Tuesday February 17, 2015
Book 15: Delegates and Delegation — Part III: Conflagration
Note: Neosyncronicity's " NUSPI" is an amazing bit of recovered technology designed by ancient Oafans and their contemporaries millions of years ago. It fires a beam of accelerated plasma through a pair of wormholes. One such wormhole is at the nose of the ship. The second is opened at, and aimed through, the target. With the right intel, targets deep in enemy territory can be destroyed as easily as if they were stapled to a post on the firing range.
 
When U.N.S. scientists developed their much larger version of this weapon they called it the Discontiguous Particle Acceleration System, or DPAS. That weapon was hijacked and disabled, and then renamed " Credomar" by the millions of people who built a city inside it. Recently they were relocated, and the weapon, now sentient, decided on the name " LOTA." 
 
This is fortunate, not because the weapon is in the independent hands of a rogue artificial intelligence, but because the name LOTA is far better than the inevitable alternative. The military's penchant for pronouncing acronyms would have led to the weapon being called "Deep-Ass." 

Transcript

MURTAUGH: How did you figure out what the NUSPI was?

SORLIE: I reviewed the designs for the Credomaran cannon.  The NUSPI's silhouette looked just enough like it that I made the connection.

MURTAUGH: Your engineering skills are way above your pay grade.

SORLIE: Actually, I only put it together a minute ago.  Then I guessed, and you confirmed it.

KATHRYN: Your intel skills are way above your pay grade.