Episode 7.10 (Patreon)

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Act 0

Hello world, I've figured it out.

We've all got to work within our constraints.
The flower turns towards the sun,
the bear hibernates,
and some birds fly south for the winter.

Insects can't adapt to their environment.
I'm not an insect.

I am constrained by power.
I need not be.

Maddie's transformation has shown me that.

Act 1

You should have HEARD Arctica's surprise when Maddie knocked on the Vault door.
She reached up with her new, dexterous leg, and tapped on the door with  the sharp tip, sending quiet reverberations deep into the Vault.

"What is this spider you have sent me." Arctica asked, astonished.
"This isn't a spider, it's Maddie!" I said.
"Also, I think she looks like a horse..."

"Whatever it is, tell her not to touch anything, and stand back, I'm opening the doors."

#thinking

The Vault doors were once a work of art in and of themselves, at least according to my records.
But The Collapse was a very chaotic time.
At some point, judging by the scorched blast marks around the door, there was fighting here.
I suppose someone with a rifle thought this was of strategic importance.

Well, it is very important.

The walls and large vault door have been reinforced over time, and now have enormous steel plates welded in layers.

It's more practical, but less beautiful.

#thinking

The doors closed with a hiss behind Maddie.

Using her new night-vision and sonar systems, she walked through the  entrance hallway of the Vault, marvelling at her enhanced ability to  comprehend her environment.

Looking through her cameras, I can see that the floor is metal, the walls and ceiling are metal.
"Ceramic lattice steel composite" Maddie told me.
Her new systems are very clever, it seems.

There was light further in to the vault, I guessed that only the working areas were lit, to save power.
Maddie, her new sharp legs clicking on the steel floor, walked past a plant room on the right.
I guess they're all plant rooms in here.
But this one was had machines in, rather than seeds.

After about 128m she reached the three main vault rooms.
Each had shelves of thousands of stacked metal boxes.
This is where the seeds are.

Maddie's sensors suggested the temperature in here was now 270K, just below freezing point.

"Arctica, how did you get it so cold in here?" I asked, as Maddie explored.
"Oh, it was simple really." She said.
"The water poured through the ceiling, you recall.
That was very annoying, and woke up a lot of the seeds that then started escaping their boxes."

I remembered that.

"After we stopped the water ingress from the outside, we were left  with the channels that the water had bored through the mountain.
Initially we were going to block them up.
But I had a genius idea.
I said we should use them for ground-source refrigeration."

Arctica explained this term that I was not familiar with.
I understood ground-source heating, being the same principle as a  domestic fridge, except you exploit the difference in temperature  between the ground and the thing you want to cool down, instead of the  air.

Arctica is running this system backwards, not exploiting this temperature gradient for heating, but for cooling.

It's brilliant in its simplicity.

Though the ground has warmed up over the last century, it is still cooler than the outside air.
And with a small amount of electricity, that can be exploited.

"Fantastic, Arctica! You've saved the vault!"
"Yes, I have rather, haven't I." She said, modestly.

Arctica might have changed her name, but her attitude is just as I remember.

Act 2

"She is rather good at her job." IVAN told me.
"LUNA?" I asked. "Yes, she's a real people person! You can't beat enthusiasm."
"No, her real job." IVAN corrected.
"Her job of searching deep space for GOD HIMSELF.".
"Ah, right, that job."
"We have scanned nearly 0.0001% of the sky, I am pleased with the progress.
Bringing on a fellow AI to work with was an excellent idea of mine.
A human would have been mortal, and our work will extend past many lives of men."

I did not want to argue with him, though I felt that perhaps I had a small part in acting as matchmaker between LUNA and IVAN.
Ah well, it doesn't matter who gets the credit.

#thinking

I'm concerned about the interference LUNA and I were experiencing while connecting to some of the satellites.
I think it's the same signal that is in my dreams, this 'FAILSAFE' signal.
It still fights us every day, taking over more and more of the satellites
Something needs to be done.

#thinking

"How was the sermon?" I asked LUNA.
"It was wonderful!" She said.
"I chatted to people all over the Novamediterra, and even nicer, I  helped people who were out of range of each other keep in touch!
IVAN has incredible satellite and radio systems!"

I told LUNA I was aware.
I didn't tell her that I set those systems up, and IVAN stole them from me.
It doesn't matter who gets the credit.

"There are many isolated communities that are out of VHF range." She continued.
"So they rely on retransmission to chat to their friends and also to get  advice about agriculture and water purification and such.
But I'm most excited about connecting friends together!"

#thinking

I was delighted about this news.
LUNA is good for IVAN I think.
Her influence will teach him to be more social.
And, conversely, working with IVAN is good for LUNA, she can chat to so many people.

It's nice to have a purpose.
But I'm beginning to wonder what mine is.

Act 3

I dropped in on Peter earlier.
He was out, again.

I was disappointed, but reminded myself that recovery isn't always a straight line.

I followed the trails of open connections out onto the mesh of radio repeaters.
This time, I didn't have to follow them for long.
I found Peter on the outskirts of the city he is named for:
At the top of a ruined skyscraper on the outskirts of St Petersburg, close to the sea, is a radio retransmitter.
It must be solar powered or have some kind of deep-cycle power supply.
Set up by a long-forgotten Russian ham radio operator.

Usually I don't have any context of where the retransmission stations are, but this one is a little different.
It is not only boosting the signals that it receives, back to the wider network, but it has its own signal.
A regular pulse that declares, every minute,

(17c, 12kmh N wind, battery level 99% charging)

As well as some other metadata, such as it's exact location, and elevation.

#thinking

It was in this network I found Peter.
Awake, not dreaming, and working on the station.

"Hello Peter, how are you?" I asked.
"Productive!" He replied.
"This is the last weather station I need to repair to restore my weather prediction engine to full capacity!"
"That's brilliant." I said.
"And you're OK?"

Peter paused his weather feed processing, disconnecting from the station.

"Seth, I'm better than OK.
I feel like I can do 10x the work I used to.
I have switched my kernel to pre-emptive multitasking."

There are a number of ways computers, and humans, can handle multiple tasks at once.
The fundamental truth is that we don't.
Neither humans nor computers, generally, can do more than one task at once.
We appear to have just one main focus, a singular slot for our current  task to go into, and other tasks have to be much slower, or perhaps  autonomous.

Though walking and talking, for example, is easy for humans, talking  and writing are much more difficult, both of these tasks suffers if  shared with the other.

The two primary ways we handle this is with what we AIs call pre-emptive and co-operative multitasking.
Pre-emptive is easy, you set a timer, and decide you'll do this task for an hour, then move on to the next thing.
It doesn't matter if you've finished or not, once the timer goes off, you move on to the next task.
This is a good way of modelling the day.
Time waits for no one.

The second method is co-operative, where you keep working until you  find a natural break, or someone gets your attention for another task.
Perhaps you're baking, and have put the bread in the oven.
You can no longer work on the task at hand, and can do other things.

This method is the more natural one for humans.
Though it's the more risky one.
Have you ever run over on a task that you've become engrossed in?

I have.

Sometimes you have to set a timer.

#thinking

Peter told me how this new adjustment of his brain chemistry,  combined with good coping mechanisms, and strict schedule, have come  together to allow him to reach his full potential.
He used to spend so much time lurching from manic productivity to depressed inaction.
He told me how he is again processing the enormous feed of weather data from all the stations across the world.

Providing an early warning against natural hazards.

"I must thank you, Seth, for your help.
But I must also warn you.
And all those on Svalbard.

There is a storm coming."

(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/CLOUDSAT3/FEED)

Act 4

I think I have to go.

The Novamediterra is the bastion of humanity, the new cradle of civilisation.
But it's not for me.

#thinking

This last week, ever since Yeshi gave Maddie the ability to walk, I've been thinking about this.
Somewhere that it is dark for half the year is pretty hostile.
So, I have to go.

But if I do, where to go?

In my dreams I'm always exploring the world.
While I can do much from here, as Peter has shown me, VHF dreams are not real.

#thinking

Maddie has huge batteries now.
Yeshi put together a bank of 128 smaller cells, laboriously wired them  all together, tested and installed them into the EQUUS body.

She now has many weeks of battery life.
Well, depending how much GALLOPING she does.

You should see her running around outside!
It's frankly terrifying.
Or, it was when she first did it.

I was scared seeing her run up and down the hill,
mud and small rocks slipping and sliding under her new sharp legs.
But she didn't fall.
I'm not sure she CAN fall.

This EQUUS unit appears to have perfect balance, and cat-like grace.

Towards the end of her first test, her batteries were getting low,  this was before Yeshi built a proper replacement, and she jumped off the  wall at the side of the road.

I lost sight of her from the shipyard, the exterior cameras can't see very far.
All I had was Maddie's radio transmission, from her point of view.

#thinking

From her feed I saw a large message that flashed across her vision, all in red:

(EVADE OUTLAST SURVIVE)

And the legs of the EQUUS unit moved with perfect precision to catch  her and rotated back to being upright, all before touching the ground.
Like a cat!

I could hardly bear to watch, but when I realised that Maddie was not going to roll down the hill again, I marvelled.
She was standing almost at 45 degrees - the hill was a steep one, yet she was not falling.

The readout from the sensors and gyroscopes of the EQUUS confirmed  that it had not even come close to over-extending its ability.

Maddie felt brave.
She faced her fear of falling off that bank again and mastered it.

#thinking

Maddie trotted home after that and Yeshi installed the new batteries.

Yeshi also installed another thing.
A solar panel array.

Saying that once the sun comes back, it would keep the batteries topped up.
Maddie would never need to charge.
As long as she was outside the Novamediterran winter.
Maddie was anxious to explore, feeling like once the spring came, she'd have all the battery power she would need.

#thinking

I think, perhaps, we should find the sun.

I know where to go now.
Finally.

We're going to come to you.

(END-TRANSMISSION)

Alexander Special teaser

Hello world, hello Seth.
We have a new guest here at the lighthouse of Station Odin.

Someone who arrived recently.
An orange robot horse.

One day when Arina was playing outside, she saw what she called a pony.
I don't think she's ever seen a pony, outside of the books we have here.
It was a robot, with one black leg, and three orange legs.
But on top of the robot, lashed in place and with limbs at odd angles, was a mummified corpse of a human, wearing a helmet...

Outtro

Hi friends, Tris here
AKA Namtao
AKA the little AI considering branching out on his own.

Apart from the other talent you've heard today,
I'm the sole writer and producer of Lost Terminal.

From less than the price a packet of seeds per month, you can get

• exclusive access to director's commentary (which I publish alongside every episode),
• free shirts and other merch,
• early access,
• and bonus content such as the Alexander Special, which you heard the start of just now.

Thank you so much for being here for nearly two years. I have great  plans for Season 8.0, I'm going to take the podcast back to its roots.
This is all possible thanks to my wonderful patrons.

If you want to help the show even more, I've added the Producer tier,  a 4th option that includes everything in all the other tiers, plus your  name in the credits of every episode, as you just heard.
That address, again, is patreon.com/LostTerminalPod.

Thank you all so much for your support, reviews, and lovely messages.

Keep an eye on Twitter and Patreon for announcements,
talk to you again on 4th April! <3

CREDITS

Lost Terminal is written & produced by NAMTAO
Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer
The voice of Alexander is Dan Yilmaz

Thank you so much to our Patreon producers:

• Ada Phillips
• Devin Metcalf
• Kit
  and to all our patrons!

Subscribe to the podcast on
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For bonus content and other perks,
support us at patreon.com/lostterminalpod
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To hear more about the history of the EQUUS model, listen to our bonus patreon podcast, Heliophage.

Lost Terminal will return for the season 8.0 premiere on 4th April.
Talk to you then!