Destination: Invermory and Beyond
OOG: TL10 energy storage. Probably super capacitors (or next generations from that), not what is typically thought of as a battery. Super capacitors do not degrade with repeated use like chemical batteries.
OOG2: Get ready for a long rant. You touched a point that has been in Nate's background story ever since I created the character. When I was expanding on what the raw dice rolls gave for events.
The reference to drugs and formulas gets Nathaniel's attention, and sidetracks him from the topic at hand. "WHAT‽ You found drugs samples? And formulas? For Psionics manipulation?"
"I saw reference to psionic drug research in the journal before the auction. But nothing about any usable results from that. I hope no one knows about that. You think that Duncinae would come down hard on Tammy just for having been on Coventry? Do you have ANY idea what the Imperium would do to suppress knowledge of drugs that would provide psi abilities to just anyone? If by enhancements you mean the capabilities I saw referenced in that journal, the guiding powers of the Imperium would create a black hole if they could, just to make very sure that any knowledge of that could never get out. They really are paranoid on that topic. Maybe your background does not make it obvious, but there has a been a government sponsored propaganda campaign going on ever since the first war with the Zhodani, to make sure that the general public sees all psionics as evil, dirty, spies, or insane. Oh, they are quite willing to use psi abilities, privately, for their own benefit, but don't DARE suggest that sophonts they do not have total control over might be able to, and are willing to, use it to the betterment of civilization."
"I've been studying many aspects of psionics for quite a while now. It is PERMITTED to learn about them, but NOT to do anything that might make using them publicly practical. There are so many areas where using psionics could help make advances. Mental health, physical sciences, biological, materials. Archaeology too. Lots more. It is fairly rare, and definitely not advertised, but the abilities exists for some clairvoyants and Telekinetics to see and manipulate things at the microscopic scale. Imagine a doctor who can see and touch a growth inside your body, without the need to use tests or instruments. A geneticist that could directly evaluate and separate cells in a culture. A materials scientist that see the crystalline structure of a material sample, or maybe apply precise pressure to get it to change state to a different form. A sculptor that can really 'feel' the flaws and grain in a piece of rock, and engineer that can directly feel the plasma flow as they tune and calibrate a reactor. On this scale, a doctor being able to set a broken bone, and make sure that ends are precisely where they should be is trivial. The possibilities are endless, but it is not allowed."
"When I meet you in the galley, the first time here on Longshot, you asked what I had been doing recently. I glossed over it then, with too many others I did not know listening. I had been doing some research on the prevalence of psionic abilities being expressed in general sophont populations under different conditions. This is extrapolation based on statistical information, not proven or tested. But the numbers say that theoretically 90 percent of humaniti have the potential to express psi abilities. Given the right environment. The main trigger is being exposed to the controlled use of psionics at a young age. Then being tested for the ability. The starting point for that, is simply the statistics about how many sophonts are found to have some psi abilities, and how strong it is, based on their age at the time of testing. The pattern for that is obvious, and been known to researchers, probably since the second researcher talked to the first. The younger someone is when they get tested, the more likely it is that they are found to have psi. And the stronger that psi is. I researched beyond that, and found additional correlation with close communities having had known psionics. Not genetic family. Adopted or family from previous a spouse had the same statistics. The simple close presence, especially at a very young age, increased the odds of having psi abilities when tested."
"I found a buried research paper about an extra paranoid industrialist that wanted to make sure that there were no psi traitors stealing secrets in his company. He instituted 100 percent psi testing as a condition of employment in any of the sensitive areas. That got shut down, because the more they testing, the more people DEVELOPED psi. There seems to have been an 'accident' that kill most of them. A factory that just exploded and took out a whole complex. He probably made money off of the insurance."
"My analysis indicates that full population testing at about 4 years of age would dramatically increase the number of active psionics. Allowing those to mix freely through the population, and USE their abilities, would then provide further triggers for waking psi abilities. After 2 generations, that's only 40 years, the projections show 90 percent of the next generation expressing psi abilities."
"The main premise of the Imperium ban on psionics, implied but not usually stated, is that the dirty psi user can invade or attack everyone else, and there is no defence for the poor normal person. If nearly every one has some psi ability, that argument is just so much vacuum. Sure, some are going to be better than others, just as both you and Shar are better with a knife than I am. Not many scream about someone taking the time to turn an innate physical ability into a real skill. There is no reason for psionics to be any different. Some are naturally stronger than others, but that is not reason to ban strength. Or weight lifting."
"Even the Zhodani seem to be careful of this. I'm too distant to check details, but from the data I have access to, the structure of their society removes most of the active psionics users from the main population. They are promoted, but that removes them from more direct interaction with rest of the population that is not so gifted. At least until they are trained to control their abilities correctly. I suspect that training includes keeping it tight, so that it does not brush those around them. Even if it is referenced in terms of efficiency."
Nathaniel takes a breath and recalls where the conversation started, but he is still wound up, "And now you … you … pup want to emphasis the possibility that this researcher at Tammy's facility was working on psi-tech, and I do NOT mean the officially allowed psi shields, and incorporated that into Tammy's system. That it may have evolved into something more with an emergent digital sophont as a … symbiote, or as a peripheral."
"Hear this very clearly. If you want Tammy to have a chance to both get official sophont status in the Imperium, and to remain free to choose what to do with that, … there … will … be … NO … reference to such speculations anywhere in the data used to certify Tammy as a digital sophont."
Running out of steam for the moment, Nathaniel gives the captain the glare that is reserved for the most obtuse junior assistants, while thinking back to what else Vonon had said. Catching up, he goes back to a more neutral topic and tone.
"The tech level that the Empire had access to had fairly robust electrical energy storage. A millennium is longer than usual, but the only deterioration would be from material fatigue. They had good material science too. With the ice, the collectors themselves seem like a more likely failure point. I expect the collectors were integrated right into the surface of the facility. Otherwise water and ice would have gotten under an edge and, over time, pealed them right off of the roof. Water and ice is surprising, to some, strong."
"Either those maintenance records were incorrect, or something turned TAMI's system back on after it was shut down. Otherwise, obviously, you would not have had her to communicate with when you got the door open. You were communicating with her before powering anything up yourself, right?"
"Or", and Nate does the going away, not here any more look again. When he focuses again, he says thoughtfully, "Or those records were deliberately falsified. It is trivial to setup a timer to switch a system on at a later time. Your conjectures are plausible, though anything about psi tech is not useful for the goal of getting Tammy recognized as a sophont. Expanding on that, and what Tammy said about first thoughts and the paper, could he have deliberately setup those conditions in an effort to test some of his theories about accelerating sentience development? Did he know how long that would take? Did he perhaps know they were unlikely to be back, and left an experiment running as a just in case legacy? Climatology is not a new science. There should have been enough information to accurately predict the little ice age and glacier. As I said earlier, the common prerequisites for an emergent intelligence are quite well known and accepted. Not a lot has changed in that in the past thousand years or so."
"That is pure speculation, but like your conjectures fits with the known 'facts'. A lot of those super genius types have a super ego as well. Leaving an experiment to run that might result in in a new sophont long after he was dead could appeal to that type of personality. He just set up the conditions to make it possible. Which could mean that Tammy is not quite an Emergent. Not really designed either, but … guided. The way a botanist might coax attributes from successive crops by applying specific environmental stresses, without using any genetic manipulation."
"Speculation. The fact is that Tammy is here. She was powered on and active when you opened the door. The report you were shown said power was off. Either the report is wrong, or power was turned back on. Seeing what can be learned about the psi tech, what it originally was capable of, how it was being used, what it is capable of now, or could develop into later, are all questions for another research project, Tammy willing. All of which needs to be totally firewalled from the project to determine sophoncy status, and assuming that is positive, prove it without referencing inconvenient complexities that could focus the disapproving weight of the Imperium on her."
"Are we travelling the same jump route now?"
"Oh, and Tammy, I'd like to get a copy of that draft. Both as part of the data for how you came to be, and for the subject itself. I wonder how it aligns with the currently accepted literature?"
OOG: There is more about the tech, but Nate was interrupted before he got to the information that the alien ship had very similar sounding tech for intra ship communications. In fact, given the time line, Nate needs to mention the similarity in the alien thread (carefully, since Longshot is not at the jump limit yet).
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 23:00, Wed 12 Apr 2023.