#ekpyrosis

Cicle dels yugas segons Bibhu Dev Misra, amb els períodes d'inundacions (kataklysmos) i focs (ekpyrosis).

Creator: Thai'Qul Length: 798 Meters Width: 378 Meters (Widest Point); 70 meters (Narrowest Point) Propulsion: Nuclear Pulse Drive; Five Fusion Drive Thrusters Crew Complement: 5,000-7,000 (Normal complement); 10,000 (Max. Capacity) Radiator Type: Solid-State/Droplet Armaments:

x8 40mm Point Defense Cannons (PDCs) (Aft)

x4 Cargo/Torpedo Bays (Aft)

x2000 5-kiloton driver warheads (Aft)

x4 Ultra-Relativistic Electron Beam (UREB) Cannons (Bow)

Interior

Because the Thai'Qul are an aquatic species, their ships are unique in being almost entirely filled with water. This pulls triple duty in protecting the occupants from intense G-forces, radiation and heat; providing resources for the fusion reactor and torpedoes, and in the event of a hull breach, lost water can be more easily retrieved than air. The consequence of this is that it increases the ship's overall mass, requiring more energy for any kind of acceleration or deceleration. This is also another reason for their ruthless pragmatism: the lack of air pockets outside the cargo sections prevents them from easily taking prisoners or taking larger ships aboard.

Creators

An average Thai'Qul male. Roughly 85% of the species is male, carrying out tasks for the rarely-seen matriarchs, who outsize them significantly. On ships such as the Medusa-class, prepubescent matriarchs- referred to colloquially as "Countesses"- serve the role of captains and admirals.

Strategic Overview

If there's any way to describe the Thai'Qul military doctrine, it would be ruthless pragmatism. Rather than engaging in widespread power projection, heavier ships are mostly concentrated within their own systems, while smaller vessels are the most commonly encountered. These represent the first line of defense, focused on patrolling defense perimeters.

Should a perimeter be broken and an enemy force infiltrate a Thai'Qul system, either by evading or destroying lighter vessels, this is when battleships such as the Medusa-class are deployed. This typically follows barrages of Thai'Qul frigates and corvettes, which will try to guide invaders into designated kill zones, where the Medusa-class will engage them at close range, such as near large asteroids, space stations or ring systems.

While these battleships lack high speed or fine maneuvering, they make up for it with powerful defenses and overwhelming firepower, particularly their UREBs. Once the invader's shields and other defenses have been exhausted, should they refuse to surrender, attacks from these beams will irradiate and effectively sterilize the target.

This is done because, rather than simply blowing up bellicose ships, the Thai'Qul will always try to salvage as much technology and information from them as possible, either to assess motivations or reverse-engineer whatever they discover. Of course, should a ship surrender instead, the Thai'Qul will gladly accept, taking the time to analyze captured ships just as thoroughly.

This doctrine has proven to be quite effective in multiple engagements and ensured invasions of their systems are rare.

Ship Diagram

The Bow Shield is a large dome entirely covered in ablative heat-resistant armor.

The nose of the craft houses the four UREB cannons, which cover a large hemispherical field. While the beams lose effectiveness over time or when fired at an angle, time dilation effects prevent them from completely dissipating over longer ranges. Maximum energy from the bremsstrahlung resulting from impact has been measured at over 5,000 Sieverts.

The UREBs are only possible via the battleship's length, where the linear accelerator (Linac) runs along the central axis of the ship.

The Medusa-Class doesn't have a designated bridge or command module, but instead 36 large windowless spheres, where most of the crew resides. Commands, controls and sensor readings are instead performed using holographic display interfaces that crew members can pull up at any moment. This ensures damage to one area of the ship will not compromise control, and that key staff can be moved into the interior.

The ship uses a combination of solid-state and droplet cooling with liquid lithium, firing the molten coolant into space, where it condenses into larger drops before being recaptured in a dish section for recirculation. Additional radiators vent excess heat to prevent the lithium from completely vaporizing. In times of duress, this coolant can be used as everything from makeshift flares to additional thrusters.

The aft section consists of a large octagonal cylinder, which houses bay sections designed to be drained of water so cargo, torpedoes and other craft can be sent into space. This is also where the ship's fusion reactor is housed.

The PDCs, nicknamed "Barnacles," allow the ship to fire at targets behind or beside the ship.

Contrary to popular belief, the piston supports are only painted blue and not transparent, though they are full of water to help cushion the impact following a pulse.

The pistons and their shock absorbers are attached to a set of electric motors, which extract a small, but not insubstantial amount of power from every pulse.

//Hey everyone! Sorry it's been a while, but here's some art I've made. Some of it is recent, some is from a few months ago and I don't think I ever shared it here

Orbiting Alpha Centauri B, Harvest, as it's colloquially known, was humanity's first foray into both paraterraforming of an entire world and the first attempt at large-scale agriculture outside the Solar System.

A small world in orbit around the K-type star, roughly halfway between Earth and Mars in size, Harvest was originally a barren rock with no water, no life and a thin atmosphere of toxic gases. The world was initially mined for minerals, but then a new project was considered thanks to its close proximity to its parent star.

This involved the creation of a worldhouse, an huge translucent sphere situated just above the Kármán line, which would serve to control the planet's temperature, shield the surface from cosmic radiation and provide a base of operations for the project.

Enclosed within this sphere, the planet's surface was mechanically eroded using lasers and grinders, creating soil that could then be infused with nutrients, while the atmosphere was artificially introduced using material from comets and nearby gas giants. The panels of the worldhouse can be lightened or shaded at will to encourage the development of wind and regulation of temperature, while clouds could be seeded to produce rains where they were needed.

Once this initial layer of topsoil was established, farming began on a massive scale. Within a few decades, the entire surface of Harvest became home to fields of crops, many of which are larger than whole countries back on Earth. These not only include food crops, but material ones such as cotton and medicinal ones such as willow.

Beneath the surface, vast cave systems are also home to farms of edible fungi and deeper flooded ones engaging in aquaponics. Harvest was designed as a self-contained testing ground for horticulture and agriculture, with many experiments visible from orbit.

The planet's equator is dominated by a large black belt, which may be mistaken for fire damage or even a body of water, but is actually a series of plants modified to produce black leaves and capture 99% of the light produced by the star. Seeds grown here have been sent to Proxima Centauri to see if they can grow under a red dwarf.

Harvest is sparsely populated by planetary standards, with less than 50 million residents both on the surface and in the worldhouse stations. Most of those on the surface either live in stationary communities resembling small farming towns on Earth or in mobile towns resting on enormous harvesters that run on Haber-Bosch reactors producing fertilizer for the fields. Settlements are never far from the space elevators tethering the worldhouse to the surface.

While many might view Harvest as a paradise, the planet's leadership is infamously strict. Because the biosphere is entirely artificial, as the world lacks any tectonics or water cycle, very few risks are allowed and unwelcome visitors are turned away. Should a serious threat arise, natural or artificial, the worldhouse is equipped with defensive lasers.

Anyone who wishes to visit Harvest must complete a long questionnaire, submit to thorough screening and are committed to 24-Earth month-long contracts. Of course, between the assistance from robots and high-quality medical care, it's not nearly as backbreaking as some might believe. Most who do work or settle there are people who prefer the quieter life and prefer to get their hands dirty.

Despite the strict regulations, Harvest is frequently visited by ships who seek to use the worldhouse's mass drivers for some extra acceleration to their destination. They're often given complimentary foodstuffs before being sent on their way.

Ekpyrosis - a Stoic belief in the periodic destruction (and renewal) of the cosmos Some interesting stuff regarding the Fourth Turning and a bunch of other converging cycles in this pod: https://fountain.fm/episode/uVa7GExDXxbIYTlfoAB0

I have to be honest, I haven't read the latest book ("The Fourth Turning is Here"), but I also feel that since it doesn't mention Bitcoin, it misses something significant. Because I think there's a higher chance than not that a financial crisis will be the end of this cycle (one already signified the beginning phase of the Fourth Turning) and that Bitcoin will be the cornerstone of the so-called New World Order.

All of this reminded me of this old and eye-opening What Bitcoin Did episode with Peter McCormack and Mark Moss, where they discuss other cycles: 80-year generational/crisis cycles (similar to The Fourth Turning), ~84-year political/social cycles tied to upheaval and regime change, ~250-year revolutionary cycles tied to decentralization vs centralization shifts, and ~50-year waves of technological revolutions.