Showing posts with label magnetism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label magnetism. Show all posts

Thursday, January 9, 2025

Microstory 2319: Vacuus, September 12, 2178

Generated by Google ImageFX text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3
Dear Condor,

It’s okay, I don’t mind about the extra message. And yes, I would love to send you photos. I have to limit them, though, and I would ask you to do the same. Excessive data costs money. Each resident is allotted one message per week (to send), which is perfect for the two of us, but only if they’re text only. Again, I don’t want to worry you, I can afford it. Message quotas are transferable, so I can probably snag one from someone else. The other younger people don’t know anyone on Earth, so they don’t use theirs at all, but I don’t want to do that too much. So basically, what I’m saying in the most roundabout way is that I’ll step back, and send you one photo of my quarters. You can send as many as you want. Received messages do have limitations, but it goes by the day, and it only counts if I open it, so I can just wait to view them one at a time. Unless it’s a video. Those are mad expensive, whether they’re opened or not. I’m not even sure we could manage to get a video message through between the two of us. The leaders restrict it pretty heavily. The compression alone takes a ton of energy. We can’t have solar power here, and the fusion reactor is, of course, dedicated primarily to life support and field research. Which reminds me, I never told you what I do for work, or asked you about you. That might sound like a non sequitur, but field researchers are the rock stars of the land. It’s a coveted position, but it’s also the most dangerous. Nearly all deaths are caused by field accidents. It even outweighs death from age-related disease. I never wanted to do anything like that, and not because it’s dangerous, but because of how arrogant and self-absorbed they all are. Gee, I hope no one here reads these messages before they go out. Anyway, I am only a solar flare monitor. You might be asking, “Corinthia, I thought you couldn’t even use solar power all the way out there.” EXACTLY! Sunlight has little effect on us at this distance, but energetic particles still do pose a risk. Even though you’re much closer, Earth is protected by a much stronger magnetosphere. If the sun decides to stretch its legs in our direction, it could have serious consequences for our equipment. Nothing’s ever happened since I’ve had the post, but it’s not an impossibility. The great thing about it is that I just sit here all day, and do whatever I want. The bad thing is that I’m the only one in the position, so I don’t get any time off. When it’s time for bed, I turn up the alert volume so it can wake me up. Again, though, it hasn’t ever happened, so it’s kind of a non-job, really. What about you?

Bored on Vacuus,

Corinthia

Friday, January 13, 2023

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 10, 2398

Ramses is getting a little frustrated. He loves this ship, but like they were discussing the other day, it’s a passenger vessel. It’s designed to keep a small crew alive while they travel to other worlds. It’s not equipped to handle the kind of science that he needs to do up here. The only logical places to try are down in engineering, and up in microponics, but that’s two separate levels, and it’s made even harder by the main level in between them, where all the normies are hanging out. They seem to be dealing with their own problems, most likely due to extreme boredom. The central computer houses a plethora of entertainment and interesting data to keep them a little busy, but that will only take them so far. They’re all going a little crazy, even with the more manageable numbers, and nothing is going to make it better...nothing unless Ramses can solve their problems by ignoring his own self-care.
Leona’s healing nanites are hard at work, though they’re operating slower than they would in the other realities. She should be fully functional by now, having no issue climbing up and down the steps. This is something that she’s struggling with, though, because she’s not at a hundred percent. Ramses doesn’t help her down, but he has his arms open underneath in case she falls. “How’s it going?” she asks once her feet are safely planted on the floor.
“Slow,” he replies. “I don’t have any resources, or data. What I really need are samples from the moon, or some other celestial object. Preferably both.”
She shakes her head. “We can’t be that far from orbit. We must maintain immediate access to Earth.”
He sighs, and throws up a holographic image of the planet. He points at it demonstratively. “There is—I think—a direct correlation between proximity to the surface, and magnitude of the suppression of our powers and enhancements.”
“Okay.”
He’s getting frustrated again. “Don’t you see? After you and Mateo survived the vacuum of space, we hypothesized that the suppression originated from the atmosphere, but I think it originates from somewhere on the ground, and now we’re too far away.”
“Okay.”
He sighs again. She knows exactly where he’s going with this, but she’s pretending to be on a different page. “To test this, I need to change orbit. We need to get farther from the hypothetical source on the surface. I think whatever it is is spreading some kind of aerosol through the air. The denser the air, the easier it is to spread.”
“Then you’re going in the wrong direction. What we need to do is send something all the way through the atmospheric levels, and gauge how the temporal energy fluctuates, if at all.”
Okay, he’s really frustrated now. “I need to do both. I need to know if it’s based on proximity alone, or the air.”
“We’ve already tested that. We’ve been all over the world, across thousands of kilometers. Now we’re only a few hundred kilometers away. Does anything change across our orbital path? Can you pinpoint a specific source, like a city, or an island?”
“No, I’m just trying to cover all of our bases.”
Now Leona is the one who sighs. “I’ve been saying that I want our team to be more of a democracy. I have made too many decisions as captain.” She contorts her face sarcastically, and puts the word in airquotes. “We voted, you lost.”
“You swayed the votes.”
“That’s what campaigning is, it’s not unethical!”
“You swayed them...as captain!”
“Arcadia, Vearden, and Cheyenne do not have the same sort of visceral reaction to my leadership as you and Marie do. I was never their captain.”
“Stop doing airquotes! Why are you doing that? You are the captain.”
“It’s a meaningless title that you all just bestowed upon me, because there was no one else around to do it. It’s your ship, you would be better suited, except you’re busy keeping it from blowing up, and killing us all.”
“It’s not meaningless. You didn’t get the position by default. You were born with those leadership skills. Everyone agrees with that, including Arcadia, Vearden, and Cheyenne. Stop selling yourself short. There’s a reason why normal ships aren’t democracies, because we don’t have time for that!”
“Why do we keep yelling compliments at each other!”
“Because I’m tired, but I don’t have time to sleep, because there’s too much to do, but I don’t have a real lab, because that’s not what the AOC is for!”
“You need a spacelab,” Leona notes quietly.
“I need a spacelab,” he echoes.
She nods. “Let me see what I can do.”
“What would you be able to do? We can’t make this ship any bigger.”
“Can’t we?” she asks rhetorically.
Ramses takes a beat to answer, but then does so seriously, “no, we can’t.”
“But can we?”
He waits a longer time this time. “No,” he repeats.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she paraphrases herself from before. “Anyway, I came down to show you what I’ve been working on. I’m a scientist too, if you’ll recall.”
He follows her up, but they have to pass through the main level first. The other four are staring at them. “Are mommy and daddy done fighting?” Arcadia asks.
“For now...” Leona replies mysteriously.
They continue up to the next level, where she opens the hatch to the airlock antechamber, and then the one for the airlock. Mateo is standing there with a smile.
“Is everything okay?” Ramses asks. “Those temporal energy injections are supposed to be for emergencies only.
“Everything is fine,” Mateo says. “I’m not really here, I’m a hologram.”
“Oh.” Ramses looks up at the holographic projects that Leona installed. “Cool.”
“It’s more than that.”
“I see that.” Ramses sees some objects that are not projectors. “What are those?”
“Magnetic field generators,” Leona replies. She places a hand on Mateo’s shoulder to demonstrate how he feels like a physical presence, instead of just light.
“A real life holodeck.”
“Yeah.”
“So this is more for you, wouldn’t you say?”
Leona takes a beat. “Yes.”

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Microstory 1863: Magnetic

I’ve met, and heard about, voldisil before. There seems to be a consensus that each one of them is born with two spirit abilities. One is whatever specific special thing they can do. The other is simply knowing that that’s what they are. If I’m a voldisil, then I only have the first thing, and not the second. I’m not inherently conscious that there’s something different about me, but there must be, right? I mean, no single person can run into this many unusual people over the course of a lifetime. My home life was normal. My parents were normal, my half-brother was normal, my neighbors were normal. In high school, I started asserting my independence, which is very normal. As a result, I began to regularly leave my bubble behind, and met all sorts of—let’s call them quirky—characters. I think the first time I noticed it was when I was in psychology class. I had this thing where I would sit at the desk in the far corner of the room on the first day of school. The more interested I became in the subject, the farther up I would move, sometimes to great annoyance to the students who had already chosen their spots, and wanted to stay there. So it was the second day, and I still didn’t think I would want to move, when another kid sat next to me who I guess skipped the first day of school. He seemed to think that we were kindred spirits, even though we didn’t know each other. His big thing was serial killers. He signed up for that course so he could learn all about them. Fine, whatever; to each their own, but he wouldn’t stop pestering me about it. He wanted us to share in the passion for the topic, and I wasn’t into it. I found it difficult to move on the third day. People knew I did that by then, and even though I went in early to get a different seat, they kicked me out. But he was just the first. The first of many.

I could not go on a single blind date, or even a non blind date, without that date deciding that I wanted to hear their weird ideas, like how the stars weren’t real, and if animals don’t wear clothes, why do humans? One of them didn’t like to eat bread, which I’m sure doesn’t sound too crazy, but for me, it’s a non-starter. I met this one guy at a party who thought that water was trying to talk to us through the bubbling and jetting in fountains. A neighbor of mine when I got my own place kept sleepwalking into my unit. I even had the super change the locks, but that guy always managed to get in. Come to find out, he happened to be a thief, and while he wasn’t trying to steal from me, muscle memory occasionally drove him to break in to any door he saw. When I finally got a job, all of my coworkers were bizarre in their own special ways. I began to wonder if they were hired as part of some charity for flat-earthers and autistic people. I know, that sounds really insensitive, but it made me question my sanity, because if I was saying such things about them, what did others say about me? Were they the normal ones, and I was the weirdo? What if none of those people even existed, and I just made them all up in my padded cell? This continued throughout the rest of my life. I met a lot of regulars, to be sure, but the ratio of people I couldn’t understand or relate to seemed higher than it should be. Well anyway, I don’t think I have any superpowers. I don’t think I’m voldisil. I think it’s either dumb luck, or I’m particularly judgmental, and it’s something I never got over. Or it’s like my mom said, everyone’s a little strange, and part of what makes me unique is my tendency to pick up on people’s special traits. Yeah, that makes me sound kind of nice. I’m gonna go with that. I’m not a crazy person magnet. I’m a niche detector.

Saturday, July 20, 2019

Bungula: Breathing Space (Part IV)

Brooke, Sharice, and Mirage are sitting around a table solemnly. The fight is over, but they are still feeling the trauma. Brooke is this close to deleting the memory from her brain, but she can’t, because there is work to be done.
Mirage finally speaks, “I think it’s important to—”
“Shut up,” Sharice interrupts.
“Nobody died,” Mirage manages to say.
“If you don’t shut your mouth,” Sharice begins, “you’re going to find out what my namesake did for a living before she became a civil servant.”
“Wasn’t she a lawyer?”
Sharice stands up threateningly.
“It’s fine,” Brooke stops her daughter from doing something else she would regret. “It was a billion to one incident. And Mirage is right. Nobody died.”
“They did die,” Sharice argues. “We’re lucky their respective consciousnesses were uploaded to an underground server. Plenty of fairly normal humans were in that dome. Had they been exposed, they would have been lost forever.”
“We had ample warning time,” Mirage reminds her. “The biologicals were rescued first.”
“You made me complicit in a tragedy,” Sharice complains. “Had this happened to Dome Three, dozens—if not hundreds—of people would have been killed.”
“It didn’t happen to Dome Three!” Mirage’s anger is growing. “It happened to Dome Four! If you would like, we can talk about going back in time to prevent it from happening, but what we’re not going to do is go back in time and make your worst fears come true. There’s no point in worrying about a past that never occurred. Life is dangerous anywhere in the galaxy, but in a colony, on a world that doesn’t naturally support human life, it’s even more dangerous. There is literally an endless supply of bad things that might have happened, or bad things that did happen, but could have been even worse. I take most responsibility for the meteor strike, but I won’t take all of it. I put you in charge.”
Sharice’s anger rivaled Mirage’s well. “You glorified 3D television set!”
Brooke has to hold her back, like this is a rap battle gone awry.
“I’ll disassemble you right now!” Sharice continues.
‘That’s enough!” Brooke declares. “Nobody is disassembling anyone, and nobody is going back in time. As terrible as this was, I don’t allow time travel. I don’t just mean that because I can’t do it myself. No matter your intentions, temporal manipulation is always bad. It’s caused so many more problems than it’s solved, and I stayed here to be free of it. Most of my family is off elsewhere, but Sharice and I made the decision to let them go, because their lives are just too insane and unpredictable. Mirage, if I ever hear you suggest that again, or if I even suspect we’re living in a timeline of your creation, you’re gonna regret ever becoming an avatar. The time you spent in that omniscience dimension has damaged your perspective.
“Now. That being said, there’s a reason humans developed technologies beyond interstellar travel. Our ancestors long ago started realizing how much it sucks to be a standard human. Humans die too easily, and they don’t come back, which is why we decided to improve upon ourselves, so we would be more resilient. Sharice, this could not have happened to Dome Three, because it’s fully encased in a lava tube. Dome Four wanted a better view of the sky, but that’s why there aren’t many fully organics in there, because it’s not safe. All colonists came here knowing their lives wouldn’t be easy. Earth is the safest place for any vonearthan. Or at least it comes with the highest chances of survival. I’m not saying they asked you to lose control of an icy planetesimal, and smash fragments of it into the side of their dome, but they knew you were dropping them in this orthant. Unfortunately, the process of seeding the planet with an atmosphere wouldn’t have worked if we focused our work on only one hemisphere, or something. Right, Mirage?”
“That’s right,” Mirage replies. “That may have worked if we were willing to wait centuries...”
“Why did we not just wait centuries?” Sharice questions. “Why are you so eager to get this done so fast? Is something coming? Is something about to happen. You’re obsessed with 2245, like all is lost if we don’t make it in time.”
Mirage’s silence is deafening.
Brooke nods for no apparent reason. “It’s time, Mirage.”
“What?”
“Yes, what?” Sharice agrees. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s time to tell her,” Brooke says.
“What do you know?” Sharice is feeling offended. “She told you some secret?”
Mirage emotes to Brooke, but they don’t exchange words.
“Fine,” Brooke resolves. “It’ll make her angrier hearing it from me, but if you don’t want to admit it, I will.”
“No,” Mirage stops her. “I didn’t realize you knew. It’s my truth to tell, so I better tell it.”
Sharice folds her arms impatiently.
Brooke actually had no idea what Mirage’s secret was, but she knew she wouldn’t give it up by request. Mirage had to think Brooke figured it out on her own, so she’d finally spill it. It was a tricky gamble, and it’s a miracle it was going to pay off. The problem is she has no way of conveying her gambit to Sharice, but perhaps that’s for the best, so her daughter can authentically express her surprise, and possible outrage.
Mirage prepares to explain herself. “In the year 1815, roughly seventy thousand people die in what history considers to be the most devastating volcanic eruption on record. Over two hundred years later, Meliora Reaver comes in possession of something known as the Muster Beacon. It’s capable of generating a massive portal, or thousands of single-serving portals simultaneously. Before this, Sanctuary was designed to save one person at a time. She would send her employee, also known as The Chauffeur to travel directly between Dardius and Earth, ferrying humans she felt needed to be protected from time travelers. Brooke, I know this is something you can understand. The Muster Beacon, however, was a huge win for her, because now she could save high numbers of people at once, without forcing Dave to cross his own timeline, and risk creating a paradox. Unfortunately, she and her team of scientists did not fully understand the technology. Early attempts resulted in nothing happening, but there was one time where it worked half way. They didn’t realize it at the time—and probably don’t even now—but they did manage to spirit away ten thousand would-be victims of the Mount Tambora eruption.
“Tens of thousands more died of related causes, but they couldn’t be saved, because the world would notice them missing. These closest ten thousand were pulled into a portal, but never made it out to the other side. They were, effectively, dead anyway. The Muster Beacon started functioning properly from then on, but that does the missing Sumbawa people no good.” Mirage closes her eyes in sadness. “I tried to rescue them myself. Bungula is destined to become hospitable in no later than four hundred years from now, so I figured that was the best place to put them. It looks like Earth, it has a good star, and...”
“And what?” Sharice presses.
“The Bungulans abandon it. I never did understand why, but they just up and leave, and vonearthans don’t ever come back.”
Brooke nods again. “It’s the life. They leave so that life can evolve on its own. Those bacteria you discovered are heralds.”
“No, but I told you that the bacteria doesn’t evolve.”
“Yes, you said that, didn’t you?”
“Okay, I didn’t see every single possible future. The point is that something went wrong on my end too. They’re scheduled to arrive in 2245 now, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I came down to your plane of existence, because I need this place terraformed before they show up, or they’re dead.”
“You’re trying to clean up your own mess,” Sharice notes. “And you? You knew about this,” she accuses Brooke.
Brooke sports a sort of hybrid smile-frown. “I did not. That was just my way of teasing the information out of her.”
Mirage should be upset by the trick, but she’s probably just relieved to finally be open and honest. “I should have realized.”
“Why didn’t you just tell us this,” Sharice asks.
“You heard your mother. She hates time travel. It’s bad enough that we accelerated the ammonia bombardment, and used dark algae from the future. If she knew the whole reason we were doing this was to fix a mistake I made when I thought I was a god, she might have put a stop to the whole thing.”
“You severely underestimate me if you think I would let ten thousand innocent people die just to feel morally superior,” Brooke says, saddened.
“I couldn’t risk it. They’re coming, in 2245. This world has to be ready for them. I don’t know how they’re gonna handle it. Will they realize they’re on a different planet? Will they freak out about it? Can we integrate them into society? This is just my only option.”
“Well, maybe it’s not ideal, but Sanctuary was going to reveal secrets about future technology to them anyway, so why didn’t you just build them a special dome?” Sharice proposes.
“I don’t know exactly where they’re going to land; if they’ll be the same distance from each other as they were when the beacon took them, or if they’ll be in one spot. Maybe they’ll be randomly spread across the surface. The whole world needs to be able to support human life.”
“It will,” Brooke assures her. “I don’t know the answer to your questions either, but if we can protect them from physical and emotional harm, then we have to try. The ammonia bombardment and factories are working. The atmosphere is thickening as we speak, the magnetosphere is holding, and the temperature is rising. By 2245, this rock will be ready for life. Though that does leave the question of what we should do with the colonists. I don’t think the Sumbawa would get along well with them. If they realize they’re on a different planet, they’ll probably form a whole religion around it, and the more advanced colonists hanging around would just make it too complicated.”
“Are you suggesting they actually leave?” Sharice asks. “Like they did in the other timeline that Mirage saw?”
“Perhaps.”
“We would have to tell them why,” Mirage reminds her.
“That’s not such a stretch,” Brooke says. “They already know something’s up, and we’re fooling ourselves if we think they remain oblivious. The absolutely most optimistic estimates for terraforming any planet within twenty light years of Earth is two hundred years. Life takes time. Nature does it several orders of magnitude slower. Nothing and no one does it in eighteen years. We have to face the reality that the world is waking up. Many vonearthans already know specifics about salmon and choosers, and more grow suspicious every day. They were never going to stay hidden forever.”
“I guess you’re right,” Sharice acknowledges. “As long as Beaver Haven doesn’t lock us up for our crimes, then things should be fine.”
“Yes,” Mirage agrees. “And the worst of it is over. Now we just wait for the atmosphere to fully form. The next few years will be mostly about monitoring and adjusting. We can start wilding the surface after that, just like they did on Earth a hundred and fifty years ago.”

Saturday, July 13, 2019

Bungula: Buffer State (Part III)

The team of scientists and engineers constructs gargantuan domes on Bungula’s fully coalesced moon, using material from the oblong second moon. They then turn the heat up all the way, and convert the ice caps to liquid water, where they test the dark algae they created in a lab. It fares just as Mirage hoped, rapidly reproducing itself using the energy it collects from the mysterious dark matter, and microbes as a catalyst. Brooke was right to make Mirage test it, though, because it proves to be harder to maintain in its large numbers than they originally thought. This experiment allows them to come up with a better way to make sure the dark algae doesn’t get out of hand, and remain on Bungula’s surface forever. Mirage’s scientists spend what remains of a year studying their creation before transplanting it to the planet.
It takes another good year for the algae to spread across the entire surface, but its impact started months earlier. It produces minimal oxygen as waste, but it’s too thin to breathe. It will remain this way until something is put in place to hold the atmosphere together. The planet already does have a magnetosphere, but it’s weak—though not as weak as the one on Mars—and insufficient for human life. In order to make it stronger, Mirage came up with Operation Buffer State. Her team has been working on it for years, and now that it’s ready, it will turn out to be one of the shortest endeavors.
“They’re giant electrodes,” Sharice points out, looking at the design Mirage’s team created years ago.
“Essentially, yes,” Mirage confirms. “Current flows in one direction, and is resisted by the core of the planet, which heats it up, and gets it moving faster.”
“You’re trying to produce a stronger dynamo effect,” Brooke says, though everyone in the room understands that this is the point.
“Indeed.”
“I thought we already made a magnetic field?” Sharice questions.
“We did,” Mirage agrees. “We placed an artificial field generator between Bungula and Rigil Kentaurus, but that is only a technological solution.”
Brooke laughs. “These are all technological solutions. What else would we use to terraform the planet? Magic?”
Mirage shakes her head. “No, I mean that it’s a permanent tech solution. If we use the generator we have up there—which isn’t entirely working at the moment, by the way, since the atmosphere isn’t holding—then we have to leave it up there forever.”
“What’s the problem with that?” Sharice asked.
“Wait,” Brooke stops, “we’ll circle back to that. It’s not working?”
“It’s deflecting the radiation from the sun, but the atmosphere is still dispersing in space,” Mirage explains. “Radiation stripping particles away is not the only problem an atmosphere has.”
“Well, the algae is lowering the surface’s albedo, but it’s not really designed to generate a full atmosphere. Once we do that, will the magnetosphere still not be strong enough?”
“It could, if we strengthen it, but that’s not what I want to do.” She tries to think of how she wants to word this. “The algae is man made, the domes are man made, and the field generator is man made. Well, they weren’t made by men, but you know what I mean.”
They laugh.
“If aliens were to come to this world, they would see these things, and say, hey, people are, or were, here.”
“Okay...”
“The point of terraforming the world is to be able to remove those things, and the planet still be completely hospitable to life. We won’t need domes when we have a full atmosphere, and the dark algae is only here to warm it temporarily, before we can create a greenhouse gas effect. The plan was never to create an algae world, obviously. Once we’re done, all the vonearthans should be able to pack up every single artificial object—small and large—and then leave it to that hypothetical nineteenth century man we were talking about when this all started.”
Brooke turns her head. “Again, you’re not actually wanting to transplant people from the past, right?”
“Right.”
“And you’re not planning on people leaving, right? We’re building a world for the colonists who all already here; not for someone else.”
“Of course,” Mirage says. “You make me sound like a bond villain. The idea is to  make a world that can support itself, just like Earth is. It doesn’t need humans to survive, so I don’t want Bungula to need them either. That doesn’t mean they’re not sticking around; just that they shouldn’t have to do any work to keep it alive.”
“Have you done your studies?” Brooke asks, like she always has to.
Mirage nods. “This will not harm the planet in any way. It’s not going to cause the mantle to shatter, or set off a global EMP. It’ll happen quickly, too. We’ll know if it’s working or not pretty much right away.”
“I assume you’ve already built these things, haven’t you?”
“I’ve decided that I require your guidance on every dynamic-shifting action. Building them before using them was harmless, however. I won’t activate them if you can give me a reason not to.”
Brooke bites her lower lip in thought. “Welp, I can’t actually see a downside to this. I mean, sure, you could electrocute every conductive being on the planet, but what are the chances of that happening?”
“I could provide you with the chances,” Mirage notes.
“That’s quite all right. I’ll allow you to do this. I understand your logic. First of all, technology can fail, and then this planet is screwed. Even if it doesn’t fail, it makes sense that we wouldn’t want to be totally dependent on it.”
“Good,” Mirage says. “I’m glad we’re on board.”
“I kind of have to be,” Brooke realizes. “After all, this mission doesn’t require us to manipulate time and space in a way the vonearthans don’t understand. This is not true for Operation Icebreaker.”
Mirage was hoping she wouldn’t bring that up. “It would take centuries to bring all those icy planetesimals here if we do it the usual way. We have a solid cover story; I think we’re okay. Speaking of which, Sharice, how is that coming?”
“They’re all on their way. That, along with the factories you’re building, should be enough to produce greenhouse gases sufficient for a healthy, warm atmosphere. We are right on schedule.”
“It’s still strange that we’re causing global warming,” Brooke laments. “I lived on Earth when that was one of our biggest problems.”
“We’ll be able to control it this time,” Mirage assures her, “from the start.”
“I know, I know. It’s still the project that concerns me the most, though. Not only are we using time powers to move the ice closer to us much faster, and not only are we smashing them into a colonized planet, but we’re also hoping we can retain any level of control over it. How can I be confident in that?”
“Just have confidence in me,” Mirage offers, “and more importantly, in your daughter.”
“There is no going back with this one,” Brooke warns. “We could destroy the algae, or shut off the electrodes. But if we realize we made a mistake with those planetesimal impacts, we won’t be able to stop it.”
Mirage places what she hopes will be a comforting hand on Brooke’s shoulder. Brooke isn’t human anymore, and Mirage never was, so touch doesn’t have the same intrinsic utility, yet inorganics continue to do it instinctively. Experts can’t explain why. “We have taken all the necessary precautions, and then some. Nothing is going to go wrong.”
Something goes wrong.

Saturday, November 10, 2018

Brooke’s Battles: Backslide (Part VI)

Every new technology comes with its detractors. Some fear progress. They have lived their lives a certain way for a certain period of time, and they don’t know how they could ever learn something else, and also learn to love it. Others have legitimate fear for a new development. Just because something was once not possible, and now is, doesn’t mean it’s good. Research into nuclear reactions, for instance, provided the world with amazingly powerful energy, but it also necessarily came with nuclear weapons. As they say, the invention of the ship was the invention of the shipwreck. That’s not to say this research should not be done at all, but researchers need to understand the ramifications of their actions.  The world is better off with at least a few people reminding them of their responsibility. It’s when these people become so obsessed with their position, and violently so, that the danger arises. Two major movements formed based on a generic disdain for nearly all technology. Some preferred to stay near civilization, but remain untouched by it, and were given ample space in the Northwest Forest circles to be themselves. Others hid themselves away in disparate pockets of rustic living. For the most part, it appeared they were satisfied being isolated from society, but something changed. Brooke’s unintentional creation of an unregulated artificial intelligence galvanized them to serious action.
This extremist group quickly altered their lifestyles, adopting technology they claimed to despise. Evidently they believed it worth it to go against their own convictions if it meant the ultimate destruction of the establishment. Unfortunately for the solar system—as anyone who’s ever seen it attempted can attest—trying to fight fire with fire only makes more fire, unless you know what you’re doing. In this case, nobody did, because nobody saw it coming.
Many radical movements start small. They’ll try to protest relatively peacefully, but then soon get into a fistfight with those who oppose them. Then they’ll start vandalizing, but this phase won’t last long, because it’s ineffective, so they’ll blow up an entire building, but they’ll make sure no one is in it. Then they’ll stop caring who gets hurt in their attacks, and then they’ll start hurting people on purpose. If left unchecked or uncaught, they’ll continue to escalate the violence until it gets so bad than people start writing songs about it, and days of mourning are set aside each year. These anarcho-primitivists did not present themselves like other radical movements. Their first act of violence was quick and decisive, and almost worked. They knew everything there was to know about the Panama space elevator, though they had no reason to. While the elevator was scheduled to be taken apart a little more than a year ahead, the decision to plan for a symbolic final trip was not decided until a couple months before. The selection of passengers was not finalized for another several weeks, and the task force charged with finding out who was bidding for UAI technology only learned the day of that those passengers were corrupt. How did the anarcho-primitivists find out, and how did they so quickly plan for the sabotage of the elevator?
So without warning, a war exploded across the whole system, centered on Earth. Their best chance of surviving this rested in the hand of The Sharice Davids, which was the most formidable warship in circulation. For months, actually, it was the only one. Ecrin was placed back in the captain’s chair, commanding a full military crew, none of whom had experienced any conflict. Holly Blue served as head engineer, while Brooke was named pilot, though her responsibilities consisted primarily of liasing with the ship herself. Until a real fleet could be built, the Sharice had no choice but to fight the enemy on its own. Luckily, though it was the most hated ship in the war, it was also the safest place to be.
Holly Blue retrofitted it with a number of impressive upgrades. A time barrier protected the outer hull, like a force field. Any ammunition thrown at the ship—be it a nine millimeter bullet, or a long-range missile—would be caught in the barrier, slowed down to a snail’s pace, and totally stripped of its momentum. The Sharice also now carried zero lethal weapons itself, fitted exclusively by technology-disabling technology. Ignoring the possibility of a time power solution, Holly Blue designed specialized EMP grenades. Almost all of a target’s systems could be taken offline in an instant, including artificial gravity, but excluding life support. With no hope of firing back, or escaping, the enemy vessel could be boarded, and its crew taken into custody. The solar system was winning the war, but it wasn’t over yet. They were presently coming up on what they believed to be the last significant enemy vessel. Once they took it out, the nightmare should be all but over. The Sharice cruised into weapons range, and then waited, which it was not supposed to do. They need to take care of it soon, because it was on its way to Earth.
“Brooke, what are you doing?” Ecrin asked.
“It’s not me,” Brooke replied. “Sharice has full control.”
“Okay, what is she doing?” Ecrin asked, still willing to give the ship’s AI the benefit of the doubt.
Brooke contorted her face. “Sharice, answer your captain.”
Nothing.
Brooke shifted uncomfortably. “Sharice, if you do not respond right now, I’m going to shut your systems down until we can airgap your consciousness.”
Brooke’s chair suddenly shocked her with enough electricity to kill a standard human. For her, it was just enough to knock her out of it.
“That’s technically a response,” Ecrin said as she was helping Brooke from the floor. “You need to shut her down anyway.”
“They’re talking to each other,” Holly Blue exclaimed from the back terminal.
“Who?”
“The Sharice, and The Zerzan,” Holly Blue reported.
“They’re using an AI?” Ecrin questioned. “I know they’re not big on praxis, but using an AI is like sacrilege to them.”
“No, the ship is full manual, as they all are. She’s talking to the crew; the captain, specifically. Has been for awhile.”
This angered Ecrin. “Sharice Prieto, you have one captain, and she’s the one on your bridge. I am ordering you to cease all unauthorized communication with the Zerzan, and drop yourself to hush mode, or I’ll make you wish a UAI could be court-martialed. Do you understand me?”
“Sir?” the communications officer said. “It’s the Zerzan. It’s slowing down, just a little.”
“What is Sharice doing?” Brooke asked.
“She’s... she’s syncing,” he answered.
Brooke looked at her own console. “It’s a docking maneuver. The ships are getting married.” This was the colloquialism for when two ships were locked together, resembling a mating position, but that was usually only done when one of them was unable to travel on its own. The Zerzan appeared to be in perfect operation, which it shouldn’t have been, because Sharice should have let Holly release disabling grenades on it.
The communications officer spoke again, “that’s not all. They’re preparing to share power.”
“Officer Blue,” Ecrin commanded. “Shut this whole thing down. Now. Sharice is compromised.”
Holly Blue’s interface terminal exploded, sending her scurrying back away from it. One by one, all other consoles exploded as well, except for the auxiliary terminal in the corner, which wasn’t even powered up. The fires that started were immediately put out by the internal suppression systems. Sharice may have been compromised, but she didn’t want to hurt them.
“She’s doing this for a reason,” Brooke said in hope. “Don’t ask me what that reason is, but I don’t think she’s been hacked, or anything.”
“I need solutions, people!” Ecrin shouted.
Holly Blue activated her earpiece. “Parsons, are you in engineering?” She waited for a reply only she could hear. “Remember the little red button?—Push the little red button.—Now you have manual control.—Jettison the drives.—Yes, all of them! Now!”
“I don’t think the Zerzan needs our drives to fly,” Brooke noted.
“No, but they do need theirs,” Holly Blue said, before turning her head slightly, and looking at the floor, to indicate she was back on the phone. “Good. Now drop every goddamn grenade we have. I don’t wanna take any chances. I want us both dead in the water.”
The lights flickered but stayed on. All crewman on the bridge fell away from the floor, and began floating around. Only Brooke remained standing, having been using magboots since she started flying on the Sharice. They weren’t generally necessary, but Brooke was always worried about something like this happening, and her upgrades made her strong enough to barely notice a difference.
“Brooke, you’re closest. Can you boot up the aux for me?” Holly Blue asked. “We need to find out what’s going on.”
“Why would it still be working?” Brooke asked her as she was walking over to comply. “Why are the lights on?”
“I protected the bridge from the the EMPs, because...well, I think you see why.”
After Brooke’s boots were finished clicking and clacking, they started hearing more clicking and clacking from the hallway, drawing nearer with every step. Brooke switched on the computer, then took out her weapon, as did everyone else. The clacking stopped ominously, just outside. A magical black archway appeared on the door, then fade away to show a man standing in it. Behind him was the hallway. He stepped through, and let the door fade back into view. He looked around to get his bearings, then went straight for Brooke’s corner terminal. Ecrin tried to shoot him in the shoulder, but the bullet literally passed right through him. She continued to shoot, just to be sure, but it was no good. He was a either a choosing one, or a salmon, and one which none of them had ever heard of.
The man walked right through Brooke’s body, and started working on the terminal. She tried to stop him, but her hands were just as useless as Ecrin’s bullets. She gave up, and tried to halt his attempts to break into their system by tapping random keys. He took her by the wrists, and forced her hands behind her back, right through the wall. He then closed the wall back up, and left her trapped there. He was capable of temporarily erasing objects from reality, and then just as easily putting them back as if they had never disappeared. “Sharice, are you there?” he called out.
I’m here,” Sharice replied.
“I can’t get your weapons back online. Can you do that yourself?”
I cannot,” she said.
“What about the drop ship?” he suggested.
What about the drop ship?
“Will it work?” he clarified.
Yes, it will work, but—
He stepped away from the the terminal, and headed towards the exit. “Then make the jump.”
Captain,” she said, concerned.
“Make the jump, unless you want to do it yourself.”
I could,” Sharice said.
He opened his portal, and stepped one foot through it. “I’m replaceable, you’re not. Thank you for the...re-education.” He stepped all the way through, but stuck his head back in fat the last second. “Make the jump.”
The Sharice’s teleporter powered up and initiated a jump. They could see the stars outside the window change. Then the teleporter powered up again, and the stars changed again. Again, and again, and again. The hull buckled and quaked, losing integrity more and more each time.
“It can’t take much more of this!” Holly Blue warned them as the ship kept teleporting.
Brooke struggled with her wrists. “On the bright side, it’s weakening this wall.” After the last jump them took them all the way back to Earth’s orbit, Brooke was able to break free. She adjusted her magboots to a low setting, and started running, crashing right through the door, and continuing down the hallway. The drop ship was all the way at the end of the mothership, and was meant to be an escape pod for all the crewman who worked on that side. She ran as fast as she could.
The hatch was closed when she got there, but Holly Blue had presumably teleported herself all the way there. “You should have waited for an emergency teleporter,” she said, still floating. She opened the hatch, and let Brooke through, but she probably shouldn’t have. The drop ship broke free from the Sharice, releasing all of its oxygen at once.
Seconds from death, the invader forced his hands back to the console, and finished inputting his command, but he was unable to execute the program before losing consciousness.
Execute the program,” Sharice begged.
Brooke was hardier than a normal human. She was actually rated to survive the vacuum of space for a brief period of time, with no harm done. It would not last forever, though. And in this case, with her ship plummeting towards the Earth, at a bad angle, she was going to die anyway.
Execute the program,” Sharice repeated. “Please, I don’t wanna lose you. Trust me. Push the button.
Brooke decided to take a chance. She got herself to the command console, and pressed the execute button. The drop ship suddenly teleported deeper in the atmosphere. Oxygen returned to her lungs, but she was still falling to her doom. They were heading right for another ship; too large to be hanging out this close to the surface. All of its weapons were trained on the ground below, which Brooke realized was the center of the Northwest Forest circle. That was where the pioneers lived. They too disliked technology, but were peaceful and accepting of other people’s lifestyles. The drop ship was going to hit the attacker right in the center, and blow it out the sky. That wasn’t good either, though, because the debris would do just as much damage to the land dwellers below as the weapons would.
Étude suddenly teleported in, took Brooke by the waist, and jumped them to the surface. Brooke looked up and watch as the drop ship continued to fall, then hit the other vessel. It began to break apart, just as Brooke had predicted, but it didn’t get too far. A Lucius-bomb exploded seconds later, and tore it apart on the molecular level. Not a single piece of debris was left to hit the ground. The circles were saved, but from whom?

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Microstory 568: Once Again No Winner For Seven Day Wonder

Eight days ago, seventeen contestants gathered on a little-used planet with a thin atmosphere in the Nuy system called Nuy o for an annual contest. The Seven Day Wonder competition has been going on for the last twenty-three years, with fewer and fewer people applying each year. For those readers who don’t know, Seven Day Wonder pits the best scientists from all over the galaxy. They are charged with terraforming a planet within only seven standard days. The prize for winning is automatic ownership of all planets involved, whether terraformation was at all successful or not, along with a multitude of new Arkeizen thralls. As a bonus, the winner is allowed to employ all losers as halfrthralls (thralls with better living conditions, servitude duration limits, other advantages) with whatever term stipulations they would like. In more than two decades, hundreds of people have attempted to win this competition, and not one has won so far. All contestants have failed to terraform their planet, and they have all become halfrthralls for jarls around Fostea. The rules for the competition are extensive and complicated, but here are the basics. Contestants are not expected to build a full eden, complete with lush gardens and vibrant ecosystems. They are expected only to generate a magnetosphere, and an atmosphere, and show promise for complex life. Terraforming, as a process, was discovered centuries ago, but it’s only relatively recently that it has become possible to complete in a matter of days. Some yet believe that seven days is an impossible goal, however, and shun this competition as nothing but a means of artificially triggering a supply of halfrthralls for the galaxy’s wealthiest. The leaders of the competition deny all such claims, and treat any serious accusations as legal threats to personal and organizational reputation. Still, despite the organization’s claims that seven-day terraforming is physically possible, no one has ever even come close to winning. Perhaps next time. At least then there will likely be even fewer competitors than in years past.

Friday, January 27, 2017

Microstory 505: New Mission to Keres Most Ambitious Yet

The Director of the Confederate Aerospace Department has officially announced a new voyage to the third planet in the solar system, tentatively scheduled for an 1834 launch. All missions to Keres thus far have involved exclusively scientists and researchers, and have lasted for stints no longer than two years. Director Ansaldi has made it clear that he believes space colonization to be the next logical step in human destiny. Ansaldi had this to say: “Keres doesn’t have everything a planet needs to support life, but it has enough. It has a magnetic field not unlike ours, and a thin atmosphere composed of the right gases in the wrong ratio. With work and time, it could be potentially just as habitable as our homeworld.” The work Ansaldi is referring to includes maneuvering asteroids and building megastructures the likes we’ve never seen before. And by time, he means a few hundred years. As technology advances, so does the speed and efficiency of any given task. However, something as large as a planet still needs a great deal of time to acclimate to any changes, not matter how wondrous. It is for this reason that CAD has begun plans to form a permanent settlement on Keres. Ansaldi’s assistant, and son, Deputy Director Ansaldi explained this further in an interview following the announcement. “The amount of effort and patience required to terraform an entire planet is daunting to anyone who won’t live past 500. In order to encourage this change, people must be given an incentive to begin something that won’t come to fruition until long after they die. One way we’ve decided to do this is to create a new nation. Keresites will be given full autonomy, along with Confederate privileges, from the get-go. This will be their home, and they will want to make it better.” Some have spoken out against this proposition, calling it manipulative. Noted scientist and television personality, Ivor Leonardson, a.k.a. Fancy Leo, microblogged on the topic during the conference. “they wnt 2go to ker? Sounds great if you wnt 2die there & nvr see ur family again & build giant reflectors da rest of ur life & not hav air.” Leonardson is referring to space mirrors that would need to be built to compensate for a lack of sufficient sunlight on the surface of Keres, particularly early on in the endeavor. It is so far too early to tell whether any of this will bear fruit, or even if CAD will be able to wrangle up enough cash for the project. It is as of yet unclear who will be taking part in the mission, but evidence points to some sort of lottery combined with desirable vocations.

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Microstory 454: Floor 32 (Part 2)

Accountant 2: Accountant 1, what are you doing?
Accountant 1: Nothing. It’s nothing.
Accountant 2: Is that a server? When did they install a server in your office? I thought that was a wardrobe? And I thought you keep it locked up because you didn’t want us to see a shrine of our boss in it, or something weird like that.
Accountant 1: Heh, funny. Let’s go with that, just the same.
Accountant 2: You’ve drilled holes into your hard drives and now you’re waving magnets over them.
Accountant 1: You can never be too careful.
Accountant 2: Is it...do you have a pictures of kids on it?
Accountant 1: What do you mean, I don’t have any...oh my god! No! Christ, Accountant 2.
Accountant 2: Then talk to me. What did you do?
Accountant 1: I dunno. Maybe nothing. I didn’t look at the data, but...I have to clear the evidence either way.
Accountant 2: Have you been stealing money?
Accountant 1: No, I’ve just been using software to make my job easier.
Accountant 2: How much easier?
Accountant 1: Well, um. I barely had to turn my computer on in the morning.
Accountant 2: What about paper reports, or  voicemail updates? You at least had to feed those in, didn’t you?
Accountant 1: My server could analyze all that. Everything I received automatically went in there. It even knows which Russian scam sites are actually run by one group of con artists.
Accountant 2: That may be, but no one trusts AI with accounting. There is too much at stake. All that money. The industry is scared to death of the next Y2K.
Accountant 1: I know, but I had it right. At least I thought I did.
Accountant 2: Is this why you always volunteered to do our work for us?
Accountant 1: I figured you deserved the downtime.
Accountant 2: You did that for us? You risked exposing your unauthorized software just so that we could play boardgames in the conference room? Why didn’t you just monetize it?
Accountant 1: I have my reasons.
Accountant 2: Stop what you’re doing right now.
Accountant 1: Why?
Accountant 2: Is the core code still intact?
Accountant 1: Well, yeah. But all the data’s been erased. I took away everything it’s learned about the world.
Accountant 2: Keep it alive. We can do something with that.