Alfheimr Renaissance

Female complications, day 13

Silence is golden.

Right after breakfast we do a couple of furniture moves. Minor things but still enough that no one would notice that the only thing I really bothered to prepare for is a suitable place in the meeting room for Jane's big epic painting. It will be a show piece between two open shelves, so no matter which of the two sofas a guest sit in, they will either enjoy the large windows and the view, or that painting. Sadly we won't be able to see the painting from the dining table. I'm curious about the painting, but Jane refuses to give me or anyone else a show of her project, as she all for surprises and big reveals, but honestly, I don't really care much about the motive or her plans as it is basically camouflaged door. I have already prepared for that door which will be very discrete, and stuff like a 2 dm high sill will make it extra discrete. It's partially deliberate that all the secret doors so far are different, and with different opening mechanisms.

The lathe has gotten really good with more and more parts and features, and I'm happy with it even though I'm thinking of making a whole new one. I will need far more lathes and people who are skilled in handling them and producing stuff to spec. There is a whole lot of machinery that needs parts made on a lathe, and if I really want to ramp up technology and production, I should just continue making machines and training people on them. But that costs a lot of money, so I need to solve that first. Salt can potentially become a huge income, but I'm far from there.

I want more machines.

It will be fun to test how much difference the suppressor makes in noise and smoke, and how sooty the suppressors internal parts will be. It is quite primitive and really just stacked discs with a hole in the middle. I would have liked to do something more advanced with baffles and more asymmetrical in the hope of introducing turbulence, but this is good enough for a first test, and my primary goal is to avoid hearing damage. I'm also worried about the tolerances, because the bullet has to go straight through the hole in the middle without touching any side. In the future I might try thin leather that the bullet shoots through, but the goal is not something like a welrod. The goal is to avoid hearing damage for me and mine.

It would also have been nice to give my wives their own hobby workshop with lots of options, although so far Iselin is the only one using the lathe, and she has helped me with lathe work and will probably continue to do so. The others also help in their own ways, but I've tried to make it clear that I don't expect them to want to do the same stuff I do, or that they have to be a part of that work. There are quite a lot of projects going on, but at least some are partially for fun. Iselin is currently turning parts for a gyroscope. She want one after I described it to her and what it can do. I take one of the spinning tops in the same style as in the movie 'Inception' and go to Jane to show and give it to her. I have to wait outside while she probably hides someone I'm not supposed to see, but then she lets me in and gives me a kiss, I'm happy to receive and answer. It's still feels weird I'm in a relationship with her too. Nice, but ... weird. Because she is a human woman.

"What's up, lover? Not you, I see." Jane makes another meaningful look at my groin, but she has a playful smile.

"Ha. Ha. Have you seen the movie 'Inception'?"

"It's the one where they hijack dreams and interact in dreams right?"

"Yup."

"That's a good movie!"

So I open my hand and she show her the spinning top resting on my palm. "A gift. Want to check if you're dreaming?"

Jane gives me her dazzling smile. I'm a lucky man! She spins the top, looks at it for a few seconds and then looks me deep in the eyes with a growing devilish smile, slides her arms around my neck and kisses me - completely ignoring the spinning top as she pulls me down onto her bed.

Oh. Right. At the end of the movie he doesn't care if it's a dream or reality.

"I really wish all the wind pumped hydro dams and light bulbs were finished."

"Me too Jane, me too. But I can't do shit to speed up rainfall. It will take years."

"Yeah, I know. At least you're likely to have solved lightbulbs and wind power until then."

"Thank you for not putting any pressure on me."

"Oh come on! Don't be like that! I have faith in you!"

"I do have plans, but even trying to make timelines or assuming stuff will work is hard or dumb. I really want to have more power available. It just makes so much stuff easier, but efficient use of available energy is the limitation for every civilization in history."

"What?"

"Think about it. A civilization is always limited by available energy; historically, here and in Midgård. Animal power and manpower, be it slaves or not, are limitations. You need to spend energy and work to keep those alive. A civilization can't have more manpower or animal power than the available food, and that takes energy and work to create and transport. Sunlight is a limitation for a civilization, because you need light to easily use available manpower to work, especially this far from the equator, since the civilization need to spend more work to chop down trees to just keep warm. Some technology just makes more energy available, or use it in a more efficient way. All wind power is energy input into a civilization. Sails on a ship saves manpower having to row, and wind can power a mill for flour or saw wood, instead of manpower. Same with water power. Converting wind or water power to electricity is just an efficient way to be able to use that energy for a lot of things, and transport that energy to where it is needed. A lightbulb is nice, but makes more work hours available, and improves the civilization. A civilization needs to invest in technology to have wind and water power and electricity available, but once discovered and infrastructure invested in, the civilization improve and have more energy available. Available energy decrease the need for slaves. Oil, gas and such is just different energy that along with electricity makes civilization prosper. A tractor replace farm animals. When there is plenty of energy available, fewer people need to spend all their time and work just to survive, and knowledge, arts and entertainment prosper, and life also improve for more people and not just the elite. Warm water is a luxury, but not if energy is cheap. Then it can be had by the masses. If a civilization have excess energy available, it can do inefficient conversion to a form they need or just luxury, and still consider it worth it. And avoid bad ways to get energy, like oil and gas, which are polluting and with limited supplies."

"I've kind of heard this before, just not like this. And it is bloody more noticeable in my current life."

"Making farm machinery and improve storing food is good lifetime goals to have, but I really want to make the elves value machinery for their more efficiently use of work and effort, and to see the potential machinery and electricity have. Especially here in the north where life is hard, but they have water and wind available, machinery and electricity can hugely effect and improve their civilization in comfort and tech level, and decrease their need for slaves. I will be limited in transportation and storage of electricity, but I don't expect to solve everything."

"What?! We're not going to be driving around in Tesla's and streaming movies over the internet 20 years from now?! You're absolutely destroying my faith in you!"

The power hammer hammers out lumps of iron into long and relatively round bars. The pieces are heated up while we change tools in the power hammer, and in one and the same tool the round bar is cut off and also formed in a template, and the pieces are moved between the two with tongs. When the tool opens, a cut off piece is formed on one side, and a bolt without threads falls out on the other side. One man move the piece while another push in the bar, and the next cycle start. There is a bit of excess material poking out on the formed bolt, but it's not a problem. This is prototyping so the work flow in the forge is not optimal, so another person takes the still hot bolt with tongs and places the bolt on the feed chute of the threading tool where it rolls down. This machine just cycles slowly up and down, and a little before the top position the feed opens and the bolt rolls into place. With the downward cycle, the bolt rolls between the two thread forming plates and in the same process excess material is cut off, and a finished threaded bolt rolls out on the discharge chute. Many, many smiling faces, and this feels so damn good. I let some bolts cool down and harden in water. I don't care about the durability of the first bolts, as I want to check the dimensions and try rotating the threads of three bolts against each other. The thread forming plates are made by hand, even if they are very carefully made, and it's tricky to get them to properly line up.

Yes! So damn good!

The proud craftsman smile as they makes arm slaps, back pats and just have that feeling off satisfaction and a difficult job well done. Olafr is beaming! We will make a stack of these bolts, but by changing the distance between the thread forming plates and its angle, different diameters of bolts and screws can be threaded, and by changing the thread forming plates, different thread patterns and pitches can be made. It is mostly a question of which dimensions to make. The tools in the power hammer can be adjusted for length and what head is made on the bolt or screw, but the diameter is fixed. I want to make a larger M20 for future tool attachments and such, and it will probably be a finely threaded M20 with the same 1.75mm pitch as these M12. After that, it feels like M8 is the most important size to be next, which can also give a finely threaded M12. Then M6 and M4, but that will probably need dedicated finer tooling and machines, especially if I want to do even smaller M3. I also want to make screws with slotted heads. But before that threading for M8, M12 and M20 nuts must be solved, but it is more complex to get right because that needs movement in two directions.

The mood is high as more bolts are made, but it actually gets higher when Olafr shows that he has completed the crossbow prototype. This is what I consider to be a fairly advanced model, with an adjustable sight and also an arrow holder for 3 arrows. Well, bolts instead of arrows is the correct term when it comes to crossbows. He seems to have gotten things like the safety, the feel of the trigger and the sight good. Really good. I smile when I realise that one reason Olafr got triggers etc is good, is because he got experience with firearms before he made a crossbow. Talk about backwards tech history. Olafr has made several different bolt heads, from a wider one that cuts, to a long narrow one that can penetrate armour and chain mail.

I don't know how powerful this crossbow is, but it is not to play with and certainly won't be silent to fire. I've been training a bit of arm strength when I've been training other things, but Olafr's is a heck of a lot stronger and he's just strong enough to load the crossbow with his bare hand, and it doesn't feel safe. It is harmful to the crossbow if you lose the string or shoot without a bolt, and he sure don't want to load it by hand, so he also uses the lever arm. Olafr has realised that a winch, or pull cord with small blocks would be nice if a crossbow is stronger, but both of us are worried about the force on the bowstring if it gets much stronger. It will be interesting to try to make a couple of different designs with built-in lever loading, pull cord or pump mechanism loading. I'm glad that Olafr got the bow string guard right, as it hopefully will protect the face a bit if the bow string comes loose or snaps, but how the bow string comes loose or snap will matter a lot.

We decide to go to the shooting range to test the crossbows power and accuracy.

The others were notified on the way, and arrive as we're adjusting the bow. We need to loosen and move the bow a little sideways to compensate for the bolts flying a little to the left, and it's a good demonstration and test of disassembly and those parts and adjusting the sight. Once the arrow flies straight enough, we fine-tune the sight. Then Jane once again stand to the side and try to film the arrow against a light background so we can see speed and figure out the power.

There will be a lot of shooting at the shooting range arrow targets and wood targets as we test the crossbow, and again we are many. Those who want to try can. Many people know about crossbows, there just isn't a culture for it here in the north as a bow is much simpler, cheaper, faster and easier to carry. Most men practice with bows for hunting and combat, but they are usually not huge powerful bows with 50-70kg pulling force, as 20-30kg is the most common. The bow I sometimes practice with is in the upper part of that class simply because I am taller than average, and that was what was available for my fitness and strength. The crossbow is far more powerful, and much easier to learn to shoot well as it does not require the same skill or building up the muscles that a bow requires. It is not easy to keep a bow taut, and a strong bow requires a strong fit person who has shot a lot for a long time. However, I don't think crossbows are suitable for normal Leidung warriors because of the complication with a crossbows size-weight and special bolts.

I really need to check how the warriors my land possessions equip and feed for Leidung service are equipped, because as a Storman with my large land possessions I of course need to fulfil my Leidung duty. Leidung is a form of home defence and navy, where each region must arrange a certain amount of ships with equipped warriors with food for two to three months, and Leidung duty is distributed down to land ownership and settlements. It's just a slightly different distribution than pure mantal because Leidung and Skeppslag i.e. ships crew, is an old organizational institution, where some regions have increased more in population, but not their Leidung duty, and it's also based on free men, so about 160 to 240 mantal means a ship with 24 oars and equipped warriors crew, and it is set in law what each warrior must have as a minimum. Leidung can be used both for defence and offence, and the Leidung men swear to serve for a certain time and leader. If there is a large attack or raiding force to be made, the Leidung usually gets an elected 'Sea King' as leader, and that is a post based on military merit and respect. Usually there is a limited amount of ships and people in such a fleet, and it can be very profitable, so participation is sought after, and distribution of profit is in relation to financial support. Going Viking or conducting a Viking raid is not the same as Leidung, but more of a private enterprise from a village, region or Jarl, but generally they can't raid anywhere they like. There might be treaties and such.

Leidung is not something I really have had to think about because it is a continuous duty that must 'always be ready', and thus already exists without me having to organise it. When land changes hands, the Leidung obligation that comes with that land generally does not change. However, that the Ackerek Islands become my Furstdom has meant that its small part of Tosra-Mosra's Leidung has been affected, and they have had to find and equip one more warrior. But my large land possessions in the south entail a correspondingly large Leidung duty there, and especially there I should look over the warriors and their equipment, but also elsewhere. 7 to 10 mantal means a Leidung warrior, and due to old laws, the legally required equipment change a little depending on which region it is. The minimum for a Leidung warrior is a good leather armour, sword, shield and a knife, but a spear and a bow with a quiver of arrows are very common and so are requirements for chain mail and helmet. Of course, there is prestige in how well equipped a regions Leidung warriors are, and especially for a Storman when he-she equips an entire ship, or most of a ship.

Betting means that Elvira and Jalida, who have never even used a bow, are asked to come forward and get 10 shots under my guidance to learn how to load and try to hit the target at 50 meter. It goes surprisingly well, although Elvia doesn't like shooting the crossbow while, Jalida feels a bit too eager for my attention. Anyway, a crossbow like this is clearly a good weapon to teach people when defending from a protected position, and especially to women who usually don't get at least some combat training like men and sons, and few women hunt, as it is also mostly for men and sons, so we will probably make 10 more crossbows and train all the staff on them, and make like a thousand bolts for them. To test which tip shape is most suitable, the guards should test the penetration of different armour and shoot like 5-10 bolts with each tip to get better data on penetration and damage, at short and longer distances all the way from leather up to shield in front of plate armour with chain mail underneath. They must also do similar tests with firearms. Bolts optimized for hunting are a niche that doesn't need quantity. In battle, quantity is needed, and the enemy will have at least leather or several layers of thick clothing and most likely chain mail.

This crossbow is hardly perfect and can be improved, and there is different priorities if you want to mass produce for an army or just have something for hunting. Most of the crossbow part don't need to be forged steel, and iron or cast brass work well. Cast and finished brass parts are cheaper than the same in steel but weigh a bit more and the crossbow is much more expensive than a bow. But for a dozen, we don't have to care much about cost and work. Olafr has already started thinking about building a new and beautifully decorated crossbow, and he clearly want to make one for himself. So he will make 5 more beautiful ones with decoration and 5 simpler ones without decoration.

After Olafr leaves, I try my rifle with the suppressor. Had I thought about a suppressor from the beginning, I could have placed the front sight further back and used it as a stop and lock, but hindsight is easy. The quick release mount now became extra work, but is a very good idea, because I just push the locking catch and rotate a quarter of a turn to remove, load, and mount it back on and rotate back until the catch clicks. Of course, it is more cumbersome to reload, but it is quite fast, and considering how long a reload takes anyway, it does not make a huge difference, especially when hunting. Slow reloading and overall low shot tempo even on a shooting range means that the suppressor does not get too hot to touch.

As expected, the rifle is hardly silent even with a subsonic load, but the suppressor lowers the sound a lot and the smoke cloud is much less. Tablet on recording is not a perfect sound meter, but I can see a relative decibel difference measured taken from the back, from the side and obliquely from the front, and the primary goal is after all to avoid hearing damage. A secondary bonus is that the suppressor actually makes it impossible for anyone to see the barrel rifling, which is a very important secret. I should really try to make it hard for people to get information about important things when it comes to firearms, and I wish flintlocks weren't so visible and descriptive. But hard to make it more difficult to understand.

After more shots, it's time to clean the suppressor, but before today's shooting session is over, we try a tactical shooting course. Ciara is most entertaining to watch as she switches abruptly between rushing, and calmly and methodically reloading, then rushing. With winter clothes and in a dress it looks quite absurd, but Ciara has definitely found something she likes. Maybe I should give Ciara a firearm of her own for her birthday in a few months?