We Are Talking Krites

Not In The Sense You're Thinking Of Them, Mind

Because as soon as your glazzies registered 'Krites' I know your mind instantly went to the villainous alien species in 'Critters', the omnivorous were-porcupines that they are, and having mentioned them I can now wheel in a picture.  Art!

 

     Conrad has seen the original and it's an amusing low-budget schlock fest.  I cannot speak for the sequels, watch at your own peril.

     ANYWAY the kind of - excuse me whilst I put on a bit of background music - 'Krite' we're talking about here is of course - obviously! - derived from the Greek <hack hack> 'Hupokrites', meaning 'To play a part'.  Over millennia the Greek has been transformed via Old French to our contemporary 'Hypocrite'.  My 'Collins Concise English Dictionary' defines this as "A person who pretends to be what he is not" especially one professing a "pretence of virtue and piety".  Art!

IGNORE THE VULGARISM!  IGNORE THE VULGARISM!

     I rest my case, Your Honour.  At least that case.  He claims to have ended 8 wars, but this includes one he started, 'Star Wars', the War Of Jenkin's Ear - shot off by a Frenchman - and the War Of The Roses.  Not the fracas between Lancaster and York, because that predates South Canada by a good three centuries, but which genus of Rosa Grandiflora were going to be selected for the White House Rose Garden.  Art!

Donold rose* to the occasion and concreted it over

      ANYWAY allow me to bring in Caolan Robertson, the Irish chap who now lives in Kyiv, and who does investigative reporting, including the Kozaky incursion into Kursk where he filmed in that very same oblast, causing the Ruffians to convict him of terrorism in absentia.  He's been investigating an alumina plant in Eire which is owned and run by Ruffia, exporting alumina back to Mordorvia - despite Eire's supposed neutrality.  Here's a Tweet of his:

     If Ruffia is an analogue of Mordor, this makes Eire akin to Rhûn, who supplied Sauron with weapons and tribute.  There are investigations afoot into this Ruffian business, which is already rueing their existence and practices being brought to light.  Art!

     Rather a blast from the past, this is a picture I harvested from Twitter, dated March 15th 2026, before Orbanazi got a right shoeing in the Hungarian general election.  What seems to have sealed his fate is shaking J D Vance's venomous hand, which is the Greeting Of Actual Or Political Death.  Seriously.  Never take your glove off to shake Judge Death's hand.

     ANYWAY AGAIN, the Were-toad's stock in trade was lambasting the EU for trying to interfere in Hungary's internal politics, lambasting the EU for backing Ukraine, lambasting the EU for invigilating at European elections to ensure fairness and transparency, and in general - just lambasting the EU.

     Then he demanded the EU pony up €16 billion from the 'Security Assistance For Europe' fund for his regime.  Doubtless to siphon off 90% for him and his cronies, which is the approved Ruffian method.  Art!

     We've insulted Trump, Vance, Orcban and Putinpot, so let us move onto another example of hypocrisy, garnered from Youtube and 'r/Slash' and one of their 'Nuclear Revenge' tales.  It is narrated by Hypocrite Of Long Duration, hereafter HOLD, whom informed that he kept a bowl of medical marijuana on his mantlepiece, which kept being considerably lighter after he had a regular poker party in his apartment.  So, he installed an internal camera and caught Jealous Oaf Equally Lengthy, hereafter JOEL, nicking $60 worth of marijuana.  Art!

     Despite being on camera, JOEL decided to deny it and refused to repay or replace the missing weed.  Hugely unwise, one has to say, as HOLD had been a friend for 16 years and knew exactly where the bodies were buried.  So -

     "I decided to ruin his life"

     Note that HOLD had been utterly unconcerned about his 'friend's ghastly behaviour until it impacted him - the characteristic of a hypocrite.  Thus HOLD knew all about JOEL's affairs behind his wife's back, skimming off their joint bank account, traducing his wife, her mother and her sister.  Art!

     He screenshotted over 70 pages of social media comms between himself and JOEL, including confessions to affairs with 8 women, taking money for buying a car and using it to purchase drugs, hating his wife for being infertile, and some pretty awful NSFW stuff about conjugal rights.

     His wife filed for divorce and reported him to the police for the drugs he had in their house.  He got an 8-month prison sentence thanks to have stolen medical marijuana, amongst stuff like Oxycontin and Percodan.

     It gets worse.  Whilst he was in prison his boss filled his position, so when he got out he was unemployed.  Ex-wife wouldn't let him back in the house, so now he lives in his car and does his personal hygiene at truckstops.  Plus HOLD sent the socmed screenshots to everyone and 90% of JOEL's friends dropped him like a glowing coal.  HOLD got rid of the other 10% 'because they wanted to associate with a known thief'.  As did you for years, matey!  

"That last OP ... I find myself wondering why he would keep such a bad friend in his social circle. Anyone who would say such horrible things about his life partner is a person I wouldn't let walk my dog, let alone permit them in my home."

     Wow, that went longer than I expected.  Time to put up a few illos to balance the wall-of-text.

Napoli Nails The Nappy Nonce

Bookmarked on Twitter as I thought it was hilarious.  Art!

     O my goodness did it trigger the MAGAts!  They hate anything that dethrones their bloated tangerine toad.

Flotsam And Jets

No!  That is not a truncation of 'Flotsam and jetsam' I'll have you know, it's an hilarious pun, hilarious I tell you.  Laugh or it's the Remote Nuclear Tormentor!

     Art?

     These are the shores of Odesa, which the orcs ceaselessly bombard with drones, the poster child for dog-in-the-manger.  This gentleman has retrieved on that had been downed over the Black Sea and swept inshore by the tides.  Art!

     The warhead and engine are both missing, so it's not going to explode.  I would caution hefting one of these about by hand, thought, they are likely to have sharp edges.  Still, if he can fit it in the family saloon, what a garden ornament to have!

When Birds Attack

Not the Alfred Hitchcock film.  Rather, the Firepoint F5 'Flamingo' cruise missile, which we have mentioned on occasion in the past.  It was supposed to go into serial production months ago, having been delayed by a Ruffian strike on their production facility, with up to five a day being produced.

     It made an inauspicious debut, has been used only in small numbers and has seemingly suffered from accuracy problems.

     Until now.  Art!

     A one-second clip posted by an orc.  This is a Flamingo flying in broad daylight, reaching Cheboksary, 1,000 kilometres from Ukraine, with no sirens, SAMs or MANPADS or mobile fire teams to stop it.  Art!

     Behold, the VNIIR-Progress plant, that used to produce electronic modules for drones and missiles.  Past tense, it was hit by two Flamingos.  A month ago a Flamingo hit the pavement 50 yards in front of the building above, meaning they'd only just repaired all the blown-in glass and window frames.  Oooops.

A Matter Of Logistics

SIT BACK DOWN!  This item is not about military transport.  No, you see our humble Ford Focus is in for serious repairs for several days, meaning Your Humble Scribe had to attempt a partial-weekly shop last night via bus.  I discovered that I am incredibly inept when using Co-Op self-serve terminals.  So, since start time on Friday is 12:00, I shall be ambling to Lidl and getting a few more things I wasn't able to physically carry on Wednesday.  Wish me luck.  Art!

Finally -

I passed on the two spare jigsaw pieces to Wonder Wifey.  I like to keep you informed.

*  Ha!  Do you see wh- O you do.

ADAM, The OAF and the SOB

Welcome To Part 2 Of Our Torrid Tale

I need to recap, as this is being written on Wednesday for a Friday publication and we need both a dramatis personae and establishing background.  So, the setting is a mid-sized plumbing company, and we are dealing with the admin that runs the business behind the scenes.  Art!

     Hmmm I think the AI Art Generator is a bit out of sorts on this graphic.

     ANYWAY we had the narrator, ADAM (Able DispAtcher Man), Older And Foolish, (OAF), the owner, and SOB (Sadistic Overbearing Bottomhole).  There was also Henry The Ancient One, who had it graven in stone that He Never Worked The Weekend.  When we left them, SOB had just permitted ADAM to work overtime, which realllly offended SOB, as he was trying to cut out OT in order to look good to OAF.  This happened over several weekdays, with ADAM making sure to copy in OAF and HR, as SOB deliberately avoided doing so.  Art!

     Later in the week ADAM sends an e-mail to SOB, HR and OAF detailing that he'd done 44 hours and had thus hit his OT limit, so he'd have to stop as of 12:30 that afternoon.  

     Entirely predictably this caused SOB to explode in a fit of apoplectic rage and he, entirely predictably, shouted and ranted and tanted at ADAM.  However, and you knew that word was coming, Henry finished at 14:00, so if ADAM departed at 12:30 SOB would have to handle all calls until 19:30.  Wisely, ADAM got it in writing.  Art!

     ADAM also provoked SOB to the point of a heart attack, by quoting 'It's The Letter Of The Law!' (I added the exclamation mark for sheer wickedness) which SOB had rashly and gleefully quoted once, leading to ADAM hitting him over the head with it whenever possible. He also quoted employment law about having worked the last Sunday and five more days, so he wasn't working that Sunday.

     I put the illo above because SOB had to work the Sunday and thus -

     - missed his kid's sports tournament.  Har har!
     Don't forget the Mystery Object that ADAM purchased previously.  This comes into play later.  

     Come Monday the 26th November (no idea what year this is) OAF, HR and SOB were all waiting for a meeting with ADAM.  Oooo-er Matron!

     Sorry that they look so jolly and amused.  Imagine them upside down, glowering.  The first thing that came to light was that OAF had NOT authorised cutting back on OT, which embarrassed SOB enormously.  

     ADAM proceeded to give all three a sound lecture in employment law, which may have been Canuckistanian as it seemed both sensible, logical and moral.  He pointed out that he had 3 weeks of leave outstanding, that the company policy for leave was use it or lose it by December 31st, and he was going to take that leave come what may.  Art!

      Who found this unacceptable?  Why SOB!  Unlike every other employee, they had mysteriously amassed sufficient leave to be able to go on holiday after only 3 months, when everyone else needed a whole year before accumulating leave.  Conrad smells the interfering fingers of OAF at work, pulling entitlement strings.  Henry, for your information, had already got his Christmas vacation approved.

     So, SOB had booked a holiday in Florida at Disney World - except they now had to abandon it in order to cover the dispatch board, blowing thousands of dollars, and causing them to whine and swear for the next two weeks.

     When ADAM returned from holiday, SOB was waiting with a newly-hired colleague and termination paperwork, armed with a malicious grin.

     As well he might, he didn't know what was waiting in the wings.  Art!

     Here Eric the attorney friend of ADAM turns up again.  He contacted SOB, saying that he'd been interviewing ADAM for a new job and SOB was down as his last employer.  Did he have anything to say about hiring ADAM?

     SOB, predictably, went off on a foul-mouthed rant, castigating and slandering ADAM - who then joins the phone call along with two other attorneys, who are witnesses to SOB breaching employment law, which states that an ex-employer can ONLY state previous job title and dates employed.

     Which leads to a wrongful dismissal suit.  ADAM, Eric, OAF, HR, OAF's lawyer and SOB are all present.  Pride of place goes to the recordings that ADAM made on his 'spy pen', the gadget that Eric recommended he purchase to record SOB, and which we referred to yesteryon without comment.  SOB's face went pale and sickly when the recordings started to play.  Art!

     This leads to an offer of 3 months severance, so ADAM plays back SOB's refence rant, backed by Eric and his colleagues offering to make a sworn deposition.  

     Net result:  15 months severance and SOB was fired.  Not only that, thanks to ADAM and OAF they were essentially unemployable.

     I love a happy ending!

Derivation DNA

Conrad has been listening to various Youtube music soundtrack vlogs, which help sustain the creative process without intruding.  I am unsure if they're generated by AI or flesh and blood Hom. Sap. or other hideous magics.  Art!

     If you know anything about anime, then you ought to know of the film 'Akira', which is set in Neo-Tokyo, and which was, according to the blurb ' - about to explode - ', which is where the creators of the above have sought inspiration.  The general dampness, darkness and endless neon cityscapes all echo 'Blade Runner', especially underscored by a synthesiser-based soundtrack.  It may be quite derivative, but those two are good sources to derive from.  Besides which, it's free.  Always a good selling point.

Guess Who's Frothing Mad Again?

Art!

     Whom but our old chums Sovereign Support Services, this time at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida.  The inundation of froth brought out the local fire services, who rapidly determined there was no fire.  Unlike the Californian incident, here someone had the wit to close the hangar doors, so there was little release of foam beyond the hangar.  Unlike the Californian hangar, there were three aircraft being serviced inside this one.  Ooops.  Art!

     They didn't come to any harm, the foam is created specifically not to corrode or erode or otherwise be inimical.  The news item I cribbed this from states that these foam malfunctions occur once every six weeks for the past 20 years, over 137 incidents.  Sounds like 'Be Amazed' might have been right about engineers getting it wrong.

A Life On The Ocean Grave

Ever since the orcs invaded Ukraine and occupied their Black Sea shoreline and ports, they have been stealing grain, Ukraine being one of the world's biggest breadbaskets, or bringing in supplies, weapons, equipment and orcs.  Not having a navy, the Kozaky were hard put to prevent this from happening.

     Until now.  All of a sudden they have hit 5 freighters in the Sea of Azov that were running into Mariupol and Berdiansk, using Firepoint or Behemot drones, rather than the naval equivalent, the dreaded Sea Baby.  

     'Jake Broe' goes into some detail about this, with a series of photographs showing the damage.  Art!

     The Kozaky seem to have decided to take a very hard line here.  Previously they've hit these vessels in the stern and engine room, where the possibility of casualties was low.  In these instances they've hit the bridge directly with a drone, which has opened this Azeri tanker up like a tin of dog food, killed 5 crew on the bridge, started a fire and made the survivors abandon ship.  It's now a floating derelict on the Sea of Azov.  Art!

     Down by the stern and liable to sink in the first heavy sea.

Rubbing It In A Tad

Ol' Putinpot has had a solid losing streak of other countries where he'd previously been sticking his scrofulitic talons in to meddle maliciously.  Romania, Moldova, Hungary and now - Art!

"One - two - three - Putin Khuilo!"

     It's very rude so I shan't translate it.  

     So, Armenia becomes another nation to defy Mordorvia, which has been spitting venom that it's ineffectual interference efforts didn't bear fruit.

     Possibly because the FSB agency responsible for subverting ex-Sinister nations got massively purged by the Puffy-Phaced Petrol Pimp back in 2022.  Turning it from the Fifth Service to the Filth Service.

Finally - 

New car ahoy.

Plumbing The Depths

Conrad Is Unsure If This Intro Is Malicious Compliance Or Revenge

I shall relate the story and you can judge for yourselves.  I've had it on the back-burner in 'Save To Watch Later' for months as the whole story runs for about 20 minutes, and took ages to annotate.  It's another of 'Ripe's stories, and his tales tend to run long, so I'm not sure if this is going to be the whole Intro or not.  Art!

     Because a mid-size plumbing company is pretty dull stuff when used as an illustration, before you ask.  Yes, that's the business behind today's Intro, not evil mutant pineapples attacking sentient windmills.

     So! today's sorry tale of angst in the workplace is narrated by Able DispAtcher Man, hereafter ADAM.  He was one of three admin staff who covered all the shifts between them, the others being: Henry, who was so old he'd witnessed the death of the dinosaurs.  He never worked weekends, and in fact didn't really need to work at all given his hoarded wealth.  He worked to avoid having to care for his even older, dementia-stricken parents, a duty that fell to his sister;  Smashley, a single mother to three children, who arrived late, left early and was a howling absence of work ethic.  Art!

Henry

     Things went south when Smashley got involved with one of the plumbers, doing what ADAM called 'horizontal dancing', and fraudulently puffing his hours up in order to split the difference between them.  She got caught out and fired on the spot, leaving only 2 admin staff.  ADAM agreed to a temporary change of his normal 08:00 - 17:00 hours, starting instead at 11:00 to provide cover for when Henry left.  Art!

     Then the owner, whom I shall dub Older And Foolish, hereafter OAF, hired a third person and put them in charge of ADAM and Henry.  We will call them SOB, after ADAM's name for them, as they were a Sadistic Overbearing Bottomhole.  In ADAM's deathless prose 'He was an ass', especially since he denied him leave on two separate occasions.

     SOB had unilaterally decided to cut OT in order to look good to OAF, docking ADAM 5 hours he'd worked and forbidding him to do any overtime.  Not only that, he cut 30 minutes from ADAM's pay over lunch, despite the latter working during his lunch.  When ADAM protested, SOB came out with a quote he was to later regret: 'It's the letter of the law', meaning he was legally able to dock his report's wages.  Art!

Close enough

     Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

     Enter Eric, a long-time friend of ADAM, and an attorney at a highly-respected law firm in the city, whom ADAM consulted over a meeting involving beer and chicken wings.  He made one solid recommendation that ADAM ought to purchase in order to cover his bottom and uncover others, which he did.  No, I'm going to keep it secret.  Tee hee!  Also, Art!

     Because he started work at 11:00, ADAM's lunch fell due at 16:00, which is when he went to eat it in his car on the company parking lot.  The first time it happened, SOB came looking for him, only to be told that, if ADAM wasn't going to be paid for his lunch, he most certainly wasn't going to be working it, and moreover 'It was the law of the land'.  SOB left in a frothing rage and tried to change lunch to 14:00, whilst Henry was still in the office.  No dice, ADAM quoted chapter and verse on working hours and lunchtime entitlement, and also added 'It's the letter of the law', probably bringing SOB close to having a rage-stroke.  Art!

     Every time his will was thwarted, SOB would respond with aggressive swearing and cursing and threats - remember the 'B' in SOB.

     Now, you may cast your mind back to several paragraphs ago, when ADAM agreed to a temporary change in hours thanks to there being only 2 admin staff.  So, he pointed out to SOB in an e-mail - which he copied in to HR and OAF because SOB certainly didn't inform them - that he'd be reverting to his original hours of 08:00 - 17:00 as of next Monday.  When SOB objected in e-mails and person, he once again got the answer that must have dangerously elevated his blood pressure: "It's the letter of the law", probably pronounced with emphasis "It's The Letter Of The Law".  Art!

Think calm thoughts, SOB

     One of the admin staff's jobs was to cover late calls into the office, from people making emergency plumbing requests, up to 19:30.  However - O that word again! - with ADAM on his new hours, he would have left hours before the lines closed.  Surely gritting his teeth so hard he suffered enamel damage, SOB told him to cover the late calls, thus creating overtime, which he had desperately wanted to avoid.

     Okay!  I'm going to call a halt here, as the transcription above is half of what my handwritten notes run to, or else this BOOJUM! would be another Intro only.  Part Two tomorrow.  I bet you can hardly wait.  Art!

BINGO!  BINGO!  BINGO!

One of the problems of having a mind like a skip four miles in every dimension is that stuff comes up to the surface and needs identifying.

     For example, I well remember reading a couple of novels in the early Seventies, written for young adults, a cringe phrase if ever there was one, involving a squad of British commandos.  Could I remember the titles?  I could not!!  Could I remember the author?  That neither!  Damn you old age and gin.  Art!

British vandals with guns visit Teuton tourists in Norway 1941

     For no good reason I was carrying out a bit of Google-fu, inputting various combinations of 'British commandos', 'Norway', 'Young adult', 'Seventies', and then remembered that one of the characters was nicknamed 'Curly' and another went by 'Sam'.

     I struck paydirt.  Art!

"You are likely thinking of The Tunnel Busters, the second book in the classic pulp/adventure series Fighting Four by W. Ryerson Johnson. The story follows a specialized WWII commando unit carrying out a high-risk mission behind enemy lines. [1]

The main characters in the team include: [1]

• Sam Foster: The communications expert.
• Curly Bates: The team's explosives expert."

     Let's have a cover picture.  Art!

     O dear, I hear Abebooks a-calling.  NO!  Be strong, Conrad, be strong!

Another Unflattering Canklegraph

You may have seen, by now, clips of Donold Judas Trump walking out of an interview where he was being challenged by Kristen Welker, pushing back on his conspiranoid loonwaffle blather.  Donnie Dorko hates hates hates his lies being defied, especially if the defier is a woman, and he looked so empurpled some viewers feared he'd stroke out in his chair.  Art!

     He looks like an angry paper bag and it's hard to tell where his tie ends and his scrofulous flesh begins.

Chongarbage

Forgive my punning.  In more bad news for Putinpot, Mordorvia, the orc army and tourists in Krim, the strategically important bridges at Chongar that leads onto the isthmus has been well and truly scragged by the Kozaky.  Art!

     Some pundits have been showing the old Storm Shadow missile impact from a couple of years ago, either unaware or not caring that it's the wrong image.  Art!

      Stormzy is not intended nor very good at bridge-busting, as it's intended to penetrate into a reinforced bunker and then explode.  Rather like shooting a door with a rifle; all you do is make a neat little hole in it.  Art!

     The green overlay means Firepoint, in this case an FP, and each bridge was generously allocated two each.  These are a fraction of the cost of Stormzy and much better suited to destroy the bridge on impact, instead of blamming a neat, easily surmountable hole in it.  Imagine shooting that same door with a shotgun loaded with buckshot - much more destructive.  Art!

     "Chongarskiy bridge - ('use' couldn't be defined) - a blow struck at enemy logistics".

     The orcs will definitely try to get this repaired in short order.  In the black and white photo you can see either end of an old pontoon bridge they put up whilst repairs were being conducted.

     There's nothing to stop the Ukrainians coming back with more drones after it gets repaired, mind.

Final Report

I finished off the Marvel 'Avengers' jigsaw, with no pieces missing.  Art!

     The sharper-eyed amongst you will have noticed the two pieces left over.  They don't belong to this puzzle, and judging from the artwork for the second puzzle in this box, they don't belong to that one, either.

     Someone, somewhere, is sadly looking at their jiggy missing two pieces.

Finally -

Looks like our Focus is on it's way to the scrapyard.  Farewell stout fella!

If I Were To Pair The Acronyem 'U.S.S.' And The Word 'Enterprise'

Then You Might Combine The Two

Believing that Conrad is once again harping on about that obscure Sixties sci-fi series 'Starry Trex', and the titular space charabanc with which they used to whiz across the galaxy.  Art!

The U.S.S. Enterprise

     Welllll, only kind of.  I also want to add in a few spoilers from 'Leviathan Wakes', the first of 'The Expanse' novels, so avoid if you've not read them but intend to.

     'Only kind of' because 'U.S.S.' actually stands for 'Unbelievable Super Sandwich'.

      What am I blabbering about now?  O I thought you'd never ask!  You see, I came across a thumbnail of Richard Feynman, one of the cleverest men of the Twentieth Century, up alongside Ol' Albert, and a Youtube vlog titled "Aliens Will NEVER Arrive" from. the 'Feynman Effect' channel.  Art!

     Richard was a physicist, thus given to rational analysis and mathematical modelling, which he applied to the question 'Why haven't aliens arrived yet?'

 Food As Fuel    In his opinion, the fundamental physics of our universe prevents any such thing from ever happening, and he begins with an analogy as explanation.  Suppose you were tasked with crossing the whole circumference of Planet Earth ON FOOT, with only a single sandwich to sustain you.  Even on a three-decker* you'd only get about 40 kilometres over a single day.  Simples! say people, simply load up with more sandwich fuel.  Art!

     Alas no, because all those sandwiches greatly increase the mass you now have to move, meaning you need to expend more energy, in a positive feedback loop.  Conrad wonders if it wouldn't be more efficient to simply construct a single, Super Sandwich, which is where today's title comes in.  Art!

     ANYWAY the analogue ends up crushing our sarnie-devouring footsore traveller.

     Light Speed  From an analogy Ol' Rich turns to Proxima Centauri, our nearest interstellar neighbour, a red dwarf 4.2 light years distant.  Art!

     Given that the speed of light, 'c', is 300 million metres per second, it still takes it 4 year 75 days to get there.  To make the journey there in a duration within human lifetimes requires a spaceship to be travelling at a significant fraction of c, say 10%.  Thus a one-way trip at 30 million metres per second would take 40 years to get there, instead of the 100,000 we can presently manage.  

     Of course - obviously! - it isn't that simple, and Ol' Rich explains that a SINGLE kilogram at 0.1 c has been accelerated there by the expenditure of 45 million megajoules of energy, whereas a functional spaceship would mass in the millions of kilos.  Art!

Konstantin Tsiolkovsy

     Ol' K came up with the Tsiolskovsky Rocket Equation back in Tsarist times, probably as an adjunct of trying to blow up the Hapsburg capitals or somesuch.  ANYWAY AGAIN you plug in exhaust velocity and desired final speed to work out how much fuel is required to get there.  Art!

     For a 1,000 ton spaceship you are going to need 200,000 tons of fuel to get it to 0.1 c.  As Ol' Rich put it, a small moon of fuel to move an object the size of a block of flats.  Art!

     In 'The Expanse' series the first few volumes deal exclusively with hard sci-fi concepts, with spaceships using superheated steam for delicate manoeuvring, chemical-burning engines, as well as fusion torches and the fusion Epstein Drive.  Nothing beyond the bounds of possibility, and all very, very much limited to sub-light speeds.  The background to the novels is that Hom. Sap. has thoroughly colonised the Solar System but timely interstellar travel is beyond them; that enormous vessel you see to port is the 'Nauvoo', a generation ship intended to travel to the Centauri system in a journey taking centuries.  Sub-light travel, you see.

Space Is Not Empty  The 'Interstellar Medium' is verrrry attenuated but still has a modicum of matter lurking in deep space, principally stray hydrogen atoms and particles of dust.

     Ol' Rich, postulating an alien spaceship able to travel at 0.5 c, as they are clearly in a burning hurry to get about the cosmos, meaning it's likely to get a speeding ticket thanks to traversing 150 million metres per second.  Or, to put it another way, circling Planet Earth 4 times in a second.  Art!

Aliens hauling bottom

    

     I mentioned hydrogen atoms.  There are 6.68 x 10²² hydrogen atoms in a single cubic centimetre of water.  There is one hydrogen atom per cubic centimetre in deep space, which is rather weedy, until you realise that the alien spaceship is hitting them at 30 million metres per second or 108 billion kilometres per hour.  Thus each individual atom impacts like a full-power rifle round - and 15 quadrillion (15,000,000,000,000,000) are hitting the alien ship every single second.  Hope they had a good warranty deal.  Art!

     Then we come to dust particles in the interstellar ether.  Ol' Rick mentions that these vary in size from 0.01 microns to 1.0 microns, which are too small to see with the naked eye.  A single dust mote hitting the alien ship would result in an explosion equivalent to 43 tons of TNT.  The density of dust particles in space is about one per million cubic metres, so the alien ship would be hitting 150 per second, or 6,530 TNT tons equivalent per second.

     That illustration by Mark Van Owen above shows the effect of Tauran micro-missile accelerated up to a significant fraction of c, it being no larger than a grain of sand.  It hit the military transport our protagonist and caused extensive, though not crippling, damage.  And that was only one dust mote equivalent.

     Ol' Rich sums up the various methodologies that have been suggested to defeat the assault of hydrogen and dust particles, none of which have solved the problem, and which indeed add more problems to the solution.  Art!

     This is the second stage of the 'Daedalus' space probe, mounting a beryllium shield atop to protect the main body from impacts.  Whether this would work, as it was intended to reach 12% of c, is another matter.  Plus the beryllium adds it's own mass to the overall probe total.  The 'Daedalus' was never intended to carry Hom. Sap. just so we're clear.  Good job, it was going to go an a one-way 50 year journey.  Art!

     Then there are the wildly exotic 'plasma shields', deploying matter in it's fourth state and able to destroy any hydrogen or dust that gets anywhere near, with the proviso that they need to be 'on' permanently and eat up enormous amounts of power.  Art!

     Cheating a bit here, as I couldn't find any illo of a magnetic shield for use in deep space.  Once again, the magnetic fields might deflect hydrogen atoms, but dust particles are not charged positive or negative and they'd wouldn't roll off like water off a duck's back.

     I fear that Ol' Rich was not at all sanguine about any alien visitors in the near future, or the middle future, or the far future, or at all, as the basic physics of our galactic neighbourhood preclude it from ever happening - hence this Snip - Art!

     This is why 'Starry Trex' uses a warp drive to avoid buzzkill concepts like reality by scooting around the edges; I believe when the Enterprise goes to 'Impulse power' they are reverting, or resorting, to a fusion/fission/chemical/ion drive that conforms with real world physics.  Art!

     'The Expanse' gets around interstellar distances and problems by establishing 'gateways' that short-circuit the continuum on a four or five parsec level.  Or is that 'Forbidden Planet'? where they also have a hyperdrive that (Cont. Page 94).

Oooops.  Another Intro that ran for the entire blog.  Believe me, the fictional elements I've mentioned here are merely giving the surface a light buffing, never mind a scrath.  We may yet come back to this.  I bet you can hardly wait.

*  If you know, you know.