Listening to the birds Part 1

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From: A.C. Peters (rock_doc@prometheus_forge.fen)
To: Col. Mal Fnord, USSRAF (23@globalfrequency.fen)
Subject: Listening to the birds...
Date: Sat July 13th 2013

Mal,

A little bird has whispered to me about a project an engineer of your acquaintance is currently involved with. Given certain requests being made of me in that vain I'm a bit worried how they'll be taken around your place.

Fortunately you've recently hired another engineer of my acquaintance for a little trip, and I hope on Yuri's bones that goes well for both of you (given what I've heard about why you're doing it I can say I know how that feels Mal, for Picard's sake do I know), and that gives me an opportunity to offer a trial period.

I have one eager Tachikoma willing to join your expedition that I'm willing to loan to you as long as Sora keeps an eye on it. Not much I know, but it comes with a selection of useful drones for use on the expedition fleet. This one has also been modified with a micro-warp drive (fresh out of Leonard's talks with Indiana out at Hades) which should allow travel between the fleet at FTL.

If all goes well with this one I will look the other way if you want more from Lebia.

I'm not sure how you're set up for Interwave, but I suppose I could pass on a few of the pre-release Mk. 2 systems. If nothing else they'll give you more room.

Interested?

A.C.

P.S. That other project... Well, I'm still thinking about that.


From: Col. Mal Fnord, VVS (23@globalfrequency.fen)
To: A.C. Peters (rock_doc@prometheus_forge.fen)
Subject: Re: Listening to the birds...
Date: Sat July 13th 2013

> Mal, A little bird has whispered to me about a project an engineer of
> your acquaintance is currently involved with. Given certain requests
> being made of me in that vain I'm a bit worried how they'll be taken
> around your place.

All I can say to that is you never know until you ask...

> Fortunately you've recently hired another engineer of my acquaintance
> for a little trip, and I hope on Yuri's bones that goes well for both
> of you (given what I've heard about why you're doing it I can say I
> know how that feels Mal, for Picard's sake do I know), and that gives
> me an opportunity to offer a trial period.
>
> I have one eager Tachikoma willing to join your expedition that I'm
> willing to loan to you as long as Sora keeps an eye on it. Not much I
> know, but it comes with a selection of useful drones for use on the
> expedition fleet. This one has also been modified with a micro-warp
> drive (fresh out of Leonard's talks with Indiana out at Hades) which
> should allow travel between the fleet at FTL.

Hm, I'm not adverse to having another high-mobility unit with the expedition, but if you want Sora specifically to watch it that presents me with a problem. Cargo volume on Ptichka's tight for this run; we're carrying all the commo relay gear plus a couple dozen NGS picosats, so if we're going to haul a Tachikoma I need to know how to origami it into the bay, which is a massive pain in the ass, or set up a docking rig on the forward dorsal, which is *also* a massive pain in the ass.

As for the micro-warp, we've got a few lighters capable of getting back to Sol from deep interstellar if necessary. We're not planning on needing to shuttle crew back & forth while were in warp, and if emergencies happen we're more than set for lifeboats. Shuttle capability might be nice, but it's not a requirement.

> If all goes well with this one I will look the other way if you want
> more from Lebia.

I'll pass that along to KJ, I'm sure he'll be thrilled to finally get his army of spidertanks.

> I'm not sure how you're set up for Interwave, but I suppose I could
> pass on a few of the pre-release Mk. 2 systems. If nothing else
> they'll give you more room.

Might be useful. What's their deep-space rating? If we can reduce the volume on the relay sats we can haul more scientific gear.

> Interested?
>
> A.C.
>
> P.S. That other project... Well, I'm still thinking about that.

Don't think too long, but as it stands you can always send a telegram to the right people.

--Mal


From: A.C. Peters (rock_doc@prometheus_forge.fen)
To: Col. Mal Fnord, VVS (23@globalfrequency.fen)
Subject: Re: Listening to the birds...
Date: Sat July 13th 2013

> > Mal, A little bird has whispered to me about a project an engineer of
> > your acquaintance is currently involved with. Given certain requests
> > being made of me in that vain I'm a bit worried how they'll be taken
> > around your place.
>
> All I can say to that is you never know until you ask...

I was thinking Plausible Deniability really...

> > I have one eager Tachikoma willing to join your expedition that I'm
> > willing to loan to you as long as Sora keeps an eye on it. Not much I
> > know, but it comes with a selection of useful drones for use on the
> > expedition fleet. This one has also been modified with a micro-warp
> > drive (fresh out of Leonard's talks with Indiana out at Hades) which
> > should allow travel between the fleet at FTL.
>
> Hm, I'm not adverse to having another high-mobility unit with the expedition,
> but if you want Sora specifically to watch it that presents me with a problem.
> Cargo volume on Ptichka's tight for this run; we're carrying all the commo relay
> gear plus a couple dozen NGS picosats, so if we're going to haul a Tachikoma
> I need to know how to origami it into the bay, which is a massive pain in the ass,
> or set up a docking rig on the forward dorsal, which is *also* a massive pain in
> the ass.

That's quite a load She's carrying.

It's not as bad as it seems. Given the method Lebia used in their construction they're practically Hardtech AIs. I've just been cautious before running them past some Turing Tests. However, I'm thinking the first ones may get their shot about the beginning of August. Depending on how that goes and what reports Sora sends my way before push off, I may put this one through the same. If not, well you guys should have gotten used to it and Sora should have gotten to know you well enough to have someone on a bigger ship look after it. Worst comes to worst Lebia can tell you how to pull the AI core and mount it in something smaller for the trips there and back. Probably a Tree drone, they're smaller and more useful on delicate work.

> As for the micro-warp, we've got a few lighters capable of getting back to Sol
> from deep interstellar if necessary. We're not planning on needing to shuttle
> crew back & forth while were in warp, and if emergencies happen we're more
> than set for lifeboats. Shuttle capability might be nice, but it's not a requirement.

Nether the less its there. Leonard would like some data on how it performs, but it's not critical.

>
> > If all goes well with this one I will look the other way if you want
> > more from Lebia.
>
> I'll pass that along to KJ, I'm sure he'll be thrilled to finally get his army of
> spidertanks.

Army? SNORT. Yaright. Lebia can't produce them that fast. I know some good cyber-mechanics who have some Landmates available if KJ wants to bulk up quickly.

>
> > I'm not sure how you're set up for Interwave, but I suppose I could
> > pass on a few of the pre-release Mk. 2 systems. If nothing else
> > they'll give you more room.
>
> Might be useful. What's their deep-space rating? If we can reduce the volume
> on the relay sats we can haul more scientific gear.

Depends on your bandwidth. At standard current Interwave bandwidth, about ten times the norm. Not bad for something a quarter the size eh? There's some problems with the fall-off curve against error correction so at, say, 32MBs it's only 20 times. Give me your requirements and I'll work it out more accurately. Also they still take the same amount of power to run, so you can't cut the generators down.

> > P.S. That other project... Well, I'm still thinking about that.
>
> Don't think too long, but as it stands you can always send a telegram to the
> right people.

Noah and I are doing some horse-trading on this, so keep an eye out.

A.C.


From: Col. Mal Fnord, VVS (23@globalfrequency.fen)
To: A.C. Peters (rock_doc@prometheus_forge.fen)
Subject: Re: Listening to the birds...
Date: Sat July 13th 2013

>> All I can say to that is you never know until you ask...
>
> I was thinking Plausible Deniability really...

In my experience deniability has never been especially plausible. Of course, that's just my experience, what with the running and the screaming and the gunfire etc.

>> Hm, I'm not adverse to having another high-mobility unit with the
>> expedition, but if you want Sora specifically to watch it that
>> presents me with a problem. Cargo volume on Ptichka's tight for
>> this run; we're carrying all the commo relay gear plus a couple
>> dozen NGS picosats, so if we're going to haul a Tachikoma I need to
>> know how to origami it into the bay, which is a massive pain in the
>> ass, or set up a docking rig on the forward dorsal, which is *also*
>> a massive pain in the ass.
>
> That's quite a load She's carrying.

Not really, at least not in mass terms. The relays mass maybe five tons in total, and the picosats are tiny things; you could stuff the whole lot and the launcher into a large backpack if you needed to. We've pulled heavier stuff - the CNES base station we planted on Mercury, for one.

The big problem is *space.* The relays are bulky enough that they make hauling other cargo difficult at best. If I can squeeze out enough cubic to fit a tachikoma, then that tachikoma's not going to be able to *do* much of anything except surf the intranet for a good chunk of the trip. Of course, Ptichka's cargo bay is narrow enough that that'd probably happen even if we were running with an otherwise empty bay, but whatever.

> It's not as bad as it seems. Given the method Lebia used in their
> construction they're practically Hardtech AIs. I've just been
> cautious before running them past some Turing Tests. However, I'm
> thinking the first ones may get their shot about the beginning of
> August. Depending on how that goes and what reports Sora sends my way
> before push off, I may put this one through the same. If not, well
> you guys should have gotten used to it and Sora should have gotten to
> know you well enough to have someone on a bigger ship look after it.
> Worst comes to worst Lebia can tell you how to pull the AI core and
> mount it in something smaller for the trips there and back. Probably
> a Tree drone, they're smaller and more useful on delicate work.

Send me some specs on stowage possibilities and Sora & I will look into it. My initial thought is that the tachikoma would be more useful on the Gagarin in-flight than on Ptichka, but that would mean leaving either a live tachikoma or a vacant tachikoma shell around where Dee could get at it. That would be... inopportune for a lot of reasons I won't go into.

LIS, send me some specs & we'll work this out.

Re: the Tree drone, are we talking bushbot? And if so, what kind of scale are you getting? We might be interested in getting a few of those for the yard if they're right.

>> As for the micro-warp, we've got a few lighters capable of getting
>> back to Sol from deep interstellar if necessary. We're not planning
>> on needing to shuttle crew back & forth while were in warp, and if
>> emergencies happen we're more than set for lifeboats. Shuttle
>> capability might be nice, but it's not a requirement.
>
> Nether the less its there. Leonard would like some data on how it
> performs, but it's not critical.

All I can say is barring accident or incident we intend to be within D.Pav's Limit for the majority of our time insystem. If Leonard & Indy want some experimental data Hades makes for a better test ground anyway.

>> I'll pass that along to KJ, I'm sure he'll be thrilled to finally
>> get his army of spidertanks.
>
> Army? SNORT. Yaright. Lebia can't produce them that fast. I know some
> good cyber-mechanics who have some Landmates available if KJ wants to
> bulk up quickly.
  • shrug* I'm CinC of an "Air Force" that is composed of less than a dozen aircraft and one refugee from a Kubrick movie. It's the principle of the thing, dammit.
>> Might be useful. What's their deep-space rating? If we can reduce
>> the volume on the relay sats we can haul more scientific gear.
>
> Depends on your bandwidth. At standard current Interwave bandwidth,
> about ten times the norm. Not bad for something a quarter the size
> eh? There's some problems with the fall-off curve against error
> correction so at, say, 32MBs it's only 20 times. Give me your
> requirements and I'll work it out more accurately. Also they still
> take the same amount of power to run, so you can't cut the generators
> down.

Well, the bandwidth info is useful but what I *meant* was "are they rated for extended operations Outside?" The relays need to be able to stand up to a cold soak in open space for a minimum of the six weeks we're staying in the system, and preferably they need to stand up for at least another two years so we can keep getting data back from the flyby probes & the rest of the automated instrumentation. We don't really need a phat bandwidth pipe - being at the other end of a three hour FTL-lag means we won't be doing much websurfing on site - we need maximum durability for each relay we deploy.

>>> P.S. That other project... Well, I'm still thinking about that.
>>
>> Don't think too long, but as it stands you can always send a
>> telegram to the right people.
>
> Noah and I are doing some horse-trading on this, so keep an eye out.

I'll be interested to know who ends up with whose horse this time.

--Mal


From: A.C. Peters (rock_doc@prometheus_forge.fen)
To: Col. Mal Fnord, VVS (23@globalfrequency.fen)
Subject: Re: Listening to the birds...
Date: Sat July 13th 2013

>>> All I can say to that is you never know until you ask...
>>
>> I was thinking Plausible Deniability really...
>
> In my experience deniability has never been especially plausible. Of course,
> that's just my experience, what with the running and the screaming and the
> gunfire etc.

Let's just say I know some things on this score, and leave it at that then?

> Send me some specs on stowage possibilities and Sora & I will look into it. My
> initial thought is that the tachikoma would be more useful on the Gagarin
> in-flight than on Ptichka, but that would mean leaving either a live tachikoma or
> a vacant tachikoma shell around where Dee could get at it. That would be...
> inopportune for a lot of reasons I won't go into.

Inopportune? Inopportune is letting Kohran & Eddie become friends, although it'll be less of a problem now Kohran's more busy.

> LIS, send me some specs & we'll work this out.

Sent.

> Re: the Tree drone, are we talking bushbot? And if so, what kind of scale are
> you getting? We might be interested in getting a few of those for the yard if
> they're right.

Yes, they're bushbots more or less, just with less arms. Standard drone averages 1.5*1*1M in operation. They can compact to 70cm tall and fit inside their 50cm wide octagonal base. They're also only 50kg, so are easy to move or mount etc. We can do larger ones.

Maybe I'll put together a brochure about my drones like Kasumi did for the Clay Pigeons.

>>> I'll pass that along to KJ, I'm sure he'll be thrilled to finally
>>> get his army of spidertanks.
>>
>> Army? SNORT. Yaright. Lebia can't produce them that fast. I know some
>> good cyber-mechanics who have some Landmates available if KJ wants to
>> bulk up quickly.
>
> *shrug* I'm CinC of an "Air Force" that is composed of less than a dozen
> aircraft and one refugee from a Kubrick movie. It's the principle of the thing,
> dammit.

Pot, thou art black.

Seriously, I'm rather glad Yu-Te-Na seems to be against the Senshi Justice faction's current fixation with Ms Suzumiya. Otherwise I might have to stop running from the Senshi and have to start just running them.

Exageration? I certainly hope with all my might that this is so, but my gut feeling is worse.

But that's neither here or there.

If you want to send me a wish list, I'll see what's available. It'll probably be expensive as heck but...

> Well, the bandwidth info is useful but what I *meant* was "are they rated for
> extended operations Outside?" The relays need to be able to stand up to a cold
> soak in open space for a minimum of the six weeks we're staying in the system,
> and preferably they need to stand up for at least another two years so we can
> keep getting data back from the flyby probes & the rest of the automated
> instrumentation. We don't really need a phat bandwidth pipe - being at the other
> end of a three hour FTL-lag means we won't be doing much websurfing on site
> - we need maximum durability for each relay we deploy.

OK, we're doing a test on this at the moment. But current results show them as no worse than currently deployed. No better yet, but certainly no worse. The reduced size makes them easier to shield anyway.

More details as they come to us.

>> Noah and I are doing some horse-trading on this, so keep an eye out.
> I'll be interested to know who ends up with whose horse this time.

Why Mal, I didn't know you were so kinky. ^_-

Honestly, fulfilling the requirements is what's taking up the current talk


From: Col. Mal Fnord, VVS (23@globalfrequency.fen)
To: A.C. Peters (rock_doc@prometheus_forge.fen)
Subject: Re: Listening to the birds...
Date: Sat July 13th 2013

> Let's just say I know some things on this score, and leave it at that
> then?

Fair enough; I'll leave that sort of thing to people with a better sense of subtlety.

>> Send me some specs on stowage possibilities and Sora & I will look
>> into it. My initial thought is that the tachikoma would be more
>> useful on the Gagarin in-flight than on Ptichka, but that would
>> mean leaving either a live tachikoma or a vacant tachikoma shell
>> around where Dee could get at it. That would be... inopportune for
>> a lot of reasons I won't go into.
>
> Inopportune? Inopportune is letting Kohran & Eddie become friends,
> although it'll be less of a problem now Kohran's more busy.

Eddie & Kohran like the 'splody, and I understand that. Hell, *I* like the 'splody - we've got a DVD of nuclear test footage that's a perennial favorite on movie nights. But aside from that both of 'em are largely harmless.

Dee, OTOH, is something else entirely. I can't say much without betraying some confidences, but her work goes way past the bleeding edge, even past where you & the other Confederation hotshots are. Really heavy-duty Kurzweil stuff, if you follow my meaning. I love Dee dearly; she's part of my crew & a loyal friend, but she can scare the hell out of me some days.

But that's neither here nor there. Onward.

>> LIS, send me some specs & we'll work this out.
>
> Sent.

Hm. Allright.

Looking at the specs, I think we can pull this one off with minimal hassle. Space'll be tight, but that's always the case on a heavy run like this one. Mobility will be close to zero until the relays are deployed, but that's not so long and if we need it for space ops before then it should be able to just kick straight up & out. Plugging it into the expedition intranet shouldn't be a problem, either.

Yeah, okay. Let's do this thing.

>> Re: the Tree drone, are we talking bushbot? And if so, what kind of
>> scale are you getting? We might be interested in getting a few of
>> those for the yard if they're right.
>
> Yes, they're bushbots more or less, just with less arms. Standard
> drone averages 1.5*1*1M in operation. They can compact to 70cm tall
> and fit inside their 50cm wide octagonal base. They're also only
> 50kg, so are easy to move or mount etc. We can do larger ones.

How's the downscale? I'm assuming you haven't gotten to nanometer scale on the manipulators yet.

> Maybe I'll put together a brochure about my drones like Kasumi did
> for the Clay Pigeons.

Yeah, you ought to. If they're easy enough to operate or program, every shipyard and fabricator in the system would sell their grandmothers to zwilniks to get one.

>> *shrug* I'm CinC of an "Air Force" that is composed of less than a
>> dozen aircraft and one refugee from a Kubrick movie. It's the
>> principle of the thing, dammit.
>
> Pot, thou art black.

Moi? Surely you jest. ;)

> Seriously, I'm rather glad Yu-Te-Na seems to be against the Senshi
> Justice faction's current fixation with Ms Suzumiya. Otherwise I
> might have to stop running from the Senshi and have to start just
> running them.
>
> Exageration? I certainly hope with all my might that this is so, but
> my gut feeling is worse.
  • shrug* From my experience, if the Senshi decide to hand over the reins to Suzumiya then they reap what they sow. And to be honest, if they *don't* end up shipping her to Ishtar Terra without a suit after six months of her direct rule I'll be very fucking surprised.

Either way, I wouldn't go running to correct their mistakes; if you do that then they'll never learn, and you'll be stuck with a job you hate. Here endeth the lesson.

> If you want to send me a wish list, I'll see what's available. It'll
> probably be expensive as heck but...

What's your going rate for blueprints? Our fabs aren't as hardcore as Hephaestus or Clark Universal, but this is where Dee's more TMWNMTKish tendencies come in handy. I'll bet you there's very little that you can design that we can't build.

>> Well, the bandwidth info is useful but what I *meant* was "are they
>> rated for extended operations Outside?" The relays need to be able
>> to stand up to a cold soak in open space for a minimum of the six
>> weeks we're staying in the system, and preferably they need to
>> stand up for at least another two years so we can keep getting data
>> back from the flyby probes & the rest of the automated
>> instrumentation. We don't really need a phat bandwidth pipe - being
>> at the other end of a three hour FTL-lag means we won't be doing
>> much websurfing on site - we need maximum durability for each relay
>> we deploy.
>
> OK, we're doing a test on this at the moment. But current results
> show them as no worse than currently deployed. No better yet, but
> certainly no worse. The reduced size makes them easier to shield
> anyway.
>
> More details as they come to us.

Okay, that's more what I needed to hear. They don't need to be super-strong, just as durable as the standard relays. Plus, if we can drop the stowed volume of the relays by 25% each it'd free up some extra deck space for the tachikoma and allow for some more redundancy in the comms network.

>> I'll be interested to know who ends up with whose horse this time.
>
> Why Mal, I didn't know you were so kinky. ^_-

I've been working on getting my "Dirty Old Man" merit badge in my spare time. You know how it goes.

--Mal


From: A.C. Peters (rock_doc@prometheus_forge.fen)
To: Col. Mal Fnord, VVS (23@globalfrequency.fen)
Subject: Re: Listening to the birds...
Date: Sun July 14th 2014

>> Inopportune? Inopportune is letting Kohran & Eddie become friends,
>> although it'll be less of a problem now Kohran's more busy.
>
> Eddie & Kohran like the 'splody, and I understand that. Hell, *I* like the
> 'splody - we've got a DVD of nuclear test footage that's a perennial favorite
> on movie nights. But aside from that both of 'em are largely harmless.

I can point you at a former Rock that says otherwise.

> Dee, OTOH, is something else entirely. I can't say much without betraying
> some confidences, but her work goes way past the bleeding edge, even past
> where you & the other Confederation hotshots are.

Given some of the stuff I know about that you probably don't, I'm fairly sceptical of that claim. I'll let it slide for now.

> Really heavy-duty Kurzweil stuff, if you follow my meaning. I love Dee
> dearly; she's part of my crew & a loyal friend, but she can scare the hell out
> of me some days.

I'm ashamed to say I had to look Kurzweil up, but yeah. Leonard's a lot like that at times. So am I in fact, when my hair is especially Blue.

> Looking at the specs, I think we can pull this one off with minimal hassle.
> Space'll be tight, but that's always the case on a heavy run like this one.
> Mobility will be close to zero until the relays are deployed, but that's not so
> long and if we need it for space ops before then it should be able to just kick
> straight up & out. Plugging it into the expedition intranet shouldn't be a
> problem, either.
>
> Yeah, okay. Let's do this thing.

When do you want delivery?

>> Yes, they're bushbots more or less, just with less arms. Standard
>> drone averages 1.5*1*1M in operation. They can compact to 70cm tall
>> and fit inside their 50cm wide octagonal base. They're also only
>> 50kg, so are easy to move or mount etc. We can do larger ones.
>
> How's the downscale? I'm assuming you haven't gotten to nanometer scale
> on the manipulators yet.

Um... We do NOW. We've got an X-Ray lithograph working, and Lebia had some ideas. It's still in early prototyping ATM, so it's not available (and all credit to Dee, but she's nowhere near powerful enough to run this thing anyway).

Anyway, the smallest effective one we can do is 12cm in diameter and 20cm tall. Had to offload the processing to an external core though. The standard manipulators on all of these are 1mm, accurate to about half that. We do have tools for greater accuracy, as well as specialised manipulator extensions.

>> Maybe I'll put together a brochure about my drones like Kasumi did
>> for the Clay Pigeons.
>
> Yeah, you ought to. If they're easy enough to operate or program, every
> shipyard and fabricator in the system would sell their grandmothers to
> zwilniks to get one.

Programming them is much easier now that we've worked up tools to do it instead of working raw code (fairly trivial for any class 3 A.I. or above anyway). Operating them however depends on what you're doing. Certain things need the personal touch, you know?

>> If you want to send me a wish list, I'll see what's available. It'll
>> probably be expensive as heck but...
>
> What's your going rate for blueprints? Our fabs aren't as hardcore as
> Hephaestus or Clark Universal, but this is where Dee's more
> TMWNMTKish tendencies come in handy. I'll bet you there's very little
> that you can design that we can't build.

Some of my designs *I* can't build, and the Professor is VERY impressed with my R&D facilities. The going rates for blueprints (or licensing) depends on what it is, how dangerous it would be if it got out uncontrolled, and who's doing the asking. We both have stuff we don't want out on the space lanes without our watchful eyes on them.

Prices for current stuff I offer attached, and negotiation is possible. Any special stuff you want you'll have to ask personally.

> Okay, that's more what I needed to hear. They don't need to be super-strong,
> just as durable as the standard relays. Plus, if we can drop the stowed volume
> of the relays by 25% each it'd free up some extra deck space for the
> tachikoma and allow for some more redundancy in the comms network.

Sent full specs, prices and estimated delivery times in a separate email.

>>> I'll be interested to know who ends up with whose horse this time.
>>
>> Why Mal, I didn't know you were so kinky. ^_-
>
> I've been working on getting my "Dirty Old Man" merit badge in my spare
> time. You know how it goes.

Yeah. If I wasn't so busy I could be convinced to help out on that. Force knows I could use the relaxation.

P.S. When's your promotion party?


From: A.C. Peters (rock_doc@prometheus_forge.fen)
To: Col. Mal Fnord, VVS (23@globalfrequency.fen)
Subject: Re: Listening to the birds...
Date: Sun July 14th 2014

>> Eddie & Kohran like the 'splody, and I understand that. Hell, *I*
>> like the 'splody - we've got a DVD of nuclear test footage that's a
>> perennial favorite on movie nights. But aside from that both of 'em
>> are largely harmless.
>
> I can point you at a former Rock that says otherwise.

What's a rock or two? There's millions of rocks in the solar system - billions if you count everything between here and Azkaban.

>> Dee, OTOH, is something else entirely. I can't say much without
>> betraying some confidences, but her work goes way past the bleeding
>> edge, even past where you & the other Confederation hotshots are.
>
> Given some of the stuff I know about that you probably don't, I'm
> fairly sceptical of that claim. I'll let it slide for now.

You might be surprised by what I know. I may not be a hotshot cybertech, but I have my sources.

>> Really heavy-duty Kurzweil stuff, if you follow my meaning. I love
>> Dee dearly; she's part of my crew & a loyal friend, but she can
>> scare the hell out of me some days.
>
> I'm ashamed to say I had to look Kurzweil up, but yeah. Leonard's a
> lot like that at times. So am I in fact, when my hair is especially
> Blue.

Yeah, but for you or your crew, that's largely a passing phase. AFAICT Dee's hair is *permanently* blue, and always working in the background. Plus, you & rest of the Cybers are anthropomorphic in your outlook. Dee... isn't. It's not like she's gonna Skynet or anything, but she's I think the only AI I've ever met in the system who really truly *does not think like a human.*

Still, water under the bridge at this point. I for one welcome my new robot overlords, etc. If something happens, we'll deal with it or not. Onwards to more immediate issues.

>> Yeah, okay. Let's do this thing.
>
> When do you want delivery?

Good question. How much time do you think it'll need to hang out for socialization or whatever? Right now Sora's in the process of demilling Ptichka, doing some minor repair work, stuff we should've taken care of earlier except the war got in the way, etc. That's a big enough job that I don't want Sora distracted with trying to paper-train a new AI in the middle of it, y'know?

Figure that'll be done around the end of the month. Right after SerenityCon would be best, I think, especially if we're going to go ahead and swap out the relays for the newer models.

>> How's the downscale? I'm assuming you haven't gotten to nanometer
>> scale on the manipulators yet.
>
> Um... We do NOW. We've got an X-Ray lithograph working, and Lebia had
> some ideas. It's still in early prototyping ATM, so it's not
> available (and all credit to Dee, but she's nowhere near powerful
> enough to run this thing anyway). Anyway, the smallest effective one
> we can do is 12cm in diameter and 20cm tall. Had to offload the
> processing to an external core though. The standard manipulators on
> all of these are 1mm, accurate to about half that. We do have tools
> for greater accuracy, as well as specialised manipulator extensions.

1mm's not bad for a first-gen bushbot. 1um would be better, especially for electronics work, but for general assembly that'd be fine.

Hm... what's the baseline quirk on those, and how do they respond to outside quirks, especially noise-related ones? Our yard setup is pretty much self contained, but we've got to have "Powerhouse" playing on a loop to get it to work right.

>> What's your going rate for blueprints? Our fabs aren't as hardcore
>> as Hephaestus or Clark Universal, but this is where Dee's more
>> TMWNMTKish tendencies come in handy. I'll bet you there's very
>> little that you can design that we can't build.
>
> Some of my designs *I* can't build, and the Professor is VERY
> impressed with my R&D facilities.

Ah but you're a small shop that uses a lot of external trade for parts. We build almost *everything* in-house, because all of the "available spares" for our Russian gear have been sitting for a minimum of 20 years in poorly-maintained warehouses and are so corroded that even handwashing can't produce something useful. We don't have chip-printing facilities (yet), but we can fabricate damn near anything if we need to.

>> Okay, that's more what I needed to hear. They don't need to be
>> super-strong, just as durable as the standard relays. Plus, if we
>> can drop the stowed volume of the relays by 25% each it'd free up
>> some extra deck space for the tachikoma and allow for some more
>> redundancy in the comms network.
>
> Sent full specs, prices and estimated delivery times in a separate
> email.
>

Yeah, I think we're going to want six of the baseline units, stripped of the usual cruft & ready to plug into the sat frames.

>> I've been working on getting my "Dirty Old Man" merit badge in my
>> spare time. You know how it goes.
>
> Yeah. If I wasn't so busy I could be convinced to help out on that.
> Force knows I could use the relaxation.

Who has time for relaxation these days? I haven't had a proper day off since SOS-Con. Between gearing up for the expedition, resorting all the admin paperwork, briefing the newbies, plus getting all our ducks in a row for Noah's new shiny... is it any wonder why I'm wintering in Delta Pavonis?

> P.S. When's your promotion party?

We don't make a huge deal about these things, but if you're in the neighborhood of the 250K Saloon next Friday around 20:00 KST you're more than welcome to hoist a beer with the various new Colonels an' whatnot.

--Mal


From: Noah Scott (bigcheese@stellvia.lib)
To: A.C. Peters (rock_doc@prometheus_forge.fen)
Subject: Re: Listening to the birds...
Date: Sun July 14th 2013

Boo! Kohran was looking through the Interwave system, noticed that Lebia routed this one through Stellvia's store-and-forward node on purpose, and spotted her own name in it. It's almost as if somebody wanted me to read your mail... <g>

(Seriously, we're doing a lot better here; it's been over a month. Lebia - or you - didn't need to coax us out of our misery this way, really. But let her know I said thanks for caring about us.)

>>> Inopportune? Inopportune is letting Kohran & Eddie become friends,
>>> although it'll be less of a problem now Kohran's more busy.
>>
>> Eddie & Kohran like the 'splody, and I understand that. Hell, *I* like the
>> 'splody - we've got a DVD of nuclear test footage that's a perennial favorite
>> on movie nights. But aside from that both of 'em are largely harmless.
>
>I can point you at a former Rock that says otherwise.

The one that Kohran destroyed during Worldcon Floating Island, or are you thinking of something other than the "Kaboomite Incident"?

(Which reminds me - I have to bug Rockhounds about when they're going to deliver that rock I want to turn into a farm. Can't impose on Grovers' Corners forever... Do you have any pull with them, A.C.?)

>> Dee, OTOH, is something else entirely. I can't say much without betraying
>> some confidences, but her work goes way past the bleeding edge, even past
>> where you & the other Confederation hotshots are.
>
>Given some of the stuff I know about that you probably don't, I'm
>fairly sceptical of that claim. I'll let it slide for now.

Sora's seen at least part of your setup, and she'll be seeing at least part of Mal's. Shall we wait for her decision on the matter?

>> Really heavy-duty Kurzweil stuff, if you follow my meaning. I love Dee
>> dearly; she's part of my crew & a loyal friend, but she can scare the hell out
>> of me some days.
>
>I'm ashamed to say I had to look Kurzweil up, but yeah. Leonard's a lot
>like that at times. So am I in fact, when my hair is especially Blue.
>
>> Looking at the specs, I think we can pull this one off with minimal hassle.
>> Space'll be tight, but that's always the case on a heavy run like this one.
>> Mobility will be close to zero until the relays are deployed, but that's not so
>> long and if we need it for space ops before then it should be able to just kick
>> straight up & out. Plugging it into the expedition intranet shouldn't be a
>> problem, either.
>>
>> Yeah, okay. Let's do this thing.
>
>When do you want delivery?

Before mine, if it matters. Mal's on a tighter deadline than I am, and I still owe him a few favors.

>>> Yes, they're bushbots more or less, just with less arms. Standard
>>> drone averages 1.5*1*1M in operation. They can compact to 70cm tall
>>> and fit inside their 50cm wide octagonal base. They're also only
>>> 50kg, so are easy to move or mount etc. We can do larger ones.
>>
>> How's the downscale? I'm assuming you haven't gotten to nanometer scale
>> on the manipulators yet.
>
>Um... We do NOW. We've got an X-Ray lithograph working, and Lebia had
>some ideas. It's still in early prototyping ATM, so it's not available
>(and all credit to Dee, but she's nowhere near powerful enough to run
>this thing anyway).

Mind if I send Kohran over to give that rig a test? She and I have a pet project going on based on some of the tech specs that the Visitors left in our database, and we could make use of an x-ray litho setup for a few days, right now. I'll let you keep copies of the basic 'droid specs.

And if that isn't a big enough a carrot: If Kohran's reading it right, there's something in the Visitors' tech database that might help you improve that x-ray lithograph gear. How's a potential 3% increase in fine resolution sound?

>Anyway, the smallest effective one we can do is 12cm in diameter and
>20cm tall. Had to offload the processing to an external core though.
>The standard manipulators on all of these are 1mm, accurate to about
>half that. We do have tools for greater accuracy, as well as
>specialised manipulator extensions.

4.7"x7.8"? For a bushbot? I'll take a half-dozen, after you've filled Mal's order. (We already have an external processor, named Kohran...)

>>> Maybe I'll put together a brochure about my drones like Kasumi did
>>> for the Clay Pigeons.
>>
>> Yeah, you ought to. If they're easy enough to operate or program, every
>> shipyard and fabricator in the system would sell their grandmothers to
>> zwilniks to get one.
>
>Programming them is much easier now that we've worked up tools to do it
>instead of working raw code (fairly trivial for any class 3 A.I. or
>above anyway). Operating them however depends on what you're doing.
>Certain things need the personal touch, you know?
>
>>> If you want to send me a wish list, I'll see what's available. It'll
>>> probably be expensive as heck but...
>>
>> What's your going rate for blueprints? Our fabs aren't as hardcore as
>> Hephaestus or Clark Universal, but this is where Dee's more
>> TMWNMTKish tendencies come in handy. I'll bet you there's very little
>> that you can design that we can't build.
>
>Some of my designs *I* can't build, and the Professor is VERY impressed
>with my R&D facilities.
>The going rates for blueprints (or licensing) depends on what it is,
>how dangerous it would be if it got out uncontrolled, and who's doing
>the asking. We both have stuff we don't want out on the space lanes
>without our watchful eyes on them.

We all have stuff we don't want out on the space lanes, period. <wink>

>Prices for current stuff I offer attached, and negotiation is possible.
>Any special stuff you want you'll have to ask personally.
>
>> Okay, that's more what I needed to hear. They don't need to be super-strong,
>> just as durable as the standard relays. Plus, if we can drop the stowed volume
>> of the relays by 25% each it'd free up some extra deck space for the
>> tachikoma and allow for some more redundancy in the comms network.
>
>Sent full specs, prices and estimated delivery times in a separate email.
>
>>>> I'll be interested to know who ends up with whose horse this time.
>>>
>>> Why Mal, I didn't know you were so kinky. ^_-

If this "horse" is what I think it is, you can tell Mal. He's co-funding Section 9.

>> I've been working on getting my "Dirty Old Man" merit badge in my spare
>> time. You know how it goes.
>
>Yeah. If I wasn't so busy I could be convinced to help out on that.
>Force knows I could use the relaxation.
>
>P.S. When's your promotion party?

We could all use a break. How about you, me, Mal, and whoever each of us wants to invite as an escort all hit Fantasy Island for a couple of days before the VVS leaves, and tweak Suzumiya's nose a bit? My treat.

--
Noah Scott, of station Stellvia


From: A.C. Peters (rock_doc@prometheus_forge.fen)
To: Col. Mal Fnord, VVS (23@globalfrequency.fen)
Subject: Re: Listening to the birds...
Date: Sun July 14th 2014

>> I can point you at a former Rock that says otherwise.
>
> What's a rock or two? There's millions of rocks in the solar system
> - billions if you count everything between here and Azkaban.

Yeah, but it was a BIG rock.

>> I'm ashamed to say I had to look Kurzweil up, but yeah. Leonard's a
>> lot like that at times. So am I in fact, when my hair is especially
>> Blue.
>
> Yeah, but for you or your crew, that's largely a passing phase. AFAICT
> Dee's hair is *permanently* blue, and always working in the background.
> Plus, you & rest of the Cybers are anthropomorphic in your outlook.

Good point.

> Dee... isn't. It's not like she's gonna Skynet or anything, but she's
> I think the only AI I've ever met in the system who really truly *does
> not think like a human.*

Lebia's working on Hardtech A.I.s for her own projects, so this is something we'll keep an eye out for. It'll be interesting.

> Still, water under the bridge at this point. I for one welcome my new
> robot overlords, etc. If something happens, we'll deal with it or not.

Might be able to cover for that. Depends if Eddie can get working.

>> When do you want delivery?
>
> Good question. How much time do you think it'll need to hang out for
> socialization or whatever? Right now Sora's in the process of demilling
> Ptichka, doing some minor repair work, stuff we should've taken care of
> earlier except the war got in the way, etc. That's a big enough job that
> I don't want Sora distracted with trying to paper-train a new AI in the
> middle of it, y'know?

It's pretty much already paper-trained, but like you said you're busy. Socialisation time is tricky. More is better, but again you're busy. And it's been hanging around the Forge, so it's used to all our foibles. Noah runs a fairly 'Dane operation all told, so Sora's probably still coping with you guys (amongst other things).

> Figure that'll be done around the end of the month. Right after
> SerenityCon would be best, I think, especially if we're going to go ahead
> and swap out the relays for the newer models.

Probably a good idea. Sora probably needs to finish that work before getting on top of an inquisitive Tachikoma. You got any copies of rules, regs, and operation procedures you can send? I'll have it learn them. If it'll help I'll train it up on the Drone programming tools (unlike the general Tachikoma habit of just taking them over. At least they only do that with inactive ones).

This'll be my busiest Con since KandorCon, but unlike that one I won't be running from a couple thousand rampaging Senshi. Depending on how things go I might be unveiling some big surprises.

>> The standard manipulators on all of these are 1mm, accurate to about half
>> that. We do have tools for greater accuracy, as well as specialised
>> manipulator extensions.
>
> 1mm's not bad for a first-gen bushbot. 1um would be better, especially for
> electronics work, but for general assembly that'd be fine.

For electronics I already have specialised machines, but I can do that if you want. It'll cost a bit more of course, plus the time for us to work up the programming tools.

Ya see, THIS is why I have to get out more. I've been getting insular.

> Hm... what's the baseline quirk on those, and how do they respond to
> outside quirks, especially noise-related ones? Our yard setup is pretty
> much self contained, but we've got to have "Powerhouse" playing on a loop
> to get it to work right.

Quirkwise they're not too bad. The trees like having plants around of course, the crabs need oiling twice a day (but you can use synthetic and get the other drones to apply it), and the squids like shonen ai mangas to read.

The only problem I can foresee is they drop in efficiency by 10% a day if they're within 10m of fish products. Living fish are OK, but you may have to cut back on the caviar.

(Hum... We've got a disused Hydroponics tank, can we farm fish up here? Must look into it.)

>> Some of my designs *I* can't build, and the Professor is VERY
>> impressed with my R&D facilities.
>
> Ah but you're a small shop that uses a lot of external trade for parts. We
> build almost *everything* in-house, because all of the "available spares"
> for our Russian gear have been sitting for a minimum of 20 years in
> poorly-maintained warehouses and are so corroded that even handwashing
> can't produce something useful. We don't have chip-printing facilities
> (yet), but we can fabricate damn near anything if we need to.

We mostly import electronic components (resistors, small capacitors, LEDs, and the like) but we can assemble most anything electronic and make virtually any material under the Sun (no Adamantium yet, but we have made Neutronium in scientific quantities. That tends to blow up the equipment however). And as I noted in an earlier email we have a working X-Ray lithographic system so we can make our own chips.

I'll admit we're not set up for heavy industry however, and I'll buy in gear to speed things up, but if it can be built we can probably have a good go at it. Quite slowly true enough, but by Serenity Valley we'll have a go. It's one of my planned upgrades to get more manufacture in-house, mainly because of back-burner projects I want to do. It's not like Hephaestus won't want the fresh veg.

>> Sent full specs, prices and estimated delivery times in a separate
>> email.
>>
>
> Yeah, I think we're going to want six of the baseline units, stripped of
> the usual cruft & ready to plug into the sat frames.

They won't be ready until after SerenityCon, good enough?

> Who has time for relaxation these days? I haven't had a proper day off
> since SOS-Con. Between gearing up for the expedition, resorting all the
> admin paperwork, briefing the newbies, plus getting all our ducks in a row
> for Noah's new shiny... is it any wonder why I'm wintering in Delta Pavonis?

Again, Kettle thou art black. I can get away with being that much a workaholic Mal, what with being a full waveborg.

RE: Noah's new shiny, Eddie's sent a few interesting files to KJ if you want a look.

>> P.S. When's your promotion party?
>
> We don't make a huge deal about these things, but if you're in the
> neighborhood of the 250K Saloon next Friday around 20:00 KST you're more
> than welcome to hoist a beer with the various new Colonels an' whatnot.

If I can make it, I'll be there. Look out for Natalia.


Onward to Part 2