Ground-penetrating radar was such an exciting piece of tech—all the surrounding Researchers naturally got excited after hearing about it. The questions appeared in their heads, and although they didn’t say them aloud, were also written on their faces.
But then I rembered two important things, and my shoulders fell.
"Except I have no idea exactly how ground-penetrating radar works... Does it have stronger waves? Or higher-frequency waves? Hell if I know. And of course, it must receive them and calculate vectors from which they ca to make a picture. Like an ordinary radar. So it at least needs so computational tech... This isn’t as simple as a straightforward signal-to-sound interpretation!"
Researchina tilted her head to the side. Despite my words, she didn’t look less excited. Only thoughtful—just like other Researchers.
"So ’radar’ is a technology that imitates the way so night-flying dragons use to navigate? The ’echolocation’ I heard about from Tabletina?"
I looked at Researchina proudly.
"So you get it. Yes. You understand now why making a radar—any radar—won’t be easy? Bat-dragons have an entire brain to process the echoes they hear. How can we process radio echoes? This will require... I don’t even know what..."
I sighed and rubbed my forehead, while Researchina nodded to herself thoughtfully.
"I will consult the archives about how the echolocation of the bat-dragons works. Also, Father, I request the necessary resources to send a few Beehounds to study the bat-dragons in the wild if it will be necessary for research. I will arrange for a part of the team that’s currently working on improving the radio technology to think about how to make a radar. After this, we will proceed to the radar that penetrates ground. I will give you an approximate plan and list of necessary resources we will need by this evening."
"Wow. You certainly think fast. Well, if you already have so ideas—this is amazing! I can’t wait to hear about them. Even an ordinary radar will help us—I’m sure it will detect dragons in the air at a longer range than our eyesight."
Researchina nodded again, but I saw that her thoughts were already fully on the radio.
"All I know about radios except that they work almost like echolocation is that their invention was sohow related to microwave ovens, because they use the sa frequencies. Microwaves... I have no idea what frequencies those are ," I added, getting no response except for another thoughtful nod.
I didn’t leave imdiately after, though—the new invention was too curious. At my request, one of Researchina’s assistants explained to more about its work, and why there were so many knobs. The answer was... not what I expected.
"They are decorations!" the Researcher replied proudly. "They make this machine look much more impressive, don’t they? It was just a box before. Now it almost looks like a cha control panel!"
"Huh?"
"Did you mishear, Father? I said, they are decorations—"
"No, no. I just couldn’t believe you did sothing like this... Hey, if you want to decorate sothing, just slap so shiny dragon scales, feathers or gold on it next ti. These useless knobs and levers are just too confusing!"
The girl tried not to look too dejected, but I could see right through her.
"Ah, I understand, Father. I will pass your orders to the other Researchers."
I flicked up and down a tumbler that was clearly doing nothing here, and nodded.
"Yeah. Alright, let send sothing else..."
***
I and the Empire Council made drafts of plans for putting radio towers over the Empire. For ordinary communication, just using signalers was much more effective, and didn’t require more manpower—either way, soone would have to man the radio to transfer the information and make sure everything worked.
It made more sense to use radios instead of heralds, so bees could listen to the latest news and recreational tales whenever they had free ti, and not only when a herald reached their sub-hive.
anwhile, Researchina continued to improve the radio and test its range. It was much larger than I expected. Researchina gave her notes about how size improves the range of radio transmissions, and I actually did my best to understand that.
With my genius intelligence enhanced by the system, it was super easy, of course. Radios increased their range first with more power put into them, which ant that electricity was our roadblock again. But a lesser one than I expected.
A human was approximately 160 tis larger than a bee, but by Researchina’s count, a human-sized radio with a human-sized generator won’t have a 160 tis longer transmission range.
The transmitters developed by the Researchers, which hosted antennae several ters long, could easily reach from one sub-hive to another—they weren’t all too far apart. Since radio waves traveled at the speed of light, with enough transmitters the signal could reach even the farthest reaches of the Bee Empire within less than a second!
But those results ca from the team working with radios. I allocated all the resources Researchina asked for to the team working with radars—and even added so extra—but I didn’t expect any results from them soon.
The current age we were in—an age of anachronisms all over the place—was not like the Stone Age, where throwing a rock at sothing already counted as an invention.
New research could easily take months, no matter the number of bright heads put into it, and required even more ti to perfect and spread over the ever-growing Bee Empire.
I didn’t expect to see even a prototype within at least a few months. By that point, the war against murder hornets would, hopefully, be over already.
But perhaps Researchina wanted to make her input into this war, or perhaps she just was hell-bent on impressing and making forget all about the ti she spent at a research roadblock before...
Because only ten days later she proudly told that her Researchers had made a prototype of a radar!
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