Tales of the Vuduri: Year Two

by Michael Brachman

  We also know that the Overmind breeds Vuduri to accentuate certain traits. One of them is physical prowess. However, the Overmind on Helome also breeds for beauty. In The Ark Lords, Rei observes that everything about that world and its people are beautiful. Virga does not deny it which means the Overmind does not keep this a secret.

  Putting all these facts together, we can conclude that while they seem to not care, the reality is the Vuduri, in general, are a race we would consider quite beautiful in appearance.

  Entry 2-072: March 8, 2014

 

  Tales of the Vuduri web site is now live!

  As mentioned previously, I have bundled up the entire first year's worth of this blog and published it as an e-book and now in paperback. I call it Tales of the Vuduri: Year One because I am well into my second year and I plan on binding each year as a separate volume.

  To publicize this event, I now have a new website www.TalesoftheVuduri.com to promote this book. However, if you look at it, you will see it looks just a little bit odd. There is actually a reason behind this. My very talented web designer Regina laid it out so we have room for adding Year Two and Year Three without breaking the site. So if you want to show your friends or family or even read a little sample, this is the place to go. Thanks for looking!

  Entry 2-073: March 9, 2014

 

  Tokamaks, cold fusion and PPTs

  In Rome's Revolution, it was necessary that I have a faster-than-light (FTL) star drive. However, Einstein's theory of special relativity states it is not practical to accelerate mass that fast. According to the theory, it takes more energy than exists in the universe to accelerate any mass to the speed of light, let alone faster.

  What I needed was a kinder, gentler FTL drive. To travel at a speed faster than the speed of light, you have to "go around" space rather than through it. We've all read about wormholes. Usually the explanation of how to create a wormhole requires the invocation of a black hole.

  This leads me to the topic of a fusion reactor as a generator of electricity. Tokamaks are one type. They use brute force to drive atoms together. The fuel is usually a mixture of deuterium and tritium, two isotopes of hydrogen— which is heated to temperatures in excess of 150 million °C, forming a hot plasma. Tokamaks use super strong magnetic fields to keep the plasma away from the walls; these are produced by superconducting coils surrounding the vessel, and by an electrical current driven through the plasma. When the atoms slam against each other, they fuse and if we are very lucky, they generate more power than was required to operate the machine.

  Keep in mind these are multi-billion dollar machines and we do not as yet have an operational, practical version even though scientists have been working on them since the 1950s.

  Contrast this to cold fusion. First reported in 1989, the results and the entire field was scoffed at by scientists and relegated to the sector of science owned by kooks. But over the last few decades, enough evidence has been accumulated (e.g. increase concentration of helium in a closed container, inexplicable pits in palladium rods holding tritium) that scientists have concluded there is a chance the field has merit. So much so that they have renamed the process as Low Energy Nuclear Reactions to keep arms length from the term "cold fusion".

  So on the one hand, we have a multi-billion dollar replica of the sun that doesn't even work versus a table-top device that produces the same results at a millionth of the cost.

  That's what I wanted for the wormhole of the future. I didn't want to invoke a black hole and the extreme amount of mass and tidal forces associated with such exotic matter. I wanted an easy-to-use, relatively inexpensive way to achieve the same results. Turns out, all you need to do is suck the positive energy out and the resulting negative energy collapses space, paving the way for an FTL drive.

  We may not have it today but the Vuduri certainly use it to their advantage in the 35th century.

  Entry 2-074: March 10, 2014

 

  John Dixon, Phoenix Island and Intelligence

  Friday's meeting of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society featured John Dixon, a top-selling author. His first novel, Phoenix Island, is among Amazon's most popular and is very highly rated.

  Phoenix Island is about Carl Freeman, a troubled 16-year-old orphan, who has an over-developed sense of justice and a passion to stop bullying that he cannot control. After numerous appearances in juvenile court, he is sent to Phoenix Island, kind of a last stop for good kids who do bad things.

  Phoenix Island is a boot camp where they are going to make you into a good person whether you like it or not. Near the end of the book, "they" implant a chip in the hero's brain which gives him access to the totality of human knowledge, akin to the Internet.

  Sounds pretty good, huh? John is planning up to six more sequels continuing his main character's journey. So what has this got to do with Rome's Revolution? Just that John is good enough and lucky enough that his book got into the hands of agents and producers who saw enough promise in the basic premise that it eventually became the TV show you know as Intelligence starring Josh Holloway.

  John describes the Hollywood process as a "chop shop" where they took all his creative ideas, sliced and diced them, then recombined them into a show which is only peripherally related to his book. Except for the chip in the head, the resemblance is unnoticeable.

  I asked John if he had ever seen the TV show Chuck and he said while he had personally never seen it, I was about the 150th person to ask him that question. The fact is, his book sounds nothing like Chuck. The TV show sounds exactly like Chuck but without a sense of humor.

  Regardless, all of this gives me hope. It tells me that if I keep pushing, keep marketing, keep publicizing Rome's Revolution, The Ark Lords and Rome's Evolution, maybe I, too, can stumble across an agent or producer who might see the merit in an interstellar saga, culture clash and love story that can get chopped up and repackaged as a movie or TV show.

  Therefore I will keep going!

  Entry 2-075: March 11, 2014

 

  Low tech versus high tech and the LifeStraw

  The other day, I wrote about fusion reactors, comparing the high tech tokamak to the low tech cold fusion types. The jury is still out as to which technology is ultimately successful but imagine if both do succeed. Which would you rather have? A multi-billion dollar controlled hydrogen bomb versus a little box that can sit in your back yard and supply all of your electrical needs? Personally, I would take always take low tech, all things being equal, just because it seems to be most logical. My daughter, who works for Verizon, bugs me every day to get a smartphone but I prefer a "dumb" phone so I'm not tempted to waste time using all of its features. I just use my phone to make phone calls. Just in case you are wondering, I do have two computers at work, six servers and at home, an iPad, a desktop computer, a laptop, a Mac mini and a Nexus tablet for good measure so I am not anti-technology. Just anti-smartphone.

  I have already written about the Ark program featured in Rome's Revolution. I'm not going to say that a starship ferrying frozen people in ceramic, nuclear-powered sarcophagi is low tech, but the body of the Ark certainly is.

  Here is another example. There are many, many places in the world where acquiring clean, potable water is a serious, life-threatening issue. For millions and millions of dollars, you can build a water filtration or desalination plant that is bound to break down from time to time. Or you could get your clean water via a tiny, simple device called the LifeStraw.

  The LifeStraw Personal, pictured above, is just a straw with an intricate filtration system built within. It uses no power and no chemicals. According to the manufacturer, the LifeStraw:

  -Filters at least 1,000 liters of water (264 gallons)

  -Weighs only 54 grams (2 oz.)

  -Removes up to 99.99999 percent of waterborne bacteria

  -Removes up to 99.9 percent of waterborne protozoan cysts

  -Reduces turbidity by filtering particles of app
rox 0.2 microns

  -BPA Free and contains no chemicals

  -Uses no batteries or moving parts

  This straw is so amazing, it won the "Best Invention of the Year" in 2005 awarded by Time Magazine. And this will blow your mind: the LifeStraw Personal only costs $19.99! The LifeStraw Family costs $80.00 and will provide a family of five enough clean drinking water for three years!

  Bottom line: give me Low Tech every time.

  Entry 2-076: March 12, 2014

 

  Solar power 1

  The entire Vuduri society pictured in Rome's Revolution runs on free, clean energy supplied by Casimir Pumps. As a group, the availability of infinite, free energy changes the goals of people from spending their lives striving to acquire wealth to one of altruism, trying to build a better society.

  Can we achieve this today? Is there a place where we can go to get infinite, free energy without burning fossil fuels, making geothermal plants or building nuclear reactors? The answer is yes. The source of this power? The Sun. According to YourTurn.ca:

  At any moment, the Sun emits about 3.86 x 10e26 watts of energy. So add 24 zeros to the end of that number, and you’ll get an idea of how unimaginably large an amount of energy that is! Most of that energy goes off into space, but about 1.74 x 10e17 watts strikes the Earth. (ie: 174,000,000,000,000,000, or 174 quadrillion watts). If there are no clouds in the way, then one square meter of the Earth will receive about one kilowatt of that energy. So for the six hours in the middle of a sunny day, an area the size of a small backyard swimming pool (48 square meters) will receive about 288 kilowatts of energy. That’s nearly 10 times what the average US household uses in an entire day! (In the United States, the average daily electricity use is around 30 kilowatt hours per household).

  This means that if harnessed properly, the power of the Sun is all we need for the foreseeable future. So what are the ways we can harness the power of the Sun? While this is not an exhaustive list, we can use:

  - Hydroelectric plants

  - Ocean thermal energy conversion

  - Wind farms

  - Biomass

  - Solar furnaces

  - Solar panels

  - Solar cells

  In the next few articles, I'll cover most of these technologies.

  Hydroelectric plants are powered by the Sun. How? The Sun beats down on bodies of water and causes water vapor to rise into the atmosphere. Eventually, the water returns as rain which collects and travels downhill as rivers which can be used to turn turbines to create electricity.

  According to the National Hydropower Association:

  The U.S. hydropower industry could install 60,000 MW of new capacity by 2025 depending on policy changes. That only 15% of the total untapped hydropower resource potential in the U.S., meaning hydropower can remain a growing energy source for decades to come. The U.S. had 96,000 megawatts of conventional hydropower and pumped storage capacity as of 2009, according to the Department of Energy. With 1 MW enough to power 750-1,000 average American homes according to Electric Power Supply Association, that’s enough generating capacity to produce electricity for roughly 72 to 96 million homes.

  And if done right, all of this with no environmental impact whatsoever!

  Entry 2-077: March 13, 2014

 

  Solar power 2

  Yesterday, we discussed the almost unlimited potential of hydro-electric power to supply extremely cheap energy with next to no environmental impact whatsoever. Today, I will be discussing ocean thermal energy conversion or OTEC.

  Ocean thermal energy conversion uses the fact that the Sun heats up the water at the surface of the ocean or any large body of water. Well below is a pool of cold water. All you need is a heat exchanger and a gas/liquid like ammonia and you get an infinite cycle of turning the Sun's rays into electricity.

  According to OTEC News, the amount of energy that can be harvesting using this methodology is on the order of 3 to 5 terawatts which is twice the Earth's entire electrical needs. All of this without affecting the temperature of the oceans by even one degree.

  While not as sophisticated as the Casimir Pumps featured in Rome's Revolution, OTEC has numerous benefits besides infinite, free energy. It can provide desalinated water as a side-effect of bringing up the cool water from deep within the ocean. It can be used to provide air conditioning (similar to swamp coolers used in the southwest), again a byproduct of the cooler waters. It can also be used for aquaculture, hydrogen production and mineral extraction. This is a technology with super promise.

  A similar concept is a wave farm which uses waves to raise and lower buoys and generate electricity that way. Conceptually similar is a tidal farm as well. Tomorrow we'll take a look at wind farms.

  Entry 2-078: March 14, 2014

 

  Solar power 3

  Our discussion of free, unlimited energy such as that enjoyed by the Vuduri in Rome's Revolution started two days ago with hydro-electric power and yesterday we discussed OTEC, ocean thermal energy conversion.

  Today I'd like to mention wind farms. They are getting to be so prevalent that you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who has not marveled at them in the distance somewhere in the US.

  Wind farms can be on land or at sea. They just need to be located where the winds are somewhat predictable. What makes these devices solar-powered is because winds are caused by temperature differentials and the Sun is responsible for all the heating on Earth.

  Wind power is clean, emission-free and as battery technology evolves, the electricity can be stored to guarantee a continuous flow even if the winds temporarily die down. Researchers from Harvard and Tsinghua University have found that China could meet all of their electricity demands from wind power by 2030. Imagine that!

  Currently the US only gets 3% of its electrical needs from wind power. But 42% of all new power projects being built are wind farms. Off-shore wind farms are only starting to come online and solve the one major people problem which goes by the acronym NIMBY. Those five letters stand for Not In My Back Yard. Self-explanatory.

  Tomorrow, let's capture the rays of the Sun directly.

  Entry 2-079: March 15, 2014

 

  Solar power 4

  Our discussion of free, unlimited energy such as that enjoyed by the Vuduri in Rome's Revolution started three days ago with hydro-electric power and two days ago with OTEC, ocean thermal energy conversion. Yesterday, we discussed wind farms. I'm skipping over biomass as I think it is too labor intensive.

  Today we tackle the idea of directly harnessing the power of the Sun, rather than its effects. The first practical concept is that of a solar furnace. Here is a picture of the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in the Mojave Desert in California:

  When completed, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System will have gross capacity of 392 megawatts. Not bad.

  This thing points mirrors at a tower and that tower gets very hot, boils water and the steam drives a turbine thus generating electricity. The mirrors are mounted on servos and track the Sun as it travels across the sky. These plants are fairly expensive to build and have to be put way, way away from civilization but the fuel for these plants is free.

  Solar panels capture the thermal power of the Sun to heat water. I can personally attest to their usefulness in that they heated my pool to a very comfortable temperature for many years and the only energy I had to supply was a pump to circulate water through the panels.

  While these panels do not generate electricity in the traditional sense, they do reduce the energy requirements of a home. They work much better when it is sunny out but still it is a technology worth considering if you are a candidate.

  Finally, we have solar cells or more formally, photovoltaic cells. These cells convert sunlight directly into electricity. Like the solar furnace mentioned above, you can build huge farms in the desert away from civilization:

  What is more exciting is that every home that has a roof can be fitted with these:r />
  Do I have this on my home yet? The answer is no. My wife will not allow it until the solar cells look like shingles but I assure you that day is coming. Can you imagine how low our energy requirements would be if everybody had one of these?

  They could be fitted onto the roofs of cars and trucks too. The uses are unlimited and amazing. We just need the technology to get there.

  I hope you can see the bottom line of these past few articles is that the Sun provides all the energy requirements our civilization needs. We just need to be aggressive in harnessing this unlimited, free source of energy and our lives can be like those of the Vuduri.

  Entry 2-080: March 16, 2014

 

  OMCOM hypnotizes Rei

  I've said it before and I'll say it again. I think these stories are true, they just haven't happened yet. The whole universe of Rome's Revolution has taken on a life of its own and creates its own ideas.

  One very distinct example is the time that Rei stepped into OMCOM's long-term holographic crystal-based memory unit. Whereas the rest of OMCOM's core was bathed in infrared, the long-term storage used ultraviolet lasers to carve holograms into the crystals to retain the memories without power. Here is the section if you don't remember it: