Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme

[factotum]

I'm a bit puzzled about this concept of using a white dwarf as a power source, too. A white dwarf doesn't generate any *new* power, it just leaks out the remains of the energy left behind from when it was a proper star.

[DeTess]

I'm a bit puzzled about this concept of using a white dwarf as a power source, too. A white dwarf doesn't generate any *new* power, it just leaks out the remains of the energy left behind from when it was a proper star.

I think it's a matter of time-scale. White dwarves last far longer than normal stars do, so it can function as a power source for far longer, even if it has a lower output than a normal star.

[NEO|Phyte]

I'm a bit puzzled about this concept of using a white dwarf as a power source, too. A white dwarf doesn't generate any *new* power, it just leaks out the remains of the energy left behind from when it was a proper star.

Nothing generates "new" power. What a white dwarf does is release the power it had since birth over an appreciably long timespan. Imagine a smartphone that you never had to plug in to recharge.

[factotum]

Nothing generates "new" power.

Um, stars do, that's how they work? They fuse hydrogen into helium and generate an awful lot of energy doing it.

[Rockphed]

Um, stars do, that's how they work? They fuse hydrogen into helium and generate an awful lot of energy doing it.

And a small red-dwarf has an expected lifespan of something like 10 trillion years. Now, a medium white dwarf probably releases more energy per unit area, but it seems the Allstar had the right idea for a powersource for immortality.

[Kornaki]

Personally, I wish Howard would be more consistent about whether these pseudo-dinosaur-looking aliens wear clothes or not. What, are Paranoid Red and Goggles Blue just nudists or something? What's going on here?

70 million years of digitization probably changes the culture a little bit.

Maybe the weird part is that they even still look the same.

[Rockphed]

Looking further at things, assuming that their white dwarf is cooling at normal rates, then they only have about 13 billion years before it cools enough to stop emitting light.

[factotum]

Looking further at things, assuming that their white dwarf is cooling at normal rates, then they only have about 13 billion years before it cools enough to stop emitting light.

If they're actually drawing power from it surely it will cool faster, because it's not just radiating energy into space? Of course, thinking about it, there *is* a way you could generate "new" power from a white dwarf--just drop hydrogen onto it, and the gravity at the surface should be sufficient for that to start fusing immediately. If you keep doing that then eventually you're going to add enough mass for it to turn into a black hole, though.

[Max_Killjoy]

If current theories are largely true... eventually you have to find a new universe to move to.

[halfeye]

If current theories are largely true... eventually you have to find a new universe to move to.

In the Schlock 'verse you only have to sacrifice one galaxy to do that. How you get into it then is the next problem.

[HouseRules]

If current theories are largely true... eventually you have to find a new universe to move to.

Kevyn Prime and Schlock and the Gestalt AI already moved to another universe when the traveled back in time.
They don't have another worm gate of sufficient capacity to do this again.

[tonberrian]

Called. It.

[Mando Knight]

Um, stars do, that's how they work? They fuse hydrogen into helium and generate an awful lot of energy doing it.

Energy that is previously stored in the hydrogen atoms, and generally measured as mass. Once mass-energy equivalence is accounted for, the iron grip of the laws of thermodynamics take hold: nothing creates "new" energy.

[Narkis]

Spoiler: new comic

Show

These guys are really paranoid. I'm sure that far-fetched scenario will never come to pass

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Okay, so:
Tame, non-sapient giant metastable dark matter masses of tentacles = one of the oldest technologies in the book.
Sapient, dangerous giant metastable dark matter masses of tentacles = surprisingly hard to do, but theoretically possible.

So the Pa'anuri are... were they around during the 12 mya civilization? Is that why the balloon people hid? Or are they only from the time of the gatekeepers, 5 mya or so?

And are they something that never occured before, or will it turn out this prediction is something that happened ones (or lots of times) already? (Are the current ones actually different from those 12 mya?

Either way, looks like the dark matter beasties will be the endgame of the comic series. It's special because it treatens the countless giant starships carrying larger populations than the Milky Way each of exodians as well rather than just all life in two galaxies.

Kevyn Prime and Schlock and the Gestalt AI already moved to another universe when the traveled back in time.
They don't have another worm gate of sufficient capacity to do this again.

They moved from a doomed bit shattered off from the old universe back into the old universe, it's not quite the same as moving into a new universe.

[HouseRules]

There is a finite type of universes, at least the last paper that Stephen Hawking wrote about the multiverse.
However, that does not limit the quantity, only the quality of the universes.
Most universes are actually like what Kevyn Prime, Schlock Prime, and Gestalt AIs; that is, most universes are actually parallel universes of different timelines with minor events in history that are different.
The chance that someone's fictional story is actually real in one of those other universes is low, but not zero if they follow the proper laws of physics.
There is a finite amount of laws that would sustain universes, and other laws would be too unstable for a universe to form.

[factotum]

So the Pa'anuri are... were they around during the 12 mya civilization? Is that why the balloon people hid? Or are they only from the time of the gatekeepers, 5 mya or so?

It does seem odd that metastable dark matter entities were created 7 billion years ago but didn't develop any sort of sapience until less than 73 million years ago. One thing it does mean, though, is that all those people in the far orbit of the Milky Way were definitely not running from the Pa'anuri, so we still don't know why they're all out there.

[Willie the Duck]

It does seem odd that metastable dark matter entities were created 7 billion years ago but didn't develop any sort of sapience until less than 73 million years ago. One thing it does mean, though, is that all those people in the far orbit of the Milky Way were definitely not running from the Pa'anuri, so we still don't know why they're all out there.

Well, if today's strip is any indication, people will voluntarily run away from the mere possibility that such things could exist. So that's one possibility.

[halfeye]

Well, if today's strip is any indication, people will voluntarily run away from the mere possibility that such things could exist. So that's one possibility.

They haven't run far enough, which is very strange.

The galaxy bomb the DMEs conned the Gatekeepers into making wasn't going to reach Andromeda, but it would have taken out everything in orbit around the Milky Way.

[factotum]

The galaxy bomb the DMEs conned the Gatekeepers into making wasn't going to reach Andromeda, but it would have taken out everything in orbit around the Milky Way.

Any shockwave generated by the core explosion would have propagated at lightspeed, so it would have taken tens of thousands of years to destroy the galaxy, much less anything in orbit around it, giving them plenty of time to escape.

[HorizonWalker]

Any shockwave generated by the core explosion would have propagated at lightspeed, so it would have taken tens of thousands of years to destroy the galaxy, much less anything in orbit around it, giving them plenty of time to escape.

It's entirely possible and in fact quite likely that the border of the new micro-universe was, in fact, traveling faster than light. See, that's the thing- the Paanuri didn't just blow up the galactic core, they somehow made it rip the Milky Way out of the universe and into a new one. I have no idea why.

[Max_Killjoy]

IIRC, time inside the new universe was running MUCH faster than outside it, leading everything inside the wavefront to succumb to entropy nearly instantaneously from the POV of anything outside of it.

[halfeye]

Any shockwave generated by the core explosion would have propagated at lightspeed, so it would have taken tens of thousands of years to destroy the galaxy, much less anything in orbit around it, giving them plenty of time to escape.

It wasn't an explosion inside this universe, it was an entire baby universe. It definitely expanded at faster than the speed of light with respect to our universe, which it wasn't part of. Just like the initial big bang of our universe expanded faster than light, because it wasn't moving, it was growing spacetime.

It's entirely possible and in fact quite likely that the border of the new micro-universe was, in fact, traveling faster than light. See, that's the thing- the Paanuri didn't just blow up the galactic core, they somehow made it rip the Milky Way out of the universe and into a new one. I have no idea why.

No, it wasn't just possible that the wavefront of the new universe was travelling faster than the speed of light, it was straight up said in comic.

https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-03-05

3800 lightyears from the core, and gone in hours.

https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-03-28

22 hours from death, a long way from the core.

https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-03-29

A lot of blurb in the form of a footnote.

The reason the Pa'anuri destroyed the galaxy was because they don't like baryonic life, and they have migrated at least in part to Andromeda. The reason for dropping the MIlky Way out of the universe may have been to prevent the new one overwriting Andromeda, though I don't believe that was said.

[JavaScribe]

Looks like the moral of the story is, the dark matter beasties find the baryonics just as scary as the baryonics find them. The core incident was probably the result of a tragic misunderstanding.

Makes it a little weird that their usual word for baryonics is "annoying" though.

[Mobius Twist]

"Scary-barry" sounds like a diminutive term a midwestern mom might give to some kids trick-or-treating.

[The Glyphstone]

Maybe this is a 'younger' DME however they reckon these things?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Looks like the moral of the story is, the dark matter beasties find the baryonics just as scary as the baryonics find them.

It's the punchline of one strip, it might be a little early to call it the moral of the entire story.

[Gez]

Looks like the moral of the story is, the dark matter beasties find the baryonics just as scary as the baryonics find them. The core incident was probably the result of a tragic misunderstanding.

Makes it a little weird that their usual word for baryonics is "annoying" though.

They were introduced here:
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-07-03
The expo dump where we were told their word for baryonic life was "annoying" is here:
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-07-10
It's only after that Petey devise a way to attack them:
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-07-17

In the 14 years of real-world time since, Petey brought the war to the Andromeda galaxy and continually iterated on his paanuri-killer blueprints. So it's perfectly possible that the annoying have started to become scary.

[geoduck]

They were introduced here:
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-07-03
The expo dump where we were told their word for baryonic life was "annoying" is here:
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-07-10
It's only after that Petey devise a way to attack them:
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-07-17

In the 14 years of real-world time since, Petey brought the war to the Andromeda galaxy and continually iterated on his paanuri-killer blueprints. So it's perfectly possible that the annoying have started to become scary.

I got the impression that the message was saying that this particular batch of barries is scary because they just killed a bunch of people, not that all barries are automatically scary.

[halfeye]

I got the impression that the message was saying that this particular batch of barries is scary because they just killed a bunch of people, not that all barries are automatically scary.

I got the impression that the message's content was completly unknown.