'City of Fresno'

[jemhouston]

Mater Harris might end up in hydroponics, trying to breath under the hydro part.

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

City of Fresno #10

Anne-Marie and I dug into the 'Ponics' Gantt Charts, extrapolating and interpolating the long-term implications of our situation. They were thought-provoking, intimidating. Even with the folders' so-careful contingency planning, there were nested problems and complications. A few could be resolved by developments during the several decades between the folder and today. Tech had moved on. Some 'hard stuff' was now routine. Against that, those same decades had revealed oft-subtle 'gotchas' we must some-how circumvent...

There were other issues, too, which we discussed at length.

Triple-spined 'City-Class' starships such as 'Fresno' were very modular, could be readily shortened or extended at need.

Bow and stern had wide, lenticular dust-shields supported by a web of framing and three splayed truss-girders, each a hundred metres length. Think big 'beach shelter'.

A shallow hexagonal box, a hundred metres across the flats, formed the core of each inter-stage 'Tristar Flange'. From each, three well-braced 150 metre 'legs' with docking ports and module mounts spread starfish-style.

The 100 metre truss spine sections attached fore-and-aft to each 'flange' at the base of each 'leg', could be decoupled at need.

A basic 50x100 metre module, variously hab, 'spin', cargo, hangar or tankage, fit lengthwise on the centre-line between these spines, clamped to their 'flange' at each end. Two such modules or a single 100x100 metre spin-drum could likewise clamp lengthwise as 'saddle-tanks' between pairs of 'legs'. Again, decoupled at need.

Ships usually had three to five 'accommodation' stages ahead of the bulging central 'Power Section', whose arcane 'Field Poles' crafted the 'Alcubierre Double Bubble' needed for FTL. A similar count of fuel-tank stages ran back to the stern's 'Engine Room' and its vast fusors. Although those 'burned' aneutronic Deuterium and Helium-Three, would 'fail safe', the possibility of a 'back-fire' with a scary 'sneeze' of neutrinos, neutrons and/or gammas meant wary isolation plus fuel-tanks as shielding was preferred...

'City Class' ships on 'Primary' routes were routinely refitted with upgraded 'Power Sections' and 'Engine Rooms'. If not rebuilt to the latest version, those removed would be held in reserve or refurbished for 'Second Tier' ships, serving minor routes or as dedicated freight haulers.

As 'Flanges' could be close-coupled, a spare 'Power Section', 'Engine Room', indeed anything with that triple-spinal load pass-through, be it a prefabricated refinery, mineral processing plant or space-station core, might be ferried, along with spare habs, 'flanges' and/or bundled truss-spine sections. Though ungainly, even dust shields could be ferried, edge-on, using custom adaptors.

I'd heard Floater Industries could build a ship from modules to FTL in less than a week...

More relevant to Fresno's situation, a range of simple space stations could be rapidly assembled. Though the most basic only had a crew-type or rock-tug hab's spin drum, there were better options...

[jemhouston]

You have time to get it right even after a few mistakes.

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

City of Fresno #11

It was almost a relief when the display screen pinged, announced a video-call. First Lieutenant Richards looked like a cat who'd got both the cream and the canary. "Ms. McKensie, Mr. Kinson, you'll be pleased to know that Ms. Harris has withdrawn her application to administer the 'Ponics. She claims to be reserving her skills for a more appropriate position.

"Although both of you will be essential for the preliminary phase of the new 'Ponics, we are building a short-list of candidates to manage the pre-production and production phases.

"Captain Owen and the Chief Engineer have indicated that you are both too valuable to assign as routine management: We hope you will serve among Fresno's 'Trouble Shooters'...

"Incidentally, Mr. Kinson, Fresno's Chief Engineer, 'Master at Arms' and Ship's Constable have all expressed delight at your Exo Suit's specifications and your mention of anti-terrorist training. When our formalities are complete, you will have access to Fresno's weapons lockers, including the few 'semi-portables'. Lacking a squad of 'Aero-Space Marines', we intend to raise platoons of Militia armed with whatever weapons we can supply or contrive.

"Lieutenant Svenson has asked me to mention that Fresno's initial mapping swathes are accumulating. As yet, there are no local objects of interest."

I nodded politely.

"Ms. McKensie, beyond acting as a consultant / inspector for Fresno's 'Ponics, we hope to invite you to run an Aikido dojo. So far, we have identified possible Sensei for Karate, Kendo and kick-boxing. We are trying to clarify several mentions of modest skills with 'traditional' weapons.

"I appreciate that the berthing modules' non-optimal combination of thrust and spin will be a co-ordination issue, and we've yet to address fitness. Until our 'Ponics reach full routine production, encouraging much nutrition-burning exercise would seem a nonsense."

"Thank you." Anne-Marie nodded politely, said, "Jake and I have been working through some of the 'gotchas'...

"One of the essential resources we must locate is Boron, as Borax or Borates. Long term, we need it as a supplement for the 'Ponics. Most crops need some, but several crave it, coffee being the--"

"We can grow coffee ??"

"Yes and no," Anne-Marie cautioned. "Coffea make cute Bonsai, so I've cell-lines. Six weeks to seedlings, several years to first crop. But, they'd need special feeding, extra supplements. A standard 'Ponics feed will just not do...

"As Boron is created, atom by atom, by cosmic-ray spalling of carbon, it is remarkably rare. Fortunately, Borates may be leached, concentrated by hydro-thermal processes.

"Jake tells me this means we need to find a tectonically-active planet with a hydrological cycle. There were even some Borates on Mars, mixed in with ancient crater clay. Salt flats down-stream from volcanic ash-fall would be much better...

"Incidentally, that's why Coffee plantations and subduction volcanoes go together. The Coffee bush is so very greedy. Without periodic additions of mineral-rich ash, the soil becomes exhausted. It simply will not crop.

"In fact," she reported, quoting her notes, "a 60 kg bag of coffee beans contains 1 kg of nitrogen, 60 g of phosphorous, 9 g of potassium, 16 g of calcium, 90 g of magnesium, 7 g of sulfur, 1 g of boron, 0.8 g of copper, 3.5 g of iron, 1 g of manganese, 0.002 g of molybdenum, and 0.7 g of zinc.

"But, all this has to come from somewhere ! In rich soil, one coffee bush may produce 6 kilograms of beans per year (1200 cups of coffee), rich in aromas. A poor soil will yield very much less, and give a coffee which lacks taste.

"Then all those 'trace' elements get diluted into the general re-cycling." She shrugged. "So, d'you 'waste' your micro-nutrients on coffee ? Or get bigger, better crops from everything else ?

"In my opinion, we'd do better to cultivate 'Root Chicory' until we have a reliable supply of trace elements. The roasted root makes a fair coffee-substitute, while the edible foliage provides a pleasant garnish."

"Boron is an essential alloy for machine-tool drills and cutters," I mentioned. "A dopant for circuit chips...

"Also, boron-nitride membranes can be used to progressively separate fusor-fuel Deuterium from common Hydrogen. Though less efficient than the best zeolite cages, they may be much easier to make.

"We'd get the Hydrogen by 'mining' a sub-Jovian or Saturnian gas-giant's atmosphere. We'd do the same for our other fusor-fuel, Helium Three. Sorry, I don't know the detail for efficiently separating that from the much more common Helium Four. Ask the Chief Engineer ?"

"We will certainly need a lot of Borates to make Boro-silicate glass for flat-ware and chemistry 'glass-ware'," Anne-Marie warned. "Plain soda glass is much too fragile, and pure silica intractable.

"We also have to think about fabrics. While collecting fuel, can we glean feed-stock to make plastics for synthetic fibres or sheet ?

"Most silk is now produced by gene-tweaked microbes, but I doubt we've cell-cultures aboard. We may need to catch and breed our odd-corners' tiny spiders to get the genes to do 'garage bio-lab' stuff."

"For which we'd need boro-silicate 'glassware'," Lieutenant Richards agreed.

"Exactly," Anne-Marie confirmed. "Growing flax, bamboo or such to get fibres to spin to thread, then knit or weave to clothing is one route, but their height would need an unwelcome chunk of 'Ponics capacity. Better to grow in 'ornamental' planters. Another route is processing cellulose, either plant or tank microbial, to 'Viscose' filament...

"Likewise, long-fibre cellulose from fast-growing reeds or saplings for paper. Seriously long-term, but what happens when our IT wears out ? Jake worries his augments may have been prematurely aged by radiation damage when Fresno crossed the Local Bubble's 'Great Fire-Wall'. So, we're talking 'dead tree' reference books, with type-setting, press and printing ink. Otherwise it's one or two hand-copied volumes per scribe's life-time..."

"We've a growing list of elements we'll need," I added. "Some, we can easily glean. Some will be mixed in with other resources, may be extracted from side-streams. Some, like Boron, will require a terrestrial-ish planet."

"Our evolution has stuck us with needing them," Anne-Marie mentioned.

"Very worst case," I warned. "Back before star-flight, before fusion, some rare elements and isotopes had to be isolated by 'industrial scale' mass-spectrometry. Ionise, beam through transverse magnetic field, bucket the relevant atomic masses from the 'spectrum' produced. I think it was called a 'Calutron'. Horribly inefficient, very, very slow, almost a last resort. But, like the mono-isotopic diamond slabs used for the very best Field Pole substrates, which I'm told may take up to a decade to grow, if that's the only way, that's what we'll have to do...

"There's another implication: As I understand it, making modern 'ambient' super-conductors still takes a lot of proprietary 'art'. If we cannot duplicate them, we'd need a lot of very pure, cryo-chilled copper or silver for the Calutrons' magnetic coils' windings. Like Boron, those metals would need appropriate tectonics and a hydrological cycle to concentrate. We should get ample Helium-Four for cryo-gas while gleaning Helium-Three and Deuterium for Fresno's fusors.

"Upside, your survey spectra should give enough guide to solar abundances, with planetary scans to avoid 'dry holes'."

First Lieutenant Richards was silent for a long, long time. Finally, he said, "Thank you."

[jemhouston]

The list and hole are both growing.

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

City of Fresno #12

"About these spin-drums' low 'gravity' and adverse 'whirl' ?" I queried. "Does Fresno still have most of the 'lifted' Evac pods ?"

"Yes..." He nodded. "All eighteen--"

"Yay !!" Anne-Marie exclaimed.

"We... We were advised to retain those we docked."

"Good." I smiled at the Lieutenant's surprise, said, "We helped to strip a spare one a-ground, then spent many hours aboard ours. Got a good look at the internals and externals, the handling and docking bracing...

"At first, they seemed a fair match for the 'Ferry' modules that rock-tugs used to fetch us 'Rock Hounds' to/from 'Redstone'. Like these 'Berthing' modules, they're obviously adapted from generic 'City-Class' cargo pods. But, configured for people and 'light goods' rather than a tug's 'Hab' with living quarters, work-shop and work-pod dock...

"Even so, 'Evac' modules are a bit strange. Each end has seven docking ports: Three close to the rim, three nearer the axis, usual one on-axis, all aligned with their hexagonal corridors and honey-comb cabins. Such redundant provision seemed, uh, a *tad* excessive, but we put it down to ease of hasty boarding a-ground, and docking convenience on orbit. In extremis, you could even dock work-pods and small shuttles to them for attitude control and spin...

"Now, though, we're wondering if, like these 'Berthing' modules, they're the product of very long laid contingency plans...

"Instead of end-caps being smoothly dished to axial ports, they form two truncated cones. The outer, with three ports, slants sixty degrees. The inner, again with three ports, seventy. Then a central flat with axial dock...

"Given our situation, those angles hold new significance...

"Happens I did my Doctorate field-work as a 'Rock Hopper' based out of 'Zen Station'--"

"G8v towards Galactic North ? Slightly cooler Sol-type ? Gas and mineral extraction ?" The Lieutenant offered, raising an eye-brow.

"That's it," I confirmed. "Catalogue reference is alphabet soup, so they called the system 'North Gate'. There's 'Johnson', a face-locked 'Hot Rock' like 'Redstone'. No planet in the 'hab-zone'. Instead, a wide, 'dry' asteroid belt with some precious 'Prior' debris. Sub-Jovian 'Big Jim' beyond ice-line. 'Molly and 'Polly', their two generic sub-Neptunians further out...

"Gas refinery was on Jim's largest moon beyond the radiation belts. Less than Lunar gravity, barely enough to keep bubbles rising in drinks. So, Zen Station in halo orbit nearby...

"That had two standard 'Tristar Flanges', with three 'spine' trusses and an axial 'Hab' between them. Like tankage or our 'Berthing' modules, there was a 'Hab' lengthwise between between each 'Flange' wing's inner docking position. Plus, on one 'Flange', a pair of 'Habs' between each wing to make a hexagonal ring--"

"Merciful Murphy !"

"They'd crafted custom adaptors for the 60 and 120 degree 'turns'," I cautioned. "But our 'Evac' pods have the half-angles built in--"

"Ah !" The Lieutenant's eyes and face lit as he said, "We can't join them to a ring as-is, because rolling Fresno at three or four RPM would adversely modulate the apparent gravity in these 'Berthing' modules, but--"

"If we're 'on station', running gas and mineral refineries for months at a time," I noted, "it could be worth-while to dismount a Fresno 'Flange' or two..."

"Oh, yes..."

"We can go one better," Anne-Marie mischievously observed. "The 'Evac' pods also have half-angles for Nine-Ogons. Much better apparent gravity for a lot less 'whirl' than here, or even a 'six'."

"I'll be..." The Lieutenant stayed silent for long, long seconds before gathering his wits, saying, "Thank you, Ms. McKensie, Mr. Kinson. I'll pass your observations along..."

[jemhouston]

Macgyver smiles

[kdahm]

And the trend of Nik's protags being hypercompetent polymaths continues.

Also, a ready demonstration of the 7Ps: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

[jemhouston]

And the trend of Nik's protags being hypercompetent polymaths continues.

Also, a ready demonstration of the 7Ps: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

Specialisation is for insects.
- Robert A. Heinlein



‘Wherever you have a large predatory animal, like the dinosaurs, they can become over-specialized so that when there is a catastrophe, and there is a great upheaval in the ecological balance, it is usually those over-specialized animals which go first. It's those generalist organisms which then to be better at coping with these ecological shifts.’
- Dr. Simon Braddey, Bristol University

[Belushi TD]

And the trend of Nik's protags being hypercompetent polymaths continues.

Also, a ready demonstration of the 7Ps: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

To be honest, would it be particularly interesting if the story was Matron Whatshername wringing her hands about being hungry and bitching about the two jackasses next door?

Belushi TD

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

Happens 'Matron Whatshername' does have a very useful skill...

[Belushi TD]

Useful in what manner? *Leers*

Belushi TD

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

City of Fresno #13

"One thing," Anne-Marie asked. "Is there an ETA on laundrette facilities ?"

First Lieutenant Richards allowed himself a small smile. "Indeed. An ad-hoc 'working party' has begun tackling them. All machines are expected on-line within a few days."

"Thank you." I smiled, adding, "Beyond 'ad-hoc' teams, please consider 'Citizen Science' groups ?"

"Yes," Anne-Marie agreed. "They could tackle anything from sorting through those 'Goodies' manifests to figuring better menus for the Diners."

First Lieutenant Richards allowed himself a sigh. "Ah, yes, the Diners' menus are remarkably limited. Part of the problem is that we only have access to an 'Admin' level which allows for rationing and such. Log-ins, passwords and documentation for programming and such are missing, as is 'design' software. As they may simply have been misfiled, we're currently deep-searching Fresno's library..."

Anne-Marie and I exchanged glances before I said, "I take it our Diners are incompatible with your Crew facilities ?"

"Sadly, yes. Not even an earlier version..."

I nodded, said, "So, like the 'Ponics controllers, we may have to 'reverse engineer' them."

"At least," mused Anne-Marie, "their limited menus should make meal-files easier to figure..."

"It would make an excellent 'Citizen Science' project," the officer agreed. "Many would apply !

"Again, thank you !"

He saluted as the screen cleared.

"Reckon the 'Big One' shook a lot loose in the laundrettes ?" Anne-Marie mused.

"Yes," I agreed. "Meanwhile, we rinse more smalls in the hand-bowls..."

[jemhouston]

Slowly but surely things are returning to normal.

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

City of Fresno #14

We caught up on our sleep between studying the 'Ponics folder plus manifests for the upper floor and 'attic'. Nothing much happened until after lunch the following day, when a text message arrived. It invited us to attend an 'orientation' meeting at 15:00 on the upper floor. 'Work-site clothing recommended'.

Both 3rd_Eng Solent and her colleague, the equally young, but much taller 3rd_Eng Dickson were there. I recognised Piet Waldemar and his partner Pilla, who'd tag-teamed analysis of many of my mineral samples, both on Redstone and Chaparral. I'd met Pete and Merinda Seymour on the Northern Tepuis. Excellent 'Life Support' Techs, they'd worked wonders adapting 'surface' installations' systems for the deep-shelters' Long Duration' needs. I knew Jayne Asquith and Pedro Jones by reputation, as they'd done similar marvels for the South. Anne-Marie exchanged nods and grins with fellow Hydroponicists Rita and Mike Sheffield, Gaynor and Phil Brown.

"Any-one else care to tackle those old Fusors ?" Anne-Marie's gaze polled head-shakes from our 'Tiger Team'. "Okay, Jake, you're up."

As the others began to un-pack and assemble tables and lighting panels, I walked around the spin-drum's curve to a further Fusor. First, I looked over that hulking beast with professional paranoia. According to its labels, it was older than me, but had been routinely serviced, most recently less than a year ago. There was no obvious corrosion, no smears suggesting leakage. So, sub-system by sub-system, I worked through the pre-start check-list.

Clearing isolators, I watched the Fusor's boot-strap system's displays settle 'in the green'. Deep inside this beast, there was an old-fashioned, radio-nuclide micro-pile. Like those early Pioneer and Voyager deep-space probes, it had quietly provided a trickle of power, charging the 'Pinch Poles' batteries and 'trigger' super-capacitors, regulating the systems' temperature. Yes, I could run the supplied 'jump' cable to a convenient spin-drum outlet, use ship-power for this stage, but doing a 'cold start' offered a certain 'frisson'. Plus, it would prove the system worked.

Next, I progressively empowered the 'Pinch Poles'. Their driver stages awoke, settled. My 'Nav' augment's initial alerts went away, its basic 'Field' sensor agreeing with the Fusor's displays that all was now well. Unlike Fresno's mega-fusors, which 'burned' an aneutronic Deuterium / Helium-Three mix, this beast ran on pure Deuterium. Or, in-extremis, 'wild' Hydrogen, albeit at much lower output as the 'Pinch Poles' must work so much harder. Those pesky neutrons ? Ah, well, the trick was to spin the 'Pinch Field' very fast. So fast, in fact, that the neutrons' outward spiral held them long enough to decay. For them, a Fusor was literally 'Bigger on the Inside'...

With 'Pinch' tuned to resonate at microwave frequency, part of the Fusor's RF was diverted to power those Poles' Drivers, the rest was available for use: Down-convert to 'Utility' standard, perhaps drive external 'Field Poles', heat attitude-thruster gas, even run twin 'Ice-Slicer' lasers. A variant, cheerfully mis-known as a 'Blaster', could send its microwaves down a laser guide-beam. Even luggable, chain-saw sized versions could deliver 100 kW, a third more if tweaked. They made useful, if scary tools...

Now the big moment: I repeated my checks, engaged the ignition sequence. Deuterium flowed from the first supply tank and its adsorbent matrix, 'fell' to the pinch core. It heated to plasma, heated, heated, reached triggering point. Zapped, it lit. Resonant fusion initialised, stabilised. Output rose to 'break-even', kept going. Power flowed, first to recharge the 'trigger', then the batteries. After scant time, the Fusor reported itself ready to supply 'Utility' power.

[jemhouston]

Good start as long as it does not boom.

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

City of Fresno #15

Being a wary soul, I'd let the Fusor run for a while to be sure, to be sure. To my surprise, I heard quiet applause. Turning, I found most of the team watching me.

"You certainly have a knack for these 'classic' machines," Pedro Jones stated.

I shrugged, said, "Spent a serious chunk of childhood at my Uncle Jack's farm and craft-centre. He collected retro-tech, any-thing from horse-drawn ploughs to steam engines. Keeping them working wasn't enough. To really understand them, we built a-new: Think 'Ship of Theseus'..."

That quip drew the expected chuckles. Uncle Jack's eclectic collection included a pre-Burn Fordson tractor, whose mule-temper and thirst for bio-diesel approached 'legendary'. He was proudest of the genuine 'Neo-Fowler' Road Engine and its several 'clones'.

Happens the original had belonged to Ed Winters, was the very machine with which, one 'Dark and Stormy Night', young Ed ran down a pair of Anwyc bio-raiders. Their zap-guns and needle-ship's zap-field could scramble wits, electrics and electronics. Such EMP, though, was no threat to a hard-steaming Road Engine's several tonnes of iron, copper, brass and bronze. A purple halo of St. Elmo's fire around that Neo-Fowler's prow, A-frame, spark-arrestor and metal cab was all the warning the pair got before its big cow-catcher swatted them...

Ed had gone out to rescue a group of tipsy locals. They'd managed to ditch both their bio-diesel farm truck and its trailer while ferrying a dozen barrels of young cider. The two least drunk had hiked to Ed's workshop. With his usual recovery-tractor's fuel injectors again pulled for deep-cleaning, Ed fired up the Neo-Fowler. A useful machine, it had been a trophy from the Warlord's hapless attempt to conquer the 'Cone Communities', the beginnings of the 'Convention'. By the time that Road Engine and its stacked towing dollies arrived, the Anwyc bio-raiders had ambushed and zapped the other locals, were loading a quorum into bio-pods aboard the needle-ship. Luckily, those locals, stunned rather than 'chilled down', soon revived...

Almost two generations after a cruel series of mega-flares, a 'middling' CME then a mutant zoonotic 'Hot Flu' decimated Earth, it was yet obvious to this astonished group that these bio-raiders were not 'Devils', 'Fae', 'Lunar Nazis', 'Greys' or other mythical monsters. They were actual alien 'Space-Men' who, squished, bled red...

So, ETs, anti-gravity, star-flight, FTL etc etc etc.

Shocked sober, sworn to secrecy and vengeance, they helped Ed hoist the needle-ship onto the Neo-Fowler's big towing dollies. With Road Engine pulling and un-ditched truck pushing, they hauled the craft several miles to a local railway's level crossing. Switching the towing dollies to their multi-modal bogies, they coaxed the needle-ship down a spur into a now-disused tunnel. Hopefully, the Victorian vault, mineral seams, seeps and rusty rails would thwart location by later needle-ships. Happens those didn't look very hard, as such bio-raiding was unauthorised, driven by the Anwyce elite's growing medical problems...

Anwyc had but nine degrees of axial tilt, scant seasonal change, two non-tidal moonlets. Drag from solar tides had slowed rotation to 31 hours, so different to Earth's 24. The erosion-gentled equatorial mega-continent, think 'Gondwanaland Park', had been 'tamed and terraced' from shore to tree-line for millennia under umpteen dynasties. Sure, like Ancient China, they'd crafted many wonders, but their world offered scant scope for diversity. Their vast ocean hid no exotic lands, was not strewn with volcanic hot-spot or subduction island chains. More like Mars, the continent had one 'shield' mega-volcano, mildly effusive Hawaiian rather than explosive Plinian. It spread barely enough mineral-rich ash to replenish the land's fertility. Worse, their monolithic culture lacked external challenges. They'd no 'Steppe Bandits' or 'Water Margin' outlaws. Even the ancient Imperial capital's courtiers' Byzantine rivalries' brief but bloody palace coups rarely spawned change beyond those towering walls.

Yet, the Anwyce got to Space, first low-orbit, then those moonlets, then their 'Big Mars'. Resembling Lowell's and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ speculations, that had ice-caps, rivers, green lowlands with scrubby marsh and primitive life evolved from 'Prior' seeding, or via ancient meteorite exchange with Anwyc. The atmosphere was breathable, albeit 'Altiplano' or 'Everest Base Camp'. In time, the Anwyce developed FTL, perhaps aided by salvaged scraps of 'Prior' tech, and went exploring. They soon established eight extra-solar colonies. Venturing far beyond, they managed to rile or terrify every hominoid sapient within thirty or forty parsecs. They were certainly known unkindly to the Sanku, the Sylvans and their allies. Our Convention's 'Bureau of Extra-Terrestrial Affairs' reckoned such visitations had kick-started both Autumn's Neolithic Brownies' lethal xenophobia and The Others' xenocidal techno-rampage.

Gradually, because scant few Anwyce or colonists could tolerate much-different light, air or day-length to that of their youth, all lost the 'Outward Urge'. Several colonies failed, were abandoned. Imperial ambitions had long-since stalled. As their ancient institutions increasingly ossified, the common culture became 'Post Industrial'. Now, though, the elite were dying young, and strangely. Little did they know that a Pre-Burn bio-raid had brought them 'slow' HIV...

Meanwhile, the 'Winterkin' needed the best part of a generation of covert study to sufficiently reverse-engineer even the smallest fraction of that captured needle-ship's tech. True, Earth had rudimentary 'Field Theory' before that night, even before 'The Burn' re-booted our civilization. In fact, those first super-flares' Astrophysics confirmed 'Teleparallel Gravity' as a valid extension of Relativity. True, most needle-ship technology, which would have astonished and confounded Pre-Burn folk, was far, far beyond the early, 'SteamPunk-ish' Convention. And, needle-ships' FTL Drive stayed a mystery until serendipitously solved by my Great-Uncle Tony while stranded on Autumn. That night simply showed that Earth's pre-Burn Field theorists were wrong. Einstein's 'proven' c-limit was but a cruel artefact of Relativity's simplifications. Alcubierre was right: Fields could somehow go FTL...

After the famous paper by 'Wu, Li and Wen' described that first, clunky, totally home-grown 'Field Pole' hardware, the Winterkin saw essential similarities with sub-units of the needle-ship's auxiliary Fusors, ran with it. Thus, 'Skyhook Industries', later re-named 'Floater Industries', was born. Eventually, knowing FTL was possible, a practicable way was developed. Without a needle-ship's nano-crafted 3D mega-Pole or its spun-cast, trans-Uranic 'Unobtanium' frame, this used multiple simple Field Poles and the 'Limaçon of Pascal' to efficiently generate a 'Double Alcubierre Bubble'...

'One 'Pole', null-gee,
Three thrust, five fly,
Earth, Moon and Mars,
Nine go to the stars !'

With theory proven by research ship 'Venture', 'City-Class' prototype 'Venturer', Earth's first star-ship, went exploring. Though no gun-boat, she was armed. Plus, she ferried Rock-Tugs 'Trojan' and 'Hero', whose remarkable power-to-weight and two laser turrets apiece were specifically designed to intercept, swat Anwyc 'Needle Ships'. Which, over Sankey in the tau Ceti system, they did...

[jemhouston]

History is written by the people who outlived the others.

[kdahm]

I'm not sure about this chapter. There's a lot of exposition that's just casually shoved in and doesn't really fit. It isn't really relevant to the story now.

Maybe better to slip it in in various paragraphs as it applies to the City of Fresno? Do it as a historical look-back chapter? Split it off into it's own one-shot?

[Nik_SpeakerToCats]

"I'm not sure about this chapter. "

'Keeping them working wasn't enough. To really understand them, we built a-new: Think 'Ship of Theseus'...'