#carionto

[carionto]

The terrifying sound of silence

"Where is the Human?"

A question that incites dread across the Galaxy. And no greater when the Human in question is an engineer.

For weeks after her arrival aboard the Coalition joint exploration vessel Ulmanar's Resilience, the Human Jenna had been pestering everyone about the technical specifications, tolerances, build schematics, design philosophy, power outputs, and countless other microscopic details.

At first everything seemed normal, Humans are known to be curios, especially the technically minded ones, and her job would entail managing parts of the vessel's systems, so everyone was as helpful as they could.

Then Jenna started tinkering.

'Optimizing' is how she described it.

Admittedly, most of her modifications resulted in marginal improvements to energy distribution and mechanical motion efficiency. Although the fact the power reactors started to make audible noise was... unusual, but the readings said everything was fine, and the fact a day passed without explosions put everyone at ease - this was partly why a Human engineer was brought along in the first place.

During a short stop at a supply station before our first descent onto an uncharted planet, Jenna was the first to rush off with several cargo drones in the direction of the shipyard district. She was the last to return mere minutes before the scheduled departure, all covered in dust and oil, and the drones straining under the weight of everything she had procured.

"Don't worry, it's gonna be awesome." she declared.

It had been a while since our training and none of us had encountered other Humans in the meantime, so all of us had forgotten to immediately be alarmed by those words and question everything she was doing.

The following weeks of transit to our destination were marked by a severe lack of Jenna interactions or even sightings. The shuttle bay was a mess of disassembled craft, loose parts flung about, and sparks and rattling noises coming from the bowels of whatever was going on.

Unbeknownst to us, for the idea itself was ludicrous, Jenna was only within the vessel half of the time during this period. The other half she was in her spacesuit tinkering with the exterior of the vessel. Laser cutters and cold welding, not to mention the vacuum of space, make for a very silent work environment.

Perhaps it was instinct for most of us to avoid the confusing actions of a predator species descendant, as once we arrived to the designated planet, we learned we only had two surface shuttles left. Out of sixteen.

"This baby can land now!" Jenna happily said.

Confused beyond measure, we asked: "What do you mean 'this baby?"

"The ship, you know, Ulmanar's Resilience. We can land the whole thing now instead of doing this boring shuttling down thing. Plus the terraforming bot wouldn't fit in a shuttle anyway."

"The what?" our confusion continued.

"Yeah, we're gonna terraform this planet, right? That's what I got from the briefing back before joining you guys." she explained with innocence in her eyes.

There must have been some miscommunication, but the work had been done, and as far as our own technicians (who were scolded harshly for not keeping track of such grand changes to the entire vessel) did confirm that, as far as their understanding of mechanics and physics went, Ulmanar's Resilience can now indeed endure descent and commence takeoff from up to a 6G world.

So I guess that's what we're doing now. Preliminary surveys from past unmanned missions had suggested this world was once in the past and potentially now habitable again, and we suppose the Humans had decided to just set that in motion before more detailed analysis had occurred.

"Oh yeah," Jenna interjected, "if it turns out this place is, like, super dangerous and a threat to the Galaxy if we accidentally wake something up, I modified one of the scanning dishes to be a deep drill laser. Two hours of firing it at the core of the planet and it'll go boom."

...

"The planet, not the laser dish. That will explode if left on for more than three hours."

...

[suprsbg]

Humans and Procrastination

So yaysun-

Actually it's Jason, but yes?

Jay-sun, don't you have to recalibrate the OMS pods today?

Well... yeah, but...

Are you injured? Has something happened?

No, no, I'm just... procrastinating.

What is procrastinating?

It's like... putting off something you need to do just because... you don't feel like it.

That seems counterproductive.

Yeah, that much is true.

So if you aren't recalibrating the pods, what ARE you doing? Usually when you aren't working you're playing Final Fantasy CDXX in your quarters.

Well, because I'm supposed to be recalibrating the pods it feels wrong to go play the game, so I'm just kinda sitting here doing random stuff and fidgeting.

What is fidg- never mind. Why don't you just recalibrate the pods then you can play your game?

I would love to just go and do it.

Then why don't you?

Because... something? I don't know honestly.

Is there anything I can do?

Ummm... I guess you could watch me get started?

How does that help?

Well, if someone is watching me then sometimes I feel more motivated to do it.

But a few days ago I was watching Alex write his log in the cafeteria and he said he couldn't get anything done?

Well, sometimes you want someone there and other times you don't. Honestly I don't understand why.

Humans...

Well, Humans with ADHD specifically.

I'm not even gonna ask.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

So yeah this is my first time writing a Jpitha/carionto style HAW thing, hope you like it. And yes I'm procrastinating a 40 word thing for Spanish right now.

[jpitha]

Under enough pressure, Ravioli behaves as a gas

This feels like something from @carionto’s universe:

> There was still one aspect of the whole concept of a ravioli-loaded > railgun type wepon which we, lolling about late on a weeknight, with > only a few neurons randomly firing, could not resolve.  Would a chunk > of metal (can of ravioli) impacting another, larger, rest mass > structure (star destroyer) produce an "explosion" effect, or simply > punch an appropriately shaped hole as it passed through?  Bill?

What am I, the neighborhood blast physicist???  Well, maybe... :-)

It all depends on speed of impact versus the speed of sound in the target (what is called the Mach number, where Mach 1 means the speed of sound, Mach 2 is twice the speed of sound, etc), and the speed of the ravioli versus the speed of light in the target (which I'll call the Cerenkov number, where Cerenkov 1 is the speed of light in anything; Cerenkov 1.3 is the speed of high-energy protons in a water-cooled reactor (that's why you get that nifty blue glow), and you can get up to Cerenkov 2.4 using diamonds and nuclear accellerators.  In the late 40's people used to talk about Cerenkov numbers, but they don't anymore.  Pity.).  Lastly, there's the ravioli velocity expressed as a fraction of the speed of light in a vacuum (that is, as a fraction of "c").  "C" velocities are always between 0 and 1.

At low speeds (REAL low) the ravioli will simply flow over the surface, yielding a space-cruiser with a distinctly Italian paint job.

Faster (still well below speed-of-sound in the target) the metal of the space-cruiser's skin will distort downward, making what we Boston drivers call a "small dent".

Faster still, you may have a "big dent" or maybe even a "big dent with a hole in the middle", caused by the ravioli having enough energy to push the dent through, stretching and thinning the hull metal till the metal finally tears in the middle of the dent.

Getting up past Mach 1 (say, 5000 feet/sec for steel), you start to get punch-a-hole-shaped-like-the-object effects, because the metal is being asked to move faster than the binding forces in the object can propagate the "HEY!  MOVE!" information.  (After all, sound is just the binding forces between atoms in a material moving the adjacent atoms -- and the speed of sound is how fast the message to "move" can propagate.)  From this, we see that WileE Coyote often reached far-supersonic speeds because he often punched silhouette-type holes in rocks, cliffs, trucks, etc.

Around Mach 4 or so, another phenomenon starts -- compressive heating. This is where the leading edge of the ravioli actually starts being heated by compression (remember PV=nRT, the ideal gas law?)  Well, ravioli isn't a gas, but under enough pressure, ravioli behaves as a gas.  It is compressed at the instant of impact and gets hot -- very hot.  Likewise, the impact point on the hull is compressed and gets hot.  Both turn to gasses -- real gasses, glowing-white-hot gasses.  The gasses expand spherically, causing crater-like effects, including a raised rim and a basically parabolic shape.  In the center of the crater, some material is vaporized, then there's a melt zone, then a larger "bent" zone, and the raised rim is caused because the gas expansion bubble center point (the bending force) is actually *inside* the hull plate.  If the hull plate isn't thick enough, then the gas-expansion bubble pushes through to the other side, and you get a structural breach event (technically speaking, a "big hole") in the side of the space-cruiser.

Compressive heating really hits the stride up around 20,000 feet/sec (Mach 4 in steel, Mach 15 in air) and continues as a major factor all the way up to the high fractional Cerenkov speeds, where nuclear forces begin to take effect.

Aside: the "re-entry friction heating" that spacecraft endure when the reenter the atmosphere is NOT friction.  It's really compressive heating of the air in the path.  As long as the spacecraft is faster than Mach 1, the air can't know to get out of the way, so it bunches up in front of the spacecraft.  When you squeeze any gas, it gets hot.  So, the glowing "reentry gas" is really just squeezed air, which heats the spacecraft heat shield by conduction and infrared.  The hypersonic ravioli can be expected to behave similarly.

As we increase speed from the high Mach numbers (about 10 miles/sec) all the way up to about 150,000 miles/sec, not much different happens except that the amount of kinetic energy (which turns into compressive heat) increases.  This is a huge range of velocity, but it's uninteresting velocity.

At high fractional Cerenkov speeds, the ravioli is now beginning to travel at relativistic velocities.  Among other things, this means that the ravioli is aging more slowly than usual, and the ravioli can looks compressed in the direction of travel.  But that's really not important right now.

As we pass Cerenkov 1.0 in the target, we get a new phenomenon -- Cerenkov radiation.  This is that distinctive blue glow seen around water-cooled reactors.  It's just (relatively) harmless light (harmless compared to the other blast effects, that is).  I mention it only because it's so nifty...

At around .9 c (Cerenkov 1.1) , the ravioli starts to perceptibly weigh more.  It's just a relativistic mass increase -- all the additional weight is actually energy, available to do compressive heating upon impact.  The extra weight is converted to heat energy according to the equation E=mc^2; it looks like compressive heating but it's not.

[Here's where I'm a little hazy on the numbers; I'm at work and  don't have time to rederive the Lorentz transformations.]

At around .985 c (Cerenkov 1.2 or so), the ravioli now weighs twice what it used to weigh. For a one pound can, that's two pounds... or about sixty megatons of excess energy.  All of it turns to heat on impact.  Probably very little is left of the space-cruiser.

At around .998 c, the impacting ravioli begins to behave less like ravioli

and more like an extremely intense radiation beam.  Protons in the water of the ravioli begin to successfully penetrate the nuclei of the hull metal.  Thermonuclear interactions, such as hydrogen fusion, may take place in the tomato sauce.

At around .9998 c, the ravioli radiation beam is still wimpy as far as nuclear accellerator energy is concerned, but because there is so much of it, we can expect a truly powerful blast of mixed radiation coming out of the impact site.  Radiation, not mechanical blast, may become the largest hazard to any surviving crew members.

At around .9999999 c, the ravioli radiation may begin to produce "interesting" nuclear particles and events (heavy, short-lived particles). At around .999999999999 c, the ravioli impact site may begin to resemble conditions in the original "big bang"; equilibrium between matter and energy; free pair production; antimatter and matter coexisting in equilibrium with a very intense gamma-ray flux, etc.[1]

Past that, who knows?  It may be possible to generate quantum black holes given a sufficiently high velocity can of ravioli.

     --Bill

[1]According to physicist W. Murray, we may also expect raining frogs, plagues of locusts, cats and dogs living together, real Old Testament destruction.  You get the idea... 

[suprsbg]

@jpitha

@carionto

Writing prompt:

The Caracinos didn't have much of a sense of touch due to their thick carapace.

When they made first contact with the humans they judged their strength by giving them delicate glassware for all their food and drink.

When the glass didn't shatter in the humans grip, they judged them weak.

What a mistake to make...

[wimbearn]

Heh, heh, heh! SaGia Volume 2 - out now via my Ko-fi! Chapters 7-13 and Volume 2 coming soon to Global Comix July 4th!

For the first time ever, I got to be a voice director! I really wanted to give my other characters voices. I had fun directing the voice cast! Also, I accidentally made an error  where Beauty's VA says "I" and not "We" in "We heard that, missy!"... my bad!

Voice Cast: Me - Haido, Drakenoid, Lass' Parents, Kaoruku, Mysterious Sagian, Narrator  Ephemerry (Alis Ephemerry) - Rena Kenny Loui (ufocatcherken) - Lain Yukomoto Faye Holliday - Lass, Beauty Mo Moran - Asai Carionto - Mysterious Man

Animated in: Procreate

SaGia is recommended for ages 14 and over. Rated T for teen.

[tables-can-write]

Please refer to my main blog @tables-has-vanished , for my info and DNI

I'm gonna post writing and some world building here.

Will most likely be sci-fi so if thats not your thing this might not be the blog for you. If that is your thing check out jpitha and carionto.

[shantaelove]

By Carionto on DeviantArt

[jurihanfemmefatale]

Fanarts by Carionto.

[80scartoons]

Thundercats - Cheetara minimalism by Carionto

[darksouldream]

Kill la Kill - Matoi Ryuko minimalism wallpaper by Carionto

[carionto]

Humans are hot

They burn with life. Fire courses through their blood.

Their entire world is constantly exploding with change. Igniting and being extinguished by brighter flames.

Time is short for them. The very essence they breathe is death and makes every moment matter, for it well could be their last.

In the Galaxy, Humans are not the strongest or smartest, biggest or smallest, most aggressive or peaceful.

But.

They are the fastest at life and change.

And speed causes friction.

What happened moments ago for you, is an entire age for Humanity, and none may remain who made the original promise.

Perhaps even they've come to hate you in that short span.

Or worse, you have evaporated from their memories almost entirely, only mere fragments now woven into twisted fiction and myth persist.

Whatever the case, Humans do not slow down to your pace. They can't.

Only faster, hotter, and brighter

[suprsbg]

What if the whole concept of “mine” relating to individual ownership never really occurred? Basically they always work for the betterment of their clan/community/species and the whole mine thing only really matters between species but then the deathworlders come around…

[carionto]

I'm now interpreting this as - Humans found these kinda thick aliens and now have the responsibility to not fuck up the aliens's first contact with a space faring civilization. Cue stream of consciousness writing:

_____________________

Humanity has only recently begun their space exploration efforts, but by the gods, there's a lot of eager explorers among Humans. Most of them unqualified and unsanctioned, but good luck keeping up with a Human fusion reactor powered Hyper Drive. So it was only natural that one of these groups would eventually make first contact with a yet unknown alien civilization.

Barry and the Brave was a team of amateur explorers. The self appointed captain, Barry Lodein, was a big chap with a large heart and a huge wallet. The other three members were his wife Linda, and their two poker buddies - Jenna and Gunther. One passion that connected all four was the deep sea. They loved diving and had custom built a submarine that could easily go to the bottom of Earth's oceans, and, in theory, way further down than that.

Once Coalition galactic charts and observation records started to become public, they saw a perfect world for them. It was an almost entirely ocean planet with only a few volcanic islands scattered about, and calculated water depths of up to 35 kilometers. And so they went there, got in their sub and watched and waited.

After nearly four hours of a steady descent through absolute darkness, a faint light began to emerge from below. A massive coral network, and as more began to become clear, clearly the shapes of structures and guided growth.

What they expected the least was the outside pressure dropping, and fast. They immediately slowed their descent to an almost standstill, their sub is tough, but even it has limits. Another two hours passed as they descended the final few hundred meters and the readings said it was as if they were only under two or three meters of water. Before they could think much further, something knocked at their hull.

It was a large crab person thing, very chitinous, four arms and four legs, an eye cluster, holding what looked like a weirdly shaped but still clearly digital device of sorts. Tuning their instruments there indeed was a lot of alien chatter on a bunch of frequencies and their translator device began work immediately.

Figuring why not, they suited up and disembarked once the translator seemed good enough. The water really was quite comfortable and not crushing them to death, so perhaps they passed through something that creates a counteracting force? Maybe? None of the group are physicists and they're not about to question such good luck.

The crab people were accommodating, but they seemed off in a way that's hard to describe. Inside their buildings was actually very airy, had to go through a slimy bubble door, but hey - air. Super moist, but you could breathe it for maybe an hour before whatever else is in it starts to get to you. Barry and the group kept their masks on.

Communication was... tedious. The crab people clearly were not impressed by how squishy the Humans looked and it was only because of their technology that Barry and co were considered worth speaking to at all. Mentioning anything beyond the ocean was dismissed out of hand - nothing can survive going above the Ceiling, you fall down a mangled mess, only the Gods live above and they on the surface.

Still, some progress was happening. The submarine and their collective deep sea diving expertise was a subject both parties could agree on, and Barry decided they would share some knowledge on metallurgy and engineering that should help the crab people maybe one day make their own submarines. Or, I guess, space ships since they'd be going up beyond what they know so far.

One of the biggest crab people, about 2.7 meters tall and just as wide, seemed angry. A lot of subtle cues are in the form of pheromones which the Humans were not yet used to deciphering, and since they didn't produce much of any of their own, they were also perceived as having almost no emotions. The crab people's faces basically don't move at all save for putting food in. But anger, or similar, is pretty universal, gut instinct knows.

Barry was stopped by this individual and it grabbed his arm. The claw was jabbing into his skin a bit, but not drawing blood. Yet. He could sense this one was about to go full strength as it ignored his questions and requests.

Not about to lose an arm over nothing, Barry grabbed the bottom of the claw with his other hand and the top with his teeth and yanked it open with less effort than he expected. The big crab person was furious and was about to lunge for Barry when Gunther and Linda rushed in from behind and held back two of its bigger arms while Jenna gave Barry a boost and he flying punched it in the mouth joint.

The commotion caused other crab people to appear and restrain everyone, including the big one. The most diplomatic of the crab people they had met explained that Humans sort of resemble a prey animal the crab people had hunted to extinction a few generations ago, but some of them were old enough to remember the days of such delicacy.

Speaking of food, the exploration team's was limited as nothing the crab people had was edible. Using that and the confrontation (and realizing they are not ready to deal with properly interacting with a pre-space civilization, Barry and his team bid the crab people farewell and successfully returned to their sub.

Really, they just wanted to dive deep and see some cool underwater stuff, which they did. While they waited to resurface, the group decided that it'd be easier to just give an anonymous tip to explore this planet, let others deal with the whole first contact stuff.

_________________

Uncue: 1AM brain did a thing. I may have lost the plot, oh well. It's a thing.

Writing prompt:

The Caracinos didn't have much of a sense of touch due to their thick carapace.

When they made first contact with the humans they judged their strength by giving them delicate glassware for all their food and drink.

When the glass didn't shatter in the humans grip, they judged them weak.

What a mistake to make...

[carionto]

Ultimate preparation

There comes a time in every alien's life when a Human asks them this simple question:

"Wanna hang out over the weekend?"

This may seem like a casual, innocent, even good-willed inquiry, but do NOT be fooled. Your life is in danger now.

The safest thing to do is to politely decline using one of the numerous pre-designed excuses:

"I have errands to run."

"My olfactory sensor needs a manual checkup."

"The renovators are coming over then."

"I've contracted gout."

However, due to cultural differences, make sure to consult your local veterinarian for more relevant anecdotes to supplement your avoidance success rate.

For those that feel they have become friends with said Human and cannot reject their offer we strongly advise to read up on every nearby "amusement park" and "thrill ride" avenue and acquire the best safety equipment and life insurance policy.

Next, learn everything you can about the Human who asked you to "hang out." Decipher their mental maturity through everything they post on social media. Analyze any photos they share of times they describe as "fun" and isolate all potential hazards they interact with. Look up their medical history for blunt force traumas and accidents. Surveil their every move and discover how much of a threat they are to others and themselves on a daily basis. Make them fill out the psychological profile survey disguised as a quirky "Which Trek Wars character are you" in the Helpful Resources section.

"Hanging out" with a Human is certain to involve at least one of, typically several, if not all, of the following:

Imbibing toxic/poisonous substances (alcohol, drugs, chocolate)

Extreme physical activity (rock climbing, skiing, yoga)

Psychological stress (theme parks, horror movies, comedy game shows)

Emotional/intellectual damage (talking about their failed relationships, ranting about politics, explaining an OC)

Always ascertain exactly WHAT your Human intends to do during this "hanging out" session. If the answer is vague, and after taking into account everything above, use your best judgement to decide.

But remember - safety first. Not only is your life at risk, but so is the Human's. They can be incredibly empathetic, so if you choose to go along to avoid hurting their feelings, but get hurt yourself during the "hang out", this may result in great emotional harm done to the Human as well, and physical as well if they attempt to save you from the harm they inadvertently put you in.

Be smart, be prepared.

[carionto]

Spin the duck

Alien Joe: Human Alan, what are you doing?

Human Alan: Spinning a rubber duck.

AJ: I can sense that, but why?

HA: Dunno, just feel like it.

[The silence of a rubber duck being spun in a small bowl of water]

HA: ...

AJ: ...

HA: Aren't you on duty now?

AJ: I seem to be mesmerized by spinning of the duck.

HA: Yeah, it happens sometimes.

...

...

HA: I think we should get back to work.

AJ: You're right.

[continuation of the silence of the spinning of the rubber duck and the two not resuming their duties]

[carionto]

Humans like being emotional

Alien: Human George, you are leaking from your oculars. If I recall, it is either an irritant in the air or a feeling of distress.

George: *sniff* What? Oh... yeah, I was just... reading a thing, the ending got to me more than I expected.

A: I see, so it was psychological damage.

G: *sobbing* YES! God, I just want to crawl into a corner... that last letter from her late love just hit me so hard. Brought together all those previous scenes I didn't think were that interesting at the time, but now that they'll never be able to spend time together like that again, it's just, just... I can't

A: The expression, you need a minute, applies here, yes?

G: *trying to collect himself* uh... yeah, I guess I do... um... uhh *looking for the approved contact words* can I. uh.. initiate platonic contact... for... the uhh, release of internal biochemicals that... relieve?... the distress...? *George hurt himself in his confusion*

A: Yes.

G: *glomps onto the alien* *cries a lot more*

*this goes on for a minute*

G: *unglomps himself* Thanks... I really needed that.

A: Your pheromone levels have lowered to closer to normal now.

G: Uh, sure.

A: While you were occupied, I looked into this and it seems this author has several additional books released.

G: REALLY!!!

A: Hmm... your excitement levels have gone up all of a sudden. Are you not going to avoid those works?

G: What? I'm gonna buy those books right now. Hadn't felt that sad in years, and I want more of that fluffy doomed romance. I'm not gonna read them right now, I think I need a dose of something dumb, maybe rage inducing while this story settles in my brain.

DAMN! Now that first scene with his parents makes so much more sense. God, I need to reread that bit! Knowing how it ends seriously changes everything now, fuuuuucckkk that's some good writing.

A: You... want to feel these heightened distress levels?

G: Of course. Life's too boring otherwise.

A: But you literally work defusing ancient battlefields.

G: Bah, that only tickles the survival and body horror parts, I need my gooey lovey dovey AND sad depression kicks too.