[[A scene showing the maintenance robots working to replace the coupler during blackout]]
Oracle/496: Allow me to explain what I know of this situation. An accident in the Northern plasma junction has caused the hub to lose its plasma flow.
[[Flash to the park; the Oracle is being beaten down by one of the park-goers, with 9275 upended. The other park-goers look on in various states of awkwardness.]]
Oracle/496: My network is in low-power mode. I/we are limited to critical updates and local ad-hoc communication, of which little has occurred.
Oracle/496: The outage is widespread. Presumably, unbuffered induction-powered technology is now inactive. I am buffered, and my capacitors are charged to 5h36-- ... sorry, to about two decis.
[[Back to the council chamber; the Oracle is barely illuminated by 496's eye-stalks]]
Council member: And what happens after those two decis?
Are any of Juni's daughter/sister's line still around?
Zero while not the same Zero as before due to time and experience is the main link to Juni and the humans and real history best I can recall.
Wonderful comic
While I don't want Zero to die I wonder how things would be if it weren't there anymore. Sure in the beginning things would be rough, but in time maybe they would be better for it. Without Zero to take care of everything they would have to take care of themselves and each other.
There are still Melroses around, yeah - there's one in the oracle training group that was shown a bit earlier. She's going to specifically be in the story in a bit.
My stories seem to have an underlying thesis that history is really just a series of mistakes that happen to work out in a certain way.
Zero didn't exist before Juni, so if Zero is in a story, it's post-Melrose.
The post-humanity Unity also doesn't have smoke detectors or a lot of other things. Their society is built around there being infinite electricity that literally comes from the sky, but relatively limited amounts of material. Only chemical reactions that are reversible via electrolysis or photosynthesis or the like are sustainable for them. All metals are precious and very carefully recycled, and plastics are basically completely out of the question. Even batteries aren't really feasible - current has to be stored in capacitors.
Zero didn't exist before Juni, so if Zero is in a story, it's post-Melrose.
I meant to say that I wasn't sure if this was set during or after the life of the last Melrose descendant that was shown, but you answered that already.
fluffy:
The post-humanity Unity also doesn't have smoke detectors or a lot of other things. Their society is built around there being infinite electricity that literally comes from the sky, but relatively limited amounts of material. Only chemical reactions that are reversible via electrolysis or photosynthesis or the like are sustainable for them. All metals are precious and very carefully recycled, and plastics are basically completely out of the question. Even batteries aren't really feasible - current has to be stored in capacitors.
So that's what this story is about.
I suspect a technological revolution or something similar may come of this.
05/06/2012 04:18 pmMaterials in a fully-enclosed environment.
fluffy:
...and plastics are basically completely out of the question...
Petroleum-based plastics, perhaps. However, some plastics are made from natural gas, which is mostly methane (CH4), which is also produced by some species of bacteria. Similarly, plants could be genetically engineered to produce plastic resins, or the necessary precursors for same: originally, rubber and styrene plastic resin used to come from tree saps.
I only say this because the extent of the penetration of plastics into our everyday lives is nothing to be dismissed. Nearly all electrical wiring is insulated with plastic or synthetic rubber, with the environmental circumstances of the installation dictating the material (heat, humidity, chemical exposure, etc.); the only exceptions are fiberglass, mineral fiber (asbestos), and cellulose fiber (fabric). I could also go on at length about the ubiquity of plastics for circuit boards, electrical component cases, appliance cases, gaskets and other liquid-tight seals, and containers for food and various chemicals.
Some of the material types which might become too difficult to use in a fully-contained environment are concretes, ceramics, and glass, given that these materials heavily depend upon irreversable chemical reactions; all but glass appear to be non-recyclable.
The issue with plastics in this space isn't the production so much as the recovery of the raw materials needed to completely recycle it. They can't just go and dig up more petroleum or find a pocket of natural gas, and when they're done with it, their options are basically just landfill or jettison, and the latter has quite a few more challenges. I suppose that if they can be broken down by organic processes, though, the humans would have engineered bacteria for that purpose or the like (and those would presumably still exist, with an odd sort of plastic-CH4 cycle happening in the wild).
I haven't really thought about how their circuitry is fabricated, but it's definitely the case that all of their glass is recycled or recovered from previous things. I suspect that most of their circuitry is also optically-based.
Basically I just make this stuff up as I go along.
Transcript
Comments
Humans + oops = Apes
These guys + another oops = ?
Are any of Juni's daughter/sister's line still around?
Zero while not the same Zero as before due to time and experience is the main link to Juni and the humans and real history best I can recall.
Wonderful comic
While I don't want Zero to die I wonder how things would be if it weren't there anymore. Sure in the beginning things would be rough, but in time maybe they would be better for it. Without Zero to take care of everything they would have to take care of themselves and each other.
Sorry if this is a bit jumbled.
My stories seem to have an underlying thesis that history is really just a series of mistakes that happen to work out in a certain way.
Some history has been like that.
It seems a bit odd that they don't have any sort of emergency lighting at all, even if they thought they'd never need it.
The post-humanity Unity also doesn't have smoke detectors or a lot of other things. Their society is built around there being infinite electricity that literally comes from the sky, but relatively limited amounts of material. Only chemical reactions that are reversible via electrolysis or photosynthesis or the like are sustainable for them. All metals are precious and very carefully recycled, and plastics are basically completely out of the question. Even batteries aren't really feasible - current has to be stored in capacitors.
So that's what this story is about.
I meant to say that I wasn't sure if this was set during or after the life of the last Melrose descendant that was shown, but you answered that already.
fluffy:
I suspect a technological revolution or something similar may come of this.
Petroleum-based plastics, perhaps. However, some plastics are made from natural gas, which is mostly methane (CH4), which is also produced by some species of bacteria. Similarly, plants could be genetically engineered to produce plastic resins, or the necessary precursors for same: originally, rubber and styrene plastic resin used to come from tree saps.
I only say this because the extent of the penetration of plastics into our everyday lives is nothing to be dismissed. Nearly all electrical wiring is insulated with plastic or synthetic rubber, with the environmental circumstances of the installation dictating the material (heat, humidity, chemical exposure, etc.); the only exceptions are fiberglass, mineral fiber (asbestos), and cellulose fiber (fabric). I could also go on at length about the ubiquity of plastics for circuit boards, electrical component cases, appliance cases, gaskets and other liquid-tight seals, and containers for food and various chemicals.
Some of the material types which might become too difficult to use in a fully-contained environment are concretes, ceramics, and glass, given that these materials heavily depend upon irreversable chemical reactions; all but glass appear to be non-recyclable.
I am interested in your reply.
I haven't really thought about how their circuitry is fabricated, but it's definitely the case that all of their glass is recycled or recovered from previous things. I suspect that most of their circuitry is also optically-based.
Basically I just make this stuff up as I go along.