Even when we have been able to achieve such reactors, we find that in many cases we are putting in more energy to sustain the nuclear fusion reaction, than we are getting out of it. A reactor’s objective is to generate energy not consume it, so needless to say these reactors are a failure. Some of the latest human reactors do produce more energy that they consume, but only just. They can hardly be considered efficient.
So this ladies and gentlemen was the litany of failures we humans have had in the last hundred years trying to build a nuclear fusion reactor. When we started studying the Shaitan reactor, we were certain that it follows a very different design principle. It was obvious from its compactness and its cold temperature. Now that we have a fair idea, we physicists have been kicking ourselves that we did not think of it earlier.
The Shaitan nuclear reactor does not try to mimic the brute force method of a star. There is no brute force gravity available, so we were wrong to try to mimic the brute force method. Instead they take a very subtle approach, thereby reimagining the entire fusion process.
The hydrogen molecules do not care how hot or how much pressure the gas is under when it undergoes fusion. All it cares about is how hard one atom slams into the other. If you can slam two atoms hard enough against each other, they would undergo a fusion reaction and release energy not matter how cold the gas is overall.
We humans knew that, we scientists do it all the time in particle accelerators like the 100 km diameter accelerator under the Mojave Desert, or even the venerable Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland. We smash a few molecules against each other in such particle accelerators.
We however do not know any other way to do fusion at a large scale, to create enough energy other than the process that goes on inside a star. That is where the genius of the Shaitan ‘Variable Geometry’ design comes in. If you were to do a thought experiment and imagine that you could keep track of every atom in a fusion, and somehow you could nudge those atoms in any direction you desired, then you would realize we could repeat the same process that goes on in our particle accelerator, but with quintillions of atoms simultaneously to yield energy, without having to heat up the reactor to a 100 million degree.
This is what the Shaitan fusion reactor achieves with the help of a quantum computer and ‘Variable Geometry’. As you may be aware that we don’t even know the theoretical limits of a quantum computer. A dedicated computer inside the Shaitan fusion reactor keeps track of fusing atoms.
Well… I am oversimplifying the description. In reality the computer keeps track of a space just a few nanometers wide. There could be few tens or hundreds of atoms within this space which it keeps track collectively by monitoring the temperature and pressure. It is not that the quantum computer lacks computing power to keep track of individual atoms, but the sensor and control equipment cannot be made even by the Shaitan technology smaller than a few nanometers.
To that extent, this the limiting factor – Shaitan manufacturing technology, that limits the fusion process from being more efficient. Having said that, the overall process is pretty darn efficient, unimaginably more than the current human fusion process.
The reactor smashes the first few atoms at the Nano scale, which does not take too much energy, then directs the high energy atoms emerging out of those first fusion to smash more atoms. Thus starting up a sustained fusion reaction. It draws out energy from the reactor by drawing out the high energy Helium plasma which is the byproduct of fusion, and continuously supplies new hydrogen to reactor, all at a Nano scale.
The high energy helium plasma can be pushed out directly from the nozzle of a spaceship to provide thrust. Else the ionized plasma can be used directly to generate electricity. Like all machines in the universe, the Shaitan fusion reactor is also governed by entropy and second law of thermodynamics. It can harness about 50% of the energy generated into useful forms, the rest dissipates as heat and radiation.
The size of the Nano cells where fusion takes place has been engineered such, that the radiation profile has very little of X-Rays and Gamma rays, which are harmful to biological beings, so with a very light shielding, it is perfectly safe for us to approach next to the reactor. The heat dissipation is very mild relative to the amount of energy being generated. In the context of a spaceship, it is actually a good thing, as it keeps the ship warm from the cold of space.
Now 50% energy efficiency might sound low, but I would like to remind you that the most efficient human power generation plants work at a 40% thermal efficiency. So the Shaitans actually have a more efficient power generation process compared to us.
You all must be wondering, where ‘Variable Geometry’ comes into the discourse. Most of you, who have seen the Shaitan reactor know that it is a solid but disturbingly shimmering sphere. There seems nothing variable about it. That is because we are looking at it at a macro scale. If we were to look at it in micro scale, or Nano scale to be more precise, we would find that each of those Nano cells where fusion is taking place is constantly being twisted and distorted by the quantum computer to direct the atoms in one way or the other. The geometry of each of those cells is variable.
That brings me to the bad news. If you remember I opened up by saying that I have good news and the bad news. The good news being that we understand the reactor to a fair degree now. The bad news is that we don’t have the manufacturing technology to replicate it. It requires building material at Nano scale and hooking it up to a functioning quantum computer, both of which we don’t have at the moment.
I am hoping that the next two speakers will be able to give us some hope on that front. With that I will invite Dr. Ramesh Srinivasan to take up the stage. Thank you ladies and gentlemen for your time.” Jorge concluded and motioned Ramesh to come up to the stage.
Ramesh started his report in a similar way. “I take a cue from my friend and start with the same statement. We have good news and bad news. The details of the report of the computer science group as mentioned earlier are in the docket mailed to you.
The good news is that, not only do we understand the Shaitan computer systems with a fairly high level of confidence, we have found that fundamentally there is very little difference between in the computer architecture and organization between us and the Shaitan technology.
Basically we design computers in a very similar way, and consequently we program in a very similar manner. Of course there are a lot of things they do differently, but not at a fundamental level, and these differences are more to do with the cultural or biological differences between the two species.
For example we use programming language to program a computer, while they use electro chemical signals to program. If we were however to look at the structure of the resulting program, we would find that both of them are very similar in logic. This is not surprising. Binary logic is the same across the universe.
As you are aware, we have been constructing and experimenting with rudimentary quantum computers for over 60 years now. We now have functioning quantum computers that can perform simple computations. We have developed a specialized language which we call Q++, which is a modification of the standard G++ language that is suitable for programming a quantum computer.
After studying the Shaitan quantum computer we realized that unlike the fusion reactor designers, we were always on the right track. There is no fundamental difference in philosophy or approach between our quantum computers and the Shaitan ones. The only difference was that ours are primitive, clunky that need to be cooled to nearly absolute zero temperature, with so few quantum cells that they can perform operations that are comparable to that of a pocket calculator, while as Jorge mentioned the Shaitan ones can keep track of every atom in a fusion reactor.
That is where the good news stops. The bad news is that we don’t have the manufacturing technology to replicate the level of sophistication and miniaturization that the Shaitan quantum computers display, as mentioned before by Jorge.
The materials used to make the computer
is another issue as well. Our most successful quantum computers use superconductors which need to be cooled to near absolute zero, which is not very practical outside a lab. We have always been aware that there are other materials that can be used. One of the most promising being fullerene based carbon nanotubes. We however have not been able to grow carbon nanotubes large enough for any practical use yet.
The Shaitan quantum computers use a fullerene based carbon nanotube as their computational engine. They obviously know how to manufacture large fullerene chains. That is the reason they not only have a very dense quantum computer with computational cells at a molecular level, giving them almost infinite computational capacity. It is also the reason their computers can run at an almost normal -2° C, which makes it eminently practical to place them almost anywhere including a spaceship.
This brings me to our next speaker, on whom we now pin our hopes for getting us the breakthrough needed for us to benefit from Shaitan technology. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our gracious host Mr. Sarvesh Gupta.” Ramesh yielded the stage and Mr. Gupta got up to speak. His missing arm meant that he had to climb up the podium slowly.
“Thank you Jorge and Ramesh. You have put onerous responsibilities on the material sciences group, and I hope we don’t let you and humanity down. I will start by saying that our group has good news and well… not so bad news. The good news is that not only do we understand some of the Shaitan manufacturing techniques at the Nano scale, we have been able to replicate a few of them ourselves in the lab.
I would like to clarify that we do not understand everything yet. In fact we understand only a small part of their manufacturing process. There is still decades of research and reverse engineering ahead of us before we can claim we understand how every part of Shaitan machinery has been manufactured.
However after nearly 3 years of research and reverse engineering, we do understand some of their critical manufacturing processes and some of the materials used. The Shaitan fabricators captured, and especially the one transported back here have helped in that process beyond measure.
Some of the materials we realized we humans would have figured out by ourselves in a few decades and others within a century. So far whatever we have managed to study and understand, we have realized, have all been materials and manufacturing techniques that are not fundamentally any different from what we humans understand.
They are more advanced simply because a lot of permutations and combinations have been tried over I guess a longer period of time. So to that extent the Shaitan materials and manufacturing technology has been able to compress decades or a century of trial and error research for us by pointing us in the right direction.
The good news is that we have been able to replicate both fullerene based carbon nanotubes as well as nuclear reactor composites in our labs using techniques we learnt from the Shaitan replicator. I must warn you that the Shaitan replicators we studied were not designed for the purpose of making a nuclear reactor or a quantum computer. They were designed as general purpose replicators.
It is possible, even likely that the Shaitans manufactured the nuclear reactor and the quantum computer with specialized manufacturing machinery that we have not seen. We have assumed that those machines used similar manufacturing techniques and philosophies as the general purpose Shaitan replicators we have seen.
The Shaitan replicator itself uses fairly conventional materials and metals, which we understand reasonably well. It would have been a chicken and egg situation if the replication techniques itself required advanced materials required to be made by a replicator. So we have been able to fashion a crude machine of our own that mimics the Shaitan replicator techniques.
I am glad to announce that just yesterday we were able to create a cube made of carbon nanotubes that is two centimeters on its sides. It may not sound impressive, but it is millions of times greater in mass than anything that we have created before.
I believe that at the pace at which we are progressing right now, we would be able to manufacture the materials required for a workable quantum computer within a year. The materials required for the fusion reactor are a trickier, but there is nothing theoretically stopping us. It would probably take a few years more of research.
Now I come to the part which requires the particular attention of our government sponsors. As I mentioned, there is nothing stopping us from manufacturing many things like the quantum computer with what we know already. Nothing that is except money, and I am talking about obscene amount of money if we want to do this fast.
We need to research and develop manufacturing machines. Machines which can take the techniques we have learnt in the lab and manufacture on larger scales, so that we can make the things like the quantum computer, and better space ships. I can assure you that we will more than recover the money, when we license the technology to the industry around the world.
Imagine what Wall Street would pay to get that extra edge in trading which would help them make trillions of dollars due to quantum computers. Imagine what the power companies would pay you, when you can give them the ultimate dream of cheap and unlimited fusion power. We need the money now, however. The payback will come much later perhaps a decade from now.
I have put an initial estimates of the budget in the docket for all of you. I urge you to not weigh the survival of humanity in mere budgetary estimates. I can assure you that there is not a dollar in the budget that we have asked for that we really don’t need. With that I would like to answer any questions that you may have.” Mr. Gupta finished.
There were many questions, mostly from bean counters. The military and the scientific community tried to respond as best as they could. By the time they all proceeded for dinner, they hoped that the fate of humanity would not be cut short by the pen of an accountant.
Chapter 7
Overdue
USC Orbital HQ, Earth Orbit
May 2078
The last invasion by the Shaitans had arrived like clockwork as far as humans could calculate. It had been launched immediately after the destruction of their previous scout ship. If the Shaitans follow the same pattern, then the next invasion was overdue.
Humans should have detected the deceleration burn of a Shaitan vessel coming from the direction of their home planet by now, as it begun its nearly 5 years of slow down to enter the Solar system. That had not happened however. It worried Admiral Daniel Cloutier.
It was possible that the Shaitans have had a change of heart and decided to leave the humans alone. Daniel and most humans didn’t think that was likely though. It just meant that the Shaitans were going to adopt some new tactic this time, and it was primarily Daniel’s responsibility to detect and counter this new tactic.
As a newly promoted Admiral and recently appointed chief of the fledgling USC. The burden of defense of Earth and the solar system was squarely on Daniel’s shoulders. He looked back in amusement at what his reaction would have been as a young US Air force pilot, if he would have been told that he would one day become an Admiral in the navy!
Granted that this is not a maritime navy. In fact the name Space Navy is colloquial, the official moniker for his organization is United Space Command (USC). It is not even a US armed forces unit, although it his heavily dominated by the US and a few of the spacefaring nations.
The USC was the arm, which had brought back some semblance of relevance to the otherwise moribund and dysfunctional United Nations (UN). In the past century, the UN had become less and less relevant to international theater as nations ignored it and went ahead with whatever they wanted to do.
The UN had been reduced to a large charity organization and a nodal agency for the few non-controversial activities that most humans could agree upon, like education, health etc. for the poor. Even the task of peacekeeper, which was one arm of enforcement that the UN had was rarely used now. Therein lay the problem with the UN, it was all talk and no action, so nations simply ignored it.
The fundamental proble
m with the UN had been that it had been built on idealistic principles which do not bear reflection to reality on the ground. It was built on the principles of one nation one vote, similar to a modern democracy. It took no account of the relative power of a nation or the stability of a nation that was voting. It was ridiculous to expect that in real life the US or China had the same say in matter around the world as a tottering small nation run by some military dictator in Africa.
The UN was however the largest multilateral agency that the world had, with infrastructure and over a century of experience in handling such matters. So the USC was formed under the auspices of the UN, but modelled on the only part of the UN that had any political relevance – the UN Security Council. That was because it took into account that some nations are more equal than others and thus should have more of a say, as long as they don’t crush over the interests of the smaller nations.
The USC was an independent arm of the UN, not under the UN Security council, but modelled like it. In the case of USC, it was the spacefaring capabilities of nations and their contribution to the USC fleet and forces that was the determinant to the share of voice each nation had in the USC, not the perceived military might of a nation.
It was a reflection of times when the USC was set up vis-à-vis the UN Security council more than a century ago, that the voting in the USC council was digital, with each member having fractional weightage depending on the last budget contribution and their overall historical contribution to the budget of USC. This complex formula was managed and maintained by computers.
This meant that the USC was not limited to 6 permanent members and 9 rotating members like the simplistic analog world in which the UN Security Council had been set up. All nations were permanent members in the council, but the weightage of their votes varied. The smallest nation ended up having 0.001% of the vote share rendering them almost voiceless unless they allied with more powerful nations. The largest nation, the US in this case ended up with almost 20.03% of the vote according to its current contribution to the budget.
Wrath of the Shaitans Page 8