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Then Be Batman [DC SI]
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Technobabble infodump.
Nugar
Not too sore, are you?
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A lot of speculation, and I'm super happy that people care enough to speculate. Like, stoked. Thanks for everyone who has commented and is reading, and thanks to those who signed up for my patreon. I was able to afford to go to Little Rock today to a specialist. Seriously, thanks.
Now, some of the speculation I don't want to talk about, because it's the kind of thing that comes up in the story. But here's an infodump about technobabble.
This is just information about the state of technology in the version of DC Earth I'm using here. This is not a chapter and may be safely ignored by anyone not interested in a huge infodump about comic book technology. Anything truly important will be discussed in the story proper.
This world, which I'm still not sure of the universe number, but I'm just calling DC Earth XXX, is currently in the year 1997. Twenty six years behind the date of my death in what I consider Prime Earth.
So, clearly, there's some things they haven't developed yet. They have the internet, but large scale social media isn't really a thing. We're in the Geocities age, which here is called Webnode. A free, small scale, personal site host that gets expensive fast if you get much traffic.
Cell phones exist. Remarkably, the era of the large bag-phone came and went quickly here, and we're currently in the brickphone era. A Finnish company called Valifone currently dominates with a nearly indestructible brick. I have several, with service provided by USTalk. They can text, badly, with the old 10key pattern, have good signal in Gotham, and indeed most cities, but are kind of a crapshoot in the country. Notably, they have great battery life.
Because, while this is in the past relative to the tech I'm used to, this is a comic book world. Mad science has mostly made one offs that never get developed, but there are some pretty noteworthy things that have been developed that change certain baselines.
Batteries, for instance. The reason bag-phones were able to drop to brick phones so fast was that efficient battery technology already exists. Instead of lithium, the most common battery metal is rubidium. Same column, much larger atomic mass. Also, the local periodic table goes up to, I shit you not, 681, with a lot of gaps.
Rubidium-antimony-wellium (a surprisingly stable, and relatively plentiful, element #141, used in tiny quantities in the catalyst) batteries enjoy a frankly absurd energy density of 965 watt-hours per kilogram. The best commercial batteries I know of on Prime Earth don't quite hit 300 watt-hours per kilogram. Powering my bat-gadgets, even the relative energy hog of the bat-grapple, is easy, even with a tiny, lightweight battery.
Rubidium is rarer than lithium, but wellium is extracted from sea water at a ratio of about 5.6 micromoles to ten kilograms of water. Not a great rate, but cheap, because it sticks to electrically charged tin cathodes. Now, desalination plants and salt plants pass their brine over tin grids and enjoy the bonus money. Most of the cost of the production comes when separating the wellium from the oxides and salts that also end up encrusting the tin grid.
However, more so than the unusual element, the reason the rubidium batteries enjoy such a bonkers energy density is their construction. And that gets into the one big, mad science technology that is the primary driver of background tech advancements in this world. A technology you've seen in DC comics mostly in the hands of villains, which has been the key to startling advancements in materials technology.
Cold tech.
Freeze guns.
Primarily used by Captain Cold, and Mr. Freeze, their achievements weren't inventing the basic technology, it was in the improvement and miniaturization of it, so that it became viable as man portable weapons.
Waynetech's freeze machine weighs more than two tons and uses about a kilowatt every seventeen minutes.
First, let me explain some background. On Prime Earth, most of our industrial structural materials fall into two broad categories, each with a notable subcategory.
Polymers are the relatively new kid on the block. Primarily carbon based molecule chains in all sorts of configurations. Plastic is the big one everyone knows, but there are others. However, we discovered that if you lay in some sort of strong fiber, like spun glass fibers, and then fix them in place with plastic, you get an even stronger material. Later, we came up with an even stronger fiber, carbon fiber. But as advanced as carbon fiber is, it really only has tensile strength. To add rigidity, you have to embed it in a polymer resin.
Metals are the classic material. Metals have all sorts of properties, so you pick the one you want, and make stuff out of it. Then, the dominant subcategory, alloys. You mix two or more elements, adding and subtracting properties, and sometimes getting wildly new characteristics.
However, it should be noted, pretty much all Prime Earth alloys are mainly made of one given metal. In steel, or other iron alloys, iron makes up the vast majority of the mass of the alloy. Only a few percent of things like vanadium, or molybdenum, or chromium, or all three, or more, are added to the alloy. And the reason for that is, if you add too much of another element, they just don't blend right. You get chunks of one, surrounded by the other.
It turns out that this is a failure of our processes, not the concept. So companies have been putting a lot of research into methods to more evenly blend metals. Instead of 96, 2, 1, 1, they're trying 30, 30, 30, 5, 5, or 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, or all sorts of combinations. These new ratios are called High Entropy Alloys, because they must be mixed very, very carefully, or you get stew instead of jello.
That being said, a lot of effort is being put into developing them, because just the ones we've found so far indicate that they could have some absolutely amazing properties. Memory materials, super strong alloys, semiconductors, superconductors, and more. Alloys that are both incredibly hard, and thus wear resistant and low friction, with high flexibility. Imagine a sheet of metal foil you can flop and fold and wrap around things, but takes a diamond to scratch. This is Prime Earth tech.
Superhero Earth tech takes that and goes even further. And they're way, way more advanced at it than us, thanks to the invention of the freeze chamber back in the 40s.
This is actually something Waynetech kind of specializes in. Oh, we do other stuff, but many of our industrial products and nearly all of our military products are based on this.
Take a quantity of pure element. In this case, because it's our best seller, we'll say lithium. Put it in a vacuum chamber. Now, vaporize that shit. Get it hot enough to boil. Lithium doesn't seem to care how you do it, and has a low boiling point, so we just use a conventional electric furnace. What you want is monoatomic lithium gas.
Now, do the same thing in another chamber, with a different element. In this case, beryllium. And again, with titanium. And lastly, vanadium.
Now, you've got four sources of monoatomic gaseous metal. Very, very, very hot metal gas. If you just mix the gases, you can actually get some useful products, but mostly you get stew again, because they cool off at different temperatures. No, what you need is for them to all be the same temperature before they touch each other.
So each gas, a little at a time, is passed through a freeze chamber, and reduced to absolute zero.
Except… it's a weird absolute zero. There's zero atomic movement, but there's a memory of what the temperature SHOULD be. Frankly, I don't understand it. It violates all the rules of physics as I know them. But what I have been able to understand, is that it's specifically because this is a universe where the Speed Force exists. It's applying molecular deceleration via the principles the Flash uses to run up to, and beyond, the speed of light itself. Part of how it works is why Captain Cold can freeze someone solid with his cold gun, but when they unthaw, they're alive. Speed-memory. The energy is there, just not expressed.
So these single, floating metal atoms are suddenly turned from hyperactive ping-pong balls to pure dead weight. They fall to the bottom of the deposition chamber.
Where they are joined, at specific ratios and in specific orders, by the atoms of other elements, like a sand painting. Instead of fighting the issues of atomic attraction via covalent or ionic bonding, which is what complicates conventional High Entropy Alloy formation, the atoms are just physically mixed in a thorough way.
And there are other things that can change the outcome, too. Instead of just a mixed pile of loose atoms, it might be a mixed pile of loose atoms, falling on, in, and around a framework. A titanium mesh, to add rigidity to a flexible alloy, or silica wafers, to make new kinds of semiconductor chips.
Finally, the freeze process is reversed- slowly. All that heat is still there. But it can be prevented from being expressed, allowing the mass of atomic sand to get warm enough to form bonds and truly alloy, while the actual heat is drawn off through conventional cooling methods.
Given the elements involved, the alloy is commonly called LibertyV. It's sort of expensive per kilogram, but it's got the same density as aluminum and is noticeably stronger than titanium in all categories, meaning that for a given strength target, you can get some serious weight savings. The most common use for it is for crankshafts, camshafts, and piston rods in conventional engines, and turbines for jet engines.
Only the most insanely over budgeted black projects use it for things like the frame or skin of an airplane, given that the cost per ounce is just over that of silver. However, this world's Blackbird equivalent fleet is still flying, lacking many of the maintenance issues that killed it in Prime Earth.
And the thing is? LibertyV, and indeed any of our other alloys, can be made even better with APSC, Aligned Polymer Strand Coats, generally just called coats. Another, not quite mad science, but certainly advanced science, technology.
Basically, various kinds of short polymer strands are created. That implies that they're carbon based, but some of them are actually inorganic. These short polymer strands are then applied to a given material the way powder coat paint is. The material is given a charge, which attracts free floating polymer strands. Then, precisely calibrated energy fields, sort of like proto-forcefield stuff, are applied, forcing the strands into perfect alignment.
Imagine you've got a naked rat. Then you dump a shitload of fur over it. The fur sticks to the rat, then bunches up literally as dense and tight as it can go, with each hair tightly pressed in on all sides by more hair. Then you realize that, instead of an ugly rat, you've got a cute chinchilla.
What you do from there depends on what you want. Sometimes, you want the hairs to only be bonded at the root. With the right polymers, you get a surface that traps and absorbs EMF radiation. Not all of it, or, at least, no one type can absorb the full spectrum, but radar absorbent coats are easy. And there's one that absorbs the entire spectrum visible to ordinary humans, resulting in a black so black Anish Kapoor would blow a load in his pants.
That particular one has resulted in some pretty good solar panel improvements, too.
You also might want to bond the tips, as well as the roots, resulting in some interesting flexibility options. Or maybe you bond the whole length. What Waynetech has really been getting into here lately, now that computer modeling is getting better, is targeted area bonding. We're developing the ability to reinforce some areas while keeping flexibility in others, and adding abrasion resistance here and there. It's exciting stuff.
So what I'm saying is, DC Earth XXX might be a few years away from LED monitor screens, but we've got some frankly astonishing material tech.
Take one of the big scifi technology goals: carbon monofilament. It's supposed to be super strong for its diameter, and super thin, so in addition to making crazy strong fiber and cloth, you can also use it to cut through just about everything, right?
Well, we don't quite have that. Like, we can make carbon monofilaments, that's actually what some of the APSC coats are, but they're millimeter lengths at best, not like, meters. No, Waynetech's strongest long fibers aren't based on carbon.
They're iron.
Not even steel. They are specifically long chains of iron atoms triple bonded to each other, called Single Iron Crystal chains. Of course, these chains are just stupidly reactive, and dissolve in just about any sort of medium, so you have to keep them in an inert gas chamber, or ideally, vacuum. Then they coat them, starting with an exotic bismuth compound, then moving on to layers of carbon polymers (more of that APSC process!), which are run through a catalyst which fuses the tips as well as the roots of the chains.
What you end up with is a microscopic fiber that, proportionally, has the kind of tensile strength Skitter manages to get out of Darwin's bark spider silk. Superhero world spider web, rather than the really good but noticeably less strength shown by Prime Earth arachnids.
Then it has to be spun into threads and turned into rope or cloth. I'm using it for the line for the Batgrapples and as the primary material my costume is made of, because it's very flexible but also really hard to cut.
So it's good vs knives, and will stop actual penetration really well, but doesn't do squat versus impact. Unfortunately, I don't have any sort of good reactive impact plates yet, so I'm using a mix of coated LibertyV plates, and some layers of another, harder and stiffer material that doesn't have a catchy name yet. IDP3020 has a lot of potential, because it's harder than sapphire and has good tensile strength, but absolutely bonkers flexural strength and impact toughness.
Unfortunately, it's got a pretty big weakness in that its fracture toughness is absolute dogshit.
Basically, this is the prince rupert's drop of metal alloys. There's an internal mesh made of, guess what, Single Iron Crystal chains. Then a really good, iridium dominant high entropy alloy is formed around it. It's dense and heavy, but stronger than LibertyV. The interesting bit is that, where the incredible hardness and toughness of the primary body of a prince rupert's drop comes from the fact that the outside layer of glass has formed into a tight crystal that wants to collapse inward, but can't, and is thus already pre-stressed against outside forces, IDP3020 has the reinforcement happen around the exotic bismuth compound that keeps the SIC chains from dissolving. Imagine coating a bridge's struts in diamond, then filling in the gaps with titanium.
It's absolutely super strong. But, unfortunately, just like a prince rupert's drop, once you actually compromise that internal crystal, it all goes to shit. The whole internal crystal structure just fucking shatters from one end to another. That's not quite as much of a violent ending of existence as a prince rupert's drop breaking, because it's still surrounded by a pretty strong alloy, but it goes from being able to take a moderate punch from Superman to being about as strong as an equivalent volume of aluminum, and while still being super heavy.
What that means in manufacturing terms is that it must be created and cast as a single piece. You can't cut it with a laser or machine it to fit tolerances. Drilling holes in it is right out. All of that compromises the internal crystal. And it's basically impossible to get really tight tolerances out of a cast in place material without being able to adjust it later. The best we can do is just make it with holes, knobs, and lips so we can make other material parts grab onto it and hold it in place.
If we can figure out the tolerances, or a way of machining it to form, it's gonna make some bitching power armor.
Speaking of power armor, you need a way to make it move. And that's going pretty well, as evidenced by my batwing-glider-cape.
Some of those alloys are memory materials, changing shape with various methods ranging from electricity to external magnetic fields to heat. And some of those coatings can also influence shape. And one set Waynetech has access to could potentially be used as a myomer muscle strand.
Two separate coatings. Put one on a sheet of material, and hook it up to electricity. Put another on another sheet of material, align it properly, and hook it up to the ground. Run electricity through it, and they try to slide against each other, with force based on total surface contact and voltage.
Combine that, with stretchy, folded fabric and memory materials that stiffen into shape, and a thick but not excessively large cape can thin out and expand into an aerodynamic shape much larger than what you think it would be.
My cape isn't even secret tech. It's literally based on technology which is already available for civilian thrill seekers. A combination of wing suits and extremely lightweight hang gliders, made for people who want to climb up to the top of a mountain and throw themselves off, but don't want to carry a big heavy bag of poles and fabric. It's the same shit Kiteman will end up using later.
The only unconventional bit of my batcape is a strip down the middle of my back and a corresponding bit down the center of the cape, which when electricity is applied, magnetizes and attaches itself from my neck to my ass, so the glider is balanced, rather than all my weight hanging from the front edge.
It is by far my favorite piece of bat-gadgetry. I'm putting a lot of resources into making it even better. I want true flight. I want WINGS.
Come on, I'm a superhero in a superhero world and I can't even fly under my own power? That's bullshit. But I'll fix it. Got some stuff in process.
Another interesting technology this world has is really good tire grip surface material. I hate to admit it, but this is a Lexcorp developed thing. Using the concepts of APSCs, and being able to essentially coat surfaces in polymer fur, they developed a tire that's basically made of wrapped layers of shag carpeting. A woven material that holds what are basically standing ranks of fuzzy feathers.
This isn't based on van der Waals forces, like the fuzzy pads on gecko feet. No, this is far cruder, but still highly effective. The fuzz of the feathers locks them together with their neighbors, just like real feathers, while still allowing it to flex and deform. But the grip surface comes from the feather spines themselves, which are far thicker, and look like they were made by someone using a bundle of lightning bolts as a straight edge. Just jagged as hell and edgy as a 90s antihero.
The tires are based on the principle of siping. This is a thing done to high end tires, especially racing tires and tires made for wet or icy conditions. There are a lot of road conditions that lower the surface to surface friction of tires. When you can't rely on sheer friction, you start looking for finger holds. That's where tire tread comes in, providing edges to hook onto surface, and creating channels for lose material like pebbles and water. But you can take it even farther, by cutting thin lines into the surface of the tire. Unlike the tread, this doesn't remove material to form a gap.
Instead, as the tire flexes on contact with the road, little chunks of material can flex and separate slightly from their neighbors, forming thousands of shallow, fine edged lips which grab at the road like fingernails. What that dastardly bald asshole made is a tire surface with super-siping. Each 'feather' spine, packed in next to each other but able to flex slightly different from its neighbor, provides its own tiny little fingernail grabbing at every surface imperfection.
Somehow, it even somewhat counteracts the main drawbacks of siping. Siped tires have the best traction for mud, water, and snow, but generally feel squirmy on hot dry road. The hot chunks of surface flex more, and the additional traction is counteracted by the additional movement of the tire material. Also, they wear down faster. Lexcorp's tires don't noticeably squirm under the forces of normal driving speed, so the tires can be used year round. And while they don't last as long as normal tires, it's not a huge difference.
Heck, knowing Lex, he solved the wear issue entirely, but wanted them to wear out. Lexcorp is big on planned obsolescence. He's just that kind of asshole.
The technology is great, though, as expected of Lex. Although Waynetech can't sell it without a lawsuit, I've actually incorporated it into my costume. Not just my gloves and boots, but also patches on my arms and legs to make climbing easier.
Oh, one last really noteworthy thing I think I should mention. I talked about how good rubidium batteries are, but there's actually a startup company working on an even better battery.
Some sort of weird bullshit technology called Multi-Stage Batteries.
Your common battery is a package of potential energy bound up in a paused chemical reaction. Take a basic car battery. It's a plastic box full of lead plates. The plates are submerged in sulfuric acid. The details are more complex, all sorts of manufacturing tricks to increase surface area and suchlike, but that's basically it. It's made that way, you don't even need to charge it when you make it. Fresh, clean lead plates dipped in sulfuric acid, and it's ready to discharge electricity.
When electricity is allowed to flow, the sulfuric acid reacts with the plates, forming lead sulfate. The acid in the water is largely depleted, leaving mostly just water. If you then charge it with electricity, the sulfur leaves the lead plates, and the water becomes strong sulfuric acid again. Simple and repeatable, though there's lifespan loss due to inefficiencies and changes. It's basically like a jenga tower of potential. Take blocks down, get electricity. Add electricity, stack blocks back up.
Multi-Stage Batteries, aka MSBs, are like if you bought several jenga towers made of different materials and stacked them all on top of each other. Unfortunately, that's pretty unstable, so you have to build a scaffold around it, and you have to only play one set at a time, from the top down, but it's a way of packing a LOT more potential energy into a given footprint.
What they've got so far goes like this:
Starting with a fully charged battery, current is allowed to flow.
The first stage is catalyst based, already a bonkers concept, and it's the electrolyte itself that reduces, providing free electrons to the anode. This releases XENON GAS from the complicated soup that is the electrolyte.
Seriously, there's a whole category of chemistry that uses what I generally considered inert gas, the noble gases. As organic chemistry is any chemistry that includes carbon, and inorganic is chemistry without carbon, there's a third category here, called royal chemistry, which involves noble gases. Some of those super high weight elements are capable of bizarre stuff. The idea is, it's the royals that boss around the mere noble.
The xenon gas is drawn off and captured. This stage is pretty good, and just by itself releases about 800 watt-hours per kilogram. Not quite as good as a rubidium battery, but good.
Then, the reduction stops. To resume it, the cathode and anode plates have to be removed from the electrolyte soup. Then a whole new cathode and anode made of a different material is inserted, and the electrons allowed to flow again. This stage is okay. Better than a lithium ion battery, but not great by local standards. Only about 550ish watt-hours.
Then, you do it again! New cathode and anodes, coupled with a set of neutral, non-catalyst plates which serve to remove one of the oxidation products from the soup on discharge, or provide it on recharge. This stage is fairly pathetic, only about a hundred and seventy watt-hours.
But it sets up for another stage! A whole new set of anodes and cathodes, and nearly 700 more goddamn watt-hours!
And there's one more stage! Technically, it's got the most energy of all of them, but in order to release it, an external energy field has to be supplied, which cuts the total produced power to about 600ish watt-hours again.
That's nearly 2800 fucking watt-hours out of a kilogram of battery! That's nuts. Absolutely batshit impossible mad science.
Here's why nobody, not even Lexcorp, has attempted to buy them out yet.
That's just the kilogram of starting battery. Adding in the weight of all the different cathodes, anodes, catalysts, neutral plates, gas capture, energy field, switching infrastructure, and the secondary rubidium battery needed as a buffer to keep electrical flow consistent between stages and also to run the field emitter, the total energy density plummets to between 900 and 1000 watt hours per kilogram, or about as good as a rubidium battery.
At a thousand times the cost. And there's size limits. All that stuff takes up space. The absolute smallest they've managed to get one down to is the size of a car engine.
And nobody in their right goddamn mind would put this battery in a car. That is a LOT of potential energy packed into a package with a lot of moving parts.
Ever seen a battery do a thermal runaway? Ever see a battery short?
Ever see a cellphone explode?
Now scale that up, up, and away!
Naw. Everyone's watching that startup with interest, but they're gonna have to solve some major goddamn problems before I'm gonna touch them with a thousand foot pole while surrounded by professional firefighters armed with absolutely shitloads of purple K.
They've made a stack of jenga towers of potential energy, but the bottom blocks are made of mad science, and it just gets worse the farther you go up. Like piling up C4, TNT, and chlorine triflouride and slowly pulling the potential energy out of it.
Just five kinds of nope.
The weird energy field alone probably causes cancer in most people, except for the one in a million it'll activate the meta gene in.
When it all goes bad, I'm letting Superman handle that shit.
xxx
Now, let's talk about some technical differences. Both universes have computers. Both universes have GUIs. But there's some pretty major differences.
DC Earth doesn't have a Microsoft. The closest thing they have is Lexcorp, which makes its own suite of comprehensive office productivity software, ranging from image editing, typing, slideshows, spreadsheets, and databases.
The most popular operating system is so popular that it's effectively universal. STAR Labs, which is sort of a non-governmental DARPA, made the first dedicated operating system. Typical of research focused stuff, it used a command line interface and was chunky and unfriendly. It seemed kind of similar to early UNIX. A copy machine company, Luminate, came up with the idea of the GUI, but never managed to make an example.
However, a Finnish mad scientist, (reportedly extremely extroverted and rather huggy, that's how you know he was insane for a Finn), sat down and made what was essentially Linux/Finux. It ran natively on the system, as opposed to the early windows applications, which ran on top of DOS. It was revolutionary at the time, as he had independently thought of the same graphical user interface idea. It was called VOROS: Visuaalinen Operaattori Rajapinta Operating System. Or, as a literal translation, GUI OS but in Finnish.
Although he originally tried to monetize it, the company he partnered with fucked him over and essentially stole his work, and attempted to bury him in lawyers. Angry, he released it open source, and it was so much better than everything else that pretty much everyone adopted it immediately and began producing their own versions, especially after he went to jail for bombing the company headquarters and killing everyone involved, including the lawyers. He's actually due to get out sometime in the late twenty teens.
So now, when people ask you what operating system you prefer, they mean what flavor of VOROS do you use. LEXEYE has the largest market share globally, but CAYUS from Kordtech is seen as the thinking man's operating system. Waynetech actually has its own, but while it's available for purchase, we don't really try to sell it to the public, it's just our own in house build. All of the versions use essentially the same drivers and hardware, so the public doesn't HAVE to use the same thing and there's room for competition, but only WTOS pcs can connect to the company intranet.
You know, supposedly. It's not hard to spoof. But the in house builds have all of the right settings and group policies and everything by default. And no secret spyware. LEXEYE has gotten caught secretly reporting data back to Lexcorp a few times, on top of all the metrics it publically reports. It was a big scandal the first time it happened. Boosted CAYUS users by a good margin. But given the open source licensing deals, there's not much money in making operating systems, so Kordtech is still considerably smaller than Waynetech.
Computer hardware wise, there's some pretty big differences, too.
One, yes, it's surprisingly common in this world for PC keyboards to not have labeled keys. One of the public (widely known, but somewhat over credited) fathers of modern computing wore all the letters off his keyboard. Various things happened, with documentaries and magazine articles and such, and it became a trend to have unlabeled keyboards. It was seen as elite, 'I don't need to look to know what key I'm hitting' sort of thing among the dedicated computer user set. So you can actually buy them without letters now. It's a declaration of your 'leet skillz'.
Two, pc architecture is a good bit different. At this point in time on Prime Earth, the Pentium MMX series, including both the Pentium 1 MMX and the brand new Pentium 2 MMX, was king of personal computing CPUs and had a clock speed of around 200-266 MHz, with a 16kb L1 cache and a 512kb L2 cache. Common RAM amounts were 32 or 64mb, though you could go up to about 128mb if you had the money, and they usually had somewhere in the order of 5-10gb of storage.
Here, they've gone for less memory, but faster clock speed. The kind of thing I see advertised on TV or in magazines have clock speeds around 2.5 to 3.2 GHz, but L1 caches of like, 4kb, and L2s of about 64kb. Speaking of L2, it's actually a removable, upgradable chip with its own socket on the motherboard. RAM, likewise, is lower than Prime, with 8-16mb being common. Total data storage, though, is even better, with 12-15gb HDDs being common, and a lot of research is being put into speeding up HDD access speeds, because page file use is basically continuous.
Essentially, the PCs here have gone for a tiny, weak engine with high RPMs, rather than the slower but stronger style of Prime. Although actual user experience is roughly the same, it certainly makes for some wildly different programming. Thank Bat Mite I have a Gamer system to help me learn, or I'd probably give up on the idea of relearning any sort of programming.
xxx
What can I, with my Prime Earth knowledge, do for this universe?
First, a few bonafides.
I was not an engineer, or a scientist. I didn't have a PhD. I have, at various points in my life, been an auto mechanic, a diesel and hydraulic mechanic, an HVAC technician, a chemical technician, a web designer, a PC technician, a Network admin, a painting and drywall installer, and a sign painter. Professionally. I've also done various things associated with those things, like carpentry, welding, database, and other stuff. I majored in biology and minored in chemistry in college. I went back to college for a nursing degree, but didn't finish it. I've had a lot of hobbies, mostly art and writing based, like leatherworking, blacksmithing, painting, and sculpting. I love art, though I don't actually have any talent for it. And, frankly, I'm just a huge goddamn nerd. I love wikipedia and youtube. How stuff is made was one of my favorite shows, and I watched various youtube channels that talked about how stuff is made and new advancements in technology as well. I watched everything from videos making art projects to videos explaining the rise and fall of small scale superchargers for RC engines. So while I'm not an engineer, or much of a programmer, I've got a pretty good handle on a lot of subjects.
Fortunately, as Bruce Wayne, I don't have to know the precise details of the programming for quadcopter drones. I have an entire research division that takes orders from me.
So here's what ideas I've given Lucius Fox to work on so far.
Drones, as mentioned. Quadcopter style, that is, not conventional plane Predator style. They've got remote controlled conventional aircraft already. These things are gonna be godsend for surveillance. Also I'm going to make a big one and use it for most local transportation. With the crazy energy densities of rubidium batteries, the range is going to be pretty good for these. And with the super strong, super lightweight LibertyV alloy, I'm actually pretty excited for this.
Amazon style warehouse robots, and those neat little switching conveyor belts.
Amazon style automatic box makers.
Amazon.
Smartphones, with app stores and accessories.
Wifi was just invented, but we're going to expand it and make it better, with things like Bluetooth and more wireless tech in general.
Induction charging, for the electronics.
Axial flux electric motors. Conventional electric motors are radial flux motors. Mostly, you make them stronger by making them longer. They're the best solution if you want really high RPMs. Axial flux motors are a fairly new concept, used by NASA, and are game changers for hybrid cars. They use a radically different wiring scheme, and as a result are very flat, instead of long, and don't really need to be much wider than regular motors. Since they're so flat, they can be as much as 90% lighter than an equivalent conventional motor, and nearly the same in space saving. They're great for hybrid cars, because the flat motor can just be inserted between the combustion engine and the transmission without the need for a radical design. They're also the right size and shape to be fitted as hub motors, built directly into the wheels of a vehicle, rather than a central location. Also, their design makes them easy to run liquid cooling through, which vastly improves their lifespan and performance.
They do have a pretty major drawback, though, so they're not a straight upgrade, just nearly one. Due to their construction, and since they have so much of their windings at the edge of their circumference, centrifugal forces are a serious limiter, meaning, as mentioned, they have to have lower max RPMs or they'll fling themselves to pieces.
At least, on Prime Earth.
Here, we have bonkers meta alloys with tensile strengths vastly higher than anything Prime Earth has come up with. IDP3020 might not work, despite its strength, because you can't really machine it, but just using LibertyV will probably double the potential RPMs of any given design, and there's almost certainly a better choice somewhere in our catalogue of options. Also, some of those alloys are approaching superconductor levels of conductivity. The Batdrone is gonna be amazing.
Both the triangle and the oblong wankel engine layouts, which never got invented in this universe for some reason. I don't expect much out of them, but maybe the super meta alloys available can solve some of the issues with wankel engines. Liquidpiston's oblong design is super compact, and they're marketing it as a potential compact generator engine. With the right meta alloys and some development, it might be light enough to serve as a generator for the Batdrone, resulting in a hybrid design that can be refueled for larger range.
GPS exists, but we want to get in on the whole Google Earth/streetview real time mapping, where possible. I absolutely want to get as much worldwide surveillance as possible. Not because I intend to be some sort of Justice Lord tyrant, but because I want the earliest warning possible for the next alien invasion, demonic rift, or sun extinguishing event.
I've instructed R&D to put some fairly serious effort into designing an advanced temporary shelter, like a tent on steroids. We're trying to keep it cheap, so minimal use of metamaterials, but we do want it to work really well, so we're using advanced manufacturing principles. The idea is a compact pallet sort of base, which pops up into a three room rigid tent. The roof will channel and collect rainwater, which will be stored in the base to weight it down. The base will have water storage, batteries, and a small amount of sewage storage. The tent will come with lights, a small stove, and a toilet. It will also include mylar blankets and inflatable mattresses. Ideally, I want to add a radio/TV, a first aid kit, solar panels, and a charger for personal electronics, as well as a really good pump and water filter. It'd also be nice to include a few days rations and a little bit of water, always in it. The idea is for it to be light enough to be carried by two people, and of a size that they can be stacked in a truck cargo container without wasting space.
What I want is for, the next time some area is devastated by whatever, these tents get immediately distributed for the refugees. Set it in place, pop it up, and anyone not injured is good for at least a day or two. During that time, workers can fill up its storage with water, which it should be able to filter on its own. Rations can be distributed, and a separate set of sewer lines can be connected to all the tents in the area and ran to a truck, portable treatment plant, or existing sewer system. A radio/TV inside can provide entertainment, news, and instructions. As electronics progress, we can swap those out for a laptop/tablet infotainment system.
War is coming. I want to be ready.
I also told Lucius about quite a few website concepts. Google, Google Drive, Slack, Github, Salesforce, Myspace/Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Youtube, Ebay, Amazon, and Etsy.
One of my previous careers was working as a network admin for a city, so I'm also intimately familiar with emergency dispatch and database software, as well as financial management and city planning. This is how I'm going to get root access to Gotham's government everything, including the police force. Waynetech is going to be making a full combined suite of city management software, including fire and police. It'll be user friendly and fairly secure, and it'll save Gotham tens of millions of dollars anally. And I'll have access to all of it, without even needing a secret back door, because Waynetech will be their administrator support.
Honestly, it's the kind of thing I'd give away, but there's no need. We won't charge what the market will bear, but we'll still turn a solid profit. I'll consider the project a rousing success if we can get Metropolis to buy it instead of whatever shit Lex makes.
We also talked about AI, but making AI is so much easier in this universe that frankly I'm wary of getting involved with it. You start off making ChatGPT, an AI meant to steal creative jobs and make people miserable, and you end up with like, Amazo, and it tries to blow up the world.
Lexcorp surged past Waynetech's valuation in five years of Lex taking over. That was about four years ago. He's currently among the top ten richest men in the world, and only going higher. Really, the only reason he's not number one is that there's ancient monsters with ridiculous hidden, distributed fortunes, like Ras and Vandal, as well as some Middle Eastern oil/mineral/trade oligarchs. But he'll get there, because he's smart, and, frankly, that's just kinda his thing.
Waynetech, on the other hand, is only valued at about 31 billion right now. Not chump change, but a pretty long way from Lexcorp's 194 billion official valuation.
But if I can steal a march on him, get Google going, get Amazon going, get Facebook and Paypal and Apple all going before he realizes I'm a threat…
Well, I'll never overtake him. Not really. I figure he's gonna spend around 10 billion a year trying to kill Superman, and various other villainous projects. Whereas I'm going to have to do the equivalent of fixing Gotham's potholes with gold and ground up 100 dollar bills, and that's not even including the charity the rest of the country, and the world, needs. Plus paying for the Justice League, trying to get a space defense set up, setting up the emergency preparedness bunkers, food, supplies, shelters, and everything else the world's probably gonna need the next time some asshole titan covers the world in a hurricane… Plus, I don't have the ruthlessness to squeeze every dollar out of a business. My workers will be well paid, with benefits. My terms of service won't be exquisitely crafted to fuck the consumer. My products won't be made to fail the second the warranty runs out. I won't fuck the creators on my youtube knockoff, or force a billion ads down everyone's throat.
No, I don't think I'll ever beat Lex. He'll make competing products to everything I make, and he'll promote them aggressively. I'll get a solid audience of people who appreciate better, cheaper products that don't nickel and dime you for every app or surprise you with a thousand hidden fees, but I've got no illusions that Lex won't find plenty of customers.
Frankly, I just have moral objections to being a hyper-billionaire. I don't need that much fucking money. I don't like the idea of taking that much of my workers' efforts for myself. I certainly haven't fucking EARNED this money.
On Prime Earth, it'd never work out this way. But this is DC. I need that money. Lex isn't going to spend billions of dollars stockpiling emergency shelters, food, water, and medicine all over the country, and eventually the world, for when there's a huge disaster. Lex isn't going to pay for the Justice League's infrastructure and salaries. Lex isn't going to set up hospitals and clinics and homeless shelters and soup kitchens. Lex is gonna spend his money trying to kill Superman.
If I'm lucky, I can maybe convince the guy to use the results of trying to kill Superman in a useful manner. Superweapons to fight aliens and demons and shit are actually good things to have. I'd really like to get him to work with me for defense satellites and moonbases and a defense fleet, actually. The guy does want humanity to be safe, he just also wants humanity, and him specifically, to be ascendant.
But it's Lex. You can't trust the asshole. So I'd better be prepared to go it alone. And that means I need a shitload of money.
Now, some of the speculation I don't want to talk about, because it's the kind of thing that comes up in the story. But here's an infodump about technobabble.
This is just information about the state of technology in the version of DC Earth I'm using here. This is not a chapter and may be safely ignored by anyone not interested in a huge infodump about comic book technology. Anything truly important will be discussed in the story proper.
This world, which I'm still not sure of the universe number, but I'm just calling DC Earth XXX, is currently in the year 1997. Twenty six years behind the date of my death in what I consider Prime Earth.
So, clearly, there's some things they haven't developed yet. They have the internet, but large scale social media isn't really a thing. We're in the Geocities age, which here is called Webnode. A free, small scale, personal site host that gets expensive fast if you get much traffic.
Cell phones exist. Remarkably, the era of the large bag-phone came and went quickly here, and we're currently in the brickphone era. A Finnish company called Valifone currently dominates with a nearly indestructible brick. I have several, with service provided by USTalk. They can text, badly, with the old 10key pattern, have good signal in Gotham, and indeed most cities, but are kind of a crapshoot in the country. Notably, they have great battery life.
Because, while this is in the past relative to the tech I'm used to, this is a comic book world. Mad science has mostly made one offs that never get developed, but there are some pretty noteworthy things that have been developed that change certain baselines.
Batteries, for instance. The reason bag-phones were able to drop to brick phones so fast was that efficient battery technology already exists. Instead of lithium, the most common battery metal is rubidium. Same column, much larger atomic mass. Also, the local periodic table goes up to, I shit you not, 681, with a lot of gaps.
Rubidium-antimony-wellium (a surprisingly stable, and relatively plentiful, element #141, used in tiny quantities in the catalyst) batteries enjoy a frankly absurd energy density of 965 watt-hours per kilogram. The best commercial batteries I know of on Prime Earth don't quite hit 300 watt-hours per kilogram. Powering my bat-gadgets, even the relative energy hog of the bat-grapple, is easy, even with a tiny, lightweight battery.
Rubidium is rarer than lithium, but wellium is extracted from sea water at a ratio of about 5.6 micromoles to ten kilograms of water. Not a great rate, but cheap, because it sticks to electrically charged tin cathodes. Now, desalination plants and salt plants pass their brine over tin grids and enjoy the bonus money. Most of the cost of the production comes when separating the wellium from the oxides and salts that also end up encrusting the tin grid.
However, more so than the unusual element, the reason the rubidium batteries enjoy such a bonkers energy density is their construction. And that gets into the one big, mad science technology that is the primary driver of background tech advancements in this world. A technology you've seen in DC comics mostly in the hands of villains, which has been the key to startling advancements in materials technology.
Cold tech.
Freeze guns.
Primarily used by Captain Cold, and Mr. Freeze, their achievements weren't inventing the basic technology, it was in the improvement and miniaturization of it, so that it became viable as man portable weapons.
Waynetech's freeze machine weighs more than two tons and uses about a kilowatt every seventeen minutes.
First, let me explain some background. On Prime Earth, most of our industrial structural materials fall into two broad categories, each with a notable subcategory.
Polymers are the relatively new kid on the block. Primarily carbon based molecule chains in all sorts of configurations. Plastic is the big one everyone knows, but there are others. However, we discovered that if you lay in some sort of strong fiber, like spun glass fibers, and then fix them in place with plastic, you get an even stronger material. Later, we came up with an even stronger fiber, carbon fiber. But as advanced as carbon fiber is, it really only has tensile strength. To add rigidity, you have to embed it in a polymer resin.
Metals are the classic material. Metals have all sorts of properties, so you pick the one you want, and make stuff out of it. Then, the dominant subcategory, alloys. You mix two or more elements, adding and subtracting properties, and sometimes getting wildly new characteristics.
However, it should be noted, pretty much all Prime Earth alloys are mainly made of one given metal. In steel, or other iron alloys, iron makes up the vast majority of the mass of the alloy. Only a few percent of things like vanadium, or molybdenum, or chromium, or all three, or more, are added to the alloy. And the reason for that is, if you add too much of another element, they just don't blend right. You get chunks of one, surrounded by the other.
It turns out that this is a failure of our processes, not the concept. So companies have been putting a lot of research into methods to more evenly blend metals. Instead of 96, 2, 1, 1, they're trying 30, 30, 30, 5, 5, or 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, or all sorts of combinations. These new ratios are called High Entropy Alloys, because they must be mixed very, very carefully, or you get stew instead of jello.
That being said, a lot of effort is being put into developing them, because just the ones we've found so far indicate that they could have some absolutely amazing properties. Memory materials, super strong alloys, semiconductors, superconductors, and more. Alloys that are both incredibly hard, and thus wear resistant and low friction, with high flexibility. Imagine a sheet of metal foil you can flop and fold and wrap around things, but takes a diamond to scratch. This is Prime Earth tech.
Superhero Earth tech takes that and goes even further. And they're way, way more advanced at it than us, thanks to the invention of the freeze chamber back in the 40s.
This is actually something Waynetech kind of specializes in. Oh, we do other stuff, but many of our industrial products and nearly all of our military products are based on this.
Take a quantity of pure element. In this case, because it's our best seller, we'll say lithium. Put it in a vacuum chamber. Now, vaporize that shit. Get it hot enough to boil. Lithium doesn't seem to care how you do it, and has a low boiling point, so we just use a conventional electric furnace. What you want is monoatomic lithium gas.
Now, do the same thing in another chamber, with a different element. In this case, beryllium. And again, with titanium. And lastly, vanadium.
Now, you've got four sources of monoatomic gaseous metal. Very, very, very hot metal gas. If you just mix the gases, you can actually get some useful products, but mostly you get stew again, because they cool off at different temperatures. No, what you need is for them to all be the same temperature before they touch each other.
So each gas, a little at a time, is passed through a freeze chamber, and reduced to absolute zero.
Except… it's a weird absolute zero. There's zero atomic movement, but there's a memory of what the temperature SHOULD be. Frankly, I don't understand it. It violates all the rules of physics as I know them. But what I have been able to understand, is that it's specifically because this is a universe where the Speed Force exists. It's applying molecular deceleration via the principles the Flash uses to run up to, and beyond, the speed of light itself. Part of how it works is why Captain Cold can freeze someone solid with his cold gun, but when they unthaw, they're alive. Speed-memory. The energy is there, just not expressed.
So these single, floating metal atoms are suddenly turned from hyperactive ping-pong balls to pure dead weight. They fall to the bottom of the deposition chamber.
Where they are joined, at specific ratios and in specific orders, by the atoms of other elements, like a sand painting. Instead of fighting the issues of atomic attraction via covalent or ionic bonding, which is what complicates conventional High Entropy Alloy formation, the atoms are just physically mixed in a thorough way.
And there are other things that can change the outcome, too. Instead of just a mixed pile of loose atoms, it might be a mixed pile of loose atoms, falling on, in, and around a framework. A titanium mesh, to add rigidity to a flexible alloy, or silica wafers, to make new kinds of semiconductor chips.
Finally, the freeze process is reversed- slowly. All that heat is still there. But it can be prevented from being expressed, allowing the mass of atomic sand to get warm enough to form bonds and truly alloy, while the actual heat is drawn off through conventional cooling methods.
Given the elements involved, the alloy is commonly called LibertyV. It's sort of expensive per kilogram, but it's got the same density as aluminum and is noticeably stronger than titanium in all categories, meaning that for a given strength target, you can get some serious weight savings. The most common use for it is for crankshafts, camshafts, and piston rods in conventional engines, and turbines for jet engines.
Only the most insanely over budgeted black projects use it for things like the frame or skin of an airplane, given that the cost per ounce is just over that of silver. However, this world's Blackbird equivalent fleet is still flying, lacking many of the maintenance issues that killed it in Prime Earth.
And the thing is? LibertyV, and indeed any of our other alloys, can be made even better with APSC, Aligned Polymer Strand Coats, generally just called coats. Another, not quite mad science, but certainly advanced science, technology.
Basically, various kinds of short polymer strands are created. That implies that they're carbon based, but some of them are actually inorganic. These short polymer strands are then applied to a given material the way powder coat paint is. The material is given a charge, which attracts free floating polymer strands. Then, precisely calibrated energy fields, sort of like proto-forcefield stuff, are applied, forcing the strands into perfect alignment.
Imagine you've got a naked rat. Then you dump a shitload of fur over it. The fur sticks to the rat, then bunches up literally as dense and tight as it can go, with each hair tightly pressed in on all sides by more hair. Then you realize that, instead of an ugly rat, you've got a cute chinchilla.
What you do from there depends on what you want. Sometimes, you want the hairs to only be bonded at the root. With the right polymers, you get a surface that traps and absorbs EMF radiation. Not all of it, or, at least, no one type can absorb the full spectrum, but radar absorbent coats are easy. And there's one that absorbs the entire spectrum visible to ordinary humans, resulting in a black so black Anish Kapoor would blow a load in his pants.
That particular one has resulted in some pretty good solar panel improvements, too.
You also might want to bond the tips, as well as the roots, resulting in some interesting flexibility options. Or maybe you bond the whole length. What Waynetech has really been getting into here lately, now that computer modeling is getting better, is targeted area bonding. We're developing the ability to reinforce some areas while keeping flexibility in others, and adding abrasion resistance here and there. It's exciting stuff.
So what I'm saying is, DC Earth XXX might be a few years away from LED monitor screens, but we've got some frankly astonishing material tech.
Take one of the big scifi technology goals: carbon monofilament. It's supposed to be super strong for its diameter, and super thin, so in addition to making crazy strong fiber and cloth, you can also use it to cut through just about everything, right?
Well, we don't quite have that. Like, we can make carbon monofilaments, that's actually what some of the APSC coats are, but they're millimeter lengths at best, not like, meters. No, Waynetech's strongest long fibers aren't based on carbon.
They're iron.
Not even steel. They are specifically long chains of iron atoms triple bonded to each other, called Single Iron Crystal chains. Of course, these chains are just stupidly reactive, and dissolve in just about any sort of medium, so you have to keep them in an inert gas chamber, or ideally, vacuum. Then they coat them, starting with an exotic bismuth compound, then moving on to layers of carbon polymers (more of that APSC process!), which are run through a catalyst which fuses the tips as well as the roots of the chains.
What you end up with is a microscopic fiber that, proportionally, has the kind of tensile strength Skitter manages to get out of Darwin's bark spider silk. Superhero world spider web, rather than the really good but noticeably less strength shown by Prime Earth arachnids.
Then it has to be spun into threads and turned into rope or cloth. I'm using it for the line for the Batgrapples and as the primary material my costume is made of, because it's very flexible but also really hard to cut.
So it's good vs knives, and will stop actual penetration really well, but doesn't do squat versus impact. Unfortunately, I don't have any sort of good reactive impact plates yet, so I'm using a mix of coated LibertyV plates, and some layers of another, harder and stiffer material that doesn't have a catchy name yet. IDP3020 has a lot of potential, because it's harder than sapphire and has good tensile strength, but absolutely bonkers flexural strength and impact toughness.
Unfortunately, it's got a pretty big weakness in that its fracture toughness is absolute dogshit.
Basically, this is the prince rupert's drop of metal alloys. There's an internal mesh made of, guess what, Single Iron Crystal chains. Then a really good, iridium dominant high entropy alloy is formed around it. It's dense and heavy, but stronger than LibertyV. The interesting bit is that, where the incredible hardness and toughness of the primary body of a prince rupert's drop comes from the fact that the outside layer of glass has formed into a tight crystal that wants to collapse inward, but can't, and is thus already pre-stressed against outside forces, IDP3020 has the reinforcement happen around the exotic bismuth compound that keeps the SIC chains from dissolving. Imagine coating a bridge's struts in diamond, then filling in the gaps with titanium.
It's absolutely super strong. But, unfortunately, just like a prince rupert's drop, once you actually compromise that internal crystal, it all goes to shit. The whole internal crystal structure just fucking shatters from one end to another. That's not quite as much of a violent ending of existence as a prince rupert's drop breaking, because it's still surrounded by a pretty strong alloy, but it goes from being able to take a moderate punch from Superman to being about as strong as an equivalent volume of aluminum, and while still being super heavy.
What that means in manufacturing terms is that it must be created and cast as a single piece. You can't cut it with a laser or machine it to fit tolerances. Drilling holes in it is right out. All of that compromises the internal crystal. And it's basically impossible to get really tight tolerances out of a cast in place material without being able to adjust it later. The best we can do is just make it with holes, knobs, and lips so we can make other material parts grab onto it and hold it in place.
If we can figure out the tolerances, or a way of machining it to form, it's gonna make some bitching power armor.
Speaking of power armor, you need a way to make it move. And that's going pretty well, as evidenced by my batwing-glider-cape.
Some of those alloys are memory materials, changing shape with various methods ranging from electricity to external magnetic fields to heat. And some of those coatings can also influence shape. And one set Waynetech has access to could potentially be used as a myomer muscle strand.
Two separate coatings. Put one on a sheet of material, and hook it up to electricity. Put another on another sheet of material, align it properly, and hook it up to the ground. Run electricity through it, and they try to slide against each other, with force based on total surface contact and voltage.
Combine that, with stretchy, folded fabric and memory materials that stiffen into shape, and a thick but not excessively large cape can thin out and expand into an aerodynamic shape much larger than what you think it would be.
My cape isn't even secret tech. It's literally based on technology which is already available for civilian thrill seekers. A combination of wing suits and extremely lightweight hang gliders, made for people who want to climb up to the top of a mountain and throw themselves off, but don't want to carry a big heavy bag of poles and fabric. It's the same shit Kiteman will end up using later.
The only unconventional bit of my batcape is a strip down the middle of my back and a corresponding bit down the center of the cape, which when electricity is applied, magnetizes and attaches itself from my neck to my ass, so the glider is balanced, rather than all my weight hanging from the front edge.
It is by far my favorite piece of bat-gadgetry. I'm putting a lot of resources into making it even better. I want true flight. I want WINGS.
Come on, I'm a superhero in a superhero world and I can't even fly under my own power? That's bullshit. But I'll fix it. Got some stuff in process.
Another interesting technology this world has is really good tire grip surface material. I hate to admit it, but this is a Lexcorp developed thing. Using the concepts of APSCs, and being able to essentially coat surfaces in polymer fur, they developed a tire that's basically made of wrapped layers of shag carpeting. A woven material that holds what are basically standing ranks of fuzzy feathers.
This isn't based on van der Waals forces, like the fuzzy pads on gecko feet. No, this is far cruder, but still highly effective. The fuzz of the feathers locks them together with their neighbors, just like real feathers, while still allowing it to flex and deform. But the grip surface comes from the feather spines themselves, which are far thicker, and look like they were made by someone using a bundle of lightning bolts as a straight edge. Just jagged as hell and edgy as a 90s antihero.
The tires are based on the principle of siping. This is a thing done to high end tires, especially racing tires and tires made for wet or icy conditions. There are a lot of road conditions that lower the surface to surface friction of tires. When you can't rely on sheer friction, you start looking for finger holds. That's where tire tread comes in, providing edges to hook onto surface, and creating channels for lose material like pebbles and water. But you can take it even farther, by cutting thin lines into the surface of the tire. Unlike the tread, this doesn't remove material to form a gap.
Instead, as the tire flexes on contact with the road, little chunks of material can flex and separate slightly from their neighbors, forming thousands of shallow, fine edged lips which grab at the road like fingernails. What that dastardly bald asshole made is a tire surface with super-siping. Each 'feather' spine, packed in next to each other but able to flex slightly different from its neighbor, provides its own tiny little fingernail grabbing at every surface imperfection.
Somehow, it even somewhat counteracts the main drawbacks of siping. Siped tires have the best traction for mud, water, and snow, but generally feel squirmy on hot dry road. The hot chunks of surface flex more, and the additional traction is counteracted by the additional movement of the tire material. Also, they wear down faster. Lexcorp's tires don't noticeably squirm under the forces of normal driving speed, so the tires can be used year round. And while they don't last as long as normal tires, it's not a huge difference.
Heck, knowing Lex, he solved the wear issue entirely, but wanted them to wear out. Lexcorp is big on planned obsolescence. He's just that kind of asshole.
The technology is great, though, as expected of Lex. Although Waynetech can't sell it without a lawsuit, I've actually incorporated it into my costume. Not just my gloves and boots, but also patches on my arms and legs to make climbing easier.
Oh, one last really noteworthy thing I think I should mention. I talked about how good rubidium batteries are, but there's actually a startup company working on an even better battery.
Some sort of weird bullshit technology called Multi-Stage Batteries.
Your common battery is a package of potential energy bound up in a paused chemical reaction. Take a basic car battery. It's a plastic box full of lead plates. The plates are submerged in sulfuric acid. The details are more complex, all sorts of manufacturing tricks to increase surface area and suchlike, but that's basically it. It's made that way, you don't even need to charge it when you make it. Fresh, clean lead plates dipped in sulfuric acid, and it's ready to discharge electricity.
When electricity is allowed to flow, the sulfuric acid reacts with the plates, forming lead sulfate. The acid in the water is largely depleted, leaving mostly just water. If you then charge it with electricity, the sulfur leaves the lead plates, and the water becomes strong sulfuric acid again. Simple and repeatable, though there's lifespan loss due to inefficiencies and changes. It's basically like a jenga tower of potential. Take blocks down, get electricity. Add electricity, stack blocks back up.
Multi-Stage Batteries, aka MSBs, are like if you bought several jenga towers made of different materials and stacked them all on top of each other. Unfortunately, that's pretty unstable, so you have to build a scaffold around it, and you have to only play one set at a time, from the top down, but it's a way of packing a LOT more potential energy into a given footprint.
What they've got so far goes like this:
Starting with a fully charged battery, current is allowed to flow.
The first stage is catalyst based, already a bonkers concept, and it's the electrolyte itself that reduces, providing free electrons to the anode. This releases XENON GAS from the complicated soup that is the electrolyte.
Seriously, there's a whole category of chemistry that uses what I generally considered inert gas, the noble gases. As organic chemistry is any chemistry that includes carbon, and inorganic is chemistry without carbon, there's a third category here, called royal chemistry, which involves noble gases. Some of those super high weight elements are capable of bizarre stuff. The idea is, it's the royals that boss around the mere noble.
The xenon gas is drawn off and captured. This stage is pretty good, and just by itself releases about 800 watt-hours per kilogram. Not quite as good as a rubidium battery, but good.
Then, the reduction stops. To resume it, the cathode and anode plates have to be removed from the electrolyte soup. Then a whole new cathode and anode made of a different material is inserted, and the electrons allowed to flow again. This stage is okay. Better than a lithium ion battery, but not great by local standards. Only about 550ish watt-hours.
Then, you do it again! New cathode and anodes, coupled with a set of neutral, non-catalyst plates which serve to remove one of the oxidation products from the soup on discharge, or provide it on recharge. This stage is fairly pathetic, only about a hundred and seventy watt-hours.
But it sets up for another stage! A whole new set of anodes and cathodes, and nearly 700 more goddamn watt-hours!
And there's one more stage! Technically, it's got the most energy of all of them, but in order to release it, an external energy field has to be supplied, which cuts the total produced power to about 600ish watt-hours again.
That's nearly 2800 fucking watt-hours out of a kilogram of battery! That's nuts. Absolutely batshit impossible mad science.
Here's why nobody, not even Lexcorp, has attempted to buy them out yet.
That's just the kilogram of starting battery. Adding in the weight of all the different cathodes, anodes, catalysts, neutral plates, gas capture, energy field, switching infrastructure, and the secondary rubidium battery needed as a buffer to keep electrical flow consistent between stages and also to run the field emitter, the total energy density plummets to between 900 and 1000 watt hours per kilogram, or about as good as a rubidium battery.
At a thousand times the cost. And there's size limits. All that stuff takes up space. The absolute smallest they've managed to get one down to is the size of a car engine.
And nobody in their right goddamn mind would put this battery in a car. That is a LOT of potential energy packed into a package with a lot of moving parts.
Ever seen a battery do a thermal runaway? Ever see a battery short?
Ever see a cellphone explode?
Now scale that up, up, and away!
Naw. Everyone's watching that startup with interest, but they're gonna have to solve some major goddamn problems before I'm gonna touch them with a thousand foot pole while surrounded by professional firefighters armed with absolutely shitloads of purple K.
They've made a stack of jenga towers of potential energy, but the bottom blocks are made of mad science, and it just gets worse the farther you go up. Like piling up C4, TNT, and chlorine triflouride and slowly pulling the potential energy out of it.
Just five kinds of nope.
The weird energy field alone probably causes cancer in most people, except for the one in a million it'll activate the meta gene in.
When it all goes bad, I'm letting Superman handle that shit.
xxx
Now, let's talk about some technical differences. Both universes have computers. Both universes have GUIs. But there's some pretty major differences.
DC Earth doesn't have a Microsoft. The closest thing they have is Lexcorp, which makes its own suite of comprehensive office productivity software, ranging from image editing, typing, slideshows, spreadsheets, and databases.
The most popular operating system is so popular that it's effectively universal. STAR Labs, which is sort of a non-governmental DARPA, made the first dedicated operating system. Typical of research focused stuff, it used a command line interface and was chunky and unfriendly. It seemed kind of similar to early UNIX. A copy machine company, Luminate, came up with the idea of the GUI, but never managed to make an example.
However, a Finnish mad scientist, (reportedly extremely extroverted and rather huggy, that's how you know he was insane for a Finn), sat down and made what was essentially Linux/Finux. It ran natively on the system, as opposed to the early windows applications, which ran on top of DOS. It was revolutionary at the time, as he had independently thought of the same graphical user interface idea. It was called VOROS: Visuaalinen Operaattori Rajapinta Operating System. Or, as a literal translation, GUI OS but in Finnish.
Although he originally tried to monetize it, the company he partnered with fucked him over and essentially stole his work, and attempted to bury him in lawyers. Angry, he released it open source, and it was so much better than everything else that pretty much everyone adopted it immediately and began producing their own versions, especially after he went to jail for bombing the company headquarters and killing everyone involved, including the lawyers. He's actually due to get out sometime in the late twenty teens.
So now, when people ask you what operating system you prefer, they mean what flavor of VOROS do you use. LEXEYE has the largest market share globally, but CAYUS from Kordtech is seen as the thinking man's operating system. Waynetech actually has its own, but while it's available for purchase, we don't really try to sell it to the public, it's just our own in house build. All of the versions use essentially the same drivers and hardware, so the public doesn't HAVE to use the same thing and there's room for competition, but only WTOS pcs can connect to the company intranet.
You know, supposedly. It's not hard to spoof. But the in house builds have all of the right settings and group policies and everything by default. And no secret spyware. LEXEYE has gotten caught secretly reporting data back to Lexcorp a few times, on top of all the metrics it publically reports. It was a big scandal the first time it happened. Boosted CAYUS users by a good margin. But given the open source licensing deals, there's not much money in making operating systems, so Kordtech is still considerably smaller than Waynetech.
Computer hardware wise, there's some pretty big differences, too.
One, yes, it's surprisingly common in this world for PC keyboards to not have labeled keys. One of the public (widely known, but somewhat over credited) fathers of modern computing wore all the letters off his keyboard. Various things happened, with documentaries and magazine articles and such, and it became a trend to have unlabeled keyboards. It was seen as elite, 'I don't need to look to know what key I'm hitting' sort of thing among the dedicated computer user set. So you can actually buy them without letters now. It's a declaration of your 'leet skillz'.
Two, pc architecture is a good bit different. At this point in time on Prime Earth, the Pentium MMX series, including both the Pentium 1 MMX and the brand new Pentium 2 MMX, was king of personal computing CPUs and had a clock speed of around 200-266 MHz, with a 16kb L1 cache and a 512kb L2 cache. Common RAM amounts were 32 or 64mb, though you could go up to about 128mb if you had the money, and they usually had somewhere in the order of 5-10gb of storage.
Here, they've gone for less memory, but faster clock speed. The kind of thing I see advertised on TV or in magazines have clock speeds around 2.5 to 3.2 GHz, but L1 caches of like, 4kb, and L2s of about 64kb. Speaking of L2, it's actually a removable, upgradable chip with its own socket on the motherboard. RAM, likewise, is lower than Prime, with 8-16mb being common. Total data storage, though, is even better, with 12-15gb HDDs being common, and a lot of research is being put into speeding up HDD access speeds, because page file use is basically continuous.
Essentially, the PCs here have gone for a tiny, weak engine with high RPMs, rather than the slower but stronger style of Prime. Although actual user experience is roughly the same, it certainly makes for some wildly different programming. Thank Bat Mite I have a Gamer system to help me learn, or I'd probably give up on the idea of relearning any sort of programming.
xxx
What can I, with my Prime Earth knowledge, do for this universe?
First, a few bonafides.
I was not an engineer, or a scientist. I didn't have a PhD. I have, at various points in my life, been an auto mechanic, a diesel and hydraulic mechanic, an HVAC technician, a chemical technician, a web designer, a PC technician, a Network admin, a painting and drywall installer, and a sign painter. Professionally. I've also done various things associated with those things, like carpentry, welding, database, and other stuff. I majored in biology and minored in chemistry in college. I went back to college for a nursing degree, but didn't finish it. I've had a lot of hobbies, mostly art and writing based, like leatherworking, blacksmithing, painting, and sculpting. I love art, though I don't actually have any talent for it. And, frankly, I'm just a huge goddamn nerd. I love wikipedia and youtube. How stuff is made was one of my favorite shows, and I watched various youtube channels that talked about how stuff is made and new advancements in technology as well. I watched everything from videos making art projects to videos explaining the rise and fall of small scale superchargers for RC engines. So while I'm not an engineer, or much of a programmer, I've got a pretty good handle on a lot of subjects.
Fortunately, as Bruce Wayne, I don't have to know the precise details of the programming for quadcopter drones. I have an entire research division that takes orders from me.
So here's what ideas I've given Lucius Fox to work on so far.
Drones, as mentioned. Quadcopter style, that is, not conventional plane Predator style. They've got remote controlled conventional aircraft already. These things are gonna be godsend for surveillance. Also I'm going to make a big one and use it for most local transportation. With the crazy energy densities of rubidium batteries, the range is going to be pretty good for these. And with the super strong, super lightweight LibertyV alloy, I'm actually pretty excited for this.
Amazon style warehouse robots, and those neat little switching conveyor belts.
Amazon style automatic box makers.
Amazon.
Smartphones, with app stores and accessories.
Wifi was just invented, but we're going to expand it and make it better, with things like Bluetooth and more wireless tech in general.
Induction charging, for the electronics.
Axial flux electric motors. Conventional electric motors are radial flux motors. Mostly, you make them stronger by making them longer. They're the best solution if you want really high RPMs. Axial flux motors are a fairly new concept, used by NASA, and are game changers for hybrid cars. They use a radically different wiring scheme, and as a result are very flat, instead of long, and don't really need to be much wider than regular motors. Since they're so flat, they can be as much as 90% lighter than an equivalent conventional motor, and nearly the same in space saving. They're great for hybrid cars, because the flat motor can just be inserted between the combustion engine and the transmission without the need for a radical design. They're also the right size and shape to be fitted as hub motors, built directly into the wheels of a vehicle, rather than a central location. Also, their design makes them easy to run liquid cooling through, which vastly improves their lifespan and performance.
They do have a pretty major drawback, though, so they're not a straight upgrade, just nearly one. Due to their construction, and since they have so much of their windings at the edge of their circumference, centrifugal forces are a serious limiter, meaning, as mentioned, they have to have lower max RPMs or they'll fling themselves to pieces.
At least, on Prime Earth.
Here, we have bonkers meta alloys with tensile strengths vastly higher than anything Prime Earth has come up with. IDP3020 might not work, despite its strength, because you can't really machine it, but just using LibertyV will probably double the potential RPMs of any given design, and there's almost certainly a better choice somewhere in our catalogue of options. Also, some of those alloys are approaching superconductor levels of conductivity. The Batdrone is gonna be amazing.
Both the triangle and the oblong wankel engine layouts, which never got invented in this universe for some reason. I don't expect much out of them, but maybe the super meta alloys available can solve some of the issues with wankel engines. Liquidpiston's oblong design is super compact, and they're marketing it as a potential compact generator engine. With the right meta alloys and some development, it might be light enough to serve as a generator for the Batdrone, resulting in a hybrid design that can be refueled for larger range.
GPS exists, but we want to get in on the whole Google Earth/streetview real time mapping, where possible. I absolutely want to get as much worldwide surveillance as possible. Not because I intend to be some sort of Justice Lord tyrant, but because I want the earliest warning possible for the next alien invasion, demonic rift, or sun extinguishing event.
I've instructed R&D to put some fairly serious effort into designing an advanced temporary shelter, like a tent on steroids. We're trying to keep it cheap, so minimal use of metamaterials, but we do want it to work really well, so we're using advanced manufacturing principles. The idea is a compact pallet sort of base, which pops up into a three room rigid tent. The roof will channel and collect rainwater, which will be stored in the base to weight it down. The base will have water storage, batteries, and a small amount of sewage storage. The tent will come with lights, a small stove, and a toilet. It will also include mylar blankets and inflatable mattresses. Ideally, I want to add a radio/TV, a first aid kit, solar panels, and a charger for personal electronics, as well as a really good pump and water filter. It'd also be nice to include a few days rations and a little bit of water, always in it. The idea is for it to be light enough to be carried by two people, and of a size that they can be stacked in a truck cargo container without wasting space.
What I want is for, the next time some area is devastated by whatever, these tents get immediately distributed for the refugees. Set it in place, pop it up, and anyone not injured is good for at least a day or two. During that time, workers can fill up its storage with water, which it should be able to filter on its own. Rations can be distributed, and a separate set of sewer lines can be connected to all the tents in the area and ran to a truck, portable treatment plant, or existing sewer system. A radio/TV inside can provide entertainment, news, and instructions. As electronics progress, we can swap those out for a laptop/tablet infotainment system.
War is coming. I want to be ready.
I also told Lucius about quite a few website concepts. Google, Google Drive, Slack, Github, Salesforce, Myspace/Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Youtube, Ebay, Amazon, and Etsy.
One of my previous careers was working as a network admin for a city, so I'm also intimately familiar with emergency dispatch and database software, as well as financial management and city planning. This is how I'm going to get root access to Gotham's government everything, including the police force. Waynetech is going to be making a full combined suite of city management software, including fire and police. It'll be user friendly and fairly secure, and it'll save Gotham tens of millions of dollars anally. And I'll have access to all of it, without even needing a secret back door, because Waynetech will be their administrator support.
Honestly, it's the kind of thing I'd give away, but there's no need. We won't charge what the market will bear, but we'll still turn a solid profit. I'll consider the project a rousing success if we can get Metropolis to buy it instead of whatever shit Lex makes.
We also talked about AI, but making AI is so much easier in this universe that frankly I'm wary of getting involved with it. You start off making ChatGPT, an AI meant to steal creative jobs and make people miserable, and you end up with like, Amazo, and it tries to blow up the world.
Lexcorp surged past Waynetech's valuation in five years of Lex taking over. That was about four years ago. He's currently among the top ten richest men in the world, and only going higher. Really, the only reason he's not number one is that there's ancient monsters with ridiculous hidden, distributed fortunes, like Ras and Vandal, as well as some Middle Eastern oil/mineral/trade oligarchs. But he'll get there, because he's smart, and, frankly, that's just kinda his thing.
Waynetech, on the other hand, is only valued at about 31 billion right now. Not chump change, but a pretty long way from Lexcorp's 194 billion official valuation.
But if I can steal a march on him, get Google going, get Amazon going, get Facebook and Paypal and Apple all going before he realizes I'm a threat…
Well, I'll never overtake him. Not really. I figure he's gonna spend around 10 billion a year trying to kill Superman, and various other villainous projects. Whereas I'm going to have to do the equivalent of fixing Gotham's potholes with gold and ground up 100 dollar bills, and that's not even including the charity the rest of the country, and the world, needs. Plus paying for the Justice League, trying to get a space defense set up, setting up the emergency preparedness bunkers, food, supplies, shelters, and everything else the world's probably gonna need the next time some asshole titan covers the world in a hurricane… Plus, I don't have the ruthlessness to squeeze every dollar out of a business. My workers will be well paid, with benefits. My terms of service won't be exquisitely crafted to fuck the consumer. My products won't be made to fail the second the warranty runs out. I won't fuck the creators on my youtube knockoff, or force a billion ads down everyone's throat.
No, I don't think I'll ever beat Lex. He'll make competing products to everything I make, and he'll promote them aggressively. I'll get a solid audience of people who appreciate better, cheaper products that don't nickel and dime you for every app or surprise you with a thousand hidden fees, but I've got no illusions that Lex won't find plenty of customers.
Frankly, I just have moral objections to being a hyper-billionaire. I don't need that much fucking money. I don't like the idea of taking that much of my workers' efforts for myself. I certainly haven't fucking EARNED this money.
On Prime Earth, it'd never work out this way. But this is DC. I need that money. Lex isn't going to spend billions of dollars stockpiling emergency shelters, food, water, and medicine all over the country, and eventually the world, for when there's a huge disaster. Lex isn't going to pay for the Justice League's infrastructure and salaries. Lex isn't going to set up hospitals and clinics and homeless shelters and soup kitchens. Lex is gonna spend his money trying to kill Superman.
If I'm lucky, I can maybe convince the guy to use the results of trying to kill Superman in a useful manner. Superweapons to fight aliens and demons and shit are actually good things to have. I'd really like to get him to work with me for defense satellites and moonbases and a defense fleet, actually. The guy does want humanity to be safe, he just also wants humanity, and him specifically, to be ascendant.
But it's Lex. You can't trust the asshole. So I'd better be prepared to go it alone. And that means I need a shitload of money.
State of the Nugar
Nugar
Not too sore, are you?
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2015
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This is not a chapter, sorry. Next chapter is about 60% and moving slowly.
Sorry and thanks to everyone in my patreon who's put up with no chapters for the past months. I'm writing, but it's very slow.
And last month, actually, shit, two months ago, when I was actually making real progress... Boom. Another one. Officially a ministroke for now, but there's some indication that it was a real stroke, just like the two I had a year ago. Almost exactly a year ago, actually. Weird. Again, they think a drop in blood pressure caused my blood vessels to slam shut for a while.
Fucked me up good. In some ways, not as bad as last time. In some ways, worse. Less permanent true damage, but this time it hit my cognition and memory, not my sensory and motor. Couldn't think straight, forgot some words. I haven't played videogames, I haven't written, I haven't talked to my closest friends online more than about a dozen times since this happened.
So I've given up. I've filed for disability. Docs say I'll probably get it... eventually. Arkansas generally denies the first attempt every time.
Meanwhile, I got hit with a surprise big bill from a specialist that medicare denied. I hate to ask.... But I'm desperate. If you have any spare cash, considering that we're all hurting, I would appreciate the help. Ashamed to ask, gotta.
For ease of use, and avoiding Patreon's enshittification, Ko-fi is probably the best platform to use.
Support Nugar writes on Ko-fi!
. ko-fi.com/nugar
In addition to my patreon already being basically a charity at this point, I need one time support. There's nothing new on patreon, new meaning posted in the last half year or so, but there's stuff on there that hasn't been publicly posted. And some of it was bits, story starts and the like. I've posted the best two to my bits and pieces thread, starting here. https://forum.questionablequesting....ts-and-pieces.9020/?post=9033107#post-9033107
But if you do prefer to support me with a little bit over a longer term, patreon is still available.
Nugar | creating Original Fantasy and/or Scifi, and occasional fan proje | Patreon
Thanks for everything, hope you check out bits and pieces.
Mentally, I am actually doing better. Therapy works, amazingly enough. I just gotta get disability going, and put out some damned chapters of stuff.
Sorry and thanks to everyone in my patreon who's put up with no chapters for the past months. I'm writing, but it's very slow.
And last month, actually, shit, two months ago, when I was actually making real progress... Boom. Another one. Officially a ministroke for now, but there's some indication that it was a real stroke, just like the two I had a year ago. Almost exactly a year ago, actually. Weird. Again, they think a drop in blood pressure caused my blood vessels to slam shut for a while.
Fucked me up good. In some ways, not as bad as last time. In some ways, worse. Less permanent true damage, but this time it hit my cognition and memory, not my sensory and motor. Couldn't think straight, forgot some words. I haven't played videogames, I haven't written, I haven't talked to my closest friends online more than about a dozen times since this happened.
So I've given up. I've filed for disability. Docs say I'll probably get it... eventually. Arkansas generally denies the first attempt every time.
Meanwhile, I got hit with a surprise big bill from a specialist that medicare denied. I hate to ask.... But I'm desperate. If you have any spare cash, considering that we're all hurting, I would appreciate the help. Ashamed to ask, gotta.
For ease of use, and avoiding Patreon's enshittification, Ko-fi is probably the best platform to use.
Support Nugar writes on Ko-fi!
. ko-fi.com/nugarIn addition to my patreon already being basically a charity at this point, I need one time support. There's nothing new on patreon, new meaning posted in the last half year or so, but there's stuff on there that hasn't been publicly posted. And some of it was bits, story starts and the like. I've posted the best two to my bits and pieces thread, starting here. https://forum.questionablequesting....ts-and-pieces.9020/?post=9033107#post-9033107
But if you do prefer to support me with a little bit over a longer term, patreon is still available.
Nugar | creating Original Fantasy and/or Scifi, and occasional fan proje | Patreon
Thanks for everything, hope you check out bits and pieces.
Mentally, I am actually doing better. Therapy works, amazingly enough. I just gotta get disability going, and put out some damned chapters of stuff.