Questions arising in another thread about the medical effects of the chilling forced my hand, but I was meaning to put this stuff here anyway, for a bit of critique. So welcome to Terralthra, and I hope LaCroix, Purple and Zeropoint drop in, too. I will say right here, as I've said on previous threads, I appreciate the input, and while I won't promise to use what you say, I promise to consider it, and quite significant changes have been made due to input of people such as Simon_Jester and Chewbacca (that goes back a bit).
So, with no further ado:
Kali’s Daughters
Long ago, when interstellar travel was still new and the first of the colony ships were going out, there was an extremist militant ultra-feminist group known as the Kali’s Daughters. With their beliefs preaching the evil of maleness, the desirability of a female-only society, and the importance of bringing it about by any means necessary, they were an embarrassment to women everywhere and many believed they were a deliberate strawman to discredit feminists.
They concocted a mad plan to steal a colony ship, and take it to the heavens to start the perfect society. While mad, they were also competent and well resourced, and they managed to pull it off. They achieved space, targeted a likely star system, and Jumped.
Unfortunately, Jumping has never been without risk, and this Jump went wrong, the Kali’s Daughters vanished from knowledge, and feminism in general did not shed a tear.
As astronomers amongst the Kali’s Daughters discovered upon examining the surrounding stars, the bad jump had taken them to the far side of the galaxy, over a thousand years from home at the travel rate at the time. They could never return home.
Fortunately, they found an inhabitable planet within reach and established a new home, ran according to their beliefs. After things did not proceed as smoothly and successfully as the more idealistic amongst them had believed it would, the colony factionalised.
The powerful military faction was led by the charismatic and brutal General Madhuri Saxena, originally of Britannic India and a dominating force in the Daughters from before the exodus. Having already purged their own faction of dissenting voices, they then planned and carried out a savage “Night of the Long Knives”, decapitating the leaderships of the other factions and taking over the entire colony by military coup. It was well planned, fast, and brutal. When the dust settled, the colony was led by a military dictatorship, with scientific advisors.
Over time, this evolved into a leadership system somewhat similar to early 21st century China, with the military having a firm grip upon the leadership. Exactly why the military should be in charge, and what they needed such a powerful military for anyway, were questions it was dangerous to ask.
Then they met the “Others”. The Kali’s Daughters to this day know very little about these “Others”, and there's no "real" communication between them. The Others supplied the Kali’s Daughters with a power generator that even today provides a large proportion of their power. They gave them access to “Jump Portals”, providing instantaneous travel throughout the galaxy. They provided amazing armoured space suits, and, of all the outlandish items, swords. Talwars, to be more precise.
With this assistance, the Kali’s Daughters managed to re-outfit their ship, at which point the leadership had to make a decision. Whether to make open-handed contact with Earth, or be more cautious and secretive. Under the leadership of General Asfrid Freyjadatter, the successor of General Madhuri Saxena, they decided to take the cautious route and seized isolated ships, the prisoners to interrogate, and the ships to refit to their own needs.
These attacks went well, not only in their goal of material and intelligence, but also in a morale boost and sense of purpose to the colony. Seizing the opportunity, the leadership transformed the colony into a raiding society, focused against the evil masculine empire of Earth.
This went quite well as far as the leadership was concerned. They quite liked their isolation from Earth, making them the unquestioned rulers of their own realm, they could steal what they couldn’t make themselves (they later found it necessary to make contact with unscrupulous merchants so they could trade loot for what they actually wanted), it gave a group of outsiders to focus their citizens attention on, and it “explained” the need for such a powerful military. What the citizens were told about those outsiders was coloured and biased to suit the leadership’s needs.
And so things have remained for over a century.
Reproduction
When a woman wants a baby, her and her partner (or donor) go to the clinic where an egg is taken from both women and combined invitro. The viable embryo is then implanted into whichever of the two women is to be the mother. From there the pregnancy proceeds as normal.
The gender of the child is, of course, female.
Kali’s Daughter Battle Suit
In its natural state, a suit is a dull metallic waxy grey colour and feels like plastic. It could be any shape, not necessarily a suit shape; it could be a shapeless blob, a sculpture, but is generally a rectangular block as it’s easier for storage. The suit has to be ‘attuned’ to a wearer, in a technical process that the common raiders are not privy to.
When in body contact with its attuned wearer, the suit responds to the wearer’s thoughts, to assume any shape and colour (including as clear as cleanest glass). It’s used to form a complete body covering, coloured and shaped to create the appearance of an outfit. This outfit could be anything from the most staid to the most outrageous, but when involved in action they typically err on the side of outrageous extremes. They do this partially in the hope that it will throw off their opponents, but also because it’s traditional, a thing of pride and esprit de corps. The suit reshapes and remoulds itself, responding to the subconscious mind of the wearer as she moves so while being at all times one solid piece, it never inhibits the wearer, it even enhances the strength of the wearer somewhat, although only a modest amount, enough to make the average raider as strong as a very strong man. However, fine control is lost over any portion of the suit further then approximately 100mm from functioning nerves of the wearer, and all control at approximately 300mm.
The armour is surprisingly effective. While seeming to not have any kind of protective field, the armour can stop up to light-armour weapons, depending partially upon its thickness where hit, but more upon the wearer’s intention and image of themselves when wearing it. More typically, it’ll stop attacks of battle-rifle intensity. It also filters and purifies air and stores a few litres of same within its sponge-like structure. Incoming radiation, sound, and similar energies above a critical intensity are blocked, with only a safe level allowed through.
Despite the suit being seemingly solid, solid, liquid, and gaseous wastes are in some way absorbed within the material when excreted or exhaled (assuming the suit covers the relevant area). Once absorbed, it is purified in some way and stored as perfectly breathable air and potable water, with the impurities excreted through the surface of the suit in elemental form. The wearer can use the air and water as long as the suit covers the mouth or nose. It is also possible for the wearer to breath, urinate, and shit normally by causing the suit to not cover the relevant areas.
The suit runs off body heat, absorbing heat from all over the body, and then expelling the heat… somewhere. This has a significant chilling effect on the wearer when in a situation where the suit is doing a lot of work (for instance, under heavy fire). While this has a useful effect of making the overheating endemic to most complete suits a non-issue, it does mean that almost all Daughters rendered a casualty in combat fall to hypothermia. It also makes a daughter in a bodysuit almost impossible to pick up with standard infrared, unless the suit is in its most quiescent state and ‘hot spots’ such as the face uncovered.
There have been attempts to get around the strange drawbacks of the suit. It has been found that when encapsulated by a suit, electrical devices become unreliable, and any suit area not in contact with skin loses its protective ability.
Many believe that a battlesuit completely disintegrates when kept away from its wearer for too long, and the duration that this happens at varies by story. It is known that a suit will not respond to anyone but its particular owner. Daughters questioned have denied knowing any way to change the owner.
When captured suits have been examined, they have been found to be a homogenous solid, in fact a single macromolecule. The molecule is, however, to the best of current science, impossible. There are structures there that shouldn’t be stable without other structures, which aren’t present, and couldn’t be present because it would render other structures in the molecule unstable. There are gaps where atoms should be, electron concentrations where there shouldn’t be, and some have speculated that what they are seeing here is a trans-universal solid, that is, a solid that exists in multiple universes at the same time. Where atoms should be, but aren’t, they claim, the atoms actually are there, but in another, overlapping, universe.
Technical Notes
A suit’s battle protection could, for simplicity, be considered to come in three strengths. Light, medium, and heavy, comparable to normal militia, infantry, and elite assault. Heat is drawn from the wearer to protect against any hit, with the kJ drawn dependant upon the ‘level’ of protection.
For calculations of effects, assume heat is drained evenly throughout the body, but it would make for better descriptions if frosting can happen.
Frostbite only happens if the area is lowered to freezing.
The heavier the protection, the more it costs to move and otherwise act, and the less it costs to resist a hit. (in watts or kJ, as applicable)
Agility
Very Agile - That movie combat gymnastics where they're cartwheeling about, backflipping, etc
Normal - Like a person in battle kit
Stolid - Like deep-sea diving through treacle. (maybe not that bad, but movements sluggish)
Power (watts) required
Protection Level.......Very Agile.......Normal........Stolid........Reasonable protection from
Light......................200................100............50............Needle pistols, instant death from Heavy Needler
Medium...................1500..............500............100..........Needle Rifles, take 1 or 2 Heavy hits
Heavy.....................9000..............1500..........500..........Heavy Needler
The heat a person produces depends upon their activity level
Exertion Level........Light...........Medium........Heavy.......Extreme
Watts produced.....100.............200.............500..........1000
Sustained for.........Indefinite.....4 hours........1 hour.......10 minutes
If the person can't generate enough heat, then it's drained from their body. An 80kg person can lose 550kJ to mild hypothermia, 830 to moderate, 1100 to severe, and 1400 to unconscious. These numbers, of course, are never to be in the story, but as something for me to keep in mind to keep consistency. Yes, she can do this, but it will cost this.
Kali Talwar
The Kali Talwar has a bulge forward, thickening the blade overall at the best chopping point. The blade is activated by mental command, and appears to absorb heat through the handle, which is then channelled along an exceedingly fine edge. It reaches temperatures approaching 5000 K, but how this works is unknown. Anything contacting this edge is typically reduced to a gaseous state faster than the heat can be dispersed, and so a super fine cut is created, which is then capitalised upon by the weight and force of the swinging blade.
The talwar is used in combination with the battlesuit, and when used in such a way the user will notice a chill across her entire body when the blade is in heavy. The blade can be used bare-handed, but the hand will rapidly chill, stiffen, and eventually become frostbitten and freeze solid, although it can be used with special gloves and heating units to provide the necessary heat. It is experimentally verified that heat transfer happens within the blade at the speed of light.
The blades have an extraordinary resistance to heat, requiring over 10,000 C to affect them.
The molecules in the edge of the blade vibrate linearly, along the edge of the blade, not chaotically in all directions, meaning it can penetrate a field with very little loss when chopping. At the extreme tip, the direction of vibration is perfectly in line with a straight thrust, causing a total interaction with a field, which, when combined with the tiny contact area of the tip and the extreme temperature, causes a distressingly high rate of brittle-fail for fields (distressing for the Daughter’s opponent, that is).
Technical Notes
When activated, the blade has a 200mm heated edge, the leading edge being a tenth of a millimetre thick. It’s at 4500 C, radiating (and drawing) 500 W from the user. There’s also an energy cache within the blade of 100 kJ. The amount of energy drawn from the user is proportional to how depleted this cache is, up to a maximum of 5000W when the cache is fully depleted.
When inactive, the blade isn’t heated, and a maximum of 200W is drawn (down to zero if the cache is fully charged)
Composite* struck absorbs approximately 1kJ per millimetre armour depth, causing a 1mm thickness to disassociate, the steel to melt, and the decomposing ceramic typically can’t survive the weight of the blow.
If used in the bare hand, the average hand is 0.567kg, so the hand will be chilled ¼ degree per second when active (500W), but up to 2.5 degrees per second at full draw (5000W). As the body considers the hand expendable, the blood supply will be cut when the fingers and hand gets too cold, frostbite and then freezing solid can and will happen if allowed to continue.
*Composite is a composite (tricky!) of sintered ceramic and steel alloy. It has amazing strength, excellent heat resistance (until it disassociates at 2260 C), and is the king of the structural and armour materials.
), the suit definitely uses energy, even if the best known-galaxy scientists can't work out what it does with it. I feel that's following them close enough for SF
Uhm, not without sperm it doesn't. Biology 101. I don't think anyone is going to buy this. An idea possibly; these extreme femnist were in fact Hermaphrodites, thereby allowing then to recombinate genetic material which is screened and then combined...bla bla bla. But for whatever reason they considered themselves ultra-femenist due to their close resemblance of the female form.