Entry 1-007: December 29, 2012
Back pain due to fissured disks
It has been well documented that a fissure in the disks between vertebrae allows interstitial fluid to come in contact with the layer within the disk called the nucleus pulposis. In turn, this releases a substance called Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha which is highly inflammatory.
So some back pain (and even swelling) can be caused simply by having a fissured disk.
This fact is integrated into the story Rome's Revolution in several ways.
First, almost all of the frozen occupants of the Arks wake up and suffer from extreme back pain due to this condition.
Second, OMCOM creates a special pill which not only restores Rei's back to a condition appropriate for someone his age, it also gives him some abilities (sonar vision, "cell-phone" in the head, and more). OMCOM later creates a second, less powerful version of the pill which simply fixes up the back pain and this is the pill that is given to the majority of the colonists.
The pill is mentioned again in the sequel to The Ark Lords called Rome's Evolution. One unexpected benefit is that pill prevents the normal Vuduri genotype as expressing itself as the Onsira phenotype. If this pill would become available to all Vuduri, the Onsiras would eventually be eliminated forever.
Entry 1-008: December 30, 2012
The speed of gravity
The speed of sound at sea level is 340 m/s. The speed of light in a vacuum is 300,000,000 m/s. But what is the speed of gravity? How would you even measure it?
Scientists have gotten closest by measuring the speed of gravity waves. Basically, how long does the gravitational changes due to an exploding star take to affect other stars.
Some scientists believe that these gravity waves travel at the speed of light since they are limited by that of the observer and the observer only has EM transmissions to measure.
Some experimental physicists conclude that gravity travels at 2 X 10 to the tenth times c or a million, billion times the speed of light. If that is the case, that is pretty darned fast!
I chose to accept the faster figure as my working figure in Rome's Revolution. All of the interactions that occur with PPT transmissions occur virtually instantaneously. While PPT transceivers have an effective range of a light year or so, within that radius, the interaction is more or less real time.
Postulating that virtually instantaneous transmissions can occur over such large distances allowed the Overmind to form and also for MASAL to operate as he did.
If it is ever discovered that gravity only travels at the speed of light, I may have to rework some sections or invoke other dimensions (string theory anybody?) to get the velocity back up to where I need it.
Entry 1-009: December 31, 2012
The Grey Drive: quantum black holes, white holes and Hawking Radiation
When writing Rome's Revolution, it was necessary to create not one but two completely different but plausible star drives. The faster-than-light drive was actually easier because it was wilder and could not be verified or refuted. The Casimir Effect is real therefore the existence of negative energy is a real possibility. Some have speculated that space cannot exist where there is no energy so all I did was project a big blob of negative energy using "Casimir Pumps" and voila, you jumped past space yielding effectively faster-than-light travel.
The slower-than-light star drive was much more difficult since it had to be based on what we know today. Brute force chemical rockets weren't going to get it done. I decided the slow but steady method was the best bet. Solar wind is free and constant but dies off outside the Oort Cloud. So I built what I called the "Grey Drive" named after the fictitious scientist Wally Grey who invented it. It consisted of a quantum black hole and a big tank of xenon. They shot one atom of xenon at a time into the black hole to "feed" it and the atom disappeared into the black hole. Because it was so tiny, its matched white hole was only a few angstrom units away and the atom re-emerged as Hawking Radiation which pushed against a back plate and generated an infinitesimal amount of thrust. But infinitesimal times a long time results in a top speed of about 1/20th the speed of light. That was sufficient to get us to the stars.
For the first Ark, the mission to Alpha Centauri, they burned their fuel at twice the recommended rate so they were able to reach our nearest neighboring star in just over 40 years. Tau Ceti, where most of the action occurs, was just 12 light years away which means the trip there was supposed to take 240 years. Of course, the Ark II missed the mark and that formed the basis of the entire novel Rome's Revolution. Next post: cheap spaceships.
Entry 1-010: January 1, 2013
Cheap spaceships, expensive sarcophagi
I was thinking about what it would take to send people to the stars. I figured that travel over such long distance involved risk. To build a complex spaceship that could survive micrometeorites, cosmic rays, mechanical failure, etc. was unlikely. So instead of building an expensive spaceship, I had the mission planners build a cheap one, not much more than a flying tin can.
They sunk their money into building expensive, individual sarcophagi figuring any one might fail but the likelihood of all 500+ failing was very slim.
They built the Ark out of pig iron so the colonists would have some fairly refined materials to start their new life. I also made it so the nuclear power rods that reanimated the colonists could be ganged together to produce electricity for 7000 years.
Entry 1-011: January 2, 2013
Creating elementary particles with energy
The one thing the Vuduri have, that we do not, is infinite free energy. They use "Casimir Pumps" to split zero energy in neutral space into positive and negative energy. They use the negative energy to create PPT tunnels which effectively bypass normal space thus allowing them to (mathematically at least) travel faster than the speed of light.
But a by-product of the Casimir Pumps is positive energy. The Vuduri do many things with it including creating electricity. This is very handy when they are in normal space, since they need a way to drive their ships forward. So they take the excess positive energy and reverse the equation e = mc 2 and use e divided by c2 to get m. In other words, they use energy to create mass. Usually these are very elementary particles, rarely organizing more than just a ball of plasma. They then force that plasma out of jets built into their ships to get forward thrust.
They aren't much for brakes. They usually just rotate their ships around and use the plasma thrusters in retro mode to slow themselves down.
Pretty cool, huh?
Entry 1-???: January 3, 2013
No entry this day
I have no idea how I missed this day. This was a Thursday. This was before I started writing seven entries each Sunday. I must have forgotten or gotten too busy to post.
Entry 1-012: January 4, 2013
Dyson Spheres and Stareaters
The Dyson Sphere concept was invented by physicist Freeman Dyson in the late 1950s. The idea was that intelligent species could build a partial or complete sphere around a star. This would allow them to capture all of the energy emitting from the star and simultaneously create a semi-infinite amount of living space on the interior. Larry Niven took a slice of a Dyson Sphere and used it as the basis for his Ringworld series.
While the concept is fascinating, why bother? Who needs infinite energy or infinite living space?
Regardless of the reason, I was still enthralled with the idea of a gigantic sphere encapsulating a star so even with the first draft of Rome's Revolution (called VIRUS 5 back then), the "villain" was the Stareater, called Asdrale Cimatir in Vuduri. The people observing this would be in awe and terror. If it happened to your star (the Sun!!!)
all life outside of the Dyson Sphere would cease.
Click here to see my teaser/trailer illustrating a Stareater "swallowing" a star.
My hero, Rei Bierak, was able to figure out how to "defeat" the Stareater by using VIRUS units. A neat invention back in 1973 when I first came up with it but now nanotechnology is sort of old hat.
As I pushed on with Part 3 of Rome's Revolution, I wanted a double climax and the return of the Stareaters, especially to eat the Sun, seemed very exciting. You'll see how Rei and Rome defeat it in the book but suffice to say, you will be shocked as to the how and the why.
Pretty neat stuff.
Entry 1-013: January 5, 2013
Ion-powered star drives and the Tevatron
The problem with getting to the stars is that it takes a lot of energy. At least until we invent an FTL drive. Traditional chemical rockets burn up their fuel rather fast. In the late 50s, scientists came up with the original Orion concept of a nuclear powered ship which literally had a series of atomic explosions pushing the ship forward. This has fallen out of favor but may be resurrected some day by using fusion instead of fission.
So how to send people to the stars? Ion engines produce very little thrust but are extremely efficient. I came up with the idea of feeding xenon atoms to a Quantum Black Hole (QBH) and using the resulting Hawking Radiation to provide a tiny amount of thrust. Once you hit interstellar space, they would collect external space dust, hydrogen molecules, etc. to "burn up" similar to a Bussard Ramjet but no fusion involved.
As I said, ion drives produce very little thrust so it takes a long time to build up speed. Since my people are frozen, so what if the trip takes 200 years? That wasn't the issue. The problem is the QBH. They don't exist. For the story to succeed, at least my version of it, I assumed that someday someone will figure out how to do this. I don't think the Hawking Radiation idea will work but it sounds cool.
What made it even more fun was proposing that the US Government resurrected the Tevatron to produce the QBHs. The Tevatron then plays a starring role in The Ark Lords.
It is pretty neat how it all ties together. Check it out.
Rome's Revolution and The Ark Lords.
Entry 1-014: January 6, 2013
Ceramics versus metal
Rei Bierak and the colonists from Earth traveled to the stars in very cheap spaceships which were little more than very large tin cans. The mission planners sunk all their money into building the most sophisticated and secure ceramic sarcophagi to transport the frozen people. I have been asked why I built the sarcophagi out of ceramics rather than metal.
Several reasons:
1. Ceramics are extremely strong. I thought they might resist punctures by micrometeorites better than metal.
2. Lower weight.
3. Extremely resistant to tensile changes due to temperature fluctuations.
4. Thermal inertia. Once they hit interstellar space, temperatures could drop as low as 3 degrees Kelvin. As they went into orbit around their target star, some parts could get very hot. Ceramics would resist this temperature change.
5. Seemed cooler and more futuristic than metal.
6. I needed a few colonists to die due to "cracked" cases and ceramics will fracture better than metal.
You can read about it in both Rome's Revolution and The Ark Lords. Check it out.
Entry 1-015: January 7, 2013
Nuclear rods and the new colony
When sending people to the stars you must account for what they do when they get there.
I sent along seeds and animal embryos and mining equipment. I also built the Ark out of "scavengable" materials. But the very first thing I had to do was thaw out the colonists. What do you use for electricity?
I tweaked an isotope of thorium, compressed the isotope into nuclear rods and encased those nuclear rods inside a lead glass tube with a slit. Under normal conditions, you would rotate the thorium rods until a portion of their surface was exposed through the slit, heat would be generated which was converted by thermocouples into electricity which powered the thaw cycle. If the Ark crashed, the glass would shatter and you will still get the thermocouples geared up.
Later, these rods could be removed and used as sort of super-batteries to power their vehicles and equipment. This took place in Part 2 of Rome's Revolution. I also made it so they could be ganged together in serial or parallel fashion to create a power plant.
Finally, this made-up variant of thorium had a half-life of 7000 years and could be used to create the mini-nukes which figure prominently in The Ark Lords.
Entry 1-016: January 8, 2013
Wikipedia dis-approves
(Note: when this article was first posted, Rome’s Revolution was approved and had an actual page in Wikipedia. Six weeks later it was taken down. This is the only post I ever had to go back and revise.)
Rome's Revolution no longer has an official Wikipedia page!
This link no longer works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome%27s_Revolution Wikipedia article about Rome's Revolution.