006 Sensors – where are we? (Dr. George Davis)

Lieutenant JG Dr. George Davis looks at the strange, crystal-grown panel with suspicion. It was smaller than the original control panel of sensor suite beta had been (and he was reasonably sure that this had been the beta suite before it was distorted into this half crystal half machinery block of strangeness), and it was missing the control chair that had been here on the Sunhawk.

But other than that, it might be what he had been looking for, a way to activate the sensors and find out where exactly they are.

No time for contemplation, I need to get started he thinks to himself and touches the crystal. As with the other cases, a holographic screen appears before him.

Advanced Detection

Direct Detection Range 20 yards Structure Level 3 Cost for Level-Up 250 Mana Detection Bonus +20 Maximum number of Eyes 3 Eye Control Available Upgrades Ears (added to Eyes) 100 Mana Simple Night Vision (added to Eyes) 200 Mana Restricted Upgrades N/A (level to low) 500 Mana N/A (level to low) 3000 Mana

Since each of us has exactly one Mana according to that wall in our cabins, I better only use the first eye for zero mana for now. Especially since I don’t want to be forced into sleep like Omnuun.

George activates the placement function. A holographic sphere appears with some sort of net or vector lines placed in parts of it. One set of lines forms an irregular vertical wall around a third of the sphere, with a second but horizontal such set almost through the center of the holographic sphere. A few sets of very small lines can be seen on the horizontal lines as well.

That looks like a very primitive and low-resolution rendering of something like a cave, and the controls move a crosshair in this area. Two buttons and are still there, but is disabled. Let’s try place and then use.

When hitting after , an additional holographic window opens and shows half of a cave entrance and a sky with daylight. Experimenting with the new controls George learns that he can turn the view from the point where he placed the eye in any direction all around, up down, left right.

He guessed wrong – it was not a cave but an indention in the side of some stone hill or so. But the placement of the eye was unlucky, he could only see the stone and the sky from there.

Hey, there is a small crystal lying on that stone in the center of the placement sphere. Don’t tell me that this is the core we are inside of? If that is regular grass there then the crystal can’t be more than two or three centimeter in size.

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 If the placement sphere represents the 20 yard direct detection range, then a size estimate of 3 centimeter would fit. But I need to see what is outside.

George cancels the use of the eye and goes back to the placement sphere. He now places the crosshair into the middle of the air above the ground, as far on the outside limit of the holographic sphere as possible before activating the function again.

Since the core is placed inside an indentation of the mountain, he is still limited to a view of about 130 degrees before the stone walls block the rest, but that is enough. They are indeed on a mountain, and a rather high one. He estimates the eye is at least one or two kilometer above the plain he sees below.

As far as he can see there are no signs of any civilization. Nothing that looks like roads or buildings or villages. And he can see extremely far.

Hmm – from this height I should be able to see the planetary curvature and a horizon, but the land just continues in all directions until it is too far away to see any details. I can even see mountains that are farther away than any visible distance on any large planet I ever have heard of. That bit about the Endless World the System mentioned might be more than just a naming convention. We’ll have to check on that later.

Dr. Davis gets to work, recording what he sees. The mountain slope goes down, but not too steep and the flora looks like regular temperate climate with forests and grassland. Farther away to the left he can see some large lake or small ocean bordering on cliffs where the land suddenly drops out of sight. There is a literal hole of several kilometers width near the middle of the viewport, and he can’t see how deep down it goes.

The border of the lake looks as if it was much larger in the past – it seems that when that hole was caused, a lot of the water dropped down there until the stone cliff was high enough to stop the rest of the water flow. Now only a tiny waterfall with excess water goes down there.

To the right the land seems to be desert and dry, completely inhospitable. He can see that that desert ends farther away, but can’t even guess on the scale other than it has to be at least hundreds of kilometers or more.

Unfortunately that is only about a third of the circumference. If I were to get the placement distance increased by twenty or thirty yards, then I would be able to place one of those eyes outside this indention, giving us at least a 180 degree view or even more.

And I don’t know what those other available upgrades are, although they require much more Mana than controlling the eyes. Something to discuss in the meeting

For the rest of the two hours George sorts through his notes and adds more details as he goes over the available views again and again.

<->

“And that concludes my report on what I can see of our surroundings, Captain. I suggest that we try to increase the range of the placement sphere at least far enough to get a better view of this side of the mountain, or try to find a way to send a probe outside the core.”

The captain thinks for a while before he answers. “Yes and no, George.

The problem is that as soon as the classification structure for is built, we will become unable to build structures for additional outside reach but gain the compression structures to expand on the inside. Or that is what I get from the available descriptions, there are still a number of details that seem to be missing.

This of course means that any such outside reach structure has priority after all primary needs are handled, but we have limited space before the classification has to be placed. Cheyenne?”

“I’ll check, but it will not be easy. On level 5 we will have 100 spaces instead of the current 22 spaces, but a quarter of that will be needed for energy storage and another quarter will be the structures from the Sunhawk that we absolutely need. We will be able to get some structures for outside expansion, but at the moment I can’t tell how many that will be. We’ll have to see how the numbers look after we reached core level 4.

I also have seen references to something called that can be used for work even outside the control sphere, but there also was a comment that this is a very limited option. I just haven’t had time to check on that, the energy calculations for level up were more important.”

“OK, I think we have everything for now. M’raan, please take Stephen and Omnuun and start to divide the equipment from this mess hall between our quarters. I haven’t decided which way we go to gain the Mana for upgrading the core, but most likely it will include demolishing this room.

George, Cheyenne, you start working on building those storage structures and gaining more Mana.”

“Aye, Aye, Captain”