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[_DivideByZero_]

((That explains... a lot.

Anyway, I feel it would be too time-consuming to have to repeatedly cross-check with Kevak to make sure I'm getting things right. I'd much rather do a border system or something where I am at liberty to define the history of the region. Or, as I was about to suggest, a former human site that has become less economically significant over the years and recently acquired by the KX9 in some form of another.

I was thinking that, since antimatter mining is now only a small fraction of total production, it the KX9 would seek to buy rights to one of the more significant mining sites if they didn't have one already. That's what I was thinking so far.))

[WillowLuman]

What other player species have backgrounds we could mine for Fun? It seems like we could do a lot with setting up some astropolitics in the background.

[~Neri]

You could do a recently established Mining Warren easily enough, or a Research Warren, or a Warren District on some random cityplanet. Anything that has a significant population of KX9 but isn't completely KX9 controlled is qualified as a Warren. (A Warren District is basically a section of a city that is more or less KX9 controlled and run, those tend to be step one for most economic takeovers of cityplanets. Everything runs better when everyone knows how to do what everyone else does as soon as they ask and everything is automated heavily.) Odds are is the KX9 would have a rather large antimatter "mine" set up in orbit of a rotational, noncharged black hole. Rotationals are the ones that you can theoretically go into the event horizon and take matter/energy out at the cost of either being jaunted forward or backward in time upon exit depending on which way you enterd so long as you exit at the right trajectory and have some way to repel the various particles traveling at considerable fractions the speed of light. Although a 61 could function as a shield/safetybubble for the entry platform if it was built as a psionic amp. Could allow for a considerable amount of temporal and relativistic fuckery. Although not sure why the KX9 would be allowing anyone near that kind of platform due to the sheer number of things that could go horribly wrong if something is just slightly off.

Regardless, you could pick a random fringe world, only worlds with established backgrounds are Denworlds and a handful of others for various reasons.

[_DivideByZero_]

That's not what antimatter mines are. Antimatter forms naturally with when cosmic rays interact near a planetary magnetospheres, where they get trapped (as far as I know). A neutron star or white dwarf with a magnetic field might be able to trap a noticeable quantity of antimatter, but as far as I know black holes don't usually have magnetic fields.

I never heard that about Kerr black holes. It sounds like you're not actually referring to the event horizon, since past the event horizon there is no "backward" direction. YOu just keep going forward until you hit the mass inflation instability, then you die. Painfully.

You can harvest energy from a Kerr black hole by entering its ergosphere and doing some maneuvers. The problem is that this is only really practical for supermassive black holes, because less massive black holes have ridiculous tidal forces. And unfortunately humanity has not yet had time to reach a supermassive black hole, since worldgates have to be placed beforehand by slowboat travel, or at least that was the original intent behind the worldgate system (to keep expansion under check). Perhaps other means of FTL travel exist in the setting, but none are practical enough to use on a large scale.

[~Neri]

Technically exactly half of the universe should be antimatter. We are simply in a matter rich section of the universe. Antimatter has a number of ways to form, including particles smashing into one another rather fast.

A Kerr blackhole has two event horizons, they're.. Weird.

The Rabbitholes with KX9 technically function like a nexus of worldgates, although at their current civ tier they need to be opened onsite, which is why denworlds tend to have them and they aren't on fringe colonies or randomly opened in the middle of nowhere.

[WillowLuman]

According to current measurements, if such an antimatter-dominated region exists, it's outside the observable universe. Otherwise there'd be certain patterns of gamma rays at the boundaries.

[~Neri]

^ Pretty much that.

[_DivideByZero_]

Technically exactly half of the universe should be antimatter.

Only if our assumptions are correct. Which they don't exactly shape out to be, given our assumptions. We can't just make a claim, go out and test it, then say "well, that just means the antimatter is outside of the observable universe!"

We are simply in a matter rich section of the universe. Antimatter has a number of ways to form, including particles smashing into one another rather fast.

I'd expect neutron stars to be a decent source, if only because objects falling onto them impact at relativistic velocities. You could de-orbit stuff into it and collect relativistic fragments, some of which might be antimatter. But black holes don't really have a surface for things to fall into.

But neutron stars are rare in the vicinity of Earth (there are seven within 500 parsecs, and humanity has only had a millennium to send starships out), and I don't think you can give it to the KX9. They're likely to be well-guarded by the colonists who first built the worldgates, due to their economic value. They're likely to be heavy industrial sectors that can't really be bought out. Neutron stars are a great source of energy.

A Kerr blackhole has two event horizons, they're.. Weird.

Due to mass inflation nothing can cross the second horizon. And even if you could cross it you'd be spat out of a white hole in another universe, not the same universe.
This link is interesting.

The Rabbitholes with KX9 technically function like a nexus of worldgates, although at their current civ tier they need to be opened onsite, which is why denworlds tend to have them and they aren't on fringe colonies or randomly opened in the middle of nowhere.

Humans don't set up dedicated worldgates at their structures because they don't live in high-density population centers. With the massive number of humans out there it's impractical to link all the colonies together, especially when propellant is easy enough to acquire. You generally have major colonies connected by their moons, with less significant settlements placed further out. Worldgates are extremely costly to open for long periods of time.

[WillowLuman]

According to current measurements, if such an antimatter-dominated region exists, it's outside the observable universe. Otherwise there'd be certain patterns of gamma rays at the boundaries.

What I meant by this is that our observations don't currently support the existence of such regions, so if they existed at all they'd have to be somewhere we can't observe them. Either there's baryon asymmetry, or it's somehow become distributed into regions of like nuclear charge (unlikely due to current obervations), either way it's yet to be accounted for in physics.

[Happy Demon]

This is why I keep my races somewhat primitive. Less techno-babble.

Also, if half the universe is antimatter but we can't find much.
That could mean the distribution is like magnetic polarity, more negative magnetism to the north, more positive to the south.
This could in turn affect the matter-antimatter distribution. So the big bang could've distributed more antimatter one place and less in another.
Or maybe it started as lots of antimatter and currently is lots of matter. The state of unbalance it's trying to rectify (decay). The repulsing effects of equals is causing acceleration.
But then again, I know very little astrophysics.

[_DivideByZero_]

Point being that finding natural sources of antimatter is hard.

They exist, but in small quantities. The few natural sources that exist are much easier to exploit than artificial synthesis of antimatter, and thus they are highly profitable, even if artificial synthesis methods are the dominant means of production.

I figured the KX9 would like to acquire an environment such as Hera (a system with a brown dwarf that has massive rings) for scientific purposes, not just as a supply of antimatter.

EDIT: How's this for a mission?

Lost Sector

KX9 particle experiments aimed to explore new methods of FTL travel have all been met with failure, for the most part, although many are still hopeful. The latest breakthrough was the verification of the strange matter hypothesis, that strange matter is more stable than nuclear matter, although only slightly so. A lump of strange matter, when it contacts regular matter, will slowly convert matter into strange matter whilst releasing massive amounts of energy. This tends to force the matter apart, which makes assimilation slow and impractical for weaponization in many cases. However, a recent experiment on the planet Gammus e, a marine world orbiting a G3 class yellow dwarf, has started a slow but steady runaway reaction that threatens the entire population of the world. The reaction is caused by strange matter "bubbling" on the surface, converting matter slowly but surely thanks to gravity.

The cause of this outbreak is largely attributed to KX9 research activity on Gammus b, although local authorities deny any association. It began inside a major population center, causing a number of buildings to collapse from structural damage. It has also spawned strange-normal matter hybrids, formed by insects and other animals coming into contact with the slow-moving front. As it was once said, "life finds a way," even in the form of an eldritch horror. Using strange matter synthesis as an energy source, these hybrids are capable of generating power by consuming matter, and are extremely aggresstive toward not only objects composed of regular matter, but to each other, causing rapid selection of effective combat traits. They boast extremely fast metabolism and high intelligence, executing coordinated attacks and visibly communicating with each other through pulsed light signals.

A corporation seeking to relocate from Gammus e has offered a large bounty to whomever can secure data from one of their research complexes located several kilometers from ground zero, in a hilly field surrounded by sparse forests. The Strangification™ is predicted to arrive at the side at conveniently the time when Guild ships will first arrive at the sector, so you will have to act fast to secure the data.

Primary Objective

-Secure research data from the installation's central data farm. The AI coordinator is instructed to guide you and provide assistance with the built-in security measures (including turrets and potential grids).

Secondary Objectives

-Purge all backups from the secondary datacenters scattered around the installation. There is no telling what the Strangified™ will do with the data once they acquire it.
-Bring back a Strangified™ creature intact for Guild research.
-Destroy the looters. A party of troops sent by a rival corporation seeks to steal data from the installation. Destroy their corpses completely, or else they might become Strangified™.
-Repair the mainframe evacuation rocket. Recent damage has caused the emergency rocket to malfunction, trapping the AI coordinator inside the installation. He would very much like to leave.

[Happy Demon]

I'm unsure why Vax would go there, considering she's not a Guild operative (if I recall correctly, with the gun purchase). So maybe I'll have to make a new character to do it.
Unless the Guild were to find out about it, and force her to do their dirty work. She did break the law.

[~Neri]

The KX9 have the resources to evacuate any planet they fuck up, and they admit to fucking up if they do so, KX9 don't normally lie about fuckups, same as how they tend to brag about successes, they would evacuate quite quickly before nuking the place to shit. (They also wouldn't be doing research for ftl things in a populated system due to the numerous things that could go horribly horribly wrong. Like the entire planet vanishing.)

[Happy Demon]

Okay, I want some concrete details on the KX9 fleet configuration.

Speed vs. Range.
Big Fleets vs. Many Fleets.
Quality vs. Quantity.
Efficient vs. Indulgent. The more fluffy pillow and dildo factories per ship, the less efficient the fleet is.

[WillowLuman]

I'd probably need a new character for this mission, since Atlos isn't really combat oriented. Maybe I could play as a Rtalis soldier from whatever ship comes to respond to "Hey I found some alien scientists," but that would probably mean going around in a heavily armed minitank of some sort.