Combat (unofficial video) Deftones

Came across this unofficial video uploaded by "deftribute" to youtube.  Interesting animation style.

Space Deterrence

Here is a story on deterrence to protect space assets.  Interesting read. 

Heading out on the Space Oregon Trail

I came across a recently published post on Centauri Dreams on the The Spacecoach Equation.  The short story is that by using consumables (water, CO2, gasified trash) as propulsion fuel rather than traditional propellants, the total mass of a mission would be radically reduced.  The mass reduction would be more than an order of magnitude improvement above baseline designs which would use external fuel stages.

The Martian (Trailer)

The trailer is out for The Martian.  Hopefully it turns out better for Matt Damon than in Interstellar.

Arms Control (micro story)

Xavier sat waiting at his table, a stone of apprehension in his stomach.  The plate of food served to him was getting cold.  He hated waiting, but being assigned as special envoy meant exactly that.  
"We welcome you all to the 10th Decadal Interstellar Armaments Conference" an announcer declared in multitude of unintelligible tongues.  
Finally he spotted his counterpart.  "Greetings" he said in the best Yian dialect he could emulate. 
"Greetings" replied the Yian envoy, a few others of his party looking at Xavier curiously.  "How was the flight?" Xavier reflexively inquired. 
"The usual" the Yian replied.  And by that he meant being frozen in a tube for a several years makes everything hurt. 
"Did you want something to eat?" Xavier offered his guests. 
"Yes, I have always wanted to try what you may call 'pizza’.”  I've heard rave reviews from your other visitors.  Xavier flagged one of the waiters and ordered pizza for his guest and some of his entourage.   He wondered which of the other ‘visitors’ the Yian may have meant.
As the waiter shuffled off, they all looked through the restaurant window facing out to the main exposition floor.   Just now they saw contractors from Lupus prime demo a black hole gun against a target.  Apparently , the weapon created multiple micro event horizons within the structure.  A meter diameter perfectly round cylinder perforated the target leaving empty space.  “Hmm, very  interesting”, the Yian remarked.  “no known shielding could withstand that.”
Just then, the waiter brought out a whole pizza pie.  Unceremoniously, the Yians stretched out arms and grabbed at it with what amounted to hands.  They each took a piece, closed a fist around a slice.  Seconds later, each fist unclenched now appearing empty.   “Delicious!” exclaimed the lead Yian.  He made a motion to order another.  
“Now down to business” Xavier sounded impatient.  “We are looking for some help with developing a Nomma-class weapon.”
"I see, a to-the-point kind of race you come from.  The arms control treaty after the Great Star War states all planetary-effects or above or ‘Nomma’ class weapons are to be banned."  the Yian said profusely .
"Supposedly" Xavier grinned.  At least this letter ‘Nomma’ was pronounceable. 
"Well, there are gray areas of course."  The envoy conceded. 
"Such as?" Xavier replied.
"Sub-planetary weapons which may affect a whole region but not a whole planet" the Yian clarified.  "If multiple of these are used in concert, then it might as well be a Nomma class weapon.”
"I see" Xavier muttered.
"But why so coy, my friend?"  "I know very well why you are here and what you want"
"What are you talking about?"  Xavier feigned shock.
"Seismic weapons are very imprecise as you well know." the Yian went on.  Xavier got red with perspiration.
"How do you know we want anything to do with that?  Oh, nevermind, I don't want to know."  Xavier corrected.
"And you want consultation on how to make yours better aimed, correct? We have noticed an uptick in high multitude earthquakes on your planet in recent years, no doubt an attempt to calibrate the aiming system."
Xavier stammered out, "Well, yes, that is quite observant of you." 
"We like to keep up to date with things despite what you may know of us." 
Xavier had been briefed on the Yians.  Humans didn't know too much of them and didn't think they visited Earth much since the Dominion defeated them in war around the year 1400.  They were reported to be the pre-eminent weapons engineers of the sector.
The Yian looked at Xavier "Why seismic weapons anyway?   Plausible deniability veiled as an act of nature, right?"
Xavier blinked.
 “Furthermore, why would we want to help you?  You are under Dominion hegemony.  They like to keep their planets’ populations divided and infighting.  It helps them to stay in control.”   
“A status quo some would like to change.”  Xavier added. 
Suddenly, the Yian smiled.  “Maybe we may be of help after all.”  The second pizza came out and even Xavier joined in this time around. And it was delicious.
Copyright 2015

The Battle Above from 60 Minutes

Interesting story from 60 Minutes on space conflict. 

Part 1:

Part 2:

Then the Breakthrough Comes (microstory)

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Well maybe, but I like to think of it as keeping hope alive.
The mechanicals liked to see us humans carry on our regular lives; get up, go to work, push some buttons, come home, eat, watch some TV, sleep, repeat. They only wanted us to be 'happy' after all. Welcome to the new order, same as the old order. You get the picture. Despite their newly found intelligence, the mechs crave that order which comes with routine, and thus the need to make us humans ‘happy.’ And that is what will destroy them…
-----------------------------------
“Chang, have a good one, doing anything nice this weekend?” Christine questioned with a slight sigh.
“Nope, just scaling mount Everest for like the 100th time. It’s hardly a challenge anymore,” he didn’t have to finish the sentence especially with our dear caretakers Christine nodded in understanding. ‘God forbid we put ourselves in danger’ Christine thought. She remembered just the other month, Chang tried to off himself and almost succeeded, too. These mechs must be slipping, Christine mused. Well, it was time to go home and while away the time in some pointless pursuit. As far as she could tell, humanity’s robot overlords had no weaknesses. It’s always been that way ever since she could remember and that’s what her parents and grandparents knew.
She got home and ate the perfectly nutritionally balanced meal that was produced from the feed lines. Perfectly nutritious and perfectly BORING. At least she had her little hobby though. Her mother had taught it to her, and as far as she knew, her mother had learned it from one of her grandparents. She liked to tinker with old computers, machines, just anything to learn how things worked. Not too many folks these days were into that. She’d find old or broken machines and take them home to disassemble. She wasn’t certain why the mechanicals didn’t notice or seemed to care about her pastime. She suspected so that a few humans would be around to fix the mechs as backup for their own automated systems. Redundancy, another thing they loved. Another reason they had no weaknesses.
Today she had a real nice piece laid out on her workbench, a master control unit from the earliest known version of a mech. She had been searching for a decade and finally happened upon one almost in pristine condition. An old junk hoarder had held out on her knowing she had wanted it. After threatening him to never come back, he was convinced to let her ‘borrow’ it. He had grown fond of their talks of machines and gizmos and feared losing that one thing he looked forward to anymore.

“Everything has a weakness” she remembered her mother telling her. She hadn’t known why her mother was so emphatic about teaching her everything she knew about technology. Her mother had also insisted she pass down the knowledge to any of her children. She slowly opened up the control unit. A smile passed over her face as she saw it, an exploitable weakness. “Well, no one’s perfect” she said to herself. A human designer gave birth to these machines and thus they would inherit some unintentional flaw. She thought of her parents and her long since passed grandparents. They had taught her so much. Now she knew why. “Maybe routine isn’t so bad after all” she said admiring her handiwork. She thought of the coming day’s agenda: Get up, go to work, push some buttons, overthrow the robots, come home, eat, watch some TV, sleep, repeat.

Copyright 2015