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The valley has waterfalls, hot springs, and whitewater rafting. Fission reactors make discard heat that powers a river and keeps it warm in winter. The valley is deep and holds heat. The river has a section where water is focused into a surfing wave.
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Heat is focused into hotspots like Yellowstone.
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Kane Heft's campground is lush with flora and fauna.
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Dense pines give privacy and block sound.
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It has a playground for gadgets called Risk Park. It hosts the Heft Open, a contest for humans with gadgets.
Many invent their own gadgets. It's a mixed martial gadget contest.
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The first tee of Meltdown golf course is on a mountaintop. 1000 yards, par 4. The green lies in a valley.
A foursome takes shots. Among them is Boss Dogg, Blizzard County Commissioner. His shot is caught by the jet stream and sails over the green, landing in the lake behind it.
Dogg: The lake has geese that are trained to fetch golf balls. From a goose's point of view, golf balls are currency that can be exchanged for food. A goose sees golf balls the way a 49er sees gold nuggets.
Aurora Wavecrest is a celebrity actress and she owns film studios in Blizzard County. Her shot goes straight like a sniper bullet and then sinks downward and crashes into the fairway. It bounces and rolls, and rolls and rolls, and comes to rest on the green.
How did you make the ball sink?
Wavecrest: This is a negative four wood
that makes topspin. What's in yeeeeeeeeer golf bag?
Forcefeld: It's like the man that skied down Mount
Everest. He crashed early but still made it to the bottom.
The man that wiped down Mount Everest.
Kane Heft's shot slices and hits the cliff to the right of the fairway, stopping in the fairway below.
Heft: Happy I'm not in the water. The wind up here is too fierce
to manage.
Forcefeld: Bank shot.
Brutus Forcefeld owns the golf course. He's a member of the PGA tour and he used his winnings to build the course.
Forcefeld's shot shot is bullied by wind currents like a knuckleball but magically lands on the fairway, a short distance from the green.
Thanks everyone for the intel on wind currents.
Forcefeld has a superpower. He can see air.
He can simulate fluid dynamics in his head. Computational
physicists co-author papers with Forcefeld. Forcefeld outperforms supercomputers.
The golfers mount unicycles and roll down to the green. The fairway has moguls and jumps and is a ski slope in winter. Heft is a professional X-games athlete and rides down with dance moves. His pet condors glide down with him.
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Dogg's ball was last seen splashing into water but now lies on the green. It's coated with a telltale sheen of water and a goose stands nearby.
Dogg grabs a loaf of bread from his golf bag and hands it to the goose.
What's in yeeeeeeeeeeeer golf bag?
This course has Easter eggs.
Goose eggs. That's Spruce Goose, the boss goose of
Blizzard County.
Boss Goose tackles the loaf like a contestant at the Coney Island hot dog eating contest. He does his best but the loaf is too big and he succumbs to a food coma. He gives the rest of the loaf to other geese and experiences the thrill of being a goose pimp. More geese fall into a food coma.
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Why is Spruce the boss?
Spruce is biggest. Well fed by Dogg's golfing.
Geese float in the lake at day and fly off at sunset.
Spruce Goose decides when it's time to fly. He stands on a tall
rock and honks and the flock takes off. Spruce himself takes off but takeoff is
hard for Spruce, which is why he's on a tall rock. He jumps off the rock
and flaps his wings and his wingtips touch the lake 5 times before he achieves
enough speed for flight. But once in the air, he's like a World War 2
superfortress bomber. Spruce can carry a big payload. But he needs frequent refueling.
There's a fleet of tanker geese that gives Spruce snacks while he flies.
Spruce is a celebrity at my campsite. He occupies the
Iron Throne in Central Pond.
I'm going to include Spruce in a film scene as a stunt goose.
Dogg walkes toward the green, slips on goose poop, and falls on his ass.
Dogg is a narcissist. He pays a film crew to follow him around. They have a fleet of camera drones operated by a command van. Sports referees envy.
Dogg pays a team of graphic engineers to make memes from the footage. They post the video of Dogg falling on his ass and it goes viral. It will be used in commercials for Dogg's merchandise.
Dogg is tall, fat, elderly, and clumsy. He's an opera bass singer that can sing at extreme low frequency. He sounds like Darth Vader on xenon. He pays an orchestra to follow him around and he often expresses himself with libretto. Aurora adds soprano.
Forcefeld and Heft are bad singers. They add percussion by pounding golf clubs on the ground.
Dogg's orchestra backs up birds. Wind players have an arsenal of instruments that sound like birds. Dogg is accompanied by a flock of birds. Heft trained the birds to sing with an orchestra.
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Biplanes from the World War 1 era appear in the sky and fight a scripted dogfight. It will be a scene in a Wavecrest film. 2 planes are shot down and crash into the mountains and the pilots eject safely. The golf tournament pauses to watch the fight.
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An orange Dodge Charger is parked in a parking lot in Lizzard County. Inside is Moe Nuke, Blizzard County Sheriff, and Juke Nuke, Agent 0009 in the Blizzard County Secret Service. They operate a fleet of stealth drones to surveil a factory farm that's suspected of animal cruelty.
Juke: The farm has anti-aircraft defenses. I can't get the drones
close enough to get video or
audio of the interior. The buildings have no windows. The animals never see daylight.
Moe: I'm using infrared to measure the heat
output of the buildings so our nerds can
calculate the animal density.
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Moe turns the car key and revs the engine while Juke operates the drones.
Moe leaves a calligraphic tire streak on the pavement and gets on a road that leads
out of Lizzard.
The Sheriff of Lizzard County, Bossco Ricotrain,
builds a roadblock to stop them. Moe accelerates toward the roadblock like
he's going to ram it. Shortly before hitting the roadblock the car sprouts rockets and
launches into the air and clears the roadblock while serenading Bossco with a Dixie horn
with 10000 Watts. Everyone in Lizzard County hears it. Juke's drones capture footage
and post it
to social media. Aurora Wavecrest will use the footage for a film.
We thank Bossco for being an extra in Aurora's film.
Lizzard's last chance is drones. Lizzard's drones go after the car as it nears the county
border. Juke shoots them down.
Turkey shoot. You can't beat Blizztech drones.
Moe and Juke get back to Blizzard County in time for rugby practice.
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The golfers are at the 2nd tee and the green is a floating island. Par 3 and adjustable yardage. Fans watch in boats. If a ball goes in the water you lose only one stroke. You can lose a maximum of 2 strokes. If you miss 2 times, you get to keep shooting until you get it on the green. It's the "Dogg rule".
Dogg gets the ball on the green on the first shot, a first for him. Fans shower Dogg with beer.
Forcefeld's shot goes in the water, rare for him.
Loose Goose gets Forcefeld's ball and brings it to Dogg, having assumed that Dogg hit the shot. Dogg gives Loose a loaf of bread.
Dogg's golf bag has a high-capacity bread magazine.
Fresh-baked, and the bag has a heater.
When Dogg golfs, geese gather.
Fans bet on which goose will get the ball.
Spruce Goose is ranked #3. He's big and out-muscles other geese.
Loose Goose is #2. A good catcher. On the goose football beak team.
Caboose Goose is #1. He has moves.
Juice Goose is #4. Small and fast.
Each goose has a jersey with a name, number, and colors. Fans have jerseys for their favorite geese. Caboose's jersey is purple and gold and he has Vikings fans. Spruce's jersey is green and gold and he has Packers fans.
Forcefeld's second shot hits the green and stops inches from the hole.
A falcon race flies by and the golfers pause to watch. It will be a scene in a Wavecrest film.
Each tee has a bartender and cook. Forcefeld orders carrot juice. His skin is tinted orange from beta carotene. He's a Mormon with a wife and 9 kids. The other golfers order beer. Dogg reloads his golf bag bread magazine with fresh-baked bread.
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[A month earlier]
Boss Dogg owns a company for space launch. A hydrogen blimp rises to an altitude of 20 km and drops a rocket. The rocket falls to 10 km and gains speed to Mach 1, fast enough to ignite a ramjet. The first rocket stage has a ramjet and wings. It levels out and the ramjet gets to Mach 5. Then the ramjet detaches and parachutes down.
The 2nd and 3rd stages are cheap solid rockets. This is enough to get to orbit if you start at Mach 5 and are above most of the atmosphere.
The rocket reaches orbit and unleashes a payload, a kevlar balloon 10 meters in diameter. The balloon has 3 layers for redundancy and has patches. Between layers is low-density filler. Goose down. Kevlar converts micrometeors to plasma and the filler absorbes plasma heat. The balloon is impervious to space junk like a runflat tire. On the outside of the balloon is painted the words "Boar's Buffet".
Another rocket reaches orbit and delivers a prep kit to the Boar's Buffet with things like food, whiskey, coffee beans, spices, games, gamestations, and air.
A rocket delivers a Santa Clause bag of gadgets. Another delivers rockets that burn H2+O2 fuel, along with fuel. Another delivers communications satellites destined for geostationary orbit over Blizzard County.
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A rocket carries astronauts to the Boar's Buffet. They're competitors from the Heft Open that are deemed to be daring and willing to take risks for space selfies. The astronauts practice operating the gadgets.
More balloons and fuel arrive from Earth and the astronauts use them to go to the moon.
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The astronauts land on the moon and unpack gadgets. Crazy Nuke uses a rover to do jumps off craters.
Crazy: Someday we'll terraform the moon and you'll be able to hear a Dixie horn.
The rovers have 8 foot wheels and predictive suspension, giving a smooth ride on lunar terrain. They hop over obstacles. They're powered by europium-152 radioactivity and solar cells.
Zeke Aardberg erects a soccer goal and Topaz takes
shots while Zeke practices saves. Crazy plays sweeper.
Stay close to the
ground. If you're caught off the ground it takes time to
get back to the ground.
After the soccer session everyone grabs golf clubs and
practices shots. The drivers have a club face of 45 degrees,
the right value for vacuum.
Their drives go 4 kilometers and disappear beyond the
horizon.
We need tall flags and artificial turf.
Zeke: The moon is a bigass bunker and balls sink
into regolith. I brought
an iridium wedge to blast balls out of regolith.
Topaz, Zeke, and Crazy get on rovers
and drive off in different directions to conduct a mining survey.
They're looking for ice, metal asteroid craters, potassium, and phosphorus.
Enough damn science missions. We need prospecting missions.
Every square inch of the Earth has been prospected.
A team of miners lands at the lunar south pole with equipment for mining ice. They build an underground base to be safe from cosmic rays. They use some of the ice to make rocket fuel by using solar cells to split ice into hydrogen+oxygen. They load ice onto rockets and launch it to space where it then goes to various base stations. Some goes to low-Earth orbit where it's used to lift spacecraft to higher gravitational potentials.
Ice is needed in space for radiation shielding against cosmic ray protons. Hydrogen has the best shielding value per mass.
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A team takes ice to the Lagrange point L2 and builds a station for assembling telescopes from segments. L2 is a good place for space telescopes because you can block light from the sun, Earth, and moon simultaneously.
Lunar iron is used for space radio telescopes.
Solar cells are shipped to the moon.
A factory is shipped to the moon that makes solar cells from lunar material.
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Dogg tees off with a nine iron to get loft to go uphill. The ball is seized by the jet stream, reverses course, and lands in the lake behind him, the same lake that ate his tee shot from the last hole. The shot is captured by drones and posted to social media.
Wavecrest grabs a four-inch tee, this being the maximum length allowed by the rules. She sets it on an uphill spot and hits the ball with a negative four wood and upswing, to make topspin. The ball makes forward progress and then topspin brings it down before the jet stream can take it.
Heft grabs a one-inch tee and set the ball to be just above the ground, in deep grass. He hits it with a one wood and as the ball plows through grass it gains loft and topspin, and the ball follows a trajectory similar to Wavecrest's.
Forcefeld: Kane plays this course like a pool table. Bank shots and jump shots.
Brutus tees off with a 9 iron and aims at a tree on the fairway. He hits the tree and the ball falls to the ground before the jet stream can take it.
Base camp one.
Spruce Goose brings Dogg his ball and Dogg gives him a loaf of bread.
They're playing in the Forcefeld Open. The field is open to players in the PGA Tour, European Tour, Japanese Tour, Asian Tour, Korn Ferry tour, LPGA Tour, and LPGA Japan Tour. There are qualifier tournaments for Cinderellas. There are sponsor's exemptions for celebrities and there's an option to buy entry for $20,000. The purse is $20 million, enough to rival a PGA tournament. The field has 1000 players, 20 from the PGA. Players play 4 18-hole courses and there's no cut. If you pay, you get to play, and you get to play among pros and celebrities.
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Bombers appear in the sky and give an air show, dropping bombs on prearranged targets. A scene in for an upcoming Wavecrest film. Tanks are destroyed. The tanks are military surplus.
A bomber drops a tank and the tank uses its gun to steer and try to land on a tank on the ground. The gunners eject before impact. Spectators place bets on the accuracy.
The falling tank misses. The bombers drop another tank, this one guided by rockets, and it hits the tank on the ground. The falling tank is loaded with extra weight to increase speed. Debris from the collision lands more than a mile away. Cameramen capture glorious debris falls.
A bomber drops a tank and the tank crashes into a cliff. For the film scene, CGI will make it look like a wizard uses telekinesis to throw the tank into the cliff.
Wavecrest gets a call from Moe and Juke Nuke. Dogg's orchestra plays a ringtone. Dixie horn.
Moe: We have proof of animal cruelty at factory farms.
Juke: We couldn't get video for your documentary because
everything's indoors in windowless buildings.
See if you can go undercover and get a job at a factory farm.
Dogg: I installed nuclear mass spectrometers all over the
world. Anyone will be able to take samples to a spectrometer and get spectra.
This reveals the isotope tracers that you planted at factory farms, and also
the tracers that were placed at Heft's farms. It can also measure the metals in
coins.
A pack of Blizztech students are tailgaiting. Upcoming is a lecture by Gregor Rigel, Blizztech Professor of Science Fiction.
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An hour before lecture a monster truck pulls up and from it emerges professor Rigel. He opens the tailgate and sits on it. Students hand him burgers and beer. This is office hours.
Rigel: The Starship Enterprise has the mission of exploring new
worlds. Can anyone give more examples?
Hickory Cloud: Odysseus
Arcturus Bulleye: James Cook
Vega Jade: Lewis and Clark
Jason and The Argonauts
Vikings
Marco Polo
If I'd been Cook and discovered Hawaii,
I would've stayed. I’d send letters to my friends telling them that
paradise exists and welcoming them to join me.
Cook blew it. He could have pulled a Kurtz and been a god but
he was a jerk and the Hawaiians killed him.
Cortez was a hero when he vanquished the tyrannical Aztecs
but then he proved to be a tyrant.
It took 3 months to sail from England to Hawaii. You
had to commit to one or the other. If a new paradise is discovered, how long
would you be willing to travel to get there?
I wouldn't travel to Alpha Centauri on a sublight ship.
Don't get on the first ship to Alpha Centauri. The
second ship will get their earlier.
If you're fleeing tyranny you'll travel far,
like the Pilgrims and Mormons.
In Europe, every square inch of land has been
owned for millennia. Owned by kings not farmers. Farmers were
feudal slaves. The New World had unowned farmland. A Big Bang.
The U.S. government gave 160 acres to anyone willing to get their ass to the
frontier and farm it. People showed up.
People hustled to gold rushes in Alaska.
Ancient Romans knew the distance to China and they knew the size
of the Earth. Could their ships have reached China?
For a bonus point, what was the tonnage of Columbus' flagship?
Each student writes down a number on a white board and the student
that is closest gets the point. The student that's designated
Scribe of the Day records the point.
Ancient Roman warships were 50 tons, Columbus' ship was
150 tons, American Revolutionary War warships were 4000 tons,
and WW2 battleships were 60000 tons. Kon Tiki was
a mere 10 tons and it crossed the Pacific.
Kon Tiki was uncomfortable but unsinkable. A raw raft.
Daring sailers.
Aircraft are like warp drive to sailships.
Tamarian language is heavy on references and needs a common canon.
One has to make wise choices about what to include in the canon.
You want cool scenes and characters. Our canon includes Star Trek, Star Wars, Bond,
Avengers, X Men, Superman, Batman, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, and Game of Thrones.
Judeo-Christian mythology, Greco-Roman mythology, Norse mythology, and world history.
What if canon goes off the rails like Star Wars?
The Guardians of the Canon meet in a smoke-filled room and excommunicate
bad canon. Papal bulls are issued.
Triggering religious schisms.
Canon wars.
Reboots unnecessarily discard canon that took hard work to build.
Praise House of Dragon for sticking to canon. That being said, Game of Thrones season 8
should be excommunicated and redone.
Nuclear retcon.
The homework assignment is to write a short story
of dystopian fiction. Everything from dystopian fiction came true.
Time to write the next round of dystopian fiction. What more could go wrong?
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Barfleet is a fleet of land yachts and barships. It's a mobile city with trucks for water, gasoline, generators, utilities, etc. It visits tourist attractions, especially golf courses. It has a barnstorming sports team and entertainers.
Blizztech has a mobile campus with Barfleet. The Barfleet captain is Brute Nuke, an eccentric billionaire and Blizztech Professor of Physics.
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Aurora Wavecrest, Boss Dogg, Kane Heft, Brutus Forcefeld, Gregor Rigel, Brute Nuke, Gage Arch, Nebula Sundial, and Ajax Boulderfield are in the Blizzard Bowl watching a game of the Blizzard Honey Badgers rugby team. Aurora owns the team and she taps players for stuntmen for her films.
The Blizzard Bowl is a stadium carved in a valley. The surrounding cliffs support a retractable dome and retractable upper deck by suspension. The river that's heated by nuclear reactors heats the valley and runs through a tunnel under the field. The turf is grass.
The stadium has mountain horns, drums, organ pipes, basses, cannons, and subwoofers. Many are bigger than 20 meters. Underground mass drivers can shake the stadium. The jumbotrons are projectors aimed at cliffs. The subwoofers are 100 megawatts and can be heard in neighboring counties. Many fans bring big instruments. Aurora uses the sound for soundtracks. Gage composes music for big instruments.
The Blizzard Bowl has luxurious locker rooms. Visiting teams and their fans are accomodated by Heft's luxurious campground. The Honey Badgers are highly sought after for games by other teams.
Nebula Sundial is Blizztech Professor of Mining and mechanical engineering and she built the stadium.
Sundial: The film studio is complete. A room with TVs on the walls,
ceiling, and floor. The room is on an elevator shaft that's 4 km long and gives
50 seconds of zero gravity. It can get up to 10 g.
The room can lurch sideways and it's on gimbals for rotation.
Wavecrest: Rugby players are used to getting thrown around.
The TVs have bulletproof glass.
Arch: I built a supercomputer to drive the TVs.
Rigel: One rarely sees seatbelts on ship. Chairs should be well-padded.
Control panels are often poorly designed. Control panels shouldn't blow up.
There are scenes where a control panel blows up and then still works.
It feels dumb that Star Trek puts the bridge in a vulnerable place.
Why not put it in a bunker at the center of the ship?
Klingon ships do this. Human bridges are spacious while
Klingon bridges are small and full of structural beams.
A human ship is a family van and a Klingon ship is a Hummer.
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Shields are boring and explosions are exciting. I'm glad Babylon 5
doesn't have shields. Shields are a literary anathema. Damage control makes for cool scenes.
I enjoy blowing up model ships.
In most shows, no matter how bad a ship
is damaged, artificial gravity still works. I'm making films where ships don't have
artificial gravity.
Give Babylon 5 credit for using centripetal gravity.
I built a blimp with an LED exterior. It can look like a Klingon warship.
LED Zeppelin.
Gregor: Most science fiction writers aren't strong scientists.
Most sci fi is merely fi. Their job is to predict the future of science and most get it wrong. Technobabble.
We have technocandy. Blizztech scientists are mapping the future of technology.
How to handle FTL and time travel?
It will never happen, even for an advanced civilization.
Science fiction authors should come to grips with this. There are deep
physics reasons. The Standard Model of particle physics is built from 2 foundations:
*) Information can't travel faster than light.
*) Information can't be destroyed.
These laws are bank all the way up to the energy of quantum gravity.
Time travel is a literary anathema. You can't make a
time travel story that's consistent.
What if you have a black hole?
A black hole can do cool things but not FTL or time travel.
It can extract 21% of the energy from mass. Aliens likely have a
black hole energy source and my X-ray telescopes look for them.
A black hole can also amplify a fusion rocket like a powered pinball
buffer, using the Oberth maneuver.
The alien shipping network likely uses black holes.
If the black hole is spinning it workes even better,
and LIGO found that most black holes spin.
How far is the nearest black hole?
The nearest known hole is 1560 light years away and there are likely
closer holes. If a hole isn't eating it's hard to see. They're found
by their gravitational lensing effect on background stars.
Can something like the Star Trek transporter exist?
You need both a transmitter and receiver.
The transmitter transmits brain
information and the receiver places the information in a pre-prepared robot body.
The only way to have FTL is to make the universe a simulation.
The simulation can be on a real supercomputer that respects physics.
It's reasonable to give the supercomputer big speed and memory.
The simulation
has a set of planets and civilizations, all respecting physics, including the
starships. Give starships a magic warp drive. Then you minimize the breaking
of physics within the simulation.
We have a scenario where a set of planets reach warp technology at the
same time and another scenario where they're in the medieval age at the same time.
The simulation can have the history of every real galactic civilization
and be able to re-create any time period from any civilization.
If you have warp drive it means you can do lots of other cool things that
break physics. We gloss this.
My gaming company makes vivid simulations. Gamers have
the option of paying more money to boost vividness. The more you pay,
the more work you get from the supercomputer. There's an oligarch
that pays $10000 per day for a presidential suite and it thrills his
family. The vividness is also boosted by an elderly home, which the company
pays to act as dungeon masters and non-player characters. The elderly have cool
stories to tell and they have a fine sense of mischief, like fairies from
Midsummer Night's Dream. A house of Pucks.
If kids get too much virtual vividness, do they lose interest in
reality?
Virtual reality is integrated with sports. We emphasize that the
supercomputer can make you look like Tim Tebow or Lindsey Vonn in virtual
reality, but not in real reality. A real soccer ball can only be influenced
by a real foot.
Lizzard County's gaming company doesn't have sports and it encourages
detachment from reality. It has addictive vices.
It turns kids into Daleks, a weak biological organism surrounded by a machine.
Not many pedal bikes in Lizzard.
Their gaming team is formidable. The Blizzard
gaming team spends big time training for games against Lizzard.
The film "The Matrix" was all about escaping the Matrix. Turns
out most humans willingly dive into the matrix.
The gaming community discusses D&D rules. A possible ruleset is:
*) Everyone gets time as Dungeon Master. Have multiple worlds where each person
is DM of a world.
*) If characters die, they're reincarnated.
*) Avoid identity spoofing.
*) Characters are entitled to a backstory.
*) You are entitled to a character that possesses the powers that you possess,
when you were at your prime. You may add a reasonable number of new powers and you
don't need to include your weaknesses.
Make interesting characters. Give them interesting strengths and weaknesses.
*) Scenarios should be interesting, fair, and reward team synergy.
*) Don't be obsessed about level. Make scenarios where level has minor importance.
Your LARP team is a asset for my films. Instant extras.
Stealthy. No one sees them coming. Flash mob. Well trained in role playing
and well trained as a military unit. Makes things easy for directors.
The LARP team likes having a piece of the action.
I wish my college had had a LARP class.
I'm launching a reality show where a pack of millionaire
city slickers try to survive in the wilderness with no gear.
All they get is a magnesium spark stick to start fires.
How did you convince them to do it?
They're narcissists that want to be social media lords.
I have a wilderness survival video game
to go with the show. Physics is enforced.
Classes are pass/fail and the wilderness
is live/die.
My campground has a wilderness survival zone.
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Boss Bogg: Our first colonial ship to the moon launches in 1 week.
Boss Smogg: The moon has has no pesky natives.
Boss Fogg: No pesky governments.
No environmental laws.
No labor laws.
No reporters.
Boss Sogg: What can be mined?
Ice and metal asteroid craters. Platinum-group metals will fuel
future oligarch wars.
We need nutrients for farming.
The moon has potassium and phosphorus but we need to bring nitrogen.
What if laborers revolt?
Boss Waterlogg:
The machines have kill switches that can be triggered from Earth.
We can turn off the power like in the film "Total Recall".
The laborers are indentured servants. It costs 10 million dollars to get to the moon
and that's steerage class.
Is there science fiction that relates to this?
Orwell's "Animal Farm" is a good manual for how to run a
colony. I write Animal Farm fan fiction. There's a community for this.
Boss Cogg: Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" identifies pitfalls.
In fiction, rebels tend to win. We know that
oligarchs win in real life. I'm not worried about rebels.
I'll go to the moon personally. I've always wanted to be a colonial
governor. I study historical governors. King Leopold of Belgium was
especially effective at extracting natural resources. I designed a board game
based on colonialism.
Boss Frogg: You have an impressive record for
extracting natural resources on Earth.
Boss Pogg: We can ship more material to the moon than any nation.
Nations won't be able to keep up with us. We can own the moon.
Boss Clogg:
Boss Dogg already launched 100 tons of material to the moon and a team of astronauts.
I'm obstructing Dogg's rocket industry.
Boss Flogg: We can ship more material to the moon than Dogg but Dogg's rockets have a
better survival rate. Our steerage-class survival rate is 75%, same as for Everest.
A sporting chance.
Boss Slogg: Crossing oceans in the Age of Sail was dangerous.
Boss Balrogg: Can we improve the survival rate?
Yes, but it's expensive. We have a reliable rocket and that's
what's taking me to the moon, first class.
They take a break to play the colonialism board game. The board is made of gold and the tokens are made of cobalt, uranium, rare earth metals, conflict diamonds, elephant ivory, and rhino horn. It's styled like a Game of Thrones maproom. They dine on spotted owl and humpback whale.
The Pacific 12 conference is dead.
Stanford is a refugee and we should help.
The Legion of Boom is a group of oligarchs. They barbeque in a field
of edible plants and graze the plants for sandwich toppings. Animals graze with them.
Among the oligarchs are
Boss Dogg, Boss Togg, Boss Jogg, Boss Blogg, Boss Nogg, Boss Ogg, Boss Glogg,
Boss Sprogg, Boss Waagg,
Brutus Forcefeld, Aurora Wavecrest, Nebula Sundial, Kane Heft, Ajax Boulderfield,
Gage Arch, Bo Nuke, Luke Nuke, and Brute Nuke.
A map of the United States is on a table and there are game tokens on it.
Boss Ogg: Making a new NFL team has a buy-in price of 4 bil.
The Mormon endowment is more than 100 bil. Perhaps they can be coaxed to contribute.
Perhaps a coalition ownership.
The fourth hole follows a mountain ridge. 700 yards, Par 7.
The grass is tall so that balls stay put
on slopes.
Drunks horse around with a backyard telescope.
Nuke's telescope team finds the death star at the same time as the backyard telescope.
Nuke hails the death star.
I formally disclose that I have a secret isotope lab under a mountain that could easily
be mistaken for a weapons lab. In fact it is a weapons lab.
Tour on offer.
The milk must flow!
We like Blizzard's resorts and we booked suites. We're here for
therapy animals, not humans. We also bought tickets to the next Blizzard rugby game.
As currency, we offer Hulkan ale that's aged a billion years.
History of Science
The Oval Office is packed with reporters.
President Dogg sits in the presidential chair and his
feet are on the presidential desk. His boots are staggeringly large and made of blue suede.
He wears a blue suede gangster fedora with a 6 inch brim
that makes his big round
head look like Saturn. His suit is black with a blue suede tie. An opera orchestra
is on hand.
Dogg smokes a Hulkan
cigar and a fancy air system hustles smoke out of the room.
Zorf's Androids stand stoically at the periphery and smoke cigars.
Dogg hands out cigars.
A gold statue catches Caboose's eye. It's a replica of the soccer World Cup
trophy, identical in every way except that the real trophy is hollow and the
replica is solid gold. The real trophy is 6 kg, light enough to be
hefted by soccer players with skinny arms. The replica is 30 kg.
Caboose tries to push the statue off the shelf and fails.
Caboose is confused. Given the statue's size it
should be easy to push off the shelf. Caboose experiences the concept of density.
Caboose gives up and poops on the statue.
President Dogg is in the White House kitchen socializing with cooks. He's
thrilled by the vast selection. The spice rack has thousands of spices.
Dogg feels like he's in Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory.
Dogg: To make a Blizzard sandwich, marinate thin-sliced
meat in curry, smoke it over hickory, dunk it in Scotch and set it on fire.
Use swamp Scotch
like Laphroaig and Aardbeg. Use cask strength at 120 proof.
Stack layers of meat and smoked cheese
and melt the cheese. Lettuce and tomato on top.
Make a sauce with olive, mushroom, onion, garlic, avocado, bell
pepper, lemon, lime, sour cream, butter, and egg yolk. Mince it, cook it, and
spread it on both buns. Dense sesame on the buns.
Use ribeye, dark turkey, bacon, tuna, Wisconsin sharp cheddar, parmesan, Swiss,
and rye bread.
I plan to get even fatter while in office. Food energizes.
Topaz calls Aurora. Topaz is on the moon and wearing a tank top and no space suit.
Her athletically-sculpted arms are in view.
Heft: I can't wait to see animals play on the moon.
Margold feeds wild cats and birds and she tends a public garden.
As she feeds animals an android drives up in a truck.
The android gives Margold 100 kilograms of sesame seeds, 100 kilograms of bread, 100 kilograms
of salmon, and a kilogram of platinum.
An android drives a truck to Al's house and in the truck is a 1-meter telescope.
Al greets the android.
Zorf and Ganoo drink Hulkan ale at the top of Mount Erebus in Antarctica. There are no
humans around.
President Dogg is at the podium in the Rose Garden.
Dogg: Brace for impact. The aliens will bombard Earth with asteroids. They
published a schedule of impacts so people can get out
of the way. Many will hit oceans. The asteroids are small so tsunamis will be
mild. There will be many asteroids. The aliens are landscaping.
There are big undersea plateaus northwest of Hawaii that are less than 10
meters deep. The aliens will carve undersea harbors in them for
whales. Plateaus are quiet zones because ships avoid them, and the harbors will
be extra quiet. The impacts will also stir up nutrients and make biomass.
The aliens built a whale internet and they're equipping whales with
interfaces to the whalenet.
Asteroids will hit deposits of phosphorus and potassium to kick up dust to
fertilize the Earth.
Asteroids will cut a gap in the Aleutian archipellago so that water can flow
between the Pacific and the Arctic. This increases oxygenization of the deep ocean.
Asteroids will strip mine for deep coal. The deeper the coal, the higher the
formation temperature and the higher the quality. We need coal for smelting metal.
Asteroids will make a deep crater next to the Yukon river.
Hydro power will be made from Yukon water flowing into the crater. When the crater
fills, an asteroid blasts the water out of the crater to repeat the cycle.
This gives 30 Gigawatts. We'll also do this with the Mackenzie river.
Icy comets will crash into America's southwest plateau to make lakes for irrigation.
Farmers should rush to New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada. Zorf wants to increase Earth's
biomass and oxygen. Zorf is importing species that need big biomass.
The Oval Office is full of physicists and miners.
Dogg: Zorf pledged to fund a collider.
What should we make?
People rush to the moon. Earth is at peace and people are at liberty to launch
enterprises. The rocket industry can't keep up with demand. Moon tickets see a
bidding war. People gather at the south polar craters for ice
and they bring as much solar cell power as they can to mine it.
A boom town forms
and attracts entertainers. There's a casino for high-rollers, and everyone on the
moon is a high-roller. The World Series of Poker adds a table on the moon.
Iron is mined and made into a stadium. A tall tower is built.
A rail launch system is built to launch ice and iron to space, and space stations
are built. A station is built at Lagrange point #2 and massive telescopes are
built.
Zorf is on the Death Star bridge, sitting in the captain's chair.
Zorf: Bomb Earth with mastodons, mammoths, and other extinct
megafauna.
The next release is mammoth birds, which are genetically-engineered and have
carbon-fiber bones and feathers.
They're 100 kg and can fly. They're grazers and naturally friendly.
Nuke: Do you have antimatter?
Host: Why did you conquer Earth?
A blimp floats over Blizzard county, occupied by
Zorf, Gregor Rigel, Aurora Wavecrest, Boss Waagg, Otto Forge, Kane Heft, Gage Arch, and Brute Nuke.
Zorf: The Star Trek Prime Directive is bull. Isolated civilizations are often
savage and should be civilized. Earth needs to be civilized.
I'm appointing Gregor Rigel to captain the mission of making contact with
the tribe on Sentry Island, which hasn't been integrated with
civilization. Aurora will film and Waagg will provide infrastructure.
Rigel gets to work. He orders bird drones to surveil Sentry Island.
Linguists decipher the language and the intel identifies who's naughty and nice.
It also identifies the command structure. The tribe is led by a tyrannical
chief supported by a pack of bullies.
Rigel assembles a team to make contact with the Sentry natives.
He's on a small boat with 5 heavyweight MMA fighters.
The fighters have full body armor but no weapons.
The boat is anchored near Sentry Island.
10 Sentry natives assemble on a beach with weapons and threaten the boat.
The MMAs exit the boat and wade to the shore.
Sentries launch spears and arrows, which bounce off the armor.
Sentries then attack the MMAs in hand-to-hand combat and the MMAs win easily.
MMAs toy with the Sentries, tossing them around effortlessly.
The Sentries give up and retreat to the forest.
The MMAs hold a barbecue on the beach and are joined by 30 more MMAs.
Hours later, 100 Sentries suddenly emerge from the forest and blitz
the MMAs. There's a brawl and the MMAs win easily. The Sentries retreat
to the forest.
Rigel gives orders.
Seize a piece of the island and protect it with an electric fence.
Build a village. We will party and we need party supplies.
Musical instruments, food, booze, sports gear, speakers, lighting, costumes, etc.
A village is built and the MMAs party. They take off the armor because
the fence is out of archery range. Boats arrive bringing more people to the village.
Musicians, athletes, cooks, engineers, etc.
Sentries gather outside the fence
and gaze in envy. They're in awe of the vast food.
The colonists ignore them.
The colonists dance, inspiring some Sentries to dance, but then the Chief's bullies beat up the dancers.
Sentry chief: No new moves!
Rigel's bird drones drop civ swag on the island.
Musical instruments, board games, puzzles, pen and paper, paint and brushes,
spice racks, picturebooks teaching English, etc.
Some Sentries are intrigued by the
swag and play with it.
The Chief declares that swag is forbidden. His gang
seizes any swag they can and destroys it.
Some Sentries hide their swag and play with it
in secret. A secret gaming society forms in the style of Dungeons and Dragons.
The nerdy Sentries.
Make a penalty box, a section of the island guarded by electric fence.
Seize the chief and put him in it.
MMAs execute the order. With the bullies gone, the Dungeons and Dragons club comes out into the open.
It throws cool parties and the club becomes popular. The colonists hand out more swag.
Bird spies identify the best gamers. Colonists go into Sentry territory and hand them prizes.
Gaming explodes as a fad and more Sentries get into gaming.
Colonists communicate with Sentries with Wookie style. No words. Lots of sound effects and
body language. The Sentries dig the style and imitate it. Colonists sometimes use
English words, at a pace that can be understood by Sentries.
English becomes hip in Sentry society and they study it.
Rigel is a professor of Wookie language and Sentries dig his expressivity.
He also has a deep voice like Darth
Vader.
He has a water bottle that's a xenon dispenser in disguise, which
he uses it to further deepen his voice. He sounds like a Stargate System Lord.
He has an entourage of sousaphone players and drummers.
The biggest prize is given for Doom chess and this becomes the dominant game.
Rigel identifies the best 2 Doom players and arranges a public match and hypes it.
Most of the Sentries appear and cheer. One player is a 14-year-old kid and the other
is his grandfather.
Aurora films it with bird spies and it gets
good TV ratings. Her team of makeover artists polish up the players.
The grandfather wins. Other elders are thrilled.
Rigel often plays Doom chess with Sentries.
Rigel is a master and wins easily. He also has the option of getting moves
with a secret wireless earpiece so that he can hot dog with blitz.
The moves are powered by Gage Arch's supercomputer.
The gamers treat him like a celebrity
and ask him to teach. The Sentries feel like Doom chess gives them a window into the minds
of gods.
Release the bullies from solitary confinement but keep them in the penalty box.
Let's see how they behave. Show them the tape of the Sentry Doom championship.
Musical instruments are a fad and Sentries form bands to jam. Pro musicians give sheet music
to Sentries and teach instrument technique. The pros play as a band and it thrills Sentries.
Unleash the chickens.
Colonists hand out chickens and teach Sentries how to ranch them.
Sentries get busy building chicken coops.
Boss Dogg. Blizzard County Commissioner. Owner of factories in
Blizzard County. Sumo wrestler. Bass vocalist
Big Ten schools pay around 10 mil of NIL money.
Oligarchs put chips on the table and 50 mil is assembled for NIL.
Stanford should to have games with
premier opponents, and it should bribe opponents to play them, like dowry.
We need to preserve the rivalries with Notre Dame, UCLA, USC, Washington, and Oregon.
It will be hard to schedule games with Big Ten teams because their schedules are already
heavy.
Chips are put on the table for bribes.
Stanford should improve its tailgate culture.
The SEC is king of tailgating.
Stanford tailgating rules are draconian and should be relaxed.
We need jumbotrons outside the stadium
for people without tictets.
More chips hit the table.
Hand out free Stanford merch throughout America.
More chips hit the table.
Make it understood that Stanford players
get free grad school and then cushy jobs. Give them 6 years to do undergrad
so that they can focus on football.
Forcefeld: Worth it. Profitable and exclusive. High barrier to entry. Good club to be in.
Places that can support a new NFL team are Salt Lake City, Oklahoma City, and San Antonio.
Sundial: Utah U is in Salt Lake City. The stadium is small and it needs a bigger stadium, and the stadium
should be fit for the NFL. It could be carved out of the nearby mountains.
A simple crater like Michigan, USC, and Yale. You can have mobile upper decks that are suspended.
There's abundant wilderness land for parking. I already designed a crater stadium.
The Major League Rugby buy-in is only 4 mil. Aurora has a team.
Aurora's barnstorming model works. I'll buy in to Major League Rugby with a barnstorming team.
Aurora's team tours the Rockies and my team will tour the Appalachians. We'll use college stadiums.
We'll use local stars like college stars that didn't make the NFL and NFL stars that retired.
We can integrate it with the PGA Senior Tour.
We can invade college sports with NIL.
Oligarch put tokens on the map representing NIL money, each token on a college. Many tokens go to Boise State,
Liberty, and Wyoming.
Hockey pro minor leagues have more revenue than college hockey. College hockey
has the potential to eclipse the minor leagues, like college football does.
College hockey conferences are even more fluid than football conferences.
Hockey conference supremacy is up for grabs. There are many strong conferences. The Big Ten is strong
and it includes Notre Dame.
Herb Kohl donated money to make an arena at the University of Wisconsin
that can do hockey and basketball. Ralph Englestad built one for U North Dakota.
We need more such arenas at colleges.
Boss Togg: We can take over pickleball. The Tennis U.S. Open purse is 60 mil
and the Pickleball U.S. Open is 60 k.
Chips are put on the table for a pickleball tournament.
The women's pro hockey average salary is $15000. It wouldn't take much money to
invade the league. With 2 million, you can outclass the
existing teams. Who wants to make a team?
Chips are put on the table for a women's hockey team.
Sumo has a sporting chance of upsets and you can have many matches per day.
It synergizes with the UFC. I'll purse a sumo tournament. It's the only sport I'm good at.
Al: I have the Cigar galaxy lined up.
Loraine: You often have a cigar lined up.
Margold looks into the telescope.
Margold: Nice prank. How did you add a death star to the image?
You're drunk and hallucinating.
Look into the telescope.
Could this be Mimas? Mimas looks like a death star.
Mimas is on the other side of the sun now.
It's smooth metal and I don't see any heat exhaust ports.
I didn't notice the death star. I was focussed on locking the
telescope on the cigar.
Al looks into the telescope.
It's getting bigger. It's moving toward Earth.
Al pulls out his phone.
I'm making stock trades and betting on volatility.
Whatever the death star means, the market will volatilize.
Everyone pulls out phones and trades stocks.
We have the opportunity to tweet a tweet that launches a billion retweets.
The longer we keep this to ourselves, the more money we make.
Let's start a religion of alien worship. Be first.
What do aliens want? What do we sacrifice to them?
We need an idol. A mascot.
Greetings from Earth. I'm Captain Nuke of Barfleet. What can we do
for you? We have tourist resorts. We have cookies.
An alien appears onscreen. He's humanoid with blue skin and he's
ruggedly good-looking. He wears a gangster suit in the style of 1920's Chicago.
His head, eyes, and ears are exceptionally large.
I'm Captain Zorf of the Galactic Empire. We're taking over and
installing humans of our choice to run Earth. Boss Dogg will be
President of the United States and Spruce Goose will be Vice President.
Dogg will pull Earth's strings and we'll pull his. We chose Dogg for his
flexibility.
At that instant, all military software deletes itself.
The death star fires a ray at a mountain and blows it up to punctuate the
point.
I know about it. Fine work. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone.
I enjoy good mischief. Carry on. I'll give you a piece of the action.
I've always wondered why aliens never destroyed Earth. I kiss the turf
every day in thanks it's still here.
The galaxy feels that Wisconsin farmers are doing a fine job converting
starlight to cheese. Wisconsin cheese is top tier at the Galactic Cheese Championships.
Wisconsin is unaware that aliens import Wisconsin cheese and that the Green Bay Packers
have fans throught the galaxy.
We also import Scotch.
The Scotch must flow!
Grill smoke must billow!
An offer we can't refuse. Blizzard County apologizes
for the light pollution from Lizzard County.
The death star opens fire and destroys Lizzard's lights.
We like darkness.
Thank you. Blizzard astronomers especially thank you. What's the beam made
of?
1000 TeV uranium nuclei that penetrate a kilometer of rock.
There's also a 1000 TeV neutrino beam
that goes through a planet and zaps what's on the other side. The death star doesn't
need to be above the horizon to zap.
How long have aliens been on Earth?
Since the beginning. Sol is a young star.
Congratulations on being the first to see us.
Why wait until now to take over?
We held hope that humans are capable of governing
themselves but then abandoned hope.
We judge humans a failed civilization.
Earth matters more than humans and the galaxy expresses its vote.
Humans are arrogant in thinking that only they have a vote regarding Earth.
Time for humans to learn their place on the galactic totem pole.
Nuke is on a barship with his crew. Vesta Garnet drives.
Garnet: Have you ever taken over before?
I did during the early Egyptian era. I
acted the role of an Egyptian Pharoah.
Sounds fun.
At the time, humanity was enmired in gang
wars and the only way to bring peace was to take over.
Imagine explaining to Galactic Command why I pulled
a Kurtz and took over.
Sledge is Barfleet Chief of Security.
Sledge: Does there exist undiscovered archaeological evidence?
Yes. I'm disappointed that humans haven't
found the stargate yet.
Earth linguists need to raise their game. I left a trail of
heiroglyphic clues and linguists whiffed.
Your Death Star is beautiful. Compels humans
to bend the knee.
It's something they understand.
Humans need to understand that they're under the boot.
What if you also had a space pyramid? Pyramids look formidable
and they look even more formidable
in space.
Cool idea. I'll add a space pyramid.
I love the Washington Monument. I'm imagining a replica of the
Washington Monument in space.
You got it.
Have you helped human technology in the past?
No. In fact I'm disappointed in the slowness of
human discovery. Humans are retarded by galactic standards.
Have you solved quantum gravity?
Yes.
Have you solved the Riemann hypothesis?
Yes.
Have you solved turbulence?
No. We approach turbulence partly
with theory and mostly with brute-force computing.
Nova Sharpstein is Barfleet Chief Doctor and also an Alexander Technique practioner.
She reads body language so well that she's jestingly regarded as telepathic.
Sharpstein: Is Elvis an alien?
Yes. He didn't die. He tours planets and he moved on
to the next planet. I'm giving Earth his new music videos. New dance moves.
Earth music is in decline and needs uplift.
Does Earth have more aliens?
Yes.
Who?
Not telling.
Given how Charlie Chaplin moves, I'd guess he's an alien.
No comment.
Ajax Boulderfield is Barfleet Chief of Communications.
Boulderfield: Do you talk to whales?
Whales and us go way back, way
before Ancient Egyptian civilization. We socialized
with whales when humans were apes.
We're having trouble connecting to whale language.
You need to know galactic canon. I'm giving Earth
the canon. Galactic Tamarian. Also, whales are sensitive to the Hulkan mind meld.
You need to learn it. They can teach you.
Otto Forge is Barfleet Chief of Engineering.
Forge: What powers the Death Star?
Antimatter. I can blow up the Earth.
Gage Arch is Barfleet Chief of Games.
Arch: What games do you play?
Aerial rugby is big on low-gravity worlds.
Death Star specifications
The Death Star opens a bay door and a warship emerges from it.
The warship goes to Earth and parks on the White House lawn and
androids emerge from it.
They look like bodybuilders and wear
sunglasses. The president and his entourage greet them.
Android: Get out.
As White House staff evacuates, androids install bird feeders.
Alien animals emerge from the ship and play on the lawn.
Air Force One lands at Blizzport and alien androids emerge
from it. Boss Dogg and his entourage greet them.
Android: Get in.
Vice President Spruce Goose stands on the desk
accompanied by Caboose Goose, the Court Jester.
Caboose pushes the microphone stand off the desk.
Spruce and Caboose wear jewelry and gold chains and look like goose pimps,
and the desk has quill pens made from peacock feathers.
Dogg: Let's have a new fairway and green on the White House lawn,
and a waterfowl pond next to the green. Professor Sundial found exotic
sand for bunkers and ponds, and colorful marble for the house. Professor Heft will
landscape. Brace for biomass. Geese value good grass. Install Kentucky bluegrass
using seeds from Lambeau Field, and hire a bluegrass band for tonight's party.
Make the tennis nets adjustable to accomodate pickleball. Add wrestling mats
and cornhole courts.
We thank President Truman for the horseshoe pit
and bowling alley. Also add a goose coop. I like fresh goose eggs.
Business starts when roosters crow and geese honk.
Most of the reporters are groggy because it's 5 AM. Dogg and the geese are energized.
Dogg imported roosters to the White House lawn and they're singing.
Spruce: Honk
DC is a swamp with murky water. Blizzard's Lake Phurba is
60 meters deep and you can see the boulders at the bottom. Import Blizzard
water for the pond and microbrewery.
Blizzard has insects under control. Put abundant birdseed next
to the pond to attract insect-eating birds, and install anti-insect lasers.
Reporter: Has the government been hiding the existence of aliens?
I order the release of all government files on UFOs, and
give Geraldo Rivera first crack at the vault. Have Area 51 give public tours and tell
them to kiss Rivera's ass.
Caboose flies from the desk to the reporter's shoulder.
President Wilson owns the record among presidents for the
most number of golf rounds played and was regarded as the worst golfer
among presidents. I hope to outdo him on both counts. If it snowed, Wilson
still played, and he painted the balls black.
Caboose flies to a shelf full of busts and pushes the busts off the shelf.
The aliens added an amendment to the Constitution. Retiring
presidents must farm. I shall serve exactly one term and then farm.
I like farming. My favorite president is Polk and that's what he did.
What's the Galactic Empire's plan for Earth?
To colonize it and pump up the biomass. Earth is unfit for
self rule and is better off a colony. You'll find that being a colony of the
Galactic Empire is a good thing.
What's your energy policy?
We need more power. I'm licensing fission reactor
designs. We're not scared of fast neutrons.
Large reactors with fast neutrons and portable reactors with slow neutrons.
Nuke baby nuke! I love the smell of radioactive ash in the morning.
Also, forest fires are 600 Watts per person up in smoke, and
we'll capture the energy.
We'll harness asteroid energy, which is
colossally vast. An asteroid will make a crater in Alaska near the Yukon river,
and hydro power is extracted as the crater refills. Then another asteroid
blasts the water out of the crater for another round of hydropower.
Brace for impact.
What about fusion?
Fusion won't be commercializable for a long time.
A solar cell has a power per dollar of 10 Watts per dollar, and a fusion plant
.025 Watts per dollar. Fusion falls short by 3 orders of magnitude.
Also, fusion energy per dollar is orders of magnitude worse than coal.
It's embarrassing that people pass around pop science articles about this.
Fusion is a grift. Let it go.
What's your climate policy?
Solving climate is easy using ocean iron fertilization and
tree carbon capture. Also, asteroids can trigger snow for albedo management.
Do the homework.
Read
Dr. Koonin's textbook: "Unsettled" and read
Blizztech's textbook: "Science for Politicians"
What's your science policy?
Particle physics is starved for data. We'll build a particle
collider.
What's your environmental policy?
The oceans will have zones where motors are forbidden.
Whales value quietness and the aliens value whales. They hold little valuefor humans.
Honk
We'll construct biomass reactors in rainy zones where we'll
hyperfertlize, to maximize biomass density and species density. The aliens
want more biomass. We need more power for fertilizer production.
Will the aliens give us advanced technology?
No.
Will they tell us what's out there in the universe?
No. We have to figure it out for ourselves. Aliens enjoy watching
new civilizations figure stuff out. It's what makes us cute and we need to be cute.
Be thankful that they give us the opportunity. Be thankful they didn't
exterminate humans.
On a shelf is a replica of the Stanley Cup that's full of Jack Daniels. President
Dogg takes a hit and dares reporters to take a hit.
My comedy is 6 drink minimum.
Caboose flies into the Stanley Cup for a swim.
The aliens demand a redo of Game of
Thrones season 8. The galaxy is unhappy with this season.
Isn't your cigar intolerant of non-smokers?
Many non-smokers are intolerant of smokers
and they need more tolerance. They crybully smokers.
Cigars can make you feel good and the smoking
section is an exclusive club. Non-smokers miss out.
Caboose flies to the chandelier and perches on it and
everyone under it moves to a different place.
The Goose of Damocles
Caboose flies out the door to explore the White House.
Loose wild goose.
Reporters chase Caboose because he gets great ratings.
People wager on what his next act of mischief will be.
In Professor Arch's video game world you can play a
mischievous animal.
Most people talk too much and rarely listen.
Cigars help you talk less. Once upon a time tobacco was
integral to socializing and there's a reason.
NFL?
The commissioner will be decided by
votes from people who bought tickets. I hope the salary cap
is abolished and that the NFL begins inter-league play.
An NFL team of 2nd and 3rd stringers can play minor league
teams. Get rid of preseason games.
As it stands, you need 4 billion dollars to buy into the
NFL. The money goes to existing owners and that shouldn't
be. Plus the buy-in price is a tall barrier to entry.
College Game of Conferences?
Fighting the collusion of the Big Ten and SEC requires
that teams outside these conferences collude. Humans are good
at collusion. It's human nature. In the good old days colleges
decided their own game schedule and now it's locked in by
long-range TV contracts. College sports needs more flexibility.
During the Covid year, BYU and Coastal Carolina played a game
on 3 day's notice. The Big Ten adjusted conference championship
day on the fly. Ask professor Arch for analysis.
Honk
The rules of American football are inelegant. Humanity needs to design
better sports. Rugby is more elegant but it's still not perfect. Soccer is elegant but
the offside rule is inelegant. Soccer should have less people on the
field or there should be a 2nd ball. There should be an end zone
beyond the goal like hockey. Hockey nets should be bigger and goalies
should wear tight clothing, like soccer goalies.
I'm holding a conference at the White House with players and fans to
discuss game design. We'll channel Teddy's spirit.
An android enters the room carrying a cage of bird-like animals and opens it.
Unleash the tibbles!
Tibbles fly around the room. They're social and cuddly and they interact
with humans. The humans are overwhelmed by the cuteness of tibbles.
They have soft pinfeathers. Their skeletons and feathers are carbon fiber
and they fly easily, even though they're as heavy as turkeys.
They have big heads and their
eyes are twice the size of human eyes.
Spruce and the tibbles horse around together.
Dogg is on the White House golf green and is greeted by Zorf.
I love how the androids add gravitas to the room.
Zorf: You add gravity with your girth.
Hilarious how irreverent Caboose is of the androids.
Hilarious how tolerant the androids are of Caboose.
We like geese.
What's my budget?
We'll fund megascience projects like the collider.
It needs to get built fast. We'll also produce fertilizer for
a biomass reactor in Florida. We'll use platinum currency. Humanity
needs to design better currencies, especially heavy metal currencies. By the way,
include heavy metal bands for White House parties.
In my mind, the Baroque Age evolved directly to the
Metal Age and I don't give a damn about most of what's in between. Bluegrass is hillbilly
metal.
I'll be at tonight's bluegrass concert.
Human pop music forsook instruments and needs to get them back.
As an opera singer I'm nice to the orchestra, the way a quarterback
is nice to the offensive line.
Chess is inelegant and go is elegant.
The rules of go are so natural that most alien civilizations discovered it.
I'm giving Earth the rules to the most interesting board games that the galaxy
plays. We have games that will flummox your AIs, like Hulkan chess.
We need inspiration for nerds.
Sumo and Mongolian wrestling have
simple rules. They're fine as is.
The only sports where I have game.
Humans are enacting the film "Idiocracy". The galaxy
mocks humans.
The Blizzard Science Olympiad team mocks California.
We enjoy watching the Science Olympiad. Congratulations on Blizzard
placing third at nationals.
California is prideful and didn't see it coming. Professor Heft has
been breeding balsa since he was a kid and his balsa grove makes magic balsa. His high-end
balsa sells for $1000 per kilogram. He can sense the breaking strain of a piece of balsa
without having to break it. Heft is a telepath to fauna and flora.
We'll fund worldwide science and math contests and we'll fund gear
for worthy contestants. Arch, Nuke, and I designed new events that make the
contest more TV-worthy. As it stands, the Science Olympiad gets poor galactic TV ratings.
I'm taking over the Science Olympiad and installing Arch
as commissioner. Events need to be more quantitative and Blizztech published example
tests to show what quantitative is. The flagship event is the Fermi event and top
competitors will get prizemoney on par with top professional gamers. Caltech
pioneereed a class on Fermi style and Earth needs to see it. Fermi style is the right
way to think, and humans need to learn.
How are human film ratings on the galactic streaming network?
Not good, however Blacklist and Magnum are popular, as are Aurora's films. Humans should
revisit the classical film age. Modern film is in decline.
Are humans in danger of being cancelled by the galaxy?
Yes.
Dogg and Zorf move to the horseshoe pit.
Can you hit a hole-in-one on a par 5?
Yes, but only with a fleet of insect
drones measuring wind and a supercomputer to calculate
turbulence. You need the full power of the Death Star's supercomputer.
I have a "drunk mode" where I function at reduced
capacity to be sportsmanlike with humans. I can even
play as bad as your handicap.
Is it euphoric?
Yes.
Can you hit the Washington Monument from here? 1000
yards.
Zorf grabs a driver and golf ball from his bag
and hits a drive that hits the monument.
The club and ball are made of alien materials.
Can you hit a golf ball with a running start like
Happy Gilmore?
Bring a horse.
A horse is brought. Zorf tees up a golf ball. He mounts the horse, sets
it to gallop, stands up on its back, and hits the ball as he passes by.
The drive hits the Washington Monument.
Wavecrest will love the footage of that shot.
I admire President Grant's horsemanship.
He could stand on a galloping horse.
Had golf existed in his day, he could have hit a ball while standing on
a galloping horse.
What should I do with the military?
Downsize it and maintain a small military
for movie props. The military teaches skills and builds character.
Keep the SEAL and Top Gun programs. No federal military funding. People have to
pay to play. Designate a zone for wargames. Auction off materiel and
let people use it in the wargame zone.
Thrilled about the films Aurora will make.
An Iron Man suit appears, flying in the air. It lands next to Zorf and Dogg.
The suit is empty.
I want you to manage by flying about. I'm equipping you with a Presidential
Suit. It's like an Iron Man suit. It has rockets that can hustle you around
America. I want you to go where no president has gone before. Appear by
surpise. Make people feel like the president could appear any time,
like Batman. Cabinet secretaries and congresspeople also get suits.
The duty of congress is oversight and to stick its nose in people's business,
and this gooses its ability to oversee. I fired Congress and appointed a new
Congress, consisting of people with common sense and proven honor.
What about the Supreme Court?
Still in place, but I can overrule it.
How's the suit powered?
A fission reactor with californium-251 powers a thermal rocket.
The thermal rocket dissociates water into hydrogen and oxygen and expels it.
The hydrogen exhaust speed is 12 km/s. It has a freezer to extract water from air.
Can you make suits for Spruce and Caboose?
Cool idea. I'll make goose suits.
Imagine the mischief Caboose will do.
I'll equip the suits with mischief gadgets and
a beak-operated control panel.
What goes in the curry?
Make it a du jour surprise.
It's fun to experiment with the spices.
Make a dewar with a thermoelectric cooler to keep the drink
at just above freezing. The drink is Mountain Dew, orange, grapefruit,
tangerine, lemon, and lime. In the evening, add cognac. The aliens rigged the
country failsafe so that even Homer Simpson couldn't melt it down.
Are you worried about looking unpresidential?
I'm going to redefine presidential.
An asteroid crashes into Mars and astronomers analyze the
data. Spectra show abundant nitrogen, oxygen, and water, indicating
that it was a comet from beyond Neptune, where all of these things freeze.
The comet was large,
100 kilometers in diameter. It gives Mars enough nitrogen and oxygen for
a breathable atmmosphere, and enough water for an ocean. The collision
outgasses enough carbon dioxide from the crust to heat Mars to
Earth temperature by the greenhouse effect.
A comet crashes into the moon and does unto the moon as was done
unto Mars.
Topaz: What an improvement! Wushu without a spacesuit.
Please send wingsuits and aircraft. If the moon has an atmosphere, humans can fly with
a wingsuit. Please paint my wingsuit like a pigeon.
Ezekiel: I want mallard.
Beryl: I want Canadian goose.
The Apollo Crater is a good place for a ski resort. Two crater rims
smashed together. We're headed there. Send skis. Send golf clubs optimized for
lunar air and gravity.
Can you make a gyrosuit that doesn't need the bulk of a spacesuit?
I want to do ski jumps. Send wide skis.
Solar-powered aircraft can fly on the moon.
Ask Otto to make lunar aircraft. It'll help with surveying.
An agent notifies President Dogg about the comet strikes.
I'll need to make a statement.
Tell humans I terraformed
the moon and Mars. All you have to do is crash comets into them,
or a Kuiper belt object, or a moon of Neptune. A fusion
bomb can steer a comet to Earth with a delivery time of
30 years. Humans could have done this 50 years ago and it's disappointing they
didn't. I manufactured oxygen and added it to the comets. The oxygen density on
the moon and Mars is 20% larger than on Earth. I'm surrounding the moon with
space mirrors to direct sunlight to the moon. The mirrors are silver that doesn't
reflect UV, and they're coated with glass
that absorbs UV and IR, so that all the light that get to the moon is
useful for photosynthesis. I released genetically-engineered microbes on the
moon that extract phosphorus and potassium from soil, and also fix nitrogen.
The best Earth plants are 4.3% efficient for photosynthesis and these bacteria are
10% efficient. They can photosynthesize green light.
We want the moon to burst with biomass.
Can you make Jupiter into a star?
No. Its mass is too low for hydrogen fusion. Too low even for
deuterium fusion.
Will the moon's atmosphere leak into space?
Yes, but slowly.
You'll have to periodically hit it with comets.
Professor Heft hastily assembles a team of ecologists
to figure out what to put on a Noah's Arc to the moon.
Boulderfield: I'm coming with you.
Many residents in my elderly home want to move to the moon
and I'm going to build a home there. Most have pets.
There are people with disabilities that would find the moon more
comfortable. We'll design a version of pickleball for the moon.
Boss Jogg will fund a lunar pickleball tournament.
Spica Smokering, Vega Jade, and Crux Centaurus are Blizztech students that will
accompany the Arc.
Smokering: No rats. Include pigeons.
Pigeons have been bred by humans since the
beginning of civilization in 3000 BCE. Pigeons served humanity well
and deserve a place on the Arc.
Jade: Pigeons will notice that there's
no magnetic field.
I made of a potion of microbes and
worms to unleash on the moon. The Green Bay Packers gave us Kentucky bluegrass
seeds from Lambeau field.
Are you worried about the possibility
that there's already life on the moon?
Not possible.
President Dogg released all seed
patents.
Once we're on the moon we'll be busy breeding
plants to adapt to the moon.
Redwood and Sequoia. We can make
monster trees like in Avatar.
Centaurus: Let's breed big eagles.
Can ostriches fly on the moon?
If they had full-size wings they could.
We could give ostriches wing extensions. A human can fly with
a wingsuit. I'll have Dogg manufacture wingsuits optimized
for the moon.
We'll have big biomass production, limited
only by how fast plants can harness regolith nutrients.
Day and night last a long time. Noon and
midnight will be extreme.
Zorf is installing space mirrors to moderate climate.
Android: We're giving
grants to humans with a proven record of feeding animals. Karma. We know who's
naughty and nice.
The android releases alien animals into the wild.
Margold: Can alien animals eat Earth food?
Yes. Aliens store energy as sugar and fat, like Earth animals.
Fat has the highest energy/mass of all biological foods.
Their proteins are different but they can synthesize protein.
Does alcohol get them drunk?
Yes.
Congratulations on being the second person to see the death star,
and that you did it with an amateur telescope. The Galactic Empire presents a gift.
The alien uses his android strength to carry the telescope to the back yard.
It has adaptive optics and fancy detectors.
The android returns to the truck and carries a keg of Hulkan ale to the telescope.
Ganoo: You're just in time. I was about to take over Earth myself.
Physicist #1: The choices are a linear electron
collider vs. a ring proton collider. We prefer the electron collider because it
gives better measurements. Proton collisions are hell to analyze.
Physicist #2: A linear
collider can be built incrementally whereas a proton collider is all-or-nothing.
Nuke:
There are cool things we can do with an electron beam, like an x-ray
laser. We can also use other particles, like heavy ions. We want to study quark-gluon
plasmas.
Boulderfield: We can also use the collider for proton-antiproton
collisions, which can zap cancer. There are people that will pay big for this
treatment. It can reach cancers that nothing else can.
How big can we make it?
The collider collides electrons and positrons head-on.
The maximum energy is decided by the Earth's curvature. Electrons following the
curvature of the Earth's surface lose energy to synchrotron radiation and this limits
the energy to 23 TeV. We can add a straight section after the curved section to get the
energy to 40 TeV. The curved section is 230 km long.
The straight section is 200 km long and requires deep tunnels. Totaling the electron and
position sections comes to 860 km.
Where do we build it?
Sundial: I mapped a route in the rockies.
Physicist #3: A linear collider can be built incrementally.
Once it reaches the energy of the Higgs boson and the top quark, it can be used as a factory
for these particles and it can make precision measurements. Once we reach 1 TeV we're beyond the
Large Hadron Collider and in fresh powder. Then we'll build up to 40 TeV.
How do we power it?
Zorf will beam power from space as microwaves. The collider will need big power
to produce the needed luminosity.
There's another reason why we want an electron collider.
We don't know if the vacuum is the lowest-energy state or if there's
a lower-energy state. If there is, then the universe could spontaneously undergo a new
big bang and destroy all life. The only way to know is to have precise measurements
of the Higgs mass and the top quark mass.
The univerese could spontaneously cease to exist? Why isn't this widely known?
Even if there's no spontaneous big bang, the universe is doomed to be destroyed
by dark energy. Protons are also doomed to decay. All matter will disintegrate.
Even black holes disintegrate.
We should scale back funding for laser fusion.
It can never be profitable and there's not much new physics. The money is better
spent on the collider.
We should scale back funding for
plasma fusion. Let the sun do fusion and harvest the energy with solar cells.
Solar cells will always have better power/$ than plasma fusion.
Suits deliver megafauna to Earth and they float down with colorful parachutes.
Release colossus whales.
Suits deliver whales to the oceans.
Release big extinct birds like Haast's eagle,
argentavis, titanis, and dodo.
Birds are released at 5 km altitude and they magestically glide down to Earth.
The sky is full of wings.
Release androids. Form male androids in the image of
James Bond and female androids in the image of Ursula Andress. Set their
personalities to "charming". Have them patronize bars and tell
stories about galactic history to humans.
Androids go to Earth in Iron Man suits.
Choose an uninhabited Pacific island and release dinosaurs.
A party at Heft's campground consists of
Nuke, Arch, Wavecrest, Sundial, Forge, Rigel, Heft, Dogg, and Zorf.
They drink Hulkan ale and animals play around.
Zorf: Yes. It's hard to make. Antiprotons are easy
to make but hard to fuse into heavier nuclei.
Even for ordinary matter, heavy nuclei are hard to make. Only a star can do it.
To make heavy antinuclei, you need enough antiprotons to make an antistar that's heavy
enough to supernova, which means at least 10 solar masses.
This takes the energy of 100 million stars going down a black hole.
The antistar goes supernova and makes heavy antinuclei and ejects them into space.
A black hole confines the ejecta and the ejecta collects into antiplanets,
and antiplanets focus antimetal into the cores.
Then bust antiplanets into antiasteroids, exposing chunks of antimetal
that can be herded electromagnetically. Antimetal can herd antirock.
You can make antimachines by sculpting antimetal.
They're powered electromagnetically. You can also make a still and isolate
antielements, and make a chemistry set and do chemistry. We can synthesize any antimolecule.
The still is made of antitungsten for its high melting point. Antitungsten can be isolated by
boiling a chuck of antimetal until only tungsten is left.
Wavecrest: How do you move stars?
Fusion bombs steer asteroids, asteroids steer planets,
and planets steer stars. Space dominoes.
Rigel: How long have aliens existed?
The first aliens appeared 2 billion years after the
big bang and we had antimatter 10 million years later. One of the most expensive
things in the galactic catalog is whiskey that's been aged since early
civilization.
Making antimatter leaves behind a big black hole, at least
100 million solar masses. There's
a factory in Andromeda and a bigger factory in the Sombrero galaxy. The Milky Way doesn't
have a factory. Its hole is only 4.2 million solar masses.
The hole boosts antimatter rockets with the Oberth effect, plus the hole is spinning
maximally, which improves the Oberth effect. Probes are sent out at half the speed of light
and they use another hole to stop. The universe is full of probes and we have the complete
history of the universe going back to the first civilizations. We have information from
12 billion light years away.
Do superheavy nuclei exist? Up-down quark matter?
Let's call it "udqum" for short. We need a snappy term for
film dialogue.
They exist. There's an udqum factory at the white dwarf in the
Sirius system, and a bigger one at the galactic center. You need an extreme
neutron factory. The factory is an expanded version of Nuke's
factory, with a neutron compressor added. It orbits a compact object so that it
can move at high speed, for cooling. It has a quintillion tons of uranium.
Zorf pulls a metal hammer from a backpack.
This is an udqum hammer, using the element 2 spots below
tungsten. It's twice as strong as tungsten and the melting point is substantially
higher than tungsten. The metal's chief use is turbines and armor.
Zorf hefts the hammer easily, as though it's lightweight for him. He puts it on the
ground.
If you can pick it up, you get to command the Death Star.
The humans try to pick it up and all fail.
The hammer is 300 kilograms.
It's twice as dense as tungten.
Zorf hands Forge a coin made of the metal.
For you to experiment with.
What isotopes can you make?
Zorf hands Nuke a box with a radioactivity symbol on it.
Rubidium-83. The low-energy gamma isotope.
It'll be fun making compact power sources
with this. This stuff is hard to make. I only have a few grams.
Forge: I can use it to make a drone the size of a hummingbird that
flies for a month. I can make tiny implants for animals.
I'll provide a continuous supply because it has a short half life.
I'm already hooked.
Udqum elements exist with all values of Z from 1 to 163, and the negative versions
exit as well. The neutral version exists but it's hard to confine.
The nucleon number is at least 300 and can be arbitrarily high.
The negative nuclei have a nucleon number of at least 940.
We refer to elements in the row below tungsten by
reference to the tungsten row. For example, the element below osmium is osmine and
below that is osmane. The element below platinum is platinine and below that
is platinane.
I'll provide a stock of all udqum elements.
Imagine the materials.
Otto is a material man. We'll make a music video.
Topaz will sing and dance. Otto can be like Tim Allen from Tool Time and show off the
materials.
Udqum is galactic currency, like latinum from Star Trek.
There's no material analogous to dilithium.
Reacting matter and antimatter doesn't need a fancy crystal.
Zorf is the guest on a late-night talk show.
Humans are the village idiots of the galaxy.
Host: What will you do with Earth?
I have DNA for all extinct Earth species and
I'm unleashing the coolest species on Earth.
Humans need to be humble and understand that their place on the Earth totem pole is
zoo staff. Humans aren't the top species. Humans are a failed species.
Bad therapy animals.
Why are humans village idiots?
The galaxy mocks humans for base 10. Should be base
16. Units should be based on Planck units. Humans need to learn galactic units
if they want to do business with the galaxy. Praise English units for being
base 2. They also have short names that are good for sports, such as inch,
foot, yard, and mile. Metric names suck for sports.
Can the Death Star blow up the Earth?
Yes. I have a stockpile of antimetal.
What will you do with humans?
Humans are a failed species. Dogs are
naturally friendly and humans are naturally unfriendly. Cool kids bash uncool kids.
Humans form gangs, empires, and oligarchies. Human leaders are tyranical and
human voters are dumb.
The Galactic Empire has
humans under quarantine. If humans are left on their own they go Lord of the Flies.
Humans need galactic supervision. I'm going to goose education. Give humans better goals.
I'm launching a worldwide science contest with 1 billion dollars of prizes, and I'm handing
out a trillion dollars in science grants. Everything is paid in the form of gold.
Rigel: In sci fi, the natives often try to kidnap colonists.
This is true for most primitive civilizations in the galaxy.
Natives often try to steal the weapons of colonists.
Also true.
Many natives see new technology as a tool to gain power over fellow natives.
You called it.
Wavecrest: We'll set them up and troll them.
Sci fi captains are often outsmarted by natives. Shame.
MMAs execute the order. The chief's guards resist but resistance is useless. All the Sentries see.
There are 105 Sentries on the island. Identify the 10 most egregious bullies and put them
in the box, in solatary confinement. Give them civ swag.
Aurora Wavecrest. Celebrity actress, singer, and dancer.
Film producer and owner of a film studio empire.
Owns the Bizzard Honey Badgers rugby team.
Blizzard County Director of Tourism.
Kane Heft. Blizztech Professor of Bioengineering.
X games unicycle athlete.
Owns assets in Blizzard County, such as a campground, gardens, an elderly home, a school, a church,
a hospital, a farmer's market, and a building supply store.
Nebula Sundial. Blizztech Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Mining.
Member of the Blizzard women's rugby team. Percussionist
Brutus Forcefeld. Member of the PGA Tour and owner of a golf course
in Blizzard County. Mormon with a wife and 9 kids.
Vesta Garnet. Aircraft pilot and car racer. Professional gamer.
Barfleet Doctor. Alexander Technique practitioner. Ambassador. Standup comedian. Cellist
Gregor Rigel. Blizztech Professor of Science Fiction and History of Science.
Author. Professional gamer. Percussionist
Gage Arch. Blizztech Professor of Mathematics. Soundtrack composer. Owner of a
gaming company and a casino. Professional gamer. Violinist
Ajax Boulderfield. Christian priest with a congregation in
Blizzard County. Elderly
Moe Nuke. Sheriff of Blizzard County. Member of the Blizzard men's rugby team. Tubist
Juke Nuke. Agent 0009 in the Blizzard County Secret Service.
Member of the Blizzard men's rugby team. Trombonist
Crazy Nuke. X games athlete. Blizztech student.
Member of the Blizzard Women's Rugby Team. Trumpeter
Brute Nuke. Eccentric billionaire.
Blizztech Professor of Physics.
Barfleet Captain.
Sumo wrestler. Violist
Ganoo. An alien that masquerades among humans. Author and scriptwriter
Zorf. An alien that's captain of a death star
of the Galactic Empire.
Spruce Goose. Blizzard County Boss Goose
Caboose Goose. Court jester for Spruce Goose
Topaz Snowbank. X games athlete. Blizztech student. Soprano vocalist
Hickory Cloud. Blizztech student and member of the Blizzard rugby team.
Audiovisual engineer.
Ezekiel Aardberg. X games athlete. Blizztech student.
Spice Smokering. A student in the Blizzard high school homeschool
network
and member of the Blizzard Science Olympiad team. X games athlete
Crux Centaurus. A student in the Blizzard high school homeschool
network and member of the Blizzard Science Olympiad team. Mathematician. Pianist
Vega Jade. A student in the Blizzard high school homeschool network
and member of the Blizzard Science Olympiad team. Audiovisual engineer. Member of the Blizzard
women's hockey team.
Governor Gunn. Governor of the state that includes Blizzard County
Procyon Cliff. Member of U.S. House of Representatives,
representing the district that includes Blizzard County
Boss Ogg: Coach of a college football team
Boss Nogg: Oligarch. Owner of whiskey and beer factories
Boss Blogg: Oligarch. Owner of a media empire
Boss Glogg: Oligarch. Owner of wineries
Boss Sprogg: Owner of sports teams
Boss Waagg: Oligarch. Owner of a seastead
Boss Bogg. Oligarch. Lizzard County Commissioner
Boss Fogg: Oligarch. Owner of a university
Boss Smogg: Oligarch. Colonial governor
Boss Sogg: Oligarch. Owner of mining companies
Boss Waterlogg: Oligarch. Owner of tech companies
Boss Frogg: Oligarch. Leader of a mutual fund that promotes mischief
Boss Pogg: Oligarch. Owner of a video game company
Boss Jogg: Wizzard County Commissioner
Boss Togg: Gizzard County Commissioner
Boss Cogg: Oligarch. Owner of many political action committees
Boss Clogg: Oligarch. Part of the military-industrial complex
Boss Scrogg: Oligarch. Owner of an amusement park
Boss Flogg: Oligarch. Owner of a rocket company
Boss Slogg: Oligarch. Owner of a shipping empire
Boss Grogg: Oligarch. Owner of an online news empire
Boss Balrogg: Oligarch. Owner of a film production company
Hack: Ponceton Professor of Anthropology
Quack: Ponceton Professor of Marketing
Yack: Ponceton Professor of Public Policy
Slack: Ponceton Professor of Business Administration
Crack: Ponceton Professor of Astrology
Flack: Ponceton Professor of Journalism
Lack: Ponceton Professor of Art History
Obfus: Haavaad Professor of Law
Lumen Quasar: Haavaad Professor of Divinity
Fathom Abyss: Haavaad Professor of Oration
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Nothing was written by A.I.
Blizzard County landscape
Golf tee #1: Downhill
Moe Nuke and Juke Nuke
Golf tee #2: Island green
Rocket launch
Moon games
Golf tee #3: Uphill
Moon games 2
Professor Rigel's office hours
Priest Boulderfield
Barfleet
Blizztech
Golf tee #4: Mountain ridge
Salad
Lagrange point telescopes
Moon landing
Search for alien signals
Isotope factory
Legion of Gloom
Guns
Alien spy on Earth
Professor of divinity Lumen Quasar
Professor of philosophy Fathom Abyss
Ponceton University
Legion of Boom
Earthquake
Big Bang
Backyard telescope
First contact with aliens
Alien attack
Presidential press conference
White House kitchen
White House lawn
Moon terraforming
Moon rush
Pigeons
Backyard telescope 2
Alien party
Geoengineering
Science megaprojects
Alien animals and plants
Aliens and humans party
Alien on a late night talk show
Appendix
Characters
Blizzard currency
Barfleet
Literary premises
Death Star
Air launch
Canon
Nutrients
Science Olympiad
Dogg Catalogg
Guns
Projectiles
Mobile chair
Star trek tricorder
Electricity generators
Magnetic resonance imaging
Musical instruments
Low-frequency strings for musical instruments
House on wheels
Blimps
Seastead tiles
Blizzard Science Olympiad
Polk van
Supercomputers
Haast aircraft
Tungsten suit
Kingfisher spacecraft
Asteroid bomb
Nuke's isotope stockpile
Ganoo's isotope stockpile
Metal asteroid
Meltdown Golf Course
Extinctions
Up-down quark matter
Galactic currency
Galactic currency
Maps
Homeless vet
Dogg Coat
Dogg House RV
Science Olympiad
Golf tee 4
Gloom party
Weather control
Barfleet is a fleet of land yachts that tours golf courses. It has mobile bars called barships. A cycling race accompanies barfleet, the Tour de Golf. It has a barnstorming sports team and entertainers.
Barfleet yachts:
Command center Barships Residential yachts Market Hospital School/church Gameroom. Has outdoor movie projectors, speakers, laser show, etc. Gym Lab Utilities Warehouse Storage Carrier for vehicles Carrier for bleachers
The utilites ship has:
Heat and electrical power. Tanks for water, gasoline, oil, helium, etc. Sewage treatment Communications
Dogg Industries publishes a gadget catalog.
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The Maine coat is full-length, lightweight, strong (kevlar), waterproof, hooded, supersized, and has abundant interior pockets. Features:
*) A puffer coat can fit underneath.
*) A stiff frame and a hip strap can be added to make it easy to carry things.
*) It has electric heat pads and a control panel. Batteries are woven into the coat.
*) It has inflatable air bags, a circulatory system, and a pump. Air is the best insulator.
*) A platinum catalytic heater can burn butane flamelessly, and has much more heating power
than batteries. The coat circulatory system can deliver hot air from the heater throughout the coat.
Features:
Top speed 50 mph
Electric motor, 10 kWatt
Gasoline generator with 1 kWatt electrial output
Battery, 5 kWattHour
Soft wheels and a fancy suspension system
Legs that can handle harsh terrain and climb stairs
Retractable cabin
Lockable trunk
Piston to raise the altitude of the seat to standing level
Reclining seat
Extendable headrest and footrest
Autonomous driving
Fleet of support vehicles
The Dogg Sledd is a vehicle.
*) Tires with large diameter and width.
*) Wheels are fixed to the front axel. The front axel has a central pivot.
*) Overengineered frame
*) Electric motors
*) Bays for batteries and generators
*) Option for a gasoline motor and drivetrain
The Dogg House is compact, lightweight, and portable. It can be put on a trailer and towed by a small car.
When parked, it can widen to double width. Canopies extend out. The roof has extendable railings. The rear end of the roof can retract as a sunroof.
It's the maximum size allowed on roads. 40 feet long, 8.5 feet wide, and 13.5 feet tall. The floor is 1 foot above the road. Smaller sizes are available.
It's designed for the cold. It has double-pained windows and windows are abundant.
The interior has infrared lights that are smart. They aim at people. The floor can be heated.
It has chairs that are electrically heated.
It has generators that produce electricity and heat, both of which can be used to heat the house.
It has batteries.
The Sheep Dogg is a flying drone designed to socialize. A human operates the drone remotely and uses it to socialize. It can park and extend a telescoping rod with communications equipment on top. It can get to eye level. It has a cell phone.
The Dogg ball has a internal batteries and motors and can act like a powered pinball buffer. The user can dial in a bounce coefficient and the coefficient can be larger than 1.
It has accelerometers and gyroscopes and can change its spin and orientation. It has internal gimbals and flywheels.
It can measure its position and it has communications gear.
The ball has a tank of krypton gas. The surface has pinhole vents that can open and expel krypton for thrust.
Dogg armor has sensors to measure the position of every point of your body.
It has communications gear.
Padding can be added. The pads have a circulatory system for air and can expand. It has pumps to pump in air. It has a fancy control panel.
It has a helmet. The helmet has sensors to detect incoming objects, and it deploys an air bag if it will take a hit. The air bag can be retracted and reused.
It has a knee brace with multiple modes. It has a passive mode where it has no stiffness, and it has an active mode where it stiffens. Sensors detect if the knee will take a hit.
The violin revolver has auto-tuning strings.
It has optical sensors that detect string motion and feed it wirelessly to an amplifier.
The bridge is active and can drive the strings. Each string can be driven individually. Algorithms can process input and feed it to the drivers.
It can change the strings that are accessible by the bow. It has a magazine of 24 strings.
It can have up to 7 strings accessible to the bow. Neck width is appropriate for 4 strings and it can widen for more strings.
Strings that are not accessible by the bow serve as resonant strings.
It has an ultrastrong carbon-fiber frame that can handle the tension. The plates are carbon fiber for minimum mass.
The end of the scroll is detachable. The neck is detachable and it has a compact case. The bow is in a separate case.
Viola, cellos, and bases, and guitars are available. There are supersized versions.
There are strings with ultra-low frequency, made from iridium for its high density. The core is flexible synthetic rope.
There are strings with ultra-high frequency, made with PBO for its high strength/density.
A phone can be like a Star Trek tricorder.
Power/mass Minimum mass
Watt/kg kg
Battery, high energy/mass 500 <.005 .6 MJoule/kg LiNiCoAlO2
Battery, high power/mass 1500 <.005 .2 MJoule/kg Li4Ti5O12
Capacitor 100000 <.005 .01 MJoule/kg
Supercapacitor 10000 <.005 .1 MJoule/kg
Generator, gasoline 100 .1
Generator, butane 50 .1 Platinum catalyst. Flameless and safe indoors
Generator, photoelectric 60 <.005 Solar cell
Generator, radioisotope 20 <.005
Tape measure - <.005
Thermometer - <.005
Barometer - <.005
Hygrometer - <.005
Accelerometer & gyroscope - <.005
Mic - <.005
Bluetooth - <.005
Wifi - <.005
Light 200 <.005
Speaker, treble 50 <.005
Speaker, ultrasound 50 <.005
Laser 20 <.005
Flash - <.005 10 MJoules/kg
Periscope - <.005
Camera, Visible - .01
Camera, Infrared - .01
Camera, Ultraviolet - .01
Sensor, blood pulse - .01
Scale for weight - .01
Antenna, audio dish - .01
Joystick & haptic sensor - .01
Electronic multimeter - .015
GPS - .015
Keyboard - .015
Antenna, radio dish - .02
Radio transceiver 40 .02
Cell phone, no screen 40 .02
Taser 10000 .02
Drone, flying 500 .025
Cell phone screen 40 .05
Magnetometer - .06
Electrometer - .06
EMF, radiofrequency - .06
Speaker, vibrating 60 .1
Radar .1
Projector 50 .1
Satellite phone - .1
Telescope, 7x, 25 mm - .15
Telescope, 30x, 100 mm - 6
Microscope, 50x - .01
Microscope, 120x .05
X-ray calorimeter - .15 Resolution = 10%
Speaker, bass 20 1
X-ray spectrometer - 1.5 Resolution = .02%
Jammer A 1 kg jammer has a radius of 20 meters
Dogg guns are modular, separating powder, projectile, and sabot. The powder chamber is dial-a-yield.
The clip can shuffle projectiles. The mechanism for shuffling and loading is electronic and fast.
Guns with wide barrels have multiple barrels. Smaller barrels accompany the big barrel, and the powder chamber can feed all barrels. The clip can accomodate multiple calibers.
Barrels can accomodate extensions.
Guns have fancy shock absorption.
Gun Barrel Projectile Barrel Gun Projectile Projectile
diameter length length mass energy max speed
inch cm cm kg Joule Mach
Tuba 1 10 60 20 20000 4 Fancy shock absorption. Straps on like a Sousaphone
Trombone .5 4 20 1 1000 1.5 For projectiles that are large and slow
French horn .35 3 20 4 4000 2 Fancy shock absorption
Trumpet .35 3 16 1 1000 1.5
Flute .22 2.5 8 .2 200 1
Piccolo .14 1.5 3 .05 50 1
Guns have a gyroscope and accelerometer and can self-stabilize. They have a laser and optical sensors, and the stabilizers can fire repeat projectiles at the same spot. You can lock onto a target and the gun takes care of business.
A typical gun has a value of bullet energy per gun mass of 1200 Joules/kg.
Projectile Bomb, high explosive Bomb, armor-piercing Shaped charge of high explosives Bomb, rocket The rocket gets the bomb to 200 meters/second Bomb, fly Long-range artillery Bomb, napalm Bomb, thermite Bomb, slow (mortar) Bomb, paint ball Bomb, smoke Bomb, flash Bomb, loud boom Bomb, chloroform Bomb, tear gas Bomb, laughing gas Bomb, confetti Bomb, radar foil Bomb, glue Bomb, web Bomb, web + glue Bomb, lubricant Bomb, lubricant+beads Bomb, caltrops Flare Flare, whistle Flare, IR Flare, UV Strobe Dart, tranquilizer Speaker Bug. GPS & Wifi Transmits audio and video Fireworks Kevlar cable +hook Bullet, standard Bullet, armor-pierce Bullet, heavy Bullet, fast Bullet, harpoon Bullet, weak Bullet, blank Bullet, shotgun Bullet, rubber Bullet, foam Lightweight foam with a tungsten weight in back
The Dogg generator uses butane instead of gasoline and can be used indoors. It burns butane flamelessly with a platinum catalyst.
It makes 50 Watts of electricity and is a quarter kg. It has an AC outlet with 120 Volts. It makes 80 Watts of discard heat that can heat a coat. It uses a Stirling engine, which is quieter than a piston engine. The engine is made of high-performance materials to be lightweight.
Dogg also makes a stealth generator that has no moving parts and is silent. It uses ionelectrics, photoelectrics, and thermoelectrics.
Dogg makes an isotope generator that uses radioactivity to make heat, using thulium-171. The generator needs only minimal radiation shielding. The shielding requirement hinges on the maximum energy of gammas produced, and Thulium-171 doesn't produce high-energy gammas.
Dogg makes an isotope generator with rubidium-83 that needs even less shielding that thulium. The rubidium generator is tiny and fit for microbots.
Generators has capacitor for power regulation and surge power.
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The smart toaster has cameras that monitor the item, and the heating elements are mobile and controlled by algorithms. It's customizable. It can toast marshmallows precisely. You can toast a marshmallow yourself the hard way, exactly as you want it, and then show it to the toaster and it will replicate your style.
The toaster can air-fry things like chicken, fries, and popcorn. It can mist butter on the popcorn.
The golf ball duck is a drone that looks and acts like a duck, and it can fly. It can operate on land, water, and under water. It parks on a golf course next to a body of water and detects golf balls splashing into the water. It finds and fetches the ball. It has algorithms to detect the ball's trajectory and estimate where it settles.
Breakaway earrings detach under a large force. They have a stealthy wire loop that's transparent and ultra-thin, and the size is minimalistic, barely enough to loop around the ear lobe. The wire breaks under excessive force. You can hang other earrings off it.
There is a larger loop that fits around the base of the ear.
Blizzard County uses rhenium coins for their uncounterfeitablity. All metals more dense than rhenium are more expensive than rhenium. Also, rhenium will always have value because it's vital for aircraft turbines.
There are rhenium coins of mass 2 grams, 4 grams, 8 grams, etc. Rhenium is 3500 $/kg and a 2 gram coin is $7. One gram of rhenium is a "drachma".
Iridium coins are used for large transactions. Its density is rivaled only by osmium, and osmium is more expensive. Iridium is 115000 $/kg and a 32 gram coin is $3680. A briefcase of iridium is 1 million dollars.
Platinum is also used, which is $35000/kg. Neodymium is used for small-value coins and costs $58/kg.
Blizzard County has abundant public machines where you can test coins for authenticity. It measures the size and density. It measures the X-ray absorption and emission spectra. X-rays verify the metal and they also detect the isotope tracers in the coin.
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Helium-3 is used for diffusion refrigerators and costs 1 million dollars per kg. Helium coins are a shell of aluminum alloy holding helium-3. The mass ratio of helium-3 to alloy is .01. A 16 gram helium coin is worth $160.
Whale suits are available for all species. Human are in a cabin just behind the whale's eyes and the suit moves whale-style, powered by batteries. The whale suit has high-power speakers. There's a juke box of whale songs.
Blimp mass, empty = 200 kg Blimp mass, full = 500 kg Top speed = 22 meters/second Engine power = 160 kWatt Engine power/mass = 4000 Watt/kg Engine total mass = 40 kg Propeller mass = 20 kg Diameter = 6 meters Length = 20 meters Volume = 500 meter3 Lift = 520 kg Helium gas density = .179 kg/meter3 Air density = 1.22 kg/meter3 Buoyancy = 1.04 kg/meter3 Helium cost per mass = 24 $/kg Helium cost = 12000 $
Blizztech hosts Blizzard Science Olympiad. It has age classes ranging from kindergarten through college. Some events are modelled after events in the Science Olympiad and some are unique to the BSO. The BSO events are:
Category Event Team version
Science, primary Physics
Chemistry
Biology
Science, applied Blitz science. Fermi-style. Back of the envelope calculation *
Astronomy and planetary science
Ecology, agriculture, climate, and volcanism
Geology and mining
Quiz bowl All-around science *
History of science *
Elements and isotopes
Minerals and chemicals
Plants
Birds
Anatomy
Math Math, prealgebra
Math, with algebra up to precalculus
Math, with calculus
Math, with differential equations and multivariable calculus
Math, with focus on advanced abstract algebra
Computer Simulation *
Engineering Golf machine
Obstacle course machine
Robot hockey * No version for individuals
Board games Chess, blitz time
Go, blitz time
Blizzard chess, blitz time *
Wargame with dice *
Puzzles *
Athletics Obstacle course & science questions *
Event Rest time afterward in seconds Shuttle run 60 Pullups 60 Sprint 100 meters 60 Pushups 60 Leg press 60 Hercules hold 60 Situps 600 Obstacle course 0 Science test 60 Bike 3000 meters 600 Row 400 meters 600 Run 800 meters 3600 Team obstacle course -
Obstacle course:
Walls of various sizes
Crawl under net
Running slalom
Fetch. Pick up tennis balls that are scattered around
Hopscotch
Jump through hoops
Stilts
Roll a log while standing on it
Crab walk
Hill climb
The Death Star has a particle ring with an energy of 1000 TeV. It uses uranium for high-power beams and muons for high-penetration beams.
On board the Death Star:
Particle ring Particle linear accelerator Antiproton factory Muon factory Fission reactor Fusion reactor Radioisotope warehouse Supercomputer Uranium stockpile Deuterium stockpile Tritium stockpile Helium stockpile Battery Capacitor Lasers Charged dust cannon
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A muon beam converts to neutrinos, which can penetrate a planet. High-energy neutrinos are more strongly interacting than low-energy neutrinos, so high-enerygy neutrinos can stop on their way through the planet and deposit energy.
The beam energy is:
Death Star radius = 101 km Ring collider radius = R = 100 km Ring collider magnetic field = B = 33 Tesla Particle energy = E = .00030 B R = 1000 TeV
The outer surface is a heat sink with a maximum continuous power of 600 PWatt. The maximum surge power is 100 EWatt.
Surface temperature = T = 1000 Kelvin Stefan-Boltzman constant = s =5.67e-8 Watt/meter2/Kelvin4 Heat flux = F = s T4 = 57000 Watt/meter2/second Heat sink surface area = A = 12 Tmeter2 Maximum continuous power = P = F A = 600 PWatt
km/second Mach
Earth equator speed .45 1.5
Ramjet speed 1.5 5
Solid rocket stage speed change 3.2 10 2 stages for 6.0 km/s total
Orbit speed, minimum 7.8 26
Rocket total speed change 8.3
Films TV Seasons Novels Graphic novel Video games
seasons
Avengers 33 14 Many 27
James Bond 27 0 50 13 31
X Men 14 17 170 Many 30
Star Trek 13 34 850 27 139
Star Wars 12 41 450 88
Batman 11 4 41 Many 41
Superman 11 11 Many 17
Harry Potter 11 0 7 20
Indiana Jones 9 2 47 22
Game of Thrones 0 9 0
Novelizations of films are not counted.
Crustal composition of fertilizer elements in ppt:
Earth Moon Mars Earth Mars Titan
crust crust crust atmosphere atmosphere atmosphere
Potassium 15 1.5 11
Phosphorus 1.0 1.0 14
Calcium 50 30 56
Sulfur .42 ? 28
Magnesium 29 190 70
Carbon 1.8 ? ?
Hydrogen 1.5 1.5 ?
Nitrogen .02 0 781 19 984
Oxygen ? ? 209 1.4 0
CO2 ? ? .39 959
CO ? ? .6
Boulderfield House has an MRI machine, a high-end model with 3 Teslas. For MRI machines, most of the lifetime cost is staff, but Boulderfield House residents know how to work the machine and there is no staff cost. The machine costs 3 mil, liquid helium is .1 mil per year, and operating cost is .1 mil per year, for a total cost of 5 mil over a 10-year lifetime. This translates to $60/hour. Residents get a full-body scan every year, which is 4 hours.
Boulderfield House has a full set of diagnostic equipment, such as X-rays, CAT scans, etc. It has a liquid helium generator.
Boulderfield House is part of an online network of patients that can often solve problems by themselves. The House also has many residents that are retired doctors, and they get privileges in return for serving as consultants.
Barfleet has a barship that is a mobile golf course.
Brute Nuke's land yach is the "Polk". It's amphibious and submersible. It's 56 feet long, has 8 axles, has 6 wheels per axel, and can carry 200 tons without stressing roads. The wheels are 6 feet in diameter and runflat. It has electric motors and can drive autonomously. Onboard is:
Power Mass Power/Mass
kWatt kg Watt/kg
Goat chair x4 200
Off-road vehicle x2 400 Compact and amphibious. Has a snow tread
Haast aircraft 400 600 Twin propeller. Pistons. 150 meters/second
Tungsten Man suit x4 800
Blimp, small 80 400
Blimp, large 800 4000
Animals 1000
Plants 200
Food 1000
Fridge and freezer 100
Scotch 100
Lab & equipment 10000
Drones, flying 1000
Drones, land 1000
Drones, amphibious 1000
Drones, submarine 1000
Rockets 2000
Satellite dish 100
Antennas 1000
Satellite phones 10
Flares 1000
Telescopes 1000
Musical instruments 100
Battery, high energy/mass 3750 7500 500 .6 MJoule/kg 4500 MJoule LiNiCoAlO2
Battery, high power/mass 10000 2500 4000 .2 MJoule/kg 500 MJoule Li4Ti5O12
Capacitor 100000 1000 100000 .01 MJoule/kg 10 MJoule
Generator, gasoline 1000 5000 200
Generator, radioisotope 100 5000 20
Solar cells 10 250 40
Earthwoofers 4000 1000 4000 Connect to the Earth and shake it. Also sonar
Subwoofers 200 10000 20 Doubles as sonar
Projectors 500 10000 50
Lasers 500 10000 50
Electric motors 1000 250 4000
Supercomputer 50 2500 20 10 Petaflops, 1 Petabyte RAM, 10 petabyte disk, 1000 petabyte tape, 300000 cores
Monitor x4 100 7680x4320 pixels
Speakers, trebble 20 1000 20 Doubles as sonar
Speakers, ultrasound 20 1000 20 Doubles as sonar
Lights 200 1000 200
Railgun 1000 1000 1000
Radio transceiver 40 1000 40 Ultra-long wavelength
Radar 20 1000 20
Gyrotron jammer 10000 10000 1000
Electromagnetic pulse 100000 1000 100000
Gasoline tank 800
Gasoline 4000
Water tank 200
Water 2000
Helium tank 10000
Helium 1000
Air tank 10000
Air 2500
Nitromethane tank 10
Nitromethane 100
Oxygen and nitrogen candles 1000
Kevlar pond x2 1000 One inside and one that deploys outside
Submarine hull 40000
Submarine propulsion 1000 1000 1000 Stealth
Submarine air system 1000
Kevlar flotation bags 10000
Tires 10000
Axles and suspension 10000
Cooling system 100 1000 100
Fire extinguishing system 1000
Sewage system 100
Generator soundproofing 1000
Water pump 40 10 4000
Gas pump 400 100 4000
Hose 100
Burst guns & ammo 1000
Shotguns 1000
The lasers are mostly UV because most materials don't reflect UV. UV also pierces clouds better than other wavelengths.
A burst gun packs cartridges end-to-end in a long barrel and can fire them all in a short time.
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Supercomputing is driven by speed per dollar, and mobile computing is driven by speed per power.
Speed per dollar, CPU = 2 GFlop/$ Speed per dollar, GPU = 40 GFlop/$ Memory, RAM = .2 GByte/$ Memory, solid state = 7 GByte/$ Memory, disk = 33 GByte/$ Speed per power = 200 GFlop/Watt (GPU) Battery energy per mass = 1000 MJoule/kg Battery power per mass = 1000 Watt/kg
Speed RAM Disk Tape Power Mass
exaflops petabyte exabyte exabyte GWatt Mkg
Gage Arch's gaming computer 1 100 1 100
Nuke's mobile computer .01 1 .02 1
Barfleet computer .1 10 .1 10
Dogg's weather computer 10
Ganoo's computer at Yellowstone 1000000
Ganoo's computer in space 1000000000
Zorf's Death Star computer 1000000000
Frontier computer 1.1 World's fastest computer as of 2023.
The Haast aircraft is twin-propeller and piston-based. It has Ferrari engines and can take off vertically with ease. The engines are over-engineered, ultra-reliable, and minimum maintenance. It has an option to attach a solid rocket. For the Haast,
Aircraft mass, empty = 1000 kg Aircraft mass, full = 3000 kg Engine mass, total = 400 kg Engine power/mass = 4000 Watt/kg Engine power = 1600 kWatt Hoovering power/mass = 300 Watt/kg Ballistic factor = 5.3 Maximum speed = 220 meters/second Range = 10000 km Ceiling = 10 km
The suit outer shell is tungsten for strength, hardness, and temperature resistance. The inner shell is layers of foam, kevlar, and titanium alloy. The suit is submersible.
Power Mass Power/Mass
kWatt kg Watt/kg
Battery, Lipo 10 20 500 .9 MJoule/kg
Battery, Li4Ti5O12 80 20 4000 .2 MJoule/kg
Capacitor 500 5 100000 .01 MJoule/kg
Generator, radioisotope 1 20 50
Rockets 20000 20 1000000 Kerosene + H2O2
Human 1 100 10
Electric motors 100 25 4000
Computers .2 10 20
Subwoofers .2 10 20 Doubles as sonar
Earthwoofers 4 1 4000 Connect to the Earth and shake it. Also sonar
Lights 1 5 200
Projectors .05 1 50
Lasers .2 10 20
Radio transceiver .08 2 40 Ultra-long wavelength
Radar .04 2 20
Gyrotron jammer 2 2 1000
Electromagnetic pulse gun 200 2 100000
Armor and foam 200
Ducted minipropellers 20
Drones 10
Heavy gun 10
Light guns 2
Ammo 50
Telescopes 2
Flares 5
Bombs 5
Missiles 5
Oxygen and nitrogen candles 2
Cooling system 10
Fire extinguishing system 5
The radioisotope generator is 50 Watts/kg and 50% efficient for converting radiation energy to electric energy. It makes electricity with radiovoltaics, photovoltaics, thermovoltaics, and thermomechanics. It uses thulium-171 because it needs only small radiation shielding. Thulium-171 needs to be aged to remove thulium-170.
The top speed with rockets is Mach 1.1. It can strap on solid rockets and get to Mach 5. The top speed with ducted minipropellers is Mach .22. Mach 1 is 295 meters/second.
Air density = ρ = 1.22 kg/meter3 Speed = V = 320 meter/second = Mach 1.1 Cross section = S = .5 meter2 Drag coefficient = C = 1 Drag power = P = ½ C S ρ V3 = 20 MWatt
Ganoo has a ship that he calls the Kingfisher. It's powered by a fission thermal hydrogen rocket, where a fission reactor heats liquid hydrogen to 4000 Kelvin and expels it at 11 km/s. A hydrogen+oxygen rocket is a mere 4.4 km/s. The reactor is liquid uranium-235 encased in hafnium carbonitride, which has the highest melting point of all materials at 4370 Kelvin.
The hull is a molecular composite of carbon nanotubes, graphene, amorphous LiMgAlScTi alloy, beryllium-aluminum alloy, diamond, and sapphire. The diamonds are isotopically pure and are in the form of a space frame. The frame consists of 200 nm wide microbeams, which have 10 times the strength of macroscopic diamonds. The outer skin is amorphous tungsten alloy for high-temperature operation and it has sapphire windows for sensors.
The ship is compact with a length of 10 meters and a power/mass of 00,000 Watts/kg, dwarfing the F-22 Raptor's 10,000 Watts/kg. Ganoo uses the Kingfisher to entertain UFO fans. They want to believe and they need hope.
The Kingfisher has a megawatt laser, a megawatt proton beam, smart missiles, EMPs, and jamming gear. Clouds can stop lasers but they can't stop high-energy protons. The explosives are heptanitrocubane and aluminum+LOX. It has a bay of combat drones powered by uranium-232 radioactivity.
Electricity comes from generators with hyperconducting carbon nanotube wires and amorphous ferromagnets. They achieve 1000 Watts/kg whereas the best human generators are 150 Watts/kg.
The fission thermal hydrogen rocket has a fission afterburner that adds beryllium-7 to the exhaust to improve the exhaust speed to 100 km/s. Beryllium-7 has the highest fission cross section of all isotopes.
For interplanetary space, Ganoo has a bigger ship powered by a fusion plasma ring, with an exhaust speed of 2000 km/s.
For interstellar space, Ganoo has a colossal ship powered by fusion bombs, with an exhaust speed of 4000 km/s. Refueling it consumes an icy moon. The ship's metal comes from metal asteroids.
Ganoo has an antimatter stockpile with every element, including transuranics. It's in interplanetary space. He has a billion kilograms of antimatter.
The Kingfisher:
Power Mass Power/Mass
MWatt kg Watt/kg
Battery, high energy 1 1000 1000 1.6 MJoule/kg
Battery, high power 10 1000 10000 .4 MJoule/kg
Capacitor 100 500 200000 .02 MJoule/kg
Generator, fission 1 1000 1000
Generator, radioisotope .1 100 1000
Rockets, fission therm 100 1000 100000
Electric motors 100 1000 100000
Lasers .02 1000 20
Railgun 10 1000 10000
Computers .1 1000 100
Ducted propellers 100
Cooling system 1000
Fire extinguishing system 100
Nuke moves asteroids with tamped fission bombs. A bomb is buried in a metal asteroid and asteroid is a tamper. The bomb consists of a supercritical mass of uranium-233 with gadolinium neutron absorber inside. A gun expels the gadolinium, triggering criticality. Outside the uranium-233 sphere is a shell of tons of uranium-238, which undergoes fission with fast neutrons. Outside the uranium-238 shell is a metal asteroid, which tamps the explosion. A large fraction of the uranium-238 fissions by fast neutrons.
The bomb has a core of solid deuterium and tritium, for a fusion boost.
Shell Radius (cm) Deuterium and tritium 1 Uranium-233 6 Uranium-238 100
Price/kg Stockpile Half life
M$/kg kg year
Deuterium .004 10000 Stable Fusion
Tritium 30 100 12.3 Fusion
Helium-3 1 1000 Stable Dilution refrigerator
Lithium-6 .06 1000 Stable Breed tritium and helium-3
Boron-10 1000 Stable Fission afterburner rocket
Carbon-12 100 Stable Exotic materials
Carbon-14 .1 5730 Low neutron capture
Nickel-63 100.1 Low radiation shielding
Thulium-171 1000 1.91 Radioisotope with low shielding requirement
Tantalum-182 .313 High-temperature radioisotope
Tungsten-188 .191 High-temperature radioisotope
Iridium-192 1000 .202 High-temperature radioisotope
Osmium-194 6.02 High-temperature radioisotope
Polonium-210 100 .379 Alpha rocket
Radium-226 10 Breed thorium and uranium isotopes
Uranium-232 1 68.9 Radioisotope power, alpha rocket
Uranium-233 1000 159200 Fission
Plutonium-238 87.7 Radioisotope power, alpha rocket
Americium-141 .7 10 432 Breed transuranics
Americium-142m 1 141 Fission afterburner rocket
Curium-246 1 4730 Breed californium
Curium-248 160000 .1 340000 Breed californium
Curium-250 9000 Spontaneous fission
Californium-249 185000 351 Breed californium-251
Californium-251 900 Compact fission reactor
Californium-252 60000 2.64 Spontaneous fission
The price is the classical price. Once Nuke launched his isotope factory and flooded the market, prices went down.
Ganoo has everything Nuke has, in large quantities. He also has:
Half life (year) Decay
Beryllium-7 .146 EC
Sodium-22 2.6 &beta+ or EC
Promethium-145 17.7 EC Low radiation shielding
Rubidium-83 .236 EC Low radiation shielding
Darmstadtium-293 37.7 β+fission Island of stability
Darmstadtium-292 133 α+fission Island of stability
Copernicium-294 355 α+fission Island of stability
Darmstadtium-294 380 α+fission Island of stability
Ganoo has superheavy elements, which have a proton number from 95 to 163. They're made of "up-down quark matter", which is the state of quarks when there are more than 300 nucleons worth of mass.
Ganoo has antimatter for every element, along with antimatter machines and computers. The antimatter is in a base in interplanetary space.
Ganoo can make everything except superheavy elements and antimatter. Superheavy elements come from a factory on planet Hulkan and antimatter comes from a factory at the Andromeda central black hole. There's a catalog.
Elements in a metal asteroid:
Metal asteroid Earth crust
ppm ppm
Phosphorus 2200 1000
Sulfur 360 420
Selenium 3 .05
Arsenic 11 2.1
Potassium 0 15000
Lithium 0 17
Rubidium 0 60
Caesium 0 1.9
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The course uses land efficiently. The clubhouse has outdoor decks around the perimeter on all floors. Near the deck are 3 tees side by side. They share the same fairway for 100 yards before diverging into independent fairways. Around the rest of the perimeter are greens, a par 3, 4, and 5. The par 5 is the longest hole at 720 yards and the par 3 is the shortest at 100 yards. The hole is a foot below average green level. The probability for a hole in one on a par 3 is 12500:1 and for this hole it's 2000:1. A hole in one happens weekly. The hole has cameras that golfers can opt to activate.
Hole Par Horizontal Vertical
yards yards
1 4 1000 -1000
2 3 150 0 Green is on a pinnacle
3 5 300 300
4 6 100 0 Miniputt hole
5 9 900 0 The fairway is deep rough
6 9 900 0 The fairway is all bunker, with tiny islands of fairway
7 9 900 0 The fairway is a tree obstacle course
8 6 200 -50 The ball is a whiffleball the size of a golf ball
9 4 500 0 Hot ball allowed
10 5 600 0 Tee-off from a ledge so that you can use a driver that's 8 feet long
11 7 700 0 Mountain ridgetop
12 3 100 0 Designed to have a high chance for a hole in one
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Extinction Myears ago Mass
kg
Haast's Eagle .0006 12 Year 1400 CE
Woolly Mammoth .0040 4100
Mastodon .010 6300
Megatherum .012 4200 Sloth
Macrauchenia .010
American Lion .011
Glyptodon .011
Diprotodon .046 3500 Largest marsupial in history
Steppe Mammoth .20 11000 Largest land mammal in history
Titanis 1.8 150 Flightless bird
Deinotherium 7
Argentavis ~10 71 Flying bird
Colossus whale ? 180000 Largest whale in history
Spinosaurus 66 7400 Largest carniverous dinosaur
Bruhathkayosaurus 66 140000 Largest dinosaur
Pterydactyl 148 200 Flying dinosaur
Mute Swan Alive 12 Largest flying bird
Ostrich Alive 100 Largest bird
Kodiak bear Alive 450 Largest bear
Saltwater croc Alive 450 Largest reptile
African elephant Alive 6000 Largest land mammal
Sperm whale Alive 45000 Largest brain at 8 kg
Blue whale Alive 110000 Largest whale
We use the term "udqum" for short. Udqum elements are hypothesized to exist for Z up to 163.
We refer to elements in the row below gold by reference to the gold row. For example, the element below gold (Au) is goldine (Au′) and below that is goldane (Au′′). The element below osmium is osmine and below that is osmane.
Star Trek currency is "latinum", a silver liquid.
Strip = 100 Slip Bar = 20 Strip Brick = ? Bar
Star Trek currency is "latinum", a silver liquid.
Strip = 100 Slip Bar = 20 Strip Brick = ? Bar
Mirror surface density = .006 kg/meter2 Mirror thickness = 4.3 micrometer (Mylar coated with aluminum) Mylar density = 1.39 g/cm3 Aluminum density = 2.70 g/cm3 Launch cost =2000 $/kg
Planet Hulkan orbits Alpha Centauri B. It was built by aliens billions of years ago. It's fortified. All elements are abundant, and life finds ways to use them.
Gravity = 5.0 meter/second2 Atmospheric oxygen = .5 kg/meter3 Atmospheric nitrogen = .1 kg/meter3 Atmospheric helium = .1 kg/meter3 Atmospheric xenon = .01 kg/meter3 Atmosphere total = .66 kg/meter3
Games
Sports balls and sports rules. Start with non-contact sports.
Spice rack
Musical instruments
Pen and paper
Paint, brushes, clay
Picturebooks teaching English
Tools:
Click for larger image.
The fourth hole follows a mountain ridge. 700 yards, Par 7.
The grass is tall so that balls stay put
on slopes.
The Alpha Centauri system is 4 light years from Earth and has 3 stars.
Alpha Centauri B is slightly smaller and cooler than the sun
and it hosts planet Hulkan. Hulkan was
built by an ancient alien civilization.
Hulkan is a double planet, 2 Earth-sized planets orbiting close together. The orbits
and spins are locked so that the same point on each planet is always the closest
point to the other planet. The distance between the planets is 10 km at the nearest
point, and there's a bridge of atmosphere between them with zero gravity.
Whales can fly there.
Hulkan hosts the Milky Way Institue of Technology.
Space mirrors direct starlight uniformly over the planet's surface. The entire planet
is temperate and the mirrors control weather. The light passes
through a copper film that passes visible light and blocks infrared,
so that all light reaching the planet is useful for photosynthesis. The sky is vividly
blue. Both planets are rich in biomass.
The atmosphere is:
Hulkan's air density is low, enabling flying organisms
to go fast. Hulkan's atmosphere has hydrogen and there are organisms that can use it
for energy. There are plants that generate hydrogen. Helium is restocked continuously
because it leaks into space.
Hulkan has low density to maximize surface area.
The crust has abundant metals of every type that were put there by metal asteroid
impacts. Hulkans also use rocky asteroid impacts to give the planet volcanism.
Meteors are rigged to give Hulkan mountains up to 50 km tall and basins up to 20 km
deep. In valleys, xenon is dense, making it easier to fly. Helium's large atmospheric
scale height ensures that the tallest mountains have atmospheric pressure, so that water
can be a liquid.
Hulkan has creatures that are genetically engineered. Some have skeletons of metal and
carbon fiber. Feather is preferred over fur for its higher mechanical performance. Earth
mammals should have chosen feathers over fur. There are creatures that can fly at
extreme altitude.
Hulkan has a high concentraton of phosphorus and potassium, which helps biomass.
It also has abundant lithium, magnesium, calcium, rubidium, strontium, caesium, and
barium, and many creatures can use these as ions. It's nice to have a variety of ion
sizes.
The eyes of a Mantis shrimp see 12 colors, including UV, and they see
linear and circular polarization. Each eye is trinocular, giving
it a total of 6 channels for depth perception.
Hulkan has creatures with eyes that are more advanced than the mantis shrimp.
They can see into the deep infrared. There 1000 ton creatures that with eyeballs that are
2 meters in diameter. They can see by starlight.
Hulkan has creatures that can kick the butts of James Cameron's aliens.
Aliens and humans both divide the octave into 12 tones. It's decided by pure mathematics.
Just tuning is based on integer ratios and
equal tuning is based on logarithms. Violins use just tuning and guitars use equal
tuning. For a 12-tone scale,
just tuning is nearly identical to equal tuning.
The 7 harmonic modes and the 7 melodic modes are also decided by pure mathematics,
and both humans and aliens use these modes. A melodic mode is a 7-note scale with 1 tritone,
and a melodic mode is a 7-note scale with 2 tritones.
Edward Lasker: While the Baroque rules of Chess could only have been created by
humans, the rules of Go are so elegant, organic, and rigorously logical that if
intelligent life forms exist elsewhere in the universe, they almost certainly
play Go.
Wheel
Axle
Saw
Rope
a
Dogg industries makes the Condor blimp.
Blimp mass, empty = 200 kg
Blimp mass, full = 500 kg
Top speed = 22 meters/second
Engine power = 160 kWatt
Engine power/mass = 4000 Watt/kg
Engine total mass = 40 kg
Propeller mass = 20 kg
Diameter = 6 meters
Length = 20 meters
Volume = 500 meter3
Lift = 520 kg
Helium gas density = .179 kg/meter3
Air density = 1.22 kg/meter3
Buoyancy = 1.04 kg/meter3
Helium cost per mass = 24 $/kg
Helium cost = 12000 $
Earth Hulkan Hulkan Molecule Atmospheric
pressure pressure density mass height at 1g
bar bar kg/meter3 Dalton km
Oxygen .21 .25 .35 32.0 17
Nitrogen .79 .05 .06 28.0 20
Helium 0 .3 .05 4.0 140
Xenon 0 .01 .06 131.3 4.3
Hydrogen 0 .005 .0004 2.02 278
Total 1.0 .52 .54
© Jason Maron, all rights reserved.
Data from Wikipedia unless otherwise specified.