NationStates Jolt Archive

It was a nice, warm day.

Like all days in the 'Underwater Bubbles', the cities on the ground of the Sea of Aerona and the ocean located in the south of DA.

Unlike the polluted, always dark surface cities, the Underwater Bubbles, with their cities that hold between 330000 and 30000 people, are brightly lit, generally a place where the upper class resides.

Of course, the rather strange, artificial fauna which is characteristically for DA was still there, however, it looked much less threatening than it did on the surface.

In one of the buildings, near one of the maglev pipes, a group of Businessmen, including Aramaki and a few others, were confering.

"And you think it is a suitable idea?" Aramaki took a sip from his glass of water.
"Yes. The world is full of states, there is no 'Free Landmass'. But creating new landmass..."
"I see your point. But it will need time."
"Yes. We will set up a test version. About... well, fourhundred km from our southern coastline. Have we Kusanagi Technologies support?"
"Well..." Aramaki hesitated. But DA was full. 1.722bn people on a territory of about 300000km². This project was probably a chance to get rid of the problem. Together with the plan to expand the off world colonies... yes. It had to be done. "Yes."
"It´s a pleasure to do business with you."

---

A few weeks later, large Explorer class submarines begun the work.

400km off the the southern DA coast, the ground was perhaps 100m deep, the construction begun.

Tons upon tons of buolding materials, silicates, biomass, even metal... It was a logistical nightmare.

And slowly, slowly, the ground was growing, while at the same time, large underground sections were created, reaching deep below the ocean`s ground.

ooc:- Nice post......one thing, would it have been eaisier to artificially induce a volcano or 2 to build your landmass? (ie crack open the land surface & allow hot magma to come out).

ooc: you´re the second one with that volcano idea...

Well, 1. I`m not sure if i would be able to close the 'magma well'

2. I assume rmoving several kilometers of sediments is somewhat hard... harder than building the island (because you don`t have to go as deep)

3. Future risks, if the volcano breaks out again...

As the work went on, the eye began expanding beyond it´s former 'border', reaching out to merge with the soon to be built island.

Meanwhile, at the designated position of the island, the bottom of the ocean was slowly raised... by now, fifty meters below the surface.

The work wasn`t easy, especially for Angstians, which tend to suffocate twice as fast as normal humans. However, artificial gills worked quite well for them. Thousands, no millions upon millions of tons of material were moved.

The plans were rather complicate, the complete infrastructure of the underground parts of the city had to be included in the building process... a masterpiece of engineering was about to be finished. Well, not exactly finished...

Fishes watching the building process were most likely scared away. Especially since the toxic waste from DA came near... slowly expanding it`s rule...

[Tag for a future post... in about 2 hours.]

"Next order of business is bill M765a(k). Commonly termed Project Volcano."

The Senate chamber was full, all the Senators were present for this concern. It was a rather important vote that was coming up. They were trying to decide if they were going to partially release some of their most tightly guarded technological advancements. The vast majority of the Senators didn't even know the specifics of tech. They were familiar with what had been termed 'The Iron Project', and that it had been termed wildly successful, but the results were highly classified. That made their choice even more difficult.

The Senators sat in their seats, forming a half circle around two figures sitting at a large table. Jessica Hawthorne sat, looking rather nervious, a stack of notes a files piled up before her. Sitting next to here was Dr. Josef Specter, who was, by contrast, the very image of calmness. No notes sat before him, instead was a small LCD monitor, a single cable running from it to a datajack in his left arm. Far in the back of the chamber President Solis stood, leaning against a wall, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, much to the chagrin of the security guards who knew that smoking wasn't allowed in the building, but that pissing off the President tended to be disasterous to one's job prospects.

"Ambassador Hawthorne," The Speaker of the Chamber's voice was loud enough to make the use of a microphone almost pointless. "You are most familiar with the request. Please brief us."

"Ah... sure..." Jessica appears clearly nervious. She mentally kicked herself. How can I be a diplomat if I can't speak in public? She closed her eyes for a moment, calming herself down, and started her presentation.

"As you are aware, we were approached some weeks ago about asisting Der Angst with attempts to expand their land mass, specifically, the creation of land mass. They were aware of The Iron Project, and wondered if we could aid them in creating a pair of islands, operating under the (accurate) assumption that we pretty much know more about the Earth's core than any other nation, and are the one most likely to be able to manipulate such forces to our needs.

"As they are fellow WBO members, I offered tentative approval, pending legislation, which is, obviously, why we're here."

"Very well," the Speaker's voice seemed rather unimpressed. "Dr. Specter, give us the technical aspects."

"Sure." Dr. Specter lanquidly looked up from his screen. "Well, since the vast majority of the data is highly classified, I'll provide a quick gloss." He glanced around the room before his eyes settled upon the Speaker. "We can do it." After several minutes of awkward silence, he looked up from his screen again, "Oh, that's all I have to say."

Several people in the chamber chuckled softly, the Speaker did not. "We will need more information, Dr. Specter."

"Fine, fine... let me think a moment. We can do what they need. We will create a small volcano-type structure. Then we'll do stuff that you don't have security clearance to know about. Then we'll do some other stuff. The I'll do a whole mess of stuff that you really don't have clearance to know about. Then after a couple months, Der Angst will have it's islands."

"Is that all, Doctor?" The Speaker was clearly not amused.

"Pretty much. Oh, it'll cost a metric shit-load of money."

"How much, Doctor?"

"Ah," Jessica looked up from some notes, "We don't have exact figures right now, but we're planning on having it be paid for over ten to fifteen years. We are creating islands after all."

"More than that," Josef added, "This is new technology. We've never done this before. Needless to say, further projects will be less expensive. Actually, the second island will be much cheaper than the first."

"Cheap being a relative term," Jessica interjected.

"Indeed."

The chamber was silent for awhile as the Senators pondered. Finally the Speaker spoke again, "Construction security?"

"Ah, yes," Jessica answered, "We will be doing all the work on this project. The construction of the psuedo-volcano will be simple contracting work, no major security concerns there. After it's constructed, the security will instant shoot up, with the installation of..."

"...the high-tech stuff," Josef offered..

"Yes, the high-tech stuff. That will be performed by Section 1 workers. The final procedures will be performed by Dr. Specter himself. The creation of the island will utterly annihilate the psuedo-volcano, solving security problems with needed break downs."

"Fair enough." The Speaker looked at them sternly, "I suppose we'll have to vote with only that information."

A voice carried from the back of the room, soft, but easily heard by everyone in the chamber. "I support this project." It was President Solis' voice. After that simple statement, he left the chamber. The Speaker of the Chamber sighed, almost in frustration.

The motion passed with only one dissenting vote.

~To Der Angst~

The Hermes Conglomerate congratulates you and wishes you succes with this enterprise. If any assistance is needed, for instance with the use of Terraforming techniques, worker drones or security issues, our Conglomerate would be more than happy to facilitate your needs.

In regards,

The Hermes Conglomerate Board of Directors.

--

Just properly roleplaying my corporate vultures

Just properly roleplaying my corporate vultures

[ooc- Heh... why do you think I'm gouging... er... why my construction costs are so high? :P ]

"We appreciate your offer, and wish to thank you for it.

However, at the moment, it looks like we`re going well, so we think we can work this out without your professional help."

~ Mr. Morden

---

"Are you sure it works?" The assistant looked at the plans, shaking his head. Beneath him, a rather strange looking figure stood, eating pudding.
"Of course not. There are too many variables we don´t know. Thats why we wait for the specialists from The Hack."
"Aha, yes..." The assistant was seemingly unable to believe in this project. It was just too... large.

Understandable, considering that one doesn`t build artificial volcanos all the time. Especially when one grew up in a nation completely without said volcanos.

"Well, for now we can`t do much. But they should arrive shortly." The rather strange man stepped away, heading for the narrow door. The assistant still stood in front of the plans, pondering how he could interpret them. For some reason, all his interpretations ended with the word 'boom'. It wasn`t exactly pleasent. "Wont you follow me, Rosco?"

A moment later, they are on deck.

Desty Nova, that is the name of the 'strange looking man', would have preferred it if they could use submarinal construction only, however, this had not been possible.

So he stood there, with Rosco at his side, and watching the endless ocean, whole waves broke at the edges of the giant, swimming platform.

It was actually fairly large, about thousand meter in diameter, a giant disk at the top of the sea. An impressive number of heavy anchors connected it to the sea bottom, where another base of similar size (but different structure, since they had to live with the natural unevenness of the sea bottom).

A significant number of construction submarines, 33 of them, were already present, and underwater construction was going on.

The base inself included the living quarters for the workers, several rather large cranes, and lots of other stuff.

Not exactly surprising, seagulls and a couple of Albatroses had made the swimming construction platform their home, which rather pleased a couple of catlike animals, pets of the workers, which hunted them with glee.

The crew was buzsy as always. Work never stopped, although what had been done so far was nothing but preparation for the true work.

Looking towards the skies, Desty Nova could finally see something... a black dot in the sky... it came near.

"There they are."

A rather large helicopter slowly made its way to the construction platform. Inside were a handful of people in suits. They were checking out some last minute plans and making sure everything was five-by-five.

"Are you sure it works?" The Section 1 team leader looked at the plans, and then up at Josef.

"Of course not. We've never done this before." Josef seemed a little tired, as if he'd had this conversation several times before. Which he had. "The last VR models we ran resolved to 99.5% success rate, provided the contractors, and your," he leveled a gaze at the team leader, "workers don't muck things up. Since the models themselves are 98% accurate, I'd say we're golden."

--

The helicopter landed on the platform. It was a sleek black affair, obviously designed for VIPs, and was a rather high tech. And quiet. The thing made far less noise than it had any right to. The side door slide open noiselessly, and out stepped Josef, the nameless Section 1 Team Leader, Jessica Hawthorne, and a rather tall nondescript man with something of a facial tick.

Josef smiled as they were greeted, "Nice day to make history. We're the advance team, a ship with the construction crews is on its way. I'm Dr. Specter, this," he pointed to the Team Leader, "Is someone you can refer to as 'TL', I'm afraid his name's classified." He points to the woman, "This is Jessica Hawthorne, she's just here to get things moving, and will be off in the morning." He finally points to the man with the tick, "And this is my asistant, Lazarus."

He smiled happily, "Let's see what you've done so far, hey?"

Desty Nova, still with the pudding in his hand, bowed slightly, the rather... insane look of his face clearly visible. "Welcome, welcome." The 'high guests' don´t seem to stop him enjoying his pudding. Luckily, he is finished a moment later, thusly able to serve the protocol. "I`m Prof. Nova, and this..." He points to his assistant, Rosco, "Is Rosco, my personal assistant." Rosco bows as well, looking rather young, naive... He, however, tries to get a better view of Lazarus.

"Anyway, if you would like to follow me..." Desty Nova doesn`t hesitate to show his guests the complete construction platform in all it`s details.

The platform is, surprisingly enough, not entirely based on bioorganic materials, as one would suspect. Instead, it contains quite a few more 'conventional' parts, generally the parts the Hack specialists are supposed to work with.

The most important part is (possibly) the 'elevator' they built to get the necessary building materials to the sea bottom.

"I hope this construction serves your needs, TL," Nova grins, quite amused that the Hack didn´t even try to use a fake name, but instead an abbrevation.

TL glances around, far more interested in the tour than the others, largely because he was going to be the one doing much of the heavy lifting. As much heavy lifting as a supervisor is responsible for, of course.

Lazarus notices that Rosco is paying him an inordinate amount of attention, and seems mildly nervious about it. He's really a hard one to read. His yellow eyes studiously avoid meeting Rosco's.

Josef looks mildly bored, Jessica looks like she'd rather be elsewhere too.

At the end of the tour, TL's nodding, seemingly pleased. "Yeah, this all looks good. We can work with this. We'll start work once the crews arrive. Briefing won't take long, nor should construction." He smiles thinly, "Of course, once the volcano is finished, we're pretty much gonna have to kick you out."

A few days later, the ship with the Crew from The Hack arrived.

It wasn´t exactly the most beautiful of days, though. A rather strong wind blew, and while several men were enjoying the blowing, the general work wasn`t exactly as easy as before.

"Welcome aboard the mobile construction platform and surface base Gethsemane." The woman greeting the new arrivals was relatively young, about twenty- five years old. She looked relatively cute, well, at least at first. However, looking closer, one would surely spot the gills on her sides.
"I`m Stephanie Alexander, let me show you your quarters. Oh, and your heavier equipment, pleace to the facilities to your right."

---

Meanwhile, about ten thousand kilometers away, the first of the six islands neared completion.

Well, somewhat.

It was still a long way to the surface, but the construction of the undergound past, the infrastructure, network connections, the connection with the eye... All of it was finally completed.

There had been a minor problem, when a part of it was obviously unstable, unable to sustain what was supposed to be build above, and they had to rearrange some stuff, thusly, the construction took about three more weeks than planned... but that was acceptable.

Slowly, they moved up.

The contractors were a surly lot, much as one would expect for an underwater team of builders. They'd be your standard union outfit, if the Hack allowed unions.

--

Work progressed quickly. The fabrication of the volcano wasn't a particularly difficult procedure, it was, essentially, just a lot of heavy lifting. It had to be built properly, of course, but it wasn't particularly technical.

Jessica left the platform, as planned, the next morning, while TL, Josef and Lazarus stayed on the platform. TL was often out and about, and frequently went down to the construction site, supervising the contractors, while Lazarus and Josef spent most of their time in quarters, working on various projects. Occationally working on logistics for this project.

About two days before the volcano was complete the Section 1 team arrived by ship. Once the volcano was completed, the teams switched, the contractors leaving, and the Section 1 techs moving in.

This was when things got technical. TL explained, as gently as possible, that at this point, the project was classified, and essentially told the Angstian workers to go home.

And if Nova was amused by TL's 'name', he was likely highly amused by the fact that none of the Section 1 workers had real names either, simply team designations. Nobody said Section 1 was particularly creative...

The time had been amusing. Rosco had created an impressive collection of fotos, featuring a sleeping Lazarus...

He couldn´t help but admiring the features of the sleeping AI, it`s beauty, and elegance...

To bad Lazarus didn´t seem to be overly interested in him, as a matter of fact, he tried to escape Rosco`s attempts of coming closer...

Well, it couldn´t be helped.

While the tragic love seemed to stay unanswered, unwanted, Desty Nova enjoyed working with the Hack specialists... Although they had the nasty tendency of excluding him from their work.

Still, he was amazed on just how efficient and (surprisingly) easy it seemed to be... at least for the Hack specialists.

Then, the arrival of the 'Section 1' people.

The 'The project is classified' part was, of course, not exactly welcomned by Nova, who listened to TL, eating the inevitable pudding. But in the end, he wasn`t really in the position to complain.

What he didn´t understand, though, was why the 'Section 1' workers didn´t use their real names...

After all, a two min scan and we know it...

Not that he planned on spying them, though. They weren`t that important. And, at the same time, very important.

The volcano was now fairly near to completion. The news from back home were just as good: Not long, and the island, which was in fact a giant artificial base complex, would be completed.

To bad i`m not an evil overlord, it would be perfect for my needs...

Standing there, at the edge of the 'floating island' that was their working platform, he watched the sea. At the moment, he couldn´t do much... well, inf act, he could do nothing, except spying on Rosco and his Lazarus fotos, which, he had to admit, were quite tasteful... well, mostly.

Soon, the project would leap ahead... and the _real_ important work would begin.

"He keeps looking at me strangely..."

"I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. He is an Angstian, after all..."

"Good point."

Josef and Lazarus were going over their final plans, as the Section 1 team was almost done with their work. Lazarus had taken several dives to the work site, and things were actually ahead of schedual.

The volcano was a triumph of Hacker engineering. The structure itself was pretty basic, but the technology involved for the coring portion was the impressive part. Using what the Hack had learned about the core of the planet, they would be able to bring up a controled flow of magma. They would cause the earth itself to spit out an island. Of course, it wasn't an exact science, but the new island would be withing 5% of what their Der Angst customers wanted.

--

Josef sighed, relaxing in his quarters, finishing up an e-mail to his daughter. He rubbed his eyes before sending it off across the ether. He'd just kicked back on his bunk when Lazarus stepped back in.

"Everything okay, sir?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, just miss Alice and Annie is all."

"Well, you'll be pleased to know that Section 1 has finished."

Josef smiled, "They have? Oh, good. I was begining to wonder if the bonus I'm getting was worth the hassle."

"Hopefully we'll back within the week."

"That's the plan. Okay then," Josef clicked a few keys on his laptop, and opened up a new program. He then flipped open a panel on his cyberarm, and plugged himself into the computer. The screen rapidly changed as a long series of passwords were entered automatically. "Okay, in the morning, you'll go down and set up the units here, here, and here," he pointed to three spots on the volcano. "After they're primed, we'll both go down and fire them up. Then we get out of here. While you're diving, I'll let the Angstians know we're all set. Let's get this over with."

It was the next morning. Unlike the mornings before, the weather was rather.. unpleasent. It wasn`t a storm, but it was... annoying.

The grey sky, no birds to see, only the dark, gray clouds...

It wasn`t exactly a beautiful view... well, not for most, however, at least the Angstians seemed to enjoy it.

Rosco was almost crying, thinking about Lazarus, and that he would loose him so soon...

He needed to ask him about his address, email account... whatever. Just stay in contact...

---

"So... any risks for the operation? Risks that could endanger our submarines, or this construction platform, i mean. Whats the 'danger radius?" Desty stood there, facing TL. "We have to give the evacuation orders soon enough. And while we`re at it... where are Rosco and Lazarus?"

[ooc: Can`t do much else...]

TL stood before a workbench covered in maps and charts, talking to Desty. He swore softly, sifting through the papers until he found a topographical map of their area. "Okay," he grabs a grease pencil and makes a mark, "Here's the volcano." He draws a rough outline, "Here's where the island will appear... in theory." He draws a quick 'x', "And we're here, a good click or so from the edge of where the island should appear."

He pulls out a little notebook and checks some figures. "Right. Just to be safe, since we might want to move about three more kilometers out, just to be safe, with our margin of error, and all. You'll also want all vessels outside this ring," he draws a circle forming a 4 kilometer parimeter around the intended island's location.

"Including subs?"

"Especially subs. Computer projections are predicting considerable seismic and concussive activity with this sucker, and it would likely be hell on any sub."

"Oh, right." Desty spooned some more pudding into his mouth, "I'll get right on it."

"Good."

"You never answered my question. Have you seen Rosco or Lazarus?"

"Uh... oh, yeah. They're on the north side, watching the smog or something. He's a half insane AI, I try not to pry." He wanders off before Desty can ask any more questions.

--

Deep under the water Josef made some last minute adjustments to the equipment inside the volcano. He wasn't used to diving like this, but he was the only one with clearance to do this sort of thing. After he's sure everything's read, and the timers are set, he heads back for the platform.

--

It started slowly. A small fusion generator hummed to life. After the briefest of delays, a trio of hyperintense atto-pulse lasers fired, perforating the crust of the earth down to molten core of the earth. There was another delay as the lasers moved on their track and then fired again. This process continued for about and hour. By the time the lasers had finished their programed firing, the reactor had used up all its fuel.

Josef was on deck and shut down his PDA, slipping it into his pocket. He turned to Desty. "The lasers are done, and we should know," the platform shook, "Er... we should know soon if," it shook some more, "Ah... I think it worked."

The rumbling was caused by magma flowing into a series of chambers which pressurized it even more, funneling it up through the top of the volcano, and causing a steady flow up to the surface of the water, where it finally cooled. After several hours the controled flow continued, slowed, and eventually stopped. The innards of the volcano melted to oblivion by the magma. Josef reviewed the incoming satellite data and smiled at Desty, "We're all set. Seems it's about 0.042% larger than originally planned, but we won't charge you for the extra material," he chuckled. "Seriously, it looks like we're all done. Hope you enjoy your island."

Desty looked over the sea, now that the platform regained it`s stability.

"Magnificient. Truly magnificient."

He knew of the other island projects. Of their progress, their... well, yes, their success. It was indeed one of the most successful projects he had ever been a part of.

However, NOW the hard part would begin. Making the island a true 'colony'.

Not exactly an easy job, but it was managable.

"Seriously, it looks like we're all done. Hope you enjoy your island." "That we will have." He smiled in a sorta... insane way. "A buttload of work we have to do, but... It will work. Well... it`s a pleasure to make business with you."

---

In the meantime, Rosco entered his quarters, a sweet smile on his lips, his look... as if he wasn`t from this world.

Magnificiant...

[bump for super-secret purposes]

The work went on pretty good, not to say, excellent.

Still, not a single one of the islands could be inhabited, however, the work went on quickly, and by now, every single island was an actual island, land above sea level...

The two islands that were based on artificial volcanos were the largest problem, the complete underground infrastructure, something that had been done, well, 'automatically' with the other islands, was now in the process of being created, but naturally, it would be a very long, very expensive, and very complicate process.

The other four islands... well, here, the work on the surface begun, slowly, the regional 'eyes' were feed, and buildings grew.

Soon, soon they would be ready.

And by that, naturally, reducing the simply horrible overpopulation significantly.

---

"Well... at least this works out, in this times of changes, in this age of chaos."
"Indeed. However, it`s not the only thing..."
"So?" The man asking, about middle- aged, black air, medium height, looked sorta surprised.
"The last test results... Both, the PMP and QGD seem to work... well, experimentally, at least."
"And that will help us how? I mean, overpopulation is sort of... a larger problem, isn´t it?"
"Well... yes, but we have other interestes as well, don`t we?"

---

It was surprising, surprising how the islands developed... even faster than the machines and technology, life itself begun to occupy the islands, with a speed nobody would have believed possible... plants, birds... They were there, and already enjoying the largely unoccupied islands.

It was as if nature intended to defend her place against the machines men use to expand...

"That went well."
"Indeed."

The two men stood on the island off the coast of DA, fairly satisfied with what they saw. Of course, there was still lots of work to be done... But generally, they had succeeded. As in 'The island is operational and can be colonised'.

It was sort of... well, yes, beautiful.

Not as dirty, not as covered with exhausts, waste and god knows what as DA is.

The complete island... Well, it would change soon, with the first settlements starting the next day.

It was just as the project had claimed it was: The future.

The landmass had been doubled (The same happened to the off- world holdings, although there hadn´t been a need to search for free space, since there was plenty of it), and one thing was for sure: The people would be thankful for it...

And pay. After all, building such a colony costs money, and in the end, profit was the reason the project had been started.

Successful, one might add. It was hard to believe HOW thy were even able to pay the horrendous costs for a house or an apartment on this islands...

But they did it. So did the industry, the pizza delivery chains, and so on...

Soon, very soon, there wouldn´t be a major difference between this island & DA...

Which, in the end, was what they did intend.

Spreading across the globe...

They were successful, and proud of it.