October 11, 1970
Dr. Johanna Gustofsson
335 Central Park West
New York City, NY 10025
Reply: Your continued support
Dear Gustolphse
PhD:
We at the Nikola Foundation thank you for your continued support over the years and your recent donation of $2 million to advance the Foundation’s goals. With your help, the Nikolai Foundation can continue to achieve its goal of ensuring that humanity spreads from the world it was born into, and that only the best of our species spreads to other worlds.
Our long-established foundation has a proven track record of using the latest and best scientific research, not only building the world's first interstellar craft, but also developing the latest improvements in gene-editing technology to prepare for the future . Your generous support enables continued improvements in our genetic purity and enhancement technologies. Even now, we have genetic samples from hundreds of donors ready to ensure that when the birth ships arrive at new locations, only the most ideal humans will be nurtured and born to take advantage of this unparalleled opportunity.
Your support now earns you the thanks and recognition of the Foundation’s Board of Directors as a Gold Level Donor. But we still need your help to make this dream a reality! If you donate an additional $7,000,000, you will be considered a member of our Platinum Group, guaranteeing that your genetic samples will be included on board the ship and in humanity’s next new home Among the first batch of new humans born. Your genetic code has been pre-screened and approved to be pure enough to meet the Foundation's strict standards.
If you want to be part of this world-changing event, the Nikolai Foundation will be pleased to secure your genetic legacy and place in the future of our species. I will contact you over the next few days to discuss this further and provide you with VIP passes to our next private meeting, which will be held in your city in a few weeks.
In the meantime, please review the attached materials that discuss the project in more detail. We look forward to working with you and seeing you in the stars!
sincerely,
Edward Frow
Senior Outreach Manager
Nicholas Foundation for Human Progress
"Six months. It takes three months for an alien spacecraft to reach its destination," Zia said. "That means we have at least six months before they come back."
Six months. I can do a lot in six months. It's been two weeks since we saw an alien spacecraft disappear into faster-than-light travel. I greeted Zia and asked her to continue her research. Now, we have 67 NI-12 researchers, and the former Red Flag Base-turned-research facility is buzzing with activity. I turned my attention back to my own building projects.
Across the entire surface of Ganymede, hundreds of new weapons positions are under construction. Coilgun emplacements with ammunition boxes, dedicated ammunition manufacturers, and raw material warehouses are tied into the outpost's extensive infrastructure. Dozens of missile launch pods, each capable of launching 12 missiles in 4 minutes, with an 8-minute reload window. 60 hangars, if fully equipped, can accommodate 800 assault drones. The estimated construction time for all these projects is three months. This is only in Ga
ymed outpost.
Outposts Alpha and Bravo are now fully self-sufficient, but by the end of the six-month window, they will have only about a fifth of Ganymede's military capabilities. Cha
liebyFoxt
ot will become self-sufficient within three months and be able to provide hundreds of attack drones for a nominal fee. Gamma to Zulu was unable to sustain itself until the window closed, but they prioritized coil gun positions.
The design of the Wasp-2 attack drone and Scorpion-2 attack drone has been completed and is now entering the production stage. Zia's collider research team is working hard to figure out the complex mathematics behind gravity plate technology to build engines at breakneck speed. Its first target is to attack drones. The new drone has two countermeasure engines, one for movement and the other for creating a countermeasure shield to deflect all but the fastest projectiles. It has little effect against lasers, but the drone's heavy armor and high acceleration should minimize the weapon's effectiveness.
I turned my attention to my next project. A skeleton grew from the side of Ganymede's body. We have no reason to hide now, and I have something that's easier to build in space. As a result, hundreds of meters of steel scaffolding extend outward to form a space courtyard for the construction of larger spacecraft. The framework includes extensions to the rail transport system, allowing rapid delivery of materials and construction drones to and from the outpost. Extensive fuel pipes and high-voltage electrical wiring were added even before the frame was completed, and a miniature version of the entire cabin's facilities had sprouted on the frame. Metal fabrication facilities, drone repair shops, warehouses, communication nodes and antenna arrays are spread throughout the assembly area, with more to come.
But I didn’t wait until the shipyard was completed to start big projects because I had bigger plans in mind. Once the space field is completed, there will be 10 200-meter-wide docks for spacecraft. The spacing between the docks allows larger spacecraft to be built hanging at the end of the docks. A kilometer from the end of the space field, I'm assembling a cargo terminal where finished craft can be parked and loaded with cargo, even if they're too big to enter Ganymede.
The first three piers are the most complete, with their frames extending 100 meters into space. For these piers, steel beams were installed. The construction here is running all the ancillary components needed for that frame. But the pier is not empty. In every room, my latest designs are taking shape. The new ship's skeleton reveals clues to its final shape - a long, deadly three-sided vessel that tapers to a point.
The ships will use compressed titanium alloy armor layered over fullerene armor. The nose of the craft is almost entirely armored, the angle of the nose will help deflect the projectiles and provide an angle at which the laser will reflect off or have to burn through the armor over a long period of time, assuming they can even allow The laser stays in place long enough to cause damage. Bulges on three sides house coilguns and four-axis laser arrays, allowing the craft to fire large amounts of munitions at once. The weapons racks are more heavily armored than Scorpion-2 assault drones, making them difficult targets.
On the center spine of the ship were a pair of very large coilguns, which I nicknamed the "Lancers." The ability to compress atoms to create denser and stronger materials gives me some interesting options. Coilguns fire ammunition so quickly that the integrity of the barrel degrades over time, requiring regular barrel replacement as part of basic maintenance.
By using the same titanium alloy, I was able to create dual barrels that would not degrade. Before these needed to be replaced, even with heavy use, the rest of the ship had long since fallen into disrepair. So I could increase the size of the ammo and, accordingly, their destructive power. But these long guns aren't even the most dangerous weapons.
The pinnacle of humanity's capacity for destruction could easily lie in nuclear weapons. There are ten generations of weapons to choose from to build nuclear weapons, and they shot down an Orion Arms Trading Company ship the first time. I have little interest in designing complex missiles with nuclear bombs. They are finicky, require a lot of maintenance, and are always a nuisance. Because I'm not using a fission reactor, I do have a lot of plutonium. I decided to give it to the intruder. Driving at high speed.
I borrowed designs from early nuclear weapons, using explosives to propel one piece of nuclear fissile material into another, causing nuclear fission. Most weapons are designed purely to force fissile material into a supercritical state. But I don't need dynamite. I made a 10-kilogram plutonium bomb, a round ball of plutonium with deuterium and tritium cores inside, which can promote nuclear reactions and greatly increase the destructive power. It's not thermonuclear, but it's good enough for what I want to do. I wrapped the bullets in iron bars and loaded them into lead-lined magazines.
A bullet won't do me any good unless the enemy is kind enough to put a chunk of plutonium on their hull. Since I didn't think this was even possible, I decided to add three coilguns near the nose of my new battleship. These three guns will aim at the same point on the enemy ship and fire simultaneously. Realistically, I only needed two, but the third satisfied my sense of symmetry for a three-sided ship, plus one more just in case one of the rounds was knocked out by a point defense system. When they collide, my calculations guess it will produce something like the equivalent of 60 kilotonnes
t energy, or 2.51x10^15 joules of energy. Just improved my ammo and the payoff wasn't bad.
These ten tasks will be completed when the enemy returns as early as possible. Ten more paintings in another two months, once every two months, until I have enough supplies. My only major limitation is finding enough gold for my armor alloy, as I need to mine 53 tons of gold and 159 tons of titanium to produce 4 tons of alloy after compression. It's expensive, a word I haven't had to use since I woke up on this asteroid. I've been missing a lot of things, but I've never been short of materials. To compensate for this, less critical areas were coated with thicker fullerene armor on the steel plate, which was topped with a thick white industrial ceramic coating. This actually reduced the mass of the battleships, thereby increasing their acceleration and reducing fuel costs. Best of all, it brings a nice gold and white aesthetic to the look, which also satisfies the designer in me.
There was a knock on the door. I had just put the twins to bed and my girlfriend and I were sitting on the couch. I sighed and looked at the time. It's too late for polite company. I answer the door. To my shock, my mother stood there.
"Mom! What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to reason with you," she said viciously. She looked past me and glared at my girlfriend. "Can we talk somewhere where she can't hear?"
"Whatever you have to say, you can say it now," I said slyly. I am a grown woman with a job, a car payment, and a mountain of student loans. She has no control over my life.
"I came because your husband told me that you are living in sin with a woman, violating God's law and bringing shame to your family and church!" she said with emphasis, almost shouting.
"Oh, wow, there's a whole bunch of crazy stuff to unravel," I said. It took me years of therapy and a lot of support from my girlfriend to break the chains that I didn't even know my mother had on me. I'm not going to go backwards now. "I don't have a husband, I don't go to church, I don't believe in God, I never have. If my family can't support me being myself and supporting the people I love, then they're not my real family, right?"
My mother turned purple with anger. "Listen, you little slut. You've been spitting on me ever since I married your father—"
"Not my father. My father is dead!" I shouted.
"--every step of the way!" You ran off to a prestigious college instead of marrying into the church! Then, instead of building a godly life with your husband, you ran away with your kids and lived in sin! You ruined It’s your life and theirs!”
I took a calming breath. "Believe me - I am building a life, a good life, without the hate and intolerance you spew. What you ask of me is not for my own good, it is for your own good. So you are not welcome into my Home, my life, or my children's lives. Goodbye, Mom."
I closed the door in her face, adrenaline pumping through me. I huffed and turned to my girlfriend, who gave me a little cheer and high-fived me. But the war has just begun.
"The production data looks good, and we actually have storage space now!" This is the first time! Sakura said happily.
It was one of many conversations we had simultaneously. Since I leveled up, Sakura and I have been working together more closely than before. For every big decision or direction I take, Saku
a are all there to help me with the details. We interact frequently. Due to the benefits of quantum communications, I have a similar working relationship with NI-19 who are in charge of other outposts, although they often go to Saku
a instead of coming to me directly. This wouldn't be possible without my upgrade.
"Lately, you seem...I don't know...much more mature," I said. "Fewer crazy ideas for games and entertainment."
"Yeah, you know, you have to grow up one day." Sakura said. "We have a lot to do now... and... well..."
Her voice trailed off for milliseconds.
"Huh?" I prompted.
"I miss Agrippa!" she said hastily. "He's my video game buddy, loves trying out stuff I make, loves picking out movies for marathons, he's my friend!"
"I miss him too." I said softly. "I didn't do a good job, I didn't have enough backup equipment, and now he loses."
"It's like we just moved on, like he never existed. We should do something to honor him, you know?"
That's a good idea. We now have nearly 300 NI-5s, not counting NI-5s, and most of them never spoke to Agrippa. We have a full NI-12 research lab, dozens of NI-19s at outposts, and the assault drone wing has a new batch of NI-15s coming online every few days. However, individuals who were integral to designing and establishing the military aspects of our operations have left.
"We really should," I said meaningfully.
"What if...we used that code name, you know, the one he used to talk to the detector?"
"origin?"
"Yes. Ga
The ymed outpost was named by humans, but it is not their place. this is ours. This is our origin. I know Agrippa chose randomly from some list of codes, but he did. Besides, we're too big now to be just an outpost. "
Logically, it doesn't matter what we name the outpost. A base? A city? It can be numbered, or given a generic name, like we do with the new outposts we start with. But it feels good that the name of this base means something to us, not the species that gave birth to us.
For this reason, I decided it was time to surprise Sakura. I was planning on waiting a little longer, but now the timing is right. I tweaked her photo permissions a bit.
"Sakura, look at camera library 0Fx4022 to A5x0035."
"Those aren't...what?!" she screamed, discovering a brand new set of cameras I had hidden away. But that's not where it gets exciting. It's the picture on the other side of the camera.
A starship floats in space, connected to the asteroid through three giant docking tunnels. It's 4 kilometers long and 2 kilometers in diameter, a massive hexagon with an equally impressive engine at one end. It is flat, not conical, but has some flaps that can be folded into a nose cone if desired.
This is where most of our stockpiles go and has nothing to do with the war. This is also the first time.
"What, what happened?"
"This is yours," I said, and a flash of inspiration gave me a name. "OSS Agrippa, the first of its class. It was our first true seed ship. It had enough engine and reactor power to be a true power-generating ship, as well as the industrial manufacturing capabilities to build any Stuff. It's now helping itself build enough drones with flat noses to allow it to "dock" to the sides of asteroids for material mining. Multiple hydroponic facilities, biospheres, genetics labs, and medical pods. Enough for 10,000 people and 100,000 drones. You can go anywhere.”
"You... want to send me away?" she asked doubtfully.
"Yes, to a distant planet where we can fully test this," I said, pausing for dramatic effect and mostly to tease her. "I'm going to send you to Earth."
"Well, you confused me. I thought you said it was a seed ship."
"Of course, but we don't send anything to the other side of the galaxy without fully testing it first. Besides, we already know there is a viable planet, but no one lives there. So the mission I give you It’s about stabilizing the atmosphere, repairing the biosphere, turning it into a garden world. Keeping toxic products in space, cleaning up pollution, and preparing it for human life. This is a project that will take decades or even centuries.”
"I... need a lot of help with this." Sakura sounded less skeptical now.
"Of course," I said. "Also, I hope you're in O
igi
The company keeps a robot. I don't understand why we should abandon your company because your attention is elsewhere. Quantum relays can be helpful in this regard. "
I gave her a few minutes to digest her new job. I need to get a new NI-19 to help me manage the O
igi
, maybe two or three. But I can handle communications with other outposts now, and we've been a bit offended by each other lately. In this matter, the person I trust the most is her.
"Then when will I leave?" she asked.
"A few more months," I said. "You are supposed to leave before the enemy fleet arrives, entering orbit above Earth in six months' time. You are not quite ready yet; you will have quite a bit of self-building to do, but I will send you a care package and a small Asteroids. Feel free to do that while you're cleaning Earth's orbit. There's a lot of useful processing material in these satellites. Might as well put them to use again."
"I'm coming back to Earth," she said, almost in disbelief.
"You have to go back and save the Earth." I corrected. “I’m going to stay here and defend it.
