* word again and instead chose to deflect the conversation in the hopes of finishing and grabbing something from a Space Denny's on the way home.
"Ok, how about we just ignore them? They're not going to last long as a species if THAT'S how they traverse space. From our observations, their 'wormhole jumping' has about an 80% chance of failure. All in favour?"
A chorus of relieved "aye"s reverberated throughout the room.
"All opposed?"
...
"Well then, that settles i-"
"YOU FUCKING WOT, M8?" A voice shouted from just outside the hall.
"Can I go without being interrupted for ONE MINUTE?" Blarpart said in an exasperated sigh.
And with that, a duo of humans, one tall with brown hair and the other short with black hair, burst into the hall with their bottles of what they call "Mountain Dew" and bags of "Doritos" and started going on about how we can't "diss" them like that.
"You know what? Fuck these alien squares, wanna go piss into a black hole?" The taller one said.
"Yeah, dude. Definitely." The shorter one replied with an almost endearing level of excitement at the prospect.
And with that, the duo left as quickly as they had entered.
"What just happened?" A member of the crowd ask with a disbelieving tone.
"...Humanity. Humanity happened" said Blarpart, with yet another sigh.
Spelling and removing the pretentious "fin". | Well, you know how in the old Simpsons opening scene Bart grabs the back of the bus on his skate board?
That. We do that. We use magnetic attachments and stealth tech (cos if they saw us they'd shake us off) and we hang on till we get to where we want to go. Then we disengage and wander off like we just happened to be there... Nobody realised till a couple of months ago when someone's stealth tech malfunctioned. Poor Delfanit bastards still cop it whenever they dock: 'better check you haven't got A WHOLE FUCKING SHIP ATTACHED'
At least the Delf have a sense of humor, the Salec passed legislation last week stating any hitchers would be executed. So here we are waiting for a chance to disengage and get away from a ship that travels faster than light in a junker that has a half rod of fuel and like half its working parts.
OH! And we only have 2 cans of WD40 and 5 rolls of duct tape, so even if we do manage to pull off a miracle and escape our ship is gonna stop working anyway! But hey, we get to go down in history as the first idiots to die from this legislation so my Ma will have something to frame on the wall at home I guess.
Fuuuuuck.
| |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Kalgor looked at the pale skined human in utter shock. 'They couldn't be serious in thinking that the rest of the galactic community would simply accept the use of this kind of technology'
“Mr. Adams...” Kalgor began.
“Doctor Adams if you don't mind Count Kalgor.” Dr. Adams corrected, he knew that if he didn't demand respect now that it would be harder to earn it back later. As it stood he could tell that the reptilian xeno that stood before him was not pleased with what had been unveiled only a hour ago in the space dock that was right outside his office window right now.
“Yes Dr.Adams. You must understand that of the various forms of FTL drive in use in the galaxy what you have unveiled here today is at best going to be seen as unsafe at best or outright dangerous to some in the galaxy.” He was struggling to keep the panic out of his voice, but despite his many deca-cycles of experience in diplomacy the very skill that had made him chosen as the Galactic Senate's emissary to the up and coming human race, he was begin to fail.
“Count with all due respect I fail to see what the overall difference is between our own hyperdrive and the Delfanit pulse tube drive or the Kantian gate system they all use hyperspace gravity waves to achieve FTL speeds.”
Kalgor's voice broke. “But you are punching holes in space to reach hyperspace!”
“So?” the Doctor responded nonchalantly.
“The Kantian's use a physical gateway to control entry into hyperspace and the Delfanit's use natural gravity currents to slip into hyperspace. Your system just punches holes into the fabric of space! Even our scientists can't tell if making those holes will not bring about the complete tearing of reality as we know it.”
Kalgor again reasserted some control over himself and continued.
“I know that this is a major milestone for humanity and means that you will not have to pay for the use of other species drive systems in your ships which will transform your economy and your military forces. But this is too dangerous besides, what possible advantages could this drive have over the other forms of FTL?”
Adams knew that this moment would be coming sooner or later and that he had to make the most it.
“So glad you could ask Count. The Kantian's gate system requires a massive amount of energy in order to not only open the entryway to hyperspace both for incoming and outgoing traffic, but to hold it open long enough for ships to get through. While they have relatively few systems in their Empire those that they have are spread out thus why the gate was developed. Once in system they use regular sub-light fusion drive to go from the gate to their ultimate planetary destination.”
Kalgor nodded his head as the Doctor continued.
“However due to the power requirements of just one of those gates not to mention the operating costs it would be uneconomical to have a gate at each planet.
Another thing is the time that the gate is held open effects the toll paid by merchant traffic thus why you don't see any Kantian merchant vessels over 1.5km in length. Beyond that length the ratio between hold space, engine size, and time to accelerate becomes uneconomical. They can't get moving from a stand still fast enough to go through the gate without occurring serious tolls and they can't dedicate more engine size because it cuts into their profits from loss of tonnage hauled.”
“Well... yes those are valid points but...” Kalgor stammered out but Adams didn't let up.
“The Delfanit pulse tube solves the power requirement issue and the infrastructure issue but those “tubes” where the gravity band waves are stable enough to sail on until they hit hyperspace are very restricting as they only occur naturally in a few places. This is why their Kingdom if you look at their history had periods of rapid expansion followed by long periods of solidification because goods had to travel often dozens of light years in sublight from system hubs that had these tubes thus slowing growth.”
Kalgor knew he was quickly losing ground and had little recourse as any other drive system that was used in the galaxy had similar glaring issues that were simply accepted.
The Maltiun wave-riders used massive 20km+ gravity sails to ride the same gravity waves as the Delfanit but instead of entering hyperspace they rode ever more powerful waves and were not limited in where they could go for the most part. But the system was high maintenance and very tonnage sensitive as the larger the vessel the longer it took for that vessel reach FTL speeds. The largest ships the species built took at least a standard week to get up to speed and then another week to slow down.
Salec skip drives on the other hand actually sent gravity anchor beams to latch onto hyperspace currents and pull the ship along technically “skipping” on the envelope between real space and hyperspace. The down side is that the anchors can only hold for so long and the power requirements while nothing like Kantians as this wasn't actually entering hyperspace. Meant that they could only skip anywhere from 20 to 100 lightyears depending on the ships configuration before having to recharge their anchoring system, which could take a standard day or up to a week on the largest shipping vessels. Still faster than going at sub light speeds for sure but it meant long travel times for goods.
“Our system allows us to enter hyperspace at will, with no concerns about ship mass, size, or power production beyond engine thrust which combined with our already recognized and accepted superior fusion engine designs, means that we can potentially travel from one side of the galaxy to the other in a month. At least if you are willing to burn that much H3 fuel which even then is more a matter of being inconvenienced with having to stop for fuel rather than any sort of cost consideration.”
The silence in the office was deafening as Kalgor stepped towards the window and looked upon the vessel.
“But the holes Doctor! You may have a system that doesn't have the others drawbacks but we are talking about ripping apart space itself.”
“Count Kalgor I am growing weary of this repeated falsehood. We have be using the same points in orbit to develop this system for over a standard year, and every time we have gone we have had to open a new hole as the last one closed once the vessel is through. Beyond the gravity wake left by the opening you can't tell any thing happened at all after 24 to 36 hours. It is safe.”
“The Senate will not accept this...” Kalgor started hoping he was right to bank on the repugnant nature of this very concept.
“They might not now but they will when they see the Eli Whitney.” Adams spoke ominously. He turned on the large holotank in the middle of the room. The image displayed a monstrous vessel.”
Kalgor turned around and his eyes went wide at the image.
“Is this a warship?” He asked as the ever growing list of implications in his head grew with each passing second.
“No my Count, it is not. It is a merchant vessel commissioned by the Wal-Mart Cartel. She is 75km long, over 2km tall with 12 50-Petawatt fusion reactors with a top estimated FTL speed of 50 but will likely run at 10 to save on fuel costs as such speed is generally unneeded. The whole vessel weighs over 500 million tons 490 of which is hold space capable of hauling virtually anything you can think of. She is going out for trials in a hour then if all goes well she will make a fully loaded iron ore run from the Sol system to Peraxus VII and its heavy industry there. And given that the Senate is on Peraxus V the Eli will make a pass and see if there is anything that needs to be shipped back here to Earth on the return trip.”
As the Doctor finished Kalgor could feel his heart tighten at the size of the vessel and its speed. It would be in the Peraxus system in 3 days, even if he left now in one of the fastest vessels money could buy now he couldn't hope to get there in anything less than 12 days.
“You humans are reckless and unorthodox beyond anything I have ever heard of in my life. But I can't argue with the results.” Kalgor finally stated any hope of resistance gone as the pragmatic side of him knew that economically humanity had, in 10 years after first contact blown every other power in the galaxy out of the water. Another voice his is head whispered about what would happen if mankind made warships on such a scale.
“Well Doctor I don't see any point in arguing anymore but if you can let me on this vessel and join me in the senate with your research especially on the whole hole-punching-then-closing-up-perfectly part, then maybe we can avoid starting a bigger galactic panic then what we absolutely have to.”
“Of course Count I'm already packed and I have made such arrangements already. We can leave once the ship has gone through its final trials.” The Doctor proudly stated. | Well, you know how in the old Simpsons opening scene Bart grabs the back of the bus on his skate board?
That. We do that. We use magnetic attachments and stealth tech (cos if they saw us they'd shake us off) and we hang on till we get to where we want to go. Then we disengage and wander off like we just happened to be there... Nobody realised till a couple of months ago when someone's stealth tech malfunctioned. Poor Delfanit bastards still cop it whenever they dock: 'better check you haven't got A WHOLE FUCKING SHIP ATTACHED'
At least the Delf have a sense of humor, the Salec passed legislation last week stating any hitchers would be executed. So here we are waiting for a chance to disengage and get away from a ship that travels faster than light in a junker that has a half rod of fuel and like half its working parts.
OH! And we only have 2 cans of WD40 and 5 rolls of duct tape, so even if we do manage to pull off a miracle and escape our ship is gonna stop working anyway! But hey, we get to go down in history as the first idiots to die from this legislation so my Ma will have something to frame on the wall at home I guess.
Fuuuuuck.
| |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "Idiot fuk human design shit-tier spaceship get all Brogga friend kill't. End all. Stoopt fuk. E'ryon kno warp spacetime. E'ryon kno break litspeeding. E'ryon kno crate warm hole. E'ryon kno cut mass half. E'yron cept idiot fuk humans. Y d'sign dumb shit-tier drive can't fi'ure out nuttin'. Cant warp spacetime. Cant break litspeeding. Cant crate warm hole. Cant cut mass. 'Stead idiot fuk human burrow down subquark stangelet bullshit risk implode entire quadrant for fuk newmatter. Y? Too dumb, tha's y. Now Brogga stuk dumb idiot fuk human ship on oth'r side galactic spinward fr'home. Idiot fuk human get Brogga kill't, get Brogga friend kill't..."
The muttering was cut off by a bang, followed by curses unutterable by the tongues of men. Poor old Brogga had been clanking about underneath the hullward dash for the last three days, almost without a break, muttering the entire time.
Say what he would, Brogga was nothing short of a mechanical genius, being the only Broggan capable of working on the Subquark-plated external combustion Engine. It took a particularly pliable mind to make an external combustion engine work, particularly when one was compressing- and burning- pure vacuum. The only real downside was the slight chance of creating decay, but if that happened it wouldn't matter as the entire tanker would be destroyed within seconds. I supposed it would have mattered to the rest of the Universe, but Brogga wouldn't have cared for he would have been the first to go.
Well, okay, there was a second slight problem. See, by burning pure vacuum they wore away a little strip of the cosmos. It was so small that it probably didn't matter, and the Universe was expanding anyways, but certain routes did get more traffic and engines were getting more efficient all the time.
"Idiot fuk human shit design fuk"
More clattering and banging from underneath the hullward dash.
"Idiot fuk human, try now"
Brogga's curses were rewarded with a shuttering rumble as the external combustion engine roared to life.
"Well that's curious" Captain Froy remarked, staring in disbelief at the guages.
Normal external combustion engines were able to operate somewhere between 10,000% and 100,000% efficiency, and for every joule of vacuum energy burned 100% efficiency would yield 10 kilo-joules.
The digital display read 10^89 % efficiency.
"Brogga, I think this gauge is busted."
"Idiot fuk human replace it then. Brogga sleeps."
Then, with customary swagger Captain Froy shoved the throttle open and pulled out, easing back into his seat for a cozy nap. However, when Captain Froy awoke several hours later he was not where he expected. In fact, he was not sure where he was at all.
You see, Brogga had accidentally upgraded their engine. Nobody saw the display, but if they had, they would have seen Brogga, Froy, and the rest of the crew tearing ass across the Universe, ripping a cosmic-scale gash in the vacuum like God's holy zipper. Of course this hole rapidly closed up, but in the time it would normally take them to travel a few hundred lightyears they had soared clear of the "observable Universe" several times over.
In fact, they had traveled so far they weren't entirely sure how to get back.
Thus began the journey of Brogga and the idiot fuk humans who wasted 600 years of his life and destroyed his capacity to speak properly. | Well, you know how in the old Simpsons opening scene Bart grabs the back of the bus on his skate board?
That. We do that. We use magnetic attachments and stealth tech (cos if they saw us they'd shake us off) and we hang on till we get to where we want to go. Then we disengage and wander off like we just happened to be there... Nobody realised till a couple of months ago when someone's stealth tech malfunctioned. Poor Delfanit bastards still cop it whenever they dock: 'better check you haven't got A WHOLE FUCKING SHIP ATTACHED'
At least the Delf have a sense of humor, the Salec passed legislation last week stating any hitchers would be executed. So here we are waiting for a chance to disengage and get away from a ship that travels faster than light in a junker that has a half rod of fuel and like half its working parts.
OH! And we only have 2 cans of WD40 and 5 rolls of duct tape, so even if we do manage to pull off a miracle and escape our ship is gonna stop working anyway! But hey, we get to go down in history as the first idiots to die from this legislation so my Ma will have something to frame on the wall at home I guess.
Fuuuuuck.
| |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Terrestrial Warp Drives. First proposed by Miguel Alcubierre two hundred formlats ago, The equivalent of forcing space into a shape which closely resembles two black holes stacked fore to aft. It requires insanely large sums of energy to produce the warp effect, equivalent to at least the mass of a small moon converted to energy. To get around this, the Terrestrials use catalytic mass converter engines. A device which has been discredited by the rest of the universe for the complete and utter destructive potential should such a reactor melt down on a planet. They work by converting matter to energy with a catalyst particle. However, they also produce a certain percent of catalyst particles. When this process runs away, it has been known to destroy planets, heavily damaging entire solar systems.
Under order 4,900,232 section III, Human spacecraft are to be classified as "NOT TO BE TOUCHED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES" on or near a planet, and "DESTROY AT ALL COSTS" in interplanetary space. This is not done as a measure against humans, but as a safety measure across the galaxy. This will be done until a treaty can be made with the terrestrial humans such that they will cease using catalytic mass converters.
Examination of a captured Terrestrial FTL Engine under the Federal Standard Gravity Model suggests that some fairly simple improvements to the Alcubierre-type drive can be made to reduce the energy requirements to what can be managed by fusion and antimatter reaction technology. They need not give up their unique drive. As dangerous as the Terrestrial Drive is, it presents no risk to those outside the vessel. | Well, you know how in the old Simpsons opening scene Bart grabs the back of the bus on his skate board?
That. We do that. We use magnetic attachments and stealth tech (cos if they saw us they'd shake us off) and we hang on till we get to where we want to go. Then we disengage and wander off like we just happened to be there... Nobody realised till a couple of months ago when someone's stealth tech malfunctioned. Poor Delfanit bastards still cop it whenever they dock: 'better check you haven't got A WHOLE FUCKING SHIP ATTACHED'
At least the Delf have a sense of humor, the Salec passed legislation last week stating any hitchers would be executed. So here we are waiting for a chance to disengage and get away from a ship that travels faster than light in a junker that has a half rod of fuel and like half its working parts.
OH! And we only have 2 cans of WD40 and 5 rolls of duct tape, so even if we do manage to pull off a miracle and escape our ship is gonna stop working anyway! But hey, we get to go down in history as the first idiots to die from this legislation so my Ma will have something to frame on the wall at home I guess.
Fuuuuuck.
| |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Xandar was fuming. 20 smismars he'd been waiting in the bowels of that horrible assembling of junk and metal the humans proudly called their *flagship of intergalactic friendship*. It was bad enough when those hairless pink monkeys made it to outer space but now they had developped a functioning FTL drive and that made them *worthy* of introduction into the Galactic Alliance.
In all his bismars as official technological investigators of the Galactic Alliance's scientific division, Xandar had never seen such a pathetic excuse for a ship. Neither he or any of his colleagues wanted to partake in this scientific inspection. They actually had to draw straws and to his utter disappointment, Xandar lost. Xarcy tried to cheer him up, noting that the human FTL drive was probably a dud anyway. Their first long distance drive was barely a stupid bedsheet catching solar wind, how could they have build a fully functioning FTL drive is such little time since.
21 smismars, where the hell was that pink ape that was supposed to show him the drive ? Xandar only wanted to get done with this and leave. The human vessel was small, cramped and much too warm for his taste. It also didn't help that everything was made to accomodate 6ft tall apes, at 9ft tall, a respectable height for a noble Glaxian like him, he was constantly banging his upper appendage on the ceiling and door frames.
Finally a metal door opened and 2 hairless apes ran toward him. The first one, pink and the second one dark brown. Fascinating thought Xandar, I've never seen such a dark colored ape. At least some decent scientific information. Maybe the science council would let him abduct such a specimen later on for testing. Humans usually didn't mind a few abduction here and there as long as you didn't touch the cows sleeping in the fields.
The 2 apes escorted Xandar to the engine room. The first thing that caught Xandar's attention was the intense heat coming from the doorway, much worst than the rest of the already hot vessel.
>Right this way Dr Xandar, you're gonna love this!
Words could barely describe the sights that laid in front of Xandar when he crossed into the room
*What the hell kind of piece of shit is that?*
>What, the FTL drive ?
>>Quite the beauty isn't she ?
The drive in question looked like a random pile of junk with tubes coming out of the sides, hot steam rising from them. The whole thing was red hot and there was a very annoying sound of pressured gas being shot into the machine at close interval. On top of the device sat 2 giant glowing green tubes.
*Are those Arthosian power cores ?*
>Yes, you have a good eye Dr Xandar.
*Where in the 5 stars did you get these ? Only a handful were ever created and the Arthosian guard them very closely*
>>We found them!
>Of yeah, came upon a space wreck near Alpha Centory IV and we managed to recover quite a lot of technology from it.
*Wait wait... you stole them from a broken ship ?*
>Not stole, never. We found them.
>>Space salvage!
*Does the Arthosian empire know you're using stolen tech ?*
>I dunno, they never complained about it before you brought it up.
Xandar was flaggerbasted, these hairless apes weren't just stupid, they were a menace.
*Fine, walk me trough it*
>Oh you're gonna love this doc. By stripping the neutrino element of the 2 power cores and jerryrigging them together, we managed to create a power unit strong enough to blast trough the fabric of spacetime, and into the slipstream.
*Wait a minute, you stripped the power core of its protective shielding ?*
>Why yes.
>>It was really annoying really, hiding all the good stuff.
*ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS! Those a radiation shielding, this stuff is extremely dangerous*
>I know that, we all know that
>>It needed to be done. Beside, we added some plasma shielding to it.
>Yes, it should do the job... enough.
*Jesus fucking christ.... continue*
>Well, as I was saying, the drive allows us to punch our way into the slipstream and from there we can modify the flow of radiation emited by the power cores, enabling us to navigate different planes of the stream.
>>It's like a chose you own adventure travel book. Add a gamma variant to the radiation cocktail and you can move faster, replace it by a theta variant and you can navigate, for lack of a better word, "UP" into the 4th dimension.
*How do you exit the slipstreem ?*
>Well, we found that injecting a low level ion isopote directly into the power core will create an instability in the stream that causes the ship to be ejected, albeith rather violently.
>>Yes, the first test vessel exploded on exit.
*My god, this is catastrophic*
>We thought so to, so insted we just shut off the drive and the ship gets ejected much more softly.
*What... no! I mean... this whole system is horrible...*
>It's not so bad once you work out the kinks
*But how.... this must be ridiculously unstable !?*
>Oh boy... that's an understatement
>>You have to understand, all this only works if we keep the core overheated to exactly 3,568 degrees.
>Oh yes, any variation of over 2.75 degrees and the whole thing would go kablewy
*This is nuts, how do you maintain the temperature ? I see no adaptive secluar temporal module anywhere*
>Don't have one
>>Yeah, this fancy stuff is much too complicated and too hard to get your hands on.
>For now we use a system of pressure injected water and nitrogen
*You forcecool it under pressure ?*
>Exactly! I knew you'd get it doc.
>>We alternate between injecting pressurized water and nitrogen to cool off the core with a 1.5 seconds interval between each injection
*What?.... that's....how!?*
>You know.... too hot, blast it with nitrogen. Too cold, switch to water. Perfect temperature, do nothing. We evaluate the temperature every 2 seconds and Frank over there pulls the switch to inject the correct cooling substance.
*So none of this is automated ?*
>Nah, we're hoping to find a suitable automated cooling mechanism soon though.
*Like what? A water tin can on a string with a hole on the bottom ?*
>>Well no that's.... hey that's actually a good idea
>Yeah, we should look into that.
*Allright.... not taking into consideration the immense safety concern, not to mention decent common sens, this thing appears extremely dangerous and also in violation of at least a dozen galactic regulations on plasma use and timestream protocoles, and that's just for starters*
>Really?
>>Well that's a bummer for sure
*I must ask, with all this violent punching around the slipstream, how does your system deal with excess radiations and temporal aftershock effects ?*
>Come again ?
*The extreme side effects of your shitty system!!*
>Oh that. I dunno, whatever happens in the slipstream stays in the slipstream I guess.
>>Yeah, I mean it's not like we plan on living in the stream you know. It's just a highway. You roll down the window and throw your trash out.
*Over 15 sentient species live in the stream, 4 of wich are official members of the Galactic Alliance.*
>Really, people live in there ?
*YES, THEY DO!*
>Well that's fucking stupid.
>>yeah, who in their right mind lives in a galactic highway ? That's dangerous, somebody could get hurt!
>And they call US crazy ? | Well, you know how in the old Simpsons opening scene Bart grabs the back of the bus on his skate board?
That. We do that. We use magnetic attachments and stealth tech (cos if they saw us they'd shake us off) and we hang on till we get to where we want to go. Then we disengage and wander off like we just happened to be there... Nobody realised till a couple of months ago when someone's stealth tech malfunctioned. Poor Delfanit bastards still cop it whenever they dock: 'better check you haven't got A WHOLE FUCKING SHIP ATTACHED'
At least the Delf have a sense of humor, the Salec passed legislation last week stating any hitchers would be executed. So here we are waiting for a chance to disengage and get away from a ship that travels faster than light in a junker that has a half rod of fuel and like half its working parts.
OH! And we only have 2 cans of WD40 and 5 rolls of duct tape, so even if we do manage to pull off a miracle and escape our ship is gonna stop working anyway! But hey, we get to go down in history as the first idiots to die from this legislation so my Ma will have something to frame on the wall at home I guess.
Fuuuuuck.
| |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The chamber illumination dimmed and the milky sim tank faded to life. A thousand eyes stared intently from the council benches, and a trillion more from across the five galaxies.
A deep voice, set on edge with urgency and well-contained fear, began its narration of the sim.
"The Brevis' star system surveillance node 47 has, it has been reported, recorded first contact with the species self-identifying as Humans. This much has already been announced. What has not yet been announced is that an analysis of the event has been completed, and their method of travel has thrown a black flag, gamma zero priority. Observe."
The sim showed a small moon below, surrounded by a halo of probes similar to the one that must be recording the image. In the far distance, the volumetric compensation showed a grossly enlarged blue planet on another orbital track, the Brevis' home world Herol. The orbital motion of the probes had been smooth and obvious, but now they slowed.
"We are showing the event at a reduced speed. Watch carefully."
Without warning, the entire projection dimmed as a single point of incredible, actinic light burst from the space next to the moon and raced away from its surface. As one, the closer orbiting probes glowed white-hot and began to disintegrate. The image wavered and then froze.
"Now, focus your attention on the exact location this phenomenon appeared, and keep your attention on that spot as the light moves away."
The image reversed, and the killing glow moved back to its original location. It slowly crept back outwards as the sim zoomed in. There, in the wake of the glow, was a ship, shaped like a mushroom with its cap to the light. Vaporised hull matter streamed from the smooth side facing the light, some sort of ablative heat shielding.
"We had never seen this effect before. We assumed it was some sort of deceleration technique, until we looked at it from the planetary defence network."
The perspective in the sim shifted, as if travelling to the distant planet. The moon and its halo of probes shrank, then grew again due to the volumetric compensation. The sim was normal again for a moment, before that terrible light appeared, an incredible distance from the moon this time, and immediately split into two lights, travelling away from each other at greater than the speed of light.
An audible click reverberated around the chamber as each of the species in attendance simultaneously inhaled on their breathing apparatuses.
"As you can see, the motion of the light is a relativistic illusion. The light doesn't travel, it exists simultaneously at all points in a column for a moment, then dissipates. The energy requirement is staggering. After calculating an intercept to the closest habitable world on the trajectory described by the light column, it appears their world is four hundred light-years away. The humans claim a similar distance, and their navigational data also confirm it. From this we can calculate the energy release as being consistent with a type III civilisation."
What had previously been a gentle series of clicks was now a cacophony, the seats shaking with the bodily gyrations of the assembled dignitaries. Some wailed, others laughed, most were silent.
"We have brought the leader of the human expedition here, with her agreement, of course."
The noises of discomfort reached a crashing crescendo, as several of the delegates jumped out of their seats and bolted for the exit.
The disembodied voice thundered, "ORDER!"
"I present to you, Chakor, Human, of planet Earth."
The creature that stepped into the chamber was unimpressive, physically. Bipedal, endoskeletal, wearing some sort of almost completely covering clothing with various decals affixed to it. The remaining delegates seemed to calm a little, their agitation lowering to a gentle swaying. The Human addressed the crowd.
"Greetings, delegates of the local group. My name is Chakor, I represent my species, Human, and wish to express our honour in meeting you all. We come in peace."
The room quietened further, and the booming voice sounded again. "Chakor will now take moderated questions from the floor. Please enter your queries for analysis and amalgamation."
A few awkward moments passed, Chakor looking out among the delegates. They varied from bipeds with heads and arms of various number to floating creatures in some sort of water tanks, through to creatures much more... alien.
"First question. The energy output of your drive technology is beyond immense. You must be capturing the energy output of most of a galaxy, somewhere. How can it be that we have not noticed the birth of a type III civilisation under our watch?"
Chakor paused to think before she replied, clearly confused. "We are not a type III civilisation. We are barely a type I. We just discovered a way to manipulate the nature of reality."
The voice didn't even wait to consult the accumulating list of vetted questions. "What?! How?"
"When we accidentally created and shot a cluster of miniature black holes through our particle collider's detectors, we discovered that the vacuum of space was not at the true ground state of the universe. This lent is an opportunity to use the difference in energy levels to complete an until-then hypothetical method of propulsion."
The room exploded into roars, gurgles, and screeches of outrage.
"Your drive is powered by triggering a collapse of fundamental reality?!"
"Not quite, if you'd let me finish. After we discovered the false vacuum was the current skein of the universe, we found that at the moment of triggering a vacuum state collapse, it was possible to entangle an arbitrary length of vacuum in a beam away from the source, and trigger the collapse simultaneously and instantaneously along that path."
Guards in the chamber drew their weapons as several delegates rose on their hindlimbs as if to attack.
"Chakor, this is madness! Your drive cannot work as you describe, or we wouldn't have any video of your arrival. A vacuum collapse would spread from wherever it started at the speed of light, unmaking the universe in its path!"
"Oh, yes we knew that. It turns out that the vacuum collapse provides enough energy to fold space into itself. In local proximity, one side of the event becomes the other. The space in between is clipped off like a twisted balloon, erased from having any bearing on existence. Our ship is instantaneously folded from one side of the beam to the other, and internal fields save us from having any biological changes. Of course, the collapse has to happen first by a few fractions of a microsecond, so there is some... energy leakage."
The chamber went suddenly silent.
The probe and planetary defence system had recorded an abomination, a gross violation of reality itself. The demonic light fleeing the Humans' strange vessel was the energetic corpse of a monster, come to open its maw and swallow the universe, inexorably, at the glacial speed of light. A fitting technology for a pursuit predator like the humans.
"You risk all our existence just to travel. How can we leave you free run of the galaxies?"
Chakor grinned. "We could always run one last wide beam to the ends of the universe and neglect to fold it away. How can you not?" | Well, you know how in the old Simpsons opening scene Bart grabs the back of the bus on his skate board?
That. We do that. We use magnetic attachments and stealth tech (cos if they saw us they'd shake us off) and we hang on till we get to where we want to go. Then we disengage and wander off like we just happened to be there... Nobody realised till a couple of months ago when someone's stealth tech malfunctioned. Poor Delfanit bastards still cop it whenever they dock: 'better check you haven't got A WHOLE FUCKING SHIP ATTACHED'
At least the Delf have a sense of humor, the Salec passed legislation last week stating any hitchers would be executed. So here we are waiting for a chance to disengage and get away from a ship that travels faster than light in a junker that has a half rod of fuel and like half its working parts.
OH! And we only have 2 cans of WD40 and 5 rolls of duct tape, so even if we do manage to pull off a miracle and escape our ship is gonna stop working anyway! But hey, we get to go down in history as the first idiots to die from this legislation so my Ma will have something to frame on the wall at home I guess.
Fuuuuuck.
| |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "You need to stop this. Now." ~UTHQ
It seemed like a strange message from the UT at first, the United Terrans organization, formed by the world's leading space agencies to represent all of humanity and the Earth as we ventured out of the solar system for the first time.
But this wasn't from the UT.
It couldn't be. TRAPPIST-1 was 40 light years away from Earth. It had taken only 32 years to travel here in the DocBrown, a name chosen thanks to somebody's bright idea to let internet polls do the picking. Theoretically, the ship could travel even faster, possibly greater than 2c, but due to the still relatively unknown nature of matter at speeds >1c, the speed was capped at 1.25c for this mission. Earth would have had to have sent this message *8 years* before they left.
The tension in the recycled air was so palpable it was hard to breathe, a mixture of separate emotions so intense you'd feel like you might implode and explode all at the same time.
They had first braved the pounding tension of the "photobraking" deceleration maneuver as they approached the star system, where the DocBrown's FTL drive was shut down to allow *space-time itself* to decelerate the ship below lightspeed, the first-ever such attempt in human history. It certainly sounds sensible when you have a room full of mathematicians and physicists drawing it out for you, but while trapped in a ship barreling through the galaxy at +1c, you begin to wonder why they aren't sitting in your seat instead. The ship instantly began to rumble as soon as the engines were cut, louder and louder at a rising frequency. As speed dropped closer to 1c, gunpowder crackling sounds and bangs like metallic bones snapping abused the outside the hull. The blueshifted light through the front windows, turning more and more white, increased in luminosity, until in a blinding flash a deafening ***THUD*** broke the ship's runaway speed like driving into a brick wall. The ship's speed now read 0.87c, and all was quiet. Spacetime, and light, it seems, has something akin to sonic booms that come from violating the universe's speed limits.
To slow down further, the fuel tank, capable of holding 5% of the Moon's mass, had to be thrown away in a trajectory that would not impact any of the exoplanets dancing around TRAPPIST-1. The mechanism to do this was a nuclear warhead, and a 10km tether to draw out the acceleration force from being instantaneous. "Don't ask," one engineer said, working on developing this technology. "We've tested it. It works..."
After the maneuver left the ship's speed at a little over 0.51c, DocBrown's traditional engines took over to do the rest of the legwork, but the beauty shining in through the windows was so loud now it overpowered all engine noise into deafening silence. The cool dwarf star's system was a fertile playground of seven exoplanets, three of which were Earth-like. They had atmospheres, and their surface was a swirl of colors so exotic, made possible only by the mysterious artistry of the universe, that Jeb had to keep wiping the water from his eyes just to keep looking at it.
He looked over at Deb, who was also crying, and then at the rest of the team, they all laughed and came together to embrace.
In the joy and excitement of the moment, Jeb thought he had heard a barely-audible *ding,* but it was likely nothing. After the celebration settled down, Jeb went to the ship's console to make sure the warning wasn't something serious to do with the DocBrown's deceleration burn.
But it wasn't an engine warning. It was a direct message, from UT, from home.
"You need to stop this. Now." ~UTHQ
The emotions flowing in this moment made it difficult to discern what this meant, how is this possible? Is it possible? Jeb put his head in his hands and the team saw him struggling; they came over to see what the issue might be. Each member read the message and the ship once again became overwhelmed by a crushing silence, as each crewmate contiplated the unreal, impossible nature of what they were looking at. It *wasn't* possible.
Just as contemplations began to wander into darker, more impossible possibilities, their predictions were quickly narrowed down, by another received message: *(ding)*
"This is a warning." ~UTHQ
----------
**Edit: Part 2/3**
The tense atmosphere led Marcus, systems engineer for the mission, to sit down at the console.
"Who is this?" ~DocBrown
Their laser communications system was pointed directly at Earth, and it would take 40 years for the message to arrive there. The messages had been digitally signed with UT's signature. The team contemplated that their communications have been cracked, and hijacked.
"What do they want? Why the warning?" Mel sounded panicked, the lead biologist for the mission. "They want us to stop doing something..." Marcus mumbled, reading over the messages.
After a pause, Mel jumped up. "Do you think they live here? Do you think this is their system?" Dale, the radioastronomer, shrugged. "No chatter from this place. Our radio leak out to space for over 1200 year before we come here."
Marcus shrugged, and seeing no harm in trying, typed out:
"Is this sun your home?" ~DocBrown
As the message sent out, the team entertained a thought that maybe UT would be getting some funny messages in 40 years.
*(ding)*
"No." ~UTHQ
A chill fell over the air. Marcus got out of his seat and moved away. "What do they want?", Mel cried. Jeb spoke up, "Hold on, so far we're just talking. We don't know who they are yet, or what they want. They want us to stop doing something, so maybe we broke a rule, we just don't know about it yet."
Mel sniffed, but she was contemplating. "Maybe there's already life here, and it's against the law to mess with it?" Dale scoffed, "They mess with us!"
Marcus turned around, focused. "We need to know what we did wrong." He sat down at the console,
"What did we do wrong?" ~DocBrown
The crew watched as the message was sent out, anticipating the passing seconds.
*(ding)*
"Dumblfuckery." ~UTHQ
----------
**Edit 2: see below for Part 3/3**
| *What is that you said? They use* **Explosions**?*
*"Yes"* - - **"explosions"***
*"You mean chemical reactions using the laws of thermodynamics?"*
*"Yes, in larger scales - that's what the humans refer to as* **explosions**, *their entire civilization was built around using them but not watching them for some reason. Eventually they worked out how to split Neutrons off atoms to create even bigger chain explosions."*
*"So how did they barely achieve FTL travel and only just recently?"*
*"Well to put it simply - for a while they made it illegal to use these Thermonuclear* **explosions** *to propel themselves into space."*
*"It seems that would've been the most efficient way to get out of planetary orbit."*
*"Why in the Universes Logic would they make it illegal?"*
*"Well considering their entire civilization was based around* **explosions** *they encouraged a culture around destroying each other with them. "nuking from orbit" they claimed was far too unsportsmanlike to wage war."*
*"Well no wonder they never left the solar system until now."*
*"Fucking humans, so stupid - If they could get the most versatile material in the whole galaxy they'd turn it into a Frisbee."* | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The First Ambassador to Humanity swirled idly in its container and moved to the next item on its list.
"Your FTL technology", it asked the panel of assembled human leaders, "How does it work?"
The humans exchanged surprised looks. The one at the end of the panel eventually speaking.
"You mean the Confounder?"
"If that is what you call it, yes."
"Well it... it slows the light down."
The First Ambassador frowned. Or at least, it came as close to frowning as one can when one is a mass of liquid in a hermetically sealed tank.
"I do not understand", it replied, "How does this help?"
It was a different human who replied this time, the large one at the head of the panel
"It slows the light down so we can overtake it", he snapped. "What's so hard to understand about that?"
The Ambassador thickened as it took a moment to process this statement.
"This... does not reduce your travel time".
"Who said anything about that?", the chief human asked irritably. "It's not about getting places, it's about showing the light who's boss! It's about proving a point!". He jabbed his thumb against his chest. "We wanted to be the fastest thing in the universe, and now we are!".
The Ambassador thickened further, rapidly losing faith in this species' fitness to join the intergalactic community.
"Let me rephrase my question," it said. "You received a summons to this meeting approximately five of your days ago. How did you travel the light years between this point and your planet in that time?".
"Ooh". A third human spoke this time. "It wants to know about the Shuffle".
A collection of mutters resounded among the rest of the panel, the large one saying something about "...not really *travel* is it?". Once they had stilled the third human continued speaking.
"It's quite simply really. Getting to faraway places is hard, so the Shuffle just swaps bits of space around until the part we want is next to us". She gave the Ambassador a vacant smile.
Its slow swishing motion gradually stilled as understanding set in. The ships that found themselves light years from their destination, stranded without food or air. The civilised worlds torn from their orbits and flung into deep space. The black holes appearing from nowhere, devouring entire star systems of inhabited plants. Literally boiling with anger, the First Ambassador closed it's communication channel to the humans and opened a new one to the Galactic Council.
*There would be war* | *What is that you said? They use* **Explosions**?*
*"Yes"* - - **"explosions"***
*"You mean chemical reactions using the laws of thermodynamics?"*
*"Yes, in larger scales - that's what the humans refer to as* **explosions**, *their entire civilization was built around using them but not watching them for some reason. Eventually they worked out how to split Neutrons off atoms to create even bigger chain explosions."*
*"So how did they barely achieve FTL travel and only just recently?"*
*"Well to put it simply - for a while they made it illegal to use these Thermonuclear* **explosions** *to propel themselves into space."*
*"It seems that would've been the most efficient way to get out of planetary orbit."*
*"Why in the Universes Logic would they make it illegal?"*
*"Well considering their entire civilization was based around* **explosions** *they encouraged a culture around destroying each other with them. "nuking from orbit" they claimed was far too unsportsmanlike to wage war."*
*"Well no wonder they never left the solar system until now."*
*"Fucking humans, so stupid - If they could get the most versatile material in the whole galaxy they'd turn it into a Frisbee."* | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | “We must keep the Humans believing that their FTL system is unsafe, unorthodox and damn stupid. That is the point of this of this Special Hearing of The Supreme Council of the New Species Traveling Faster than Light. I am Farlack, Supreme Councilor of the Organization of Galactic Legal Advisors. ^(legal disclaimer: Norepresentationismadethatthequalityofthelegalgalacticservicestobeperformedisgreaterthanthequalityoflegalservicesperformedbyotherlawyers).
“Scarlacc, will you please read the minutes from the last session to allow this Supeme Council to aware of the latest current legal status of the Humans.?”
“Of course. That would be Sub-Section 7 of Section 30 of the 5th meeting of the Council of Dealing with and Controlling the Humans.
“It has been discovered that the Humans have developed a completely new FTL travel, with no related or similar technologies in the known Galaxy. The core of this FTL is a bubble of a universe where the speed of light is 1000 times faster than the speed of light is in our legally defined universe is pulled to our universe. The Human ships then travel at .1 c in this alternate universe. Upon exiting this alternate universe, the human ships have travelled 1000 times the distance in our universe. The energy expense of travelling in the alternate universe is the same as travelling in our univ-“
“Sarlacc, this Council is not interested in the technical aspects of the Humans FTL Technologies. That discussion is for the Galactic Council of Technology Equalization and/or The Council of Equalization of Galactic Technologies and/or Council of Galactic Technology Equalization. Ballzacc, will you present the Summary of the Social Legal Issues of the Humans Council meeting?”
“Of course. Due to the extremely dangerous situation these Humans create for us, I will dispense with extraneous discussion and proceed to the summary of the meeting, as permitted in The Rules and Guides of the Supreme Galactic Committee and The Guides and Rules of the Supreme Galactic Committee, version 2 of edition 5, Copyrighted.
“The Humans have a social system that may lead to our death and destruction. The humans developed their FTL without our influence and guidance, so we were unable to control their technology with the powers of the Galactic Patent Office. This failure was due to their rapid technological development. In the span of 6 human generations, they progressed from animal driven power to FTL travel. During the final Human pre-FTL travel, Humans revolted against their legal system and killed all lawyers allow-“
“They did WHAT?” interrupred Farlack. “How do they maintain their society without legal protections?”
“They became disgusted with a legal system that required warning labels to not drive their “automobile” with the windshield sunscreen in place. As I was saying, this allowed generations of research and development to be done in half a generation. And we can not control their technology.” Ballzacc completed his summary, terror beginning to creep into its face.
“Oh my supreme being. When the common people of the Galaxy learn of this… no lawyers…no lifelong Legal Guidance fees…” Farlack began to understand the lack of his future.
“Yes. This Council and all others, we will be destroyed”
“Yes, their technology is unorthodox, unsafe, and damn stupid, but for reasons the Galaxy must never understand.”
| *What is that you said? They use* **Explosions**?*
*"Yes"* - - **"explosions"***
*"You mean chemical reactions using the laws of thermodynamics?"*
*"Yes, in larger scales - that's what the humans refer to as* **explosions**, *their entire civilization was built around using them but not watching them for some reason. Eventually they worked out how to split Neutrons off atoms to create even bigger chain explosions."*
*"So how did they barely achieve FTL travel and only just recently?"*
*"Well to put it simply - for a while they made it illegal to use these Thermonuclear* **explosions** *to propel themselves into space."*
*"It seems that would've been the most efficient way to get out of planetary orbit."*
*"Why in the Universes Logic would they make it illegal?"*
*"Well considering their entire civilization was based around* **explosions** *they encouraged a culture around destroying each other with them. "nuking from orbit" they claimed was far too unsportsmanlike to wage war."*
*"Well no wonder they never left the solar system until now."*
*"Fucking humans, so stupid - If they could get the most versatile material in the whole galaxy they'd turn it into a Frisbee."* | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | We saw the opportunity and by the gods, we took it.
FTL travel was always a ways off for earth's scientists, I mean sure, we had near-lightspeed travel for now but frankly, ever since Humanity blundered into contact with the other races, they've been stingy with the secrets to FTL travel, considering us "crude" and "uncultured". Still, some of the lesser races reluctantly traded with us, and we came across what they considered to be a trivial piece of information, a rather efficient method of converting normal matter to exotic matter, if only for an instant, before reverting back to regular matter.
They used it as a way to fuel their dark matter weaponry, and of course, we had nowhere near the technology required for that, and they knew it. They held back their freakish laughter as the dumb humans traded valuable resources for something that not only everyone in the galaxy knows, but they couldn't even use!
Well, turns out that's not entirely true.
A few years went by with earth's scientists playing with their new "toy", a few neat innovations and basic uses had cropped up, but all in all, it seemed that the inability to keep exotic matter around without it reverting was rather limiting.
One man stepped forward with an idea, however. An idea that was hushed and slated to impossibility by the earth's various governing bodies. "There's no way we could do that" they whispered. "It's **insane**".
But, with humanity being left behind diplomatically against the rest of the galaxy, could we really afford to be left out? To be left in the dust as other races walked over us like we were nothing?
Eventually, reluctantly, approval was gained, and the project initiated. It would take years, several thousand matter conversion stations.
A project to dwarf all others.
The man had proposed a wormhole. Not an alien concept to the other races, obviously, but one that had only been toyed with by humanity, an unrealistic method of FTL. The amount of exotic matter needed alone would be.. well it would be insane! We had nowhere near enough useable mass near our homeworld, or so we had thought.
It was worth it, I think, the expression on the diplomats faces as we crashed the galaxy's latest diplomatic conference made it all worth it. Their horrified expressions as they understood just what we had done, looking agape (and the several alien equivalents) at the monstrous bastard we had piloted.
Humanity had finally made it's statement as a real, crazy force in the universe.
An entire moon's worth of statement. dwarfing even the largest diplomatic citadel. A moon, our moon, converted into a bastardized FTL vessel. Our reckless abandonment of sensibilities and border-idiotic determination would be the staple of Humanity for eons after that.
"Crude", they were definitely right about that.
| *What is that you said? They use* **Explosions**?*
*"Yes"* - - **"explosions"***
*"You mean chemical reactions using the laws of thermodynamics?"*
*"Yes, in larger scales - that's what the humans refer to as* **explosions**, *their entire civilization was built around using them but not watching them for some reason. Eventually they worked out how to split Neutrons off atoms to create even bigger chain explosions."*
*"So how did they barely achieve FTL travel and only just recently?"*
*"Well to put it simply - for a while they made it illegal to use these Thermonuclear* **explosions** *to propel themselves into space."*
*"It seems that would've been the most efficient way to get out of planetary orbit."*
*"Why in the Universes Logic would they make it illegal?"*
*"Well considering their entire civilization was based around* **explosions** *they encouraged a culture around destroying each other with them. "nuking from orbit" they claimed was far too unsportsmanlike to wage war."*
*"Well no wonder they never left the solar system until now."*
*"Fucking humans, so stupid - If they could get the most versatile material in the whole galaxy they'd turn it into a Frisbee."* | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "So, about the humans..." Said a voice with diplomatic neutrality.
Groans from a myriad of different species' voices could be heard throughout the conference hall. There was a meeting being held on how to properly welcome these new, strange creatures now that they had, technically, at least, achieved Faster Than Light travel.
"We organised this meeting to discuss them! When are you all going to stop pussyfooting around the issue!?" The same voice declared, with a level of anger hard to believe considering their tone mere seconds ago.
"Blarpart, I know you're a workaholic and all that but have you SEEN these...creature's form of FTL "travel"?" A gruff voice from somewhere in the hall responded over the din of arguing and groans of "are we really fucking doing this?"
"I agree that it's...unconventional but-"
The word "unconventional" being used to describe human beings' method of intergalactic travel caused an uproar among the crowd.
"Hey! HEY! HEYYYYYY!" Interjected Blarpart with an odd mixture of rage, impatience and exhaustion. "It works for them, who are we to judge?"
"Don't you get it? They use possibly the most unstable thing in the universe, a wormhole, and pump it with a load of who knows what to make it last more than a nanosecond and to a greater size than a few atoms and just *sigh* go through it and hope for the best"
"As I said, uncon-" Blarpart thought better of using *that* word again and instead chose to deflect the conversation in the hopes of finishing and grabbing something from a Space Denny's on the way home.
"Ok, how about we just ignore them? They're not going to last long as a species if THAT'S how they traverse space. From our observations, their 'wormhole jumping' has about an 80% chance of failure. All in favour?"
A chorus of relieved "aye"s reverberated throughout the room.
"All opposed?"
...
"Well then, that settles i-"
"YOU FUCKING WOT, M8?" A voice shouted from just outside the hall.
"Can I go without being interrupted for ONE MINUTE?" Blarpart said in an exasperated sigh.
And with that, a duo of humans, one tall with brown hair and the other short with black hair, burst into the hall with their bottles of what they call "Mountain Dew" and bags of "Doritos" and started going on about how we can't "diss" them like that.
"You know what? Fuck these alien squares, wanna go piss into a black hole?" The taller one said.
"Yeah, dude. Definitely." The shorter one replied with an almost endearing level of excitement at the prospect.
And with that, the duo left as quickly as they had entered.
"What just happened?" A member of the crowd ask with a disbelieving tone.
"...Humanity. Humanity happened" said Blarpart, with yet another sigh.
Spelling and removing the pretentious "fin". | *What is that you said? They use* **Explosions**?*
*"Yes"* - - **"explosions"***
*"You mean chemical reactions using the laws of thermodynamics?"*
*"Yes, in larger scales - that's what the humans refer to as* **explosions**, *their entire civilization was built around using them but not watching them for some reason. Eventually they worked out how to split Neutrons off atoms to create even bigger chain explosions."*
*"So how did they barely achieve FTL travel and only just recently?"*
*"Well to put it simply - for a while they made it illegal to use these Thermonuclear* **explosions** *to propel themselves into space."*
*"It seems that would've been the most efficient way to get out of planetary orbit."*
*"Why in the Universes Logic would they make it illegal?"*
*"Well considering their entire civilization was based around* **explosions** *they encouraged a culture around destroying each other with them. "nuking from orbit" they claimed was far too unsportsmanlike to wage war."*
*"Well no wonder they never left the solar system until now."*
*"Fucking humans, so stupid - If they could get the most versatile material in the whole galaxy they'd turn it into a Frisbee."* | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Kalgor looked at the pale skined human in utter shock. 'They couldn't be serious in thinking that the rest of the galactic community would simply accept the use of this kind of technology'
“Mr. Adams...” Kalgor began.
“Doctor Adams if you don't mind Count Kalgor.” Dr. Adams corrected, he knew that if he didn't demand respect now that it would be harder to earn it back later. As it stood he could tell that the reptilian xeno that stood before him was not pleased with what had been unveiled only a hour ago in the space dock that was right outside his office window right now.
“Yes Dr.Adams. You must understand that of the various forms of FTL drive in use in the galaxy what you have unveiled here today is at best going to be seen as unsafe at best or outright dangerous to some in the galaxy.” He was struggling to keep the panic out of his voice, but despite his many deca-cycles of experience in diplomacy the very skill that had made him chosen as the Galactic Senate's emissary to the up and coming human race, he was begin to fail.
“Count with all due respect I fail to see what the overall difference is between our own hyperdrive and the Delfanit pulse tube drive or the Kantian gate system they all use hyperspace gravity waves to achieve FTL speeds.”
Kalgor's voice broke. “But you are punching holes in space to reach hyperspace!”
“So?” the Doctor responded nonchalantly.
“The Kantian's use a physical gateway to control entry into hyperspace and the Delfanit's use natural gravity currents to slip into hyperspace. Your system just punches holes into the fabric of space! Even our scientists can't tell if making those holes will not bring about the complete tearing of reality as we know it.”
Kalgor again reasserted some control over himself and continued.
“I know that this is a major milestone for humanity and means that you will not have to pay for the use of other species drive systems in your ships which will transform your economy and your military forces. But this is too dangerous besides, what possible advantages could this drive have over the other forms of FTL?”
Adams knew that this moment would be coming sooner or later and that he had to make the most it.
“So glad you could ask Count. The Kantian's gate system requires a massive amount of energy in order to not only open the entryway to hyperspace both for incoming and outgoing traffic, but to hold it open long enough for ships to get through. While they have relatively few systems in their Empire those that they have are spread out thus why the gate was developed. Once in system they use regular sub-light fusion drive to go from the gate to their ultimate planetary destination.”
Kalgor nodded his head as the Doctor continued.
“However due to the power requirements of just one of those gates not to mention the operating costs it would be uneconomical to have a gate at each planet.
Another thing is the time that the gate is held open effects the toll paid by merchant traffic thus why you don't see any Kantian merchant vessels over 1.5km in length. Beyond that length the ratio between hold space, engine size, and time to accelerate becomes uneconomical. They can't get moving from a stand still fast enough to go through the gate without occurring serious tolls and they can't dedicate more engine size because it cuts into their profits from loss of tonnage hauled.”
“Well... yes those are valid points but...” Kalgor stammered out but Adams didn't let up.
“The Delfanit pulse tube solves the power requirement issue and the infrastructure issue but those “tubes” where the gravity band waves are stable enough to sail on until they hit hyperspace are very restricting as they only occur naturally in a few places. This is why their Kingdom if you look at their history had periods of rapid expansion followed by long periods of solidification because goods had to travel often dozens of light years in sublight from system hubs that had these tubes thus slowing growth.”
Kalgor knew he was quickly losing ground and had little recourse as any other drive system that was used in the galaxy had similar glaring issues that were simply accepted.
The Maltiun wave-riders used massive 20km+ gravity sails to ride the same gravity waves as the Delfanit but instead of entering hyperspace they rode ever more powerful waves and were not limited in where they could go for the most part. But the system was high maintenance and very tonnage sensitive as the larger the vessel the longer it took for that vessel reach FTL speeds. The largest ships the species built took at least a standard week to get up to speed and then another week to slow down.
Salec skip drives on the other hand actually sent gravity anchor beams to latch onto hyperspace currents and pull the ship along technically “skipping” on the envelope between real space and hyperspace. The down side is that the anchors can only hold for so long and the power requirements while nothing like Kantians as this wasn't actually entering hyperspace. Meant that they could only skip anywhere from 20 to 100 lightyears depending on the ships configuration before having to recharge their anchoring system, which could take a standard day or up to a week on the largest shipping vessels. Still faster than going at sub light speeds for sure but it meant long travel times for goods.
“Our system allows us to enter hyperspace at will, with no concerns about ship mass, size, or power production beyond engine thrust which combined with our already recognized and accepted superior fusion engine designs, means that we can potentially travel from one side of the galaxy to the other in a month. At least if you are willing to burn that much H3 fuel which even then is more a matter of being inconvenienced with having to stop for fuel rather than any sort of cost consideration.”
The silence in the office was deafening as Kalgor stepped towards the window and looked upon the vessel.
“But the holes Doctor! You may have a system that doesn't have the others drawbacks but we are talking about ripping apart space itself.”
“Count Kalgor I am growing weary of this repeated falsehood. We have be using the same points in orbit to develop this system for over a standard year, and every time we have gone we have had to open a new hole as the last one closed once the vessel is through. Beyond the gravity wake left by the opening you can't tell any thing happened at all after 24 to 36 hours. It is safe.”
“The Senate will not accept this...” Kalgor started hoping he was right to bank on the repugnant nature of this very concept.
“They might not now but they will when they see the Eli Whitney.” Adams spoke ominously. He turned on the large holotank in the middle of the room. The image displayed a monstrous vessel.”
Kalgor turned around and his eyes went wide at the image.
“Is this a warship?” He asked as the ever growing list of implications in his head grew with each passing second.
“No my Count, it is not. It is a merchant vessel commissioned by the Wal-Mart Cartel. She is 75km long, over 2km tall with 12 50-Petawatt fusion reactors with a top estimated FTL speed of 50 but will likely run at 10 to save on fuel costs as such speed is generally unneeded. The whole vessel weighs over 500 million tons 490 of which is hold space capable of hauling virtually anything you can think of. She is going out for trials in a hour then if all goes well she will make a fully loaded iron ore run from the Sol system to Peraxus VII and its heavy industry there. And given that the Senate is on Peraxus V the Eli will make a pass and see if there is anything that needs to be shipped back here to Earth on the return trip.”
As the Doctor finished Kalgor could feel his heart tighten at the size of the vessel and its speed. It would be in the Peraxus system in 3 days, even if he left now in one of the fastest vessels money could buy now he couldn't hope to get there in anything less than 12 days.
“You humans are reckless and unorthodox beyond anything I have ever heard of in my life. But I can't argue with the results.” Kalgor finally stated any hope of resistance gone as the pragmatic side of him knew that economically humanity had, in 10 years after first contact blown every other power in the galaxy out of the water. Another voice his is head whispered about what would happen if mankind made warships on such a scale.
“Well Doctor I don't see any point in arguing anymore but if you can let me on this vessel and join me in the senate with your research especially on the whole hole-punching-then-closing-up-perfectly part, then maybe we can avoid starting a bigger galactic panic then what we absolutely have to.”
“Of course Count I'm already packed and I have made such arrangements already. We can leave once the ship has gone through its final trials.” The Doctor proudly stated. | *What is that you said? They use* **Explosions**?*
*"Yes"* - - **"explosions"***
*"You mean chemical reactions using the laws of thermodynamics?"*
*"Yes, in larger scales - that's what the humans refer to as* **explosions**, *their entire civilization was built around using them but not watching them for some reason. Eventually they worked out how to split Neutrons off atoms to create even bigger chain explosions."*
*"So how did they barely achieve FTL travel and only just recently?"*
*"Well to put it simply - for a while they made it illegal to use these Thermonuclear* **explosions** *to propel themselves into space."*
*"It seems that would've been the most efficient way to get out of planetary orbit."*
*"Why in the Universes Logic would they make it illegal?"*
*"Well considering their entire civilization was based around* **explosions** *they encouraged a culture around destroying each other with them. "nuking from orbit" they claimed was far too unsportsmanlike to wage war."*
*"Well no wonder they never left the solar system until now."*
*"Fucking humans, so stupid - If they could get the most versatile material in the whole galaxy they'd turn it into a Frisbee."* | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "Idiot fuk human design shit-tier spaceship get all Brogga friend kill't. End all. Stoopt fuk. E'ryon kno warp spacetime. E'ryon kno break litspeeding. E'ryon kno crate warm hole. E'ryon kno cut mass half. E'yron cept idiot fuk humans. Y d'sign dumb shit-tier drive can't fi'ure out nuttin'. Cant warp spacetime. Cant break litspeeding. Cant crate warm hole. Cant cut mass. 'Stead idiot fuk human burrow down subquark stangelet bullshit risk implode entire quadrant for fuk newmatter. Y? Too dumb, tha's y. Now Brogga stuk dumb idiot fuk human ship on oth'r side galactic spinward fr'home. Idiot fuk human get Brogga kill't, get Brogga friend kill't..."
The muttering was cut off by a bang, followed by curses unutterable by the tongues of men. Poor old Brogga had been clanking about underneath the hullward dash for the last three days, almost without a break, muttering the entire time.
Say what he would, Brogga was nothing short of a mechanical genius, being the only Broggan capable of working on the Subquark-plated external combustion Engine. It took a particularly pliable mind to make an external combustion engine work, particularly when one was compressing- and burning- pure vacuum. The only real downside was the slight chance of creating decay, but if that happened it wouldn't matter as the entire tanker would be destroyed within seconds. I supposed it would have mattered to the rest of the Universe, but Brogga wouldn't have cared for he would have been the first to go.
Well, okay, there was a second slight problem. See, by burning pure vacuum they wore away a little strip of the cosmos. It was so small that it probably didn't matter, and the Universe was expanding anyways, but certain routes did get more traffic and engines were getting more efficient all the time.
"Idiot fuk human shit design fuk"
More clattering and banging from underneath the hullward dash.
"Idiot fuk human, try now"
Brogga's curses were rewarded with a shuttering rumble as the external combustion engine roared to life.
"Well that's curious" Captain Froy remarked, staring in disbelief at the guages.
Normal external combustion engines were able to operate somewhere between 10,000% and 100,000% efficiency, and for every joule of vacuum energy burned 100% efficiency would yield 10 kilo-joules.
The digital display read 10^89 % efficiency.
"Brogga, I think this gauge is busted."
"Idiot fuk human replace it then. Brogga sleeps."
Then, with customary swagger Captain Froy shoved the throttle open and pulled out, easing back into his seat for a cozy nap. However, when Captain Froy awoke several hours later he was not where he expected. In fact, he was not sure where he was at all.
You see, Brogga had accidentally upgraded their engine. Nobody saw the display, but if they had, they would have seen Brogga, Froy, and the rest of the crew tearing ass across the Universe, ripping a cosmic-scale gash in the vacuum like God's holy zipper. Of course this hole rapidly closed up, but in the time it would normally take them to travel a few hundred lightyears they had soared clear of the "observable Universe" several times over.
In fact, they had traveled so far they weren't entirely sure how to get back.
Thus began the journey of Brogga and the idiot fuk humans who wasted 600 years of his life and destroyed his capacity to speak properly. | *What is that you said? They use* **Explosions**?*
*"Yes"* - - **"explosions"***
*"You mean chemical reactions using the laws of thermodynamics?"*
*"Yes, in larger scales - that's what the humans refer to as* **explosions**, *their entire civilization was built around using them but not watching them for some reason. Eventually they worked out how to split Neutrons off atoms to create even bigger chain explosions."*
*"So how did they barely achieve FTL travel and only just recently?"*
*"Well to put it simply - for a while they made it illegal to use these Thermonuclear* **explosions** *to propel themselves into space."*
*"It seems that would've been the most efficient way to get out of planetary orbit."*
*"Why in the Universes Logic would they make it illegal?"*
*"Well considering their entire civilization was based around* **explosions** *they encouraged a culture around destroying each other with them. "nuking from orbit" they claimed was far too unsportsmanlike to wage war."*
*"Well no wonder they never left the solar system until now."*
*"Fucking humans, so stupid - If they could get the most versatile material in the whole galaxy they'd turn it into a Frisbee."* | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Terrestrial Warp Drives. First proposed by Miguel Alcubierre two hundred formlats ago, The equivalent of forcing space into a shape which closely resembles two black holes stacked fore to aft. It requires insanely large sums of energy to produce the warp effect, equivalent to at least the mass of a small moon converted to energy. To get around this, the Terrestrials use catalytic mass converter engines. A device which has been discredited by the rest of the universe for the complete and utter destructive potential should such a reactor melt down on a planet. They work by converting matter to energy with a catalyst particle. However, they also produce a certain percent of catalyst particles. When this process runs away, it has been known to destroy planets, heavily damaging entire solar systems.
Under order 4,900,232 section III, Human spacecraft are to be classified as "NOT TO BE TOUCHED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES" on or near a planet, and "DESTROY AT ALL COSTS" in interplanetary space. This is not done as a measure against humans, but as a safety measure across the galaxy. This will be done until a treaty can be made with the terrestrial humans such that they will cease using catalytic mass converters.
Examination of a captured Terrestrial FTL Engine under the Federal Standard Gravity Model suggests that some fairly simple improvements to the Alcubierre-type drive can be made to reduce the energy requirements to what can be managed by fusion and antimatter reaction technology. They need not give up their unique drive. As dangerous as the Terrestrial Drive is, it presents no risk to those outside the vessel. | *What is that you said? They use* **Explosions**?*
*"Yes"* - - **"explosions"***
*"You mean chemical reactions using the laws of thermodynamics?"*
*"Yes, in larger scales - that's what the humans refer to as* **explosions**, *their entire civilization was built around using them but not watching them for some reason. Eventually they worked out how to split Neutrons off atoms to create even bigger chain explosions."*
*"So how did they barely achieve FTL travel and only just recently?"*
*"Well to put it simply - for a while they made it illegal to use these Thermonuclear* **explosions** *to propel themselves into space."*
*"It seems that would've been the most efficient way to get out of planetary orbit."*
*"Why in the Universes Logic would they make it illegal?"*
*"Well considering their entire civilization was based around* **explosions** *they encouraged a culture around destroying each other with them. "nuking from orbit" they claimed was far too unsportsmanlike to wage war."*
*"Well no wonder they never left the solar system until now."*
*"Fucking humans, so stupid - If they could get the most versatile material in the whole galaxy they'd turn it into a Frisbee."* | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Xandar was fuming. 20 smismars he'd been waiting in the bowels of that horrible assembling of junk and metal the humans proudly called their *flagship of intergalactic friendship*. It was bad enough when those hairless pink monkeys made it to outer space but now they had developped a functioning FTL drive and that made them *worthy* of introduction into the Galactic Alliance.
In all his bismars as official technological investigators of the Galactic Alliance's scientific division, Xandar had never seen such a pathetic excuse for a ship. Neither he or any of his colleagues wanted to partake in this scientific inspection. They actually had to draw straws and to his utter disappointment, Xandar lost. Xarcy tried to cheer him up, noting that the human FTL drive was probably a dud anyway. Their first long distance drive was barely a stupid bedsheet catching solar wind, how could they have build a fully functioning FTL drive is such little time since.
21 smismars, where the hell was that pink ape that was supposed to show him the drive ? Xandar only wanted to get done with this and leave. The human vessel was small, cramped and much too warm for his taste. It also didn't help that everything was made to accomodate 6ft tall apes, at 9ft tall, a respectable height for a noble Glaxian like him, he was constantly banging his upper appendage on the ceiling and door frames.
Finally a metal door opened and 2 hairless apes ran toward him. The first one, pink and the second one dark brown. Fascinating thought Xandar, I've never seen such a dark colored ape. At least some decent scientific information. Maybe the science council would let him abduct such a specimen later on for testing. Humans usually didn't mind a few abduction here and there as long as you didn't touch the cows sleeping in the fields.
The 2 apes escorted Xandar to the engine room. The first thing that caught Xandar's attention was the intense heat coming from the doorway, much worst than the rest of the already hot vessel.
>Right this way Dr Xandar, you're gonna love this!
Words could barely describe the sights that laid in front of Xandar when he crossed into the room
*What the hell kind of piece of shit is that?*
>What, the FTL drive ?
>>Quite the beauty isn't she ?
The drive in question looked like a random pile of junk with tubes coming out of the sides, hot steam rising from them. The whole thing was red hot and there was a very annoying sound of pressured gas being shot into the machine at close interval. On top of the device sat 2 giant glowing green tubes.
*Are those Arthosian power cores ?*
>Yes, you have a good eye Dr Xandar.
*Where in the 5 stars did you get these ? Only a handful were ever created and the Arthosian guard them very closely*
>>We found them!
>Of yeah, came upon a space wreck near Alpha Centory IV and we managed to recover quite a lot of technology from it.
*Wait wait... you stole them from a broken ship ?*
>Not stole, never. We found them.
>>Space salvage!
*Does the Arthosian empire know you're using stolen tech ?*
>I dunno, they never complained about it before you brought it up.
Xandar was flaggerbasted, these hairless apes weren't just stupid, they were a menace.
*Fine, walk me trough it*
>Oh you're gonna love this doc. By stripping the neutrino element of the 2 power cores and jerryrigging them together, we managed to create a power unit strong enough to blast trough the fabric of spacetime, and into the slipstream.
*Wait a minute, you stripped the power core of its protective shielding ?*
>Why yes.
>>It was really annoying really, hiding all the good stuff.
*ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS! Those a radiation shielding, this stuff is extremely dangerous*
>I know that, we all know that
>>It needed to be done. Beside, we added some plasma shielding to it.
>Yes, it should do the job... enough.
*Jesus fucking christ.... continue*
>Well, as I was saying, the drive allows us to punch our way into the slipstream and from there we can modify the flow of radiation emited by the power cores, enabling us to navigate different planes of the stream.
>>It's like a chose you own adventure travel book. Add a gamma variant to the radiation cocktail and you can move faster, replace it by a theta variant and you can navigate, for lack of a better word, "UP" into the 4th dimension.
*How do you exit the slipstreem ?*
>Well, we found that injecting a low level ion isopote directly into the power core will create an instability in the stream that causes the ship to be ejected, albeith rather violently.
>>Yes, the first test vessel exploded on exit.
*My god, this is catastrophic*
>We thought so to, so insted we just shut off the drive and the ship gets ejected much more softly.
*What... no! I mean... this whole system is horrible...*
>It's not so bad once you work out the kinks
*But how.... this must be ridiculously unstable !?*
>Oh boy... that's an understatement
>>You have to understand, all this only works if we keep the core overheated to exactly 3,568 degrees.
>Oh yes, any variation of over 2.75 degrees and the whole thing would go kablewy
*This is nuts, how do you maintain the temperature ? I see no adaptive secluar temporal module anywhere*
>Don't have one
>>Yeah, this fancy stuff is much too complicated and too hard to get your hands on.
>For now we use a system of pressure injected water and nitrogen
*You forcecool it under pressure ?*
>Exactly! I knew you'd get it doc.
>>We alternate between injecting pressurized water and nitrogen to cool off the core with a 1.5 seconds interval between each injection
*What?.... that's....how!?*
>You know.... too hot, blast it with nitrogen. Too cold, switch to water. Perfect temperature, do nothing. We evaluate the temperature every 2 seconds and Frank over there pulls the switch to inject the correct cooling substance.
*So none of this is automated ?*
>Nah, we're hoping to find a suitable automated cooling mechanism soon though.
*Like what? A water tin can on a string with a hole on the bottom ?*
>>Well no that's.... hey that's actually a good idea
>Yeah, we should look into that.
*Allright.... not taking into consideration the immense safety concern, not to mention decent common sens, this thing appears extremely dangerous and also in violation of at least a dozen galactic regulations on plasma use and timestream protocoles, and that's just for starters*
>Really?
>>Well that's a bummer for sure
*I must ask, with all this violent punching around the slipstream, how does your system deal with excess radiations and temporal aftershock effects ?*
>Come again ?
*The extreme side effects of your shitty system!!*
>Oh that. I dunno, whatever happens in the slipstream stays in the slipstream I guess.
>>Yeah, I mean it's not like we plan on living in the stream you know. It's just a highway. You roll down the window and throw your trash out.
*Over 15 sentient species live in the stream, 4 of wich are official members of the Galactic Alliance.*
>Really, people live in there ?
*YES, THEY DO!*
>Well that's fucking stupid.
>>yeah, who in their right mind lives in a galactic highway ? That's dangerous, somebody could get hurt!
>And they call US crazy ? | *What is that you said? They use* **Explosions**?*
*"Yes"* - - **"explosions"***
*"You mean chemical reactions using the laws of thermodynamics?"*
*"Yes, in larger scales - that's what the humans refer to as* **explosions**, *their entire civilization was built around using them but not watching them for some reason. Eventually they worked out how to split Neutrons off atoms to create even bigger chain explosions."*
*"So how did they barely achieve FTL travel and only just recently?"*
*"Well to put it simply - for a while they made it illegal to use these Thermonuclear* **explosions** *to propel themselves into space."*
*"It seems that would've been the most efficient way to get out of planetary orbit."*
*"Why in the Universes Logic would they make it illegal?"*
*"Well considering their entire civilization was based around* **explosions** *they encouraged a culture around destroying each other with them. "nuking from orbit" they claimed was far too unsportsmanlike to wage war."*
*"Well no wonder they never left the solar system until now."*
*"Fucking humans, so stupid - If they could get the most versatile material in the whole galaxy they'd turn it into a Frisbee."* | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The chamber illumination dimmed and the milky sim tank faded to life. A thousand eyes stared intently from the council benches, and a trillion more from across the five galaxies.
A deep voice, set on edge with urgency and well-contained fear, began its narration of the sim.
"The Brevis' star system surveillance node 47 has, it has been reported, recorded first contact with the species self-identifying as Humans. This much has already been announced. What has not yet been announced is that an analysis of the event has been completed, and their method of travel has thrown a black flag, gamma zero priority. Observe."
The sim showed a small moon below, surrounded by a halo of probes similar to the one that must be recording the image. In the far distance, the volumetric compensation showed a grossly enlarged blue planet on another orbital track, the Brevis' home world Herol. The orbital motion of the probes had been smooth and obvious, but now they slowed.
"We are showing the event at a reduced speed. Watch carefully."
Without warning, the entire projection dimmed as a single point of incredible, actinic light burst from the space next to the moon and raced away from its surface. As one, the closer orbiting probes glowed white-hot and began to disintegrate. The image wavered and then froze.
"Now, focus your attention on the exact location this phenomenon appeared, and keep your attention on that spot as the light moves away."
The image reversed, and the killing glow moved back to its original location. It slowly crept back outwards as the sim zoomed in. There, in the wake of the glow, was a ship, shaped like a mushroom with its cap to the light. Vaporised hull matter streamed from the smooth side facing the light, some sort of ablative heat shielding.
"We had never seen this effect before. We assumed it was some sort of deceleration technique, until we looked at it from the planetary defence network."
The perspective in the sim shifted, as if travelling to the distant planet. The moon and its halo of probes shrank, then grew again due to the volumetric compensation. The sim was normal again for a moment, before that terrible light appeared, an incredible distance from the moon this time, and immediately split into two lights, travelling away from each other at greater than the speed of light.
An audible click reverberated around the chamber as each of the species in attendance simultaneously inhaled on their breathing apparatuses.
"As you can see, the motion of the light is a relativistic illusion. The light doesn't travel, it exists simultaneously at all points in a column for a moment, then dissipates. The energy requirement is staggering. After calculating an intercept to the closest habitable world on the trajectory described by the light column, it appears their world is four hundred light-years away. The humans claim a similar distance, and their navigational data also confirm it. From this we can calculate the energy release as being consistent with a type III civilisation."
What had previously been a gentle series of clicks was now a cacophony, the seats shaking with the bodily gyrations of the assembled dignitaries. Some wailed, others laughed, most were silent.
"We have brought the leader of the human expedition here, with her agreement, of course."
The noises of discomfort reached a crashing crescendo, as several of the delegates jumped out of their seats and bolted for the exit.
The disembodied voice thundered, "ORDER!"
"I present to you, Chakor, Human, of planet Earth."
The creature that stepped into the chamber was unimpressive, physically. Bipedal, endoskeletal, wearing some sort of almost completely covering clothing with various decals affixed to it. The remaining delegates seemed to calm a little, their agitation lowering to a gentle swaying. The Human addressed the crowd.
"Greetings, delegates of the local group. My name is Chakor, I represent my species, Human, and wish to express our honour in meeting you all. We come in peace."
The room quietened further, and the booming voice sounded again. "Chakor will now take moderated questions from the floor. Please enter your queries for analysis and amalgamation."
A few awkward moments passed, Chakor looking out among the delegates. They varied from bipeds with heads and arms of various number to floating creatures in some sort of water tanks, through to creatures much more... alien.
"First question. The energy output of your drive technology is beyond immense. You must be capturing the energy output of most of a galaxy, somewhere. How can it be that we have not noticed the birth of a type III civilisation under our watch?"
Chakor paused to think before she replied, clearly confused. "We are not a type III civilisation. We are barely a type I. We just discovered a way to manipulate the nature of reality."
The voice didn't even wait to consult the accumulating list of vetted questions. "What?! How?"
"When we accidentally created and shot a cluster of miniature black holes through our particle collider's detectors, we discovered that the vacuum of space was not at the true ground state of the universe. This lent is an opportunity to use the difference in energy levels to complete an until-then hypothetical method of propulsion."
The room exploded into roars, gurgles, and screeches of outrage.
"Your drive is powered by triggering a collapse of fundamental reality?!"
"Not quite, if you'd let me finish. After we discovered the false vacuum was the current skein of the universe, we found that at the moment of triggering a vacuum state collapse, it was possible to entangle an arbitrary length of vacuum in a beam away from the source, and trigger the collapse simultaneously and instantaneously along that path."
Guards in the chamber drew their weapons as several delegates rose on their hindlimbs as if to attack.
"Chakor, this is madness! Your drive cannot work as you describe, or we wouldn't have any video of your arrival. A vacuum collapse would spread from wherever it started at the speed of light, unmaking the universe in its path!"
"Oh, yes we knew that. It turns out that the vacuum collapse provides enough energy to fold space into itself. In local proximity, one side of the event becomes the other. The space in between is clipped off like a twisted balloon, erased from having any bearing on existence. Our ship is instantaneously folded from one side of the beam to the other, and internal fields save us from having any biological changes. Of course, the collapse has to happen first by a few fractions of a microsecond, so there is some... energy leakage."
The chamber went suddenly silent.
The probe and planetary defence system had recorded an abomination, a gross violation of reality itself. The demonic light fleeing the Humans' strange vessel was the energetic corpse of a monster, come to open its maw and swallow the universe, inexorably, at the glacial speed of light. A fitting technology for a pursuit predator like the humans.
"You risk all our existence just to travel. How can we leave you free run of the galaxies?"
Chakor grinned. "We could always run one last wide beam to the ends of the universe and neglect to fold it away. How can you not?" | *What is that you said? They use* **Explosions**?*
*"Yes"* - - **"explosions"***
*"You mean chemical reactions using the laws of thermodynamics?"*
*"Yes, in larger scales - that's what the humans refer to as* **explosions**, *their entire civilization was built around using them but not watching them for some reason. Eventually they worked out how to split Neutrons off atoms to create even bigger chain explosions."*
*"So how did they barely achieve FTL travel and only just recently?"*
*"Well to put it simply - for a while they made it illegal to use these Thermonuclear* **explosions** *to propel themselves into space."*
*"It seems that would've been the most efficient way to get out of planetary orbit."*
*"Why in the Universes Logic would they make it illegal?"*
*"Well considering their entire civilization was based around* **explosions** *they encouraged a culture around destroying each other with them. "nuking from orbit" they claimed was far too unsportsmanlike to wage war."*
*"Well no wonder they never left the solar system until now."*
*"Fucking humans, so stupid - If they could get the most versatile material in the whole galaxy they'd turn it into a Frisbee."* | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "You need to stop this. Now." ~UTHQ
It seemed like a strange message from the UT at first, the United Terrans organization, formed by the world's leading space agencies to represent all of humanity and the Earth as we ventured out of the solar system for the first time.
But this wasn't from the UT.
It couldn't be. TRAPPIST-1 was 40 light years away from Earth. It had taken only 32 years to travel here in the DocBrown, a name chosen thanks to somebody's bright idea to let internet polls do the picking. Theoretically, the ship could travel even faster, possibly greater than 2c, but due to the still relatively unknown nature of matter at speeds >1c, the speed was capped at 1.25c for this mission. Earth would have had to have sent this message *8 years* before they left.
The tension in the recycled air was so palpable it was hard to breathe, a mixture of separate emotions so intense you'd feel like you might implode and explode all at the same time.
They had first braved the pounding tension of the "photobraking" deceleration maneuver as they approached the star system, where the DocBrown's FTL drive was shut down to allow *space-time itself* to decelerate the ship below lightspeed, the first-ever such attempt in human history. It certainly sounds sensible when you have a room full of mathematicians and physicists drawing it out for you, but while trapped in a ship barreling through the galaxy at +1c, you begin to wonder why they aren't sitting in your seat instead. The ship instantly began to rumble as soon as the engines were cut, louder and louder at a rising frequency. As speed dropped closer to 1c, gunpowder crackling sounds and bangs like metallic bones snapping abused the outside the hull. The blueshifted light through the front windows, turning more and more white, increased in luminosity, until in a blinding flash a deafening ***THUD*** broke the ship's runaway speed like driving into a brick wall. The ship's speed now read 0.87c, and all was quiet. Spacetime, and light, it seems, has something akin to sonic booms that come from violating the universe's speed limits.
To slow down further, the fuel tank, capable of holding 5% of the Moon's mass, had to be thrown away in a trajectory that would not impact any of the exoplanets dancing around TRAPPIST-1. The mechanism to do this was a nuclear warhead, and a 10km tether to draw out the acceleration force from being instantaneous. "Don't ask," one engineer said, working on developing this technology. "We've tested it. It works..."
After the maneuver left the ship's speed at a little over 0.51c, DocBrown's traditional engines took over to do the rest of the legwork, but the beauty shining in through the windows was so loud now it overpowered all engine noise into deafening silence. The cool dwarf star's system was a fertile playground of seven exoplanets, three of which were Earth-like. They had atmospheres, and their surface was a swirl of colors so exotic, made possible only by the mysterious artistry of the universe, that Jeb had to keep wiping the water from his eyes just to keep looking at it.
He looked over at Deb, who was also crying, and then at the rest of the team, they all laughed and came together to embrace.
In the joy and excitement of the moment, Jeb thought he had heard a barely-audible *ding,* but it was likely nothing. After the celebration settled down, Jeb went to the ship's console to make sure the warning wasn't something serious to do with the DocBrown's deceleration burn.
But it wasn't an engine warning. It was a direct message, from UT, from home.
"You need to stop this. Now." ~UTHQ
The emotions flowing in this moment made it difficult to discern what this meant, how is this possible? Is it possible? Jeb put his head in his hands and the team saw him struggling; they came over to see what the issue might be. Each member read the message and the ship once again became overwhelmed by a crushing silence, as each crewmate contiplated the unreal, impossible nature of what they were looking at. It *wasn't* possible.
Just as contemplations began to wander into darker, more impossible possibilities, their predictions were quickly narrowed down, by another received message: *(ding)*
"This is a warning." ~UTHQ
----------
**Edit: Part 2/3**
The tense atmosphere led Marcus, systems engineer for the mission, to sit down at the console.
"Who is this?" ~DocBrown
Their laser communications system was pointed directly at Earth, and it would take 40 years for the message to arrive there. The messages had been digitally signed with UT's signature. The team contemplated that their communications have been cracked, and hijacked.
"What do they want? Why the warning?" Mel sounded panicked, the lead biologist for the mission. "They want us to stop doing something..." Marcus mumbled, reading over the messages.
After a pause, Mel jumped up. "Do you think they live here? Do you think this is their system?" Dale, the radioastronomer, shrugged. "No chatter from this place. Our radio leak out to space for over 1200 year before we come here."
Marcus shrugged, and seeing no harm in trying, typed out:
"Is this sun your home?" ~DocBrown
As the message sent out, the team entertained a thought that maybe UT would be getting some funny messages in 40 years.
*(ding)*
"No." ~UTHQ
A chill fell over the air. Marcus got out of his seat and moved away. "What do they want?", Mel cried. Jeb spoke up, "Hold on, so far we're just talking. We don't know who they are yet, or what they want. They want us to stop doing something, so maybe we broke a rule, we just don't know about it yet."
Mel sniffed, but she was contemplating. "Maybe there's already life here, and it's against the law to mess with it?" Dale scoffed, "They mess with us!"
Marcus turned around, focused. "We need to know what we did wrong." He sat down at the console,
"What did we do wrong?" ~DocBrown
The crew watched as the message was sent out, anticipating the passing seconds.
*(ding)*
"Dumblfuckery." ~UTHQ
----------
**Edit 2: see below for Part 3/3**
| "Surely you can't be serious?" Said one of the Xygian scientists to the Human delegation.
"I am serious, and don't call me Shirley." Replied Dr. Filmer before receiving a high-five from one of the other members of the delegation.
The Xygians continued "We cannot, in good faith, approve of this travel mechanism. Your planned use of toroidal quartz crystal will not be allowed by the Planetary Planning Board."
"We are guaranteed by our rights, as dictated by the fifty seventh Interplanetary Conference for the Well-Being of Life in the Universe, to have access to faster than light space travel for the uses of commerce and exploration."
"Doctor, we are well aware of the rights you are guaranteed, but we cannot, in good faith, approve of this method of travel just as we could not approve of your, what was it? Oreo Project?"
"Project Orion, Sir."
"Yes, that one... We are sorry, but we cannot approve these plans."
"Our small scale tests have shown that this is a very efficient and safe mode of travel, our simulations have shown the same, as did the large scale test on our moon. Based on the evidence provided, you cannot disapprove of our plan."
Yes, but there is currently concern coming from the Ethics Board on the matter and they are worried about it's possible implications for war as well as the potential ethical concerns over some of the mechanical aspects of your device. For the spoken record, Doctor, could you please explain the technical aspects of your device to the rest of the comity gather here today?"
"Our current model for achieving faster than light travel is based around the use of a coil-gun, or static discharge cannon, powered by the static charge gathered by a toroidal quartz crystal we would put into orbit around our planet. The crystal would be spun by solar winds generated by our local star and the power would be converted into high amplitude, low frequency, radio waves so the power can be transmitted wirelessly to a capacitor bank on our moon where the cannon would be located."
"That being all well and good, could you state, for the record, the medium you are using to generate the static electricity?
"Um, cats, Sir. Members of the feline species native to our planet. We have found their ability for generating static electricity has no rivals. But if you would like, for the sake of the Ethics Board, we can run some tests on other organic materials and possibly synthetics materials."
"Thank you, we'll see you again in two Florms. Meeting adjured." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The First Ambassador to Humanity swirled idly in its container and moved to the next item on its list.
"Your FTL technology", it asked the panel of assembled human leaders, "How does it work?"
The humans exchanged surprised looks. The one at the end of the panel eventually speaking.
"You mean the Confounder?"
"If that is what you call it, yes."
"Well it... it slows the light down."
The First Ambassador frowned. Or at least, it came as close to frowning as one can when one is a mass of liquid in a hermetically sealed tank.
"I do not understand", it replied, "How does this help?"
It was a different human who replied this time, the large one at the head of the panel
"It slows the light down so we can overtake it", he snapped. "What's so hard to understand about that?"
The Ambassador thickened as it took a moment to process this statement.
"This... does not reduce your travel time".
"Who said anything about that?", the chief human asked irritably. "It's not about getting places, it's about showing the light who's boss! It's about proving a point!". He jabbed his thumb against his chest. "We wanted to be the fastest thing in the universe, and now we are!".
The Ambassador thickened further, rapidly losing faith in this species' fitness to join the intergalactic community.
"Let me rephrase my question," it said. "You received a summons to this meeting approximately five of your days ago. How did you travel the light years between this point and your planet in that time?".
"Ooh". A third human spoke this time. "It wants to know about the Shuffle".
A collection of mutters resounded among the rest of the panel, the large one saying something about "...not really *travel* is it?". Once they had stilled the third human continued speaking.
"It's quite simply really. Getting to faraway places is hard, so the Shuffle just swaps bits of space around until the part we want is next to us". She gave the Ambassador a vacant smile.
Its slow swishing motion gradually stilled as understanding set in. The ships that found themselves light years from their destination, stranded without food or air. The civilised worlds torn from their orbits and flung into deep space. The black holes appearing from nowhere, devouring entire star systems of inhabited plants. Literally boiling with anger, the First Ambassador closed it's communication channel to the humans and opened a new one to the Galactic Council.
*There would be war* | "Surely you can't be serious?" Said one of the Xygian scientists to the Human delegation.
"I am serious, and don't call me Shirley." Replied Dr. Filmer before receiving a high-five from one of the other members of the delegation.
The Xygians continued "We cannot, in good faith, approve of this travel mechanism. Your planned use of toroidal quartz crystal will not be allowed by the Planetary Planning Board."
"We are guaranteed by our rights, as dictated by the fifty seventh Interplanetary Conference for the Well-Being of Life in the Universe, to have access to faster than light space travel for the uses of commerce and exploration."
"Doctor, we are well aware of the rights you are guaranteed, but we cannot, in good faith, approve of this method of travel just as we could not approve of your, what was it? Oreo Project?"
"Project Orion, Sir."
"Yes, that one... We are sorry, but we cannot approve these plans."
"Our small scale tests have shown that this is a very efficient and safe mode of travel, our simulations have shown the same, as did the large scale test on our moon. Based on the evidence provided, you cannot disapprove of our plan."
Yes, but there is currently concern coming from the Ethics Board on the matter and they are worried about it's possible implications for war as well as the potential ethical concerns over some of the mechanical aspects of your device. For the spoken record, Doctor, could you please explain the technical aspects of your device to the rest of the comity gather here today?"
"Our current model for achieving faster than light travel is based around the use of a coil-gun, or static discharge cannon, powered by the static charge gathered by a toroidal quartz crystal we would put into orbit around our planet. The crystal would be spun by solar winds generated by our local star and the power would be converted into high amplitude, low frequency, radio waves so the power can be transmitted wirelessly to a capacitor bank on our moon where the cannon would be located."
"That being all well and good, could you state, for the record, the medium you are using to generate the static electricity?
"Um, cats, Sir. Members of the feline species native to our planet. We have found their ability for generating static electricity has no rivals. But if you would like, for the sake of the Ethics Board, we can run some tests on other organic materials and possibly synthetics materials."
"Thank you, we'll see you again in two Florms. Meeting adjured." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | “We must keep the Humans believing that their FTL system is unsafe, unorthodox and damn stupid. That is the point of this of this Special Hearing of The Supreme Council of the New Species Traveling Faster than Light. I am Farlack, Supreme Councilor of the Organization of Galactic Legal Advisors. ^(legal disclaimer: Norepresentationismadethatthequalityofthelegalgalacticservicestobeperformedisgreaterthanthequalityoflegalservicesperformedbyotherlawyers).
“Scarlacc, will you please read the minutes from the last session to allow this Supeme Council to aware of the latest current legal status of the Humans.?”
“Of course. That would be Sub-Section 7 of Section 30 of the 5th meeting of the Council of Dealing with and Controlling the Humans.
“It has been discovered that the Humans have developed a completely new FTL travel, with no related or similar technologies in the known Galaxy. The core of this FTL is a bubble of a universe where the speed of light is 1000 times faster than the speed of light is in our legally defined universe is pulled to our universe. The Human ships then travel at .1 c in this alternate universe. Upon exiting this alternate universe, the human ships have travelled 1000 times the distance in our universe. The energy expense of travelling in the alternate universe is the same as travelling in our univ-“
“Sarlacc, this Council is not interested in the technical aspects of the Humans FTL Technologies. That discussion is for the Galactic Council of Technology Equalization and/or The Council of Equalization of Galactic Technologies and/or Council of Galactic Technology Equalization. Ballzacc, will you present the Summary of the Social Legal Issues of the Humans Council meeting?”
“Of course. Due to the extremely dangerous situation these Humans create for us, I will dispense with extraneous discussion and proceed to the summary of the meeting, as permitted in The Rules and Guides of the Supreme Galactic Committee and The Guides and Rules of the Supreme Galactic Committee, version 2 of edition 5, Copyrighted.
“The Humans have a social system that may lead to our death and destruction. The humans developed their FTL without our influence and guidance, so we were unable to control their technology with the powers of the Galactic Patent Office. This failure was due to their rapid technological development. In the span of 6 human generations, they progressed from animal driven power to FTL travel. During the final Human pre-FTL travel, Humans revolted against their legal system and killed all lawyers allow-“
“They did WHAT?” interrupred Farlack. “How do they maintain their society without legal protections?”
“They became disgusted with a legal system that required warning labels to not drive their “automobile” with the windshield sunscreen in place. As I was saying, this allowed generations of research and development to be done in half a generation. And we can not control their technology.” Ballzacc completed his summary, terror beginning to creep into its face.
“Oh my supreme being. When the common people of the Galaxy learn of this… no lawyers…no lifelong Legal Guidance fees…” Farlack began to understand the lack of his future.
“Yes. This Council and all others, we will be destroyed”
“Yes, their technology is unorthodox, unsafe, and damn stupid, but for reasons the Galaxy must never understand.”
| "Surely you can't be serious?" Said one of the Xygian scientists to the Human delegation.
"I am serious, and don't call me Shirley." Replied Dr. Filmer before receiving a high-five from one of the other members of the delegation.
The Xygians continued "We cannot, in good faith, approve of this travel mechanism. Your planned use of toroidal quartz crystal will not be allowed by the Planetary Planning Board."
"We are guaranteed by our rights, as dictated by the fifty seventh Interplanetary Conference for the Well-Being of Life in the Universe, to have access to faster than light space travel for the uses of commerce and exploration."
"Doctor, we are well aware of the rights you are guaranteed, but we cannot, in good faith, approve of this method of travel just as we could not approve of your, what was it? Oreo Project?"
"Project Orion, Sir."
"Yes, that one... We are sorry, but we cannot approve these plans."
"Our small scale tests have shown that this is a very efficient and safe mode of travel, our simulations have shown the same, as did the large scale test on our moon. Based on the evidence provided, you cannot disapprove of our plan."
Yes, but there is currently concern coming from the Ethics Board on the matter and they are worried about it's possible implications for war as well as the potential ethical concerns over some of the mechanical aspects of your device. For the spoken record, Doctor, could you please explain the technical aspects of your device to the rest of the comity gather here today?"
"Our current model for achieving faster than light travel is based around the use of a coil-gun, or static discharge cannon, powered by the static charge gathered by a toroidal quartz crystal we would put into orbit around our planet. The crystal would be spun by solar winds generated by our local star and the power would be converted into high amplitude, low frequency, radio waves so the power can be transmitted wirelessly to a capacitor bank on our moon where the cannon would be located."
"That being all well and good, could you state, for the record, the medium you are using to generate the static electricity?
"Um, cats, Sir. Members of the feline species native to our planet. We have found their ability for generating static electricity has no rivals. But if you would like, for the sake of the Ethics Board, we can run some tests on other organic materials and possibly synthetics materials."
"Thank you, we'll see you again in two Florms. Meeting adjured." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | We saw the opportunity and by the gods, we took it.
FTL travel was always a ways off for earth's scientists, I mean sure, we had near-lightspeed travel for now but frankly, ever since Humanity blundered into contact with the other races, they've been stingy with the secrets to FTL travel, considering us "crude" and "uncultured". Still, some of the lesser races reluctantly traded with us, and we came across what they considered to be a trivial piece of information, a rather efficient method of converting normal matter to exotic matter, if only for an instant, before reverting back to regular matter.
They used it as a way to fuel their dark matter weaponry, and of course, we had nowhere near the technology required for that, and they knew it. They held back their freakish laughter as the dumb humans traded valuable resources for something that not only everyone in the galaxy knows, but they couldn't even use!
Well, turns out that's not entirely true.
A few years went by with earth's scientists playing with their new "toy", a few neat innovations and basic uses had cropped up, but all in all, it seemed that the inability to keep exotic matter around without it reverting was rather limiting.
One man stepped forward with an idea, however. An idea that was hushed and slated to impossibility by the earth's various governing bodies. "There's no way we could do that" they whispered. "It's **insane**".
But, with humanity being left behind diplomatically against the rest of the galaxy, could we really afford to be left out? To be left in the dust as other races walked over us like we were nothing?
Eventually, reluctantly, approval was gained, and the project initiated. It would take years, several thousand matter conversion stations.
A project to dwarf all others.
The man had proposed a wormhole. Not an alien concept to the other races, obviously, but one that had only been toyed with by humanity, an unrealistic method of FTL. The amount of exotic matter needed alone would be.. well it would be insane! We had nowhere near enough useable mass near our homeworld, or so we had thought.
It was worth it, I think, the expression on the diplomats faces as we crashed the galaxy's latest diplomatic conference made it all worth it. Their horrified expressions as they understood just what we had done, looking agape (and the several alien equivalents) at the monstrous bastard we had piloted.
Humanity had finally made it's statement as a real, crazy force in the universe.
An entire moon's worth of statement. dwarfing even the largest diplomatic citadel. A moon, our moon, converted into a bastardized FTL vessel. Our reckless abandonment of sensibilities and border-idiotic determination would be the staple of Humanity for eons after that.
"Crude", they were definitely right about that.
| "Surely you can't be serious?" Said one of the Xygian scientists to the Human delegation.
"I am serious, and don't call me Shirley." Replied Dr. Filmer before receiving a high-five from one of the other members of the delegation.
The Xygians continued "We cannot, in good faith, approve of this travel mechanism. Your planned use of toroidal quartz crystal will not be allowed by the Planetary Planning Board."
"We are guaranteed by our rights, as dictated by the fifty seventh Interplanetary Conference for the Well-Being of Life in the Universe, to have access to faster than light space travel for the uses of commerce and exploration."
"Doctor, we are well aware of the rights you are guaranteed, but we cannot, in good faith, approve of this method of travel just as we could not approve of your, what was it? Oreo Project?"
"Project Orion, Sir."
"Yes, that one... We are sorry, but we cannot approve these plans."
"Our small scale tests have shown that this is a very efficient and safe mode of travel, our simulations have shown the same, as did the large scale test on our moon. Based on the evidence provided, you cannot disapprove of our plan."
Yes, but there is currently concern coming from the Ethics Board on the matter and they are worried about it's possible implications for war as well as the potential ethical concerns over some of the mechanical aspects of your device. For the spoken record, Doctor, could you please explain the technical aspects of your device to the rest of the comity gather here today?"
"Our current model for achieving faster than light travel is based around the use of a coil-gun, or static discharge cannon, powered by the static charge gathered by a toroidal quartz crystal we would put into orbit around our planet. The crystal would be spun by solar winds generated by our local star and the power would be converted into high amplitude, low frequency, radio waves so the power can be transmitted wirelessly to a capacitor bank on our moon where the cannon would be located."
"That being all well and good, could you state, for the record, the medium you are using to generate the static electricity?
"Um, cats, Sir. Members of the feline species native to our planet. We have found their ability for generating static electricity has no rivals. But if you would like, for the sake of the Ethics Board, we can run some tests on other organic materials and possibly synthetics materials."
"Thank you, we'll see you again in two Florms. Meeting adjured." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "So, about the humans..." Said a voice with diplomatic neutrality.
Groans from a myriad of different species' voices could be heard throughout the conference hall. There was a meeting being held on how to properly welcome these new, strange creatures now that they had, technically, at least, achieved Faster Than Light travel.
"We organised this meeting to discuss them! When are you all going to stop pussyfooting around the issue!?" The same voice declared, with a level of anger hard to believe considering their tone mere seconds ago.
"Blarpart, I know you're a workaholic and all that but have you SEEN these...creature's form of FTL "travel"?" A gruff voice from somewhere in the hall responded over the din of arguing and groans of "are we really fucking doing this?"
"I agree that it's...unconventional but-"
The word "unconventional" being used to describe human beings' method of intergalactic travel caused an uproar among the crowd.
"Hey! HEY! HEYYYYYY!" Interjected Blarpart with an odd mixture of rage, impatience and exhaustion. "It works for them, who are we to judge?"
"Don't you get it? They use possibly the most unstable thing in the universe, a wormhole, and pump it with a load of who knows what to make it last more than a nanosecond and to a greater size than a few atoms and just *sigh* go through it and hope for the best"
"As I said, uncon-" Blarpart thought better of using *that* word again and instead chose to deflect the conversation in the hopes of finishing and grabbing something from a Space Denny's on the way home.
"Ok, how about we just ignore them? They're not going to last long as a species if THAT'S how they traverse space. From our observations, their 'wormhole jumping' has about an 80% chance of failure. All in favour?"
A chorus of relieved "aye"s reverberated throughout the room.
"All opposed?"
...
"Well then, that settles i-"
"YOU FUCKING WOT, M8?" A voice shouted from just outside the hall.
"Can I go without being interrupted for ONE MINUTE?" Blarpart said in an exasperated sigh.
And with that, a duo of humans, one tall with brown hair and the other short with black hair, burst into the hall with their bottles of what they call "Mountain Dew" and bags of "Doritos" and started going on about how we can't "diss" them like that.
"You know what? Fuck these alien squares, wanna go piss into a black hole?" The taller one said.
"Yeah, dude. Definitely." The shorter one replied with an almost endearing level of excitement at the prospect.
And with that, the duo left as quickly as they had entered.
"What just happened?" A member of the crowd ask with a disbelieving tone.
"...Humanity. Humanity happened" said Blarpart, with yet another sigh.
Spelling and removing the pretentious "fin". | "Surely you can't be serious?" Said one of the Xygian scientists to the Human delegation.
"I am serious, and don't call me Shirley." Replied Dr. Filmer before receiving a high-five from one of the other members of the delegation.
The Xygians continued "We cannot, in good faith, approve of this travel mechanism. Your planned use of toroidal quartz crystal will not be allowed by the Planetary Planning Board."
"We are guaranteed by our rights, as dictated by the fifty seventh Interplanetary Conference for the Well-Being of Life in the Universe, to have access to faster than light space travel for the uses of commerce and exploration."
"Doctor, we are well aware of the rights you are guaranteed, but we cannot, in good faith, approve of this method of travel just as we could not approve of your, what was it? Oreo Project?"
"Project Orion, Sir."
"Yes, that one... We are sorry, but we cannot approve these plans."
"Our small scale tests have shown that this is a very efficient and safe mode of travel, our simulations have shown the same, as did the large scale test on our moon. Based on the evidence provided, you cannot disapprove of our plan."
Yes, but there is currently concern coming from the Ethics Board on the matter and they are worried about it's possible implications for war as well as the potential ethical concerns over some of the mechanical aspects of your device. For the spoken record, Doctor, could you please explain the technical aspects of your device to the rest of the comity gather here today?"
"Our current model for achieving faster than light travel is based around the use of a coil-gun, or static discharge cannon, powered by the static charge gathered by a toroidal quartz crystal we would put into orbit around our planet. The crystal would be spun by solar winds generated by our local star and the power would be converted into high amplitude, low frequency, radio waves so the power can be transmitted wirelessly to a capacitor bank on our moon where the cannon would be located."
"That being all well and good, could you state, for the record, the medium you are using to generate the static electricity?
"Um, cats, Sir. Members of the feline species native to our planet. We have found their ability for generating static electricity has no rivals. But if you would like, for the sake of the Ethics Board, we can run some tests on other organic materials and possibly synthetics materials."
"Thank you, we'll see you again in two Florms. Meeting adjured." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Kalgor looked at the pale skined human in utter shock. 'They couldn't be serious in thinking that the rest of the galactic community would simply accept the use of this kind of technology'
“Mr. Adams...” Kalgor began.
“Doctor Adams if you don't mind Count Kalgor.” Dr. Adams corrected, he knew that if he didn't demand respect now that it would be harder to earn it back later. As it stood he could tell that the reptilian xeno that stood before him was not pleased with what had been unveiled only a hour ago in the space dock that was right outside his office window right now.
“Yes Dr.Adams. You must understand that of the various forms of FTL drive in use in the galaxy what you have unveiled here today is at best going to be seen as unsafe at best or outright dangerous to some in the galaxy.” He was struggling to keep the panic out of his voice, but despite his many deca-cycles of experience in diplomacy the very skill that had made him chosen as the Galactic Senate's emissary to the up and coming human race, he was begin to fail.
“Count with all due respect I fail to see what the overall difference is between our own hyperdrive and the Delfanit pulse tube drive or the Kantian gate system they all use hyperspace gravity waves to achieve FTL speeds.”
Kalgor's voice broke. “But you are punching holes in space to reach hyperspace!”
“So?” the Doctor responded nonchalantly.
“The Kantian's use a physical gateway to control entry into hyperspace and the Delfanit's use natural gravity currents to slip into hyperspace. Your system just punches holes into the fabric of space! Even our scientists can't tell if making those holes will not bring about the complete tearing of reality as we know it.”
Kalgor again reasserted some control over himself and continued.
“I know that this is a major milestone for humanity and means that you will not have to pay for the use of other species drive systems in your ships which will transform your economy and your military forces. But this is too dangerous besides, what possible advantages could this drive have over the other forms of FTL?”
Adams knew that this moment would be coming sooner or later and that he had to make the most it.
“So glad you could ask Count. The Kantian's gate system requires a massive amount of energy in order to not only open the entryway to hyperspace both for incoming and outgoing traffic, but to hold it open long enough for ships to get through. While they have relatively few systems in their Empire those that they have are spread out thus why the gate was developed. Once in system they use regular sub-light fusion drive to go from the gate to their ultimate planetary destination.”
Kalgor nodded his head as the Doctor continued.
“However due to the power requirements of just one of those gates not to mention the operating costs it would be uneconomical to have a gate at each planet.
Another thing is the time that the gate is held open effects the toll paid by merchant traffic thus why you don't see any Kantian merchant vessels over 1.5km in length. Beyond that length the ratio between hold space, engine size, and time to accelerate becomes uneconomical. They can't get moving from a stand still fast enough to go through the gate without occurring serious tolls and they can't dedicate more engine size because it cuts into their profits from loss of tonnage hauled.”
“Well... yes those are valid points but...” Kalgor stammered out but Adams didn't let up.
“The Delfanit pulse tube solves the power requirement issue and the infrastructure issue but those “tubes” where the gravity band waves are stable enough to sail on until they hit hyperspace are very restricting as they only occur naturally in a few places. This is why their Kingdom if you look at their history had periods of rapid expansion followed by long periods of solidification because goods had to travel often dozens of light years in sublight from system hubs that had these tubes thus slowing growth.”
Kalgor knew he was quickly losing ground and had little recourse as any other drive system that was used in the galaxy had similar glaring issues that were simply accepted.
The Maltiun wave-riders used massive 20km+ gravity sails to ride the same gravity waves as the Delfanit but instead of entering hyperspace they rode ever more powerful waves and were not limited in where they could go for the most part. But the system was high maintenance and very tonnage sensitive as the larger the vessel the longer it took for that vessel reach FTL speeds. The largest ships the species built took at least a standard week to get up to speed and then another week to slow down.
Salec skip drives on the other hand actually sent gravity anchor beams to latch onto hyperspace currents and pull the ship along technically “skipping” on the envelope between real space and hyperspace. The down side is that the anchors can only hold for so long and the power requirements while nothing like Kantians as this wasn't actually entering hyperspace. Meant that they could only skip anywhere from 20 to 100 lightyears depending on the ships configuration before having to recharge their anchoring system, which could take a standard day or up to a week on the largest shipping vessels. Still faster than going at sub light speeds for sure but it meant long travel times for goods.
“Our system allows us to enter hyperspace at will, with no concerns about ship mass, size, or power production beyond engine thrust which combined with our already recognized and accepted superior fusion engine designs, means that we can potentially travel from one side of the galaxy to the other in a month. At least if you are willing to burn that much H3 fuel which even then is more a matter of being inconvenienced with having to stop for fuel rather than any sort of cost consideration.”
The silence in the office was deafening as Kalgor stepped towards the window and looked upon the vessel.
“But the holes Doctor! You may have a system that doesn't have the others drawbacks but we are talking about ripping apart space itself.”
“Count Kalgor I am growing weary of this repeated falsehood. We have be using the same points in orbit to develop this system for over a standard year, and every time we have gone we have had to open a new hole as the last one closed once the vessel is through. Beyond the gravity wake left by the opening you can't tell any thing happened at all after 24 to 36 hours. It is safe.”
“The Senate will not accept this...” Kalgor started hoping he was right to bank on the repugnant nature of this very concept.
“They might not now but they will when they see the Eli Whitney.” Adams spoke ominously. He turned on the large holotank in the middle of the room. The image displayed a monstrous vessel.”
Kalgor turned around and his eyes went wide at the image.
“Is this a warship?” He asked as the ever growing list of implications in his head grew with each passing second.
“No my Count, it is not. It is a merchant vessel commissioned by the Wal-Mart Cartel. She is 75km long, over 2km tall with 12 50-Petawatt fusion reactors with a top estimated FTL speed of 50 but will likely run at 10 to save on fuel costs as such speed is generally unneeded. The whole vessel weighs over 500 million tons 490 of which is hold space capable of hauling virtually anything you can think of. She is going out for trials in a hour then if all goes well she will make a fully loaded iron ore run from the Sol system to Peraxus VII and its heavy industry there. And given that the Senate is on Peraxus V the Eli will make a pass and see if there is anything that needs to be shipped back here to Earth on the return trip.”
As the Doctor finished Kalgor could feel his heart tighten at the size of the vessel and its speed. It would be in the Peraxus system in 3 days, even if he left now in one of the fastest vessels money could buy now he couldn't hope to get there in anything less than 12 days.
“You humans are reckless and unorthodox beyond anything I have ever heard of in my life. But I can't argue with the results.” Kalgor finally stated any hope of resistance gone as the pragmatic side of him knew that economically humanity had, in 10 years after first contact blown every other power in the galaxy out of the water. Another voice his is head whispered about what would happen if mankind made warships on such a scale.
“Well Doctor I don't see any point in arguing anymore but if you can let me on this vessel and join me in the senate with your research especially on the whole hole-punching-then-closing-up-perfectly part, then maybe we can avoid starting a bigger galactic panic then what we absolutely have to.”
“Of course Count I'm already packed and I have made such arrangements already. We can leave once the ship has gone through its final trials.” The Doctor proudly stated. | "Surely you can't be serious?" Said one of the Xygian scientists to the Human delegation.
"I am serious, and don't call me Shirley." Replied Dr. Filmer before receiving a high-five from one of the other members of the delegation.
The Xygians continued "We cannot, in good faith, approve of this travel mechanism. Your planned use of toroidal quartz crystal will not be allowed by the Planetary Planning Board."
"We are guaranteed by our rights, as dictated by the fifty seventh Interplanetary Conference for the Well-Being of Life in the Universe, to have access to faster than light space travel for the uses of commerce and exploration."
"Doctor, we are well aware of the rights you are guaranteed, but we cannot, in good faith, approve of this method of travel just as we could not approve of your, what was it? Oreo Project?"
"Project Orion, Sir."
"Yes, that one... We are sorry, but we cannot approve these plans."
"Our small scale tests have shown that this is a very efficient and safe mode of travel, our simulations have shown the same, as did the large scale test on our moon. Based on the evidence provided, you cannot disapprove of our plan."
Yes, but there is currently concern coming from the Ethics Board on the matter and they are worried about it's possible implications for war as well as the potential ethical concerns over some of the mechanical aspects of your device. For the spoken record, Doctor, could you please explain the technical aspects of your device to the rest of the comity gather here today?"
"Our current model for achieving faster than light travel is based around the use of a coil-gun, or static discharge cannon, powered by the static charge gathered by a toroidal quartz crystal we would put into orbit around our planet. The crystal would be spun by solar winds generated by our local star and the power would be converted into high amplitude, low frequency, radio waves so the power can be transmitted wirelessly to a capacitor bank on our moon where the cannon would be located."
"That being all well and good, could you state, for the record, the medium you are using to generate the static electricity?
"Um, cats, Sir. Members of the feline species native to our planet. We have found their ability for generating static electricity has no rivals. But if you would like, for the sake of the Ethics Board, we can run some tests on other organic materials and possibly synthetics materials."
"Thank you, we'll see you again in two Florms. Meeting adjured." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "Idiot fuk human design shit-tier spaceship get all Brogga friend kill't. End all. Stoopt fuk. E'ryon kno warp spacetime. E'ryon kno break litspeeding. E'ryon kno crate warm hole. E'ryon kno cut mass half. E'yron cept idiot fuk humans. Y d'sign dumb shit-tier drive can't fi'ure out nuttin'. Cant warp spacetime. Cant break litspeeding. Cant crate warm hole. Cant cut mass. 'Stead idiot fuk human burrow down subquark stangelet bullshit risk implode entire quadrant for fuk newmatter. Y? Too dumb, tha's y. Now Brogga stuk dumb idiot fuk human ship on oth'r side galactic spinward fr'home. Idiot fuk human get Brogga kill't, get Brogga friend kill't..."
The muttering was cut off by a bang, followed by curses unutterable by the tongues of men. Poor old Brogga had been clanking about underneath the hullward dash for the last three days, almost without a break, muttering the entire time.
Say what he would, Brogga was nothing short of a mechanical genius, being the only Broggan capable of working on the Subquark-plated external combustion Engine. It took a particularly pliable mind to make an external combustion engine work, particularly when one was compressing- and burning- pure vacuum. The only real downside was the slight chance of creating decay, but if that happened it wouldn't matter as the entire tanker would be destroyed within seconds. I supposed it would have mattered to the rest of the Universe, but Brogga wouldn't have cared for he would have been the first to go.
Well, okay, there was a second slight problem. See, by burning pure vacuum they wore away a little strip of the cosmos. It was so small that it probably didn't matter, and the Universe was expanding anyways, but certain routes did get more traffic and engines were getting more efficient all the time.
"Idiot fuk human shit design fuk"
More clattering and banging from underneath the hullward dash.
"Idiot fuk human, try now"
Brogga's curses were rewarded with a shuttering rumble as the external combustion engine roared to life.
"Well that's curious" Captain Froy remarked, staring in disbelief at the guages.
Normal external combustion engines were able to operate somewhere between 10,000% and 100,000% efficiency, and for every joule of vacuum energy burned 100% efficiency would yield 10 kilo-joules.
The digital display read 10^89 % efficiency.
"Brogga, I think this gauge is busted."
"Idiot fuk human replace it then. Brogga sleeps."
Then, with customary swagger Captain Froy shoved the throttle open and pulled out, easing back into his seat for a cozy nap. However, when Captain Froy awoke several hours later he was not where he expected. In fact, he was not sure where he was at all.
You see, Brogga had accidentally upgraded their engine. Nobody saw the display, but if they had, they would have seen Brogga, Froy, and the rest of the crew tearing ass across the Universe, ripping a cosmic-scale gash in the vacuum like God's holy zipper. Of course this hole rapidly closed up, but in the time it would normally take them to travel a few hundred lightyears they had soared clear of the "observable Universe" several times over.
In fact, they had traveled so far they weren't entirely sure how to get back.
Thus began the journey of Brogga and the idiot fuk humans who wasted 600 years of his life and destroyed his capacity to speak properly. | "Surely you can't be serious?" Said one of the Xygian scientists to the Human delegation.
"I am serious, and don't call me Shirley." Replied Dr. Filmer before receiving a high-five from one of the other members of the delegation.
The Xygians continued "We cannot, in good faith, approve of this travel mechanism. Your planned use of toroidal quartz crystal will not be allowed by the Planetary Planning Board."
"We are guaranteed by our rights, as dictated by the fifty seventh Interplanetary Conference for the Well-Being of Life in the Universe, to have access to faster than light space travel for the uses of commerce and exploration."
"Doctor, we are well aware of the rights you are guaranteed, but we cannot, in good faith, approve of this method of travel just as we could not approve of your, what was it? Oreo Project?"
"Project Orion, Sir."
"Yes, that one... We are sorry, but we cannot approve these plans."
"Our small scale tests have shown that this is a very efficient and safe mode of travel, our simulations have shown the same, as did the large scale test on our moon. Based on the evidence provided, you cannot disapprove of our plan."
Yes, but there is currently concern coming from the Ethics Board on the matter and they are worried about it's possible implications for war as well as the potential ethical concerns over some of the mechanical aspects of your device. For the spoken record, Doctor, could you please explain the technical aspects of your device to the rest of the comity gather here today?"
"Our current model for achieving faster than light travel is based around the use of a coil-gun, or static discharge cannon, powered by the static charge gathered by a toroidal quartz crystal we would put into orbit around our planet. The crystal would be spun by solar winds generated by our local star and the power would be converted into high amplitude, low frequency, radio waves so the power can be transmitted wirelessly to a capacitor bank on our moon where the cannon would be located."
"That being all well and good, could you state, for the record, the medium you are using to generate the static electricity?
"Um, cats, Sir. Members of the feline species native to our planet. We have found their ability for generating static electricity has no rivals. But if you would like, for the sake of the Ethics Board, we can run some tests on other organic materials and possibly synthetics materials."
"Thank you, we'll see you again in two Florms. Meeting adjured." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Terrestrial Warp Drives. First proposed by Miguel Alcubierre two hundred formlats ago, The equivalent of forcing space into a shape which closely resembles two black holes stacked fore to aft. It requires insanely large sums of energy to produce the warp effect, equivalent to at least the mass of a small moon converted to energy. To get around this, the Terrestrials use catalytic mass converter engines. A device which has been discredited by the rest of the universe for the complete and utter destructive potential should such a reactor melt down on a planet. They work by converting matter to energy with a catalyst particle. However, they also produce a certain percent of catalyst particles. When this process runs away, it has been known to destroy planets, heavily damaging entire solar systems.
Under order 4,900,232 section III, Human spacecraft are to be classified as "NOT TO BE TOUCHED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES" on or near a planet, and "DESTROY AT ALL COSTS" in interplanetary space. This is not done as a measure against humans, but as a safety measure across the galaxy. This will be done until a treaty can be made with the terrestrial humans such that they will cease using catalytic mass converters.
Examination of a captured Terrestrial FTL Engine under the Federal Standard Gravity Model suggests that some fairly simple improvements to the Alcubierre-type drive can be made to reduce the energy requirements to what can be managed by fusion and antimatter reaction technology. They need not give up their unique drive. As dangerous as the Terrestrial Drive is, it presents no risk to those outside the vessel. | "Surely you can't be serious?" Said one of the Xygian scientists to the Human delegation.
"I am serious, and don't call me Shirley." Replied Dr. Filmer before receiving a high-five from one of the other members of the delegation.
The Xygians continued "We cannot, in good faith, approve of this travel mechanism. Your planned use of toroidal quartz crystal will not be allowed by the Planetary Planning Board."
"We are guaranteed by our rights, as dictated by the fifty seventh Interplanetary Conference for the Well-Being of Life in the Universe, to have access to faster than light space travel for the uses of commerce and exploration."
"Doctor, we are well aware of the rights you are guaranteed, but we cannot, in good faith, approve of this method of travel just as we could not approve of your, what was it? Oreo Project?"
"Project Orion, Sir."
"Yes, that one... We are sorry, but we cannot approve these plans."
"Our small scale tests have shown that this is a very efficient and safe mode of travel, our simulations have shown the same, as did the large scale test on our moon. Based on the evidence provided, you cannot disapprove of our plan."
Yes, but there is currently concern coming from the Ethics Board on the matter and they are worried about it's possible implications for war as well as the potential ethical concerns over some of the mechanical aspects of your device. For the spoken record, Doctor, could you please explain the technical aspects of your device to the rest of the comity gather here today?"
"Our current model for achieving faster than light travel is based around the use of a coil-gun, or static discharge cannon, powered by the static charge gathered by a toroidal quartz crystal we would put into orbit around our planet. The crystal would be spun by solar winds generated by our local star and the power would be converted into high amplitude, low frequency, radio waves so the power can be transmitted wirelessly to a capacitor bank on our moon where the cannon would be located."
"That being all well and good, could you state, for the record, the medium you are using to generate the static electricity?
"Um, cats, Sir. Members of the feline species native to our planet. We have found their ability for generating static electricity has no rivals. But if you would like, for the sake of the Ethics Board, we can run some tests on other organic materials and possibly synthetics materials."
"Thank you, we'll see you again in two Florms. Meeting adjured." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Xandar was fuming. 20 smismars he'd been waiting in the bowels of that horrible assembling of junk and metal the humans proudly called their *flagship of intergalactic friendship*. It was bad enough when those hairless pink monkeys made it to outer space but now they had developped a functioning FTL drive and that made them *worthy* of introduction into the Galactic Alliance.
In all his bismars as official technological investigators of the Galactic Alliance's scientific division, Xandar had never seen such a pathetic excuse for a ship. Neither he or any of his colleagues wanted to partake in this scientific inspection. They actually had to draw straws and to his utter disappointment, Xandar lost. Xarcy tried to cheer him up, noting that the human FTL drive was probably a dud anyway. Their first long distance drive was barely a stupid bedsheet catching solar wind, how could they have build a fully functioning FTL drive is such little time since.
21 smismars, where the hell was that pink ape that was supposed to show him the drive ? Xandar only wanted to get done with this and leave. The human vessel was small, cramped and much too warm for his taste. It also didn't help that everything was made to accomodate 6ft tall apes, at 9ft tall, a respectable height for a noble Glaxian like him, he was constantly banging his upper appendage on the ceiling and door frames.
Finally a metal door opened and 2 hairless apes ran toward him. The first one, pink and the second one dark brown. Fascinating thought Xandar, I've never seen such a dark colored ape. At least some decent scientific information. Maybe the science council would let him abduct such a specimen later on for testing. Humans usually didn't mind a few abduction here and there as long as you didn't touch the cows sleeping in the fields.
The 2 apes escorted Xandar to the engine room. The first thing that caught Xandar's attention was the intense heat coming from the doorway, much worst than the rest of the already hot vessel.
>Right this way Dr Xandar, you're gonna love this!
Words could barely describe the sights that laid in front of Xandar when he crossed into the room
*What the hell kind of piece of shit is that?*
>What, the FTL drive ?
>>Quite the beauty isn't she ?
The drive in question looked like a random pile of junk with tubes coming out of the sides, hot steam rising from them. The whole thing was red hot and there was a very annoying sound of pressured gas being shot into the machine at close interval. On top of the device sat 2 giant glowing green tubes.
*Are those Arthosian power cores ?*
>Yes, you have a good eye Dr Xandar.
*Where in the 5 stars did you get these ? Only a handful were ever created and the Arthosian guard them very closely*
>>We found them!
>Of yeah, came upon a space wreck near Alpha Centory IV and we managed to recover quite a lot of technology from it.
*Wait wait... you stole them from a broken ship ?*
>Not stole, never. We found them.
>>Space salvage!
*Does the Arthosian empire know you're using stolen tech ?*
>I dunno, they never complained about it before you brought it up.
Xandar was flaggerbasted, these hairless apes weren't just stupid, they were a menace.
*Fine, walk me trough it*
>Oh you're gonna love this doc. By stripping the neutrino element of the 2 power cores and jerryrigging them together, we managed to create a power unit strong enough to blast trough the fabric of spacetime, and into the slipstream.
*Wait a minute, you stripped the power core of its protective shielding ?*
>Why yes.
>>It was really annoying really, hiding all the good stuff.
*ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS! Those a radiation shielding, this stuff is extremely dangerous*
>I know that, we all know that
>>It needed to be done. Beside, we added some plasma shielding to it.
>Yes, it should do the job... enough.
*Jesus fucking christ.... continue*
>Well, as I was saying, the drive allows us to punch our way into the slipstream and from there we can modify the flow of radiation emited by the power cores, enabling us to navigate different planes of the stream.
>>It's like a chose you own adventure travel book. Add a gamma variant to the radiation cocktail and you can move faster, replace it by a theta variant and you can navigate, for lack of a better word, "UP" into the 4th dimension.
*How do you exit the slipstreem ?*
>Well, we found that injecting a low level ion isopote directly into the power core will create an instability in the stream that causes the ship to be ejected, albeith rather violently.
>>Yes, the first test vessel exploded on exit.
*My god, this is catastrophic*
>We thought so to, so insted we just shut off the drive and the ship gets ejected much more softly.
*What... no! I mean... this whole system is horrible...*
>It's not so bad once you work out the kinks
*But how.... this must be ridiculously unstable !?*
>Oh boy... that's an understatement
>>You have to understand, all this only works if we keep the core overheated to exactly 3,568 degrees.
>Oh yes, any variation of over 2.75 degrees and the whole thing would go kablewy
*This is nuts, how do you maintain the temperature ? I see no adaptive secluar temporal module anywhere*
>Don't have one
>>Yeah, this fancy stuff is much too complicated and too hard to get your hands on.
>For now we use a system of pressure injected water and nitrogen
*You forcecool it under pressure ?*
>Exactly! I knew you'd get it doc.
>>We alternate between injecting pressurized water and nitrogen to cool off the core with a 1.5 seconds interval between each injection
*What?.... that's....how!?*
>You know.... too hot, blast it with nitrogen. Too cold, switch to water. Perfect temperature, do nothing. We evaluate the temperature every 2 seconds and Frank over there pulls the switch to inject the correct cooling substance.
*So none of this is automated ?*
>Nah, we're hoping to find a suitable automated cooling mechanism soon though.
*Like what? A water tin can on a string with a hole on the bottom ?*
>>Well no that's.... hey that's actually a good idea
>Yeah, we should look into that.
*Allright.... not taking into consideration the immense safety concern, not to mention decent common sens, this thing appears extremely dangerous and also in violation of at least a dozen galactic regulations on plasma use and timestream protocoles, and that's just for starters*
>Really?
>>Well that's a bummer for sure
*I must ask, with all this violent punching around the slipstream, how does your system deal with excess radiations and temporal aftershock effects ?*
>Come again ?
*The extreme side effects of your shitty system!!*
>Oh that. I dunno, whatever happens in the slipstream stays in the slipstream I guess.
>>Yeah, I mean it's not like we plan on living in the stream you know. It's just a highway. You roll down the window and throw your trash out.
*Over 15 sentient species live in the stream, 4 of wich are official members of the Galactic Alliance.*
>Really, people live in there ?
*YES, THEY DO!*
>Well that's fucking stupid.
>>yeah, who in their right mind lives in a galactic highway ? That's dangerous, somebody could get hurt!
>And they call US crazy ? | "Surely you can't be serious?" Said one of the Xygian scientists to the Human delegation.
"I am serious, and don't call me Shirley." Replied Dr. Filmer before receiving a high-five from one of the other members of the delegation.
The Xygians continued "We cannot, in good faith, approve of this travel mechanism. Your planned use of toroidal quartz crystal will not be allowed by the Planetary Planning Board."
"We are guaranteed by our rights, as dictated by the fifty seventh Interplanetary Conference for the Well-Being of Life in the Universe, to have access to faster than light space travel for the uses of commerce and exploration."
"Doctor, we are well aware of the rights you are guaranteed, but we cannot, in good faith, approve of this method of travel just as we could not approve of your, what was it? Oreo Project?"
"Project Orion, Sir."
"Yes, that one... We are sorry, but we cannot approve these plans."
"Our small scale tests have shown that this is a very efficient and safe mode of travel, our simulations have shown the same, as did the large scale test on our moon. Based on the evidence provided, you cannot disapprove of our plan."
Yes, but there is currently concern coming from the Ethics Board on the matter and they are worried about it's possible implications for war as well as the potential ethical concerns over some of the mechanical aspects of your device. For the spoken record, Doctor, could you please explain the technical aspects of your device to the rest of the comity gather here today?"
"Our current model for achieving faster than light travel is based around the use of a coil-gun, or static discharge cannon, powered by the static charge gathered by a toroidal quartz crystal we would put into orbit around our planet. The crystal would be spun by solar winds generated by our local star and the power would be converted into high amplitude, low frequency, radio waves so the power can be transmitted wirelessly to a capacitor bank on our moon where the cannon would be located."
"That being all well and good, could you state, for the record, the medium you are using to generate the static electricity?
"Um, cats, Sir. Members of the feline species native to our planet. We have found their ability for generating static electricity has no rivals. But if you would like, for the sake of the Ethics Board, we can run some tests on other organic materials and possibly synthetics materials."
"Thank you, we'll see you again in two Florms. Meeting adjured." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The chamber illumination dimmed and the milky sim tank faded to life. A thousand eyes stared intently from the council benches, and a trillion more from across the five galaxies.
A deep voice, set on edge with urgency and well-contained fear, began its narration of the sim.
"The Brevis' star system surveillance node 47 has, it has been reported, recorded first contact with the species self-identifying as Humans. This much has already been announced. What has not yet been announced is that an analysis of the event has been completed, and their method of travel has thrown a black flag, gamma zero priority. Observe."
The sim showed a small moon below, surrounded by a halo of probes similar to the one that must be recording the image. In the far distance, the volumetric compensation showed a grossly enlarged blue planet on another orbital track, the Brevis' home world Herol. The orbital motion of the probes had been smooth and obvious, but now they slowed.
"We are showing the event at a reduced speed. Watch carefully."
Without warning, the entire projection dimmed as a single point of incredible, actinic light burst from the space next to the moon and raced away from its surface. As one, the closer orbiting probes glowed white-hot and began to disintegrate. The image wavered and then froze.
"Now, focus your attention on the exact location this phenomenon appeared, and keep your attention on that spot as the light moves away."
The image reversed, and the killing glow moved back to its original location. It slowly crept back outwards as the sim zoomed in. There, in the wake of the glow, was a ship, shaped like a mushroom with its cap to the light. Vaporised hull matter streamed from the smooth side facing the light, some sort of ablative heat shielding.
"We had never seen this effect before. We assumed it was some sort of deceleration technique, until we looked at it from the planetary defence network."
The perspective in the sim shifted, as if travelling to the distant planet. The moon and its halo of probes shrank, then grew again due to the volumetric compensation. The sim was normal again for a moment, before that terrible light appeared, an incredible distance from the moon this time, and immediately split into two lights, travelling away from each other at greater than the speed of light.
An audible click reverberated around the chamber as each of the species in attendance simultaneously inhaled on their breathing apparatuses.
"As you can see, the motion of the light is a relativistic illusion. The light doesn't travel, it exists simultaneously at all points in a column for a moment, then dissipates. The energy requirement is staggering. After calculating an intercept to the closest habitable world on the trajectory described by the light column, it appears their world is four hundred light-years away. The humans claim a similar distance, and their navigational data also confirm it. From this we can calculate the energy release as being consistent with a type III civilisation."
What had previously been a gentle series of clicks was now a cacophony, the seats shaking with the bodily gyrations of the assembled dignitaries. Some wailed, others laughed, most were silent.
"We have brought the leader of the human expedition here, with her agreement, of course."
The noises of discomfort reached a crashing crescendo, as several of the delegates jumped out of their seats and bolted for the exit.
The disembodied voice thundered, "ORDER!"
"I present to you, Chakor, Human, of planet Earth."
The creature that stepped into the chamber was unimpressive, physically. Bipedal, endoskeletal, wearing some sort of almost completely covering clothing with various decals affixed to it. The remaining delegates seemed to calm a little, their agitation lowering to a gentle swaying. The Human addressed the crowd.
"Greetings, delegates of the local group. My name is Chakor, I represent my species, Human, and wish to express our honour in meeting you all. We come in peace."
The room quietened further, and the booming voice sounded again. "Chakor will now take moderated questions from the floor. Please enter your queries for analysis and amalgamation."
A few awkward moments passed, Chakor looking out among the delegates. They varied from bipeds with heads and arms of various number to floating creatures in some sort of water tanks, through to creatures much more... alien.
"First question. The energy output of your drive technology is beyond immense. You must be capturing the energy output of most of a galaxy, somewhere. How can it be that we have not noticed the birth of a type III civilisation under our watch?"
Chakor paused to think before she replied, clearly confused. "We are not a type III civilisation. We are barely a type I. We just discovered a way to manipulate the nature of reality."
The voice didn't even wait to consult the accumulating list of vetted questions. "What?! How?"
"When we accidentally created and shot a cluster of miniature black holes through our particle collider's detectors, we discovered that the vacuum of space was not at the true ground state of the universe. This lent is an opportunity to use the difference in energy levels to complete an until-then hypothetical method of propulsion."
The room exploded into roars, gurgles, and screeches of outrage.
"Your drive is powered by triggering a collapse of fundamental reality?!"
"Not quite, if you'd let me finish. After we discovered the false vacuum was the current skein of the universe, we found that at the moment of triggering a vacuum state collapse, it was possible to entangle an arbitrary length of vacuum in a beam away from the source, and trigger the collapse simultaneously and instantaneously along that path."
Guards in the chamber drew their weapons as several delegates rose on their hindlimbs as if to attack.
"Chakor, this is madness! Your drive cannot work as you describe, or we wouldn't have any video of your arrival. A vacuum collapse would spread from wherever it started at the speed of light, unmaking the universe in its path!"
"Oh, yes we knew that. It turns out that the vacuum collapse provides enough energy to fold space into itself. In local proximity, one side of the event becomes the other. The space in between is clipped off like a twisted balloon, erased from having any bearing on existence. Our ship is instantaneously folded from one side of the beam to the other, and internal fields save us from having any biological changes. Of course, the collapse has to happen first by a few fractions of a microsecond, so there is some... energy leakage."
The chamber went suddenly silent.
The probe and planetary defence system had recorded an abomination, a gross violation of reality itself. The demonic light fleeing the Humans' strange vessel was the energetic corpse of a monster, come to open its maw and swallow the universe, inexorably, at the glacial speed of light. A fitting technology for a pursuit predator like the humans.
"You risk all our existence just to travel. How can we leave you free run of the galaxies?"
Chakor grinned. "We could always run one last wide beam to the ends of the universe and neglect to fold it away. How can you not?" | "Surely you can't be serious?" Said one of the Xygian scientists to the Human delegation.
"I am serious, and don't call me Shirley." Replied Dr. Filmer before receiving a high-five from one of the other members of the delegation.
The Xygians continued "We cannot, in good faith, approve of this travel mechanism. Your planned use of toroidal quartz crystal will not be allowed by the Planetary Planning Board."
"We are guaranteed by our rights, as dictated by the fifty seventh Interplanetary Conference for the Well-Being of Life in the Universe, to have access to faster than light space travel for the uses of commerce and exploration."
"Doctor, we are well aware of the rights you are guaranteed, but we cannot, in good faith, approve of this method of travel just as we could not approve of your, what was it? Oreo Project?"
"Project Orion, Sir."
"Yes, that one... We are sorry, but we cannot approve these plans."
"Our small scale tests have shown that this is a very efficient and safe mode of travel, our simulations have shown the same, as did the large scale test on our moon. Based on the evidence provided, you cannot disapprove of our plan."
Yes, but there is currently concern coming from the Ethics Board on the matter and they are worried about it's possible implications for war as well as the potential ethical concerns over some of the mechanical aspects of your device. For the spoken record, Doctor, could you please explain the technical aspects of your device to the rest of the comity gather here today?"
"Our current model for achieving faster than light travel is based around the use of a coil-gun, or static discharge cannon, powered by the static charge gathered by a toroidal quartz crystal we would put into orbit around our planet. The crystal would be spun by solar winds generated by our local star and the power would be converted into high amplitude, low frequency, radio waves so the power can be transmitted wirelessly to a capacitor bank on our moon where the cannon would be located."
"That being all well and good, could you state, for the record, the medium you are using to generate the static electricity?
"Um, cats, Sir. Members of the feline species native to our planet. We have found their ability for generating static electricity has no rivals. But if you would like, for the sake of the Ethics Board, we can run some tests on other organic materials and possibly synthetics materials."
"Thank you, we'll see you again in two Florms. Meeting adjured." | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | “We must keep the Humans believing that their FTL system is unsafe, unorthodox and damn stupid. That is the point of this of this Special Hearing of The Supreme Council of the New Species Traveling Faster than Light. I am Farlack, Supreme Councilor of the Organization of Galactic Legal Advisors. ^(legal disclaimer: Norepresentationismadethatthequalityofthelegalgalacticservicestobeperformedisgreaterthanthequalityoflegalservicesperformedbyotherlawyers).
“Scarlacc, will you please read the minutes from the last session to allow this Supeme Council to aware of the latest current legal status of the Humans.?”
“Of course. That would be Sub-Section 7 of Section 30 of the 5th meeting of the Council of Dealing with and Controlling the Humans.
“It has been discovered that the Humans have developed a completely new FTL travel, with no related or similar technologies in the known Galaxy. The core of this FTL is a bubble of a universe where the speed of light is 1000 times faster than the speed of light is in our legally defined universe is pulled to our universe. The Human ships then travel at .1 c in this alternate universe. Upon exiting this alternate universe, the human ships have travelled 1000 times the distance in our universe. The energy expense of travelling in the alternate universe is the same as travelling in our univ-“
“Sarlacc, this Council is not interested in the technical aspects of the Humans FTL Technologies. That discussion is for the Galactic Council of Technology Equalization and/or The Council of Equalization of Galactic Technologies and/or Council of Galactic Technology Equalization. Ballzacc, will you present the Summary of the Social Legal Issues of the Humans Council meeting?”
“Of course. Due to the extremely dangerous situation these Humans create for us, I will dispense with extraneous discussion and proceed to the summary of the meeting, as permitted in The Rules and Guides of the Supreme Galactic Committee and The Guides and Rules of the Supreme Galactic Committee, version 2 of edition 5, Copyrighted.
“The Humans have a social system that may lead to our death and destruction. The humans developed their FTL without our influence and guidance, so we were unable to control their technology with the powers of the Galactic Patent Office. This failure was due to their rapid technological development. In the span of 6 human generations, they progressed from animal driven power to FTL travel. During the final Human pre-FTL travel, Humans revolted against their legal system and killed all lawyers allow-“
“They did WHAT?” interrupred Farlack. “How do they maintain their society without legal protections?”
“They became disgusted with a legal system that required warning labels to not drive their “automobile” with the windshield sunscreen in place. As I was saying, this allowed generations of research and development to be done in half a generation. And we can not control their technology.” Ballzacc completed his summary, terror beginning to creep into its face.
“Oh my supreme being. When the common people of the Galaxy learn of this… no lawyers…no lifelong Legal Guidance fees…” Farlack began to understand the lack of his future.
“Yes. This Council and all others, we will be destroyed”
“Yes, their technology is unorthodox, unsafe, and damn stupid, but for reasons the Galaxy must never understand.”
| The First Ambassador to Humanity swirled idly in its container and moved to the next item on its list.
"Your FTL technology", it asked the panel of assembled human leaders, "How does it work?"
The humans exchanged surprised looks. The one at the end of the panel eventually speaking.
"You mean the Confounder?"
"If that is what you call it, yes."
"Well it... it slows the light down."
The First Ambassador frowned. Or at least, it came as close to frowning as one can when one is a mass of liquid in a hermetically sealed tank.
"I do not understand", it replied, "How does this help?"
It was a different human who replied this time, the large one at the head of the panel
"It slows the light down so we can overtake it", he snapped. "What's so hard to understand about that?"
The Ambassador thickened as it took a moment to process this statement.
"This... does not reduce your travel time".
"Who said anything about that?", the chief human asked irritably. "It's not about getting places, it's about showing the light who's boss! It's about proving a point!". He jabbed his thumb against his chest. "We wanted to be the fastest thing in the universe, and now we are!".
The Ambassador thickened further, rapidly losing faith in this species' fitness to join the intergalactic community.
"Let me rephrase my question," it said. "You received a summons to this meeting approximately five of your days ago. How did you travel the light years between this point and your planet in that time?".
"Ooh". A third human spoke this time. "It wants to know about the Shuffle".
A collection of mutters resounded among the rest of the panel, the large one saying something about "...not really *travel* is it?". Once they had stilled the third human continued speaking.
"It's quite simply really. Getting to faraway places is hard, so the Shuffle just swaps bits of space around until the part we want is next to us". She gave the Ambassador a vacant smile.
Its slow swishing motion gradually stilled as understanding set in. The ships that found themselves light years from their destination, stranded without food or air. The civilised worlds torn from their orbits and flung into deep space. The black holes appearing from nowhere, devouring entire star systems of inhabited plants. Literally boiling with anger, the First Ambassador closed it's communication channel to the humans and opened a new one to the Galactic Council.
*There would be war* | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "So, about the humans..." Said a voice with diplomatic neutrality.
Groans from a myriad of different species' voices could be heard throughout the conference hall. There was a meeting being held on how to properly welcome these new, strange creatures now that they had, technically, at least, achieved Faster Than Light travel.
"We organised this meeting to discuss them! When are you all going to stop pussyfooting around the issue!?" The same voice declared, with a level of anger hard to believe considering their tone mere seconds ago.
"Blarpart, I know you're a workaholic and all that but have you SEEN these...creature's form of FTL "travel"?" A gruff voice from somewhere in the hall responded over the din of arguing and groans of "are we really fucking doing this?"
"I agree that it's...unconventional but-"
The word "unconventional" being used to describe human beings' method of intergalactic travel caused an uproar among the crowd.
"Hey! HEY! HEYYYYYY!" Interjected Blarpart with an odd mixture of rage, impatience and exhaustion. "It works for them, who are we to judge?"
"Don't you get it? They use possibly the most unstable thing in the universe, a wormhole, and pump it with a load of who knows what to make it last more than a nanosecond and to a greater size than a few atoms and just *sigh* go through it and hope for the best"
"As I said, uncon-" Blarpart thought better of using *that* word again and instead chose to deflect the conversation in the hopes of finishing and grabbing something from a Space Denny's on the way home.
"Ok, how about we just ignore them? They're not going to last long as a species if THAT'S how they traverse space. From our observations, their 'wormhole jumping' has about an 80% chance of failure. All in favour?"
A chorus of relieved "aye"s reverberated throughout the room.
"All opposed?"
...
"Well then, that settles i-"
"YOU FUCKING WOT, M8?" A voice shouted from just outside the hall.
"Can I go without being interrupted for ONE MINUTE?" Blarpart said in an exasperated sigh.
And with that, a duo of humans, one tall with brown hair and the other short with black hair, burst into the hall with their bottles of what they call "Mountain Dew" and bags of "Doritos" and started going on about how we can't "diss" them like that.
"You know what? Fuck these alien squares, wanna go piss into a black hole?" The taller one said.
"Yeah, dude. Definitely." The shorter one replied with an almost endearing level of excitement at the prospect.
And with that, the duo left as quickly as they had entered.
"What just happened?" A member of the crowd ask with a disbelieving tone.
"...Humanity. Humanity happened" said Blarpart, with yet another sigh.
Spelling and removing the pretentious "fin". | The First Ambassador to Humanity swirled idly in its container and moved to the next item on its list.
"Your FTL technology", it asked the panel of assembled human leaders, "How does it work?"
The humans exchanged surprised looks. The one at the end of the panel eventually speaking.
"You mean the Confounder?"
"If that is what you call it, yes."
"Well it... it slows the light down."
The First Ambassador frowned. Or at least, it came as close to frowning as one can when one is a mass of liquid in a hermetically sealed tank.
"I do not understand", it replied, "How does this help?"
It was a different human who replied this time, the large one at the head of the panel
"It slows the light down so we can overtake it", he snapped. "What's so hard to understand about that?"
The Ambassador thickened as it took a moment to process this statement.
"This... does not reduce your travel time".
"Who said anything about that?", the chief human asked irritably. "It's not about getting places, it's about showing the light who's boss! It's about proving a point!". He jabbed his thumb against his chest. "We wanted to be the fastest thing in the universe, and now we are!".
The Ambassador thickened further, rapidly losing faith in this species' fitness to join the intergalactic community.
"Let me rephrase my question," it said. "You received a summons to this meeting approximately five of your days ago. How did you travel the light years between this point and your planet in that time?".
"Ooh". A third human spoke this time. "It wants to know about the Shuffle".
A collection of mutters resounded among the rest of the panel, the large one saying something about "...not really *travel* is it?". Once they had stilled the third human continued speaking.
"It's quite simply really. Getting to faraway places is hard, so the Shuffle just swaps bits of space around until the part we want is next to us". She gave the Ambassador a vacant smile.
Its slow swishing motion gradually stilled as understanding set in. The ships that found themselves light years from their destination, stranded without food or air. The civilised worlds torn from their orbits and flung into deep space. The black holes appearing from nowhere, devouring entire star systems of inhabited plants. Literally boiling with anger, the First Ambassador closed it's communication channel to the humans and opened a new one to the Galactic Council.
*There would be war* | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Kalgor looked at the pale skined human in utter shock. 'They couldn't be serious in thinking that the rest of the galactic community would simply accept the use of this kind of technology'
“Mr. Adams...” Kalgor began.
“Doctor Adams if you don't mind Count Kalgor.” Dr. Adams corrected, he knew that if he didn't demand respect now that it would be harder to earn it back later. As it stood he could tell that the reptilian xeno that stood before him was not pleased with what had been unveiled only a hour ago in the space dock that was right outside his office window right now.
“Yes Dr.Adams. You must understand that of the various forms of FTL drive in use in the galaxy what you have unveiled here today is at best going to be seen as unsafe at best or outright dangerous to some in the galaxy.” He was struggling to keep the panic out of his voice, but despite his many deca-cycles of experience in diplomacy the very skill that had made him chosen as the Galactic Senate's emissary to the up and coming human race, he was begin to fail.
“Count with all due respect I fail to see what the overall difference is between our own hyperdrive and the Delfanit pulse tube drive or the Kantian gate system they all use hyperspace gravity waves to achieve FTL speeds.”
Kalgor's voice broke. “But you are punching holes in space to reach hyperspace!”
“So?” the Doctor responded nonchalantly.
“The Kantian's use a physical gateway to control entry into hyperspace and the Delfanit's use natural gravity currents to slip into hyperspace. Your system just punches holes into the fabric of space! Even our scientists can't tell if making those holes will not bring about the complete tearing of reality as we know it.”
Kalgor again reasserted some control over himself and continued.
“I know that this is a major milestone for humanity and means that you will not have to pay for the use of other species drive systems in your ships which will transform your economy and your military forces. But this is too dangerous besides, what possible advantages could this drive have over the other forms of FTL?”
Adams knew that this moment would be coming sooner or later and that he had to make the most it.
“So glad you could ask Count. The Kantian's gate system requires a massive amount of energy in order to not only open the entryway to hyperspace both for incoming and outgoing traffic, but to hold it open long enough for ships to get through. While they have relatively few systems in their Empire those that they have are spread out thus why the gate was developed. Once in system they use regular sub-light fusion drive to go from the gate to their ultimate planetary destination.”
Kalgor nodded his head as the Doctor continued.
“However due to the power requirements of just one of those gates not to mention the operating costs it would be uneconomical to have a gate at each planet.
Another thing is the time that the gate is held open effects the toll paid by merchant traffic thus why you don't see any Kantian merchant vessels over 1.5km in length. Beyond that length the ratio between hold space, engine size, and time to accelerate becomes uneconomical. They can't get moving from a stand still fast enough to go through the gate without occurring serious tolls and they can't dedicate more engine size because it cuts into their profits from loss of tonnage hauled.”
“Well... yes those are valid points but...” Kalgor stammered out but Adams didn't let up.
“The Delfanit pulse tube solves the power requirement issue and the infrastructure issue but those “tubes” where the gravity band waves are stable enough to sail on until they hit hyperspace are very restricting as they only occur naturally in a few places. This is why their Kingdom if you look at their history had periods of rapid expansion followed by long periods of solidification because goods had to travel often dozens of light years in sublight from system hubs that had these tubes thus slowing growth.”
Kalgor knew he was quickly losing ground and had little recourse as any other drive system that was used in the galaxy had similar glaring issues that were simply accepted.
The Maltiun wave-riders used massive 20km+ gravity sails to ride the same gravity waves as the Delfanit but instead of entering hyperspace they rode ever more powerful waves and were not limited in where they could go for the most part. But the system was high maintenance and very tonnage sensitive as the larger the vessel the longer it took for that vessel reach FTL speeds. The largest ships the species built took at least a standard week to get up to speed and then another week to slow down.
Salec skip drives on the other hand actually sent gravity anchor beams to latch onto hyperspace currents and pull the ship along technically “skipping” on the envelope between real space and hyperspace. The down side is that the anchors can only hold for so long and the power requirements while nothing like Kantians as this wasn't actually entering hyperspace. Meant that they could only skip anywhere from 20 to 100 lightyears depending on the ships configuration before having to recharge their anchoring system, which could take a standard day or up to a week on the largest shipping vessels. Still faster than going at sub light speeds for sure but it meant long travel times for goods.
“Our system allows us to enter hyperspace at will, with no concerns about ship mass, size, or power production beyond engine thrust which combined with our already recognized and accepted superior fusion engine designs, means that we can potentially travel from one side of the galaxy to the other in a month. At least if you are willing to burn that much H3 fuel which even then is more a matter of being inconvenienced with having to stop for fuel rather than any sort of cost consideration.”
The silence in the office was deafening as Kalgor stepped towards the window and looked upon the vessel.
“But the holes Doctor! You may have a system that doesn't have the others drawbacks but we are talking about ripping apart space itself.”
“Count Kalgor I am growing weary of this repeated falsehood. We have be using the same points in orbit to develop this system for over a standard year, and every time we have gone we have had to open a new hole as the last one closed once the vessel is through. Beyond the gravity wake left by the opening you can't tell any thing happened at all after 24 to 36 hours. It is safe.”
“The Senate will not accept this...” Kalgor started hoping he was right to bank on the repugnant nature of this very concept.
“They might not now but they will when they see the Eli Whitney.” Adams spoke ominously. He turned on the large holotank in the middle of the room. The image displayed a monstrous vessel.”
Kalgor turned around and his eyes went wide at the image.
“Is this a warship?” He asked as the ever growing list of implications in his head grew with each passing second.
“No my Count, it is not. It is a merchant vessel commissioned by the Wal-Mart Cartel. She is 75km long, over 2km tall with 12 50-Petawatt fusion reactors with a top estimated FTL speed of 50 but will likely run at 10 to save on fuel costs as such speed is generally unneeded. The whole vessel weighs over 500 million tons 490 of which is hold space capable of hauling virtually anything you can think of. She is going out for trials in a hour then if all goes well she will make a fully loaded iron ore run from the Sol system to Peraxus VII and its heavy industry there. And given that the Senate is on Peraxus V the Eli will make a pass and see if there is anything that needs to be shipped back here to Earth on the return trip.”
As the Doctor finished Kalgor could feel his heart tighten at the size of the vessel and its speed. It would be in the Peraxus system in 3 days, even if he left now in one of the fastest vessels money could buy now he couldn't hope to get there in anything less than 12 days.
“You humans are reckless and unorthodox beyond anything I have ever heard of in my life. But I can't argue with the results.” Kalgor finally stated any hope of resistance gone as the pragmatic side of him knew that economically humanity had, in 10 years after first contact blown every other power in the galaxy out of the water. Another voice his is head whispered about what would happen if mankind made warships on such a scale.
“Well Doctor I don't see any point in arguing anymore but if you can let me on this vessel and join me in the senate with your research especially on the whole hole-punching-then-closing-up-perfectly part, then maybe we can avoid starting a bigger galactic panic then what we absolutely have to.”
“Of course Count I'm already packed and I have made such arrangements already. We can leave once the ship has gone through its final trials.” The Doctor proudly stated. | The First Ambassador to Humanity swirled idly in its container and moved to the next item on its list.
"Your FTL technology", it asked the panel of assembled human leaders, "How does it work?"
The humans exchanged surprised looks. The one at the end of the panel eventually speaking.
"You mean the Confounder?"
"If that is what you call it, yes."
"Well it... it slows the light down."
The First Ambassador frowned. Or at least, it came as close to frowning as one can when one is a mass of liquid in a hermetically sealed tank.
"I do not understand", it replied, "How does this help?"
It was a different human who replied this time, the large one at the head of the panel
"It slows the light down so we can overtake it", he snapped. "What's so hard to understand about that?"
The Ambassador thickened as it took a moment to process this statement.
"This... does not reduce your travel time".
"Who said anything about that?", the chief human asked irritably. "It's not about getting places, it's about showing the light who's boss! It's about proving a point!". He jabbed his thumb against his chest. "We wanted to be the fastest thing in the universe, and now we are!".
The Ambassador thickened further, rapidly losing faith in this species' fitness to join the intergalactic community.
"Let me rephrase my question," it said. "You received a summons to this meeting approximately five of your days ago. How did you travel the light years between this point and your planet in that time?".
"Ooh". A third human spoke this time. "It wants to know about the Shuffle".
A collection of mutters resounded among the rest of the panel, the large one saying something about "...not really *travel* is it?". Once they had stilled the third human continued speaking.
"It's quite simply really. Getting to faraway places is hard, so the Shuffle just swaps bits of space around until the part we want is next to us". She gave the Ambassador a vacant smile.
Its slow swishing motion gradually stilled as understanding set in. The ships that found themselves light years from their destination, stranded without food or air. The civilised worlds torn from their orbits and flung into deep space. The black holes appearing from nowhere, devouring entire star systems of inhabited plants. Literally boiling with anger, the First Ambassador closed it's communication channel to the humans and opened a new one to the Galactic Council.
*There would be war* | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "Idiot fuk human design shit-tier spaceship get all Brogga friend kill't. End all. Stoopt fuk. E'ryon kno warp spacetime. E'ryon kno break litspeeding. E'ryon kno crate warm hole. E'ryon kno cut mass half. E'yron cept idiot fuk humans. Y d'sign dumb shit-tier drive can't fi'ure out nuttin'. Cant warp spacetime. Cant break litspeeding. Cant crate warm hole. Cant cut mass. 'Stead idiot fuk human burrow down subquark stangelet bullshit risk implode entire quadrant for fuk newmatter. Y? Too dumb, tha's y. Now Brogga stuk dumb idiot fuk human ship on oth'r side galactic spinward fr'home. Idiot fuk human get Brogga kill't, get Brogga friend kill't..."
The muttering was cut off by a bang, followed by curses unutterable by the tongues of men. Poor old Brogga had been clanking about underneath the hullward dash for the last three days, almost without a break, muttering the entire time.
Say what he would, Brogga was nothing short of a mechanical genius, being the only Broggan capable of working on the Subquark-plated external combustion Engine. It took a particularly pliable mind to make an external combustion engine work, particularly when one was compressing- and burning- pure vacuum. The only real downside was the slight chance of creating decay, but if that happened it wouldn't matter as the entire tanker would be destroyed within seconds. I supposed it would have mattered to the rest of the Universe, but Brogga wouldn't have cared for he would have been the first to go.
Well, okay, there was a second slight problem. See, by burning pure vacuum they wore away a little strip of the cosmos. It was so small that it probably didn't matter, and the Universe was expanding anyways, but certain routes did get more traffic and engines were getting more efficient all the time.
"Idiot fuk human shit design fuk"
More clattering and banging from underneath the hullward dash.
"Idiot fuk human, try now"
Brogga's curses were rewarded with a shuttering rumble as the external combustion engine roared to life.
"Well that's curious" Captain Froy remarked, staring in disbelief at the guages.
Normal external combustion engines were able to operate somewhere between 10,000% and 100,000% efficiency, and for every joule of vacuum energy burned 100% efficiency would yield 10 kilo-joules.
The digital display read 10^89 % efficiency.
"Brogga, I think this gauge is busted."
"Idiot fuk human replace it then. Brogga sleeps."
Then, with customary swagger Captain Froy shoved the throttle open and pulled out, easing back into his seat for a cozy nap. However, when Captain Froy awoke several hours later he was not where he expected. In fact, he was not sure where he was at all.
You see, Brogga had accidentally upgraded their engine. Nobody saw the display, but if they had, they would have seen Brogga, Froy, and the rest of the crew tearing ass across the Universe, ripping a cosmic-scale gash in the vacuum like God's holy zipper. Of course this hole rapidly closed up, but in the time it would normally take them to travel a few hundred lightyears they had soared clear of the "observable Universe" several times over.
In fact, they had traveled so far they weren't entirely sure how to get back.
Thus began the journey of Brogga and the idiot fuk humans who wasted 600 years of his life and destroyed his capacity to speak properly. | The First Ambassador to Humanity swirled idly in its container and moved to the next item on its list.
"Your FTL technology", it asked the panel of assembled human leaders, "How does it work?"
The humans exchanged surprised looks. The one at the end of the panel eventually speaking.
"You mean the Confounder?"
"If that is what you call it, yes."
"Well it... it slows the light down."
The First Ambassador frowned. Or at least, it came as close to frowning as one can when one is a mass of liquid in a hermetically sealed tank.
"I do not understand", it replied, "How does this help?"
It was a different human who replied this time, the large one at the head of the panel
"It slows the light down so we can overtake it", he snapped. "What's so hard to understand about that?"
The Ambassador thickened as it took a moment to process this statement.
"This... does not reduce your travel time".
"Who said anything about that?", the chief human asked irritably. "It's not about getting places, it's about showing the light who's boss! It's about proving a point!". He jabbed his thumb against his chest. "We wanted to be the fastest thing in the universe, and now we are!".
The Ambassador thickened further, rapidly losing faith in this species' fitness to join the intergalactic community.
"Let me rephrase my question," it said. "You received a summons to this meeting approximately five of your days ago. How did you travel the light years between this point and your planet in that time?".
"Ooh". A third human spoke this time. "It wants to know about the Shuffle".
A collection of mutters resounded among the rest of the panel, the large one saying something about "...not really *travel* is it?". Once they had stilled the third human continued speaking.
"It's quite simply really. Getting to faraway places is hard, so the Shuffle just swaps bits of space around until the part we want is next to us". She gave the Ambassador a vacant smile.
Its slow swishing motion gradually stilled as understanding set in. The ships that found themselves light years from their destination, stranded without food or air. The civilised worlds torn from their orbits and flung into deep space. The black holes appearing from nowhere, devouring entire star systems of inhabited plants. Literally boiling with anger, the First Ambassador closed it's communication channel to the humans and opened a new one to the Galactic Council.
*There would be war* | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Terrestrial Warp Drives. First proposed by Miguel Alcubierre two hundred formlats ago, The equivalent of forcing space into a shape which closely resembles two black holes stacked fore to aft. It requires insanely large sums of energy to produce the warp effect, equivalent to at least the mass of a small moon converted to energy. To get around this, the Terrestrials use catalytic mass converter engines. A device which has been discredited by the rest of the universe for the complete and utter destructive potential should such a reactor melt down on a planet. They work by converting matter to energy with a catalyst particle. However, they also produce a certain percent of catalyst particles. When this process runs away, it has been known to destroy planets, heavily damaging entire solar systems.
Under order 4,900,232 section III, Human spacecraft are to be classified as "NOT TO BE TOUCHED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES" on or near a planet, and "DESTROY AT ALL COSTS" in interplanetary space. This is not done as a measure against humans, but as a safety measure across the galaxy. This will be done until a treaty can be made with the terrestrial humans such that they will cease using catalytic mass converters.
Examination of a captured Terrestrial FTL Engine under the Federal Standard Gravity Model suggests that some fairly simple improvements to the Alcubierre-type drive can be made to reduce the energy requirements to what can be managed by fusion and antimatter reaction technology. They need not give up their unique drive. As dangerous as the Terrestrial Drive is, it presents no risk to those outside the vessel. | The First Ambassador to Humanity swirled idly in its container and moved to the next item on its list.
"Your FTL technology", it asked the panel of assembled human leaders, "How does it work?"
The humans exchanged surprised looks. The one at the end of the panel eventually speaking.
"You mean the Confounder?"
"If that is what you call it, yes."
"Well it... it slows the light down."
The First Ambassador frowned. Or at least, it came as close to frowning as one can when one is a mass of liquid in a hermetically sealed tank.
"I do not understand", it replied, "How does this help?"
It was a different human who replied this time, the large one at the head of the panel
"It slows the light down so we can overtake it", he snapped. "What's so hard to understand about that?"
The Ambassador thickened as it took a moment to process this statement.
"This... does not reduce your travel time".
"Who said anything about that?", the chief human asked irritably. "It's not about getting places, it's about showing the light who's boss! It's about proving a point!". He jabbed his thumb against his chest. "We wanted to be the fastest thing in the universe, and now we are!".
The Ambassador thickened further, rapidly losing faith in this species' fitness to join the intergalactic community.
"Let me rephrase my question," it said. "You received a summons to this meeting approximately five of your days ago. How did you travel the light years between this point and your planet in that time?".
"Ooh". A third human spoke this time. "It wants to know about the Shuffle".
A collection of mutters resounded among the rest of the panel, the large one saying something about "...not really *travel* is it?". Once they had stilled the third human continued speaking.
"It's quite simply really. Getting to faraway places is hard, so the Shuffle just swaps bits of space around until the part we want is next to us". She gave the Ambassador a vacant smile.
Its slow swishing motion gradually stilled as understanding set in. The ships that found themselves light years from their destination, stranded without food or air. The civilised worlds torn from their orbits and flung into deep space. The black holes appearing from nowhere, devouring entire star systems of inhabited plants. Literally boiling with anger, the First Ambassador closed it's communication channel to the humans and opened a new one to the Galactic Council.
*There would be war* | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Xandar was fuming. 20 smismars he'd been waiting in the bowels of that horrible assembling of junk and metal the humans proudly called their *flagship of intergalactic friendship*. It was bad enough when those hairless pink monkeys made it to outer space but now they had developped a functioning FTL drive and that made them *worthy* of introduction into the Galactic Alliance.
In all his bismars as official technological investigators of the Galactic Alliance's scientific division, Xandar had never seen such a pathetic excuse for a ship. Neither he or any of his colleagues wanted to partake in this scientific inspection. They actually had to draw straws and to his utter disappointment, Xandar lost. Xarcy tried to cheer him up, noting that the human FTL drive was probably a dud anyway. Their first long distance drive was barely a stupid bedsheet catching solar wind, how could they have build a fully functioning FTL drive is such little time since.
21 smismars, where the hell was that pink ape that was supposed to show him the drive ? Xandar only wanted to get done with this and leave. The human vessel was small, cramped and much too warm for his taste. It also didn't help that everything was made to accomodate 6ft tall apes, at 9ft tall, a respectable height for a noble Glaxian like him, he was constantly banging his upper appendage on the ceiling and door frames.
Finally a metal door opened and 2 hairless apes ran toward him. The first one, pink and the second one dark brown. Fascinating thought Xandar, I've never seen such a dark colored ape. At least some decent scientific information. Maybe the science council would let him abduct such a specimen later on for testing. Humans usually didn't mind a few abduction here and there as long as you didn't touch the cows sleeping in the fields.
The 2 apes escorted Xandar to the engine room. The first thing that caught Xandar's attention was the intense heat coming from the doorway, much worst than the rest of the already hot vessel.
>Right this way Dr Xandar, you're gonna love this!
Words could barely describe the sights that laid in front of Xandar when he crossed into the room
*What the hell kind of piece of shit is that?*
>What, the FTL drive ?
>>Quite the beauty isn't she ?
The drive in question looked like a random pile of junk with tubes coming out of the sides, hot steam rising from them. The whole thing was red hot and there was a very annoying sound of pressured gas being shot into the machine at close interval. On top of the device sat 2 giant glowing green tubes.
*Are those Arthosian power cores ?*
>Yes, you have a good eye Dr Xandar.
*Where in the 5 stars did you get these ? Only a handful were ever created and the Arthosian guard them very closely*
>>We found them!
>Of yeah, came upon a space wreck near Alpha Centory IV and we managed to recover quite a lot of technology from it.
*Wait wait... you stole them from a broken ship ?*
>Not stole, never. We found them.
>>Space salvage!
*Does the Arthosian empire know you're using stolen tech ?*
>I dunno, they never complained about it before you brought it up.
Xandar was flaggerbasted, these hairless apes weren't just stupid, they were a menace.
*Fine, walk me trough it*
>Oh you're gonna love this doc. By stripping the neutrino element of the 2 power cores and jerryrigging them together, we managed to create a power unit strong enough to blast trough the fabric of spacetime, and into the slipstream.
*Wait a minute, you stripped the power core of its protective shielding ?*
>Why yes.
>>It was really annoying really, hiding all the good stuff.
*ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS! Those a radiation shielding, this stuff is extremely dangerous*
>I know that, we all know that
>>It needed to be done. Beside, we added some plasma shielding to it.
>Yes, it should do the job... enough.
*Jesus fucking christ.... continue*
>Well, as I was saying, the drive allows us to punch our way into the slipstream and from there we can modify the flow of radiation emited by the power cores, enabling us to navigate different planes of the stream.
>>It's like a chose you own adventure travel book. Add a gamma variant to the radiation cocktail and you can move faster, replace it by a theta variant and you can navigate, for lack of a better word, "UP" into the 4th dimension.
*How do you exit the slipstreem ?*
>Well, we found that injecting a low level ion isopote directly into the power core will create an instability in the stream that causes the ship to be ejected, albeith rather violently.
>>Yes, the first test vessel exploded on exit.
*My god, this is catastrophic*
>We thought so to, so insted we just shut off the drive and the ship gets ejected much more softly.
*What... no! I mean... this whole system is horrible...*
>It's not so bad once you work out the kinks
*But how.... this must be ridiculously unstable !?*
>Oh boy... that's an understatement
>>You have to understand, all this only works if we keep the core overheated to exactly 3,568 degrees.
>Oh yes, any variation of over 2.75 degrees and the whole thing would go kablewy
*This is nuts, how do you maintain the temperature ? I see no adaptive secluar temporal module anywhere*
>Don't have one
>>Yeah, this fancy stuff is much too complicated and too hard to get your hands on.
>For now we use a system of pressure injected water and nitrogen
*You forcecool it under pressure ?*
>Exactly! I knew you'd get it doc.
>>We alternate between injecting pressurized water and nitrogen to cool off the core with a 1.5 seconds interval between each injection
*What?.... that's....how!?*
>You know.... too hot, blast it with nitrogen. Too cold, switch to water. Perfect temperature, do nothing. We evaluate the temperature every 2 seconds and Frank over there pulls the switch to inject the correct cooling substance.
*So none of this is automated ?*
>Nah, we're hoping to find a suitable automated cooling mechanism soon though.
*Like what? A water tin can on a string with a hole on the bottom ?*
>>Well no that's.... hey that's actually a good idea
>Yeah, we should look into that.
*Allright.... not taking into consideration the immense safety concern, not to mention decent common sens, this thing appears extremely dangerous and also in violation of at least a dozen galactic regulations on plasma use and timestream protocoles, and that's just for starters*
>Really?
>>Well that's a bummer for sure
*I must ask, with all this violent punching around the slipstream, how does your system deal with excess radiations and temporal aftershock effects ?*
>Come again ?
*The extreme side effects of your shitty system!!*
>Oh that. I dunno, whatever happens in the slipstream stays in the slipstream I guess.
>>Yeah, I mean it's not like we plan on living in the stream you know. It's just a highway. You roll down the window and throw your trash out.
*Over 15 sentient species live in the stream, 4 of wich are official members of the Galactic Alliance.*
>Really, people live in there ?
*YES, THEY DO!*
>Well that's fucking stupid.
>>yeah, who in their right mind lives in a galactic highway ? That's dangerous, somebody could get hurt!
>And they call US crazy ? | The First Ambassador to Humanity swirled idly in its container and moved to the next item on its list.
"Your FTL technology", it asked the panel of assembled human leaders, "How does it work?"
The humans exchanged surprised looks. The one at the end of the panel eventually speaking.
"You mean the Confounder?"
"If that is what you call it, yes."
"Well it... it slows the light down."
The First Ambassador frowned. Or at least, it came as close to frowning as one can when one is a mass of liquid in a hermetically sealed tank.
"I do not understand", it replied, "How does this help?"
It was a different human who replied this time, the large one at the head of the panel
"It slows the light down so we can overtake it", he snapped. "What's so hard to understand about that?"
The Ambassador thickened as it took a moment to process this statement.
"This... does not reduce your travel time".
"Who said anything about that?", the chief human asked irritably. "It's not about getting places, it's about showing the light who's boss! It's about proving a point!". He jabbed his thumb against his chest. "We wanted to be the fastest thing in the universe, and now we are!".
The Ambassador thickened further, rapidly losing faith in this species' fitness to join the intergalactic community.
"Let me rephrase my question," it said. "You received a summons to this meeting approximately five of your days ago. How did you travel the light years between this point and your planet in that time?".
"Ooh". A third human spoke this time. "It wants to know about the Shuffle".
A collection of mutters resounded among the rest of the panel, the large one saying something about "...not really *travel* is it?". Once they had stilled the third human continued speaking.
"It's quite simply really. Getting to faraway places is hard, so the Shuffle just swaps bits of space around until the part we want is next to us". She gave the Ambassador a vacant smile.
Its slow swishing motion gradually stilled as understanding set in. The ships that found themselves light years from their destination, stranded without food or air. The civilised worlds torn from their orbits and flung into deep space. The black holes appearing from nowhere, devouring entire star systems of inhabited plants. Literally boiling with anger, the First Ambassador closed it's communication channel to the humans and opened a new one to the Galactic Council.
*There would be war* | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The chamber illumination dimmed and the milky sim tank faded to life. A thousand eyes stared intently from the council benches, and a trillion more from across the five galaxies.
A deep voice, set on edge with urgency and well-contained fear, began its narration of the sim.
"The Brevis' star system surveillance node 47 has, it has been reported, recorded first contact with the species self-identifying as Humans. This much has already been announced. What has not yet been announced is that an analysis of the event has been completed, and their method of travel has thrown a black flag, gamma zero priority. Observe."
The sim showed a small moon below, surrounded by a halo of probes similar to the one that must be recording the image. In the far distance, the volumetric compensation showed a grossly enlarged blue planet on another orbital track, the Brevis' home world Herol. The orbital motion of the probes had been smooth and obvious, but now they slowed.
"We are showing the event at a reduced speed. Watch carefully."
Without warning, the entire projection dimmed as a single point of incredible, actinic light burst from the space next to the moon and raced away from its surface. As one, the closer orbiting probes glowed white-hot and began to disintegrate. The image wavered and then froze.
"Now, focus your attention on the exact location this phenomenon appeared, and keep your attention on that spot as the light moves away."
The image reversed, and the killing glow moved back to its original location. It slowly crept back outwards as the sim zoomed in. There, in the wake of the glow, was a ship, shaped like a mushroom with its cap to the light. Vaporised hull matter streamed from the smooth side facing the light, some sort of ablative heat shielding.
"We had never seen this effect before. We assumed it was some sort of deceleration technique, until we looked at it from the planetary defence network."
The perspective in the sim shifted, as if travelling to the distant planet. The moon and its halo of probes shrank, then grew again due to the volumetric compensation. The sim was normal again for a moment, before that terrible light appeared, an incredible distance from the moon this time, and immediately split into two lights, travelling away from each other at greater than the speed of light.
An audible click reverberated around the chamber as each of the species in attendance simultaneously inhaled on their breathing apparatuses.
"As you can see, the motion of the light is a relativistic illusion. The light doesn't travel, it exists simultaneously at all points in a column for a moment, then dissipates. The energy requirement is staggering. After calculating an intercept to the closest habitable world on the trajectory described by the light column, it appears their world is four hundred light-years away. The humans claim a similar distance, and their navigational data also confirm it. From this we can calculate the energy release as being consistent with a type III civilisation."
What had previously been a gentle series of clicks was now a cacophony, the seats shaking with the bodily gyrations of the assembled dignitaries. Some wailed, others laughed, most were silent.
"We have brought the leader of the human expedition here, with her agreement, of course."
The noises of discomfort reached a crashing crescendo, as several of the delegates jumped out of their seats and bolted for the exit.
The disembodied voice thundered, "ORDER!"
"I present to you, Chakor, Human, of planet Earth."
The creature that stepped into the chamber was unimpressive, physically. Bipedal, endoskeletal, wearing some sort of almost completely covering clothing with various decals affixed to it. The remaining delegates seemed to calm a little, their agitation lowering to a gentle swaying. The Human addressed the crowd.
"Greetings, delegates of the local group. My name is Chakor, I represent my species, Human, and wish to express our honour in meeting you all. We come in peace."
The room quietened further, and the booming voice sounded again. "Chakor will now take moderated questions from the floor. Please enter your queries for analysis and amalgamation."
A few awkward moments passed, Chakor looking out among the delegates. They varied from bipeds with heads and arms of various number to floating creatures in some sort of water tanks, through to creatures much more... alien.
"First question. The energy output of your drive technology is beyond immense. You must be capturing the energy output of most of a galaxy, somewhere. How can it be that we have not noticed the birth of a type III civilisation under our watch?"
Chakor paused to think before she replied, clearly confused. "We are not a type III civilisation. We are barely a type I. We just discovered a way to manipulate the nature of reality."
The voice didn't even wait to consult the accumulating list of vetted questions. "What?! How?"
"When we accidentally created and shot a cluster of miniature black holes through our particle collider's detectors, we discovered that the vacuum of space was not at the true ground state of the universe. This lent is an opportunity to use the difference in energy levels to complete an until-then hypothetical method of propulsion."
The room exploded into roars, gurgles, and screeches of outrage.
"Your drive is powered by triggering a collapse of fundamental reality?!"
"Not quite, if you'd let me finish. After we discovered the false vacuum was the current skein of the universe, we found that at the moment of triggering a vacuum state collapse, it was possible to entangle an arbitrary length of vacuum in a beam away from the source, and trigger the collapse simultaneously and instantaneously along that path."
Guards in the chamber drew their weapons as several delegates rose on their hindlimbs as if to attack.
"Chakor, this is madness! Your drive cannot work as you describe, or we wouldn't have any video of your arrival. A vacuum collapse would spread from wherever it started at the speed of light, unmaking the universe in its path!"
"Oh, yes we knew that. It turns out that the vacuum collapse provides enough energy to fold space into itself. In local proximity, one side of the event becomes the other. The space in between is clipped off like a twisted balloon, erased from having any bearing on existence. Our ship is instantaneously folded from one side of the beam to the other, and internal fields save us from having any biological changes. Of course, the collapse has to happen first by a few fractions of a microsecond, so there is some... energy leakage."
The chamber went suddenly silent.
The probe and planetary defence system had recorded an abomination, a gross violation of reality itself. The demonic light fleeing the Humans' strange vessel was the energetic corpse of a monster, come to open its maw and swallow the universe, inexorably, at the glacial speed of light. A fitting technology for a pursuit predator like the humans.
"You risk all our existence just to travel. How can we leave you free run of the galaxies?"
Chakor grinned. "We could always run one last wide beam to the ends of the universe and neglect to fold it away. How can you not?" | The First Ambassador to Humanity swirled idly in its container and moved to the next item on its list.
"Your FTL technology", it asked the panel of assembled human leaders, "How does it work?"
The humans exchanged surprised looks. The one at the end of the panel eventually speaking.
"You mean the Confounder?"
"If that is what you call it, yes."
"Well it... it slows the light down."
The First Ambassador frowned. Or at least, it came as close to frowning as one can when one is a mass of liquid in a hermetically sealed tank.
"I do not understand", it replied, "How does this help?"
It was a different human who replied this time, the large one at the head of the panel
"It slows the light down so we can overtake it", he snapped. "What's so hard to understand about that?"
The Ambassador thickened as it took a moment to process this statement.
"This... does not reduce your travel time".
"Who said anything about that?", the chief human asked irritably. "It's not about getting places, it's about showing the light who's boss! It's about proving a point!". He jabbed his thumb against his chest. "We wanted to be the fastest thing in the universe, and now we are!".
The Ambassador thickened further, rapidly losing faith in this species' fitness to join the intergalactic community.
"Let me rephrase my question," it said. "You received a summons to this meeting approximately five of your days ago. How did you travel the light years between this point and your planet in that time?".
"Ooh". A third human spoke this time. "It wants to know about the Shuffle".
A collection of mutters resounded among the rest of the panel, the large one saying something about "...not really *travel* is it?". Once they had stilled the third human continued speaking.
"It's quite simply really. Getting to faraway places is hard, so the Shuffle just swaps bits of space around until the part we want is next to us". She gave the Ambassador a vacant smile.
Its slow swishing motion gradually stilled as understanding set in. The ships that found themselves light years from their destination, stranded without food or air. The civilised worlds torn from their orbits and flung into deep space. The black holes appearing from nowhere, devouring entire star systems of inhabited plants. Literally boiling with anger, the First Ambassador closed it's communication channel to the humans and opened a new one to the Galactic Council.
*There would be war* | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | We saw the opportunity and by the gods, we took it.
FTL travel was always a ways off for earth's scientists, I mean sure, we had near-lightspeed travel for now but frankly, ever since Humanity blundered into contact with the other races, they've been stingy with the secrets to FTL travel, considering us "crude" and "uncultured". Still, some of the lesser races reluctantly traded with us, and we came across what they considered to be a trivial piece of information, a rather efficient method of converting normal matter to exotic matter, if only for an instant, before reverting back to regular matter.
They used it as a way to fuel their dark matter weaponry, and of course, we had nowhere near the technology required for that, and they knew it. They held back their freakish laughter as the dumb humans traded valuable resources for something that not only everyone in the galaxy knows, but they couldn't even use!
Well, turns out that's not entirely true.
A few years went by with earth's scientists playing with their new "toy", a few neat innovations and basic uses had cropped up, but all in all, it seemed that the inability to keep exotic matter around without it reverting was rather limiting.
One man stepped forward with an idea, however. An idea that was hushed and slated to impossibility by the earth's various governing bodies. "There's no way we could do that" they whispered. "It's **insane**".
But, with humanity being left behind diplomatically against the rest of the galaxy, could we really afford to be left out? To be left in the dust as other races walked over us like we were nothing?
Eventually, reluctantly, approval was gained, and the project initiated. It would take years, several thousand matter conversion stations.
A project to dwarf all others.
The man had proposed a wormhole. Not an alien concept to the other races, obviously, but one that had only been toyed with by humanity, an unrealistic method of FTL. The amount of exotic matter needed alone would be.. well it would be insane! We had nowhere near enough useable mass near our homeworld, or so we had thought.
It was worth it, I think, the expression on the diplomats faces as we crashed the galaxy's latest diplomatic conference made it all worth it. Their horrified expressions as they understood just what we had done, looking agape (and the several alien equivalents) at the monstrous bastard we had piloted.
Humanity had finally made it's statement as a real, crazy force in the universe.
An entire moon's worth of statement. dwarfing even the largest diplomatic citadel. A moon, our moon, converted into a bastardized FTL vessel. Our reckless abandonment of sensibilities and border-idiotic determination would be the staple of Humanity for eons after that.
"Crude", they were definitely right about that.
| Captain Lance sat there before the council of Species, listening to them talk in their many differnt forms of communication, he basically ignored the translation machine since none of the conversation was being targeted at him at the moment, he was getting tired, cranky, and hungry as it'd been five hours since the prototype ship arrived, it had worked a little too well and shot him farther than the intended jump was meant to take him. He couldn't even communicate with earth when he'd arrived. One of the aliens, a tall blue creature that looked like an evolved snail whom became humanoid but kept a shell, turned its three stalked eyes towards him and spoke in a weird language that sounded like water dripping and popcorn being smooshed under a shoe at the same time. The translation device said, "Tell us again how the ship you arrived in works, to the best of your knowledge."
Captain Lance groaned, "Listen I told you I don't know the specifics very well, but I'll explain it the best I can remember them trying to tell me. They created an micro artifical sun, surrounded it with a thing they call a Dyson sphere, put it in a thing they call a condensed hyper particle accelerator, and shot some sort of atom thingy they called a higgs boson at it, the higgs boson penetrates the surface of the sphere, goes through the artificial sun, and it creates some weird energy they call the hyper wave, it gets shuffled into the engine and propels the ship by and makes it ghost like or something. They call it a hyper particle drive. Its more complicated than what I explained but that's all I really paid attention too, honestly, I'm just a pilot, and not exactly their best. I'm what they consider an acceptable loss, only reason It was a manned flight instead of automated was because if it made the jump, they wanted to make sure it could be turned around and returned without relying on the automated systems which can fail. Which I would have done except the minute I jumped, the ship rematerialized in the middle of one of your luxury cruise space ships, and ruined some purple headed kids birthday party. The ship and I were then collected by one of your council patrol ships, and we were brought here. Im tired, im hungry, I just want to get back on the ship, point it towards home and fire up the drive. I guarantee everyone on Earth are freaking out about their 6 billion dollar prototype disappearing and not having any data... or at least I don't think they have data, I couldn't contact them."
The slug nodded and turned to the others who had been listening intently, they started talking again, "Dangerous" "Morons" "What kind of backwoods idiot species would develop something that reckless and just use it without better safety measures in place."
Captain Lance sighed as they continued to talk, a heated debate about whether to let him go in his ship, or be escorted back via one of their own. The argument against both seemed to indicate that they thought Humans where a danger to themselves and if left to their own devices, the rest of the galaxy. This was going to be a long night he thought. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "So, about the humans..." Said a voice with diplomatic neutrality.
Groans from a myriad of different species' voices could be heard throughout the conference hall. There was a meeting being held on how to properly welcome these new, strange creatures now that they had, technically, at least, achieved Faster Than Light travel.
"We organised this meeting to discuss them! When are you all going to stop pussyfooting around the issue!?" The same voice declared, with a level of anger hard to believe considering their tone mere seconds ago.
"Blarpart, I know you're a workaholic and all that but have you SEEN these...creature's form of FTL "travel"?" A gruff voice from somewhere in the hall responded over the din of arguing and groans of "are we really fucking doing this?"
"I agree that it's...unconventional but-"
The word "unconventional" being used to describe human beings' method of intergalactic travel caused an uproar among the crowd.
"Hey! HEY! HEYYYYYY!" Interjected Blarpart with an odd mixture of rage, impatience and exhaustion. "It works for them, who are we to judge?"
"Don't you get it? They use possibly the most unstable thing in the universe, a wormhole, and pump it with a load of who knows what to make it last more than a nanosecond and to a greater size than a few atoms and just *sigh* go through it and hope for the best"
"As I said, uncon-" Blarpart thought better of using *that* word again and instead chose to deflect the conversation in the hopes of finishing and grabbing something from a Space Denny's on the way home.
"Ok, how about we just ignore them? They're not going to last long as a species if THAT'S how they traverse space. From our observations, their 'wormhole jumping' has about an 80% chance of failure. All in favour?"
A chorus of relieved "aye"s reverberated throughout the room.
"All opposed?"
...
"Well then, that settles i-"
"YOU FUCKING WOT, M8?" A voice shouted from just outside the hall.
"Can I go without being interrupted for ONE MINUTE?" Blarpart said in an exasperated sigh.
And with that, a duo of humans, one tall with brown hair and the other short with black hair, burst into the hall with their bottles of what they call "Mountain Dew" and bags of "Doritos" and started going on about how we can't "diss" them like that.
"You know what? Fuck these alien squares, wanna go piss into a black hole?" The taller one said.
"Yeah, dude. Definitely." The shorter one replied with an almost endearing level of excitement at the prospect.
And with that, the duo left as quickly as they had entered.
"What just happened?" A member of the crowd ask with a disbelieving tone.
"...Humanity. Humanity happened" said Blarpart, with yet another sigh.
Spelling and removing the pretentious "fin". | Captain Lance sat there before the council of Species, listening to them talk in their many differnt forms of communication, he basically ignored the translation machine since none of the conversation was being targeted at him at the moment, he was getting tired, cranky, and hungry as it'd been five hours since the prototype ship arrived, it had worked a little too well and shot him farther than the intended jump was meant to take him. He couldn't even communicate with earth when he'd arrived. One of the aliens, a tall blue creature that looked like an evolved snail whom became humanoid but kept a shell, turned its three stalked eyes towards him and spoke in a weird language that sounded like water dripping and popcorn being smooshed under a shoe at the same time. The translation device said, "Tell us again how the ship you arrived in works, to the best of your knowledge."
Captain Lance groaned, "Listen I told you I don't know the specifics very well, but I'll explain it the best I can remember them trying to tell me. They created an micro artifical sun, surrounded it with a thing they call a Dyson sphere, put it in a thing they call a condensed hyper particle accelerator, and shot some sort of atom thingy they called a higgs boson at it, the higgs boson penetrates the surface of the sphere, goes through the artificial sun, and it creates some weird energy they call the hyper wave, it gets shuffled into the engine and propels the ship by and makes it ghost like or something. They call it a hyper particle drive. Its more complicated than what I explained but that's all I really paid attention too, honestly, I'm just a pilot, and not exactly their best. I'm what they consider an acceptable loss, only reason It was a manned flight instead of automated was because if it made the jump, they wanted to make sure it could be turned around and returned without relying on the automated systems which can fail. Which I would have done except the minute I jumped, the ship rematerialized in the middle of one of your luxury cruise space ships, and ruined some purple headed kids birthday party. The ship and I were then collected by one of your council patrol ships, and we were brought here. Im tired, im hungry, I just want to get back on the ship, point it towards home and fire up the drive. I guarantee everyone on Earth are freaking out about their 6 billion dollar prototype disappearing and not having any data... or at least I don't think they have data, I couldn't contact them."
The slug nodded and turned to the others who had been listening intently, they started talking again, "Dangerous" "Morons" "What kind of backwoods idiot species would develop something that reckless and just use it without better safety measures in place."
Captain Lance sighed as they continued to talk, a heated debate about whether to let him go in his ship, or be escorted back via one of their own. The argument against both seemed to indicate that they thought Humans where a danger to themselves and if left to their own devices, the rest of the galaxy. This was going to be a long night he thought. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Kalgor looked at the pale skined human in utter shock. 'They couldn't be serious in thinking that the rest of the galactic community would simply accept the use of this kind of technology'
“Mr. Adams...” Kalgor began.
“Doctor Adams if you don't mind Count Kalgor.” Dr. Adams corrected, he knew that if he didn't demand respect now that it would be harder to earn it back later. As it stood he could tell that the reptilian xeno that stood before him was not pleased with what had been unveiled only a hour ago in the space dock that was right outside his office window right now.
“Yes Dr.Adams. You must understand that of the various forms of FTL drive in use in the galaxy what you have unveiled here today is at best going to be seen as unsafe at best or outright dangerous to some in the galaxy.” He was struggling to keep the panic out of his voice, but despite his many deca-cycles of experience in diplomacy the very skill that had made him chosen as the Galactic Senate's emissary to the up and coming human race, he was begin to fail.
“Count with all due respect I fail to see what the overall difference is between our own hyperdrive and the Delfanit pulse tube drive or the Kantian gate system they all use hyperspace gravity waves to achieve FTL speeds.”
Kalgor's voice broke. “But you are punching holes in space to reach hyperspace!”
“So?” the Doctor responded nonchalantly.
“The Kantian's use a physical gateway to control entry into hyperspace and the Delfanit's use natural gravity currents to slip into hyperspace. Your system just punches holes into the fabric of space! Even our scientists can't tell if making those holes will not bring about the complete tearing of reality as we know it.”
Kalgor again reasserted some control over himself and continued.
“I know that this is a major milestone for humanity and means that you will not have to pay for the use of other species drive systems in your ships which will transform your economy and your military forces. But this is too dangerous besides, what possible advantages could this drive have over the other forms of FTL?”
Adams knew that this moment would be coming sooner or later and that he had to make the most it.
“So glad you could ask Count. The Kantian's gate system requires a massive amount of energy in order to not only open the entryway to hyperspace both for incoming and outgoing traffic, but to hold it open long enough for ships to get through. While they have relatively few systems in their Empire those that they have are spread out thus why the gate was developed. Once in system they use regular sub-light fusion drive to go from the gate to their ultimate planetary destination.”
Kalgor nodded his head as the Doctor continued.
“However due to the power requirements of just one of those gates not to mention the operating costs it would be uneconomical to have a gate at each planet.
Another thing is the time that the gate is held open effects the toll paid by merchant traffic thus why you don't see any Kantian merchant vessels over 1.5km in length. Beyond that length the ratio between hold space, engine size, and time to accelerate becomes uneconomical. They can't get moving from a stand still fast enough to go through the gate without occurring serious tolls and they can't dedicate more engine size because it cuts into their profits from loss of tonnage hauled.”
“Well... yes those are valid points but...” Kalgor stammered out but Adams didn't let up.
“The Delfanit pulse tube solves the power requirement issue and the infrastructure issue but those “tubes” where the gravity band waves are stable enough to sail on until they hit hyperspace are very restricting as they only occur naturally in a few places. This is why their Kingdom if you look at their history had periods of rapid expansion followed by long periods of solidification because goods had to travel often dozens of light years in sublight from system hubs that had these tubes thus slowing growth.”
Kalgor knew he was quickly losing ground and had little recourse as any other drive system that was used in the galaxy had similar glaring issues that were simply accepted.
The Maltiun wave-riders used massive 20km+ gravity sails to ride the same gravity waves as the Delfanit but instead of entering hyperspace they rode ever more powerful waves and were not limited in where they could go for the most part. But the system was high maintenance and very tonnage sensitive as the larger the vessel the longer it took for that vessel reach FTL speeds. The largest ships the species built took at least a standard week to get up to speed and then another week to slow down.
Salec skip drives on the other hand actually sent gravity anchor beams to latch onto hyperspace currents and pull the ship along technically “skipping” on the envelope between real space and hyperspace. The down side is that the anchors can only hold for so long and the power requirements while nothing like Kantians as this wasn't actually entering hyperspace. Meant that they could only skip anywhere from 20 to 100 lightyears depending on the ships configuration before having to recharge their anchoring system, which could take a standard day or up to a week on the largest shipping vessels. Still faster than going at sub light speeds for sure but it meant long travel times for goods.
“Our system allows us to enter hyperspace at will, with no concerns about ship mass, size, or power production beyond engine thrust which combined with our already recognized and accepted superior fusion engine designs, means that we can potentially travel from one side of the galaxy to the other in a month. At least if you are willing to burn that much H3 fuel which even then is more a matter of being inconvenienced with having to stop for fuel rather than any sort of cost consideration.”
The silence in the office was deafening as Kalgor stepped towards the window and looked upon the vessel.
“But the holes Doctor! You may have a system that doesn't have the others drawbacks but we are talking about ripping apart space itself.”
“Count Kalgor I am growing weary of this repeated falsehood. We have be using the same points in orbit to develop this system for over a standard year, and every time we have gone we have had to open a new hole as the last one closed once the vessel is through. Beyond the gravity wake left by the opening you can't tell any thing happened at all after 24 to 36 hours. It is safe.”
“The Senate will not accept this...” Kalgor started hoping he was right to bank on the repugnant nature of this very concept.
“They might not now but they will when they see the Eli Whitney.” Adams spoke ominously. He turned on the large holotank in the middle of the room. The image displayed a monstrous vessel.”
Kalgor turned around and his eyes went wide at the image.
“Is this a warship?” He asked as the ever growing list of implications in his head grew with each passing second.
“No my Count, it is not. It is a merchant vessel commissioned by the Wal-Mart Cartel. She is 75km long, over 2km tall with 12 50-Petawatt fusion reactors with a top estimated FTL speed of 50 but will likely run at 10 to save on fuel costs as such speed is generally unneeded. The whole vessel weighs over 500 million tons 490 of which is hold space capable of hauling virtually anything you can think of. She is going out for trials in a hour then if all goes well she will make a fully loaded iron ore run from the Sol system to Peraxus VII and its heavy industry there. And given that the Senate is on Peraxus V the Eli will make a pass and see if there is anything that needs to be shipped back here to Earth on the return trip.”
As the Doctor finished Kalgor could feel his heart tighten at the size of the vessel and its speed. It would be in the Peraxus system in 3 days, even if he left now in one of the fastest vessels money could buy now he couldn't hope to get there in anything less than 12 days.
“You humans are reckless and unorthodox beyond anything I have ever heard of in my life. But I can't argue with the results.” Kalgor finally stated any hope of resistance gone as the pragmatic side of him knew that economically humanity had, in 10 years after first contact blown every other power in the galaxy out of the water. Another voice his is head whispered about what would happen if mankind made warships on such a scale.
“Well Doctor I don't see any point in arguing anymore but if you can let me on this vessel and join me in the senate with your research especially on the whole hole-punching-then-closing-up-perfectly part, then maybe we can avoid starting a bigger galactic panic then what we absolutely have to.”
“Of course Count I'm already packed and I have made such arrangements already. We can leave once the ship has gone through its final trials.” The Doctor proudly stated. | Captain Lance sat there before the council of Species, listening to them talk in their many differnt forms of communication, he basically ignored the translation machine since none of the conversation was being targeted at him at the moment, he was getting tired, cranky, and hungry as it'd been five hours since the prototype ship arrived, it had worked a little too well and shot him farther than the intended jump was meant to take him. He couldn't even communicate with earth when he'd arrived. One of the aliens, a tall blue creature that looked like an evolved snail whom became humanoid but kept a shell, turned its three stalked eyes towards him and spoke in a weird language that sounded like water dripping and popcorn being smooshed under a shoe at the same time. The translation device said, "Tell us again how the ship you arrived in works, to the best of your knowledge."
Captain Lance groaned, "Listen I told you I don't know the specifics very well, but I'll explain it the best I can remember them trying to tell me. They created an micro artifical sun, surrounded it with a thing they call a Dyson sphere, put it in a thing they call a condensed hyper particle accelerator, and shot some sort of atom thingy they called a higgs boson at it, the higgs boson penetrates the surface of the sphere, goes through the artificial sun, and it creates some weird energy they call the hyper wave, it gets shuffled into the engine and propels the ship by and makes it ghost like or something. They call it a hyper particle drive. Its more complicated than what I explained but that's all I really paid attention too, honestly, I'm just a pilot, and not exactly their best. I'm what they consider an acceptable loss, only reason It was a manned flight instead of automated was because if it made the jump, they wanted to make sure it could be turned around and returned without relying on the automated systems which can fail. Which I would have done except the minute I jumped, the ship rematerialized in the middle of one of your luxury cruise space ships, and ruined some purple headed kids birthday party. The ship and I were then collected by one of your council patrol ships, and we were brought here. Im tired, im hungry, I just want to get back on the ship, point it towards home and fire up the drive. I guarantee everyone on Earth are freaking out about their 6 billion dollar prototype disappearing and not having any data... or at least I don't think they have data, I couldn't contact them."
The slug nodded and turned to the others who had been listening intently, they started talking again, "Dangerous" "Morons" "What kind of backwoods idiot species would develop something that reckless and just use it without better safety measures in place."
Captain Lance sighed as they continued to talk, a heated debate about whether to let him go in his ship, or be escorted back via one of their own. The argument against both seemed to indicate that they thought Humans where a danger to themselves and if left to their own devices, the rest of the galaxy. This was going to be a long night he thought. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Uyreah swung the hoe one last time, burying it with a satisfying thud deep in the dirt and letting it stand there. He wiped sweat from his brow, cursing again the rarity and costliness of proper mechanised tools in this world. He stretched his back, grimaced at the toll his age was taking on him, and turned for the other side of the valley.
As he walked, his thoughts were a numb buzzing in his oblong skull, and as always, heeded not his demand for them to be still. He did his best to ignore them, placing one three-toed foot in front of the other. It didn't matter what might be going on on Homeworld. It was not his business.
The sky's blue began to give way to pink, and he knew that his son would be on the roof, settling in to watch the coming aurora. The boy was getting to that age where he wondered what was beyond the limits of their farming community, and Uyreah was not prepared to answer him.
At least, not since the last moonshiner had died with his secrets. Uyreah had wished to apprentice to him, for he recognised how important intoxicants were to the community, but his own father had forbade it. Tretton, as his father was called, had been sober his entire life, and believed only hard work and dedication could keep their colony alive until help could come. Any time resting or relaxing had to be spent in study, or weaving, or some other productive but untaxing activity.
Tretton was not mourned.
The house was coming into view now, a hive of small semi-spherical buildings attached in a web, and sure enough, the boy Ghgets was atop the tallest one, ankles crossed and weight resting on his palms behind him. Uyreah smiled a private smile, and pushed against his aching bones to climb the rest of the hill.
"Just in time, Dad!" Ghgets waved, then seemed to hesitate. "Dad? Can we talk?"
Uyreah froze, swallowed, looked left and right as though seeking an escape route. He was, he realised. He steeled himself, and without responding, moved to drop his bag of root-vegetables at the door. He stood there for a little longer than he probably should have.
"Let's wait for the lights," he said at last, and began scaling the abode. "Wouldn't want you to miss the lights."
"The lights are on all night every night," Ghgets responded in a sulky tone, but shifted over to make room for his father. "They're hard to miss."
"Yet you're out here every night, at the same time." Uyreah grumbled, dropping down heavily. He leaned over and pressed his head against his son's, and trilled, which seemed to placate the boy. They turned back to the sky in silence, and in moments, it erupted in shimmering waves of green, magenta, and cyan.
Even now, in his twilight years, Uyreah loved them.
"You want to know about what's up there."
"I want to know where we came from."
"It's the same question, really. Why now? Why wait all these years to ask?"
Ghgets' skin darkened, and he began picking at some loose dirt on the roof. "Because Grampa always said to ignore it. 'Keep your eyes on the soil,' he said. 'The soil is our life. What's up there is not for us.'"
Uyreah nodded, the sounds of those same words from when he was told them ringing through his head. He rolled his head from one side to the other lazily, mulling over what to say next. He wished his bond-mate was still with them.
"We're from Homeworld," he said at last. "Not you or I, but our people. They came here in great ships, and set up mining operations. Some brought their families. Then, one day..." He gestured at the sky. "This."
"What is 'this'," Ghgets demanded petulantly, tearing off a fist-sized clod of dirt.
Uyreah, annoyed, did his best to keep his voice level. "This was hundreds of years ago, and even back then, we only had a few scientists in this region of space. You know the six stars, right?"
That seemed to soften the boy's mood. He loved what little astronomy he was privy to. "Titungus, the rager. Pilipin, the dancer. Qott and Sett, the twins." He pointed now, at a bright point in the ocean of dancing colours, and named the star, "Revin, the bold. And our sun, Illerv, the seeker."
"And among those," Uyreah spoke, "Illerv, Titungus, and Revin are the prime stars, with colonies under their light. Titungus-3 was the first established, and that was where the scientists dwelt. When the light curtain appeared, it isolated the six stars from the rest of space with its impassable barrier. For a time after that, there was chaos, and murder, and despair. All communications with Homeworld, and indeed, any other colony, was severed. But after a year, one of the scientists sent a broadcast out. We call it 'Liric's proclamation', for that was her name."
Ghgets sat enraptured, staring unblinking at his father with wide, porcelain eyes. It was only then Uyreah realised how little he had taught his son, and silently cursed himself and his father both.
"She said that they had heard of an experiment being undertaken by a species called Human, of a new faster-than-light drive they were developing. Liric claimed that this drive had folded the space around this area, trapping us in a pocket dimension. Presumably, the ship was supposed to traverse the shortened distance, and then unfold the pocket. Yet, here we are, hundreds of years later."
Uyreah could see his boy processing all of this, with the same plodding determination he had used. He turned back to the lights above, trying to recall if he had missed anything important.
"So... What causes the lights?"
Uyreah scratched his chin, fighting to bring back those lectures of old. "Well, because our space is compressed, light moves through it faster than it normally should. That causes... something. I don't recall. We have even fewer scientists now than those we started with."
"Is that why we don't have a harvester?"
"Aye, noone remembers how to build one."
"I'd like to join you in the field tomorrow, Dad."
Uyreah smiled. | Captain Lance sat there before the council of Species, listening to them talk in their many differnt forms of communication, he basically ignored the translation machine since none of the conversation was being targeted at him at the moment, he was getting tired, cranky, and hungry as it'd been five hours since the prototype ship arrived, it had worked a little too well and shot him farther than the intended jump was meant to take him. He couldn't even communicate with earth when he'd arrived. One of the aliens, a tall blue creature that looked like an evolved snail whom became humanoid but kept a shell, turned its three stalked eyes towards him and spoke in a weird language that sounded like water dripping and popcorn being smooshed under a shoe at the same time. The translation device said, "Tell us again how the ship you arrived in works, to the best of your knowledge."
Captain Lance groaned, "Listen I told you I don't know the specifics very well, but I'll explain it the best I can remember them trying to tell me. They created an micro artifical sun, surrounded it with a thing they call a Dyson sphere, put it in a thing they call a condensed hyper particle accelerator, and shot some sort of atom thingy they called a higgs boson at it, the higgs boson penetrates the surface of the sphere, goes through the artificial sun, and it creates some weird energy they call the hyper wave, it gets shuffled into the engine and propels the ship by and makes it ghost like or something. They call it a hyper particle drive. Its more complicated than what I explained but that's all I really paid attention too, honestly, I'm just a pilot, and not exactly their best. I'm what they consider an acceptable loss, only reason It was a manned flight instead of automated was because if it made the jump, they wanted to make sure it could be turned around and returned without relying on the automated systems which can fail. Which I would have done except the minute I jumped, the ship rematerialized in the middle of one of your luxury cruise space ships, and ruined some purple headed kids birthday party. The ship and I were then collected by one of your council patrol ships, and we were brought here. Im tired, im hungry, I just want to get back on the ship, point it towards home and fire up the drive. I guarantee everyone on Earth are freaking out about their 6 billion dollar prototype disappearing and not having any data... or at least I don't think they have data, I couldn't contact them."
The slug nodded and turned to the others who had been listening intently, they started talking again, "Dangerous" "Morons" "What kind of backwoods idiot species would develop something that reckless and just use it without better safety measures in place."
Captain Lance sighed as they continued to talk, a heated debate about whether to let him go in his ship, or be escorted back via one of their own. The argument against both seemed to indicate that they thought Humans where a danger to themselves and if left to their own devices, the rest of the galaxy. This was going to be a long night he thought. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | “Shit, there goes another one.” General Turr mumbled to, Taek, his first officer, “They’re getting a lot more accurate, they used to miss by a few thousand kilometres.”
Turning the ship towards the newly arrived HomoSapien space liner, the Exerprise H56, the Kantian war ship set about tracking the liner and getting all of its clearances and passes checked.
“Yeah, but they are still missing the safe zones. If it weren’t for the jelly shields of the Salec’s their FTL travel would’ve been banned.”
The liner is easily one of the smallest ships currently docked at the way spacion, the HomoSapiens had only discovered their FTL travel 20 years ago. The Kantian’s, Salec’s, Maltuin’s and Delfanit’s were shocked, never thinking that a species with only two arms could create such technology.
“It’s Unorthodox, Unsafe and Damn Stupid! It UUDS!” The council meetings had been plagued with these words for ages.
Taek, going through each clearance code with a meticulousness that only he could, motions to the debris trail left behind the liners “If we shared our technology with them, they could travel through the gates.”
“It would also decrease the bloody clean-up required each time.”
“You know we can’t, the treaty stands and the human ships aren’t dense enough to handle the radiation.” The general replies, not mentioning that the few ships that have tried it crashed into each other.
“How, exactly do they even travel this far anyway? It would seem that their ships and bodies wouldn’t be able to handle the forces.” Taek asks for the millionth time.
“Well, they have this theory of relativity, which says the faster you travel the more mass you have. It overcomplicated all of their scientific endeavours.” The general begins, earning a collective moan from everyone awake in the warships control room.
“So when they started travelling at close to light speed they just assumed that they couldn’t travel as fast or faster. They built engines that can get to 80% the speed of light, which is something our ships do with impulse engines.”
“That only took them to the edge of their own solar system, something admirable but it still confined them to their own corner. The Salec wave riders were considering helping them to travel faster, however, about 21 years ago when they sent a probe ship, they found rings the size of moons being placed on the edges of their solar system.” He pauses to ensure that Taek is still listening, which of course he is.
“Curious the Salec’s stood back and watched. The humans had somehow discovered how to warp space but only between two set places. Their warp drives also temporarily increased their speed to 3 FTL, which they still haven’t entirely realised.”
This next bit is where the council is still struggling to accept the HomoSapiens as a race, the council usually worked well together on making decisions, but dangerous travel that still worked was a grey area. Every other race were too cautious to attempt something unkown.
“Well, to start traversing through space, the humans would travel from their home planet at the maximum speed they can travel. Aiming straight for the warp gates, at first, but eventually at different angles. This caused them to easily travel to new solar systems. It also made it difficult for them to actually stop.”
“Which is why their first three ships flew straight into, in order or severity, the council war fleet, the council’s moon of operations and the dwarf star of the Antraci system. Total count of death combined was well over 100-million.”
“Of course after catching the attention of the council and several other alien races the HomoSapiens eventually made contact with us and we were able to stop their exploration ships before more damage could be caused. The thing that surprised most races was that after three failed attempts the humans were still attempting FTL travel.”
“It wasn’t until first contact that the Salec’s realised that humans were still using Radio waves to communicate across vast distances. But, that advancement in their tech is a whole different story and involves several strange messages that either offended everyone or caused peace treaties to be made with the Andromeda Galaxy.”
- Recorded on the bridge of the JJK98 Farbelus Warship, 200 0000 km long, conversation between General of Knowledge Turr and his First Officer of memory Taek. Annotations and missing information filled in my Salec History Keeper Urder V, the second.
| Captain Lance sat there before the council of Species, listening to them talk in their many differnt forms of communication, he basically ignored the translation machine since none of the conversation was being targeted at him at the moment, he was getting tired, cranky, and hungry as it'd been five hours since the prototype ship arrived, it had worked a little too well and shot him farther than the intended jump was meant to take him. He couldn't even communicate with earth when he'd arrived. One of the aliens, a tall blue creature that looked like an evolved snail whom became humanoid but kept a shell, turned its three stalked eyes towards him and spoke in a weird language that sounded like water dripping and popcorn being smooshed under a shoe at the same time. The translation device said, "Tell us again how the ship you arrived in works, to the best of your knowledge."
Captain Lance groaned, "Listen I told you I don't know the specifics very well, but I'll explain it the best I can remember them trying to tell me. They created an micro artifical sun, surrounded it with a thing they call a Dyson sphere, put it in a thing they call a condensed hyper particle accelerator, and shot some sort of atom thingy they called a higgs boson at it, the higgs boson penetrates the surface of the sphere, goes through the artificial sun, and it creates some weird energy they call the hyper wave, it gets shuffled into the engine and propels the ship by and makes it ghost like or something. They call it a hyper particle drive. Its more complicated than what I explained but that's all I really paid attention too, honestly, I'm just a pilot, and not exactly their best. I'm what they consider an acceptable loss, only reason It was a manned flight instead of automated was because if it made the jump, they wanted to make sure it could be turned around and returned without relying on the automated systems which can fail. Which I would have done except the minute I jumped, the ship rematerialized in the middle of one of your luxury cruise space ships, and ruined some purple headed kids birthday party. The ship and I were then collected by one of your council patrol ships, and we were brought here. Im tired, im hungry, I just want to get back on the ship, point it towards home and fire up the drive. I guarantee everyone on Earth are freaking out about their 6 billion dollar prototype disappearing and not having any data... or at least I don't think they have data, I couldn't contact them."
The slug nodded and turned to the others who had been listening intently, they started talking again, "Dangerous" "Morons" "What kind of backwoods idiot species would develop something that reckless and just use it without better safety measures in place."
Captain Lance sighed as they continued to talk, a heated debate about whether to let him go in his ship, or be escorted back via one of their own. The argument against both seemed to indicate that they thought Humans where a danger to themselves and if left to their own devices, the rest of the galaxy. This was going to be a long night he thought. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "Idiot fuk human design shit-tier spaceship get all Brogga friend kill't. End all. Stoopt fuk. E'ryon kno warp spacetime. E'ryon kno break litspeeding. E'ryon kno crate warm hole. E'ryon kno cut mass half. E'yron cept idiot fuk humans. Y d'sign dumb shit-tier drive can't fi'ure out nuttin'. Cant warp spacetime. Cant break litspeeding. Cant crate warm hole. Cant cut mass. 'Stead idiot fuk human burrow down subquark stangelet bullshit risk implode entire quadrant for fuk newmatter. Y? Too dumb, tha's y. Now Brogga stuk dumb idiot fuk human ship on oth'r side galactic spinward fr'home. Idiot fuk human get Brogga kill't, get Brogga friend kill't..."
The muttering was cut off by a bang, followed by curses unutterable by the tongues of men. Poor old Brogga had been clanking about underneath the hullward dash for the last three days, almost without a break, muttering the entire time.
Say what he would, Brogga was nothing short of a mechanical genius, being the only Broggan capable of working on the Subquark-plated external combustion Engine. It took a particularly pliable mind to make an external combustion engine work, particularly when one was compressing- and burning- pure vacuum. The only real downside was the slight chance of creating decay, but if that happened it wouldn't matter as the entire tanker would be destroyed within seconds. I supposed it would have mattered to the rest of the Universe, but Brogga wouldn't have cared for he would have been the first to go.
Well, okay, there was a second slight problem. See, by burning pure vacuum they wore away a little strip of the cosmos. It was so small that it probably didn't matter, and the Universe was expanding anyways, but certain routes did get more traffic and engines were getting more efficient all the time.
"Idiot fuk human shit design fuk"
More clattering and banging from underneath the hullward dash.
"Idiot fuk human, try now"
Brogga's curses were rewarded with a shuttering rumble as the external combustion engine roared to life.
"Well that's curious" Captain Froy remarked, staring in disbelief at the guages.
Normal external combustion engines were able to operate somewhere between 10,000% and 100,000% efficiency, and for every joule of vacuum energy burned 100% efficiency would yield 10 kilo-joules.
The digital display read 10^89 % efficiency.
"Brogga, I think this gauge is busted."
"Idiot fuk human replace it then. Brogga sleeps."
Then, with customary swagger Captain Froy shoved the throttle open and pulled out, easing back into his seat for a cozy nap. However, when Captain Froy awoke several hours later he was not where he expected. In fact, he was not sure where he was at all.
You see, Brogga had accidentally upgraded their engine. Nobody saw the display, but if they had, they would have seen Brogga, Froy, and the rest of the crew tearing ass across the Universe, ripping a cosmic-scale gash in the vacuum like God's holy zipper. Of course this hole rapidly closed up, but in the time it would normally take them to travel a few hundred lightyears they had soared clear of the "observable Universe" several times over.
In fact, they had traveled so far they weren't entirely sure how to get back.
Thus began the journey of Brogga and the idiot fuk humans who wasted 600 years of his life and destroyed his capacity to speak properly. | Captain Lance sat there before the council of Species, listening to them talk in their many differnt forms of communication, he basically ignored the translation machine since none of the conversation was being targeted at him at the moment, he was getting tired, cranky, and hungry as it'd been five hours since the prototype ship arrived, it had worked a little too well and shot him farther than the intended jump was meant to take him. He couldn't even communicate with earth when he'd arrived. One of the aliens, a tall blue creature that looked like an evolved snail whom became humanoid but kept a shell, turned its three stalked eyes towards him and spoke in a weird language that sounded like water dripping and popcorn being smooshed under a shoe at the same time. The translation device said, "Tell us again how the ship you arrived in works, to the best of your knowledge."
Captain Lance groaned, "Listen I told you I don't know the specifics very well, but I'll explain it the best I can remember them trying to tell me. They created an micro artifical sun, surrounded it with a thing they call a Dyson sphere, put it in a thing they call a condensed hyper particle accelerator, and shot some sort of atom thingy they called a higgs boson at it, the higgs boson penetrates the surface of the sphere, goes through the artificial sun, and it creates some weird energy they call the hyper wave, it gets shuffled into the engine and propels the ship by and makes it ghost like or something. They call it a hyper particle drive. Its more complicated than what I explained but that's all I really paid attention too, honestly, I'm just a pilot, and not exactly their best. I'm what they consider an acceptable loss, only reason It was a manned flight instead of automated was because if it made the jump, they wanted to make sure it could be turned around and returned without relying on the automated systems which can fail. Which I would have done except the minute I jumped, the ship rematerialized in the middle of one of your luxury cruise space ships, and ruined some purple headed kids birthday party. The ship and I were then collected by one of your council patrol ships, and we were brought here. Im tired, im hungry, I just want to get back on the ship, point it towards home and fire up the drive. I guarantee everyone on Earth are freaking out about their 6 billion dollar prototype disappearing and not having any data... or at least I don't think they have data, I couldn't contact them."
The slug nodded and turned to the others who had been listening intently, they started talking again, "Dangerous" "Morons" "What kind of backwoods idiot species would develop something that reckless and just use it without better safety measures in place."
Captain Lance sighed as they continued to talk, a heated debate about whether to let him go in his ship, or be escorted back via one of their own. The argument against both seemed to indicate that they thought Humans where a danger to themselves and if left to their own devices, the rest of the galaxy. This was going to be a long night he thought. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Terrestrial Warp Drives. First proposed by Miguel Alcubierre two hundred formlats ago, The equivalent of forcing space into a shape which closely resembles two black holes stacked fore to aft. It requires insanely large sums of energy to produce the warp effect, equivalent to at least the mass of a small moon converted to energy. To get around this, the Terrestrials use catalytic mass converter engines. A device which has been discredited by the rest of the universe for the complete and utter destructive potential should such a reactor melt down on a planet. They work by converting matter to energy with a catalyst particle. However, they also produce a certain percent of catalyst particles. When this process runs away, it has been known to destroy planets, heavily damaging entire solar systems.
Under order 4,900,232 section III, Human spacecraft are to be classified as "NOT TO BE TOUCHED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES" on or near a planet, and "DESTROY AT ALL COSTS" in interplanetary space. This is not done as a measure against humans, but as a safety measure across the galaxy. This will be done until a treaty can be made with the terrestrial humans such that they will cease using catalytic mass converters.
Examination of a captured Terrestrial FTL Engine under the Federal Standard Gravity Model suggests that some fairly simple improvements to the Alcubierre-type drive can be made to reduce the energy requirements to what can be managed by fusion and antimatter reaction technology. They need not give up their unique drive. As dangerous as the Terrestrial Drive is, it presents no risk to those outside the vessel. | Captain Lance sat there before the council of Species, listening to them talk in their many differnt forms of communication, he basically ignored the translation machine since none of the conversation was being targeted at him at the moment, he was getting tired, cranky, and hungry as it'd been five hours since the prototype ship arrived, it had worked a little too well and shot him farther than the intended jump was meant to take him. He couldn't even communicate with earth when he'd arrived. One of the aliens, a tall blue creature that looked like an evolved snail whom became humanoid but kept a shell, turned its three stalked eyes towards him and spoke in a weird language that sounded like water dripping and popcorn being smooshed under a shoe at the same time. The translation device said, "Tell us again how the ship you arrived in works, to the best of your knowledge."
Captain Lance groaned, "Listen I told you I don't know the specifics very well, but I'll explain it the best I can remember them trying to tell me. They created an micro artifical sun, surrounded it with a thing they call a Dyson sphere, put it in a thing they call a condensed hyper particle accelerator, and shot some sort of atom thingy they called a higgs boson at it, the higgs boson penetrates the surface of the sphere, goes through the artificial sun, and it creates some weird energy they call the hyper wave, it gets shuffled into the engine and propels the ship by and makes it ghost like or something. They call it a hyper particle drive. Its more complicated than what I explained but that's all I really paid attention too, honestly, I'm just a pilot, and not exactly their best. I'm what they consider an acceptable loss, only reason It was a manned flight instead of automated was because if it made the jump, they wanted to make sure it could be turned around and returned without relying on the automated systems which can fail. Which I would have done except the minute I jumped, the ship rematerialized in the middle of one of your luxury cruise space ships, and ruined some purple headed kids birthday party. The ship and I were then collected by one of your council patrol ships, and we were brought here. Im tired, im hungry, I just want to get back on the ship, point it towards home and fire up the drive. I guarantee everyone on Earth are freaking out about their 6 billion dollar prototype disappearing and not having any data... or at least I don't think they have data, I couldn't contact them."
The slug nodded and turned to the others who had been listening intently, they started talking again, "Dangerous" "Morons" "What kind of backwoods idiot species would develop something that reckless and just use it without better safety measures in place."
Captain Lance sighed as they continued to talk, a heated debate about whether to let him go in his ship, or be escorted back via one of their own. The argument against both seemed to indicate that they thought Humans where a danger to themselves and if left to their own devices, the rest of the galaxy. This was going to be a long night he thought. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "I'm sorry...there must be a glitch with this translator. You do *what* now?"
"Fiddle with the Higgs Field around our ships."
"And your 'Higgs Field' is where a particle essentially gives an object its mass via its interaction with other particles, yes?"
"Yup!"
"And you...fiddle with it?"
"Yeah, it ain't too precise. Zero Point Drives have a decent range of power that fluctuates, but they work!"
"Just...walk me through it again."
"Alright, well the ZPD activates and it creates a field around the ship that essentially begins to stop bosons. The ship essentially loses matter now that it now longer interacts with the Universe, approaching a 'Zero Point' or 'ground state' of existence. Everyone and everything inside is fine due to the field creating a sort of pocket within the ship."
"And acceleration?"
"Well our quantum vacuum thrusters—"
"And those are?"
"Oh! QVTs use quantum vacuum fluctuations of energy in space to propel itself using virtual plasma. As I was saying, once the ZPD fires up, those kick to go faster than light, and the lack of mass means its possible to do so."
"So first you alter the existence of your ship and then you tap into the still vastly misunderstood vacuum of virtual particles, risking destabilizing all matter aboard the vessel and risking fusing into an object once you complete your jump."
"We keep the spacelanes clear of debris just in case."
"And when it does happen?"
"Live and Learn. For those of us not aboard that ship of course. They're dead."
"..." | Captain Lance sat there before the council of Species, listening to them talk in their many differnt forms of communication, he basically ignored the translation machine since none of the conversation was being targeted at him at the moment, he was getting tired, cranky, and hungry as it'd been five hours since the prototype ship arrived, it had worked a little too well and shot him farther than the intended jump was meant to take him. He couldn't even communicate with earth when he'd arrived. One of the aliens, a tall blue creature that looked like an evolved snail whom became humanoid but kept a shell, turned its three stalked eyes towards him and spoke in a weird language that sounded like water dripping and popcorn being smooshed under a shoe at the same time. The translation device said, "Tell us again how the ship you arrived in works, to the best of your knowledge."
Captain Lance groaned, "Listen I told you I don't know the specifics very well, but I'll explain it the best I can remember them trying to tell me. They created an micro artifical sun, surrounded it with a thing they call a Dyson sphere, put it in a thing they call a condensed hyper particle accelerator, and shot some sort of atom thingy they called a higgs boson at it, the higgs boson penetrates the surface of the sphere, goes through the artificial sun, and it creates some weird energy they call the hyper wave, it gets shuffled into the engine and propels the ship by and makes it ghost like or something. They call it a hyper particle drive. Its more complicated than what I explained but that's all I really paid attention too, honestly, I'm just a pilot, and not exactly their best. I'm what they consider an acceptable loss, only reason It was a manned flight instead of automated was because if it made the jump, they wanted to make sure it could be turned around and returned without relying on the automated systems which can fail. Which I would have done except the minute I jumped, the ship rematerialized in the middle of one of your luxury cruise space ships, and ruined some purple headed kids birthday party. The ship and I were then collected by one of your council patrol ships, and we were brought here. Im tired, im hungry, I just want to get back on the ship, point it towards home and fire up the drive. I guarantee everyone on Earth are freaking out about their 6 billion dollar prototype disappearing and not having any data... or at least I don't think they have data, I couldn't contact them."
The slug nodded and turned to the others who had been listening intently, they started talking again, "Dangerous" "Morons" "What kind of backwoods idiot species would develop something that reckless and just use it without better safety measures in place."
Captain Lance sighed as they continued to talk, a heated debate about whether to let him go in his ship, or be escorted back via one of their own. The argument against both seemed to indicate that they thought Humans where a danger to themselves and if left to their own devices, the rest of the galaxy. This was going to be a long night he thought. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "I'll try to explain ... the problem is ... it's not THAT you can travel faster than light." the small alien said, sheepishly. "It's how you do it."
She continued, "To be honest, it's creepy."
Doug stared at her blankly. "Go on ..."
"Ok , you know how FTL works for the rest of us, right?" She cocked her head a bit.
Doug listened to her, but wasn't really paying attention - his mind was on her, specifically, how similar she was to him and every other human. Aliens, or rather 'intelligent beings' it turns out, had generally fallen in to two categories: humanoid, and swarm. For the most part, all humanoids looked the same: slender, upright, various colors of skin and eyes depending on the their home star's primary color, even oddly similar genitalia. Evolution, it seemed, preferred a certain shape. Humans were a little bit odd by galactic standards because of their size relative to other humanoids - roughly three times the size and five times the mass of other humanoids.
"... are you listening at all?", She snapped. Her shrill tone popped Doug back in to the situation.
"Yeah! No .. got it .. creepy." He paused for a moment. "But it's not like we're actually doing that, right? No one is watching anyone in the shower, or in some secret war room, or anything like that."
Most alien FTL drives worked by manipulating spacetime in such a way as to compress the space in front of the ship, or expand the space behind it, or warp it n such a way that the local (to the ship) speed of light wasn't exceeded; it was space itself that was altered and the ship just rode the wave. A lot of alien corporation marketed this technology in many ways under many names, Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy.
Rather than warp anything, humanity's FTL solution was, essentially, to flatten the universe relative to the ship, allowing the ship to view the universe as a sheet of paper. In doing so, the ship could pick a point in the universe and appear there nearly instantly. Most of the transit time was spent simply finding a place to go.
There was, a side effect. By pushing a ship up in this way, the entire universe became viewable down to the atom. Meaning that at any point, someone in a human ship could be watching someone else take a shower, or plan a war, or really -- anything, anytime, anywhere. It was unsettling, to almost everyone.
"I get your point though." Doug said.
She was fairly attractive as far as aliens go, and one of the taller species around. He figured he'd peek in on her next transit. Surely she takes showers.
| Captain Lance sat there before the council of Species, listening to them talk in their many differnt forms of communication, he basically ignored the translation machine since none of the conversation was being targeted at him at the moment, he was getting tired, cranky, and hungry as it'd been five hours since the prototype ship arrived, it had worked a little too well and shot him farther than the intended jump was meant to take him. He couldn't even communicate with earth when he'd arrived. One of the aliens, a tall blue creature that looked like an evolved snail whom became humanoid but kept a shell, turned its three stalked eyes towards him and spoke in a weird language that sounded like water dripping and popcorn being smooshed under a shoe at the same time. The translation device said, "Tell us again how the ship you arrived in works, to the best of your knowledge."
Captain Lance groaned, "Listen I told you I don't know the specifics very well, but I'll explain it the best I can remember them trying to tell me. They created an micro artifical sun, surrounded it with a thing they call a Dyson sphere, put it in a thing they call a condensed hyper particle accelerator, and shot some sort of atom thingy they called a higgs boson at it, the higgs boson penetrates the surface of the sphere, goes through the artificial sun, and it creates some weird energy they call the hyper wave, it gets shuffled into the engine and propels the ship by and makes it ghost like or something. They call it a hyper particle drive. Its more complicated than what I explained but that's all I really paid attention too, honestly, I'm just a pilot, and not exactly their best. I'm what they consider an acceptable loss, only reason It was a manned flight instead of automated was because if it made the jump, they wanted to make sure it could be turned around and returned without relying on the automated systems which can fail. Which I would have done except the minute I jumped, the ship rematerialized in the middle of one of your luxury cruise space ships, and ruined some purple headed kids birthday party. The ship and I were then collected by one of your council patrol ships, and we were brought here. Im tired, im hungry, I just want to get back on the ship, point it towards home and fire up the drive. I guarantee everyone on Earth are freaking out about their 6 billion dollar prototype disappearing and not having any data... or at least I don't think they have data, I couldn't contact them."
The slug nodded and turned to the others who had been listening intently, they started talking again, "Dangerous" "Morons" "What kind of backwoods idiot species would develop something that reckless and just use it without better safety measures in place."
Captain Lance sighed as they continued to talk, a heated debate about whether to let him go in his ship, or be escorted back via one of their own. The argument against both seemed to indicate that they thought Humans where a danger to themselves and if left to their own devices, the rest of the galaxy. This was going to be a long night he thought. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Xandar was fuming. 20 smismars he'd been waiting in the bowels of that horrible assembling of junk and metal the humans proudly called their *flagship of intergalactic friendship*. It was bad enough when those hairless pink monkeys made it to outer space but now they had developped a functioning FTL drive and that made them *worthy* of introduction into the Galactic Alliance.
In all his bismars as official technological investigators of the Galactic Alliance's scientific division, Xandar had never seen such a pathetic excuse for a ship. Neither he or any of his colleagues wanted to partake in this scientific inspection. They actually had to draw straws and to his utter disappointment, Xandar lost. Xarcy tried to cheer him up, noting that the human FTL drive was probably a dud anyway. Their first long distance drive was barely a stupid bedsheet catching solar wind, how could they have build a fully functioning FTL drive is such little time since.
21 smismars, where the hell was that pink ape that was supposed to show him the drive ? Xandar only wanted to get done with this and leave. The human vessel was small, cramped and much too warm for his taste. It also didn't help that everything was made to accomodate 6ft tall apes, at 9ft tall, a respectable height for a noble Glaxian like him, he was constantly banging his upper appendage on the ceiling and door frames.
Finally a metal door opened and 2 hairless apes ran toward him. The first one, pink and the second one dark brown. Fascinating thought Xandar, I've never seen such a dark colored ape. At least some decent scientific information. Maybe the science council would let him abduct such a specimen later on for testing. Humans usually didn't mind a few abduction here and there as long as you didn't touch the cows sleeping in the fields.
The 2 apes escorted Xandar to the engine room. The first thing that caught Xandar's attention was the intense heat coming from the doorway, much worst than the rest of the already hot vessel.
>Right this way Dr Xandar, you're gonna love this!
Words could barely describe the sights that laid in front of Xandar when he crossed into the room
*What the hell kind of piece of shit is that?*
>What, the FTL drive ?
>>Quite the beauty isn't she ?
The drive in question looked like a random pile of junk with tubes coming out of the sides, hot steam rising from them. The whole thing was red hot and there was a very annoying sound of pressured gas being shot into the machine at close interval. On top of the device sat 2 giant glowing green tubes.
*Are those Arthosian power cores ?*
>Yes, you have a good eye Dr Xandar.
*Where in the 5 stars did you get these ? Only a handful were ever created and the Arthosian guard them very closely*
>>We found them!
>Of yeah, came upon a space wreck near Alpha Centory IV and we managed to recover quite a lot of technology from it.
*Wait wait... you stole them from a broken ship ?*
>Not stole, never. We found them.
>>Space salvage!
*Does the Arthosian empire know you're using stolen tech ?*
>I dunno, they never complained about it before you brought it up.
Xandar was flaggerbasted, these hairless apes weren't just stupid, they were a menace.
*Fine, walk me trough it*
>Oh you're gonna love this doc. By stripping the neutrino element of the 2 power cores and jerryrigging them together, we managed to create a power unit strong enough to blast trough the fabric of spacetime, and into the slipstream.
*Wait a minute, you stripped the power core of its protective shielding ?*
>Why yes.
>>It was really annoying really, hiding all the good stuff.
*ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS! Those a radiation shielding, this stuff is extremely dangerous*
>I know that, we all know that
>>It needed to be done. Beside, we added some plasma shielding to it.
>Yes, it should do the job... enough.
*Jesus fucking christ.... continue*
>Well, as I was saying, the drive allows us to punch our way into the slipstream and from there we can modify the flow of radiation emited by the power cores, enabling us to navigate different planes of the stream.
>>It's like a chose you own adventure travel book. Add a gamma variant to the radiation cocktail and you can move faster, replace it by a theta variant and you can navigate, for lack of a better word, "UP" into the 4th dimension.
*How do you exit the slipstreem ?*
>Well, we found that injecting a low level ion isopote directly into the power core will create an instability in the stream that causes the ship to be ejected, albeith rather violently.
>>Yes, the first test vessel exploded on exit.
*My god, this is catastrophic*
>We thought so to, so insted we just shut off the drive and the ship gets ejected much more softly.
*What... no! I mean... this whole system is horrible...*
>It's not so bad once you work out the kinks
*But how.... this must be ridiculously unstable !?*
>Oh boy... that's an understatement
>>You have to understand, all this only works if we keep the core overheated to exactly 3,568 degrees.
>Oh yes, any variation of over 2.75 degrees and the whole thing would go kablewy
*This is nuts, how do you maintain the temperature ? I see no adaptive secluar temporal module anywhere*
>Don't have one
>>Yeah, this fancy stuff is much too complicated and too hard to get your hands on.
>For now we use a system of pressure injected water and nitrogen
*You forcecool it under pressure ?*
>Exactly! I knew you'd get it doc.
>>We alternate between injecting pressurized water and nitrogen to cool off the core with a 1.5 seconds interval between each injection
*What?.... that's....how!?*
>You know.... too hot, blast it with nitrogen. Too cold, switch to water. Perfect temperature, do nothing. We evaluate the temperature every 2 seconds and Frank over there pulls the switch to inject the correct cooling substance.
*So none of this is automated ?*
>Nah, we're hoping to find a suitable automated cooling mechanism soon though.
*Like what? A water tin can on a string with a hole on the bottom ?*
>>Well no that's.... hey that's actually a good idea
>Yeah, we should look into that.
*Allright.... not taking into consideration the immense safety concern, not to mention decent common sens, this thing appears extremely dangerous and also in violation of at least a dozen galactic regulations on plasma use and timestream protocoles, and that's just for starters*
>Really?
>>Well that's a bummer for sure
*I must ask, with all this violent punching around the slipstream, how does your system deal with excess radiations and temporal aftershock effects ?*
>Come again ?
*The extreme side effects of your shitty system!!*
>Oh that. I dunno, whatever happens in the slipstream stays in the slipstream I guess.
>>Yeah, I mean it's not like we plan on living in the stream you know. It's just a highway. You roll down the window and throw your trash out.
*Over 15 sentient species live in the stream, 4 of wich are official members of the Galactic Alliance.*
>Really, people live in there ?
*YES, THEY DO!*
>Well that's fucking stupid.
>>yeah, who in their right mind lives in a galactic highway ? That's dangerous, somebody could get hurt!
>And they call US crazy ? | Captain Lance sat there before the council of Species, listening to them talk in their many differnt forms of communication, he basically ignored the translation machine since none of the conversation was being targeted at him at the moment, he was getting tired, cranky, and hungry as it'd been five hours since the prototype ship arrived, it had worked a little too well and shot him farther than the intended jump was meant to take him. He couldn't even communicate with earth when he'd arrived. One of the aliens, a tall blue creature that looked like an evolved snail whom became humanoid but kept a shell, turned its three stalked eyes towards him and spoke in a weird language that sounded like water dripping and popcorn being smooshed under a shoe at the same time. The translation device said, "Tell us again how the ship you arrived in works, to the best of your knowledge."
Captain Lance groaned, "Listen I told you I don't know the specifics very well, but I'll explain it the best I can remember them trying to tell me. They created an micro artifical sun, surrounded it with a thing they call a Dyson sphere, put it in a thing they call a condensed hyper particle accelerator, and shot some sort of atom thingy they called a higgs boson at it, the higgs boson penetrates the surface of the sphere, goes through the artificial sun, and it creates some weird energy they call the hyper wave, it gets shuffled into the engine and propels the ship by and makes it ghost like or something. They call it a hyper particle drive. Its more complicated than what I explained but that's all I really paid attention too, honestly, I'm just a pilot, and not exactly their best. I'm what they consider an acceptable loss, only reason It was a manned flight instead of automated was because if it made the jump, they wanted to make sure it could be turned around and returned without relying on the automated systems which can fail. Which I would have done except the minute I jumped, the ship rematerialized in the middle of one of your luxury cruise space ships, and ruined some purple headed kids birthday party. The ship and I were then collected by one of your council patrol ships, and we were brought here. Im tired, im hungry, I just want to get back on the ship, point it towards home and fire up the drive. I guarantee everyone on Earth are freaking out about their 6 billion dollar prototype disappearing and not having any data... or at least I don't think they have data, I couldn't contact them."
The slug nodded and turned to the others who had been listening intently, they started talking again, "Dangerous" "Morons" "What kind of backwoods idiot species would develop something that reckless and just use it without better safety measures in place."
Captain Lance sighed as they continued to talk, a heated debate about whether to let him go in his ship, or be escorted back via one of their own. The argument against both seemed to indicate that they thought Humans where a danger to themselves and if left to their own devices, the rest of the galaxy. This was going to be a long night he thought. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The chamber illumination dimmed and the milky sim tank faded to life. A thousand eyes stared intently from the council benches, and a trillion more from across the five galaxies.
A deep voice, set on edge with urgency and well-contained fear, began its narration of the sim.
"The Brevis' star system surveillance node 47 has, it has been reported, recorded first contact with the species self-identifying as Humans. This much has already been announced. What has not yet been announced is that an analysis of the event has been completed, and their method of travel has thrown a black flag, gamma zero priority. Observe."
The sim showed a small moon below, surrounded by a halo of probes similar to the one that must be recording the image. In the far distance, the volumetric compensation showed a grossly enlarged blue planet on another orbital track, the Brevis' home world Herol. The orbital motion of the probes had been smooth and obvious, but now they slowed.
"We are showing the event at a reduced speed. Watch carefully."
Without warning, the entire projection dimmed as a single point of incredible, actinic light burst from the space next to the moon and raced away from its surface. As one, the closer orbiting probes glowed white-hot and began to disintegrate. The image wavered and then froze.
"Now, focus your attention on the exact location this phenomenon appeared, and keep your attention on that spot as the light moves away."
The image reversed, and the killing glow moved back to its original location. It slowly crept back outwards as the sim zoomed in. There, in the wake of the glow, was a ship, shaped like a mushroom with its cap to the light. Vaporised hull matter streamed from the smooth side facing the light, some sort of ablative heat shielding.
"We had never seen this effect before. We assumed it was some sort of deceleration technique, until we looked at it from the planetary defence network."
The perspective in the sim shifted, as if travelling to the distant planet. The moon and its halo of probes shrank, then grew again due to the volumetric compensation. The sim was normal again for a moment, before that terrible light appeared, an incredible distance from the moon this time, and immediately split into two lights, travelling away from each other at greater than the speed of light.
An audible click reverberated around the chamber as each of the species in attendance simultaneously inhaled on their breathing apparatuses.
"As you can see, the motion of the light is a relativistic illusion. The light doesn't travel, it exists simultaneously at all points in a column for a moment, then dissipates. The energy requirement is staggering. After calculating an intercept to the closest habitable world on the trajectory described by the light column, it appears their world is four hundred light-years away. The humans claim a similar distance, and their navigational data also confirm it. From this we can calculate the energy release as being consistent with a type III civilisation."
What had previously been a gentle series of clicks was now a cacophony, the seats shaking with the bodily gyrations of the assembled dignitaries. Some wailed, others laughed, most were silent.
"We have brought the leader of the human expedition here, with her agreement, of course."
The noises of discomfort reached a crashing crescendo, as several of the delegates jumped out of their seats and bolted for the exit.
The disembodied voice thundered, "ORDER!"
"I present to you, Chakor, Human, of planet Earth."
The creature that stepped into the chamber was unimpressive, physically. Bipedal, endoskeletal, wearing some sort of almost completely covering clothing with various decals affixed to it. The remaining delegates seemed to calm a little, their agitation lowering to a gentle swaying. The Human addressed the crowd.
"Greetings, delegates of the local group. My name is Chakor, I represent my species, Human, and wish to express our honour in meeting you all. We come in peace."
The room quietened further, and the booming voice sounded again. "Chakor will now take moderated questions from the floor. Please enter your queries for analysis and amalgamation."
A few awkward moments passed, Chakor looking out among the delegates. They varied from bipeds with heads and arms of various number to floating creatures in some sort of water tanks, through to creatures much more... alien.
"First question. The energy output of your drive technology is beyond immense. You must be capturing the energy output of most of a galaxy, somewhere. How can it be that we have not noticed the birth of a type III civilisation under our watch?"
Chakor paused to think before she replied, clearly confused. "We are not a type III civilisation. We are barely a type I. We just discovered a way to manipulate the nature of reality."
The voice didn't even wait to consult the accumulating list of vetted questions. "What?! How?"
"When we accidentally created and shot a cluster of miniature black holes through our particle collider's detectors, we discovered that the vacuum of space was not at the true ground state of the universe. This lent is an opportunity to use the difference in energy levels to complete an until-then hypothetical method of propulsion."
The room exploded into roars, gurgles, and screeches of outrage.
"Your drive is powered by triggering a collapse of fundamental reality?!"
"Not quite, if you'd let me finish. After we discovered the false vacuum was the current skein of the universe, we found that at the moment of triggering a vacuum state collapse, it was possible to entangle an arbitrary length of vacuum in a beam away from the source, and trigger the collapse simultaneously and instantaneously along that path."
Guards in the chamber drew their weapons as several delegates rose on their hindlimbs as if to attack.
"Chakor, this is madness! Your drive cannot work as you describe, or we wouldn't have any video of your arrival. A vacuum collapse would spread from wherever it started at the speed of light, unmaking the universe in its path!"
"Oh, yes we knew that. It turns out that the vacuum collapse provides enough energy to fold space into itself. In local proximity, one side of the event becomes the other. The space in between is clipped off like a twisted balloon, erased from having any bearing on existence. Our ship is instantaneously folded from one side of the beam to the other, and internal fields save us from having any biological changes. Of course, the collapse has to happen first by a few fractions of a microsecond, so there is some... energy leakage."
The chamber went suddenly silent.
The probe and planetary defence system had recorded an abomination, a gross violation of reality itself. The demonic light fleeing the Humans' strange vessel was the energetic corpse of a monster, come to open its maw and swallow the universe, inexorably, at the glacial speed of light. A fitting technology for a pursuit predator like the humans.
"You risk all our existence just to travel. How can we leave you free run of the galaxies?"
Chakor grinned. "We could always run one last wide beam to the ends of the universe and neglect to fold it away. How can you not?" | Captain Lance sat there before the council of Species, listening to them talk in their many differnt forms of communication, he basically ignored the translation machine since none of the conversation was being targeted at him at the moment, he was getting tired, cranky, and hungry as it'd been five hours since the prototype ship arrived, it had worked a little too well and shot him farther than the intended jump was meant to take him. He couldn't even communicate with earth when he'd arrived. One of the aliens, a tall blue creature that looked like an evolved snail whom became humanoid but kept a shell, turned its three stalked eyes towards him and spoke in a weird language that sounded like water dripping and popcorn being smooshed under a shoe at the same time. The translation device said, "Tell us again how the ship you arrived in works, to the best of your knowledge."
Captain Lance groaned, "Listen I told you I don't know the specifics very well, but I'll explain it the best I can remember them trying to tell me. They created an micro artifical sun, surrounded it with a thing they call a Dyson sphere, put it in a thing they call a condensed hyper particle accelerator, and shot some sort of atom thingy they called a higgs boson at it, the higgs boson penetrates the surface of the sphere, goes through the artificial sun, and it creates some weird energy they call the hyper wave, it gets shuffled into the engine and propels the ship by and makes it ghost like or something. They call it a hyper particle drive. Its more complicated than what I explained but that's all I really paid attention too, honestly, I'm just a pilot, and not exactly their best. I'm what they consider an acceptable loss, only reason It was a manned flight instead of automated was because if it made the jump, they wanted to make sure it could be turned around and returned without relying on the automated systems which can fail. Which I would have done except the minute I jumped, the ship rematerialized in the middle of one of your luxury cruise space ships, and ruined some purple headed kids birthday party. The ship and I were then collected by one of your council patrol ships, and we were brought here. Im tired, im hungry, I just want to get back on the ship, point it towards home and fire up the drive. I guarantee everyone on Earth are freaking out about their 6 billion dollar prototype disappearing and not having any data... or at least I don't think they have data, I couldn't contact them."
The slug nodded and turned to the others who had been listening intently, they started talking again, "Dangerous" "Morons" "What kind of backwoods idiot species would develop something that reckless and just use it without better safety measures in place."
Captain Lance sighed as they continued to talk, a heated debate about whether to let him go in his ship, or be escorted back via one of their own. The argument against both seemed to indicate that they thought Humans where a danger to themselves and if left to their own devices, the rest of the galaxy. This was going to be a long night he thought. | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "So, about the humans..." Said a voice with diplomatic neutrality.
Groans from a myriad of different species' voices could be heard throughout the conference hall. There was a meeting being held on how to properly welcome these new, strange creatures now that they had, technically, at least, achieved Faster Than Light travel.
"We organised this meeting to discuss them! When are you all going to stop pussyfooting around the issue!?" The same voice declared, with a level of anger hard to believe considering their tone mere seconds ago.
"Blarpart, I know you're a workaholic and all that but have you SEEN these...creature's form of FTL "travel"?" A gruff voice from somewhere in the hall responded over the din of arguing and groans of "are we really fucking doing this?"
"I agree that it's...unconventional but-"
The word "unconventional" being used to describe human beings' method of intergalactic travel caused an uproar among the crowd.
"Hey! HEY! HEYYYYYY!" Interjected Blarpart with an odd mixture of rage, impatience and exhaustion. "It works for them, who are we to judge?"
"Don't you get it? They use possibly the most unstable thing in the universe, a wormhole, and pump it with a load of who knows what to make it last more than a nanosecond and to a greater size than a few atoms and just *sigh* go through it and hope for the best"
"As I said, uncon-" Blarpart thought better of using *that* word again and instead chose to deflect the conversation in the hopes of finishing and grabbing something from a Space Denny's on the way home.
"Ok, how about we just ignore them? They're not going to last long as a species if THAT'S how they traverse space. From our observations, their 'wormhole jumping' has about an 80% chance of failure. All in favour?"
A chorus of relieved "aye"s reverberated throughout the room.
"All opposed?"
...
"Well then, that settles i-"
"YOU FUCKING WOT, M8?" A voice shouted from just outside the hall.
"Can I go without being interrupted for ONE MINUTE?" Blarpart said in an exasperated sigh.
And with that, a duo of humans, one tall with brown hair and the other short with black hair, burst into the hall with their bottles of what they call "Mountain Dew" and bags of "Doritos" and started going on about how we can't "diss" them like that.
"You know what? Fuck these alien squares, wanna go piss into a black hole?" The taller one said.
"Yeah, dude. Definitely." The shorter one replied with an almost endearing level of excitement at the prospect.
And with that, the duo left as quickly as they had entered.
"What just happened?" A member of the crowd ask with a disbelieving tone.
"...Humanity. Humanity happened" said Blarpart, with yet another sigh.
Spelling and removing the pretentious "fin". | We saw the opportunity and by the gods, we took it.
FTL travel was always a ways off for earth's scientists, I mean sure, we had near-lightspeed travel for now but frankly, ever since Humanity blundered into contact with the other races, they've been stingy with the secrets to FTL travel, considering us "crude" and "uncultured". Still, some of the lesser races reluctantly traded with us, and we came across what they considered to be a trivial piece of information, a rather efficient method of converting normal matter to exotic matter, if only for an instant, before reverting back to regular matter.
They used it as a way to fuel their dark matter weaponry, and of course, we had nowhere near the technology required for that, and they knew it. They held back their freakish laughter as the dumb humans traded valuable resources for something that not only everyone in the galaxy knows, but they couldn't even use!
Well, turns out that's not entirely true.
A few years went by with earth's scientists playing with their new "toy", a few neat innovations and basic uses had cropped up, but all in all, it seemed that the inability to keep exotic matter around without it reverting was rather limiting.
One man stepped forward with an idea, however. An idea that was hushed and slated to impossibility by the earth's various governing bodies. "There's no way we could do that" they whispered. "It's **insane**".
But, with humanity being left behind diplomatically against the rest of the galaxy, could we really afford to be left out? To be left in the dust as other races walked over us like we were nothing?
Eventually, reluctantly, approval was gained, and the project initiated. It would take years, several thousand matter conversion stations.
A project to dwarf all others.
The man had proposed a wormhole. Not an alien concept to the other races, obviously, but one that had only been toyed with by humanity, an unrealistic method of FTL. The amount of exotic matter needed alone would be.. well it would be insane! We had nowhere near enough useable mass near our homeworld, or so we had thought.
It was worth it, I think, the expression on the diplomats faces as we crashed the galaxy's latest diplomatic conference made it all worth it. Their horrified expressions as they understood just what we had done, looking agape (and the several alien equivalents) at the monstrous bastard we had piloted.
Humanity had finally made it's statement as a real, crazy force in the universe.
An entire moon's worth of statement. dwarfing even the largest diplomatic citadel. A moon, our moon, converted into a bastardized FTL vessel. Our reckless abandonment of sensibilities and border-idiotic determination would be the staple of Humanity for eons after that.
"Crude", they were definitely right about that.
| |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Kalgor looked at the pale skined human in utter shock. 'They couldn't be serious in thinking that the rest of the galactic community would simply accept the use of this kind of technology'
“Mr. Adams...” Kalgor began.
“Doctor Adams if you don't mind Count Kalgor.” Dr. Adams corrected, he knew that if he didn't demand respect now that it would be harder to earn it back later. As it stood he could tell that the reptilian xeno that stood before him was not pleased with what had been unveiled only a hour ago in the space dock that was right outside his office window right now.
“Yes Dr.Adams. You must understand that of the various forms of FTL drive in use in the galaxy what you have unveiled here today is at best going to be seen as unsafe at best or outright dangerous to some in the galaxy.” He was struggling to keep the panic out of his voice, but despite his many deca-cycles of experience in diplomacy the very skill that had made him chosen as the Galactic Senate's emissary to the up and coming human race, he was begin to fail.
“Count with all due respect I fail to see what the overall difference is between our own hyperdrive and the Delfanit pulse tube drive or the Kantian gate system they all use hyperspace gravity waves to achieve FTL speeds.”
Kalgor's voice broke. “But you are punching holes in space to reach hyperspace!”
“So?” the Doctor responded nonchalantly.
“The Kantian's use a physical gateway to control entry into hyperspace and the Delfanit's use natural gravity currents to slip into hyperspace. Your system just punches holes into the fabric of space! Even our scientists can't tell if making those holes will not bring about the complete tearing of reality as we know it.”
Kalgor again reasserted some control over himself and continued.
“I know that this is a major milestone for humanity and means that you will not have to pay for the use of other species drive systems in your ships which will transform your economy and your military forces. But this is too dangerous besides, what possible advantages could this drive have over the other forms of FTL?”
Adams knew that this moment would be coming sooner or later and that he had to make the most it.
“So glad you could ask Count. The Kantian's gate system requires a massive amount of energy in order to not only open the entryway to hyperspace both for incoming and outgoing traffic, but to hold it open long enough for ships to get through. While they have relatively few systems in their Empire those that they have are spread out thus why the gate was developed. Once in system they use regular sub-light fusion drive to go from the gate to their ultimate planetary destination.”
Kalgor nodded his head as the Doctor continued.
“However due to the power requirements of just one of those gates not to mention the operating costs it would be uneconomical to have a gate at each planet.
Another thing is the time that the gate is held open effects the toll paid by merchant traffic thus why you don't see any Kantian merchant vessels over 1.5km in length. Beyond that length the ratio between hold space, engine size, and time to accelerate becomes uneconomical. They can't get moving from a stand still fast enough to go through the gate without occurring serious tolls and they can't dedicate more engine size because it cuts into their profits from loss of tonnage hauled.”
“Well... yes those are valid points but...” Kalgor stammered out but Adams didn't let up.
“The Delfanit pulse tube solves the power requirement issue and the infrastructure issue but those “tubes” where the gravity band waves are stable enough to sail on until they hit hyperspace are very restricting as they only occur naturally in a few places. This is why their Kingdom if you look at their history had periods of rapid expansion followed by long periods of solidification because goods had to travel often dozens of light years in sublight from system hubs that had these tubes thus slowing growth.”
Kalgor knew he was quickly losing ground and had little recourse as any other drive system that was used in the galaxy had similar glaring issues that were simply accepted.
The Maltiun wave-riders used massive 20km+ gravity sails to ride the same gravity waves as the Delfanit but instead of entering hyperspace they rode ever more powerful waves and were not limited in where they could go for the most part. But the system was high maintenance and very tonnage sensitive as the larger the vessel the longer it took for that vessel reach FTL speeds. The largest ships the species built took at least a standard week to get up to speed and then another week to slow down.
Salec skip drives on the other hand actually sent gravity anchor beams to latch onto hyperspace currents and pull the ship along technically “skipping” on the envelope between real space and hyperspace. The down side is that the anchors can only hold for so long and the power requirements while nothing like Kantians as this wasn't actually entering hyperspace. Meant that they could only skip anywhere from 20 to 100 lightyears depending on the ships configuration before having to recharge their anchoring system, which could take a standard day or up to a week on the largest shipping vessels. Still faster than going at sub light speeds for sure but it meant long travel times for goods.
“Our system allows us to enter hyperspace at will, with no concerns about ship mass, size, or power production beyond engine thrust which combined with our already recognized and accepted superior fusion engine designs, means that we can potentially travel from one side of the galaxy to the other in a month. At least if you are willing to burn that much H3 fuel which even then is more a matter of being inconvenienced with having to stop for fuel rather than any sort of cost consideration.”
The silence in the office was deafening as Kalgor stepped towards the window and looked upon the vessel.
“But the holes Doctor! You may have a system that doesn't have the others drawbacks but we are talking about ripping apart space itself.”
“Count Kalgor I am growing weary of this repeated falsehood. We have be using the same points in orbit to develop this system for over a standard year, and every time we have gone we have had to open a new hole as the last one closed once the vessel is through. Beyond the gravity wake left by the opening you can't tell any thing happened at all after 24 to 36 hours. It is safe.”
“The Senate will not accept this...” Kalgor started hoping he was right to bank on the repugnant nature of this very concept.
“They might not now but they will when they see the Eli Whitney.” Adams spoke ominously. He turned on the large holotank in the middle of the room. The image displayed a monstrous vessel.”
Kalgor turned around and his eyes went wide at the image.
“Is this a warship?” He asked as the ever growing list of implications in his head grew with each passing second.
“No my Count, it is not. It is a merchant vessel commissioned by the Wal-Mart Cartel. She is 75km long, over 2km tall with 12 50-Petawatt fusion reactors with a top estimated FTL speed of 50 but will likely run at 10 to save on fuel costs as such speed is generally unneeded. The whole vessel weighs over 500 million tons 490 of which is hold space capable of hauling virtually anything you can think of. She is going out for trials in a hour then if all goes well she will make a fully loaded iron ore run from the Sol system to Peraxus VII and its heavy industry there. And given that the Senate is on Peraxus V the Eli will make a pass and see if there is anything that needs to be shipped back here to Earth on the return trip.”
As the Doctor finished Kalgor could feel his heart tighten at the size of the vessel and its speed. It would be in the Peraxus system in 3 days, even if he left now in one of the fastest vessels money could buy now he couldn't hope to get there in anything less than 12 days.
“You humans are reckless and unorthodox beyond anything I have ever heard of in my life. But I can't argue with the results.” Kalgor finally stated any hope of resistance gone as the pragmatic side of him knew that economically humanity had, in 10 years after first contact blown every other power in the galaxy out of the water. Another voice his is head whispered about what would happen if mankind made warships on such a scale.
“Well Doctor I don't see any point in arguing anymore but if you can let me on this vessel and join me in the senate with your research especially on the whole hole-punching-then-closing-up-perfectly part, then maybe we can avoid starting a bigger galactic panic then what we absolutely have to.”
“Of course Count I'm already packed and I have made such arrangements already. We can leave once the ship has gone through its final trials.” The Doctor proudly stated. | We saw the opportunity and by the gods, we took it.
FTL travel was always a ways off for earth's scientists, I mean sure, we had near-lightspeed travel for now but frankly, ever since Humanity blundered into contact with the other races, they've been stingy with the secrets to FTL travel, considering us "crude" and "uncultured". Still, some of the lesser races reluctantly traded with us, and we came across what they considered to be a trivial piece of information, a rather efficient method of converting normal matter to exotic matter, if only for an instant, before reverting back to regular matter.
They used it as a way to fuel their dark matter weaponry, and of course, we had nowhere near the technology required for that, and they knew it. They held back their freakish laughter as the dumb humans traded valuable resources for something that not only everyone in the galaxy knows, but they couldn't even use!
Well, turns out that's not entirely true.
A few years went by with earth's scientists playing with their new "toy", a few neat innovations and basic uses had cropped up, but all in all, it seemed that the inability to keep exotic matter around without it reverting was rather limiting.
One man stepped forward with an idea, however. An idea that was hushed and slated to impossibility by the earth's various governing bodies. "There's no way we could do that" they whispered. "It's **insane**".
But, with humanity being left behind diplomatically against the rest of the galaxy, could we really afford to be left out? To be left in the dust as other races walked over us like we were nothing?
Eventually, reluctantly, approval was gained, and the project initiated. It would take years, several thousand matter conversion stations.
A project to dwarf all others.
The man had proposed a wormhole. Not an alien concept to the other races, obviously, but one that had only been toyed with by humanity, an unrealistic method of FTL. The amount of exotic matter needed alone would be.. well it would be insane! We had nowhere near enough useable mass near our homeworld, or so we had thought.
It was worth it, I think, the expression on the diplomats faces as we crashed the galaxy's latest diplomatic conference made it all worth it. Their horrified expressions as they understood just what we had done, looking agape (and the several alien equivalents) at the monstrous bastard we had piloted.
Humanity had finally made it's statement as a real, crazy force in the universe.
An entire moon's worth of statement. dwarfing even the largest diplomatic citadel. A moon, our moon, converted into a bastardized FTL vessel. Our reckless abandonment of sensibilities and border-idiotic determination would be the staple of Humanity for eons after that.
"Crude", they were definitely right about that.
| |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "Idiot fuk human design shit-tier spaceship get all Brogga friend kill't. End all. Stoopt fuk. E'ryon kno warp spacetime. E'ryon kno break litspeeding. E'ryon kno crate warm hole. E'ryon kno cut mass half. E'yron cept idiot fuk humans. Y d'sign dumb shit-tier drive can't fi'ure out nuttin'. Cant warp spacetime. Cant break litspeeding. Cant crate warm hole. Cant cut mass. 'Stead idiot fuk human burrow down subquark stangelet bullshit risk implode entire quadrant for fuk newmatter. Y? Too dumb, tha's y. Now Brogga stuk dumb idiot fuk human ship on oth'r side galactic spinward fr'home. Idiot fuk human get Brogga kill't, get Brogga friend kill't..."
The muttering was cut off by a bang, followed by curses unutterable by the tongues of men. Poor old Brogga had been clanking about underneath the hullward dash for the last three days, almost without a break, muttering the entire time.
Say what he would, Brogga was nothing short of a mechanical genius, being the only Broggan capable of working on the Subquark-plated external combustion Engine. It took a particularly pliable mind to make an external combustion engine work, particularly when one was compressing- and burning- pure vacuum. The only real downside was the slight chance of creating decay, but if that happened it wouldn't matter as the entire tanker would be destroyed within seconds. I supposed it would have mattered to the rest of the Universe, but Brogga wouldn't have cared for he would have been the first to go.
Well, okay, there was a second slight problem. See, by burning pure vacuum they wore away a little strip of the cosmos. It was so small that it probably didn't matter, and the Universe was expanding anyways, but certain routes did get more traffic and engines were getting more efficient all the time.
"Idiot fuk human shit design fuk"
More clattering and banging from underneath the hullward dash.
"Idiot fuk human, try now"
Brogga's curses were rewarded with a shuttering rumble as the external combustion engine roared to life.
"Well that's curious" Captain Froy remarked, staring in disbelief at the guages.
Normal external combustion engines were able to operate somewhere between 10,000% and 100,000% efficiency, and for every joule of vacuum energy burned 100% efficiency would yield 10 kilo-joules.
The digital display read 10^89 % efficiency.
"Brogga, I think this gauge is busted."
"Idiot fuk human replace it then. Brogga sleeps."
Then, with customary swagger Captain Froy shoved the throttle open and pulled out, easing back into his seat for a cozy nap. However, when Captain Froy awoke several hours later he was not where he expected. In fact, he was not sure where he was at all.
You see, Brogga had accidentally upgraded their engine. Nobody saw the display, but if they had, they would have seen Brogga, Froy, and the rest of the crew tearing ass across the Universe, ripping a cosmic-scale gash in the vacuum like God's holy zipper. Of course this hole rapidly closed up, but in the time it would normally take them to travel a few hundred lightyears they had soared clear of the "observable Universe" several times over.
In fact, they had traveled so far they weren't entirely sure how to get back.
Thus began the journey of Brogga and the idiot fuk humans who wasted 600 years of his life and destroyed his capacity to speak properly. | We saw the opportunity and by the gods, we took it.
FTL travel was always a ways off for earth's scientists, I mean sure, we had near-lightspeed travel for now but frankly, ever since Humanity blundered into contact with the other races, they've been stingy with the secrets to FTL travel, considering us "crude" and "uncultured". Still, some of the lesser races reluctantly traded with us, and we came across what they considered to be a trivial piece of information, a rather efficient method of converting normal matter to exotic matter, if only for an instant, before reverting back to regular matter.
They used it as a way to fuel their dark matter weaponry, and of course, we had nowhere near the technology required for that, and they knew it. They held back their freakish laughter as the dumb humans traded valuable resources for something that not only everyone in the galaxy knows, but they couldn't even use!
Well, turns out that's not entirely true.
A few years went by with earth's scientists playing with their new "toy", a few neat innovations and basic uses had cropped up, but all in all, it seemed that the inability to keep exotic matter around without it reverting was rather limiting.
One man stepped forward with an idea, however. An idea that was hushed and slated to impossibility by the earth's various governing bodies. "There's no way we could do that" they whispered. "It's **insane**".
But, with humanity being left behind diplomatically against the rest of the galaxy, could we really afford to be left out? To be left in the dust as other races walked over us like we were nothing?
Eventually, reluctantly, approval was gained, and the project initiated. It would take years, several thousand matter conversion stations.
A project to dwarf all others.
The man had proposed a wormhole. Not an alien concept to the other races, obviously, but one that had only been toyed with by humanity, an unrealistic method of FTL. The amount of exotic matter needed alone would be.. well it would be insane! We had nowhere near enough useable mass near our homeworld, or so we had thought.
It was worth it, I think, the expression on the diplomats faces as we crashed the galaxy's latest diplomatic conference made it all worth it. Their horrified expressions as they understood just what we had done, looking agape (and the several alien equivalents) at the monstrous bastard we had piloted.
Humanity had finally made it's statement as a real, crazy force in the universe.
An entire moon's worth of statement. dwarfing even the largest diplomatic citadel. A moon, our moon, converted into a bastardized FTL vessel. Our reckless abandonment of sensibilities and border-idiotic determination would be the staple of Humanity for eons after that.
"Crude", they were definitely right about that.
| |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Terrestrial Warp Drives. First proposed by Miguel Alcubierre two hundred formlats ago, The equivalent of forcing space into a shape which closely resembles two black holes stacked fore to aft. It requires insanely large sums of energy to produce the warp effect, equivalent to at least the mass of a small moon converted to energy. To get around this, the Terrestrials use catalytic mass converter engines. A device which has been discredited by the rest of the universe for the complete and utter destructive potential should such a reactor melt down on a planet. They work by converting matter to energy with a catalyst particle. However, they also produce a certain percent of catalyst particles. When this process runs away, it has been known to destroy planets, heavily damaging entire solar systems.
Under order 4,900,232 section III, Human spacecraft are to be classified as "NOT TO BE TOUCHED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES" on or near a planet, and "DESTROY AT ALL COSTS" in interplanetary space. This is not done as a measure against humans, but as a safety measure across the galaxy. This will be done until a treaty can be made with the terrestrial humans such that they will cease using catalytic mass converters.
Examination of a captured Terrestrial FTL Engine under the Federal Standard Gravity Model suggests that some fairly simple improvements to the Alcubierre-type drive can be made to reduce the energy requirements to what can be managed by fusion and antimatter reaction technology. They need not give up their unique drive. As dangerous as the Terrestrial Drive is, it presents no risk to those outside the vessel. | We saw the opportunity and by the gods, we took it.
FTL travel was always a ways off for earth's scientists, I mean sure, we had near-lightspeed travel for now but frankly, ever since Humanity blundered into contact with the other races, they've been stingy with the secrets to FTL travel, considering us "crude" and "uncultured". Still, some of the lesser races reluctantly traded with us, and we came across what they considered to be a trivial piece of information, a rather efficient method of converting normal matter to exotic matter, if only for an instant, before reverting back to regular matter.
They used it as a way to fuel their dark matter weaponry, and of course, we had nowhere near the technology required for that, and they knew it. They held back their freakish laughter as the dumb humans traded valuable resources for something that not only everyone in the galaxy knows, but they couldn't even use!
Well, turns out that's not entirely true.
A few years went by with earth's scientists playing with their new "toy", a few neat innovations and basic uses had cropped up, but all in all, it seemed that the inability to keep exotic matter around without it reverting was rather limiting.
One man stepped forward with an idea, however. An idea that was hushed and slated to impossibility by the earth's various governing bodies. "There's no way we could do that" they whispered. "It's **insane**".
But, with humanity being left behind diplomatically against the rest of the galaxy, could we really afford to be left out? To be left in the dust as other races walked over us like we were nothing?
Eventually, reluctantly, approval was gained, and the project initiated. It would take years, several thousand matter conversion stations.
A project to dwarf all others.
The man had proposed a wormhole. Not an alien concept to the other races, obviously, but one that had only been toyed with by humanity, an unrealistic method of FTL. The amount of exotic matter needed alone would be.. well it would be insane! We had nowhere near enough useable mass near our homeworld, or so we had thought.
It was worth it, I think, the expression on the diplomats faces as we crashed the galaxy's latest diplomatic conference made it all worth it. Their horrified expressions as they understood just what we had done, looking agape (and the several alien equivalents) at the monstrous bastard we had piloted.
Humanity had finally made it's statement as a real, crazy force in the universe.
An entire moon's worth of statement. dwarfing even the largest diplomatic citadel. A moon, our moon, converted into a bastardized FTL vessel. Our reckless abandonment of sensibilities and border-idiotic determination would be the staple of Humanity for eons after that.
"Crude", they were definitely right about that.
| |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | Xandar was fuming. 20 smismars he'd been waiting in the bowels of that horrible assembling of junk and metal the humans proudly called their *flagship of intergalactic friendship*. It was bad enough when those hairless pink monkeys made it to outer space but now they had developped a functioning FTL drive and that made them *worthy* of introduction into the Galactic Alliance.
In all his bismars as official technological investigators of the Galactic Alliance's scientific division, Xandar had never seen such a pathetic excuse for a ship. Neither he or any of his colleagues wanted to partake in this scientific inspection. They actually had to draw straws and to his utter disappointment, Xandar lost. Xarcy tried to cheer him up, noting that the human FTL drive was probably a dud anyway. Their first long distance drive was barely a stupid bedsheet catching solar wind, how could they have build a fully functioning FTL drive is such little time since.
21 smismars, where the hell was that pink ape that was supposed to show him the drive ? Xandar only wanted to get done with this and leave. The human vessel was small, cramped and much too warm for his taste. It also didn't help that everything was made to accomodate 6ft tall apes, at 9ft tall, a respectable height for a noble Glaxian like him, he was constantly banging his upper appendage on the ceiling and door frames.
Finally a metal door opened and 2 hairless apes ran toward him. The first one, pink and the second one dark brown. Fascinating thought Xandar, I've never seen such a dark colored ape. At least some decent scientific information. Maybe the science council would let him abduct such a specimen later on for testing. Humans usually didn't mind a few abduction here and there as long as you didn't touch the cows sleeping in the fields.
The 2 apes escorted Xandar to the engine room. The first thing that caught Xandar's attention was the intense heat coming from the doorway, much worst than the rest of the already hot vessel.
>Right this way Dr Xandar, you're gonna love this!
Words could barely describe the sights that laid in front of Xandar when he crossed into the room
*What the hell kind of piece of shit is that?*
>What, the FTL drive ?
>>Quite the beauty isn't she ?
The drive in question looked like a random pile of junk with tubes coming out of the sides, hot steam rising from them. The whole thing was red hot and there was a very annoying sound of pressured gas being shot into the machine at close interval. On top of the device sat 2 giant glowing green tubes.
*Are those Arthosian power cores ?*
>Yes, you have a good eye Dr Xandar.
*Where in the 5 stars did you get these ? Only a handful were ever created and the Arthosian guard them very closely*
>>We found them!
>Of yeah, came upon a space wreck near Alpha Centory IV and we managed to recover quite a lot of technology from it.
*Wait wait... you stole them from a broken ship ?*
>Not stole, never. We found them.
>>Space salvage!
*Does the Arthosian empire know you're using stolen tech ?*
>I dunno, they never complained about it before you brought it up.
Xandar was flaggerbasted, these hairless apes weren't just stupid, they were a menace.
*Fine, walk me trough it*
>Oh you're gonna love this doc. By stripping the neutrino element of the 2 power cores and jerryrigging them together, we managed to create a power unit strong enough to blast trough the fabric of spacetime, and into the slipstream.
*Wait a minute, you stripped the power core of its protective shielding ?*
>Why yes.
>>It was really annoying really, hiding all the good stuff.
*ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS! Those a radiation shielding, this stuff is extremely dangerous*
>I know that, we all know that
>>It needed to be done. Beside, we added some plasma shielding to it.
>Yes, it should do the job... enough.
*Jesus fucking christ.... continue*
>Well, as I was saying, the drive allows us to punch our way into the slipstream and from there we can modify the flow of radiation emited by the power cores, enabling us to navigate different planes of the stream.
>>It's like a chose you own adventure travel book. Add a gamma variant to the radiation cocktail and you can move faster, replace it by a theta variant and you can navigate, for lack of a better word, "UP" into the 4th dimension.
*How do you exit the slipstreem ?*
>Well, we found that injecting a low level ion isopote directly into the power core will create an instability in the stream that causes the ship to be ejected, albeith rather violently.
>>Yes, the first test vessel exploded on exit.
*My god, this is catastrophic*
>We thought so to, so insted we just shut off the drive and the ship gets ejected much more softly.
*What... no! I mean... this whole system is horrible...*
>It's not so bad once you work out the kinks
*But how.... this must be ridiculously unstable !?*
>Oh boy... that's an understatement
>>You have to understand, all this only works if we keep the core overheated to exactly 3,568 degrees.
>Oh yes, any variation of over 2.75 degrees and the whole thing would go kablewy
*This is nuts, how do you maintain the temperature ? I see no adaptive secluar temporal module anywhere*
>Don't have one
>>Yeah, this fancy stuff is much too complicated and too hard to get your hands on.
>For now we use a system of pressure injected water and nitrogen
*You forcecool it under pressure ?*
>Exactly! I knew you'd get it doc.
>>We alternate between injecting pressurized water and nitrogen to cool off the core with a 1.5 seconds interval between each injection
*What?.... that's....how!?*
>You know.... too hot, blast it with nitrogen. Too cold, switch to water. Perfect temperature, do nothing. We evaluate the temperature every 2 seconds and Frank over there pulls the switch to inject the correct cooling substance.
*So none of this is automated ?*
>Nah, we're hoping to find a suitable automated cooling mechanism soon though.
*Like what? A water tin can on a string with a hole on the bottom ?*
>>Well no that's.... hey that's actually a good idea
>Yeah, we should look into that.
*Allright.... not taking into consideration the immense safety concern, not to mention decent common sens, this thing appears extremely dangerous and also in violation of at least a dozen galactic regulations on plasma use and timestream protocoles, and that's just for starters*
>Really?
>>Well that's a bummer for sure
*I must ask, with all this violent punching around the slipstream, how does your system deal with excess radiations and temporal aftershock effects ?*
>Come again ?
*The extreme side effects of your shitty system!!*
>Oh that. I dunno, whatever happens in the slipstream stays in the slipstream I guess.
>>Yeah, I mean it's not like we plan on living in the stream you know. It's just a highway. You roll down the window and throw your trash out.
*Over 15 sentient species live in the stream, 4 of wich are official members of the Galactic Alliance.*
>Really, people live in there ?
*YES, THEY DO!*
>Well that's fucking stupid.
>>yeah, who in their right mind lives in a galactic highway ? That's dangerous, somebody could get hurt!
>And they call US crazy ? | We saw the opportunity and by the gods, we took it.
FTL travel was always a ways off for earth's scientists, I mean sure, we had near-lightspeed travel for now but frankly, ever since Humanity blundered into contact with the other races, they've been stingy with the secrets to FTL travel, considering us "crude" and "uncultured". Still, some of the lesser races reluctantly traded with us, and we came across what they considered to be a trivial piece of information, a rather efficient method of converting normal matter to exotic matter, if only for an instant, before reverting back to regular matter.
They used it as a way to fuel their dark matter weaponry, and of course, we had nowhere near the technology required for that, and they knew it. They held back their freakish laughter as the dumb humans traded valuable resources for something that not only everyone in the galaxy knows, but they couldn't even use!
Well, turns out that's not entirely true.
A few years went by with earth's scientists playing with their new "toy", a few neat innovations and basic uses had cropped up, but all in all, it seemed that the inability to keep exotic matter around without it reverting was rather limiting.
One man stepped forward with an idea, however. An idea that was hushed and slated to impossibility by the earth's various governing bodies. "There's no way we could do that" they whispered. "It's **insane**".
But, with humanity being left behind diplomatically against the rest of the galaxy, could we really afford to be left out? To be left in the dust as other races walked over us like we were nothing?
Eventually, reluctantly, approval was gained, and the project initiated. It would take years, several thousand matter conversion stations.
A project to dwarf all others.
The man had proposed a wormhole. Not an alien concept to the other races, obviously, but one that had only been toyed with by humanity, an unrealistic method of FTL. The amount of exotic matter needed alone would be.. well it would be insane! We had nowhere near enough useable mass near our homeworld, or so we had thought.
It was worth it, I think, the expression on the diplomats faces as we crashed the galaxy's latest diplomatic conference made it all worth it. Their horrified expressions as they understood just what we had done, looking agape (and the several alien equivalents) at the monstrous bastard we had piloted.
Humanity had finally made it's statement as a real, crazy force in the universe.
An entire moon's worth of statement. dwarfing even the largest diplomatic citadel. A moon, our moon, converted into a bastardized FTL vessel. Our reckless abandonment of sensibilities and border-idiotic determination would be the staple of Humanity for eons after that.
"Crude", they were definitely right about that.
| |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The chamber illumination dimmed and the milky sim tank faded to life. A thousand eyes stared intently from the council benches, and a trillion more from across the five galaxies.
A deep voice, set on edge with urgency and well-contained fear, began its narration of the sim.
"The Brevis' star system surveillance node 47 has, it has been reported, recorded first contact with the species self-identifying as Humans. This much has already been announced. What has not yet been announced is that an analysis of the event has been completed, and their method of travel has thrown a black flag, gamma zero priority. Observe."
The sim showed a small moon below, surrounded by a halo of probes similar to the one that must be recording the image. In the far distance, the volumetric compensation showed a grossly enlarged blue planet on another orbital track, the Brevis' home world Herol. The orbital motion of the probes had been smooth and obvious, but now they slowed.
"We are showing the event at a reduced speed. Watch carefully."
Without warning, the entire projection dimmed as a single point of incredible, actinic light burst from the space next to the moon and raced away from its surface. As one, the closer orbiting probes glowed white-hot and began to disintegrate. The image wavered and then froze.
"Now, focus your attention on the exact location this phenomenon appeared, and keep your attention on that spot as the light moves away."
The image reversed, and the killing glow moved back to its original location. It slowly crept back outwards as the sim zoomed in. There, in the wake of the glow, was a ship, shaped like a mushroom with its cap to the light. Vaporised hull matter streamed from the smooth side facing the light, some sort of ablative heat shielding.
"We had never seen this effect before. We assumed it was some sort of deceleration technique, until we looked at it from the planetary defence network."
The perspective in the sim shifted, as if travelling to the distant planet. The moon and its halo of probes shrank, then grew again due to the volumetric compensation. The sim was normal again for a moment, before that terrible light appeared, an incredible distance from the moon this time, and immediately split into two lights, travelling away from each other at greater than the speed of light.
An audible click reverberated around the chamber as each of the species in attendance simultaneously inhaled on their breathing apparatuses.
"As you can see, the motion of the light is a relativistic illusion. The light doesn't travel, it exists simultaneously at all points in a column for a moment, then dissipates. The energy requirement is staggering. After calculating an intercept to the closest habitable world on the trajectory described by the light column, it appears their world is four hundred light-years away. The humans claim a similar distance, and their navigational data also confirm it. From this we can calculate the energy release as being consistent with a type III civilisation."
What had previously been a gentle series of clicks was now a cacophony, the seats shaking with the bodily gyrations of the assembled dignitaries. Some wailed, others laughed, most were silent.
"We have brought the leader of the human expedition here, with her agreement, of course."
The noises of discomfort reached a crashing crescendo, as several of the delegates jumped out of their seats and bolted for the exit.
The disembodied voice thundered, "ORDER!"
"I present to you, Chakor, Human, of planet Earth."
The creature that stepped into the chamber was unimpressive, physically. Bipedal, endoskeletal, wearing some sort of almost completely covering clothing with various decals affixed to it. The remaining delegates seemed to calm a little, their agitation lowering to a gentle swaying. The Human addressed the crowd.
"Greetings, delegates of the local group. My name is Chakor, I represent my species, Human, and wish to express our honour in meeting you all. We come in peace."
The room quietened further, and the booming voice sounded again. "Chakor will now take moderated questions from the floor. Please enter your queries for analysis and amalgamation."
A few awkward moments passed, Chakor looking out among the delegates. They varied from bipeds with heads and arms of various number to floating creatures in some sort of water tanks, through to creatures much more... alien.
"First question. The energy output of your drive technology is beyond immense. You must be capturing the energy output of most of a galaxy, somewhere. How can it be that we have not noticed the birth of a type III civilisation under our watch?"
Chakor paused to think before she replied, clearly confused. "We are not a type III civilisation. We are barely a type I. We just discovered a way to manipulate the nature of reality."
The voice didn't even wait to consult the accumulating list of vetted questions. "What?! How?"
"When we accidentally created and shot a cluster of miniature black holes through our particle collider's detectors, we discovered that the vacuum of space was not at the true ground state of the universe. This lent is an opportunity to use the difference in energy levels to complete an until-then hypothetical method of propulsion."
The room exploded into roars, gurgles, and screeches of outrage.
"Your drive is powered by triggering a collapse of fundamental reality?!"
"Not quite, if you'd let me finish. After we discovered the false vacuum was the current skein of the universe, we found that at the moment of triggering a vacuum state collapse, it was possible to entangle an arbitrary length of vacuum in a beam away from the source, and trigger the collapse simultaneously and instantaneously along that path."
Guards in the chamber drew their weapons as several delegates rose on their hindlimbs as if to attack.
"Chakor, this is madness! Your drive cannot work as you describe, or we wouldn't have any video of your arrival. A vacuum collapse would spread from wherever it started at the speed of light, unmaking the universe in its path!"
"Oh, yes we knew that. It turns out that the vacuum collapse provides enough energy to fold space into itself. In local proximity, one side of the event becomes the other. The space in between is clipped off like a twisted balloon, erased from having any bearing on existence. Our ship is instantaneously folded from one side of the beam to the other, and internal fields save us from having any biological changes. Of course, the collapse has to happen first by a few fractions of a microsecond, so there is some... energy leakage."
The chamber went suddenly silent.
The probe and planetary defence system had recorded an abomination, a gross violation of reality itself. The demonic light fleeing the Humans' strange vessel was the energetic corpse of a monster, come to open its maw and swallow the universe, inexorably, at the glacial speed of light. A fitting technology for a pursuit predator like the humans.
"You risk all our existence just to travel. How can we leave you free run of the galaxies?"
Chakor grinned. "We could always run one last wide beam to the ends of the universe and neglect to fold it away. How can you not?" | We saw the opportunity and by the gods, we took it.
FTL travel was always a ways off for earth's scientists, I mean sure, we had near-lightspeed travel for now but frankly, ever since Humanity blundered into contact with the other races, they've been stingy with the secrets to FTL travel, considering us "crude" and "uncultured". Still, some of the lesser races reluctantly traded with us, and we came across what they considered to be a trivial piece of information, a rather efficient method of converting normal matter to exotic matter, if only for an instant, before reverting back to regular matter.
They used it as a way to fuel their dark matter weaponry, and of course, we had nowhere near the technology required for that, and they knew it. They held back their freakish laughter as the dumb humans traded valuable resources for something that not only everyone in the galaxy knows, but they couldn't even use!
Well, turns out that's not entirely true.
A few years went by with earth's scientists playing with their new "toy", a few neat innovations and basic uses had cropped up, but all in all, it seemed that the inability to keep exotic matter around without it reverting was rather limiting.
One man stepped forward with an idea, however. An idea that was hushed and slated to impossibility by the earth's various governing bodies. "There's no way we could do that" they whispered. "It's **insane**".
But, with humanity being left behind diplomatically against the rest of the galaxy, could we really afford to be left out? To be left in the dust as other races walked over us like we were nothing?
Eventually, reluctantly, approval was gained, and the project initiated. It would take years, several thousand matter conversion stations.
A project to dwarf all others.
The man had proposed a wormhole. Not an alien concept to the other races, obviously, but one that had only been toyed with by humanity, an unrealistic method of FTL. The amount of exotic matter needed alone would be.. well it would be insane! We had nowhere near enough useable mass near our homeworld, or so we had thought.
It was worth it, I think, the expression on the diplomats faces as we crashed the galaxy's latest diplomatic conference made it all worth it. Their horrified expressions as they understood just what we had done, looking agape (and the several alien equivalents) at the monstrous bastard we had piloted.
Humanity had finally made it's statement as a real, crazy force in the universe.
An entire moon's worth of statement. dwarfing even the largest diplomatic citadel. A moon, our moon, converted into a bastardized FTL vessel. Our reckless abandonment of sensibilities and border-idiotic determination would be the staple of Humanity for eons after that.
"Crude", they were definitely right about that.
| |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "Idiot fuk human design shit-tier spaceship get all Brogga friend kill't. End all. Stoopt fuk. E'ryon kno warp spacetime. E'ryon kno break litspeeding. E'ryon kno crate warm hole. E'ryon kno cut mass half. E'yron cept idiot fuk humans. Y d'sign dumb shit-tier drive can't fi'ure out nuttin'. Cant warp spacetime. Cant break litspeeding. Cant crate warm hole. Cant cut mass. 'Stead idiot fuk human burrow down subquark stangelet bullshit risk implode entire quadrant for fuk newmatter. Y? Too dumb, tha's y. Now Brogga stuk dumb idiot fuk human ship on oth'r side galactic spinward fr'home. Idiot fuk human get Brogga kill't, get Brogga friend kill't..."
The muttering was cut off by a bang, followed by curses unutterable by the tongues of men. Poor old Brogga had been clanking about underneath the hullward dash for the last three days, almost without a break, muttering the entire time.
Say what he would, Brogga was nothing short of a mechanical genius, being the only Broggan capable of working on the Subquark-plated external combustion Engine. It took a particularly pliable mind to make an external combustion engine work, particularly when one was compressing- and burning- pure vacuum. The only real downside was the slight chance of creating decay, but if that happened it wouldn't matter as the entire tanker would be destroyed within seconds. I supposed it would have mattered to the rest of the Universe, but Brogga wouldn't have cared for he would have been the first to go.
Well, okay, there was a second slight problem. See, by burning pure vacuum they wore away a little strip of the cosmos. It was so small that it probably didn't matter, and the Universe was expanding anyways, but certain routes did get more traffic and engines were getting more efficient all the time.
"Idiot fuk human shit design fuk"
More clattering and banging from underneath the hullward dash.
"Idiot fuk human, try now"
Brogga's curses were rewarded with a shuttering rumble as the external combustion engine roared to life.
"Well that's curious" Captain Froy remarked, staring in disbelief at the guages.
Normal external combustion engines were able to operate somewhere between 10,000% and 100,000% efficiency, and for every joule of vacuum energy burned 100% efficiency would yield 10 kilo-joules.
The digital display read 10^89 % efficiency.
"Brogga, I think this gauge is busted."
"Idiot fuk human replace it then. Brogga sleeps."
Then, with customary swagger Captain Froy shoved the throttle open and pulled out, easing back into his seat for a cozy nap. However, when Captain Froy awoke several hours later he was not where he expected. In fact, he was not sure where he was at all.
You see, Brogga had accidentally upgraded their engine. Nobody saw the display, but if they had, they would have seen Brogga, Froy, and the rest of the crew tearing ass across the Universe, ripping a cosmic-scale gash in the vacuum like God's holy zipper. Of course this hole rapidly closed up, but in the time it would normally take them to travel a few hundred lightyears they had soared clear of the "observable Universe" several times over.
In fact, they had traveled so far they weren't entirely sure how to get back.
Thus began the journey of Brogga and the idiot fuk humans who wasted 600 years of his life and destroyed his capacity to speak properly. | "So, about the humans..." Said a voice with diplomatic neutrality.
Groans from a myriad of different species' voices could be heard throughout the conference hall. There was a meeting being held on how to properly welcome these new, strange creatures now that they had, technically, at least, achieved Faster Than Light travel.
"We organised this meeting to discuss them! When are you all going to stop pussyfooting around the issue!?" The same voice declared, with a level of anger hard to believe considering their tone mere seconds ago.
"Blarpart, I know you're a workaholic and all that but have you SEEN these...creature's form of FTL "travel"?" A gruff voice from somewhere in the hall responded over the din of arguing and groans of "are we really fucking doing this?"
"I agree that it's...unconventional but-"
The word "unconventional" being used to describe human beings' method of intergalactic travel caused an uproar among the crowd.
"Hey! HEY! HEYYYYYY!" Interjected Blarpart with an odd mixture of rage, impatience and exhaustion. "It works for them, who are we to judge?"
"Don't you get it? They use possibly the most unstable thing in the universe, a wormhole, and pump it with a load of who knows what to make it last more than a nanosecond and to a greater size than a few atoms and just *sigh* go through it and hope for the best"
"As I said, uncon-" Blarpart thought better of using *that* word again and instead chose to deflect the conversation in the hopes of finishing and grabbing something from a Space Denny's on the way home.
"Ok, how about we just ignore them? They're not going to last long as a species if THAT'S how they traverse space. From our observations, their 'wormhole jumping' has about an 80% chance of failure. All in favour?"
A chorus of relieved "aye"s reverberated throughout the room.
"All opposed?"
...
"Well then, that settles i-"
"YOU FUCKING WOT, M8?" A voice shouted from just outside the hall.
"Can I go without being interrupted for ONE MINUTE?" Blarpart said in an exasperated sigh.
And with that, a duo of humans, one tall with brown hair and the other short with black hair, burst into the hall with their bottles of what they call "Mountain Dew" and bags of "Doritos" and started going on about how we can't "diss" them like that.
"You know what? Fuck these alien squares, wanna go piss into a black hole?" The taller one said.
"Yeah, dude. Definitely." The shorter one replied with an almost endearing level of excitement at the prospect.
And with that, the duo left as quickly as they had entered.
"What just happened?" A member of the crowd ask with a disbelieving tone.
"...Humanity. Humanity happened" said Blarpart, with yet another sigh.
Spelling and removing the pretentious "fin". | |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | The chamber illumination dimmed and the milky sim tank faded to life. A thousand eyes stared intently from the council benches, and a trillion more from across the five galaxies.
A deep voice, set on edge with urgency and well-contained fear, began its narration of the sim.
"The Brevis' star system surveillance node 47 has, it has been reported, recorded first contact with the species self-identifying as Humans. This much has already been announced. What has not yet been announced is that an analysis of the event has been completed, and their method of travel has thrown a black flag, gamma zero priority. Observe."
The sim showed a small moon below, surrounded by a halo of probes similar to the one that must be recording the image. In the far distance, the volumetric compensation showed a grossly enlarged blue planet on another orbital track, the Brevis' home world Herol. The orbital motion of the probes had been smooth and obvious, but now they slowed.
"We are showing the event at a reduced speed. Watch carefully."
Without warning, the entire projection dimmed as a single point of incredible, actinic light burst from the space next to the moon and raced away from its surface. As one, the closer orbiting probes glowed white-hot and began to disintegrate. The image wavered and then froze.
"Now, focus your attention on the exact location this phenomenon appeared, and keep your attention on that spot as the light moves away."
The image reversed, and the killing glow moved back to its original location. It slowly crept back outwards as the sim zoomed in. There, in the wake of the glow, was a ship, shaped like a mushroom with its cap to the light. Vaporised hull matter streamed from the smooth side facing the light, some sort of ablative heat shielding.
"We had never seen this effect before. We assumed it was some sort of deceleration technique, until we looked at it from the planetary defence network."
The perspective in the sim shifted, as if travelling to the distant planet. The moon and its halo of probes shrank, then grew again due to the volumetric compensation. The sim was normal again for a moment, before that terrible light appeared, an incredible distance from the moon this time, and immediately split into two lights, travelling away from each other at greater than the speed of light.
An audible click reverberated around the chamber as each of the species in attendance simultaneously inhaled on their breathing apparatuses.
"As you can see, the motion of the light is a relativistic illusion. The light doesn't travel, it exists simultaneously at all points in a column for a moment, then dissipates. The energy requirement is staggering. After calculating an intercept to the closest habitable world on the trajectory described by the light column, it appears their world is four hundred light-years away. The humans claim a similar distance, and their navigational data also confirm it. From this we can calculate the energy release as being consistent with a type III civilisation."
What had previously been a gentle series of clicks was now a cacophony, the seats shaking with the bodily gyrations of the assembled dignitaries. Some wailed, others laughed, most were silent.
"We have brought the leader of the human expedition here, with her agreement, of course."
The noises of discomfort reached a crashing crescendo, as several of the delegates jumped out of their seats and bolted for the exit.
The disembodied voice thundered, "ORDER!"
"I present to you, Chakor, Human, of planet Earth."
The creature that stepped into the chamber was unimpressive, physically. Bipedal, endoskeletal, wearing some sort of almost completely covering clothing with various decals affixed to it. The remaining delegates seemed to calm a little, their agitation lowering to a gentle swaying. The Human addressed the crowd.
"Greetings, delegates of the local group. My name is Chakor, I represent my species, Human, and wish to express our honour in meeting you all. We come in peace."
The room quietened further, and the booming voice sounded again. "Chakor will now take moderated questions from the floor. Please enter your queries for analysis and amalgamation."
A few awkward moments passed, Chakor looking out among the delegates. They varied from bipeds with heads and arms of various number to floating creatures in some sort of water tanks, through to creatures much more... alien.
"First question. The energy output of your drive technology is beyond immense. You must be capturing the energy output of most of a galaxy, somewhere. How can it be that we have not noticed the birth of a type III civilisation under our watch?"
Chakor paused to think before she replied, clearly confused. "We are not a type III civilisation. We are barely a type I. We just discovered a way to manipulate the nature of reality."
The voice didn't even wait to consult the accumulating list of vetted questions. "What?! How?"
"When we accidentally created and shot a cluster of miniature black holes through our particle collider's detectors, we discovered that the vacuum of space was not at the true ground state of the universe. This lent is an opportunity to use the difference in energy levels to complete an until-then hypothetical method of propulsion."
The room exploded into roars, gurgles, and screeches of outrage.
"Your drive is powered by triggering a collapse of fundamental reality?!"
"Not quite, if you'd let me finish. After we discovered the false vacuum was the current skein of the universe, we found that at the moment of triggering a vacuum state collapse, it was possible to entangle an arbitrary length of vacuum in a beam away from the source, and trigger the collapse simultaneously and instantaneously along that path."
Guards in the chamber drew their weapons as several delegates rose on their hindlimbs as if to attack.
"Chakor, this is madness! Your drive cannot work as you describe, or we wouldn't have any video of your arrival. A vacuum collapse would spread from wherever it started at the speed of light, unmaking the universe in its path!"
"Oh, yes we knew that. It turns out that the vacuum collapse provides enough energy to fold space into itself. In local proximity, one side of the event becomes the other. The space in between is clipped off like a twisted balloon, erased from having any bearing on existence. Our ship is instantaneously folded from one side of the beam to the other, and internal fields save us from having any biological changes. Of course, the collapse has to happen first by a few fractions of a microsecond, so there is some... energy leakage."
The chamber went suddenly silent.
The probe and planetary defence system had recorded an abomination, a gross violation of reality itself. The demonic light fleeing the Humans' strange vessel was the energetic corpse of a monster, come to open its maw and swallow the universe, inexorably, at the glacial speed of light. A fitting technology for a pursuit predator like the humans.
"You risk all our existence just to travel. How can we leave you free run of the galaxies?"
Chakor grinned. "We could always run one last wide beam to the ends of the universe and neglect to fold it away. How can you not?" | "So, about the humans..." Said a voice with diplomatic neutrality.
Groans from a myriad of different species' voices could be heard throughout the conference hall. There was a meeting being held on how to properly welcome these new, strange creatures now that they had, technically, at least, achieved Faster Than Light travel.
"We organised this meeting to discuss them! When are you all going to stop pussyfooting around the issue!?" The same voice declared, with a level of anger hard to believe considering their tone mere seconds ago.
"Blarpart, I know you're a workaholic and all that but have you SEEN these...creature's form of FTL "travel"?" A gruff voice from somewhere in the hall responded over the din of arguing and groans of "are we really fucking doing this?"
"I agree that it's...unconventional but-"
The word "unconventional" being used to describe human beings' method of intergalactic travel caused an uproar among the crowd.
"Hey! HEY! HEYYYYYY!" Interjected Blarpart with an odd mixture of rage, impatience and exhaustion. "It works for them, who are we to judge?"
"Don't you get it? They use possibly the most unstable thing in the universe, a wormhole, and pump it with a load of who knows what to make it last more than a nanosecond and to a greater size than a few atoms and just *sigh* go through it and hope for the best"
"As I said, uncon-" Blarpart thought better of using *that* word again and instead chose to deflect the conversation in the hopes of finishing and grabbing something from a Space Denny's on the way home.
"Ok, how about we just ignore them? They're not going to last long as a species if THAT'S how they traverse space. From our observations, their 'wormhole jumping' has about an 80% chance of failure. All in favour?"
A chorus of relieved "aye"s reverberated throughout the room.
"All opposed?"
...
"Well then, that settles i-"
"YOU FUCKING WOT, M8?" A voice shouted from just outside the hall.
"Can I go without being interrupted for ONE MINUTE?" Blarpart said in an exasperated sigh.
And with that, a duo of humans, one tall with brown hair and the other short with black hair, burst into the hall with their bottles of what they call "Mountain Dew" and bags of "Doritos" and started going on about how we can't "diss" them like that.
"You know what? Fuck these alien squares, wanna go piss into a black hole?" The taller one said.
"Yeah, dude. Definitely." The shorter one replied with an almost endearing level of excitement at the prospect.
And with that, the duo left as quickly as they had entered.
"What just happened?" A member of the crowd ask with a disbelieving tone.
"...Humanity. Humanity happened" said Blarpart, with yet another sigh.
Spelling and removing the pretentious "fin". |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.