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History will remember this day, Mr Andar

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WanTheFloof

Active Member
RP Date
Y43
RP Location
Phosphorous, Noval Station. NDC
Egwene liked working. She'd gotten away from the proper in-lab research and development recent with all the work her Mechanical Engineering doctorate was getting, but with a debt healthy padded down and a decent income secured, she had some me time. Which, involved working with the Noval company. Nevarra Noval had hired Egwene to work on a relatively - for her - simple project with her son, Andar Noval. The idea was to transition from "book learning" to hands on, under the tutorship of an experienced hand to ensure everything went well.

Egwene was a sucker for baby scientists, so accepted with glee and was now here, in a lab. Lab coat on, microscope in use, delight for all. She was studying a few potental things for the still-needing-a-proper-name Egweneium, while waiting for Andar to appear. She wasn't a shuffling around doing nothing girl, after all. When presented with a stocked lab like this, she put the thing to work.
 
The lab's door opened and Andar entered, wearing a labcoat over a smartly-cut button up, tie, and slacks. The tie, at least, was held in place by a clip, but the lab coat was too clean and well starched to have been used before. He had the look of a well-meaning executive come to check out the lab.

Which, more or less, is what he was.

"Miss Egwene!" he said with a genuine, amicable smile, as he approached her. "I'm so glad that you accepted our offer. Noval is always looking to find the best talent from across the sector."

The young man motioned to the lab around them. It was equipped with all of Noval's latest goodies and was based on their ARCO bridge design. The entire space could be reconfigured at will, shaping to suit the user's needs. It even had its own 10m x 10m Daedalus fabrication unit to help realize any of the scientists' and engineers' ideas. By Andar's request, the whole thing was Egwene's to use - though she could certainly request support if she wanted.

"How do you find our facilities? Are you missing anything?"
 
"Doctor, please. I probably died to earn the title, I like it being used" She replied, looking up from the microscope and giving him a smile to show she had no hard feelings nor meant anything by it, just had a preference of title. He was an eager young pup, ready to blow something up accidentally in the name of science. It was a right of passage after all. You weren't a true scientist until one of your projects cataclysmically ruptured.

"The facilities are well furnished, thank you. I was running through a personal project before work, if you would like to come look? It's the boring board and bored part of science, but interest is always appreciated"
 
"Doctor it is," he acknowledged, tucking his hands into the coat's pockets and moving close enough to see.

"I've worked with a lot of tutors and teachers in the various scientific fields, but I admit that my main focus has been on the business side of things. I'm really looking forward to learning more about the development process, Doctor Egwene. What's your project about?"
 
"Science~" Egwene exclaimed, a mad look on her face as she waved him over to the microscope.

"Many years ago, when I was a child, concepts like looking after your health were foreign and ungraspable. By the time I was a young adult, I was dying none too slowly. So I built myself a mechanical body and transferred into it. Probably....

But! Teacher's salary isn't exactly something to crow about, so I couldn't do nearly as much as I wanted to. The skin coating on my frame is an electromotivated none-newtonion fluid." She'd hold up a hand and the skin around it would melt away to reveal the mechanical servos and synthetics below. And then it would crawl back up to cover her again.

"I wanted to build my entire body out of the same fluid for maximum control, but it was expensive enough to create this much, and taxing besides. The power source I use has a limited voltage right now. Working on an angle to increase the draw rate but even then.." she'd pause and look at the man with an awkward smile.

"Sorry, rambling. It's just stuff. You have a desired vein to pursuit for Noval?"
 
Andar clapped in response to the display of her skin. "Oh! That's interesting. We did something with similar results on the Operator project-"

The young man paused, flipping his fingers through the air until he found what he was looking for. A volumetric screen popped up, showing an android doing something very similar with their chest cavity to expose the parts underneath. "Galactic Horizon worked with us to develop 'nanocellulose'. I don't think it works the same, though. It's not a non-newtonian, for one." He smiled at her, pleased to have some common experience to talk about. "Rebinder is a closer material to what you're discussing. We use it in a lot of our products now. Maybe that'd be a good start..?"

He pondered for a few moments, listening to her while juggling his own thoughts. His attention came back in full for her question.

"I'd be happy to work with you on any of your projects, but I do have a list of ideas. Some of them are based on ambiguous requests - we get those sometimes - and some are.. my own thoughts."

Another hand flick and a screen popped up showing a catalog of sorts. Many of them had decently drawn representations of the concept, though none were particularly technical.

"The NDC's Legion has expressed interest in drone companions for their recon troops. They haven't been particularly specific, but the ideas of a falcon drone for scouting and long-distance target acquisition came up. I, uh, also thought about merging some sort of single seat vehicle with a drone. It could act as fire support when it's not being ridden. Your Ursarus is a big inspiration for that one." The drawings of the falcon showed it with some sort of VTOL capability and indicated a need for high-resolution cameras. It didn't seem to be armed. The vehicle looked something like a motorcycle, with variations for wheels and no wheels, but also a walking variant that was somewhat wolf like. He'd drawn in a place to mount a long-barreled rifle for transport or drone-operated fire.

He flipped through the hovering pages to the next set. "This one is a Noval pet project that we keep getting pulled off of. The idea is to take our Rebinder material and use it for aesthetic and/or functional purposes in the civilian market. It'd be a little pricey, but I think it'd sell well." This one had actual pictures of some sort of prototype and a video of a sakura tree made out of the fluid metal in motion. "Might be a good way to get experience with the material, if you're interested in it?"

A few more pages flipped by, showing some sort of gel-based ammo that could be configured for various purposes on-the-fly and what looked like a super suit variant of the Mithril bodysuit.

The last page he arrived at was the most sketchily-drawn one so far. "The last idea I've got is the one I've got the least idea where to start with. I realize that a lot of the NDC's soldiers have to lug around a lot of gear. The weight and bulk of it seems like it might be a problem, even with the strength and stamina improvements of the new bodysuit we've rolled out. I was thinking that maybe we could look at how the Orchestra is able to apply orbital mechanics at the personal scale and maybe combine that with some sort of.. subspace storage system?"

Andar shrugged a bit and smiled sheepishly. "The idea of someone showing up somewhere and producing their weapons and equipment out of thin air really appeals to me. I'm not sure how feasible it is and, to be honest, I haven't done much research on it yet."

Rocking back on his heels a bit, he peered around the room. "Really, though, I'm here to work as your assistant and learn a little bit about all this works. Nice ideas are good and all, but they don't mean much if they never get made and put into use. You tell me what you want to do and I'll follow."
 
Egwene was silent as he ran through his projects. There was a lot of them, as one might expect from a person doing such business. Egwene blushed a little when the Ursarus was mentioned though. Was this what it was like to be famous?

Letting him have his monologue, he'd eventually put the choice of projects at her feet. There was little point or reason going in for projects already done, so she'd look to the last sketch and nod.

"Subspace storage systems won't really work. Everything is still as heavy as it ever is, regardless of weight. You could try storing all the equipment as energy, like a supercharged Honeycomb system or something, but that would be expensive to put out and risks the Soldier losing all his gear if this one thing gets broken or lost or stolen. What would be best, would be to interact with weight directly"

She'd step over and project a holographic display from her cybereyes, a basic rundown of science.
"Weight is the gravitational force acting upon an object with mass. Ergo, the easiest way to reduce weight would be to reduce gravity. If you can make a device that creates a gravimetric field that reduces the soldiers effective gravity, then you reduce the effective weight they are carrying as well. Imagine it like a force field but instead of a horizonal force reducing incoming projectiles, it's a vertical force reducing incoming gravity"
 
Andar tapped at his lips in thought while listening to the explanation. "We ran into something similar during the Orchestra's development."

He rummaged through some files and pulled up the relevant decision log. A researcher appeared on his floating screen.

"... a challenge we've run into during the development of the 'Orchestra' technology is that, while we can free up the user's hands by creating something like a micro-scale solar system gravity field, the anchoring process translates all the weight back to the device..."

The clip stopped there and he looked to Egwene thoughtfully. "I believe that the gravity manipulation used by Nekos does not have this particular problem, so this may be a worthwhile avenue to pursue. If we had a way to reduce the relative weight of an object, it could improve the effectiveness of our existing technology and open up new avenues at the same time!"
 
"Hmm" She'd ponder for a moment and think of a few new ideas while drawing a new picture for Aeta. She'd look cute in a proper tack...

"If you have an external drone creating the field, then the fact that the anchoring device has all the weight translated back to it is rendered moot. You create a field of low gravity like an umbrella below the troops, and the drone itself hovers under its own power so that weight translation doesn't bother the soldiers below it. If you use something like a Muon-Catalysed Fusion Reactor, you can even have the loose neutrons ejected through jets at the side, providing power and propulsion in the same breath without having to laden the drone down with fuel or other flying tech..."
 
Andar nodded in response. He wasn't sure what the reactor was or any of the specifics behind whatever a reverse-gravity umbrella might be, but it sounded interesting.

"I'm not sure if we thought about using an external drone for the system. I know that we've mounted it on craft, like the Banshee, but that's a lot bigger than what you're talking about. A low gravity field sounds like an interesting approach."

He reached up and scratched at one of his dog-like ears idly, an old habit from days long past, while he thought. "It doesn't exactly reduce the weight for the person using the Orchestra directly, but as an indirect solve.. I think it has some applications. I wonder if we could do something like this to reduce the relative weight of large equipment? Sort've.. indirectly reduce their weight through this kind of low gravity field? Like if you had a big crate or something, making it lighter could be useful. Oh! The applications of your drone in the logistics field would-"

Andar paused and looked back to her. "Sorry, went on a tangent there. I think your drone idea sounds like a great start. How can I help?"
 
"Indirect weight reduction is the idea at least. If you half the standard "speed" of gravitational acceleration, you have to put in half the amount of energy to keep a thing upright. So if something weights 30kg under 9.2m/s2 gravity, then it will weigh 15kg under 4.6m/s2 gravity. Thus, the drone reduces the acceleration of gravity in a specific area, allowing for things to appear less heavy than they actually are when weighed or carried"

She'd then shrug at how to start.
"No idea. I am not a Fundamental Forces scientist. If you can get a gravometric scientist to draw up the blueprints of something like this, then I can build the machine that will actually do it. But the something like this is outside my wheelshed"
 
Another nod. "We've got a handful of those. I can have someone come over when they're available."

The request didn't require any hand gestures this time. His eyes lost focus for a moment while he composed the message and then he was back to looking at her. "It may be a little while, since most of them are working on projects already. Anything you want to work on in the meanwhile?"

He gave the scientist a warm, boyish smile. "I'd also love to hear a bit about how you got into your field some time. If you're open to that."
 
"There are no tales of daring do or scrappy super powers in how I got into my field. It's just eight years of study, exams, and dying. I had a brain that was running a bit fast for the rest of me. When I got focused on a thing, it was focused on that thing alone, and nothing else. So I forgot to take care of my hygiene and personal health. Cue slowly dying as I showcase the other half of being to smart to stay alive - being really smart. Then I passed the exams and am now Doctor Tai"
 
"I feel like you're skipping over a lot," he said with light amusement, "but fair enough. I can't imagine getting that focused on something - I suppose that's why you're a scientist and I'm not, though!"

There were plenty of other reasons, but he didn't want to darken the mood too much. "It seems like you're better able to take care of yourself now, Doctor Tai? Or is that more of a side-effect of the new body?"
 
"Well, sure. I went to class and got this" She'd state, before drawing an equation in the air with her holographics.

'c = 1/(e0m0)1/2 = 2.998 X 10(8)m/s '

With the equation written up, she turned to the class and nodded with a smile, pushing her spectacles up.
"Then a lecture" Egwene entered into her teacher voice as she straightened up and spoke.

'Maxwell's Equation - as you see on the board - is the foundation of the understanding of Light, and indeed all electromagnetic understanding, in whole or in part. Ampere's Law, Faraday's Law, Lenz's Law, and Gauss' Law are the concepts that make up these equations, each one pertaining to a different part of the spectrum. Using some-" Egwene paused for a moment and laughed a little "-not-so-simple calculus, Maxwell's equations can be used to show that the electric and magnetic fields obey wave equations. The speed of an electromagnetic wave is determined by the constants of electricity and magnetism. Light, is an electromagnetic wave; discovered by the scientist James Clerk Maxwell, and detailed in the equation on the board. This equation and Maxwell's work revolutionised the technological era, the discovery of radio waves, Infrared light, ultraviolet light, X-rays, and gamma rays all coming within a century of the discovery of this formula. It is the core to the understanding of all electromagnetic properties, and so it is the first thing I shall be teaching you before we progress"

"Cue three more hours of studying, conversation and applied theoretics before leaving off to my next class. Repeat nine hours a day for eight years. Ergo, a lot of stuff kind of needs skipping over"

She'd then look down at her mechanical body and grin.

"When you don't need to eat, drink, breathe or sleep, and hygiene is only how you look with no impact on your health...yea. It's easier to take care of yourself"
 
"... I ... see," Andar replied slowly, doing his best to remember what she'd told him and knowing that he'd forget much of it. A digital memory was good and all, but it was no substitute for actually knowing things.

"It does sound like a lot," he agreed after another moment. His respect for Noval's engineers, and Doctor Tai of course, increased. He hadn't even been something akin to human for that long.

".. but it isn't good that you didn't take care of yourself," he chided. "Self care is important. Studies have shown that taking periodic breaks for relaxation, new experiences, and social interaction improve productivity and the quality of the work done." The wolf-eared young man gave her a resolved look, but it wasn't a harsh one. "So you could say that being an effective scientist also requires you to be good to yourself. Or at least that's what the data I've seen shows."

He shrugged a bit. "The station we're on is balanced around this idea - much of the work spaces are in the ring's green space. You could have your lab moved to be near a lake or small forest, if that's your thing. The views are very nice. Lots of restaurants and such there, too. Our metrics for employee satisfaction and overall value delivered are-"

Pausing, he gave her a sheepish look. "Sorry, I tend to get caught up in things. Old habit. I'm glad that you've found a way to match your body's needs to what works for you, but I hope you give your mind a chance to rest from time to time. I'd be happy to show you around whenever we're not working on things here."

An alert in his periphery let him know that a scientist with the right skills would be available soon. "Speaking of," he continued, "it looks like Doctor Ghislaine will be coming by in about fifteen minutes. We won't have them all day, but maybe they can get us moving in the right direction."
 
"Not good? Huh, you know when I quite possibly died because of it I didn't realize that. But now you say it, I can see that. Thank you for such an enlightening commentary" Egwene's tone was dripping with sarcasm as she spoke, giving him a slide long glare. Screw 'Captain', the guy was Emperor Obvious.

Still, she did look up at the they guy when a he said a doctor was on their way to work on the theory.
"Like I said, it's not my area, so I couldn't know where to go even if they did get us moving in the right direction. Science isn't jumping in and hoping for the best. At this kind of level, any kind of flaw could end up with people dying"
 
Andar rolled his eyes a little bit in response to the sarcasm, but he wasn't offended. One thing he'd dealt with plenty was people who were too smart for their own good not taking care of themselves. His father had been one and it had taken a lot of work to get his mother to relax even occasionally. His father had died, too - though not entirely from being unable to care for himself properly. He shook his head and moved on.

"We'll see what she has to offer and then go from there," he replied, forcing a bit of levity into his tone to keep things moving.

It didn't take too long for Ghislaine to arrive. The room's doors slid open and she entered, looking entirely too well-built to match the usual scientist tropes. The tie she wore was nearly lost half way down her ample chest, which seemed to be kept in check only by the coat itself. One of her eyes was covered by a broad patch.

"Andar," she said, one of her cat-like ears twitching a bit, "I appreciate the interest but you shouldn't just call me up for a pet project."

The young man smiled broadly at her. "But then how would we ever bump into each other? I'm pretty sure you've got a bed in your lab."

Her tail stiffened and she looked away, crossing her arms. "It's just a rumor. So, what do you need?"

"Doctor Egwene Tai is here to help us with a project or two. I'll be working with her to get some hands-on experience."

Ghislaine nodded, seeming to appreciate the intent. "Doctor," she said with a nod.

Andard continued, "Doctor Tai, this is Doctor Ghislaine. She works in our Applied Field Sciences division and was one of the lead engineers on the Orchestra project."
 
No apparent reaction, just charging ahead anyway. Doctor Titty Kitty arrived, and Egwene would nod to Ghislaine, feeling her pain at this whole situation.

"Doctor" She'd reply, before turning her dry gaze to Andar. "There was no need to interrupt a cat nap. Like I have said several times by this point. I can't do anything right now until there are solid blueprints to work off. And blueprints for a machine that can do this to specification doesn't appear in a few hours"
 
Ghislaine gave her agreement. "The Orchestra took months of work by a large team. I think we could hash out the basic concepts of what you're asking for, but the actual engineering work - the science, modeling, prototypes, user experience, actual development, and so on - takes time. Messing with the fundamental principles of the universe the way we do isn't something you can do casually."

Andar considered all this for a bit. He was well familiar with the development process in the luxury wings, but had to admit that was a different process entirely. His opinion wasn't entirely formed by what he'd seen on TV or the bragging if engineers trying to butter up the corporation's heir... but it was certainly influenced by it. He considered that fact.

"Okay," he said eventually, trying to shift tracks, "then let's assume we want to do this the right way. You said you need blueprints to work on this. We could see what's available in our tech repository or what's on the market and start there? Or should we start from scratch?"

Ghislaine smiled wryly at Egwene. "Andar here has two things working for him. One, he's basically unflappable. Two, he does listen."

The muscular scientist turned to face Andar and tapped him on the chest. "I've got some spare cycles in the evenings. If you two really want to work on this, I can stop by then. Noval's already done a lot of work with gravity manipulation systems, so I think the gravity field won't be as hard to generate as it sounds.

Finding a way to power a field as large as you want in a drone's form factor will be a bigger challenge. The Orchestra is very power efficient because it only affects certain objects. If you're wanting to effect an entire area, well.. that's going to take more juice. Got it?"

"Got it," said Andar with an easy smile. He turned to Egwene. "What do you think? I'll let you two take the lead. I can help with your projects when Gh- Doctor Ghislaine isn't around or just let you have the lab to yourself."
 
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