I'm personally really looking forward to the time when the Celestia is battle ready and they can use two jump ships in battle capacity to really screw with the Jung.
There is also the possibility that they can look like a lot more than two ships. I remember a story in an anthology where a small outpost made themselves look like they had a much bigger fleet by changing antennas, reflectors, etc. in order to get a different signatures. It was actually pretty funny when the alien representative snuck onto the base, and encountered the same person three times in three different rooms before he was caught. Unbeknownst to it, the three were triplets...
For the jump ships, they could change their signature depending on what system they were in. As the data gets correlated, the Jung will assume a minimum of one ship and a maximum of two, as they had EDF totally compromised.
Different branch - The Virus.
Since the presumption is that some of their crew is NOT resistant to the virus (Pentaurus cluster people) they need to figure out how to handle that, or send those people home. They are a liability at the moment. One tricorder handed to them, and the Aurora could lose 80% of her crew.
Seems to me the Coranarians could come up with 1) a quick and easy test, and 2) a vaccine or something to address this. Otherwise the Jung could overwhelm the Aurora with a transmission of the digital form, or something like that.
Or maybe Percival will tell the Jung how to transmit the virus all the way to the Pentaurus Cluster. 😉
My 2 cents about the Celestia that she will be shipped with the data cores to the Pentaurus cluster. This would be the most logical thing to be done as Tanna lacks any form of a shipyard/ drydock. It would be a waste if the ship would be used just as a decoy because it lacks only 3 month of completion of a 2 Year build time meaning that it is 87.5% done. She is either completed or more likely fitted with energy weapons. It is also highly probable that she is fitted to carry ground forces. The only things which she is lacking at the moments are the emitters on the hull and propellant both can be provided by the Aurora.
To refit her would be a long shot but seeing that this isn't campaign can't be won quickly it would make more sense to complete her rather than use the ship for a short term gain.
The Bio-digital plague confounded a civilization as advanced as the current one, and the plague lasted decades. If it were a simple fix, it would have been done. One possibility is that, at least on the digital side, it could have been purposefully mutated by malefactors (neo-anarchists?) The Arc was isolated once the digital form had been recognised, but there may at least be some data on the biological component.
As for the plague, I think that it is no longer around, but if it is, then it is more likely that a cure will be found, since they have people who are immune to it now. Before, they probably didn't know that there were individuals that were immune. Also, for the digital version, I don't think that equipment effected with the digital version will cause individuals to be affected unless they have some sort of equipment in their body that it can spread to. Without that equipment, it cannot make the digital to bio jump. Not sure if there is a cure for the digital version, but since the current equipment is built based off of the spec's in the Arc, I would think that the Aurora is not immune to it.
My 2 cents about the Celestia that she will be shipped with the data cores to the Pentaurus cluster. This would be the most logical thing to be done as Tanna lacks any form of a shipyard/ drydock. It would be a waste if the ship would be used just as a decoy because it lacks only 3 month of completion of a 2 Year build time meaning that it is 87.5% done. She is either completed or more likely fitted with energy weapons. It is also highly probable that she is fitted to carry ground forces. The only things which she is lacking at the moments are the emitters on the hull and propellant both can be provided by the Aurora.<br>
To refit her would be a long shot but seeing that this isn’t campaign can’t be won quickly it would make more sense to complete her rather than use the ship for a short term gain.
I thought the emitters were in the cargo hold, they just haven't been installed. Also the celestia's jump drive is a different design than the aurora.
I don't think the jump drive would matter, considering it isn't installed. The one big plus would be that they would now have a team of people with knowledge of the jump drive research, instead of a single person. I would think that they would be making the trip to the Pentaurus Cluster to do research and development on the jump drive for the rest of the Alliances ships.
The second Jump Drive Team worked in isolation, so I would think they may have some slightly different ideas about how things work. They might have insights missed by the first crew, including possibly about time as a variable (see other discussion thread). but the Aurora has a second set of emitters on her hull right now, so I would think they could be transferred pretty quickly. The energy storage systems that Aurora used to use are still in the hold and could be put into the Celestia pretty quickly. That leaves the Jump Drive controller itself, and I have no idea how long that would take to manufacture.
At this point, though, the plague would be my first worry. I would bet that in 1000 years someone has studied it pretty intensely, and that it might be able to be stopped.
I still think Dubnyk will turn out to have been the creator of the first version of the virus, though. He'll sell it to the Jung in book 13.
😉
Here is some speculation about who the Jung REALLY are. We already know that the Jung were a human colony that survived the Bio-plague by taking from other worlds, and rather ruthlessly at that.
My guess on who they are is that they are originally a Communist Chinese supported colony before the plague. They certainly use commie tactics in using propaganda in any conquered world and are rather ruthless in de-populating a conquered world down to only those needed for their own purposes. Sounds kinda like the population controls in use now in China. And don't forget. Mao was their supposed "Great Leader" with his little red book of commie thoughts.
The Jung empire just sounds too much like a Communist Chinese Empire with a little Ming Dynasty thrown in... Anyone agree???
And Nathan gets renamed Flash Gordon? 😛
Seriously, in today's PC world (and I don't mean Windows) it would be hard to do that. You can always beat up on Germans as long as you throw in a Nazi reference. That is allowed. And Russians, sometimes, even though they offer freedom to our whistleblowers. And autocracies, such as Takar having a monarchy. These are "allowed" bad guys. Oh, and Aliens.
Do you remember when Starship Troopers (the movie) came out? No press against wooden actors or a bad script, only against the audacity of the filmmakers to imagine an Earth where the government was not 100% democratic (you had to serve in the armed forces to gain citizenship).
I would bet Ryk, being a child of the 60s and living here in America, will have the Jung match one of the types above. Sorry state of affairs in my mind, but that is what I believe will happen.
Um, the shields must be down. Fire Torpedo Cannons!
When does Episode 10 come out? I think January was mentioned somewhere. Just wondering if we'd get a Christmas present... 😉
When does Episode 10 come out? I think January was mentioned somewhere. Just wondering if we’d get a Christmas present…
January is the scheduled release period, but a Christmas release that would be totally awesome! Thanks again Mr. Brown for the great story!
I agree, the idea of using a kinetic kill on the Jung defense platform is inevitable considering it's mass.
Also. I'm wondering if Dubnyk had anything to do with the tecno-virus. Perhaps he is one of the coders or maybe a "distributor"??
I would guess the Celestia probably has a improved Jump drive in regards to the power source. probably what is hidden in the hold. There was mention of a different technology direction in it's development. Perhaps they will be able to tie it into the Coranari power units with no side effects?
Now that they have some propellant (1/2 of what the Celestia has on board) they could respond to an attack, or rescue op....
Too bad they can't fabricate a unit to produce propellant from gathered minerals etc.
If they can find a way to extend the jump field, that would make for an interesting weapon: take a comm drone or something that size, fit it with a jump drive. Jump next to a jung ship and jump away - either take the whole thing to say, the wormhole (hehehe) or just take a chunk out of the ship. of course it would have to overload and self destruct to prevent capture.
