Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme

[factotum]

Because the bu'uthandi material was vapourised and the vapour is coming?

Bu'uthandi material is designed to support itself against solar radiation pressure for millions of years. A little pseudo-nova like this isn't going to vapourise it.

[Mechalich]

Bu'uthandi material is designed to support itself against solar radiation pressure for millions of years. A little pseudo-nova like this isn't going to vapourise it.

A nova has two distinct wavefronts, the first, which is composed of extremely energetic but mostly massless particles (photons, neutrinos, etc.) and the second, which is comprised off all the actual matter (including a bunch of very heavy elements due to the nature of the explosion) that got launched. This actually got mention in the May 29th comic - 4 hours vs. 50 hours. The Buuthandi wrap is presumably proof against the light front, but not the particle front, hence the water.

[Onyavar]

Oth will have a changed orbit, so what?

Even UNS engineers ought to be capable of finding a new home system for Oth. And the Teraport is a thing. It's a project that involves a few thousand hard workers (or a dedicated Petey), but billions of Uniocs will profit.

[factotum]

A nova has two distinct wavefronts, the first, which is composed of extremely energetic but mostly massless particles (photons, neutrinos, etc.) and the second, which is comprised off all the actual matter (including a bunch of very heavy elements due to the nature of the explosion) that got launched. This actually got mention in the May 29th comic - 4 hours vs. 50 hours. The Buuthandi wrap is presumably proof against the light front, but not the particle front, hence the water.

Thank you! An explanation I can understand and get behind. I guess that does mean it's going to be a couple of days before the inhabitants of Oth are going to be put back into their bodies, then.

As for Oth being out of orbit, I can't help but think that most habitable planets in the galaxy are occupied by one race or another, so finding somewhere else to put several billion people isn't going to be as easy as all that...

[geoduck]

Oth will have a changed orbit, so what?

Even UNS engineers ought to be capable of finding a new home system for Oth. And the Teraport is a thing. It's a project that involves a few thousand hard workers (or a dedicated Petey), but billions of Uniocs will profit.

Even if a suitable uninhabited system can be found, moving their entire civilization and all its infrastructure qualifies as a little more than "so what".

[HorizonWalker]

Petey's teraported a planet before.

Once.

And then he said that it was a terrible idea that very nearly broke the Galactic Core Generator, which, right now, is already broken.

[Willie the Duck]

As for Oth being out of orbit, I can't help but think that most habitable planets in the galaxy are occupied by one race or another, so finding somewhere else to put several billion people isn't going to be as easy as all that...

When the Toughs were hiding from the UNS and threw a dart at the galactic map, they happened upon a planet with primitive intelligent life, but their surprise at that fact makes it seem like there are a bunch of habitable planets out there that don't have intelligent life. Once you throw in rockballs or other places that are habitable in domed enclosures, I suspect there are places to go. However...

Even UNS engineers ought to be capable of finding a new home system for Oth. And the Teraport is a thing. It's a project that involves a few thousand hard workers (or a dedicated Petey), but billions of Uniocs will profit.

The entire current storyline seems to be that what used to be cheap is now expensive and galactic civilization is about to be heading to a war footing with a lot of their old comforts suddenly becoming vulnerabilities (annie plants drawing intergalactic weapons fire being the most obvious). I'm positive that a new home will be found, but I doubt the expense will feel trivial.

[HandofShadows]

Petey's teraported a planet before.

Once.

And then he said that it was a terrible idea that very nearly broke the Galactic Core Generator, which, right now, is already broken.

Actually that was more the size of a large moon rather than full sized planet IIRC. This does being up a question though. Where is it now?

[Gez]

The planet's new orbit is a problem, but it's the slowest-moving problem they have -- as a reminder, the time our Earth takes to orbit around our Sun is how we define the year. So they have months to nudge the planet's orbit back to what it originally was; and that's something they can actually do with the tech level they have, even without Petey's core generator. A fleet of battleplates could do it.

[DeTess]

The planet's new orbit is a problem, but it's the slowest-moving problem they have -- as a reminder, the time our Earth takes to orbit around our Sun is how we define the year. So they have months to nudge the planet's orbit back to what it originally was; and that's something they can actually do with the tech level they have, even without Petey's core generator. A fleet of battleplates could do it.

If the way the orbit was portrayed in the comic was not an exaggeration, than they have a couple of weeks at most before the planet moves out of the habitable zone, and even then a lot of damage will be done by a temperature rise of a couple of degrees in that time. You're right that this is their slowest problem, it's just not that slow.

[HorizonWalker]

Actually that was more the size of a large moon rather than full sized planet IIRC. This does being up a question though. Where is it now?

Oisri had the mass of Earth and then some.

It was, in fact, a full-sized planet, as far as teraporting is concerned.

(Even if it wasn't, well, that just proves my point even more: Petey does not have the juice to teraport Oth to somewhere else.)

[factotum]

If the way the orbit was portrayed in the comic was not an exaggeration, than they have a couple of weeks at most before the planet moves out of the habitable zone

There's also the point that the way to raise the low point of an orbit is to accelerate the body when it's at the high point. If you do that anywhere else then you'll have to expend a great deal more energy to do the job. I'm also not convinced of the argument that a bunch of battleplates could do this--sure, they're theoretically designed to deflect asteroids from hitting planets, but an asteroid that might be on a planet-crossing orbit is many orders of magnitude less massive than any habitable planet. Even the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in our solar system's asteroid belt, is approximately 6,600 times less massive than Earth.

[halfeye]

There's also the point that the way to raise the low point of an orbit is to accelerate the body when it's at the high point. If you do that anywhere else then you'll have to expend a great deal more energy to do the job. I'm also not convinced of the argument that a bunch of battleplates could do this--sure, they're theoretically designed to deflect asteroids from hitting planets, but an asteroid that might be on a planet-crossing orbit is many orders of magnitude less massive than any habitable planet. Even the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in our solar system's asteroid belt, is approximately 6,600 times less massive than Earth.

The current update proposes a solution. I agree it's a big if, but then it's Petey.

[sihnfahl]

If the way the orbit was portrayed in the comic was not an exaggeration, than they have a couple of weeks at most before the planet moves out of the habitable zone, and even then a lot of damage will be done by a temperature rise of a couple of degrees in that time. You're right that this is their slowest problem, it's just not that slow.

Assuming an Earth year, it's going to hit a yellow point in under 3 months.

Things don't have to be warm enough to quickly evaporate water (much less boil it) - just warm enough to disrupt the ecosystem that relies on a given temperature range, yes? Sustained temperatures of 110F / 43C are hard enough for humans to deal with, without regular water intake and a means of cooling...

[Battleship789]

Petey sure is accelerating down the slippery slope.

[factotum]

Petey sure is accelerating down the slippery slope.

Yeah, how dare he save the admiral's consciousness from certain death? The nerve of the guy!

[geoduck]

Maybe "slippery slope" is overstating it, but I think we're seeing how previous civilizations end up disappearing...

[HandofShadows]

Maybe "slippery slope" is overstating it, but I think we're seeing how previous civilizations end up disappearing...

You might well be right. But Petey *really* doesn't want to do it though. We saw a huge amount of effort trying to save the planet and keep the people's original bodies intact so they could be put back into them. I wonder what the DMs are doing though that Petey thought he had to zap the Admiral away?

[Xanyo]

You might well be right. But Petey *really* doesn't want to do it though. We saw a huge amount of effort trying to save the planet and keep the people's original bodies intact so they could be put back into them. I wonder what the DMs are doing though that Petey thought he had to zap the Admiral away?

Probably a significant mass of dark matter was about to impact his ship unexpectedly (quite possibly a new visitor, with Petey's power outage keeping him from swatting incursions. Teraporting his mind here is like an instant Laz-5 backup that doesn't break continuity. Petey can't really afford the delays and information loss of loading up a backup that would have to be debriefed, and still wouldn't have the firsthand experience of the current situation that helps him analyze and make decisions.

In other words, he's porting data to a safe backup drive before the computer it was on blows up. More or less.

[factotum]

Current strip confirms the battleplate was destroyed by Pa'anuri dark matter missiles.

[Max_Killjoy]

Maybe those missiles are why the Oafans so "ridiculously overbuilt" the hulls of their ships.

[HouseRules]

Maybe those missiles are why the Oafans so "ridiculously overbuilt" the hulls of their ships.

How does PTUs stop dark matter?

[HorizonWalker]

Because they're very dense.

[factotum]

How does PTUs stop dark matter?

They don't--the same strip says that three Oafan ships were destroyed by the same missiles.

[halfeye]

They don't--the same strip says that three Oafan ships were destroyed by the same missiles.

<nitpick>

Three of Petey's and two Oafans.

</nitpick>

Yeah, whatever advantage PTU thick hulls have, it's not totally stopping the current Pa'anuri missiles.

That seems to be the last of the action, and it was a Sunday strip, so that's six days of talking heads.

[NEO|Phyte]

Maybe those missiles are why the Oafans so "ridiculously overbuilt" the hulls of their ships.

Pretty sure the Oafans had PTU hulls because they had that one planet-scale forge to be able to make the stuff in bulk. (reminder: we've seen the ruins of said forge, it's where the space robofairies were living) It's excessive by modern standards because modern times can't make the stuff on the scale the oldafans could.

[Kornaki]

If this the first we're heading of the paanuri generator being turned on later than Petey's? That's somewhat surprising that they gave basically functional plans to the fen'gurl or whatever their names were before they built one for themselves.

[Max_Killjoy]

If this the first we're heading of the paanuri generator being turned on later than Petey's? That's somewhat surprising that they gave basically functional plans to the fen'gurl or whatever their names were before they built one for themselves.

The pa'anuri originally intended it to be a trap, a galaxy-destroying bomb, a "final solution" to all the baryonic life in the Milky Way.

Maybe it was only after Petey and Kevin and friends stopped the bomb and turned into an actual functioning generator that the pa'anuri realized they should build their own.

[NEO|Phyte]

If this the first we're heading of the paanuri generator being turned on later than Petey's? That's somewhat surprising that they gave basically functional plans to the fen'gurl or whatever their names were before they built one for themselves.

When Andromeda's core generator is first mentioned, it is done so in a way that more or less explicitly states it has only just been turned on.
:edit: not 100% sure of when this was, possibly in the aftermath of the Karl/Kevyn rescue in Paris.
:edit2: found it

[Max_Killjoy]

When Andromeda's core generator is first mentioned, it is done so in a way that more or less explicitly states it has only just been turned on.
:edit: not 100% sure of when this was, possibly in the aftermath of the Karl/Kevyn rescue in Paris.
:edit2: found it

"Yet".