More Light Than Tron

[Rena Kryze]

Aboard her ship, Rena was working hard on whatever her next big project was - it was probably something important, considering she'd already started to revolutionise the production lines out of MandalTech with a wide variety of new technology. To be fair, she didn't invent all of it. She invented some of it and paid some very smart people to help her with the rest while she learned to do all the things. To the Mandalorian's credit, she was learning very very quickly and would, in time, likely become a very great asset to not only MandalTech but to Mand'alor himself.

Well, that was the plan, anyway.

However, on the 'I like making things' grapevine, she'd heard that not only had she just basically re-invented the tool wheel but there were other people also interested in solid-state hologram technolgy for commercial purposes. Therefore, she wanted to get together with these people and do some research and innovating in order to make some great new defensive technology. After all, the omni-tool - a mostly-working prototype on her person already - was going over great. More like this would work well.

Therefore, Rena had put in a call to the CEO of Iron Crown Enterprises, someone who'd expressed some quiet interest in similar technology - one [member="Rave Merrill"], who ran one of (in her mind) the coolest companies out. She'd worked with Pyrrha Nikkita and saw the ICE Razorhawk in action, thinking it was hellaciously awesome. The rest of their crazy unknown regions tech was pretty great. She'd probably buy some stuff while she was out there for the hell of it, like their full-package survival kit

So she'd left a message while she was en route to ICE HQ - Text-only to start, of course. She didn't want to bug the poor lady at an inopportune moment, like, say, the shower. Or the toilet. Because, you know, characters do poop sometimes.

Rave--

My name is Rena Kryze of MandalTech - I hear you're interested in commercial uses for solid-state holograms. Want to get together and see if we can make them viable for something other than hologram fun times and fancy tools?

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Rena Kryze"]

Ms. Kryze-

The creator of the OmniTool always has our attention. We have an AEI/ICE design team working on utility applications for solid-state hologram technology, and I'd be pleased to arrange for a collaboration. Akure Executive Interstellar's new facility on Muunilinst, in Mandalorian territory, has space that should be ideal. I intend to look in on the project personally, if you're amenable.

Considering the Mandalorian market, armor applications come to mind. Along the same lines, I've been somewhat inspired to examine the low-profile vacuum-suit and contamination-suit possibilities, in keeping with the priorities you can clearly see in the ICE catalog. The team is also exploring man-portable bridges, stairs, ladders and walls, which are almost certainly more achievable than the variable-geometry applications I dream about. A single unit, perhaps, capable of a variety of access and obstruction functions.

These are just initial thoughts -- I'm sure both you and the research team have a better grasp on the engineering possibilities than I do.

Merrill

 

[Rena Kryze]

[member="Rave Merrill"]

Interesting. Very interesting. Rena liked the fact that she wasn't the only solid-holo crazy person out there. It was nice to have a kindred spirit.

The theoretical possibility of variable-geometry solid-holo is essentially the definition of the Omni-Tool - but as you'd expect it's as painful to power as riding a basilisk bareback. I daresay anything that can have a larger power supply available to it would make it easier to vary the shape - if you were looking for something like construction items with dedicated power supplies and generators, you'd have far greater success than something like a vac-suit. Smaller is doable, of course, but you need quickly-replaceable power to back it up.

That said, nothing stops us trying. I'm diverting to Muunilinst now. Should be there within a day. We'll get to work immediately.

-RK

"Puppy," crooned the Mandalorian to her M1 astromech, "change course. We're going to Muunilinst."

"Dwoo!"

The stars shifted alignment, driving hard as the vessel roared faster than the speed of light, back home towards natural territory. If it was a collaboration of the century for some of the most useful technology in the Galaxy, then so be it. Rena would gladly contribute her time and technical know-how to the situation.

When she got there, she'd likely need to explain the situation - then get to work.

 

[Velok the Younger]

Despite her alacrity, [member="Rena Kryze"] would find the ICE research team already settling into their parent company's new facilities on Muunilinst. The new hyperlane project terminated, or rather originated, here, and AEI intended to make the most of the new Muun connection. Kryze would find an experienced support staff, a team of opinionated but paid-to-be-open-minded researchers engaged in a healthy debate, and more large- and small-scale solid-state hologram technology than she'd ever seen. MandalTech might have broken the ground, but AEI was exponentially larger, by several orders of magnitude, and it would become inescapably clear to Kryze that the corporation was not shy about diverting monstrous assets to this project. Apart from the primary hard-light group, subteams worked on small power cells, compatibility with other power sources, experimental tech like miniature Mygeeto energy crystals, and all manner of relevant ergonomic, interface, and other personal factors. Gear to the heavens, and people to run it.

 

[Rena Kryze]

[member="Rave Merrill"]

Rena just wanted to...

"...touch everything. It's all so beautiful," she muttered to her tour guide, who was in fact her escort to their lab. After all, you don't let a foreign power in without keeping a damn close eye on them, and Rena understood that. She wouldn't want people wandering through her top-secret lab without her eye on them to make sure they didn't steal everything. Besides, AEI was way more expansive than her own company. One day she hoped to change that slightly - but, right now, she was the guest. That said, she liked it this way. It was nice to see the inside of another lab that wasn't her own, where she seemed to live for the rest of forever.

Here, she was at home.

Introduced to the rest of the team a short while later, Rena wasted no time in getting to work - and, yes, still clad in her armour, which was mercifully de-weaponised for this expedition. You didn't catch her dead without it. However, for the love of the team, she did come with an Omni-Tool strapped to her arm. It would make a wonderful addition to finishing their objective.

"So let's look at facts here, boys and girls. Standard hard-light means that there's just not enough of a solid basis to make something tenable for extended periods. Crank up the power too much and we burn out the equipment."

Her projector showed the core concept design for Omni-Armour - a piece of kit that she wished, fervently wished, to market. She wanted this to be her breakthrough, a magnum opus, in technology to help the effort to keep the Galaxy and her homeworld from burning.

"We could try different projecting equipment. But I'm not as much of an expert on this. Something to focus the power, maybe a new emitter technology."

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Rena Kryze"] was quickly rerouted to the Experimental Emitter Subteam and its prototype room. As with all subteams on this project, a major debate was underway, each side competing to obtain verifiable evidence. One of these particular impromptu factions believed that a sinusoidal optimization of the emitters' pivar spinners would provide the result. The other wanted to combine rare earth pivar spinner technology with a more efficient inductor reverse-engineered (under dubious legal cover) from a nameless source. Both teams agreed on mag-particle density ratios and, more broadly still, the relevance of tight-beam emitter technology, despite its origination in standard vehicle repair kits. Half the room had backgrounds in industrial design, half the room had doctorates, half the room were outlaw techs from the Unknown Regions, and half the room wanted all the lab space. And yet things were getting done.

 

[Rena Kryze]

Rena was happy to listen to [member="Rave Merrill"]'s underlings debate back and forth; this was high-level stuff she really didn't quite understand. Her knowledge on most of this stuff wasn't quite up to their scientific level; her experience, however, making this stuff, lent her voice some credence. She would never be the equals of these people, but she could reasonably contribute to the conversation. Kind of, anyway. She waited until they calmed down a sec and then held up the omni-tool.

"We could just test it on this."

Like, duh. Considering she made the damn thing, she could always fix it later.

A moment's pause, and Rena got to disassembling her prized possession before the Subteam, explaining how her device worked and how they might be able to improve the emitter. She'd let them debate over it, provide some test materials, and then build it to their specifications to generate the output they wanted. With enough equipment here to hook it up to, she figured she could either jailbreak it once out of its locked settings, or just hook it up to something else and remove the systems entirely to generate the shape and field they wanted. Either way, she had the means to build the first impromptu prototype of their hardlight technology.

While they argued, Rena was hard at work building the very thing they wanted to make.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Rena Kryze"]

After a long time, perhaps as much as a week, results came around. The process of expanding upon the new emitter technology was itself a combination of perhaps a dozen engineering factors, each of which advanced in cooperation or interference with comparable numbers of subtasks and component factors within each of the other departments. Research and development was a process that took years. Getting it done this quickly meant tolerating a certain amount of chaos, and -- more to the point -- required an element that none of the scientists could introduce.

Sith battle coordination. Some used the term to refer to a Dark Side version of battle meditation, but true Sith battle coordination wasn't a Force power, strictly speaking. When one made certain sacrifices, the things one loved most, one's reputation, one's dignity, a change took place. One gained the ability to see every gamepiece in play, and understand intuitively how they all fit together. It was an ability normally applied to complex tactical and strategic situations. Rave applied it to business, especially short-term high-value projects with a high probability of devolving into unproductive chaos. She only rarely showed up; the battle coordination was something she'd set up at the inception of the project, assigning just the right AEI/ICE personnel to just the right departments and positions, with just the right resources. Sometimes that required some tweaking, but by this point she'd gotten good enough at battle coordination to set things in motion and stand back.

 

[Rena Kryze]

While Rave weaved her cheatymagic, Rena herself was hard at work.

A skill that had developed more out of necessity than out of interest, Rena had learned how to handle technology and development. She had to help manage MandalTech and its development of new technologies, meaning that on top of being an organizational genius she had to be a dab hand with a hydrospanner. Or, in this case, an omni-tool. While science divisions were hard at work building theory, she was creating practise. Things went at her pace in her little room and she made prototypes of everything they concoced at rapid speed.

Their ideas came to her and she put it together in no time flat. It was her way of integrating herself into the mix; when they conceptualised at breakneck speed, she was building their prototypes just as quickly with a device that could morph into any tool she needed. Besides, she had to be good. She always felt like there was a need to prove herself, to be something better, surrounded by people with doctorates and experience.

By the time Rave got there, there would be one prototype of a hardlight generator bridge and armour, ready to go.

[member="Rave Merrill"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Rena Kryze"]

While Rena Kryze did her best to messianically outrace the various prototype subgroups, Rave continued cheating. Her arrival was foretold by interdepartmental memos, and upon her arrival she found a relatively wide variety of Things Ready to Go. The bridge prototypes took on a number of forms in several sizes, from hundred-pound machines (theoretically) suitable for getting main battle tanks over canyons to foldup models one could wear on one's belt, if only the prototype hinge would stop sticking. As for the armor, a variety of interpretations had ensued. Some were based more on, say, Mandal Hypernautics' separate-plate projection suit; others aimed for a more comprehensive and adaptable geometry. Working her way through the proof-of-concept displays, she got to Kryze's armor.

"Very nice, Kryze -- tell me about your take on the armor setup."

 

[Rena Kryze]

[member="Rave Merrill"]

Obviously trying to outpace superhuman wasn't going to happen. Cue Tired Rena.

Tired Rena is the status effect in which Rena Kryze overworks herself with forty-hour days in an effort to make working prototypes or full sets of research notes. This is not the first time this has happened, nor will it obviously be the last. However, as our apparently Space Marine-esque tech developer would state, "screw it, gotta get it done". And she did.

Rave would walk in to see Rena splayed out in a chair-- and yes still clad in armour-- with her omni-tool resting on her lap, seven empty bottles of what could only be described as Space Energy Drink (because that's not in the factory - there you go, someone) and she was very, very tired. Not quite incomprehensible, but close.

"Wireless setup based on how much you want to cover," Rena said, thumbing a power switch on. Different pieces materialised - chest, gloves, shoulders, boots, greaves. "Take some, or none. But it's reinforced. Impact drains battery first and absorbs second..."

Then she trailed off a little.

Long story short, what she had concocted was a system that networked to all other linked pieces. If you only wanted the chest and boots? Fine, take that. It drew less power and lasted longer. You could, however, take a full set of armour into battle with you if you wanted, but obviously it wouldn't last anywhere near as long. That said, it was enough to last. Taking a blow would drain the battery on the section first - and then very strong hits, such as vehicle-grade turbolasers on infantry, still wouldn't protect. It fared far better against blasters than it did melee hits, however, for energy-on-energy was easier to dissipate quickly. Solids had continuous and consistent force.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Rena Kryze"]

"This is solid work, Kryze," said Rave, after examining it for what surely felt like a week or more. Perhaps as many as nine days. Metaphorically. "Good tradeoffs won't tax the tech beyond its limits, but there's enough functionality here to make it worth wearing. You'll be giving two marketing departments a lot to work with."

She took the time to test it out herself, nothing strenuous, just the age-old ritual of the trillionaire exec trying on the prototype. This time around, the sucker felt pretty light, both before and after activation. Armor without mass -- deflector shields, but not harmful to the touch and not prone to irradiating their wearers. More power-intensive than a basic shield, but that was the cost.

 

[Rena Kryze]

[member="Rave Merrill"]

"Thanks," Rena said, delirium readily apparent in her voice. It was evident that she was ready to take a nap.

In fact, she did just that about ten seconds later - excusing herself, levering her way out of her chair to work days' worth of knotted muscle out of her system, then trundled back to her ship to go to sleep for a few days. Presumably her droid would take care of the rest; basic plans for the hardlight commercial items for Rave, a basic copy of the armour schematics for her as well - with a promise of a shipment of MandalTech-produced kit for her as thanks for the collaboration - and then back off to regular old Mandalorian space.

Meanwhile, Rena slept like a dead person for roughly two days.