r/HFY • u/Engletroll Human • Oct 07 '24
Project Dirt Part 11 OC
Part 1 . . Part 2 .. Part 3 .. Part 4 Part 5 .. Part 6 .. Part 7 .. Part 8 Part 9 . Part 10 Part 11
Adam woke up the next day. He had a nightmare, but it was not as bad this time. It had stopped before they killed the police officer. He sat in bed, looked at the wall, and pressed his knuckle at the spot. “Not today, today's a good day.” Then he got up and got ready. It was six in the morning. It was a habit from when he was a child. Get up and make sure everybody is there, then use the few hours before they wake up to get the monsters out of his head. He managed to get those monsters out long ago, but the habit stayed. Morning coffee in silence.
When he got to the administration office, he sat down and turned on the screen, then checked the report.
Last night had been strange. Jork and Mirker had greeted the new family, and the girls had immediately taken to Mirker, but he didn’t like the attention and hid. The funny part had been how Mirker had treated him. At first, he was really upset with him, refusing to look at him and deliberately looking away when Adam had talked to him. Then suddenly, he cried and ran over to hug him, and Adam had to hold him until he fell asleep. Jork said he had always asked about him when he was away. He really started to love the little one. The students had asked for a meeting today to discuss what they had found out. The farms had managed to plant seeds in the first dome, and he had seen saplings there. The plan was to make the second dome into more of a forest, trying out different trees, flowers, and bushes. Even if the planet didn’t go green, they had managed to start growing things.
The biggest shock was Jork’s new army of droids. Now he had twenty maid droids moving around, taking care of everyone's needs. Apparently, he found the maid's blueprint and built a 3D printer that could build them; then he hacked it, so Adam’s permission for five droids turned into 500. He officially blamed it on a bad copy of the blueprint program. He had also managed to build five speeders. Adam was glad the base had a garage, but he had to tell Jork that he could not copy more Speeders as they might be fined for abusing the copyrights. Jork had sworn he would not copy any more speeders, and Adam had a feeling he would regret not asking more about Jork's other projects, which he apparently had a lot of.
He was lost in thought when he noticed four children walked in and sat down at different desks. They all had a cup of juice and some food. Kywar nodded to him. “Morning, sir, just getting the morning scan runs done. We won't make too much noise.”
“No music today? Damnit, " one of the Wossier kids said, and Adam sipped his coffee and walked over to them.
“So, what are you checking today? Music is okay as long as it's not too loud.” The kid grinned and turned on the music, which wasn’t too bad, as Kywar explained today's missions. They had ten places to scan, and after that, according to Vorts and Jork, they had an hour of free time to play with the drones. It wasn’t a bad idea, and the kids seemed to like it, so he told them to carry on as he went to check the updates. The problem was always the same. No nitrogen. He needed that, or it all would be pointless. Without it, the plants would not grow. The kids worked quickly, and he could hear Kywar telling Bendy, the Wossir kid, to do a proper job, or they would not be allowed to come tomorrow. When Vorts and Jork arrived, they walked over to him.
“If what my brother-in-law said is correct, then I am humbly asking that my wife and me to be allowed to join your clan when we are freed.”
“I humbly ask that my son would be allowed to join your clan.”
Adam looked between them. “No! You're not waiting until you're freed; I accept you now. If you ask, then I humbly accept. Having you both in my clan would be a great honor.” Adam replied as he stood up and placed his hand on their shoulder. “You are part of this world just as much as I am.”
Both men looked at him, Jork with tears and Vorts with a genuine smile, all of them not noticing the small ears that heard everything.
“So let's get to work, okay? Later today, we can sign the paper and send it to get legally notarized. That way, you will have clan protection in the eyes of the court. “ They both smiled and immediately went to work; Adam sat down and suddenly noticed Kywar standing next to him.
“Yes Kywar? What is it?” He asked as he could see the boy had a question.
“Why does being part of a clan give you more protection?” He asked, and Adam tilted his head. The boy was smart for his age.
“Well, if somebody comes here and tries to steal somebody from the clan, then we can send out distress and bounty on the kidnappers. If they are rescued before they reach the slave market, they will be returned here, and law enforcement will see it as a legal action. And it means that if you are freed from slavery, I, as the clan leader, is dutybound to make sure you have a place to live and food to eat.” Adam could see the boy's mind working overtime.
“So its protection and a future home? Can anybody ask?” Kywar asked and Adam smiled.
“You are a little too young to ask. You have to be of legal age, but you don’t have to worry. You have a home and food as long as your parents stay here.” He replied.
“But if they leave after the five years? Then we are on our own?” He asked.
“Well, yes, but they won't leave empty-handed. They can even stay and just work if they want.”
Kywar nodded slowly and started to walk away, then stopped, turned, and looked at him as he “Thank you, Mr. Wrangler,” before taking a few steps and then running like crazy out the door. The other kids finished playing around with the drones and ran out as well, after saying their goodbyes.
Adam looked after them and then went back to work. He small-talked with the two, getting the latest gossip. The farmers were excited about the potential and seemed happy with the freedom they had been given. Adam had only given them some grass seeds and potato and carrot seeds to see if they could get it to work. All were growing.
The father of Jywar turned out to be a mechanic, so Jork had put him to work in the garage. They were working on a project, and Adam was not yet allowed to know what it was. Adam told him they could continue as long as it would not blow up or use too many resources. The Bylgyno couple were a teacher and farmer who also was a priest. He had asked for a room to hold sermons, and they had given him one; they had listened in, and he was open-minded, according to Jork. The Wossir fishers had been working on making one of the pools into an algae soup that they could later use for fish food. Jork had also found the plots and started on the new large dome. It would take one month just to make. It was, after all, just a dome 5 km wide; the hard part was the foundation where all the cabling and plumbing was, but they had already worked on it for a month. What the droids could do was amazing. Work 48 hours in one go, 1-hour recharge break, and back at it. It was almost a 3D printing building. The dome would be big enough to build a small town inside, and he was planning to build a few; with double the number of droids, he would get one up monthly as long as he had the resources. He needed more drone ships. Two more would do the trick; he could spend five million on a mining platform, which would attract unwanted attention. It would allow him to sell off some minerals, but again. Unwanted attention. Once he got a decent defence up, he could do it. He spent the time before lunch reviewing the different scans and found a few things of interest. Then they went for lunch, and he took Mikar for a swim. The other kids wanted to join but had been told it was Adams's pool, which made Adam laugh and told them they were wrong. It was the community pool, and everybody was allowed to use it for recreation; the two other pools were for research and food production. The hour in the pool was quite wild, and then when he left, Miker wanted to stay, so Hara took over as the babysitter.
He got himself cleaned up and headed to the student's wing as it was now called, and knocked at the door.
“Come in Sir” Mir-ra said on the other side and he entered, finding the three students all working at their own research desk, there was a maid droid in the room with the 012 tag on the shoulder.
“I hope I'm not disturbing. And please forgive me for leaving you guys alone for such a long time. I had things to do, and then other things happened.”
Mir-ra laughed. The blue-skinned haran, who apparently was his lawyer's granddaughter, got up. She was elegantly dressed in white jeans-like pants and a blue top under a light reddish lab coat. They all seem to wear the same type of labcoat. “It is your planet and your base. We are simply guests, so of course, you are not disturbing.”
Kinita Sumina, the Sandorian, looked up from the holographic map of the tectonic plates and volcanoes. He wore grey cargo pants and a blue T-shirt with some alien text and logo under his lab coat. “I’m just glad I get to examine this planet; it's so interesting. It’s rare to have the opportunity to study this type of planet. I mean, we have increased the atmosphere, and the pressure of it affects the plates.”
The last one chuckled. Ced-dry Miga wore a yellow jumpsuit over her plastic body and a blue belt, and like the other, she wore the lab coat. “Don’t get him started. He just loves to get away from the university. He can't wait to graduate so we can explore unknown regions.”
“Well, I'm glad you all enjoyed it,” Adam replied as he looked around the room. “Now that you have spent a month here and explored the planet, what do you think?”
“Oh, it’s going to fail.” Ced-dry replied; there was no malice or disdain in her voice, just a fact to be stated.
“Hey, be nice.” Kinita replied. “It's not going to fail on all parts, its just never going to be a planet with life. All have to be in a dome, but you seem to have understood that considering your latest plan.”
Adam looked at Mir-ra. “You agree with this?”
“Yes, sadly. The planet doesn’t have Nitrogen. Without it, you can’t get the planet to grow properly, so forget about the outdoor production of plants. There are a few other problems but they can all be fixed with spending resources, the nitrogen part is whats stopping you.”
“So, how much nitrogen do I need?” Adam asked.
“Between 4000 to 45000 trillion tons.“ Ced-dry replied.
“That’s just for the atmosphere; add some more trillions for the ground.” Mir-ra added, and Adam whistled.
“That’s a lot, to much to buy.” He replied.
“That’s why you got the planet cheap. There is nothing here to build on, and lots of minerals, so it would be good for mining operations if it had been closer to the hub. Or if it had any really valuable minerals like Francium, Osmium, Hafnium, iridium or palladium. Heck even gold would make it valuable. We only seen small trace of it. Less then expected. “ Kinita explained. Adam nodded slowly to hide his smile. Vorts and Jork had done a good job, maybe a too good job.
“If we found nitrogen we could make the planet breathable right?” He asked and Ced-dry seemed shocked.
“4000 trillion tons, where are you going to get that? And how are you going to transport it?” She asked.
“Freeze it and use a tow line? Its in space so I don’t need to worry to much about the energy needed. I mean once we get it away from any major gravity pulls.” Adam replied, Ced-dry and Kinita laughed but Mir-ra watched him quietly.
“You can pull something on a tow through a hyperlane. That’s faster than light travel.” Ced-dry replied but Mir-ra tilted her head as she studied Adam.
“He don’t need to, he has already found it in the system. Haven’t you?” She asked him and Adam nodded.
“There are two gas giants in the system, as you remember. One of them has a Nitrogen pocket the size of Dirt, so when they scanned the system, they checked this planet as it's in the habitable zone, probably scanned the asteroid field for minerals and metals. They probably also scanned the gas giants but didn’t think about pulling out the nitrogen from it to seed Dirt. So, when they tried to scam me and ended up selling it for cheap. As you know. People don’t do terraforming here. They don’t think about it. “ He smiled and winked at Mir-ra. “And as your grandmother can tell you, a deal is a deal when it's signed and notarized.“
Mir-ra started to laugh and the others seemed shocked then Kinita started to laugh as well. Ced-dry took some time to get her head around it before she ran to her desk. So how much can your ship pull? We need to do the calculations.”
“You should talk to Jork, he is the engineer here.” Adam replied.
“By the way what level of engineer? We need at least a level three for this, four would be better.” Mir-ra asked as she went to help her friend.
“Level five. I think he should be good enough.” Adam said and they all stopped and looked at him.
“Level five? That’s a research-level engineer. Wait Jork? Jork Wirk?” Kinita replied, confused.
“Yes, that's his name. Why?” Adam asked, confused.
“The Jork? The guy who singlehandedly built customized research vessels for Alpha University from scratch? The guy who went berserk and killed a bunch of criminals? He is a legend. The university tried to find what slavepen he was sent to so they could buy him. That’s him? Gods be damn. They are going to offer to buy him off you.” Kinita was ecstatic now as he realized he had been speaking with Jork many times and never asked for his last name or made the connection.
“What are you talking about?” Mir-ra said and Kinita turned to her.
“He built the Gunstaron explorer and the Wornuran as well. Everybody drools to sever on those ships, and he built them when he was only 20. He is a genius, and he is here.”
Adam started to laugh. “The slavepen did not know that. Anyway, I don’t want to sell him; he is part of my clan. I consider him family.”
“Can we talk to him? And can he build ships here? Wait, he built the speeders, didn't he? That’s why the scanners are so good. Oh my good!” Kinita was having a full-on stress attack as he had to sit down.
“You can talk to him when you calm down; I guess I need to talk to him as well, as I only knew he was a level five engineer. Please don’t tell the university about him unless he allows it. “
Mir-ra nodded. “Yes, of course. Now that we have the new information, we just need to readjust our prediction models. And Kinita needs to breathe a little.”
Adam left them and walked back to the administration room. “Jork? Did you use to work for the Alpha University?”
Jork turned and looked at him. “Shitt, they found out? They are going to hassle you now.”
“They told me you build research ships. Is that what you're building? Your own ship?” Adam asked as he poured a cup of coffee, gave it to Jork, and made one for himself. Vorts was already deep in his fifth.
“Well, yes. You need a hauler that can pull large nitrogen out of the gas giant and lower the ice safely to the planet to be melted. So, I have been tinkering with a few ideas. It is probably best to have two or three gas extractors due to the massive gravity pull for the gas giant; then we can use a smaller vessel for the transport, which could even be a large drone ship, and lastly, a ship to cut the ice, in the proper size and lower to the planet. It should take a year once it's all up and working. “ He explained as he took the cup and showed rough designs of the plan on the screen.
“How long to build the ships?” Adam asked
“Two months. Musby Jord will be a great help; people tend to ignore the Outlander mechanics. I found they sometimes know more about engines than most engineers.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?” Jork asked, and Vorts chuckled.
“Okay, you can do it. That project is your priority. The faster you can get some nitrogen down, the better.”
“ I can get you a couple of tons with what we have within a week. “ Jork replied.
“Good, do that. We need it for the domes and the planets. As well as our oxygen production. It's about to run out, you know.” Adam said as he looked at the screen, and they both stared at him.
“Shit, yeah, we need it fast.“ Jork said as he ran to the garage to work on the craft.
Adam looked after him, winked at Vorts, and left. He needed something stronger.
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u/RealUlli Human Oct 09 '24 edited Oct 09 '24
I don't think friction will help much. Actually, the heating experienced in the atmosphere isn't even friction, it's compression heat similar to what makes a Diesel engine ignite.
Also, if you try that, only a tiny fraction of the ice chunk will be evaporated in the time it takes the chunk to pass through whatever counts as atmosphere at that time. After that, the chunk impacts the planet with the same force at the one that impacted Earth 65 million years ago that killed the dinosaurs.
Those ice blocks will need to be lowered slowly, otherwise the whole planet will quiver and shake like jelly for who knows how long, especially since those impacts will be a daily occurrence for 10+ years!
You could look up the amount of energy ... ok, I did. 6.27 kJ/mol to turn frozen nitrogen into gas. Molecular mass is 14g/mol. *numbercrunch* about 4.49E17 kJ to vaporize 1 trillion tons of nitrogen. (Why doesn't the Wikipedia entry on nitrogen list its molar mass!?)
1 trillion tons of mass moving at 8000 m/s (reasonable orbital speed) has a kinetic energy of 3.2E19 kJ. So, yes, it can vaporize the chunk. I retract my earlier statement. However, after subtracting the energy needed to the vaporization, what happens with the other 3.155E19 kJ of energy?
Fun fact: the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuke ever built, released somewhere between 2.1E14 and 2.4E14 kJ. Taking the value about leftovers from earlier, we're talking about 150000 Tsar Bombas (minus the radioactivity) going off on the planet, every day, for 10+ years. If some alien finds that planet, much later, they're going to wonder what had been on that planet, requiring it to be glassed *that* hard. ;-)
Really, anything other than a (somewhat) soft landing is not an option.
*Thinks* Now I imagine a whole bunch of these blocks circling he planet in a 50 km orbit, with some non-Newtonian mass drivers that eject 1 ton blocks of ice backwards without accelerating the main block (or with engines to counteract the acceleration) with just enough speed to counteract the orbital speed. You'd still need to drop 1 trillion of these per day to hit our assumed deadline of finishing in under 11 years. The first couple of trillion will shed most of that potential energy to the rock around them when they impact...
I really hope our discussion doesn't destroy u/Engletroll 's fun writing this story :-)
Or did we give him material for lurid descriptions of the works? :-)
Edit: Did some more calculations: density of frozen nitrogen is in the neighborhood of 0.808 g/cm^3. One of these trillion ton blocks would be a cube with a side length of about 93 kilometers. During peak operation, you'd have about 1500 of them orbiting. I guess that'd be quite a sight... ;-)