Episode 15.3 (Patreon)

Hello world, the sun has risen.

After the long winter of Polar night, we have finally travelled far enough south to see the first sunrise.

It was cold in the pre-dawn air, a brisk 281K, but everyone was out of their warm beds.
The whole crew were assembled at the front of the ship:
Kamil and Amelie wrapped up in a blanket, with Yeshi, Nia and Daphne, with Rafi sitting on her left shoulder, eyes closed.
Maddie was standing far above them, having climbed to the top of the bridge, she was now on the roof.

The assembled crew looked at the sunrise with hope, and a cheer broke  the cold air as the grey horizon finally flashed with gold.

Act 1

We have arrived at the abandoned town of Ålesund.
Not Ny Ålesund, the town in Svalbard where Lyosha and his host  family live, but the original town it was named for, Ålesund, in the  south of former Norway.

It is now abandoned, scavenged, and ruined.

The crew are all busy on the large flat back deck looking out over the half-submerged city.
The approach to the archipelago was extremely dangerous, requiring all  of Kamil's sonar equipment, and captain Yeshi's navigation experience.
I helped by monitoring all the cameras simultaneously, though everything went well.

The city sprawls onto multiple islands, it used to be connected by  now-submerged rail and car bridges, in addition to under-sea tunnels and  over-sea ferries.
The tunnels have long since flooded, but parts of the bridges remain,  just under the ocean's surface, waiting to tear a hole in our ship.
This would be bad for my friends, but they could swim to shore.
It would be a catastrophe for me.

The crew put together their expedition equipment in the dim light of  the low morning sun, it will not rise very far today, of course.
Nia, knowing the atmosphere better than anyone, had estimated less than  an hour of daylight, so those that were going on the scavenging run  clipped mismatched torches to their rucksacks, belts, or hats.

Nia herself is staying behind to monitor the radio and the ship.
"You never know when an opening will happen!" She joked, patting Maddie, who had wriggled into the fabric storage bags that Paweł made her, not requiring any manual help.
My girl is so clever!

Maddie dashed between the preparing party, eager to be off on another adventure!
Her fast movement startled the ship's flock of chickens, who lived in a large wire run on the deck, safe from flying predators.
The chickens are new friends on this voyage.

I had asked Yeshi about them when we were first sailing from Svalbard:
There's no other livestock aboard, why waste lots of grain and food on 4 chickens just to eat them over a few meals?

"They are not for eating!" Yeshi told me, seemingly shocked by the  question, "They're unlimited eggs or a few meals of meat, but not both!"  they said, firmly.

I learned the names of the 4 chickens:

• Pehenny is white,
• Henmione, is blue/grey,
• Jehennifer is jet black,
• Henrietta, the favourite, is brown.

Maddie would very much like to play with them!

Nia was on the Bridge, the highest part of the ship, with windows all  around her, providing a clear view over this part of the archipelago,  with the large islands of Aspøya and Nørvøya ahead of us.

We had watched the rest of the crew row away in a small boat to get to shore.

Nia had a handheld radio with a stubby antenna, which was beeping  quietly with her propagation beacon, but no other signals were audible  in reply.

"I'm actually here to look after you." Nia said, looking up at my camera in the corner of the room and smiling.
"That's so kind!" I said, surprised, "You don't need to feel you HAVE to  look after me, I know that you have your own life and tasks and if you  need time away from -"
"Don't be silly." She interrupted, then stated simply, "We're family."

She walked to a table in the back of the room, put down her radio and clicked on an electric kettle.
"Tea?" she asked, with a wink.

Act 2

There was an "opening" yesterday.
This is what ham radio operators call it when something changes in the  atmosphere, and a pathway between where you are and where the person you  want to speak to starts carrying your signal far over the horizon.

Just such an opening happened while we were at sea, travelling from Tromsø to Ålesund.
There was eventually a response to Nia's HF signal propagation beacon,  which had been patiently pulsing a regular signal in the direction of  Violetta, in Ushuaia, Argentina.

The two radio operators knew the opening would be unstable and short, so they exchanged Morse messages quickly.
Violetta said she was excited about Nia's Relay project, and she had  begun calling in favours to get the physical building materials and the  human power needed to make her part of it, the Southern Relay.
She had selected a site overlooking even her high shack in the hills to the north of Ushuaia.
Far to the west there was the perfect place, she thought, and they would  set up an initial solar-powered beacon there so that they could begin  propagation testing and tuning before building the Relay.
Nia was delighted with this report, and the pair happily talked  frequencies, prototype antenna designs and required favourable  atmospheric conditions.

At the end of the conversation, Violetta asked about Nia's  Novamediterran relay, who was building that if Nia was on the ship  heading south?

"I've left the Novamediterran Radio Bureau in charge," Nia keyed  back, "They're building the Northern Relay, it won't be a problem."️️️

Act 3

"It might be a problem, actually, Seth." Nia told me, after her conversation with Violetta finished.
She then told me about the people that she left in charge of building the Northern Relay:

The Novamediterran Radio Bureau is a union of all the repeater keepers from around the Novamediterra.
From large, multichannel repeaters such as Nia's shack, high above  Longyearbyen, to smaller relays, serving local villages and passing on  messages between sites.

I remember we had passed some of these small village relays by train  when I was onboard the Provorny, they are the Omarov's only contact with  the outside world:

Short bursts of light, punctuating the long expanse of empty train tracks.

The Novamediterran Radio Bureau is large and sprawling, and forms one  of the many guilds that help with the organisation of the  Novamediterra.
The Bureau is quite unusual because of their undemocratic structure, Nia told me.
Every repeater keeper who maintains the network is a member, for as long  as they continue their job, which is assumed to be until retirement,  and there is no system for removing members.
This is because Repeater Keepers, like lighthouse keepers, often live in the same building as the repeater they are keeping.
It's extremely common for a ham shack to organically grow extra masts  and outbuildings until it is the size of a repeater, and functions as  one!

This life-long appointment is quite unlike the way the capitals govern themselves.
They are far more democratic.

The Novamediterra is made up of 6 capitals spread in an oval of coastline around the North Pole.
Just as in the old Mediterranean ocean, the capitals' shipping routes  criss-cross the Ocean, trading goods, travellers, and culture.

The 6 capital cities or areas, in order of west to east from the international date line in the Pacific, are:

1. Utqiaġvik, Alaska,
2. Thule, Greenland
3. The Svalbard Council, including Longyearbyen,
4. Tromsø, Norway,
5. The Baranova Archipelago, Siberia,
6. Samoylov Island, also in Siberia.

There is no permanent, centralised state like the old European  Union, International matters are decided upon by a dynamic Assembly.

Each capital nominates 4 people from their community to represent  them at the Novamediterran Assembly, a full-time job managing large  international projects.
Who gets nominated and for how long is entirely up to the capitals, it seems.

For example, in Longyearbyen, the only city on Svalbard I'm familiar  with, there is a city council, voted by the citizens, to organise  municipal works: Roads, housing, the water supply, hospitals, and so on,  the services essential to life that must be agreed upon by all.
Novamediterran Assembly members are then elected from The Svalbard Council, which contains 4 representatives from the 4 largest settlements in Svalbard, Longyearbyen, Ny Ålesund, Barentsburg, and Pyramiden.

Though the other cities may use differing decision-making systems, they are all democratic.

There is a long memory in today's society that the Old World died not  due to the resource wars, they were just a symptom, but due to the  inability to change that caused them.
It is clear in the historical account in my databanks, that nearly  everyone favoured emergency environmental action, of stopping unlimited  economic growth to save the world.
But because the old system gave the decision-making power to the richest  people, and saving the environment wasn't profitable, at least, in the  short term, the old world couldn't make meaningful changes fast enough.

Fast decisions that can be changed, after testing, are essential in  the Post-Collapse world, the old weather and climate forecasts are not  valid, and emergencies large and small must be handled by this system.

The Novamediterran Assembly is founded on the CONSENT of the people, which can be swiftly withdrawn or changed.
No long terms, no multi-generational families in control, no kings, no gods, no masters.

(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/HF2/KEEPERNET)

Act 4

The crew returned after 64 minutes, electric lights reflecting off the calm sea as they rowed back to the MH2.
Nia was waiting on the back deck for them, and used the ship's small  crane to bring up some of the heavier metal scrap, and the rest of the  crew hauled their loot on their backs, climbing the metal ladder that is  built in the side of the ship.

It took multiple trips to bring the bags and boxes from the little boat up to the deck.
Though Daphne helped as much as anyone else, she did not then join in  with the rest of the crew's celebratory exchanges and comparisons of  their prizes, under the bright loading lights of the ship.

Maddie walked over to Daphne, concerned that she was missing out on  what seemed to be a fun game. Daphne patted her reassuringly.
"I'll find something good in the next town," Daphne said, crouching down  so she was at eye-level with Maddie, "I'm in no rush, and I only need  the best parts for this little man!"
Daphne inlined her head towards her left shoulder, bumping Rafi gently.

Rafi was looking across at Maddie curiously.
He whispered something into Daphne's ear, to which she replied, "Of course!".
She then looked around the scrap haul and picked up a large rusted bolt,  unstrapped Rafi, put him on the ground, and handed him the bolt.

Rafi waved up at Maddie, braced himself, and threw the bolt with surprising strength to the other side of the deck.
Maddie paused for a moment, tilting her head, before trotting over to  the bolt, picking it up in her delicate mandibular manipulators, and  returning it to Rafi, placing it in front of him.

Rafi clapped his hands, and laughed, and threw the bolt again, which Maddie galloped after.
The pair played the game while the crew continued unloading.

Daphne walked over to Nia, nudged her with her elbow, and said, "isn't it great to see the kids playing together!"

(END-TRANSMISSION)

CREDITS

Lost Terminal is a NAMTAO production.
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