Brilliant! I'm going to go do that now.

I'm not sure that the Alliance's grav tech, as described, would lend itself to "inertia dampers" that'd allow Zane to leisurely walk the corridors during such a multi-G acceleration ...

The cruiser is a military vessel (and the turrets particle cannons, BTW). I wonder whether that may play a role in how the captain is not entirely under Zane's orders. Trouble brewing or not, the goings-on didn't have Zane publicly "disgraced" yet - as witnessed by his statement that talking to the natives in the name of the Alliance is stil his, and his alone, purview.

There's not really any reason to go multi-G, a 1G brachistochrone between Earth and Jupiter will take between 5.8 and 7.1 days, which matches the time given.

Is Zane the "Fleet commander" or an Admiral? I think that Kas is the captain of this cruiser and this is more a my ship my rules kind of deal. I don't think that Zane out-ranks Kas on the what happens on this cruiser, just what the fleet as a whole does.

And is Quantum a crewmember like all the other Raharrs or just a "Guest" that does [EXPUNGED]-translation as a side-gig for the fleet so it can travel with them?

Hm, they seem to have been heavily inspired by my "Minotaur Cannon" mod, model from which in turn got a bit redesigned and reused in the comic. =D

When that thing goes into orbit around the Moon, mass panic will break out......Just saying.

And will (for a short time) justify all the Preppers and the Bug-out baggers on Paranoichan!

It might try to hang out at the Earth-Moon L₂ Lagrange point, staying behind the moon relative to earth. It would occlude the Cruiser from direct observation.

They'd might even "peek" over the lunar horison to communicate with earth, or just piggyback on some satellite in the neighborhood.

I don't think Zane believes that all of earth "knows" about them by now, so he'd either have some stealth system on the cruiser or they need to hide behind the moon. That or he's really trusting of what not-xenopsychologist advised him between 150 & 154 and thinks humanity is capable of handling a "first-contact" on a global scale without mass-chaos or disastrous consequences.

Except that the L₂ is far enough behind the moon that it is visible from (large parts of) Earth's surface, as witnessed by the fact that we put Moon-to-Earth radio relays there ...

The reason we can see thees relays is that they orbit the Lagrange point. I'm not sure they would be so visible if they were siting exactly at the equilibrium point. According to ChatGPT (I was too lazy to check it myself):

The angular diameter of the Earth as seen from the L2 point is approximately 1.637°

The angular diameter of the Moon as seen from the L2 point is approximately 3.236°

So Earth would be completely hidden behind the Moon at L2.

ChatGPT always lies, you can't trust it.

(Really for Darth Biomech, but the page isn't letting me reply directly.)

I ran the calculations myself and the numbers are correct.

... dammit, should've pulled the numbers myself ...

(Moon to L₂ is 0.16 R, Earth to L₂ hence 1.16 R, so Earth is 7.25 times as far from L₂ as the Moon, but Earth has only 3.66 times the diameter of the Moon.)

On a more serious note, however: Zane specifically said that the cruiser would go into an orbit around the Moon.

@Darth_Biomech: ChatGPT was too stupid to figure this out by itself, but after I spelled the path to the solution out for it, it used code interpreter do do an exact calculation. Basically I used it as an overcomplicated calculator that understand natural language. I would rather have used Wolfram Alpha, but that didn't even understand what I wanted it to compute.

On its own, ChatGPT tried to compare the angular radius of the moon to the angular distance of the L2 point from the moon, both seen from earth. That is of course total nonsense, especially the part about the distance from moon to L2, because that would only make sense if the point was beside the moon. So yes, one shouldn't trust ChatGPT, and I don't. That's why I caught its mistake and even after correcting it wrote I wasn't "so sure".

How far along are Mankind's AIs in your story? Do they even exist? How does Quantum feel about their primitive malfunctions?

... you sure? At a length of 266 m, that cruiser would fit 380 times into Plato. I doubt that anyhuman would be able to see it with the naked eye, even if told where on the lunar surface to look for it.

(As usual, assuming that the ship crew finally does a bit of rocket science and turns those position lights off.)

AC's aren't your typical Holywood AIs that can magically transfer themselves to a toaster over wifi if need be.

Their operation hinges on specific hardware, so their code won't even be recognized by any other computer, let alone run on it. And due to the quantum nature of it all, copying the code to an identical copy of the hardware doesn't result in a copy of the AC, it turns out more like a clone son, with their own personality.

It's stuck in that hardware. A mortal computer.

Jeez Quantum.....Get decent, your parts are showing!

Considering that "measurements" collapse quantum states, chances are that your looking at 'em constitutes assault and battery ...

I've carefully drawn the cable to signify that Quantum isn't just waiting there on the accumulators but at least hooked into the wall power socket... And almost all of it got covered up by the dialogue bubbles (and I think I messed up the brightness of the scene a bit).

It doesn’t look too bright, I mean there is a bright blue glowing hologram in the room.

Also, God can you imagine the stack of traveler converter plugs Quantum would need?

... a power cable that thick, even with our technology, would be able to carry a couple dozen kilowatts at least. With no visible cooling system - i.e., just the surrounding ship atmosphere doing convection (which requires gravity, hence Zane doesn't float in to visit ) -, keeping Quantum from melting into a puddle should be quite a challenge ...

... aaaaaand looking at the trivia randomly displayed to me:

I realize that as soon as cpt. Kas cuts the thrust of this much smaller ship (to swing around and begin deceleration), Quantum will get quite a problem there ...

Maybe the cable is that thick because it's not only for power but also for coolant?

Hopefully, but the author did write that it's plugged into a "wall power socket" ...

(Hmmm, designing a connector that safely makes and breaks contacts for both (electric?) power and (possibly conductive) coolant would be a nice piece of engineering ... )

More thoughts on Quantum vs, zero-G: His core was built in a Ktak colony, where natural gravity supposedly was a given. Would it be equipped with magnets or whatnot able to prevent it randomly floating around in zero-G? It doesn't look like the longshoreRaharrs who brought him in affixed it to the cabin's floor in any way ... fifteen lashes for not properly lashing the cargo passenger, ya landlubbers!

(Also, why are there handle bars all along the corridor to help the biologicals move about in zero-G, but not inside the cabin?)

That problem is probably solved by the ship's cabin ventilation. For that matter, the braincase might be efficient enough to not need much cooling; I have a brain myself, and I don't need a cooling fan except in summer.

As for coolant hoses, it wouldn't be terribly hard to make clean-disconnect connectors for them. Those already exist for many fluids, notably hydraulic lines. A bigger problem would be whether the ship's passenger cabins have plumbing for the stuff.

As for the size of the power cable, it may be rated for way more power than the cabin wall socket will actually supply. Or it might be a multipurpose conduit that contains other lines in addition to the actual power cable.

Well, yeah. That's because your brain consumes a couple dozen Watts, tops, not kilowatts. (Also, it's not exactly your brain that requires the extra cooling.) If it were able to suckle electric energy instead of sugars, it could run on two leads of bell wire.

Hmmmm, seeing the neat fitting atop the core, it seems to be that the cable itself comes with Quantum, rather than being supplied by the ship crew. In that case, it would be rated for his max power consumption, of course ...

[imagines clunky plug on other end being "fit" into the wall socket with said bell wire and a bunch of electrical tape ... while the safety inspector gives Zane an earful for his request of running even more power through that ship-fire-in-waiting]