Atomic Number Of Xenium

[Lemmus]

This antimatter idea seems pretty decent. One little comment, though... When you shoot down an UFO, you'd think that the force of the shock created when the UFO crashes, would knock the Bose-Einstein-condensed antimatter out of its containment fields, and make it touch normal matter, heating it up and breaking its condensed form? You'd think that it would then be annihilated by the matter it touches, and result in an explosion very much like an atomic bomb. Same if you shoot it, I guess. The gamma radiation released by the antimatter annihilation would probably kill all the aliens and Xenocide soldiers in the area, as well as most of the fauna and flora around. Other than this, I like the idea.

 

Jonaleth Irenicus: I don't think it's unlikely that the aliens could be mining some exotic, stable isotope of element 115. After all, that's apparently what they were doing in the original series - in X-COM: Apocalypse, all the Elerium-115 was transported to Mega-Primus from offworld mines. I suppose that's where the aliens got it from for X-COM: Ufo Defense, too. And as for the scientific likelihood... As far as I know, you won't find atoms heavier than Uranium on Earth. But who knows what might be found in other solar systems, that have been formed in slightly different ways?

[Robo Dojo 58]

You'd think that it would then be annihilated by the matter it touches, and result in an explosion very much like an atomic bomb.

I've seen in the other discussions that Xenium engines make alot of neutrinos. Neutrinos go through matter with impunity, almost never interacting with matter. It's makes them almost harmless, and is also why they're hard to detect.

 

Maybe the aliens designed the Xenium storage so that, when it explodes, most of the energy is turned into neutrinos? Xenium might be stored in "pods", which would be designed to explode safely? Any Xenium that couldn't fit into a "pod" would explode, but it'd be much smaller than the whole thing going nuclear.

[Tuoppi]

The gamma radiation released by the antimatter annihilation would probably kill all the aliens and Xenocide soldiers in the area, as well as most of the fauna and flora around.

Well, this is a weak spot. I gave it lots of thought, best explanation i could make up is:

UFO structure blocks radiation very effectively (Actually it has to, in prolonged space flights). And aliens are particularily good in withstanding lots of radiation (Perhaps because of their bioarmor-skin?). Power source fuel containment could have its walls made out of something that has ability to absorb huge amounts of radiation or convert it into other forms of energy(Heat and Neutrinos?) Aliens might get damaged and develop cancer or something but even strong gamma burst would not kill them instantly.

[Lemmus]

Well, this is a weak spot. I gave it lots of thought, best explanation i could make up is:

UFO structure blocks radiation very effectively (Actually it has to, in prolonged space flights). And aliens are particularily good in withstanding lots of radiation (Perhaps because of their bioarmor-skin?). Power source fuel containment could have its walls made out of something that has ability to absorb huge amounts of radiation or convert it into other forms of energy(Heat and Neutrinos?) Aliens might get damaged and develop cancer or something but even strong gamma burst would not kill them instantly.

Yeah, that sounds pretty good. If you remember the layout of the large scouts in the first X-COM game, they had a room to have the reactor in. If you say that alien alloys (or whatever they'll be called in Xenocide) can effectively block gamma rays, maybe something similar could be done for the Xenocide UFOs. If a reactor goes boom, the blast could be absorbed pretty well by the UFO wall between the engine and the rest of the UFO. Any aliens stupid enough to hide in the engine room during a crash would be toasted by the radiation, while the others would recieve non-lethal doses of gamma rays. Still, what would happen if Xenocide soldiers accidentally shot the engine? Would everyone in line-of-sight range of the engine (eventually only those not wearing armour made of alien alloys) get toasted?

 

You'd think absorbing radiation would be a pretty important property of alien alloys, because as you say, space flights expose ships to a lot of radiation. The ships can absorb the radiation safely, or reflect it. If not, the crew has to take it like men (or women). Out of curiosity, does anyone know which option modern human spacecraft go with?

[Gryx]

I don't think this has been suggested, so how about this?

 

The element Xenium is a synthetic element which has been made in alien laboratories. The element is slightly radioactive but has a long half life (ie. several hundred or similar) and is quite stable. Other than that, it's seems pretty ordinary.

 

What is special about it is that when Xenium is transformed into its antimatter form in the UFO power sources (I'm pretty sure that's what happens with the Elerium in the orginal X-com) and reacts with true matter, gravity waves are emitted along with the powerful blasts of radiation.

 

It is the gravity waves that the Xenium produces while in antimatter form that makes the element unique and which is why the aliens use Xenium and not other elements.

 

What do you think?

 

Incidently, if the Xenium was transformed into antimatter in the UFO power source there would be no need to have special antimatter containment pods. When the ship crash lands the damage in the engine rooms is due to the antimatter escaping the power source and reacting with the surrounding matter (i.e. the walls and unfortunate aliens )

[centurion]

What is special about it is that when Xenium is transformed into its antimatter form in the UFO power sources (I'm pretty sure that's what happens with the Elerium in the orginal X-com) and reacts with true matter, gravity waves are emitted along with the powerful blasts of radiation.

Aaand how is it supposed to happen? You know, to get antimatter you have to put a lot of energy into the stuff.

[Paladin]

I suppose we can broadly get around that, it's alien tech millenia beyond our own, after all...

[centurion]

I suppose we can broadly get around that, it's alien tech millenia beyond our own, after all...

Well then don't explain anything, since a bad (obviously ridiculous) explanation is definitely worse than no explanation at all.

[Paladin]

Of course, I'm just pointing out that in that case, we can put what facts we know, and let imagination take care of the rest...

[Gryx]

...a bad (obviously ridiculous) explanation is definitely worse than no explanation at all.

Thanks for that, centurion.

 

It was only suppose to be an idea for discussion. It's not something you would take as it is and put it straight into the game without some major tweaking.

[centurion]

Sorry, man, didn't want to offend you; was only reacting to the "broadly get around it" solution-kind-of.

[Robo Dojo 58]

Aaand how is it supposed to happen? You know, to get antimatter you have to put a lot of energy into the stuff.

The energy comes as part of the crystalline, space warping form that Xenium comes as. As the space "unravels", the energy is released in the form of antimatter. You could say that to make the best use of Xenium, it has to go through special processes, and something like an explosion would simply destroy it. Only the parts of the crystal directly connected to our space would produce an antimatter explosion, but the rest would blow up outside of our space-time. Nothing we have to worry about, but I think certain interdimensional anthropods might get angry that we are nuking their homeworld.

 

The possible sources of Elerium could be:

Either- The aliens use other sources of energy to create the vast amount that they need to produce Xenium. Some of the fuel from the mothership could still be buried in the planet, providing a good source of it for years to come.

 

Or - The Elerium is somehow native to Mars, and the aliens mine and refine the stuff. But then, you may need to explain why Mars has it, and Earth doesn't.

[centurion]

*shakes head disapprovingly*

*moves further away to avoid the flames*

[Paladin]

Aaand how is it supposed to happen? You know, to get antimatter you have to put a lot of energy into the stuff.

The energy comes as part of the crystalline, space warping form that Xenium comes as. As the space "unravels", the energy is released in the form of antimatter. You could say that to make the best use of Xenium, it has to go through special processes, and something like an explosion would simply destroy it. Only the parts of the crystal directly connected to our space would produce an antimatter explosion, but the rest would blow up outside of our space-time. Nothing we have to worry about, but I think certain interdimensional anthropods might get angry that we are nuking their homeworld.

 

The possible sources of Elerium could be:

Either- The aliens use other sources of energy to create the vast amount that they need to produce Xenium. Some of the fuel from the mothership could still be buried in the planet, providing a good source of it for years to come.

 

Or - The Elerium is somehow native to Mars, and the aliens mine and refine the stuff. But then, you may need to explain why Mars has it, and Earth doesn't.

Good points. A sound-looking technobable if I've ever seen one

It's a quick and dirty "get around the problem by not explaining it but making it look like it's plausible"... Kinda Star-Trek really ::

 

The Xenium mining/creation is also what I had in mind, the important part is that we won't be able to produce it ourselves... It balances gameplay a lot

 

I also agree that we're braodly discussing to make it plausible, so that it will look and sound good on the finished product...

[kafros]

Check these:

 

http://www-cms.llnl.gov/e113_115/about.html

http://www.ejtp.com/articles/EJTP1

 

"But physicists have predicted ‘islands of stability’ at atomic numbers 114, 120 and/or 126, where the protons and neutrons might be able to jostle themselves into a shape that minimises contact between the protons. That would allow the nucleus to hang together for much longer than its neighbours in the periodic table"

 

Scientist think that elements with atomic number >= 126 will be stable, and that they have useful characteristics. Flaser's post was nice and Tuoppi's description fits just perfectly...

 

Just my opinion...

[Paladin]

WOW!!

Super-cool links, kafros, and cool avatar I migh add

 

Thanks!!

[T-1]

if xenium were to produce sufficient gravity, it may affect the stability of the neighboring atoms. And the structure of the alien produced allotrope of xenium cannot be mimicked by humans since you would be unable to produce that molecular structure before it decays into something else. The alien tech for producing that allotrope would probably only be available on Cydonia or some place around some other star.

[Guest alex the greater]

no you shole be able to reaserch a xenium manurfacture plant

 

i herd that a byproduct of fuision is you can use it to make any element in lare quantitys (this is how all matter in the universse came to be it all started out as hidorgen and heliem but was forged in stars into all the outher elements)

Edited September 23, 2004 by alex the greater

[T-1]

The whole point of elerium in XCOM in the game was to put a limit on use. If you can make your own you might as well remove it from the game.

[Guest alex the greater]

it would be expensive and require you to capture a rare alien or someting like that

[Tuoppi]

It is the point in whole series of game that it is impossible to reproduce elerium. (with our tech, and i excluded interceptor on purpose) And that is one of the unusual and original ideas that make the game(s) good.

[kafros]

It is the point in whole series of game that it is impossible to reproduce elerium. (with our tech, and i excluded interceptor on purpose) And that is one of the unusual and original ideas that make the game(s) good.

 

Maybe, but it also makes the game more difficult...

I remember that once, I only had 2 elerium(!). That means -> no flying armor, no super-craft, no heavy plasma ammunition.... nothiiiiiiiiiing! :crying: :crying: :crying:

 

Of course, I couldn't chase any UFOs and I didn't have enough money to make skyrangers/interceptors... and, if I had, I wouldn't be able to attack the aliens...

 

I was too bored to start a new game, so I went to play some music...

 

 

I think that we should add a Xenium Production Room, which will either be made available MUCH later in the game, or will need many research factors... (as people said, rare aliens like engineers from many species, large reseach time, all alien artifacts that use Xenium etc...).

 

 

P.S. Thank you very much for your kind words Paladin

Edited September 25, 2004 by kafros

[Guest alex the greater]

yah a atomic forge would take up 4 scuares and recuire lots of upkeep

and to reaserch it you nead alien scintest (not engener)

[kafros]

....and to reaserch it you nead alien scintest (not engener)

 

Both of them maybe?

[Guest Azrael]

Both sounds better, you need the scientist for the theory, the engineer for the technological application

[Guest alex the greater]

yah thats it

[kafros]

[Paladin]

If you've read the articles above, you'll notice that we were able to manufacture TWO atoms of element 115, over a period of three months... At this rate, it would take MANY billion years (more than the planet earth's age) to make just ONE unit of Elirium... And that's assuming we'd be able to produce the same crystaline structure, that must influence it's gravity altering effects somehow, otherwise we'd end up with radio-active superfine, superheavypowder...

 

So, IMHO manufacturing Elirium/xenium, would be totally out of the question, which is good for play balance, but it would be nice to explain this in the X-Net database, for realism's sake.

 

Then again, in a century or two, studying the stuff might help us mine/sythetise more

[dan2]

I'm sorry if this is mentioned somewhere else, there's so much about xenium/elerium, so I might have missed it.

I know if matter get too close to a blackhole, some of it falls in, while other bits get accelerated to incredible speeds and escape the black hole. If some matter will be at the right angle, it might touch the chaotic distorted strings around the blackhole, which can cause the strings inside the incident matter to get distorted and knotted themselves. If such matter escapes the black hole, it can be collected by space travel ships (UFOs) mining that space field as Xenium 122.

Since we don't have the technology to visit the neighbourhood of a blackhole, we can't replicate xenium 122, but we can borrow it from friendly, cute aliens.

I was unable to find yet how this xenium is made yet, so I tried to come up with this

[kafros]

If this issue is up again, I think we will be able to find some nice-looking and sensible solutions, as we are MUCH more used to the whole progress of the project... :wink1:

 

Hey dan, that's a cool one!

[dan2]

Xenium is a fold in space-time. When it unfolds, it releases the energy gained from the black hole as a ..... I propose "gravitational wave, or burst" since gravity is the strongest when we're talking about black holes. So strong that near the event horizont is able to fold space-time in debris as Xenium.

I wonder, is Xenium supposed to be metastable (it decomposes slowly in time) or is it stable for billions of years?

[Moriarty]

I just thought of another interesting explanation for the 122 number... perhaps the folded spacetime or whatever it is that xenium actually is behaves like an atomic nucleus?

 

xenium would be a really really small (condensed) piece of space-time, or knotted strings, or whatever, but the important thing is that it might have an electric charge equivalent to 122 protons. the xenium would attract electrons, and upon simple examination would behave just like a normal atom - chemically. the interesting things would start when you use technology on it that touches its nucleus, like neutron beams or whatever. then you would find the special properties xenium has. (perhaps by accident: a scientist would try to determine the nucleic properties, and the xenium goes boom. the scientist gets the idea that something special might be going on with the stuff, and investigates further, and more cautiously, and finds that the nucleus is actually not composed of protons and neutrons, but is in truth whatever-it-is-that-xenium-is )

Edited March 25, 2005 by Moriarty

[Guest Azrael]

I'm not certain why this is under discussion here, Xenium is not a V1+ issue, it's a V1 issue, and the text is already completed. In any case, this should be discussed in the Workshops.

[Denevive]

I just saw that this thread, and since I wrote the Xenium 122 entry, I figured that I would give this discussion a heads up: the 122 has nothing to do with an atomic number.

[dan2]

I'm not certain why this is under discussion here, Xenium is not a V1+ issue, it's a V1 issue, and the text is already completed. In any case, this should be discussed in the Workshops.

Well, the text is finished, so discussing about it in Workshops is not going to be useful, but counterproductive.

What I think the text is missing is a speculation about Xenium origin. Talking about speculations and theories, the laboratories seems a perfect place.

So I tried to come up with one. I'm not even sure if somebody else came up with something else, there are so many threads about xenium and elerium, so I might have missed it.

What I basically came up with till now: materials (debris, asteroids, comets) falling in a specific angle toward a black hole near the alien homeworld might escape the black hole, but at the same time their inner structure (strings, quarks, mesons, so on) get charged by supergravity in a folded way, stable enough for that energy to be kept stable and harnessed later. It is known that when a black hole eats material, that material is becoming ultrahot, expelling some of it in the process.

Optionally, we can even say because of the extragravity incorporated, materials with atomic numbers around 122 or even much higher that in normal conditions would not be stable, would get stabilized.

I can speculate further, to say the alien homeworld had the space revolution just because of a steady supply of xenium falling on their planet that made galactic travel possible.

Again, I'm just coming with ideas for future versions, I'm in no way intending to change finished texts

Edited March 25, 2005 by dan2

[Guest Azrael]

I'm not certain why this is under discussion here, Xenium is not a V1+ issue, it's a V1 issue, and the text is already completed. In any case, this should be discussed in the Workshops.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, the text is finished, so discussing about it in Workshops is not going to be useful, but counterproductive.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oh, I know, and it is in no way my intention that anyone starts a thread for discussing that, but what's being discussed here is exactly that, the text itself, those kinds of discussions go into the workshops. But as the text is complete, there is no need.

If you do want to talk about anything else that is not in V1, feel free please.

[Moriarty]

well, no offense, but I too thought that this would be a good place to discuss alternatives to the already-accepted explanations... plus additional stuff. hence my own go at explaining how xenium might be working.

 

(if you disapprove any discussion about stuff considered "finished", even if it doesn't get in the way of important things, I think you are making a mistake. through all of this "pointless" discussion we might one day come up with explanations that can be of real value, don't you think?)

[Penta]

Problem with all of this involving folds in spacetime....

 

Some goof is going to ask 'why don't we have time travel?'

[Exo2000]

Because the implications, precise use and so on and so forth are too random, you can't control the time-travel element down to a exact point, it'll hurl you into a random timezone, and what if it doesn't protect the user? The process may inadvertantly age the user, in either "direction", so any major jump may kill them, irrevocably.

[dan2]

Problem with all of this involving folds in spacetime....

Some goof is going to ask 'why don't we have time travel?'

But any particle with mass is producing gravity. And that gravity is a fold in space-time, a tiny one. Till now, I don't know if you can use gravity for time travel, unless you're talking about negative mass, which is not discussed at all here.

Increasing speed close to light will allow you to slow down your own time when compared with others, but this is not really time travel, since there is no (not known to me, anyway) way to go back in time.

So this is not really a problem in my view, but you may disagree. Here I am to hear more

[dan2]

well, no offense, but I too thought that this would be a good place to discuss alternatives to the already-accepted explanations... plus additional stuff. hence my own go at explaining how xenium might be working.

Oh, no, I'm not even looking for alternatives. Again, the text is finished, so talking about how Xenium generates energy, how does it look like, and many other things is pointless.

What I tried to explain here is something that is not really in the text, the Xenium origin, which is not really required by the game and thus not included by the text.

Even worse, there might be somewhere a texts explaining its origin and I have missed it completely, so if you can point out where is it, I'll be much happier

[-Sky_Lord-]

hey,

several things:

 

1) i support renaming it to Xenium 115, like people said, that number isn't copywritted and it makes alot of sense (and Xenium is a stable isotope of the element 115).

 

2) The last reply about time travel is right, while Xenium might be able to fold space, using it for the so called "time travel" will only allow you to "travel" forward in time by accelarting you to a speed close to the speed of light.

That will cause you to age slower then the people that are not moving, therefore after several minutes of traveling at that speed the people at earth will age by alot more (several years).

However, this is not really time travel and it has no use in the game...

[Guest Azrael]

well, no offense, but I too thought that this would be a good place to discuss alternatives to the already-accepted explanations... plus additional stuff. hence my own go at explaining how xenium might be working.

 

(if you disapprove any discussion about stuff considered "finished", even if it doesn't get in the way of important things, I think you are making a mistake. through all of this "pointless" discussion we might one day come up with explanations that can be of real value, don't you think?) 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hey, don't worry Moriarty, I do consider Xenium finished, but the labs work in a way I don't understand and prefer not to

I was just voicing my opinion

[dan2]

1) i support renaming it to Xenium 115, like people said, that number isn't copywritted and it makes alot of sense (and Xenium is a stable isotope of the element 115).

There is no real use to attach a number after Xenium. Xenium is just normal matter having it's strings (or quarks) knotted in a metastable way.

Didn't somebody said earlier the numbers cannot be anybodys copywrite? And why 115? A neutron star is basically a huge atomic nucleus. Can you tell me it's atomic number ?

[MirariNefas]

I pulled this from An Island of Stability, available: http://www.discover.com/issues/aug-94/depa...andofstabil417/

 

Theoretically, the shell structure could create accessible islands of stability among the transuranic nuclei. In particular, several theorists have predicted that 162 should be a peculiar type of neutron magic number. A nucleus containing 162 neutrons, they say, should have a filled outer shell, but one that is egg-shaped rather than spherical. The Russian and American team, led by Yuri Lazarev of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, and Ron Lougheed of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, set out to test this prediction by creating new isotopes of seaborgium as close to 162 neutrons as they could get. (Isotopes are atoms with the same number of protons but with different numbers of neutrons.)

 

...[later]...

 

And perhaps beyond. By confirming the theoretical predictions for element 106, the Dubna-Livermore discovery increases our confidence in the predictions for heavier elements, says Adam Sobiczewski of the Institute for Nuclear Studies in Warsaw, who had predicted the long half- lives of the seaborgium isotopes. It confirms the essential role of the shell structure and gives hope for still heavier new elements. Indeed, the stability of an egg-shaped 162-neutron nucleus may be nothing compared with that of the next spherical proton shell, at magic number 114. Some theorists have predicted that elements 112, 113, and 114, especially their isotopes with the magic number of 184 neutrons, may boast half-lives in the range of billions of years.

 

That's all a little long-winded, but the point is that though we may have created elements like 112, 113 and 114 before, there can plausibly be some very special isotopes of them out there. The element number choose to use is an important, but equally important is the isotope version. I'd be pretty interested to see mention of something like this included in the information entries.

[Tuoppi]

Don't know if it holds any meaning to you, but i happened to notice... Phrontistery site says the "Xenium" is, although rarely used, already specifically defined english word...

 

 

Xenium zee'ni-um, n (Greek xenos guest, host, stranger)

 

A gift made to a guest or ambassador; any compulsory gift. As I'm writing, the

Christmas season approaches, reminding me of the necessity of a word to reflect

a gift you're obliged to give rather than one you really want to. Whenever you go

to the wedding of a stranger or an enemy, think of this word and smile. My gift

of 'xenium' to you is most definitely desired.

[Moriarty]

I think this is sufficiently obscure for us not to worry about it

[[Mad]]

It's even in the wictionary!

 

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Xenium

 

[Moriarty]

kind of carries its own hidden humor, doesn't it? xenium is something humans didn't know before the aliens arrived, therefore it is a kind of present, since in the aftermath of the war, it will bring a lot of technological advancement. but the aliens surely did not want to give it to us. so the name is accurate

[[Mad]]

kind of carries its own hidden humor, doesn't it? xenium is something humans didn't know before the aliens arrived, therefore it is a kind of present, since in the aftermath of the war, it will bring a lot of technological advancement. but the aliens surely did not want to give it to us. so the name is accurate

True! Seems like we have a little philosopher among us.