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Bootstrapping transhuman hab

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dare dare's picture
Bootstrapping transhuman hab
Imagine you have 20 Jovian runaways / defectors / whatever in their original flat morphs on a remote asteroid out somewhere, with a big spaceship that has an antimatter reactor, and a reasonable amount of raw materials in the cargo bay. You also have a single desktop cornucopia machine with disassembler. So, you have all the tools to go from biocon hell to transhuman paradise. How exactly would you go about it? What to manufacture, in what order, and how long would it roughly take to reach each milestone, assuming no one comes to bother you? (This is from a pure engineering perspectve - the social perspective is where the actual game in this comes in.)
http://posthuman.karmavector.org/ - my EP Campaigns (in Finnish, mostly)
Urthdigger Urthdigger's picture
All I know is that step 1 is
All I know is that step 1 is more makers/fabbers. Your DCM is limited in its speed, so step one is fixing that problem before working on fixing your infrastructure. You can always recycle excess fabbers later. Beyond that, it really matters what resources they already have available and what's important to them. Do they already have beds/shelter via the ship or is it crashed? If they already have food, shelter, and makers to handle the food, they really only need entertainment and they're golden. After that would probably be communications devices to deal with the loneliness, but there's really not a lot of specific needs that would need to be addressed by that point, just whatever random crap fulfills each individual's desires.
Xagroth Xagroth's picture
Sooo... 20 people, 1 Desktop
Sooo... 20 people, 1 Desktop Cornucopia machine + Dissasembler, and enough resources and energy... I assume all public templates for printing are available, so the first thing is to secure survival needs (air, food, water...). Then, it's a matter of, as mentioned, duplicate the DCM several times, for example until 8 are available, then leave one on reproduction and the rest go to the following: * nanoassembling swarms, specially if one room can be turned in a big "printer". * Biotube, for better bodies/implants/health issues. * Robots to mine the asteroid for more useful materials. * Camouflage for the ship, so they can't be discovered easily. * Passive receivers, to get data from their surroundings: signals, radars, etc... Is there any light at all? If so, securing extra energy sources becomes a priority, since the antimatter is not easily replaceable. I'm also assuming that the ship has at least 5 EVA suits, if not churning that many goes before the biotube.
syberwasp syberwasp's picture
Hypatherticals...
The problem with this Hypathertical is that everyone has to make some assumptions; Why did they leave? What is there Goal? Do they need to worry about others showing up? do they have any moral or ethical convictions that they hold to the are unconventional? Is the ship fully functional, or capable of longer distance travel? Does it have space and life support for just 20+ people or is it pushing the limits already? Do they have an templates of anything, if so what? This is what we know at current: 20 people unknown skills or ages, health conditions, all Jovian citizens. one desktop cornucopia machine with disassembler, unknown template or programed limitations. reasonable amount of raw materials. one space craft,large... (assumed functional for sustaining 20 people with no major change. one antimatter reactor unknown duration of sustainability. An asteroid, remote location. I would love to think and work on this, would be fun, once I know more.
Poe
dare dare's picture
Thank you for the replies,
Thank you for the replies, and sorry for being slow to respond! The location is in the Jovian Greeks, so sunlight is not a really useful energy source. I'm assuming the ship to be a battlecruiser or something. At some point extra energy will be needed, but the 50 or so tons of antimatter will be enough for quite a while. (Haven't done exact calculations on how long this should work, but pretty sure it's going to be months at least.) The 20 people are the part of the crew that are most dissatisfied with the philopsophy of the Jovian Junta. Mostly people who were doing there military service in order to get citizenship eventually. Blueprints for all common stuff are available. I'm wondering about printing cortical stacks, new morphs, ego bridges, farcasters & all the other stuff required in order to join the civilized transhuman society. The characters do not know much about it, but they do have illicit sources of information and at leaast some of them are itching to leave their bioconservative roots behind.
http://posthuman.karmavector.org/ - my EP Campaigns (in Finnish, mostly)
kigmatzomat kigmatzomat's picture
Imagine if someone stole a US
Imagine if someone stole a US warship. Now pretend that it was a warship with nuclear weaponry. Your escapees first priority isn't worrying about what to build, it's how to hide from everyone who is after them (aka 40% of the Jovian Navy plus every pirate, spy, Firewall agent and Transhuman who can get anywhere in their path). Antimatter is more potent than fission (1500×) or even fusion (500×). 1kg of AM roughly equivalent to a ton of plutonium 239 or about 4 million kilos of gasoline or 40 million kilos of TNT. Been a while since I did the math. I think this accounts for the neutrino component of anti/matter reactions
I'm not rules lawyer, I'm a rules engineer.
Decimator Decimator's picture
kigmatzomat wrote:Imagine if
kigmatzomat wrote:
Imagine if someone stole a US warship. Now pretend that it was a warship with nuclear weaponry. Your escapees first priority isn't worrying about what to build, it's how to hide from everyone who is after them (aka 40% of the Jovian Navy plus every pirate, spy, Firewall agent and Transhuman who can get anywhere in their path). Antimatter is more potent than fission (1500×) or even fusion (500×). 1kg of AM roughly equivalent to a ton of plutonium 239 or about 4 million kilos of gasoline or 40 million kilos of TNT. Been a while since I did the math. I think this accounts for the neutrino component of anti/matter reactions
Hiding is not a possibility for these guys; only hydrogen steamers can attempt to hide, and even they can only do so until their liquid hydrogen runs out. On the other had, only a proper navy can threaten a Jovian battlecruiser. Trying to take one on with anything less is just an expensive way to revert to one's latest backup. The fact that it's a battlecruiser is more important than the 50 tons of antimatter. A battlecruiser would normally be part of a task force, so they likely destroyed several other ships in their mutiny and the Jovians will be out for blood.(even a reasonable faction would want their heads, and the Jovians are anything but) The safest course of action would be to place a timebomb on the antimatter containment, fabricate an ego bridge, and egocast to a scum swarm or Neptune as quickly as possible. Get away from anything resembling a government, and annihilate the ship to cover your tracks. Defecting to a powerful local faction isn't an option, as there aren't any factions in the Jovian Greeks that would give the Jovians pause. If they want to try to use the ship, they need to get out of the Greeks. 50 tons of antimatter can get them anywhere, so where could they go? Titan, Morningstar, Luna, and the Planetary Consortium are unlikely to want to spark an international incident, Locus and the Argonauts would probably stand up to the Jovians and lose, and the Ultimates would probably stay neutral. Maybe Fresh Kills would be a possibility? They're explicitly armed to the teeth, have had access to a lot of military salvage from Earth orbit for a long time, and have no love for the Jovians. Hexagon is present, which is both a complicating factor and a benefit; the PC has the desire and means to keep Jovian warships out of there.
syberwasp syberwasp's picture
Ok, regardless of what I
Ok, regardless of what I would do if I was the de facto leader of this group. You said Bootstrap a trans-human Hab. Bore space into the asteroid, and seal it. Transfer everything into that space. Start crafting and cannibalizing comm gear and sensors to the asteroid. While this is going on start towing the new hab out of orbit of Jupitor and to the belt. Next start getting basic thrusts onto the hab, get comm gear pointed to other inhabited area of the system and start pulling in data. lots of free info out there, including sleeves and stuff the Junta don't want people to have but need. Once your this far, its just a matter of time. The asteroid makes it to the the belt or not. You slide into a parking spot or not. You have ego bridges and the ability to cast or not. You use it. (I would cast to all manner of places. scatter the crew to help hide them. ) or you don't. Last thing you do is jettison the junk left from the war ship into a decaying orbit. Prime targets would be Earth. (The Lunies wouldn't mind might kill of some crap on the surface, save time later.) or Mars. (they are always pulling crap into the atmosphere to warm the place up...) That's one option. Another would be to get your disassembler swarms to cover the ship in the asteroid. Then change the ship/asteroid as need to accommodate. Plenty of Habs are the remains of old ships. Just a question of were do you go while this is happening. As the starting location undesirable for defectors.
Poe
kigmatzomat kigmatzomat's picture
Remember this ship will have
Remember this ship will have jovian tech, meaning expect a ship that requires lots of manpower. They have a phobia about the titans and will have completely isolated systems so that a technologically superior foe can't suborn more than one section of the ship at a time. Nanotech will be behind lock and key and ego bridges will probably be ego-lstricted to the senior officers. Unless the defectors had been registered as the senior officers, and actually are senior officers with all the training that entails, 20 people will have trouble operating the ship and probably can't fight with it.
I'm not rules lawyer, I'm a rules engineer.