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HFQ Official Snippet #12

This fascinating series is a combination of historical seafaring, swashbuckling adventure, and high technological science-fiction. Join us in a discussion!
Re: HFQ Official Snippet #12
Post by 6L6   » Tue Dec 02, 2014 10:02 pm

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I wonder if Nahrman and OWL will be in holographic form for the visitors.
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #12
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Tue Dec 02, 2014 10:34 pm

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Graydon wrote:snip
Does the Temple have any stashed in the basement, subject to automatic maintenance? I really hope not; that's the sort of thing that has really dreadful failure modes.
Why would the people who build the Temple store nukes in the basement? I would think that if they wanted nukes at all, they'd have been stored in something like Nimue's cave - far away from the temple, retrievable via recon skimmer (or kyousei hi). but not something a person from the other side of the conflict could set off, and remove most of your side. The existence of Kohdy, who has apparently switched sides lends credibility to the threat.
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #12
Post by BobG   » Tue Dec 02, 2014 11:30 pm

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Graydon wrote:
Charybdis wrote:Sorry folks, the half-life of U238, the heart of a Fission Nuclear Device is 703.8 million years, so a 1,000 years by itself is unlikely to be detrimental to its explosive effect. Logically, the mechanism, being exposed to that effect of massive radiation, would be a more likely 'failure point' for a fizzle. All of this assumes no advancement in ability by the Terran Federation which is a very unlikely situation.


If it's vest-pocket in some relatively literal sense -- you can carry it in one hand -- it's probably not primarily dependent on U-anything. The W54 -- the warhead for Davy Crockett, with a yield around 20 tons (not kilotons, tons) weighed about fifty pounds and used plutonium. Most of that mass is things like fissionables and neutron reflectors that are tough to make lighter.

I can easily believe the Federation can do antimatter catalyzed fission-fusion devices, or some sort of tritium-boosted Neptunium-236 bomb (the hard part there is getting the 236 away from the 237...) but anything like that runs into exciting things like "antimatter containment" or "tritium half-life" long before it's a thousand years old.

So, can Owl build a bomb? Sure. (Though I'd worry about the bombardment platform counting neutrinos.) Are there any such devices lying around unmaintained and in working condition after a thousand years? I seriously doubt it.

Does the Temple have any stashed in the basement, subject to automatic maintenance? I really hope not; that's the sort of thing that has really dreadful failure modes.

I remember reading about a possible device based on on Hafnium 178m2. It was supposed to be one thousandth of the power of a true nuke by weight, but one gram of it was supposed to have equivalent power to 300 Kg of TNT. See Hafnium controversy in Wikipedia.

-- Bob G
SF & Fantasy: The only things better than Chocolate.
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #12
Post by RandomGraysuit   » Wed Dec 03, 2014 12:19 am

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runsforcelery wrote:and the beginning of the great Hardware Overhaul, things have been a little hectic.


Huh.

Professional small business support IT guy, major fan, and decent odds of being in your area for a few days this month.

Anything you'd like a hand with?
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #12
Post by anwi   » Wed Dec 03, 2014 3:05 am

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Graydon wrote:If it's vest-pocket in some relatively literal sense -- you can carry it in one hand -- it's probably not primarily dependent on U-anything. The W54 -- the warhead for Davy Crockett, with a yield around 20 tons (not kilotons, tons) weighed about fifty pounds and used plutonium. Most of that mass is things like fissionables and neutron reflectors that are tough to make lighter.


Indeed, if it's vest-pocket size (well can be carried on your person), it should have a rather small margin in terms of excess reactivity. And fission/decay products do play havoc with reactivity. So, it's a problem even with the fissile material.
And unless these nanites are really femtonites, they might have problems with truly working on the atomic level...
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #12
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Wed Dec 03, 2014 3:46 am

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BobG wrote:snip
I remember reading about a possible device based on on Hafnium 178m2. It was supposed to be one thousandth of the power of a true nuke by weight, but one gram of it was supposed to have equivalent power to 300 Kg of TNT. See Hafnium controversy in Wikipedia.

-- Bob G

The only problem is the the half life of 178m2Hf is 31 years, which means that in 620 years you will only have about 1 millionth of the Hafnium left, which means that your 1 gram of Hafnium will now produce the equivalent of .3 grams of TNT - not a particular large explosion. And if you stretch it out by another 155 years (to 775), you are down to about 10 milligrams of TNT. Definately not your big bang.
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #12
Post by Charybdis   » Wed Dec 03, 2014 8:46 am

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On the lines of any 'left-over' nuclear device(s) and potential use; What programming would YOU install in the Rakurai fire control for the detection of the use of a nuclear device? :mrgreen:
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #12
Post by Tonto Silerheels   » Wed Dec 03, 2014 9:56 am

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Charybdis wrote:

On the lines of any 'left-over' nuclear device(s) and potential use; What programming would YOU install in the Rakurai fire control for the detection of the use of a nuclear device?

In one of the Tom Clancy novels, Red Storm Rising, it was said that nuclear explosions have a unique double burst of energy. I suppose that's true, even though the novel itself was a work of fiction.

~Tonto
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #12
Post by phillies   » Wed Dec 03, 2014 11:22 am

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Tonto Silerheels wrote:Charybdis wrote:

On the lines of any 'left-over' nuclear device(s) and potential use; What programming would YOU install in the Rakurai fire control for the detection of the use of a nuclear device?

In one of the Tom Clancy novels, Red Storm Rising, it was said that nuclear explosions have a unique double burst of energy. I suppose that's true, even though the novel itself was a work of fiction.

~Tonto


That's almost absolutely correct, but alas it is in the optical spectrum, and is only seen after the device has been transformed to its "used" condition. Of course, one of these in the temple, giving this signal, might be an unneeded plot simplification.

Returning to the original issues, one might reasonably suppose that Merlin told the women, in advance, what their transport would look like and how they would be boarding it, so there would be wonderment but not alarm when they saw it.
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Re: HFQ Official Snippet #12
Post by Joat42   » Wed Dec 03, 2014 11:56 am

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dan92677 wrote:
bunyipbelle wrote:Thank you RFC for the snippett. I wonder if Merlin has informed Caleb and Sharleyan of his decision to take Aviah and Sandaria to Nimue's cave?

Why should he/she? After all it is their cave....

From the snippets so far we know the following:
  • Aivah tells Merlin her story
  • Merlin relates the story to the inner circle
  • ???
  • Merlin transports Aivah to the cave
There is a gap of information there, but my guess it's when Merlin finishes his tale and the inner circle decides what to do with Aivah which seems to be that Merlin should take her to the cave.

I highly doubt Merlin would do anything of this magnitude without discussing it with the inner circle first.

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