jumped without a jump drive

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Nick, in a full environment suit like any sensible person would wear in untamed wilderness, is overseeing a small swarm of robots harvesting various useful plantlife from the uninhabited parts of a sparsely settled planet, when something suddenly comes tearing through the undergrowth towards him and it's not showing up on scanners-

He raises his hand-phaser, notices it has a mirror for a face and hesitates a little too long. And then he is in a clearing, cut off from his ship and 'bots, with all available sources of data telling him he just went through a jump.

What.

Comments

[alicornucopia]

"How does it do with snow?"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"About as well as horses: If you take it slowly and carefully, it'll do."

[alicornucopia]

"Deep snow?" she asks, looking at it skeptically. "You haven't seen winter here yet."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"You're right, I haven't. If deep snow is such a concern I can build one with treads, perhaps. Such a thing would be more expensive, and slower, but capable of plowing through two or three feet of snow with ease, and deeper snow with slightly less ease."

[alicornucopia]

She nods, quotes him a lower interest rate and a longer period for payback.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

The problem here is that he'll need a lot more than 30 gold to get the mines and steel mill and coal-to-oil plant and assembly line up and running. He wants 400 gold in total, and has an itemized budget showing why such a large amount is necessary.

[alicornucopia]

She reads his budget.

She looks at the car.

She informs him that he will wish he'd never come to this world if he stiffs her, and lends him the money.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I wouldn't blame you for hunting me down if I stiffed you of this much money. I would do the same."



It takes months to get the coal and iron mines working. Winter comes and is as difficult as described so work stops. It takes half of spring to get steel mill operational. He uses the first few tons of it to build mining and industrial equipment and expand the operations. Come summer he has: Cars, mechanics, and a steady supply of fuel. Thanks to the production line a car is just slightly less expensive than a good horse, and faster, and cheaper to feed.

(He insists that anyone buying a car take driving lessons - included in the price of the car - for their own safety)

[alicornucopia]

People want cars! A considerable number of them, actually. The value is obvious. And they've had all winter to radio to other towns about them.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

He sells two kinds of car. A cheap one that pretty much just goes and steers and stops, and an expensive one for the more well-off folks, with heating and air conditioning, built-in radio, comfy seats, and so on.

The next vehicle he produces is a harvesting machine, which he demonstrates to great effect by bringing in a farmer's entire grain harvest in one day. He builds three and rents them out.

(He is set upon by woke shadows again by some jealous soul and troops up to the paladin compound after the first nightmare.)

By first snow he has a nice, treaded all-terrain vehicle. He sells them, and also fits some with snowplows and tries to get himself hired to clear all the roads so people can still use their cars.

[alicornucopia]

The people who find out that he sells cars that do heating are very interested. Can he make other enclosed spaces do heating? Could he make houses perform this miracle? Could they be warm in the wintertime?

[rockeye_stonetoe]

...Alright. Electric heaters and fiberglass insulation for everyone. He expands the coal-fired power plant to compensate. The moneylender gets her money back with interest by the end of this.


By next winter he has more mines, especially coal and iron mines, the beginnings of a nuclear reactor, trade deals with distant lands for exotic metals not found in good quantity nearby, and an electric train network between a few nearby cities.

At one point he produces the exotic armor he promised Kaja when he first arrived, and brings it up to their compound to see if it holds a blessing better when it's freshly-forged.

[segreant]

Kaja blesses the entire suit of armor, piece by piece. It glows brightly, although she says it's not quite as bright as fresh steel; it still adds up to better protection. And who might this armor be sized for?

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"It's not sized for anyone in particular. They all interlock, see? Adjustable in something like a hundred places, enough that anyone about the right height can get it to fit properly."

[segreant]

"About the right height meaning?"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Between five and six feet."

[segreant]

"That will cover most of us, then, I think Anders is taller than that though."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I can make one custom and the rest standard. But... There is the issue of money. These are expensive to make and my feelings of charity to the Winter Light only go so far." He quotes a number. It's about three quarters as much as a good set of steel plate.

[segreant]

"We can't replace everyone's armor at once like that - we are mostly funded by donations, and those mostly timed when people die and not at any steady pace - but I can speak to the person who handles our accounts and see how many we can order up front."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I'll leave this one for now. I'd like coin for it eventually, though."

He goes back to his newest pet project, a nuclear power plant. He is even more aggressive about safety and diligence and cleanliness among the employees that work on it. They put up with it, given how much he's paying them. It's been three years since he arrived, and a nuclear plant is perhaps step ten out of two hundred before building a jump drive.

Well, no sense dwelling on it. Back to work.

[segreant]

The Order of the Winter Light want four more sets of armor and expect to be able to order an additional one per year, perhaps more, approximately indefinitely.

Nick's activities have made the city a more popular place to be and trade with. It's growing.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

He builds a sewer system. He makes more and more cars. He institutes a fire brigade. He builds electric wind turbines. He expands his little school system. He starts manufacturing pharmaceuticals.

Years pass.

The city keeps growing. He exports all his tech to neighboring countries. The nuclear plant comes online. He makes aircraft. He starts working on a spaceship, albeit not a jump-capable one. He expands the school system again.

More years pass.

He's filthy rich, now, so he makes large donations to paladin orders the world over. He gets that moneylender in on the ground floor of electronic banking and credit systems.

He pushes as many people as possible into his schools, and tries to make sure that it is good education and doesn't fall into any of the traps educational systems tend to fall into.

And twenty-five years later, he has a jump drive.

He finds Kaja, to say goodbye.

[segreant]

Kaja is now fifty years old, and while Winter Light healing means she doesn't have any scars and looks younger than she is, she's coming up on retirement age to teach the novices or do other lighter work than going out and hitting things with a sword. She is at the compound when Nick turns up, on guard duty.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Hail, Kaja. It's been a while. I'm going home soon. Thought I'd say goodbye."

[segreant]

"...Home? You mean - back where you came from? You've been here so long."