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Forum Name: Games
Topic ID: 109
#0, (Someone Else's Mini) Blind Jump
Posted by Nathan on Jun-01-17 at 09:52 PM
Disciple 9-01 shivered and groaned as its reactor spun up, fine-veined radiators going from pure black in the main hull’s shadow to an ever-so-faint brick-colored glow. A hundred and twenty meters away from her, at the other end of the ship’s jagged, skeletal dumbbell shape, neutron poison rods withdrew from the carefully shielded reactor chamber and the uranium isotopes deposited along its walls worked themselves into the violently incandescent plasma fog that would energize the main drive.

Reactor in the bow, reaction mass, computers, and habitat spaces at the stern, and in between, a hundred meters of naked tumble-bush wiring, feeding power from the reactor’s thermocouples to the magnetic pinch generators that would control the uranium plasma pouring over and energising the ten drive coils.

Sidok Lada Idet Perstra thought about the details and shape of her massive charge only in as far as her mind instinctively called them up for reference as she went through the final checklist, confirming and reconfirming that everything in the spaceship was as it should be for this, the last and most important test.

Then she took a deep breath and let it out and spoke clearly into the microphone at her chin. “Control, Disciple,” she said, “I have a complete blue board here. Disciple says, ‘Go’.”

“Disciple, Control. We concur. Control says, ‘Go’. Initiate any time.”

“Understood, Control. Beginning plasma injection.” With the computer programmed with the full flight plan - it could have run the entire mission itself, at least up until the moment when something went wrong - triggering the next stage was literally as simple as touching the correct pre-slaved control.

By this point the groan and rumble of the increasing energy levels in the reactor chamber had faded away to a faint susurration and whine as the magfields held most of the hot mass away from the reactor walls and pumps whisked coolant by the outside and into the four sail-like radiators that stretched away from the reactor housing at ninety degree angles from each other. Both noises built, to a throbbing rush and a grating howl, as the valves sealing the reactor away from the drive feed ladder opened and the radioactive ionized uranium flowed through the entire system.

Despite all that the electrical preheaters had been able to do, the carefully forged drive coils pinged and groaned as the hot plasma began to flow across their relatively cold interfaces, and the rumble-rush of the pumps kicked up a pitch as the system took the load that kept them from melting.

For nearly an hour, Perstra monitored the entire system, the behavior of the pumps and the temperature of the coils, giving them time to warm up all the way through. Even with the way the uranium’s radioactivity would be affecting the coils’ composition, subtly transmuting them an atom at a time, that was less of a risk than having one crack because of temperature shock. Eventually, though, she looked at the displays showing camera views of Disciple’s hull. “...Control, Disciple. Are you getting the external visual feed?”

“Disciple, Control,” the voice on the radio line responded. “We were wondering when you’d look up. Looks like Doctor Thon won the bet.”

On the screens - and outside - an eerie violet glow was bleeding out from the heart of the drive section, the heat and radiation and natural luminosity of the uranium plasma shifted in wavelength into the visible spectrum by the incipient spacewarp gathering passively around the partially charged drive coils.

“Looks like. Control, I show coil temperature completely stable for the last five minutes. I think she’s as ready as she’ll get.”

“Disciple, we confirm. Control says ‘Go’ for final faster-than-light commitment.”

“Understood. Disciple says ‘Go’ for final faster-than-light commitment. Beginning upcycle.”

And then she hit the second toggle, that brought the reactor from ‘standby’ load to ‘full’. On and on the rush and throb and scream built into an alarming cacophony that, when she spoke up to report, forced her to raise her voice even through the massive radiation-shielding protecting her cramped nest at the very stern of the ship. “Control, Disciple, I show reactor at full and core temperature rising. Estimate one and one half minutes to overheat.”

At which point the Potassium-Sodium ‘alloy’ used as coolant would begin to boil and matters would become quite rapidly disastrous.

“Disciple, Control. Initiate faster-than-light at your discretion, and know that a world’s prayers go with you.”

“Control, Disciple,” Perstra said, and reached for the last toggle. “‘Let me know no dread at the night, for the unknown is beauty unveiled.’ Initiating FTL.”

Disciple 9-01 screamed as her drive took the load - and reality smeared around her, the cold diamond dust of the starfield fading into redshift as tiny atoms of interplanetary dust caught in the warpfield and exploded into incandescent streaks as the distortion of reality tore them apart. Reaction sent rattling impacts through the entire ship with every one, as the warp coils jolted against their mountings from the energy transferred to the fields that they anchored, but that had been planned for, expected.

For three minutes, then four, then five, the trip continued... and then, at last, Disciple dropped back to sidereal space in a blaze of decelerating photons, and the portside camera showed the gas giant Maden glowing in the center of its field like a small scarlet dot, right where it should be.

“It works,” she whispered, not at all conscious of the recorders, and started the reactor downcycle to let the drive cool.

There was plenty to do while she waited for that to happen - deploying the long-range com antenna and sending her report, using the short-range one to check in with the five automated probes in Maden’s vicinity, prepping the tiny robot rover that would do an external inspection of Disciple, looking to damage, melting, or other risks, and checking radiation levels and structural fatigue.

And then, of all things, the proximity warning pinged.

A quick slash of one finger brought up the feed from the appropriate camera, and then she spent a long, long moment staring at the screen, mouth dry, as her mind raced to catch up to the complete realignment of her universe.

There was a ship on the screen, a shape like a stretched, flattened lens, with vertical keels above and below supporting wings that were tipped by long, slender pods with luminously clouded windows running much of their length. Writing, in an alien script, arced across the floodlit hull towards the bow, and slit-like windows and other structures decorated its sleekly curved surface.

A quick glance at the rangefinder display and some mental arithmetic produced an estimate that it was about two and a half times Disciple’s length, and the difference in configuration made it many more times the experimental ship’s mass.

Perstra took a deep breath and keyed through four different menus to find and send the carefully prepared package of electronic data that no one, no one at all, had expected to need to use.

She had expected to need to wait for the response, if any, but reality had another surprise in store for her.

“This is Lanata Sonok of the United Federation of Planets Starship Ashanti to Disciple 9-01,” a man’s voice came over Mission Control’s radio channel, calm and dispassionate. “Sidok Idet, permit me to extend my congratulations on a successful warp flight and to welcome you, and your people, to the interstellar community.”

-----

Realized, thanks to the other thread, that I apparently hadn't posted this here.

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Iä! Iä! Moe fthagn!


#1, RE: (Someone Else's Mini) Blind Jump
Posted by StClair on Jun-02-17 at 11:04 AM
In response to message #0
LAST EDITED ON Jun-02-17 AT 11:10 AM (EDT)
 
(( Oh, I loved this too. Thank you. ))

#2, RE: (Someone Else's Mini) Blind Jump
Posted by NHO on Jun-03-17 at 00:23 AM
In response to message #0
Welcome, to the stars!

It's a Constellation, right?


#3, RE: (Someone Else's Mini) Blind Jump
Posted by Nathan on Jun-03-17 at 02:09 AM
In response to message #2
>Welcome, to the stars!
>
>It's a Constellation, right?

Close!

U.S.S. Ashanti, Cheyanne class, NCC-71707, Captain Sonok of Vulcan commanding. "Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family."

-----
Iä! Iä! Moe fthagn!


#4, RE: (Someone Else's Mini) Blind Jump
Posted by Mercutio on Jun-03-17 at 10:05 AM
In response to message #0

>“This is Lanata Sonok of the United Federation of Planets
>Starship Ashanti to Disciple 9-01,” a man’s voice came over
>Mission Control’s radio channel, calm and dispassionate. “Sidok
>Idet, permit me to extend my congratulations on a successful warp
>flight and to welcome you, and your people, to the interstellar
>community.”

You know, it might just be me, but "Hi! We've been watching you. Not just you; everyone. For awhile now. We know your name and your language and your culture, but you know nothing about us. Let's be friends!" is... maybe not the least fear-inspiring greeting ever devised.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#5, RE: (Someone Else's Mini) Blind Jump
Posted by Gryphon on Jun-03-17 at 11:49 AM
In response to message #4
>
>>“This is Lanata Sonok of the United Federation of Planets
>>Starship Ashanti to Disciple 9-01,” a man’s voice came over
>>Mission Control’s radio channel, calm and dispassionate. “Sidok
>>Idet, permit me to extend my congratulations on a successful warp
>>flight and to welcome you, and your people, to the interstellar
>>community.”
>
>You know, it might just be me, but "Hi! We've been watching you. Not
>just you; everyone. For awhile now. We know your name and your
>language and your culture, but you know nothing about us. Let's be
>friends!" is... maybe not the least fear-inspiring greeting
>ever devised.

And yet, perfectly in keeping with everything we know about the Vulcans. They were voted Most Unnerving Buddies in their yearbook at Galactic Civilization High School.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#6, RE: (Someone Else's Mini) Blind Jump
Posted by zwol on Jun-03-17 at 12:07 PM
In response to message #4
They could have pulled Idet's name from the "carefully prepared package of electronic data that no one, no one at all, had expected to need to use", but I do agree with the larger point. I think if I'd been given Ashanti's mission I would carefully not be seen during the test run; I'd show up in high planetary orbit a month or two later, after everyone had processed a bit, and claim to have learned the language from television.


#7, RE: (Someone Else's Mini) Blind Jump
Posted by Nathan on Jun-03-17 at 01:03 PM
In response to message #6
Heh. You're probably right, at least in rule-of-thumb terms.

But, some of the details I've worked out about Perstra's people include the fact that they're about eight lightyears from the site of one of the major battles of the Dominion War. They rushed to warp tech because having your telescopes report a period of a few hours where someones so near is throwing around antimatter explosives like popcorn is concerning. The Sethrians know perfectly well that there's somebody around with FTL and weapons, and have been building a fairly hefty planetary defense network - like a black powder musket ball, a big enough fusion warhead will ruin your day at any tech level. So, directly into high orbit has an unacceptable risk of somebody twitching at the wrong button, while a more ginger approach sends the same 'we've been watching carefully' message that meeting Disciple does.

(The faction that expected their system to be monitored, incidentally, were convinced that the Aliens would come in shooting if they noticed what was going on, and so they didn't think a first contact packet would be needed either.)

The Klingon/Federation dustup is also why they're getting a relatively minor ship like the Ashanti, rather than the current Starfleet flagship dropping by. Sonok was... simply who was available, despite the fact that, no, he's not the smoothest operator ever to wear O-6 pips.

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Iä! Iä! Moe fthagn!


#8, RE: (Someone Else's Mini) Blind Jump
Posted by Star Ranger4 on Jun-03-17 at 06:14 PM
In response to message #7
>Sonok was... simply who was available, despite
>the fact that, no, he's not the smoothest operator ever to wear O-6
>pips.
>
But niether is he probobly the worst... Those tend to weed themselves out as they climb the ranks; ideally without taking their whole crew with them.

#9, RE: (Someone Else's Mini) Blind Jump
Posted by Nathan on Jun-03-17 at 06:57 PM
In response to message #8
>But niether is he probobly the worst... Those tend to weed themselves
>out as they climb the ranks; ideally without taking their whole crew
>with them.

Oh, certainly not. Captain Sonok is a skilled tactician and meticulous if not brilliant engineer, well able to adapt proven solutions to unanticipated problems in a wide variety of fields.

He just... scores high on the Bip Boop I'm A Vulcanbot scale.

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Iä! Iä! Moe fthagn!


#11, RE: (Someone Else's Mini) Blind Jump
Posted by Peter Eng on Jun-04-17 at 02:28 AM
In response to message #9
>>But niether is he probobly the worst... Those tend to weed themselves
>>out as they climb the ranks; ideally without taking their whole crew
>>with them.
>
>Oh, certainly not. Captain Sonok is a skilled tactician and meticulous
>if not brilliant engineer, well able to adapt proven solutions to
>unanticipated problems in a wide variety of fields.
>
>He just... scores high on the Bip Boop I'm A Vulcanbot scale.
>

Tactician: High.
Engineer: Moderate.
Diplomat: Nobody's perfect.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.


#10, RE: (Someone Else's Mini) Blind Jump
Posted by VoidRandom on Jun-03-17 at 07:20 PM
In response to message #4
>You know, it might just be me, but "Hi! We've been watching you. Not
>just you; everyone. For awhile now. We know your name and your
>language and your culture, but you know nothing about us. Let's be
>friends!" is... maybe not the least fear-inspiring greeting
>ever devised.

“In general, you will find in fiction that most Contact missions are portrayed as relatively subtle. In reality, this is almost never the case. The experience of the Exploratory Service shows that when one makes contact in too subtle a manner, one is actually signaling – in a remarkably effective pan-species manner – that one is being too sneaky for the Contacted civilization’s good. A number of historical contact missions have gone wrong this way. In addition, this can prove particularly perilous when making Contact with a multi-polity world; the contact cruiser may be taken for a superweapon or signs of an attack by some of those polities, and the Contact attempt may start a planetary war. Even when this mistake can be cleaned up afterwards, such missions rarely end well.

“Consequently, Imperial Contact doctrine eschews subtlety, wherever possible. Be big, be loud, be brash, send messages across half the system to announce your arrival, make sure the local watchers see you – take a hundred hours off the life of your hull shooting atmosphere entry, if you must, but make sure that the Contact can be detected by as many people as possible, and cannot possibly be seen for anything other than what it is, a genuine extraplanetary Contact. It almost always pays off in the long run.”

– Imperial Exploratory Service, An Introduction to Contact

https://eldraeverse.com/2012/04/13/hello-world/


-VR
Of course, the Federation general policy on such things s fairly incoherent.
"They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,
And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind."