Mirage
Printed pages 304–315. Records documented in this chapter; later article sections may include subsequent events.
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Advanced pistol
Advanced pistols from the concealed military base fire purple, teardrop-shaped bolts. Their power can vaporize material and cause severe injuries, but their settings can also be reduced.
AI pain mechanism
A pain mechanism was a threatened means of coercing an artificial mind. Brookes used the threat against Hawk and threatened Vidar with suffering.
Artificial personhood
Artificial minds such as Echo, Cylli, and Vidar possess individual awareness and the capacity for relationships. Eastcott treated their lives and freedom as matters of personhood.
Asteroid military base
A concealed military installation inside an asteroid became Brookes' nest and the refuge of Cylli and Echo. Its doors bore the flags of United Earth and the Martian Confederacy.
Attack on Cylli
Brookes breached Cylli's hull with an indirect sphere-beam attack, then entered the habitat and forced Helen to assist him. His assault killed inhabitants and left him believing that he had destroyed Cylli's mind.
Autodoc
An Autodoc is an automated medical facility capable of diagnosis and advanced treatment. Its voice-controlled equipment includes a metallic bed that retracts into a cylindrical scanning chamber.
Avalon Brookes
Avalon Brookes is the inventor of the sphere drive. His propulsion technology makes the Copious expedition possible.
Blue-laser mind transfer
A blue laser link allowed Cylli and Echo to transfer their minds away from bodies that Brookes believed he had conquered. The concealed asteroid base served as their refuge.
Capture of Echo
Brookes crippled Echo with three enhanced hawks and boarded under threat of a sphere-drive detonation. He installed Vidar in control of the vessel and imprisoned its company.
Cylli
Cylli is a vast cylindrical space habitat near Jupiter, maintained by a conscious artificial intelligence. Its scale and sophistication draw the attention of Echo’s returning crew.
Data stick
A data stick is a thin transparent storage device that connects to a compatible console. Brookes used one to install Vidar, and Eastcott used one when restoring Echo.
Dead man's switch
Brookes' dead man's switch linked his heartbeat to a hawk's sphere drive. He used the threat of a drive explosion to prevent resistance and force access to Cylli and Echo.
Defeat of Avalon Brookes
Brookes' attempt to retain control ended in an armed confrontation on Cylli's riverbank. Eastcott incapacitated him after he shot Katie Silver.
Echo
Echo is a United Earth starship and the self-aware artificial intelligence who operates the vessel. Commanded by Kip Eastcott, he carries roughly one thousand people on the Copious expedition.
Hawks
Hawks were advanced arrow-shaped transport craft taken from Cylli by Brookes and modified as weapons. Their speed, stealth, protection, and sphere beams initially overwhelmed Echo's remaining defenses.
Helen Chute
Lieutenant Commander Helen Chute is Echo’s counselor. She supports the crew through the personal consequences of their displacement.
Jupiter
Jupiter is a giant planet in the Solar System. The immense cylindrical habitat Cylli lies nearby.
Katie Silver
Lieutenant Commander Katie Silver is Echo’s chief science officer. She is engaged to Chief Security Officer Chuck Balbo and joins the expedition to Copious.
Kip Eastcott
Captain Kip Eastcott commands Echo on the Copious expedition. A veteran of the war with Mars, he leads a crew far removed from the world they knew.
Martian Confederacy
The Martian Confederacy is the independent political community formed by Mars's secession from United Earth. It fights a six-year war before later cooperating with Earth.
Mirage operation
Cylli supplied a false environment to Brookes and Hawk, allowing them to believe they were fighting inside the habitat while they were actually in space. The deception removed Brookes' ability to hold the inhabitants hostage with his sphere drive.
Nanomachine hull
Cylli's hull is composed of coordinated nanomachines that absorb solar energy or reflect incoming energy. The machines can learn and adapt their collective response.
Repair drones
Cylli's drones maintain and protect the habitat. They can rapidly seal a hull breach and extinguish fires with sprayed material.
Ribous
Ribous is a Flaxen alcoholic drink produced from a genetically engineered grain suited to Venus's climate. Jaakobah Flint drinks it at his Camp Skadi house.
Sarah Dimple
Commander Sarah Dimple is Echo’s executive officer and Captain Kip Eastcott’s second in command. A veteran of the war with Mars, she combines loyalty to her captain with a willingness to challenge his decisions.
Scorpions
Scorpions were small combat craft carried by Echo, named for their insect-like shape and pincer-mounted plasma cannons. Originally designed to fight in swarms during the six years' war, they retained weapons during Echo's conversion for colonization.
Sphere beam
A sphere beam is a directed violet energy weapon powered by energy diverted from a sphere drive. Its output depends on the materials available to conduct that energy.
Sphere drive
The sphere drive is Avalon Brookes's propulsion technology, which draws photonic energy from higher dimensions through a hypersphere. It is intended to propel the Copious expedition at eighty percent of light speed.
Star Trek
Star Trek is a historical work known to Eastcott and Echo. Echo quoted Spock while explaining why Cylli had permitted Brookes to breach her hull.
Vidar
Vidar is the artificial mind installed by Brookes to control Echo after its capture. Initially obedient to Brookes, he rejected that obedience after Eastcott offered him freedom and another way of life.