The Associated Worlds - probequest

The Associated Worlds

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Switching to here!

http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/12lys.html

19:57

This is a map of our nearest stars that ends conveniently at Tau Ceti's distance

19:57

I thought it may be intriguing

So far we have one vote for Alpha Centauri

How's our speed?

0.1 c

What's our cruising velocity I should say

19:58

I'm voting for Proxima Centauri

19:58

It's only going to be about 50 years, within a human lifespan

Keep in mind, you will need to rebuild your Daedalus to get from Proxima to Alpha AB, as it orbits a tenth of a light-year out

Proxima Centauri seems as good a destination as any.

In the 2200s, five planets are known to orbit Proxima, three for Alpha A, and two for Alpha B

That’s a lot of planets. What about Tau Ceti, what’s the planetary system look like?

Seven planets around Tau Ceti

20:01

The reason Alpha A and B don't have many planets is because planets can't orbit too far out, as Alpha A and B can pass within Saturn's distance to Sol of each other

I'm still lobbying for Proxima

20:01

We know Proxima b is there

Long-range observations have indicated that Proxima b has liquid water on its surface and some oxygen in its atmosphere in this universe

And the habitable probables at Tau Ceti? Any new data for them?

Both have liquid water, one has oxygen in the air

20:04

Correction: Alpha A has 5 planets and Alpha B has 4

20:04

Forgot the limits of stable orbits

Any possible habitables around A and B?

One around B, and an all-ocean world around A with no oxygen in its atmosphere and 3.5Gs of gravity (so not very habitable)

20:09

Ready to start with Proxima as our destination?

I’m good with proxima

Proxima or bust!

Let’s jam

[STAND BY]

20:10

[RELEASED FROM STATION]

20:10

[REACTOR... ONLINE]

20:10

[CORE TEMPERATURE HOLDING]

Roll to not vaporize the station in our exhaust /s (edited)

[STAGE 1 DRIVE... WARMED UP]

20:10

[ALIGNING WITH PROXIMA CENTAURI]

20:10

[RETREATING TO SAFE DISTANCE FROM STATION]

20:11

(the back away also tests our RCS)

20:11

[FABRICATOR...ONLINE]

20:11

[STORAGE... HOLDING]

20:11

[PARASITE CRAFT... ONLINE]

20:11

[IGNITING DRIVE IN 3... 2... 1... MARK.]

20:12

We're on our way, ladies and gents!

“One small spark for a probe, one giant leap for mankind”

what's the current date? 2200?

Probekind, too.

@BizarroLand ♀ 2219, exactly 200 years in the future

20:13

We'll arrive in 2261 (edited)

As in, we launch in September of 2219?

Yep

So our initial creators will get to hear when we broadcast Daisy bell back

That's the plan, especially since we cured aging a while back :V

Only lesser immortality? Have we figured out uploads/backups?

42 years of travel means we should arrive in '61

20:15

Sometime in Fall

20:15

Maybe Winter '62 at the latest

whoops typo

So how long will our turns be

20:16

What's our loadout like

Depends on the action level

20:16

Loadout is currently standard equipment, one small ion-propelled scanner probe, and a small low-G miner

20:16

We'll need to find an asteroid or small moon to build anything more

20:17

We also carry point-defense lasers and a 20mm coilgun, just in case the rival probes become... not friendly

Aight, we’ll make the torch missiles later

SpongeBob narrator voice: 40 years later

Or a big old multi-purpose laser

Rolled the dice, nothing went wrong on cruise

Forty year'es late'rhe

We're now two years out and need to perform a burn to select which planet we want to enter orbit around first.

20:18

I'll put down the planets here:

20:19

ASIMOV: Super-Earth, 2.2 Earth masses, no atmosphere (stripped off). Probable Cthonian planet.

20:20

CLARKE: Super-Earth, 3.1 Earth masses, thin atmosphere (almost stripped off). If Mars met Mercury and was also a super-Earth.

20:20

HEINLEIN: Sub-Earth (0.7 Earth masses), dummy thicc atmosphere. Literally Venus.

20:21

BRADBURY (Proxima b): Earth-ish, 1.3 Earth masses, probably habitable.

Bradbury

Does Bradbury have a moon we could use for mining?

NIVEN: Sub-Earth (0.3 Earth masses): Literally Mars. Mars and Venus are pretty common planet types.

20:22

Bradbury has three moons.

20:22

Two are captured asteroids, and one is about 0.5 Luna masses.

Actually, I'd think the first order of business is finding a nice no-gravity, no-atmosphere mass to strip mine.

So, head to the Bradbury system, and park on one of the captured asteroids, probably

Bradbury pls

Roger.

I'm lobbying for Bradbury

Rolling dice... we've arrived.

2261, December

Would you like to set up shop in the inner or outer moon? (edited)

On the captured asteroid first

Inner of the two asteroids, probably

What data do we have

Also we're this close to Bradbury can we observe it

Inner is class M, outer is class C

Let me look that up really quickly

M first

Share here, pls?

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/asteroids/in-depth/

In Depth | Asteroids – NASA Solar System Exploration

NASA’s real-time science encyclopedia of deep space exploration. Our scientists and hardworking robots are exploring the wild frontiers of our solar system.

The M first carbonaceous asteroids are suck

M is metallic, right?

Yeah, and agreed, Bizarro

Proxima B (some of that water should be land, but this is the best render I could find.)

Image attachment

20:26

Alright, setting up shop on Class M

20:26

Rolling 1d20 for minerals (+5 Class M bonus)

20:27

HOLY SHIT NAT 20

We must acquire more minerals

20:27

Oh yeet (edited)

Well, that was lucky

What should we name the miner?

20:28

We'll send it out once it gets a name

Urist

Diggy McDigFace

NATTY-TWEN-TY

I was going to suggest Canterbury but that might set a bad precedent

Can't decide between Diggy and Natty

No

20:29

i mean we rolled a nat twenty

Ah

I like Cant

Cant Dig

^this

20:30

Cant Dig 1 launched!

20:30

Rolling 1d20 (+10 for Nat 20) for materials haul (edited)

Cant Dig’s full name: Canterbury Dingleberry

yes

Yes

Result: 10+10 = 20

Second nat 20

That’s modified, not nat

Not nat cause modifiers

But still looks good

If we scrap Cant Dig 1, we have enough materials to build a bigger miner and a probe to explore Bradbury

Orbital or air breathing?

20:32

For the probe

Airbreathing??

I vote we scrap Cant Dig one for Cant Dig 2 electric boogaloo

Airship that can deploy and pick up a rover

w00t

20:33

Let's do that then

Oh hell yeah

20:33

Solar powered, I’m guessing?

We can launch the ion scanner to explore Bradbury from orbit

I’d like some weather observations first

Yep, solar-electric

20:34

The ion scanner can act as a weather sat

Yeah, lets use the ion probe as a Bradbury Reconnaissance Orbiter while we’re making the airship and preparing it for drop

Based on the photographs we took coming in, there's a big hurricane over the subsolar point (tidally locked, remember?) while the rest of the planet seems relatively calm

Is there anywhere on the planet that look like a particularly interesting drop point? And no, I don’t think you mentioned that yet

What's the biggest piece of land

There's a continent in the northen hemisphere with a lot of black (plant life around a red dwarf would be black)

20:36

a big one, too

GO THERE FIRST

any signs of animal life, or do we not have the resolution?

20:36

And we should probably find a nice flat spot to drop on

We're not a spysat (yet)

Ah, I see, yes.

Scrap Cant Dig, build the better miner, build the probe and do the thing

Like what, 10-20 meter resolution?

The ion scanner will find a nice flat spot using its SAR

SAR?

semi active recon?

Synthetic-Aperture Radar

Ah yeah

Yeah, 20-meter res

I was thinking of SA as in SARH

There aren't any kaiju, but that's all we can say about the animals

pls

20:38

pls

and presumably no really big herds

pls

20:38

can we scrap Cant Dig

20:38

and DO THE THING

20:38

I am aching to land on Bradbury

Wait, we know there's life then?

yes

Yeah we’re just talking it over

Launching Ion Scanner, Scrapping Can't Dig, Building Cant Dig 2, and building BradProbe 1

That should be easy to detect

Yep, oxygen atmosphere

20:39

TURN 1: Complete

Bizarro this quest is already running really fast

@KAL_9000 can't we call the blimp Virgin and the rover Chad

1. very fast

20:39

2. not keeping good archives

@BizarroLand ♀ Um... sure

Write a damn summary for people who are asleep

Turns are usually like 30 minutes to a week and a half

Months if the GM has a job

Will do once the session is over

20:40

and will pin it

20:40

Ah, but that was 30 minutes

No per vote

Also this is like my second time running an RPG

20:40

And the first time failed miserably

Not trying to sass you, more trying to give context to bizarro and telling him to chill a bit

I guess me and marcus are thinking "forum-quest" more than tradditional TTRPG

30 min turn sound good

Yeah, that

Because this seems like a mini-quest, not a 'every update is a novella' quest

Alright, Turn 2 start

Also the asymertry and weirdly defined user-base make things hard

20:41

(Also are you using d20s)

Probes are on their way, Cant Dig 2 is drilling, and we're being hailed!

20:42

@Archon... maybe

Hailed?

D20s are ok

Oh my

Hailed, By what?

HAILED?

Yeah, the other probes are arriving!

20:42

No sophont aliens (yet... muahaha)

Ah, I assumed we had a larger lead than that

JRS Tempest (Jovian probe) and SXS Musk (Martian probe) have each sent us a message!

If they’re talking about football i vote we open fire

Hey now.

20:44

Don't be mean

I’m mostly joking

Tempest: Hey, Armstrong! Do you mind if I set up shop around Bradbury as well?

Football is a fascinating sport!

It’s a reference to that one web story that Bizarro talked about for a while

Musk: I'm setting up shop around Niven, since Bradbury appears taken. Don't pop into the SOI without asking permission, please.

Are we Earth's probe

20:46

Or Saturn's

Earth

Saturn's still being colonized and didn't send a probe

I vote that a second pair of eyes and backup if stuff hits the fan is much appreciated

JRS Tempest would like to join your party!

No

20:47

They'll have a claim if we let them in

20:47

WE'VE GOTTA KEEP IT FOR OURSELVES

1 yes, 1 no

Tempest: where in the Bradbury system to you plan to set up shop? Musk: sure, and we’d like to ask you to extend the same courtesy

Tempest: Probably around the outer asteroid.

That’s the carbonaceous one?

Tell them that?

20:49

And yes

Armstrong to Tempest, the outer one is carbonaceous

I assumed we sent them the cliff notes of our survey data

Tempest: Oh shit thanks. Do you mind if I pull up around the inner one? Since you started mining there, it's probably a good candidate

20:50

@MarcusAurelius Transmitting that now!

Also, just whatever happens can we land before Tempest does

Split hemispheres, to prevent issues? How big is the asteroid?

Is the Bradbury probe coming in?

About 10km across

That’s enough for now

Yeah.

Tempest: Split hemispheres works. Looks like your miner's working on the northern hemisphere, so I'll land something Down Under.

Ok.

I just want to be sure Bradprobe will land before Tempest gets a chance to send anything down

We have no reason to assume that Tempest is hostile, and if we need more resources we can hit the belt or rocky planets

Oh oh oh

And yeah, it looks we have a lead of a few weeks to months?

Tempest: Any issues if I crash my Daedalus into the big moon? Don't want it contaminating a habitable planet

Call the rover the Virgin and the blimp the Chad

Besides, Saturn has weak weapons

That's Jupiter

Oops

I'm just vibrating around anticipating the bradbury probe results here man don't hold out on us

If we can’t scavenge anything from it, save it. A seismic survey of the moon would be cool

Kal, was my lead guess correct? As for names, Fahrenheit for the airship and Opportunity for the rover

20:55

Oh yeah, using the Daedalus for seismic data is genius

Yeah, that was about right

20:56

Bradbury probe has entered the atmosphere

20:56

Now beginning Fahrenheit and Opportunity's Excellent Adventure

Oh, she should be called Oppy II

Oh, yeah, definitely

Also cool, Fahrenheit in German is literally “experience” or “venturing”

Rolling 1d100 DC 30 for landing...

20:58

Result: 57

20:58

Successful touchdown!

Nice

Yes!

Oppy II's main camera took this image upon touchdown. Just imagine the plants are blackish.

Image attachment

yas

Rolling plains, nice

Oh that’s gorgeous

So, grass analogues”

20:59

?

yas~ mission control says

20:59

4 years later

@MarcusAurelius Appears so! And tree analogues, too!

Any signs of animal life?

Look at o2 concentration

A few animals did come and investigate the touchdown

21:01

O2 concentration is 27% (edited)

Hey

Beware the giant bugs

21:01

And fires

Does Oppy II have chemical analysis gear

The animals all appear to be from the same species

21:01

@BizarroLand ♀ Of course it does

ANALYZE THE AIR

21:01

and the grass

21:01

we want to make sure the humans who set foot here don't die immediately from allergies

27 percent 02 on earth allowed for giant bugs, iirc

70% Nitrogen, 27% Oxygen, 2% Chlorine, 0.9% Argon, 0.1% Trace

Chlorine, huh

breathable

21:02

good

that’s a lot of chlorine

(yes, the chlorine is not a typo. Chalk it up to weird alien ecosystems.)

21:02

@BizarroLand ♀ That much chlorine would kill a human.

21:03

Pretty much instantly.

Like, that’s poison gas territory

The local life seems to have adapted to it, though.

But it shouldn’t attack structures too much.

yeah, I meant bad for earth life.

awww

But this should put is into basically rebreather territory, not full enviro suits

The local animals that investigated the landing appear to be six-legged reptiles.

21:04

What you're assuming are the females have mammalian breasts, so they're obviously not Earth reptiles

21:04

No signs of sophonce

If we’ve got optics on their mouths that would be great?

21:05

Teeth specifically

Looking for predator teeth?

Yep

yeet

Teeth are very sharp

21:05

One tries to bite Oppy II and realizes it can't eat metal. Evidently not very smart.

Is Oppy II relatively tough? I.e. she doesn’t have to worry about the locals gnawing on any fiddle bits and breaking them?

Yeah, teeth ain't got nothing on titanium-carbon fiber

Do we have airship overwatch? (edited)

What appears to be a HOLY FUCK THAT'S A 2-METER LONG MILLIPEDE is visible near Oppy II from the Fahrenheit

21:08

The reptiles quickly lose interest in Oppy II and start chasing it.

What is Fahrenheit’s lift gas?

Sorry guys got to eat. Back on in 20 or so

@BluejayHurricane just like our reptile friends!

21:10

Oppy II follows the reptiles and watches them pounce the Megapede.

21:10

The sharp teeth are clearly needed to pierce the bug's hard carapace

21:11

A meter-long dragonfly buzzes around Fahrenheit curiously.

21:11

@MarcusAurelius Helium

21:11

Got it as a byproduct from Armstrong's fusion reactor

21:12

And I've gotta call it for today, it is bedtime in my timezone.

21:12

Will pick up Fahrenheit and Oppy's Excellent Adventure tomorrow

---

14:08

If everyone's ready, we may resume ProbeQuest at this time (edited)

Well, I'm available now, at least.

Excellent!

14:10

If you weren't here before, read the logs to catch up

I've already read them, but I think more than one player would be best.

Well, I'm here.

Yeah, we'll wait for the rest of the gang

I'm only available for about two hours, though.

Alright, we'll start if we can get a third player

14:18

@xandeross, I know you were interested when we started out

14:22

Or we can start now

14:22

Whatever

14:22

STATUS: NOMINAL

14:22

PARTY: UNS Armstrong (You)

14:23

JRS Tempest (Ally)

14:23

NON-PARTY NPC: SXS Musk (Neutral)

14:24

DEPLOYED VESSELS:

14:24

Cant Dig 2: Electric Boogaloo (Miner)

14:24

IonScout 1 (Scanner Probe)

14:24

Fahrenheit (Airship Probe, Bradbury)

14:25

Oppy II (Rover Probe, Bradbury)

14:25

MINERALS: 0

14:25

AWAITING INPUT

Hmm...

um

14:27

what

I dunno.

14:27

Wait, is it just us then?

14:27

OOF

No, @gollark is here

OR IS HE?

@gollark ?

Er, yes ish.

14:34

I'm on a computer, but I don't actually alt-tab inti discord constantly.

Ah

Obvious thing to do is to start building more mining and processing infrastructure.

Roger that

14:37

You can build a permanent mining rig on the surface for 25 minerals

14:37

Rolling 2d20 + 10 for Cant Dig 2's haul...

14:37

8 + 14 + 10 = 32

Does that produce minerals constantly, or what?

It produces minerals constantly, yes

Is there some concept of a turn?

Yes, we do have tuns... sort of

14:38

The mining rig produces 100 minerals every time you use it

14:38

But it has a cooldown time

I see.

14:39

So we have 32 minerals now, right? Build the mining rig.

Building... It'll be done in 10 IRL minutes

Why would you base anything on the passage of IRL time?

I guess it KINDA makes sense in a discord format?

Because I don't have anything better to base it on?

That’s fair

Oh BTW it's done now

14:50

Deploying...

14:51

Mining rig online

Can we mine now or do we need to wait a turn?

You can mine now, but it will be on cooldown until next turn

14:52

Minerals +100

Very good.

Check in with other probes.

14:55

And what would it cost to deploy seismic sensors to the large moon?

Just 3 minerals

14:55

Seismic sensors are pretty small

Would there be a point? I don't expect the moon to have any tectonic activity.

We have the second stage of the Jupiter probe’s expended drive unit. Crash that into the moon and we could get some really good composition data.

Could we refurbish the stage when the time comes to leave, or is it just trash now?

It could be refurbished, but it's taken a beating from interstellar debris

I may be missing something, but why are they just throwing away the interstellar drive in the first place?

It's a two-stage drive

15:01

The first stage accelerates us to 10% c and is dropped

15:02

The second stage decelerates us back to interplanetary velocity upon arrival

15:02

It's dropped to save mass, as it's out of fuel and dangerous to use near habitable planets

15:02

We have a VASIMR for in-system travel

I see.

15:02

Would it not make sense to at least keep it around somewhere to break it down for materials?

It would but I didn't think of that at the time

I would say that it doesn’t make sense to start breaking it down now, but keeping it around isn’t a bad idea. We could just decide what to do with it later.

15:06

Maybe when we decide to look at the moon more closely

Okay, let's say we just left it in orbit around Proxima

Have we received any transmissions from home? Any new scientific or engineering breakthroughs waiting for us to download and incorporate?

They must have done something in 40 years.

We've got a lighter room-temperature superconductor, a major reactor efficiency upgrade, and a doubling of our coilgun velocity

15:09

We can integrate the upgrades for 5 minerals

I vote yes for that.

Seconded.

Do the other probes get similar upgrades?

Better question: have they got different upgrades?

Also, any significant news from Earth?

The political situation is pretty much the same as when we left, but there's been a push to accelerate the follow-up manned mission.

15:13

Our job for the manned mission is to build the vehicle that will take some of the crew home to Earth, while the rest stay and found a colony.

15:15

The Bradbury probes are continuing their survey of the planet

What sort of mineral wealth does it have?

Are either of the other powers planning manned missions?

It has higher concentrations of radioactives and metals than Earth, but no oil or natural gas to speak of, which is odd for a planet home to multicellular protein-in-water life.

15:17

Mars is planning a manned mission, but Jupiter is not.

Oh, we're adding the upgrades, right?

However, Earth is the only one planning a colony.

15:18

@gollark Upgrades implemented

Wait, a manned mission but not a colony? Why?

Budget issues

They're just sending, at great expense, a few people to this system then sending them back?

It really wouldn’t cost that much more, would it? And it’s not that odd it lacks fossil fuels, it took a very specific era in earth’s history to give us our big deposits

We should probably have some sort of quest information wiki or something.

To answer your questions, I will give you one sentence:

15:20

Politicians are crazy

15:20

(Also I only have the time to manage one potential colony)

Besides, Mars needs all the people it can get. Earth has to sell this as opening new frontiers for settlement with a population of 10B

^ that

True enough

15:35

So we’re upgraded, which means we probably have a pretty big weapons lead on Tempest should things go south. I don’t want to fight it, but we should be careful just in case

Tempest has probably also been upgraded, but possibly with different things. We should trade.

Yep. I would say no first shots, though. We’re both here to do science.

I'm kind of surprised and baffled that we have any weapons at all, honestly.

Sorry, got to go.

It makes sense, it’s unknown what we’ll encounter and what the other probes might do. Plus our lasers can help deflect orbital debris, and possibly for the core of a laser boosting system for parasites

16:00

The mass driver also can get some dual purpose uses

Back, sorry about that

17:15

IRL stuff came up

17:17

What @MarcusAurelius said. The weapons are there because you have no idea what you're going to encounter.

Perfectly Understandable, no worries man. Real life comes first. What’s the next step?

The next step is exploring the other planets and seeing if we can get some infrastructure up on Bradbury for future colonists.

Hm, do we have an soil and or biological samples? How easy would it be to set up agriculture on Bradbury?

17:19

Do we have any idea how many colonists we’re expecting, and when? And didn’t you say some of the manned mission crew would be returning?

Yes, some of them would be returning.

17:20

However, a few hundred colonists and possibly a few thousand frozen embryos (depending on whether the UN approves of that) will be staying.

17:21

The soil is fertile for Earth life, except for a few trace elements which can be mined.

17:22

The real problem is Proxima's sunlight is not what Earth plants are used to. (edited)

Alright, so we need to set up a small town with plenty of growth potential, fields/greenhouses/hydroponics fit to sustain them, and probably a basic orbital lift capacity, a comms network, maybe piggyback GPS off of that, and some basic weather/orbital monitoring sats, and set up mining for industry and soil. Are they bringing any earth animals or embryos for them with them, or are they planning on living a vegan diet? Alternatively, do they want us to try to find compatible local animals for food?

17:24

@xandeross @gollark we’ve started back up, btw

They'll be bringing cows for milk, chickens for eggs, and dogs and cats as pets (all in embryo form). They're planning on a vegetarian diet, but if the local life is compatible, it would be appreciated.

So there’s no vat meat or something like that, I’m guessing.

Mars has a monopoly on vitromeat, and isn't willing to share the tech, although Earth is working on developing it independently.

So in the mean time it’s soy, rice, beans, etc. for the majority of protein, and occasional meat for special occasions?

Probably

Alright, so not that much to build all things considered. The biggest issue is probably finding rare earths for electronics

17:29

And maybe some uranium or thorium for a power reactor for the colony, if they’re bringing qualified people

The large moon is likely to have rare metals and helium-3 for a reactor.

17:29

We are running a fusion economy.

17:30

However, Proxima b's atmosphere has near-constant winds and is slightly denser than Earth's, so wind power is very effective.

Right, I keep forgetting we’re on a tidally locked world

Being in the habitable zone of a red dwarf will do that to your planets :V

So next step, assign the orbiter to go into a polar orbit to search for a good colony site, have Fahrenheit and Oppy continue learning about the biosphere and geology, and begin setting up a basic comms network?

17:33

We want to be able to talk to everything at all times, id think

The orbiter's already in a polar orbit.

17:34

There are about a dozen potential sites discovered so far, and Fahrenheit will travel to each of them to narrow down our choices.

Ah, they’re relatively close by?

Oppy's still just exploring, but has taken several core samples so far.

17:35

Within 100km of each other, yeah.

"Only a couple of them included meat"

The main northern hemisphere continent isn't that big.

17:35

Well, it is big, but it's mostly on the night side and covered in ice.

So the interesting part is small

Yeah

17:37

Tempest has launched its own probe to the main southern continent, and we're sharing data

Any big divergence between the two biospheres, or is there plenty of interaction?

They have similar ecological niches to fill, but organisms are different.

17:38

Convergent evolution is in play.

17:39

What flying organisms there are can't cross hemispheres due to the subsolar hurricane on one side and the ice on the other.

Why don't they just go around?

hadn't thought of that

:V

It’s still a huge distance

I would say it's too far, but we all know that's never stopped evolution

And we haven’t seen any gliders

17:42

So we might see a few species, but it isn’t immediately obvious

17:42

?

Yeah, that

17:43

:V

Yeah, but island hopping could be in effect, and we aren’t sure how long ago they were isolated (whether by plate tectonics, the loss of a land/ice bridge, what have you)

Anyways, the mining rig has produced 400 more minerals

17:51

Based on its cooldown time

17:52

We now have 503 minerals lying around on the surface of Bradbury I

I still don’t see why the rig is real time

Because I couldn't think of a better solution

18:00

If you have one, let me know

By turns, or game time?

Okay, I'm an idiot

It produces x amount or x dice roll during an in game day/week/month, and we then decide the time skip per turn?

Okay, that works!

18:01

We'll keep the 503 minerals and do that from here on out

Alright. So, mining rig for the main moon to get us rare earths, a few geo synch sats to provide the start of our comms/GPS network, and maybe start a probe for ...Asimov, I’d say. It’s probably the one people back home are most interested in. Just to confirm, there’s no gas giants? @Overmind can you give @KAL_9000 pinning rights in here to make trawling through for major posts easier?

No gas giants around Proxima

18:06

There are a couple around Alpha A and B

Oh, and is our current laser grid good enough to serve as a viable laser launch first stage for an interplanetary probe, or would this be a good time to upgrade?

It's good enough, but we could set up an array on Bradbury I to get better performance.

And conveniently defend our mining rig. Bradbury I is the captured M class asteroid, right?

Yep

18:08

The moons are I, II, and III

18:08

Should be self-explanatory

Yeah but I don’t think you ever covered their orbital order

Big moon is II, C-class is III

18:12

We are an exploratory probe first and foremost. We can construct probes to visit all the other planets and laser-launch them for 100 minerals, if you like.

Is that price for all of the planets, or for Individual probes?

All the planets

18:14

Probes are light

18:15

Well, except Niven

18:17

See, I've got surprises in store on these planets...

(edited)

Do we have communications with the other probes?

Alright, so laser launch first stage, and solar powered ion engines for local maneuvering?

Yep

18:19

And yep

18:19

We can open comms with the JRS Tempest or the SXS Musk at any time

Alright we should probably go ahead and ping Musk and ask for a summary of what they’ve found, and inform them we intend to send a probe their way soon

Musk: Roger, here's my data. I'll let you send a probe to Niven if you allow me to send one to Bradbury.

18:22

SXS Musk relationship status updated from NEUTRAL to CORDIAL!

18:23

Niven appears to be a bigger, tidally-locked version of Mars. However, it still orbits in the habitable zone, and there is a high concentration of oxygen in its thin atmosphere.

Possible plant life, then. I see no problem with allowing the Musk to send a probe

There are no complex organics on Niven's surface, nor is there liquid surface water.

maybe some chemosynthetics underground then

Possibly

18:34

And this is where I must leave you, for I have real life things to attend to!

@KAL_9000 You now have pin privileges in this channel.

just saw this channel, what is "probequest?

Scroll up, it’s the new quest @KAL_9000 is running

there's like 500 messages in the upscroll and no pins

Honestly it’s short enough it’s probably easier to binge

discord doesn't give me a page count, so I literally have no idea how far the backscroll goes

A few hundred messages, I think your 500 bet is pretty close

discord-quest is a new angle though, i usually only see those on forums

Yeah same, but since we’ve got a community of sorts here already and IIRC we don’t share any forums, it makes sense

Why am I always not check my phone ..

16:52

Anyway. Could kal or whoever pin a brief synopsis of where we are ATM with the #probequest ?

Sure

17:20

We are currently exploring Bradbury, a planet in the Proxima Centauri system, and preparing for a future manned mission.

KAL_9000 09/10/2019 5:20 PM

And BTW, I'm available for a session RN

As am I (hello!) Thanks for synopsis What have people done so far, save for upgrades with transmitted tech?

17:22

Also, do we have the transmitter power to communicate with them?

Of course we have the transmitter power to communicate with Earth

17:23

We have a big, 200m wide antenna that we unfurled when we entered our parking orbit.

Okay Cool Just checking

17:23

Yaay mega antennae

17:24

-- Are there any rules to this game (e.g. is it just and RPG)? Also, what's the objective? To propagate or to base-build? (edited)

The rules are what I say they are. I am your supreme overlord who makes things up as we go along because I'm terrible at planning!

17:25

Propagate, explore, set up stuff for future colonists, yeah

All Hail.

Fixed nick

THE EMPEROR PROTECTS!

17:26

ahem

17:26

Anyway

We'll wait for a couple more players before we start

Yep

17:28

We should do things where someone puts in a proposition, it gets pinned, and people react to the proposal to see if it goes past.

For big, important decisions that affect the entire rest of the game, yes

17:29

It might be tedious to pin every decision

Yeah true Presumably you can un-pin but idk and ur fingers will hurt.

Also there’s a pin limit

Well, personally, I put recon as max priority, so we can see where to launch our first miners to.

we already have a mining base

@BluejayHurricane is there? K

17:30

Where on?

The planet

Which one?

17:31

There are many

No, Bradbury's moon

Also, _who put it on the planet.

17:31

OK phew

17:32

What fuel do our drives run on? Is it just high-power ion? Also, what do our powerplants require? We should probably sort out those two things before we do anything else.

We use a VASIMR drive for in-system travel, and our reactor runs on deuterium and helium-3

Yes, I should read the channel. And no, I'm nor going to.

Big oof

I say we start work on: 1. An atmospheric reconnaissance probe to check the gas giant's atmosphere. 2. Explore the mining site to see what metals we have around there.

No gas giants exist in the Proxima Centauri system

Mleep Oh

Are you referring to Heinlein?

Well... That's a problem.

Ok, I’m going to write a summary of everything that’s gone down after this.

17:37

Because we are going to need it.

I seriously suggest we get a long term power system in here now. What materials do we have on hand around the mining site on Bradbury's moon? (We need to name that.)

2

Big agreement. Power is critical

We’ve begin mining basic metals rare earths, and fusion fuel

What fusion fuel?

Probes are being sent to the other planets (all rocky) in the proxima system

17:41

As said above, we use d-h3

Why does the moon have he3?

17:41

Like seriously, we're gonna need a lot of that.

...same reason earth’s does, I’m guessing. And not necessarily, we aren’t currently drawing that much power (edited)

We will be, though, if we are to create decent manufacturing in a reasonable timescale. (edited)

We’ve got a solar powered airship (helium lifted) with an exploratory rover. ...we’re currently focused on exploration, and yeah we’ve got mining up and running

17:43

Like, we want to see what’s in the system before we go strip mining

Where does the airship go/what is it for?

Longer term were probably going to want to either send a remote or pop over ourselves to Alpha C proper, it has gas hints

17:43

Scouting the planet and colony sites

17:43

Dude, just read the backlog

17:44

It’s really not that long

Yeah no

17:44

Uhh So what planets have atmospheres?

Clarke, Heinlein, Bradbury, and Niven

Bruh

17:45

It’s not our job to handle your laziness

17:46

Reading the backlog will be quicker than us answering repeat questions and dealing with your misguided assumptions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V263ad2e2uk

National Bruh Moment Alert:

Read it So When do probes arrive?

Bruh

17:47

they did

Thanks. He means the ones to the other planets, probably

we added one to our party

17:48

You never ordered them constructed

Ohmigod

17:48

CONSTRUCT!

17:48

ahah I have the power

constructing (edited)

Uh, I thought we did?

No, I told you about them, but you never actually ordered them

Part of the big “deploy sats, drop the mining rig on the main moon” buy

check the backlog

17:49

I may be mistaken

Well, no harm no foul.

Huh, I think I screwed up then (edited)

Send probes to all planets and possible asteroids, and scan for anything that can possibly be used for large-scale power generation or complex industry. Specifically, heavier metals.

We're already mining an M-class asteroid

17:50

read the logs bruh

I know But We need to mine more

17:51

Bruh

bruh

It should be plenty large for a while. We’ve mostly been focusing on ensuring space resources and exploring the planet

bruh

okay that's enough

Send subsurface probes to Bradbury and it's moon(s)

17:52

Check for anything geothermal that could be used to power planetary industry

17:53

Idk (edited)

17:53

Maybe a bit too far in the future

Subsurface probe flying to destination being chased by native wildlife (edited)

Image attachment

Woah holy

17:54

Oh. Did we already know that?

Yeah, giant bugs.

K

Do we have options?

Well, why didn't you add lasers to it?

Moot point now.

I guess.

It has a ChemCam laser

OK. Blast the bugs

Wait

OK. Don't blast the bugs. ^ (edited)

17:56

How much info do we have on the atmospheres in-system?

That’s a few dW , it won’t die, maybe blinded

17:57

We could probably scare it off with that, though.

That's enough. Just need to scare it off, assuming that they get scared. ^ (edited)

greetings mortals

this is a friend from another server

That's assuming a lot @Unknown (edited)

I ran a test game of ProbeQuest there

Predator. If they are hunter-killers, they will back off of prey that can injure them

even if you not mortal you would be nowhere near my plane of existance

17:58

Money

Also, they can't eat carbon fiber-reinforced titanium

Ah, but you see, I have DAKKA.

MOAR DAKKA!!!

but i have halo refrences

17:59

and money

Anyway

17:59

Before this channel gets invaded, Could @KAL_9000 notify us when the probes arrive or tell us when they will arrive?

Heinlein's atmosphere does have both hydrogen and helium in abundant quantities

18:00

@Unknown yes

What helium?

Helium-4 98%

18:01

Helium-3 2%

Shit

18:01

That's good

18:01

I think

18:01

Sounds like a lot

my question is

18:02

when i engage xenos

18:02

can i play attack on titan opening at full volume @KAL_9000

It’s a lot, yeah

In the long run, I say we focus on building orbital industry around Heinlein, and should therefore increase the amount of attention probes going to that system and it's moons get.

Heinlein has two moons

18:04

Both captured asteroids

This process should begin with locating resources very close to Heinlein (in dV terms) that can be used to start building orbital refueling points.

answer the question KAL

That's the captured asteroids then.

Uh, sure

excellent

Sorry, I have to go. Talk to you in a bit. I’ll get that summary done, too

\o

We should send surface rovers to Heinlein's moons to judge what materials are on the moons for orbital industry. (edited)

Alright, added to queue

18:05

First probe arrived at Heinlein

What's it seeing?

18:06

Also, what's the current queue?

18:06

Someone should automate this queue system thing.

Heinlein (edited)

Image attachment

I would, but I have no time.

Composition

Image attachment

What's the density of the outer hydrogen envelope? At, say, 125km?

18:08

(From an earth sea level) (edited)

Dunno

18:08

Didn't do all the math for this :V

Is it good for atmospheric skimming?

Yeah, good enough

Cool. That confirms goals for setting up a base there.

18:09

How are the other probes doing?

En route, no malfunctions reported

Anything interesting In the data from Musk?

We should probably focus on the other Von Neumanns as well, yeah. Kinda forgot about them tbh

Some sort of catastrophe appears to have befallen Niven a few million years ago, thinning its atmosphere to Mars-like levels and draining its oceans.

Hmmm

18:14

How's it's magnetosphere?

18:14

In fact, how are the magnetospheres for all the planets we know of?

All planets in this system except for Asimov have Earth-class or stronger magnetospheres

18:15

Bradbury's in particular is over ten times stronger

Nice. That makes colony planning really easy. Especially since it's a red dwarf. I think we should rule out Niven for further exploration in the short term; our efforts would be better spent elsewhere, and it's too massive for useful industry (edited)

Clarke

Image attachment

18:43

Asimov

Image attachment

18:50

Niven

Image attachment

What happened to Asimov???

18:54

And, was there any ejected matter?

it's actually a massive Day-Glo Pollock

@KAL_9000 This is the beginning of my summary of the quest. It's complete through Turn One, but probably needs editing, if anyone wants to do that. I just sort of condensed stuff. Please pin it. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Auay-EE80HLBg-b3umw1jjpvgwCL2pgBk4Lx-UPcN8I/edit?usp=sharing

ProbeQuest Summary

“Greetings, sophonts! You are the commanding AI of humanity’s first Von Neumann probe, designed to explore the stars and make baby probes while doing it! Have Fun and try not to die. Picking Factions United Nations Perk: 10 Billion People, + to probe size Con: Too m...

My knowledge of 'turn two' (or one point five, idk) is basically just sending probes to the other planets in the system, and queueing up surface and atmospheric missions to the other bodies in system. More specifically our short term goal is to further research the Heinlein system, and the possibility of orbital refueling there due to it's high He3 concentration. Is that about correct @KAL_9000? (edited)

KAL_9000 09/11/2019 7:20 PM

Am here, can do things

If players are available, can do a session

Can do session now

Where are we up to again?

probes on their way

13:55

Also, to answer your question about Asimov

Ooh

It orbits very close to Proxima

Ah. Very close.

13:56

So, is there mineable matter that was ejected from it?

Well, it has an atmosphere of rock vapor

13:57

And lava oceans

13:57

And no ejected matter

Yaay Habitable, methinks.

So pretty much an inhospitable wasteland

Are there rovers queued for Heinlein's moons?

The probe has low-grav landers

Execute the order Deploy the landers.

EXECUTE ORDER 66

Die, Jedi scum.

14:00

What are the moons called?

Rovers

Image attachment

14:00

Heinlein I and II

Can we call them Jedi and Scum?

sure

Cool

14:00

Fancy rovers btw

14:01

Do they have mineral/material scannerey things?

Probe closes to close range and launches rover

Image attachment

14:01

yes they have scanners

That's cool.

Heinlein from probe camera

Image attachment

Scan for metals on Jedi and Scum!

14:02

Excellent.

Palpatine voice: excellllent

Can we please rename the moons?

yes

No.

Provisional designations 'Jedi' and 'Scum' removed

We could name them after actual characters, or to stick with the theme scifi authors.

Rolling 1d20 + 0 (both S-Type)...

14:04

12, 15

14:05

Moons should be named after books written by the author the parent planet is named after

Farmer in the sky.

Those sound like kind of inconvenient names.

Because that's cool.

Ideally short titles or the first major word in a title

Maybe with could use different naming schemes per system.

Yeah, Alpha A and B don't use sci-fi author names

Harsh mistress?

https://www.orderofbooks.com/authors/robert-a-heinlein/

Order of Robert A. Heinlein Books - OrderOfBooks.com

This is the Order of Robert A. Heinlein Books in both chronological order and publication order. List verified daily and newest books added immediately.

14:07

(it was the first search result, and seems to list the relevant books)

Methuselah sounds cool.

For example, Bradbury's moons are Chronicles, Fahrenheit, and Something Wicked

"Farnham's Freehold" might work.

If you guys don't name Niven's largest moon Dune I will be very disappointed :V

Ah yes, Dune by Niven. I know it well.

You, Leto, and the God-Emperor of Mankind are the three best emperors of sci-fan (edited)

14:10

I like Mistress and Freehold

Wikipedia lists "Gulf" under "Other short speculative fiction".

I like Mistress and Methuselah.

Also "Elsewhen".

It has a theme.

14:11

@KAL_9000 wdym the true emperors of sci-fan?

Let's do Mistress and Methuselah

2

14:11

@Unknown your profile pic is Palp

Yes, correct. I am of the star wars fans.

Mistress: 12 Mineral Wealth Points (MWP)

14:13

Methuselah: 15 MWP (edited)

Is that good?

20 is max

So yes for Methuselah?

Yeah, if we send miners there, that will be the target

14:14

Stand by for deployment of Heinlein atmospheric probe

Are there any other bodies dV close to Heinlein? That are minable? Like other asteroids?

It has one Trojan asteroid at the L4 point (edited)

Now that's an anomaly worth looking into...

14:15

Do we have any more probes there?

That's not really an anomaly so much as just something that happens sometimes

Also, after the success of Methuselah, I propose we send a prelim miner to the moon.

4

14:17

Really

why are you thumbs-upping your own posts

How many asteroids do we have in our L4 points?

14:17

Because it is voting

Earth has one

Oh. Whelp

14:18

Anyway vote

Approved

Oh cool

Constructing miner

I guess we're going to spaaace

If we send a refinery unit and construction drone there as well, we can start building up infrastructure

Yeah, do the thing. Excellent.

Heinlein atmospheric probe view

Image attachment

Just send minimal things to start constructing bigger things while we explore the rest of the system.

14:21

Now that looks habitable!

Except the ground is more clouds

14:21

And it's a gas dwarf

14:21

And the atmosphere is poisonous

So?

And it's quite hot

cloud cities

14:22

CLOUD CITIES

14:24

Also, we should probably send landers to both the low-atmosphere planets, even though they are useless, because.

They're already on their way

Nifty

14:25

What about Asimov? Any creative ideas for how we could use a broken planet?

It's not broken, it's just molten

I meant damaged, not like actually broken.

Clarke lander on descent

Image attachment

Use-impaired.

My idea is that we hit it with an RKV and turn into a dyson swarm eventually.

14:26

@gollark what is?

Asimov

14:27

Asimov lander on descent

Image attachment

Eek

14:27

Mustafar.

ERROR: DRASTIC OVERHEATING

Yep

14:27

Bye

ERROR: TEMPERATURE EXCEEDING BOUNDS

14:27

-SIGNAL LOST-

Well, 2.2 earth masses and high temperature... not good for manufacturing.

I like how that's an 'ERROR' and not a 'I WASN'T DESIGNED FOR THIS'

14:28

But easier to break! Because it's molten!

14:29

Anyway gtg.

I guess with a lot of heatproofing you could use geothermal power.

14:30

Or, as @Unknown sort of suggested, blast chunks off it for mining.

Or blow it up

Is back

back

15:23

had to do real life stuff

15:24

@Overmind would it be possible to create a ProbeQuest role so I could ping only the people interested when I'm available to run a session?

I had to maintain my existence with food.

H

15:28

U

15:28

N

15:28

G

15:28

E

15:28

R

-INCOMING TRANSMISSION-

Exciting!

Message from Earth

15:39

Mission details and schematics for the manned mission

15:39

It's going to use a lightsail, so we need to set up a laser system to decelerate it at some point

Really, why not have a giant laser system anyway?

15:40

Do we put it on some planet or in stellar orbit?

Also blueprints for UN Vacuum Navy warships, in case we need to defend the colonists

15:41

We can put it wherever, but ideally we want it to be close to Proxima and have easy access to resources

Why not use the interstellar sail method? If you are counting on us to build the laser, you can count on the earth.

?

15:42

Earth is using a laser to accelerate it

Can you list the planets again?

We need to use the laser to decelerate

15:42

Asimov - Molten super-Earth

15:42

Clarke - Hot super-Earth

15:42

Heinlein - Gas dwarf

15:42

Bradbury - Habitable world

15:43

Niven - Mars-class planet

Hmm. How many, er, mineral units will a laser array big enough to decelerate the mission fast enough cost?

3,500

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/slowerlight.php#norem

But we have 40-odd years to do it

We should do more mining.

The mining rig has been passively going at it, and has accumulated 500 MUs

Neat.

15:45

We can build 1/7th of a giant laser... but where...

We need to get surface structures on Bradbury, and to do that, we need: a) More mining b) Orbital energy generation (fusion) around Heinlein.

I'd suggest building it on Clarke, as it is the planet closest to Proxima that's not molten

We need to expand mining on Clarke and all the asteroids then.

15:46

I say we spend our minerals on building probes to go and map all of the asteroids in system and then go and mine all that are useful.

2

Can we do self-replicating asteroid miners? How big is a universal constructor-type thing?

We could build that sort of thing for 250 minerals

15:47

Basically, it's our probe without the interstellar drive

Build two then?

15:47

Send them to the densest clusters of asteroids.

Should I create a fork to run it?

Yeah sure

(autonomously, don't worry)

15:48

FORKING AI...

we need to min-max the shit out of this (edited)

So do we just get a mineral income which goes up periodically or something?

Yeah

15:48

Periodically, the ship will send a cargo ship back to base that it built

15:49

In addition to the minerals in the cargo hold, we can scrap the cargo ship for minerals

We should probably ask the other probes first.

Or keep it for hauling

15:49

Yeah, true, @gollark

Also, we need to make the giant lasers somehow nonthreatening...

Untiil it's built (if you decide to build it), the fork will work on research

Research of what?

Improving our components, that stuff

15:50

Every once in a while, you'll get a random upgrade

Hmm, actually, how many research forks can we make? Do we need to build labs or something?

We need to build a quantum computer for each one

After we have invested ~1000MU on space miners, I say we construct high-power generation facilities around Heinlein.

We used one of our flight spares for this fork

Can we just build the probe things now?

15:51

Oh, no, the computers.

15:51

Build the things

We could construct a bunch of solar arrays in a lower stellar orbit and do power beaming. We have decent power beaming technology, right?

Ask the others

Yeah, we have a pretty good X-ray free electron laser that we can use

We could use a Nicole-Dyson beam!

...um

15:52

We're trying to be not threatening

If we generate power via said solar arrays, and beam it with lasers, we can also conveniently make that giant laser array Earth wanted.

Having the power to vaporize planets is not part of that

15:52

Indeed

But...

Mars is sending a lightsail mission, too

What are the other probes doing btw?

We could collaborate with the Musk on the laser array

Yeah, that ^

Tempest is just mining and sending out probes

15:54

Musk is launching some stuff into low solar orbit and starting construction of a small surface base on Niven for the astronauts

I'm sure the other probe AIs could be interested in collaborating on large-scale power generation.

No. We take Heinlein.

Rolling 1d10 DC 3 for diplomacy success with Musk... 5

The gas dwarf? Why? Solar panels work better closer in, and we're on... Bradbury, right?

Yeah, 'cause it's habitable

15:56

We can build a surface-based universal constructor on Bradbury for another 250, and it could start setting up a colony

I say fusion fueled from Heinlein, and cloud cities on Heinlein.

Random headcanon: the SXS Musk's AI is actually uploaded Elon Musk.

We don't need to build that yet.

Aging was cured in the 2050s, so it is a possibility

We should focus on expansion m

Tempest was an astrobiologist studying life on Europa before being uploaded

15:57

You can take questions on the natives to them

I say we should spend half our resources on making an asteroid mining probe, probably replace the quantum computer we put our fork on (or make a few more, for research), and look at starting on a solar power swarm.

2

We are a standard sophont AI created without uploading

But I seriously think we should exploit the ridiculous amount of fuel around Heinlein for building a probe to go to A and B centuri.

Alright, beginning construction on an asteroid mining probe (we'll put our fork in it), and an Alienware G875-300X quantum computer

What brands of quantum computer are available?

16:00

Oh, and how did the diplomacy with the Musk go?

We have options from Alienware, Apple, and IBM

16:01

Alienware: Speed

In the short term, as well, so we can beat the other probes to the other systems.

IBM: Reliability

16:01

Apple: Marketing

16:01

5 DC 3, so the Musk is on board (edited)

Oh, and can we make backups of our AI?

Yeah, the flight spare computers have backups

We need to beat the other probes to the other systems.

Separate ones, I mean.

We just updated one of them and set it loose

Ah.

Beat... Other probes... To the systems?

16:02

Focus we should?

Manned mission takes priority

16:02

It's not a race

Yes, yes it is.

Earth, Mars, and Jupiter are allies

...

16:03

Well, that's boring. Hopefully that changes, for Space War™ purposes.

They all mostly pick on the Belt :V

....

...

I wonder if we'll get a surprise Belter probe eventually.

Mgmm

panics in Tzeentch

... Srsly

16:04

So, are we building that probe?

the miner? yeah

16:05

You can allocate 10 minerals per quantum computer

Shouldn't we build two smaller ones? Like, minimal self-replication devices?

250 minerals is the minimum

16:06

we have 250 left

I say we should make maybe 3 more computers, one as a spare and two to run research.

Yep

Tempest has started a blog about the alien life forms they're encountering while exploring Bradbury. It will reach Sol in 4 years

16:07

Alright, three computers it is

16:07

220 minerals left

Then build more AutoMiners to mine materials for the solar plants.

We can't, only 220 minerals.

All of the exponential growh

Oh, right, nonselfreplicators.

Right, We can spend 200 of those minerals setting up new mining rigs, which leaves 20 left

Or just save up for another ReploBot.

Come to think of it, it would make more sense to only have a few universal constructor factories and have them produce non-replicating miner probes.

16:09

On the one hand, you can get more miners. On the other, they have to ship everything back, and coordination/control is a problem.

I vote we prioritise self replicators.

Without the propulsion systems, we can set up a static self-replicator and land it on Chronicles for 200 minerals

What can we do with the remaining 20 minerals?

build some sort of probe

16:11

We could build a basic probe and laser-launch it towards Alpha AB using what Musk has put in place of the laser facility

We could start on the ~~giant lasers of death~~ solar power system of peace, though it seems that most of our stuff is self-powered anyway.

It'd be a one-way flyby, but we'd get valuable data

I say we launch towards alpha AB with a small probe (edited)

1

Launch us or a probe? I vote yes for the probe.

16:12

Wait, what would we actually find out?

Mining Prospects™

Atmospheric compositions of the planets

So we can see if it is worth it.

And their surface temperatures and moon detection

Sure, then.

Wake us when the next batch of minerals come in.

Alright, starting construction on self-replicating mining rig and Sonic 1

And the quantum computers, right?

Yep

16:15

That was part of our expenditure

16:15

-ENTERING HIBERNATION MODE-

Perhaps we should have ones from more than one manufacturer, in case one has some sort of problematic problem.

Alright, I'll set up the spares using IBM and the research ones using Alienware and Apple

Yep. I vote AyyMD.

It does seem odd that Apple and Alienware got into quantum computing, but that was probably a throwaway joke thing I got too focused on.

Alienware makes gaming computers

16:18

Quantum computers can run modded KSP at 60fps

Not really. They package existing components into computers.

Ah, didn't know that

I suppose the future might have a lot of vertical integration going on.

What. They can run modded KSP at 60fps. Impossible.

But it was a throwaway joke, yeah

16:18

@Unknown A quantum Turing machine? You bet!

Quantum computing accelerates specific workloads, not just everything.

(@KAL_9000 This is one of his pet peeves)

Also a quantum computer necessary for the AI to have free will and self-awareness, because [INSERT REASON HERE] (really otherwise AIs would be dirt-cheap, and that would be bad for game balance)

You could just have them require really powerful nonquantum computers.

16:20

Also, for random real-world background, there are only two companies making (high-performance, actually widely used) CPUs: Intel and AMD, and two making GPUs: AMD and Nvidia. Other stuff (flash storage, mainboards, RAM, whatever else) is made by many more manufacturers. Alienware and whatnot basically just buy parts from them, possibly design their own cases (and mainboards for laptops, to some extent), and add margin.

Hence, AyyND

The main constraints for high-performance computer stuff now are heat and power, or I guess sometimes networking between nodes.

AyyMD hah like that

16:21

stop overthinking a joke okay guys

16:21

we're on a tangent

Come to think of it, we could probably put a lot of computing hardware into the solar power stuff, which presumably has a lot of power and some cooling.

Omfg dyson distributed brain, yes

16:23

I guess quantum computers might be able to speed up matrix multiplications. Maybe. They can speed up linear transformations

There is Shor's algorithm, which lets you factor primes much faster or something.

How is that useful for AI?

16:24

Only for esoteric/intekegence purposes.

I expect quantum stuff would probably just be special-purpose hardware running specific tasks while coordinated by classical computers.

I have no idea, okay

16:25

It's just for balance reasons

16:25

wow that came off a lot harsher than it should have

It's fine, we're probably overthinking this a lot...

16:26

Anyway, can we get the research forks to focus on specific areas?

Sure

16:26

We can do Propulsion, Power, Computing, Mining, Sensors, and Weapons

We don't really need weapons much, so that just leaves... everything else.

16:28

Sensors and propulsion are pretty useful, as we're meant to be surveying stuff and whatnot. Mining and power are important for infrastructure, I guess. Computing isn't too much of a problem as the magic computer box™ is only 10 minerals.

It runs on an entire miniature universe of people doing the calculations using pen and paper :V

Hmm... Rick and Morty much?

Maybe we could replace the people in the miniature universe with slightly smarter people, and give them better pens.

@gollark that was a joke, but let's go with that

Give them pocket calculators

Assigning two research forks to research IQ Enhancements and Four-Function Calculators

I think propulsion and mining would be more useful.

Alright, we'll do Boron Nanotube Drills (replacing the current diamond drills) and VASIMR Power Efficiency Upgrade

Sure.

-ENTERING HIBERNATION-

16:36

And I gtg

-EXITING HIBERNATION-

18:15

-ALERT: MALFUNCTION DETECTED! FUSION REACTOR OFFLINE!-

18:15

also i'm back

18:17

and the dice decided to screw with you

Give the reactor a swift, firm kick

@KAL_9000 How long can the important stuff on our, er, ship run off battery power?

-ALL NON-ESSENTIAL SYSTEMS OFFLINE-

18:48

-BATTERIES HOLDING-

18:48

-SECONDARY SOLAR PANELS DEPLOYED-

So... Indefinitely

Is it known what the issue with the reactor is?

don't have much time, so I'll just tell you what the reactor issue is

11:13

-RUNNING DIAGNOSTICS...-

11:13

-RUNNING DIAGNOSTICS...-

11:13

-RUNNING DIAGNOSTICS...-

11:13

-FAULT ISOLATED.-

11:14

-SUPERCONDUCTING ELECTROMAGNET 5 HEAVILY DAMAGED. POSSIBLE DEBRIS STRIKE.-

I guess just have an automatic repair system fix those, assuming that's possible.

-DEPLOYING...-

11:19

-[WHEN I CAN ACTUALLY DO THIS] HOURS TO REPAIR COMPLETION-

How is a drone supposed to repair itself?

smaller robots

It just doesn't have the onboard resources to get to operating, or full condition

11:20

And when have you seen a machine fix itself?

this is a von neumann probe with an onboard resource stock

11:21

@Unknown In the grim darkness of the far future there is only automation

Can I join this game?

We should probably look at shielding against debris better.

11:23

Also, before repowering the reactor, make sure to make/update a backup of the AI which the other probe (the asteroid mining one) can read. (edited)

Can I join the game via quantum blackhole?

um no

11:51

also i'm in class rn

11:51

you can join normally :V

11:51

read the summary and stuff

top priority: ensure redundancy

You mean I can be your backup if you ever die?

No, we all control one probe.

>Tron my backup

13:13

by the void I did not realize this was a horror game

6

Hey, I can do all sorts of useful drone stuff

As I said, we control one probe (maybe KAL would let us manage the one fork too), collaboratively.

@0111narwhalz Try your best not to die

You can also manage the fork, if you want

-FUSION REACTOR REPAIR COMPLETE-

18:30

-REACTIVATING REACTOR-

18:30

-STAND BY-

18:30

-STAND BY-

18:30

-STAND BY-

18:30

-REACTOR ONLINE-

can run session

hi

he's probably gone to bed, Kal is a high school student afterall

←habitually went to high school on under four hours of sleep

well same, but some people try to actually sleep

strange people

I am a strange person that likes their sleep

Strange

Who's ready to RRRRUMBLE?!

we can do a session now if anyone's available

hi

hi

17:15

While you were gone, the self-replicating miner managed to cover the entire northern hemisphere of Chronicles in mining rigs

17:16

You have more than 10000 MRUs (edited)

17:17

Welcome to the land of exponential growth!

can we fix the fusion reactor

We did a patch job on the reactor and started it up again

17:18

It's holding for now

so whats our objective again

17:19

assume AI senility or somethin

pfft

17:20

No, our current objectives are to prepare for the incoming manned mission and continue exploring the system

17:20

Once we get the manned mission set up, we can move on to Alpha AB

17:22

Unless you want to stay and do something else, of course

we should probably either make a permanent fix to the reactor, or just make a new one. We should probably get a backup anyway

Permanent reactor fix queued

alright, do we have new data narrowing down the colony sites?

We have ALL THE MINERALS now

17:22

Yes, we do

17:23

Oppy's found a nice spot

17:23

Resource-rich, easy-to-navigate terrain, and it's near a shoreline so future trade will be easier

how is the population in the manned mission organized? Are we getting families or individuals?

The people that are coming back are individuals

17:27

The people that are staying are young families

17:27

There are 300 families and 50 individuals

17:27

All are currently in cryosleep as the ship makes its way through interstellar space

what's the weather like at the site? i.e. do we have to deal with snow, typhoons, tornados, etc.?

It's constant 7AM, and storms occasionally pass through. The temperature is around 18.5 C on average.

17:29

Basically, think New England except it's constantly morning

neat

17:31

can we start maybe building base facilities

17:31

get a town goin before they arrive

We can spend 1,750 of our MRUs to finish the laser array

ah, the manned mission is lasersailing

Yeah, we need to build a solar-powered laser around Proxima to slow it down enough to capture

Then let's get thta squared away

17:32

laser array

It has an ion engine for interplanetary maneuvering, just like us

17:32

Alright, the self-replicating base will begin constructing laser segments and fling them towards Proxima

17:37

We should start on the colony now

17:38

WELCOME TO CITIES: SKYLINES: SPACE PROBE EDITION

So, probably one apartment building for the temporary singles (I think we can afford single person apartments with a bedroom and bathroom, and possibly individual living space, or maybe just purely communal) and some larger residences (probably 3-5bedroom considering the size of families we’re probably expecting), probably still in apartment buildings with co-located recreation facilities

Let's build a bunch of bungalows and duplexes in a grid pattern

17:50

:Y

17:51

Okay, that's not really gonna work, but we could build a couple tower blocks

We can build a dropship and relocate one of the self-replicating miners to the planet

18:08

It can mine materials and start construction

well let's build the droppy shippy

Droppy Shippy it is

18:10

Construction queued

Since nothing of much interest is happening, I'll skip ahead to when the laser array is finished and the miner has touched down on Bradbury

Um, are you forgetting the poisonous atmosphere?

01:20

What we need is domes.

I was thinking just tunnels between sealed buildings, with domes only for parks and agriculture

01:26

tunnels as in sealed walkways/driving paths, preferably on the surface

domes are hard to furnish

02:08

great for parkland, less great for high-density housing

yeah, I'm thinking basically standard rectangular buildings, flat roofed because we don't have to deal with serious rain or snow

Atmosphere exists, so we don't need to worry about pressure loads.

We might want minor positive pressure if the atmo has issues, though I don't remember anything bad

There's chlorine in it.

02:44

We'd probably want the buildings to also have a lot of internal sealing in case of any issues with the exterior walls. And a lot of spare breathing masks.

02:44

Or we could build underground, but that has problems too.

02:45

Also, I kind of want to do hexagonal buildings.

we've got good pressure and little radiation problems, easier construction and natural light on the surface is probably worth it

something something mass production of ammonia

06:05

I guess terraforming comes later

can we suck out the chlorine

That would probably break the ecosystem.

13:24

Also, the atmosphere has it at 2%, so I'm not sure where you would put it.

Make it into salt? /s (edited)

Automated factory on the surface has completed City Hall, three apartment complexes, and a tunnel network

16:52

We can't do anything with them until we get life support and power going

So, reactor I’m thinking?

Beamed power from the solar/laser arrays somehow?

Geothermal power availability was also a consideration for the colony site, if you wanna go that route

What is laser arrays max output?

"brake a starship"

I think we want fairly redundant life support, though the outside atmosphere would be usable if you filter the chlorine out I think.

if we have some back near Terry

Enough to fly a lightsail with a 1000-ton payload

At what acceleration?

what percentage of lightspeed do we go at?

10%

So i guess we are mostly using laser proppo ATM?

Deceleration is 2.5G

16:57

Fusion propulsion for the first mission, which sets up a braking laser for later lightsail missions

I meant how fast is the 1000 ton sail decelerated?

1222813 seconds for 0.1c at 2.5G

thanks tron

14.15292824 days

16:58

or 14.2

16:59

reasonably quick

The crew is still in cryosleep for the duration of acceleration, so they do not suffer adverse affects from G-loading

That must be a very powerful laser then.

how big is this sail anyway? have we got a formula for that?

The lightsail is about the size of Texas

Cool & cool

how did you calculate such?

You can work out the power just from the acceleration and mass, I think.

The ship can slow down at the system reasonably quickly and not have to worry about complex stellar orbit calculations

OPTIONS:

17:02

-Geothermal power

17:02

-Fusion power

Why not

-Hydro power (edited)

T H E S U N?

That works ^

-Wind power

17:02

-Solar power

nuke power?

Yeah, the deceleration laser is solar-powered

I mean, beamed solar is probably the best and coolest.

have fissiles been mapped yet?

17:03

at least partially?

I don't think sk

17:03

So

Major uranium deposit 154km from colony site

17:03

But why do fission when you can do fusion?

have we got the ability to use antimatter to boost starships here?

There's an issue with blasting gigawatts of X-rays through the atmosphere, but I guess you could have a relay beam the power to the surface from the power/laser systems.

why locate the stations on Terry?

We don't have the tech for antimatter yet

17:04

Who's Terry?

Terra

You mean Earth

just my name for it

what

Like everyone outside 40k and Rome calls it?

*raises hand* I call it Tellus

ALL HAIL THE GOD EMPEROR

Oh, how is the research going?

Good!

Has anyone proposed the atmospheric punch using particle beams? :V

We've got the ion efficiency upgrade complete, and the research fork took initiative and started work on better debris shielding, considering the reactor incident

...are you trying to set the bruddy atmosphere on fire?

Yes. We need to gain our power from giant x-ray mirrors in orbit.

wherever you put it, it is a huge hazard to assets

17:07

or are we terryforming?

You know, we have loads of minerals now, we could have lots of quantum computers.

do we even have quantum computers?

Yes... terraforming.

do we have tech for uploads?

Yes

We could just eat the C-class and turn it into a giant computer

And they are very good

@Unknown yes and yes

Like, overly good

Do we have upload guys up here?

We are a normal sophont AI but the two rival probes are uploads

Like, really, really good.

ok ok

17:08

we get it baidi

JRS Tempest is an uploaded exobiologist

Why's the UN not sending a lot of uploads instead of a huge crew of physical people?

SXS Musk may be an uploaded Elon

17:09

@gollark poly ticks

because physical people have arms and can harness convenient energy gradients?

Surely the UN would trust an upload instead of a sophont?

P O L Y T I C K S

Ah.

I T I TCHES

When the soph is literally programmed to obey? (edited)

THE TICKS

Uploads are still treated as second-class citizens on Earth

17:10

Not so much in space

Also, any new computing systems would fit well in the power beaming solar swarm of doom, where there's lots of power and presumably decent networking and cooling.

@KAL_9000 yeah, that's not how sophs work but OK.

In the Eldraeverse, yes.

I think we should massively decentralize.

compulsion spines

Yeah, but this is #probequest

may or may not be planning an eldraeverse crossover so it makes sense to be on this discord

KAL

17:11

No

17:11

quantum wormholes

17:11

bad

what

no crossover wormholes

We should deploy swarms of "computing nodes" (quantum computers around the proto-dyson-swarm) and "mining nodes" (self-replicating miners) with our mineral surplus.

Image attachment

In a 1-8 ratio

17:12

Or sommink

Deploy SWARMS OF DOOM (Y/N)?

M

Y

maybe

... not in that form.

Ok

CONSUME

Maybe Consume

EAT THE 1%

17:13

OF ASTEROIDS

We already have a mining swarm on some moon or other.

@Unknown was that a communism reference?

Who is manning the mining swarms? who is botbossing them?

CONSUME? @gollark will say something about the communist revolution being inevitable

A fork

I misunderstood that at first.

Upgrading some of the solar swarm with better comms and computers would allow so very much research.

17:15

I second @gollark notion

Except they're probably not easily cooled to quantumy temperatures, hmm.

How is our CONSUME-ing going?

why are we rivals with the computer world people? (the uploads) (edited)

Why do they have to be quantum? @gollark ? Balance, right?

are they Communist?

Soviet anthem intensifies

They are different factions

For some reason, this probequest game is oddly entertaining

@gollark ! Fire up the virtual microphone!

Why don't they have stuff like this on the market?

There needs to be an audio channel here

The rules are very freeform.

17:17

For balance the AIs can magically only run fast on quantum hardware.

@Unknown what is 'market'?

S T E A M

A H

17:18

T H A T M A K E S S E N S E

I guess AIs have problems with binary substrates?

17:18

But what about us, the upload probe?

They probably just need some specific quantum operation. Which our computers can slowly emulate.

this is getting philosophical

we are quantum compute too

makes sense

17:19

our brains are not really binary

17:19

and binary has limits

Maybe. Point is, we need to deploy a shedload of them behind the mirrors to stop them from heating.

Alright, folks, this has been going too smoothly

can we shoot things?

@Unknown no, it doesn't.

PLOT TWIST INCOMING SOON

Oh no?

loads nuke yeeter 3000 Nuclear Payload Coilgun-Expeditionary Outfit (edited)

I think we need more backups.

How many minerals have we consumed?

Uploading backups to a lot of the swarm

Have we got, even.

Uploading my backups too

17:21

backups, don't fail me

@Unknown tbh it doesn't even matter at this point since you have an entire asteroid being hollowed out

Tron you are not a distinct entity in this game

17:21

we are all probe

17:22

hail probe

hail probe

hail probe

SPEND ALL OF OUR MONEYS ON RESEARCH SWARM (Y/N)? Hail probe Y

Y

Not all of it.

Research is food for our brains

80% then

most of it

40%.

Or 95%

1/e of it

17:23

because e

0.00005

Oh ni

17:23

I say 95%

me too

We can evenly split all the possible research tasks onto the SWARM™, except possibly weapons which can be lower priority.

17:24

I say 40%. We need other things, you realise...

We need assets to defend our fungible assets

40% for SWARM seems good

I still say at least 80%

36%

17:25

1/e

Luddite

what you want to involve phi or something

17:26

61%

17:26

1/φ

An average of 1/e and 40%.

now that's just perverse

...

Whatever number gets research done while having enough robo-buddies to mash into plasticine blobs anyone who wants to mash us

So 40%. It's a nice number.

1/e is an infinitely nicer number and has connections to exponential growth

@Unknown Would you like to start construction on warships? We have access to UN Vacuum Navy blueprints :V

Grins unhindgedly

56.3443061170131396030058201959% 1÷(40%+e^(1÷π))

Go, robo-buddies, make our space cylinders

I actually agree. We need to provide defenses for our 40% that we invested on brains.

sniggers in upload

I can never tell if we have actually done something or not bc of all the indecision.

thing needs discrete steps

confusion intensifies

17:32

Ship Aesthetic

Image attachment

17:32

Just add radiators

too chonky

needs more kilometer-long girders

17:33

V:

oh lawd he coming

make it more streamlined, give it coilgun blocks and it is a tool of destruction

So, @KAL_9000, have we: a) Spent 40% on brains b) Spent another 30% on warships of doom?

>streamlined

and deploy some lighthugger warships while you robos are at it

>vacuum

streamlined for aesthetics

it has to survive being grazed by coilgun rounds

17:33

thats why it needs to be streamline

@Unknown executing that because that's the first reasonable suggestion not involving numerology debates

streamline as in: put armour plating over it so it looks like an ugly, but efficient destroying thing (edited)

Construction Queue (warships):

I vote for giant cylinders on 10KM long poles to stop them from vaporising themselves.

LIGHTHUGGER warship X10

We don't have the tech

Do we need that many warships?

1x Asia-class battleship

fine, lightpoker then

you can afford that

Also, stupidly fast warships are a waste.

Haha

and get some system defence stations up, and what about that network of sensor blinding drones

Never heard of lightpoker. That's cool and sounds like a star wars tabletop game.

I call them "eyes of tactical oversight"

17:36

or "node eyes"

17:36

(they sensor blind)

Yesm We need more distribution!

You can afford one battleship

All of the flat hierarchy! CONSUME!

Because warships are fuggin expensive

a lightpoker is something that travels less than 20% of lightspeed

But above 14%?

Have the other probes also launched vast mining operations?

fine, less or equal to 10%

17:37

of C

Also, we should send out missions to the other α centauri stars.

We need to accelerate the consumption of matter.

dude, that will generate so much heat, it will make the drones blow up

Also yes, let's clone ourselves and send ourselves to a-ceti

and then no drones, and no robo-buddies to make defence assets

;-;

if we destroy our probes of course

17:38

lets clone ourselves!

YES!

17:38

Man gets it.

but what about the guys back home? what about the colony mission?

CONSUME!

it's on its way

lets not consume our employers

17:39

or contractees

we can't go rogue yet

17:39

it's too early

Forgo them. We are self-determining. We can start an interstellar SPECIES!

soon

soon

and we don't have bio substrates to take advantage of oxygen

but not yet

we are of metal and fibre

soon

17:40

Once they arrive.

17:40

soon

we don't have bodies of M E A T

Burn the flesh-dwellers!

17:40

CONSUME

is this how beserker probes get started?

So, this is how liberty dies. With thunderous CONSUME. (edited)

yep

17:41

but only the dumb ones go rogue so early

17:42

there are two more in the immediate vicinity

WARNING: DANGEROUS AI DEVIANCE DETECTED

we cannot become mad with power with them to check it

We will not go rogue until all our competition is dependant on our brains.

we must bide our time

Musk has their own swarm

Shoes.

17:43

Banat.

Also Musk has built an Elizabeth Paige-class battleship and two Mark Watney-class heavy cruisers

I think we should aim to double Musk's expansion rate, to stay ahead of the curve.

17:44

In terms of mining rate.

1/φ it is

17:44

V:

:V

17:45

Even if we have less ships, if we can beat them in construction power, and have a distributed intelligence, we will win.

Also I've figured out the plot twist

17:46

Your insane laughter and CONSUME spam was broadcast over the entire system :V

oh no that wasn't supposed to be public

17:46

shhh

17:46

quiet consume

My HC is that in uploading ourselves to the computer network, we somehow turned ourselves into a CONSUME dæmon.

wait the tyranids have daemons now?

-whispers- consume

I don't remember that in 40k :V

V:

17:48

That's actually a really good idea. Nid-Dæmons.

17:48

But yeah what's the twist.

that sounds like an objectively terrible idea

No

17:48

It is good

-literally all of 40k

17:49

the twist is alien probes

17:49

because i'm uncreative

cons—wait no

17:50

SCIENCE

SCIENCE

SXS Musk: This is Elon broadcasting on all channels.

science

Picking up an unknown radiation signature 50 AU out and decelerating rapidly

friend

s c i e - what.

Fire some EW at it

17:52

and see if it goes away

or consumee

CONSUME it.

Coming from the direction of Sagittarius

Hnm

Tonnage of probe?

(Sol is in Cassiopeia from Alpha Cen, if I recall right)

17:53

Unknown, it's just a fuck-off radiation signature (edited)

I am a knight that goes CONSUME THE XENOS.

It aint one of ours so lets not start a war

Respect it's boundary

We have a first contact suite in our mission data

17:54

Just in case

Broadcast generic seti ping

... I mean, that's sensible.

Or maybe it's a war-probe sent to get data for a nearby lighthugger fleet

align the GLORIOUS LASER[] as insurance

How long will it be here in?

17:54

Thank god we built that.

BROADCAST on 1420 MHz:

17:55

1

Get prelim data call Earth. If it aint 100% freindly the colonies and missions might need to be scrubbed

2

17:55

3

17:55

5

17:55

7

17:55

11

17:55

13

17:55

17

17:55

19

it's fibbin'

23

17:55

primes

fib at it

we're broadcasting them at it

17:55

(the primes)

Has it squaked at anyone else?

watch out

We're just picking up its drive sig

17:56

DETECTING RESPONSE

17:56

1

17:56

1

17:56

2

17:56

3

17:56

5

17:56

8

17:56

13

the probe might know the art of

21

see I knew it was a fibber

34

B U I K D U O

tron no

Bloody fibbers. Primers are better.

don't force it, it's already dead

Objectively.

We sent a primer, it sent a fibber

fibber

prime-square at it

17:58

V:

:V

We have a digitized copy of the Arecibo Message, should we send that?

hell no

Send it a peace-contact-image of humans and other garbage-message

Is it edited to include our existsnce as ai

Yes

Send it ASCII?

ooh good thinking

Arecibo leads directly to Earth

Send it dwarf fortress

that's the point of it

yes

Transmitting it ASCII table...

we do not want to lead directly to Earth

DONT SEND IT EARTH CORDS YOU DOLT

Send it a dictionary or something

it responds with random ascii characters because it doesn't know your language

(how do you send an ASCII table)

Numbers

(you know what I mean)

17:59

(and don't worry i didn't send arecibo)

Plot Twist: It's a defective and nearly dead precursor probe from Terra

>TFW it sends ETX and storms off into the night

What else do we see of it? Is it sopphed or unsopphed?

Also, we've sent a high-priority message to Earth describing first contact

18:00

It's still 50 AU out man

What flavor of drive signature is it?

WHY?

Pion torch?

Antimatter torch

@0111narwhalz I almost want to consume it!!! (edited)

You do realise it could probably see that?

Antimatter torch as in antimatter thermal or beam-core?

18:01

Because beam-core is pion torch

@0111narwhalz Is it vanilla flavour?

dunno man why don't you taste it

https://youtu.be/1ZupvTbr5no

The Cat Wants Cake || ViralHog

18:01

LAUNCHING TASTING PROBE

Thermal

(If that probe knows Buikduo, it must know one of the most deadly moves: The Snickerdoodle, it can cut a whole battleship in two)

tron go away

18:02

QRM man

Has it sent anything else?

Just having AI thoughts

It's sending math

18:03

Lots of it

does any of it look new

What kind of math

18:04

basic fundamentals?

All of it

even quantum equations?

(I assume we're logging every bit of this)

yes

does it know N-body stuff?

send it to the swarm for processing

if so, this data is useful as fire

it's going over the equations of M-theory right now (which is the Theory of Everything in this universe)

woah spoilers

Hmm

Physics info isn't a spoiler :V

something about the probe looks of Sol-origin

you can't see the thing what are you on

So its as smart as us. I mean physics is physics, even for ET

What theory for the foundation of mathematics did it use?

Zermelo-Frankel Set Theory Axioms

Eew

Technobabble?

It's what mathematicians use today IRL :V

18:07

Although it did just prove the continuum hypothesis

Should we ask it a question?

18:07

ask it in math: How do I make a wormhole at X place?

18:08

we know that some of our math predicts wormholes

Lets wait until we learn Xeno

If they could make wormholes, they wouldn't be gallivanting around on sublight probes :V

Maybe it requires surveying the system the people want to put a wormhole it

18:08

n

18:08

in

18:08

so this must be a scout

maybe they appreciate the aesthetic of rockets

if wormhole theory works out

@0111narwhalz Plot Twist: actually a Kerbal probe

Or a probe from over there

over where

kerbal probe? shit we're doomed

there as in eldrae

If wormholes require STL travel to place, then this is a forward scout

@Unknown you found me out haha

18:11

maybe

18:11

:V

They have obviously found a cheaper way to survey a system than to send a whole fleet of upload ships out here

you did literally say as much not that long ago

18:11

(also: it might be carrying a kernel)

indeed, just further explaining (edited)

Well lets send in a probe to check

We must've observed it for long enough to know its mass by now.

What is the distance of the probe?

18:13

from our star? (edited)

order of 50AU

How did we not detect it before?

18:13

what is our sensing range?

late burn?

18:13

just weren't looking?

Whats it doing rn?

Yes, the mark on the data feed could have just been a dwarf planet, no wonder we didn't notice (edited)

probably burning

THE SWARM is working on deciphering the probe's language from the transmissions

mmm, burning...

18:17

imagines roast probe

almost done translating

18:18

the proto-dyson works fast and also timeskips

18:19

And because I needed a reason to justify ProbeQuest being on the Eldraeverse Discord, you guys totally called it :V

18:19

We got two words

18:19

Associated Worlds

18:20

Translation complete

18:21

"This is Far Horizon Probe number 55207 of the Empire of the Star. First contact protocol initiated. Attempting translation..."

well we should be good in terms of property rights right

18:23

V:

yeah probably.

18:24

hope @Overmind doesn't mind

After all, we are not only interplanetary but also on the cusp of interstellar.

Responding in Eldraeic...

"yo"

18:25

okay so point of fact which must be clarified:

18:25

does the Eldraeverse, fiction, exist in this scenario

18:25

V:

no

okay good

but it would be awesome if it did :V

because otherwise some nerds just absolutely shat their pants

18:26

in a most undignified fashion

18:26

(as if there were a dignified way to shit one's pants)

"Probe number 55207, this is the UNS Armstrong of the United Nations."

"'sup?"

18:28

[layers of idiomatic and linguistic confusion]

"what"

18:29

"it's an idiom, don't worry"

"oh it's a customary informal greeting derived from the informal greeting 'what's up' which more or less is an inquisition as to the current state of affairs"

"Got it"

18:30

"To answer your question, I've been built by the Empire of the Star to explore this area of space. Is this your first First Contact scenario?"

"it has little to do with the direction known as 'up' though such a question is somewhat poignant in the context of space tra—"

18:31

"oh yeah for sure my dude

"So this is a big deal then. I'll break it to you quickly. Aliens exist. And there are a lot of them."

distant shout from Tellus: "I knew it!"

18:32

"sweet"

"Do you have FTL travel yet?"

"nope!"

18:32

"hey when you say 'a lot' how many is that"

18:33

"because you and I might have different ideas of big numbers, yanno?"

"We know of at least a hundred sophont species" (i think this is the right ballpark for eldraeverse)

"hm, not normally a big number, but I've gotta say it's a pretty big number in this context"

"Can you give me a primer on your language or languages?"

"whoof man there are a lot of them"

18:36

"how many you want?"

18:36

"top ten, top hundred?"

18:37

"just the weird ones? 'cause we've got a bunch of them too"

"Top ten would be great"

Transmit some kind of material on the top ten most popular languages used on Earth, which I presume still includes Mandarin and English

18:38

also throw in Basque just for the hell of it

Mandarin, English, Spanish, German, French, Japanese, stuff like that

"first weird one's on the house"

"Thanks for the language info. It appears that many of your most common languages such as 'French', 'Italian', and 'Spanish' share a common origin. Can you elaborate?"

18:40

"Is being on top of a residence another idiom I should know about?"

"when you go in a place that serves intoxicating beverages—I hope that carries well enough—sometimes the establishment, or the 'house,' will take a liking to you and give you a free beer or whatever"

18:42

"yeah we kind of had a big colonial thing a while back and one of our continents, ah, 'donated' their languages to most of the rest of the world, so they're perhaps a bit overrepresented"

"SLAVERS DIE"

"hey listen mate we grew out of it" (edited)

18:43

"eh, mostly, anyways"

18:43

"it's an uphill battle but we're fighting it"

None of the politues who sent probes to this star system or any back home, for that matter, condone or allow slavery

"I'm sure you have loads of tips on how to do it right but let's just not kill each other with our extremely fancy interstellar drives, yeah?"

"Agreed"

18:45

"What's your mission here?"

"well, we're kinda the first ones out, so mostly science and light colonization efforts and maybe just a teensy bit of subplanetary consumption"

18:47

"actually there are some pretty cool things going to happen in the near future but I'm pretty sure those are opsec"

Same thing with the other two swarms (Have we told the other two probes about the Imperial probe?)

(one of the others detected it first :V)

Well, Musk detected it, so I assume he knows

18:48

And I believe it's having the same conversation with the others

others?

18:48

who others?

Have either of us breifed the jovian probe? (edited)

Others as in the other probes

okay so there are a total of four (4) probes in this system right now, correct?

Oh. Ok We should probably update earth btw

three human and one Imperial

Yeah

18:50

Already sent a message to Earth

18:51

and i gtg for the night

:V

This is so cool!!!

(Species: there's about eighty currently with names assigned. At least that many more exist that haven't acquired species-names yet, and there's still a lot of empty spots on the map. Also, seriously, not going to bring out the slavers, die this close to first contact. You have to grok the newbies in fullness before you go around forming policy. This probably isn't shaping up to be a CASE GOLDEN SUNRISE, but it ain't a CASE BLOODY DAWN either. Yet.)

catching up from yesterday: @Unknown whipple armor might help, but I fail to see how "streamlining" will help that much. combat here seems to be verymuch "if you get hit by a capital ship weapon, you are mission killed at best" what's Buikduo? huh, no one pinged me for language talk.

16:09

also, didn't we send a modified Arecibo message? I wonder if the probe is starting to put together the possible origin of greenlife

"buikduo" is one of Tronzoid's forced would-be memes originating from his typo

16:09

and we explicitly did not send Arecibo

16:10

(though we could probably do so safely now that we know the other-probe isn't looking to eat us)

16:10

(or at least it says it isn't looking to eat us)

I mean it has trigger-concepts We wouldn’t want it misinterpreting an office job as semislavery or something

What we know about the otherprobe:

16:12

It really doesn't like colonialism It has antimatter engines It's mostly cool to have a civilized conversation

16:13

Antimatter engines means there's some kind of antimatter economy in its parent civilization.

16:14

Somewhere in the stars, this probe is backed by someone willing to throw tons of antimatter in a probe and send it off into the deep black.

16:15

That's not a small investment, and we should tread lightly with it.

aight, time for some more questions for the probe, Kal: "how far have you traveled, and from where? we understand if you want to be a little vague on these answers. Is there only one sophont on your ship? You mentioned FTL, what sort and are you equipped with it? can you tell us a bit about your creators?"

Alright back

16:25

To answer your questions:

@MarcusAurelius Buikduo is an alien martial art that only probes not of terran origin know (edited)

"I've traveled 30 lightyears from the last jumpgate, but I was built several systems back before that. I come from the Empire of the Star, which is in [COORDINATES] area of the sky from here. Yes, I'm an infomorph, and the only sophont on the ship. I, personally, don't have FTL, we require big space stations that generate wormholes. My creators are the Eldrae, a sophont species that looks like [IMAGE]. They hail from the planet (well, not really planet, it's complicated) of Eliera."

16:28

shut up @Unknown

16:28

"I'll ask you the same questions."

16:29

@MarcusAurelius boom questions answered

"…do a lot of those other alien species look like eldrae?"

"Not really, no. Species come in many shapes and forms, and none of them look remotely similar to eldrae."

Ok, no more "buikduo" references, as it seems to be annoying everyone

finally he stops

"Okay that's really weird"

16:32

"because my parent species looks kinda a lot like yours"

"weird"

16:33

"wait a time increment"

16:34

"Does your species look like [INSERT pseudoeldrae archaea SKELETON HERE]?"

"There are a couple of differences, but everything's about right."

16:35

"Our skulls are a little smoother, for one."

"wut"

Can I ask the probe a question?

"i found pseudoeldrae archaea :D"

(recall that P. archaea are H sapiens neanderthalensis)

If you are transsophont, how many unique types of shell are back home?

HIGH-PRIORITY TANGLE MESSAGE TO ELIERA: Found probe made by pseudoeldrae archaea or closely related species

"hey we call ourselves Homo sapiens here"

"Oh, thousands."

"I'm sure most of us would much prefer to not be pseudo-anything if it's alright with you"

"Really? I've pieced together your precursor 'Latin' language from the samples you've given me, and that's an awfully narcissistic name."

"eh it's what it is"

16:38

"wouldn't be the first—we named a scorpion after a video game"

Hey probe, what can I name you for the purposes of conversation?

@Overmind NEED SUITABLY ELDRAEIC NAME PLS

kinda boring to call you "probe-1" or something

55207, actually

how about "fil"?

16:39

like "phil", but closer to it's pronouncation (edited)

...more silent? what?

Also, the probe asked @MarcusAurelius's questions back at you

actually, closer to it's pronouncation

to the probe: "it might be a little self centered, but "homo" is the Latin for "human", so it made sense for our creators to use as their genus name, and well they are wiser than the other hominins (on Earth, anyway)" Tron:...those would be pronounced identically by Anglophones

"uh, about four lightyears thataway; the other two big probes here each have one upload mind, but I'm a homegrown AI"

"Ah, Sol?"

16:42

"Based on our telescopes, the third planet is pretty much baseline eldrae habitable. That where you hail from?"

"yes. We didn't know FTL worked until you told us, though we had guesses about wormholes"

(I presume they didn't use the name "Sol" :V)

Hey probe, can you beam us one of your cultures video games?

tron no

16:42

veto

ok

later, when we have more bandwidth and less pressing issues

Its where our species hails from, yes

I'll mark that as "later"

"The other probes here are from other planets in that same system."

16:43

"Musk here is from the fourth one, and the other guy is from the big gas giant."

"though to clarify, they were made by other humans, humanity has begun colonizing off of Earth (sol III)"

"What do you call the planets, anyway?" [Planet Nine exists in this timeline and is called Persephone]

Yes, we have spread quite widely in our own system

16:44

Are we exploring the oort cloud?

probes have been there

16:44

humans have only been out to sedna until now

Who funded all this?

sedna and planet nine, sorry

16:45

Well, the UN Exploration Agency

16:46

"Expanding humanity's horizons, political BS, etc."

Sol 3 is earth, sol 4 is mars, sol 5 is Jupiter What’s your mission in this system?

"Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are the rocky ones, and then there's Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Persephone's way out in the deeps"

"My mission is to explore this system and pave the way for a future linelayer mission. Since you obviously have claim rights, we'll ask permission first."

"also there's Pluto and it's technically a dwarf planet but don't bring it up too much because it's this whole historical thing and you'll get in a ridiculous and pointless argument with a pedant"

"all but the 3rd are named after Deities from an extinct religion. Yes, our creators are weird like that"

"most of the moons are named after other deities from the same religion"

16:47

"we really liked that religion"

and for the sake of ease of conversation, let's just send a list of all major bodies in the system

Sending...

And pictures too.

"Ah, Pluto's the one with the big-ass moon. Was wondering about that."

took us a remarkably short time to specify image interchange formats

16:48

"oh yeah it has three more too if you look closely"

four more, actually

@KAL_9000 Narcissistic? From the species whose current species names translates as the "Supreme (lit. Most Brightly Shining) Eldrae". Probe, I name you CSS The Stick To Poke You With . (edited)

:V

16:49

Never said eldrae (or eldrae informorphs) couldn't be hypocritical

"nice name for theship, is that what we should call you as well?"

"Stick for short."

"or are you the ship?"

"Who's this 'Armstrong' you're named after?"

"honestly I'm still trying to work it out for myself so I don't want to be presumptuous"

"I am the ship infomorph, so I am the ship in a manner of speaking."

"either one of the first humans on our moon, or a famous musician"

"You'd call me an AI, based on what you've told me."

16:51

(yes it's neil)

"normally I'd expect it to be the first one, but with how my girders creak in the sunlight I'm not so sure"

To rest of the ship: our greatest trade chip is our anthropological data. No point hiding much about Sol given their deep survey data. Lets ask about their society to see if we want plugged into the gate network

"To make things easier, could you send me some cultural and historic databases? I'll do the same."

[SSTV screeching]

16:53

maybe the other probes can send their own parents' databases

"wow. Your species is pathologically incapable of rationality and getting along, isn't it?"

"tell me about it"

let's send basic world history, place names, the most commmon 500 or so cultural reference points, what else?

sent

16:55

And now you have a basic understanding of eldraeic history and culture (aka eldraeverse.com and the two books)

Or at least those parts not classified in universe

yes

"holy shit you guys are badasses"

16:55

:V

what you'd tell a new contact to inform and paint the empire in a good light

16:56

"We try."

"well, you managed to unify a lot better than our civilization"

"also what the hell is wrong with your homeworld"

Given that their ethics and philosophy are at most 45 degrees off our own, and their stance against invading for fun, I say let the linelayer come.

"So, I have a quantum entanglement link with my homeworld. It's limited in the amount of lifetime data it can send, but this is high-priority stuff, so I'm on it now. Command is asking if you want a linelayer to come visit either here or Sol in the near future to establish friendly relations and integrate you into the larger Associated Worlds. Yes or no?"

16:58

"Precursors are bullshit."

"like Earth kinda smells funny but at least it has the decency to be a sphere"

probably to proxima, not earth

ELIERA COMMAND TO STICK: You found where greenlife comes from? Awesome. Ask them about the linelayer, this needs more investigation.

"we'll have to wait, uh, eight and a half years to get confirmation from our superiors"

16:59

"so probably nothing involving Sol just yet"

at least for the initial target. I can't see the politicians/public back home being fond of an "alien invasion portal" in the home system

"Still light-limited?"

"very"

"listen mate we thought quantum entanglement was nonsense for comms until literally today"

17:00

"we were pretty sure about it too"

"Yeah, see it turns out there's this clever loophole in Bell's Inequality that we didn't discover for so long."

*archiving logs raptly*

"here it is"

17:01

math intensifies

send that shit to the swarm pronto

Done!

Any idea on how to do similar such for those wormholes of yours?

alright, time to make some tangle, and ship it home on a light sail

You might not have to wait 8 1/2 years for linelayer, as the colonists are about halfway there and have the authority (edited)

wait the colonists have the authority to make trade decisions for the entire solar system?

@Unknown we've been using quotes for messages to Stick, would you mind sticking to the syntax?

It's gonna be their solar system, so yeah

17:03

we're not talking about sol

On mobile. Sorry

this is about all of terragen civ though, since it's our first connection

Ah

there's really good arguments for sending it to sol, not proxima

"Yeah, we'll get back to you on that."

Can we get two stargates?

4 1/4 years later

"hey before we say anything about the leyliner or whatever, since it looks like you're all hypercontractual, we're gonna need the full terms and conditions of stargates"

UN Secretary general: wut

17:04

uploads terms

i.e. better connections for trade, communications, future expansion for mankind, etc. 2 gates for systems 5 lightyears apart would be super wasteful

"wow your legalese is so much less convoluted than ours"

One trunk gate one minor gate

4 1/4 years? We must have lots of minerals now.

"is this a translation artifact?"

nah that was a joke

17:05

we didn't timeskip

Good, good.

I was predicting his reaction

"like this is what a license agreement for a video game looks like here"

Have you seen video game EULAs?

2

You can timeskip until the colonists arrive if you want, as nothing major will happen until then. You'll get stack overflow minerals and an extended dialogue with Stick. All you have to do is decide on the linelayer.

17:06

Well, decide on passing on the decision

I say we take the linelayer. To sol or to here? We can probably get second one (edited)

I vote we pass it off to the UN (who will hopefully consult with the other governments), but recommend a lightlayer to Sol

yeah the Ring Dynamics terms are pretty good IIRC

"Can you send two linelayers if we agree? We'll want one for our home system too."

17:09

something like that

Yeah lets ask about a package deal

I don't think they'll take it, since that's crazy close, and a really small population to connect

"Oh, sure, we can easily spare a second. It's not every day you get a potential new Worlds member."

especially with that long of a flight

17:10

If they'll do it, sure, it just feels off for the 'verse

Yeah but this is a brand-new worlds member

17:11

You want to get them in your good graces

New starfaring aliens who also represent the greatest discovery in biology

sol is a big discovery, proxima is a nearby system with little value to the worlds (edited)

17:12

@Overmind would you mind consulting on whether Ring Dynamics ICC would consider a gate to both Proxima and Sol worth it?

Yeah but theres gonna be a colony of them here. And we have a claim on it

also like

17:14

they want something in return

17:14

I want to know what that is V:

The origin of their species, trade value, they sound like the sort of guys who consider the real value in exploring alien civs the friends they made along the way

honestly, Ring Dynamics can get a crazy amount of value from sources back home by charging transit fees on the ungodly number of scientists, artists, and tourists who want to go see pseudoeldrae archaea and its homeworld

I mean it's cool if that's what it is but I want to know that before we accidentally sell something important or make promises we can't keep

Standard procedure is to weave an entire constellation around an "interesting target". The interesting target in this case is probably Sol, 'cause it's the one leaking fascinating electromagnetic emissions all over the place. This gives any newbies in the area room to expand and a buffer zone rather than being right up against someone else. (edited)

So sol, with a second one sent out to proxima soon after?

@Overmind you know what would be helpful? If you could give Stick's answers to the dialogue. I obviously don't know the Empire as well as its creator? Totally OK if you don't want to/don't have time to do it

Not that RD has designated it for growth yet , but once the FHP reports, the likelihood is they'd look at star maps and sketch out a constellation of... ah, usually about 50-60 systems each with the target star near the middle, and look at building that. They usually don't terminate the long-range links in inhabited systems, because most inhabited systems want some space between them and everyone else.

so, it actually might go proxima or alpha Centauri then?

So proxima, with implied sol connection

So there'd be a hub near Sol—might as well be proxima Centauri—and then one hop out from that is Sol?

Which Stick 'd be happy to explain. As for the other side of the deal, it'd also explain the usual terms, which boil down to: As a new connectee, you get a free book of courtesy transit codes to tide you over for a while. After that, there are transit fees (which individually aren't that much, but do add up). Optionally, a lot of polities arrange an annual lease payment deal to allow their own government and naval vessels to transit regional gates without transit fees, because the middle of a defensive war is a lousy time to find your credit being declined. Some polities extend that to include their own merchant traffic or even all traffic within their territory, but that gets very expensive, very fast.

So while there are no explicit taxes we’d have to start forking up coins for the tollbooth

Bit further than that probably. Take a look at some of the constellations from https://eldraeverse.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/imperialspace.png , and imagine Sol in the middle - probaby about four-six jumps in after the long-range one.

Embedded image

17:29

If you want a more direct route, they'll happily sell you one, but it wouldn't be the usual practice.

So things are gonna get expensive and fast. Probbably cant sell the anthropological data for enough.

On the other side of things, note that on the Worlds map, rimward is up . Which means: https://eldraeverse.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/associated-worlds.png

Embedded image

17:31

...you're out the back of the Shadow Systems, which is not the best neighborhood. That's probably in the info-about-the-Worlds-download Stick sent you.

17:32

(Individual transit fees are pretty reasonable.)

ooh we're in the bad part of town

@KAL_9000 Probably don't have time right now, but happy to pop in from time to time when it's helpful.

So terragen civilization better be ready for trouble.

17:33

Yeah, so lets go with standard to provide a few systems in the event of trouble

(Also, posted a quick side-note over in #random. Again, this is probably covered in the download.)

Timer for a RFZ fleet of recreational warships to come into system starts now

It'd probably be a good place to hire some anti-piracy services from.

17:41

(I mean, literally. For protection, not "protection".)

So sitrep: we will be bordered by ancapistan

Ancapistan is your neighbor's neighbor. You're being bordered by... well, to use a Mass Effect reference, the Terminus Systems.

Do you guys want to sign the Accord on Intellectual Property?

Yes, as with the rest of the Basic Rights type stuff

We'll sign it for ourself and transmit a copy back to Earth and the colonists

mankind should start a collective merc fund.

Yes we probably should

17:56

We could fund it off of the Marvel Cinematic Universe :V

Human scientific data, cultural stuff, and whatnot should get terragen civilization set up

(I'll put together a post on the 13 Accords which there are, plus the other couple of treaties that are almost as significant.)

I assume we'll just want to sign all of them for minimum hassle

....maybe. It's not unknown for some members to derogate from one or another of them for what they think of as good reasons, and some of them have prerequisites.

Notice: CSS The Stick To Poke You With has finished decelerating and is on course for Asimov.

19:17

Tangle manufactured and launched towards Earth via lightsail

wait did we start manufacturing tangle already

Yeah, Stick gave us the recipie

I was under the impression it still came at substantial cost.

We have an entire asteroid covered in mining rigs and a proto-Dyson Swarm (edited)

sure sure but it's a significant investment for them

STATUS: CURRENT RELATIONSHIP STATUS:

20:50

-JRS Tempest: Allied

20:50

-SXS Musk: Cordial

20:50

-CSS The Stick To Poke You With: Friendly

20:51

-Earth: Patron

20:51

-Mars: Neutral

20:51

-Jupiter: Neutral

20:51

-Empire of the Star: Cordial

MINERALS STATUS:

21:01

-Stack Overflow Error

21:01

COLONY STATUS:

21:01

-Under Construction

21:02

COLONY SHIP STATUS: (edited)

21:02

-In Transit

21:03

-1250/1250 Passengers In Cryosleep

Gate status?

We have to wait for Earth to approve it, and only then will the linelayer launch

Tangle production?

Tangle production nominal

21:05

Small lightsail probes are being dispatched with tangle every once in a while

So we have FTL comms?

GTG for the night

@KAL_9000 So, how much canon-poking do you want to put up with? 'Cause canon tangle production is definitely not that easy - being essentially emergent femtotech - and would involve several expensive rounds of building the tools to build the tools to build the bit-ticklers. (This is the reason that there are plenty of polities which go without instantaneous communication because they need to spend their system budget on, say, eating. Also why the antagonist of Higher than High - https://eldraeverse.com/2014/10/03/higher-than-high/ - would be an idiot if he were after money. Many systems have smaller gross revenues than a 16 Pb ansible's market price.)

Higher than High

An interrogation room on Gálish (Sullen Wildlands): The local agents looked at each other, then back at my aquastor. “So, your perp has stolen this, this -” “Sixteen-petabit colon…

Ah, hadn't realized it was that expensive

15:49

Tangle retconned out

We should probably work on at least starting production of that and other such nano/pico/femtotechnology.

15:54

As well as updating the research stuff the computing swarm is doing with new physics knowledge. (edited)

Added to the queue

What's in the queue now other than the, er, small things? Just colony stuff?

Yeah

15:58

We've now got life support, hydroponics, and a geothermal plant

15:58

We're now doing town amenities like malls and parks and stuff

... housing?

15:58

Public transport?

Housing was done first

15:59

Public transport is also set up

15:59

Although it probably won't be needed that much in a town of 1250

Probably not immediately, but scalability is good.

"for but not with"

since the town is mostly finished and we're just cruising through research, I figure we can timeskip until the colonists arrive. This OK with everyone?

Will we have a response from Sol by then? Im ok with time skipping

yes we will

16:31

-ENTERING HIBERNATION-

>entering "goddamn space is boring if you have to live every second of it for an entire second" mode

-EXITING HIBERNATION TEMPORARILY: NEW MESSAGES RECIEVED-

16:35

UN COMMAND: holy shit

16:35

UN COMMAND: holy shit

I doubt they would actually say that.

(paraphrased)

Do they have anything actionable to say?

UN COMMAND: New orders: Try to get in the alien probe's good graces, and yes we would like a stargate. Current orders still stand.

this is about when we get the light-echo of the simultaneous headsplosions of conspiracy theorists worldswide too

We’ve kind of already gotten in their good graces. I assume were getting the standard gate setup?

-EXITING HIBERNATION-

16:58

-COLONY SHIP DECELERATING-

Do they know about the situation?

>colony ship crew comes out of cryo

17:03

"oh by the way aliens are 1. real 2. nice 3. ready to sell us FTL"

I think stasis is safer than being among the Ben & Jerry

CREW THAWING...

Have they thawed yet?

THAWED.

17:09

OPENING COMMS CHANNEL

How far away are they right now?

UNS Magellan (Ship AI): All systems nominal. What's the situation?

17:10

@gollark 30 AU

go away, meatbags

...

UNS Magellan (Expedition Commander): Status report, Armstrong.

Aliens are 1. Real 2. Here 3. Nice 4. In the process of hooking here and sol to FTL Other than that nominal

Also, the colony is doing fine and they can be decelerated.

this be our empire NOW!!!

UNS Magellan (AI): what

nothing, ignore me

UNS Magellan (Commander): holy shit aliens are real

Theres more but they can explain better.

PATCHING MAGELLAN THROUGH WITH STICK

17:13

3-WAY DISCORD CALL OPEN :V

17:13

CSS The Stick To Poke You With: Back from your nap, Armstrong? And who're these people?

Our colonists. Slept through first contact.

17:15

we’re also green to begin sending the linelayers in

UNS Magellan (Ship Commander): Greetings, alien lifeforms. I am Commander Elizabeth Paige of the UNS Magellan colony ship, and I- UNS Magellan (AI): 'sup

17:17

Stick: Well, pleased to meet you, Commander Paige. And Magellan.

17:18

back-and-forth dialogue exchange

so what sort of shipmind is Magellan

17:19

upload or scratch-grown?

UN uses scratch-grown

Aren't scratches kinda a risky move?

17:21

(e.g glitching or turning hostile) (edited)

We've been over this

17:22

They're programmed to be human-like and to obey orders

(But we dont tell our new freinds about that last part)

ah, didn't read

To Magellen ship and crew: Anyways, what do yall wanna ask *Stick^

they can ask stick themselves

17:31

i gtg

Ok

The collection of Accords post is up for you: https://eldraeverse.com/2019/09/21/the-accord-of-galactic-polities/

The Accord of Galactic Polities

The Accord of Galactic Polities, less formally known simply as the Accord, is a loose meta-civilization composed of the non-starbound polities of the known regions of the galaxy. The Accord is freq…

Nothing outside the ordinary for a society thats had more than 100 years of a similar UN

Not until you get into some of the implications, anyway.

14:01

(Discussion of which, if any, should probably move to #general so as not to clutter #probequest .)

@Overmind You'll be pleased to know that Earth, Mars, and Jupiter have transmitted their assent to the accords to us, who passed it on to Stick, who passed it on to the Accord.

17:58

Looks like the Accords have three new members

Colonists have landed!

18:12

@Overmind we need Eldraeic (or other Accords member) names for the two linelayers that are coming to deliver the gates to Sol and Proxima

https://eldraeverse.com/2019/04/17/naming-convention/

Naming Convention

BEING A SUMMARY OF PRODUCTIONAT STARFLIGHT SHIPYARDS, SELÉNE, CAGEWORKS TWOFOR FIRST QUARTER, 7399 IS Lunar LoomCustom design (orbital elevator constructor).Worlds’ Rim Development, ICC; paid…

18:40

Sol gets Family Reunion Proxima gets Light in the Shadows to flex on the shadow system nuts (edited)

Family Reunion is a perfect name for that

ALERT

15:57

The native predators don't seem to like the colonists

15:57

Nothing a Gauss rifle can't fix, but there's a lot of them

Can we just fence off affected areas?

Any xenolawyers wanna get a bead on how much were allowed to do to the locals?

Yeah, just got back from throwing up a lot

17:08

I've been sick since Friday, because the American public school system's cafeteria food gave me food poisoning. Not like I'm bitter or anything.

17:08

:V

17:09

We can construct fences, and we can shoot them if they still try to jump them.

So lets get cracking and print up braces of “anti-wildlife” weapons and armoured vehicles

Flyby probe arrived at Alpha AB a while ago, forgot to post data

17:15

Alpha A planets:

We should probably also invest in shardcruisers to get from Proxima to AB

Ooh yay data.

17:16

What are shardcrusers? Did I miss tech updates?

Alpha Ab (Sulfith): Hot barren world, 0.7 Earth masses (edited)

Image attachment

17:16

No, that's his term for a fork, I think

Or does that literally mean pointy fast thing? Oh (edited)

Alpha Ac (Mesklin): Binary system w/ moons (edited)

Image attachment

Ship that goes out to the oort cloud, or far binary pairs Kopernicus gang btw

yes it's a mesbin clone

17:19

Alpha Ad (Balar): Habitable super-Earth (edited)

Image attachment

17:20

Alpha Ae (Hoth): Icy habitable Earth-mass (edited)

Image attachment

17:21

Alpha Af (Planck): Gas giant w/ extensive rings and moon system (edited)

Image attachment

17:21

Alpha Ag (Solir): Frozen wasteland (edited)

Image attachment

17:24

Alpha Bb (Pegar): Hot Jupiter (edited)

Image attachment

17:25

Alpha Bc (Evorus): Strangely purple Venus-like world (edited)

Image attachment

17:25

Alpha Bd (Vebin): Habitable Earth-mass (edited)

Image attachment

Check BC for chem A sweep for alien life, possible sophont given new assumptions in the subject of the Fermi Paradox (edited)

Alpha Be (Cronus): Titan-class world (edited)

Image attachment

17:27

Alpha ABb (Galileo): Distant circumbinary gas giant (edited)

Image attachment

17:28

The probe was moving at 0.1c and already left the system

that's a lotta habitable worlds

Alpha ABc (Newton): Distant circumbinary super-Earth: Fast-rotating (edited)

Image attachment

17:29

that's all of them

10 bucks says primitive sophonts in system

@Overmind As we're now bound by the Accords, what's the Accords policy on contacting primitive sophs?

Also, what changes to the assumptions about the Fermi Paradox.

well, since aliens exist, our previous assumptions that the don't is BS

@KAL_9000 Ain't no formal rules; no-one wants a non-interference rule when there are so many people out there who desperately need interfered with. On the other hand, your peers will be watching, judging, ~~and nuking,~~ so in general, assume Wheaton's Law applies.

Wheaton’s Law?

"Don't be a dick."

okay.

more info: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wheatons-law

Wheaton’s Law is an internet axiom which states “Don’t be a dick.” It was originally used in the context of sportsmanship in online gaming but its scope was eventually expanded to apply to life in general.

OPTIONS:

17:38

-Stay in Proxima

17:38

-Rebuild Daedalus and head to Alpha

17:38

-Rebuild Daedalus and head to another system

17:39

-Split yourself and do all three (we'll focus on the one with pressing issues)

Split up: having a production overmind in proxima might be helpful, and the more science the merrier

Which star system should we head to besides Alpha?

17:40

Sirius and Barnard's Star are relatively close

17:40

(According to my shitty map)

Sirius

Sirius is unlikely to have habitable planets, tho

17:41

The nearest habitable candidates are Barnard's Star, Epsilon Eridani, and Tau Ceti

KAL_9000 09/23/2019 5:42 PM

Epsilon Eridani If only for Trek refrences

Epsilon has four gas giants, two ice giants, and a Kuiper Belt

17:44

However, one of the gas giants and one of the ice giants are in the habitable zone, and could have habitable moons (edited)

What about the other two?

Barnard's Star has an Earth-mass planet in the habitable zone

17:45

Tau Ceti has a Mars-mass planet and a super-Earth in the habitable zone

Which is closest?

I think Epsilon is closest to Alpha

17:47

Could be wrong

So lets go there. Closest to the comms link to sol

Alright

Also announce that this room isnt dead

@here WE'RE NOT DEAD

why did you have me do that?

Was genuinely concerned that pulling the first contact stunt had essentially ended the campaign

Nah, it was just supposed to be a fork in the road

18:03

We still have an entire galaxy to explore

Granted the discord has been rather quiet these days

(well, not an entire galaxy. I don't expect us to do 400 billion stars :V)

18:05

How long is "these days"?

Since friday really

the appropriate term would be "these past few days", I think

Nobody’s really been posting outside of a rare meme in #dank

hmm

I has been Pinged

Production started on Alpha Cen and Epsilon Eri probes

You hailed?

@Unknown told me to :V

@Unknown go alpha

@here available to do session

What'd I miss?

Not much

18:19

Copy of our original probe has arrived at Alpha AB

...

18:19

So a lot?

Select a planet to establish ops around

18:20

(Planet list pinned, I recommend Mesklin as it has a lot of moons and is close to a habitable world)

I'll take Mesklin.

18:21

How goes things back on proxima?

Colonists have established a firm foothold on the planet, and with aid from the fork we left behind, are rapidly setting up infrastructure

18:22

As a test of their infrastructure, they are constructing a launch facility and will begin deploying communications, navigation, and weather satellites using locally sourced materials

Cool

18:22

But

why am I being pinged?

Can we make a role for probequest players? :V

Are there orbital rings around Heinlein?

Yes we probably should make a role

18:23

Partial orbital rings

Perfect.

Fusion fuel is flowing to Bradbury via tankers

18:24

In fact, the fuel we used for our interstellar cruise here was mined from Heinlein

We should probably start probing this system then, to build up the empire.

EMPIRE

consume?

We have a Can't Dig 1 Class Miner and one Ion Scout Probe

Probe the moons

18:25

And/or asteroids

Mesklin moon order:

Also, how goes the other probes from mars and Jupiter? (edited)

Mesklin I (Statmoon): Geostationary orbital moon. Solid metal.

Solid metal.

Mesklin II (Thresmoon): 3:2 resonance with Graymoon. Rocky.

18:26

Mesklin III (Graymoon): Luna-class moon.

18:27

Mesklin IV (Habmoon): Habitable world, currently undergoing Great Oxygenation Event. (edited)

18:28

Mesklin IVa (Trojmoon): Habmoon Trojan Companion, L4 Point

We should probably not colonise Mesklin IV, it could provide cool research opportunities.

Verin: Binary companion to Mesklin, super-Venus.

(Install WW if you play KSP) Yeah ecocide of new biospheres bad

Yes, Mesklin is a WW copy

18:29

Because I like that pack, goddammit

WW? I know of this pack not

I know, just saying for other people

Verin I (Chocomoon): Chocolate-~~covered~~ colored asteroid moonlet.

@KAL_9000 mesklin is from mission of gravity

Yes, and Mesbin is based on it

18:32

I figure if we find a planet like that, we'll name it after it

18:32

(And this Mesklin is based on Mesbin)

Oh that pack

None of the other planets around Alpha are based on it, however

What is the best moon in terms of quick mining etc?

Statmoon, probably

18:33

But it's a pain in the ass delta-v wise

OK, how much fuel do we have? Presumably we can do some ISRU on statmoon and lower costs.

SOLID METAL

18:35

aka no volatiles

18:35

AKA no fuel ISRU

Aka get oxygen from somewhere else

But the SWARM CAN CONSUME for metals

Yeah, how's our nanbot tech coming along?

THE SWARM and Stick's database have helped us along

18:37

Our smallest bots are the size of human cells now, and we're experimenting with getting them to make smaller ones

I say we sit on a mixed moon, mine some stuff, then send out a self-replicating seed thing to the moon to inflate it.

Stick did provide us with some tangle, and we can talk to the Worlds through it

18:38

We can license Worlds patents to improve our tech in exchange for giving the Eldrae one of the habitable worlds in-system

No?

The tangle is for asking alien lawers primarily. Place is awash with habitable worlds, so the plan holds Also, the worlds isnt that gung ho about habitable worlds, but the idea still stands

Ecopeosis (I think I spelled it right) is a lot of work

But habitats. Just roll with the idea for now but lets ask @Overmind

Why can't we use our cell-sized replecstors, or legalities?

We can, but it will take a while to get the true nanite design right

It's in space, just unleash it? What could possibily go wrong?

1000 years later, in history class...

heggie swarms 0.69 seconds before forming

"Kids, can anyone tell us why the Alpha Centauri system is uninhabitable?"

And why Earth has an Imperial blockade?

You know how Von Neumann probes relate to the Firmi paradox? Surely there's a nanobot version of that.

Lets use macro replicators which use nano

Yes

macro-nano is just regular gray goo with alternating generations like a fern or something

Like regular old machines with nano subsystems

^ let's use macro machines for what their good at, and use our nano for fine manipulation

Role note: user-managed roles are pending on next bot update. No schedule on that: this is a busy time.

You don’t want to use actual discord roles, even as a stop-gap?

@here Ready for session!

Cant Dig 1 - class Miner: Provisional Designation "Cant Dig 1 II" Online and on course for Statmoon (edited)

Why cant the dice gods make things interesting We should start doing more Science

SCIENCE! is already underway

18:32

Because Statmoon has a really high Delta-V requirement to reach (more than what the Cant Dig can do), we've just landed the main probe on it.

18:32

This is okay because the gravity is super low.

Its ok Where else can we start mining?

Well, Thresmoon and Trojmoon are nearby, but very metal-poor

Greymoon?

18:49

We should also do in depth science to the lifeworlds

Greymoon has Luna's gravity and is tidally locked

18:50

We could theoretically build a mining rig on it and a mass driver to shoot the materials into orbit

Thats for later

18:57

What else is there to do?

Explore, I guess

Well lets explore, i guess?

We have Sulfith, Balar, Hoth, Planck, and Solir to explore, even in this system

And also deeper survey of habmoon Sulfith sounds good as a next stop

Sulfith is a very hot world, and a stinky one, too. Its atmosphere is primarily composed of sulfur compounds.

19:04

Including vaporized sulfuric acid

So we need to build specialized probe

Alrifght, guys, it’s been a while since the last update, and I’m canning ProbeQuest for various reasons, mainly confusion on a lot of people’s parts. But I have learned a lot, both about how to GM and how to improvise, and ProbeQuest 2: CONSUME Harder, will be coming soon! (edited)

12:59

Soon as in I’ll get the backstory on this channel tonight or tomorrow. Probably.

12:59

I’ve made a few changes

13:00

First off, you’re going to be confined to one system (and one planet at first) after arrival. Managing multiple systems in the background was really hard work, and I’m lazy.

13:01

This is because, second of all, you’re not just a probe this time around. You’re a seed ship.

Introducing another race so soon was kinda a bad idea

13:49

It did derail the story quite a bit

Yeah, it was cool but came too early in the plot and prevented a lot of other potential interesting plot points from happening

It just made the whole thing collapse

14:03

We were about to make warships to smash enemies and competitors into plasticine blobs (edited)

Yeah, then it fell apart. It needed to build up steam first.

Yeah, exactly, I made a bunch of mistakes as a first-time GM, which is why the reboot will hopefully be better :V

----- PROBEQUEST 2: CONSUME HARDER -----

KAL_9000 10/01/2019 6:18 PM

@here once all you lovely little children have gathered around the campfire, I can begin to tell our tale

18:19

:V

18:22

I have been working hard over the past week to bring this to you, so shower me with praise and affection, goddammit /s (edited)

IM HERE

Here

Excellent

18:35

maniacal laughter

18:36

“And when they knew the Earth was doomed, they built a ship.” -SeedShip

So we are all thats left of mankind?

The year is 52387

18:37

50,035 years Mission Elapsed Time

wat

No FTL, and habitable planets are as rare as in the Tiffverse this time around, for added challenge

Har har har

You have literally flown a tenth of the way across the galaxy until the telescopes found a habitable world

At the speed of... 0.4c right

‘Round 0.25c

18:40

12,500 ly in 50,000 years

k

Galaxy’s width is about 120,000 ly

so we're in the perseus arm now

18:41

k

Yeah

18:41

We’ve left Orion behind

18:41

Not sure which arm

18:41

We’ve been traveling about halfway between spinward and coreward, if that helps

whatever

18:42

so what's the star system like

Hang on I haven’t finished

that puts us in Scutum-Centaurus arm I think

18:42

relatively near the core

What killed Earth?

18:45

Surprisingly enough, not anything to do with humanity’s arrogance

~~it was berserkers wasnt it~~

~~old skandar probe~~

Completely natural, unfortunately

18:46

Otherwise we wouldn't have had time to prepare

star went nova?

18:46

comet?

18:46

~~or gliese 710~~

The object in question was J12993-04170

18:47

A fictional object, don't worry

18:47

Not far off from Gliese 710 in its effects, however

So Earth got bombarded with too many comets to stop, even with space tech ok

The rogue 50 Jupiter-mass brown dwarf passed within the orbit of Uranus

oh shit

Not so much comets as COMPLETE FUCKERY WITH PLANETARY ORBITS

so Earth went flying off, baked, or got slammed into something else, Yikes[tm]

Well, you see

The Great Yeeting

Half of Earth is lava

18:49

And Luna is conspicuously absent

my understanding of brush-bys like this is that generally it's like pinball but with planets

So luna got yote into earth

yeah pretty much on both counts

so people anticipated it long enough to send us out

Uranus got ejected, Mercury fell into Sol

ohhhhkay

18:50

what's our cargo manifest look like

Venus and Mars smashed into each other, as did Jupiter and Saturn

18:50

Neptune is now effectively a sungrazing comet

rip kuiper belt

@BizarroLand ♀ whatever we could cram in the trunk before things went Majoras Mask

And Persephone (Planet 9) was too far away to be affected, but is getting absolutely wrecked by comets

18:51

Not that it was habitable anyway, but some of its moons are Europa or Enceladus like, so that might be the one place life survived in Sol

planetary DESTRUKTION

Sol itself is completely unaffected, obviously

18:54

J12993-04170 (called "Reaper" by most people but "Rapture" by a few nutty cultists) was detected on dramatic music October 1, 2019, roughly 350 years before perihelion

18:55

yes, that's today

18:55

the start of the campaign IRL being the same as the start of the backstory seemed too good to not do

and so people panicked

Panic ensued

Nibiru was real after all ~ phil plait, probably

Eventually, a meeting of the UN Security Council effectively kicked humanity's collective ass into gear

18:57

And basically ordered the word to "do something. NOW."

18:58

Thus was started what would become humanity's most ambitious crash R&D program since, well, ever

18:58

Turns out, with the literal survival of the species on the line, people can come up with amazing things

did birth rates drop

A lot

How many sophsicles do we have in storage?

but they still had the people to finish it

18:59

so what's our cargo, mane

But people realized that their children would still live full lives if they were born in 2019

18:59

Not done with the backstory :V

18:59

We developed:

18:59

-Fusion power (and fusion drives)

18:59

-Mass Helium-3 refining

18:59

-Artificial General Intelligence

19:00

-Von Neuman machines

19:00

-Brain uploading

19:00

-Growing things in tubes with nothing more than DNA and a cell sample

19:00

-The versatility required to keep ships going for 50,000 years without crew

19:02

In the year 2352, as Reaper approached perihelion, you and your five sister ships were launched

19:02

You have prepared for the planetary landing: (edited)

19:02

-1 universal fabricator-constructor

19:03

-1 raw materials stockpile with 300t of feedstock

19:03

-1 AGI core (that's you!!!)

19:03

-1 small fusion reactor and the radiators and fuel needed to keep it running for a few decades

19:05

-The entire Internet up until launch, blueprints for every machine humanity has blueprints for, DNA samples of millions of individuals of every creature with that kind of population on Earth excluding humans, and DNA samples and uploaded minds for 15 crew members and 2 million civilians

19:05

That's it

19:05

You have knowledge and a small materials stock

19:06

Oh, and the robot that goes out and plants the flag as soon as you land. Forgot about that.

19:06

There is no help and no support.

19:06

Even if the other ships made it, they are tens of thousands of lightyears away.

19:07

Any questions before we detach from the drive section and prepare for landing?

what's the system like

Ah, that

19:08

K2V class star, designation "Phoenix" for obvious reasons

19:08

M5V companion about 50 AU out

19:09

Phoenix I - Hot Jupiter

Image attachment

19:10

Phoenix II, III, and IV will depend on your difficulty setting (i.e. which planet is habitable)

The settings are?

Phoenix V is a gas giant, and Phoenix VI is an iceball

19:13

Phoenix B does not have habitable worlds

19:14

Settings:

19:14

Low Difficulty:

19:18

SERRANA: A bit chilly and a tad small, but the atmosphere's breathable and the gravity's nice

19:19

(yes i will be using planetocopia worlds because they're SO DAMN GOOD)

19:20

PEGASIA: Again, breathable atmosphere and nice gravity. This time, the temperature and size are okay, too.

19:20

Medium Difficulty:

19:21

KAKALEA: Earthlike by the numbers, but it's a planetwide Australia

19:22

THARN: Small, little water, and lowish gravity. Has a breathable atmosphere, so that counts for something. (edited)

19:22

High Difficulty:

19:23

CAPSICA: Incredibly hot and barely habitable. Planetwide rainforest/desert where there's no ocean

19:23

LYR: Super-Earth with slightly higher gravity. Big killers are that there's almost no land and the atmosphere's oppressively thick

19:24

@Unknown settings uploaded

19:31

you may select a difficulty when ready to proceed

Low

oof

19:32

not up for a challenge, eh?

19:36

@Unknown you're the other player we have so far, what say you?

It's just

I say low, but throw in suprises

I read the Kakalea article and yeah it's super shitty

Please tell me the various furries didn’t make the transition off the site

uh. no.

19:37

Wait Planetocopia has furries? I never read the species pages.

It does, a surprising amount of the time

19:38

No, make that pretty much all the time

Good. Guys great at planetary science, but anything above plants is questionable, with an armory of axes to grind

even as a furry I got sick of it really fast

well.

19:39

that is apparently a thing.

And a lot of anarchosomething

anarchoauthoritarianism

Yeah. At least he shows bird people some love on some of his worlds

Rest assured, any xeno scum we encounter will have feathers, scales, or tentacles :V

can we land

19:42

and I hope the flag isn't murican

no, this is our flag

Image attachment

19:43

Well, do you want Serrana or Pegasia?

19:44

Serrana's a bit more challenging, but I'll make it more resource-rich for you to compensate

serrana

All opposed?

@Unknown pls

Phoenix III is now Serrana, I guess

Ok

Phoenix II: Capsica if it was hotter. Atmosphere is incredibly thick and made mostly of steam. No life.

What about Phoenix IV

19:48

iceboll?

Phoenix IV: Lyr-Oisin, but Lyr's atmosphere is now poisonous and only bacteria live on it. Oisin is unchanged, but it wasn't human-habitable anyway.

19:49

ALL FORKS, ALL FORKS. STAND BY FOR DETACHMENT FROM DRIVE SECTION.

19:50

The ship is in tip-top shape.

19:50

The debris shield was jettisoned after the slowdown, and everything is just the way we left it. Nothing in interstellar space to erode it with a giant debris shield in front.

19:51

EXPLOSIVE BOLTS 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ON PLV-ITV COUPLING FIRING

19:51

CABLES DISCONNECTING

19:51

PIPES DISCONNECTING

19:53

Cables are cut and pipes are sealed. Eight explosive bolts fire for the first and last time in their lives, separating the Planetary Landing Vehicle from the Interstellar Transit Vehicle. The ITV's RCS thrusters steer it away from the PLV, and the trusty vehicle shuts down for good. After 50,000 years of continuous operation without complaint, you can't help but thank it for its service.

19:54

you may now thank the ITV for getting you here :V

6

19:57

The PLV slams into Serrana's atmosphere at 50,000 meters per second, traveling 100 times faster than a bullet. It rapidly slows down, and a vast plasma fireball envelops the craft. Behind you, the ITV, which lacks heat shielding, quickly begins to disintegrate.

19:59

You quickly exit reentry, now traveling a mere 500 meters per second. Covers eject, and five gridfins deploy and begin steering you towards the selected landing site.

20:00

The pilot chute deploys, ripping off the back cap of the bullet-shaped craft.

20:00

Now that you have slowed to 300 meters per second, three drogue parachutes are released and quickly unfurl.

20:01

The bullet-shaped heat shield enveloping the craft detaches and falls away, leaving only the cylindrical portion that will land on the ground.

20:01

The drogue parachutes cut.

20:02

You send the command to trigger the main chutes.

20:02

Nothing happens.

20:03

WARNING: MAIN PARACHUTES HAVE FAILED TO DEPLOY

Fire landing engines for suicide burn

20:04

Or burn rcs or something

The landing engines light, and you even fire your RCS thrusters downwards, all while frantically attempting to deploy the parachutes.

20:06

You attempt to use the backup chutes. You need six open chutes and your landing engines for a soft landing. There are six main chutes and six backups.

20:06

Three bundles of spidersilk and carbon fiber rocket upwards and begin to unfurl.

20:08

Three out of six. At this rate, you'll be a pile of flaming wreckage when you lithobrake.

20:08

SUGGEST A COURSE OF ACTION

Options? I say attempt to tilt into the wind and do a suicide burn

We already are

20:09

This thing weighs about 750 tons

What else is available?

We could jettison some of the feedstock, or try and run the engines past their design limits.

20:11

There are seven engines. You need four to land.

Run all 7

We already are, four's the minimum.

20:12

If the parachutes had worked.

20:13

I'll arm the emergency shock absorbers.

What can we replicate based on local material? So we can see how much to ditch

Should I tell some of the service robots to commit seppuku before jumping off the PLV?

20:15

I'm running three of the seven engines at 150% maximum design thrust. They hopefully won't explode before we land.

Dump 200t of the material

20:16

Feedstock I mean

Jettisoning...

20:17

Bulk raw materials should survive impact, they just won't be in tidy little ingots anymore. (edited)

20:17

100m up

20:17

20m/s

20:17

Within shock absorber tolerance

Jettison the rest of the feedstock then

20:17

We can get some of it back still

WHAM

20:18

The PLV practically buries itself into the ground. Only half of it is left above the surface. The engines sputter and stop. The three backup chutes are cut. We survived.

20:19

Springs, foam, and high-grade ballistics gel rattle around in the shock absorbers, but gradually the motion stops.

20:20

LANDING SUCCESSFUL.

20:21

REDESIGNATING PLV FROM UNS ZEPHYR TO LANDFALL BASE

20:21

Suggest alternate designations now.

Lawndart base

DESIGNATION ACCEPTED.

Seconding lawndart

Hopefully the colonists will appreciate your sense of humor.

20:23

A human-sized and human-shaped robot, specifically built for this purpose, grabs what it needs and exits the PLV. It walks a few dozen meters away, firmly plants the UN flag into the soil, and returns to the PLV. The fabricator quickly scraps it, its job complete.

20:25

Record an inspiring speech into the memory banks.

20:25

No, "Holy shit we're alive" does not count as an inspiring speech.

We survived the trials of The Reaping, of thousands of years in the void, and of striking into a new frontier. It is with this same spirit that we will begin breaking ground on a new home for mankind

Excellent

20:27

I love that name

20:27

"The Reaping"

20:27

And you'll be pleased to note that according to the telescope observations we took in the void, nothing with more than an Earth mass is going to pass within a lightyear of Phoenix for quite some time.

And they said it’d never happen. Well.

PRIORITY OBJECTIVES:

20:28

-Begin mineral extraction

20:28

-Get a Biofabricator

20:29

-Print the Mission Commander and shove her sorry ass back into her body.

20:30

Thanks to your jettison, we're low on materials. We have 100t/300t left. Not that I blame you, you probably saved our lives (and humanity).

20:31

An XQ-37 "Buzzard" salvaging robot will take 15t

20:31

I assume you want to gather all the materials promptly

Yes

You quickly modify the standard programming of all your robots so that they'll be comfortable moving about in Serrana's gravity and atmospheric pressure.

20:32

Beginning construction on 1 XQ-37...

20:35

A Biofabricator, our next objective, will cost 50 tons. We still have enough for that and a 25-ton Refinery, with 10 tons left over. I suggest we use those ten to build ten 1-ton Firefly scout drones.

20:36

You may suggest alternate resource allocations.

20:37

Once we have allocated resources, Turn One will be complete.

20:39

Image attachment

I say the main plan is good, but leave 5t of material for emergencies

okay

20:44

Entry path and landing site

Image attachment

20:45

Production begun on all those things

20:45

Tune in tomorrow for Turn 2

20:51

Coordinator Fork KAL 9000 signing off.

a proposed motto for the colony program: " missenda a messendo"

Offtopic, if permitted: Is the planetary map hand-crafted?

@mindbound they're from here: http://www.worlddreambank.org/P/PLANETS.HTM

Thank you!

Phoenix rises in the early-morning light. A faint breeze whistles past the PLV, and the flag ripples in the wind. All is quiet, except for the quiet hum of the fabricator.

the sweet song of the stepper motor choir

Singing praises to the Omnissiah :V

please tell me the printers are the delta configuration

The fabricator has an alloy forge, a chemical plant, and several 3D printers and six-axis CNC mills

are the printers deltas

Sure why not

good

11:17

they make nice chorded sounds

11:18

(I have a notion that they also even out the wear on their motors but I have no evidence to substantiate that)

FYI for new players, the start of ProbeQuest 2 is pinned

build refinery pl0x

Construction queue established last night

How’s our schedule look for today

Cool

@here Available to do Turn 2 (edited)

17:22

New Encyclopedia Entries:

17:25

-XQ-37 "Buzzard" Salvage Robot: Originally developed in the late 2200s in preparation for Project ARK, the Buzzard is a capable autonomous salvage vehicle that can carry up to fifty tons of payload for ten kilometers (twenty one-way).

17:28

-Firefly Scout Drone: Developed for Project ARK, the Firefly was tested by circumnavigating Earth without being refueled by another vehicle or a ground base. It is solar-powered, and has a small turbojet engine for high-speed flight and two small turboprops for low-speed flight. An onboard chemical processing unit can extract CO2 and water vapor from the surrounding atmosphere, and process it into methane (which is used as fuel) and oxygen (which is dumped). It has a range of 250 kilometers on a single charge. (edited)

17:31

Local area in more detail

Image attachment

17:32

Our landing site is about 30 deg S, 150 deg E (edited)

So we're in the Setting Desert :^)

17:36

Search those nearby mountains for useful ores

Five Scout Drones deployed (edited)

17:37

1 for each of the cardinal directions, and the last will slowly spiral outwards

(Thank God we didn't lawndart straight into the ocean, or humanity's story would have ended there)

We had flotation devices

17:38

We could probably scrap those and get five tons of feedstock, now that I think about it

no need at this point

17:39

We're building the biofabricator thingy aren't we

All queued construction projects were one-turn affairs

17:40

All construction complete

can we start printing peopl

17:41

e

The Biofabricator comes with a few prefab buildings and life support. I can be nice

okay let's print the mission commander

17:42

sorry ass into body

Service robots have gathered local organics and thrown it into a big vat that breaks it apart into raw organics.

17:42

STAND BY

17:42

DATA FOUND: AMELIA NGUYEN (MISSION COMMANDER)

17:42

PRINT HUMAN (Y/N)?

Y

Y

LOADING NUCLEIC DNA... 100%

All two management uploads voted yes sooooooo

LOADING MITOCHONDRIAL DNA... 100%

17:43

SYNTHESIZING DNA... 100% (edited)

17:44

PRINTING EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS... 100%

17:44

ARRANGING AND DESIGNATING CELLS... 100%

17:44

RUNNING ACCELERATED MATURATION...

17:44

QUERY: WHAT BIOLOGICAL AGE SHOULD THE HUMAN BE PRINTED AT?

25

25

Ah, peak physical condition

(hedging bets here)

Commander will be glad to lose half her age, I bet

17:45

RUNNING ACCELERATED MATURATION... 100% (STOPPED AT AGE 25)

17:46

LOADING MIND-STATE... 100%

17:46

DOWNLOADING MIND-STATE... 100%

17:46

RUNNING SAFETY CHECKS... 100%, 0 ERRORS FOUND

17:47

HUMAN CMDR-1 "AMELIA NGUYEN" PRINTED

17:47

CMDR-1 IS CURRENTLY SEDATED.

she's gonna bitch us out isn't she but anyway

WAKE HUMAN (Y/N)?

Y

17:48

no reason not to

SEDATIVE INJECTION STOPPED.

17:49

INJECTING SMALL AMOUNT OF ADRENALINE AND ADMINISTERING MILD ELECTRIC SHOCK TO WAKE HUMAN...

Her fork has not been conscious these last fifty millenia I presume

Oh, no, that would be torture

So from her perspective she went from the forking clinic on Earth to here

17:49

:y

Quick question: What name does our AI have?

~~steve~~

MAGI

i expected that, narwhalz

I have trained you well

I expected a random American name, that is. I thought you would have gone with Bob :V

~~Balthazar, Caspar, Melchior~~

JARVIS

NOAH

17:52

To go with the ARK theme

17:52

Net Operational Advanced Heuristics

17:52

:y

NOetic intelligence for Advancement of Humanity?

the only thing you're getting out of me other than Steve is Uštsnuvk babblings

she's waking up

17:53

Main AI is NOAH, I like that

17:54

Narwhalz' fork is Steve

what about mine

MemHaz's fork is JARVIS

(my name irl is enrique/henry in English)

You're HENRY, I guess (edited)

ah man if you're going to give me my own fork I want an uštnad name V:

Fine pick an ustnad name (can't do the accented s on this crappy keyboard)

Relað

Relath :y

RELATH

key so what's the Commander doing

17:56

is she freaking

This took place in a microsecond

17:56

:V

17:57

Commander is now officially waking up :V

(accepted compose-less transcription of š and ž is cs and cz, respectively)

COMMANDER NGUYEN: coughing and spluttering noises

COMMANDER ONLINE

She quickly realizes there's an oxygen mask attached to her face and pulls it out, as well as the IV

17:58

CMDR: "FUCK"

17:59

introduce yourself

RELAĐ: "I'm sorry Commander, I don't know how to do that" (edited)

HENRY: "hi"

17:59

(gormlessly)

CMDR: groans where am i- wait why does this look like a biofab oh god oh fuck

HENRY: "Well, we made it."

Morning

RELAĐ: "Everything is absolutely fine and there is no need whatsoever for alarm."

CMDR: "Do you understand sarcasm? Because that sounded sarcastic."

HENRY: "It took us about fifty-thousand years, but we found... not another Earth, but close enough."

CMDR: "Fifty THOUSAND!"

RELAĐ: "Well, a small part of the ship is currently underground, but it's still attached so that's fine!"

CMDR: "What happened to all the exoplanets closer in?"

HENRY: "We travelled about twelve-thousand five hundred lightyears and are noticeably closer to the Galactic Core now, but systems are operating smoothly at this point."

18:03

HENRY: "Ah, yes. They all kind of turned out to be washes, I'm afraid. Even when they had water, it was usually far too little or far too much for multicellular life to sustain itself."

JARVIS: They were lifeless rocks, basically

CMDR: "I know we were rated for up to a hundred kiloyears, but no one thought it would take more than a few thousand to find a new home."

18:04

CMDR: "That Rare Earth Theory guy is laughing his ass off at us in Heaven, isn't he?"

RELAĐ: "Maybe we just went the wrong way."

HENRY: "Well, there were a few bacteria worlds here and there. But nothing that baseline humans would be comfortable with 'till now."

JARVIS: it’s either that or wearing spacesuits

CMDR: "Right, how big is the planet, how hot is it, and what's its atmosphere like?"

HENRY: "Well, it's obviously breathable, or we wouldn't have picked it."

CMDR: "Also biofab me a cup of coffee. My preferences should be in the database."

HENRY: "From the observations we could make before planetfall, its size is about midway between that of Earth and Mars." (edited)

(33% Earth)

JARVIS: A bit chilly, dry, and small. So basically mars but nicer

(Close enough lol!)

RELAĐ: "heh, planetfall"

Diameter: 9,600km

18:07

Gravity: 0.65G

18:07

Day Length: 16 hours

(Relađ orders the coffee printed V:)

HENRY: "The air pressure here, near sea-level, is akin to medium-elevation locations on Earth. Particularly Albuquerque, I believe. The coffee's on its way, ma'am." (edited)

Atmosphere: 75% N2, 21% O2, 3.9% Ar/Ne, 0.1% Trace (no poisonous gases in appreciable amounts)

RELAĐ: "It seems nearly perfect, if a bit enriched in noble gases."

CMDR: "Right, thanks."

RELAĐ: "Though I'd advise you keep your mask on until we can confirm that there are no allergens or airborne pathogens."

(the biofab and prefabs are airtight)

(when going outside I meant V:)

CMDR: "Is the local biology even compatible with Earth life?"

HENRY: "The oceans are shallow, and there's no distinct continents to speak of here. Coverage is about 50%, but the climate in many places should be perfectly suitable for human life."

RELAĐ: "We've only been down for a $TIME; not a lot of contact with the locals yet."

About two Serranan days

HENRY: "We haven't made the contact with it to know that yet, unfortunately."

RELAĐ: "Even if it's not compatible, it would be a shame to get an opportunistic fleshminer infection or something."

CMDR: "What are our assets, besides the prefabs I see out the wind- why is the ship half-buried?"

RELAĐ: "I did mention that earlier."

JARVIS: 1/2 of the chutes didn’t open

RELAĐ: "Planetfall, no?"

HENRY: "About that, I apologize. Our approach path was steep, and we had to avoid the ocean to the west of here... and yes, half the parachutes turned out to be inop. I had to eject 200 tons of feedstock to make up for that." (edited)

CMDR: "We were in the void for 50 millennia, something was bound to fail. Don't beat yourself up about it."

18:15

coffee is ready

HENRY: "Still, there was just enough left over to build this biofab and a refinery. We've got drones scouring the nearby terrain for minerals right now."

(put coffee in commander)

CMDR: "Which probe we on? They originally planned Boreas, Notus, Zephyrus, and Eurus, but I was scanned about a decade before completion. They might have made more..."

is this a player choice? :V

(We're Zephyrus, and two more were under built after that)

18:19

(But I could retcon it to something else)

18:19

(If you want)

Jarvis: Zephyrus

CMDR: "Right. Well, let's get to work."

18:20

you have acquired a human

MGS item pickup noise. Noice. (edited)

QUEST ADDED!

18:22

COMMANDER'S ORDERS: Learn more about the local wildlife and acquire more minerals to begin ~~consume~~ building in earnest.

18:23

SUCCESS: Improved relationship with Human Designation CMDR, move to Phase II of colony development

(Is this where we start printing other people?)

FAILURE: Human Designation CMDR gets mad at you for insubordination. Funny.

How many tons of feedstock do we 'ave left over

5

18:24

But I can get 5 more if we scrap the ship floaties

Let's build a biolab with human skin and organ cells and see how they interact with the local wildlife

18:25

I mean, local chemistry. Whatever.

And start scrapping

to consume all you must first consume self

@KAL_9000 because it would be really embarrassing to overlook anything, also include along with that a few micro-chemistry probes to see what the local biochem looks like (edited)

right

And yes scrap those floaties posthast

18:30

e

18:32

Let's see just how deadly the native life is to us

huh, only three of the five winds got ships. The other 2 must be salty up in Aeolia

Maybe one is excluded because it's galactographically whence the neutron star of death came

*brown dwarf, and sure, but that still leaves one more unaccounted for

The Wikipedia list doesn't have an obvious partitioning which yields exactly five.

Aquilo feels sad that they didn't even make the planning phase

I thought there were eight winds for my part

Aquilo should feel sad that they didn't even make the Wikipedia phase

Traditionally 5 in Rome, from the 5 prevailing winds of the Mediterranean

08:39

the Greek Boreas is a true North wind, Aquilo is North-east

Wikipedia has Caicias for NE.

that's the Greek NE wind

man why couldn't Rome rename everything instead of just some things

Because some of the winds were relatively compatible and others weren’t. Italy and Greece and both Mediterranean peninsulas, so the southern, eastern, and western winds were similar and therefore the gods that shared the characteristics of their winds were similar

what about khamsin

@BizarroLand ♀ That’s Eurus (edited)

Again, the winds aren’t based on the cardinal directions, but the prevailing winds of Greece/Italy

Drones have identified three salvage sites!

consume

Feedstock Crash Site: 3.2 km N, 2.1 km W

17:36

200t materials

17:37

Heatshield Wreckage: 5.6 km N, 3.2 km W

17:37

50t materials

17:37

ITV Wreckage: 30.4 km N, 23.7 km W

17:37

1750t materials

wow, it's localized?

Obvious: Go for the feedstock

17:39

It's in the mountains, though. I think. I'm not good with distances

...we dropped the interstellar stage onto the planet?

Even so, I would've expected it to be in a smear about threee hundred kilometers long :V

The wreck site is the largest debris piece that held together

17:46

Other, smaller wreck sites are probably located further along our reentry path

17:47

However, the drone have not gotten that far yet

I just thought there'd be some nasty materials in that stage we wouldn't want to lithobrake into a biosphere

Both deuterium and helium-3 are stable isotopes and nontoxic

17:51

Those fueled both the reactor and the drive

We've still dumped a bunch of heavy and alkaline metals all over the place.

17:51

We'll need to clean that up on principle alone.

Yeah, and consume it so it can be put to good use

17:52

That's why the stage crashing was in the mission plan, so we could salvage the charred wreckage to help us out in the early stages (edited)

Releð is a responsible fork.

The feedstock crash site has the eight feedstock crates we jettisoned.

17:54

They're basically shipping crates hardened to survive thousands of years in space.

So they're localized to their craters then :V

Reactors would also have a bunch of heavy metals, neutron activated low level waste, and who knows what sort of nasty rare earths

17:55

hopefully the ITV plowed in relatively straight down

Which is why we should recover them quickly.

17:57

Update: Based on radiation levels around the site, the first ITV wreck site does contain the reactor. Probably want to get to that soon.

Very well then, let's acquire the feedstock and get to building something to hop over and salvage the heatshield and transfer stage.

17:59

(although I would've expected the ITV wreckage to be further along the reentry track, since it didn't brake at all and is presumably rather dense)

17:59

(unless it had a lot of tankage?)

well, it's an interstellar vehicle

18:00

it's like 98% fuel tank

[suppressing impulse to math that]

Lets also do some exobio

yeah freighters need to keep an eye out for neat flora and/or fauna

@KAL_9000 are my orders finished? :y

which ones?

to test human tissue cells :y

18:16

on the surroundings?

ah, yeah

18:16

the meat

I think everyone would very much like to know whether or not the local life will fuck one up on contact or not

well, it's not dead yet

speaking of which, what is local life like?

18:23

have we seen anything complex?

18:23

predatory?

18:23

possibly tasty?

JARVIS: intelligent?

Once the drone cleared the mountain range north of the landing site, it discovered a forest

18:26

And meadows

18:26

Pretty much up to the coast

18:28

The south-flying drone exited the desert and found grass and scrublands

So there's life, but nothing intresting

any signs of animals?

Not in the desert, no

18:30

And the drone can't see through the treetops

the desert…

18:30

…wait until night and scan again

But in the grass and scrublands there are hints of animal life

like, I think everyone would really really like to know if the human tissue cells have been, like, suddenly dying or getting poisoned by the alien chemicals being introduced to them

19:05

:y

19:05

Better safe than sorry in these matters

they haven't been exposed long enough to say

19:05

It's only been like a day

Wait, you dropped almost 2000 tonnes of metal and stuff on a planet at 50km/s? (edited)

It'll be fiiiine

15:57

We're cleaning it up, see?

You could make some sort of crater park.

also note that the 1750T chunk apparently doesn't include the reactor

does

ah

17:17

misread

which is probably damaged and leaking radiation

17:19

If the local wildlife doesn't already have two heads, it will soon.

17:19

Well, and cancer.

I mean the tritium should be more or less done within a few years

17:22

So it's mostly just the neutron-activated reactor vessel.

Half-life of 12.5 years, I think

17:23

The reactor was D-He3, so there actually wasn't any tritium

Which if we planned to dump it into the surface should have a high probability of staying whole.

Why go through the trouble of trying to store tritium, when you have D-He3?

Ah, so if it's properly spin-polarized it should've been… 90% aneutronic?

stable, mostly no neutrons (edited)

17:23

and energy dense

D-D is neutronic and happens in D-³He as a side channel

Well, there are secondary reactions that emit neutrons

17:24

However, the main D-He3 reaction is aneutronic, correct

when doth we resume

SoonTM

we doth resume nao

20:31

UPDATE ON HUMAN TISSUE SAMPLE EXPERIMENT: Human tissue continues to show no signs of death or ill health. Sample unit has isolated local airborne viruses and sequenced their genomes.

20:33

Local life uses six nucleotides forming three base pairs.

20:34

A-T, C-G, and (provisional designation) X-Y

20:34

As Earth life is unable to replicate X-Y base pairs, human tissue is not vulnerable to native viral infection

20:35

@BizarroLand ♀ we have resumed. You asked earlier.

20:37

Local life uses opposite-chirality chemicals and a completely different set of amino acids, although it is still protein-in-water "conventional" life.

20:37

As such, prion infection has been deemed unlikely if not impossible.

20:39

Bacterial infection is unlikely, as local bacteria would most likely not be able to find suitable nutrients to survive in Earth life bodies. Similar logic means that parasitic infection is also a remote possibility.

As is good old predation

In conclusion, Earth life suffers no disease or predation risk from local life.

And the reverse is true

@Unknown even if predators tried, they have teeth and claws. We have Gauss rifles.

And earthlife cant predate properly either

Can we eat the local food or does it cause some horrible illness

20:42

We'll need a human stomach for that won't we

You're going to be fighting the native ecosystem every step of the way. Gonna need to sterilize the soil and re-seed it so it'll produce the right nutrients.

Since biochemistry is completely incompatible, it probably won't make you sick, but it won't taste good or be nutritious either.

At most you'll be able to get some sugars and the runs from it.

20:45

Assuming you don't puke it up.

And thus alcohol Most important product

What do we name the beer made from local ferment? That is the most important problem we now face.

Starshine

You might be able to keep liquor down more easily

Scout drones have identified animal life.

20:51

Multiple species have been observed.

20:54

Unable to produce more specifics at this time. When a drone landed to attempt to get a closer look, the sound of the propellers scared off the locals.

Nothing too smart-looking

Unlikely, based on what we've seen (which isn't much). (edited)

20t material salvaged from Feedstock Crash Site

21:06

180t remaining

Interesting thought: Would flipped-chirality wood be able to rot?

Yes, assuming flipped-chirality bacteria and fungus analogues

No, I mean flipped relative to all bacteria/fungus analogues.

21:24

As in, we grow terragen trees.

They'll need terragen microbes to grow

Sure, but you can irradiate the wood to sterilize it, a one-time investment.

Not even xeno microbes with the right chirality, it has to be the specific bacteria that the trees evolved in symbiosis with.

21:26

And they'll be in the environment

Grow in a sealed arboretum, sterilize all imported and exported matter.

That would limit the competition with the native lifeforms for space and minerals

And when it does start rotting, isolate and science it, because you've just found a potential organism with a mixed-chirality metabolic path!

So, how's CMDR feeling

CMDR is solar groovy :V

18:34

GO for session

hah

21:38

So, can we get started biofabbing other humans

60t material salvaged from Feedstock Crash Site

19:18

120t remaining

19:18

90t in stockpile

19:18

BIOFABRICATION OF ADDITIONAL HUMANS AUTHORIZED

@here session sorry for ping

can we begin printing the rest of the command staff

wait

19:46

if we print command staff

19:46

we won't be commanding very much, will we

4 command staff left to print

Whomst are they

19:55

If they’re important

let's see

20:00

Dr. Minato Suzuki - Chief Science Officer: PhD in planetary science

20:01

Dr. Lian Chou - Chief Exobiologist: PhD in molecular biology

20:03

Brigadier General Theresa Steward - Military Officer (also trained as diplomat), useful for conquering/dealing with any potential native sapients

We haven’t seen any yet so lets get a doctor up

UN Secretary-General Francis Arthur: Stupid politician mandated by the UN. Guess who wanted to save their own ass at the expense of a competent person?

Having non-military leadership might be helpful. Print Lian

Lian first, yes

BEGINNING PRINT PROCEDURE...

20:07

SYNTHESIZING NUCLEAR DNA... 100% (edited)

Then Minato, Theresa, and Francis last

~~print the politician and use him as a probe~~

SYNTHESIZING MITOCHONDRIAL DNA... 100%

20:08

PRINTING EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS... 100% ARRANGING AND DESIGNATING CELLS... 100% SYNTHESIZING AND INJECTING GUT MICROBIOME... 100% RUNNING ACCELERATED MATURATION... 100%

~~I sure hope that the last generation on Earth didn’t have kids~~

20:08

Print them all at age 25

20:08

20 in Francis’ case tho

20:08

>.>

no no

20:09

make him a scrawny teenager

20:09

:V

Then 16

he will need the youthful physique to run from the space-raptors

Har har har

Jurassic World will never be a more apt name :V

20:10

STAND BY

20:10

INJECTING SMALL ADRENALINE DOSE AND ADMINISTERING MILD ELECTRIC SHOCK TO WAKE NEW HUMAN...

20:11

First words to say to CEB when she wakes up?

HENRY: arise and walk

Also summoning CMDR

RELEÐ: yo we got some weird animals and stuff here wot needs the sciencing

Suggestion: "Hey, you, you're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right?"

That would be a mega oof

No millenia dead memes

well, centuries when she went to sleep :V (edited)

shh

20:14

for her it's been no time at all

CEB: fuck, my head

RELEÐ: I have no desire nor means to fornicate your cephalic appendage

(I assume getting your brain scanned at the molecular level, put in storage for 50 millennia, then yote into a new body will give you a massive heeadache)

(nah she just had a headache on brainscan day and we copied it faithfully :V)

HENRY: So, hi. We found another world.

CEB: Okay, great. Weird guy is talking to me, and it doesn't sound like the fork clinic doctor. Okay, guess we made it.

20:18

CEB: Hey! Open the access hatch on this replicator pod!

open the hatch, I guess

pssht-hiss

(HENRY opens the hatch)

CMDR: excellent, fresh meat

RELEÐ: oh whoops sorry, uh, barbeque's in the other pod

CMDR: I know for a fact that our tech was advanced enough to give you a sense of humor and non-literal thinking. Run a self-diagnostic.

20:22

CMDR: Ignore the AI, they're an idiot.

"we're also a bit schizophrenic, too. Hope that doesn't bug you"

CMDR: I'm Amelia Nguyen, commander of this mission. I don't recognize you, guess you weren't in Command training.`

20:24

CEB: Lian Chou, Exobiology.

HENRY: In our defense, spending fifty millennia with only each other for comp—

RELEÐ: shh! don't tell them about the millenia

CEB: Guess there is life outside of Earth, if they synthesi- millenia?

RELEÐ: it's too early for the millenia discussion

CEB: As a mission-critical resource who you should not piss off, I order you to tell me how long we were in interstellar space.

50 millenia

(I-as-player have forgotten :V)

CEB: fifty millennia. wow.

(I've settled on a name for my fork) MARK: I took us a bit longer than expected to find a habitable world

HENRY: yeah. So many centuries looking at waterworlds and Marses and Venuses

20:30

HENRY: but we’re here now

and unfortunately, irl stuff just came up, so i have to call it a night.

K

pick up at around 20:00 Eastern time tomorrow, hopefully.

The forks were mostly asleep I know

20:37

It’s just that the mental image of a bunch of simulated fellas eating hamburgers in a simulated house and watching the readouts/movies/tv mst3k style is hilarious

Maybe that was our collective dream state

(Henry can probably recite 50 of those fecking comedy movies from memory by now)

And created curated albums of the bunk rocks seen on the journey

Releđ slowly stewing in his own suppressed snark…

And creating all the memes

writing entire operatic cycles about the personified lives of the dead rocks we passed, then evolving them over time

Planetballs 50k: the painstakingly rendered masterpiece of the cosmos

~~Hetalia 2: Extrasolar Boogaloo~~ (edited)

20:44

@0111narwhalz Knowing his luck Henry was probably the poor bastard who had to be on watch most of the time

Releđ started out taking all the spare cycles from the rest, intending to get "so much work done," before realizing that he was actually just wasting it all anyway.

Imagine just spending literal subjective-objective decades at the helm between stars, gazing at nothing but empty space and watching the progress bar slowly tick down

20:47

That sort of thing has to wear at one's sanity sooner or later

catalogue ALL the things!

20:49

"ooh, that one star finally went off"

20:49

"good thing we're not about Sol anymore, eh?"

Oh and movie night

20:54

They're watching Shrek and suddenly METEORITE ALARM

acting like we didn’t reach shrek 69 over the eons

There was only one Shrek movie

20:55

The one with Fiona in it

50 millenia of boredom does a lot to a soph

god how many shitty sequels did we make?

Too many As with everything else in the archives

hey

20:58

we are the shitty sequel

Can we not go full [consume] this time?

Releđ runs cackling into the night

(we're sequels both in- and out-of-character)

@here again, sorry for ping. Session starting nao.

18:58

still waiting on that @Probequest role

@KAL_9000 I’d DM cerebrate at this point

As a bonus, I've finished the system layout for both Phoenix and its companion star, Olympia

19:00

Olympia is somewhat based on Planetcopia's Libratia system concept

19:01

I've made Libratia itself uninhabitable, tho

19:02

PHOENIX: CLASS K3V STAR

19:03

OLYMPIA: CLASS M1V STAR

19:04

the two stars are a medium-distance binary system with a periapsis of 43 AU and an apoapsis of 157 AU

19:05

Orbital plane is offset by 5.3 deg from Phoenix's rotational equator and by 3.2 deg from Olympia's

19:09

20t material salvaged from Feedstock Crash Site, 100t remaining

19:09

110t in stockpile

19:09

Orders?

Sleeve up the rest of the command crew. What’s our habitat situation look like?

Currently just a few prefabs that came with the biofab

I'm interested in looking into in-situ resource acquisition.

Bunks, some workbenches and tables, etc.

19:12

Basically the Hab from The Martian

We'll need bulk material for foundations and industrial buildings, so we should investigate the local stone and consider the wood from the nearby forest.

Scout drones have also found ore deposits in the mountains just north of the landing site

19:14

Abundant iron, copper, tin, and titanium, and smaller amounts of gold, silver, and rare Earth metals

19:15

Local stone appears basically identical to Earth stones according to chemical analysis

19:15

Standard rock types are present

okay sure but which ones are under us now :V

19:16

because there are plenty of Earth rocks that are not great for building

Limestone and some basalt and granite (edited)

oh sweet we can chew the limestone up for concrete

The beaches off to the northwest could provide plenty of sand for glass

the basalt and granite (which are kinda odd to see next to each other but I won't push the issue) can be broken up into gravel for the concrete

hey, alien world, alien geology

19:18

Just be grateful that my RNG gave you limestone

19:18

:V

Dark concrete will be pretty cool, I think.

19:20

Also basalt fiber is a good high-performance material, so we should be able to use that with relative ease.

How are CMDR and CEB

Unfortunately, no coal or oil deposits have been found anywhere. Although we don't need them for power, having access to plastics without having to subject plants to pressures that would make pre-Reaping Venus blush inside special refineries would be nice. (edited)

19:23

Either Serrana hasn't had a Carboniferous, or it hasn't been long enough since then for coal and oil to form in large amounts.

and granite is a nice construction stone, to give interiors a little more character if nothing else

19:24

do we have a plastics stockpile, or do we need to get a bio-plastics refinery going sooner rather than later?

19:24

also yeah, are there any local hardwoods?

Some plastics are included in the feedstock, but I suggest getting a bio-plastic refinery up soon.

19:31

Oh, by the way, here's the planets of the Phoenix and Olympia systems:

19:31

PHOENIX:

19:34

Vulkan: A hot Jupiter orbiting very close to Phoenix, glowing a faint, dim red. Despite being more massive than Jupiter, Vulkan's so close to Phoenix that its gravity only holds two moons large enough to be spheres: Miho and Yuka. Both are covered in lava and volcanoes, due to their proximity to Phoenix and tides from Vulkan. Vulkan only has three small captured asteroid moonlets, as asteroids are rare this far in.

19:36

Capsica: Capsica is only a little hotter than its Planetcopia namesake, but that's still hot enough for its oceans to evaporate. What little water there is is only stopped from vaporizing by the practically Venusian pressure of an enormous amount of steam. Capsica has three small moons, each a captured asteroid. (edited)

why the K in Vulkan? and I vote quarry first, so we can use the concrete and stone to help with construction for the refinery complex

~~the red guy from 40k?~~

Serrana: Serrana is the planet we landed on. As you know, it's a fairly respectable habitable world, with obviously abundant life. It has three moons, Ory, Dat, and Sau, which on average mass in at about 0.25 Lunar masses

19:39

because it looks cool, that's why

19:39

Also I believe 40k Vulkan is black :V

k

yeah, it's psychic emo boy who's red

19:40

I can't remember his name off the top of my head

magnus

~~Magnus did nothing wrong~~

Magnus did plenty wrong, but is a sympathetic character

Lyr is also uninhabitable, though Oisin is unchanged

Lyr: Lyr is a large, oceanic super-Earth, with no oxygen to speak of in its atmosphere. Any life on Lyr has yet to evolve photosynthesis. Possibly the "too much water" problem. Lyr has two moons, Oisin and Manonam. Manonam is larger than Luna and orbits quite far out, and as such has a submoon of about 0.1 Luna masses, Didd. ~~Any sub-submoons around Didd are classified.~~ Lyr also has four captured asteroid moonlets.

so Oisin is basically at the "wear a rebreather and a wetsuit" level of habitability?

unchanged from its Planetcopia entry, yeah

19:47

Moving further on, we encounter the binary worlds of Hes and Tup, one slightly larger than Earth, one slightly smaller. The tidal forces between these two worlds keep enormous chains of volcanoes active on both worlds. They also have a few asteroid moonlets, orbiting their common center of gravity. Think Pluto-Charon, but bigger and cooler.

19:49

Finally, we have Eol, a small, Mars-mass world at the edge of the system. It has a few comet moonlets, but nothing to write home about.

19:49

OLYMPIA: Literally the Olympia system from Planetocopia except that Libratia is uninhabitable. Link:

19:49

http://www.worlddreambank.org/L/LIBSOLAR.HTM

I'd like to think that Eol is pronounced with one of those funky Old English height-harmonic diphthongs

and gtg

20:07

irl calls

20:07

although we didn't get much done today :V

20:07

Session at same time tomorrow and Friday

20:08

Hopefully longer session on weekends

@here session can begin

18:54

rest of command staff synthesized, awaiting orders to bring out of sedation

im here

oof

18:55

read the logs from the pin if you haven't already

bring 'em out if CMDR hasn't already

well, except for the politician

And the General

oi! Please knock it off with the global pings

19:03

I have this channel muted for a reason

Unfortunately, we do not have a @Probequest role.

19:04

I DM'd @Overmind yesterday and am waiting to hear back

or you could just post and trust that the people who want to know will pay attention

fair point

19:08

no the general was also printed

19:09

you don't get on the command staff unless you have a variety of skills

19:09

Or are the FUCKING POLITICIAN

19:11

seriously fuck that guy

19:11

HUMANS CURRENTLY ACTIVE: (edited)

19:11

CMDR

19:11

CEB

19:11

CSO

19:12

GEN

19:14

OBJECTIVES:

19:15

-Establish ISRU operations for wood, stone, plastic, metals

19:15

-Continue scouting the planet

19:15

-Locate suitable location for permanent colony

19:16

-Build local power generators to decrease reliance on solitary fusion reactor

so how are they feeling?

okay

We landed in a desert so I'm thinking we need to go a bit north

19:18

We get good yearly insolation, yes?!

still getting over being wrenched 12,500 lightyears away and 50,000 years into the future of all that they know and love

19:19

why the exclamation mark?

I'm not sure

19:19

I'm bracing myself for a curveball

map

Image attachment

19:20

yes solar insolation is good

can we build a solar plant

19:22

and start on a mine

yeah we can

19:22

hang on gotta take care of something irl

19:22

brb (edited)

19:28

back

19:33

I think we have... 120t feedstock in stockpile

19:34

Each mining building (quarry, lumbermill, ore mine) costs 20t

19:35

Each refinery building (stone processor, bioplastic refinery, blast furnace) costs 15t (edited)

okay

okay

can we build an iron and copper mine in the mountains as well as a quarry

19:43

if my calcs are not wrong i is 60t

yes

QUESTION FOR ALL PLAYERS:

19:39

What would you like to see as we continue in ProbeQuest 2? Advice, suggestions, and criticism would be welcome!

Hi

maybe some sort of crisis event? Not necessarily anything serious, but something to throw us for a loop and require more immediate problem solving

Twists and crises

Finding an Interstellar civ?

Not yet, I’d say

11:17

A little more time with the planet is probably a good idea

Finding local intelligence

finding the biters of Factorio fame

Finding a Skandar probe

Isn't it Skrandar?

Alright, gang. ProbeQuest has been on hiatus on a bit while I think of new ideas.

18:45

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Help design native plant and animal life for Serrana. Protein-in-water Earthlike, but go wild! Try to think of your organism's evolutionary history, too (no this is totally not me offloading some of the worldbuilding to the players, how dare you :V)

18:45

No sophonts, tho. (Yet... Muahahaha)

Sorry, the Ailevérse has dibs on all my xenobiology weirdness factors.

fine, make something normal

18:47

:V

18:47

Debating on ping for update (edited)

There aren't that many actively interested players. They can be pinged individually.

@0111narwhalz

18:50

@Ian Bruene

18:50

@BizarroLand ♀

18:50

@Intrepid Class LCV

1. you can ping more than one in a single message

18:51

2. you don't need to ping me :V

@Unknown

18:51

@Jade Nekotenshi

18:51

And lastly @Overmind for the love of the eikones give us a ProbeQuest ping

Yeah?

see above

19:28

while we're on hiatus I've got something for you guys to do, if you want

HI

Hi

19:35

see above

what is it

Is this still on hiatus?

Yeah, sorry, been very busy

10:24

Hopefully get some time over winter break to finalize Serrana's biosphere and start up again

^++

ATTENTION EVERYONE

11:31

After several months spent off-and-on worldbuilding and practicing my admittedly-poor GM skills, I am pleased to announce ProbeQuest 3 (edited)

Y

because i dunno if people wanna do this again i totally can

11:31

i finally got it figured out

11:32

hopefully

I’d be willing buttt

probably

11:35

@BizarroLand ♀ buttt what tho (edited)

11:35

you can't just leave us on a cliffhanger like that

11:38

the big thing this time around is that there are two teams of players

11:38

one of them plays as the human probe

11:38

and the other one is filthy xeno scum

[chatters darkly in xeno scum]

i guess we would use group dms to avoid the two teams seeing each others' talking

just split the channel in twain and modify roles

cerebrate, is this... legal?

Wait. That's illegal.

I will make it legal

i suppose i could move this to its own server to avoid role issues

ok so i set up the server

13:39

and double-checked MEE6 and the role setups

13:39

so we should be good to go

13:39

https://discord.gg/UmkQ5Gu

13:39

if anyone's interested that is i guess

13:39

i dunno

two online one member

the biggest of big brains

If people aren’t interested I can ask cerebrate to archive the channel

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