From: Bob Schroeck (rms@ourtown.fen)
To: Operation FIREFALL Mailing List (firefall@sovietairforce.fen)
Date: November 23, 2016
Subj: [FIREFALL] Re: Operational Planning
General Fnord (fnord@sovietairforce.fen) said:
> I'm a little leery of putting noncombatants right into the middle of a potential
> crossfire like that.
That's already taken care of. We have arrangements in place to house the kids
off the Corners in the event of something like this.
> Yeah, I *know* that the CSA isn't likely to have anything
> that can hurt the Corners in one throw, but they do have a shitload of arty and
> the station makes for a nice fat target. A massed strike could very well crack
> the hull or spring the seals.
General, I don't think you quite understand. We're not a standard fenship. We
don't have a hull or seals in the sense that you're thinking of. Our dome is essentially
one solid piece of the silicon equivalent of diamond, and our underside is *3/8ths of
a mile* of *solid bedrock*. And we run on a spindizzy. I'm sure you know what
that is and does, but if you don't, check out James Blish's "Cities in Flight". The
upshot of this is, we are guaranteed to be invulnerable to anything up to a good-
sized nuke, and Peg's brother Dave -- he's the doctor of physics -- is pretty sure
we could fly through a multimegaton blast and not scratch the dome.
We'd make a perfect battlestar or something if the damned 'wave would let us
actually attach weapons. Apparently it's a quirk we didn't know about before now --
any weapon bigger than a handgun that is affixed to the Corners simply stops working.
And we're too slow to ram anything. So about the only thing we *can* do is hover
over hostiles at any altitude down to 0 inches, as needed. I respectfully request, sir,
that you let us do that when it would have the best effect.
-- Bob Schroeck, not-the-captain
From: Bob Schroeck (rms@ourtown.fen)
To: Operation FIREFALL Mailing List (firefall@sovietairforce.fen)
CC: Eddie (tinman@prometheus_forge.fen)
Date: November 23, 2016
Subj: [FIREFALL] Re: Operational Planning
> I have a full squadron of Woodsman UCAVEDI's available for screening duties if we need them.
We will never turn down helpful firepower. Thank you!
-- Bob
From: Bob Schroeck (rms@ourtown.fen)
To: General Fnord (fnord@sovietairforce.fen)
Date: November 23, 2016
Subj: Researchers and experts
Mal -- We've got a goodly supply of hard-science and engineering types who *aren't*
part of the mage-training who are willing and eager to contribute to the not-yet-war
effort. Who should they talk to in your organization? Alternately, have your HR
people just send their wishlist to "everyone@ourtown.fen" and we'll see what we can
do for you, okay?
-- Bob
From: Bob Schroeck (rms@ourtown.fen)
To: Noah Scott (bigcheese@stellvia.lib)
Date: November 26, 2016
Subj: Re: Information which may be useful in the current situation
> Excellent idea, and what I'm hearing at this Convention makes me want
> to try it. I'm going to try something unusual that, if it works, will
> get us a mage prodigy quickly - I've hired the character's seiyuu to
> help with the job. (And if it works incredibly well, that prodigy
> might even be StrikerS class because of another of that actress'
> roles... but I'm not holding my breath for that.)
Whew. I almost want to be there to watch, but the last thing you need
is a useless tourist. Good luck and keep me posted on how it works out.
> > Noah, something that occurred to me which might be useful. Did the girls
> > include the engineering details for Mirai's Mol unit in their gift
> > package?
> It's there, and so is Legion's ship tech. Unfortunately, Kohran says the
> tech is so far beyond what we have now that it'll be faster training the
> mages. (One would think a Burroughs drive would be simple to build. One
> would be wrong.)
Mm. Yeah, I suppose. The basics of the Burroughs drive are simple
enough -- force a gyroscope to precess in a direction outside of 3-space.
But precisely-controlling that precession to the degree that's needed for
navigation, yeah, I can see how that would be a bit hard to accomplish
with SOTA technology and techniques in a space smaller than a barn.
No cheating with waved support systems is possible?
I'm more confused by the Mol unit -- the tech level in "Moldiver" doesn't
*look* unrecognizably beyond ours; it's almost as though the tech curve
flattened after their turn of the 20th-21st century. Weird.
> But if I can get every single Mad in Fenspace together and working in
> the same direction,
Okay, you do that, and I'll herd the cats.
> I'll release the plans to them. Maybe we can get something useful
> inside of a decade.
I'm starting to worry that it might take us even longer to solve this.
-- Bob
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
To: Operation FIREFALL Mailing List (firefall@sovietairforce.fen)
Date: November 23, 2016
Subj: [FIREFALL] Re: Operational Planning
General Fnord (fnord@sovietairforce.fen) said:
> I'm a little leery of putting noncombatants right into the middle of a potential
> crossfire like that.
That's already taken care of. We have arrangements in place to house the kids
off the Corners in the event of something like this.
> Yeah, I *know* that the CSA isn't likely to have anything
> that can hurt the Corners in one throw, but they do have a shitload of arty and
> the station makes for a nice fat target. A massed strike could very well crack
> the hull or spring the seals.
General, I don't think you quite understand. We're not a standard fenship. We
don't have a hull or seals in the sense that you're thinking of. Our dome is essentially
one solid piece of the silicon equivalent of diamond, and our underside is *3/8ths of
a mile* of *solid bedrock*. And we run on a spindizzy. I'm sure you know what
that is and does, but if you don't, check out James Blish's "Cities in Flight". The
upshot of this is, we are guaranteed to be invulnerable to anything up to a good-
sized nuke, and Peg's brother Dave -- he's the doctor of physics -- is pretty sure
we could fly through a multimegaton blast and not scratch the dome.
We'd make a perfect battlestar or something if the damned 'wave would let us
actually attach weapons. Apparently it's a quirk we didn't know about before now --
any weapon bigger than a handgun that is affixed to the Corners simply stops working.
And we're too slow to ram anything. So about the only thing we *can* do is hover
over hostiles at any altitude down to 0 inches, as needed. I respectfully request, sir,
that you let us do that when it would have the best effect.
-- Bob Schroeck, not-the-captain
From: Bob Schroeck (rms@ourtown.fen)
To: Operation FIREFALL Mailing List (firefall@sovietairforce.fen)
CC: Eddie (tinman@prometheus_forge.fen)
Date: November 23, 2016
Subj: [FIREFALL] Re: Operational Planning
> I have a full squadron of Woodsman UCAVEDI's available for screening duties if we need them.
We will never turn down helpful firepower. Thank you!
-- Bob
From: Bob Schroeck (rms@ourtown.fen)
To: General Fnord (fnord@sovietairforce.fen)
Date: November 23, 2016
Subj: Researchers and experts
Mal -- We've got a goodly supply of hard-science and engineering types who *aren't*
part of the mage-training who are willing and eager to contribute to the not-yet-war
effort. Who should they talk to in your organization? Alternately, have your HR
people just send their wishlist to "everyone@ourtown.fen" and we'll see what we can
do for you, okay?
-- Bob
From: Bob Schroeck (rms@ourtown.fen)
To: Noah Scott (bigcheese@stellvia.lib)
Date: November 26, 2016
Subj: Re: Information which may be useful in the current situation
> Excellent idea, and what I'm hearing at this Convention makes me want
> to try it. I'm going to try something unusual that, if it works, will
> get us a mage prodigy quickly - I've hired the character's seiyuu to
> help with the job. (And if it works incredibly well, that prodigy
> might even be StrikerS class because of another of that actress'
> roles... but I'm not holding my breath for that.)
Whew. I almost want to be there to watch, but the last thing you need
is a useless tourist. Good luck and keep me posted on how it works out.
> > Noah, something that occurred to me which might be useful. Did the girls
> > include the engineering details for Mirai's Mol unit in their gift
> > package?
> It's there, and so is Legion's ship tech. Unfortunately, Kohran says the
> tech is so far beyond what we have now that it'll be faster training the
> mages. (One would think a Burroughs drive would be simple to build. One
> would be wrong.)
Mm. Yeah, I suppose. The basics of the Burroughs drive are simple
enough -- force a gyroscope to precess in a direction outside of 3-space.
But precisely-controlling that precession to the degree that's needed for
navigation, yeah, I can see how that would be a bit hard to accomplish
with SOTA technology and techniques in a space smaller than a barn.
No cheating with waved support systems is possible?
I'm more confused by the Mol unit -- the tech level in "Moldiver" doesn't
*look* unrecognizably beyond ours; it's almost as though the tech curve
flattened after their turn of the 20th-21st century. Weird.
> But if I can get every single Mad in Fenspace together and working in
> the same direction,
Okay, you do that, and I'll herd the cats.
> I'll release the plans to them. Maybe we can get something useful
> inside of a decade.
I'm starting to worry that it might take us even longer to solve this.
-- Bob
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.