Infinity's Paraconveyor(s) – Description and Operation

[Frost]

Originally Posted by robkelk

If the crew is large enough, you might want to consider a couple of specialists.

Unless the team is tasked only with collecting basic physical data and a bit of ELINT should it become available will out of nessecity have to include people with primary specialties in History, Anthropology, Linguistics etc in order to do its job. Given probable manpower constraints these people are likely to be cross trained in a number of supporting roles surveylance, medical support, diplomacy etc.

I don't see how else a small expedition could cover these functions without either becoming impossibly large (by carrying straight specialists) or compromising its primary function (by training soliders or EMT's to make Anthropological observations). OK there will be exceptions to what I just said. It is fairly reasonable to put your prospective field scientists through survival and deffensive weapons courses and in one or two cases a paramedic course. It isn't so reasonable to entrust for example operational security to an Anthropology professor who has taken defensive firearms course but these will be isolated exceptions.

[pnewman]

I think that it needs to have a really good self-destruct mechanism.
I'd say we want a massive explosive charge that will blow the whole thing into very small pieces.

If Centrum captures it they'll build one of their own, and start showing up on Homeline. We can't afford for them to bring along a few dozen multiple-hundred megaton fusion bombs when they do so.

The crew is expendable. Even if we give them all suicide pills one of them might be captured and interrogated for the secret so it would be best if none of them knows how to build the thing - even if this means that they can't fix problems with it....

[Edman]

What exactly is a paraconveyor?

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Edman

What exactly is a paraconveyor?

Infinite Worlds, p. 30, "Variant Conveyors". Basically, it's a conveyor that can jump between quantums - only one at a time, right now, but that's enough to eventually take you anywhere, hypothetically. Infinity is keeping this incredibly secret, to the tune of "only eight people know this actually works and exists".

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Infinite Worlds, p. 30, "Variant Conveyors". Basically, it's a conveyor that can jump between quantums - only one at a time, right now, but that's enough to eventually take you anywhere, hypothetically. Infinity is keeping this incredibly secret, to the tune of "only eight people know this actually works and exists".

Since it works kinda like a conveyor with its own self-contained projector, I figured it was a neologism of Parachronic projector + conveyor. The potential uses are like those of Jumpers, but with the additional flexibility (over most jumpers) of having a crewed vehicle along for the ride.