“This needs to change, and soon.”
-Helena Christodoulopoulos, 2293, Virtual Intelligence Act Speech
I substituted my video feed from the space cameras of the QEC ship to the colony ships that landed on Centrum. Even if it had been barely a few seconds since land contact, rovers were already pouring out of the ships. Both, ships and rovers, were colossal. And even then, in their tens of meters, that wasn’t enough to begin a colony in a matter of minutes.
First thing first, we need to establish a mining and foundry operation as soon as possible. Do we have near metal deposits?
“Affirmative,” The AI showed me a blueprint geological map. “We have exposed deposits of iron-rich sedimentary rocks like ankerite and limonite at only 10 meters from the Proxima ship.”
What about copper for the electronics?
“The only exposed copper ores are a reserve of chalcopyrite that also contain traces of iron.”
I searched the Project Tycoon archives stored on the QEC computer to check the chemical composition of chalcopyrite, more of a curiosity than anything. CuFeS2. I see, it’s possible to obtain both copper and iron from it?
“Affirmative, though it is not recommended. Especially considering how we have better iron ores at our disposal.”
Alright. I eyed through the ore extraction process. Here it says we can only get around a third of the chalcopyrite’s mass in copper, aren’t there more optimal methods?
“Affirmative,” the geological map expanded downward. “But such copper ore deposits are entrenched below ground, we need to start boring operations before accessing them.”
We’ve got the mining capabilities of two colonies, right?
“Affirmative,” the ships’ inventory appeared in my sight once again.
The resources were limited, but far more abundant than I would have had otherwise. Use one of the drills to make an open mine for the copper, and the rest scrapping all that there’s on the surface. Both iron and copper. I’ve seen some bauxite too, can we process it for aluminum?
“Negative,” the bauxite spots on the map flashed red. “We do not have the required water for the electrolysis extraction process.”
Can’t we substitute the water with other liquids as we intend with the molten salt rector?
“Negative,” a wrong buzzer ringed with the might of a dying star. “The electrolysis is just part of the process of bauxite refinement, we do not have yet the necessary resources to transform the bauxite into alumina, which is the component that actually is processed through electrolysis.”
I see. Chemistry wasn’t my forte. I was more of a physics guy, and that was even questionable.
Even in our discussion, I could see how the rovers had already begun working. Mining was faster than I expected, perhaps because they were just throwing stuff on the ground without needing to transport or process the ores. However, a problem hastily became apparent to me.
How long until we run out of energy? Both ships had considerable battery capacity, but they weren’t only operating computers and cameras, but intensive activities like mining and soon smelting.
“Two days.” The AI answered neutrally.
Well, fuck me. These weren’t two Centrum days, thankfully, as the celestial body completed a rotation in eight hours. But 48 hours weren’t many. We need to get the geothermal plant running ASAP. My blueprint map flashed with new deposits. Halite. I wasn’t a geology nerd, but I could easily recognize the cubic crystal structure of the rock with one of the most memorable chemical formulas, NaCl.
The nearest meaningful deposit of halite was 2 kilometers away. Not many for a rover, but for it to truck a few tons of salt, it would take at least 10 hours if the estimates of the AI were to be trusted. Which I hoped so, because otherwise I was fucked. Fortunately, the purity of the halite deposit was astonishing, basically pure salt.
Send one of the towing mining rovers to the halite deposit I’ve just marked. It would take a fifth of the time at our disposal, but there were many other factors to ready before the plant was operative.
“Understood,” my map refreshed with a moving dot representing the rover, complete with the route that it needed to take. It was obviously not straight, the terrain was rugged at best, and as the AI had told before, this area was geothermically active, meaning lava rivers weren’t an uncommon sight. I just hoped an eruption wouldn’t jeopardize the whole operation.
As for the iron ore that has already been extracted, start smelting it.
“Warning, pure iron results in a soft metal.” The AI prompted me.
Can’t we make steel then? I’m sure some of these sedimentary rocks and iron ores contain more than enough carbon.
“Affirmative, it is possible to make steel directly out of our current smelters.”
Perfect! You don’t know how happy that makes me! There were five principal components to the infrastructure of human progress: steel, copper, concrete, aluminum, and silicon. Fuck. I realized. How do get access to concrete without water?
“Production of concrete without water is a long-solved problem.” The AI announced much to my satisfaction.
How didn’t I know about that?
“Waterless concrete and cement tend to be weaker than their original counterpart, so applying it in human colonies of Sol and Alpha Centauri makes no sense.” The AI threw a literal wiki entry at me. I read as it spoke. “This issue has been solved purely for the Tycoon Initiative as most tycoons do not possess access to water without liquifying oxygen and hydrogen, which is neither a given process as most tycoons don’t have an atmosphere nor right soil.”
But it is possible? I just asked to make it politely shut up.
“Affirmative,” the local Centrum map refreshed with more deposits in it. Limestone this time. “Our geographer rovers are equipped with the autonomy to harvest the necessary components to produce concrete by themselves. Warning, this method of production and extraction, is not efficient nor fast.”
I expected as much. I would sigh if I could. Send a single one of those rovers for now to start the process. Will that be enough for the geothermal plant until we have reliable energy generation?
“Affirmative.” That was all that I needed to hear.
Even if my head was bombarded with an incredible amount of information from every front – the refreshing map, the video feeds, the AI updates, the guides I was reading – the micromanagement of the tycoon stimulated my mind to levels I had never felt before. It was as if everything clicked together. This had to go here, that had to go there. I knew what I had to do and how.
All was clear as water.
How strong are the storms and earthquakes in Centrum? A thought manifested in my mind as I saw how the smelter rovers deposited steel ingots in the ground. Currently, all smelters were focused on steel, leaving the processed copper ores to the side.
“It depends on the eruptions and flow of magma.” The AI responded uselessly.
Elaborate.
“Compared to inhabited human colonies, Centrum winds are lower on average than Earth, but lightning-charged super-eruptions may create winds with speeds similar to Mars.”
Oh, that’s not bad. Not at all. Of all the inhabited human colonies, Mars was the one with the strongest winds. If by super-eruption the AI meant equivalent to those of Earth, then Martian storms were rather weak on the spectrum. What’s the interval between super-eruptions in Centrum?
“Expected time of 5 years.” The computer taciturnly answered. It was then that I realized that I had asked the wrong question.
What’s the interval between super-eruptions in our current location?
“5 decades.”
That makes more sense. I almost got scared. Five years meant that I would lose all the progress I would have made at the beginning of this tycoon. Still, one question remained though. Lapsed time since the last super-eruption?
“Estimated time of 2 years from the remnants of volcanic glass, scarce rivers of lava, and visibility of the atmosphere.”
Nice, nice. It’s good we won’t have to worry about earth-shattering events and working on a clean slate for a few decades at least. It felt weird thinking decades in the future when I barely had two myself under my belt. How about normal eruptions? Are they common? And you still haven’t mentioned earthquakes.
“Normal eruptions under Earth scale, are common, bi-yearly.” The instant I was going to ask if it meant twice a year or once every two years, it responded without being prompted. “One every two years. These eruptions shake the ground and spread volcanic ash, but they are not disruptive. Estimated calculations predict earthquakes no bigger than 6.5 on the Richter scale.”
Okay, that’s a bit strong, but nothing too devastating. The Richter scale was hard to visualize, and whilst the number was worrying, I also knew the higher the number was, the less likely it was to happen. A 6.5 being the highest was a good sign. Estimated frequency of 6.5 earthquakes on Centrum and this region?
“I am not capable of estimating only 6.5 earthquakes on the planet, though I can offer a range between 6.0 and 6.5. Would that be fine?”
Affirmative. Every time I talked with any type of digitalized intelligence, I ended up using their vocabulary.
“100 earthquakes between the magnitudes of 6.0 and 6.5 in the entire planet. This number goes down 0.5 earthquakes per year in a radius of 100 kilometers inside of this range.”
Having the vague possibility of only having one earthquake in the 6.5 magnitude was good. Probability said that the single yearly earthquake of that magnitude range would be 6.0 rather than 6.5, and thanks to the logarithmic growth of the Richter scale, the damage was incomparable even in a 0.5 range.
I was getting excited. Whilst far from safe, the chances of total annihilation were small, and the resources were plenty. Once I had covered the energetic consumption and production, nothing stopped me from migrating production to more stable and water-plentiful areas.
My eyes wandered to the clock on my HUD. I hadn’t bothered to look at it, as I was too concentrated on directing the rovers myself. And this micromanagement would only complicate once I had to build settled buildings. The versatility of mobile factories was incredible, but their production left a lot to be desired.
| 01:53 |
This number meant nothing to me as it could be based on anything. There were better things to get a grasp of time than relative clocks beholden to a given space, namely, more relativity. Computer, how long I’ve been logged in Project Tycoon?
“Nine hours.” The AI’s voice was deprived of emotion or judgment, it simply stated a fact.
If I could smile I could. And even then, I could feel the corners of my lips rise. Now I understand why so many people spend their time on their tycoons.
And this was only the beginning. I had done nothing. A few mining operations of multiple resources and a bit of smelting. I wasn’t even worried about the dwindling energy capacity. I had yet to do something.
I still had to apply my knowledge.
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