What followed in the weeks after they returned to the Moon Base was nothing short of a mind-numbing grind for most of the staff. Iteration after iteration was tested, with the weapon repeatedly powered up and checked for surges as it cycled through the activation sequence.
Time after time it failed, and each change that improved one frequency would introduce issues in another.
There were suggestions to make them all independent circuit boards, but that would be massively oversized, and when it was actually tried, it increased the interference, as the leaking energy would precharge circuits on the other boards and cause them to introduce new interference patterns.
In short, the fix for what seemed to be a minor issue ended up being a larger design problem than actually designing a new weapons system prototype in the first place.
The only blessing for Max was that the refinement of the weapon was no longer their issue. They had designed and built the weapon, and proven that it worked as intended, so now it was up to the rest of the staff of the base to figure out how to make it work perfectly and not just function.
One of the small benefits that came with being on the new product design team.
What they had moved on to was power system designs. At first, they intended to reroute power that would be used for other high output weapons systems to the new design, but that proved to be somewhat inefficient, as the new design required a much smoother power delivery system than usual. It could be made usable, but that would require an additional noise filter, and they were already having issues with the packaging size on the weapon.
So, they started on a new Mecha power source design that would match or increase existing power output levels, while distributing it in a smooth and linear fashion.
The requirements sounded so simple, but when they handed off the weapon design and started on the new project, they really didn't have any idea where they should start.
"How about you, Ranarth? Do your people's records have anything that might help us here? Somewhere to start from that we might have overlooked?" Max asked.
Ranarth thought about the question for a moment before nodding. "I have seventeen different power sources on file that should be suitable in some way. They would all be power output improvements, but the question would be if you could make the rest of your technology compatible with them.
For example, I have this Neutrino field generator, which we use to power a number of our laser weapons, but I doubt that it would be at all suitable, since all of your technology is electricity-based. The power output is sufficient, but I'm not sure that the conversion would even be possible.
Then we have, oh no wait, I have the perfect technology for you. It was a hundred million years obsolete before I was born, discarded long before even the Eternal War had begun, but today it could be useful for you.
It is a three stage generator, as the creators called it. They needed a way to make Dark Energy technology compatible with the material world. Dark Energy only affects gravity in this layer, so what they did was they created a Dark Energy Field Array that was focused on a converging point inside a Dyson Sphere, creating a massive gravity well.
With a small amount of heavy material, an ultra-dense star can be created, and sustain fusion, while the energy is captured by the Dyson Sphere and the gravitational energy from the star's material is used as part of the energy feed for the array itself.
It was genius, and the amount of energy produced was absolutely tremendous."
Max gave him a suspicious look. "And why might this technology have been abandoned? It sounds far superior to anything that we're using right now."
Ranarth shrugged, unsure of the answer himself. "There was something about how a super dense star's collapse can create a black hole or a neutrino star supernova or something along those lines if the Dyson Sphere were to be damaged, but I'm sure that you can work something out."
Nico looked far too excited, which told Max as much as he needed to know about the potential dangers of that situation, even before he began to calculate the damage that a Supernova on the battlefield would cause should a Mecha using such a power source be destroyed.
"Do you know what would happen if we didn't use a super dense material and went with something like Hydrogen?" Max asked.
Ranarth Frowned. "Why would you want to do that? It would only create the same amount of power as a Dyson Sphere around a regular star, the size of the power plant. That might be equivalent to the current Antimatter reactors on your Destroyers, but certainly no more than that."
"I'm looking for a way to create the generator what won't end in a Supernova or a black hole. The idea is that we're trying to save planets, not blow them up when we take our first losses in battle."
Ranarth shrugged. "Then pick fights that are further away. You use drones, so you could just send them on a suicide mission and let the reactor go supercritical. If my math is right, it should be effective on Greater Energy Beings as well."
"He's got a point. We would just need a technology to close all the random black holes we made, and the problem would solve itself." Nico agreed.
Even the Innu looked at her like she was crazy after that comment, though they understood the basic logic behind cleaning up a mess that you made. But creating black holes anywhere was far too much damage to be considered acceptable.
Max sighed. "Does your file have the technical specifications on that? Even if we can stabilize a miniaturized Dyson Sphere, it should be enough power to give us smooth delivery for a Titan Class Mecha. The Warp Crystal-based antimatter reactors in them are quite low output compared to a Destroyer Class warship."
"Certainly, it's in the historical archives, so it's not classified or restricted. Just allow me a second to pull it out, along with all the related relic technology files that might be needed to create the tools that will be needed to create the generator."
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om