NationStates Jolt Archive

It began in the central town hall. Form number 2004-GL-5229 was clubbed and made official. This meant that a lot of forms had to be publicized in a lot of public places as the custom were in Vegana. It was mostly a formality, but the bureaucracy had high demands these days. It was even broadcasted over all reich channels and abroad out into the wide world.


GOD IS GREAT!

The peaceful people of the Reich salute the world. HEIL Humanity!

Long has our eyes been turned towards our skies in worry of debris could enter atmosphere and kill innocent people. The wonderful nations of The Reich and their modest peacekeeping space force can no longer idly sit and watch as our space is polluted and used as the dung heap of the universe by irresponsible people and spawn from hell.

If anyone by any chance would have debris above the Reich, which of course would not be any satellites used for spying on the peace loving people of the Reich since this would be an act of war, could they please come forward and claim and localize said debris and explain its purpose.

The signal that was sent from the Veganian Communication central was intercepted by the great StreiteKräfte and heard even to the great Goliath that lay slumbering, ever dreaming in the Kuiper belt. The StreiteKräfte changed formation and moved out lighter ships to the perimeter of the so called Reich space. The whole operation would take several days but the bureaucrats on the soil that had ordered it couldn't care less, the procedures had to be followed. Dozens of captains swore as they saw their orders.

Deep in a bunker hidden hundreds of meters underground sat a man behind a desk. His white hair was combed backwards and his nails properly pedicured. He wore an expensive suit and slowly sipped from a Machiatto as he read the reports streaming in on the screens in front of him. So far the reports told him things were going according to plans. The first steps of Projekt Reinemachefrau was completed, all he needed to do now was to wait, long enough to give him plenty of excuses from what he was about to do.

OOC: You do realise that the only space you could reasonably claim as "Reich space" is geosynchronous orbit above any Reich nations crossing the equator?

Anything not in geosynchronous orbit is going to cross the Reich (and the rest of the world, for that matter) quite often, but cannot be claimed to be occupying "Reich space" any more than it can be claimed to be occupying the space of every other nation.

And you have nothing to fear from the sky - sorry, I mean orbital debris - falling on your heads from geosynchronous orbit - it'd need to be a lot lower, where the atmosphere could create drag.

OOC: Mmhhmmmm... That is exactly what I realise.
perimeter of the so called Reich space That is the wonderful things with claims that you can claim anything you want, and many times without it being challenged. Been used hundreds of times in history, you do realise that? and regarding things falling on our heads, I think you need to read the first post again. Would love to see you make an IC comment.

The god who gave man the earth to rule, gave us the heavens also.
it is our destiny to control the skies as we control the soil. for the will of god and security we hail our brother jaar and this act.

~Sultan Hatusu

Motivation Space

The satellites spin ever on in their tranquil orbits, inspiring thought of gentle chamber music. Or possibly wind chimes. Then, in space noone can hear Blixa Bargeld, er, vocalizing, making for a decidedly boring aural background.

Quite a few of them light, unpowered, destined to eventially decay in a pretty lightshow. Or maybe impact another object, spreading fragments destined in turn to impact still other objects - unless, being smaller, their tendency to decay more quickly leads them to instead do the lightshow thing.

Lightshow is more popular, but as the number of objects in orbit grow so does the chance of impact. Given enough stuff, garbage, workshacks, whatever, there arises a chance of an ever growing cascade effects of impacts and fragmentation, an "orbital ablation cascade".

"Enough" is a ridiculous amount. But there are ludicrous amounts of bits, castoffs, ventings, villas in orbit.

Too much more and it all comes down in a plaid of scrap and explosions. Well, except for the armored and armed ships likely to touch it off.

Pushing Stuff

It's fairly easy to construct an orbit around the pseudofractal worldcurve that will stay the hell out of a certain locus such as Reich space, and the Territorial government has a precise definition of Reich space. It's where the Reich is capable of cheaply enough engaging targets. So looking close to the edge of that volume, we find a swarm of satellites freefalling around the Earth.

Well, mostly freefalling. Tiny, inefficient, stealthy EM drives continually update orbits of dozens of DEAT sats, hundreds of decoys, scores of shepherd drones and several warsats; unmanned corvettes in all but name, slow and deadly. Cubic kilometers, fractional gigatons, gamma-ray showers in potential.

The orbital interdiction swarm is one of those targets you don't want to go into Reich space. If you saw a blip tagged OI too close to one tagged RRSK, there's a large chance it'd be white flash time.

Absolute Malarkey

If a satellite is a discarded piece of pacing material, a wrench, a collision fragment or a piece of diamondoid film much like crumpled cellophane, it's still not trivial to destroy it. Sure, locking and firing is easy, but who's paying to vaporize the thing? Especially if you have to fill out forms every time you fire.

Paper forms if you're unlucky. With paper carted into space, and even with floaty ships it all adds up.

There are eyes over the Reich, and among them are Territorial ones, most of them like crumpled cellophane, some built into pieces of packing material, some glued to an imported wrench before being "accidentally" dropped.

Cheap and shoddy eyes, hard to track the origin of but recognizably eyes. And there are lots of them.

You'd think people would stop tossing in new ones. They don't

Free skyclearing, paid for by the Reichers.

Free is good. Keep them motivated.

Most ships that were serving in the RaumStreiteKräfte was at least assembled in space by the big ships that served as giant temporary wharfs everytime the fleet got a new brother or sister. This was also the case of the latest of the projects. The ships created a enormous circle and within this circle something looking like a gian white orb started to grow. Thousands of small drones spun something like a giant complicated spider web moving up and down and round and round. Every time the web seemed to be done it folded into itself and the drones started their task anew. This was repeated hundreds of times while scores of engineers watched the monitors and the complicated equations guiding the design from the constructionships nearby.
The small dot grew like candy floss in the middle of the construction wheel.

The ground

It was hard to say when exactly winter arrived. The decline was gradual, like that of a person into old age, inconspicious from day to day until the season became an established relentless reality. Valerij had been waiting for the day since he began his training several years ago. He watched the sky with the eagerness of a bird in a cage, trying his wings in vain but longing for the world outside. He had told all his friends about his work. garbage man. and they had all laughed at his pride of being the one who created balance in nature by bringing the end of the filth that the evil Nephilim had planted over their heads. He shivered at the thought of the space scattered with litter and his precious Reich being used as a garbage dump by their old enemy.

Valerij had always been pedantic, even as a kid had he been stuck by the cupboard for minutes placing plates in perfect order after helping his mother with the dishes. When he grew up he had worked in his parents store organising cans and cleaning up with perfect precision, removing dust from the shelves so they were as clean as the table in his room. Some people called it a psychosis but that was utterly nonsense! He just had a need to be clean and to keep his surroundings clean as well.

He had told this to the people recruiting him and they had nodded, watched each other and nodded again. Then he had told them about his diaries, well, maybe a better name was files. He kept very good records about his day and his chores. Several pages actually, and since he got the computer the files was now catalogized and occupying several Megs of his hard drive. His routine was to write at least ten pages per day and add some files with how much dust he had gathered, in grams and what it contained. He had studied it with a microscope and watched the small bugs in the dust crawl around in their filth.

The men had put him in training straight after his interview. Several months of training mostly around space and physics had started and new it was finally time. He had been driven out to the center for a final medical test. He was strapped to a bench and got a needle inserted in the vein of his right arm. He felt himself going dizzy and watched the man coming into the room. His brain was just swimming away into unconciousness as he saw the man lean over him with a scalpel in his hand.

Space over the Reich
The four huge tankers slowly docked into the long tubes that were protruding from the white ball in the center of the construction circle. If the space had been able to move sounds a flushing noise would have been heard. Now the only thing that showed what happened was that the ball in the middle started to slowly grow and expand, gently opening up like a giant flower as the substance was flushed into the tubes and hardening from the center and out. The substance expanded as it hardened in the cold of space, creating a foamlike wall between the millions of tubes that had been built , like an umbrella.

The scientist walked in with the "volounteered" brain carrying it in the special vat that wouldbe its home for a considerable time. The special liquid in the vat was kind of milky and electrodes protruding from the brain were nestled into a small box in the bottom.

"God is Great!" the men in the room all saluted.

In a special launcher was something looking like a giant metallic spider, specially built to transport this cargo. The brain that was Valerij floated around in its milky home wondering who cleaned this place. It could not see much but it more sensed the dirt than saw it. It was like a dream. Valerij felt like dreaming. One second on the bench and then everything turning black, and now a slow half concious dream of being somewhere dirty. He felt strange and tried to sit up but nothing happened, he tried to wake up from the bad dream but he couldn't do that either.

The brain was lodged into its vessel and the launch was shut. The scientists could see the "spider" travel towards the core on the tubes with lightning speed. It would dock in the core of the ball after travelling the several kilometres to the center and there it would be assembled by the core structure. Operation Kleenex could begin

Tell me, whom do you love most, you enigmatic man: your father, your mother, your sister or your brother.
I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother.
Your friends?
You're using a word I've never understood.
Your country?
I don't know where that might lie.
Beauty?
I would love her with all my heart, if only she were a goddess and immortal.
Money?
I hate it as you hate God.
Well then, what do you love, you strange outsider?
I love the clouds...the clouds that pass by...over there...over there... those lovely clouds!

¨Baudelaire


Reich Space

The scientist watched the craft as it slowly spread it wings and started to move forward. It unfolded layer after layer as it emerged from the circle of contruction ships and grew in diameter for every second until it reached its full size well away from the other ships. Sixteen long range fighters followed in its tracks, prepared to destroy all things too heavy for the styrfoam to absorb or shoot down things suddenly come alive in the path of the cleaner. Following the ships center was a bulky ship prepared to collect any slag products that it would be fed from the ship after processing.

The scientists watched the ship grow in size while simultaneously checking the data on their screens.

"Speed, 1,4 +0.3 per second. time to cruising speed 11.4 seconds."

"Make it do a sharp turn to sweep, 16 degrees, new bearing 1231.40 , 2418,63"

The huge ship turned as a huge vacuum cleaner and then got back to its old course again. Assembling anything not too big that came in its way in its styrofoam hull. The styrfoam created a chemical reaction that alstered heat as the tubes moved things from the outskirts of the hull towards the center. Soon it shone with a bright blueish light and burning gasses created a aura and a tail after it. The center however shone in a clear yellow colour.

"The stats looks ok, all seems to check out."

"Ok, switch to manual control."

Valerij felt like waking from a bad dream. He felt warm and sweaty and strangely enough very aware of his surroundings. He found that he could look all around him without turning his head, or in fact, even moving his eyes. He heard strange people talk to him and he could feel himself answer without moving his lips. Well, no time for chat, he thought.This place is a mess, it needs cleaning up!

The big ship turned a little to shove up a pile of debris in the outer perimeter as the scientists cheered for their success! Pressing the communication button they alerted the ship.

“The benevolent Jaar wants a report of your status”

“ God Is Great! Heil The Benevolent Jaar! At 070833.55 a metallic object with mass of 6 grams hit my shell, with an octagonal shape, most likely a nut, consisting of Mangan, Mangan is a yellow metal. At 070835.21 a metallic object of 32351 grams hit my shell, penetrated and continued in its orbit. At 070835.22….”

“The benevolent Jaar would prefer a SUMMARIZED report.”

“No”

“Why not?!”

“Because It is Wrong. At 070835.22….”

So this is space? It looked so different from up here than from down there. Its so big, and so dirty. Wonder what happens if I move this way? How the hell did this cellophane end up here?!

Valerij watched in awe as some filth came in from sectors outside his cleaning area. Metallic objects from foreign nations far, far away. Travelling through space and trespassing into his domain. Well he wouldn’t miss them. You bastards! Don’t think you can desecrate Reich Space! He felt like tidying leaves in a storm, new ones came all the time. Some was captured by his shell; processed, recycled and moved through his system to finally be shipped into the waiting mouth of the transport tanker behind him. Others were too heavy for him to contain and went straight through his shell only to be shot down by the fighters following him.

He had a burning sensation as his internal process melted down a reactor from one of the debris things with his ecological conversion putting the radioactive waste into a separate container.

He hummed to himself as he moved through space, vacuuming his surroundings for debris and trying to reach everything he could see. He pretty soon understood the massive task he had before him. Even with the enormous radius of his shell this cleaning would take a very long time.

[i]I better get started[i] He thought as he continued his movement through space.

The satellite looked like crumpled cellophane and was in fact much like diamond.

Its mind was tiny. A human intelligence might run in a million like it.

It had eyes. Many eyes, twinkling things. Blind in themselves, no mind to understand what it saw.

It spoke when illuminated, like an animate soap bubble, dumping data by twisting light.

With its many fellows, it was an eye pointed at the Reich and whatever else it passed.

Part of a great hand, clawed, the claws passing far away, themselves part of the eye.

The satellite never saw the oncoming sphere; the light never left its eyes to find meaning.

The hand, the eye, guided by minds. Statistics say, it's a meaningless loss.

More eyes, many more. The eyes, in a sense, part of the problem. Ablation cascade. Bad problem.

The sphere, helping solve the problem. Prior analysis, approving the sphere.

Still...

The eye is the hand, tied into minds.

The hand.

The hand is in the cookie jar.

Impact.

Brief flashes of intense light, shining, metallic surfaces reflecting it, a million microscopic craters breaking symmetries. A microscopic star, a mirror reflecting the lights on and around earth during its eternal orbit around the planet.

It isn't anything special. A leftover of battles long past, as a romanticist would put it.

Reality is less epic. A tiny drone, running on subsentient subroutines, colliding with a foreign freighter, too slow to evade - These FTL jumps really screw with navigation.

Mass got vaporised, a cloud of simple molecules and atoms expanded into space, together with a few fragmented remains of what was once a tool for war, for reconnaissance - As the romanticist would put it. Of course, reality is once more destroying delusions of grandeur. Simple civilian navigation, and that's it. Military value? Zero, as it was never intended for it to begin with.

Hidden within those fragments, the remains of what was once able of holding a mind. Damaged, but still working to a limited extend. Incapable of communicating, but endlessly trying to do so, trying to send signals - But its ability to communicate, to emit data had been lost in the accident. Futile attempts, consuming the slowly decreasing energy flow coming from its radioactive core, or what is left of it.

Subroutines continue to run for months, not even knowing that they're long lost and located on a piece of essentially worthless debris, rather less than a hundred grams worth of hightech, most of it fused together, forming a piece of charcoal with exotic ingredients - Metals, ceramics, frozen semiconducting liquids.

There's nothing that could even register the cloud of foam blocking its orbit, yet alone evading it.

It even lacks the sensors necessary to realise that it impacts.

The remains of its never actually existing conscience just fade away in a flurry of released heat and foam fusing with the remains of its nominally working interior.

They say that the space is endless, and maybe it is. That is a hell of a lot of space to clean. Luckily for Valerij he only had a limited area of space to keep tidy, but he felt like trying to empty an ocean with a bucket.

Always new things to pick up. How very rude of people to leave their trash up here for others to clean. When he hit something full of electrodes and transmitters he sometimes wondered what it could be. His sensors told him the weight, the energy, the material, but what about its past and its future? He sometimes felt the transmissions that abruptly ended when they hit his shell. It was like shivering birds hitting a window, the song ending with a short *thump!* He pushed the thoughts away. He had to focus. Must Clean!

They say the space is endless, but that also implies that there is endless mass therein. An infinite number of stars and planets dying and getting born. Like millions of campers spreading over the great camping place that is the universe, everyone bringing with them their favorite flavor of milk in a disposable package. Endless opportunities of cleaning.