Personal notes number 17982z182 – General notes
“I’ll never hire another human,” was the declaration from a Rixian captain.
From what I could tell, the Rixian was rather intoxicated (on what I couldn’t exactly be sure, but I ordered them another round and made moves to talk to them).
The Rixian captain was captain of a small-time mining cooperative ship that transited mostly between three systems, trying to offload ore at the best price possible. Not something that would meet my requirements to socialize with more humans and learn more about their advancements in the empire, but anecdotal evidence from respected citizens in the Empire wouldn’t go amiss to the ISB, especially since how humans were getting on with the Empire also had to do with how the citizens of the Empire were getting on with humans.
And the captain was a solid lead on that front.
As it turned out, nearly two imperial years ago, the Rixian has taken on a human claiming to be a mining engineer. Said they had ways of purifying ores using imperial technology to make it more cost effective to not only mine it, but also transport it.
The Rixian and the cooperative had had their doubts, but any benefit that they could eek out of their mining claims and especially if it was easy to use, well, they couldn’t say no to that.
And so the human had been given a short term contract and carried out to one of the main digs.
Tungsten, iridium, and iron were the prime extractions with limited refining done in orbit, but energy resources being what they are and the price of low-grade vs high-grade elemental compositions being what they are, it wasn’t worth doing too much to the ores, but simple improvements were almost always welcome.
The human, a Carter Weisen [research notes below], had arrived and almost immediately started tearing through the automated asteroid mining systems.
[Insert: Imperial profile on one Carter Weisen]
Carter Weisen [pronunciation guide]
Age: 80 Imperial years [native years calculator]
Species: Human/Terran
Homeworld: Sol 3 (Native Name) – Ixetun-251 Planet 3.1
Profession: Engineer (non-certified), Inventor (non-certified)
Travel Visa: Unlimited-Civilian
Family: None-registered
Medical history quality: Extensive [Medical History Link]
[End insert]
According to the human, the automated mining systems were discarding substantial quantities of ore simply because they didn’t meet the minimum purity standards.
The cooperative had argued back that minimum purity standards had to be maintained in order to be able to sell the ore (or minor refinements) at a reasonable value. The cooperative had further pointed out that a number of asteroids simply weren’t profitable given the amount of junk material between the mining gear and the ores in question.
The human however appeared to not accept this, arguing that their methods were far too standard [cooperative maintains Imperial Mining Code requirements 2581-4820: Governance of Mining Cooperatives of Class R size] and that they needed to adapt to produce results with those.
The cooperative writ large was apparently skeptical, but authorized the human to take one of the mining platforms to a series of deep core ore asteroids and demanded a demonstration of just what the human was suggesting.
It took 3 imperial months before the human was ready, during which time, the human managed to run up a substantial tab in food, chemicals, and additional hardware which had no obvious purpose.
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As this tab ate into the cooperative’s funds, there was a growing suspicion that the human wasn’t worth the funds and the contract should be terminated early. About that time though, the human called a meeting of the board and indicated a demonstration was ready. The captain happened to be a major holder in the cooperative and was in system at the time, so naturally he was invited.
The mining platform was almost unrecognizable when the board arrived. And it was a mess to boot. Bubbles of chemicals from apparently slow leaks were in places where no pipes had breviously existed. Suspicious looking corrosion covered half of the once regularly serviced surfaces. And the ore pick-up area had been filled with massive tanks.
The several members of the board had wanted to terminate the human’s contract then and there, just for the massive amount of unauthorized changes to the mining platform. [According to the aforementioned Imperial Mining Code, this would have been authorized due to the strict limitations on standard Class G Mining Platforms, which the cooperative was authorized for. This was decidedly avoided due to the exceptions allowing for Temporary Functional Changes for Demonstration Purposes – Exception 132.]
The human had then appeared and led the board through to an observation platform.
“You’ve been utilizing standard break and scrap type mining,” the human had declared to the board. “And it’s time that you joined the collective on chemical mining.”
And with that, the human had thrown a rather large switch, which the human had apparently specifically fabricated for the look of the thing.
The asteroid in question – Stellar Object 8317 – Deep Core elements of iridium, carbon, iron, and traces, Primary composition – planetary ejecta basalt – Estimated value : [Error- insufficient Mining Guild credentials].
The asteroid apparently seemed to become porous as pipes which replaced the primary drill heads and ore collectors thudded with chemicals being dumped into the bulk of the asteroid and a vacuum was drawn by the platform, pulling the results (what didn’t freeze on rapid expansion in the void) into the tanks the board had walked by in the dock.
After a period of time, the human had slammed the switch back to an off position and the thundering of the platform had ended. There had been no obvious change to the asteroid, other than the mass of crystallized chemicals leaking from various cracks in the surfaces and hanging around the surface.
Excitedly, the human had led them to the dock where they’d found the tank registering at a quarter full.
Inside, the human had explained, was a kind of liquified chemical slurry of the iron, iridium, and a few trace metals that the human hadn’t been able to figure how to purify out.
The board was naturally skeptical as to the human’s claims and so the question was asked – “so what now?”
The human looked confused.
“What do you mean?” the human had asked.
“What do we do with this chemical slurry that you claim has all these metals?” the board had responded.
“You sell it,” the human had said, still looking confused.
The board had more or less become very angry at this as they’d never heard of anyone wanting unpurified chemical slurry of anything, let alone metals. [Note: Chemical purification of metals is highly regulated and is typically only used outside of temperature elemental purification for specific purposes, resulting in a higher per-unit cost. This would explain why the cooperative most likely hadn’t been privy to this. Chemical purification also typically works with already partially purified elements rather than raw materials.]
The human had then apparently taken a sample off the tank and walked over to a bench with some rather simplistic looking transparent silicon and poured the sample into it. After applying a mixture of heat and electricity, the human had inserted a black rod, identified later as carbon, and held it in the solution for several minutes before pulling it back out, the inserted portion covered with a very solid coating of metal.
The board was familiar with the process of electrolysis, but given the cost of chemicals most commonly used with it and the lack of adequate purity control relative to raw materials, it had never been a real option for the cooperative.
The board had taken the sample and ran it through the platform’s onboard sampler. The result was an order of magnitude more pure than what their solar furnace could readily produce (even if it was still a mix of metals). This made several members of the board want to immediately run the numbers on what it would take to convert to this chemical mining across the system. Others were more skeptical, including the captain.
“What’s the catch to all this efficiency?” one had prompted.
With an apparent sense of timing, the platform’s automated warning sirens started going off and the board and the human rushed to get off and undocked to the minimum safe distance.
From their vantage point then, they were able to witness the platform erupt with expanding and then freezing liquids, metals rapid oxidizing, and the asteroid seeming to shatter as the platform shuddered several times over.
“It… uh… it’s not the most stable process yet, but I’ll get that solved. I just need a bit longer to work on solving that bit,” the human had admitted, but by that point, the damage was done.
The contract was closed and the cooperative’s losses were cut at all the chemicals the human had been deemed to have wasted and the loss of an entire mining platform.
The human had left peacefully enough, but several members of the board had wanted to go after the human for unwarranted damages. Unfortunately, the human had been picked up by some other entity and no further information was available at that time.
According to the Rixian captain, who was at this point very intoxicated thanks to another two rounds of whatever it was, as long as they were on the board, they would never work with another human again.
This was the first anti-human sentiment that I have logged. Species-ism isn’t uncommon within the Empire, but it isn’t officially condemned at the present time to such a degree that the Empire will take specific action against it. As noted with Lilith, employers are most frequently likely to run up against the guilds and the unions vice specific species. And given that many employers have location/species specific requirements for particular work, it would be unreasonable to not permit some degree of species-ism.
[End notes on Rixian Captain]
My next ship has arrived and I’m onboard a freighter with a human crewmate, Laroth Mumuni. More notes to follow interactions and interviews.
This time, I picked a more appropriate gift – a set of seasonings which the human should be able to ingest without nearly poisoning the rest of the crew (myself included).