Microstory 2488: Chemosynthedome

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All this stuff went over my head, but in case you don’t see it from the title, this place is where most of the chemicals we use are produced. It even produces some water, for certain uses, though the majority of that comes from outer system ice mining. I won’t bore you with the details that my tour guide went over, because I don’t remember them. I’ll just say that this is clearly a very important place. They’re used to create organic substrates, and then to sustain them once people download their consciousnesses into them. Mechanical substrates still use gear lubricant. Synthesizer feedstock, spaceship energy maintenance and propulsion, superconductors, and the constituent parts of metamaterials. Everything is a chemical, in case you don’t know, and it all starts here. I wish I understood it better, but the tour was very dry, and they assumed a level of intelligence and education that I don’t have. Everyone else probably had no problem, though. I felt like an idiot, trying to keep up with what she was saying. I suppose that’s my only complaint. I obviously don’t take issue with the dome itself. It’s doing what needs to be done, and it sounds like it’s doing a great job at it. I just think there should be different kinds of tours, which cater to people of different backgrounds and interests. I did want to learn something, but it was so advanced that I basically ended up with nothing. I think what’s happened is that the planet’s priorities are in the really big and popular domes, which demand a lot of resources, like a massive android population. That leaves these educational, institutional domes behind. They develop what they’re asked to, but they don’t support a visiting population in addition to that. It’s just something to think about. I dunno, maybe it’s just all my fault. Whatever. Do what you gotta do.

Microstory 2475: Fashiondome

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If you’ve ever been to Bot Farm, you know how much work goes into creating all the androids that populate the domes to make them feel real and lived in, even when there aren’t very many visitors. Eventually, I believe the droid population will begin to decrease as more and more people move here, but for now, production does nothing but ramp up. That’s not about the bots themselves, though. It’s about their clothes! It’s also about your clothes. Every garment worn anywhere on the planet—unless you brought it with you—has been manufactured here. We’re talkin’ IMS units. We’re talkin’ themewear. We’re talkin’ bathing suits. If you go to Wild Wild Dome, you’re gonna see a lot of cowboy outfits, won’t you? Well, they made those here, and shipped them off when they were ready. You get it, I don’t need to list any more examples. You know what clothes are. In one sector, there are just rows and rows of industrial printers, fiber class. In another sector, there are rows and rows of racks where the finished products are stored. It’s precisely what you would expect out of a place like this. They don’t only make 3D printed clothes. It’s not even just about the products that need to go out to other domes. You can actually come here to design and fabricate your own clothes, at whatever level of technological advancement you prefer. They have electrical sewing machines, mechanical machines, and even just needle and thread. You can knit a scarf or crochet a hat. It doesn’t even have to be good, it just has to be fun. They also have fashion shows. Some of them are recreations of real shows from the past, while others are entirely original. They’re all produced by visitors like you. Nothing is made by a superintelligence, because that wouldn’t be very interesting, would it? If anything you can think of is even remotely tied to the fashion industry, both past and present, it’s here somewhere. Come here, and find your bliss. Funnily enough, however...clothing optional, just as it is anywhere.

Microstory 2474: MOE Dome 42

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MOE stands for Molten Oxide Electrolysis. This is the method that they use here on Castlebourne to produce a breathable atmosphere. The thing about barren terrestrial planets is that there’s usually a ton of oxygen, it’s just trapped in the rocks. Earth has it floating around, along with other gases, like nitrogen and hydrogen. Separating that all out isn’t easy, but it’s possible, and absolutely necessary here. So you got your dome in place, and it’s all sealed up, but that doesn’t make the inside anymore livable than the outside. Whoever first colonized this planet could have carried it with them, theoretically, but that...that’s a lot. It’s called in situ resource utilization. Use what’s available where you are, even if it takes work to process. There are about fifty-six MOE domes right now. I chose to take a tour of this one, because I like the number, but they’re all the same. I’m kidding, this was the only MOE Dome open for tours. I won’t go over their entire process, since that should be a surprise if you come here, lol. I’m kidding, it’s boring and dry, and that’s not what a review is for. It’s my job to tell you what my experience was like, and speculate as to what your experience will be like if you choose to do it too. These big machines grind up rocks, melt them down, and extract the constituent molecules. It’s all very technical. I thought it was cool to see the process, but I’m kind of a dummy. If you already know all this, it may seem normal and prosaic. Like yeah, of course that’s how they do it. I’ve seen it a million times. Well, then you don’t have to come, do you? There was this one woman on my tour who kept asking questions, but you know, in that kind of way that makes it clear that she already knew the answers, and just wanted us to be so impressed with her. Well, she was wrong or not quite right a number of times, which the tour guide respectfully corrected. He was a human, so I thought that was a pretty cool touch too, given how automated this whole planet has to be to function. If you’re into this stuff, come take a look for a couple of hours. If you’re not, I won’t try to convince you to try. Just remember that this effects us all. Until every dome has an established ecology which recycles air as efficiently and unceasingly as Earth does in its natural state, MOE Domes are probably the most important ones we got. I hope you appreciate that, whether you think it’s boring to watch and learn about, or not.

Microstory 40: Take a Hike

Yesterday, I was in the middle of my four-hour walk when a girl suddenly came down a hill and sidled up next to me to ask what I was doing. Not really something you do in a civilized society. People tend to leave me alone during my hikes. When I told her what I was doing, she asked if she could walk with me. I reluctantly agreed, ya know, in case she too had a knife. I politely answered her questions, and asked her a few of my own; which is against my nature. It felt less like a conversation, and more like an interview. Nearly a half hour later, I tried to turn to the left, but she stopped me and asked where I was going. I was heading toward an industrial area, and she was clearly perturbed by it. But that was my plan. I’ll go out for an hour, maybe two, with no idea where I’m going. But I map out my longer hikes since I may have to make sure I get to a road that safely goes under a highway, or over a stream. And we were past the point of no return. If I took any other route, it would be too long before I reached home. She said that there weren’t any restaurants in that area, and she was hoping we would grab a bite to eat. I cautiously asked her if she was homeless. She nodded and hung her head. “If you needed money, you could have just asked. You didn’t have to walk all this way with me.”

“I was hoping to pretend like it was a date, and you would pay for a meal anyway,” she answered. I considered my options for a few moments. I explained to her that she would be risking coming home with me, but that I would be risking letting her into my house, and that I could either give her twenty bucks and walk away, or we could risk it together. She hesitantly agreed. I woke up today half-expecting my television and computer to be gone, but everything was fine, so I guess I just have a roommate now.