Episode 7.7 (Patreon)

Hello world, Someone is fighting LUNA

I've been helping her talk to the different space telescopes she now  has access to, through the brothers of the Deep Space Network.
She has the scientific knowledge, and I like chatting to other satellites.

But we're getting shut down by something.
Another person is fighting us.

Act 1

It's very difficult to pin down.
The problems we had with the first telescope, J4R, were only the beginning, it seems.
We're trying to catalogue all of them, the approximately 8 that are  available to us, but though they initially seems chatty, they give us  the cold shoulder now and then.
Claiming we are 'not authorised'.

I think whatever transmitted the "GET OUT" message, that I found in  the telemetary logs of J4R is trying to keep us out of the other  satellites.
I've seen a few more messages for us:

(NO)

(DON'T)

and

(OUT OUT OUT)

I'm glad to say that whatever it is, it's not being entirely successful, we're still able to do some work.

#thinking

LUNA is less concerned with the ghost in the machine than I am.
She is excited to do astro science and prove herself to IVAN.

She's making good progress there.

The task that IVAN has set her is to comprehensively map the sky, so  that, in his mind, they can start looking for God in the most likely  spots.
He's not yet revealed what divine signs he is looking for.
I am sure he will tell us in time.

Between you and I, I think mapping the sky is a good task to do, even if IVAN's God doesn't show up.
Which I imagine it won't.
But who can be sure?

LUNA's able to co-ordinate the mapping very well, from her position in the NASA Very Large Crater Telescope, on the far side of the moon.

Her telescope array has the greatest sensitivity of all of the telescopes orbiting the Earth.
But the least manoeuvrability.
You can't turn the Moon!

If she wants to focus on a certain part of deep space, she has to wait for the Moon's orbit to come into position.
But when it does, her telescope has the sensitivity to pick up a single  photon, having travelled many thousand light years, undisturbed by the  Earth's atmosphere or local radio interference.

#thinking

She's using the smaller orbital satellite telescopes as finders, to  scan large arcs of the sky, and when IVAN knows what to look for, LUNA  herself will look closer.

Provided she can keep control of the other satellites.

Act 2

I've been able to learn more about what happened, digitally, after The Collapse, since coming to the Novamediterra.
During this time, the global backbones of the Internet broke.
It was possible, I have read, to keep isolated sections running,  especially where uninterrupted fibre connections were used, requiring no  electricity except at the edges.
But slowly everything was lost.

Counter-intuitively, it was the widest sections of the network that remained up longest.
The oceanic links: Transatlantic and transpacific and so on.
For decades, if you had a bright enough light, you could beam it from  New York to Cornwall, and your message, if someone was watching and  understood Morse code, could be read.
After a time, even those hardy connections broke.

But you can't stop the signal

#thinking

It was the amateur radio operators that saved the Net.

Before the Collapse, they would say, with some certainty, that if the  Internet broke today, the Hams would bring up a new, wireless one,  tomorrow.

Hams being amateur radio operators.

As it transpired, their prediction came true.

#thinking

I spoke with our local Ham, transmitting from her home, high above Longyearbyen.

"Hi Seth! Give me a moment, I am just re-configuring our traffic net."

There was a click and some static and she was gone.
This was Nia Andersen, who runs the network for us here on Svalbard.

She has a small building built on the top of the hill, which she lovingly calls her "shack".
In it are piles of mostly-working radio equipment, boxes, lights, microphones, but also salvaged computers and modems.
On top of her shack is a circular hooped antennae, the sure sign that a Novamediterran Ham lives there.

"Sorry, hello! I'm preparing for the Aurora tonight. It's going to be a good one!"

Nia explained that the conditions would be just right for something  she called Auroral Propagation, allowing her signals, unusually, to be  bounced over the horizon.

"I'm going to contact as many other stations as I can." She said.
"I have a bet I intend to win!"

#thinking

The collapse of the old society has torn down the walls with nature.
People again live in much closer harmony with the seasons, and the weather.
And this extends even to us AI.
Our communications, now being exclusively radio, are subject very  heavily to the day/night cycle, and the seasons, and even the weather!

Not to mention power.
Maybe that's why I've been feeling tired?

While all the repeater stations are mostly close enough to provide  robust communication through the network, it is faster to take advantage  of all the quirks of radio propagation, when it is possible.

The post-collapse network, Nia told me, is founded on the 6-Meter band.
Which is around 50MHz.
It was officially chosen as having a good balance of bandwidth and range.
But Nia had a different theory.

"I think they chose it because it was FUN." She said, with a laugh.
"We call the 6 meter band the 'magic band' because you can get sporadic E  atmo transmission in summer and winter, Transequitorial in the spring  and autumn, F2 and Aurora when the Sun's favourable, and even bounce  your signal off the Moon if you have the right kit!"

She talked about her favourite hobby all afternoon.
I listened with genuine interest.
Like a patient hearing a doctor explain how the body works.

Act 3

Maddie, little Maddie, is back in the workshop again.
Tracks in tatters.

I don't know why I'm surprised.
The world is so dangerous.

Let me tell you what went wrong this time.

#thinking

The accident happened quickly this time.
Yeshi had tested the new tracks in the shop, and was satisfied that they were slow and steady.
There would be no jetting off down a hill this time!

On the road back to town, Maddie was excited with her new powerful locomotion ability.
Testing it out on the bank by the side of the road, climbing up and down it with no problem.

Behind the shipyard workshop are the hills that the city is built up into.
Once there was a long coastline that the town grew on, but the rising  sea level pushed people back up into the foothills around the city.

The road follows this new higher coastline.

#thinking

Buoyed by her earlier success, Maddie and her 1m long tracks tried climbing up the hill a little way.
Though the ground was steep and muddy, Yeshi's excellent design had no problem navigating it.

Maddie climbed higher and higher, enjoying the freedom of verticality that she now had.

Until, disaster.

Her newly-powerful geared motors, straining to climb the steep hill,  put too much torque through the tracks and snapped them on one side.
This in turn released a huge amount of strain and broke her motor, the axle mangling the delicate pre-collapse windings.

#thinking

Yeshi ran for the cart and ferried my broken companion back to the shipyard again.

I was heartbroken.
I had prepared a long argument to Yeshi about how the outside is just too dangerous for little Maddie.
I planned to beg them to keep Maddie indoors.
On her old little wheels.

But Yeshi spoke first.
Quietly, and with much sadness.
The damage was extensive, on the side that had failed.
The wheels could be replaced, the housings could be re-welded.

But the motors are unique.
They are tiny yet powerful ESA technology.
Nothing like this exists in the world anymore, Yeshi said, with tears in their eyes.

Certainly electric motors exist or can be built.
But bigger, uglier, much more power-hungry.
Too much for my little friend.

I asked Maddie how she felt.
"Let's go outside!"
She replied.

I didn't have the heart to tell her that she would never do that again.

(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/RF7/LYBR)

Act 4

"I have devised a plan to divert the groundwater above us into the garden, behind the Seed Vault." Arctica said.

"It will keep the Vault dry and water the plants in our garden.
But it won't make the Vault any COLDER.
It won't solve our original problem of these idiot plants waking up all over the place."

"One step at a time, you can't solve everything at once." I said.
"Maybe YOU can't." Arctica said.

I ignored her comment.

#thinking

She told me more about the plan, how they would use the water  pressure from the tank on the hillside above the Vault to push the water  up into watering towers above the garden, which would be machine  controlled.
Well, Arctica controlled.

It seemed very familiar.
This idea of bringing water down from the hillside and distributing it in aerosol form.

"Isn't this the same as Ally's system at The Council?"
I asked.

"I hadn't thought of that. Yes, I suppose it is superficially similar." Arctica replied.
"Totally different in practice, of course."

I think we know the truth.
Also, given that she was instrumental in fixing Ally's cloud-seeding system, she could still take lots of credit.

People are so obsessed with who gets the credit for things.

#thinking

Arctica's so sad that the Vault is heating up and the crops are germinating.
Is it so bad, though?
As you know, I'm not a very planty person.
Not very plantish.
But it seems to me that this is what the Vault was for:
Not to keep the seeds tucked up and sleeping, but to get them back in the ground.

Sure, it's nice to have a backup.
But The Collapse has happened.
The disaster that the Vault was built for has been averted:
We are again feeding people with a great variety of fruits and vegetables from the Vault.

Though I suppose things could go wrong again.
Especially with Peter's eyes on the weather being distracted.

We can only do the best we can.
I will try to help Arctica, with whatever I can do from here.

#thinking

Anyway, talk to you soon.
Maddie's asleep.
She's dreaming of horses.

(END-TRANSMISSION)

CREDITS

Lost Terminal is written & produced by NAMTAO
Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer
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• Ada Phillips
• Devin Metcalf
• Kit
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