Plane Hope, Landing city, 3 months after first landing.
Isk'ra O'rel had been working in the advanced research department since arrival planetside. Currently, this department was tasked with deciphering the advanced technological secrets of the giant alien craft which was in the process of being rebuilt.
Currently, the department was working on unraveling the secrets of the ship's power plant, which had remained up till present, a black box.
What they had been able to find so far had been a massive version of what appeared to be a traditional ship's engineering compartment, and a transparant window overlooking a massive sphere which was hooked up to a multitude of hoses, pipes and coolant systems.
The poor little engineer, however, had not taken this task very well over the past few days. He had tried to sleep at a decent pace, but working at this from the crack of dawn until even Sienna went to sleep was taking a toll on him and his diet.
He almost stumbled into his office today, wholly unclear about what was going on. So many diagrams, so much reverse engineering to do.
One of the junior engineers who was working under Isk'ra immediately walked up to him and handed him a paper of findings and a mug of coffee.
"Ah, perfect!" Is'kra exclaimed. The mug didn't even last a minute. "Right. What's...going on today."
"Well" The junior engineer said, "We've been getting some strange readings from inside that room. We wanted to wait to investigate until you got here."
"What kind of readings?" Is'kra asked as his glasses rotated around into position while he examined the papers. "We can get readings off of anything. Heck, a wireless power transfer experiment once was thought to be a success. It turns out that all they found out was the fact the sun was rising and the sensors registered that change. That delayed our hopes by a hundred years or so."
"Gravitational." The engineer said simply. "We're getting gravitational readings that we can't explain, and they're coming from somewhere within that room."
This got the small engineer to look up, his ears finally standing straight and his tail sitting still after waving around. "Interesting. Where, precisely? Which node? Any notable effects caused by the readings?"
"That's the thing, we're not noticing any changes in the environment of the room that you would expect with readigns of this magnitude. No spatial distortion, no structural integrity loss, nothing. It's coming from within that sphere we think." The junior engineer pointed through the glass window at the sphere. It was easy to see from where they were, elevated off the ground floor of the science complex.
The science complex was the size of a small school, but was for its original inhabitants more likely few small rooms. Inside the complex there were now several buildings, including a housing unit, a sensor building and even a small garage, housing unmanned probes.
Is'kra stopped for a moment. Then, he started talking again.
"No one open that thing up." he first stated. "Absolutely no one. I don't even care if it's orders from Tim. We do not want to deal with gravitational anomalies in this deathtrap nebula."
"Second off, what the hell is keeping...whatever it is contained?" Is'kra continued, his ears and tail flattening.
"We don't know." The engineer led Isk'ra down a set of stairs into what now served as a small courtyard, and then across that courtyard into the sensor building.
"Has no one done a material analysis?" he asked. "Okay, scratch that. Don't do one if it involves chipping a piece of material off the obvious containment. For all we care it's powered off of shoggoths and other assorted minions from Hastur and all those horrifying fictional tentacle creatures."
"Come again?"
"Don't mind me. It's from a strange series of old horror books. For all we care it's powered off of live Mishhu. Has anyone done a material analysis?"
"We didn't even want to enter the chamber without somone higher up, like you, here to supervise." The engineer said.
"Well, I'm here, aren't I." Is'kra replied. "Get something like a U-1 to jump out of there if things go badly."
The man turned around and yelled to another scientist. "Someone prep a probe for materials analysis!" Within the next hour, the science complex was a flurry of activity as a probe was set up, communications links with it were established, and finally it was placed at the airlock to the adjoining chamber.
"Launch it in." Is'kra declared. "And pray to whatever gods you believe in nothing blows up."
The scientists all were silent as the probe trundled into the chamber, approaching the large sphere. An arm extended from the probe, upon which was attached a spectroscopical analysis kit, as well as several other tools for determining the makeup, energy levels and other specifics of the various pieces of machinery in the room.
Everyone gathered around the holographic screen, which showed the view from a myriad of cameras on the probe, as well as many sensor readouts. As the analysis tools did their job, the results came in.
"It looks like it's some sort of Titanium platinum alloy, probably to prevent reactions with anything while still keeping the strength of the containment unit."
"I'd love it, if I could see the results." Is'kra stated as he climbed on top of a chair to properly see the screen. "What could the reactions inside be, however?"
"Sorry." One of the engineers said, as they moved to allow Isk'ra to see easier."
"What's the amount of power flowing in or out?" Is'kra asked. "That might clue us to the function. I find it hard to believe this would simply just be some sort of...vanity decoration."
An engineer scrambled to a different terminal, then let out a loud "Oh my god!"
"Not helpful. What's so special?" he asked.
"This number, I've never actually seen one this large in relation to power generation. It's massive, it's at least 500 times10^26. This is a good few hundred times more energy than a star puts out in a second!"
"...well, mystery part one solved." Is'kra stated. "It's a generator. Definitely not fusion, not aether...wait."
"I think we found a holy grail of power engineering, crew." Is'kra stated, hopping off his chair and walking through the crew gathered. "You know that whole crack theory about black hole generators? I think this is one. A little less impressive than Yamataian Aether generators, but...this'll be enough for us to play around with for a long time coming."
"Do you think we could miniaturize it?" One of the scientists asked.
"Heck no." Is'kra replied in an instant. "A tiny black hole would blow up in our faces. This thing might be perfectly balanced for what it is. Any smaller and it would melt away into radiation. Any bigger and it would be almost impossible to contain."
"It woudn't if you fed it mass at a constant perfect rate." One of the engineers pointed out. "If I remember the theory about black hole generators right, the smaller it gets the more electrons you'd have to feed it to keep it stable, which means that the smaller you make it the larger the power output gets."
"Keep in mind you'll have to offset the heat with a lot of coolant. But, whatever. Math makes right, I'm sure a team of you all can do the math involved. We have a sample to play with to some extent, at least."
==== 6 weeks later. ====
The engineering team had been hard at work, and over the past month and a half had created a working prototype of their miniaturized black hole generator. The new black hole sat comfortably within its containment unit, cooled by liquid nitrogen and hooked up to a curie radiator.
"And so you're saying this could probably power half of Planet Yamatai. Good job." Is'kra stated to the group working on the generator. "What's the breaking point?"
"What do you mean breaking point?"
"Points of failure." he replied. "So no one pulls a crazy stunt and accidentally causes their battleship to get eaten."
"Coolant, and one other major problem. You have to release the energy somehow to keep it from exploding. Fortunately we've solved that problem with what's essentially a lighshow. This emitter here," the engineer pointed to a particle emitter, "emits high energy glowing baryons, not in high enough concentration to harm anyone or anything, but high enough energy to release the pressure in the reactor."
"So, a glorified heatsink." he stated. "Well, I hope you have a full report..."
"It's a glorified heatsink with no surface area, and able to be routed through a ship or wherever we choose to mount this."
"Now, remove failsafes and you have a weapon that would make that pompous dick Wazu jealous." Is'kra replied.
One of the younger engineers, far younger than Isk'ra, spoke up. "Actually sir on the topic of weapons, could you take a look at this?"
"Oh dear. I shouldn't say anything." he joked. "What's the thing?"
The young engineer pushed forwards a rough drawing, done in pencil. It depicted a particle and waveform pair accelerated around the black hole in the center of the Starlight road, then spun around a large particle accelerator, then out the large cannon which was at the ship's bow, which had not yet been investigated.
"I think I figured out how that big gun on the front of the ship works."
"If you're right, I'm filing a pay raise for you." Is'kra told the young engineer. "Don't worry, you all got a pay raise filed for your black hole project."
"What I think it does is accelerate both a wave and a neutron around the black hole, speeding them up and imparting rotational velocity. Then it's spun around a huge particle accelerator, causing it to have even more rotational velocity. Then it's collected, in a sort of clump of super-rotating waves and neutrons, which are then for lack of a better word squirted out the front of the ship, like you'd see with one of those preassure water toys."
The young man, pointed too the diagram. "But because it builds up a reservoir the weapon can keep up a steady stream for about ten seconds."
"So the power source is also the weapon." Is'kra observed. "Clever..."
"And when it hits, if I'm right the waves will cause the atoms of the target to start to super-rotate, literally spinning the atoms apart and causing fission reactions akin to nuclear weapons. Then those subatomic particles go on to cause other atoms to spin themselves apart and so on in a chain reaction until either the target is a soup of elemetary particles or the weapon stops firing."
"Quite clever. Although what kind of enemy would warrant...this kind of weapon?" Is'kra asked. "In any case, good work. I wonder if we can make it into anything."
"I don't know, but we've at least got a model to work off with the weapon already in the ship." The engineer said.
And so, with the excitement of the new discoveries now passing, the more mundane work of reverse engineering resumed aboard the Starlight Road.
Isk'ra O'rel had been working in the advanced research department since arrival planetside. Currently, this department was tasked with deciphering the advanced technological secrets of the giant alien craft which was in the process of being rebuilt.
Currently, the department was working on unraveling the secrets of the ship's power plant, which had remained up till present, a black box.
What they had been able to find so far had been a massive version of what appeared to be a traditional ship's engineering compartment, and a transparant window overlooking a massive sphere which was hooked up to a multitude of hoses, pipes and coolant systems.
The poor little engineer, however, had not taken this task very well over the past few days. He had tried to sleep at a decent pace, but working at this from the crack of dawn until even Sienna went to sleep was taking a toll on him and his diet.
He almost stumbled into his office today, wholly unclear about what was going on. So many diagrams, so much reverse engineering to do.
One of the junior engineers who was working under Isk'ra immediately walked up to him and handed him a paper of findings and a mug of coffee.
"Ah, perfect!" Is'kra exclaimed. The mug didn't even last a minute. "Right. What's...going on today."
"Well" The junior engineer said, "We've been getting some strange readings from inside that room. We wanted to wait to investigate until you got here."
"What kind of readings?" Is'kra asked as his glasses rotated around into position while he examined the papers. "We can get readings off of anything. Heck, a wireless power transfer experiment once was thought to be a success. It turns out that all they found out was the fact the sun was rising and the sensors registered that change. That delayed our hopes by a hundred years or so."
"Gravitational." The engineer said simply. "We're getting gravitational readings that we can't explain, and they're coming from somewhere within that room."
This got the small engineer to look up, his ears finally standing straight and his tail sitting still after waving around. "Interesting. Where, precisely? Which node? Any notable effects caused by the readings?"
"That's the thing, we're not noticing any changes in the environment of the room that you would expect with readigns of this magnitude. No spatial distortion, no structural integrity loss, nothing. It's coming from within that sphere we think." The junior engineer pointed through the glass window at the sphere. It was easy to see from where they were, elevated off the ground floor of the science complex.
The science complex was the size of a small school, but was for its original inhabitants more likely few small rooms. Inside the complex there were now several buildings, including a housing unit, a sensor building and even a small garage, housing unmanned probes.
Is'kra stopped for a moment. Then, he started talking again.
"No one open that thing up." he first stated. "Absolutely no one. I don't even care if it's orders from Tim. We do not want to deal with gravitational anomalies in this deathtrap nebula."
"Second off, what the hell is keeping...whatever it is contained?" Is'kra continued, his ears and tail flattening.
"We don't know." The engineer led Isk'ra down a set of stairs into what now served as a small courtyard, and then across that courtyard into the sensor building.
"Has no one done a material analysis?" he asked. "Okay, scratch that. Don't do one if it involves chipping a piece of material off the obvious containment. For all we care it's powered off of shoggoths and other assorted minions from Hastur and all those horrifying fictional tentacle creatures."
"Come again?"
"Don't mind me. It's from a strange series of old horror books. For all we care it's powered off of live Mishhu. Has anyone done a material analysis?"
"We didn't even want to enter the chamber without somone higher up, like you, here to supervise." The engineer said.
"Well, I'm here, aren't I." Is'kra replied. "Get something like a U-1 to jump out of there if things go badly."
The man turned around and yelled to another scientist. "Someone prep a probe for materials analysis!" Within the next hour, the science complex was a flurry of activity as a probe was set up, communications links with it were established, and finally it was placed at the airlock to the adjoining chamber.
"Launch it in." Is'kra declared. "And pray to whatever gods you believe in nothing blows up."
The scientists all were silent as the probe trundled into the chamber, approaching the large sphere. An arm extended from the probe, upon which was attached a spectroscopical analysis kit, as well as several other tools for determining the makeup, energy levels and other specifics of the various pieces of machinery in the room.
Everyone gathered around the holographic screen, which showed the view from a myriad of cameras on the probe, as well as many sensor readouts. As the analysis tools did their job, the results came in.
"It looks like it's some sort of Titanium platinum alloy, probably to prevent reactions with anything while still keeping the strength of the containment unit."
"I'd love it, if I could see the results." Is'kra stated as he climbed on top of a chair to properly see the screen. "What could the reactions inside be, however?"
"Sorry." One of the engineers said, as they moved to allow Isk'ra to see easier."
"What's the amount of power flowing in or out?" Is'kra asked. "That might clue us to the function. I find it hard to believe this would simply just be some sort of...vanity decoration."
An engineer scrambled to a different terminal, then let out a loud "Oh my god!"
"Not helpful. What's so special?" he asked.
"This number, I've never actually seen one this large in relation to power generation. It's massive, it's at least 500 times10^26. This is a good few hundred times more energy than a star puts out in a second!"
"...well, mystery part one solved." Is'kra stated. "It's a generator. Definitely not fusion, not aether...wait."
"I think we found a holy grail of power engineering, crew." Is'kra stated, hopping off his chair and walking through the crew gathered. "You know that whole crack theory about black hole generators? I think this is one. A little less impressive than Yamataian Aether generators, but...this'll be enough for us to play around with for a long time coming."
"Do you think we could miniaturize it?" One of the scientists asked.
"Heck no." Is'kra replied in an instant. "A tiny black hole would blow up in our faces. This thing might be perfectly balanced for what it is. Any smaller and it would melt away into radiation. Any bigger and it would be almost impossible to contain."
"It woudn't if you fed it mass at a constant perfect rate." One of the engineers pointed out. "If I remember the theory about black hole generators right, the smaller it gets the more electrons you'd have to feed it to keep it stable, which means that the smaller you make it the larger the power output gets."
"Keep in mind you'll have to offset the heat with a lot of coolant. But, whatever. Math makes right, I'm sure a team of you all can do the math involved. We have a sample to play with to some extent, at least."
==== 6 weeks later. ====
The engineering team had been hard at work, and over the past month and a half had created a working prototype of their miniaturized black hole generator. The new black hole sat comfortably within its containment unit, cooled by liquid nitrogen and hooked up to a curie radiator.
"And so you're saying this could probably power half of Planet Yamatai. Good job." Is'kra stated to the group working on the generator. "What's the breaking point?"
"What do you mean breaking point?"
"Points of failure." he replied. "So no one pulls a crazy stunt and accidentally causes their battleship to get eaten."
"Coolant, and one other major problem. You have to release the energy somehow to keep it from exploding. Fortunately we've solved that problem with what's essentially a lighshow. This emitter here," the engineer pointed to a particle emitter, "emits high energy glowing baryons, not in high enough concentration to harm anyone or anything, but high enough energy to release the pressure in the reactor."
"So, a glorified heatsink." he stated. "Well, I hope you have a full report..."
"It's a glorified heatsink with no surface area, and able to be routed through a ship or wherever we choose to mount this."
"Now, remove failsafes and you have a weapon that would make that pompous dick Wazu jealous." Is'kra replied.
One of the younger engineers, far younger than Isk'ra, spoke up. "Actually sir on the topic of weapons, could you take a look at this?"
"Oh dear. I shouldn't say anything." he joked. "What's the thing?"
The young engineer pushed forwards a rough drawing, done in pencil. It depicted a particle and waveform pair accelerated around the black hole in the center of the Starlight road, then spun around a large particle accelerator, then out the large cannon which was at the ship's bow, which had not yet been investigated.
"I think I figured out how that big gun on the front of the ship works."
"If you're right, I'm filing a pay raise for you." Is'kra told the young engineer. "Don't worry, you all got a pay raise filed for your black hole project."
"What I think it does is accelerate both a wave and a neutron around the black hole, speeding them up and imparting rotational velocity. Then it's spun around a huge particle accelerator, causing it to have even more rotational velocity. Then it's collected, in a sort of clump of super-rotating waves and neutrons, which are then for lack of a better word squirted out the front of the ship, like you'd see with one of those preassure water toys."
The young man, pointed too the diagram. "But because it builds up a reservoir the weapon can keep up a steady stream for about ten seconds."
"So the power source is also the weapon." Is'kra observed. "Clever..."
"And when it hits, if I'm right the waves will cause the atoms of the target to start to super-rotate, literally spinning the atoms apart and causing fission reactions akin to nuclear weapons. Then those subatomic particles go on to cause other atoms to spin themselves apart and so on in a chain reaction until either the target is a soup of elemetary particles or the weapon stops firing."
"Quite clever. Although what kind of enemy would warrant...this kind of weapon?" Is'kra asked. "In any case, good work. I wonder if we can make it into anything."
"I don't know, but we've at least got a model to work off with the weapon already in the ship." The engineer said.
And so, with the excitement of the new discoveries now passing, the more mundane work of reverse engineering resumed aboard the Starlight Road.
