The Science Log of Ragmon Kernor of the Order|SD

[Protton]

//if you are not an Order character, you can read it but you can never use the information ingame.

This is the science log of Ragmon Kernor, an agent of the Order Science division. I am reasearching the Nomad Power Cell, or, as we call it, the NPC. I ran a lot of tests on it, it seems that it can turn the world around, if used properly. Here are my papers on the NPC. The first one was made after only a limited number of tests. The second one was made after a lot of studies and tests. Information in the second one is 100% acurate.

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Nomad power cell

Nomad power cell is a relatively small nomad artefact, our two samples are identical, both weight 3.21 kg and are perfect spheres with the diametr of  0,5 metres.  It emits only some alpha rays, so in its dormant state, it is not really dangerous to any living thing as skin can stop the alpha particles. On the other hand, if you somehow display your organs without the protection of the skin, it can cause cancer. It seems to react to sunlight. It seems as though the infra-red spectrum of the light of the star and the solar radiation causes the Nomad power cell to activate. In its activated state, it emits a lot of energy and radiation. Some alpha rays, but mosty gamma and beta. So in its active state, it is higly dangerous. Even with the incredible amounts of energy it makes, it does not emit any abnormal heat. I cannot explain the reactions that are at place in the active Nomad power cell, however it seems to be working reliably without any power flucts or any other anomalies. In other words, it is a perfect generator of energy. It can make up to 5MJ of energy per second. That is a large number. The science division would still not risk running it longer than 1 hour though... As more test must be run before we can get any more information. Till we get them, all usage is higly advised to be at only at max 75% maximum power of the Nomad power cell.


Possible future usage:
If we can simulate the solar radiation and create a "false star" then I believe that with proper radiation shielding, we can use it as a power generator. That could work both on land to power up our stations and even emit a shield over them (the energy is enough to fire up a shield in an atmosphere) or it can be used to power up a ship. I would guess that about 3 of those generators could be enough to power up Battleship Thebes without a need of any aditional generators. While 1 Nomad power cell has got enough power to power the battleship, the Science Division is still not sure about the safety measures. Because of this, I would suggest putting 3 Nomad power cells there and alternate between them. Every generator will run for 1 hour. Then it will be dormant for 2 hours. The Science Division is sure that this usage will be completely safe and it can generate enough power for our experimental dreadnought to finaly fly. It would be needed, ofcourse, to do some structural changes to the ship to add rooms for the generator that would be properly shielded to stop the radiation from hitting the crew. Also, completely new electroinstalation would be needed. However, all those things would be minor, as Battleship Thebes would finaly be able to fly.

However, further tests need to come in place before any of this can be made real. We still understand very little and it would be unwise to use it before we are sure we know how to use it safely. It would be best to modify it as we modify other Nomad technology.

Here, I have the second one. My team and I have been working hard to get all the tests done. But the results are pleasing.

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Results of the Nomad Power Cell testing

My team and I made a lot of tests on the NPC. We ran all kinds of spectral diagnostics, we measured the energy emited and so on. The results were rather... strange and exiting.

The first thing is, we have found out that the energy made by the NPC is much much larger than what we had predicted based on the first tests. The real energy is unmeasurable. That is in perfect enviroment with the correct sun rays hitting the NPC. My team and I are 95% positive that we cannot get a measure of the energy because we do not have a better conductor. It seems that the energy we can use is only limited by the capacity to use the energy. If we emit too much energy, we can burn the conductor. The energy flow is regulable and stable. We can regulate it by the sun radiation we emit on the NPC. Moreover, we now know which particles and how many of them are emited by the NPC in its active state. We have about 10% alpha particles, 26% beta particles and 64% gamma particles, those are the dangerous ones. We can, however, counter them by an energy shield that will deflect all and absorb some. In its dormant state, the NPC emiting only alpha particles. Some caution is advised, but in it's dormant state, it is not realy dangerous.

The other result is of a much grater importance. Firstly, we thought that the NPC was a power generator that made energy out of the sun radiation. Now, we know that is not true. It is actualy... a battery. The best battery in existence that is. It is not loosing any power with time and for example Battleship Thebes could run on 2 of those (2 would be needed at one time, only then would it be 100% safe) for a month. That is if we can make a shell that is introduced in detail in the last paper my team and I wrote. We have no idea how to charge the NPC or if it is chargable at all. It may be possible to charge it with our technology, however we have not found a way yet. It may be possible that we are not able to charge them at all. In that case, we would need a suply of the NPCs to use it in any way. The main usage that my team is working on is making Thebes work with the energy of the NPC. If that would work, we would need to change the two NPCs every two months.

We belive that the NPC is the reason that nomad ships explode. With all the energy contained in the NPC, it is very likely that if the NPC gets damaged, its energy will get released all at once. And it will explode. And destroy everything in its imidiate surroundings. Because of this, we advice extreme caution when using it.

The results show us how usefull this nomad artefact can really be. If we harness the power. We could win the war with this... evaporate the Threat, save humanity forever. The Order would do its duty and Toledo would be... revenged.

My assistant, Theresa, came with an idea of a shell that could harness the NPC. I have used the idea and made a theorie out of it. Here it is:

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How to modify the Nomad Power Cell

    My team and I have found a way to harness the power of the Nomad Power Cell or, how will I call it for the rest of the paper, the NPC. While it was only a teoretical posibility, I belive I have found a way to use it, for real.
    The basic thing is to make an energy emitor with the Nomad Power Cell as its heart. The NPC is emiting a lot of energy if it is made active by the sun radiation, as I have covered in my previous paper. This fact means that we do not have to modify the NPC itself. We need to build a shell that can transfer the energy to the electric circuits of the ship. The shell must also shield the rest of the ship form the dangerous gamma particles that are emited by the Nomad Power Cell.
    My team and I have studied the known materials and I have made this conclusion: No known alloy is good enough for this task. However, we have consulted this with the other teams of the Science Division and we have teoreticaly developed such a material. It must be an alloy made from:
47% berillium
23% lead
10% iridium
7% niobium
8% rafined metal (premium scrap)
3% platinum
2% alluminium

    This alloy should be perfect for the task. We would also need:
Robotics
Super Conductors
Diamonds
Nanocapacitators
Optronics
Industrial materials
Polymers

    All in now unspecified amount. With all this, we should be able to make an alloy good enought for the generator and all the other needed hardware and devices. It is all teoretical, though, but there is a large chance that it WILL work. For that chance, we need to obtain all this material and transport it to Omicron-100 to Mora Station. Then, we can create the device, a small prototype, and we can run tests on it. If the test would prove as succesfull, we could create a prototype of a NPC power emitor.

For whom it may concern: The alloy is created from that material to be durable, to deflect and stop all radiation particles (even the gamma particles) to withstand large temperatures and to be a little conductive. We need all that in order to build the shell. The other material is needed for conducting the energy out of the shell, to emulate sun radiation to start the reaction, to create a small shield that will cancel almost all of the radiation (the rest will be catched by the alloy) and to control and supervise the reaction inside the shell. For more information, you can call for a consultation with me. Please do so over the vox-net of the Order Primary Fleet by the means of a personal message, I am sure I can find a moment to explain all the variables that are a part of using a nomad artifact.

This is all I have to log for now. I will be sure to log anything and everything else I come up with. The work of the Order scientist is hard and dangerous. We work with materials of a different race, different civilization. We can never know what we will find out.But I hope that we can use the NPC to the good of the Order and all of humanity. That our work will not come in vain.

Rember Toledo!
Ragmon Kenor, off.

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[Protton]

With the help of the IMG, we got the materials we needed for the special alloy. We have made a small sample of it and here are the results:

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The NPC resistant alloy

    My team and I designed an alloy that would withstand the effects of the active NPC. Theoreticaly, it should have deflected or absorbed most of the particles emited by the active NPC. This alloy is a mix of berrilium, lead, platinum, niobium, iron, iridium and alluminium. The mixture is:
47% berillium
23% lead
10% iridium
7% niobium
8% iron
3% platinum
2% alluminium

Thanks to the IMG, we got all the necessary material and began smelting and mixing. It proved to be more difficult than we had anticipated. We had to construct a special smeltery just for the purpose of getting a small piece of the alloy. It would take some time to create a smeltery large enough to produce the alloy, since then, we have only our small experimental one which we created. It can produce only small amounts of the material, but enough for testing.
    My team and I ran some tests on the alloy. It seems that the mix is a little problematic and we will need to change the design of the NPC shell mentioned earlier in my science log. The alloy is good enough for catching the particles we need to catch, but it is too weak in its mechanical durability and its temperature resistance is low aswell, it melts relatively easy. But, we can deal with it. We can put two layers of alloy inside the NPC shell. The first layer can be built from
High-Temperature alloy, which is suitable enough for the job. The second layer can be built from the NPC resistant alloy.

The NPC resistant alloy:
Hardness: HRC 32
Melting temperature: 3,726 K
Alpha particles reflected or absorbed: 100%
Beta particles reflected or absorbed: 100%
Gamma particles reflected or absorbed: 46% (aditional shielding needed)

It seems we can design the NPC shell soon and that would mean that we could use the NPC as a power source. The problem could be the shipment of material we need to make the alloy. IMG can be used, but it is a dangerous mission for them and they make trouble. Great Miss Morrow almost got me kicked out of the Science Division with her stunt... But that does not matter. We are close and we need to press on with the research. I need to request a good engineer and a few mechanics from the shipyard. I need them to build me the prototype NPC shell... For that though, I need some more material. I will ask the Zoners if they can provide...

Rember Toledo.
Agent Kernor, out!

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