Science fiction authors of the KSP forums, UNITE!

[DAL59]

Holtz the planets is nice.    

12 hours ago, NSEP said:

Sounds cool! Isn't ball lightning that super intelligent ball of light?

Its a type of lighting that is spherical and persists for several seconds.  It is rare, but has been recorded on camera.  The problem is, there are two perfectly valid explanations for it(and a hundred conspiracy theories).  One is that its statically suspended soil that was charged by a normal lightning strike, the other is that it is plasma(which is the type the engine relies on).     

[NSEP]

13 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Its a type of lighting that is spherical and persists for several seconds.  It is rare, but has been recorded on camera.  The problem is, there are two perfectly valid explanations for it(and a hundred conspiracy theories).  One is that its statically suspended soil that was charged by a normal lightning strike, the other is that it is plasma(which is the type the engine relies on).     

Very interesting. I never thought of it as a propulsion method! Thanks!

As for music, this album is pretty nice:

 

[DAL59]

Quote

 

Some people questioned the sanity of Borromean Space Airships, the company that created the HAVACs.  After all, the surface of Venus is one of the only places where you can be burnt, crushed by the air pressure, suffocated by the carbon dioxide, and dissolved by acid simultaneously.  However, like on Earth, pressure and temperature decrease with altitude, so where they were, at fifty kilometers up, the temperature and pressure drop from being far too high for the toughest spacesuit, to being acceptable for an unprotected human body.  Unprotected, in the sense that you still must wear a wetsuit and breathing mask if you do not want to suffocate and get acid burns.  Still, some question why they build colonies here, as there are plenty of nice solid objects in the universe, and why they do not just leave a few researchers in blimps to study the planet and the microscopic floating alien cells, called Ouranosians.  

The reason was that since the atmosphere at the habitable level was still ten percent denser than at terrestrial sea level, cities could float without balloons.  Instead of having separate lifting gases and lifting gas balloons and gondolas with breathable atmospheres, the breathing air was the lifting gas.  Additionally, Venus was the only place in the solar system with surface gravity- 8.9 meters per second squared- close enough to Earth’s to prevent low-g muscular atrophy (“Space Weakness”), and the need for ludicrously expensive centrifuge cities.  

So, his colony, HAVAC 120, contained a population of 950 out of a thousand-person capacity.  949 people were heading for the ascent vehicles along the edge of the blimp.  One person was hanging upside-down from the banister of a support pylon, 790 meters above the ground.  

 

 

[DAL59]

On 11/13/2017 at 3:51 AM, Earthlinger said:

Should we share little snippets of our stories? For like, criticism and such. Not the whole story, mind you, just a page or two that you felt was particularly well written and/or that you're proud of.

Th e second cold war was quite warm.   There had been constant battle for 28 years now, but not a single casualty.  Yet.  At any moment, the balance could shift and millions could die.  For the war was fought not by men, but by mass produced machines known as the L.A.W.s.  Lethal Autonomous Weapons.  Millions of them, assembled in hundreds of factories in the Alliance, the RE, and the NAE.  NAE just wanted to stop a war, so their drones attacked both parties’ drones, but posed no threat to the countries themselves.  At first analysts thought the RE would surely win, as they poured far more money into factories, while the Alliance was doing social programs and urban improvement.  But the technologically superior Alliance had fast 3-d printing.  One printer could output a foot long quadcopter fighter in ten minutes flat.  A typical factory had ten thousand smaller printers, and a hundred large drone printers.  The drones constantly clashed over the Atlantic.  They recharged at unmanned airships that were covered in solar panels.  The drones were fairly independent.  But the tactics and strategy were decided remotely, by the airships’ supercomputers.    

[Piatzin]

That feeling when you get writer's block a mere hundred words before the 100k word milestone.

Seriously. My book is at 99,890 words, and I feel uninspired. Argh!

I'm writing short stories in the meantime....

[Bill Phil]

8 hours ago, Earthlinger said:

That feeling when you get writer's block a mere hundred words before the 100k word milestone.

Seriously. My book is at 99,890 words, and I feel uninspired. Argh!

I'm writing short stories in the meantime....

Just add in some small fluff here and there.

[Piatzin]

1 hour ago, Bill Phil said:

Just add in some small fluff here and there.

Yeap

Editing usually bloats my stories, from all the added details/corrections and stuff 

[Piatzin]

Wrote this a few days ago as part of a challenge, to see if I could write a 'short' story in only one page (~300-350 words)

Emphasis on 'short.' Lol

Spoiler

Pistons hiss, steam rises, moisture clings to the sweaty, gleaming faces of the crew as the clanking tank groans forth, pushing past bushes, parting grass and crushing boulders under it’s heavy tracks.

Shells and mines explode and burst apart all around us, dirt spitting into the air, showering our convoy of machines with grit and soil.

We push forth, bombarded by artillery, wincing at the ceaseless thunder of war.

Through the thin slit near the front of the tank, I can see the fortress – a towering grey wall with massive towers stationed on it every twenty metres. Turrets pump out bombs and shells, which soar into the air, rising for hundreds of metres before tipping and screaming down onto the ruined field we’re on.

And it’s there, in that ugly tank of ours, roaring towards an impenetrable grey wall, that I wonder.

Is it worth it?

What are we even fighting for? I can see the smoking, debris-strewn ruins to the left, the remnants of a small village smouldering in the haze of battle. Bodies lie on the road; women, men, children.

Is this worth it?

Blood soaks the trampled grass, and the corpses of the infantry waves coat the field like a carpet. The rancid smell of oil and smoke coats us all, until we become one with it, smelling of death and blood and – and. . .

Is it?

I grip the wheel, watching the wall get closer, watching the shells pound the earth, watching the pointless deaths skyrocket, the bodies fly, the blood spray.

I swallow, throat tight.

And then I’m muttering a curse, gritting my teeth, and closing my hands around the slick controls of the tank. A push to the right, and we’re moving out of formation, towards the forest beyond the field. The gunner above doesn’t complain. Neither do the others; the crew, or even the sergeant.

This isn’t our war.

There's not really a plot, and it makes little sense but oh well

Anyone else want to try and write something short with 350 words or less?

[DAL59]

4 hours ago, Earthlinger said:

Anyone else want to try and write something short with 350 words or less?

hmmm...

Why's there an extremely arbitrary and vacuous 350 word limit if, there isn't reason for said limit of wordcount, in addition, there's far insufficient length for crucial plot development and especially the all-important character development, and even the dialogue will be hampered, however, as a counterexample, its possible to write a single, absurd, low-quality sentence, such as the one you're currently reading, that fulfills the requirements of the above post by Earthlinger, which is, to refresh your memory, a short story consisting of only a mere 350 words, which actually could be accomplished, but such a story would leave very little room for details and nuances to be fully enunciated, but back on topic, this sentence will prove, nothing, because its not a story and does not address the prompt, since it quite certainly doesn't contain even a mere trace of a plot, though it could be argued, that depending on the intangible definition of plot, that this sentence does really have a plot, due to the fact that it varies from one topic to another, instead of being principally on one topic like a normal sentence, however, such a definition of plot would be odd, but irrelevant, as the purpose of the prompt was to write a story, and not a run-on sentence, which is what this was, though the word "was" should not be used, as this sentence is still ongoing, to prove my point about the continued existence of this sentence, I will return to an earlier topic, by pointing out that its impossible to fully explain a setting in 350 characters, or much of a story, unless its a profound and thought-provoking story that's best told in a compact format, such as mentioned by Earthlinger's prompt, speaking of which, this elaborate, unnecessary, drawn-out sentence, which was inspired by Earthlinger's prompt, cannot fit another meaningful statement into the characters remaining, unless the author becomes better at compact writing, which I suppose is part of the prompt's purpose in the first place, and this sentence has now failed at its goal by slightly exceeding the word limit by 1.        

[Piatzin]

Editing a short story for school right now

Anyone want to read it when I finish?

[Bill Phil]

5 hours ago, Earthlinger said:

Editing a short story for school right now

Anyone want to read it when I finish?

Why not?

[NSEP]

Okay, i have many ideas of stories, im just not good at executing the, and turning them into actual stories.

So here is a cool Sci-Fi idea that popped up in my mind recently:

So there is this kid/teen/adolescent who is really smart. He works with a community online called the "simulation database" a community of people who share and discuss their digital simulation programs. the 'kid' has this cool idea to make a simulation of the real universe and gets help from the community. He has a quantum computer, so his computer can handle that. When he starts up the simulation, he finds out he has control over the entire universe, but does not tell anyone.

The only other 'person' who knows that the 'kid' has the power of everything (in the beginning) is the singularity, an AI machine who is more intelligent than any human alive and can notice any subtle change the laws of physics. The singularity doesn't warn the people but instead work together with the 'kid' and keep everything secret. This way the singularity can make smart changes to benefit the universe, like increase the speed limit so FTL travel is possible and change relativity, so the rest of my Sci-Fi universe does not become a time travel mumbo jumbo mess.

Do you think this is a great excuse to use handwavium idea?

[Piatzin]

10 hours ago, NSEP said:

Do you think this is a great excuse to use handwavium idea?

YEASH

Now figure out some conflict that could make it more exciting than it already is and think up a plot

[DAL59]

On 1/28/2018 at 2:50 AM, Earthlinger said:

YEASH

Now figure out some conflict that could make it more exciting than it already is and think up a plot

Plot twist: Aliens are not okay with that device.

I decided to write something quickly "by the seat of my pants":

PATCHWORK P1

 

The spaceplane landed next to the warehouse.  I watched as Ix stepped out.  He looked a little odd, with his long nose and small ears, but nothing was amiss.  I paused for a moment, and realized he must be some government test pilot.

“Sir, do you need any help?” I asked.  I would have liked to keep Project Ascent a secret from him.  And everyone else, too.

“I’m 17.  You run the only program that can save me.”

“What?”

“Can I speak to your manager?”

“There’s only 38 of us, and right now, I’m the only one here.  Except Clara.  She should be back from the store in a few minutes.  Wait… do you want to join the project?  What skills do you have?  Where did you get that aircraft?” I was quite puzzled.

“My name is Ix.” He pulled out a thin metal object and an odd looking pen and began to write.  I noticed a glow coming from the metal object.

“Is that a computer!  How is it so thin?”

“You’ll have stuff like that in a few decades, at most.  Anyway, where can I get a car?”

“A what?”

“Oh, you might have another word for them here.  Like, a small transport vehicle?”

Maybe he was from Icewards.  But he didn’t look like it.

“Oh, here we call them saheruhs.  Clara has a...car.  When she comes back she’ll be happy to take you somewhere.”

“Where’s the nearest library?”

“Kind of far.  50 miles away.  Too far for her...car.” I said.  Who was this guy and what did he want?

He seemed surprised and scribbled a note on his tablet, “After that, I will pay a significant amount in exchange for transportation into suborbital space.”

“How did you know about the project?”

“Balloons with cameras on them.”

“It won’t be ready for a century.  Or so my boss, Pamela, claims.  It might even be three.  We’ve done the half scale booster tests, and the full scale first stage test, but that’s it.  We still need to test full scale boosters, separation, second stage, unmanned test launches-” I explained.  How much money could this kid have?

“I have some skills.  I can help.”

“Okay.  Come to the warehouse at the beginning of next year-”

“Next year!”

“You’re not going to wait 130 hours?”

“Oh yeah.  So when you said centuries you were being literal.”

“Yes.  Building a rocket takes time,” I explained, annoyed, “And if you think we can hurry up with your help, then I’m the crown prince!”  

“So… who is the prince here, actually?”

“Who are you?” I yelled.  I stormed over to his plane.  I noticed tiling on the undersides of the wings.  I ran my hand under them.  Ceramic.  A heatshield.

“Your not from Dawn Kingdom,” I said, grabbing my wireless phone from my belt, “Your an alien.  Today’s my lucky day.”

“Wait!  I’m human!  You can sequence my DNA!”

“Okay.  Then tell me who you are now.”

“I’m Ix.  You know relativity, right?  When you travel close to lightspeed, time slows down?”

“Sure.  We discovered that years ago.  It's useless.”

“Wrong.  I spent the last 10 million years- about 500 million of your short years- ”

“Your homeworld wasn’t locked by tides, I assume.”

“True.  Also, since our languages are so similar, I assume you have an indestructible Dictionary?  You know you are colonists, right?”

“Yep.  Been here for 9,000 years.  The last time we had visitors was- 165 years ago.  The dictionary was a revered, practically religious text.  I suppose the point was to maintain compatible languages across the galaxy.  You know, people have been talking of searching the sea for the original.  Might make huge strides in material sciences.”

“So anyway, for 10 million of my years, I zipped back and forth between two binary black holes for what felt like just a couple months, getting faster and faster, then slowing down.  The cruise to get to the holes took millennia, but I was frozen. You see, I left Earth, my homeworld, with many others, but never settled down, always choosing the maximum time frozen, the fastest relativistic ship.  Eventually, my stocks were worth a truly ludicrous amount of money, and I bought my own ship and started to stop sleeping and explore.  So I spent the past two years exploring new planets.  The galaxy is a terrible mess.  No one controls as much as a thousandth of the whole.  Every dystopia and utopia imaginable exists, and levels of technology vary from hunter gatherers to clarketech.  It's a patchwork.”

I struggled to take it all in.  We knew there was a larger galaxy, but never spent to much time on astronomy.  We used high-altitude balloons for message relays, not satellites.

“Who’s clarke?”

“A writer from my homeworld.  He said that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.  There are societies, devices, and even individuals who could destroy your planet effortlessly.  Be careful out there.  Your capsule will hold three, correct?”

“Yes-”

“Good.  It would be dangerous to go alone.  Anyway, I’ll camp out on in the woods until next year, get employment, and then once the rocket’s done, I’ll leave.  There’s a ship in orbit that’ll match speeds, then we can jump aboard.  Take this.”

He handed me a wristband.

“An encrypted radio.  Press it with 3 fingers to talk to me.”

“Okay.  My name is Ozzymontez Traves.  You can call me Ozzy.  I’m 17 of your years, if my math is right.  How many different aliens have you seen?”

“None.  There are no known intelligent aliens.  Humans have evolved naturally over the past 10 million years, but also artificially, some with no physical bodies anymore.  Species have been uplifted, or outright synthesized, and long since forgotten their origins.  There are practical aliens, but not technical ones.”

“One more question,” I started.  I had nearly a million. “What do you want?  What is your goal?”

“I have three goals.  I want to make an encyclopedia that encompasses all the knowledge of the galaxy, and lists all the planets, histories, technologies, and so on.  To borrow a term from an old book, an Encyclopedia Galactica.”

“Surely you aren’t the first to try.”

“Of course not, and I’ve copied many a previous attempt into the encyclopedia.  It is a compendium of compendiums of compendiums.  Using electron spin storage, I can fit all the info into this tablet.  Though I have a backup copy inside my body.”

I always knew I would be important- being on the first rocket team.  Now I had the chance to do something unimaginable.  To gather science from endless worlds… how could I refuse?

“A noble goal.  Wait- you said you’d pay for a spot on the capsule.  Do you promise to pay for me?  I hate to say this, but I will not let that rocket launch without me.”

“I’ll buy you a seat.  You seem to be thoughtful,” he sighed.

“What was your other goal?”

“To unite the galaxy under one nation.”

“Ambitious much?”

“And goal three: to investigate… an anomaly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Remember how I said there were no aliens? That’s not completely true...”

An explosion shattered the air.

 

[DAL59]

 

Patchwork P2  if you know about the invisible ink, don't tell everyone!

A cone shaped ship, 5 miles long, appeared above the star.  

“After ten million years, this long lost weapon will finally see use.  The Empire will be unstoppable-”

The captain was cut off as a missile rammed into the ship.  nicoll-dyson beam

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Encyclopedia Galactica

Planet Asrotuyopejadert

Update: 9,998,035.340

Known other names: Dawn(local)

Physical characteristics:

Gravity- .78

Air pressure- .66

Star- M0, low flare activity

Day length- 7 days

Year length- 7 days

Native life- Algae and moss

Terraforming- None

System- No other planets or moons.

Societal:

Tech level- Equivalent to 1980s.  Knowledge of computers, DNA, airplanes.  No space travel.  Energy is generated exclusively through tidal turbines.  Battery technology suboptimal.

Population- 160 million.  Steady.  Type 1 humans.     

Politics: Only one nation, Dawn Kingdom, on only habitable continent.  Ruled by a hereditary monarchy, with districts controlled by elected officials.

Anomalies: None.

Threat level: None.  Inhabitants are quite friendly and most live good lives.  

Artifacts: One Dictionary, lost.

History: Settled 9000 years ago.  No surviving records of initial colony.  Lapsed into stone age for 5000 years, after which the Dawn Kingdom has ruled and technology has slowly progressed.    

Awareness: Dawn has been visited every few centuries, only by scientific ships.  No hostile interactions.  

Significance: Dawn is in a relatively peaceful region of space, and is stable.  Ideal place to start Project Alliance.  Also, presence of a Dictionary indicates that an original colonization hopper was still around just 9 millennia ago.       

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now I was in a prison cell with Ix and the rest of the team.  I was still dizzy from the explosion.

“Whats going on?” I asked Pamela.

“I wished I knew.  Project Ascent wasn’t illegal, just secret.  And who’s that guy?” she replied, pointing at Ix, who was still unconscious.

“That’s Ix.  He is an al- he wanted to join the team.”

Pamela stood up and yelled out through the bars of the cell,

“I demand a reason for my arrest, as is my right under section 2 of the criminal code!”

Then King Kyopel himself walked in front of the cell.  Pamela opened her mouth in shock, then bowed.

“Don’t worry.  You’ve probably committed no crime.  I’m actually quite impressed with your Project Ascent.  I’ll give you funding.  Anyway, we saw a ship appear in orbit, and then enter the atmosphere.  It was big enough to see its shape through our telescopes.  If you have been to the museum of alien interactions, you would have seen the Warnings of the Yolopla, from 31 millennia ago?  That was a hostile vessel.  We had to bomb where it landed.  You were unfortunately also there.  We had to assume you were a hostile alien.  As the warehouse contained equipment we had not seen before, we had to assume it was aliens and arrested all of those who worked there.  We’ve confirmed our records and you will all be released.  I’m very sorry.  However, we did capture the plane.  In it we found fingerprints- that match his,” he explained, pointing at Ix.

“He is from space, but he is not a hostile.  He’s human.  His tech is just a few decades ahead of us.”

Ix moaned, awoke, and sat up.

“Yes, I’m human.  I came in a vessel from another species.  I came here after being pursued by them.  It broke down and I had to land.  There is another ship in orbit.  A human one.  Maybe one day I can return to it.  But for now, I can help you improve your technology.  I’m also researcher, and I’ve gathered encyclopedias from a dozen worlds.”

After a long pause, the king replied, “Hmm.  I think I believe you. It's best not to judge too soon. We’ll scan your genes, and then you’ll be free to go.  From what we’ve seen of your tablet and aircraft, you have a lot to tell us.”

One earth year later

“Boosters!”

“Go!”

“First stage!”

“Go!”

“Guidance!”

“Go!”

“Control fins!”

“Go!”

“Second stage!”

“Go!”

“Surgeon!”

“Go!”

“Ozzy, Ix, Kumbukani, are you go?”

“Yes, Pamela!” I said,  from a crackly radio 2 miles from the improved, government funded VAB and the mission control room next to it.

“Wait!” yelled someone in the control room.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I just discovered something incredibly unlikely.  We need to delay the launch.  They’re going to hit the asteroid moonlet!”

Ix grabbed the radio from me and spoke into it, “Don’t worry!  We won’t hit it! I knew about it in advance.  That’s why I picked this exact launch time.”

I thought for a second.  Ix had let me read the Encyclopedia entry for Dawn.  His entry said we had no moon.  I assumed he was just ignoring moonlets.  But what if- it wasn’t a random asteroid.  What if- it was a ship!

“Ten-nine-eight-seven-six-five-four-ignition-three-two-one-and liftoff of the Ascent M1!”  

Eight solid rocket boosters and one hydrazine powered engine careened the rocket into the air.  Within ten seconds, there was the characteristic vibrations as we approached and then broke the speed of sound.  Then the acceleration slowed as the SRBs decoupled leaving just the center stage which climbed through the stratosphere.  Then there was half a second of relief, but then the second stage ignited, pushing the apoapsis beyond the atmosphere.  Then it separated.  The capsule was alone, and it was now in space.      

“This is Ascent to Mission Control.  Situation is nominal.  I’m getting the camera.  Camera on.  Are you receiving video?” Kumbukani asked, aiming it out here window.  I was in the middle seat, so I had to stretch forward to get a glimpse of the bright, unflitered red light of the sun.

“Roger that, we are receiving video.  Look at that view!”

“Yeah.  The capsule is rotating at about 1.5 rpm, so you should be able to see Dawn in a few moments.”

Ix was looking out his window, at a dot that I knew was the moonlet.  Then it grew much, much brighter.  I noticed he had smuggled his tablet aboard.  He reached up to his control panel and flipped off the radio.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.  

“Leaving.”

Kumbukani turned to face us and she asked, “Apoapsis in 3 minutes- what’s going on?”

“Nothing.” I lied.

“My camera isn’t relaying footage any more.”

“Thats unfortunate.  We should bring a spare on the next mission.”

3 minutes passed, as we stared out the windows.  Kumbukani looked so happy.  Ignorance is bliss.  

“Mission control, apoapsis reached!” she reported.  Silence. “What’s going on?”

“Uh...you might want to look out the other window.”

Right next to us was the ‘moonlet’.  It was a ship, gleaming white, about 40 feet long.  In the front was a disk, 15 feet thick and 20 long.  The disk was elongated and curved, so it was only 10 feet wide, and gleamed in the sunlight.  Behind the disk was a torus, about 20 feet in diameter, connected to the back of the disk via 4 pipes.  Stretching backwards from the disk was a truss, 20 feet long.  It ended in another, identical torus, and a conical device with radiators sticking out of it.  Docked to the forward part of the truss were two spaceplanes, which were yellow, and shaped like obtuse triangles.  The back part of the rectangular truss had 12 spherical fuel tanks.       

The vessel rotated, and a door in the underside of the disk opened slowly.  We were falling in unison, towards the atmosphere below.  Our capsule entered the doors and they closed.  There was absolute darkness.  Then the external air guage began to go up.  

“Ix! You must be behind this! I demand to be returned to Dawn!” shouted Kumbukani.

“This is for a very important cause,” he stated calmly, “We must hurry before this ship- let’s call it the Uniter- enters the atmosphere.  It is not equipped for reentry.”

The airlock door was on his side.  He flipped off the safety, and opened it, then unbuckled and pushed himself into the darkness.  Then harsh lights came on.  I saw a rope go outside Kumbukani’s window, and then the capsule moved slowly for a few seconds.  I climbed out as well.  He had tethered down the capsule to the aft floor of the airlock.  The airlock was shaped like a quarter of a cylinder, with curved doors.  He pushed of the aft floor and drifted through the air to the other side, where he disappeared through a hatch.

“Follow me!” he shouted, “You need to get strapped in!”

I should probably have demanded information, but I had to trust him.  We awkwardly also moved to the hatch, into a room where the floor and walls were covered in containers.  That room also had a hatch, this time on the “ceiling” which led to the upper deck.  The upper deck was split in two via a bulkhead with a door in it.  The forward part was the bridge, which tapered quickly to a point.  Ix was already strapped down in an acceleration couch, flipping switches.  Behind him were two rows of two.  We both strapped in.

“Ozzy, I think I know what this ship is,” Kumbukani whispered, “I read a theoretical physics paper that claimed a ship with these toruses-”

“It's called an alcubierre drive.  It lets you go faster then light.  The toruses expand space behind you and contract space in front of you, using very thin negative energy bubbles.  It takes a lot of power though.  The fission reactor has lost a bunch of power over the decades- sorry, earth decades- so we’ll only manage about 500c.  Igniting engines now!”

We were pressed into our seats with about 2 gravities of force.

“We don’t have enough fuel to get back into orbit, so I’m just burning upwards to get time for the drive to build up!”

We waited until the engine stopped.  

“Okay, I better teach you guys how to use the drive,” Ix said, “My left console controls it. You flip this switch to transfer power to the casmir plates, then once the estimated speed readout here reaches you desired number, you press this to start the computer calculating your field geometry.  The faster you want to go, the longer you need to calculate.  We’ll only need a few seconds.”

An indicator light blinked green.  

“Okay, we are just going to do a quick test flight.  Now, grab the throttle, and...”

The stars outside the window moved.  With a tiny jerking motion, they moved.  About one degree.  And then again.  And then again.  Quicker and quicker, the stars distorted.  Then there was a flash of light.  The distortion shifted, the stars swirling in inexorable patterns.  The stars were all blue, and then they disappeared.  There was a flash of blue light again, and the stars reappeared, distorted as before, but no longer moving.

“Light speed reached.  Hopefully the windows filtered out all those blue-shifted x-rays.  Turning off field- now!”

The stars twisted erratically.

“Is that supposed to be happening?!” yelled Kumbukani.

“No!” yelled Ix, “So much time in space, the computer must have been damaged by the radiation.”  

Then the window turned solid white and then the sky went back to normal.

“Okay, we’re about 5 million miles from Dawn.”

“I demand we return to Dawn immediately!”

She was searching her pockets for anything that could be used as a weapon.  We had better

“Yeah,” I agreed, “Go back now and we won’t try to punish you or anything.”

“I wish I could, but right now, we can’t form a field.  I’m getting something on radar!”

A giant cone appeared in front of them.  One moment there was nothing, and then there was the ship.

“The other thing is that the computer messed up the field.  It got big enough that the distortion of light could be seen from 50 light years away.”

“But wouldn’t the distorted light spread at lightspeed?  It would take years!”

“One of the quickest lessons you learn out in the patchwork: There’s always someone watching nearby.  Probably a couple million probes in this system, some with FTL communication.  Jumping back to Dawn… now!”

There was a distortion of light, and then the planet filled their entire view.  

“We’re back in orbit.  Enabling radio-”

I looked out the window, and watched the red sun set as we orbited.  Then I knew something was wrong.  There were bright dots, dozens of them, above the haze of air beneath us.  And below, red rings of fire spread across the ice, sea, and land.  

“No! Look! Dawn is burning! Everything is gone!” homeworld reference

The lights, which must have been ships, then blinked out of existence.  Then the huge cone appeared beside them.

“This ship is different from the ones that destroyed Dawn,” informed Ix, looking at the computer.  

The cone slowly rotated until it's back faced the ship.  It had four unusual engines, each a hundred feet in diameter, shaped like trapezoids.  In the center of them, a square door dilated open.  Then we were thrust back into their seats, and the ship’s hull groaned.  Then we blacked out.

Edited January 29, 2018 by DAL59

[Bill Phil]

Wow. Looks like Homeworld.

[DAL59]

Patchwork P3

I awoke in a hard metal chair, next to Ix and Kumbukani.  Directly in front of us was a silver table, with nothing no it but a small cylinder.  The room was small, brightly lit, with a single door behind me.  It was locked.  The cylinder emitted a variety of tones, ranging from squeaks to rapid low pitched honks to some vague mumbling.  Finally, it began to speak Dictionary, in a monotone voice:

"I am a translation unit.  Do you speak dictionary?  If so, please say yes."

"Yes.  I demand to know who you are and what you want with us, and I demand we be-"

Ix quickly shushed her.  

"I am captain Ix of the Uniter.  We were conducting a faster than light jump when-"

"You are aboard ship 211899 of the Empire.  Why did you destroy that planet?"

"That's our planet!  A faulty field made our ship easily detectable, as you know.  We warped back to find our planet was destroyed by an unknown party."

"Very well.  My condolences.  Your planet would have been a great addition to the Empire of a million worlds."

A million worlds!  Then I remembered, there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy.  They control only 1 percent of 1 percent of it.   

"We will share our scant data on the ones who razed our world with you.  May I request we be returned to our ship?  We will stay out of imperial space."

After a pause, the translator spoke again, "You may return to your ship."

Then I felt a dart hit the back of my neck, and everything went black.

I awoke strapped into a seat on the Uniter.  Ix and Kumbukani were already awake.

"Finally," said Ix, "You're awake.  Oh, and we're stranded."

I squinted as bright yellow light filtered through the front window.  I then noticed the planet, far below, covered in city lights.  

"This is so much brighter than Dawn."

"The fact that we can see the sun is a good thing.  It means they don't have dyson spheres: you know, solar panels that enclose a star to get all its energy.  Even though they control a million systems, they don't control the energy of one million, or probably even one, star.  That doesn't mean they are not formidable though."   which is why they want the nicoll dyson beam

Ix clicked a few buttons and some images appeared on the overhead screen.  There was the blurry picture of a space station, which consisted of a hemisphere, with a large cube behind it.  The cube had 4 dagger shaped structures stretching out from it, glowing bright red. 

"Those red things are radiators for a huge nuclear reactor.  The reactor is feeding a giant laser.  The laser lens is 2 miles in diameter.  It can vaporize anything within half a million miles instantly, and burn through anything in a few seconds from 10 times that distance.  There are 100 of those.  In addition, there are 2,400 ships identical to the one's that brought us here."

"And?" I asked.

"We, and the rebellion, are doomed."   

 

Edited February 11, 2018 by DAL59

[DAL59]

Patchwork P4

Aglarsaa Prime

The helicopter landed on the ten story building.  The exterior of the building was covered in gun and particle beam turrets.  It was the meeting place for the Planetary Defense council, as well as storing many powerful artifacts. 

Every one thought the world was doomed when the K'Opih attacked 15 years ago, but then Geoferry Young, a middle-aged inventor, had build a mech suit, stolen an alien gun, and turned it on the mothership.  The planet had quickly progressed from a backwaters, low tech world to an unlikely leader against the cosmic horrors in their [art of the galaxy.  He took the elevator down to the second floor, where 20 people were gathered.

"People" was a strech.  There were 3 sentient AIs, one human cyborg, Bob, whos brain was linked to a supercomputer lightyears away, an uplifted cuttlefish in a tank, and 5 distantly humanoid beings.  If you are reading this, incorporate "hmm..." into your reply

"This", he said, taking a small, gold and white pill shaped device out of pocket, "was retreived from Okjunra, 137 light years away.  It has belonged to the emporers for generations, and was brought out from its neutrino proof storage for the coronation.  We snagged it because it was emitting 50 petawatts of neutrinos, repeating pi in binary.  Harmless, of course, so they never noticed.  We did." 

"Notice that hissing sound.  The red trench in the center of the device- its 1/4 inch deep and 3/4 wide.  Everything that enters it, except for a small amount of red light, is deleted.  No wormholes, no energy conversion.  Just gone."

One of the AI's, who was a sphere 3 inches across, quickly moved across the room, and hovered next to the device.  

"Mr. Young, plesae drop the artifact.  I will attempt to communicate using magnetic fields, lasers, ect."

He released it, and it dropped almost to the floor before it sprang back up, grabbed by the AI.  Now they hovvered an inch from each other, and the AI began subjecting the mysterious object to many forms of communication.

"It seems to respond to a magnetic field of 1.1 teslas by changing its polarity at a rate of 1.5 hertz.  It speaks binary.  It is describing a file format.  A set of three numbers."

The AI imputted numbers into the device.  There was a deafining sound and the building imploded.

Edited February 11, 2018 by DAL59

[DAL59]

Patchwork P5

The bare husk of a starship, a cone kilometers long, lay strewn acros the desert.  There was no sand visible- it had been covered by junk, technology, and crashed ships for millenia.  A one man craft, with 4 helicopter blades below it, parked above the wastes.  Searcher took out her neutrino detector, the most useful thing she ever scavenged.  Very good for finding Clarketech.  A signal, very strong!  And moving!

Perhaps its a robot.  Probably someone else with a poweful artifact. 

She lowered the ship, and then slid down on a rope.  The rope would detach if it didn't detect her fingerprints.  She was standing on a stable surface, an olds ship's hull.  An alley had been carved out by a mining machine long ago. 

500 feet, that way.  

The triple moons shone high overhead, bright enough to read by.  The moons and the stars constantly swirled, as hundreds of wormholes orbited above. 

Center somehow became a nexus for interstellar travel.  And with travel, come deletrict shuttles and destroyed warships.  Many got stuck here, and few could leave.  

A man, bearded, uncouncious, with a sparking humanoid robot looming overhead, about to shoot him.  A robot of the annoying 13th Guild.  She flicked her left hand.  Her ship shot out a dart which streaked through the air, hitting the android squre in the back.  A shock of electricity knocked it out.  She walked over to it.

"If the mics still working, know that you've lost to me again.  This scavenge is mine."

Seacher waved the neutrino sensor over the man.  The signal was the same everywhere.  Does he have superpowerful clothes?  Cyborg skin?   He is very dangerous clarketech, but temporarily disabled.

She put a tracker/shocker ankle cuff on him, and then called her ship over to haul him to her base.  He might have an excellant ransom.       

Then she remembered something, from her childhood.  Her parents had come here to try and stop one of the dystopian kings that controlled patches of the world.  They had died trying, and she had had to fare for herself.  It wasn't that bad, as coming from a world with twice the gravity, and having obsessive knowledge of engineering, she could fight almost anyone.  She had been on Center for 15 years, and she thought in one more, she would have enough to raid one of the kingdoms and escape in a ship.  She remembered loving the stories of other worlds she read in encyclopedias, of lost superweapons and powerful aliens.  The most powerful were not biological, and emmited netrinos...

Spoiler

Its going to get a lot more complicated.  

 

The saga of patchwork is far, far from over.

Edited February 13, 2018 by DAL59

[DAL59]

On 12/1/2017 at 2:58 PM, NSEP said:

Very interesting. I never thought of it as a propulsion method! Thanks!

As for music, this album is pretty nice:

 

This playlist is good too.

[DAL59]

Patchwork P7

"Admiral, there are no other ships in orbit of 20156.  By the way, the local name is Center.  Speak Dictionary and Grinli.  Somethings making a jamming field.  Actually, dozens of crashed starships and tech are.  Theres too many signals to send down a drone."

"Take a manned ship.  You and twenty soldiers, plus specialists of your choosing.  Make sure to look out for OOI 17."

Organization of Interest 17, the Kingdom of the Lost Machine, was an incredibly secretive galaxy wide cult, that had members of many species.  They once had, or almost had(the legends were very foggy) an incredible machine of unknown powers, created from a combination of eighty five parts from highly advanced species.  The machine was destroyed, and its parts are now scattered around the galaxy.  There are no pictures of the machine, or an knowledge of what the parts are, only that they are powerful in and of themselves, often Clarketech.  

The Tyol Union, controller of 150,000 systems, had been the first to detect the neutrinos.  They had taken the wormhole immediatly.

The shuttle's body was boxy, 50 feet long, with a wingspan of 300 feet.  Its wings could fold up, allowing it to land on its underbelly's nuclear ramjets.  A layer of magnetically contained plasma, an inch above its skin served as a heatshield, as well as a normal one.  

It fell straight to the atmosphere, then jerked eto a quick halt above a sandbar, on which was a cubical metal house, with gun turrets on all sides.  A manned quadcopter was parked beside it.  It was sunrise, and a light rain fogged up the front window.  Then gunshots hit the hull.

"Don't worry Admiral Tuxly," the pilot said, "these turrets won't do anything to our hull."

"Deploy laser turrets! Disable the guns!"

Twelve hemispheres lowered from the belly of the plane.  Then twelve beams of light flashed from a spots in the sand next to the house.

"Our weapons are disabled.  They hid their lasers."

"Why would an O need such petty weapons?  Surely one hasn't been captured?" Specialist Morrow asked.

"Put us down."

The ship deployed 4 stubby legs and landed on the sand.  The rear door opened.  Despite it being open, there was nothing but blackness, as an opaque wall of plasma protected the soldiers from lasers.  The soldiers wore glasses connected to outside cameras, so they could aim their weapons.  They took out the turrets.

Then, the plasma window was turned off, and the soldiers poured out.  Tuxly, Morrow, and the pilot watched from the cockpit.

For a second, the computer and lights flickered.

"What just happened?"

"I don't know, admiral.  I've lost radio with all soldiers.  Here's the external camera."

They were all laying on the sand, motionless.  

"Must be an underground electric plate.  Or an ultracapacitor.  I suggest we take of, Admiral.  We'll come back for the bodies later."

"Agreed.  Pilot, ascend to 100 feet and hold.  Arm missiles."

"Yes sir"

The ship took off, and gracefully turned to face the house.  

"There's a girl running to the ship.  No neutrinos from her."

"Fire!"

A flash of yellow light streaked towards the girl.  The it stopped in midair, and fell to the ground, and a laser hit the ship.  

"A kinetic energy converter, Admiral.  This girl has gathered some advanced tech.  Wait!  I've found the radio channel she's using!"

The quadcopter rose to their elevation.

"This is Admiral Tuxly.  We mean you no harm.  We can offer you substantial-"

Searcher clapped her hands.  Four cannons extended from the ship.

"What kind of weapons are those, Morrow?"

"Looks like nuclear pumped lasers- ascend now!"

Four pulse of purple propingated through the air, and blew the ship apart.  

 

      

[DAL59]

Patchwork P8

"Why can't we move?" I demanded.

"Risk of another malfunction.  The Empire won't take kindly to us sending off a beacon.  But it doesn't matter."

He removed his pinky fingernail.  It just popped off.  He flipped it over, and it was clear it was not a natural nail.  It was covered in circuitry.

"Advanced alien hacking tech.  While we were on the imperial ship, I got the command codes for the fleet."

He inserted it into a slot on his side.

"When I press this button, all the ships weapons and the orbital defense lasers will deactivate.  That will give the rebellion a few minutes to attack before a ship with command codes jumps in from another system."

He pressed the button.  Then, the planet below disappeared from view as hundreds of vessels emerged from nowhere.  

"Whoa!  I'm getting total of 50,000 ships, just within our line of site.  Probably a million total.  Whoever wins, the planet will be destroyed by debris."

 

The window turned black, to protect from the radiation of thousands of bombs going off at once.

"The debris!" I reminded.

"Right.  Let's get out of here."

I heard the his of leaking air.  The Uniter turned away from the planet, then engaged the alcubierre drive for a second, before turning it off.

"We should be at a safe distance."

"This light's blinking," said Kumbukani.  

Ix pressed a button and a radio signal came through.  "This is President Aghjolpty of the Rebellion.  Its been too long, Ix.  We've recieved the data from your ship, the planet is detsroyed, and we are about to jump out.  Are you going to join us?"

"No.  I found something in the data.  The Empire is looking for a long lost super weapon called a Nicoll-Dyson Beam.  It focuses the light of a star into a beam.  Its somehow hidden.  If they get it, they can destroy all of the planets.  We're going to find it, before they do."

 

[NSEP]

Im working on a dystopian future SciFi, but it might be a little too sensitive for the public forum, PM me to see some drafts.

Edited March 18, 2018 by NSEP

[Spaceception]

Hey @DAL59 Making a thread for your story would be a great way to make sure others can see it, and you can organize it more easily

[DAL59]

21 hours ago, NSEP said:

m working on a dystopian future SciFi,

Me too!  In mine, space is utopian, but unlike Elysium, it is not just for the rich, but earth is in a cold war between three empires.  The technology level for space travel is better than today, but not nearly like in the expanse.  There are nuclear gas core engines, where a plasma vortex of uranium hexafloride is used to expel hydrogen with 5000 isp(I've been using project rho a lot(thanks @nyrath)).  There are M.O.O.S.E.S.  

Using googles NGRAM search, I also learned my book is the first to use the word "ullage".  I'm not going to say any plot details.