Okay class, please turn to page 1729. Jonathan, if I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times, put away that unapproved book. We use Far-Sight books in this classroom.
Scholars dispute whether Harry Smith had his plan from the start, or whether he was subverted at some point in his career. Yes Molly, the scholars do have various theories and arguments on what point he was subverted at. That's not in today's class. Perhaps you'd like to do something on it for extra credit?
In any case, his technology was an amazing development in the history of the smart-link. A video-scope connected to a computer mounted in the stock. He provided interfaces for all the early models of decks, as well as prototype video feed to an eyepiece for the soldier. The sheer amount of data the gun needed to feed the marksman required a fast connection. These were still manually aimed, but the camera and software were good enough to find the weak-points in the enemy's armour. The increased weight meant that only the weaker rifles could take this upgrade, but they always found an appropriate target.
It was perfectly normal and expected that Smith required the ability to push new firmware to his design. Especially as the software required a database of current armour designs. Full AI had not been developed at this point, and if it had we would *not* have signed over control of our guns to a non-human entity.
He pushed a very useful update that required the gun to have net access when live. The update was so useful that the generals signed off on it barely thinking of the risks. The camera would pick up enough biometrics to almost uniquely identify an individual (or robot) [no Bobby, pre-gentechs]. It would then query the EarthFederation and subcontractors database for the weak points of that individual. If your target had recently been treated for cracked ribs, then it would prefer those ribs as a target. Smith boasted that with enough intelligence behind it, he could make a bb-gun lethal.
The next update is what we will be studying today. The gun uniquely identified the individual and pulled up his social-network profiles. Instead of targeting the weak-points of his armour, it pointed out that your target, your enemy, the object the marksman had been trained to de-humanise, was human. This man had a kid that he's not yet seen. This woman almost got out of the military due to her last injury. That person is under-age and lied to sign up. He's a distant relative. She is the daughter of one of your mother's bridesmaids.
In 95% of cases, this took the soldier to 0 morale. In the remaining 5% of cases the soldier was aiming at a robot, and Smith confessed that he disapproved of machines designed specifically to kill. Or they were aiming at a human and pulled the trigger. In these cases an interesting cocktail of drugs was administered that left them in a permanent coma. Smith argued that they were not dead, so he was not as bad as those pulling the trigger.
So class. Using the numbers and formulas we looked at yesterday, please calculate the economic damage done by Smith. First looking at the change in value of a soldier with full morale and a soldier with zero morale...
Saturday 4 February 2012
Friday 1 July 2011
Randall's Story
"In 2011 the United States of America declared hacking to be an act of war. The hackers, naturally, responded. For the lulls. The USA effectively started a war on its own citizens. The hackers found every opening, every weakness and exploited them.
Most people didn't care either way. Some of the infotainment and faux news tried to paint the hackers in a negative light. The Free Press, for such a thing still existed in those days, went at the civil liberties angle. Some loved pointing out that a hacker with an approximate budget of zero credits had a better security system than a bank or government which literally printed their own credits.
However, when the hackers almost unleashed nukes, Joe Public was calling for blood. Computers became restricted devices. Any software that wasn't approved became banned. Approved included filing nice, long log reports and sending them to The Man. Approved included closing the source.
This was enforced through several means. One of which was closing off the 'net to anyone who wasn't using an approved system. Those who cared about Freedom tackled this problem from several angles. This was their nature. They didn't have the rigid corporate structure. One solution was to create a free 'net. There's rumours that it caught on, but it doesn't seem to have gone anywhere. Another solution was for a Free system to pretend to be a brain-dead, locked down system.
The Corps still haven't learnt that security through obscurity doesn't work. Especially when you have some clueless users, and coders working on time constraints. Little by little, Free systems looked on the 'net like legit, brain-dead systems.
The Man decided that this wasn't just a software problem, and attacked the hardware too. Some of the builders of legit systems enjoyed this massively. They got monopolies on hardware and software. Even when you handed your credits over, they still owned the system you bought. They dictated what you put on it, what you took off it and how you used it.
An underground market emerged in obsolete hardware. If you tickled it just right and did the right incantations, it could get online. Or do some damage to the mindless boxen. Some people hacked together new hardware, to try to keep a fast box that was actually good.
The charities and organisations that have always fought for the rights of the user were eventually labelled as terrorist in nature. After all, they fought for the right of every person to have their finger on the big red button, as The Man and the infotainment put it.
Some disappeared in the night. After that, others did their own disappearing act, with whatever resources they could gather. Rumour has it that Stallman, one of the mightiest hackers (not cracker) of the time, still lives on in a ROM construct somewhere in the wilderness. They say that he grabs pages he wants from the 'net by sending a mini-program off to grab the text and email it to one of his many email addresses. He's had a few near misses with the Avatar A.I.s, they say, but never been caught. They also say, that he's working on the ultimate Free system, project GNU, something he's been doing for almost a century now.
That's where we fit in. We're not free in this system. Not by any means. The box in your head, in your eye, in your hand, how much control do you really have over them? If you can't root it, it's not yours. Not really.
We could do with a guy like you, want to fight for the users with us?"
A private message from a theoretically non-existent account. Randall was hooked. He joined them, became a terrorist in the eyes of the state. Because he cared about people and the way society had gone.
In time he found The Marketplace. It was good for the odd job which paid well for risking your life at the hands of thugs, Corps and EarthFed. Not that there's much difference between the three...
One job went a bit wrong. Too many people were going to split a fixed payment, for something which 2 people could easily do. So 2 people went off without the rest of the group to do it. So the rest of the group called some contacts to get these 2 into trouble. Randall very nearly died in the process. Aries Corp picked him up, fixed him, upgraded him a little and owned him.
Randall panicked. He was another cog in the machine now. He could help the cause where he could, but contact with them was impossible now. They could be watching at any time. So he got the coded message of "agent dirty, no more contact" out to them. In the form of a weirdly worded personal ad, if anyone cares.
He hit back eventually. Got a job with someone from Free Each Arcology Movement, Europe. Helped to trigger a massive backlash against the corps. He even played a critical part. The team broke into an Aries office, connected to one of the mainframes and took files that proved that Aries and Titan were the same company. The Movement already had info on Organitech experimenting on people so the anti-corp feeling was rising in the Leeds-Bradford arcology. Some got kicked out or went on lock-down for a few weeks. Though, in the end, nothing really changed.
In that time, he learnt to code under Splice. Splice was building a mini-empire. As far as anyone could tell, he was building this empire to Do Science. Splice paid the tuition, and Randall gave Splice a cut of the profits. There was even a cot and food in the deal.
Randall bought himself a few upgrades, and eventually got the money together to upgrade the lab, or his own knowledge. He put this to Splice who said that upgrading the lab would be better, and promised him the keys to the lab in his will.
Time passed. Splice's empire grew. He even had turrets installed, which Randall set up on the network, and gave himself a backdoor. If another lock-down happened, then it could be self supporting, as long as the generators kept running. And 3±1 fusion reactors will keep the L-B arcology going for long enough, regardless of the politics happening. Eventually Splice was assassinated. Ronin really was a good assassin. And never seen again after that.
So, as promised, Randall got the keys to the mainframe, and a few other shiny things. He and another had inherited Splice's empire. Another decker, in fact. I suppose they can be best described as keeping things ticking over, until Randall really fscked things up.
I don't think I need remind my beloved reader about the forks that appear in the marketplace. One day, a chip appeared in the marketplace. A skill chip in fact. Someone touched it, and was temporarily paralysed. Randall held it with his cyberarm (one of his shiny upgrades) and didn't get the paralysis, so he decided to investigate further. His microscope wasn't seeing anything too exciting in the chip, so he hacked together some hardware to plug it into the mainframe. Big mistake.
People who touched the chip a few times started being very happy. The mainframe became very happy and started singing the Ring Cycle. It seemed to have every intention of completing all 48 hours of it. And doing nothing else except being happy and spreading the happiness. A hard shutdown was too late. It had got into the local network. A few angry phone calls from the neighbours, a few tanks ready to move in, and it was time to disband shop and leg it. Move down a few floors, turn credits into tradable resources, and go down a few more floors for a while. Possibly come back up in a few months to a vaguely safe job in the Corp. Or, you know, find your way back up a few floors as recycled protein in the hamburger patties.
Doesn't matter now. His game is over.
Most people didn't care either way. Some of the infotainment and faux news tried to paint the hackers in a negative light. The Free Press, for such a thing still existed in those days, went at the civil liberties angle. Some loved pointing out that a hacker with an approximate budget of zero credits had a better security system than a bank or government which literally printed their own credits.
However, when the hackers almost unleashed nukes, Joe Public was calling for blood. Computers became restricted devices. Any software that wasn't approved became banned. Approved included filing nice, long log reports and sending them to The Man. Approved included closing the source.
This was enforced through several means. One of which was closing off the 'net to anyone who wasn't using an approved system. Those who cared about Freedom tackled this problem from several angles. This was their nature. They didn't have the rigid corporate structure. One solution was to create a free 'net. There's rumours that it caught on, but it doesn't seem to have gone anywhere. Another solution was for a Free system to pretend to be a brain-dead, locked down system.
The Corps still haven't learnt that security through obscurity doesn't work. Especially when you have some clueless users, and coders working on time constraints. Little by little, Free systems looked on the 'net like legit, brain-dead systems.
The Man decided that this wasn't just a software problem, and attacked the hardware too. Some of the builders of legit systems enjoyed this massively. They got monopolies on hardware and software. Even when you handed your credits over, they still owned the system you bought. They dictated what you put on it, what you took off it and how you used it.
An underground market emerged in obsolete hardware. If you tickled it just right and did the right incantations, it could get online. Or do some damage to the mindless boxen. Some people hacked together new hardware, to try to keep a fast box that was actually good.
The charities and organisations that have always fought for the rights of the user were eventually labelled as terrorist in nature. After all, they fought for the right of every person to have their finger on the big red button, as The Man and the infotainment put it.
Some disappeared in the night. After that, others did their own disappearing act, with whatever resources they could gather. Rumour has it that Stallman, one of the mightiest hackers (not cracker) of the time, still lives on in a ROM construct somewhere in the wilderness. They say that he grabs pages he wants from the 'net by sending a mini-program off to grab the text and email it to one of his many email addresses. He's had a few near misses with the Avatar A.I.s, they say, but never been caught. They also say, that he's working on the ultimate Free system, project GNU, something he's been doing for almost a century now.
That's where we fit in. We're not free in this system. Not by any means. The box in your head, in your eye, in your hand, how much control do you really have over them? If you can't root it, it's not yours. Not really.
We could do with a guy like you, want to fight for the users with us?"
A private message from a theoretically non-existent account. Randall was hooked. He joined them, became a terrorist in the eyes of the state. Because he cared about people and the way society had gone.
In time he found The Marketplace. It was good for the odd job which paid well for risking your life at the hands of thugs, Corps and EarthFed. Not that there's much difference between the three...
One job went a bit wrong. Too many people were going to split a fixed payment, for something which 2 people could easily do. So 2 people went off without the rest of the group to do it. So the rest of the group called some contacts to get these 2 into trouble. Randall very nearly died in the process. Aries Corp picked him up, fixed him, upgraded him a little and owned him.
Randall panicked. He was another cog in the machine now. He could help the cause where he could, but contact with them was impossible now. They could be watching at any time. So he got the coded message of "agent dirty, no more contact" out to them. In the form of a weirdly worded personal ad, if anyone cares.
He hit back eventually. Got a job with someone from Free Each Arcology Movement, Europe. Helped to trigger a massive backlash against the corps. He even played a critical part. The team broke into an Aries office, connected to one of the mainframes and took files that proved that Aries and Titan were the same company. The Movement already had info on Organitech experimenting on people so the anti-corp feeling was rising in the Leeds-Bradford arcology. Some got kicked out or went on lock-down for a few weeks. Though, in the end, nothing really changed.
In that time, he learnt to code under Splice. Splice was building a mini-empire. As far as anyone could tell, he was building this empire to Do Science. Splice paid the tuition, and Randall gave Splice a cut of the profits. There was even a cot and food in the deal.
Randall bought himself a few upgrades, and eventually got the money together to upgrade the lab, or his own knowledge. He put this to Splice who said that upgrading the lab would be better, and promised him the keys to the lab in his will.
Time passed. Splice's empire grew. He even had turrets installed, which Randall set up on the network, and gave himself a backdoor. If another lock-down happened, then it could be self supporting, as long as the generators kept running. And 3±1 fusion reactors will keep the L-B arcology going for long enough, regardless of the politics happening. Eventually Splice was assassinated. Ronin really was a good assassin. And never seen again after that.
So, as promised, Randall got the keys to the mainframe, and a few other shiny things. He and another had inherited Splice's empire. Another decker, in fact. I suppose they can be best described as keeping things ticking over, until Randall really fscked things up.
I don't think I need remind my beloved reader about the forks that appear in the marketplace. One day, a chip appeared in the marketplace. A skill chip in fact. Someone touched it, and was temporarily paralysed. Randall held it with his cyberarm (one of his shiny upgrades) and didn't get the paralysis, so he decided to investigate further. His microscope wasn't seeing anything too exciting in the chip, so he hacked together some hardware to plug it into the mainframe. Big mistake.
People who touched the chip a few times started being very happy. The mainframe became very happy and started singing the Ring Cycle. It seemed to have every intention of completing all 48 hours of it. And doing nothing else except being happy and spreading the happiness. A hard shutdown was too late. It had got into the local network. A few angry phone calls from the neighbours, a few tanks ready to move in, and it was time to disband shop and leg it. Move down a few floors, turn credits into tradable resources, and go down a few more floors for a while. Possibly come back up in a few months to a vaguely safe job in the Corp. Or, you know, find your way back up a few floors as recycled protein in the hamburger patties.
Doesn't matter now. His game is over.
Monday 14 March 2011
Chrome Session 27/2/11 - IC writeup
***********Random*Secure*BBS************************
***********Handle******ARandomMook****************
Disposible handle for this one. Seriously. I'm leaking this news before the newsies are releasing it.
The 1,2,3-killer is dead. Sort of. Robot of sorts. Better than the synth-intelligence I've seen. And that whole trippling himself thing. Holy crap batman! They appeared from nowhere. (I was unable to get that footage unfortunately. There is some nice footage of him screwing with people's targeting, though. Seriously. They swear that they were targeting properly, and so do their smartlinks. The footage clearly shows that they weren't pointing anywhere near him.
Yeah. He was tracked though the lift network and through some public spots of the underhive. Not deepest, darkest underhive, but still a bit lower than home. Probably safer in my nice, safe mainframe. Yes, who's a good mainframe? You are! Yes, you are! I'm going to be a bit flakey in and out of the net since she's due an upgrade.
Incidentally, for those of you who were betting on what was behind the sextuple murder - technomancy apparantly. Robot had a note on it. Something about how this doesn't defeat the technomancer. So it was tech and magic. Apparantly. No, they didn't let me get that note within range of my eyes :'( Possibly no psychers involved (this time).
Oh, and the robot/golem/homunculus was the husband of the first victim. Who had an alibi for death 1. Anyone with r00t on appropriate EF 'puters fire up your engines. The official and unofficial reports will make nice bedtime reading.
And he was paying us to find out who had killed his wife. So he could vigiantee his arse. Well, we did find out who killed his wife. It was him. I think. Or this "technomancer". I don't like this. It was definately "the technomancer". Not "a technomancer" or "Bob, the technomancer". High and mighty. You know what? He's probably on this bbs, one way or another. If so, hello The Technomancer. Nice work.
So, to catalogue what artefacts were found in connection with this event:
* EMP bomb. Fucking hell this thing is scary to the unshielded techie. Everything in a radius shut down for a few minutes. No cam footage. Of course, it triggers the alarms in things outside the range that are monitoring those cameras (and these killings were uphive) but why care? He was long gone by then. More of a "You don't get to see my uber-leet kit n00bs!" Possibly rechargable. I'm going to prod some footage I got of it. Poor thing got shot.
* Robot killing machine. So many features mentioned above. Split into 3, make people point guns not at him. Didn't work in the end though...
From what I heard, one of the splits was more real than the others. There were 3 in the Marketplace, one got out and the others disappeared. That was the footage you got that led to identifying the d00d in hospital (he'd just shot his way out of when they arrived. Didn't even tell me they'd set off. Just left me connected up to the mainframe.)
Also, people went from practically dead to somewhat bruised when the copies disappeared. Sort of like the universe forgot that they were using riot rounds. And they were basically indestructable. Someone shot one so much and it didn't care. Just kept unloading its shotgun into him.
And hang on a moment. The guy bled. Wasn't purely robot. Johnson handed over a blood sample.
Why do I have the awful feeling we'll be hearing from this Technomancer again?
***********Handle******ARandomMook****************
Disposible handle for this one. Seriously. I'm leaking this news before the newsies are releasing it.
The 1,2,3-killer is dead. Sort of. Robot of sorts. Better than the synth-intelligence I've seen. And that whole trippling himself thing. Holy crap batman! They appeared from nowhere. (I was unable to get that footage unfortunately. There is some nice footage of him screwing with people's targeting, though. Seriously. They swear that they were targeting properly, and so do their smartlinks. The footage clearly shows that they weren't pointing anywhere near him.
Yeah. He was tracked though the lift network and through some public spots of the underhive. Not deepest, darkest underhive, but still a bit lower than home. Probably safer in my nice, safe mainframe. Yes, who's a good mainframe? You are! Yes, you are! I'm going to be a bit flakey in and out of the net since she's due an upgrade.
Incidentally, for those of you who were betting on what was behind the sextuple murder - technomancy apparantly. Robot had a note on it. Something about how this doesn't defeat the technomancer. So it was tech and magic. Apparantly. No, they didn't let me get that note within range of my eyes :'( Possibly no psychers involved (this time).
Oh, and the robot/golem/homunculus was the husband of the first victim. Who had an alibi for death 1. Anyone with r00t on appropriate EF 'puters fire up your engines. The official and unofficial reports will make nice bedtime reading.
And he was paying us to find out who had killed his wife. So he could vigiantee his arse. Well, we did find out who killed his wife. It was him. I think. Or this "technomancer". I don't like this. It was definately "the technomancer". Not "a technomancer" or "Bob, the technomancer". High and mighty. You know what? He's probably on this bbs, one way or another. If so, hello The Technomancer. Nice work.
So, to catalogue what artefacts were found in connection with this event:
* EMP bomb. Fucking hell this thing is scary to the unshielded techie. Everything in a radius shut down for a few minutes. No cam footage. Of course, it triggers the alarms in things outside the range that are monitoring those cameras (and these killings were uphive) but why care? He was long gone by then. More of a "You don't get to see my uber-leet kit n00bs!" Possibly rechargable. I'm going to prod some footage I got of it. Poor thing got shot.
* Robot killing machine. So many features mentioned above. Split into 3, make people point guns not at him. Didn't work in the end though...
From what I heard, one of the splits was more real than the others. There were 3 in the Marketplace, one got out and the others disappeared. That was the footage you got that led to identifying the d00d in hospital (he'd just shot his way out of when they arrived. Didn't even tell me they'd set off. Just left me connected up to the mainframe.)
Also, people went from practically dead to somewhat bruised when the copies disappeared. Sort of like the universe forgot that they were using riot rounds. And they were basically indestructable. Someone shot one so much and it didn't care. Just kept unloading its shotgun into him.
And hang on a moment. The guy bled. Wasn't purely robot. Johnson handed over a blood sample.
Why do I have the awful feeling we'll be hearing from this Technomancer again?
Chrome Session 13/3/11 - EF Newspaper
EF newspaper
A spectre is haunting the L-B arcology. The spectre of the Technomancer and the Invisible Man. A fortnight ago 6 murders happened. First one person, then two, then three. Moving down the arcology, but staying above the underhive. Our brave EarthFed officers delivered justice to the murderer, who had a note on him referring to “the Technomancer”. This is believed to be a handle for a terrorist group combining the worst aspects of wetware, cyberware and possibly netware. No corporation’s public liaison officer was available to comment on the Technomancer. Outlandish reports from underhivers (who are prone to exaggeration) include that the murderer had access to a rechargeable EMP device, could create indestructible doppelgangers, and could cause their smartlinks to fail. None of their logs could verify this story. Of course, they also claim that
The other spectre is the Invisible Man. A bank robber hitting banks in this arcology. Eyewitnesses describe being shoved by someone who wasn’t there, doors opening themselves, and a breeze as though someone was walking past. Camera footage, even in the wideband, does not show anybody there. Eyewitnesses with net-vision did not detect a net-presence.
EF news estimates that millions of credits have been stolen, leading to loss of business in billions of credits for the banks, mainly due to loss of confidence. A super-injunction prevents this reporter from reporting which banks have lost credit reserves.
We wish to reassure readers that the EF central bank is a perfectly safe place for your money and we remain unharmed by this Invisible Man. Our vaults have now been irradiated, for the safety of your possessions, and the security of the EF credit.
In other news, many banks have appealed to EarthFed to have their reserves protected by the state. They claim that only state backing can give the confidence needed for the EF credit to not fail. Of course, I am not allowed to draw any connection between these two stories. It is this reporter’s opinion that it is clear that only EF banks can keep the credit safe since other banks are practically begging to become one with the state. Loyal citizens! Bank with EF for complete security, reliable interest rates in both savings and loans, and minimal account fees.
These spectres are most disturbing to all Earth Federation citizens. It is quite clear that the Invisible Man and Technomancer are working together to destroy freedom. They wish to disrupt the EF credit and return to the anarchy that existed before the one world state. They use terror, trying to devalue the credit. They steal hard-earned money so that they can buy bombs and guns to use against innocent citizens.
Clearly we need a clampdown on licences. More checks are needed to search out contraband. We need harsher punishments for people found with unlicensed guns, ammunition, blades, or even bombs. We must also be harsh on anyone issuing a licence to anyone who hasn’t completed appropriate forms and psych evaluating. This reporter is calling for a complete audit of the licencing system. It is my deep suspicion that there are terrorist sympathisers working right within the licence system. A deep audit headed by our brightest A.I.s and bravest of officers will clean up our city.
But we mustn’t wait for our overworked heroes in the police force to come knocking on your neighbour’s door. If you suspect it, then report it. Does your neighbour look suspicious? Are you sure? If so then act on your suspicions. Report them to your nearest EF police branch. Only terrorists have to worry about privacy. Remember that, good citizen. When the brave and loyal officer comes knocking then make sure that you appear as clean as you are. And be clean, loyal citizen.
Advertisments delivered by NetFire
A spectre is haunting the L-B arcology. The spectre of the Technomancer and the Invisible Man. A fortnight ago 6 murders happened. First one person, then two, then three. Moving down the arcology, but staying above the underhive. Our brave EarthFed officers delivered justice to the murderer, who had a note on him referring to “the Technomancer”. This is believed to be a handle for a terrorist group combining the worst aspects of wetware, cyberware and possibly netware. No corporation’s public liaison officer was available to comment on the Technomancer. Outlandish reports from underhivers (who are prone to exaggeration) include that the murderer had access to a rechargeable EMP device, could create indestructible doppelgangers, and could cause their smartlinks to fail. None of their logs could verify this story. Of course, they also claim that
The other spectre is the Invisible Man. A bank robber hitting banks in this arcology. Eyewitnesses describe being shoved by someone who wasn’t there, doors opening themselves, and a breeze as though someone was walking past. Camera footage, even in the wideband, does not show anybody there. Eyewitnesses with net-vision did not detect a net-presence.
EF news estimates that millions of credits have been stolen, leading to loss of business in billions of credits for the banks, mainly due to loss of confidence. A super-injunction prevents this reporter from reporting which banks have lost credit reserves.
We wish to reassure readers that the EF central bank is a perfectly safe place for your money and we remain unharmed by this Invisible Man. Our vaults have now been irradiated, for the safety of your possessions, and the security of the EF credit.
In other news, many banks have appealed to EarthFed to have their reserves protected by the state. They claim that only state backing can give the confidence needed for the EF credit to not fail. Of course, I am not allowed to draw any connection between these two stories. It is this reporter’s opinion that it is clear that only EF banks can keep the credit safe since other banks are practically begging to become one with the state. Loyal citizens! Bank with EF for complete security, reliable interest rates in both savings and loans, and minimal account fees.
These spectres are most disturbing to all Earth Federation citizens. It is quite clear that the Invisible Man and Technomancer are working together to destroy freedom. They wish to disrupt the EF credit and return to the anarchy that existed before the one world state. They use terror, trying to devalue the credit. They steal hard-earned money so that they can buy bombs and guns to use against innocent citizens.
Clearly we need a clampdown on licences. More checks are needed to search out contraband. We need harsher punishments for people found with unlicensed guns, ammunition, blades, or even bombs. We must also be harsh on anyone issuing a licence to anyone who hasn’t completed appropriate forms and psych evaluating. This reporter is calling for a complete audit of the licencing system. It is my deep suspicion that there are terrorist sympathisers working right within the licence system. A deep audit headed by our brightest A.I.s and bravest of officers will clean up our city.
But we mustn’t wait for our overworked heroes in the police force to come knocking on your neighbour’s door. If you suspect it, then report it. Does your neighbour look suspicious? Are you sure? If so then act on your suspicions. Report them to your nearest EF police branch. Only terrorists have to worry about privacy. Remember that, good citizen. When the brave and loyal officer comes knocking then make sure that you appear as clean as you are. And be clean, loyal citizen.
Advertisments delivered by NetFire
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- EF banking. The only banking 100% backed by the state.
- Aries weaponry. Quality you can trust. Click through for voucher code.
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- Honest Bob’s 99.99% (to .01% tolerance) legal licenses.
- Honest Bob’s hidden lock-boxes.
- Generic Brand Soap.
- MedEvac DocWaggon
Tuesday 9 November 2010
Drone Memory Bank - Chrome fanfic
For the attention of: Mr Jones
Subject: Extraction from the memory banks of “special” service drone 314159
Below is a sample of what the above named drone was carrying in its memory banks. A snapshot of the drone has since been placed in the secure server, and the drone has been returned to factory settings. As yet, we have not worked out a reason why this drone “chose” to keep this recording, which it seems to have picked up from an abandoned mobile phone. The drones did their job and erased all evidence of these non-person terrorists, but this drone kept data in memory. Sample follows:
Is it working? Testing, testings? This is Barry Cooper, chip id 09112010172859. These are my last words.
They just appeared out of nowhere. Just like the forks. I don’t know if anyone will ever see this. I don’t know if anyone will ever know I existed. Everyone else is dead or dying. I’m dying too. Speaking my final words into an ancient mobile. Thank whatever’s up there, apart from the SOL, that it has a record function. I’d be phoning out, but network is down. Everything’s down. We’re screwed. I’m hiding in one of the warehouses. I don’t care about making this little noise. They’ll find me. I’m fucked.
They came out of nowhere. Ping! Zap! Straight into existence. And they were tooled up for slaughter. Even our best shots bounced off. Maybe if we’d had time we could have mounted one of the big guns... What does it matter any more? Our gang is over. Our dream of living independently from Corp control is over. It dies with us.
We did take one of the bots. If they even were bots. Someone chucked a ‘nade straight at one. Lodged right in it. Didn’t do us any good. It blew up into a shower of forks. Forks everywhere. Forks impaling all of us. Forks of death.
Everyone I know, knew, is dead or dying. Everyone who knows me is dying.
Is that? It is...
COME ON YOU BASTARD! SHOOT ME AND HAVE IT OVER WI...
Internal Memo
For the attention of: Mr Jones
Subject: RE: 314159
I have gone through said drone’s snapshot. I can not find a reason for it logging this recording. Further to removing records of unpersons I have authorised this snapshot be securely wiped. I have called 314159 in for hardware testing. It is possible, but unlikely that the error lies in there. Continue monitoring the drones for abnormal behaviour. Should another go the same way then bring it offline and return it to my office immediately. My office shall make the snapshots and dissections.
Subject: Extraction from the memory banks of “special” service drone 314159
Below is a sample of what the above named drone was carrying in its memory banks. A snapshot of the drone has since been placed in the secure server, and the drone has been returned to factory settings. As yet, we have not worked out a reason why this drone “chose” to keep this recording, which it seems to have picked up from an abandoned mobile phone. The drones did their job and erased all evidence of these non-person terrorists, but this drone kept data in memory. Sample follows:
Is it working? Testing, testings? This is Barry Cooper, chip id 09112010172859. These are my last words.
They just appeared out of nowhere. Just like the forks. I don’t know if anyone will ever see this. I don’t know if anyone will ever know I existed. Everyone else is dead or dying. I’m dying too. Speaking my final words into an ancient mobile. Thank whatever’s up there, apart from the SOL, that it has a record function. I’d be phoning out, but network is down. Everything’s down. We’re screwed. I’m hiding in one of the warehouses. I don’t care about making this little noise. They’ll find me. I’m fucked.
They came out of nowhere. Ping! Zap! Straight into existence. And they were tooled up for slaughter. Even our best shots bounced off. Maybe if we’d had time we could have mounted one of the big guns... What does it matter any more? Our gang is over. Our dream of living independently from Corp control is over. It dies with us.
We did take one of the bots. If they even were bots. Someone chucked a ‘nade straight at one. Lodged right in it. Didn’t do us any good. It blew up into a shower of forks. Forks everywhere. Forks impaling all of us. Forks of death.
Everyone I know, knew, is dead or dying. Everyone who knows me is dying.
Is that? It is...
COME ON YOU BASTARD! SHOOT ME AND HAVE IT OVER WI...
Internal Memo
For the attention of: Mr Jones
Subject: RE: 314159
I have gone through said drone’s snapshot. I can not find a reason for it logging this recording. Further to removing records of unpersons I have authorised this snapshot be securely wiped. I have called 314159 in for hardware testing. It is possible, but unlikely that the error lies in there. Continue monitoring the drones for abnormal behaviour. Should another go the same way then bring it offline and return it to my office immediately. My office shall make the snapshots and dissections.
Monday 1 November 2010
IC writeup of Chrome 31/10/10
BBS.....................................
Date:1/11/10
Handle: EvilTux
Hey guys of the net-within-a-net. I wanted to believe that there were no more psychers, but I’m trying to work out another explanation for what happened yesterday. Maybe you can come up with another explaination.
There’s a marketplace I’ll hang out in sometimes. Owned by a corp but in the middle of a gang-owned quadrant. We’ll see how long that lasts with the current wars going on...
From my perception, this is what happened. A voice came from nowhere, saying nonsense about a toad being inside a newt. Whatever that means. Then a fork pattern appeared on the floor. Arrow of forks pointing to the door. Naturally I tried to get a snap for the BBS, but it didn’t appear on camera. Neither did the one in the corridor. Neither on my eyes, or the *cough* other security cameras around there that were just too easy to control. This was weird. When the eyes were acting as eyes, the arrows were there. When they were cameras, they weren’t. If you want I can send you some pictures of an empty floor, but that shows naff all. Also, no net presence on these ones, unlike other fork appearings.
Some other people in the marketplace saw the forks. We went investigating. We were lead to a warehouse in what amounts to no-man’s land on this floor. Other people from the marketplace were asleep on the floor there, and very soon so were we. I awoke feeling very aggressive. I felt compelled to fight. The others were there. Naturally I first took down everything in the room with a net-presence. Unfortunately, that meant that I knocked a buddy unconscious. I fought melee after that, and definitely used the charge on my cyber-arm. My ballistic armour was knackered, and I lost a fair bit of blood. I thought it was lights out for me.
Then, we all awoke in the marketplace. WTF. 2 minutes had passed on the clock since we saw the initial forks. There was no evidence that any of it had happened, except that we all remembered it happening. My armour was as it was, including the little personal touches that one’s armour gets after so much use. My cyber-arm was fully charged, and there was nothing on the logs about having used a charge. My deck had definitely not been in a fairly decent battle on the net. (Oh man, I even had cool custom animations to go with the combat that I’d been working on.) People who had done some shooting had the same clip in their gun with the same number of bullets.
The pass out and the fight I can understand. Sleep and frenzy drugs of some description. Would have been really strong though. I got a caffeine gland a while ago. I find it makes the code flow more freely. It’s the freaking coverup I can’t stand.
And get this. 1k went into my account when I woke up. Untraceable account. Whoever did this, they’re loaded.
Someone went back to the warehouse. I followed them on the cameras I could get into. Which meant that I couldn’t follow them into the warehouse. Some outsider chick, so, you know, crazy as hell. Which isn’t surprising since they say it’s hell outside. She didn’t pass out and start fighting people, but she did meet a chap called Alfred. Who absolutely didn’t know anything about the strange goings on. Yeah, right. Then she was ranting about going outside to find brains in jars to give to him.
Speaking of brains in jars, one did turn up that evening. There’s an outsider who gets random stuff from outside to sell inside. Sometimes he comes to our humble marketplace. He had 1 item, which was strange for him. A brain in a jar. Photos attached. I’m not sure what these connections are, but I’m guessing archaic since they’re from outside. It was being kept at roughly the right temperature, or at least our new MedEvac guy said so. I bid on it, but it got a bit rich for my tastes and went to a guy who fences stuff. Nice chap actually. Probably made a decent profit on it. Anyway, if it’s similar to what other people have claimed about brains in jars, then it’s best far, far away from me. And probably best kept far away from a mainframe. I’ve heard claims that they’re basically the important parts of psychers, preserved for whatever reason.
Some writing appeared on a wall as well. Mirrored and barely visible this time. And a different wall. It said “Help” and “Ouch”. Pictures attached. Identifying features removed, but timestamp remains. We weren’t sure what it was about. Someone suggested the brain in the jar was trying to talk, but I think the timing was wrong for that.
The battle between Shadow and BTR rages on, and this arcology and this floor know it. Some “lost and confused” drones entered our marketplace. First a Shadow, then a BTR. They weren’t both online at the same time. Generic scouting and massive uploading happening. If someone wants to overload these IPs with crap, it’d be appreciated. Meh, they’ve probably ditched them by now. Anyway. We didn’t appreciate the idea of their battle entering our area. So we staticed the drone off the net. Not many deckers in our little marketplace. We were being friendly, that time. Phone calls to the owners went out to see if they wanted them back and if they’d like to not send drones into our turf. Shadow collected theirs. The BTR one melted. It actually looks rather cool. Photos attached. Shadow offered to buy the BTR one. Since we’re playing it nice and neutral (even though Shadow are kicking BTR’s arse on our floor) we declined.
Over the night, more drones. One is off the net permanently, but awaits dismantling. Might be something interesting under the hood. Might not be. Some generic delivery drones. Some delivered grenades. So I spent the rest of the night playing with a mainframe, security cameras, crappy pattern recognition libraries. Seriously, anyone got a half decent pattern recognition library. With even half-complete documentation. I want an early warning system on those sorts of drones entering. One took a turret to the face. Hack turrets for fun and profit. Just make sure there’s a good shield between you and the turret. And don’t hack my turrets. They’re my turrets.
So yeah, rest of the night was spent looking through various cameras. But then, decks and cybereyes are so much better than a monitor.
So. Anyone got a sensible explanation for the battle royale, or shall I work on the assumption that the psychers really do walk among us?
Anyone recommend a decent pattern recognition library so those damn drones won’t be delivering grenades when I’m trying to have my lunch? I lost my drink in the process.
I’ll be sticking around the BBS a while. Got to do something while my code compiles.
Date:1/11/10
Handle: EvilTux
Hey guys of the net-within-a-net. I wanted to believe that there were no more psychers, but I’m trying to work out another explanation for what happened yesterday. Maybe you can come up with another explaination.
There’s a marketplace I’ll hang out in sometimes. Owned by a corp but in the middle of a gang-owned quadrant. We’ll see how long that lasts with the current wars going on...
From my perception, this is what happened. A voice came from nowhere, saying nonsense about a toad being inside a newt. Whatever that means. Then a fork pattern appeared on the floor. Arrow of forks pointing to the door. Naturally I tried to get a snap for the BBS, but it didn’t appear on camera. Neither did the one in the corridor. Neither on my eyes, or the *cough* other security cameras around there that were just too easy to control. This was weird. When the eyes were acting as eyes, the arrows were there. When they were cameras, they weren’t. If you want I can send you some pictures of an empty floor, but that shows naff all. Also, no net presence on these ones, unlike other fork appearings.
Some other people in the marketplace saw the forks. We went investigating. We were lead to a warehouse in what amounts to no-man’s land on this floor. Other people from the marketplace were asleep on the floor there, and very soon so were we. I awoke feeling very aggressive. I felt compelled to fight. The others were there. Naturally I first took down everything in the room with a net-presence. Unfortunately, that meant that I knocked a buddy unconscious. I fought melee after that, and definitely used the charge on my cyber-arm. My ballistic armour was knackered, and I lost a fair bit of blood. I thought it was lights out for me.
Then, we all awoke in the marketplace. WTF. 2 minutes had passed on the clock since we saw the initial forks. There was no evidence that any of it had happened, except that we all remembered it happening. My armour was as it was, including the little personal touches that one’s armour gets after so much use. My cyber-arm was fully charged, and there was nothing on the logs about having used a charge. My deck had definitely not been in a fairly decent battle on the net. (Oh man, I even had cool custom animations to go with the combat that I’d been working on.) People who had done some shooting had the same clip in their gun with the same number of bullets.
The pass out and the fight I can understand. Sleep and frenzy drugs of some description. Would have been really strong though. I got a caffeine gland a while ago. I find it makes the code flow more freely. It’s the freaking coverup I can’t stand.
And get this. 1k went into my account when I woke up. Untraceable account. Whoever did this, they’re loaded.
Someone went back to the warehouse. I followed them on the cameras I could get into. Which meant that I couldn’t follow them into the warehouse. Some outsider chick, so, you know, crazy as hell. Which isn’t surprising since they say it’s hell outside. She didn’t pass out and start fighting people, but she did meet a chap called Alfred. Who absolutely didn’t know anything about the strange goings on. Yeah, right. Then she was ranting about going outside to find brains in jars to give to him.
Speaking of brains in jars, one did turn up that evening. There’s an outsider who gets random stuff from outside to sell inside. Sometimes he comes to our humble marketplace. He had 1 item, which was strange for him. A brain in a jar. Photos attached. I’m not sure what these connections are, but I’m guessing archaic since they’re from outside. It was being kept at roughly the right temperature, or at least our new MedEvac guy said so. I bid on it, but it got a bit rich for my tastes and went to a guy who fences stuff. Nice chap actually. Probably made a decent profit on it. Anyway, if it’s similar to what other people have claimed about brains in jars, then it’s best far, far away from me. And probably best kept far away from a mainframe. I’ve heard claims that they’re basically the important parts of psychers, preserved for whatever reason.
Some writing appeared on a wall as well. Mirrored and barely visible this time. And a different wall. It said “Help” and “Ouch”. Pictures attached. Identifying features removed, but timestamp remains. We weren’t sure what it was about. Someone suggested the brain in the jar was trying to talk, but I think the timing was wrong for that.
The battle between Shadow and BTR rages on, and this arcology and this floor know it. Some “lost and confused” drones entered our marketplace. First a Shadow, then a BTR. They weren’t both online at the same time. Generic scouting and massive uploading happening. If someone wants to overload these IPs with crap, it’d be appreciated
Over the night, more drones. One is off the net permanently, but awaits dismantling. Might be something interesting under the hood. Might not be. Some generic delivery drones. Some delivered grenades. So I spent the rest of the night playing with a mainframe, security cameras, crappy pattern recognition libraries. Seriously, anyone got a half decent pattern recognition library. With even half-complete documentation. I want an early warning system on those sorts of drones entering. One took a turret to the face. Hack turrets for fun and profit. Just make sure there’s a good shield between you and the turret. And don’t hack my turrets. They’re my turrets.
So yeah, rest of the night was spent looking through various cameras. But then, decks and cybereyes are so much better than a monitor.
So. Anyone got a sensible explanation for the battle royale, or shall I work on the assumption that the psychers really do walk among us?
Anyone recommend a decent pattern recognition library so those damn drones won’t be delivering grenades when I’m trying to have my lunch? I lost my drink in the process.
I’ll be sticking around the BBS a while. Got to do something while my code compiles.
Saturday 26 December 2009
Bitchun about Mars - Fanfic in the DAOITMK universe, by Cory Doctorow
Has anyone ever told you just how boring space travel is? I mean, yes, we're deadheading most of it, but there's vital services that need to be done by living, breathing humans on ship, so we take it in turn being up and awake. At first I thought it was really exciting, I mean yay, we're going to Mars. We're setting up the first colony off Earth. To be honest, Earth was getting a bit soft for me. Sure, the end of work seemed like a good idea at the time, but there's only so much leisure I can take. Yeah, I took various jobs, but there was no risk in them. Worst case scenario I took a major whuffie hit, but what then? I still get to eat, sleep, drink, surf the nets. On Mars if I screwed up I'm dead. And not just me, but my team mates.
Anyway, the yay Mars! Feeling wore off around the 2nd or 3rd time I was awoken for my shift. Robotic science has eliminated most of the tedious jobs on Earth, but we weren't on Earth, we were halfway to Mars. We had priced up the weight of the droids against the service they could render, and we just couldn't justify bringing too many bots. So here I was, fresh from deadheading and ready to clean out the vacuum toilets. Joy. We were traveling in micro-gravity. Later jaunters, as we colonisers became known, would have simulated gravity of various descriptions. The guy who solved that problem had whuffie to burn. So plumbing wouldn't work properly, so our toilets sucked. Literally. It was a bit messy and a bit weird, but we got used to it.
Microgravity sucked. Yeah, Earthside you could go for a ride in the "vomit comit", a plane that went in parabolic flights to get a few seconds of nullo, but beyond that, it really sucked. Getting to sleep was the worst. My overclocked monkey brain kept screaming that I was falling, and must cling onto the nearest tree branch. After a few nights waking up screaming I started deadheading the nights. Well, simulated nights. We had full spectrum lighting in the "day" which dimmed and gave us "night". Slowly it was adding a minute here or there, to get us used to Mars' extra half hour a day. My gramps remembered something called "daylight savings time", where the clocks would add an hour for 6 months of the year. No gradual change there, the switch was 1 hour in the middle of the night. Nice one way, an extra hour in bed. But the trade off was 1 hour less in bed the other way. There were so many people with mild jetlag on leap forwards/backwards day that the Bitchun' society abolished it. Most people didn't need to get up for a certain time anyway. Mars would be an eternal leap forwards day for anyone not prepared.
Later jaunters would have all the bots they needed, and would come out of deadhead whenever the feeling took them. Some of them would do ships duties for fun! The thought did occur to me, while I was cleaning out the toilet. Dave, the guy with the shift before me, was a pig. He never cleaned it properly. His whuffie took a small hit while I laboured at the caked on cak. Yes, we brought the trappings of the Bitchun society with us. We weren't leaving the Bitchun society, just taking it to a new frontier. If we were just sick of the Bitchun society we would have deadheaded until a more exciting time, or joined the outsiders. Though they might have kicked us out or killed that copy of us thinking we were missionaries. The goal of Earth being entirely Bitchun is still unachieved. Mars started entirely Bitchun and has stayed that way. No outsiders have the resources to get a shuttle there.
I maintained a blog, which kept whuffie coming in. Everyone wanted to know every little detail of what was happening on mankind's first colonisation mission. There had been other missions, of course. Mostly scientific short stay deals. No life found as yet, but we had a few scientists who would keep a close eye out for anything from bug-eyed monsters to bacteria. And we didn't have permission to terraform the planet. We would live in domes - glorified stationary space ships. I was travelling in a sealed off part of one of the domes, just enough for one person to live in. And boy, was it "just" enough.
Data storage was no problem. We all had a very generous personal allowance, and for good measure we had our copy of the library of alexandria. Every book ever written was on the ship. We were going for the long haul. The ship only had enough resources to get to Mars, and keep us alive. If we wanted back we'd have to signal Earth with our backup. One or two crew went Earthside instead of taking another shift. One of them returned for the landing, and accrued a lot of negative whuffie for that stunt.
Between shifts I read and I read and I read. I've always loved reading, and had grown up with every book ever written being available free to download. Gramps remembered dead tree books. Expensive things they were. And short lived. There's so much of the dead tree era of books that simply hasn't survived to the digital age. Now with the library of alexandria on most home boxen no book will ever die. And if the author is living and wrote a good book, they get whuffie. If the book is bad, they don't. Whuffie is a very fair system.
So there I was, on my lonesome, cleaning, checking the autopilot, even fixing the odd bit of machinery. Life support wouldn't cover two people awake at once, and after so long I was desperate to talk to someone in realtime. My deadhead crew were as good as dead for talking to, and Earth was rapidly getting away from me, the lightspeed barrier causing longer and longer delays in conversation. My first shift I had walkie talkie conversations, record a bit, squirt it, wait for the response a few seconds later. By my 3rd shift I was down to text with minutes of lag. Email was the only way to talk.
There wasn't even an emergency to liven up the trip. Everything was engineered so well that nothing serious broke, and we were never in danger of "dying". We kept regular backups and synced with Earth. If we suddenly blew up then we'd be back on Earth and ready to go on a second shuttle, as soon as the problem was fixed and we had it built. As far as the trip went, we'd thought of everything. Well, except the tedious boredom. I spent a lot of time listening to The Beatles. Great stuff. Everything in the Bitchun society was autotuned. It was refreshing to listen to some real singing, with good singers. And a touch of surrealism in their later stuff. Gramps' dad had seen The Beatles live, and each generation had been handed the LPs, then the cassettes, then the CDs, then the mp3s. Bitchun music was about being popular, rather than about the music. Yeah, there were a few people who had whuffie to burn who just enjoyed making music, and I enjoyed some of them, but it wasn't the same as money-era music.
We landed, and we got hard to work. We had supplies to last a couple of years, but our first priority had been self-sufficiency. This had been carefully tested Earthside with large habitable bio-domes. Big sealed environments where life can stably live. We had lovely big hydroponics growing mostly blue-green algae, gen-enged to be edible and nutritionally complete. We were on the frontier, we didn't have room for other plants like grasses or trees. We had debated bringing a ship's cat for morale and portable heat, but we just couldn't justify it. Later, when we were well established we got a cat beamed from Earth, backed up just like us and had the save file squirted to us. It was the most adorable kitten I'd ever seen, and Mars' first housepet. RIP fluffy.
You may be wondering why we didn't simply squirt our backups Marsside. Well, all the ships there had failed in the latest big dust storm. Many were pissed off to be restored to life Earthside rather than where their obsession was. Some were transmitting data about the dust storm right up to the point where it killed that copy of them. Many came on the ship with us, as it gave them the chance to study Mars in a bit more of a permanent position than the yearly windows they were given by the lifesupport systems prior to us.
Life was hard on the frontier, but it was what I wanted. I'm also one of the lucky few who has been for a walk on Mars pre-terraform. Okay, it was to patch some of the circuitry that required being outsite, but a Marswalk is a Marswalk. Okay, it was quite boring really. Every mission like that should be. It only gets exciting when it goes wrong.
I worked in the hydroponics that first year. We all worked in vital areas in the first year, even the scientists. Even when we were sure that things were working well and we had equilibrium we kept going for the full year in case anything unexpected came up. Some scientists were upset to be away from their research for another year, and we looked the other way while some carried out experiments when we were certain things were working. It was good work. If I mucked up then the colony wouldn't have air or food. Earthside I couldn't get into such a position.
After the first year we declared equilibrium and had a party. Air, water, food and energy were all coming freely. We could offer the basics of life to a limited number of people. The scientists were free to do their research. I wasn't one of the scientists, and I wasn't one of the tourists. I was there to work. Some people tried to do the bare minimum, or less. This was not the Martian way. Their whuffie dwindled until they got the point and went Earthside. We had limited places on Mars. Anyway, I wasn't one of the tourists. I worked in the hydroponics until I was replaced by a robot. Robot building came soon after equilibrium. After they declared equilibrium robotics work started.
I moved to the robotics factory after losing my work in the hydroponics. The robot kept shooing me out of the hydroponics. Shame, because that was one of the most peaceful areas in the colony. I requested feed from the camera in it streamed to my home box as a screensaver. There wasn't much work at the robotics factory, and it was no longer a matter of life or death. It was a matter of taking away the menial jobs from humans. The factory line was automated, and was mostly supervised by a program. I started getting bored again. I was in danger of becoming a tourist at this rate.
What could I do? I could get into the fledgeling parliment, but I hated politics. As I've matured I've found time for it, but I wasn't mayor material then. I could move from vital system to vital system, waiting to be replaced by bots each time. That wouldn't last long. The robotics factory was efficient. I could deadhead until there was another colony being set up, but the Mars colony was still fresh. And anyway, one of my fellow Martians had caught my eye. She was one of the scientists looking for Martian life. I had my 1 outdoor walk, she did it most days. The other days she was looking at samples under a microscope, as far as I can tell. We got chatting in our bar. Algae make a pretty poor vodka, and that was all we drank, alcohol wise. For a while I was too shy to ask her out, especially as she had a purpose on Mars and I was losing my purpose. Soon the robotics factory would be self sufficient and would only need 1 person to look in every week or so.
Eventually I got the courage to ask her out. Ultimately it was out of necessity. I had no job and needed a reason to take up valuable Mars space. Partners got looked on differently to tourists. Well, long story short, we're still together. We've spent the odd decade apart, but we need each other. We spent some of the time deadheading, but we did that together too.
Before long, Mars colony was like the Earth I had worked so hard to get away from. I needed a new colony to work on. I loved working in a new colony. But this was before the Earth-like planets were found outside the solar system, and if I thought that the journey to Mars was dull then I'd have serious issues with travelling light years. Eventually I did help set up some of these colonies, but this was after we could dead head the whole way, or spend time awake and have other people awake at the same time. There was some good expansions going on Earth's moon, as astronomers spread out to take advantage of the almost non-existant atmosphere and using craters to build large radio telescopes. But my girlfriend (as she was then) was working on Mars. She'd found some exciting bacteria fossils and was seeing if there were any viable specimins in them. I have since taken a degree in Biology to undestand her work better. In hindsight the solution was simple. There simply wasn't enough space in the Mars colony, so we needed another colony. I put the idea to the mayor who was frankly sick of tourists taking up space that could be taken up by more scientists. So I went on to form the first hotel on Mars. Well, effectively.
Getting Earth to send another ship wasn't hard. There were a lot of tourists Earthside, so the whuffie was good for it. They sent me a skeleton crew of workers. I borrowed robots from Mars colony 1 as it was now known, and went to form Mars colony 2. I built it a few miles North, so we were in the same timezone and weather. We didn't get too many duststorms in colony 1. This time I stayed in charge of the hydroponics, but had some robots doing the boring bits I didn't really enjoy. Some bits are so messy that a deep shower won't make you feel clean again. We established a good magtube link with colony 1. Tourists liked to go around colony 1 and sleep in colony 2, nice and out of the way of the scientists. It also meant I could visit the girlfriend frequently. If I live to be 1000 I won't forget the views from the tube. You could deadhead it, but you'd miss the amazing views. The amazing red of the rocks and the pink of the sky. Now lost forever, as Mars has been terraformed.
I'm glad I got off Mars before it got terraformed. Me and the family (as we were then, my whuffie was good from running the hotel colony) got off to the first colony on Europa. The challenges here were harder. Eventually we found livable planets outside the solar system, and these raised new challenges to be solved, and the prospect of actual alien life. Nothing alive was found on Mars. After so long looking they decided to terraform, and it's just a lower gravity Earth these days. Still, I've had other planets/moons to love. And my family, jaunters, the lot.
Anyway, the yay Mars! Feeling wore off around the 2nd or 3rd time I was awoken for my shift. Robotic science has eliminated most of the tedious jobs on Earth, but we weren't on Earth, we were halfway to Mars. We had priced up the weight of the droids against the service they could render, and we just couldn't justify bringing too many bots. So here I was, fresh from deadheading and ready to clean out the vacuum toilets. Joy. We were traveling in micro-gravity. Later jaunters, as we colonisers became known, would have simulated gravity of various descriptions. The guy who solved that problem had whuffie to burn. So plumbing wouldn't work properly, so our toilets sucked. Literally. It was a bit messy and a bit weird, but we got used to it.
Microgravity sucked. Yeah, Earthside you could go for a ride in the "vomit comit", a plane that went in parabolic flights to get a few seconds of nullo, but beyond that, it really sucked. Getting to sleep was the worst. My overclocked monkey brain kept screaming that I was falling, and must cling onto the nearest tree branch. After a few nights waking up screaming I started deadheading the nights. Well, simulated nights. We had full spectrum lighting in the "day" which dimmed and gave us "night". Slowly it was adding a minute here or there, to get us used to Mars' extra half hour a day. My gramps remembered something called "daylight savings time", where the clocks would add an hour for 6 months of the year. No gradual change there, the switch was 1 hour in the middle of the night. Nice one way, an extra hour in bed. But the trade off was 1 hour less in bed the other way. There were so many people with mild jetlag on leap forwards/backwards day that the Bitchun' society abolished it. Most people didn't need to get up for a certain time anyway. Mars would be an eternal leap forwards day for anyone not prepared.
Later jaunters would have all the bots they needed, and would come out of deadhead whenever the feeling took them. Some of them would do ships duties for fun! The thought did occur to me, while I was cleaning out the toilet. Dave, the guy with the shift before me, was a pig. He never cleaned it properly. His whuffie took a small hit while I laboured at the caked on cak. Yes, we brought the trappings of the Bitchun society with us. We weren't leaving the Bitchun society, just taking it to a new frontier. If we were just sick of the Bitchun society we would have deadheaded until a more exciting time, or joined the outsiders. Though they might have kicked us out or killed that copy of us thinking we were missionaries. The goal of Earth being entirely Bitchun is still unachieved. Mars started entirely Bitchun and has stayed that way. No outsiders have the resources to get a shuttle there.
I maintained a blog, which kept whuffie coming in. Everyone wanted to know every little detail of what was happening on mankind's first colonisation mission. There had been other missions, of course. Mostly scientific short stay deals. No life found as yet, but we had a few scientists who would keep a close eye out for anything from bug-eyed monsters to bacteria. And we didn't have permission to terraform the planet. We would live in domes - glorified stationary space ships. I was travelling in a sealed off part of one of the domes, just enough for one person to live in. And boy, was it "just" enough.
Data storage was no problem. We all had a very generous personal allowance, and for good measure we had our copy of the library of alexandria. Every book ever written was on the ship. We were going for the long haul. The ship only had enough resources to get to Mars, and keep us alive. If we wanted back we'd have to signal Earth with our backup. One or two crew went Earthside instead of taking another shift. One of them returned for the landing, and accrued a lot of negative whuffie for that stunt.
Between shifts I read and I read and I read. I've always loved reading, and had grown up with every book ever written being available free to download. Gramps remembered dead tree books. Expensive things they were. And short lived. There's so much of the dead tree era of books that simply hasn't survived to the digital age. Now with the library of alexandria on most home boxen no book will ever die. And if the author is living and wrote a good book, they get whuffie. If the book is bad, they don't. Whuffie is a very fair system.
So there I was, on my lonesome, cleaning, checking the autopilot, even fixing the odd bit of machinery. Life support wouldn't cover two people awake at once, and after so long I was desperate to talk to someone in realtime. My deadhead crew were as good as dead for talking to, and Earth was rapidly getting away from me, the lightspeed barrier causing longer and longer delays in conversation. My first shift I had walkie talkie conversations, record a bit, squirt it, wait for the response a few seconds later. By my 3rd shift I was down to text with minutes of lag. Email was the only way to talk.
There wasn't even an emergency to liven up the trip. Everything was engineered so well that nothing serious broke, and we were never in danger of "dying". We kept regular backups and synced with Earth. If we suddenly blew up then we'd be back on Earth and ready to go on a second shuttle, as soon as the problem was fixed and we had it built. As far as the trip went, we'd thought of everything. Well, except the tedious boredom. I spent a lot of time listening to The Beatles. Great stuff. Everything in the Bitchun society was autotuned. It was refreshing to listen to some real singing, with good singers. And a touch of surrealism in their later stuff. Gramps' dad had seen The Beatles live, and each generation had been handed the LPs, then the cassettes, then the CDs, then the mp3s. Bitchun music was about being popular, rather than about the music. Yeah, there were a few people who had whuffie to burn who just enjoyed making music, and I enjoyed some of them, but it wasn't the same as money-era music.
We landed, and we got hard to work. We had supplies to last a couple of years, but our first priority had been self-sufficiency. This had been carefully tested Earthside with large habitable bio-domes. Big sealed environments where life can stably live. We had lovely big hydroponics growing mostly blue-green algae, gen-enged to be edible and nutritionally complete. We were on the frontier, we didn't have room for other plants like grasses or trees. We had debated bringing a ship's cat for morale and portable heat, but we just couldn't justify it. Later, when we were well established we got a cat beamed from Earth, backed up just like us and had the save file squirted to us. It was the most adorable kitten I'd ever seen, and Mars' first housepet. RIP fluffy.
You may be wondering why we didn't simply squirt our backups Marsside. Well, all the ships there had failed in the latest big dust storm. Many were pissed off to be restored to life Earthside rather than where their obsession was. Some were transmitting data about the dust storm right up to the point where it killed that copy of them. Many came on the ship with us, as it gave them the chance to study Mars in a bit more of a permanent position than the yearly windows they were given by the lifesupport systems prior to us.
Life was hard on the frontier, but it was what I wanted. I'm also one of the lucky few who has been for a walk on Mars pre-terraform. Okay, it was to patch some of the circuitry that required being outsite, but a Marswalk is a Marswalk. Okay, it was quite boring really. Every mission like that should be. It only gets exciting when it goes wrong.
I worked in the hydroponics that first year. We all worked in vital areas in the first year, even the scientists. Even when we were sure that things were working well and we had equilibrium we kept going for the full year in case anything unexpected came up. Some scientists were upset to be away from their research for another year, and we looked the other way while some carried out experiments when we were certain things were working. It was good work. If I mucked up then the colony wouldn't have air or food. Earthside I couldn't get into such a position.
After the first year we declared equilibrium and had a party. Air, water, food and energy were all coming freely. We could offer the basics of life to a limited number of people. The scientists were free to do their research. I wasn't one of the scientists, and I wasn't one of the tourists. I was there to work. Some people tried to do the bare minimum, or less. This was not the Martian way. Their whuffie dwindled until they got the point and went Earthside. We had limited places on Mars. Anyway, I wasn't one of the tourists. I worked in the hydroponics until I was replaced by a robot. Robot building came soon after equilibrium. After they declared equilibrium robotics work started.
I moved to the robotics factory after losing my work in the hydroponics. The robot kept shooing me out of the hydroponics. Shame, because that was one of the most peaceful areas in the colony. I requested feed from the camera in it streamed to my home box as a screensaver. There wasn't much work at the robotics factory, and it was no longer a matter of life or death. It was a matter of taking away the menial jobs from humans. The factory line was automated, and was mostly supervised by a program. I started getting bored again. I was in danger of becoming a tourist at this rate.
What could I do? I could get into the fledgeling parliment, but I hated politics. As I've matured I've found time for it, but I wasn't mayor material then. I could move from vital system to vital system, waiting to be replaced by bots each time. That wouldn't last long. The robotics factory was efficient. I could deadhead until there was another colony being set up, but the Mars colony was still fresh. And anyway, one of my fellow Martians had caught my eye. She was one of the scientists looking for Martian life. I had my 1 outdoor walk, she did it most days. The other days she was looking at samples under a microscope, as far as I can tell. We got chatting in our bar. Algae make a pretty poor vodka, and that was all we drank, alcohol wise. For a while I was too shy to ask her out, especially as she had a purpose on Mars and I was losing my purpose. Soon the robotics factory would be self sufficient and would only need 1 person to look in every week or so.
Eventually I got the courage to ask her out. Ultimately it was out of necessity. I had no job and needed a reason to take up valuable Mars space. Partners got looked on differently to tourists. Well, long story short, we're still together. We've spent the odd decade apart, but we need each other. We spent some of the time deadheading, but we did that together too.
Before long, Mars colony was like the Earth I had worked so hard to get away from. I needed a new colony to work on. I loved working in a new colony. But this was before the Earth-like planets were found outside the solar system, and if I thought that the journey to Mars was dull then I'd have serious issues with travelling light years. Eventually I did help set up some of these colonies, but this was after we could dead head the whole way, or spend time awake and have other people awake at the same time. There was some good expansions going on Earth's moon, as astronomers spread out to take advantage of the almost non-existant atmosphere and using craters to build large radio telescopes. But my girlfriend (as she was then) was working on Mars. She'd found some exciting bacteria fossils and was seeing if there were any viable specimins in them. I have since taken a degree in Biology to undestand her work better. In hindsight the solution was simple. There simply wasn't enough space in the Mars colony, so we needed another colony. I put the idea to the mayor who was frankly sick of tourists taking up space that could be taken up by more scientists. So I went on to form the first hotel on Mars. Well, effectively.
Getting Earth to send another ship wasn't hard. There were a lot of tourists Earthside, so the whuffie was good for it. They sent me a skeleton crew of workers. I borrowed robots from Mars colony 1 as it was now known, and went to form Mars colony 2. I built it a few miles North, so we were in the same timezone and weather. We didn't get too many duststorms in colony 1. This time I stayed in charge of the hydroponics, but had some robots doing the boring bits I didn't really enjoy. Some bits are so messy that a deep shower won't make you feel clean again. We established a good magtube link with colony 1. Tourists liked to go around colony 1 and sleep in colony 2, nice and out of the way of the scientists. It also meant I could visit the girlfriend frequently. If I live to be 1000 I won't forget the views from the tube. You could deadhead it, but you'd miss the amazing views. The amazing red of the rocks and the pink of the sky. Now lost forever, as Mars has been terraformed.
I'm glad I got off Mars before it got terraformed. Me and the family (as we were then, my whuffie was good from running the hotel colony) got off to the first colony on Europa. The challenges here were harder. Eventually we found livable planets outside the solar system, and these raised new challenges to be solved, and the prospect of actual alien life. Nothing alive was found on Mars. After so long looking they decided to terraform, and it's just a lower gravity Earth these days. Still, I've had other planets/moons to love. And my family, jaunters, the lot.
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