Adaptive Repurposement

[Legion]

This is the beginning of my on going attempt at a science fiction short story.

There will be no story for many a month.

For now, I but give the universe.

I put it here so that you may read it, if you wish, and give any feed back, ask any questions. The more questions I answer, the more real the universe feels.

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Setting begins in the year 2245.

Faster than light drives never got figured out. Cryogenic stasis never got figured out. True AI never got figured out.

In 2082, deep space exploration probes discovered a foreign object, enormous in scope, larger than any as-yet built human structure. Its design seemed simple, plain, familiar even, but it was certainly not human.
The probe, designed simply to escape the solar system and continue on in deep space, could not stop. 3 minutes 46 seconds of footage and data were taken before it was out of range.

2083 Prometheus project, to create a specialized unmanned probe to investigate the object, receives funding.

2088 Prometheus 1 construction complete, and launch successful

2089 Prometheus 1 reaches the structure. Scans every square inch in line of sight, takes material samples, EM scans, X-ray, etc. Stays around the object for 5 months collecting data.

2091 Prometheus 1 returns, data begins being analyzed.

2093 Origin and purpose of the structure unknown. No signs of life. Material compositions were previously unknown, the particular alloy is discovered. Various other innovations stem from data collected from the structure. Prometheus 2, manned space craft designed for long term research, receives funding.

2094 Significant religious rioting in Earth due to clear evidence of extra terrestrial life.

2099 Prometheus 2 construction finishes, team of 210 assembled, successful launch.

2100 Prometheus 2 reaches Object P3R 451, (the name given to the structure) at the turn of the century.

2100-2104 Prometheus 2 team studies the structure.

The structure acts like a satellite, in that it maintains its own (distant) orbit around the star of a neighboring solar system. It is enormous, 55 kilometers in length (but only 2 kilometers across). Origin unknown. No sign of creators. The technology is so far beyond the level of human technology that 99% of the device is incomprehensible. Despite having located what seems to be an airlock, the team has still not gotten inside in 4 years.
Theories on the purpose of the structure run wild.
What is known: One side of the device is built to either generate or collect unfathomable amounts of power. The other side is capable of projecting, in some form, amounts of energy on a similar scale. There is a distinct appearance of how one might imagine a futuristic gun. Generally accepted theory is that it is a weapon of some sort. (Bayesians frown, as that implies the existence of two alien races)

2105 Dr. George Stuler hypothesizes that, given that there is no evidence of any structures of similar composition, the device may be a means for transportation.
This theory is taken seriously, studies begin.

2106 Scientists on the Prometheus 2 project believe they have significant evidence to support Stuler's hypothesis. General consensus is that the device is used for transportation.

2110 While conducting an experiment involving attempting to jump-start the door console with power from the Prometheus 2, Object P3R 451 "comes to life." Exterior lights turn on, significant EM emissions are produced, and massive amounts of power are detected.

An enormous discharge of power is detected, and Prometheus 2 vanishes.

Enough data reached Earth for the theory of transportation device to be well supported. A significant acceleration vector was experienced by the Prometheus 2 moments before vanishing.

2111 General consensus is that the Prometheus 2 has been transported somewhere, but most likely in tact. The ship was meant for long term research, so as long as it had received no damage, it should be fine for a large amount of time.

2112 Construction of the Primarch 1 begins.

2115 The Prometheus 2 reappears as promptly as it vanished, in orbit with Object P3R 451
They begin streaming data immediately. The device was indeed a transportation device. When they vanished, they experienced an enormous continuous acceleration vector for 1 year. When they came out, they were in orbit around another identical structure. Still no sign of any alien life, there was however a second structure in this region. It took two years for the crew on the Prometheus 2 to replicate the results at Object P3R 451 and activate it again.

The knowledge they gained they think can be used to properly utilize the objects.

2116 Prometheus 2 returns to Earth. Primarch 1 is repurposed as a station-deployment project to create a permanent station around Object P3R 451 (Now renamed "Relay 451") and operate it.

2122 Primarch 1 and Prometheus 2 return to Relay 451 and establish a permanent station. Prometheus 2 has been refitted for long term exploration, to awaken as many dormant Relays as possible, returning to Relay 451 each time a new one is discovered and awakened, in order to chart out the pattern.

2130 Prometheus 2 has charted a dozen Relays. At several of these relays are star systems with habitable planets. More ships have been built on Earth.
Manifest Destiny on a Galactic scale sweeps across the planet. Humanity experiences for the first time the desire to spread itself across the stars simply for the sake of doing it.
Hundreds upon hundreds of ships are built, propelling pioneering humans across the Galaxy.

2245 Humanity has been colonizing the Galaxy for over a century. A new technology for determining relative positions within the galaxy of each Relay has been developed. Only a tiny portion of the galaxy is accessible, an even smaller amount explored, and a tiny fraction of that colonized. Despite that, there are dozens of worlds inhabited by humans with half again as many colonies.

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

That is the basic crash course for the history. Later, writing on the political, social, economic and scientific trends of the new galactic humanity.

 

[CaliburofSouls]

Legion.. This is.. Amazing.

 

[Naelwyn]

Provisional addition to backstory - AIs not fully developed, No technological singularities broken through?

 

[Faelin]

Oooh, my.

 

[Legion]

Provisional addition to backstory - AIs not fully developed, No technological singularities broken through?

Thanks, yep, knew I was missing something.

 

[Legion]

There are no galactic politics, nor galactic economy. Relays transport ships at faster than light speeds, but the distance between entities in space is still immense. Most relays take between 6 and 12 months of vector travel before being deposited at the receiving relay.

A description of the relays.
We have no idea how they work. None at all. We know that they produce and emit an absurd amount of energy, but we do not know what form or why. It is simply too far beyond us to be comprehensible.
We do not understand where their power comes from. The most generally accepted theory is on-board fusion reactors, but no as yet built fusion reactor could produce power on that scale.
The relays travel in very very slow, very distant orbits around stars. (Generally accepted theory is that they remain far away from stars whose immense gravity and EM emission cause most technology to behave erratically, which could be potentially catastrophic in projecting objects at FTL speeds.)
On board computers calculate the necessary direction and position adjustments to ensure that the relay's maintain near-perfect accuracy. It is unknown how this is done.

When activated, they propel a ship on a pre-determining acceleration vector in a direction that connects with humanly-impossible precision to the connecting relay. Travel times take between 6 and 12 months generally, with the longest being 4 years and the shortest being 3 months.
When propelled, the ship remains entirely intact and the crew goes about their business on the ship (due to relativity, the crews experience less time in-transit than the rest of the universe. For a jump of 1 year, crews experience about 10 months of time). This may seem slow, but this takes travel times of several hundred million years down to something that is humanly possible.

Due to the fact that they are traveling faster than light, essentially all ship systems will not function or would be useless. Sensor and radar arrays no longer pick up the same frequencies due to blue shift. Viewports are entirely useless because the ship is out running the light of its surroundings. If ballistic weaponry is fired, the projectiles seem to disintegrate instantaneously. (Accepted theory is that this is a feature of the relays, which disintegrate any matter that is in the path between ship and receiving relay, so that small particles of dust do not rip through or cause nuclear fusion with the ship traveling at FTL.)

While in transit crews generally go about the general maintenance of the ship and themselves.

Relays are in a 1 to 1 connection. Each relay goes to exactly one relay. As such, many systems have several of them. The current hub of galactic transportation is the Rhodox Tau system, which has 8 charted individual relay connections and 1 uncharted relay.

Back to galactic politics.

Because human worlds are often separated by several relay jumps, traveling from one colony to another often takes upwards of 2 years.
Instantaneous communication via quantum entanglement has been developed, but is so expensive that its only use is for the galactic scientific community. (More on this later)

Due to this, there is no galactic politics. Each colony is relatively self contained. In those systems which have several colonized worlds, there are some interplanetary organizations, but these never spread beyond the reach of 1 relay. It would simply be impossible to have any form of centralized government when moving people from one of the known colonized space to the other takes 18 years.

There are several galactic organizations however.
The most important of these is the Relay Guild. They are an organization with the purpose of guarding the relays from third party seizure and charting new relays. There is a Relay tax in place (which is rather hefty) and the funds raised from it go to supporting the fleets necessary to protect relays and chart out new ones. They are not governed by any particular body, but rather they exist due to their obvious usefulness to the rest of the galaxy. If they ever began abusing the power allowed them, the galaxy would unite fleets to take them on.

The Organization of Galactic Science and Technology (OGST) is a close second. They are a non-governmental organization that essentially comprise and represent the galactic scientific community. They communicate on a regular basis using instantaneous communication and so can transmit results in real time. Their primary goal is to determine how the Relay's work, and thereby find a way to bring FTL travel into the hands of humanity.
On a secondary level, they research and analyze data brought to them by the Guild of Exploration and Archaeology in order to determine the feasibility of human colonization of particular planets.
Beneath those priorities comes scientific advancement in general, left to the individual efforts of the scientists of the organization.

The Guild of Exploration and Archaeology is a significant organization as well. Their primary task is two fold: to determine exactly what created the Relays and what happened to the creators, and to explore as much of the Galaxy as possible, in the name of humanity. They are a quasi-religious organization, a product of the first colonization boom, desiring to spread humanity across the stars because they believe thats what humanity is destined to achieve. They explore the new systems that are charted by the Relay Guild, take extensive data on any potentially habitable planets, and then send the data to the OGST for analysis.

The Organization of Galactic Couriers is an ironic and backward-seeming necessity. Due to the way Relay's work, it is actually faster to transport information via courier ships (which can use Relays to travel at FTL) than to transmit with ultra-long-range communicators(which only travel at lightspeed.). Accordingly, there is a market for courier ships to transmit very important data that is unrelated to the OGST (who use quantum entanglement for instantaneous communication.)

A very prominent and unique organization is the Confederated Starship Manufacturing Corporation. They are unique for they are the only company that exists on a galactic level, as star ships are the only galactic market. They are a self-governed confederation of 40 settlements on 6 planets spanning 2 star systems. (A "star system" has been slightly redefined to mean any region that has its own Relay.) They operates in an utterly free, utterly unregulated economy, for the sake of producing star ships on a scale to fulfill the galactic demand. They are not a monopoly nor a trust however. They compete, even with each other, ruthlessly. Ships of the highest quality are in too high demand, if the CSMC ever lowered the quality of their ships then a competitor would put them out of business.
As such, they double as an advanced research/invention organization continuously trying to build better ships.
And there are rumors that they are trying to build their own Relay.

There are no other galactic organizations of note.

The CSMC represents the only galaxy-wide market. The majority of trade happens on a planetary basis, between settlements of the same planet. There is a substantial amount of trade on an interplanetary basis. There is a small amount of trade on an Inter-system basis. The only large example of this is the CSMC. Thus, economic regulations vary wildly by settlement and planet. Also naturally, some planets are significantly more prosperous than others due to high natural resources. Shipping raw resources through Relays is not economically practical however, so most planets rely on whatever resources available on that planet.

There is no galactic religion. There was a strong indication that one would form at the beginning of the colonization boom, but once humanity got spread out by year-long travel times, religions quickly diverged. The only level at which religion is socially relevant is at the settlement level. (Not even the planetary level).

There is one exception to this, which is a religion only found on Earth, which believes that man's colonization of the stars was not what God intended and that we are over stepping ourselves by doing so.
They incidentally deny that the Relays were of Alien origin, and believe that the relays are the work of one of the Earth governments.
Due to the fact that they believe this despite being absolutely absurd, they are looked down upon by nearly the entire galaxy.

War is relatively rare. There are frequent skirmishes on planets, but these are usually cut short. These skirmishes are almost always frontier resource wars between relatively poor groups of individuals. Should the conflict escalate, it is relatively easy for the controlling interests of the planet to either force them to surrender or wipe them out.

Warfare has changed. Everything lies on Space superiority. A star ship in orbit around a planet can bombard the surface with ballistic weaponry with impunity.
From the planet however, it is nearly impossible to attack a star ship. Ballistic weaponry, for the most part, cannot even achieve escape velocity. Projected Energy weapons get defracted and dissipated by the atmosphere, and missiles spend so much time moving slowly within the planets atmosphere that the Star ship can use Projected Energy weapons to shoot them down.

Ballistic weaponry still remains the most commonly used. Generally in the form of Magnetic acceleration cannons, with traditional gunpowder weaponry for point-defense.
Projected Energy Weapons are used almost solely to destroy missiles, which are too small to carry on-board shield emitter systems, as ships do. Missiles are still used however against smaller vessels which may not come equipped with projected energy weapons, as well as kept in reserve in case an enemy ship's energy weapons fail.

As such, nearly all battles are fought in space, but even this is relatively rare, because the Relay Guild imposes a large increase on the transportation tax for ships being sent off to battle. (The CMSC had enough clout to ensure that this tax did not pertain simply to all war ships.) War is so much more expensive that it is a rare occurrence. Even on a planetary scale, a ground battle can be cut short by the threat of orbital bombardment.

 

[Legion]

For added effect, read all passages in the voice of the Mass Effect Codex Narrator.

 

[Angryboy]

I only read the first part, not read the second post yet but this looks like it has great promise!
Just one thing though, which is bothering me quite a bit... Where do these relays get all their power from, and how can they transport things to other relay-locations (considering that nothing is stationary or at a fixed point)?

Just two points that a student in physics has to ask

 

[Legion]

I only read the first part, not read the second post yet but this looks like it has great promise!
Just one thing though, which is bothering me quite a bit... Where do these relays get all their power from, and how can they transport things to other relay-locations (considering that nothing is stationary or at a fixed point)?

Just two points that a student in physics has to ask

I will add this in to the second message thanks

 

[Angryboy]

Due to the fact that they are traveling faster than light, essentially all ship systems will not function or would be useless. Sensor and radar arrays no longer pick up the same frequencies due to blue shift. Viewports are entirely useless because the ship is out running the light of its surroundings. If ballistic weaponry is fired, the projectiles seem to disintegrate instantaneously. (Accepted theory is that this is a feature of the relays, which disintegrate any matter that is in the path between ship and receiving relay, so that small particles of dust do not rip through or cause nuclear fusion with the ship traveling at FTL.)

I'm making a half-asses attempt on that wall of text now

Another question though, this time on how it works.
Does the ship using the relay have to be attached DIRECTLY to the relay (like being landed on it) or does it just have to be close to it (say in an orbit)?
Depending on the answer, a missile fired would do one of two things.

1) Assuming the ship/relay are attached, the missile would be launched at the same velocity as the ship, BUT it would have no acceleration (due to there being no force applied to it). This would cause the missile to launch at the same velocity, but eventually drop as it is pulled by the orbits it passes through (it'll be pulled towards a nearby sun, for example, breaking said orbit but losing its velocity).

2) If its an orbital thing, then the missile would presumably be trapped in the orbit as well. It would launch and be moving at the velocity of the relay PLUS its own launch-velocity. From within the ship/relay, the missile would look like its moving at its "normal" speed. I forgot the name of this theory, but its basically its own velocity relative to the one viewing. It looks like it is going slower if its moving with us, and faster if its moving away.

 

[Legion]

Allow me to clarify: the relays are stationary. They never move. They launch the ships sort of like a cannon.
If you have ever played Mass Effect, think of the Mass Relays. They are like that. Just in my world, we have no idea how they work.

Now, if a ship launched a missile in-transit, then, like an object fired from a ballistic weapon, it would disintegrate.

 

[Angryboy]

Not played Mass Effect, but that does sound a bit like the jump-gates from Eve Online. I kind of get what you mean then.

I see no reason why a ballistic would disintegrate, while a ship would not; but its your story, not mine, so I'll leave that to you

Oh and can I make two possible plot-twists on warfare?

 

[Baron]

Allow me to clarify: the relays are stationary. They never move. They launch the ships sort of like a cannon.
If you have ever played Mass Effect, think of the Mass Relays. They are like that. Just in my world, we have no idea how they work.

Now, if a ship launched a missile in-transit, then, like an object fired from a ballistic weapon, it would disintegrate.

Wouldn't the instant acceleration kill the passengers? How does deceleration work?

 

[Angryboy]

Wouldn't the instant acceleration kill the passengers? How does deceleration work?

He has a point, the force would kill the passengers almost immediately.

Deceleration? Well, lets say that Legion was wrong about acceleration in the first place, it wouldn't actually be constant.
For there to be constant acceleration, the force being applied would ALSO have to be constant. Unless there is some sort of gravitational stream between two relays, this wouldn't happen.

The actual science behind it would be; the Relay applies a huge amount of force, launching the Ship. The acceleration would immediately be something like 1,000,000,000 m/s^2.
This 1,000,000,000 m/s^2 would only last for a second, giving the Ship an INITIAL velocity of 1,000,000,000 m/s. The acceleration, due to there being no more force applied, would drop to 0.
The velocity would be dropping due to gravitational pull from all sorts of objects that the Ship passes by... nothing else would actually slow it down.

THAT is going by physics we know of now, which have yet to actually fail us.

Might I suggest making something up about there being a gravitational "stream" between the two Relays or something like that? It would make more sense (kind of).

 

[Ray1333]

Woah. just WOAH. This is, in HollowTerms, amaze balls. Two requests: a star map of the known galaxy and maybe an image or drawling of a Relay. Love what you've done so far!

 

[Legion]

Not played Mass Effect, but that does sound a bit like the jump-gates from Eve Online. I kind of get what you mean then.

I see no reason why a ballistic would disintegrate, while a ship would not; but its your story, not mine, so I'll leave that to you

Oh and can I make two possible plot-twists on warfare?

No you may not its mine

And, the bullets disintegrate and ships dont. Humanity is not yet sure of the reason, but the theory is that anything not part of the ship that is in the path between relays gets disintegrated in order to prevent it from ripping through the ship, and that this is a deliberate feature of the Relays, not a side effect.

Wouldn't the instant acceleration kill the passengers? How does deceleration work?

Acceleration is not instant, simply very speedy.
Deceleration works by the receiving Relay which acts as a sort of "catchers mitt."

He has a point, the force would kill the passengers almost immediately.

Deceleration? Well, lets say that Legion was wrong about acceleration in the first place, it wouldn't actually be constant.
For there to be constant acceleration, the force being applied would ALSO have to be constant. Unless there is some sort of gravitational stream between two relays, this wouldn't happen.

The actual science behind it would be; the Relay applies a huge amount of force, launching the Ship. The acceleration would immediately be something like 1,000,000,000 m/s^2.
This 1,000,000,000 m/s^2 would only last for a second, giving the Ship an INITIAL velocity of 1,000,000,000 m/s. The acceleration, due to there being no more force applied, would drop to 0.
The velocity would be dropping due to gravitational pull from all sorts of objects that the Ship passes by... nothing else would actually slow it down.

THAT is going by physics we know of now, which have yet to actually fail us.

Might I suggest making something up about there being a gravitational "stream" between the two Relays or something like that? It would make more sense (kind of).

First of all, there is an enormous amount of newtonian physics you simply arent taking into account, not to mention relativity, which is relevant seeing as these are close to light speeds.
The propulsion is not ballistic, you have no reason to assume that the force stops being applied after one instant or that there is even any impulse at all. For all you know the Relays transmit super low energy photons that act as if they have mass and the ship gets caught along for the ride. The point is, you dont know how it works, because I have said that we dont understand it instead of making up some half-assed reason why FTL works when we know humanity currently has no way to do it, nor does it even believe its possible.
I have no idea what you are talking about with gravitational streams, but I can tell you there is no such entity or force in physics.
Furthermore, i am deliberately leaving things open ended for one of two reasons.
1. It will be revealed as part of the story
2. I want you to be confused and feel that there are yet things to discover

Lastly, its science fiction.

 

[Ray1333]

Lastly, its science fiction.

SCI-FI: Because we don't NEED to discus "how the physics would work."

But the Adaptive Repurposement universe is going places and I am really wanting to do a forum RP in/of it...

 

[Angryboy]

1. It will be revealed as part of the story
2. I want you to be confused and feel that there are yet things to discover.

Fair enough, I'll stop trying to understand all of this

As for the gravitational streams, I meant like the Relays create a line between them which creates (lets assume for now) a considerably large value for the Gravitational Constant. From a physical point of view, a larger grav-constant would mean two objects create more attractive force. Just a suggestion!

Anywho, I'll leave it to you now! Good luck on writing it, I'll look forward to reading it when its done!

 

[Legion]

Fair enough, I'll stop trying to understand all of this

As for the gravitational streams, I meant like the Relays create a line between them which creates (lets assume for now) a considerably large value for the Gravitational Constant. From a physical point of view, a larger grav-constant would mean two objects create more attractive force. Just a suggestion!

Anywho, I'll leave it to you now! Good luck on writing it, I'll look forward to reading it when its done!

But this could not be used for transportation, having a high G would just make it so that the parts of the ship would want to collapse inward toward the ships center of mass XD

 

[Angryboy]

But this could not be used for transportation, having a high G would just make it so that the parts of the ship would want to collapse inward toward the ships center of mass XD

I must have mistaken my own notes then.... I thought the grav-constant affected how two objects pulled towards each other, rather than an object on itself?