"So…umm… I realised that to start a fusion reactor, you need another one's power to do it. I realised that a huge amount of energy is needed.
My idea was to streamline the creation process.
That is why I went with two laser beams, one from above and one from below, they hit each other in a closed-up space that is full of Helium 3, and other gases."
Nina showed Marcus her model on the laptop. She was whispering as she didn't want anyone to hear.
"You are not wrong. For my workshop startup, I needed to syphon nearly six months of power from the city grid."
The girl caused him to remember something borderline traumatic as he remembered storing batteries for the start-up of his Fusion Reactor.
"Thank God for Sakuradite." He grimaced.
"Yes. Well, this model should lower it considerably, as it would only focus power on two lasers."
"In a way, yes. What you are proposing is actual sun creation, not my Fusion Reactor." He pointed out.
"...oh…"
"With this, the issue will be that this model will be extremely heavy. We will need to revamp the containment model."
Marcus recalled the first mobile version of his Fusion Reactor inside KK-00 Lugh.
Simply put, it was a shrunk version of the workshop model. The issues with that model is that the reactor doesn't have a limiter or balancer.
A limiter limits the amount of power it can produce. This is because technically, it doesn't have it. The fusion of atoms can intensify to absurd levels; the mobile suit would rip itself apart.
The second is the balancer. This one allows a fusion reactor to borderline turn itself off. Because technically, you can't do that. Because if you turn it off, you will need to kickstart the fusion again.
It works similarly to industrial-sized forges, where it's running 24/7.
Lugh is a prototype, a bedrock model, the first ever functioning mobile suit.
While a prototype balancer was installed later, the model of the reactor made it hard to use.
In other words, the fusion reactors in the current four mobile suits are second generation; they are more like engines attached to a reactor than a simple reactor powering the suit directly.
And now, Nina is showing him the third generation. It's no longer a pseudo sun but an actual miniature sun.
"Well… I was working on it." She showed him the next nano material.
"You've been developing nano metals for the suits. So I was thinking glass, crystals, or more like reflectors."
Hexagon-shaped panels appeared on the screen. She showed him the next model of Fusion Reactor, not just the start-up version.
The sun was inside a glass-like sphere, which was inside another sphere made of hexagon-shaped panels.
This was… a miniature Dyson Sphere!
"Oh…my…"
Marcus took the laptop from her as he swiftly did some check-ups.
The girl was working in Legion OS simulation and development assistance, so by all means, this was a theoretical working model.
"This is, by all means, the third-generation model, but there is something that I want to see if it could work.
Marcus tried to add his graviton resonators to the model.
Graviton resonators are basically his prototype tools that allow the manipulation of gravity. They absorb gravity via wave absorption and then send it the way the user wants.
But this is more complex as he got a fatal error on the screen.
"...Hmm…"
"Umm… I didn't consider that you wanted to add that." Nina sheepishly commented as she saw a red screen on the development screen.
"Regardless, you did great. These new reactors will be used in the next workshops. Though putting them in mobile suits is…problematic." He grimaced at the theoretical weight they would produce.
His graviton resonators should slash it, make it borderline weightless when needed and absurdly heavy when requested.
Another weapon to be used. It would be perfect for a bombardment unit.
A heavy mobile suit wouldn't move when a huge bazooka is shot, basically, no recoil.
Or something similar.
But without a graviton resonator, the fusion reactor would not be mobile at all. Meant to be inside buildings.
'I could compensate with Ion technology. Magnetic fields could lower the overall weight. But that's a massive stretch.
The machine wouldn't be as agile as current KK units.'
"...I wasn't really thinking about mobile suits." Nina blushed at the comment.
"I just wanted to make a better fusion reactor." The girl explained with an embarrassed look.
"You did great. This is the next bedrock model." He praised her.
What she did was impressive because, although he didn't want to admit it, his Fusion Reactor Technology is quite primitive.
Simply because it was never refined.
He needed power, so he made a power source. Simple as that.
Now Nina refined it. It was no longer a simple reaction inside a container; she made a literal sun. But with that came other challenges.
The fusion inside the container will be heavier than ever before; just by looking at theoretical numbers, it's in hundreds of tons.
Simply put, they are trying to contain constant explosions, or more precisely, extremely hot energy reactions.
Midway…
Marcus' mind stopped as his eyes widened; he just got an eureka moment!
He minimised the design and created a new one. He swiftly went through several alloys and metals and began to design…
A core!
That's right! A magnetic core! Resonators didn't work because the reaction didn't have a core. It wasn't stable!
It's like a sea without a current. It was random, chaotic! But if he places a solid metal core, it would create a magnetic field in a fusion.
After all, every planet, even the sun, has a core that generates a magnetic field.
'Let's try again.'
Marcus placed a new core inside Nina's fusion core design.
"...It worked…"
The girl next to him looked awed. The design had a green word, instead of a red one.
While not perfect, as the resonators need to be adjusted, it was far more stable!
"...of course! All the planets have solid cores." She realised that, remembering the physics classes. More specifically, the moon and Mars have solid cores, while they are still cores.
"Not entirely true, gravity keeps it together so that it might look solid, but it's not. For example, gas giants don't have solid cores… However, the idea is that we need something like a balancer inside this.
Because without it, we have uncontrolled fusion, or more precisely, any energy explosion. If we are unlucky enough, they could have caused a chain explosion that could have shattered the nano glass container, causing a meltdown that would have made any known bomb we ever produced look like a New Year's firework compared to this."
Nina gulped down; she did see the catastrophic failure percentage… it wasn't small.
Without knowing how often the fusion is happening inside the container, each time it happens, there is a chance of a chain reaction.
One merge of atoms sends a wave to the next one and the next one until it's uncontrollable, but in this model, that wouldn't happen.
Because they move in a direction thanks to the spinning core, instead of chaos, it has an order, a directed flow.
That means that even the explosions are controlled to a certain degree.
"I-I see, but this means the design should be stable! Enough to try testing it out." Nina replied, she was borderline trembling with excitement to see her design constructed, not just designed on a laptop!
"Indeed. This isn't just stable, this is the next step."
As he said, he checked the connectivity. It would seem his satellites and the newly built receiver are strong enough to have a direct link to Legion's main AI Server.
So he didn't wait and uploaded the new design. He immediately put it to work. His AI needs to run the tests.
He might install a third-generation fusion reactor in his Solomon base. Instead, the second generation one he was planning.
There is not that much of a difference between first and second. Simply put, it's more stable.
'Yeah, I should remove the original one from beneath the Academy, it is a bit dangerous, it doesn't have a limiter or a balancer.'
Leila was right about the dangers. But then again, the excess energy is used in scrapyard furnaces around Japan in the shape of sakuradite batteries.
He doesn't pay electricity bills after all.
His fusion reactor generates enough power for Anaheim, factories that make Prosthetics and robotics, the scrapyards and the forges.
But that's because of the excess power of the Fusion Reactor that does have a limiter. With one, he wouldn't need batteries; he would simply connect to the reactor and let it generate how much he would need.
'I guess I will build a second-generation one in Anaheim Headquarters after I move from my workshop.'
"Are you guys done yet with your whispering?" Shirley finally reminded Marcus that he was, in fact, on a train with a company.
The Inventor Prince chuckled as he saw Milly and Shirley looking at him with a deadpan look.
"You know it is holiday weekend, do try relaxing." The blonde president knew that they had invented something crazy, but they still should be relaxing!
"...Heh, we will, don't worry." Marcus closed the laptop before handing it over to the annoyed Nina. The nerdy girl wanted to continue, as it felt like a dream to her!
Yet… this blonde interrupted her!
Sensing the annoyance, he wrapped his hand around the green-haired girl, causing her brain to stop for a second.
"Relax, let's enjoy the trip." He winked at her, causing her glasses to get covered in steam. The girl needed to clean them up immediately.
~~~
[Sir, the new Fusion Reactor model, by my calculation, can in truth generate a gravitational pull.
If it's true, when can we start space colonisation in earnest.]
Marcus looked through he window of the hotel room. He could see the lake stretching out and mountains in the distance.
It was a picturesque view.
"Indeed." He replied, speaking into the earpiece that is connected to his laptop, which is on the table in his hotel room.
The laptop is directly linked to his satellites in the lower orbit.
The prince was hesitant when it came to the lack of gravity. Simply put, colonising Mars or the Moon was hard because humans couldn't operate there properly.
The gravitational pull was below that of Earth.
That means loss of muscles, potential damage to veins, and all of the effects of lack of gravity are dangerous in the long run.
In his eyes, it was like investing in a stock that had a dead end. No reasonable investor would do that.
That is why he was working on a Fusion Reactor that could generate artificial gravity as strong as on Earth.
If he had something like this, then he could be on any planet regardless of how weak the gravity was there.
Or not even a planet at all! A simple habitat or space colony is good enough.
With this new reactor, a new age is about to dawn on his faction. The next generation is about to begin!
Not just colony build-up! He can now begin designing successor models for his KK-units! The third generation of Knightmare Killers…
'Should I?'
Marcus stroked his chin.
'Yes. But this is no longer killing Knightmares.'
A small smirk appeared on his lips as he walked to his laptop and opened the project windows.
And created a new project. It was named… Gundam!
With this, he will be stepping one step closer to space.
"Legion, begin testing the new Fusion Reactor design. We need to figure out the proper gravity resonator placement.
If I am guessing, man, then we should place primary ones at the top before secondary ones throughout what should be the equator." Marcus changed the project and checked the new design that was already in Legion's databases.
[Running simulations.]
As the AI began to simulate, Marcus watched the changes to the designs.
His eyes trembled as he saw a reaction.
There was a reaction from the gravity resonators. It was picking up wave frequencies and spreading them out.
The next step was receivers that could emit outside the reactor chamber.
Until then, the phenomenon is within the reactor's confines.