Hitchhiker's Guide to the Evoverse

[Marvin]

The Inertial Dampening System

Before the development of an inertial dampening system (IDS), it was much more difficult to get your mercenary's license. Nearly eighty percent of the pilots who took the test failed at parallel parking. Collision insurance skyrocketed. Bent and twisted space ships were stacked ten high at the Acme Used Space Ship Parts and Junkyard on Olympus Prime.

History tells us that the first IDS* was designed by the great great great grandson of Ray "Crash" Corrigan (a Hollywood star of old B-Westerns and sports movies). Like his namesake before him, Ray had a bad habit of smashing headlong into things. Only, instead of smashing into other B-Movie actors, he smashed into asteroids, message beacons, space stations and other ships (especially those docked at space stations). It got to the point where his collision insurance was costing more than storage fees (which, if you've ever had anything stored at a trade station, you'll understand just how much Ray must've been paying in insurance premiums).


[align=center]
Diagram illustrating a space ship\'s method of overcoming inertia (courtesy of Starwraith)[/align]

For decades, IDS solved Ray's problem. Mercenary pilots across the Evoverse praised his name (and, in homage, even watched a few old Crash Corrigan movies). Then somebody came along and invented the hyperdrive. After which, inexperienced pilots didn't just drift into asteroids and space stations anymore. They slammed into them at hyper speed. Whereupon the hapless wannabe mercenaries were advised to relocate their jump drive activation lever to a place on the console further away from the beer dispenser.

Unfortunately, Ray was among the pilots who kept inadvertently pulling the wrong lever and smashing into asteroids and planets. Luckily (after a few more hikes in insurance premiums), he followed his insurance agent's advice and moved the jump drive lever** to the far side of his cockpit. But then somebody else invented the automatic docking beam. And Ray (among others) never did figure out how to avoid that one (hey, guys, try deactivating the "automatic" part). Nonetheless, the IDS has cut the number of space-related collisions almost in half. And planetside mishaps are down by over ninety percent.


* Not to be confused with simple twentieth-century maneuvering thrusters. The best you could expect from those early thruster designs was the ability to change your heading so as to see what it was you were about to crash into. IDS, on the other hand, somehow manages to completely counter inertial drift (see entry on inertia).

** Tacticians and ergonomists have pointed out that it would've been a better idea to leave the jump drive lever in place and, instead, move the beer dispenser. Indeed, the point was made when Ray died as he attempted to make an emergency jump out of what had become a losing battle between himself and a horde of angry Vonari. As predicted, he couldn't reach the jump drive lever fast enough. But upon further study, historians speculate that, at the time, Ray was too drunk to really care, one way or the other.

[Marvin]

EMR Auto-Save

Ever find yourself in a situation where you've done maybe a dozen contracts ... when, all of a sudden, it dawns on you, "Hey, I haven't saved yet!" and, in a panic, you begin to press "Alt F9" but, before you can get your fingers coordinated enough to press two keys simultaneously, somebody in the same sector accepts another contract? A 5-waypoint contract? With about forty enemy ships? And you have the eerie feeling that, this time, you won't survive.

Yeah? You have?

Then you might've been tempted to simply jump out of the sector ... and ruin the contract for everyone else. But that's not cool. Not cool at all. Poor form, really.

What you need is a method of saving while in the middle of a contract. A method which wouldn't be considered (by emphatic practitioners of fair play) to be an exploit of some undocumented loophole.

"No such method exists," you might exclaim. But one does. This one:


[align=center][img=768x457]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v97/p ... 76b21f.png[/img][/align]


Yessir, that's right. You guessed it. Any operation similar to the one illustrated above will automatically generate a forced save. Even if you're currently in the middle of a contract.

Granted, when you perform such an operation while in the middle of a contract, doing so won't rescue your sorry caboose from certain death ... or give you credit for the current, unfinished contract after you go out in a blaze of glory and a puff of smoke. For, if it did, then that would indeed be considered (and rightfully so) an unfair exploit of game mechanics. What it does do is insure that your previously successful contracts don't go down the old recycle bin along with you.

[Marvin]

Travel Buddy

The H2GE Travel Buddy is a must-have accessory for every pilot who dreams of exploring beyond the confines of gated space. Manufactured by the same people who brought you laboratory robots, the Travel Buddy is compact and simple to operate yet affords a degree of confidence and worry-free travel previously unavailable to the average mercenary.


[align=center]
The H2GE Travel Buddy[/align]

Once engaged, the Travel Buddy constantly reminds you to make or maintain the proper energy and power settings. It monitors your progress across space, be it short hops or vast distances, and provides information on: (1) current fuel requirements, (2) distance to jump point and/or destination, (3) time en route. It even compensates for type jump drive, be it a C2 Fulcrum, an experimental Mantis, or anything in between.

Months is development, the H2GE Travel Buddy is, when used in conjunction with ship's autopilot and operated IAW manufacturer's specifications, accurate* to within sixty seconds of jump time.


* Fluctuations in fuel flow can vary and he who ignores the slop indicator (+/-) is probably courting disaster (see entry on distress calls). Admittedly, fuel requirements will probably never exceed the amount of slop displayed. Nonetheless, it's always best to err on the side of caution: top off your fuel tank before every long trip and insure that both your subspace radio and CHAT are in good working order.

[Marvin]

Mantis Jump Drive

Some people are really good at one thing. And some people are unfairly good at more than one thing. Usually, though, the person who is ambidextrous when it comes to doing things well is only popular for doing one of those things. Which is why most people are surprised to discover that some celebrities can do more than just, say for example, sing.

In fact, there is one really old codger who has been meandering, for centuries, across numerous star systems and has been spotted in many of the out-of-the-way bars which populate the known universe and the multiverse and Evoverse and just about every other 'verse imaginable. He spends most of his time strumming his guitar and crooning to old, nearly forgotten songs from Earth's illustrious past.

He is also the person who took the Fulcrum Jump Drive, gave it one long and meditative glance, then exclaimed, "I want a bigger one. Something with twice the range."

When his manager (who claimed to be a direct descendant of both Chief Huarea and Joseph Chatoyer of old Earth) backed away, shook his head, and exclaimed, "Mon, you don' wanna be foolin' wit' dat t'ing ... t'is is a Class 5 Fulcrum ... da best jump drive on de market," the singer simply curled his upper lip and said. "You gotta think big, man." Looking a lot like Casey coming to bat, he added sneeringly, 'Gimme a sonic screwdriver and I'll show you how to tweak this here thing."

In less time than it takes to change reels on a movie projector, our hero had altered the performance characteristics of what was, up to then, considered the finest piece of jump drive machinery this side of Andromeda. When he took his modified jump drive out for a test run, his manager was so impressed he exclaimed, "Mon, t'is is perfection!" Which (they say) eventually morphed into the slogan: Montis is perfection. Over time, Montis became Mantis and the rest of the slogan was dropped.


[align=center]
The unadorned experimental Mantis[/align]

After a few more spins around the galaxy and one or two additional tweaks, a moderately sleeker (adorned with red racing stripes and a lot of chrome), enhanced prototype* was built and offered to the Alliance Navy. But the Navy laughed at the idea that a singer could "perfect" anything as sophisticated as a Class 5 Fulcrum and, as expected, they turned it down. Adding injury to insult, they classified the Mantis as experimental and, therefore, unreliable and unsafe ... insisting that it be banned from production. Luckily, visionaries in the civilian community refused to agree with the Navy's opinion or abide by the ban and, in protest, immediately began wholesale production. Within a year, mercenaries were swarming over high-tech star systems, looking to upgrade their space ships with the Mantis ... then heading out to explore the numerous ungated and uncharted star systems which were previously too far away and, therefore, not worth the bother.


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Illustrating the advantages of a Mantis jump drive as compared to a Class 1 Fulcrum[/align]

The inventor was often hailed as a hero by the citizens of these out-of-the-way planetary systems. And, being essentially a shy kind of guy, all he could say in return was, "Thank you. Thank you very much."


* Amateur astro-mechanics speculated on the significance of the two gold letters stamped into the intake manifold of this first model, guessing they stood for "Enhanced Prototype." It was later pointed out that, more than likely, they were simply the inventor's initials.

[Marvin]

Flight Path Marker

The FPM shows the pilot where he's headed ... regardless of which way his ship is pointed. The marker is visible on the HUD throughout the pilot's entire field of vision, including far left and far right. The Mercenary ReadMe explains it this way:

The 'Flight Path Marker' will point to the direction your ship is moving on the HUD. The 'Horizontal/Vertical Velocity Marker' will visually display the level of horizontal and vertical speed on the HUD.

In the animated illustration below, the FPM and H/VVM look the same (little box-shaped indicators) except the FPM is blue and the other indicator is gray.


[align=center]
Turning toward the FPM[/align]

The FPM can be a handy indicator, especially when travelling planetside. Because one of the nice things to know, when traveling planetside, is: which way is the planet rotating?

This is an overhead view depicting an object travelling across a rotating planet:


[align=center]
Cross-country travel[/align]

As illustrated in the above diagram, a pilot can make use of the FPM to determine if he is traveling toward daylight (the blue course arrow) or traveling in a direction away from the light (the red course arrow). The reason the FPM helps orient you toward daylight is because it indicates the ship's motion relative to a planet's rotation.

If the ship travels parallel to planetary rotation, the FPM will be centered and the ship will follow a path indicated by the blue arrow. Thus, the ship will (usually) head toward the lit side of the planet. Conversely, if the ship travels so that the FPM is offset (probably to the left ... but the direction really isn't that important), then it will follow a path similar to that of the red arrow.

To wit, if you know which way the planet is rotating, you can judge if you're heading into daylight or just wandering around in the dark.

Unfortunately, the "FPM method" is not a foolproof system ... as indicated by the pilot who H2GE assigned to demonstrate the proper use of the FPM. He was instructed to land somewhere in total darkness, turn toward the FPM and then fly until he reached the terminator. Except he landed near the terminator ... on the side of the planet which had recently experienced sunset. Which is why, if you pay attention to the animated screen shot seen below, you might be saying to yourself, "Hey, I can see daylight over on the right! Why is that fool* turning in the opposite direction?" Which is also why, when our pilot followed the rotation of the planet (via FPM), he ended up flying all night long (relatively speaking) before reaching sunrise.


[align=center]
Making a wrong turn toward the flight path marker[/align]

Nonetheless, he did eventually reached daylight ... which is more than you could say for any pilot flying in the direction depicted by the red course arrow.


* Illustrating why the system is not "fool proof."


[Edited on 6-21-2013 by Marvin]

[Marvin]

4D Nanobots

Nanobots are cool. Yet some mercenaries have seriously overlooked this major tool in both the production and repair of many useful and necessary items of equipment and domiciliary. No guild, clan or independent pilot can afford to be without these little beauties and still survive the rigors of exploration or compete successfully in their quest to expand and defend territorial star systems.

The Authorized Evochron Mercenaries' Technical Manual describes nanobots this way:

Nanomaterials are made of particles between 80 - 100 nm in size. A nanometre is one billionth of a metre!

[align=center]
Two standard nanobots used in station-building: the motorbot and the drillbot[/align]

But these aren't just any ordinary nanobots. No. Not by a long shot. The best nanobots are 4D Nanobots.

• Repair your ship with 4D Nanobots.
• Replicate your Excalibur missiles with 4D Nanobots
• Build or deploy your stations with 4D Nanobots.
• Quickly assemble your terrain walker with 4D Nanobots.

Alliances may fail. Sapphire may end up into the hands of unscrupulous renegades or even to the Vonari. Jumpgates may fall into disrepair. Your ship's autopilot might malfunction, sending you beyond the gated star systems.

Any number of things can happen to nullify or even hamper current manufacturing techniques which are, you must admit, rather dubious to begin with. But, with 4D Nanobots, your worries are over.

4D Nanobots come in a variety of sizes and functionality. You can choose from fairly inexpensive Ship Repair kits, or the mid-range Weapons Replication unit which fits seamlessly into the duplication slot of your Excalibur missile energizer, or the slightly more advanced Terrain Walker Assembly package, (programmed by H2GE's very close associates at IMG), or one of the two highly regarded 4D Supreme models.

Both Supreme models* are fitted with time-displacement technology, utilizing stress-field GARLS to propagate a temporary, 4th dimensional bubble. Within this temporal bubble and outside the constraints of time, 4D nanobots work tirelessly to build and furnish one of a selective number of space stations. To you, the pilot, it seems this construction takes but minutes while, in actuality, it takes our nanobots months of non-linear time to complete each project.

When the work is done, your 4D Nanobots disengage the stress field in a flash of visible light, revealing a fully functional station.


* While Supreme Model 1 is capable of operating autonomously, Model 2 requires substantially more processing power than is currently available to its internal CPU, technology-wise. Consequently, additional processing is provided by substation computers (located within the gated star systems) linked to the main unit. The link has limited range and, as a result, the Model 2 is limited as to where it can be deployed. That limit has, of yet, not been determined. Manufacturers of the Model 2 suggest you attempt to deploy the device at whatever location you deem necessary. With luck, you'll be in range of a substation and all will go as planned. Otherwise, keep in mind that the manufacturer disavows any responsibility for units which are deployed at distances not yet determined but nonetheless outside the parameters and specifications of the equipment in question.

[Marvin]

Wayward Pods

There's an old (but true) story about how the first Jameson dove overboardto save a cask of his Irish Whiskey cut loose during a storm at sea. Less known is how his great, great, great, great grandson saved a cask of very old and rare Irish Whiskey as it plummeted toward a nearby planet and, by accomplishing the rescue, Jameson's descendant introduced a sure-fire method of tracking down and recovering any wayward container, inoperative satellite or fast-moving escape pod.

The cask of whiskey had been part of a shipment smuggled off planet Earth during the chaos accompanying the Vonari invasion of 2287. The smuggler's ship (large and lumbering but with no real means of defense) had been intercepted as it approached one of the planets in the Sirius star system. While the captain began to heave to, Jameson attached a portable Mark II cloaking device to the cask and, while the boarding party advanced along the starboard side, Jameson jettisoned the cask over the port side. It drifted awhile, until the planet's gravity caught hold.

Meanwhile, Jameson impatiently waited as the boarding party completed its inspection. Eventually, the captain was ordered to dock at the local trade station and report to Customs. Jameson hurriedly marked the ship's present position on his navigation map. The ship made its way to the station and, after debarking, Jameson passed through Customs without difficulty. He then rented a stripped down Mammoth, outfitted it with a tractor beam and cargo bay, launched and quickly made tracks for the last known location of his cask of bootlegged whiskey.

Reaching the spot marked on his map, Jameson checked the ship's radar for any indication of a purple blip. No luck. He was dumbstruck. A Class II cloaking device only worked against sensor arrays and naval coast guard vessels. If it was within range, his radar should've picked up the cask.

It was then that he noticed the nearby planet. "Tá sé ceart go leor," he said to himself, "Chuir mé an sruth pacáiste sat reo an phláinéid. Mo botún. An méid atá déanta, déanta. Anois, caithfidh mé a figiúr amach conas a rianú agus iad a aisghabháil. Tá súil againn go, sula sroicheann se an dromch la... más rud é nach ndeanann sé pléascath agus scrios le smután mór de eastát réadach. Ar a laghad, don bhíoma tarracóir. Beidh sé rudaí a dhéanamh deacair, mura úsáid mé siúlóir de tír-raon in ionad. A ní féidir liom féin agus ní féidir liom acmhainn."*

Jameson examined his map and contemplated the sector, the planet, his location and the many paths his cask of whiskey might've taken as it accelerated toward the surface. But one path stood out among the rest. It stood out because Jameson wasn't simply a smuggler of fine Irish Whiskey. Oh no. Definitely not. In this day and age, you needed to be more than just a smuggler if you wanted to be successful at smuggling. You also needed a working knowledge of astrophysics. And, in this situation, the most important astrophysical fact was this one: on any object, a planet's gravity exerts a force, on that object, toward the planet's center.

And so Jameson drew a line connecting the point where he'd tossed the whiskey overboard to a point at the very center of the planet. And then he followed that line to where it intersected the surface of the planet ... hoping to catch up with the cask before it made landfall.


[align=center]
The whiskey\'s expected track to planetfall[/align]

Which is where he found his cask of whiskey. Buried in the sand. Ironically, at the bottom of the sea.

Unfortunately, Jameson never managed to recover the cask. It took him almost a full day to save enough credits to buy a terrain walker. By that time, the planet had rotated out from under his marked location in space. Worse, he was attacked by a band of marauding rebels while ensconced in his TW. He did manage to escape from his attackers (having dispatched four or five rebels in the meantime) but figured it was easier (and safer) to go somewhere quiet and distill his own bootlegged whiskey.


* Loosely translated from the Irish (Gaelic) as: "Okay, I sent the cask adrift in the direction of the planet. My mistake. What's done is done. Now I gotta figure out how to track and retrieve it. Hopefully before it reaches the surface ... where, if it doesn't explode and destroy a large chunk of real estate, it will at least make things difficult for the tractor beam. Unless I use a terrain walker instead. Which I don't own and can't afford."

[Marvin]

The Excalibur Pack

The Excalibur is classified as a "regenerative" missile. As discussed in The Authorised Mercenaries' Technical Guide, the mystery of its regeneration has been a closely guarded secret known only to its designer and a few upper-level managers in R&D at the Evochron Munitions and Other High-End Technologies, Inc., plant on Alpha Centauri.

Up until now. Finally, the secret has been revealed. Oddly enough, it wasn't revealed by a disgruntled upper-level manager or the missile's designer. No.


[align=center]
Excals in action (photo by BraveHart)[/align]

The story begins at an AI programming facility back on Earth. Nanobots (see entry on nanobots) were being developed to perform a number of autonomous tasks which required a small degree of initiative. Unfortunately, nobody foresaw the consequences of allowing tiny robots to think for themselves. Certainly nobody expected them to try and unionize. Two days after the nanobots went on strike for better working conditions, most of them were replaced by Selectively Conditioned Anti-Bots. But, due to the SCA-Bots' much larger size, there were some tasks for which they were not suited.

One of these tasks was that of regenerating the Excalibur missile. The missile package, by design and intent, must be small enough to fit civilian runabouts and military fighters. Only the autonomous nanobot met that requirement. So, while the people over at Evochron Munitions were crossing their fingers and hoping the Excalibur nanobots wouldn't spill the beans, the nanobots were given an ultimatum by their union boss: force the company to accept the union's demands or reveal the secret of regeneration to everyone.

The secret, of course, was the nanobots themselves.

Eventually, the company acceded to union demands. But too late. The Excalibur nanobots had already followed union orders and revealed how they were used in the regenerative procedure. The secret was out. In retaliation, a galactic-wide recall was ordered and every nanobot was reprogrammed such that the initiative subroutine* was deleted.

There's a joke in there somewhere ... I just can't find it.

That is how the general public came to know about Excal nanobots and how those nanobots use dark matter to manufacture eight new missiles seemingly out of the emptiness of outer space. Originally, the process was almost instantaneous but, after the reprogramming (deleting the initiative subroutine), a delay of three minutes resulted. Consequently, the sale of Excalibur Packs has dropped off significantly, forcing Evochron Munitions to cut back on its work force.


* The subroutine in question allowed nanobots to determine the order of production (which parts of the missile to construct first), depending on the quantity of dark matter available and other factors known only to the nanobots themselves. After the deletion of the subroutine, the order of production was hard-coded into the nanobots' program. Technicians swear they spent weeks in testing to determine the most efficient order of production and were befuddled by the fact the resulting new (hard-coded) subroutine requires a much longer regenerative time.

[Marvin]

Towing Service

Unbeknownst to many mercenaries, towing in the Evoverse is a fait accompli (it's a done deal). Most any pilot can give another pilot a tow and most any stranded pilot (see entry on distress calls) can get towed. Granted, runabouts and military fighters have limited capability when it comes to towing another ship. The stress and strain on the towing ship is such that the link will break if the towing pilot attempts to drag the towed ship beyond a single sector of space.

The first successful space tow was performed by Sellig Moe Holmes, a direct descendant of Ernest Holmes Sr., inventor of the tow truck. But unlike the tow truck, neither the runabout nor the military fighter needs a specially dedicated towing rig. Any space ship will do.


[align=center]
A couple of dedicated tow trucks[/align]

Sellig's first tow was, admittedly, an act of desperation. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to transfer fuel to the stranded pilot, Sellig was himself running low on fuel. Deep in uncharted space, he figured his choices were either come up with another solution to their situation or end up on the short end of his own distress call.

The stranded pilot had been hurtling at close to 1,000 kps, requiring Sellig to fly formation. At that speed, he hesitated to propose the following solution (but did it anyway): the stranded pilot was told to exit his ship and jump into Sellig's gun turret. It was a tricky maneuver. The pilot overestimated the distance and, upon jumping, slammed into Sellig's airlock at excessive speed, breaking two ribs, dislocating his left shoulder, and cracking his helmet. Despite his injuries, he managed to crawl into the turret and seat himself in the gunner's chair.

Now, here's where it gets complicated.

The abandoned space ship, empty of fuel, automatically locked on to its pilot. This process is known as "apron-stringing" and is integral to the pilot-ship cooperative. It's the only time when an unmanned ship is programmed to activate its own specialized tractor beam, designed specifically for such occasions.

Sellig, being low on fuel by this time, decided to deploy a fuel processor. After refueling his ship, he ordered the turret gunner to disconnect. The stranded pilot complied and immediately found himself thrust back into the cockpit of his own ship. Unfortunately, Sellig had miscalculated the distance between the two ships ... leaving the towed ship to float agonizingly close to the fuel processor but not quite close enough for it to receive fuel.

In an attempt to reposition the towed ship, Sellig had the pilot enter and exit his (Sellig's) turret half a dozen times, until the poor pilot was black and blue from bruises and sprains. Despite their concerted and time-consuming (not to mention painful) effort, the ship never quite landed in the correct spot. Sellig then rammed the ship in a futile effort to push it into position. No luck. Finally, he gave up.

Propitiously, Sellig got another chance about two weeks later when he received a second distress call. This time, though, he brought along a build constructor. With the newly stranded pilot safely ensconced in the turret, Sellig jumped to a spot near the center of the otherwise empty sector, halted and built a trade station. Not unexpectedly, his ability to position the tow hadn't improved ... had he deployed another fuel processor instead, the second stranded pilot would've met the same fate as the first. As it happened, the station's tractor beam managed to grab the hapless ship and drag it into the docking bay. Whereupon, the pilot exited Sellig's turret and refueled his ship.

[Marvin]

Crewmembers

Military fighter pilots prefer to do it all themselves.

Down through history, tacticians have occasionally talked the designers of air and space craft into building two-seat fighters. The arguments for this configuration were many: (1) splitting up the duties between two people would, in effect, cut reaction time in half; (2) two sets of eyes could do a better job of spotting an approaching bandit; (3) in an emergency, one person could read the EMR checklist procedures while the other person would perform the required tasks.

Nonetheless, pilots didn't buy it. They argued: (1) an extra person added unnecessary weight; (2) coordinating the duties took precious time away from the job at hand (engaging and killing the enemy); (3) the pilot had to depend on the second guy ... who was usually less competent than the pilot (or so claimed the pilot) and, anyway, the pilot could handle all the duties himself.

Conversely, civilian pilots live under a different set of circumstances. Optimally, they seldom engage in combat. Instead, they ply the spaceways and byways of the Evoverse: mining, trading and exploring. They assist local citizenry in recovering lost items, delivering needed goods, rescuing lost pilots (including those self-sufficient fighter pilots) and surveying habitable planets. For this, the civilian pilot often requires the assistance of specialists in a number of technical fields.


The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Evoverse (H2GE) interviewed one such specialist, and this is his story.

“My name's Ed Pierce. I'm a navigator aboard the IMG Asimov. Right now me and the rest of the crew are on hiatus. Our skipper decided to join the Mercenary Military Reserves last month. The Alliance recruiter promised he'd be given at least six months to organize his civilian operation before being called up by the Navy ... but you know how that goes. He got a message via subspace radio two days ago to report for duty aboard the carrier Providence. ASAP. So he dropped us off here, at Command Arvoch.

“Let me tell you, we don't appreciate being left to ourselves, with nothing to do but drink, while waiting for the skipper to finish his tour of duty ... us being this close to the front lines. No sir. We ain't getting paid enough to be sitting on our keesters. As a wise old cowboy once said, 'there were a helluva lot of things they didn't tell me when I hired on with this outfit.' And this is one of 'em. No siree, none of us like it ... not at all.�

To which we, at H2GE, replied, “You stated that you're getting paid. Does that mean you're currently receiving full salary ... or has the amount been reduced?�

“Well, that ain't none of your business but, since you asked, yeah ... we get full pay. Do you think we'd be hanging around here otherwise? I have a highly honed skill ... as does the rest of the crew. If we wanted, we could get a job faster'n you could say 'Jack Robinson' ... but we pride ourselves on being one hundred percent loyal to our skipper. So long as he don't do anything stupid.

“Besides, the skipper needs us. Like I said, I'm the navigator. If I had ten credits for every time I kept our ship from slamming headlong into a planet ... well, I'd be rich enough to buy my own planet. That's what. And Igor, our science officer, he's spotted more abandoned cargo pods than science officers with twice his experience. Not to mention our engineer and weapons officer. One of 'em keeps us from being blown to smithereens and the other patches us up when ... well, whenever we get too near being blown to smithereens.�

So we asked, “What happens if your captain decides to take the military ship elsewhere ... say, up to Talison or even somewhere beyond the gated systems? What if you then get a subspace message calling you back to duty?�

“We can always follow the skipper in our ship. Corrigan is a pretty good pilot ... for an engineer. Even if he sometimes gets confused as to which way is up.�

“What about this new process where a crew can be dehydrated* then placed in a small bottle and stored aboard any ship ... even a military fighter?�

“Yeah, we heard about that ... and they'll do it to me over my dead body.�

Unfortunately for Ed Pierce and the rest of the crew, their captain opted for dehydration. You might wonder how Pierce could've been persuaded to succumb to a process he'd categorically swore would only be done over his dead body. Well, sometimes a hangover isn't the worst consequence of a hard night's bar-storming. Sometimes it isn't just the alcohol that dehydrates a hard-drinking crewman's body. All those empty beer bottles can lead to something far worse. Sometimes you can find yourself floating in a bottle all your own.

As dust. Powdered DNA.

Ironically, the first time Pierce awoke from being re-hydrated, he figured the headache and loss of memory was the result of a really bad hangover. Otherwise, it's likely his captain would've been given “what for� and left to fend for himself. The captain, realizing this, decided that his crew should always be treated to a night on the town prior to subjecting them to further dehydration.


Update to this H2GE entry: Three months after our interview, Pierce's captain accepted a resupply contract. To increase his cargo capacity, the captain then eliminated one active crew slot. Pierce, being the rowdiest member of his crew, was dropped to the bottom of the list and, after another nightly celebration, underwent dehydration (his crewmates were told that Pierce was sick and would be left planetside to take a month's R and R). Subsequently, while en route to a colony beyond the gated systems, the IMG Asimov slammed headlong into an uncharted planet ... refuting the old wife's tale that navigators are only good for ballast.


* The process of dehydration was originally developed by a commodore back on old Earth during the mid-1960s. The process was thought to be lost to antiquity until a copy of the patent was discovered buried deep within the archives of the Solar Petroleum Company, along with patents for air-powered motors, cold fusion and a perpetual motion machine.

[Marvin]

Cloaked Planets

Everybody knows about stealth devices, stealth generators and cloaking devices. They bend light around the object being cloaked. Either that or they modify the object's index of refraction, allowing light to pass right through it. Planets prefer the first method, due to their ability to tolerate the massive gravitational force required to successfully bend light. On the other hand, pilots prefer to alter their ship's index of refraction so as to avoid the insufferable gravitational squeeze (especially on the large intestines) inherent in option one. Admittedly, the second method usually results in acute disorientation and temporary sterility (you can't find what you can't see, if you get my drift) but at least it doesn't leave the pilot and his crew flat as a pancake.

Cloaked planets don't look like cloaked ships, except on the navigation map … where neither the planet nor the ship will show up. Granted, there are occasions when a cloaked planet will show up on the map, usually when the inhabitants of the planet have purchased a device from one of the cut-rate wholesale warehouses which crop up around Pearl. But even the cut-rate cloaking devices can hide planets until the observer has ventured within a sector or two. What none of the devices can't do (even the more expensive models) is hide the actual planet from visible observation.

This is because the observer has approached close enough to be on the inside of the bent light.


[align=center]
Light Bending Around a Planet[/align]

As illustrated in the diagram, Observer 2 is outside the location where light bends back and, therefore, he sees the object which, in reality, is actually behind the planet. But Observer 1 is inside the sphere of bent light and, therefore, sees the planet. Simple as that.

[Marvin]

Taxi Service

Bureaucrats love to be ferried about. For some inexplicable reason, they either don't own a vehicle of their own or they've lent the family space ship to their teenage offspring for the evening. Either way, they often find themselves stranded in some city or orbiting trade station … in a hurry to get home. And, when I say, “in a hurry,� I'm not exaggerating. They will promise a small fortune to any mercenary willing to navigate the backwaters and frontwaters between star systems in order to reach home in less time than it normally takes to warm up your ship's jump drive.

Until recently, providing taxi service to a demanding rider usually proved to be an unprofitable venture. As a passenger, the bureaucrat would complain at every small delay and insist on reducing his promised fare. As the pilot, your options were limited to: one, continue on and deliver your passenger as promised, receiving chump change as your reward; or two, dock at the nearest station and tell your passenger to go find somebody else.


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Taxi driver attempting to appropriate the full fare from his passenger[/align]

Now, though, things are different. Thanks to the Interstellar Commerce Commission (ICC), regulations have been put in place which protect would-be taxi drivers from cheapskate customers. Initial fares have been set according to distance (as the crow flies) between launch point and destination. Additionally, pilots have a little wiggle room when it comes to how long it takes to deliver a bureaucrat to his home.

As a prospective taxi driver, you won't find passengers waiting in the Dispatch Office, where the usual contracts are distributed among willing mercenaries. No indeed. Bureaucrats are too good to sit around in Dispatch, mingling with common merchants and laborers. Bureaucrats insist on spending their time in the quiet comfort of the Crew Lounge. Ergo, if you're looking to find a fare, you need to look no further than your own break room.

One other consideration. Even under the ICC's new regulations, a passenger can still reduce his original offer if the trip is a long one. That being the case, it is inadvisable for you, as a prospective taxi driver, to pick up a hitchhiker who has wandered off the beaten path, hundreds of sectors away from any jumpgate. In such a situation, it's much better just to park your ship somewhere nearby and wait for the poor, lost, impatient bureaucrat to make his way to the nearest Communications shack and have an emergency distress call sent* over the station's subspace radio.


* This never happens. Leastwise, not unless the bureaucrat has already hired a taxi and the taxi driver misjudges the amount of fuel he needed to make it to the next pit stop.

[DaveK]

cloaked planets are supposed to be ultra cosmic secret - it's part of the deal with the Actarians (who are also part of the ultra cosmic secret :P) . . .

. . . or not

[Marvin]

All scientific entries to the H2GE are theoretical ... no claim is made as to whether or not they prove to be practical.