[Free for all]It started with a newsflash

[HRogge]

Had some idea about a news flash that might draw a lot of rumors and discussions among the Fen. If you like it, just add to it. The date is somewhen in 2019...

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Newscaster: “Today, Catgirl Industries announced that they planned to move their Little Big Bang Labs out of the solar system.”

**video switches to a catgirl speaking**

Cathy: “We have hired the Tyger Tyger to move the Little Big Bang Labs and some support Modules out of the Solar System. It will be positioned a few lightyears away from Sol in the direction of Gliese 866.”

Reporter: “Gliese 866? Is there anything special?”

Cathy: “Oh nothing at all. And we wont move there, just maybe five or six lightyears away from Sol in this direction. We are planning some new experiments in the Little Big Bang Labs and Sol isn’t the right place to start them.”

Reporter: “That is out in the middle of nowhere! Do you expect an exceptional danger?”

Cathy: “No, I neither expect strange black holes, strange matter or huge explosions. Just normal things happening in the labs all the time!”

Reporter: “What kind of experiments do you want to do?”

Cathy: “I cannot comment on the experiments at the moment, but we might have some facts ready to publish in the coming year.”

**video switches back to the studio**

Newscaster: “Catgirl Industries was unwilling to provide more data about their experiments, but we will later talk with an expert about possible explanations.”

[robkelk]

"They have a point, you know."

Noah muted the television and looked at his wife. "Which point are you thinking of, Leda? That a high-energy experimental facility shouldn't be located in the middle of populated space? Or that it's easier to hide what you're doing when nobody's looking over your shoulder?"

"Those, too, but what I was thinking of was that, for all the lip-service StellviaCorp gives to exploration, we're still no farther away from Earth than Kandor City is."

"True, but there's a very good reason for us not to head off into the great unknown."

The door opened. "Mommy, Daddy, can Mayonaka sleep over tonight?"

Leda glanced at Noah; when he just smiled, she answered, "If it's all right with Ben and Gina, then it's okay with us, Helen."

"Yay! Thanks, Mommy!" And the youngest of the Scott family ran off.

As the door closed behind her daughter, Leda nodded. "She is a good reason to stay here, isn't she?"

"She's the best reason to not pull up stakes and go colonize Zeta Tucane, as much as we might want to. Maybe when she's old enough to look after herself, we can move the paying customers from Stellvia to Beta and the scientists from Beta to Stellvia, fly Stellvia and Wonderland nearly thirty light-years, take up an orbit around Ocean, and just enjoy doing science for the sake of science... but that's at least a decade away. Right now, Helen needs family, friends, and an education."
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Dartz]

from: jet.gillette24@mail.fides.roughriders.fen
to: ''Cathy''
subj: just saw the news

Just got the news out here. So you's are finally going through with it. First, good luck! Of course there won't be black holes or supernovae.... those aren't weird enough

Second, depending on the position of Jenga, you might be needed a place to lay over on the way back from the new station. If you're ever in need of a waystation, the rock is at your disposal. We've got more fitting out done since you were last there, so it should actually be reasonably comfortable now. And since we're out there on our own now most weekends working, we could use the company.

About the other matter... I'd rather speak to you in person if that's alright. Not confident of security atm. And I promised Mackie I'd take him out.

-Jet
Gilette, the best a fan can get

Mackie was born in 2019.... at this stage, he's still stuck in the brand-new KnightWing.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[HRogge]

from: ''Cathy''

to: jet.gillette24@mail.fides.roughriders.fen

subject: Re: just saw the news

Hi Jet,

good to know that you don't give in to the small flood of paranoia we got in our mail servers at the moment. Me and Vivio are staying at Jenga, so we will still be closer to the Inner System, but a lot of good friends move out for at least a year. I will miss them a lot I think.

We will have to do some reply runs in the coming year, maybe thats a nice additional chance to visit Frigga more.

Say hello to everyone else on Frigga.

- Cathy

specialist in purring since 2012.

P.S.: I will see that I join the next group of catgirls coming to Frigga for racing and training next week, we will have enough time to talk.

[HRogge]

Maybe starting this thread didn't worked out that well, but I got a bit of inspiration from it how the story of the Little Big Bang Labs will continue:
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History (post move-out)

In Mid 2019 Catgirl Industries decided that they had to step up their efforts to explore the effects of Handwavium in physics and their applied research in Eezo. After a fierce discussion they decided to upgrade the accelerators of the Little Big Bang Labs with small Mass Effect cores to increase the speed of the particle beams. It didn’t took long until a catgirl asked an important question.

“What if we move the accelerators out of the limit?”

Everyone at Jenga was excited about the idea, but quite a few catgirls were also a bit worried. Smashing waved and unwaved materials together faster than the speed of light was an ‘Out of Context’ problem. Nobody had any experience what to expect, how much energy this collisions would produce.

A month later, the Tyger Tyger departed from Jenga, taking the Modules of the Little Big Bang Labs and some Modules for living space with them. The complex was reassembled in deep interstellar space, lightyears away from any kind of known star system. The next month was a very exciting time for everyone at the labs, starting with some small remote controlled tests with a single accelerator up to a full powered tests of the whole upgraded lab complex.

When the catgirls were sure they would not trigger an extinction level explosion, they started to think about where to place the Little Big Bang Labs in the future. Keeping the lab that far away from home wasn’t necessary and complicated logistics and travel quite a lot. In late 2019 the complex was moved again, this times into a distant orbit around the gas giant Nostromo in the Inner Oort Cloud.

The position of Nostromo far outside the Limit and its own smaller Limit makes it a good place for Faster Than Light technology research. The planet gives the Little Big Bang Labs a place to anchor themselves around, moving into and out of the Limit easily.

Catgirl Industries is already working on an extended drone base to mine Nostromo for Helium-3 to fuel their fusion reactors. It would still take the labs more than a year to deliver a first new breakthrough.

The base

The new Little Big Bang Labs are built around the existing particle accelerator complex and the attached “Physics” labs. This is were most of the catgirls are spending their time, looking for new insights about waved materials and Mass Effect technology.

The rest of the base is a split between living space and infrastructure areas. The new Little Big Bang Labs have two hangars, one of them equipped for large supply trucks. There is also a Hive for a growing number of space drones, which are the primary defense of the base.

Despite the distance of ~ ¼ lightyear to the Inner System and Jenga Cortana and Serina are still present in the lab complex, helping the catgirls to keep the base running. The Little Big Bang Labs have their own Interwave transmitter, directly connecting it to Jenga. There is also space for a second emitter, which has not been built yet.

The base has some additional free rooms for the crew of any ship that wants to make a stop at Nostromo. There also have been discussions if they want to add a hangar large enough to house a Space Shuttle or Normandy class.

Trivia

• The one-way delay of the Interwave to Jenga is nearly 15 minutes.
  
• The CI Interwave node acts as a relay for a number of drones the Artemis Foundation put around Nostromo even before CI moved their labs there.
  

Quirk:

• Defect toy? The efficiency of the station does not drop if the station is not changed or modified every few days. Despite this, the catgirls are still doing it regularly.
  
• Big Boom! The explosions that happen every few days can be sometimes felt even on close spaceships. The record for ‘close’ in 2020 is 43 lightseconds.