No, I was not stealing Sophia’s goal. In fact, you could actually say that it was my goal first. After all, I’d been dreaming about being an astronaut and going to space ever since I was a 5 year old kid, going through his ‘wow outer space is so cool!’ phase. Come to think of it, did I ever actually grow out of that? The fact that I can actually reasonably expect to get Sophia to the moon of Hell probably goes to show that I had never really given up on my childish dream, but simply accepted it to be one of those things that could never happen due to my status of flat broke.
Besides, I needed to test all of the stuff that I was planning on Sophia using anyway, the scouting equipment, the vehicle to get her there, the way back while dealing with reentry. If I only ran every test in Hell, it would be next to impossible for me to figure out which failures are due to natural law, and which failures are due to magic law, and this world’s moon is an important tool that I can use to fill in the several gaps in my knowledge that exist due to magic. In order to actually observe a pattern, you need at least three data points after all. I already know a great deal about the problems with space travel due to research on my old world, with only natural law, making one data point. Then, with this world’s moon, I can find out the ways that magic might interfere outside of natural law. Once I do that, and I have a firm understanding of two data points, I can add in information from my tests on Hell, and make sure that all of the information is lining up in the right direction, making Sophia’s goal much more likely to succeed.
Also, if I can gain enough information from this world’s moon, I can get a sense of scaling that Hell just doesn’t allow. After all, from all of the tests I’ve done, all I’ve really determined is that Hell is just fundamentally Too Big for me to even properly comprehend. I need to put distances, sizes, gravity, proportionality, and time into a new frame of reference, but I can’t do that without actually going to Hell, something that will potentially take centuries for me to accomplish.
My casual gesture towards the moon in the night sky along with my invitation spawned a long conversation with Duke about the mechanics of Space travel, starting with the suits. Space as I know it has three ways to kill you, so the suits would need to protect against those three things. The first way that space will kill you is asphyxiation. Space is a complete vacuum, with no air to breathe, and gas of any kind, but specifically air, would immediately expand and escape due to the lack of outside pressure, so therefore, the suits would need to be completely airtight, so that an enchantment would allow for the generation of breathable air, yet also allow for the exhaled carbon dioxide to be filtered out.
The second way that space will kill you has to do with the same lack of pressure mentioned previously, causing all gasses to expand and escape. Now, the human body is a closed system, so your lungs probably won’t explode due to external pressure from your other organs and your ribs, and your skin actually keeps your blood pressure where it’s supposed to be, so contrary to popular belief, your blood itself wouldn’t actually boil. Dissolved gasses inside of your blood though? Those will expand. The nitrogen in your body would bubble up under your skin and expand, gently inflating you, and if your skin tears, all of a sudden there goes your protective seal keeping your blood pressurized, and bam, that’s when you get to the blood boiling. I may be tough now with my post-baptism body, but I’m pretty sure I still need blood to stay in a liquid state, and inside of my body. This means that to protect against this, the suits will need to be incredibly sturdy, so that there’s no risk of exploding, even in a total vacuum and filled with pressurized air.
The third way that space will kill you is actually a little bit tricky. Most science fiction movies, when someone goes out into space without a suit, show that they turn into basically a human icicle, but this actually isn’t the case, as space isn’t necessarily ‘cold’. To fully understand this, you first need to understand what temperature is.
All matter contains energy, as all atoms are kinda constantly moving around, no matter what mass they are a part of. How much energy a certain mass contains, how fast those atoms are moving is what determines the phase of matter of that mass. Matter with a low amount of energy, and therefore minimal atomic movement is a solid. Matter with considerable energy, and therefore considerable atomic movement, is a liquid, however while liquids do have a considerable amount of atomic movement, it’s still low enough for the molecules to form loose bonds and stick together, like when a raindrop falls down your window, and picks up all of the droplets on the way. Matter with too much energy though, does not do this, does not stick together, and constantly moves at high speed, making each molecule completely independent. This is gas. And then, when gas is supercharged with even more energy to the point where the atoms themselves start moving so fast that they knock loose their electrons and emit an electrical charge, this is called plasma. These are the four base states of matter, and there is a theoretical fifth state called the Bohr-Einstein condensate, basically the antithesis to plasma, a form of matter where there is no atomic movement at all, creating something like a super-solid.
Now, these states of matter are all dependent on how much energy the atoms have inside of themselves, but what if that energy gets released? What if instead of being used to move the atom, the energy contained just gets sent out into the world? Well, that’s called radiation. Now, radiation generally has a bad connotation in the world I’m from, but fundamentally, Gamma radiation, X-rays, flashlights, and candles are all the same thing. The only difference is how much energy that radiation contains. Low energy radiation includes infrared, then visible light. Then above visible light, you have ultraviolet, x rays, gamma rays, and cosmic rays. Basically, if you can see anything, and if you’re not dying of frostbite, you are being subjected to a constant stream of radiation.
Therefore, temperature can technically be defined as how much radiation you are being subjected to. However, the temperature that you physically feel generally has more to do with how fast the atoms around you are moving. The reason I explained both of these, is that outer space is kind of an extreme example of both states. On one hand, there are no atoms around you to move at all, so technically it has no temperature. On the other hand, out in space you don’t have the magnetic field or the atmosphere of the planet to protect you against gamma or cosmic rays. As for how this duality would present itself in terms of physical feeling? Basically, all of your warmth would radiate out of you into the void, causing an intense feeling of coldness, but due to the intense radiation, you wouldn’t actually freeze to death, and would instead most likely feel like you were butt naked on the south pole until eventually all of your. However, this is all purely theory, as no one who has actually experienced being subjected to outer space has exactly lived long enough to inform us as to how it felt.
So in order to combat this last way that space will kill you, the suits will need to perform two additional tasks. One, they will need to be able to reflect radiation from the cosmic rays, and two, they will need to be highly insulatory, so that none of your heat, your warmth will escape from you. This will make the suits stuffy as hell, but it probably beats excruciating death.
After I explained the necessities for the suits, I started explaining the potential ways to actually travel to the moon. I probably wouldn’t be using rockets and fuel for the trip itself, as while getting liquid hydrogen would be as simple as hitting up a lake or river and casting a couple of spells, I have no idea how to even begin calculating how much of it I would need to burn. Most likely, the travel itself would be with either fire magic, or with some form of spatial magic. The gravity magic that I tend to use also could absolutely work, however Sophia isn’t nearly as skilled with it, so as a test run for her stealing the moon, it’s inapplicable.
Theoretically I should be able to make an enchantment that could include my visualization of the concept of gravity and acceleration, but that has two innate problems. To understand this, we’ll first need to understand what acceleration actually means.
Speed is defined as a change in position, within a certain change in time. This can be written as:
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
dPosition / dTime
Velocity is speed, but as a vector, which means that it innately carries within it the concept of direction. This can be written as:
dPosition in direction x / dTime
Acceleration is just like Velocity, where it is a vector, however what it is measuring is a change in velocity within a certain change in time. This can be written as:
dVelocity / dTime
Which, if we add in the definition of Velocity into that, lengthens into:
d( dPosition in direction x / dTime) / dTime
This means that Acceleration can be defined in three ways. The first way is that speed changes. If speed increases, this is a positive acceleration, and if it decreases, this is negative acceleration. However, the second way that acceleration can be defined is in change in Velocity, rather than Speed, so that speed is maintained, but the direction that you’re moving is changing. For a visual, imagine a car doing donuts in a parking lot. This is an example of a constant Acceleration with no change in Speed. The final, and most difficult way to deal with, that Acceleration can be defined, is when Speed and Direction are both changing. A visual for this one is like a sling, being spun around your head. The direction that the weight on the end is constantly changing, and as you gradually spin it faster, the speed is also increasing, but as long as you increase it at the same rate throughout, Acceleration could be said to be constant.
And one more math word that will be relevant: Jerk. Jerk is defined as the change in Acceleration within a certain change in time. This means that if your car starts at 0 mph, and you hit the gas, and within 5 seconds you are going 5 mph, you are accelerating at 1 mph/s. Now, if you increase to 2 mph/s, then in another 5 seconds, you are now moving at 15 mph. This change in acceleration is called a Jerk. The reason that Jerks are relevant, is that Gravity is not constant. How hard it pulls, how intense the acceleration due to gravity is, is directly proportional to how close you are to the celestial body in question. This is why the Sun hasn’t pulled all of the planets in our Solar system into it, as well as why the entire Milky Way Galaxy hasn’t been consumed by the supermassive blackhole that it circles.
How this applies to us is twofold. One, as we leave the Earth or Hell, the gravity that we are fighting against will be constantly changing. Normally, this exact rate of change could be calculated beforehand, but both the fact that Hell and this new Earth’s Gravity is theoretically far lower than it should be, which means that there’s some form of magical interference that changes how intensely Gravity is experienced, as well as the fact that apparently, Gravity is subjective, as demonstrated by the falling speeds of Veronica vs. Sophia and Sean, make calculating the change in gravitational pull extraordinarily difficult, if not outright impossible. The second way that this applies is that we’re not only leaving our planet’s gravity, but we’re also entering our Moon’s gravity. This is another Jerk that we’ll have to work with.
Therefore, to make this work, I would have to create an enchantment for controlling Jerk, and thereby be able to modify acceleration as the situation demands. Functionally, rather than making a one time use rocket that would get us to the moon and back to the planet, I would be making a vehicle that could travel through space, kind of like a spacecraft car, with both a positive accelerator to speed up, and a negative accelerator to slow down. The big issue with this is: how would I power it? Well, it’s an enchantment, so I would have to use stored mana or my own personal mana. However, now the problem is how the hell am I going to store enough mana to actually power an enchantment that could escape a planet’s gravitational pull? My flying enchantments may be able to run for hours on a single charge, but those are based on Velocity. If I made them based on Acceleration, I’d be able to make them fly way faster, but the mana output would most likely increase exponentially as a result. Given the size of this planet I’m on, not to even mention Hell, I have absolutely no clue how far the gravitational pull reaches. Theoretically, it could potentially be the distance of my original world’s entire solar system, which brings me to my next problem:
Travel time. If the previous concern is correct and the distance between Hell and the moon is in fact similar to the distance between my old Sun and Pluto, then if the speed that we’re traveling at is approximately the same as it would be if we used a rocket, it would take potentially decades to reach the moon, and our odds of actually landing on it decrease dramatically, given the fact that the moon is constantly moving at millions of mph. If it is that distance, then even if I managed to make a spacecraft that could travel at light speed, the trip there would take a few hours, but then you would have the problem of being about to crash into a big ass rock at the SPEED OF LIGHT.
Another major field of concern is the fact that nobody who leaves the ground in Hell notices the ground zooming under their feet. Normally, this is quite convenient, especially when you’re flying, as you have more control over where you’re going. The reason it concerns me though, is the question of why you don’t. If Hell is in fact stationary, and the rest of the celestial bodies are orbiting around it, then I don’t really have to modify my calculations at all, and can just send them to arrive at where the moon will be in relation to their own observed night sky. However, if there is some other force that is constantly rotating them while they are in the air, keeping them anchored to the spot they left from, that is a huge problem. That means that the location where they leave the atmosphere and gravitational pull could potentially be millions of miles West of where they initially launched from. This is information I wouldn’t have until I successfully manage to launch some sort of probing drone into orbit.
The most realistic solution for travel is teleportation. I would have to make something that I could launch at the moon, then when it lands, use it to tear open space and make a wormhole that you could simply step through and arrive at the moon. This would also make the return trip significantly easier, as I wouldn’t have to worry about the fact that stealing the moon would take away our launch site, or the intensity of reentry. The problem with teleportation though, is the fact that I would need to make an enchantment that has a range that could stretch all the way to the moon. So far, the only one that actually seems to be able to do that is my own personal Leo enchantment.
The fact that I can use it to communicate with the demons over in Hell signifies that something about that specific enchantment has an innate ability to reach me, no matter where I happen to be. The only other thing that has demonstrated the same capability is the soulbond between me and Sophia. This begs the question, does my Leo enchantment create something like a pseudo soulbond between me and whomever activates it? Sophia hasn’t mentioned any potential risks of using it, even when I handed her one to give to Sean, which most likely means that there’s practically no chance of someone using it to ‘hack into’ my soul and possess me or anything.
The other interesting facet of the Leo enchantment is that it seems like anyone can use it. One has to remember that the only two individuals who can run their mana through my Aspect Manifestation are myself and Sophia. However, for some reason, Ash, Veronica, and Sean all have no problems communicating through the Leo enchantment. What if, in order to use my Aspect Manifestation, you need to connect with my soul in some way? This would explain why only Sophia and I can use my thread normally, and if the Leo enchantment does in fact operate like a low scale soulbond, it would also explain why anyone can use it even when it’s stitched from my Aspect Manifestation Cloth.
What all of this tells me is that in order to make an enchanted anything that could still function on the moon, it would need to be controllable directly from the soul. However, I know jack diddly about the soul, and so have no way to conceptually enchant ‘soul control’ into an object.
As I explained all of the physics, chemistry, and magic-mechanical engineering problems I was facing, I received three different reactions from the gnome, the elf, and the catgirl. Duke was stroking his tiny goatee, eyebrows knit together and nodding along, keeping up with all of my various explanations and most likely trying to come up with solutions. X had his eyebrows raised, and kept glancing towards Ash, who simply shook her head in response. Ash had on the expression she always showed me whenever I started ranting about science to her, glazed eyes, and a wry smile, the look a parent might give a small child, as the child incoherently rambled on about cool dinosaur facts for the 39456936190th hour in a row.
As I was teaching all of this to apparently only Duke, due to the fact that the other two weren’t even pretending to understand what I was talking about, I also made sure to send all of this information through the telepathy link, so that Sean and Veronica would be on the same page, and could potentially help find solutions. However, all I got in response was Veronica saying,
“Look, I’m sorry I doubted you before okay? I get it, you’re smarter than me, I won’t complain about the tests any more.”
And Sean adding in,
“I do apologize that I can’t be of more assistance, but to be perfectly candid, this is way out of my depth, and I fear that my intervention or attempts to assist would only serve to derail you. It is probably more prudent of me to simply focus on practicing attuning my mana in order to refill both Veronica and Desire’s Flame’s mana pools while they are conducting their respective spells to steal the moon.”
And a very helpful message from Sophia through the soulbond about just how much she….enjoyed…watching me intellectually whip it out.
Which means that the only potential help I might receive is from the gnome sitting before me, still stroking his tiny beard and asking clarifying questions about the underlying concepts of math, physics, and chemistry. And so I spent the rest of the night answering all of his questions, in the hopes that his fresh perspective might allow him to find simple solutions to the problems that I was facing, that I was simply too close to fully observe.