08-24-2018, 04:39 AM
(08-24-2018, 02:54 AM)AuntyProton Wrote: I'm still outlining at the moment, but it concerns a small fleet of extremely early O'neill cylinder habitats / generation ships that have been in flight since they left Solsys in 440 a.t. They originally planned to settle in the Kuyper belt of Procyon, but as they were only able to do 1%C by the time they got halfway there they realized it had been taken by the anti-biont AIs. They rebuilt their magnetoplasmadynamic engines and diverted to go around at a safe distance, ending up heading roughly toward New Gaia. Given their way of life and what they've been able to pick up during the years, they've remained isolationist and steered way clear of inhabited systems. They've managed to pick up small asteroids and comets along the way for resources (they left with only 1 cylinder, they've managed to build another and a combination ship/cylinder for their AI), but now they are running EXTREMELY low on resources. To the tune of "if something unexpected happens to bump this house of cards, we're all dead". Their AI wasn't even a real AI when they left, just a superbright with a lot of automated systems running the cylinder. Now, she's been resisting ascension to S2 for a couple thousand years. So she's holding on by the skin of her virtual teeth, trying her damndest to keep all the balls in the air and keep her people alive and flying without losing it herself. In the middle of all this, a diplomatic task group shows up as a "first contact" representative... and it all starts falling apart.
There's more but I don't want to give it all away.
If I might offer a suggestion.
Although 1% of c is considered a near crawl by Y11k standards, and not even terribly fast by the time most of the early starships were being launched - it is still a tremendously fast speed and one that you can't just speed up and slow down from at will (at least if getting to that speed in the first place represents a significant effort).
This has a couple of implications for your story:
1) Interstellar dust and gas will still be a danger to the ship. At 1% of c a piece of gravel striking the ship could be like a small bomb going off on the hull. Remember that 1% of c is still 3000 kilometers per second.
2) Picking up small asteroids and comets en route is probably not doable - both because the ship would be hard pressed to slow down and speed up again and because it would take enormous energies to accelerate even a 'small' body up to 1% of c (since even a small asteroid or comet could still easily be the size of a large building or a small mountain).
With these two issues in mind, and given that you indicate that resource exhaustion is a major factor for the fleet, I would suggest a couple of alternatives:
a) The first ship included a substantial amount of extra mass set up as shielding to protect the ship in flight. This same mass was intended to be mined over the course of the trip to provide additional resources, up to and including creation of additional vessels in flight, but after such a long extra time in space it is nearing the point where mining any more will endanger the ship in the event of an impact and/or there won't be any more mass to make up for losses in recycling and such.
b) The first ship was launched along with a small 'fleet' of small asteroids and iceteroids (masses of raw materials and volatiles basically) flying in formation with the intent that these should be mined over the course of the trip. After the long voyage these are again nearly exhausted both in terms of starting to lose shielding mass if much more mining is done or running out of consumables, or both.
Either of these options could take advantage of the industrial base of the solar system to help accelerate the whole shebang up to speed. The new habs would have the advantage of not needing fuel to accelerate and could use mag-sail tech to help them slow down with much less fuel when they arrived at their destination.
Beyond that do you mean their AI is resisting ascension to S1 or actual ascension to S2? Currently only one transapient is known to have jumped from S0 to S2 in one hop and that was GAIA (which may or may not have worked out badly, depending on who you ask). While we don't forbid such a thing, it is very much unusually for a sophont to jump 2 S-levels in one go. Also, are you talking about the AI being a 'superbright' (a human genetically engineered for greater intelligence) or a 'superturing' (an AI engineered for greater than human intelligence)?
Just trying to get a clear picture of things here.
Hope all this helps,
Todd
