| A Brief History of Energy Theory, by Andrew Cain That "kids these days" have little knowledge of history is a regrettable annoyance which has existed since roughly the beginning of history. That they have little knowledge of the present despite the work of myself and my colleagues is far more regrettable. Last week I happened to see some children arguing in the road. A girl with a bit of green glass taped to her forehead was arguing with a boy who held a toy gun. The boy insisted that he shot her in the "forehead crystal" which meant that she, the "Maverick," was dead. Why? Because the single crystal was where "reploids all get their power." If only destroying a Maverick was as easy as shooting at a target on their heads! So for that little boy, and for any who may read this, I will describe in my preferred way why he was wrong. The reader need not worry about the presence of confusing mathematics. "Energy is energy regardless of source," as they say. The advent of micro-fusion gave humanity a true surplus of energy for the first time in history, but a surplus of anything will encourage new and creative ways of using it. Modern power grids, modern spacecraft and of course modern robotics would be impossible without it. The power surplus invested into computer technology led to the development of once-fantastical devices such as energy weapons, teleportation and matter synthesis modules, and even experimental forays into space-time manipulation. The one advance in micro-fusion which had the greatest ramifications was the Energy Tank technology of compressing pure energy into battery-like storage units collectively called "canisters." The early energists discovered that when an enormous amount of energy is tightly compressed in the presence of certain compounds, it sublimes into a liquid which retains a large percentage of that energy. The process is as simple as Einstein's famous equation; just as energy equals astronomically accelerated and expanded mass, mass equals astronomically slowed and compressed energy. The liquid required only a converter device, found then as now in most forms of automaton, to transform it into usable energy. Robots and androids could suddenly perform energy-intensive tasks including (but not limited to) wielding energy weapons, powering integrated matter synthesis modules and, in some cases, occasionally saving the world. Micro-fusion and liquid energy powered humanity and robotkind alike until energen crystals appeared. Synthetic energen had been produced in small quantities in laboratory settings since the time of Thomas Light. Unfortunately, it had limited use as a power source; liquid energy refused to crystallize unless in the presence of certain materials, and even when it did it was extremely fragile and generally unwilling to release its stored power. Attempts were made to harden synthetic energen, but doing so invariably rendered the crystals less capable of storing energy. As such, they were used in robotics only as augmenting and focusing devices in the rare cases when they were used at all. In this form the crystals had the curious habit of fading as the robot's main energy source faded, so many of the energen-bearing robots had them at least partially external as power gauges. (A momentary side-track: Despite the fact that synthetic energen is still relatively expensive, reploids these days have one or more synthetic energen crystals visible on their bodies. The number, shape and arrangement of them used to signify rank in the Maverick Hunters, but the practice has since devolved into aesthetics.) Such was the status quo until the discovery of natural energen. Natural energen crystals could mysteriously give upwards of 99.91% of their composition to energy converters. Close study of the crystals revealed that their "binding matter," the catalyst which allowed them to stay solid, was only a few million atoms. This defied all logic until the famed energist Professor H discovered that the crystals were largely made of an energy-dense, matter-like lattice with the atoms as anchor points. This explained why energen all but vanished into energy converters, though it did not explain how such a strange mineral could have possibly formed naturally. It mattered little. Thanks to energen, the scientific system we call "energy theory" revolutionized the world. Sharp weapons, durable security barriers, complicated computer systems and even simple machines could be made from literally nothing more than atoms and pure energy. Efficiency dictated, however, that most tools and the vast majority of structures still be made from traditional easy-gotten matter. I'll close by mentioning something that has recently been circulating in the news: force metal. Relying on the above information, I hope force metal's importance will make more sense to the casual observer. Force metal is an intriguing substance at least as durable as energen yet possessing much more power. The reason for this is simple: force metal, judging by initial experiments, appears to be fully materialized energy. Whereas the binding matter of energen is a few atoms, the binding matter of force metal is force metal. Bizarrely, the material force metal cannot dissolve into an energy converter, yet its unique radiation can to great effect. It seems that there is much we do not yet know about the natures of energy or the galaxy if such a thing as force metal can unexpectedly land on our little planet. |