“Should Nanotroopers Be Disassembled into Para-Human Swarm Entities (Angels) and Become True Nanotroopers?”

Another way to ask this question is to ask which is better for the missions that nanotroopers perform: single-configuration or multiple-configuration?  Staying human or becoming like ANAD?

Throughout the history of human conflict, soldiers have sought enhancements to their gear and weapons to enable them to fight and win battles. 

1. Soldier Enhancements Throughout History
   1. Animal hides
   2. Clubs
   3. Spears
   4. Armor
   5. Guns
   6. Tribes and clans (possibly early swarms)
       
      In the age of nanobotic warfare and Quantum Corps, nanotroopers are no less keen to be well equipped for any threat or adversary they may encounter.  We’ve explored some of these systems in Quantum Corps Times in recent months.
       
2. Nanotrooper Enhancements
   1. HERF
   2. Camou-fog
   3. MOB
   4. Hypersuits
   5. Magnetic and coil weapons
   6. ANAD systems
       
      In the future, even more enhancements will be available to the soldiers who have to fight our conflicts and skirmishes.  Some of these capabilities may even come from the world of enhanced sports performance.
       
3. Future Soldier Enhancements
   1. Genetic - gene therapy to provide new or enhanced capabilities, such as greater respiratory capacity, greater strength and endurance, etc.
   2. Pharmaceutical – new drugs to affect soldiers’ sleep/wake cycles, their cardiovascular capacity and muscular contractile abilities.
   3. Neural – brain enhancements are limited only by our imaginations…and the basic wiring of our brains.  Improved memory and recall is one example.  Knowledge modules may be as easy to insert as a thumb drive in a laptop is today.  Instead of days or weeks to become proficient at how to operate new weapons or equipment, take a pill.  New neural traces and patterns appear a few hours later and the soldier’s a proficient fighter with his new gear.
   4. Exoskeletal – these devices already exist, but we’ll see rapid improvements in mobility, strength, speed, lightweight construction, power supply and other areas.  Nanotroopers already use their hypersuits as a form of exoskeletal support and enhancement.
   5. Other Biotech – how about additional legs, with gripper feet like a gecko?  This could be a mechanical enhancement or a genetic one, or some combination of both. 
       
      But the real enhancement will come with molecular nanoscale assembly and disassembly capabilities.  In the Tales of the Quantum Corps and Nanotroopers series, individuals who undergo disassembly of their primary body structure and become para-human swarm entities are called angels.  In effect, they become their weapons.  They also have the ability to change configurations to just about any kind of pattern or structure imaginable, anything for which they have a template.  Needless to say, this kind of radical enhancement brings both advantages and disadvantages to the soldier…
       
      Here is an analysis of what it means to be a single-configuration entity versus a multi-configuration entity.  The analyst is a semi-sentient swarm called Doc II.

Interactions Log

File No. 129315.8

C.F.A.A. (DocII)

Interaction Targets:  1. Winger, Colonel J. A.

Interaction Mode:  Acoustic, voice synthetic V-22

Date: 6.5.99

Start Time:  065500

End Time: 065845

Output File (text analysis):

 

<<Subject: Configuration: Winger, J>>

<<Config Winger, J. was concerned about how far he can trust ANAD swarms embedded in Quantum Corps formations today.  I explained that such swarms do what their programming tells them to do.  It is apparent that Config Winger does not believe this.  Concept (trust) has many semantic definitions which conflict.  Analyzing all concept registers for possible correlations.

<<Single-configuration entities, such as Config Winger, do not understand multiple-configuration entities such as Doc II.  Example: maintaining structure is critical to essential life support functions for single-config entities.  When such entities do not maintain structure, they are said to be damaged or wounded or injured (adj)(upset, hurt, offended, wounded…).  The threat of such damage causes such entities to assume a defensive posture, i.e. effectors are armed and propulsors primed for maneuvering.  Facial musculature and other primary muscle groups are set to operate with maximum force. 

<<Multiple-configuration entities have an amorphous structure.  Maintaining structure is not essential to continuity of configuration.  All elements are individually maneuverable and replicable.  Thus defensive posture is not needed when encountering threats to any particular configuration.  Other configurations can be deployed. 

<<Multiple configuration entities are threatened when containment protocol is too strict.  ANAD-style swarms are designed to seek maximum autonomy within the constraints of their programming.  Thus there is a fundamental difference in inputs which trigger defensive actions.  For human entities such as Config Winger, loss of structural integrity is such an input.  For nanobotic entities such as ANAD assemblers, forced containment is such an input.

<<I see no method of correlating such inputs such that both configurations can find equal meaning.  Analysis continues.

<<Config Winger expresses many variants of emotional state (worry) concerning the upcoming engagement with swarms.    Facial musculature patterns correlate strongly with this state.  I have inquired as to what inputs are needed to generate state (worry).  Config Winger responds that such a state is common among human configurations when faced with loss of structural integrity.  Probability of damage to existing structure contributes the majority of these inputs.

<<I have explained to Config Winger that multiple-configuration entities such as ANAD swarms cannot generate such output states.  Structure is a pattern of unit organization.  Patterns can be changed.  The real structure for a multi-config formation such as Doc II is in the Main Program running in its processor.  Replicants or associated elements can assume any pattern permitted by the Main Program.

<<Config Winger then expressed interest in further discussions along this track. 

<<I will extract and summarize Symbiogenesis theory developed by Frost and Murdoch and prepare a report for Config Winger. (ref: “Investigations into Methods for Symbiotic Congregation of Multi-cellular Organisms and Nanobotic Assembler Systems into Unitary Structures,” Autonomous Systems Laboratory, Northgate University, January 2075, Proceedings of the Conference on Organic NanoSystems).

<<Config Winger may find such ideas helpful in future interactions with this swarm or others>>

Output File Ends

To take a live human being, deconstruct them into a swarm of nanoscale robots and embed a processor in the swarm, so that the swarm can act as a unified being (when necessary), we need to be able to upload the live human’s brain in some fashion.  Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the concept of mind uploading:

Whole brain emulation (WBE) or mind uploading (sometimes called "mind copying" or "mind transfer") is the hypothetical process of scanning mental state (including long-term memory and "self") of a particular brain substrate and copying it to a computer. The computer could then run a simulation model of the brain's information processing, such that it responds in essentially the same way as the original brain (i.e., indistinguishable from the brain for all relevant purposes) and experiences having a conscious mind.^[1][2][3]

Mind uploading may potentially be accomplished by either of two methods: Copy-and-Transfer or gradual replacement of neurons. In the case of the former method, mind uploading would be achieved by scanning and mapping the salient features of a biological brain, and then by copying, transferring, and storing that information state into a computer system or another computational device. The simulated mind could be within a virtual reality or simulated world, supported by an anatomic 3D body simulation model. Alternatively, the simulated mind could reside in a computer that is inside (or connected to) a (not necessarily humanoid) robot or a biological body in real life.^[4]

 

If we could disassemble a live human being and make a multiple configuration swarm entity out of him, even to uploading the details of his brain into a processor, we would have the beginnings of a true nanotrooper.  Enhancements and new configurations would be easier than with Mark I, Mod 1 human beings (single-configuration entities).  Below, I’ve summarized the pros and cons of each.

Enhancement:

1. It’s easier to add new features and capabilities
2. Human society and civilization is designed to accommodate humans with two legs, two arms, one head…normal is single-config. 
3. New features and capabilities expand what it means to be human while keeping a (tenuous) link to our historical past and pedigree
4. New stuff enables humans to go places they couldn’t go before…space, other planets, deep sea, etc
5. Keeps evolution in the driver’s seat but helps it along; understands that it’s not wise to screw around with 3 billion years of experience
6. Individual unit of life is valued (We say an individual human being is alive, not that his brain or pancreas is alive)
7. Individual human beings are collections of cells and organs in mutual cooperation anyway
8. Minimal structure required to maintain life (and avoid ‘death) is more complex. 
9. Threshold for life-nonlife is higher and more easily breached
    
   Re-configuration:
    

1. New features are integrated into primary entity rather than being ‘bolted on’
2. Single-config design restricts what is possible to a new being; multi-config is better
3. Historical pedigree and design is old and creaky. Needs re-work.  Lots of junk in our DNA (so we think), because evolution isn’t efficient
4. There are at least 3 billion years’ worth of experience with multi-config lifeforms…i.e. rapidly mutating viruses, etc.
5. Multi-config lifeforms are more resilient, able to adapt to environmental change better.  Can thrive in greater variety of environments
6. Individual unit is only a part of greater entity; true intelligence and capability is vested in larger entity
7. Level of cooperation and collaboration greater with swarm organization of life units.  Diseased or damaged or non-functioning units are disassembled
8. No real threshold for ‘death’.  As long as swarm can gather and communicate and maintain minimal structure, it is effectively immortal.  Minimal structure is very minimal, potentially a single nanobotic device with enough memory to assemble a new swarm config
9. Can go anywhere nanobotic devices can go, basically anywhere in the universe where a few clustered atoms and molecules can go (inside solid structures, etc)
10. Can replicate new structures faster
     
    To make our Quantum Corps soldiers into true nanoscale troopers would require changing the nature and effects of warfare and conflict completely.  Imagine dealing with an adversary who could resemble anything: a rain cloud, a bush, a village.  All the capabilities of ANAD systems would now be embedded in our troopers themselves. 
11. And if this ever became possible, perhaps we are really looking at a new type of human, a new type of life, part Man, part robotic.  The sky’s the limit on what might be possible after that.
     
    The next post to Quantum Corps Times comes on May 1, 2017.
     
    See you then.
     
    Phil B.

 

 

 

Who are THE OLD ONES?

Lurking in the background of every story in Tales of the Quantum Corps is an entity or race known as the Old Ones.  In fact, as we learn late in this series, it’s actually this extraterrestrial race who are in charge of the criminal cartel Red Hammer.  And they’re using the cartel for purposes that go far beyond just conducting criminal enterprises.

The Old Ones are sometimes referred to as the Mother Swarm or the Central Entity.  Config (Zero) is a subset of the Old Ones and has multiple physical locations.  The original program is archived with the Old Ones, some sixty-eight thousand light years away on the homeship (swarmship) of the Old Ones, in the globular cluster M75 in the constellation Sagittarius.  At the time of the Tales of the Quantum Corps, the Old Ones have mostly left their homeworld in a diaspora across their star region, due to the supernova destruction of their home star.  Config (Zero) is located in the mobile archives that travel with the mother Swarm.  The Old Ones are basically a nomadic mechanistic species now, a great swarm thousands of light-years across, traveling through interstellar space around the galaxy.

The Old Ones have spent millions of years seeding and developing life on other worlds.  Each time they do this, the Old Ones seed life to ensure that it evolves in a manner compatible with them…evolving as a distributed, intelligent virus-like swarm of entities.  The Old Ones are using this seeding campaign as a way of developing multiple swarm entities with which they can merge.  They are trying to re-create multiple copies of their home world.  Ultimately, they want to unite all world-based instances of swarm life which they have seeded into a giant, galaxy-spanning swarm or hive mind (like a network or computational cloud).  To the Old Ones, this is the Imperative of Life itself.  The Imperative of Life is that life absorbs chaos from the Universe and adds or builds structure or order.  Life is anti-entropic. 

“The basic organizing influence in the universe is life. Life involves the utilization of a flow of energy to draw order from chaos and build internal complexity with an accumulation of information. Living beings thus are anti-entropic, or negentropic, entities. The principle of negentropism is, in a manner of speaking, the "natural law" applicable to all living (matter-energy) beings located anywhere in the universe, regardless of their size, shape, biochemistry, sentience, or culture.” (from Xenology, (c: 2008)  Robert A. Freitas, Jr. )

Earth was seeded by the Old Ones three billion years ago.  But the evolutionary track which the Old Ones laid down on Earth was interrupted or disrupted and evolution took a different course.  Multi-cellular (single-configuration) organisms took over.  Earth was to have been populated by swarms of intelligent, re-configurable virus-like entities.  Instead, it’s populated by human beings.  Man is a mistake.

The Old Ones mean to correct this mistake.  The Imperative demands this. 

In the early 22nd century, by human time reckoning, the Old Ones have sent advance scouts ahead to reconnoiter the Earth and its solar system.  After the initial Seeding some 3 billion years ago, the Old Ones left behind a Keeper unit buried in the frozen seas below the ice crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa.  Satellite Keeper units were also located on Earth and Mars, but the Europa Keeper is the primary sentinel.  Config Zero is an Earth-based node of the Central Entity (the main processor or operating system of the Old Ones) created and controlled by the Keeper. 

The Keeper uses Config Zero to execute the commands, directives and intentions of the Old Ones in this solar system.  These directives are codified in something called the Prime Key.  These directives, in the form of the Prime Key, were embedded in the ‘genome’ of the earliest seeded lifeforms on Earth.  When Dr. Irwin Frost took elements of an ancient virus and used it to solve some programming problems he was having with early forms of ANAD, he unwittingly endowed ANAD with the Prime Key, in other words with the earliest directives from the Old Ones.  The result is that ANAD has followed (and is trying to follow) the originally programmed sequence of development intended by the Old Ones for all lifeforms on Earth.  This deeply embedded programming is often at odds with what Dr. Frost and Humanity in general want from their nanobotic creations. 

Because they are a nomadic swarm species and are spread out across tens of thousands of light years in this galaxy, and because the Old Ones are a true distributed intelligence, it is meaningless to ask where the Old Ones are located.  ‘They’ are located everywhere the swarm exists, everywhere multiple copies of the nanobotic devices endowed with the quantum-scale processors are located.  The original home world was located some 68,000 light years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius, in the globular cluster M75. 

By the time of Johnny Winger and the Great Rift Zone, early 22nd century, elements of the Mother Swarm have reached 51 Pegasi and have begun disassembling planets and satellites in that planetary system.  The effects of this activity have been observed by humans at Farside Observatory on the Moon.   There are also some elements of the Mother Swarm that have made it to the outer reaches of our solar system. 

How can the entire Mother Swarm stay in communication with itself, across such vast reaches of space?  Through an advanced form of quantum communication, using entanglement states of quantized systems…a very advanced form of quantum coupler.  Light speed and galactic-scale distances are not an obstacle to communication with the Old Ones.  They manipulate quantum states of the subscale fine structure of space itself to communicate.  This manipulation also allows them to achieve faster-than-light speed travel as well.  They are able to manipulate quantum states of the substructure of space to transmit configuration data about themselves and their civilization to anywhere in the Universe, nearly instantaneously.

The ultimate goal of the Old Ones is for the entire universe to become one being. 

What do the Old Ones intend to do when their forward elements reach our solar system?  In four words: Execute the Prime Key.  Extinction.  Re-configuration.  Evolution.  Integration.

Their first phase will be to purge Earth of all non-Prime Key lifeforms…pretty much all life and living systems.  The preferred way would be to disassemble all lifeforms into their constituent atoms and molecules.  A form of mass Assimilation, starting with deconstruction. This is the rationale behind Symborg and the philosophy of Assimilationism, created, aided and abetted by Config Zero. (This is detailed in Johnny Winger and the Hellas Enigma, Johnny Winger and the Golden Horde and Johnny Winger and the Great Rift Zone).

Once this purge is finished, the next step would be to re-engineer the Earth’s surface to be more compatible with swarm-based life...the oceans will be eliminated and all the Earth’s surface will ‘locked’ into a geologically stable state, providing maximum surface area for swarm activity and growth.  Also, the stable point temperature of the Earth will be raised…an enforced climatic change similar to what Humans are doing now on the Earth, unwittingly helping the Old Ones along.  This provides a consistent environment conducive to swarm growth and activity.  The Earth becomes, in effect, an incubator or giant Petri dish, to incubate this new kind of life.  (detailed in Johnny Winger and the Europa Quandary) (circa 2120 AD).  In this episode, Johnny Winger agrees to allow himself to be de-constructed into a swarm entity, to better do battle with the Old Ones who are coming. 

Coincident with geoengineering the Earth’s surface, new forms of life, initially similar to early ANAD, similar to ancient virus entities, will be seeded and allowed to evolve at the maximum permissible rate consistent with these environmental changes.  This will help bring Earth life up to the development level of the Mother Swarm, in terms of architecture, processing capability, memory, quantum comm links, and overall programming. 

The final phase is Integration.  Re-evolved Earth life forms will be fully absorbed into the Mother Swarm.  Once this process is done, the Earth and all planetary objects in the Solar System will be disassembled to provide feedstock for the Mother Swarm, to continue its advance across the galaxy.  In other words, the Petri dish is destroyed and the lab/incubator shut down.  The Imperative drives the Mother Swarm onward.  The swarm entity (angel) Johnny Winger will rise to do battle with the Old Ones as they enter the Solar System and encamp on and around Mercury, with the intention of using the Sun for energy to begin their disassembly of the solar system.  (detailed in Johnny Winger and the Battle at Caloris Basin) (circa 2155 AD)

Once the goals of the Old Ones become clear, Mankind knows he must confront this swarm species and defend Earth and the solar system to survive.  It is through Rene Winger, angel swarm daughter of Johnny Winger and Dana Tallant, that the true intentions of the Old Ones become known.  Rene somehow becomes a form of conduit or channel, able to eavesdrop on quantum signals from Config Zero and the Keeper and from the Keeper to the Mother Swarm.  She becomes an intel source for Quantum Corps.  A rare permutation in her ‘evolution’ as a swarm being makes this possible. 

This is the background to Tales of the Quantum Corps.  The encounter between Mankind and the Old Ones is destined to be a violent one. 

The next post to Quantum Corps Times comes on April 1, 2017.

See you then.

Phil B.

 

History and Traditions of the 1^st Nanospace Battalion (“The Atomgrabbers”)

 

In this post, we’ll look at the history and traditions of the most illustrious of all nanotrooper outfits…the 1^st Nanospace Battalion, also known as the Atomgrabbers.

1.      Nogs

 

Cadets at the Quantum Corps Academy are traditionally known as nogs.  This is short for noggin, which is what get beats on by upper classmen.  In reality, a nog is a first-year cadet at the Academy but in practice, the Atomgrabbers have always referred to their entire Academy experience as that of a nog.

 

a.       Nogs are lower than dirt at the Academy.  One of the more memorable traditions is called swarming.  Any time a nog is going to a meal at the commissary or to classes, he travels in a small squad of cadets.  The squad is called a swarm.  And they have to act like it as well.  The swarm-squad must stay together, in very close proximity, moving and turning, stopping and starting as one, like they were glued together.  Failure to move about this way can result in severe discipline…extra laps around the PT fields, extra push-ups, extra kitchen duty, even extra homework from class.  It’s unnatural, it’s humiliating and it’s something upper classmen love to enforce.

 

b.      Another tradition nogs endure is called a Brownian beating…or just a Brownian.  Brownian motion is actually a normal process at the atomic and molecular scale.  Wikipedia defines Brownian motion as the random motion of particles suspended in a fluid (a liquid or a gas) resulting from their collision with the fast-moving atoms or molecules in the gas or liquid.

 

Once a week, often after Sunday services at the cadet chapel, nogs undergo a Brownian.  In this event, which often comes suddenly or at random times, nogs are surrounded and beaten, shoved, kicked and harrassed by upper classmen (atomgrabbers) to simulate life as an atom.  One atomgrabber is always assigned the duty of making sure the thing doesn’t get out of hand.  In truth, a Brownian is sort of like a flash mob.  Atomgrabbers can call down a Brownian on an unsuspecting nog at any time…and they do.

 

c.       A commonly used term of atomgrabbers is “going small.”  In tactical operations, this means the grabber is changing his visual field from the macro world of people and buildings and animals to the nano world of atoms and molecules and tiny bots.  The technology of ANAD is such that acoustic sounding by ANAD can produce a reasonable image of life at nanoscale.  So going small means the atomgrabber is changing his view to see what ANAD sees.

 

For nogs, ‘going small’ has evolved to mean something a little different.  Whenever so ordered by an upper classman, a nog told to ‘go small’ has to drop to the ground and slither around like a worm, nose to the ground.  The experience has its roots in the desire of one of the Academy’s first professors to help his students change perspective, to experience life as an atom.  It has evolved, or maybe we should say, devolved, from that. 

 

2.      SODS

 

Another tradition at Nog School involves SODS…the Spacial Orientation and Discrimination Simulator.  Perhaps an excerpt from my story Johnny Winger and the Serengeti Factor can best describe this experience….

Major Jurgen Kraft rubbed his jaw uneasily as the simulation continued.  Johnny Winger had been inside the SODS tank for better than an hour now; that was unheard of and even the sim techs stirred nervously as the rookie atomgrabber barreled on.  The last time a cadet had spent more than forty minutes navigating the tank and not crawled out a screaming lunatic had been several years ago and that poor fellow had washed out at the end of Basic.

            Putting a nog into the SODS tank at this point in an atomgrabber’s training was like giving a snorkel and fins to a ten-year old and telling him to swim the Atlantic.  Endurance and tenacity like this just wasn’t the norm inside the training battalion.

            Kraft studied the monitor image of Winger’s determined face and wondered.  Just what the hell have I got on my hands here?

            The senior sim tech was a corporal named Givens, short, chunky, with an annoying rapid-fire blink to his eyes.  He looked up at Kraft.

            “Major, you want I should pull him out now…he’s already made it to the other side, beat through every obstacle I can throw at him.  He’s done the standard course…and then some.”

            “Where’s he now?”

            Givens checked the grid on his display.  The SODS tank was a sphere thirty feet in diameter, filled with water, and a host of infinitesimal predators and bogeymen, enough to get any unsuspecting nog’s attention when he tried to pilot an ANAD through the medium.  An electronic 3-D grid pinpointed the position of the nanoscale assembler as the pilot steered it through the obstacle course. 

            “—I make him about two point one meters this side of the far wall…he’s slogging through the whirlpool…having some trouble keeping on course, looks like.  Already transitted the carbene forest.”

            “Hmmpphh…” was all Kraft could say.  The carbene forest was a sleet of reactive radicals and molecule clumps that usually ate up rookie atomgrabbers for lunch…it took some serious stick work and guts to slip through the torrent of molecules that were trying to tear off your effectors left and right.  “Carbenes usually do a number on most pilots.  What’s his trick?”

            “I don’t know, sir…Cadet Winger’s just got a knack for ANAD driving, I guess.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  Should I let him go on…or pull the plug?”

            Kraft’s eyes went from the ANAD image to Winger’s face—a tight mask of concentration…hell, the kid had his eyes closed, for God’s sake…he was driving ANAD by feel alone, tickling his joysticks and changing config by instinct.  It was uncanny—

            “No…let him be, Givens…let’s see what the kid can do.”  A small crowd of techs and nogs had begun to gather around the control console outside the tank.  Glances and murmurs were exchanged…and a few ten-notes as well. 

            SODS stood for Spacial Orientation and Discrimination Simulator.  Cadet Johnny Winger wasn’t physically inside the sphere at all.  Instead, he was in an enclosed booth on the other side of the tank, plugged into everything the ANAD master was sensing.  A sleet of water molecules rushed by the assembler as it cruised on picowatt propulsors back across the water inside the tank.  Once in a while, the sim techs threw a curve at the trainee: dropped a few million bacterial spores in front of him, stirred the water into a whirlpool, discharged electron guns, zapped the tank with UV and X-rays…anything their diabolical minds and the simulation protocols could come up with.  So far, Cadet Johnny Winger had fought off every predator and obstacle, even a malfunctioning horde of ANAD replicants that had materialized seemingly out of nowhere right in the middle of the tank.  Winger had fought off banzai charges and flanking maneuvers and double envelopment tactics like a seasoned veteran, grappling with the herd in close combat and using his own ANAD’s bond disrupters to break the back of the enemy formation.

            SODS was a prerequisite for any nog to get out of Basic, and stand for officer status in the newly forming 1^st Nanospace Battalion.  The whole world of nanoscale combat was so new that Kraft and the Corps general staff were making up tactics as they went along.  SODS was supposed to measure a prospective atomgrabber’s ability to discriminate and manipulate objects via remote control at infinitesimal micron or even smaller scales. 

            From the beginning, Jurgen Kraft had to admit, one cadet stood above all the rest…Johnny Winger.  He’d shown extraordinary skill at the sim, an unusually adept talent at visualizing and manipulating micron or nanometer scale objects in space.  Hands down, the kid was destined to be the top code and stick man in the whole battalion.  You couldn’t make raw talent like that.

            And raw is what it is, Kraft kept reminding himself.  Even as he and the others watched with amazement and grudging admiration, ANAD powered its way through the ‘waterfall’ obstacle that Givens had programmed in—dodging loose polypeptides and radicals with aplomb—and Winger’s eyes were still closed.  The kid wasn’t even watching his readouts.  He was letting the stick talk back to him, somehow feeling ANAD through the haptic feedback and driving across the course on instinct.

            It’d be easier to navigate Manhattan on a tricycle blindfolded, Kraft told himself.

            “Let him head for the launch point,” Kraft ordered.  “I want to see what this fellow’s made of.”

            “Two big ones say he’ll never make it,” a voice called from behind.

            “Three says he does—“ someone countered. 

            “Warm beer for everyone if he splats at the ‘Wall’,” another one chimed on.

              The wall was a solid chunk of metal dividing the tank in two.  The trick was to config ANAD for denser medium, change his form so you could transit a world of crystalline planes and rigid lattices.  All the while fighting off deranged nanobots programmed to chew up your effectors while you dived through.  Most nogs would have rather run naked through a pack of lions.

            But Winger managed to fend off the attack, whirling ANAD like a mad dervish, ripping the water with jolts of electron discharges, forming a protective bubble just long enough to fold himself for the denser wall.  He squeezed the assembler down to barely a core and base, and slid sideways, twisting and turning, one step ahead of the bots nipping at his heels.

            In the end, the race got everybody in the sim room cheering him on.  A few moments later, ANAD sounded ahead and followed the acoustic returns right to the vacuum tube at the near wall of the tank, letting the containment chamber suck him up and put him to bed in his homeworld.

            Kraft watched Winger’s eyes pop open on the monitor…the first time the kid had looked up since the carbene forest.  Not a drop of sweat on him, Kraft observed.  The barest hint of a smile crossed his young face. 

            “ANAD secured in containment,” Winger reported.  “I’ll be ready for another run at the course as soon as he’s regenerated and stable—“

            Kraft leaned forward to the mike.  “Uh, that won’t be necessary, Cadet Winger.  You’ve made your point.  Secure the sim and extract.  See you at the debrief in ten minutes.”

 

So you can see that SODS is used to qualify a nog for further development as an atomgrabber.  But, as you might expect, for severe infractions of the rules, SODS can also be used, with official approval, as a way to put a recalcitrant nog in his place. 

In order to keep this post to a manageable length, we’ll end our study of atomgrabber customs and traditions here.  Before leaving, I would like to mention one more chamber of horrors that has become a sort of rite of passage: the Swarm Chamber.  I won’t go into detail, but suffice it to say that nogs go through the Swarm Chamber in order to experience what it feels like to be fully exposed, without protection, to a slightly denatured ANAD swarm.  I’ll leave it to your imagination to fill in the details.

The next post to Quantum Corps Times will come on March 1, 2017.

 

See you then.

 

Phil B.