Microstory 2489: Coasterdome

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It’s the largest amusement park in the known universe. Varkas Reflex has some pretty crazy stuff, but there’s not as much diversity with their rides. When I say that this one is the largest, that doesn’t mean it takes up the whole dome. In fact, I believe they intentionally left room for expansion, basing their future plans on feedback from the fans. So I’ll use this space to discuss my ideas. First off, the rides they have are great. I have no notes on them. There are so many of them, and they’re all different, and there are hardly any lines, and people just kind of naturally spread out. One thing is when you show up, you’re transported to a different entrance using an underground local vactrain network. So I think they were always aware of the concern for bottlenecking, and deliberately assign you an area to start with. It’s not like you’re not allowed to travel as far as you want, but this helps with overcrowding. I will say that as far as the layout itself goes, there doesn’t really seem to be any sense of organization, which I think is probably a consequence of this multi-entrance thing. There’s no dedicated area for the slower rides, or one which aren’t really rides at all, but still belong in an amusement park. There’s no gaming zone, or eating establishment neighborhood. They’re all spread out, and the map is hard to get a handle on. It’s interactive, so you can tell it what you’re looking for, and it will give you options, and show you the directions, so it’s not like all hope is lost. I dunno, I guess this is how they’ve designed it, and there’s no changing it now. As far as new rides are concerned, you could take the megaengineering aspect of Castlebourne more seriously. I propose a drop tower right in the center that goes all the way up to the apex of the dome. That’s 41.5 kilometers, in case you forgot. It would be the most impressive ride I’ve ever heard of. You could also go to the other axis, and design a coaster that flies around the whole perimeter without any lulls. It would be like the trains in Eldome, but much faster. Of course, organies might face health and safety issues with a ride that long, or a drop tower that tall, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t exist. You just tell people who can’t handle it that they can’t go. I already came up with some great names for these new rides, but I don’t want to share them here, because I don’t want someone to steal them. Perhaps you’re already thinking about these things, I just thought I would offer a few ideas. You can even contact me if you want more. I got loads of ‘em. I’m kind of famous in certain circles for designing the craziest of rides in VR. I have a bit of a following, no big deal. But I’m just telling you that I do have experience, and I’m not just some rando. HMU, if you want.

Microstory 2470: The Empyreamax

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Before virtual reality and volumetric immersion holograms, people used to watch media on 2-dimensional screens. I won’t get into the whole history of film—you can look it up your damn self—but suffice it to say that they were extremely tiny compared to what we have here. This is the Empyreamax. It is the largest film auditorium by orders of magnitude. You would have to project a movie on the moon to be larger than this. Towering 22.2 kilometers over the surface, this image covers an area of roughly 5,030 square kilometers. You can see it from anywhere, though of course, the center has the best seats in the “house”. Or should I say they have the best beds? Since you’re looking straight up, regular recliners just won’t do. You can adjust it to your liking, but they lay down completely flat, and let you look straight up at the movie. Obviously, they’re quite comfortable, with the standard firmness adjustments, heating, cooling, and vibrating features. If you’re an organic who still needs to eat, each bed comes with an interface that allows you to order concessions. If you’re not in one of the designated viewing loungers, you can request a mobile interface, and they’ll deliver to you wherever. There’s a Castlebourne-specific three-word address for wherever you happen to be. Actually, one little problem I noticed is that you can input any valid Castlebourne address, and they’ll try to get there, even if it’s on the other side of the planet in a different dome, so I hope they fix that dumb little bug. You can bring your own bed, or sprawl out on a blanket. There are several swimming pools and lakes that you can float on while you’re watching. One couple came in with an autotrampoline. They lay on their backs, and let the motor bounce them as they were watching. It sounds distracting to me, but who am I to judge? As far as sound goes, the options are limitless too. You can connect with your conductive implants, or your internal speakers, or your external headphones. They have ground speakers and pedestal speakers as well, but those are only allowed in certain areas. And that’s because some areas allow for regular conversation, and some are quiet zones. They provide you with an interactive map, so you can find out where you wanna be. While the ground is pretty flat here, they also have some hiking trails, so you can kind of keep an eye on the film while you’re walking with your honey, so that’s just a little thing that I’m not sure people would ever want, but it might as well be there. It’s not like we’re short on space. Again just about everything is up to you. They have a movie playing all the time on the big screen, but it’s not the only one going. They also have smaller screens lining nearly the entire perimeter. Each one is about 100 meters wide, and 40 meters tall, with a capacity of around 750 people. There are 1,699 of these, allowing for 1700 simultaneous shows in total. I’m not sure how many people could be here at any one time, for the big movie, or all of them combined, but I’m guessing it’s a pretty high number, even though we’re not vertical, on top of each other, like other domes. I know it’s old media, but there are some really great gems here. I saw one the other day called The Mystic, and it was basically the best movie musical I had ever watched. Even if you’re not interested in what’s playing, you can request a time slot for a specific title, and use one of the smaller Ultramaxes. One thing I’m not sure is right or not is that you can’t request a private auditorium. You can choose a movie, if there’s space available, but once it gets into the system, anyone can RSVP for a seat, so just bear that in mind.

Microstory 2447: Terminator Track

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This isn’t a dome. It might be, in fact, the only thing that you can do on this rock that isn’t. It’s basically this big wide train that goes around and around the circumference at a certain latitude. They told me exactly how far from the North Pole and equator we were, but I can’t remember. The point is that the time never changes when you’re on the terminator track. It might be sunrise, sunset, magic hour, or twilight, and as long as you stay put, it will remain as such until the solar system collapses, or the track goes out of commission....whichever comes first. I’ve only seen sunrise and sunset, but I heard that magic hour isn’t that great since the atmosphere is so thin. I think they’re planning on adding more trains in between these, so it can always be night, or always be day. I’m not sure why you would want that exactly, but to each their own, right? This is a cool concept that they’ve tried on a few other planets. Varkas Reflex has something very similar, but the train is of a very different layout, and I think the capacity is a lot smaller, because it’s an older design, and the megastructural engineering capabilities weren’t quite there yet. Or the size of the one here on Castlebourne is the result of natural advancement. They made it bigger very deliberately because they wanted it to be bigger. If the Varkas one had been built to this scale, this one would be even bigger. Anyway, you get the gist. You sit on the train, and watch the sunrise. And watch it. And watch it. The show never ends. Again, it’s a cool concept, but if you stare at it long enough—even though you’re going, like, a thousand kilometers per hour—it starts to look like a painting. Well, I can go look at a painting of a sunset whenever I want. Do you have any idea how many paintings there are of sunsets? I couldn’t tell you, but look it up, and then multiply it by several times, because some people will paint a sunset, and then not show it to anyone else, so whatever’s in the records is probably an underestimation. As you can see, I’m a bit of a tangentist. There’s just not much I can say about Terminator Track. I don’t think it’s any better than just setting your smartwindow to show a hologram of a sunset at will. Actually, it’s worse, because again, Castlebourne has such a thin, dusty atmosphere, so just remember that before you board. When you think about it, it doesn’t make much sense, even if they thickened the atmosphere, and created some of that Rayleigh scattering. Part of the beauty of a sunrise or sunset is watching it change from one state to the other. Yeah, they’re pretty colors, but seeing them appear and disappear is part of what made humans like them in the first place. This is just static...like a painting. That’s the way I see it anyway. I’m not gonna tell you not to come here. I’ve not gotten into any specifics, but they have a restaurant, and several lounges. You can watch the domes fly by too if you go to the side viewports, so that’s another thing. I see this spot as a one-time destination, not something you frequent, except maybe if you’re on a romantic date, or something. Or, like I said, you could just tell your nearest smartwindow to show whatever you want. In fact, I bet the trains have cameras, which you can tap into, allowing you to watch it remotely anyway.

Microstory 2446: Caverndome

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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 2445: Dune Buggy Paradise

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This is the largest habitable desert in the world. Now, you may be asking yourself, how could it be any bigger than any other? Every dome is the same size as all the others, isn’t it? True, but this one makes better use of that space, because it operates in three dimensions. We’re talking about multiple layers here. It’s quite ingenious, really. I don’t mean that you can wander about on the bottom layer, and then take an elevator to a higher ones. You have to walk or drive up ramps to get to other levels, and you don’t just multiply the area of one by the number of layers to get the total area. The upper layers are nowhere near as big. They’re like giant catwalks, criss-crossing each other in random configurations, looping around, and dipping down. It’s all very chaotic, and hard to track. Here’s the most mysterious—and I think, best—part of this whole place, there is a layer near the top of the dome which no one has been able to figure out how to reach. There doesn’t seem to be any path leading to it, but we can clearly see it. At the right angles—and with good enough vision—you can even make out a dune buggy parked on the edge. It’s gotta be some kind of prize, but as I said, no one has managed to reach it thus far. Even if you found some roundabout way, like with an extremely long grappling hook, how would you drive it down? It’s about a kilometer higher than the next highest layer. Maybe it’s a joke, or the creators are taunting us. Or it’s just straight up unfinished, who knows? Another special thing about the way this place is designed is what happens when sand from one layer falls over the edge. Well, it doesn’t. It can slip over, but then fly back up to where it belongs. You don’t have to worry about sand falling on your head all the time like rain thanks to people on the higher layers. It’s not just regular sand that they harvested from the surface of this planet. It’s smartdust. It’s all smartdust. I hear tales of people claiming that it has flown around in other instances, and formed ominous shapes, which they interpret as the dust trying to communicate with them. It could be true, though I’ve not seen it for myself, but even if it were, there’s a scientific explanation for it. Smartdust is fully capable of moving around, and forming larger shapes, like tiny artificial starlings. Overall, this is a pretty nifty place. It could be pretty boring, with its one niche being hardly distinct from other domes. There are other deserts, and at least one other racing dome, but combining them here is more than just the sum of its parts. I think it’s worth the trip. You don’t have to race if you don’t want to. You can just drive around, people are pretty respectful about boundaries.

Microstory 2444: The Sandbox

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This dome isn’t for everyone, but it’s available to anyone. Do you have an idea for a new dome, or an improvement on a preexisting dome? You can come here to conceptualize, pitch, and even engineer these designs. Not everyone here has the educational or working background to translate their thoughts into functioning prototypes, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have their voices heard. I’m not either of these people. I don’t have any ideas, or the means to implement them. But I did want to hear from other people, and they were totally cool with this. Some meetings have closed doors, but it was always very clear. They have a constantly updating map on their prospectus, which shows you when and where the next meetings will be, and whether you’re allowed to just show up to watch and listen. It’s not even always about some crazy and unique concept that’s meant to blow people’s minds. I was at this one pitch from someone from a planet that I had never heard of because it was mostly just a number. She was asking whether they might consider building smaller domes for smaller communities. I can’t tell you whether they’re going to do that, but it’s not a bad suggestion. I’ve always wondered why every dome has the exact same dimensions regardless of the theme. My gut tells me that they constructed all the domes in one go, pressurized them, and only decided afterwards what the purpose of each one was going to be. That would be an all right excuse, but there’s still a lot of land out there that hasn’t been domed over, mostly because the terrain doesn’t allow it, but again, if it’s going to be smaller, that might be okay. Or, instead of that, you could have one large dome with lots of smaller domes inside of it, which might be good enough for what that woman was looking for. Anyway, the Sandbox is for ideas. If you have even only one suggestion, you can send this dome a message, or take the vactrain to it. They seem to be really considering the feedback that they receive. If an idea grows from there, it looks like they sometimes begin building models or prototypes here before making an investment at full scale. A lot of those were kept secret, though, and even the ones I did see, I don’t feel comfortable reporting. You’ll just have to come see for yourself, and find out what they’re willing to show you.

Microstory 2412: Gulliver’s World

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Have you ever read this book? If you have, you’ll understand what this place is like, and if you haven’t, you’ll have no frame of reference for what I’m talking about. So I won’t get into specifics, but it’s a pretty simple concept. Imagine all the locations from the source material, and what they’re like. That’s how it is in the dome. Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Glubbdubdrib. These are all recreated here, including water in between them to simulate the ocean. It’s not as big as the ocean should be, because it has to be compact, but the land is all there, as it should be. Brobdingnag was clearly the most difficult part. It would be impossible to fit the entire continent in one of the domes, but they were able to build a representative region, just to give you the sense of scale. What would it be like to be a tiny person in a land of giants? That’s the question they’re trying to answer for you. There’s a short mountain range on one side of the fake ocean, so people on the other islands can’t see anything going on on Brobdingnag, so it’s not exactly as it’s described in the book, but it still does its job. It takes up the majority of the space, since the other regions are so much smaller. If you try to come here without being already familiar with the story, you probably won’t be too confused, because you’re not stupid, but it won’t mean anything to you. I suggest you take a few days to get up to speed, and then come for a visit. You can try to spend the night in each place, but I wouldn’t say it’s worth spending any significant amount of time here. It’s cool to see, but not the kind of place that you live. Everything interesting about it gets old pretty quick. I’m glad that made it, because it made sense; it’s just not as engaging as some of the other domes. I mean Fillory? If you get a chance, go to Fillory, that won’t disappoint. This one is better as a short trip.

Microstory 2411: Party Central

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Party, party, party! All aboard, party people! This is where the party’s at! It’s Party Central! That is a great name, because it’s true. It’s January 1, 2500, according to the Earthan calendar, and Castlebourne is officially open for business! They’ve been in testing until now, and while a ton of domes are still not open to the public, a lot of the earlier ones are. There’s plenty to see and do here after the hard work of thousands of testers who were here on the frontlines, making sure that the activities and adventures in the domes were enjoyable, worth your time, and safe. Except for the residentials, all of the domes were shut down yesterday, and will remain that way until tomorrow. Everybody’s here, getting their groove on, and having a great time. We’re all in the main hall right now, but there’s a reason they called this dome what they did. There’s a venue for every need, every niche, every theme. It’s basically if you took the concept of every dome on the planet, and squished them down to smaller scale. You like sports? There’s a venue designed specifically for people who like sports. You can play sports there, and eat bar food, and talk about the sports that you like. I’m not into them myself, so I don’t know what it’s like, but I’m sure it’s great. There are multiple levels to this dome, so you can hang out in the sky, if that’s your thing. I don’t know what else to say about it. As of this posting, the festivities are still ongoing. Even when they officially reopen the domes, we’ll still be here dancing and partying. You know what parties are like, well this is the greatest one ever thrown, and it never really has to end. Come on down, and when you’re ready, go find your bliss elsewhere. Or stick around, I’ll be here. It’s my home, I see no reason to leave.

Microstory 2350: Vacuus, May 18, 2179

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Dear Condor,

Happy belated birthday! I decided to wait a few days to send you my next letter, so it could be after the party, but you ought to already know that, since I sent you the custom read receipt about it immediately after receiving your last one. This was a really good reason to use that system, so thank you for coming up with it. The party went great on my end. We had food and cake, and everybody was wearing the same thing. That’s right, I decided to pass along your cool, fashionable garment design to all invitees, and encouraged them to print and wear one of the options themselves. The garment fabricator liked them a lot herself, so it was her idea to really lean into the theme. She was there too, along with several other people. I’m sorry if I gave you the impression that I didn’t have anyone to invite, or that I didn’t have any friends in general. We’re in fairly cramped quarters for logistical and practical reasons, so everyone knows pretty much everyone. I don’t like them all, and they don’t all like me, but we get along pretty well. We have to, or it could lead to catastrophe. Animosity does not mix well with a planetary base on an airless world. One person gets mad at another, and decides to open an airlock out of anger, and it’s bye bye half the living people on Vacuus. No, we obviously compartmentalize the sections, but you get what I mean. We place great emphasis on counseling and mental health. So I do have friends. It’s true that I never developed relationships as strong as the ones I sometimes see on TV, but I would still consider them my friends. I don’t know why I’ve never talked about them to you, but they were there, and we had fun. Who else was at yours? We don’t really do much with constellations here, so we’re not all that familiar. We found Libra, and everyone looked at it, trying to figure out why they’re called “the scales”. It wasn’t until someone had the bright idea to turn the image slightly then we were all, like, “ooooohhh. Kinda!” It was fun, though, and I thought of you the whole time. I wish we could have been in the same room. How did it go on your end?

All partied out and not alone,

Corinthia

Microstory 1333: Hillside Sky Courier

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Journalism Student: Thank you so much for agreeing to talk to me, High School Dropout. I really appreciate this opportunity. I know a school newspaper isn’t exactly the kind of exposure you’re looking for, but I think my audience will really enjoy reading about someone they went to school with. I, for one, am very excited to learn about what you do.

Drone Service Founder: Thank you, but please, just call me Drone Service Founder.

Journalism Student: Okay, sorry. I didn’t mean to offend.

Drone Service Founder: No, it’s okay. Wadya wanna know?

Journalism Student: First, why don’t you tell me a little bit about what your company does?

Drone Service Founder: Well, I’m not sure we can call it a company just yet. We’re nowhere near making a profit. Right now, we’re in the middle of a major fundraising round. We can’t do anything until we buy our first fleet.

Journalism Student: How big of a fleet are we talking here?

Drone Service Founder: We hope to have thirty drones total by the end of the year.

Journalism Student: How much is that going to cost?

Drone Service Founder: I’m not at liberty to discuss the financial side of our business.

Journalism Student: Right. Well, why is it important to have a fleet? Can you not just get started with one or two drones, and expand from there?

Drone Service Founder: Our future clients will want a reliable service. They don’t want to call us, and be turned away, because we can’t help them at the moment. Even if we contracted with a single company, they would expect deliveries to multiple locations, and we’ll always need to be ready to scale up. It’s all about availability.

Journalism Student: I see. So, I know that it says some of this on your website, but what exactly will you be delivering?

Drone Service Founder: It’s a bit of a misnomer to call us a delivery service. That implies we sell products, and deliver them to customers. We do not sell anything but a service. Here’s how it works. A company will have, let’s say, a hundred people working for them. Let’s say they—no, no, no; scratch that. Let’s say we’re talking about a school district. Yeah, that makes sense here. They have buildings all over the area, right? Let’s say they have fifteen locations; elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, administrative buildings. Those people all need documents to be printed and copied, right? Well, they could hire someone to work at each location, whose job it is to handle only the work those people need. Or they could set up an entire building where all they do is print things for the teachers and administrators. But how do you get all those documents to the end users? You could drive around the city, sure, that’s probably how they do it now. Or you could call us. My drones don’t worry about traffic, or wait at red lights. They zip over everything, and drop what the client needs, where they need it, and most importantly, when they need it. That’s key here. If we can scale up enough, and manage our client base, we can promise deliveries measured in minutes, rather than hours.

Journalism Student: What about the cost to the clients? Will it be worth it for them to hire you, instead of just sticking with however they’re doing it now?

Drone Service Founder: We’re still working on the details, but this will come at an affordable price. Our overhead is lower than you would think, and our labor costs are really low. I’m here with my first investor and partner. We hired someone for legal, and one general laborer. I’ll probably hire a mechanic to maintain the drones themselves, and an accountant to keep us square. Beyond that, we shouldn’t need anyone else. Every company in the city could contract with us, and we won’t likely need to hire too many more people to keep up with it. Automation is key.

Journalism Student: What do you say to people who are already worried about robots taking all their jobs?

Drone Service Founder: I’ll remind them that we’re a new company. You can’t expect us to arbitrarily hire a staff for jobs we don’t have need for. We don’t plan on letting anyone go. Six plus people, and no room for downsizing.

Journalism Student: Wow, that’s interesting. Let me write this down. No room for downsizing.

Drone Service Founder: So, listen, I’m glad you called. I’m hoping I’m not misreading this. Can we go off the record for a moment? I would like to discuss something personal.

Journalism Student: Umm, okay, sure.

Microstory 1100: Salmonverse Profiles Introduction

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Back in 2007, I came up with this story about a group of people with special abilities. Several of the characters I just thought up myself, because of my previous exposure to superhero movies. Those became my core characters, but I wanted to have dozens of others, so I did a lot of research. The idea was to focus on the main group for the first season of a television series, and then start exploring the others, one episode at a time. I ended up with roughly a hundred in total, which ultimately proved to be perfect when I was trying to come up with a series to do for this website. I have a lot of mixed feelings about Bellevue Profiles, though. On one hand, I had a solid idea of who these people were, and their backstories were predetermined; I just needed to fill in some detail. On the other hand, I felt like I was locking myself into canonical plot points, and I didn’t have a whole lot of freedom to come up with some more creative choices. I think it worked out, but by the time I was done, I was already regretting the decisions I made for some of them, and have had to find ways to incorporate the developments into the larger mythology without ruining the overall vision. Anyway, my salmonverse stories are set in an entirely different universe, which I never thought I would create, and they’ve come with an explosion of new characters I never thought I would have. I decided it would be fitting if I revisited the idea of posting profiles for each character. The problem is that I have a hundred and sixty-eight slots for the series I’m introducing to you now, but I’m still in the middle of compiling every character, and I’m already at two hundred and forty-two. I don’t want to profile characters we don’t really care about, like say, a retailer who tries to cheat the main character, but whom we never see again. I also don’t want to profile characters who are already important in their own stories, because I don’t have the room, and they’ve been taken care of anyway. I have to make sure no one is left out who should be there, or included who shouldn’t.

Seeing that none existed on the internet already, I had to devise a way of codifying a sliding scale of character importance. A character coded at Zero is not really a character at all. They surely must exist, but only to serve the existence of some other character. Examples include parents, or the teacher of a class in which the main character recalls learning something vital. Generalized terms like classmates or even parents itself fall into this category, since they’re dismissed as unindependent and irrelevant collectives, so they can’t qualify for true character status. Level One characters are mentioned, but unnamed (e.g. security guard, bank teller). Level Twos are mentioned by name, but only because the context of the story requires they be named (e.g. ancillary students called out at a graduation ceremony). Level Three is for characters who appear, but are unnamed (e.g. a flight attendant who notices a weapon, and has to seek help from the air marshal). Level Four characters are named, but they’re one-dimensional, and hardly worth remembering. Level Five characters have a greater impact on the story, but won’t likely last long, and aren’t likely to return once they leave the narrative. Levels Six, Seven, and Eight are reserved for tertiary, secondary, and primary characters, respectively. The lines between each of these are hard to pin down, and can fluctuate. Spinoffs, for instance, often come about when a secondary in one story is ascended to primary status in a different story. I still have several stories to read through, so I can get the entire list of characters I’ve even so much as mentioned since 2015, and am only excluding Level Zeros from this list. I then need to determine which category they fall into, and figure out which ones out of those will get profiles. There’s still a lot of work ahead, and I don’t even know which character gets the first profile, but fortunately, I have all weekend. I have a cold, so it’s not like I would be able to go to a movie.