we can get started.”
“What’s going on?”
“Jillian, George has come up with an issue that we feel must be explored. I’m going to need you and Chris to make another trip in the Jukebox to find some information in the past that we need.”
Chris looked at the display, “What do you need exactly?”
“We need you to find out what elements are used to power a Jenze Battleship.”
Chris started laughing, “Oh, is that all George. I thought it was going to be something hard. Are you crazy? How are we going to do something like that?”
George smiled, “I have no idea but we need you to do it.”
“Why?”
George took a deep breath and looked at Meisa and she said, “Don’t look at me. I can’t explain it in terms they would understand.”
George reached under his desk drawer and pulled out a blue and orange beach ball that he held in his palm, “I’m going to try and do this in terms that everyone can understand. If I lose you, stop me, ok.”
Dolly smiled, “We’re all ears.”
“As all of you know, we are going to build the Main Battleships we’re going to use to defend our planet from those that mean to do us harm. Now let’s say that this beach ball represents the material we currently use to power the Jukebox Class of warships. In order to build a ship that can take on one of the Blue Giant Battleships we will need to be able to match their power. So if this is the power of a Jukebox, how big would the ball have to be to double the power?”
Chris said, “Twice as big.”
“Very good, and if we wanted to make it a thousand times more powerful?”
“A thousand times as big.”
“Again, an accurate answer. The measurements we took on the beam fired by that Blue Giant that our Captain here destroyed once it reached full power was 500,000 times stronger than the beam on the Jukebox Class. How big will the ball be now?” George waited as they figured it out in their heads and then said, “It will have to have a diameter of a hundred and eighty miles. “How long do you think it would take to build a ship that big, much less a fleet of thousands?”
George waited as the magnitude of the hypothetical ship’s size sunk in. “Our nuclear material is stronger than that used on the Blue Ships but now do you understand the need for their ships to be nine hundred miles in diameter?” George waited and added, “We know our material is stronger because the Jukebox Class ships can kill their Scouts that are three times larger.”
“George, are you saying we aren’t going to be able to build a ship to stand up to them?”
“Hang on just a moment.” George reached over and picked up a jar with sand and a small ship in it. He poured some sand into his palm and picked out one grain. He held it up between his fingers and said, “Now let’s say this grain of sand represents the power of a Jukebox Class Ship.” George saw everyone seeing where he was going, “If we use material that makes this much energy at its current level, the ship would only have to be three miles in diameter. This would allow us to build high numbers of these ships quite quickly.” George smiled, “Dolly, start the recording I sent you and I’m going to explain what’s happening.”
Dolly started the recording and George narrated, “What you see here is a Jenze Battleship attacking a Moet fleet at that planet you recorded Chris. Notice the color of the beam being fired at those ships.” George paused and continued, “Here you see the red beam being fired by the small Jenze Ship that was destroyed by the asteroid.”
Arvolo said, “The blue beam is much stronger.”
“Yes it is; give the Captain a Cuban Cigar. The beam on the small ship couldn’t be as strong because it couldn’t carry enough material due to its size. I measured the intensity of that blue beam used by the Jenze and it matches up to a power source that is equivalent to a grain of sand.”
Everyone looked at each other at the table in
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