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These are vactrain hubs, and there are twelve of them. They’re evenly spaced
all over the planet, according to an icosahedron model. While the world is
obviously a sphere, an icosahedron shape can be overlaid on it in order to
minimize the number of Conjunctions needed. It would be utterly impractical
to have a vacuum tube that went from one dome to every single other. While
there’s technically space for that, it would require far too much management
and maintenance. So many of such tunnels would not be used very much, or at
all. How many people are going from, say, Ancient Egypt to Prairiedome? It
certainly wouldn’t be an impossibility, but that tube would likely be
sitting vacant most of the time. Layovers have been a staple for our
civilization for centuries, but this system is a lot better than its
predecessors. First off, while the tubes themselves are limited, the trips
are often exquisitely planned. Because each dome does have a direct line to
each of the twelve conjunctions. As you would expect, a dome will have
twelve stations, and you go to the one that leads to your destination.
Currently, most trains leave about an average of every thirty minutes, but
that fluctuates, and will continue to change, because it’s based on demand.
If literally no one is going from Conjunction 6 to Conjunction 4, then it’s
not even going to bother leaving. It will just sit there until someone signs
up prior to the next cycle. I probably don’t need to tell you all this,
because there is already sufficient literature on how to travel around the
world, but I’ve always loved transportation, so while I’m finding lots of
enjoyment from the other domes, I tend to focus more on the logistics than
most visitors do.
So let’s talk about how it works once you’re in the Conjunction. As I said,
each dome has a direct route to every single one. That’s important. I read
up on the history, and the original plans called for multiple layovers,
where you travel to your nearest hub, then the hub nearest your destination,
and finally your final destination. That would be so bad, but I’m sure most
people are glad that they ended up building up the infrastructure much more
than that. The Conjunctions are so well-designed, and there is so much
redundancy. If you are in a train car with visitors who are going through
the same Conjunction, but different final destinations, your car will stop,
and have you get off. At that point, you will just about immediately step
into a private multi-directional elevator pod. It can only fit eleven
people, but if you have luggage, obviously fewer. If you’re in a party of
one, you can have a pod to yourself, and if you’re in a party of 22, you’re
gonna have to split up. That’s just fine, they have enough to accommodate
everyone who can fit in any given train car over only a few moments. Your
pod will take you to your next station, where a second train will come for
you to deliver you to the right dome. You might still be alone, but the
builders thought of this. Not all vactrain cars are the same size. That’s
why you tell the system where you’re going, so they can prepare the right
one for you, to save the larger ones for more popular domes, even if the
popularity shifts hour by hour. It’s such a robust system, I’m so impressed.
There are so many things going on in the background, but you don’t have to
worry about that. You just get on, get off, pod over, get on, and get off
again. Despite there being more than three times as many stations worldwide
than there have ever been airports on Earth, travel has never been simpler.
And your trip will never take longer than three and a half hours from
anywhere else. And that’s assuming you stop for coffee.
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