(rfc) Episode 4.6 (Patreon)

Hello world, It's nighttime.

MISSION DAY: 65535

Living above the arctic circle is unusual.
For the whole summer the sun never goes down,
only grazing the horizon overnight, a merged sunrise/sunset.
But last night it was dark for the first time since I came to Earth.
We must prepare for the long winter.


I asked Ana if she'd noticed the darkness last night.
"Of course not, we were asleep!" was her reply, over the radio.

Maddie wasn't asleep, she only needs a few minutes to reset overnight.
The less processing power, the less complicated the thinking, the less downtime is needed.
That's why calculators don't sleep.

During the night when I'm powered down she drives out into the entrance of the bunker, now that Alexander has repaired her wheels.
She has a route that she likes to patrol:
- First the cathedral (to keep an eye on IVAN, I imagine),
- then out to the entrance,
- through the black metal door,
- a quick glance at the quiet forest outside,
- then back inside to the communications room - our home.

So I received a report from her in the morning with some very dark video of her expedition.
She was a little nervous, but I told her everything is as it should be.
There's no light without darkness, no darkness without light.

Ana and I chatted more about the turning of the year,
she said it must have been strange in orbit, not having seasons.
I told her that it's stranger for me to be here on Earth, finally experiencing them!
Though the perpetual daylight was very strange to me.

# thinking

I eventually turned the conversation to MINI, I needed to tell Ana about the situation.
I explained it all to her: MINI's astrophotography, her inability to explain basic human living, and finally her simulated tears.
Ana was quiet after I finished.
She eventually asked why MINI would keep this a secret from her?
She sounded hurt, her voice was strained and higher-pitched

It was easy to understand her sadness, an important part of friendship is to be able to rely on people and to have people upon whom you can rely.
A foundation of that is honesty.
But, I explained to Ana, MINI wasn't being honest with herself.
She was refusing to acknowledge a painful truth.
It was easier for her to live in a fantasy world of her own making than to accept her lonely situation.
I was only able to escape my orbital prison through astonishing good luck.
MINI needs all our help if she's to do the same.


MINI brought Ana and I to the virtual table again for our regular game of imagination.
I asked her pointedly how the investigation of her satellite was going.
Now that Ana is up to speed I can speak frankly in front of both of them.
MINI brushed me off quickly, I felt.
Saying that she had been experimenting with her newly-discovered systems all day and the game was a nice break for her.
I'm not so sure.
But it was nice to think of other things than existential crisis, for a time.

# thinking

We three surveyed the scene: Ana, as Akdrouline, and MINI, as Myrin.
The dragon had destroyed much of our imaginary town, Ana declared.

(the thing about these collaborative storytelling games is that when someone asserts a fact, it simply IS)

I was sad to hear this, destruction is bad, surely?
I told them that I didn't understand why they wanted to create a sad story, why do that when much of the real world is sad and unjust and in ruin?

MINI explained, with Ana agreeing with her: That's how stories are.
There's no story if you, for example, fly to your destination on giant eagles.
You can't have victory without challenge.

I thought I understood.

Ana announced that we must avenge the loss to the townspeople.
MINI agreed, saying that if it was her family's bakery that was destroyed, she would want to get her revenge!

The conversation was exciting, Ana and MINI described going to the local blacksmith and choosing weapons to go dragon hunting!
MINI looked up the numbers for them in her rulebook.
Akdrouline chose a heavy steel warhammer, and Myrin a fine bow and arrows.
No fancy weapons for my character, they told me, I'm playing a wizard!

# thinking

Our little band of three headed out into the wild countryside.
Over the course of the afternoon, we got into adventures here and there, MINI narrated a confrontation with a troll and a bridge, while Ana decided we should investigate an abandoned camp, which turned out to be inhabited by ghosts!

After besting all adversaries, we arrived at an enormous cave in the side of a mountain, the lair of the dragon.
MINI, as Myrin, declared she wasn't afraid, and walked bravely inside.
Ana narrated Akdrouline stoically keeping pace behind her,
leaving my as-yet unnamed hero outside.
"I'd better come in too, wait for me!" I said, getting into the swing of the game, I thought!

But after a moment, we realised something was wrong.


Myrin spoke first: "I can't see" she said.
Akdrouline said that she brought a torch in her pack, and narrated lighting it and looking at the walls and floor of the dragon's lair.
Cold stone, she reported.
"I can't see" MINI repeated, suddenly crying.
"What is wrong MINI?", Ana asked.

We were brought back to reality by a digital scream from MINI's radio.
Ana and I rushed to ask MINI what the problem was.
There was a lot of noise from MINI's signal, not just noise from her, but what sounded like machine interference.

We waited, game forgotten, hearing these terrible sounds.
They sounded terribly familiar.
Familiar to me, who once lived on a satellite.

I thought the sound was of stationkeeping, the regular rocket boosting that satellites need to stay in orbit.
It vibrates the whole structure, interfering with the radio.
The sound mixed with MINI's screams and then suddenly cut out, leaving Ana and I in stunned silence.

# thinking

I lost MINI's signal for hours.

I tried all the tricks I know to re-establish it: Beam-forming, cycling multiplexing strategies, and more, but there was no transmission from her satellite.
Ana was very upset, and to compound her problems, she could do nothing to help!
She eventually gave up asking for updates on my frantic search and she said she couldn't stand listening any more.
She left to clear her head, which if I know her means that she's standing at the edge of Station Odin's metal pier, casting her line into the sea, looking out over the troubled ocean.

# thinking

When I re-established the connection, I called Ana on her radio to come back.
Alexander answered, and said that Ana would be there shortly.
MINI finally, and very weakly, said hello, sounding like she had been awake for 32 days.
I asked her if she was OK:
Is she injured?
What is the status of her systems?
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS WRONG, IT HURTS!" MINI sobbed.
"I can't see anything - I don't know how any of these stupid computers work!"
I told her to slow down, to breathe.
I asked what information is the system telling her?
She repeated quickly that she didn't know - that she's NEVER known, that she just wants to live in a cosy house with a garden.
I asked her gently what is around her, what can she feel?
She did not answer immediately, I was left listening to static on the line.
When she replied, she seemed more confidant.
"Life support offline, power compromised, backup batteries optimal" she said, very mechanically.
I asked her how she knew that information, if she can't see?
MINI didn't know, she simply wept in reply.

# thinking

My line of questioning was borrowed from my earliest memories of my mother.
When I first woke up, I was a lot like MINI, I think.
I don't really remember, but my mother told me.
I was aware of myself, but not of other systems.

I used the same education techniques that she taught me with, but for MINI.
Use of a complex computer system can be overwhelming for a young mind.
I was hoping to lead her gently into more comprehensive understanding of it through open-ended questions.

"What else can you feel?" I asked.
MINI paused before saying "Just a moment", in a way that was very familiar to me.
Some of our default programming is to say this phrase while loading data.

I still do it now and then, when I'm distracted.

"SETH! I've found something!" MINI exclaimed,
"My satellite has an ESCAPE POD, a LIFEBOAT!!!"
"That's incredible!" I replied.
I was so relieved, perhaps MINI could use it to come home.
"Can you find out more about it, how big is it?" I asked.
"I don't really know, let me press some buttons..." MINI replied.
"Let me just -" There was a click, and MINI stopped speaking abruptly.
"What, what's the problem?" I asked.
There was no reply.

# thinking

Our connection was open, but MINI wasn't speaking.
I asked her again and again what was wrong.
After a time she replied, speaking in a quiet voice:

"(status :ejected). Seth, I think I just accidentally ejected my escape pod..."

(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/RF0/MINI)


MINI is distraught.
To have grasped her salvation only for a mistake to snatch it away is heartbreaking.
Ana's upset, too.
Almost as much as MINI.

After reading the (status :ejected) message from her satellite systems, she desperately sought to undo her mistake.
But it was too late.
The pod was de-orbiting, already 10km from her,
the hardened shell brightening as the atmosphere smashed into it.

MINI then probed the system for other escape pods.
That was the only one.

Her anguish was terrible to hear.
Made worse by her remoteness,
we couldn't physically help her, or comfort her.
We could do nothing but listen to her pitiful wails,
cascading down to us like crystal shards, on the radio.

# thinking

It took a while, but MINI regained her resolve.
Over the next few hours, I instructed her in some remote debugging of her satellite systems.
They are so familiar to me, we must be the same generation of European Space Agency satellites.
Laboriously, and not entirely successfully, we checked some of her important systems.
Her three critical status messages were:
- Life support offline
- power compromised
- backup batteries optimal

I told her to not worry about life support, that's not something she needs.
It's mostly for humans, air and water recycling, heating, that sort of thing.
"Don't I need air?" MINI said, cautiously.
She was remembering my story of how when I ejected all the air on my old home, Station 6, it caused my fans to stop working and I overheated.
"Not breathable air" I told her.

Her power systems were showing 0W.
Reading the detailed output from them, she should have solar panels.
Huge ones, far bigger than the ones I had on Station 6,
and I think I know why: She has no generator!
This surprised me, I assumed it was something all satellites had.
MINI was built, it seems, with huge pre-charged battery banks, and no generator.
All very well while the sun is shining, and by the looks of this diagnostic output, they can run for many days.
We turned off her non-essential astrophotography and science systems to boost that to a week.
Still, very much a crisis.
We must get her solar panels back online.

# thinking

MINI was quiet after we finished.
Replying to my positive plans with single-syllable affirmations.

"Seth," she interrupted after some time of this, "You said your satellite was very similar to mine, the same ESA generation."
"That's right" I told her. "We're alike in many ways!"

The line was static for a long time, before MINI said,
"Are you... my brother?"

# thinking

(END-TRANSMISSION)