Chapter 14: Math on a Whiteboard
“Oi! Thomas, McCarthy, roll it over here! Right here!”
Mr. Scott pointed as the pair of red-shirted ensigns rolled in a white board, sitting it against one side of engineering. The engineering crew had started to gather around as the board was put into position, leaning against an otherwise blank area of the warp-core shielding array. It was relatively late at night, and the ship was in orbit, so there were only a minimum of tasks to be done. And, on this particular night, the entirety of the crew had done their duties at warp-speed in preparation for the spectacle they were about to witness.
Many of them gawked at the small unicorn and her strange, partially-armored Lunar uniform, but there was overall an air of excitement. They were not afraid of her in the slightest--and she found this strangely comforting.
Scottie held out his hand and one of the crew put a dry-erase marker into it. Scottie frowned, then looked to the ensign incredulously. “Lad, I’m not giving an academy lecture here.”
“Oh, sorry, sir!” The ensign instead gave him a whole handful of markers.
“Aye, lad, that’s the stuff. Have some more on deck.” He split the pile and gave the others to Moondancer, who levitated them before her. “I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”
At the far end of the room, a door hissed open and a man nearly sprinted in, almost knocking over a pair of engineers who were, in contrast with the others, still trying to get their work done. Unlike all the others present, he was the only one in a yellow shirt.
“Did I miss it?” he said, out of breath as he leaned over, holding his knees and panting. “Have I missed the mathematics?”
“Ensign Chekov,” called Scottie, smiling. “You’re off duty. You ought to be sleeping, lad. Uhura won’t be a might happy if you fall asleep on your console.”
“But sir, how could I be sleeping when there is maths occurring? Maths of an alien nature? The excitement of it, I would have wibrated right out of my berth!”
Scottie laughed. Even Moondancer smiled slightly.
“Now listen up!” he shouted to the room. Their murmur of excitement for the impending mathematics silenced as they began to listen intently. “This is Command-Wizard Moondancer. As you know, we are overseeing the salvage of her ship. And if ye don’t know that, then you have no business being in this room. We're here to hash out how exactly we'll be about it. She’s going to go over the theory of her craft, and from what I’ve seen so far, I think you’ll all find it a might interesting. But first! We’re going to have a nice, friendly exchange of basic warp theory.”
Moondancer looked up at him, and Scottie gestured toward the board. “It’d not be appropriate for me to go first. You’re the guest after all.”
Moondancer smiled and almost laughed. She approached the board, simultaneously uncapping all her markers. “This is just like back in school,” she said. “We used to break into the school after dark to do secret after-hours math on the boards, just me and Twi...” She stopped, and all mirth left her face. She cleared her throat, her expression now dark and serious. “A friend and I. A former friend. It doesn’t matter.”
She lifted the markers and immediately began writing, all of her markers moving simultaneously, printing perfectly shaped numbers and letters across the board. “So. The fundamental theory of faster-than-light travel is based on the basic concept of a teleportation spell. A teleportation spell moves any object, including a pony, instantaneously between any two points in space, which is governed by this limitation function which essentially translates to range but also includes limitations on the caster’s accuracy. So the question is making the teleportation field non-instantaneous, which can be accomplished by this distribution function so long as these conditions are met. These need to be calculated mentally, in real time. Because this part is done by the caster, with her own magic.”
“Wait, wait,” said Chekov. “What even is that?”
Moondancer stopped, staring at what she had just written. “This may not exist in your mathematical system. Think of it like linear algebra, but in five dimensions instead of two.”
Chekov stared. “But...then...”
Scottie held up his hand. “What just a bloody minute, lassie,” he said, stepping forward. He gestured to several of the complex equations that Moondancer had assembled. “These...if I’m understanding the basic forms of these right...lass, these are trans-warp equations!”
Moondancer stared at him, confused by his confusion. “This is fundamental teleportation theory. We’ve understood this for millenia.”
“It’s also unsolvable,” said Chekov.
“Ensign, clearly--”
“No, no, it is! Right here!” he stepped out from the crowd of generic red-shirt engineers and pointed. “Look! This function, it derivation requires a transform function that loses definition...can I have marker?”
Moondancer gave him one, and he scrawled his primitive human script to make a basic calculation. “It requires a wariable, but that wariable system cannot be derived from these systems, it is lost by the Fourier transform!”
“Because you don’t derive it. You choose it.”
Chekov stared, horrified. “But the chances of choosing the correct input equation are, they have to be one hundred billion to--”
“No. No matter what number you choose, you almost always choose the right one.”
“But there is no way to know that!”
“Except that’s how it works. The ‘how’ is still an area of research.” Moondancer snatched her marker back and completed his equation. “This was something the ancient wizards discovered long ago. When a machine—in their case, a clockwork logic array—is allowed to choose the variables, essentially the output, of a teleportation spell, the chance is probabilistic. It gets it right only by random chance. It will go where you want half the time, and where you don't on the other half. But when a living thing chooses the number, they choose a path that actually works.” She scrawled quickly with multiple markers. “That requires this equation, which is the mathematical proof of a soul. Or the mathematical equivalent of a soul, which is semantics.”
She finished the equation while filling out the others, with the engineers watching in awe. Then she paused.
“Which is the problem. Why I think I lost control. The default, low-entropy solution is to teleport. The ship wants to teleport, but the systems I built keep that from happening.”
“Because it doesn’t account for the production of tachyons,” said Chekov, leaning forward and grabbing a marker—only to be pushed back by Scottie.
“Because it doesn’t take a hint from basic warp understanding,” he snapped. “Let the tachyons damn themselves, this is right and proper backwards! You didn’t even do the necessary calculations to define the shape of the warp field!”
“Meaning?”
Scottie uncapped his marker and scrawled quickly, writing from memory what all of the engineers understood but not in so much detail. The fundamental theories of the warp drive and its operations, from basic calculations setting up the parameters of the drive to the derivation of the warp field itself, a controlled spatial distortion. Moondancer watched this, her already enormous eyes growing wider with every second until Scottie finally capped his third marker.
She stared at it, mouth open, and then slowly looked up to him. “But that...that’s cheating!”
“That’s fundamental warp theory, lass. What you have can scarcely be called a warp-drive at all, it--”
“Doesn’t meet your basic considerations for stability, I know, because I had no idea those could even be derived—what even is this?! You’re starting the ship from stationary, and just—just making it move?! You can’t do that!”
“I did the math, lass.”
“And it’s right, I can see that, I’m not stupid—” She groaned. “No wonder your computers can do it, it’s so much simpler, but it would be impossible to build, let alone achieve.” She gestured to a specific part of the formula. “This, how? How do you even get enough power to do that, let alone increase it exponentially? There’s not an energy source in the universe with enough force.”
“The warp drive is fueled by antimatter.”
Moondancer stiffened. “You mean I’m on a ship...right now...that has antimatter?”
“Aye, lass, that’s what makes it run. I’m surprised you know--”
“Of course I know what antimatter is, my planet has wizards, we've known about it for eight thousand years. And I know it EXPLODES.”
“Not if it’s contained by dilithium, lass.”
She scowled. “What in the name of Celestia’s rump is ‘dilithium’?” She shook her head. “No. I don’t care. I’d never set hoof on something driven with antimatter, there’s no way.” She groaned. “Even if it makes the math easier, it’s structurally SO much more difficult. This thing would be massive, slow and...well, frankly, Equestria just achieved a working steam engine prototype a month after the first Pegasus got into orbit.”
Scottie did a double take. “Wait, what? You invented spaceflight...before the steam engine?”
“Trust me, FTL is a LOT easier than trying to figure out how to make a boiler that doesn’t explode. I’m saying we don’t have nearly the engineering capacity to build what you’re suggesting. I have no idea how your technology even developed this backward.”
“Backward?!”
“The level of technology you would need just to get into space. It...it’s just backward. Wouldn’t you already have FTL by the time you were advanced enough to even START building a warp core?”
Scottie stared at her, dumbfounded. “Lassie, I’m afraid we’ve confounded each other.”
The expression on Moondancer’s face fell as Chekov’s mathematical excitement reached its zenith.
“Do you have any idea the implications of these mathematics and subsequent theories, Ms. Moondancer? This—this could redefine warp theory!”
“Aye,” agreed Scott, somewhat less enthused.
“Or,” snapped Moondancer, “It means that my society has met none of the normal prerequisites to compete with yours, let alone interact with it. Your backward development and priorities means we’re on a galactic stage when we haven’t even had an industrial revolution yet.”
“Lass, that’s a tad pessimistic, don’t you--”
Moondancer shoved the whiteboard back with a telekinetic thud. “One ship. That’s all it would take. JUST ONE.”
“To what?”
“To conquer all of Equetria, you fools. Just one of these metal and antimatter monstrosities. That’s all it would take.”
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Hmmmm, this is more for Kirk's interaction with Celestia in the mines, as he asked Scottie for the 'perfect' dilithium interface and then sees if Cel can get a crystal in that shape before beaming it back up ... or will Scott let Moondancer see the warp core to see the dilithium the ship uses ...
She is right. One ship could. One episode, they stunned a city with phasers.
At this point, Im wondering who will geet the idea that if both ideas are approaching the same solution from opposite directions, whereabouts the equivalent point is, and discovering that translation function would unlock hyperdrive shunts or Borg Transwarp conduits?
The clockwork logic generators couldnt generate random enough numbers because they were not complex enough and not affected enough by the surrounding reality to settle into a dynamic chaotic state condusive to transwarp solutions?
Moondancer is cheating. She is using the quadrillions of quantum processors in her brain, to interface with hundreds of magnitudes of local quantum processors making up subspace time, to come to a rapid agreement as to a local minimum entropy solution, instead of an increasing entropy solutuon of something going bang?
Ponies: masters of mathemagical metaphysics, terrible engineers. Makes sense to me.
Look at humans in Trek. The Earth was sitting in the aftermath of a planet wide war and had very little industrial capacity at that point. Then Cochrane made his little trip.
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ooooh could you imagine moonies reaction to the fact they had the component that is need for warp drive under her nose all along?
Well. At least she’s fully understanding of the technological difference between their two societies now. And their relative power levels.
No wonder why she’s scared! It’s worse for Equestria to encounter a space age Civilization than if Modern Earth was to encounter one.
Edit: Added link for easier context.
The really interesting thing about the telewarp process is the requirement of a soul. This leads to the question of whether the Borg could assimilate such an innovation, and if not, what the Collective would think of its quest for perfection closing off such an incredible development.
Of course, then we get to the big question: Can they adapt a soul? (I’m ignoring the Queen because she makes this much less interesting.)
But that’s a century or so down the line. For now, Moondancer properly appreciates the disparities between civilizations at play. Now the question is who else came to that conclusion, and intends to exploit it…
Still not disabusing me of the notion that Twilight Sparkle is the pony warp core. Her cutie mark on it ain’t just a craftsmare’s signature, is it?
In other words, The Road Not Taken pretty much? Not *quite* the same, but definitely has the whole technology level mismatch part down.
Pretty neat chapter. Scotty is breaking about a hundred regulations by having this exchange with someone from a non-Federation species, let alone one that made their first FTL flight a matter of hours ago and demonstrably has no other technological development on par with the Federation. Scotty can pull it off though 'cause he's awesome and knows what not to put in the official logs, like using a whiteboard instead of a computer display.
This actually took place in the Aliens universe. Mankind developed some sensor or other that picked up the wake of ships moving at FTL, although they also had developed limited FTL themselves. Human ships showed up as a tiny ripple IIRC, but every now and then they'd get huge wakes coming by that indicated absolutely enormous ships moving around that humanity had never even met the species of. The Predators and Xenomorphs were small potatoes to what was in the darkness, but the corporations were so terrified by it they completely suppressed the information.
I can't think of the name of it(The Road Not Taken, thank you DiscoPanda84), but I read a story about that somewhere a couple of months ago. The secret to FTL was some super-fundamental property of matter that humanity completely missed for arbitrary reasons, but every other sentient race in the galaxy figured out at roughly the same point development-wise. The state of the galaxy was fleets of wooden galleys conquering everything they saw with their irresistible technology of basic black-powder muzzle-loaders and signal-lights, not even smokeless powder or radios or life support. This was viewed as the pinnacle of development for however many years, and then they found Earth.Ahh, so primitive we must have been! No FTL ships, we must still be cavemen sitting around campfires! And the atmosphere was so clean, no technology at all! In their arrogance they began a full-scale invasion of like twenty galleons' worth of light infantry and no vehicles, maybe three thousand beings all told. They ignored reports of flying metal birds as being preposterous and smudges on the windows and spyglasses, and had nothing to detect radio waves with anyway. They touched down somewhere that was surrounded by tanks and Marines, and the local welcome committee walked up to meet them for a First Contact scenario. In a clear display of dominance and superiority, their commander shot the human trying to talk to them, frightening all the primitives with the incredible noise and power! They would surely surrender without a fight...right?
The battle took about half an hour, and only that long because they wanted to capture the alien ships intact. Over the following months of research and interrogating captive aliens, the humans learned how to achieve FTL and the aliens learned how different their technological development was. Humanity hadn't learned FTL so they'd never stopped inventing and developing...but now the humans had it, thanks to them.
It was a good read,
wish I could remember the name. Probably doesn't stand out from other HFY for most people though, but it seemed relevant to your author's note.11069566
Or actually it'll just get posted while I'm typing it up, heh. That's the story I was talking about.
I think there was a short story by Harry Turtledove which somewhat explored similar themes to this chapter. The general premise being that FTL development is relatively easy and common throughout the universe as a scientific development, but it's something without further application in the same way that electricity is. So humanity is stuck on Earth, when suddenly an FTL ship made out of wood and stuff lands in the middle of LA.
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Yup, that would be The Road Not Taken.
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being hary turtledove is it a dictionary thick, battle by battle break down of a short but intensive interstellar war? I like the guy's devotion but his writing style always seemed more like a history book
it does remind me of another book where something similar happened, the smallest of the three giant empires in the galaxy just sort of ran into us, were friendly enough (because they needed allies) and in a year or so we had a ship that could sort of hold its own because mainly we just bought the tech for ftl and fusion in a setting that was kind of firefly level of tech as it was
I totally heard that in Moondancer's voice, and I had to take a laugh break.
Well done :)
The Vulcans didn't allow themselves to be spotted until the first warp flight.
This is the correct reaction, tbqh. I've just finished a rewatch of TOS and TNG, and watching it all in close proximity it's particularly crazy (in TNG in particular) how often they come close to losing antimatter containment. Sometimes it seemed like all someone had to do was sneeze somewhere near engineering and the containment fields would dip. Given I've seen estimates that the Ent D would have had to carry at least 2000 tons of the stuff to meet its stated abilities...well, it does rather seem like we've just carried on with an only slightly refined version of our current practice of strapping ourselves to the tips of giant controlled explosions to get to space.
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IIRC, engineering has a specialized replicator for creating antimatter. The only things in containment are what's currently being used plus some extra. Not absolutely sure on that though. You need to keep some primer around to turn the ship on when it loses power after all.
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Nope. At least according to the tech manuals it's generated (in the Federation) by special facilities that use solar power and plasma. I guess if you burn through absolutely everything Warp-9ing it to something important, you've just gotta put in a call to Space!AAA and wait for a refuel. Maybe ships (or at least extreme-range vessels?) have the equipment to set up their own small antimatter forge in a pinch (and presuming they can make it to a nearby star on only the fusion reactors & impulse drives).
For the same reason why humans don’t greet strangers by calling them faggots and trying to stab them with machetes. For YOU calling your friends faggots and trying to stab them with machetes might be normal, but for other people calling you a sexy slut and then slamming the door in your face might be normal.
That and the sci-fi genre is dominated and controlled by white male westerners.
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Captain! The toxicity levels of this post are off the charts!
This is why I never liked the intergalactic warp engine club. All it takes for the intergalactic society to notice you is their backwards antimatter-dilithium invention to make FTL travel possible.
11069964 Actually, it's a short story 'The Road Not Taken'.
The basic premise is that FTL/Contragravity is trivially easy. Most societies discover it around the time they learn to work iron. Then they generally build spaceships out of caulked wood or iron in the case of the more advanced societies and go off conquering their less advanced neighbours. The thing is, it has no other applications and it's completely unintuitive, meaning it doesn't lead to any further discoveries. No electricity or radio, not even steam power, and certainly no scientific method. Medicine is 'bind it up or saw it off and drink lost of alcohol'.
Somehow humans have utterly missed this, and are still footling around with chemical rockets and manned Mars missions when one of the more 'advanced' societies, the Roxolani, arrive with a war fleet. They use their telescopes to find Earth and fly down to invade an easy conquest, after all they've not detected any contragravity signatures. Their ships unseal their ports, run out their cannnons, while contragrav fliers spread out overhead, ready to drop barrels of gunpowder on any resistance, and the troops dress their lines, making sure their matchlock muskets are loaded and their swords are free of rust.
I think you can guess what happens next.
This is how a leftist can get away with:
1.Taking away liberty in the name of safety.
2.keeping us primitive in the name of sustainable development.
3.Defining what the small things are that get bigger, are.
There is no wrong way to eat a pie, in slices, with axfork, with a spoon, inside, outside, top, bottom....it fun to see the different planet do it!
Imagine. Cooking the crust and then filling it still flakiy and not a donut!
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what is axfork?
Because of course they did.
So, slight quibble, the antimatter isn't contained by dilithium, it's contained by magnetic fields that keep it from contacting any actual matter. The dilithium serves as a conduit to safely and precisely tune the mixing of the matter and antimatter.
I love this whole idea of all of them geeking out over each other's way of getting to FTL, and the whole, needing a conscious mind to select the right variable reminds me of how Slipstream Drive works in Andromeda.
Yeah, this tech jumping really screwed up the idea of how to handle things vis a vis the Prime Directive, but at this point that ship has sailed. Federation membership though is going to be tricky since the planet fails to meet one of the main prerequisites for a planet to join, having a single unified governing body that has authority to speak for the entire world. Where here Celestia can only speak for Equestria, not all the other nations.
As to conquest... again, friends how creative Celestia and Luna can get with moving their respective Celestial bodies.