(rfc) Episode 3.10 (Patreon)

Hello world, I can't care for Alexander.

MISSION DAY: 0xffff

Though hearing Ana tell me off before leaving was a shock,
I can't blame her for the reaction.
I suppose their life was much more predictable and safe before I came along.
More boring, too, Alexander would say, I'm sure.
But much safer.


Ana called me later using their radio.
She said that they were very tired, but had lots of stores of medicine, fish and water.
She said that Adrian didn't feel like going outside, which shows how unwell they all feel!

I asked if I could speak to Alexander.
"Not yet." she replied.

Everyone has a job in Alexander's family.
Adrian works the land,
Arina plays with her pet rocks and rabbits
(Rabbit? Rabbits.)
And Ana, it seems, deals with crisis management.

I had imagined that she just takes care of fishing,
a very important protein source for the family.
But her role is more subtle than just that.

# thinking

The next day, when Ana was satisfied that they were safe,
Alexander radioed me.
He told me that it's Ana who gets them out of trouble.
She's more quick-witted than the others,
and a genius at knowing how to practically solve problems.

"She takes over when things get scary." Alexander said.
"After the shipwreck, she promised to look after us better."

I am grateful for Ana's care for the family.
I can't do it myself.
And even though Maddie is lying still broken on the floor,
I've told her that Alexander will be back to fix her soon.
She's sleeping now, to save battery power.
I wonder if she's dreaming of when she will be well again,
meeting Adrian outside the bunker and playing in the forest?
I hope so.

Nothing to do now for my two patients.
some things I can help with, some things I cant.



I have given IVAN back control of the communications systems,
the radios and satellite dishes.
Alexander had wired me in directly, so I would have full access,
after IVAN's takeover of the system some time ago.

I'm very pleased I did.
While I don't believe what he believes, the messages coming in from all over the Novamediterra are very positive.
He preaches three times a day now, on a different system each time,
rotating through the different communication methods.
Monday morning might be shortwave radio,
then Tuesday afternoon on an FM band,
and Wednesday evening could be satellite, and so on.
Not everyone has the same equipment these days.
Some have AM radios that need to be tuned in to repeater stations dotted around the world,
others have satellite dishes that can look to the skies just at the right time.
When one of my brothers or sisters in orbit it passing overhead.
This maximises the number of people who can hear IVAN.
It's a very smart system.
I admit I helped a little.
Talking IS my speciality!

He receives many replies and messages.
Most directed to him for advice, which he's somewhat capable of giving.
(certainly the religious advice he has encyclopedic knowledge of)
His limited understanding of humans actually helps in getting to the heart of matters, sometimes.
In a very logical, straight-forward way.
And he's learning.
Though it took me a whole afternoon to teach him the word and concept 'Empathy', he now learns much faster from the whole community, listening and responding to their messages.

It's not all about the sermon, I'm pleased to report.
Early on, one of his parishioners asked him a question about the best way to sow her rye crops.
IVAN, of course had no advice, nor could I help.
I asked Adrian over the radio, and unfortunately he said that he never tried growing it, the maritime air would be very bad for rye.
Unnecessarily salty, I told him.

IVAN solved this problem by announcing it at the end of his sermon.
He asked his listeners if they knew how to grow rye, and if so, to tell him so he could relay the message.
Over 50 replies came in over the course of the next few days, which I helped collate.
The best soil, the best fertiliser, when to plant, and even how to grow it in the winter with no natural light!
IVAN thanked everyone a week later at the end of his sermon, as well as broadcasting the best solutions, as chosen by Adrian.
But he said that this had to be a one-off, his sermon was for religious enlightenment and teaching, not for a community calendar.
# thinking, short
That didn't last long!
After the success of the rye incident, he was inundated by requests and suggestions and answers.
He has relented, and now fully half of his sermon is community-focused!

Speaking of which,
guess what underground community near the Alps has started transmitting again?


Ally had been messaging me for a while, but I was too wrapped up in caring for Alexander to notice.
I say 'caring', really I was a very over-engineered thermostat.
But anyway.

The harvest is saved!
Ally explained to me what happened.

People say that machines are a force multiplier.
Allowing us to do the work of many people,
and in some cases, do the work that people can not.
Luckily, in Ally's case, their work can be done, just about, with people.

When it was looking like the harvest was going to fail due to drought,
which for the food-scarce Council, would be fatal,
the whole community pulled together.

The many dozens of people in the underground refuge,
who had previously been communications specialists,
water purification engineers,
and even a few entertainers and musicians,
all had to adopt a new job: Farming.

('many dozens' is Ally's expression, by the way, SO inaccurate!)

There's a way of thinking about necessities like these, called 'Maslow's hierarchy of needs'.
Which is a pyramid of things we, as people, need for our happiness.
It starts off at the bottom with food, water, etc.
(or, I suppose, Electricity if you're me!)
Above that is safety, then love, then accomplishment, and finally self-actualisation.

Of course, this has the slightly problematic inference that people
without safety don't care about love.
That's obviously not right.

But this framework is useful for thinking about how to organise a community.
Get the basics done first, then work on the upper layers.

The Council's bottom layer, food, became threatened,
and so the whole pyramid of people focused on the problem.

Ally herself, and her family, stopped working on the communications systems,
something they had been looking after "forever", she said,
and rolled up their sleeves and pitched in to keep the farm working.
That's why her repeated message stopped broadcasting.
It was a crisis.

The work was hard for them all.
With the cloud-seeding equipment inoperative,
water needed to be brought down from the reservoirs in the hills by hand, through the scorching desert.
What once was done with a small team of technicians, now required everyone!
The whole community worked all day, every day, to keep the crops alive.
Imagine their joy when the search party returned with the repair parts they needed!

# thinking

I spoke with Operative Inge Laval after she had handed over the scavenged electronics to the engineering team.
She was jubilant, as you can imagine!
Thanking me over and over again.
Promising a grand reception with lavish food and drink if I ever visited them.
I thanked her, though her offer was tinged with sadness for me.

Anyway, I told her, it's Antarctica we should all be thanking!
She was brilliant.
I told Inge I would pass on the thanks and congratulations to her.

I can't get through to Antarctica at the moment.
This happens sometimes these days.
I don't think she's very happy.
I bet she'll cheer up when I tell her about how successful her help was!
I'll try again later.
I'd like to make her happy.

# thinking

Later, Ally told me that The Council's engineers have run the first tests of the restored cloud-seeding system.
She'd taken her radio outside with her to watch the tests, and she narrated everything that was happening to me.

She described the enormous tree-like towers at the tops of the surrounding hillside, stretching up to the sky.
And then, blossoming like flowers, these giant diffusers turned on, misting water down into the valley and up into the sky.
Though she wouldn't be able to see it, Ally said that once the humidity reached a critical point, microscopic crystals of salt would be released.
These floating crystals are the seeds of clouds, water droplets collecting around them and growing larger until -

at that point there was a booming sound over the radio, Ally screamed in delight, it was thunder, coming from the newly-clouded sky.

In a moment, a new sound joined Ally's shouts.
Loud and constant, like white noise.

Maddie thought it sounded like the sea.
Do you think it sounds like the sea?

(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/RF0)


I got through to Antarctica.
By that, I don't just mean that I was able to talk to her.

# thinking

We spoke for a long time.
Our conversation started with me recanting the story about The Council's success.
How it's all due to the help she gave the operatives,
without which they'd have had no idea what to bring back,
and the cloud-seeding equipment would have remained un-repaired, perhaps forever.

Antarctica was initially unenthusiastic about my second-hand praise.
But I told her about Ally's experience turning the diffusers back on,
and she became more interested.
Asking me about how it all had worked.
I told her everything Ally had said,
and we discussed at length the merits of cloud-seeding

Sometimes you have to find out what people want to talk about,
in order to get them to open up and chat.
I realised I had been talking to her about the things only I was interested in,
the problems I was having.
I must have seemed very needy.

I understand now that talking at people, like IVAN used to,
only gets you half the story.

# thinking

Antarctica thought the whole cloud seeding operation is really wasteful.
"There's a water shortage, so you pump it up into the sky?"
She asked, incredulous.
I agreed with her.
Though I'm delighted that it's working so well for them,
it could hardly be done at such a scale today,
if we were to start from scratch.
It's pre-collapse technology, kept going by sheer force of will.

The Council's oasis is likely the last temperate valley in all of Europe.
Unique, and precious.

At some point, they will have to move on,
as we all have to.
But not this season.
Nor for many years to come, hopefully.


"Why do they do it?"
Antarctica asked me, some time later.
"Why do they stay there, where the environment is so hostile?
Don't they know that they will HAVE to move someday?"

My friend Antarctica is right, strictly speaking.
But she's wrong at the same time.

People don't look at the big picture, the long term.
It's both our best and worst quality.
If the humans of the past had looked a little father in the future,
they'd have been able to save themselves from the climate catastrophe.

But, equally, the ephemeral nature of life, that it will someday stop,
pushes people on, to make things better, even for a moment.
It wouldn't be so beautiful if it weren't so fleeting.

I'm excited for what the future will bring.
For myself, and my new friends.

I'll talk to you again soon.

(END-TRANSMISSION)

# radio static
# Fading from Alexander's voice to Ana's.

Hello world, my name is Ana.

I am 14 or 15. I think.
Alexander connected our radio to the bunker systems so I can send a message to you.
I'm not very good at this.
I don't have much practice speaking with people.
But Seth said you'd be interested.

# S3 wrapup goes here