As it happened, Joubert, et al. were only partially successful in their endeavours. They had eventually been able to create a plant species capable of extracting and concentrating elements directly from the soil. However, there was one serious flaw in its genetic design... It was unable to reproduce. The tree grew, bloomed and gave fruit precisely as intended, but the seeds were contained in a thin glowing membrane surrounding an aqueous gel-like solution of lead. No sane organism would knowingly ingest that fruit or even pollinate other examples of the species, severely limiting the plant's chances of survival beyond a single, artificially-established example. Its seeds were of course, completely infertile. In botanical terms, the Plumb Tree was a truly heroic failure.
To be fair, I'm not actually poking fun at those folks. In fact, I admire their refreshingly lateral approach to a very real pollution problem. However, there was a distinct Jurassic Park air looming over some of their experiments. It's never advisable doing something inherently risky, particularly when you have no valid reasons other than possessing the will, ability and means to do so. One must always ask "Should we really be doing this?" in similar situations. Incidentally, that logical check-sum also extends to rather less scientific pursuits... Such as 'mooning' a Reaper while you're inside an unmodified Seamoth. Never a clever move.
I found one of Markus Sokol's private entries particularly intriguing and more than a wee bit disconcerting. Sokol and Powell were sent out to collect samples of marine life in the Red Grass biome, and they encountered an organism called a 'Warper'. I felt the hair at the back of my neck starting to rise as I read that name. The encounter had gone badly. Extremely so. The creature had appeared without warning directly in front of Powell. Judging by the video replay of the incident, Powell had panicked and shot the creature with a repulsion cannon. Unfortunately, the Warper's body was remarkably fragile. Its midsection appeared to implode in a cloud of translucent tissue. As far as I was able to tell, the Warper had made no overtly threatening moves towards Sokol or Powell.
Allow me to describe the Warper. Imagine a life form that is a vaguely humanoid squid, roughly twice the size of a human. It appears to be wearing the exoskeleton of a mottled purple mantis shrimp on its back. Like the Crabsnake, Warpers have developed a highly flexible exoskeleton and simplified mouth parts. Its upper limbs resemble the raptorial appendages of a mantis shrimp, and appear to be adapted from an original means of striking and holding prey that has evolved to become flexible arm extensions, apparently capable of fine manipulation. There are no obvious digits at the end of those spikes, although the brief collection of images obtained from the encounter seems to indicate that its stabbing arms can be made rigid or flexible at will. Warpers swim quite well, but prefer to adopt a vertical stance when at rest. Two translucent leg-like appendages markedly differ from its other four 'armoured' tentacles. A large, spoon-shaped skull is swept back from its face, an evolutionary adaptation that would significantly reduce hydrodynamic drag as it swam. Warpers have six eyes. There are two large primary eyes at the sides of its head, and four smaller eyes are arranged in two vertical pairs located either side of its mouth. This arrangement would provide a visual field of almost 360 degrees. Most impressive.
In all honesty, a Warper would look utterly, terrifyingly alien to Terran eyes. However, its brain-case is undeniably large in proportion with the rest of its body mass. At first glance, this might suggest a high potential for intelligent behaviour. However, there's more to these creatures than meets the eye. Warpers are able to instantaneously travel between widely separated locations... Able to create personalised warp portals by unknown organic or psionic means, in fact.
Loved seeing the whole plumb tree discussion from you brought into your story but the placeholder theory was correct, they are actual edible fruit now. No lead found.
Loved seeing the whole plumb tree discussion from you brought into your story but the placeholder theory was correct, they are actual edible fruit now. No lead found.
Except that they seem to be poisonous. At least in experimental.
I'd hazard a guess that the Magellan mission teams didn't have much time to reflect upon the complete botch they'd made of their First Contact situation. According to Joubert and Sokol's log entries, an autopsy was performed on the dead Warper. Joubert's report on the organism was only partially complete, suggesting that she was in the process of collating her findings when the landslide struck. I wouldn't go as far as saying that I had to prise the PDA from Mme. Joubert's skeletal fingers. It was probably most likely that she put the report aside while she took a coffee break. Several thousand tons of base-destroying rubble and two years later, Yours Truly comes along looking for some answers. Mind you, it's bloody tempting to try connecting the death of the Warper with the destruction of two Alterra field research stations, although I'd prefer to hold off making any wild assumptions until I have command of some decent facts. If there's a vendetta at work here, there's absolutely nothing preventing the Warpers from making me their next target.
As far as I could determine, this entire affair was nothing more sinister than a series of horrible mistakes. Even more to the point, it was also a potentially huge distraction from my primary objective of getting rescued. In the meantime, I'll worry about it when the Warpers come a-knocking on my front door. Adopt a purely defensive posture, don't go poking around in deep, dark places, drop another perimeter cordon of sonobuoys and always keep your wits about you. Honestly, you can't do much more than that.
Designing the beacon ship Bifrost required a fair bit of serious consideration. Terra is 175 light years distant, and tachyon burst transmissions would take 18 months to arrive without outside assistance. Fortunately, Aurora seeded a number of automated relay stations during her voyage to Manannán. The down side is, Bifrost will need to reach the outer boundary of the Alpha Hydrae system before it can uplink with the tachyon relay system and finally transmit the Mayday call. That's a distance of 20,000 AU, or 0.3 light years away. Here's the problem... The test vehicle Stovepipe One used a gravity repulsion drive that seemed to work tolerably well, if a wee smidgeon on the slow side. JUNO calculated that its terminal velocity would reach 0.5 of light speed if it could maintain a constant acceleration of 1g for six months. No doubt that our plucky little vessel is still beetling along at a fairly respectable clip, although it's probably doing closer to 0.01 per cent of light speed at the moment. You can do the sums this time.
The obvious solution (for me, at any rate) was to build a hybrid drive system.
A gravity repulsion drive is fine for breaking atmo, although I suspect that it wouldn't sustain any decent level of acceleration once it had passed beyond the gravitational influence of its point of origin. As soon as the ship enters another planet's gravity field it might pick up the pace again, although that level of progress would make it an infuriatingly slow trip through the system. I had something nice and old-fashioned in mind; namely a Bussard ramjet and ion engines. The gravity repulsion drive would accelerate Bifrost to a point where its Bussard magnetic ram-scoop was able to collect enough interstellar hydrogen to fuel a number of ion engines. To be honest, the thrust obtained from an ion engine is fairly weak tea, although it would provide constant acceleration in a less hazardous and more energy-efficient reaction. There has to be an acceptable trade-off somewhere along the line. Bearing in mind what has already transpired here, I'm pretty certain that other Alpha Hydrae locals wouldn't appreciate a monstrous DIY 'Project PLUTO' nuclear ramjet blasting through their star system, so I've decided to use the adorably wimpy ion engine propulsion system instead.
Now, if you'll excuse me... I have a lot of work to do.
This time around, I had decided to take a vastly different approach to ship construction. Instead of searching for piddling little resource nodes in person, I fabricated a squadron of drones specifically designed to dismantle parts of Aurora under JUNO's direct control. All materials gathered in this fashion were brought back to Pyramid Rock for processing. The titanium alloy hull plating and structural girders were fed into a transmutation furnace, where the raw materials' atomic structure was reconfigured into all the elements necessary for constructing Bifrost's hull and internal components. Surprisingly, it only took me a full day to assemble the processing infrastructure. Once the salvage drones had launched and hit their stride, the whole business was quite staggering to watch. The air above Pyramid Rock now resembled an aerial freeway, with a steady stream of drones whirring briskly back and forth between the island and Aurora. If I were inclined to be a lazy wee nyaff, I would cheerfully spend all day watching this fascinating process. However, I still had my own fair share of work to attend to.
Rather than building another rickety support gantry for the ship, JUNO suggested constructing the vehicle in the same manner as either a Seamoth or Cyclops. This required a certain amount of re-tooling to be done on the Mobile Vehicle Bay design template. After testing quite a few abortive versions, we were finally able to create a Vertical Assembly Module that didn't insist on dropping the fabricated hull from a height of twenty metres. Nailing down those x,y,z fabrication coordinates with absolute micron-level precision took a fair bit of doing, in fact. As an added safety measure, the VAM design included a beefed-up gravity suspension field to ensure that the ship remained in one piece after construction. Considerably more effective than using titanium guy cables, and a damn sight safer when you're working around the launch pad. If anything went pear-shaped with the assembled ship, it was simply a matter of reversing the nano-lathing process and returning all component materials to a central storage facility. I have to say, the idea of having a bank of raw materials that feed directly into a Fabrication system speeds the construction process considerably. No more ferreting around in dark and dangerous places, searching through a hundred storage lockers and building things in bits and bobs, for one thing. That's what we castaways call 'Progress'.
Although it might sound like a bit of a doddle to the casual observer, constructing Bifrost was actually a serious job of work. I couldn't have achieved any measure of success without the Fabrication templates and equipment obtained from Aurora and Magellan's stores and PDA data. That information was won with blood. More to the point, I couldn't have done any of this without JUNO. She prevented me from sinking into a morass of self-pity; kept me completely focused when I was fully prepared to throw it all into the air and simply walk away. For an artificial intelligence construct, that's a pretty decent and above all else, human thing to do.
Unsurprisingly, I had developed more than a wee bit of fondness for JUNO. A few days later, I decided to broach the subject with her. JUNO's response was somewhat unexpected, although in her defence, it was characteristically one hundred per cent pure JUNO.
"JUNO, do you have an avatar?" I asked casually. No way that would fool her voice-stress analyser.
"I am able to create a holographic avatar, should you require a visual frame of reference, Captain. Please state your preferences, or choose one from a selection of pre-generated somatic templates."
I thought long and hard about how JUNO might manifest herself. Left entirely to my discretion, that would be unfair and utterly demeaning. JUNO is entitled to her own opinion in this discussion.
I thought long and hard about how JUNO might manifest herself. Left entirely to my discretion, that would be unfair and utterly demeaning. JUNO is entitled to her own opinion in this discussion.
"That is most kind of you, Captain. However, I assure you that I will be entirely satisfied in adopting any avatar that you may care to select. I am certain that we will find a mutually agreeable holographic representation at some point in the proceedings. Incidentally, please feel free to comment upon any of these designs, as there are certain visual and audio output modifications that may be selected by the user."
JUNO started a 3D slideshow of her default avatar configurations. I became firmly convinced that someone on the AI interface design team was in desperate need of intimate female companionship. However, as I was basically in the same boat, I really couldn't complain about the amount of bare skin and 'busty substances' on display. Avatars traversed the entire spectrum of the depicted female form, ranging from the hyper-hetero fantasy heroines of Boris Vallejo's art to the slightly disturbing genre of Sailor Moon. One thing was perfectly obvious; many of these designs would seriously complicate the relationship between me and JUNO. JUNO voiced her opinion on the matter.
"Captain, I feel strongly obliged to inform you that it would be most unwise to develop any strong emotional bonds with a JUNO avatar. This would not be in your best interests from a mental health perspective, as I am physically incapable of reciprocating your affection. I have detected discrete physiological signs that seem to indicate that you are indeed in the early stages of emotional arousal. Although I greatly value your companionship, I must stress that any attempt to form an emotionally-charged relationship would only result in adverse psychological consequences for you. I am truly sorry, Captain."
There we have it. You've never truly lived until you've been friend-zoned by an AI construct.
Having laid down the law, JUNO continued the slideshow. She was absolutely right, of course. In a way, I was glad that the air had finally cleared between us. It might sound entirely pathetic to anyone standing outside this situation, but let me tell you this... Loneliness is a game that writes its own rules, and you have little choice but to play on until the final whistle sounds. Win or lose.
"Captain, I rather like this one. What do you think?"
I was horrified. JUNO's current holographic projection had morphed into a huge, disembodied head. A cybernetic Gorgon, rendered in shades of steel grey, black and neon green. The face was tattooed with a faint silver tracery of printed circuits. A pair of slitted, cat-like eyes regarded me without the slightest trace of pity.
"SHODAN? Are you (expletive deleted) kidding?"
"Of course I am." JUNO said, deftly replacing the image with a pair of Groucho Marx spectacles, complete with moustache, rubber nose and bushy eyebrows. "I felt that the situation was somewhat tense, and required a little humour to lighten the mood. Would you like to see GLaDOS?"
Finally, we agreed upon an avatar that would best suit our requirements. JUNO stood before me as a Alterra technician. Her appearance was naturally pleasant, although not particularly striking in any way. She seemed to be entirely human, lacking any obvious signs of 'uncanny valley' artifice. JUNO adjusted her avatar's final parameters personally, adding shoulder-length silver hair and a prismatic lightning bolt hair-slide as a tacit reminder of her AI nature. At my request, JUNO's dark blue Alterra jumpsuit carried the rank insignia of Systems Administrator, data acquisition division.
Woa i love where this is going. After reading the first few chapters of the story i was wondering if Bugzapper would go into developping the survivor's need of interraction with ''real peoples'' -- as real as JUNO can be to the survivor anyway. Also, as far as libido killer, im sticking to my ''The Doctor'' avatar, from Star Trek Voyager theres nothing human-looking thatll cut your desires more than him
"If I may be so bold, Captain..." JUNO began delicately, "I anticipated a probable need to engage in your preferred mode of emotional recreation at some stage, and have taken what I believe to be the most appropriate course of action, particularly in light of your present situation. I realise that some humans may still find this subject difficult to discuss, although it would be most unwise to postpone dealing with this potential problem in a sensible and satisfactory manner..."
Finally realising what she was trying to say, I grinned.
"JUNO, you're prevaricating. Spit it out, lass."
"Very well, Captain. During the previous salvage mission aboard Aurora, I took the initiative to download a wide selection of Augmented Reality simulations primarily concerned with human eroticism. In addition, I secured Fabrication templates for compatible human interface devices and haptic feedback systems employed in AR simulations... As far as I am able to determine, these devices are capable of faithfully reproducing the full spectrum of sensory input associated with the physical aspects of emotional recreation. All selected AR scenarios have been designed to meet and in some cases, exceed the aesthetic, sensory and technical requirements of all gender preferences and any known variations thereof."
I did what anyone else would have done in a similar situation. I burst out laughing.
"My mommy told me
If I was goody
That she would buy me
A wubba dolly..."
Take it away, Ella.
After a fair while, I was able to regain some measure of composure and continue working on a particularly tough integration glitch in the guidance system. Now that we were using real gyro stabilisers and accelerometers instead of my early DIY lash-ups, the ship's mass compensators had developed an awkward habit of fighting against any corrective forces exerted by the gyros. This would make Bifrost's flight path completely unpredictable, and unless we could find a workable solution, the entire mission would be scrubbed before the ship reached its final construction phase.
There was something inherently practical about building ships using this technique, since it permitted new external configurations and internal systems to be minutely tested and rearranged at will, without wasting huge amounts of resources in the process. If a particular ship design didn't work as intended, there was no need to build a physical prototype merely to confirm that the concept was a complete waste of time and effort. It's essentially a cross between next-gen 3D printing and CAD On Steroids, with an environmental simulator and virtual flight test facility thrown in for good measure.
I did what I could to figure out that tug-of-war between two separate systems with entirely different functions, although the problem was simply too complex to start tackling this late in the day. Best to take another look at it from a fresh perspective in the morning. Reckon I'll call it quits for tonight. Might pick up a few items from the storage lockers before I turn in, though. Silicone, computer chips, myomer fibre bundles and an advanced wiring harness or two. Got another small side project on the go at the moment. Basically a 'hobby' sort of thing. Not a big deal.
Might pick up a few items from the storage lockers before I turn in, though. Silicone, computer chips, myomer fibre bundles and an advanced wiring harness or two. Got another small side project on the go at the moment. Basically a 'hobby' sort of thing. Not a big deal.
I'll be in my bunk.
he might want to pick up extra silicones too. You know
"Good morning, Captain. I trust that you have slept well?" JUNO asked cheerfully.
"Oh, aye... Eventually." I mumbled. "That reminds me, I think I may have found a solution to our gyro problem. Mount the mass compensators in gimbals and slave them to the gyros. Re-write the stability algorithm to give absolute priority to gyro functions and regulate power input to the mass compensators, proportional to current gyro positioning data. That should clear up the conflict."
JUNO smiled winningly. "If I may say so, Captain... That appears to be a novel and particularly inspired approach to the problem."
I chuckled, somewhat awkwardly. "Let's just say that I was feeling particularly inspired shortly before I fell asleep last night, and we'll leave it at that."
"Excellent work, Captain. I shall run a simulation series immediately. Please stand by."
I wandered over to the galley console and keyed in my selection. I had a sudden hankering for a full English breakfast and a mug of white tea. In spite of all I had seen and experienced during my last visit to Aurora, there was absolutely no denying the fact that any benefits obtained from that mission far outweighed the risk. Even the simple act of eating a breakfast that didn't include recognizable chunks of fish and Creepvine had done wonders for my morale over the past couple of weeks. Admittedly, the fish and Creepvine were still in there somewhere, although now they were reconfigured into something infinitely more palatable. Even the tea tasted like a genuine, robust Darjeeling.
Please convey my most sincere compliments to the head biochemist.
"Simulation complete. Data integrity verified. Proposed modifications have successfully removed looping error modes from mass compensation, navigation and attitude control systems. Shall I proceed with full integration of the updated design protocols, Captain?"
"By all means, JUNO. I'll finish breakfast and take a quick shower. We should be able to launch sometime today, if Damocles is in a favourable position to execute a Hohmann transfer orbit. If not, we'll have to postpone until it is. Shouldn't be any more delay than a couple of days, at any rate."
"Correct, Captain. The transfer orbit manoeuvre will increase intra-system transit time by 12 hours, although this delay is offset by a 25 per cent increase in velocity gained upon reaching apogee, relative to Damocles. My calculations indicate that the energy thus saved will extend the duration of Bifrost's transmission capability at 100 per cent power output by an additional 180 days."
"I'm rather hoping that we won't need to tap into that extra transmission time, JUNO. It will take at least three months for the Mayday signal to reach Terra as it is, plus another three months to receive a reply. Then add another six months if there's something anyone has forgotten to mention." I grinned broadly, "Tell you something though, JUNO... I'm awful glad I'm not footing the bill for this wee interstellar chat. You know what folks say about us tight-fisted Jocks."
Although I hadn't made any real issue of it yet, there was something very important to consider: Time dilation effects. Using an Alcubierre warp drive neatly sidestepped all of that messy business involving relative time differentials. You could farewell friends and family at the embarkation port before a year-long tour hundreds of light-years away, secure in the knowledge that on your return, your loved ones would have aged only a few months or so more than you, relatively speaking.
This has probably been asked already, but I take it that there's no chance the Valkyrie Field was able to "save" scans of other people prior to the crash that JUNO could recover? Or is it only available for the life pods?
This has probably been asked already, but I take it that there's no chance the Valkyrie Field was able to "save" scans of other people prior to the crash that JUNO could recover? Or is it only available for the life pods?
Have you seen the... update.. to certain relics of the past that I don't want to give too much spoilers about? If so, is the story going to reflect that, or are you going to continue working with the build you had when you started the story?
Have you seen the... update.. to certain relics of the past that I don't want to give too much spoilers about? If so, is the story going to reflect that, or are you going to continue working with the build you had when you started the story?
Haven't seen the update yet. However, I'll be keeping an eye on what comes down the pipe.
If a game revision looks like it might break the storyline of 'Aurora Falls', I'll have to put in a bit of retcon work.
Won't be too happy about it, but we can't have the 'tale' wagging the dog, can we?
Have you seen the... update.. to certain relics of the past that I don't want to give too much spoilers about? If so, is the story going to reflect that, or are you going to continue working with the build you had when you started the story?
Haven't seen the update yet. However, I'll be keeping an eye on what comes down the pipe.
If a game revision looks like it might break the storyline of 'Aurora Falls', I'll have to put in a bit of retcon work.
Won't be too happy about it, but we can't have the 'tale' wagging the dog, can we?
Well, there were some pretty major updates to the Floater Island & base. Also changes to the Blood Kelp, Koosh zone, and potentially a few others.
They've also added a short-range communicator, but it doesn't do anything but test messages yet.
Pretty sure there's more updates coming as far as the Mushroom base goes as well, though that's not in yet. From what I hear, they're planning to add wrecks (and maybe bases? I don't remember) to every biome as well.
Comments
To be fair, I'm not actually poking fun at those folks. In fact, I admire their refreshingly lateral approach to a very real pollution problem. However, there was a distinct Jurassic Park air looming over some of their experiments. It's never advisable doing something inherently risky, particularly when you have no valid reasons other than possessing the will, ability and means to do so. One must always ask "Should we really be doing this?" in similar situations. Incidentally, that logical check-sum also extends to rather less scientific pursuits... Such as 'mooning' a Reaper while you're inside an unmodified Seamoth. Never a clever move.
I found one of Markus Sokol's private entries particularly intriguing and more than a wee bit disconcerting. Sokol and Powell were sent out to collect samples of marine life in the Red Grass biome, and they encountered an organism called a 'Warper'. I felt the hair at the back of my neck starting to rise as I read that name. The encounter had gone badly. Extremely so. The creature had appeared without warning directly in front of Powell. Judging by the video replay of the incident, Powell had panicked and shot the creature with a repulsion cannon. Unfortunately, the Warper's body was remarkably fragile. Its midsection appeared to implode in a cloud of translucent tissue. As far as I was able to tell, the Warper had made no overtly threatening moves towards Sokol or Powell.
Allow me to describe the Warper. Imagine a life form that is a vaguely humanoid squid, roughly twice the size of a human. It appears to be wearing the exoskeleton of a mottled purple mantis shrimp on its back. Like the Crabsnake, Warpers have developed a highly flexible exoskeleton and simplified mouth parts. Its upper limbs resemble the raptorial appendages of a mantis shrimp, and appear to be adapted from an original means of striking and holding prey that has evolved to become flexible arm extensions, apparently capable of fine manipulation. There are no obvious digits at the end of those spikes, although the brief collection of images obtained from the encounter seems to indicate that its stabbing arms can be made rigid or flexible at will. Warpers swim quite well, but prefer to adopt a vertical stance when at rest. Two translucent leg-like appendages markedly differ from its other four 'armoured' tentacles. A large, spoon-shaped skull is swept back from its face, an evolutionary adaptation that would significantly reduce hydrodynamic drag as it swam. Warpers have six eyes. There are two large primary eyes at the sides of its head, and four smaller eyes are arranged in two vertical pairs located either side of its mouth. This arrangement would provide a visual field of almost 360 degrees. Most impressive.
In all honesty, a Warper would look utterly, terrifyingly alien to Terran eyes. However, its brain-case is undeniably large in proportion with the rest of its body mass. At first glance, this might suggest a high potential for intelligent behaviour. However, there's more to these creatures than meets the eye. Warpers are able to instantaneously travel between widely separated locations... Able to create personalised warp portals by unknown organic or psionic means, in fact.
Hence the name 'Warper'.
Except that they seem to be poisonous. At least in experimental.
As far as I could determine, this entire affair was nothing more sinister than a series of horrible mistakes. Even more to the point, it was also a potentially huge distraction from my primary objective of getting rescued. In the meantime, I'll worry about it when the Warpers come a-knocking on my front door. Adopt a purely defensive posture, don't go poking around in deep, dark places, drop another perimeter cordon of sonobuoys and always keep your wits about you. Honestly, you can't do much more than that.
Designing the beacon ship Bifrost required a fair bit of serious consideration. Terra is 175 light years distant, and tachyon burst transmissions would take 18 months to arrive without outside assistance. Fortunately, Aurora seeded a number of automated relay stations during her voyage to Manannán. The down side is, Bifrost will need to reach the outer boundary of the Alpha Hydrae system before it can uplink with the tachyon relay system and finally transmit the Mayday call. That's a distance of 20,000 AU, or 0.3 light years away. Here's the problem... The test vehicle Stovepipe One used a gravity repulsion drive that seemed to work tolerably well, if a wee smidgeon on the slow side. JUNO calculated that its terminal velocity would reach 0.5 of light speed if it could maintain a constant acceleration of 1g for six months. No doubt that our plucky little vessel is still beetling along at a fairly respectable clip, although it's probably doing closer to 0.01 per cent of light speed at the moment. You can do the sums this time.
The obvious solution (for me, at any rate) was to build a hybrid drive system.
A gravity repulsion drive is fine for breaking atmo, although I suspect that it wouldn't sustain any decent level of acceleration once it had passed beyond the gravitational influence of its point of origin. As soon as the ship enters another planet's gravity field it might pick up the pace again, although that level of progress would make it an infuriatingly slow trip through the system. I had something nice and old-fashioned in mind; namely a Bussard ramjet and ion engines. The gravity repulsion drive would accelerate Bifrost to a point where its Bussard magnetic ram-scoop was able to collect enough interstellar hydrogen to fuel a number of ion engines. To be honest, the thrust obtained from an ion engine is fairly weak tea, although it would provide constant acceleration in a less hazardous and more energy-efficient reaction. There has to be an acceptable trade-off somewhere along the line. Bearing in mind what has already transpired here, I'm pretty certain that other Alpha Hydrae locals wouldn't appreciate a monstrous DIY 'Project PLUTO' nuclear ramjet blasting through their star system, so I've decided to use the adorably wimpy ion engine propulsion system instead.
Now, if you'll excuse me... I have a lot of work to do.
Edit: Yes, he did, page 4:
Rather than building another rickety support gantry for the ship, JUNO suggested constructing the vehicle in the same manner as either a Seamoth or Cyclops. This required a certain amount of re-tooling to be done on the Mobile Vehicle Bay design template. After testing quite a few abortive versions, we were finally able to create a Vertical Assembly Module that didn't insist on dropping the fabricated hull from a height of twenty metres. Nailing down those x,y,z fabrication coordinates with absolute micron-level precision took a fair bit of doing, in fact. As an added safety measure, the VAM design included a beefed-up gravity suspension field to ensure that the ship remained in one piece after construction. Considerably more effective than using titanium guy cables, and a damn sight safer when you're working around the launch pad. If anything went pear-shaped with the assembled ship, it was simply a matter of reversing the nano-lathing process and returning all component materials to a central storage facility. I have to say, the idea of having a bank of raw materials that feed directly into a Fabrication system speeds the construction process considerably. No more ferreting around in dark and dangerous places, searching through a hundred storage lockers and building things in bits and bobs, for one thing. That's what we castaways call 'Progress'.
Although it might sound like a bit of a doddle to the casual observer, constructing Bifrost was actually a serious job of work. I couldn't have achieved any measure of success without the Fabrication templates and equipment obtained from Aurora and Magellan's stores and PDA data. That information was won with blood. More to the point, I couldn't have done any of this without JUNO. She prevented me from sinking into a morass of self-pity; kept me completely focused when I was fully prepared to throw it all into the air and simply walk away. For an artificial intelligence construct, that's a pretty decent and above all else, human thing to do.
Unsurprisingly, I had developed more than a wee bit of fondness for JUNO. A few days later, I decided to broach the subject with her. JUNO's response was somewhat unexpected, although in her defence, it was characteristically one hundred per cent pure JUNO.
"JUNO, do you have an avatar?" I asked casually. No way that would fool her voice-stress analyser.
"I am able to create a holographic avatar, should you require a visual frame of reference, Captain. Please state your preferences, or choose one from a selection of pre-generated somatic templates."
I thought long and hard about how JUNO might manifest herself. Left entirely to my discretion, that would be unfair and utterly demeaning. JUNO is entitled to her own opinion in this discussion.
This is going to be fun! =D
JUNO started a 3D slideshow of her default avatar configurations. I became firmly convinced that someone on the AI interface design team was in desperate need of intimate female companionship. However, as I was basically in the same boat, I really couldn't complain about the amount of bare skin and 'busty substances' on display. Avatars traversed the entire spectrum of the depicted female form, ranging from the hyper-hetero fantasy heroines of Boris Vallejo's art to the slightly disturbing genre of Sailor Moon. One thing was perfectly obvious; many of these designs would seriously complicate the relationship between me and JUNO. JUNO voiced her opinion on the matter.
"Captain, I feel strongly obliged to inform you that it would be most unwise to develop any strong emotional bonds with a JUNO avatar. This would not be in your best interests from a mental health perspective, as I am physically incapable of reciprocating your affection. I have detected discrete physiological signs that seem to indicate that you are indeed in the early stages of emotional arousal. Although I greatly value your companionship, I must stress that any attempt to form an emotionally-charged relationship would only result in adverse psychological consequences for you. I am truly sorry, Captain."
There we have it. You've never truly lived until you've been friend-zoned by an AI construct.
Having laid down the law, JUNO continued the slideshow. She was absolutely right, of course. In a way, I was glad that the air had finally cleared between us. It might sound entirely pathetic to anyone standing outside this situation, but let me tell you this... Loneliness is a game that writes its own rules, and you have little choice but to play on until the final whistle sounds. Win or lose.
"Captain, I rather like this one. What do you think?"
I was horrified. JUNO's current holographic projection had morphed into a huge, disembodied head. A cybernetic Gorgon, rendered in shades of steel grey, black and neon green. The face was tattooed with a faint silver tracery of printed circuits. A pair of slitted, cat-like eyes regarded me without the slightest trace of pity.
"SHODAN? Are you (expletive deleted) kidding?"
"Of course I am." JUNO said, deftly replacing the image with a pair of Groucho Marx spectacles, complete with moustache, rubber nose and bushy eyebrows. "I felt that the situation was somewhat tense, and required a little humour to lighten the mood. Would you like to see GLaDOS?"
Finally, we agreed upon an avatar that would best suit our requirements. JUNO stood before me as a Alterra technician. Her appearance was naturally pleasant, although not particularly striking in any way. She seemed to be entirely human, lacking any obvious signs of 'uncanny valley' artifice. JUNO adjusted her avatar's final parameters personally, adding shoulder-length silver hair and a prismatic lightning bolt hair-slide as a tacit reminder of her AI nature. At my request, JUNO's dark blue Alterra jumpsuit carried the rank insignia of Systems Administrator, data acquisition division.
Both reads are just as engaging! Love it.
My bad, I forgot about that :P I should go re-read that.
Finally realising what she was trying to say, I grinned.
"JUNO, you're prevaricating. Spit it out, lass."
"Very well, Captain. During the previous salvage mission aboard Aurora, I took the initiative to download a wide selection of Augmented Reality simulations primarily concerned with human eroticism. In addition, I secured Fabrication templates for compatible human interface devices and haptic feedback systems employed in AR simulations... As far as I am able to determine, these devices are capable of faithfully reproducing the full spectrum of sensory input associated with the physical aspects of emotional recreation. All selected AR scenarios have been designed to meet and in some cases, exceed the aesthetic, sensory and technical requirements of all gender preferences and any known variations thereof."
I did what anyone else would have done in a similar situation. I burst out laughing.
If I was goody
That she would buy me
A wubba dolly..."
Take it away, Ella.
After a fair while, I was able to regain some measure of composure and continue working on a particularly tough integration glitch in the guidance system. Now that we were using real gyro stabilisers and accelerometers instead of my early DIY lash-ups, the ship's mass compensators had developed an awkward habit of fighting against any corrective forces exerted by the gyros. This would make Bifrost's flight path completely unpredictable, and unless we could find a workable solution, the entire mission would be scrubbed before the ship reached its final construction phase.
There was something inherently practical about building ships using this technique, since it permitted new external configurations and internal systems to be minutely tested and rearranged at will, without wasting huge amounts of resources in the process. If a particular ship design didn't work as intended, there was no need to build a physical prototype merely to confirm that the concept was a complete waste of time and effort. It's essentially a cross between next-gen 3D printing and CAD On Steroids, with an environmental simulator and virtual flight test facility thrown in for good measure.
I did what I could to figure out that tug-of-war between two separate systems with entirely different functions, although the problem was simply too complex to start tackling this late in the day. Best to take another look at it from a fresh perspective in the morning. Reckon I'll call it quits for tonight. Might pick up a few items from the storage lockers before I turn in, though. Silicone, computer chips, myomer fibre bundles and an advanced wiring harness or two. Got another small side project on the go at the moment. Basically a 'hobby' sort of thing. Not a big deal.
I'll be in my bunk.
he might want to pick up extra silicones too. You know
There is. It's hooked up to the Galley.
Even more handy than a Thermomix.
"Oh, aye... Eventually." I mumbled. "That reminds me, I think I may have found a solution to our gyro problem. Mount the mass compensators in gimbals and slave them to the gyros. Re-write the stability algorithm to give absolute priority to gyro functions and regulate power input to the mass compensators, proportional to current gyro positioning data. That should clear up the conflict."
JUNO smiled winningly. "If I may say so, Captain... That appears to be a novel and particularly inspired approach to the problem."
I chuckled, somewhat awkwardly. "Let's just say that I was feeling particularly inspired shortly before I fell asleep last night, and we'll leave it at that."
"Excellent work, Captain. I shall run a simulation series immediately. Please stand by."
I wandered over to the galley console and keyed in my selection. I had a sudden hankering for a full English breakfast and a mug of white tea. In spite of all I had seen and experienced during my last visit to Aurora, there was absolutely no denying the fact that any benefits obtained from that mission far outweighed the risk. Even the simple act of eating a breakfast that didn't include recognizable chunks of fish and Creepvine had done wonders for my morale over the past couple of weeks. Admittedly, the fish and Creepvine were still in there somewhere, although now they were reconfigured into something infinitely more palatable. Even the tea tasted like a genuine, robust Darjeeling.
Please convey my most sincere compliments to the head biochemist.
"Simulation complete. Data integrity verified. Proposed modifications have successfully removed looping error modes from mass compensation, navigation and attitude control systems. Shall I proceed with full integration of the updated design protocols, Captain?"
"By all means, JUNO. I'll finish breakfast and take a quick shower. We should be able to launch sometime today, if Damocles is in a favourable position to execute a Hohmann transfer orbit. If not, we'll have to postpone until it is. Shouldn't be any more delay than a couple of days, at any rate."
"Correct, Captain. The transfer orbit manoeuvre will increase intra-system transit time by 12 hours, although this delay is offset by a 25 per cent increase in velocity gained upon reaching apogee, relative to Damocles. My calculations indicate that the energy thus saved will extend the duration of Bifrost's transmission capability at 100 per cent power output by an additional 180 days."
"I'm rather hoping that we won't need to tap into that extra transmission time, JUNO. It will take at least three months for the Mayday signal to reach Terra as it is, plus another three months to receive a reply. Then add another six months if there's something anyone has forgotten to mention." I grinned broadly, "Tell you something though, JUNO... I'm awful glad I'm not footing the bill for this wee interstellar chat. You know what folks say about us tight-fisted Jocks."
Although I hadn't made any real issue of it yet, there was something very important to consider: Time dilation effects. Using an Alcubierre warp drive neatly sidestepped all of that messy business involving relative time differentials. You could farewell friends and family at the embarkation port before a year-long tour hundreds of light-years away, secure in the knowledge that on your return, your loved ones would have aged only a few months or so more than you, relatively speaking.
LifePods only, I'm afraid.
Haven't seen the update yet. However, I'll be keeping an eye on what comes down the pipe.
If a game revision looks like it might break the storyline of 'Aurora Falls', I'll have to put in a bit of retcon work.
Won't be too happy about it, but we can't have the 'tale' wagging the dog, can we?
They've also added a short-range communicator, but it doesn't do anything but test messages yet.
Pretty sure there's more updates coming as far as the Mushroom base goes as well, though that's not in yet. From what I hear, they're planning to add wrecks (and maybe bases? I don't remember) to every biome as well.