Shear thickening fluid is a colloid, so it’s made of tiny particles suspended in liquid. Those particles normally repel each other, hence they float easily in the liquid. But a sudden impact overcomes the repulsive forces and suddenly those particles get super friendly with one another and stick to each other like glue. Or form hydroclusters, the correct scientific terminology. When the energy from the impact dissipates, the particles resume the hate part of their love-hate relationship and repel each other again. So, treat them nice and they stay liquid. Bitch slap them (or in military terms, shoot at them) and they turn solid enough to stop a bullet.
The other liquid that can reinforce Kevlar is magnetorheological (MR) fluid. Nope, nothing to do with the X-Men. And try saying that word really fast. MR fluids are basically oils that contain iron particles. Again, take some Kevlar and soak it in MR fluid. Expose it to a magnetic field and the iron particles in the liquid line up like a Roman infantry unit in phalanx formation, all vim, vigor, and as hard as diamonds. In the case of an MR liquid armor suit, it’s not the impact of the bullet that would turn it into an impenetrable fortress of doom. It would be a switch that would activate tiny electric circuits inside the suit, thereby generating mini magnetic fields.
These are all currently under research by such types as our old friends at the US Army Research Lab and MIT.
I also considered giving the bad guys military exoskeletons like the one from DARPA’s Warrior Web program, the Sarcos/Raytheon’s XOS2, and the Ekso Bionics/Lockheed Martin’s HULC, but decided I was venturing way too close into Iron Man territory. And nobody wants another smart-mouthed, billionaire playboy in Seventeen (I’m looking at you Howard Orson Rodney Titus).
Lightning and EMP devices
The electromagnetic pulse or EMP technology used in Destiny is factual. EMP is a short burst electromagnetic energy of natural or man-made cause that can disrupt or damage electronic equipment, as well as large scale physical objects such as buildings if it’s huge enough. The biggest natural EMP that could hit the Earth would originate from the Sun in the form of a solar magnetic flare. The biggest and most destructive man-made EMPs that could affect the Earth would be high altitude nuclear explosions or non-nuclear EMP weapons. A lightning strike is indeed a natural form of EMP. The Nevada scene was one of my favorites of the entire book and nicknaming Ethan the Ultimate Power Ranger was a given. The EMP grenades our Immortals and their allies use against the bad guys are in developmental phase. As for the Faraday pouches in the final battle, those are factual too. Go look up homemade Faraday cages. You will never look at aluminum foil and metal trash cans the same way again.
Can an EMP disable a real liquid-armor suit? Probably not. I theorized that the EMP would definitely destroy the nanorobots in the super soldiers’ suits, but as to whether it could disrupt the chemistry of the shear-thickening or magnetorheological fluid is anyone’s guess.
Uranium City, REEs, and HEAs
Uranium City is factual. No, seriously, go look it up. It’s a community that was set-up in the 1950s around the thriving Cold War uranium mines of the times and expanded rapidly in the 1960s and 70s. Once the last mine closed in the 1980s, the population dropped dramatically and now less than one hundred people live in what is effectively a large ghost town on the shores of Lake Athabasca.
The fictional mine that Lucas and the others infiltrate in Destiny is based on the geographically isolated Hoidas Lake Rare Earth Project, thirty miles north of Uranium City. Hoidas Lake is one of North America’s most significant and promising Rare Earth Element (REE) sites currently in development along a vein system known as the JAK Zone.
Rare Earth Elements have a large range of applications, from magnets, hybrid vehicles’ electric motors, military vehicles and weapons components, super conductors and lasers, to LED light bulbs, X-ray machines, PET scans, and mobile devices. The largest producer of REE in the world before it got shut down in the 1980s was indeed the Mountain Pass Rare Earth Mine Priya Chatterjee mentions in Destiny. China is undoubtedly the biggest player in the world right now when it comes to large scale REE production and has been since the start of this century, with its Bayan Obo mine being its greatest natural resource. Australia, Russia, India, and Brazil are next in the top producing REE countries in the world, but their output is still dwarfed ten times over by the Chinese.
When I started thinking of the bad ass weapons I could give the super soldier army in Destiny, I knew I needed to put in a clue that Lucas and the others could use to eventually trace where Vlado Krall’s base was. That clue was the metal used to make the frangible bullets I talk about above. REEs were identified as one of the groups of technology metals critical for the US civilian and military industries even as far back as a decade ago. Not only are they used in their pure forms for all the applications listed above, but they are potential vital components of High Entropy Alloys (HEAs), effectively new metals with the combined abilities of all their primary constituents and more, like Priya Chatterjee tells Lucas and the gang in Destiny. The spark plasma sintering technology mentioned in Destiny is factual and is a method of super heating elements to just below their melting point to enable them to bond at an atomic level, thereby creating a new material that is denser, more compact, and has improved tensile strength, electrical, and thermal conductivity. It’s how ceramics are made.
IONDS
IONDS, the Integrated Operational Nuclear Detection System Howard and Jordan use to trace the nuclear signals of the missing submarines, is factual. It started life as Project Vela in the 1960s, a space-based military system consisting of twelve satellites able to detect nuclear explosions in the Earth’s atmosphere and in space, and also gather data on natural sources of space radiation. It was an essential component of Nuclear MASINT (Measurement and Signature Intelligence) at the time. Nuclear MASINT falls under the more broad-based umbrella of intelligence gathering (the other intelligence gathering methods I’ve used in the Seventeen series and in the Division Eight series are HUMINT, GEOINT, and SIGINT). Over time, the program was also used to monitor nuclear tests and EMP events on Earth. Navstar satellites were introduced in the 1980s and the whole thing is now known as IONDS.
The extra electro-optical devices I place on the IONDS satellites to detect the presence of nuclear radiation at a constant low level on Earth is purely fictional. I’m pretty sure someone is working on this somewhere in real life.
Nuclear explosion
I wrote the final scenes of Destiny over a year ago, well before I finished Origins. The picture of those seven Immortals standing on a ridge and facing that explosion was etched in my mind from that time onward. So was the scene where the scientists on the International Space Station witnessed the fourth detonation. For me, this was the best way to explain the epic nature of what Lily and Tomas achieved.
A nuclear explosion consists of four phases. The flash and fireball of the initial detonation, which consists of an intense bright flash of light that can temporarily or permanently blind people up to fifty miles away, immediate heat radiation that can set fire to material up to eight miles away and burn people within a six to ten-mile radius, and deadly X-ray pulses that can kill up to two miles away. The second phase is the explosive nuclear blast which destroys and kills everything in its path within a two-mile radius and can injure people and cause damage to structures up to ten to twenty miles away; this second phase is accompanied by hurricane-strength winds. The third phase is the firestorm which is augmented by breaking gas mains and the winds of the blast; not only does the firestorm kill and destroy everything in its path, it also uses up all the oxygen in the area, causing death by suffocation. The fourth phase is radiation fallout and widespread contamination of all living and inert matter in the fallout zone, which can be several miles initially but can extend to hundreds of miles if one factors in winds. For example, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion caused contamination as far out as Sweden and Norway.
The first phase of a nuclear explosion, the flash
and fireball, is accompanied by the mushroom cloud or cap of the explosion, which is formed of smoke, debris, and condensation vapor. This occurs in all kinds of powerful explosions, not just nuclear; volcanic eruptions also give rise to mushroom clouds. Alongside this mushroom cloud will be a series of short-lived clouds called Wilson clouds. These take the shape of rings that form above and around the mushroom cap. They are effectively areas of rapid condensation that form in the atmosphere as a result of the initial explosion, which produces a shock wave of compressed air. In the wake of the compressed air, the atmospheric pressure drops, forming low-pressure zones around the mushroom cloud. This results in the cooling and condensation of water in the atmosphere, hence the clouds. Once the pressure in the atmosphere equalizes again, the clouds dissipate as the water evaporates once more.
In Destiny, the mushroom cloud and condensation rings that accompany the first phase of a nuclear explosion never formed. That’s because Lily and Tomas create a wave of elemental and psychokinetic energy that literally wraps around the flash and fireball and propels it into outer space at super sonic speed, thereby dispersing over fifty percent of its kinetic energy. Since they cannot prevent the effects of the second phase, which is the blast at ground level, the only way they can save everyone on that ridge is to protect them under a dome of their combined energies, like the bubble they created on the island to protect Lucas and Anna from those RPGs. The wall of ice and rock generated by the nuclear blast literally skirts over and around this bubble, resulting in a solid dome when the debris cools down.
I thought it made for a pretty cool finale.
I hope you enjoyed this science and technology lesson. Check out the Extras section of the website for more research info from the series at www.adstarrling.com
About the Author
AD Starrling’s bestselling supernatural thriller series Seventeen combines action, suspense, and a dose of fantasy to make each book an explosive, adrenaline-fueled ride. If you prefer your action hot and your heroes sexy and strong-willed, then check out her military thriller series Division Eight.
When she’s not busy writing, AD can be found looking up exciting international locations and cool science and technology to put in her books, eating Thai food, being tortured by her back therapists, drooling over gadgets, working part-time as a doctor on a Neonatal Intensive Care unit somewhere in the UK, reading manga, and watching action and sci-fi flicks. She has occasionally been accused of committing art with a charcoal stick and some drawing paper.
Find out more about AD on her website www.adstarrling.com where you can sign up for her awesome newsletter, get exclusive freebies, and never miss her latest release. You’ll also have a chance to see sneak previews of her work, participate in exclusive giveaways, and hear about special promotional offers first.
Here are some other places where you can connect with her:
www.adstarrling.com
Email: [email protected]
Also by A D Starrling
Hunted (A Seventeen Series Novel) Book One
'My name is Lucas Soul. Today, I died again. This is my fifteenth death in the last four hundred and fifty years. And I'm determined that it will be the last.’
National Indie Excellence Awards Winner Fantasy 2013
National Indie Excellence Awards Finalist Adventure 2013
Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist Action-Adventure 2013
Hollywood Book Festival 2013 Honorable Mention General Fiction
Warrior (A Seventeen Series Novel) Book Two
The perfect Immortal warrior. A set of stolen, priceless artifacts. An ancient sect determined to bring about the downfall of human civilization.
Next Generation Indie Book Awards Winner Action-Adventure 2014
Shelf Unbound Competition for Best Independently Published Book Finalist 2014
Empire (A Seventeen Series Novel) Book Three
An Immortal healer. An ancient empire reborn. A chain of cataclysmic events that threatens to change the fate of the world.
Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist General Fiction 2015
Legacy (A Seventeen Series Novel) Book Four
The Hunter who should have been king. The Elemental who fears love. The Seer who is yet to embrace her powers.
Three immortals whose fates are entwined with that of the oldest and most formidable enemy the world has ever faced.
Origins (A Seventeen Series Novel) Book Five
The gifts bestowed by One not of this world, to the Man who had lived longer than most.
The Empire ruled by a King who would swallow the world in his madness.
The Warrior who chose to rise against her own kind in order to defeat him.
Discover the extraordinary beginnings of the Immortals and the unforgettable story of the Princess who would become a Legend.
The Seventeen Collection: Books 1-3
Boxset featuring Hunted, Warrior, and Empire.
First Death (A Seventeen Series Short Story) #1
Discover where it all started…
Dancing Blades (A Seventeen Series Short Story) #2
Join Lucas Soul on his quest to become a warrior.
The Meeting (A Seventeen Series Short Story) #3
Discover the origins of the incredible friendship between the protagonists of Hunted.
The Warrior Monk (A Seventeen Series Short Story) #4
Experience Warrior from the eyes of one of the most beloved characters in Seventeen.
The Hunger (A Seventeen Series Short Story) #5
Discover the origin of the love story behind Empire.
The Bank Job (A Seventeen Series Short Story) #6
Join two of the protagonists from Legacy on their very first adventure.
The Seventeen Series Short Story Collection (#1-3)
Boxset featuring First Death, Dancing Blades, and The Meeting.
The Seventeen Series Short Story Collection (#4-6)
Boxset featuring The Warrior Monk, The Hunger, and The Bank Job.
The Seventeen Series Ultimate Short Story Collection
Boxset featuring First Death, Dancing Blades, The Meeting, The Warrior Monk, The Hunger, and The Bank Job.
Mission:Black (A Division Eight Thriller)
A broken agent. A once in a lifetime chance. A new mission that threatens to destroy her again.
Mission: Armor (A Division Eight Thriller)
A man tortured by his past. A woman determined to save him. A deadly assignment that threatens to rip them apart.
Void (A Sci-fi Horror Short Story)
2065. Humans start terraforming Mars.
2070. The Mars Baker2 outpost is established on the Acidalia Planitia.
2084. The first colonist goes missing.
The Other Side of the Wall (A Short Horror Story)
Have you ever seen flashes of darkness where there should only be light? Ever seen shadows skitter past out of the corner of your eyes and looked, only to find nothing there?
AUDIOBOOKS
Hunted (A Seventeen Series Novel) Book One
Warrior (A Seventeen Series Novel) Book Two
Empire (A Seventeen Seres Novel) Book Three
First Death (A Seventeen Series Short Story) #1
Dancing Blades (A Seventeen Series Short Story) #2
The Meeting (A Seventeen Series Short Story) #3
The Warrior Monk (A Seventeen Series Short Story) #4
Mission:Black Extract
Chapter One
June 2014. Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea.
The man standing outside the communications room of the cargo ship yawned and stretched out the kinks in his neck. He adjusted the sling of his AK-47 rifle before leaning against the steel compartment door behind him. It wasn't long before his chin started to droop and his breathing grew slow and deep.
Twelve feet away, in an adjacent passageway, Rachel Carter crouched against a bulkhead. She ignored the cold metal at her back and the vibrations traveling through her boo
ts from the engine room several decks below, her gaze focused on the miniature mirror on a stick she held in her left hand. Through it, she could see the snoozing guard outside the communications room.
She stole a glance at her watch before slipping the mirror inside her tactical gear. Adrenaline surged through her veins. She gripped her Sig Pro tightly in both hands, her muscles tensing in anticipation of the upcoming battle. Right on cue, a male voice started a countdown in the wireless receiver in her ear.
'All stations, this is Alpha One. On my mark in three, two, one!'
Rachel twisted, dropped to one knee, and squeezed the trigger twice. A distant explosion shook the bowels of the ship at the same time the bullets left the suppressor at the end of her gun and slammed into the guard's chest and head. He jerked and slid down the door, his grip relaxing on his weapon.
Rachel was up and running before the dead man hit the deck. She grabbed the AK-47, slung it around her neck, and dragged the guard’s body down the passage. She was back at the communications room in seconds. She rapped the door twice with her knuckles and stood to the side of the doorjamb.
The sound of gunfire rose from the direction of the galley and the main deck. Alarmed shouts followed in the distance.
Rachel rose on the balls of her feet. By now, the men inside the communications room would know the ship was under attack.
The door opened without warning. An automatic rifle burst into life and a spray of bullets ripped through the doorway. The shots slammed harmlessly into the opposite bulkhead.
Rachel yanked the pull ring on a stun grenade and lobbed it through the opening. She turned, dropped on her heels, pressed her hands over her ears, and closed her eyes tightly. The flash from the subsonic deflagration registered as a bright light through her eyelids, the accompanying bang of the grenade throbbing through her bones.
Destiny Page 32