PT2: The Moon
Title: My Life on the Rock
Story Type: PT Original
Word Count: 1,243
Summary: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Notes: I've always wondered what it's like to live, actually live, in some of these incredible settings we make up. Epic space battles and struggles for the fate of the world are well and good, but do you ever wonder what it's like to be the person not in on the titanic conflict? Like, it's one thing to be a strapping adventurer, but what's it like to be the innkeeper and deal with what seems like weekly destruction of your property? That's why I love Discworld so much. This is the same thing, but in Space. What's it like to be 3rd Generation Lunar colonist? Sure the first settlers are all about the science thing, and they're on cloud nine, but what about their kids? And their grandkids? Not everybody gets a hard-on for the grandiose mysteries of the universe, so what are they supposed to do with their time?
Something like this.
My Life on the Rock
There is no air on the moon.
Seriously, none. Well, okay there is this sort of wanna-be atmosphere around the place, but you can't breathe it. Nothing short of a tardigrade stands a chance on the moon.
About seventy years back, there was talk of restructuring the place. You know, twiddle some gravity here, cultivate a few bacteria there, pump out a few trillion tons of atmospheric gasses and bam: next Mars.
Shouldn't be hard, right? I mean, they've done it before. I've got this chat pal on Ganymede who says it's like the Marian equator there. Like, something with the terraforming caused it to develop this really hupid, tropical climate. She says she can set her calendar by the monsoon season. So obviously, moons can do the whole life thing.
But my moon, the first moon, the one no one actually calls Luna, not even the people who live here, she's just too tiny and too close to terra prime. Like, if you want water and air and weather and stuff, why not jsut hop the next ship to Earth? So the big guys decided to scrap the whole terraforming idea and the temporary domes where the influx researchers were living got refitted for permanent operation.
And that's where I was born. Habitat A-17A, Lunar Base Excelsus. We call it Grayville.
I was wasting time in my node with Phess. Not doing much, just throwing a ball up in the air and watching it dance in the fluxuating gravity. The generator was ont he fritz again, which always made life a little bit less boring.
"I am seriously filing a complaint, man." Phess said while the bull turned a lazy spiral back toward the floor. "Where the fuck are all the aliens? And what about lazer guns? Do you have a lazer gun? I don't have a lazer gun."
Phess is from Earth. People from Earth like to make up fantasies about life in space. Namely, that there is any.
"Lazers are just amplified light. They don't have concussive force. What you want is plasma, different thing."
Phess rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Anything is better than this." He waved his hand at my node, which I'd take more offense at, but it is a pretty dull space. Phess has showed me pics of his room on Earth, and he's got all of this...stuff. Like 2D images plastered over his walls and all of these cool gadgets and a drum kit and a million other things that basically scream PHESS LIVES HERE.
My node is just standard issue. I've got my bed and my uniforms and my skimmer and my terminal. That's about it. I've also got this holographic gecko called Snort, but I pretty much ignore him these days. I don't know why Earth kids always think living in space is a non-stop adventure. It's boring as Hell.
"You need to liven this place up, man." Phess said for the millionth time. "Put some posters on the walls, put up some shelves, something.
I shrugged. "We're not allowed to make unauthorized modifications to the living quarters. It's a safety thing."
Phess raised an eyebrow. "How exactly does slapping up a poster of Tella Heath compromise the structural integrity of the base?"
"Who?"
Phess's eyes widened and he backed away from me. "You can't be human."
I sighed. "Whatever. It's not worth the effort to have shit sent here from Earth. You learn pretty quickly that the thing you thought you wanted six months ago isn't as cool when it finally gets here. There's not a lot of impulse buying up here."
Phess shuddered. 'Weird. It's like you don't have an identity."
"I do." I objected, and I waved at my terminal.
Phess smirked. "Oh, yeah. Because the network is so much cooler than reality."
"Up here it is."
Truth is, I've got a pretty awesome life online. Aside from Rel on Ganymede I've got chat pals and stream buddies on almost every inahbited body in the solar system. I've got enough films, shows, books, and songs to fill the Congressional Archives. I hold a top ranking in my server for Legends of Entropy. Which is all really, really cool. To me and my friends. Phess and his friends? Not so much. They're all about the physical world, but that's just because they've got a physical world to interact with.
Grayville has one park. Just the one. It has a rock wall and a football pitch, the rest of it is all for pumping out oxygen and having picnics. The base gym is just as sterile and gray as the rest of the place, and you can't be in there for more than five seconds without somebody giving you a lecture on muscle proteins and dopamine receptors.
So if you want fun, you have to go virtual, and we can go virtual. Grayville was founded by scientists, so we've got some of the best processing power in the system. It's pretty depressing to live here if you're not into physics or chemistry or engineering, which I'm not, but if you want enough memory to run eighteen Tier1 games at once, while listening to an entire opera, while editing a video, while doing your coursework, the moon's got you covered.
It's not a fair trade, though. That's why I'm hosting Phess in my node, why I bugged my parents so much to have an Earth student come stay here in the first place. Because I want out, and Phess, for all his faults, knows how to live dirt-side. It's one of the biggest hurdles to terrestrial relocation, you've got to have contacts on the planet where you want to live, and since I can't afford to ship down to Earth twice a year with the supply run, I had to have Earth come to me.
Which is completely stupid because, like I said, I have contacts all over the system. Just, they're all virtual, and the law won't recognise a connection unless you've had at least one physical encounter. Too easy to forge an identity over the network, I guess.
Of course, Phess isn't my first choice for a nodemate. I'd kill to bring Qel up here, to see Grayville through his eyes and maybe get excited by all the groundbreaking science stuff that goes on here. Unfortunately Qel's school doesn't have a Lunar exchange program. It's okay, though. Once Qel graduates and I complete my flight training, we're planning to move in together. We haven't picked a citystate yet, but we're narrowing it down.
Until then, I'm stuck in the gray, watching the rise and set of the Earth and living vicariously through my terminal. I guess there are worse lives. Well, I know there are. But there are definitely better ones, and mine is just waiting for me, a measly 400,000 kilometers away.
Phess got up and put on some music, and we sat there for a while, just sitting. Eventually he got bored and went to his own berth, and I switched to a song I liked better and logged on to LoE, where Qel's avatar greeted me with an over-acted kiss and a serenade.
I ran him through with my pulse sword and blew him a kiss in return, and once he'd ressurected himself we joined our cell and went hunting for hostile Sapiovores, discussing the latest episode of Late for Yesterday along the way.
Story Type: PT Original
Word Count: 1,243
Summary: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Notes: I've always wondered what it's like to live, actually live, in some of these incredible settings we make up. Epic space battles and struggles for the fate of the world are well and good, but do you ever wonder what it's like to be the person not in on the titanic conflict? Like, it's one thing to be a strapping adventurer, but what's it like to be the innkeeper and deal with what seems like weekly destruction of your property? That's why I love Discworld so much. This is the same thing, but in Space. What's it like to be 3rd Generation Lunar colonist? Sure the first settlers are all about the science thing, and they're on cloud nine, but what about their kids? And their grandkids? Not everybody gets a hard-on for the grandiose mysteries of the universe, so what are they supposed to do with their time?
Something like this.
My Life on the Rock
There is no air on the moon.
Seriously, none. Well, okay there is this sort of wanna-be atmosphere around the place, but you can't breathe it. Nothing short of a tardigrade stands a chance on the moon.
About seventy years back, there was talk of restructuring the place. You know, twiddle some gravity here, cultivate a few bacteria there, pump out a few trillion tons of atmospheric gasses and bam: next Mars.
Shouldn't be hard, right? I mean, they've done it before. I've got this chat pal on Ganymede who says it's like the Marian equator there. Like, something with the terraforming caused it to develop this really hupid, tropical climate. She says she can set her calendar by the monsoon season. So obviously, moons can do the whole life thing.
But my moon, the first moon, the one no one actually calls Luna, not even the people who live here, she's just too tiny and too close to terra prime. Like, if you want water and air and weather and stuff, why not jsut hop the next ship to Earth? So the big guys decided to scrap the whole terraforming idea and the temporary domes where the influx researchers were living got refitted for permanent operation.
And that's where I was born. Habitat A-17A, Lunar Base Excelsus. We call it Grayville.
I was wasting time in my node with Phess. Not doing much, just throwing a ball up in the air and watching it dance in the fluxuating gravity. The generator was ont he fritz again, which always made life a little bit less boring.
"I am seriously filing a complaint, man." Phess said while the bull turned a lazy spiral back toward the floor. "Where the fuck are all the aliens? And what about lazer guns? Do you have a lazer gun? I don't have a lazer gun."
Phess is from Earth. People from Earth like to make up fantasies about life in space. Namely, that there is any.
"Lazers are just amplified light. They don't have concussive force. What you want is plasma, different thing."
Phess rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Anything is better than this." He waved his hand at my node, which I'd take more offense at, but it is a pretty dull space. Phess has showed me pics of his room on Earth, and he's got all of this...stuff. Like 2D images plastered over his walls and all of these cool gadgets and a drum kit and a million other things that basically scream PHESS LIVES HERE.
My node is just standard issue. I've got my bed and my uniforms and my skimmer and my terminal. That's about it. I've also got this holographic gecko called Snort, but I pretty much ignore him these days. I don't know why Earth kids always think living in space is a non-stop adventure. It's boring as Hell.
"You need to liven this place up, man." Phess said for the millionth time. "Put some posters on the walls, put up some shelves, something.
I shrugged. "We're not allowed to make unauthorized modifications to the living quarters. It's a safety thing."
Phess raised an eyebrow. "How exactly does slapping up a poster of Tella Heath compromise the structural integrity of the base?"
"Who?"
Phess's eyes widened and he backed away from me. "You can't be human."
I sighed. "Whatever. It's not worth the effort to have shit sent here from Earth. You learn pretty quickly that the thing you thought you wanted six months ago isn't as cool when it finally gets here. There's not a lot of impulse buying up here."
Phess shuddered. 'Weird. It's like you don't have an identity."
"I do." I objected, and I waved at my terminal.
Phess smirked. "Oh, yeah. Because the network is so much cooler than reality."
"Up here it is."
Truth is, I've got a pretty awesome life online. Aside from Rel on Ganymede I've got chat pals and stream buddies on almost every inahbited body in the solar system. I've got enough films, shows, books, and songs to fill the Congressional Archives. I hold a top ranking in my server for Legends of Entropy. Which is all really, really cool. To me and my friends. Phess and his friends? Not so much. They're all about the physical world, but that's just because they've got a physical world to interact with.
Grayville has one park. Just the one. It has a rock wall and a football pitch, the rest of it is all for pumping out oxygen and having picnics. The base gym is just as sterile and gray as the rest of the place, and you can't be in there for more than five seconds without somebody giving you a lecture on muscle proteins and dopamine receptors.
So if you want fun, you have to go virtual, and we can go virtual. Grayville was founded by scientists, so we've got some of the best processing power in the system. It's pretty depressing to live here if you're not into physics or chemistry or engineering, which I'm not, but if you want enough memory to run eighteen Tier1 games at once, while listening to an entire opera, while editing a video, while doing your coursework, the moon's got you covered.
It's not a fair trade, though. That's why I'm hosting Phess in my node, why I bugged my parents so much to have an Earth student come stay here in the first place. Because I want out, and Phess, for all his faults, knows how to live dirt-side. It's one of the biggest hurdles to terrestrial relocation, you've got to have contacts on the planet where you want to live, and since I can't afford to ship down to Earth twice a year with the supply run, I had to have Earth come to me.
Which is completely stupid because, like I said, I have contacts all over the system. Just, they're all virtual, and the law won't recognise a connection unless you've had at least one physical encounter. Too easy to forge an identity over the network, I guess.
Of course, Phess isn't my first choice for a nodemate. I'd kill to bring Qel up here, to see Grayville through his eyes and maybe get excited by all the groundbreaking science stuff that goes on here. Unfortunately Qel's school doesn't have a Lunar exchange program. It's okay, though. Once Qel graduates and I complete my flight training, we're planning to move in together. We haven't picked a citystate yet, but we're narrowing it down.
Until then, I'm stuck in the gray, watching the rise and set of the Earth and living vicariously through my terminal. I guess there are worse lives. Well, I know there are. But there are definitely better ones, and mine is just waiting for me, a measly 400,000 kilometers away.
Phess got up and put on some music, and we sat there for a while, just sitting. Eventually he got bored and went to his own berth, and I switched to a song I liked better and logged on to LoE, where Qel's avatar greeted me with an over-acted kiss and a serenade.
I ran him through with my pulse sword and blew him a kiss in return, and once he'd ressurected himself we joined our cell and went hunting for hostile Sapiovores, discussing the latest episode of Late for Yesterday along the way.