Engineer’s Log Day 176.1

Today’s the daaaaay. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and I’m soon going to be detonating some TNT! It’s boom day and I could not possibly be more excited! I’m running quick last second diagnostics on the shields to make sure that in the very unlikely event that something goes boom a bit prematurely, I’m already shielded. Fortunately for me, all “funny” weather events are done and my tech is good to go! I’m practically vibrating with both giddiness and stress. Casually hauling enough tonnage to make a very noticeable crater if I mess up anything along the way. Like… yikes but also lets go!

I’m glad I’m not having to supply the majority of the blasting materials as that would be a little touchy. Fortunately, the xythans have now finished their specially designed stuff from which we shall be pulling from. I’d done a bit of asking to see what they currently had and from the sounds of it they have an extensive horde though ill suited for the task at hand. I wasn’t able to weasel any specific numbers out of them but it definitely seems like they have a lot more explosives than they initially let on. Frankly though, it’s all the same to me in the end so long as they don’t make it my problem. I’m more than willing to let them have the privilege of dragging that level of payload in their aircraft and most certainly willing to keep it away from my base.

Engineer’s Log Day 176.2

Aight, back home now but today took a relatively unexpected turn. I knew I was excited to blow some stuff up and I knew they were excited to blow stuff up but I really didn’t expect the level of glee demonstrated. It was like watching a kid in a candy shop except it’s Richy Rich and he just bought the building and is running around eating all the candy he wants. That isn’t to say that they were careless in their work. They were triple checking their gear and explosives when I arrived and showed the utmost professionalism when actually dealing with the explodey bits but I don’t think I ever saw xythans grinning as much as this group. Not that I’m one to speak, I’m 100% sure I had the exact same grin slapped across my face. The only bit I found truly offputting was probably the fact that after each detonation, they would all start howling. I asked one of them what the deal was with the howling and got a bit of a history lesson.

Turns out the whole howling thing is a bit of ritual dating all the way back to their race’s early years on their home planet. Well, earlyish years. Apparently, explosives were waaay more prominent in their history than ours due to the combination of their planet having more of the resources needed to make things go boom in natural abundance and the fact that explosive sounds are an unsurprisingly effective way at dealing with sensitive ears. It was apparently a common tactic to start off most of their fights with sound bombs in an attempt to deafen their enemies. Obviously, the tactics and countertactics for this spiraled off in their own interesting ways but the important context is that for a long time a blast would mean battle. As such, as a remembrance of those who fought and died in the past, xythans will howl after blowing stuff up. Honestly, that’s kinda metal and I’m absolutely with it. They even let me howl along in some of the later blasts.

Thanks to our prep work, everything went extraordinarily smoothly and we were able to clear out the area we wanted with minimal issues. Obviously, I’m going to let things settle for a few days before I start working on clearing out the area and making the space livable but I’m feeling good about progress.

Speaking of progress, I’ve finished my redesign of the shields and am working to get them all printed this evening. They ended up coming out a little bit bigger than I’d hoped but they’re still pretty manageable. I’ll unfortunately need to do a bit more work actually digging them in than I’d like but that’s kinda how it is. Maybe I can conscript some folks for an official peacekeeping diplomatic mission? I feel like I could swing that.

Engineer’s Log Day 177

It’s a bit late at this point, so I’m going to be trying to keep the log brief. I’ve gotten the shields down in the forest planted and marked each area with a small red X. I did end up conscripting Glysia and one of her pals and was able to get everything down in the end. I’ve set a few remote controls up so that the shields can be powered up remotely by me or the xythans. Once activated, stomping on the top 3 times should activate the shields. Now, this does run the risk of the shields activating prematurely if something sufficiently big walks through the area but I can’t imagine that’ll be an overly large issue if there is an active fight going on. Honestly, worst-case scenario would be a group of our guys running through the area, triggering it, and any stragglers getting bounced. Granted, I decided to make a slow shield so even if they charge full tilt into it their impact shouldn’t be that bad. Depending on the fortifications in the town, I may or may not want to do hard shields there

Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever talked about shields before on the audio log. This may not be such a short log. Ok ok ok where to start… uhhhhhh ok got it. So there are a large number of various types of shields but the basic concept is to project energy in a manner that has certain physical properties. Technically speaking, the field of science is adjacent to slipspace tech in our Ender Drives but instead of pushing a ship just above the surface of reality, we are pulling bits of slipspace into our area. I won’t explain the exact mechanics of how it works but I can go into the applications. In terms of shields, there are huge swathes of various types you can make but they can generally be categorized into three main types. Those three are hardlight shields, slow shields, and momentum shields.

Hardlight shields are the easiest to understand. They function very similarly to walls or floors. Functionally, you can make all sorts of fun, complex shapes with them although the energy cost increases the more complex you get so most of the time you stick with basic shapes. Once activated, you can’t really edit the shape until you stop providing energy to that location. These bad boys have a pretty high energy cost by default though so if you want them to work you have to have either a big battery or some automatic optimization. This is the same type of shield that I currently use for the HARP and base. Technically speaking, they’re optimized to only turn on when they need to help preserve power.

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Slow shields are a bit more complex in their construction but have a few handy features. The primary feature we enjoy is that these shields function in a non-Newtonian manner. That is to say, if a given object hits the wall fast enough, the wall will be solid and vise versa where objects traveling at slow speeds can slide through the wall. These types don’t take nearly as much power as hard shields but you can’t make anything nearly as complex. Now, I’m not saying you can’t do complex things with them but getting a generator to make anything more than a dome or wall is actually hellish. The one big weakness of these types is that it is far easier to hit an upper limit on shield toughness. As a result, these types have a tendency to shatter far more easily.

The last type is momentum shields which are rather hard to explain. You can use them to maneuver spaceships in ways that would never be possible with just thrusters. I don’t fully understand the underlying mechanics of these because this particular facet of the field of science is incredibly complex but the most generalized version is that these things store and generate momentum while they are activated. There is a bit of an issue though when you want to turn them off as they will try and take the net of that momentum generated and stored and just release it which can potentially be catastrophic.

You know, it’s been a while since I’ve just talked about this stuff. I remember having to explain it to my aunts and uncles every year at family reunions. Those were always a bit awkward but definitely fun. Made me feel like an absolute nerd in all the best ways. Mom always loved showing me off. I wonder if I’ve got some pictures saved from some of those reunions somewhere on my PC. I should go find those. Bet Darana would laugh a bit at them.

I also just looked at the time and I should go to bed.

Engineer’s Log Day 178

Today was a massive fucking mess of a diplomatic proportions. Got into a fight, have been temporarily banished to my base, and am generally quite cut up. To top it all off, I’m still more than a little mad.

I’d been asked to help get some protections in the town set up a bit ago and so I decided today was as good as any other to get that done. Figured I’d make a day of it and do my diplomatic socializing also since I’d be around for a while. There were three different points that I was supposed to reinforce with shielding and since these needed to be heavier emplacements, I couldn’t use a battery for them like yesterday.

I ended up deciding to take a bit of a short cut and repurpose some of the shield generator back ups I had sitting around. Spent a good amount of time in the morning adjusting the generators, making sure they all were compatible with the xythans power supplies and were outputting correctly. Once I had it all good to go, I grabbed Darana and Bayfur and we were off. Got through the first two generators without issue. I’d been overly worried for almost nothing as it would turn out and once a few of the engineers came over to say hello, the ice was officially broken and I was able to chat with a few of the townsfolk.

Issues kinda made themselves apparent right as I was wrapping up the last generator. Two large kinda surly looking xythans wandered over to pay a visit. I don’t remember their names but I do remember the faces. These two were some of the folks that taken potshots at me for a few months.

Initially, all they did was belittle me. Untrustworthy blah blah unfit for survival blah blah blah. You know the works. I probably would have been annoyed by them in all honesty, but I made the executive decision to just try to ignore them. Obviously, they got pretty irritated by my ignoring them and decided to try and get into my space. Darana stepped in to try and keep things from escalating and at this point they turned their aggression on her. Slung some nasty stuff ranging from accusations of being a traitor all the way to insulting her dead husband. To her absolute credit, Darana maintained her composure throughout and didn’t start anything. I regret to inform you that Bayfur did not though and he decided to go on the offensive on their legs. Then the fuckers kicked him off.

Now, I’ve seen a variety of emotions from Darana but the face she made right then was definitely a new one. She’s clearly furious and jumps to Bayfur’s defense but the two were ready for such a response and began to physically gang up on her. Bit of a shame they weren’t ready to catch my hands though. Clocked one, shoulder-checked the other, and now a proper brawl had broken out.

I’d like to think I gave as well as I got but xythans tend to be armed with a lot more dangerous natural weapons in the form of vestigial claws and very much not vestigial teeth. My work gear and torso are absolutely shredded but I am pretty sure I broke a few of their bones.

I don’t know how long exactly we were fighting but we were eventually pried apart by a security team. From there, I was given basic medical attention and escorted back to my base.

Darana or Bayfur were taken off with the security team, I haven't seen them since, and some of my tools are still over there. I’m incredibly pissed.

Engineer’s Log Day 179

Feeling a bit better today. Started off talking to Sarlunt and was given an update on the situation. The two chucklefucks who started shit are in hot water right now and will likely continue to be so for a good while. Darana was being held for the night as she apparently got a somewhat deep scratch on her leg but was apparently getting released with doctors orders for rest.

Naturally, I quickly dashed over to check for myself and fortunately she was quite alright. She was back in her old house temporarily and had a few neighbors keeping an eye on both her and Bayfur. When I arrived she was more concerned about my honestly superficial scratches and trying to fuss over me instead of resting. I had the absolute privilege of pointing out the irony of the situation since I don’t think it could be any richer considering our history and she knows it. Frankly, I think we’re just both glad the other is ok. Ended up sticking around most of the day just talking with her and keeping an eye on Bayfur before getting chased off by the neighbors to go rest myself. I’ll be visiting again tomorrow but I reckon we can both take a few days off.