Microstory 2483: Campodome

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

Camping has never gone out of style, but it’s had its ups and downs. Once our ancestors invented computers, they realized how disruptive it was to be away from their devices. People in the 19th century were basically, like, “camping is just living without being in a building, and peeing in the woods”. Over time, the gap between regular urban living and camping in a tent widened. Then we started developing better portable energy storage, and more prolific satellite connectivity, and it started going back the other way in many respects. You could go out to the middle of the woods, and enjoy nature, while still maintaining a connection to the outside world, to just about whatever degree you wanted. There were snobs, of course, who said that you really shouldn’t have anything, and to a certain extent, I agree. Glamping is what they called it when you basically lived in a tiny home with no sacrifice of amenities. Really, what’s the point? The leaders on Castlebourne couldn’t answer that either, so it doesn’t exist here. There are all kinds of other camping formats, though. Forest, prairie, desert, even wetlands, and snow camping. What people don’t realize is that each dome is large enough to be fully capable of supporting a diverse multi-biome ecology. You just have to tailor the terrain to fit what you need, and maybe add a bit of scientific intervention. Colder regions are near the top of a mountain range, as you might expect it on Earth. It doesn’t have seasons, since the kind of engineering that would require is just a little beyond what’s practical. It’s not impossible, but it’s more logical to divide climates up by areas. You choose where you wanna camp, and how you wanna do it. Some people go out there and totally rough it. They have no supplies, no food, maybe not even clothes. There’s a subculture of people who go out there totally naked and alone, and survive on their skills.

As I said, there are no seasons, though these survivalists can replicate them by moving to different spots. I will say that that’s not quite right, because if you really wanted to start your journey in Spring, and see how you fared when the weather changed, you would build your shelter as well as you possibly can, and wait for it to become necessary. That’s not a feasible option when your campsite has to shift in order to account for that journey. So maybe they can improve upon that. I know it’s not easy, and maybe they shouldn’t try. After all, that’s why the flying spaghetti monster made Earth, because it already has everything you need, and the cycles kind of take care of themselves. I’ve not mentioned it yet, but there are hiking and backpacking routes, if you like to stay on the move. Some of them are pretty long, but nothing that compares to the grueling trek of the Pacific Crest or Appalachian Trails. There’s just not enough space. There might be a dome out there that winds you around enough times to cover that distance, but it’s not here. This is mostly about the camping and again, some things probably should be left to the homeworld. We didn’t spend decades rewilding the surface exclusively to leave it to nature. We still allow ourselves access to that nature, and are encouraged to camp when we feel like it. So, is this place better at what it does? No, I shouldn’t think so. You’re still in a snowglobe. You will always know it’s artificial. And it’s nothing we don’t have elsewhere, unlike say, the waterpark in Flumendome, or the realm in Mythodome, but it’s still pretty nice. I certainly wouldn’t cast your consciousness here with the express intention of coming to this dome, but it’s a great option if you’re already here, and need to take a break from civilization.

Microstory 2452: Coraldome

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

This dome is categorized under multiple categories, but you wouldn’t know it by finding it in one of the categories, and opening its prospectus. It’s a little nitpicky, but I just happened to notice that it shows up when you change filters. It’s unclear how many domes are multicategorical, which I guess just bothers me on principle? I know, that’s not really what we’re talking about here, but you can’t provide public feedback on the catalog itself, and I just felt like this was something that other people should know. Okay, I’ll get back to it, and I promise that it won’t be negative moving forward, and that’s because Coraldome is a beautiful place. After looking through all the category filters, I was able to determine that this dome is Residential, Leisure, Ecological, Research & Development, and Institutional. You can live here, if you find an apartment that strikes your fancy, or have a temporary stay at Korallion Hotel. Whether you’re here for long-term exploration, or a one-day visit, there’s a lot to see, and a lot to learn. Life on Earth began through a process known as abiogenesis in the ocean, specifically in hydrothermal vents. It evolved from there, organisms multiplying, taking in energy from their environment, responding to stimuli. They mutated, adapted, filled ecological niches. They transformed into independent species, gained new traits, and eventually left the waters, growing new limbs, and reaching for the sky. But some stayed in the water. Most of them, indeed. Earth’s biosphere is perfectly tailored for the life that evolved there, because any life that wasn’t suited for survival...didn’t. And it still doesn’t. Castlebourne is a different place. You can stick as many domes on it as you want. You can pump air in here, and salt the water with minerals. You can warm it up and cool it down, but it will never be Earth. It will never be our origin. Still, we like life, and our biological imperative demands that we make it. Humans are unique in that we are compelled to make and preserve other species besides our own. Whether it benefits ourselves or not, we want it to live. It’s why we consolidated our population into centralized spaces on Earth, and why we left. It’s why we settled on barren worlds, including Castlebourne; because it didn’t require us to destroy life. When you come to Coraldome, you’ll be met with a community of organisms of all varieties, imported from Earth via digital DNA. They live here now, genetically altered to survive in Castlebourne’s unique ecosystems. We may call it a clownfish, but it’s not the same clownfish that you may find off the coast of Australia. It’s a Castlebourne clownfish, because the composition of the water is different, as is the gravity. The other plants and animals are different too, which impacts how they interact with each other. You could know everything about the biosphere back home, but you’ll have to relearn everything if you come here, and Coraldome is the perfect place to do it. The fish swim all around you, right up to the glass, on multiple levels. It’s my favorite place in the world. This world anyway. Nothing will ever be better than Earth; where it all began. See? I told you that I would start being positive.

Microstory 2446: Caverndome

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3

I have no idea how big this place is, or how many corridors and chambers this dome has, but it seems pretty complex and expansive to me. According to the literature, this was a natural cave system that survey satellites and drones discovered while they were mapping the topography of the planet during this project’s early days. Seeing the opportunity, they built one of the domes on top of it. I saw the satellite view myself, and there aren’t any other domes very close to the rocky formations to the northeast of Caverndome, which makes me wonder whether the caves extend far beyond its borders, so they just decided to cut it off, and call it good enough. It certainly is. You could probably spend a whole standard lifetime here, and not see everything. The prospectus hints at the possibility of there being secret passageways and hidden chambers, and given the scope of the network, that’s probably true. I wouldn’t know how to find or access one of them, though. It could be mechanical or electronic, where a wall will part after inputting some kind of code, or it’s a tight squeeze with a big payoff, or it’s just so hard to see through an optical illusion. Some of the walls may straight up be holographic. A lot of people were running their hands along them in case the apparent solid surface gave way to empty space instead. We’re not allowed to bring in our own surveying equipment, which makes sense, because unlocking all the secrets all at once would go against the spirit of the dome. At its heart, this is an ecological dome, which means there aren’t any planned activities. You’re only supposed to come here if you wanna explore and see some cool caves. There is opportunity for spelunking and cave diving, but through the lens of this goal of exploration, not so you can test your mettle, bump your heart rate up, or get your rocks off, so to speak. Don’t come here and be disruptive or annoying. There’s literally a chamber that is specifically designated for echoing. It’s called Olimpia Hall. I would have called it the Echo Chamber, but maybe there’s some significance in the name that I am not cognizant of. If you wanna do that, go there, don’t disturb or undermine other people’s experiences because you were freakin’ born yesterday, and you’ve never heard an echo before. Yeah, it’s cool because of how powerful Olimpia Hall’s echoes are, but it doesn’t have the same effect elsewhere, so stop looking for alternatives. Sorry, I’m complaining about other visitors, when I’m just here to review the dome, but staffing is an issue. I guess it’s not their fault, because like I said, the network is so deep and intricate that they can’t station bots everywhere, but people are taking advantage of that freedom, and it’s making it a frustrating experience, so maybe they can try to find a solution? I dunno, I’ll shut up now.

Microstory 2415: Underburg

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 2

Around 400 years ago, advances in materials science allowed for truly gargantuan structures to be built with complete structural integrity. We were constructing buildings that rose kilometers into the sky. Hundreds of thousands of residents could now live in an area once fit only for a thousand or two people. They called them megastructure arcologies for their efficient population densities, low environmental impact, and self-sustainability. No one forced anyone to move to these places, but they were the most logical. Instead of taking a vehicle or train from Point A to Point B, you mostly only needed an elevator. People used to have tons of belongings, but with advanced computing and virtual simulations, as well as component miniaturization, material possessions no longer seemed so relevant. Your unit stopped being a place where you lived, and began to serve only functional purposes. You lived in virtual constructs, and needed only a minimal amount of realspace for your physical components. Even so, the entire point to Castlebourne is being able to spread out how you want. You see, the reason we wanted to concentrate our population on Earth was so that we could give the majority of the land area back to wilderness. Animals can’t live in high-rise apartments—at least not intentionally, anyway. We have more choices. We figured that it was only fair that we do everything we can to stay out of their way, and let them be. Castlebourne started out as an uninhabitable planet, which had to be paraterraformed in order for it to be habitable. We’ve done this to many other colonies, but never before at this scale. There was no life here before we arrived. In fact, we’ve added life. The same rules about verticalization don’t apply here. We’re free to stretch our legs, especially since there’s a ton more land area overall, what with the oceans being confined to the poles. Underburg doesn’t have many people here yet, but I’m sure it will expand. Unlike other domes, it’s not populated by androids meant to simulate human life. I mean, sure, there are robots here to help us get things done, but it’s clear who they are. They’re not trying to blend in. If you conduct a search for 21st century suburbia, it will look just like Underburg does. Big houses; big green, perfectly manicured lawns; garages with two cars in them. Don’t worry, they run on electricity, supplied by fusion reactors. And we don’t have a history of racism and elitism. It’s not about recapturing the lifestyle of Old Earth. It’s about living in a neighborhood of like-minded individuals, watering your flowers in front of the walkway, and waving to each other as you leave for the day. We go to work. Nothing needs to get done, but we do it anyway, because that’s what we find enjoyable. If you think you might like it too, why don’t you come move to Underburg? Yes, it’s a little unsettling with all these empty houses, but it won’t get better unless more people take the leap. We need more residents! Come on, you know you want to.

Fluence: Monarch (Part VII)

< > Entire Story

Generated by Google Gemini text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 2

Weaver stepped towards Misha Collins, who looked at her with some level of familiarity, suggesting that he had been here before, or had at least seen her somewhere. He wasn’t shocked or scared, but more annoyed. She reached out to shake his hand, but pulled it away before he could reach back. “Sorry. First. Do you know who we are?”

“You’re Holly Blue, Goswin Montagne, Eight Point Seven Point Two, and Briar. I never learned his last name.”

“Have you been to this location before?” Weaver pressed.

Misha looked around. “Yes. About a month ago.”

“I wish I knew which kind of month we’re talking about,” Weaver muttered to herself. That is, had it also been three months in the Ediacaran period? Understanding whether the disparate time periods were somehow linked to one another could help prevent this from happening again. She reached her hand out once more, but pulled back yet again at the last second. “Sorry, do you like...salmon?”

“I suppose I do, as much as anyone,” Misha said, confused.

“I didn’t say salmon,” Weaver tried to clarify, “I said salmon.” This was a test of sorts. When a time traveler encountered someone whose understanding of time was in question, pointedly asking them whether they liked salmon should indicate at least a baseline. If they thought that they were only talking about the actual fish, they probably didn’t know anything, or perhaps just not very much.

“I’m sorry, I don’t hear the difference,” Misha admitted. He was a human, and while this obviously wasn’t his first time around the block, other shifted selves of this group had so far kept him pretty well in the dark about the details.

“Holly Blue,” she echoed, finally shaking his hand, “but you can call me Weaver.”

“You can call me Castiel, if you want. A lot of people prefer it.”

“We need to get you home, Mister Collins,” Goswin said, also stepping forward. “If you’ve met others like us, and returned home, then they must have figured out how to do it.”

“They just surrounded me in a circle, closed their eyes, and then I was home.”

“That’s all it was?” Eight Point Seven asked.

“Oh.” Misha pointed to Weaver. “You tapped something on this refrigerator, and said something about a bubble.”

“I don’t know how he got through the bubble in the first place,” Weaver began, “but we’ll probably have to drop it to send him back. It would be the only safe way to do it. But we should be quick. We never know when other shifted selves will show up. We could have just missed the group that came before us. Measuring time is difficult. I don’t even keep a clock in here, except for my special watch. I may have left it somewhere...”

“Do what you gotta do,” Goswin requested. “Let’s make this quick. We’ll try to send him back where he belongs, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll just go with him.”

“Wait, there was one more thing,” Misha remembered. “You gave me this.” He knelt down and pulled something off of his shoelace aglet, handing it to Weaver.

She inspected it. “This is a temporal tracker. She probably used it to make sure that you were returned to where you belonged, instead of Belgium, or something. You weren’t meant to keep it; that’s why you were able to break through the bubble.”

“I must have missed that part,” Misha said. “I was looking at the sea cucumber.”

Weaver looked over at the glass. “That’s not a cucumber. What was the date?”

“The first time it happened was January 11, 2011,” Misha answered. “This time, it was February 25.”

She handed him the tracker back. “All right. Wait thirty minutes, and then step on it. I mean exactly thirty minutes. Set your watch to it.”

“I understand,” Misha promised.

“Okay.” Weaver went over to the refrigerator, and started tapping on the screen. Blast doors dropped down over the glass, to block the view of the water, and its sea creatures. She kept tapping on it, causing the space around them to shimmer, implying that the temporal bubble was now down. They all felt a small lurch in their stomachs as a result. Still, Weaver kept tapping on the fridge. They started to hear a persistent beep from down the hallway, the exact source of which was not clear.

“I think your smoke detector needs a new battery,” Misha guessed.

“It’s fine, we like fire,” Weaver said oddly. “You heard the man. Let’s put him in a circle.” They all came together, and held hands, even Briar, who wanted to fix this just as much as the rest of them.

Goswin was the captain here, and even though Weaver knew a lot more about this stuff, he needed to step on up. “We’re trying to get our new friend here back to February 25, 2011. February 25 in...”

“Vancouver. You don’t need to know my exact address; anywhere there is fine.”

“Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada,” Goswin said. “Everyone think about that, and nothing else.”

They shut their eyes instinctually, and focused on the goal. None of them wanted to open their eyes for fear of breaking concentration, but success was fairly obvious when they felt a short burst of wind, and heard the flap of wings. They each peeked with one eye, and found there to only be three others in the room. Weaver checked the tracker output on the fridge. “He’s home.”

“What’s to stop it from happening again?” Goswin asked. “It happened once before, it could happen a third time, and more, and nothing can stop it.”

“You hear that beeping noise?” Weaver posed.

“Yeah?” Briar answered in the form of a question.

Weaver sucked her teeth a little. “We should go. Oh, there’s my watch.”

They climbed out of the bunker, and back onto the surface. One set of their shifted selves was standing out there already, with their version of Weaver trying to unlock the door using the secret boulder switch. “Weaver!One,” she acknowledged with a nod of her head.

“Weaver!Two,” the first Weaver replied.

“Self-destruct?”

“Had to be done.”

“How long?”

Weaver!One looked back at the steps as the hatch was closing up. “It’s soon enough. We should all go.”

“We came here for a reason,” the other Briar pointed out.

“The cons outweigh the pros,” Weaver!One tried to explain. “Now hustle off. Don’t let us get mixed up with each other.”

When Weaver!One tried to walk away, Weaver!Two took her by the arm. “Don’t go back to the Nucleus.” Her eyes darted over to the first Goswin. “One of them has taken his job a little too seriously. We barely escaped.”

“One of the Goswins?” Weaver!One asked.

“Just don’t go to the Nucleus,” she reiterated. “At least one group ended up on Dardius, where they were forced to watch some bizarre propaganda films. They’re taking the Reality Wars very seriously, they think we should join, and they have a way of keeping us from shifting away.” She didn’t say anything more about it.

The two groups separated from each other, and disappeared. At least that was what presumably happened. The first version of the crew leapt away first, leaving the newcomers’ fates in question. Perhaps they would go down into the bunker, halt the self-destruct sequence, and start the whole cycle over again. Misha Collins could spend the rest of his life being shifted back and forth to the Ediacaran period, altering future events irrevocably. It was possible that every other Weaver or Holly Blue who took her copy of the crew to that place inevitably made the same choice to destroy it, only for her plan to be unknowingly thwarted by the next copy. Time and reality were now defined by chaos. That was only meant to be the expected end state of the universe, not the beginning of it, nor the middle.

“This is where you grew up?” Eight Point Seven asked. They were standing by a pond in the middle of a small field, with a forest all around them.

“Monarch, Belgium,” Goswin confirmed. “Population: zero.”

“Your family was the only one here?” Eight Point Seven continued the interview.

“There were others...until the very end. In the late 21st century, when they started erecting all the arcological megastructures, of course most people eventually moved to them, or they wouldn’t have been successful. It was the rewilding effort that did it. As antienvironmentalists started to be turned over to death, it became easier and easier to convince people that giving the land back to nature was the only ethical choice given our technological ability to accomplish it. They left their homes, and made new ones. The cities disappeared, both in name, and in infrastructure. I believe they used to call this Ghent. Ghent didn’t get an arcology. The nearest one is closer to where Antwerp was.”

“Yet some people didn’t do that?”

“The megatowers are more environmentally friendly for sustaining the massive population of the whole planet, but it’s okay if a few choose other methods. North America had their circles, and we had our villages. We lived in arcologies too, just not gigantic ones. We lived on the land, but we didn’t live off of it, instead importing produce from vertical farms. That was my job for a time, pulling the cart of food by bicycle. That’s all I did; just pedaled back and forth from the village to the arc.” He stared at the pond. “Over and over and over and over and over again.” He paused for a few moments. “I got tired of the monotony, so I left. I had studied both history and futurology, so I knew that the villages would die out too. It was only a matter of time before kids like me decided that there were more social options in the towers. I won’t get into how I moved up to become the Futurology Administrator of the whole world, but...I’ll never forget where I came from. This is where my mother died. She wasn’t transhuman, so she only lived for 74 years. My dad underwent some treatments, but he stopped them for her. Unfortunately, I guess, it was too little too late. He still outlived her by 21 years. But not here. After the second to last person left Monarch, he left too, and moved into my cluster in the arc.”

Goswin looked up as if just remembering that he was talking to other people. “For those of you who don’t know, the arcologies are modular. Each unit is the same size, and comes with a baseline configuration, which includes a bathroom. It can be turned into a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, a bedroom, or even a simulacrum of an outdoor space, among other variations. And they can be moved around, so he didn’t move into my cluster of units so much as they literally picked up my one unit, and flew it down to another slot; one that had empty units next to it, which we began to occupy together.”

“Where are we in the timeline?” Eight Point Seven asked him. “Are you still on Earth? Is your father?”

Goswin took a deep breath, and twisted Weaver’s wrist, which sported a watch that always told her the time, even when she traveled through it in the wrong direction, or at the wrong speed. “We were very precise with this jump. My younger self left with my dad fifteen minutes ago. We just had my mother’s burial ceremony.”

“Where’s her grave?” Briar asked.

Goswin actually smiled. “Over here.” He led them down the path a ways.

“Monarch butterflies,” Eight Point Seven pointed out as a few of them began to land on her arms and head.

“Our namesake,” Goswin explained. “Like I was saying, they gave all this back to nature, but they didn’t just let it grow on its own. They planted things on purpose according to a very well thought out ecology algorithm, generated by an entity such as yourself. They decided that Belgium would do well with milkweed, and with milkweed comes Monarch butterflies.” He continued through the trees until coming to another clearing. A gravestone marked the spot where his mother was laid to rest, but it wasn’t altogether necessary. A swarm of monarchs were keeping watch over it.

“It’s beautiful,” Briar couldn’t help but say. He was starting to relax into himself.

“We can’t stay,” Weaver said with a sigh. “We have to go back to the Nucleus.”

Goswin nodded gently, though no one was looking at him; they were still watching the monarchs flutter about. “I know,” he whispered.

“You heard?”

“I may look like a regular human, but I have excellent hearing.”

“Are you prepared to meet your possibly evil self?”

He took a beat, but then answered confidently with, “yes.”

< > Entire Story