Once they had shed enough velocity and were able to glide safely within the atmosphere, they studied the planet and selected a landing spot, glided in and landed on the belly of the craft which was made of a much stronger metal than most of the ship. After landing, the three command crew members were then tasked with awakening the 500+ members of their crew.
Once the new colonists were settled, the command crew climbed back into the command module, ignited the Single Stage To Orbit (SSTO) booster and went back into space. They docked with the orbiting cargo compartment and brought it down near the colony using the same aero-braking technique.
As I mentioned earlier, this was how it was drawn up on paper. Of the five Arks, only three were able to land this way. We all know about how Ark II landed; after all this was the subject of Rome's Revolution. However, how the Deucadons got there first is a story for another day.
Entry 1-041: February 3, 2013
Landing without landing gear
One of the coolest things about writing (and I'm sure this does not apply just to science fiction) is that half the time, I'm not telling the characters what to do, they tell me.
A lot of times I just throw stuff in there to flesh things out and a week, a month or sometimes several years will pass then the light bulb goes off. So that's why they did it!
The whole plot of The Ark Lords came out of random things I threw into Rome's Revolution to flesh the story out. The whole back-story behind MASAL being the ultimate bad guy was an accident. I had just tried to build a future history and these things just sprang out of that.
Anyway, the point to this was I never thought about how the Arks would actually land on a planet until yesterday's blog entry. I wrote in that article that they glided in and did a belly landing but that the bottom of Ark was made of a much stronger material. It sounded like I had thought this through.
I didn't!
I originally had the entire Ark made out of pig iron, top to bottom. I did that because I needed a magnetic material for a little short story, since removed, called Rei's Space Walk. When I first wrote VIRUS 5, the precursor to Rome's Revolution, I actually had the Ark made out of aluminum.
Changing it to pig iron then allowed me to say it was on purpose because that way colonists could easily melt it down, cannibalizing the ship for building materials.
Well, as I was writing The Ark Lords, when Rome came upon the rusting out hulk of the original Ark, if it ALL rusted out, there would be nothing left so I had to quick switch the lower third to martensite, a kind of stainless steel, which was much tougher but still magnetic.
So now I'm writing yesterday's blog entry and I realized, duh, that was yet another reason why the underbelly had to made out of a rugged material was because of the landing. No wheels, no struts, just belly-flopping.
Bottom line: these characters truly have a life of their own and they always amaze me by thinking things through, even if I did not. I get to be a reader too sometimes!
Entry 1-042: February 4, 2013
Building a rocket that still works after 1000 years
Building a rocket to Mars is one thing. Building a rocket that is still functional after a thousand years is quite another. First, you have to freeze the crew. Otherwise, they'd be long dead before you got there. Second, it has to be as simple as possible. The fewer moving parts, the less likely something will break. Third, volatile propellants will dissipate over time. Magnetism is reliable. I had my characters use magnetic boots to grip the outer hull of the Ark. Magnetism lasts a long time.
The Ark used solid-state fuel for their retros and their SSTO booster. In theory, the fuel could last ten times that. Finally, the explosive "bolts" that were used to separate the various sections of the Ark weren't bolts at all. It was a continuous ring of thermite. This would be stable for the requisite time. To ignite it and separate the sections, a space walk is required. You can see the mechanics in the short story "Rei's Space Walk" to be published in 2014 but here is a synopsis:
Rei pulled the cover free, exposing a crank. He turned the crank which energized a magneto which rotates a permanent magnet around within a coil. The resultant EM force is stored within a capacitor. When the capacitor is fully charged, shorting it out causes a spark which ignites the thermite. Thermite is very stable. Rei had a little trouble but he was able to overcome it. Here's a brief excerpt:
“Stuck, duh,” Rei thought to himself. He pressed the ignition switch and stood up. A puff of smoke shot out of the rim of cargo section where the lattice-work attached. The smoke raced around the circumference of the ship until it was out of sight. Rei bent past the rear stabilizer and in a less than a minute, the circle of smoke came back around, ending where it began.
He was successful, in the end. He was able to jettison the propulsion section and MINIMCOM was able to tow the Ark at a 20% higher velocity thus getting them to Deucado in under a year.
Entry 1-043: February 5, 2013
How did the Deucadons crash land?
When the Deucadons arrived at their primary target, 82 G. Eridani, their AI discovered there were no habitable worlds. So the computer fired up their Grey Drive and they proceeded to their secondary target, Tau Ceti.
As mentioned yesterday, simpler is better. Fewer moving parts are fewer things to break. So the lifting surfaces on the gigantic delta wings on the Arks were controlled by actual wires. Unfortunately, the control wires to the delta wings were damaged so the Ark III would not be able to enter the atmosphere using the normal aero-braking technique.
What to do? The Captain and the command crew had terrible fights on how to proceed. One of them wanted to grab a group of women and stuff them in the cargo module and just fly it down. The thinking was they would reproduce and in a hundred years, they would have developed the technology to go up and retrieve the remaining crew. The Captain wanted to take the crew compartment down even if it meant forgoing ever retrieving the cargo compartment.
In the end, the Captain won. Using a maneuver that was the ultimate in last resort, they spun the Command Module and SSTO booster around and docked with the crew compartment facing backwards. They fired the SSTO booster as a super-retro rocket and were able to slow their velocity down sufficiently that they merely crash-landed.
Most of the colonists, frozen in blocks of ice, survived the crash. The Captain, Pilot and Co-pilot all died. But several of the remaining survivors thawed and were then able to thaw out the remaining crew members.
Sadly, they had to start their new colony with only "the clothes on their back." They had it very rough for many, many years. Further compounding their troubles, a huge asteroid crashed down forming the crater that eventually became Lake Eprehem and many of the colonists (actually the Darwin group) died in the explosion.
The people remaining, who came to be known as The Deucadons, sought refuge underground and lived there for half a millennium until liberated by Rei and Rome.
Entry 1-044: February 6, 2013
Poor Deucado - Bashed to bits
Much of the action in the universe surrounding Rome's Revolution and The Ark Lords takes place on the world called Deucado which orbits Tau Ceti. Tau Ceti is a G-class star (the same as the Sun) and only 11.9 light years away. So far, five potential exo-planets have been possibly detected as orbiting the star.
In my universe, I postulated Deucado as a small world, 90% of the mass of the Earth, second in orbit around the star. The third planet out, a gas giant called Grentadar, is about twice the size of Jupiter. One last fact is known, the Kuiper Belt surrounding Tau Ceti has been measured to be about 10 times the density of that surrounding the Sun.
The Kuiper Belt is filled with ice and asteroids and rocks just waiting to fall inward and eventu
ally hit something. In my books, that something is usually Deucado. From high up, its surface is heavily pock-marked from all the meteors and asteroid hits. However, because it has a dense atmosphere and weather, the craters wear down much smoother than the Moon.
I speculated that the only reason life developed at all on Deucado is because Grentadar acted somewhat as a "shield" to snag many objects that would have otherwise rained down on Deucado.
At the heart of the next novel, entitled Rome's Evolution, you will find out there was a "quiet" period of several million years where Deucado avoided extinction class events. This was just long enough for a sentient, vertebrate species to arise. By the time Rei and Rome got there, there was no evidence that there was ever any such species. And so many oddly shaped caves, with roofs so smooth, they seemed almost artificial.
Coincidence? I think not!
Entry 1-045: February 7, 2013
Will our Sun go nova some day?
Short answer: No!
Long answer: I proposed that the "purpose" of the Stareaters was to consume stars before they go nova, supernova or hypernova. Our sun, Sol, does not have enough mass to go in that direction.
Instead, it will slowly consume all its fuel and become a red giant. We have about 5 billion years left before this happens.
So the Stareaters coming to take our star because it was going to go nova some day was a little bit of dramatic license. They did say they were curious as to why there was gravitic modulation emanating from our Solar System which was consistent with sentient life. Rome, through Aason, contacted them and dissuaded them from eating our sun. At least for the next million years or so.
So you will have to forgive me but it sure was fun to add in that second climax.
Entry 1-046: February 8, 2013
Planetary targets for the various Arks
Ark I - primary target: Alpha Centauri. Mission status - successful. Ark landed as designed. Viable colony established. Until they were decimated by a civil war and exterminated by the indigenous Piranha Rats.
Ark II - primary target: Tau Ceti. Mission status - ultimately successful after a delay of 14 centuries. Ark landed using atypical method (PPT tunnel punch-through). Viable colony established among already established indigenous population.
Ark III - primary target: 82 G. Eridani. Mission status - primary target had no habitable planets. Secondary target: Tau Ceti. Mission status at secondary target - partially successful. Crew compartment damaged. Able to land but several crew members killed and cargo compartment lost. Viable colony established although small subset was obliterated due to an asteroid strike.
Ark IV - primary target: Nu2 Lupi. Mission status: unknown.
Ark V - primary target: Chara. Mission status - primary target had no habitable planets. Secondary target: Solar system. Mission status at secondary target - partially successful. Viable colony established and enhanced by capture and taming of indigenous population. Ultimately, untamed masses exterminated original colony. (See Hanry Ta Jihn)
So... whatever did happen to Ark IV? You'll find out in 2014 in the novel entitled The Milk Run.
Entry 1-047: February 9, 2013
Are the Onsiras pure evil?