M.J. Markgraf
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Blue Star Enterprises Chapter 53
🕑 Added 2024-07-19 12:00:11 +0000 UTCWith his progress delayed until Lucas finished checking over the code, Alexander wasn’t just going to wait around. He spent that time assisting in the facility repair efforts and preparing for when the Hawks would leave.
That date was coming quicker than he would like and there was still quite a bit of work to do. His main concern was making sure the refueling station stayed on track after they left. Some of those components to ensure that happened were already in the queue for launch. Mainly the parts for the large robotic arms that he designed for capturing the pods.
These robots weren’t anything special, simply mimicking the robot assemblers he had in his manufacturing center. They were just much longer than those smaller robots.
He was still putting the finishing touches on the robots that would replace the Hawks’ engineers when they left. Alexander didn’t want to just create single-purpose robots. That would be an extreme waste of resources. But he also couldn’t pack every construction tool known to man into one either, or that would make the things massive and unwieldy. That would also make the robots impossible to launch into orbit with their current capabilities.
The design he decided to go with, implemented swappable tooling. A robot had onboard storage for up to four tools and could switch them out depending on the work it was performing. It also consisted of three articulated arms, similar to the ones he built for his storage room robot. These arms were much more accurate than the older robots. They needed to be if he wanted the station built correctly.
With the station being just a large hollow rectangle built from triangular scaffolding sections using round pipe, it made it easy to clamp things to the interior. Probably why they designed it that way in the first place if he had to guess. No matter the reason, Alexander used the scaffolding design to great effect by designing a series of rollers for his robot workers. He thought about making other designs that would work elsewhere but decided against it for now. It would increase the complexity of the robots and mobility wasn’t needed at the moment. He just needed them to run along a set path.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t thinking ahead. He designed the roller portion to be swapped out, just like all the components on the robots.
The rollers securely fashioned the robot to the two outer rails of the triangular struts, allowing it to move back and forth along that axis. This meant they couldn’t move away from the side they were attached to. This meant he would have to build four of the robots, one for each side. The machines came with locking clamps, both physical and magnetic to ensure they wouldn’t wobble around once they were working. With two arms to hold the material in place, and a third arm to do the work, they should be able to complete the the station ahead of the Talon’s Chief Engineer’s predictions. Assuming no supply issues cropped up.
He sent the file to the printer and went to retrieve four of the advanced computer chips. His generic breadboard chips weren’t going to cut it for the robots. Alexander had plans to build a computer chip manufacturing machine. Nothing like what was made today, but he thought he might be able to mimic the types of computer chips made in the 1980s or '90s without super-specialized machines. But he hadn’t gotten time to work on that project yet. It was high on his list though, because of the limited amount of advanced and super-computer chips he had on hand.
He input the code into the door's lock. The room had previously been secured with a biometrics lock, but obviously, that didn’t do him any good. So a simple alphanumeric touchpad had been added. It wasn’t a perfect system by any means. Especially with his automated carts having to broadcast the code every time they entered, but it kept the casual passerby out.
The door opened and he moved through the room until he found one of the padded cases with the chips inside. He picked up the case and carried it back to his workshop.
By the time he returned, the initial frame for the first robot had been printed and moved off the printer bed for the next to begin. He really did love automation.
Due to the constraints of the capsules, the engineers would have to assemble the robots once they were in orbit. Alexander had provided them with a detailed list of assembly instructions. They did ask about purchasing the plans for their own use, but he had to deny them that at the moment.
Mostly because he didn’t have the design registered in STO space, so there was nothing stopping someone from stealing it. Not that he thought the Hawks would do that, but it was better to be safe. He also didn’t want the attention quite yet. Especially considering what he learned from Lucas today.
He opened up the insulated storage compartment where the chip would reside. Calling these things computer chips was a bit of a misnomer. They were essentially the entire computer, shrunken down to the size of a two-inch cube. Having all the complicated bits built into one component meant the printer didn’t need to be specialized. It just had to build the connecting components.
It was a rather ingenious method. The computers could be ordered in all sorts of configurations as well. If you needed a wafer-thin computer for say, a tablet, you could have that manufactured. He had chosen the cheapest method, which was the cube.
Alexander had looked into a printer capable of printing the cubes along with everything else. As it turns out, there were printers capable of doing that, but they were massive things that cost more money than Alexander had gotten from the Omni payout. At that point, they were more like assembly lines than a single printer. The smallest one he looked at, out of curiosity, was larger than the refueling station he was building. It also had to be built in a vacuum for it to function correctly at the picometer scale it printed the advanced chips. He didn’t even want to see what the requirements of the super-computer chips were.
The iridescent cube clicked easily into the housing of the robot and Alexander sealed the compartment. He heard the thing beep quietly before it went through its self-test cycle. He didn’t have to worry about this code as it had been written by Lucas. The machine made hardly any noise as the actuators rotated. Then it beeped again and the console it was currently linked to showed an error.
It was an error Alexander expected to see though. It was simply letting him know there was nothing attached to the actuator assembly. Seeing no other faults, he put the robot in standby mode. Then he wheeled over one of the specifically outfitted capsules and lifted the robot into the foam padding inside.
It took the rest of the day to finish up the four robots as well as the other components that went along with them. He was glad the plasma welder only required a lack of oxygen to weld properly. It would have been an extra step to bottle inert gasses and then a real pain to have to constantly ship them into orbit to keep the construction on schedule.
A total of ten capsules were earmarked for delivering the four robots. It would setback construction in the short term, but once the robots took over, that shouldn’t delay construction for long.
With the robots complete, he set the printers back to making more capsules. They still took far too long, but he had optimized the prints from six hours down to four by removing the foam printing and delegating that to a separate machine. It did mean he had to manually shape the foam to fit, but it still took less time overall.
If he planned on keeping the capsule launch method, he would probably get around to making a shaped mold at some point.
He piled on two of the capsules and sent the automated cart off to the launcher.
***
“You’re sure everything was removed?” Alexander asked. He was looking at the simulation software showing his first iteration still showing a failure.
“As far as I could see,” Lucas replied. “Could it be your design doesn’t function?”
Instead of getting upset by the question, Alexander paused. It was indeed possible. He loaded in the Sinorus design and ran it. This time, it came back as fully functional, and it didn’t show the warning errors on the parts that were more efficient than the Omni components.
He sighed internally. “It does indeed appear to be working. Thank you.”
“Hey, don’t mention it. I gotta say though, that first design looked wild. Like on the order of magnitude of being a pain in the ass to work on wild. You may want to consider that. I know if I took a look at that, I would be like, nope.”
Alexander loaded up the third iteration. “What about this one?”
The man waggled his hand back and forth. “That looks slightly easier to work on but I’m not an engineer. You may want to ask them.”
After Lucas left, Alexander tested his later iterations. Everything other than the first, second, and third came back as functional. There was the possibility that the simulation software wasn’t robust enough to recognize the extreme changes he made, but he decided to play it safe. Instead of going straight to the printers, he took Lucas’ advice and loaded up the working designs into a holographic presentation. He needed a second opinion.
“Thank you for meeting with me again so soon,” he said as soon as Matthews and Chief Engineer Sullivan came on screen. “I’m looking for an opinion on some engine designs if you would be willing.”
The Captain kept a composed façade, but he could see the small woman’s eyes slightly widen at his words. “It’s not every day I get to take a peek at experimental engine designs,” she stated in interest. “I’m free for as long as the Captain allows it.” She looked at the man pointedly, and Alexander could swear he saw Matthews flinch.
“Yes… We would be happy to give you as much time as needed,” Matthews said diplomatically.
He nodded his avatar’s face and sent the presentation to them.
It took hours for the woman to painstakingly go over every detail of the engines. She didn’t have the design specifications, but Alexander assumed she had been around enough engines to know what she was looking at. And it seemed he was right.
“This first one would be far too hard to maintain.” She pointed at four components nestled into the interior. “It would require taking apart the entire combustion assembly just to get at them. Then you have to deal with radiation. If I was given a berth on a ship with an engine like this, I would quit. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh.”
“No, not at all. I want your brutally honest opinion. What I make is going to eventually need to be serviced by engineers just like yourself. If it's too difficult to work on, nobody is going to want to buy them, no matter how much better they are.”
“Do you have any numbers yet?” Matthews asked. While he didn’t appear all that interested originally, he had come around.
“Not yet. I built these designs after the last time I spoke with you.”
Matthews and Sullivan paused and Alexander thought they had paused the connection. But they were just staring at him.
“You designed all of these in five days?” Sullivan asked.
“Oh, no,” Alexander chuckled. “It only took me a day to design them. I had to wait four days for Lucas Laront to fix my simulation software.”
Chief Engineer Sullivan opened and closed her mouth a few times before she finally spoke. “…I’m at a loss for words. You designed not one, but six working prototype designs in a single day?”
He decided not to correct the woman by telling her it had actually been ten designs, but only six working ones. “Um, yes? But they are just simplified iterations from the first one.”
She shook her head. “That explains why the designs look so similar. Still. If you can correct the component placement, and get some hard numbers, you may be looking at some serious contenders. This is a Class 3 engine, is it not? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Class 3 engine so compact.”
“…Um… It’s actually a Class 4. Or more accurately, it's based on the Class 4 engines from the Zephyr.”
“Alright,” the shorter woman said, getting up from the desk. “I’ve had enough surprises for one day. Considering what you’ve told me, you should have no issues moving the parts to be more accessible. Hell, I suggest you expand everything out so it matches a standard Class 4’s scale. Speed and efficiency aren’t everything. If you make an engine that is significantly easier to work on while being as fast and efficient as current designs, that’s a market as well.” With those words, the woman walked out of the video.
He heard the door shut before Matthews turned back to him. “Aria is correct. Saving time on repairs is sometimes much more important for certain people. Let us know if you need anything else, Mr. Kane.” The man nodded one final time before the video cut out.
It looked like he had more design work ahead of him.
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Alexander may have gone a little overboard in his improvements and alterations :).
Comments
mly85lc
Was mento send this four chapters back but it end up ballooning out. Hm. Speaking of befencse setup.. I presume that a professional "fixed location" defence force would like to have not only "far outer defence" -orbital wepons, plus satellites scans and "brone scout's" even if speard and spoty- to make spot the enemy early one and make approch costly. Mayde some harnessing strike force to soften them up. or staging ground to meet or First blocking point them. Now on build space station, whit would be better protected form attackers if it could fall back and manuver on high atmosphere near the planet's cloud cover. Even if it can not land its good As way of denying attackers access to it whit out crafts able to same. And long range space ship in this settings seem not as borders rule able to that. As for getting space defence and stations. Sure as "Space base mercenary" Hawks would not usally be too concerned of thous, as theyry ships would be usally part theyry "scouting and staging ground" and theyrys clients, if they're have Defence space route or fixed location on space. So they're may not be experts of settings up space stations. But they're would be experts of working alonside thous conditions and systems that make spaces stations work. Whits in turn means they have atlest options of how safely operated one in pressured environment is best and what functions of station make it eays to work form theyry perception. And theyry should also have some view thous planet's sides operations, and how best form "atmosphere defence" and "landing denial" even if they themselves me not but thous up they most likely have connections to pepole that knowledge to do so. After all if one wants paid fighting healp tasking thous group make hit and run attacks outside established defence positions seem preference. Whits brings us to Now outer "befencse sector" would be outside perimeters of facility that a aproching form land. A zone. Say form 300-500 meters away form wall's would be had held wepons prime range where competently sniper is abouct 800-1200M range. Add what what is available on fixed defence. Also moder day artillery range is around 18000-19000 meters which increases to 30,000 meters when firing rocket-assisted projectiles and guided ammunition. Just butting thous there in case of armed fighting starting it wouldn't make sense if future technology hand lower but better efficient at hand held wepons to counter more effective boby armor. A artillery grounds blowing up 1/2 of meters form bobys would still hurt if not outright kill. As for outer defence: Doors and landing zone are obvious Brench points. Sure they could try blowing trought walls to make theyry own doorway. But going trought doors make natural sense. Whit in turn brings up off makeing a multilayer Killing zone. Fit for infantry use. Local settings variation of fire cover, Shields, fire platforms. One walls and on ceiling. Blockes and spiked wires. To hinders ennemys advanced once they're are trought. And seting up Fall backposition. If they [innner door zone] is lost. Allowing personnel to dispersed on tunnels and side corridors. All thous whit inner doors able to whis stand low-to-medium garden weponfire, even if Temporally. Heavier door blocks rods to nexst intersections. That are block whit junk and holding armor infantry vehicles to give cover fire and transport people nexst line off defence. HG Or To field Hospital. Where they look after wounded. Placset at different locations whit I own power generation. And having access to theyry own fleet of smaller nibbler vehicles 3-4 of them so they can have few on go and one as emergency back up. Hawks should be at least on theory be able to point out need and usfullnes of thous features and give some guilds linnes how to set them up. probably even if they can not shesre thyer blueprints for this [storys] "riot shields" or how best set up makeshifts fixed firecovers. They can still recommend reputable makers of thous. And leads for THO for them. Off course all this is set up in sprit of MC wanting possible to work whit them a agen in future. Both directly whit "Hawks" and they're societies -and they having conetion to up and coming Manufacture- After the all former mercenarys usally go for "security" jobs surely a personal form accomplish firm like "Hawks" have setup some firms on professions such like. Things like [cyber security] by, Security Supervisor/Security Guard: A security guard is a civilian who designs, installs, repairs or changes structural protection or electronic surveillance systems for profit, as well as planning other security arrangements. Or Bodyguard. Or private security that work whit form law/police or as "civilian police": of a police officer dressed as a civilian or operating without visible insignia. Civilian police perform duties where the presence of an unmarked police officer is beneficial. Or They could have some conteions for private detectives or army's members.etc And then there the actually know how of Hawks of how defence or clearing out in citys sized facility's Or how to move quickly in such placse. Be it at foot or whit Vehicle. Or what adding such vehicle in facility would do to theyry ablity to operate in such conditions. And a small 1-2 person to small 4-7 person group transport would make big difference whille using terrains corridor short cuts and open areas to theyry advantage. While allowing defender blocking or attacking enemies form different sides simultaneously. And last but not the least they could hint him How to set supply deposit around the facility before hand. Sure he would probably hide them inside walls and below the floor so no passing drifter don't steal form them. Basically bullets. Maybe some wepons on different gashes. Radios. Bandages and some anti inflation drugs, and salves for wounds.etc things a retreating fighting force would need. Some open manualy and ohter by trough network. And then there is Point of instrest. Such as Biggest housings sector. To cover people live there by setting up bunkers. Food and water procution. So they're can hold out long drawn sigee. Boht are also prime target for sabotors to break before the attack. Same as Energy production. Whit makes Back up energy. Critical in need to add on long term. Not mentioning MC own facilities. Theyry ablity to make suff. And in essence a main hud of supplies makeing rods leading to it and form it important to resupply force. Propellery want set Best and last fall back point. Around its alongside, energy generation, food and water procution supply's to make sure theyry can hold longtime.
Null
Thank you for the chapter He should make the station with random door with mechanical locks so anyone who doesn't have the key or even know how to open the door get trapped, I am sure there are many electronic locks in this age and many forget the simple mechanical lock, now image what you will need to open one of those lock inside a station and how easy people will find you if you try.
Nexis
Theoretical it should be possible to etablish a quantum comunication between a small quantum computer close to the sensor input (or the mechanical component) to the main quantum computer that does the calculation. If you are coupeling the quantum particels between sensor q-computer and main q-computer and change the engergy Level from the first one at the sensor (data input), and than want to read it on the secound main q-computer, the comunication would be like teleporting and so faster than light speed, but to calculate what the input in the first one was, you would need to know the distance between the coupled quantum parts, otherise you cant calculate what the output is. So if the input is a moving part, it would be not possible to transfer the information. But do you really have to be so realitic in your Story? I mean you have about instand comunication between ships/space station and planets already, including your wormhole maker ship. If the distance between those parts would be absolut Statik, it could theoreticaly work. I already told you the fail margin is to big with the quantum computer we have now. Easiest to describe would be why we needed the ECC-ram in normal computers. Because we also had a fail margin on data transfer in computer Systems. So in critical Systems you used the ECC ram, (Error Correctiong Code Random Access Memory) but i bet you know that already. Why not try to use that in your Quantum-Computer comunication stuff, and say they solved that in the future. As long as the 2 comunicating system are still a fixed distance away, like in a space ship it would work. But dont use that system between a moving arm and the static roboter part that is not moving. It would not work because the distance between them is changing.
Nexis
Why should he try to build this old computer chips. He would need to programm those too. And they would need for sure a different programming than the futuristic ones. Why? Because how the Autor descriped those chips with every other component already included. Best would be to start from 0. Programming and building. Everything based on a quantum computer. Why? Because they for sure have no problems with temperatur Regulation, because of there compact fusion energy source. There are 3 big problems with quantum computering nowerdays. 1) temperature has to be verry low. 2) there is a lot of fail magrin to read the quantum energy Level of the coupled quantums and they have to run the calculation prozess a few times. 3) the complex programming of them. And that problem scales with the amount of Q-bits they build that thing. But the first 2 problems should be easy to solve for Mister Robot. The 3. Problem... i am sure his programming friend would love to work on a new long time project! How to couple them... would need to google that. Fazit: if he starts building computer chips from 0, he should focus on that instead of the old chips we use now. Also there is the posibility to write a converter Programm so to convert the calculation the quantum computer does to the actual used programming. Yea sure that would slow down the computer, but it still should be faster Overall. Best would still be if there wont be other computering chips than this one for optimal effivency. The described computer chips in the Post should be closer to neuronal-computer chips. 3D sphere Chip design where every synapse is linked to every other one, close to the human brain. Where every synapse is also a ultra smal ram and prozessor unit. But the cheapest one should be a sphere not a cube...and that programming for sure is different than nowerdays chips. But it would be perfect for real AI-Systems. @Autor am i right with my guess? But why is than the cube the cheapest Design?
Aclys
Yeeeeah, knocking out 6 engine designs in One day using the tools he has on hand is very much a "Tony Stark built this in a cave!" scenario.
Aclys
I was gonna say, it was explained way back in the story that the "3d printers" Alex is using are considerably more advanced and complicated mechanisms than the machines we call by that name today. The same I imagine goes for assorted other tooling and machining devices.
Aclys
Only if he doesnt take Sullivan's advice. And its good advice, super compact engines could have a niche in military, scouting/smuggling and like fields, but for general customers having an engine that does the job well while being painless, that is its reliable, easy to maintain and such... that's worth a lot.
Daniel
Wouldn't mind a scene of Aria and Matthews talking about this interaction.
mmarkgraf212
Yes, they were large and specialized back in 1980. 400 years in the future, not so much. With a bit of ingenuity and tweaking, his current printers are accurate enough to print to the micrometer scale.
Armo
How would Alex mimic even 1980-1990 level chips without super specialised machines? Lithography even then demanded large, complex super specialised machines. And upgrading those machines is a very, very complex task. Manufacturing computer chips is always a massive pain point for me in fiction like this, because modern fabs are quite possibly the most complex manufacturing lines currently on the planet. You can’t make chips in your backyard. You’ve handled it well so far, so kudos!
Gabriel Melnik
It seems that Alex will break into market as a luxury brand.
