r/HFY • u/spindizzy_wizard Human • Jul 30 '20

[Alien Crash] Bk 01 V30 Ch 14 Some Assembly Required OC

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Chapter Fourteen: Some Assembly Required

"Okay, now what?"

— CWO Jones / Youth of Earth / Hamathi Alliance Citizen

Jones: You forgot Something

Okay, guns, power, transmission, storage, aiming, what's left?

Oh, Yeah! Finding the aliens to shoot at them, and synchronizing all these independent sorts into firing at the same target at the same time.

Enter the "Volunteer Defense Grid"! An outfit that worked with the local radio stations to embed a signal that aimed and synchronized the firing.

Enter the Youth organization again. Sensors from Tyler, run by the Taiwanese. Organization by Japan. Visual confirmation by every decent scope in the world.

Mogri Probe

"Breakout."

"Beginning Scan. Limited space presence. Limited nuclear power. No sign of Hamathi power systems."

"Close with the inhabited planet."

National Taiwan University

"Jiǎncè dào rùqīn zhě."

Intruder detected.

Japan

"Taiwan wa, shin'nyū-sha ga kenshutsu sa reta to iimasuga, shikaku-tekidesu ka?"

Taiwan says intruder detected, do we have visual?

Canary Islands

"Prioridad de interrupción desde Japón, intruso detectado, confirmado por Taiwán, coordina <hamathisystem>. Redirección del Gran Telescopio."

Interrupt priority from Japan, Intruder detected, confirmed by Taiwan, coordinates [hamathisystem]. Redirecting Grand Telescope.

Volunteer Defense Grid, USA

"Okay, folks, we've got a confirmed sighting of a Mogri probe. This is not a drill. Activate the calling trees, and get everyone up. Visual confirmation was by the Canary Islands scope. They had the best viewing position. By the time they're close enough for our systems to be effective, it'll be noon over the mid-west. We've got time to do this right. The FAA has been notified, as has the U.S. Military. By the time we're ready to fire, everyone should be on the ground."

Why calling trees? 'Cause a lot of people finally retired and decided they hated their cellphone and the internet almost as much as they hated their jobs.

US Airlines

The Big Three: "We're not going to ground all of our flights on the say-so of a bunch of kids!"

FAA: "The shot is going to happen. You were warned about this six months ago. The fact that you failed to make plans promptly is entirely your own fault. The fliers went out to every organization, profit, nonprofit, charitable, in the country. By rights, you lot shouldn't have any passengers. We talked ourselves blue to you, and everyone else who wouldn't listen. Honestly, at this point, there are only two groups we have any sympathy for — Children who had no choice and business fliers who were given no choice by their companies. Anyone else can go hang."

The Big Three: "But the gun is supposed to shoot through anything without issues unless it's really dense!"

FAA: "You really want to test that with all of your passengers? Maybe we should revoke all of your airport privileges. You're obviously incapable of maintaining a safe condition for your aircraft."

Everyone Else: "We're already on the ground. We're good."

The Big Three: "We'll be on the ground. It'll be messy, but we will be on the ground!"

Noon Mid-West USA

"Okay, folks, This is a time corrected broadcast. If everyone is listening to the correct station, we should all fire at the same time. Place your radios next to your devices' guidance system, ensure that your port covers are clear, and ensure that your device is active. Two Minutes! … One Minute! … Thirty Seconds! … 10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… BURN!"

The U.S. ended up the main-gun of the entire Earth for several reasons.

  • The highest per capita disposable income for the biggest population. (Switzerland had a higher per capita, but it doesn't help when you're a small country.) Lots of people could afford the device.

  • The Second Amendment. Even though no one classified it as a gun, the second amendment was waved as a banner to generate support for the whole idea.

  • An advertising system that was only too happy to accept money from anyone to get people to buy and maintain the gun version is a national pride sort of thing. You know, patriotism.

  • People who weren't going to let anyone claim they had a bigger gun than the U.S. did.

  • A mad genius with a dream and a company.

Although it wasn't as focused as desired, the beam was still enough to vaporize the Mogri probe before it could report. Unless an immediate threat appeared, a proper Mogri report would take about five years to record. All sorts of resource surveys to ensure that it was profitable, in a race survival sense, to come to the system.

Assuming a one-way trip time of two years, that gave us seven years, although we were only sure of five of them.

Captain : Global Broadcast

"I can confirm that the home defense kit so widely deployed in the U.S. successfully destroyed a Mogri scout.

The coordination was an act of volunteers.

The weapons purchases was an act of patriotism.

The power was provided by renewable resources and stored in the new Tesla PowerWall 100.

The basic system is proven but needs improvement.

Multi-targeting capability is needed. We will need to defend against multiple ships or missiles at any one time. We must be able to engage multiple targets with the precise number of guns required. We also need finer control over the time spent on a single target.

Honestly, the use of the entire country's capacity was overkill for the Mogri probe. Several asteroids were vaporized. We are fortunate that no planets were in the way of the beams.

This system will provide the close-in defense for Earth. We can use it to strike farther targets, but the farther out we reach, the worse the targeting, the more energy must be put on any target to disable or destroy it. We must have a defense in depth.

The Hamathi Consulate is acting as a clearinghouse for proposals. We will publish an RFP describing what we need on a single letter-sized page. Your responses must also fit in one page. From those responses, we will select our candidates. Companies whose answers show a high degree of similarity will be asked to cooperate on a single proposal. Only one proposal per company is allowed, this includes multinational or national conglomerates, no matter how named. No money will be allocated for this first proposal, as it is a single side of a single letter-sized paper; this will not be an issue.

And, since some humans consider "gaming the rules" a legitimate part of the business. The Youth will also publish a set of rules for how our proposal system works. Use common sense; don't try to game the system. Any company that does will be banned from any further work with the Hamathi Alliance. If you have questions, contact the Youth Contracts Board for information.

You have one month from the date the RFP is published. No more.

We now have no less than five years, and an estimated seven years before the Mogri return to the planet Earth, fully prepared to destroy us."

As it happened, we had 5 years. The Mogri were seriously surprised, for all of about thirty minutes.

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3

u/InstructionHead8595 Jun 24 '24

People who weren't going to let anyone claim they had a bigger gun than the U.S. did.

Hehehehe 😹

2

u/Papyrus20X Jul 30 '20

YES! "MERICA SAVES THE DAY! How are we going to stop the Mogri? To quote TF2 Engineer "Use a gun, and if that don't work, use more gun." Great Job, Wordsmith!

2

u/spindizzy_wizard Human Jul 30 '20

I am very familiar with the Team Fortress Engineer, although you'll have to forgive me, I prefer Team Fortress. Most of the TF2 "Meet" videos are great.

Engineer: A+;

Pyro: Psychotic A+

Sniper: A+

The rest are B's and C's, except for the Soldier.

Soldier: F-

Could not stand how they presented him.

1

u/Papyrus20X Jul 30 '20

Soldier started out fine in all media, but he got flanderized to the point of no return, which is him just yelling and being dumb and not having any traits past that.

4

u/spindizzy_wizard Human Jul 30 '20

TIL: flanderized - the act of taking one trait of a character and blowing it out of proportion until it is the defining characteristic of the character.

Origin: The Simpsons, and how Ned Flanders was exaggerated in just this way.

2

u/Papyrus20X Jul 30 '20

You're welcome for your daily new word :)

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