It seemed as if Mr. Crombie wanted to protest more, but Mr. Botont grabbed his arm and jerked hard, followed by whispering something into his ear.

It did not seem as if Mr. Botont was in any way happy about Mr. Crombie’s interjection.

In a way, I could even understand where Lemar was coming from. There was still this romanticized nostalgia about the queen of the capital ships, the aircraft carrier.

Unfortunately, the carrier had gone the way of the dodo. Simply because fighters, or bombers, provided absolutely no advantage in the age of the grav ship. And many disadvantages.

The rest of us looked at the two arguing in whispers before Captain Murdock rolled his eyes and turned back to me.

“Noo, lassie, div ye ken whit's important in a wershup?”

Again, it took me a couple of seconds to understand what he was saying, and I cocked my head raising an eyebrow.

“I thought we had agreed on using English. And I can only guess. I would say, in descending order, the weapons, the armor, the sensors, the computer systems.”

Murdock nodded.

“Thought so. At least you know that you are only guessing. You are completely wrong by the way.

There are several levels of system hierarchy. Not just on warships, but there are more.

First core systems. Those are systems that keep the crew alive. Live support, emergency energy, airlocks, emergency coms.

Then level one systems. Those are the things that transform the ship from an immobile habitat to a ship.

Main energy, navigational sensors, nav computer, propulsion, and steering, communication beyond emergency.

On level two are systems that protect the ship. Point defense, armor, and approach sensors.

On level three are systems that allow the ship to fulfill its primary function. These are offensive weapons, targeting sensors, C³ equipment, recon sensors, or whatever else the ship needs to do what it’s intended for.

Finally, level four are systems that make it comfortable, improve the ergonomics or similar. Like a full galley, working showers, and VI assistants.

In other words, things that the ship can still be a warship without, even if it becomes a chore.”

Murdock stopped here, and Aang continued:

“The thing here is the redundancy engineered into the systems. There will be compromises. That is unavoidable. But wherever possible, those compromises need to fall in favor of the lower-level systems.

If it is a choice between compromising a level four system, so that it might be a bit more vulnerable, but making a core system safer, make the core system safer.”

I nodded slowly.

“So… multiple algae tanks for air purifying, along with emergency air scrubbers, water purifiers, emergency energy cells, and heating systems?”

Murdock snorted.

“Close. You forgot the air circulation system that needs multiple redundancies, which have to be able to be isolated from each other.

But more important, heating is a relatively small part. Cooling is much more important.”

It seemed as if my surprise about this statement was plainly visible, as he chuckled.

“Unless you plan to build a ship that exclusively operates in an atmosphere, it will spend some of its time in the vacuum of space. You have to expect it to have to fight a battle there.

You have at least two fusactors producing in the triple-digit gigawatt range of power. Anything beyond a corvette or frigate will have more than two.

We are talking about between 300 and 700 GW for a single corvette. And 500 to 1500 GW for a destroyer.

All that power will produce heat. Heat that has to be removed. And unlike the average civilian grav ships, which only have between 25 and 100 GW, a warship can not have nice, effective, and fragile, permanent radiators fixed to the hull.”

He made a short pause.

“Those are the very first things that the enemy will target. If you take out the radiators, you take out the ability to fire the weapons effectively.

That means a large part of the volume on board is filled with some big thermal mass and folded radiators that can be expanded after the battle.”

I frowned. Oh, I got where he was going. But seriously, folded radiators? Probably with some thermal transfer fluid running through them?

That did not sound very effective.

“Ye dinnae believe me hen?”

“Hu? Oh no, that’s not it. I am wondering why somebody uses something like folded radiators. Those things have to be horribly inefficient.”

“They're, but there's nane better.”

For real? Had nobody ever thought about those problems?

“From the top of my head, I can think of two better methods.”

That brought out an exclamation from Mr. Botont.

“Seriously? People have been working on this since the first spaceships. There are no better ways!”

I sighed and rolled my eyes, while Michael let out a small chuckle, followed by an:

“And here it comes…!”

I had already lifted ‘my’ arm to slap him on the back of his head when I remembered that he was using an Incarnate, same as me. No point in doing that to the machine. Instead, I just shook my head.

“Get real. Of course, there are better options. You do know how to move heat from one object to another, right?”

When he nodded, I continued.

“Now, imagine that instead of moving it into some thermal mass, we move it into some lasing material. Use the energy to excite it. And then let it beam the energy out as a laser beam into space.

Sure, it will generate additional heat, but way less than it will beam out.”

For a few moments, everybody was silent, before Ms. Rouhani turned to Mr. Botont and asked softly:

“Could that really work?”

To his credit, Botont thought about it a bit longer and then nodded.

“We need to experiment with it, but basically I can’t see why not.”

“But… why has nobody done that before?”

I could only shrug.

“That is something I have seen in a plethora of disciplines. After the Great War… people stopped trying new things.”

Michael elaborated:

“It is as if people can no longer think outside of the box. It might have something to do with the average IQ falling by nearly 9% since then.

Vivian on the other hand… I don’t know if she even knows what a box is in that context, much less where it is, and for sure she won’t be confined by it.”

I sighed.

“The worst thing is that this is not my idea. Science fiction authors brought it forward in the 9th decade of the 20th century. And it is not that complicated either. It is a sad testament to how far we have fallen as a species.”

I heard a clank when Michael’s Incarnate placed its hand on my Incarnat’s shoulder. I valued the gesture, but the situation, as well as Michael’s expression, made me laugh hard.

After a few moments, when this sudden mirth had spent itself, I just shook my head, and Michael, who had chuckled as well, said:

“What I wanted to say was that you are working hard, and successfully, to bring us back on course. You and the other K4. We have made more progress in the last half year than in the 100 years prior.”

I sighed.

“It is still a sad outlook. Do you even understand what you are saying? That the whole future of humanity, our whole legacy, hangs on the deeds of just twelve people?”

Murdock cleared his throat.

“As braw as that wis, we should bide oan.”

Michael looked confused at me, and I sighed:

“He said ‘as nice as that was, we should move on.”

“Yeah, I think so too. But sometimes we have to pat our genius on the back so she doesn’t get too morose.”

I shook my head and cleared my mind.

“To get back to cooling, the second method is, admittedly, only viable thanks to Enki’s new technology. Even if it is also something Sci-Fi authors had predicted in the late 20th century.

The plasma-radiator”

Most of the participants at the table looked at me with a mixture of confusion and rejection, with the non-technical people mostly falling on the side of confusion, while the technical people seemed more to outright reject my sentence.

Only Abou Hama seemed to take what I had said seriously, though even he was first a bit confused, and then showed some dismissal before he finally settled in contemplation.

He rubbed his shaved head, and then softly asked:

“You think they are possible at all?”

I nodded.

“The reason why they were not viable before now was how limited our ability to create strong magnetic fields was. The principle itself is sound. But what you and your technicians don’t know is that the technology that makes the proton lance possible is to electromagnetic fields what the grav coil is to gravity fields.”

Samira frowned and then looked from Abou to me and back.

“Would you mind explaining for the slower children what this plasma radiator is?”

Abou chuckled.

“Oh, Sammie, it is pure science fiction. At least I believed so before now. You know that in space, the only practical way to remove the heat out of a system, be it a ship, station, probe, or whatever, is radiation.

It is a relatively slow and inefficient way and mostly depends on the heat differential and the surface area of the radiating element.

That is why we always try to increase the heat of the heat transfer fluid to pump through the radiators that are as big as possible.

Well, the other way, in most cases only usable in an emergency, is to pump the heat into some object and throw that object out of the ship. That is obviously limited as you only have so much stuff you can throw away.

That is by the way how the plasma cannons came to be. They were emergency plasma release systems until somebody got the idea to release the heat into the face of their enemy.”

Oh, right plasma cannons on ships were a thing. Devastatingly at short ranges, but extremely limited otherwise.

“The point here is that while heat transfer fluid can be a few 100° Celsius hot, plasma can have several thousand, or even million degrees, and it will take that amount of heat out of the ship with it.

The idea of the plasma radiator is the logical next step on that. We don’t use the plasma cannons to expel heat outside of an emergency, or combat, because the amount of plasma is limited.

But what if we can shoot out the plasma, and when it is cooled down, we capture it again and pull it back into the ship?

We can then pump additional heat into it and shoot it out again.”

Samira tilted her head and was visibly confused.

“Ok, that sounds… logical. And relatively easy. Why don’t we do that already?”

Mr. al-Jamal scoffed.

“Because we can’t capture it again. It sounds nice in theory, but in praxis, it just doesn’t work.”

Abou shook his head.

“You should try to listen, Quim. And think. Just think for a moment. What is this proton lance?”

Mr. al-Jamal shrugged.

“I am no weapon-tech. I have no clue how it works.”

Abou slumbed a bit in disappointment.

“It is in the fucking name! It is nothing more than a run-of-the-mill proton beam. We had that technology for more than 300 years! And nobody got the idea to use it as a weapon.

Why?”

Mr. Crombie frowned but asked:

“Because they were weak ass stuff?”

“Exactly. They were weak ass. Because the electromagnetic field necessary to make them strong enough to use them as weapons was simply impossible. The very same reason why plasma radiators won’t work.

But now somebody created a proton beam strong enough to deliver as much energy in two seconds as the strongest railgun in 26.”

He made a pause and looked his tech staff in the eyes, one after another.

“In other words, they developed a way to make the magnetic field strong enough to use a weak ass proton beam as a weapon.”

Mr. Botont frowned.

“How? I thought the strongest magnets made were around 120 Tesla.”

Abou sighed.

“You are asking the wrong person. I only know that if those proton lances exist, and the people now paying our princely salary all seem to believe it does, then there have to be some serious breakthroughs in magnetic technology.”

Then he looked expectantly at me, and after a few seconds, I sighed.

“Fine. Keep in mind that unlike with grav coils, we do not have a unit for the field here. But the proton lances work by the equivalent of a 5000 Kepler grav coil.

The electromagnetic field is generated between the ends of the coil, and already in the direction we want it to be, so all of the field strength goes into amplifying the EM field. That produces an EM field of 13.5 kilotesla.”

As an answer, Mr. Botont began to cough, and when he managed to get it under control, he gasped:

“The equivalent of 5000 Kepler? How many millions does one of those proton lances cost?”

Michael sighed.

“You are aware that Enki sells new grav coils, right? Significantly stronger and cheaper. 5000 Kepler in the new coils is the same size as 12.5 Kepler of the old coils.”

I continued:

“And even under that aspect, they are considerably cheaper. They cost as much as a five Kepler Kobashigawa coil.

And these EM-coils are even cheaper. They are mostly made from Iron. I’ve not used structural carbon here as iron is even cheaper. It has roughly two kg of iron, along with 52g of sulfur, and 24g of molybdenum.

The expensive part with around 80% of the cost of it is the molybdenum, but all in all, one of those coils has $1.5 of materials in it. Or 37 centibonds. With manufacturing, all in all, one of those coils costs less than two ITB.”

Abou was frowning again.

“I am not sure that 13.5 kt is enough to make the plasma radiator work.”

“You might be right. Then we will splurge and use a ten ITB coil. And we get 131 kt. Or how about a 100 ITB coil, and we get 1.97 megatesla.

You can’t tell me that you can build one of those folding radiators for 100 ITB.”

“No, you are right. If this stuff is that scalable, then yes, plasma radiators are a realistic option. And probably the best option for a warship.”

Commander Aang hmmed.

“I don’t know. Those things sound like they are really bright. You could as well put a shoot me here sign on them.”

Abou chuckled.

“Sure they are. They will be nearly sun bright when they exit the ship. So what? Don’t you think the conventional radiators are easily visible on IR?”

“Yes, but those radiators are not intended for in combat.”

I shook my head.

“Nobody says you have to activate the plasma radiators in combat. But if you do, the enemy will shoot at them. So what, let him.”

“And cripple the ship? Without heat radiation, any ship would be a sitting duck.”

“Commander, we are talking about plasma. What do you think any projectile, or laser beam or whatever will do to it?”

“I don’t know, shatter it?”

I snorted.

“No, Commander.

It will do nothing. At worst it will rip away a bit of the plasma. Only for it to be immediately replaced. Even the main guns of the Nagato Class will not do much more than remove a few grams of plasma, maybe a kg if they are lucky. If we build in enough plasma storage, in place of some of the thermal mass, a Nagato can use those plasma radiators as targets for hours without impacting the cooling capabilities of the ship.”

Abou mused:

“Will the railgun slug even enter the plasma? I mean, a two-megatesla magnetic field? The eddy currents in the slug will bring it to a near stop while superheating it.”

That took me for a spin. I had completely forgotten about that effect.

“Huh, I did not think about that.”

Then I turned to Naveen.

“I guess I can give you your shields.”

Only for Abou to interject:

“I doubt that. The energy needed to cover a whole ship in a strong enough magnetic field has to be massive. I doubt we can squeeze that out of the onboard fusactors.”

I sighed.

“You might be right. And even if, the eddy currents will only work as long as the slug is still a slug and not a cloud of vaporized metal.”

“That should still help to reduce the impact. Yes, they are hot, but single atoms that are considerably slowed down are not much of a problem I think.”

Naveen then shook his head.

“You are probably right, but unless the ship commander fucked up by the numbers, no metal slug will even reach any magnetic field in a solid state.”

“Daft ye think a captain can magically shift his ship oot o' th' road?”

It took Naveen a moment to get what Murdock was saying and then shook his head.

“First, it would be way better if you used English instead of whatever you are speaking. Yes, Vivian appears to be able to understand you just fine, but she is so smart that we literally are not able to measure her IQ.

Second, no, I don’t think a captain can make his ship vanish. But we have some technology we have not talked about that can disintegrate solid matter at a distance of two to three kilometers.”

That brought an outcry from Mr. Crombie:

“That is impossible. You are just making things up now.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed.

“It is based on the same technology as the proton lance and what I just proposed for the plasma radiators.”

Abou frowned.

“How can making an electromagnetic field stronger disintegrate matter?”

“It doesn’t. But think about it, grav coils can not just make a gravity field stronger, but also negate it. The same here. And what happens to any matter if the electric charge of the electrons is suddenly not there anymore?”

He nodded slowly.

“The positive charge of the atom cores will repel each other, while there are no valence bonds anymore. It will become a loose cloud of atoms.”

I nodded as well.

“A positively charged loose cloud of atoms. Add a standard positive charged plasma rad shield… maybe use the new coils to make that stronger, and it should serve well to blunt any mass driver shot.”

Abou rubbed his scalp again.

“That… if that thing works it would be an incredible defensive weapon. But that made me just think, the same plasma rad shield would work well to defend against the proton lance as well.”

Naveen chuckled.

“It will. And we are expecting others to use those rad shields pretty quickly. Virtually every warship already has the necessary hardware installed anyway, they just need to power it up.”

“But that would defeat their use as a secondary weapon.”

“You would think so, but tell me, what is the difference between generating a proton beam and an electron beam?”

“Generally? The source of the particles and the polarity of the accelerator.”

“Exactly. At the push of a button, and within roughly five seconds, our proton lances will become electron lances. Let them use rad shields, it makes no difference.”

Murdock snorted.

“I am more interested in those disintegrators. If you say they have a reach of two kilometers… they can take the place of plasma weapons as well.”

Michael raised his eyebrows.

“What do you mean?”

“Plasma weapons may have started out as an emergency cooling system, but they have been established as the knife fighting range killer weapon. They have a range of around 1.5km. In that range, the weapons of a cruiser would take out even a battleship with one broadside. Of course, the battlewagon has its own, even stronger plasma weapons.

But if those disintegrators…”

I interrupted him:

“We call them disruptors.”

He nodded.

“Fine, if these disruptors can disintegrate matter at two to three klicks… they are even more devastating than plasma weapons and have a longer range.”

Naveen nodded.

“Exactly. Naturally, that is a secret of the highest order.”

Samira shook her head.

“How did we get to weapons again from cooling? However, to get to the topic at hand, I would say we plan with a large enough thermal mass, those cooling lasers, if we can get them to work, and plasma radiators.”

Then she smiled happily.

“One thing is sure, when those ships activate the radiators, they will be incredibly pretty.”

Aang looked at her confused.

“What do you mean pretty?”

“What do you think those plasma radiators will look like?

They will be brilliantly white glowing wings slowly turning into a bright glowing red. Like angel wings of fire.”