Monday March 30, 2015
Book 16: Big, Dumb Objects — Part I

Transcript

TITLE: BOOK 16: BIG, DUMB OBJECTS

Maxim 24: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a big gun.

NARRATOR: The mercenary warship Broken Wind teraports into Sol System.

She is just over five hundred meters long, and at least ten million years old.

Her hull, the product of a long-lost manufacturing process, cannot be valued using mundane monetary units.

IAFA: We are in and scanning, Commodore.

battleplate: *printed* POPIGAI

NARRATOR: She's not "priceless," but her replacement cost is most easily measured in large multiples of gross national product.

IAFA: The LZ is clear, but we are being very closely monitored.

CDRE TAGON: Enjoy the attention, Iafa.  We're the most expensive thing here, but only for the next fifteen seconds...

NARRATOR: Why count?  If you have to ask how much it would cost you to build one, you can't afford it.