173: Graviton Trade Talks

ENTRY 173: Graviton Trade Talks

It began, as many things do, when a drunken physicist scribbled something on a napkin. The party was a trade junket at Extropia, with various manufacturing interests discussing the purchase of some novel allotropic alloys from the Factors. In addition to the various official negotiating bodies were various specialists, administrators, and hangers-on at the party, waiting in case their expertise or decision-making powers were called upon. Most of them ended up highly inebriated by hour seven of the meeting; one of them—Jorge-Achmed Long, an experimental physicist, was actually given half an hour of unsupervised conversation with one of the Factors. Which led to the napkin. When Jorge-Achmed sobered up the next day, he realized he’d begun conditional negotiations for purchase of the proof of gravitons.

That was five years ago, and the official beginning of the Graviton Trade Talks, a series of negotiations between the Factors and the Planetary Consortium that still have not culminated one way or another. A large portion of the negotiations involve both parties determining exactly what is on the table. Despite the Initial Drunken Napkin Agreement (IDNA), the Factors have been clear that gravitons as massless particles that mediate the force of gravitation is not quite correct, but they’re being cagey about giving up more details to the point that entire teams of physicists have spent the last couple years of their careers combing over every statement any Factor at the Graviton Trade Talks has ever made, looking for clues as to the real nature of gravity. What is clear is that the Factors themselves are not certain they want to trade over anything related to graviton-tech to transhumanity, or more importantly what the going market price should be.

Using the Graviton Trade Talks

As an ongoing event of some minor importance, the Graviton Trade Talks are a nice background element to roll out in any game—an easy go-to for small talks, news, etc. “Major disappointment today at the Graviton Trade Talks…” “Chief instigator of the Graviton Trade Talks Jorge-Achmed Long vomited on the Factor ambassador today, who apparently thanked J-A for the contribution of nutrients…” “Hey, I heard the Martians are trying to undercut the Consortium at the Trade Talks, cut the rest of the solar system out of the deal…damn Rusters…” and so on and so forth. Likewise, the trade talks are a good place to place any physicist or Factor NPC that the gamemaster needs for an adventure. As with trade talks in general, the Graviton Trade Talks are also an excellent setting for general espionage activities, particularly if the Factors can ever be convinced to bring out an example of their graviton technology.

Seed

• The PCs are hired to bug the Graviton Trade Talks. Security is tight, but their employer has noted a potential weak spot: chief instigator Jorge-Achmed Long, who has a taste for male company after a long day of talking physics. If the PCs can get invited back to J-A’s living quarters they’ll bypass most of his security measures…and from there it’s a relatively painless and easy process for them to attach the surreptitious neutrino farcaster listening device to J-A’s cortical stack. Well, painless for them.

064: 60% Plumbing

ENTRY 064: 60% Plumbing

Sixty percent of the Extropia habitat, by mass, consists of plumbing. This includes only the movement, treatment, heating, processing, and refinement of liquid water and waste throughout the system; the plumbing also interacts with many other subsidiary systems such as oxygen generation and air control, power generation, cooling, hydroponics, and various industrial processes.

Beneath nearly ever panel is at least one pipe carrying liquid water, color-coded for steam (white), fresh (blue), waste (yellow or brown), radioactive (pink), hot (red), and reclaimed (grey).  Also present are automatic and manual shut-offs and redirects to prevent loss or reshunt water to prevent pressure build-up and bursts. They line the maintenance corridors which lead to the hidden reservoirs and pump stations that are built into dead spaces throughout the habitat structure to best service the community and to manage the considerable mass of moving water form unbalancing the structural stability of the habitat.

The aquatechs that work Extropia’s plumbing have access to rarely-walked spaces, kept away from the commercial thoroughfares, out of sight of recreation areas, and like all transhumans who are in on a public secret, have their share of small jokes, amenities, and lore. They make no secret of the tiny stills and soda fountains that had been set up early in Extropia’s history, buried among the commercial boilers and mass of piping, tapping a few drams of pure or carbonated water to mix with homemade syrups or thin out home-made moonshine, and laugh about “line 212” which was marked radioactive but actually ferried pure alcohol from a collection point to a hidden reservoir not on any of the plans hundreds of yards away, where the ‘techs would get together to stage parties or just jam.

Perhaps more such hidden spaces still lurk among the complex web of Extropia’s plumbing, and other secrets besides. A ‘tech that knows the ins and outs of the plumbing architecture might know where the sensors are planted to detect movement, and how to bypass or jam them, and know enough to bring a headlamp or oxygen bottle because certain sections not in regular use are kept sealed and without light or air circulation most of the time. Certainly in their less sober moments the aquatechs hint at saboteurs and others who met dire fates beyond the watchful eyes of security cameras, and whose remains no doubt still exist in some quiet corner or behind some disused access panel, away from prying eyes.

Using 60% Plumbing

Most players and gamemasters do not always appreciate the scale of habitats, which must recreate in miniature an environment suitable to a broad spectrum of transhumanity. So no matter how large a habitat might appear from the outside, the actual living space is often considerably smaller. So it behooves gamemasters to remember that this additional space—within the walls, beneath the floors, above the ceiling (unless a dome)—exists as part of the setting; it is space where things or people may hide, where shooting up a wall has immediate consequences as lights go dim or steam and water (possibly radioactive or unprocessed waste) spout out and start to flood the compartment. Likewise, where these spaces are available to transhumanity, especially for a relatively long-lived habitat, they become less uniform, full of dead-ends, quick fixes, makeshift stills, hidden recreation areas and holo-posters of naked biomorphs, all the signs and detritus of human habitation.