Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound

1.2      Taking Control

1.2.6    An Assumed Role

1.2.6.8  Cornucopia

Nadine: “You’ve really thought a lot about this, haven’t you?”

Heather: “Ever since you suggested the mythoi, a voice in my head has been whispering: what if setting up a crafting node was something a particular breed of mythoi could do?”

Nadine: “Illur the crafter, hiding in his cavern. Something like the military snake bots that do construction and repairs?”

Heather: “Yeah. Automate the entire thing. Present it, initially, as a facility to repair and maintain mythoi.”

Nadine: “And to spawn new mythoi for a village. A breeding burrow.”

Heather: “It would be missing the economic aid, a way of supplying raw resources to a new burrow. But you remember when I said 1 CFF per kilo is what the prices were 15 years ago?”

Nadine: “Yes.”

Heather: “That’s changing. Feodor Yerkes has got the off-Earth economy to the point where metals are more plentiful there than they are here on Earth. If you’ve got a nice shallow sea to drop canisters into, some resources are actually cheaper to get delivered from orbit.”

Nadine: “Is that why you’re involved in the seasteading movement?”

Heather: “One of the reasons. There are fewer space limitations on expansion, than on land. Yes, you can dig out caverns on land, but steadings are mobile, so they can be nomadic - unconstrained by national boundaries and ungoverned in international waters. You can transport heavy loads at low cost, and if you dip below the surface it is very hard for surveillance to track which cargos are which. Lots of privacy!”

Nadine: “You were trying to set seasteadings up as autonomous crafting nodes?”

Heather: “My dolphins are wonderful. They don’t just link together to form wave-powered electricity generators, making them self-powering. They can go fishing for biomass and maintain krill tanks. I was even looking at having them set up sea-bed mines and harvest gene-engineered corals that strain metal ions out from the sea water.”

Nadine: “You know what? If humanity reaches the stars, I hope they name a whole asterism after you. ‘Alderney the Engineer’, complete with top hat and wings. You deserve it.”

Heather looked a little stunned.

Nadine stood up, and drew Heather into a hug.

Nadine: “You think I haven’t noticed how hard you try to stay positive, how much effort you put into persuading people to give crafting a go? You’re my best friend. You’re not alone any more. If I can make your dreams come true, I will. That’s what friends are for.” She gave her a tight squeeze.

Heather sniffled. “Ninjas. Damn onion choppers.”

Nadine: “Come on. I brought along food for lunch. Let’s have a picnic then meet up with Ketah for a walk in the woods. No onions, I promise you!”

Salat Jumuah, Friday June 9th, 2045

They carried on talking about plans as they ate.

Heather: “I flew over Kravica waterfall on the way here. Beautiful pool. If we make sure mythoi are water proof you could have them emerging from an autonomous crafting node hidden in a pressurised cavern beyond a wet porch.”

Nadine: “Rising like Excalibur, held up by the Lady of the Lake? Nicely dramatic, but wouldn’t it make excavation a lot harder?”

Heather: “It would mean fewer humans trying to enter the cavern to break or steal things. I could have a nice big gorilla bot step on visitors, or a chipmunk bot holding a welding torch turn around at the wrong moment. It wouldn’t take too many ‘accidents’ before people learned it was dangerous to step over the red tape line on the floor.”

Nadine: “I don’t like it. I know you’ve provided some lethal military models to protect me and hidden them somewhere, but allowing mythoi to kill, or even carelessly harm people in self-defence, feels wrong. It would be better if the mythoi ran and hid, then had to be coaxed out by the other villagers and comforted. Or get grumpy and go on strike. Or nobly sacrifice themselves in passive resistance, giving their lives to protect the burrow, followed by a solemn funeral service for the broken bot. If we don’t want humans to be more attached to things than people, then we should have the mythoi model that behaviour.”

Heather: “Do you think things like red tape lines would ruin the illusion of mythoi being intelligent individuals? Of them being people and equals?”

Nadine: “I’m not so sure it is totally an illusion. Wouldn’t you miss Tink if a malicious computer virus managed to delete her personality, memories and all backups?”

Heather: “Well, yes. But I also get sentimental about stuffed toys, cute animals and my favourite screwdriver. That doesn’t make them intelligent. Still, I see what you mean. How about a more animal based approach, such as releasing smoke that’s obscuring, and maybe a bit smelly and makes people cough? Or unpleasant screeching sounds?”

Nadine: “Like squid, skunks or a pack of monkeys? I don’t know. Do you have a social model you can use to see how that would go over, and check how easy it would be for an opponent to twist the narrative? I think absolute pacifism might be safest, but maybe that’s just me and it will turn out to be culturally dependent.”

She picked up one of the strawberry cream cornicellos that she’d baked earlier, while Heather dropped into velife for a minute. Mmm, delicious. Heather returned, her monocle retracting back from her eye, as Nadine licked the crumbs from her fingers.

Heather: “I’ve posted your question about self-defence in the MythOS clan forum. I’ve not yet proposed the idea of having mythoi set up full autonomous crafting nodes, though. The economics issues need addressing before we try launching it - best to get it correct, right from the start, than go off half cocked.”

Nadine: “The phrase ‘full autonomous crafting node’ is a bit of a mouthful. Is ‘seed’ the only alternative?”

Heather: “You know your picker’s basket full of fruit? There’s a Greek legend about baby Zeus. He was being looked after by Almathea, a divine goat, and accidentally tore one of her horns off, making it magic in the process so it became an unending source of nourishment - the horn of plenty. This became known as a ‘Cornucopia’ and some writers have referred to a single machine that can gather resources, replicate itself, and provide anything requested, as a ‘Cornucopia Machine’.”

Nadine: “But we’re not talking about a single machine. So, what, an Almathean System? No, still too long. A copia? Rhymes with ‘Utopia’ and ‘soapier’.”

Heather: “It works as an adjective too. Copian engineering. I like it. I’m a copian engineer, working in the field of copionics.”

They moved onto discussing some of the gorier local myths which, as a horror-film fan, Heather loved. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and the fictional death toll increased as she brought up myths caused by massive volcanic explosions, complete with sound effects. By the time the last scrap of food was finished, they’d arrived at gamma ray bursts and Nicoll-Dyson lasers which could boil whole planets at interstellar distances.

Heather finished the meal almost bouncing and ready to zoom off through the woods, as though the topics, which were meat and drink to Heather, had provided her literal energy. Nadine, not wishing to risk a turned ankle by descending quite that fast despite the sensible hiking boots she’d put on, had suggested flying down to the particular wood where Ketah was meeting them. She’d been a little worried before her first flight the previous evening, but now she was now definitely sold on the comfort and convenience of it.