69 M1 - Term: 2, Round: 1 (1/2)
Attendance at Fortescue Military Academy M1 Y:2142
House Thoth, Squad Leader, Squad Zero
M1 Rank: 1/1275, Tier 3 M-Rank: Null
Term: 2, Round: 1
Daedalus Operating Capital: 130,000 bitcreds
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The tribulations of Friday were long forgotten, the young cadets spent little time dwelling on the past when they were consumed with gauntlets, studies and research.
On the weekend the obstacle course was replaced with a long run, which kept getting longer throughout the first term. Their first runs were eight kilometres, and now they ran up to fifteen. More than that was not advisable, so they focused on getting times down and kept the maximum distance to fifteen kays.
”How did you come up with a signing bonus?” Barran asked Daedo.
”They used to have them in CyberMech with pro-teams,” Daedo replied while they ran.
”I thought you never joined a team,” Barran asked.
”No, I stayed freelance. They paid me per match,” Daedo answered.
”Oh I get it, you saw signing bonuses when they tried to sign you,” Barran observed.
”Why didn't you ever join a team?” Vannier asked.
Daedo was able to effect a slight shrug as they ran, ”I didn't want to become part of a group and follow orders I guess.”
”Look at you now!” Vannier said with a laugh.
”Yeah, it wasn't as bad as I thought,” Daedo reminisced.
”Er,” Barran observed, ”Maybe cos you're giving the orders usually?”
The cadets discussed the plan for their meeting in the afternoon with the Kangs while they ran. Keeping the pace well within their best allowed them to talk easily. When pushed Daedo and Vannier couldn't talk at all. Barran never seemed to have that issue.
When the squad arrived back at the workshop, Daedo found that Cisse had arrived and was down on lower two.
Her lab was a mass of pipes, cylinders, wires and heavy reinforcement. The last adding both reassurance and trepidation to Daedo.
”Good morning Cisse,” Daedo said politely.
She stood and gave a salute, she only received a head shake in return. ”Cisse, only people in the Military salute each other, and there are tons of rules about it.”
”Oh, I like to feel I am part of the squad,” she explained.
”Sure, we can register a private military organisation under Daedalus, you can sign up and then you can have another thousand rules to follow. Sound good?” Daedo teased.
”Ah. I think I'll pass,” Cisse replied.
”I want to start digging into all the details of the prototype, can you walk me through the plans?” Daedo asked.
”Sure sure, let's go virtual, it'll be easier,” Cisse responded.
Donning their helmets, they entered the virtual space where Cisse brought up the complicated plans for the Troika reactor prototype. She walked him through all the stages and began to explain the challenges.
”While good in theory, even with the best available designs we are struggling with particle acceleration and control,” Cisse stated.
”Is this why there are no anti-matter annihilators in use?” Daedo asked.
”Pretty much. There are several issues, containment, cost of energy of the containment, size of containment and the key issue separation and control of particles,” Cisse stated.
”The cylinder you are currently using is at what temperature?” Daedo asked.
”Three Kelvin,” Cisse stated.
”We have enough power for the accelerator and the cooling?” Daedo asked.
”I added a second Fusion reactor to the building, between that the lithium plasma and the local embedded network we are good,” Cisse explained.
”Yeah, I noticed the second, what's its rating?” Daedo asked.
The pair continued to dig into all the technical aspects of the design. Daedo felt like they were years off and needed breakthroughs in a several of the supporting technologies. The plasma, laser control, the magnetic fields and shielding. And these supporting technologies needed to use less energy than what was being created. Even if this was all conquered, they would have something that could fit into a building or a spaceship. Far too large for a Mech and especially an exo.
”You are working on laser control, do we need help with the other three?” Daedo asked.
Cisse nodded sadly. ”I thought we could at least get a prototype up and running, but the laser control alone will take me an indefinite amount of time. The magnetic fields are fine for fusion, but for these subatomic particles, we need better containment otherwise we don't control the reaction to the degree required.”
”Ok,” Daedo replied. He had no idea what Nader had in mind, but he would do as she asked. If she could find experts to help with the problematic areas then it would speed up their development, anything would be an improvement to the current status.
Daedo didn't need to tell Cisse to be careful. Her legs and memories were a constant reminder of what can go wrong.
He headed back to the main workshop floor. Old Dawg had been stripped down to his frame during the holidays, and while the new designs weren't ready, there was no reason they couldn't add the hydraulic mesh used on the exos to Old Dawg. His frame was covered with the unique power delivery system which doubles as an insulating armour.
Actuators were connected to all of Old Dawg's joints he would now be able to move under his own power once the cold fusion reactor was in place. Daedo had decided for the one large unit rather than a few micros. The weight to power gain for increasing the size was better than proportional, and the redundancy and delivery gains for having multiple micros would be offset by staging lithium plasma power storage units at each of the key conduit junctions.
Ikaros suggested, ”Let's get the reactor in so its ready for your visitors.” He was finishing off the lithium plasma storage installation by hand. The robots were not fully programmed for this sort of work, while assembling exos was automated, other tasks they had to be driven manually. Ikaros preferred to do the delicate work by hand, as opposed to voice or other remote control of a robot. That didn't stop him having them lift the heavy parts.
”Jack, bring over the reactor on from storage bay seventeen,” Ikaros ordered Jack his heavy lifting robot. Jack was on four wheels and able to lift up to ten tonnes depending on the angle and reach. This number dropped quickly to one tonne at his maximum reach. Anything heavier they used the overhead crane, which spanned the main workshop, it was rated at forty tonnes.