Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme

[factotum]

Big as these worldships are, could you *really* fit the entire population of a galaxy into one?

[tonberrian]

Big as these worldships are, could you *really* fit the entire population of a galaxy into one?

Worldships are big. Soulgigged brains in computers are small.

[Mechalich]

Worldships are big. Soulgigged brains in computers are small.

To be a little bit more specific, Putzho's soulgigged brain occupied roughly 25,000 cubic millimeters in volume, or 0.025 cubic meters. The volume of the Earth is roughly 346,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic meters. Meaning a worldship the size of the Earth could potentially contain 13,840,000,000,000,000,000,000 (13.8 sextillion) soulgigged brains if that was all it was made of.

The population of the galaxy is listed as 10,200 trillion sophonts, or 10.2 quadrillion, which simplifies into roughly 10^16 sophonts. A million times that would be 10^22, or roughly 10 sextillion, which lines up nicely with what an Earth-sized worldship could support, and still allow for a goodly percentage of the space to be something other than storage.

[factotum]

I wasn't under the impression that the population aboard the worldships were in "soulgigged" form, though?

[NEO|Phyte]

We haven't had a confirmation on exactly what the interior of these worldships are, we've 'seen' the inside, but that could just be a simulated environment, like where Putzho and friends first were after getting snagged. The provided numbers are being made under the assumption that these worldships are the same as the All-Star.

[HorizonWalker]

Given the size of the worldship, which we can very roughly estimate based on this comic showing a small patch on the surface being called "the size of Australia", and with some very, very scientific(read: i looked at a picture of jupiter for a few minutes) estimations, I'd say that their worldship is prooooobably about as big as the All-Star, provided the Star in question is one of the smaller Red Dwarves. Which is a reasonable provision for something that wants to try to live forever, I think. Those babies probably last for trillions of years- I say probably because, as our best guess is that the universe is a mere 14 billion years old, none of them have died yet.

[Windscion]

Friday August 16, 2019 -- This update is interesting. Fleets forming rings 500,000 light years in diameter isn't the sort of thing that happens without coordination.

[factotum]

Friday August 16, 2019 -- This update is interesting. Fleets forming rings 500,000 light years in diameter isn't the sort of thing that happens without coordination.

Coordination that must surely have taken place over millions of years, though...if each worldship can carry the entire galactic population, and there are fleets of the things, it's not something that could have developed quickly. So the obvious question then becomes, what could be a threat over such a timescale that the worldships are an improvement? Surely not the Pa'anuri.

[NEO|Phyte]

I suspect it's less a case of an active threat over that timeframe and more a case of once you've hit the point where you'd uploaded everyone into a mobile planetary-scale supercomputer, being in the galaxy proper does nothing but make it easier for people that might want to blow you up to target you.

[factotum]

Why go into fixed orbits around the galaxy, in that case? You'd think they'd just point at intergalactic space and head on out there.

Another thing that occurs: even if these are gigantic computers like the All-Star, they need power. Where are they getting that from? Annie plants need refuelling, they can't have infinite neutronium fuel and they're too far from any stars to rely on solar power.

[Gez]

Another thing that occurs: even if these are gigantic computers like the All-Star, they need power. Where are they getting that from? Annie plants need refuelling, they can't have infinite neutronium fuel and they're too far from any stars to rely on solar power.

At those scales of time, space, and mass; the only possible source of energy is some variant of the pop-culture version of zero-point energy. (As in, infinite free energy. It wouldn't make sense in hard SF, but neither would most of the concepts long accepted in the Schlock cannon.)

[Willie the Duck]

Or pure conversion power (so I guess like annie plants, but possibly without the neutronium intermediate step). As HorizonWalker noted, there are red dwarfs still going that are not much younger (percentage-wise) than the universe. And those are going strong strictly on hydrogen fusing, which is extracting 26.2 MeV out of 4 x 1.01 = 4.03 A_r of fuel. Total conversion (E=MC^2) nets you 4.03 x 3e8 x 3e8 x 6.24e18/6.02+23 (joule-to-eV conversion/Avogadro's #)/26.2e6 = 143 billion times as much*. Assuming that these giant computers are mostly just sitting there computing, apparently running enough sensors to detect a giant kangaroo appear in orbit (well, probably detected the terraport), and whatever physical maintenance a planet+ sized computer needs, I think they could last so far into the future that we'll really need to start analyzing what their goals are to determine if they have enough fuel.
*might have made a math error in there, but the specifics don't matter much.

[factotum]

As HorizonWalker noted, there are red dwarfs still going that are not much younger (percentage-wise) than the universe. And those are going strong strictly on hydrogen fusing

Big as these worldships are, red dwarfs are a *lot* larger (even the smallest are somewhat bigger than Jupiter), and the reason they last so long is because the process of fusion in stars is actually very inefficient and takes a long time to burn through the hydrogen. If you were to actually scale down a red dwarf star to the size of an annie plant in Schlock (and somehow keep it fusing) it would produce an absolutely tiny amount of energy.

[HorizonWalker]

Big as these worldships are, red dwarfs are a *lot* larger (even the smallest are somewhat bigger than Jupiter), and the reason they last so long is because the process of fusion in stars is actually very inefficient and takes a long time to burn through the hydrogen. If you were to actually scale down a red dwarf star to the size of an annie plant in Schlock (and somehow keep it fusing) it would produce an absolutely tiny amount of energy.

In my post, I talked about the size of the Worldships in comparison to Red Dwarfs. (Incidentally, the smallest are actually a bit smaller than Jupiter. Not, like. Earth-sized, but slightly smaller than Jupiter.)

Given the size of the worldship, which we can very roughly estimate based on this comic showing a small patch on the surface being called "the size of Australia", and with some very, very scientific(read: i looked at a picture of jupiter for a few minutes) estimations, I'd say that their worldship is prooooobably about as big as the All-Star, provided the Star in question is one of the smaller Red Dwarves. Which is a reasonable provision for something that wants to try to live forever, I think. Those babies probably last for trillions of years- I say probably because, as our best guess is that the universe is a mere 14 billion years old, none of them have died yet.

If you want to follow my estimation a little bit closer, follow the link in the quoted text to get a rough idea of the scale of the Worldship, and then take a look at this picture of Jupiter, knowing that the Red Spot is somewhere around the size of Earth. Try and jiggle those intuitions around in your head along with the size of Australia, and then give up and say "Howard isn't an engineer or an astronomer and is not obligated to get the scale of his drawings exactly, perfectly right in accordance with the scientific facts as we understand them. Also, he wouldn't bring up Matryoshka Brains if he didn't want us to think those Worldships were just like the All-Star. Ergo, I will shrug and say 'yeah, that's probably big enough to hold a Red Dwarf. It'd explain a lot of the mass, too.'"

[Willie the Duck]

Big as these worldships are, red dwarfs are a *lot* larger (even the smallest are somewhat bigger than Jupiter), and the reason they last so long is because the process of fusion in stars is actually very inefficient and takes a long time to burn through the hydrogen. If you were to actually scale down a red dwarf star to the size of an annie plant in Schlock (and somehow keep it fusing) it would produce an absolutely tiny amount of energy.

Shrinking something fusing down in scale does weird things to the calculations because fusion is caused by pressure, but let's just say you have a 26.2 MeV per 4.03 Ar of fuel process working on a stellar amount of mass on one side of the scale and a e=mc^2 process on an Earth-size mass on the other. The E=mc^2 process is 143 billion times as efficient, but you are working with a lot less mass. How much? Depends on how big a red dwarf we're talking about and how big the worldships are, but the Sun is 333,000 (using the same 3 sig figs I've limited myself to) times as massive as the Earth. Of course the worldship probably doesn't want to use it's whole self as a fuel source, so we're probably multiplying the total by some fraction. Of course, without knowing exactly what their power needs are, we really have no bar against which to measure whether their power capabilities are sufficient or not (since we don't have an answer to the question, 'sufficient for what?').

[factotum]

Thing is, scaling down fusion to human scale is something we're already trying to do. One of the issues we run into is the aforementioned inefficiency of the process of hydrogen fusion in a star, which makes it impossible to use it for something you actually want to generate power with. To give you an idea: at the Sun's core, the actual energy release from fusion is less than 300W per cubic metre, which is less than your body produces to maintain its temperature. The only reason the Sun produces the amount of energy it does is because it's absolutely massive and that 300W per cubic metre adds up.

The reason this is all so inefficient is because the first stage of fusing hydrogen atoms into helium is necessarily Helium-2, e.g. an atomic nucleus with 2 protons in it. Helium-2 is horribly, catastrophically unstable and will decay almost immediately back into the two protons that formed it--the only way it will stay stable long enough for further fusion to occur is if one of the protons decays into a neutron before the nucleus can fall apart, thus forming deuterium. This is why Earthbound experiments in fusion generally start with deuterium, because it's stable.

[Willie the Duck]

Well, yes, unless I messed up my search query, I was using fourby-proton fusion and not deuterium- or similar fusion models as my math startpoint.

[Max_Killjoy]

Interesting that despite their newfound multi-layer-protected immortality, they're still in the mindset of "golden years".

[factotum]

Interesting that despite their newfound multi-layer-protected immortality, they're still in the mindset of "golden years".

The Commodore in particular has had, what, eighty-odd years of getting used to the idea he's going to die someday? You don't wipe out that many years of programming with a few nanites.

[tonberrian]

I also had thoughts about this ship.

[Max_Killjoy]

I wonder if all those worldships forming up rings of fleets have some bigger plan...

Or if it's just that you don't just flee and keeping going, in case you realize you need to go back for something.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I wonder if all those worldships forming up rings of fleets have some bigger plan...

Or if it's just that you don't just flee and keeping going, in case you realize you need to go back for something.

There has to be something behind it.

So far the reasoning as that the worldships were all running away from the Milky Way because there's too many civilizations there. It seems counterintuitive for them to go hang out with even more civilizations. Sure, they're older and more experienced civilizations, and a lot of them might have some form of immortality (for instance by being minds in a computer), making the individuals in charge older and more experienced. But it would still be safer to just hang around alone. So they have a reason to link up like that, I figure.

[NEO|Phyte]

Part of it could be that if you keep running, you might end up running into something dangerous. So you get far enough out that you are statistically highly unlikely to get visitors, then park. Given the self-contained nature of worldships, neighbor ships are a nonissue unless you go out of your way to interact with them. Gotta wait for exposition before we figure out if the ring arrangements have any significance or are just exogalactic parking lots.

[factotum]

Part of it could be that if you keep running, you might end up running into something dangerous.

That might explain there being a whole cluster of worldships around the Milky Way, but it certainly doesn't explain why they're all pretty much exactly the same distance out and following each other in massive orbits--the "we're safe now" point is highly unlikely to be the same distance for all species, and for all of them to exit the Milky Way on one of the three or four trajectories that lead to those orbits has to have been a deliberate choice, not something that just happened by chance.

[Ibrinar]

They are all murderous maniacs against outsiders and follow the nearest worldship to murder it, that leads to a long murder chain, one the murderchain gets long enough it can form a circle.

Nothing we heard yet seems to be a reason to stay in formation and I don't think we will guess the right reason before it is given in he comic.

[Max_Killjoy]

That might explain there being a whole cluster of worldships around the Milky Way, but it certainly doesn't explain why they're all pretty much exactly the same distance out and following each other in massive orbits--the "we're safe now" point is highly unlikely to be the same distance for all species, and for all of them to exit the Milky Way on one of the three or four trajectories that lead to those orbits has to have been a deliberate choice, not something that just happened by chance.

My hypothesis at this moment:

1. They seem to have "moved to the country" to avoid having neighbors or running into strangers.
2. Thing is, if you're in orbit around something, and so are a bunch of other people, eventually you may run into each other, or have a close call.
3. Ironically, the best way to avoid ever interacting with anyone else, is to cooperate on organized orbits with everyone.

[Windscion]

So "good fences make good neighbours." Maybe, but exactly two rings seems to call for more than that. If we accept that interferometry is possible over that distance, they could be getting hellamazing resolution on something an insanely long ways away -- which means really long ago. And the two rings are looking at two different things. Well, to different directions.
Something like the fine print on God's contract with creation, metaphorically speaking. In other words, they may be looking at the big bang, trying to figure out how to create their own (private) universes. Ambitious, but given the scope of the operation, not impossible.

--Add---

The power requirements for interferometry may be tied to distance. They need large distances, but they also need serious time to collect and process what they see. So the chosen distance may be considered the best compromise between size (bigger is better) and duration (longer is better).

[JavaScribe]

In other words, they may be looking at the big bang, trying to figure out how to create their own (private) universes. Ambitious, but given the scope of the operation, not impossible.

Sounds a bit like what happened in the time traveling arc, except non-weaponized.

[Rockphed]

So "good fences make good neighbours." Maybe, but exactly two rings seems to call for more than that. If we accept that interferometry is possible over that distance, they could be getting hellamazing resolution on something an insanely long ways away -- which means really long ago. And the two rings are looking at two different things. Well, to different directions.
Something like the fine print on God's contract with creation, metaphorically speaking. In other words, they may be looking at the big bang, trying to figure out how to create their own (private) universes. Ambitious, but given the scope of the operation, not impossible.

--Add---

The power requirements for interferometry may be tied to distance. They need large distances, but they also need serious time to collect and process what they see. So the chosen distance may be considered the best compromise between size (bigger is better) and duration (longer is better).

My understanding of interferometry is that power requirements are dictated by the number of antennas while resolution is determined by the spread of distances between sensors.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

So "good fences make good neighbours." Maybe, but exactly two rings seems to call for more than that. If we accept that interferometry is possible over that distance, they could be getting hellamazing resolution on something an insanely long ways away -- which means really long ago. And the two rings are looking at two different things. Well, to different directions.
Something like the fine print on God's contract with creation, metaphorically speaking. In other words, they may be looking at the big bang, trying to figure out how to create their own (private) universes. Ambitious, but given the scope of the operation, not impossible.

--Add---

The power requirements for interferometry may be tied to distance. They need large distances, but they also need serious time to collect and process what they see. So the chosen distance may be considered the best compromise between size (bigger is better) and duration (longer is better).

I could see this being in the right direction. Although I'd expect them to not be looking at two separate objects, rather the two rings work together to give them a view all around (either inside or outside the rings, or both), and with some temporal info mixed in as well.

Also, the ship they're currently visiting, it probably hasn't arrived in the rings yet, right? Because orbiting didn't come up when they were matching speed with that one. So most of these worldships left longer than 65 million years ago. (Which is quite reasonable given life for several billions of years.)


EDIT: Alternatively, Harrie Weggelaar was right after all, and they're building a giant atom.