tood

Tood is a fictional crystalline mineral described in science fiction settings as a rare energy-storage material. It is commonly depicted as enabling compact power sources for spacecraft and portable devices. The term appears across novels, games, and world-building guides to illustrate advanced mining, refining, and energy technology.

According to most renderings, tood was first named by prospectors on the colony world of Vesper IX in 2240. The name is said to derive from the local word 'tood', meaning glow or spark, which was adopted into English technical jargon.

Geology and properties: Tood crystallizes in prismatic shards with a glassy luster. It ranges in color from deep blue to violet and exhibits faint iridescence under ultraviolet light. In fictional science, tood has a high energy density and exceptional charge-discharge stability, with a Mohs hardness around 7.2 and a density near 4.6 g/cm3. It forms in hydrothermal basalts and occasionally in metamorphic deposits subjected to rapid cooling.

Extraction and processing: In narratives, tood is mined by autonomous drones and refined into tood chips or ingots through a multistep procedure that includes stabilization, annealing, and coating to prevent oxidation. Uses: high-capacity capacitors, fusion cooling systems, and quantum circuits. Markets portray tood as a strategic resource subject to export controls and piracy risks. Prices swing with political events and speculative demand in fringe markets.