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Man the lifeboats!
But no dogs or Irishmen allowed.
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TGW-873

Chapter: 31 Synthetics
Characters: Aaron, Andrew, Annie, Capt Chardis, dragonflys, julie
Location: Catia's pride, TANSTAAFL
└ Tags: deal or no deal, Empresses Hand

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Discussion (41) ¬

  1. Paul
    December 8, 2021, 20:07 | # | Reply

    And the Dragonflies strike again. Passing knowledge to Teresa. Probably all with a Dragonfly. Armed Dreadnaught for a freighter. This shipment gets through, period.

    • Jan
      December 8, 2021, 20:17 | # | Reply

      Re. dragonflies – much like the darkings in Tamora Pierce’s Trickster-books – “one know all know”
      Re. dreadnought – I should think so 🙂

      • Bill Mullins
        December 9, 2021, 06:18 | # | Reply

        I’m not sure if with the D Flies it is literally “what one knows, all know” or not. I know they are telepaths. I also know they are terrible gossips. What one finds out he/she spreads as quickly. No question Teresa would have been apprised of the situation in essentially real time. I like the way Catman had Teresa extend a “hand of protection” over the androids. Whatever their ultimate legal status turns out to be the Empress (I’m figuring that by this time King has abdicated and enjoying his retirement.) has made it clear in a very formal way that the androids’ are officially under her protection. It’s still going to be a very thorny issue. The androids are unequivocally the result of then activities of a criminal conspiracy but they have not, themselves, apparently broken any law. Looking forward to how this story plays out.

        I figure Smith and “Jones” (somebody will get the reference) will be grilled heavily by Ivan when he arrives and will be held incommunicado until the authorities can pounce. The authorities will have to move swiftly, though, of the badguys will figure something’s up when Smith and Jones fail to return with the missing machines. Such individuals would not consider the machines “people” but merely valuable property to be destroyed so as to prevent evidence of their crimes from getting to court. Should be interesting.

        • President Elect B Woodman
          December 9, 2021, 06:42 | # | Reply

          “Grilled heavily”…..to well done.

        • President Elect B Woodman
          December 9, 2021, 06:46 | # | Reply

          Smith and “Jones”…..are you sure those are their real names, and not an “alias”?
          (hehehehe)

          • Bill Mullins
            December 10, 2021, 08:27 | # | Reply

            😉

        • Petercat
          December 9, 2021, 06:55 | # | Reply

          The whole “protection” thing was Jochi’s idea.

    • robnot
      December 8, 2021, 22:31 | # | Reply

      as i sed.. once Spirit got involved so did Teresa.. Spirit is Daggers offspring..

      unless the ships are “refurbished” core world ships.. i would say they are guessing by tonnage/size,. because they have never seen em before.!

    • JasonAW3
      December 9, 2021, 12:53 | # | Reply

      When it absolutely, positively, WILL be there: Wolf Empire Dreadnaught Express!

  2. Bill Mullins
    December 8, 2021, 20:33 | # | Reply

    Hell of a convoy! But then in they are going into (what for the empire amounts to) “injun country”. When you’re not sure what sort of welcome you might receive it never hurts to be prepared. What’s the paraphrase of the 23rd psalm? “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for I am the meanest SOB in the valley.” Or “Walk softly but carry a FREAKING HUGE stick!”

    • JasonAW3
      December 10, 2021, 19:39 | # | Reply

      Bill, they’re Catians… Of course they’re going to walk softly, but they don’t carry a big stick, but the whole freaking lumber yard!

  3. President Elect B Woodman
    December 8, 2021, 22:22 | # | Reply

    Cpt Chardis, what a planner, a schemer, a thinker.
    First, she is threatened by The Horned Ones (THOse….snicker), even after she explains she is on a diplomatic mission. So thus starts a war.
    Then, Cpt C nullified THOse threat.
    Then she gave THOse an ultimatum…..either remain soldiers of the Core Worlds, and be KIA in time of war. And too many people and worlds will die because of THOse idiocy.
    OR
    Allow yourself to be declared pirates. That removes the war (and the instant annihilation). But that now makes THOse outside any government laws (as if any world government would protect and defend you after your bone head move).
    I’d say Cpt C is an excellent chess player. Check, and mate.

  4. Bill Mullins
    December 9, 2021, 06:20 | # | Reply

    Catman, (or anybody) what’s with the special treatment of the Dogs? Are they now under imperial protection?

    • Petercat
      December 9, 2021, 06:52 | # | Reply

      The Cat sayeth nothing.
      Except check your email.

      • JasonAW3
        December 9, 2021, 12:56 | # | Reply

        We now need a Dread naught named ISS Dragonfly…

        • Petercat
          December 9, 2021, 14:47 | # | Reply

          Perhaps a scout ship?

          • JasonAW3
            December 10, 2021, 07:16 | # | Reply

            A scout ship would be good, but the irony of a dreadnaught named after an innocuous creature just kind of appeals to me…

  5. Jochi
    December 9, 2021, 11:04 | # | Reply

    Yeah, dragonflies were the only way I could see that Teresa — thought King was supposed to
    retire on her return — could already know what was going on here. That means that my speculation
    about whether Aaron has been apprised of what is happening with the AIs aboard the Catia’s Pride
    was wrong. I am thoroughly surprised their telepathy is instantaneous across interstellar distances.

    It also puts the kibosh on another speculation of mine that I think I’ve only shared in private — whether
    the wormholes’ ends are at the same time or as different as they are in space. I said it didn’t matter, as
    long as they were still in a space-like separation, unless there were multiple wormholes in a closed loop
    that could allow time travel. At the risk of boring you, separations between points in time-space are
    considered time-like if a photon leaving one can get to the other point in space before that point in time,
    and space-like if photons leaving either would arrive after that time in the other. In the latter case,
    neither can affect the other, without FTL communication, or a wormhole, or some such. But unless the
    dragonflies’ telepathy is passing through the wormholes somehow, the ends of the wormholes are
    separated by space and not by time, and you can’t go through a closed loop A->B, B->C, C->A and
    arrive before you left. Also, the dragonflies represent yet another unbeatable strategic advantage to
    the Empire. They can communicate across interstellar distances faster and far more securely than
    sending message drones through a wormhole.

    • Petercat
      December 9, 2021, 14:52 | # | Reply

      My biggest regret is that I’ve made the Empire’s weapons too powerful. When
      I came up with the idea of amplifying and aiming gravity, I hadn’t thought
      through all of the implications.
      So no, the Dragonflies can not communicate through a wormhole, and there
      are distance limits on both telepathy and teleportation. And there are
      some people who’s minds they can/will not read.
      I’ll leave speculation on that to you.

      • iainnahearadh
        December 10, 2021, 03:00 | # | Reply

        PeterCat,

        Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about superior weapons and related Technology.

        Don’t forget the Dragon empire are also exploring a Universe where many other races achieved Space-faring technology and related skills, many centuries, or even, millennia ago.
        The Dragon empire may have lucked out with getting there Gravity based Technology first, but history is full of events, be they Sad, Silly or Operatic, that clearly show it’s not the technology, but the people behind it, that count.

        The Dragon empire have many centuries, and millennia, to catch up the Civilization level of other races. This includes things such as Medical Technology, Energy use, Law, Social Custom and all of the other things that make a advanced civilization.

        Then of course, the Dragon Empire now have a target on their backs.
        They have technology that everyone will want, and must work hard to protect it from exploitation, particularly from those would steal it, at any cost, by any means possible.

        As has already been seen, courtesy of your own story-line, you can’t even trust your own staff and citizens not to Fudge things up with something as simple as a Sex-bot.

        Now multiply that problem where wealth, power and Machiavellian intrigue come into play.
        Then come back and tell me where being the only kid on the Block with a Nuclear Weapon equivalent is of even the remotest use?

        The downfall of Ancient, Rome, then Napoleon are both an excellent example of what happens when you get things seriously wrong. This, even though Napoleon, like Rome, had the best standing army and the best weapons technology, by far.

        In the case of Napoleon, although his enemies weren’t as powerful, when your the biggest and wealthiest target, all of the Elites in the other Kingdoms want you out of the way, so they can loot your Kingdom.

        Like Napoleon, the ancient Roman’s, Aztecs and other like civilizations didn’t lose because they weren’t a more powerful force, unfortunately, like Napoleon, they were betrayed from within.

        The real challenge lies in managing that scenario, before Brutus, or Pence, shows up.

      • rob stanley
        December 10, 2021, 09:20 | # | Reply

        ..superior tech (ST)… history is ripe with ST , but never used or if used was destroyed .. IE: Greek Fire,. it was so devastating , that they killed any an all with knowledge of it..
        or,.. the US had the “bomb” a good 5 years before anyone else…

      • Jochi
        December 10, 2021, 10:49 | # | Reply

        Teleportation? I missed something. Unless you are talking about the wormholes.
        Early on I tried to think of something another entity could harness that would
        enable them to compete with, or even resist, the Empire’s gravity control.
        Teleportation was one. Matter transformation (replicators for instance) was
        another. The two could even be linked, like they are in Star Trek. I just thought
        of another one: Cavorite. Not necessarily a substance, maybe a field that cuts
        off gravity. It could be used to achieve low orbit by the buoyancy of the craft
        (and to a lesser extent that of the air above it, by whatever fraction of the
        planet is eclipsed by the craft) but not interplanetary travel at any practical
        speed, it could to a certain extent resist the Empire’s weaponry (chiefly by
        making a gravity lock impossible. Rail guns would still be deadly.) So, a
        partial answer at best.
        The more likely answer is the one the Soviets used. Recreate the research
        and steal what you can’t recreate. Matter of fact, I’d assume the Empire’s
        counterintelligence agencies were kept constantly busy with that one.

        • Jochi
          December 10, 2021, 10:55 | # | Reply

          Strictly speaking, Cavorite isn’t antigravity, it isn’t repulsive. It’s agravity,
          gravity doesn’t apply. Like the difference between amoral and immoral.

        • robnot
          December 10, 2021, 14:38 | # | Reply

          the Dragonfly’s teleport…

      • JasonAW3
        December 10, 2021, 23:38 | # | Reply

        I have learned, over the years, that the more complex and sophisticated you make any system, the easier it is to come up with a low tech countermeasures. Sand in the gears of an engine, lightening for unsheilded electronics, a long breaker bar jammed into the treads of a tank, and so on…

        The problem is that everyone will soon, within a couple of decades, either the Wolf Empire will have the majority of the Fringe and Core worlds as allies, or there will be a multi tiered Cold War

        • Petercat
          December 11, 2021, 03:55 | # | Reply

          Yes.
          Now to figure out some ways for the Core Worlds to counteract the
          Empire’s advantages. Ideas, Jason?

          • rob stanley
            December 11, 2021, 09:56 | # | Reply

            sand casters… kinda like chaff,, but, really fine sand between,. will cause missiles to detonate early, hyperkinetic / relative rounds to vaporize, and no positive lock for the grav stuff…
            oh and some defusing of the laser’s…

          • rob stanley
            December 11, 2021, 10:12 | # | Reply

            mylar blankets scattered around the hull.. spoofs the radar, they know you are there,, just not exactly where..
            throw out a few mylar balloons, and your outline is really distorted…

            • rob stanley
              December 11, 2021, 10:21 | # | Reply

              hyper pulse radar… any active scan , the unit receives the scan signal duplicates the signal dozens of time,. then sends the signals back micro seconds apart,.. you now have multiple targets over a large area..

    • Jochi
      December 9, 2021, 21:07 | # | Reply

      I’m an idiot. For Teresa to be communicating by phone, she’s already back in the Sol system,
      and judging from the short delay, probably on Earth, certainly no farther away than Luna. So,
      most of the conclusions I drew assuming she was still on Catia are bogus. The dragonflies’
      telepathy may or may not be FTL, time travel via a loop of wormholes may or may not be possible,
      and she may in fact already be Empress officially and not just ‘acting’, with or without a formal
      coronation.

      • rob stanley
        December 10, 2021, 09:23 | # | Reply

        just saying,, . i think the short delay ( …. ) in panel 2 was Teresa asking Aaron to put her on speaker phone…

        • Jochi
          December 10, 2021, 10:01 | # | Reply

          I agree, although she may have told him other things. But there is no minutes-long delay
          between “you are on speaker” and “thank you Aaron”. Negligible or a couple of seconds.
          So, she’s probably on Earth, certainly no farther away than Luna.

  6. Jochi
    December 9, 2021, 11:07 | # | Reply

    1. Should have added quantum entanglement as a specific possibility for FTL communication.
    2. Also, was that easier to read, or are the lines still too long?

    • JasonAW3
      December 9, 2021, 12:59 | # | Reply

      You know, most physicists are saying that you can’t communicate via quantum entangled particles, ( I think they may be in error) but they SHOULD be capable of being used as a time code between worlds and starsystems.

      • Bill Mullins
        December 10, 2021, 06:09 | # | Reply

        According to Sabine Hossenfelder, a genuine physicist who posts videos on youtube, the act of reading the state of the entangled pairs disrupts the entanglement. Lightspeed is the velocity of propagation of INFORMATION. There appears to be no way to get around that limit. It appears to be a fundamental property of spacetime. Professor Hossenfelder pointed out that the alleged FTL travel (warp drive) involve quantities and properties which do not appear in the real universe. Math is useful but you can do things with math which you cannot do i. The real world. Math allows for negative numbers but is impossible to have a negative number of things. My understanding is that Professor Alcubierre decided to see what effect plugging a value greater than C into some formula would have. The math works nicely but that does not equate to it being possible. You can plug a velocity greater than C into the old Lorentz-Fitzgerald formula. And the math works just fine. The problem is that the result would produce mass, time and length values which can only be expressed as complex or imaginary numbers. Thinking about something having imaginary mass gives me a headache. Likewise length and time. Not everything in math maps to the real world. I once worked with a truly brilliant mathematician. (Actually there were several truly brilliant people there. I learned the meaning of the word working there.) who told me that literally NOBODY KNOWS what the result of division by zero would be. It is “undefined” because nobody has a clue how to describe the result. The function only maps one way; you cannot reverse it. Likewise with multiplication by zero. The function only maps one way. Not everything which works with math works in the real world. FYI, plugging velocity equal C in Lorentz-Fitzgerald yields a factor of the square root of zero. Wonder what you get if you multiply something by the square root of zero? And if division by zero is “undefined” then what would be the result of division by the SQUARE ROOT OF ZERO/b> be?????

        • Jochi
          December 10, 2021, 10:30 | # | Reply

          Calm down, Bill. Zero squared is zero, so the square root of zero is zero.
          Graph the function square root of x and as x approaches zero, so does it’s
          square root. Graph 1/x and as it approaches zero it soars to infinity. The
          way the Lorentz transformations work, as velocity approaches c, mass
          and kinetic energy approach infinity. So traveling AT c for anything that
          doesn’t have zero rest mass like a photon is impossible under our current
          understanding. Several of you know more about electric circuits than I
          learned in college, so you know that negative numbers do describe real
          things, and so do imaginary numbers. Impedance and capacitance are
          described with them. They describe time-dependent things that have
          happened or will happen. In 3D modeling they describe rotations. The
          word imaginary in the term imaginary numbers is a misnomer. In the real
          world they describe change.

          Now, I also know about reading either particle disrupting the entanglement.
          I anticipate it is possible that is an engineering issue, not a physics one,
          remotely possible granted. But I also know that our understanding of
          physics is far from complete. Quantum mechanics and general relativity work
          nicely in their own arenas but do not fit together in any way so far testable,
          and BOTH have had to introduce fudge factors to maintain that ‘working
          nicely’. The latest on the macroscopic scale is “Dark Energy”, which is a
          label for a purported cause of an apparent phenomenon and not something
          anyone really understands. My gut feeling is that our understanding of time,
          space, light or gravity is wrong, possibly all four. It really feels like the fudge
          factors astronomers were applying to try to preserve the ideal of Celestial
          Spheres, or physicists were applying at the turn of the 20th century to try
          to preserve the idea of Luminous Aether. The real answer as we all know
          now is that those ideas were wrong.

          • robnot
            December 10, 2021, 14:15 | # | Reply

            .. any advanced science is indistinguishable from magic .. over a hundred years ago, by science , man on the moon , impossible,. going faster than sound, impossible,. flying hundreds of people across the globe, in hours,. impossible.. (around the world in 80 days,, science fiction.!)

    • notStanley
      December 9, 2021, 14:22 | # | Reply

      those lines were good reading length for me!

  7. Jochi
    December 9, 2021, 21:13 | # | Reply

    The captain’s a ginger. What’s she got against the Irish?

    • robnot
      December 10, 2021, 13:46 | # | Reply

      hehe,, tho you can’t tell now… i’m a ginger…

    • Petercat
      December 10, 2021, 14:26 | # | Reply

      No, no, she LOVES the Irish!
      Ever since that bar fight in O’reilly’s Pub in Jerico…

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