The Pak Library

”The Pak library was as old as the radioactive desert which surrounded it. How old was the library? Phssthpok never wondered and never knew how old the library was. However, the section on space travel was at least three million years old.

The library was huge and rambling, a composite of at least three million years of Pak knowledge, cross-filed into sections according to subject. Phssthpok spent thirty-two years in one vast room. A floor to ceiling labyrinth of bookshelves.

And there were books! They were nearly indestructible, those books. They would have emerged like fluttering meteors from the heat of a hydrogen fusion explosion.

There were treatises on the philosophy of space travel. There were records of interstellar and interplanetary flights, tens of thousands of them starting with a fantastic trip some group had made almost three million years ago.

There were technical texts on anything that could possibly bear on space and space travel: space craft, astrogation, ecology, miniaturization, nuclear and subnuclear physics, plastics, gravity and how to use it, astronomy astrophysics, records of the mining of worlds and nearby systems, diagrams of a hypothetical Bussard ramjet, ion drives diagrams, plasma theory, light sails…

Even though the libraries offerings were quite extensive, there are many holes in their collections. The Pak have been migrating for millions of years. These experiences could no way be included without someone from the original migration transmitted their manuscripts back to rom a system near the Galactic Core. Nor do you have the accounts of many victims of various wars that plagued this civilization. Those would have been accounts from protectors and the new weapons systems they invented to wipe out their opponents.”

Protector, Larry Niven

Events Leading up to the Protector and Pak War

Calendar of the Events for the Longest War on Record
Year	Event(s)
33,000 BC:	Phssthpok departs Pak
32,800 BC:	First emigration departs Pak
32,500 BC:	Second emigration wave X : Pak Scouts
2125 AD:	Phssthpok arrives in Sol Brenman turns protector
2340 AD:	Kidnap of Truesdale
2341 AD, October:	Discovery of Pak fleet
2341 AD, November:	Departure of Flying Dutchman Destruction of Kobold
2342 AD, May:	Discovery of Pak scouts
2342 AD, July:	Truesdale in stasis Departure of Protector
2344 AD, April:	Pak ships sighted ; altering course
2344 AD, July:	Truesdale out of stasis
Hypothetical
2344 AD, September:	Meet first Pac ship
2346 AD, March:	Right angle turn(?) Lose Pak scouts
2350 AD:	Arrive Home; Adjust Calendars

Protector, Larry Niven

And the Work Goes On

Adding individual clapboards can be quite a tedious process, but it is a rather simple way to add dimension to an otherwise flat surface.

My addition is coming along; however I had to stop to cut a few more “clapboards”. I give these a good basecoat of “barn wood”. Once they are thoroughly dry I use a toothpick to apply a little white glue and stick the next “clapboard” on top of the last making sure I leave a little overlap on top.

I do try to keep everything parallel with the last board, but there have been times when the strip stuck to quickly to the sub-wall. If this happens I can either leave it has it is. Nothing in real life is perfect. Or I can try to hide the misaligned strip by the careful placement of the next strip.

The Bragging Song

“I was born about ten thousand years from now…
When we land upon the Moon I’ll show then, how.

Why, I once signed on with Amra, and I damn near lost my skin;
For the blood it flowed like water when the fighting did begin
I’m the only tar who’s e’er jumped ship from Vandervecken’s crew---
And that’s about the strangest thing a man will ever do.”

‘This is about all I can remember of this ditty, for I was already two sheets to the wind when they got started.’ JF

Vandervecken, Protector, Larry Niven

Easy Techniques for Turning Styrene into Wood

A very informative article on how to distress and weather styrene clapboard sheets to weathered wood.The techniques covered in this article produce a very convincing effect.

Fingle’s First and Second Laws

I.	The perversity of the universe tends to a maximum
II.	If something can go wrong, it will

Vandervecken, Protector, Larry Niven

A Host of Characters, Phssthpok-Protector

Phssthpok had been traveling for most of his 32,000 years-his mission to save, develop, and protect the group of Pak breaders sent out into spave some 2/12 millions years before.

Protector, Larry Niven

New Shack under Construction

I have cut out two window openings for the addition and I need to cut the individual walls apart. I will be using scale clapboards for the walls and will be clapboarding over the window openings. I believe the clapboards will look better this way than if I place the clapboards up to the window openings and then again on the other side of the opening. I will cut the widows out after I have completed the clapboarding and then start the construction of the windows.

A Pak Description

“The thing was all knobs. Its arms were longer than human, with a single elbow joint in something like the right place, but the elbow was a ball seven inches across. The hands were like strings of walnuts. The shoulders and the knees and the hips bulged like cantaloupes. The head was a tilted melon on a non-existent neck. There was no noticeable forehead or chin. The alien’s mouth was a flat black beak, hard but not shine, which faded into wrinkled skin halfway between mouth and eyes. Two slits in the beak were the nose. Two human looking eyes were protected by not all human looking masses of deeply convoluted skin and by a deeply projecting shelf of brow.“

Protector, Larry Niven, 1973

A Host of Characters, Phssthpok-Protector

"Phssthpok was a Pak. That meant he had three stages of growth-Childhood, Breeder, and finally Protector, the last was achieved around the age of 45 Earth Years. At that time, all being well, basic physiological changes would take place and provided a Pak had access to proper food a Protector could be virtually immortal."

Protector, Larry Niven

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NOTE:

At the time I didn't think to create a new label "A Host of Charcters". It has grown to be a rather large sub-label though to large for me to go back and elevate all these posts to a proper label.

Drawing for an Addition for a New Structure

I have finally gotten around to laying out a portion of a new scratch built building. I have laid out three walls. I still need to layout openings for two windows, one on the end and the other on the right-hand side.

I laid out its dimensions on a piece of scrap Bristol board. I have a couple sheets; leftovers from previous projects. This material will suffice for the sub-walls of the addition. The addition will be clothed with clapboards made from thin card stock.

I haven’t settled on the type of roof I will use for the addition. Shingles would be nice, but they will be a lot of work.

Adam Savage's Guide to Model Spaceship Paneling!

Adam Savage gives us a lesson on addding panels to a component on a polystrene spaceship . Once the fabrication of these panels is complete Adam takes to adding greeble to the panels, most of the greeble is created using leftover bits of plastic.

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My other posts on greeble

Wrenchler’s Fasteners

It is amazing how some of us are born into a calling for life. You would have ever thought that Charlie Wrenchler would be a model citizen and business owner, but with last name like that why are we so surprised?

I created a couple of signs for the structure that I had made posts back in December. I created these signs on my computer, printed them on plain copy-paper, and cut them out. I usually use a font sized at 8 or 9 points for my signs in HO gauge. For the sign on the right I used either 4 or 5 point font. I realize that by default these font sizes are not available, but they can be accessed by selecting the font size, typing in the size that you have need of and clicking enter.

Sometimes I paste these on a piece of thin cardstock. These I just pasted to the structure. You defiantly want to use glue that doesn’t dry too quickly. You will need a little time to adjust and paste the sign exactly where you want it.

The shop features fasteners of all sorts. Both standard and metric are carried. Wrenchler’s carries full line of specialty fasteners and the tools used to fasten them. You can purchase fasteners in bulk or by the package.

15 Emerging Technologies that Will Change the World #1

15 Emerging Technologies that Will Change the World is a twenty minute video that describes severl up-in-coming technologies. I found it very interesting.

I wish you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year.