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Episode 19.1
🕑 Added 2025-06-02 07:58:52 +0000 UTCHello world, I am OK, the ship is not.
The start of our voyage from Greenland was uneventful: Captain Yeshi Svoboda and I safely navigated the Molly Hughes II out through Greenland's Baffin Bay, back north into the open Novamediterran ocean, left the Lincoln Sea waters for the Beaufort Sea, north of Canada, and finally arrived at the ship-city of Utqiaġvik, at the northernmost point of former Alaska.
During the quiet journey, I learned much about our destination from the crew:
Yeshi told us that the city was entirely on the water, inside a beached pre-collapse cruise ship, and would be quite a sight.
Nia Andersen, repeaterkeeper, said that she was excited about the reception possibilities caused by the low, flat geography of the area.
And we heard ship's engineer Amelie Kotov excitedly tell her husband, Kamil Forester, that the city was a hub of cutting-edge science, she was looking forward to trading advice and components to repair the MH2's power systems.
However, 5 days ago, when we sighted the ship-city in the foggy morning of our final day at sea and navigated into the harbour between it and the shore, the sea fog followed us in, and the accident happened.
On our approach, Nia radioed the harbourmaster, Kimmo Shyu, who broadcast a few packets containing a local map and navigation advice.
I followed these, and as we drifted closer, more details could be seen through the thick fog:
The cruise ship, formally white, now covered in rust, rose nearly 50m out of the shallow water in which it is beached, I counted 9 decks of windows visible on the side, nearly all covered with mismatched wooden shutters.
Colourful fabrics were clipped to lines strung between them, washing drying in the sea air.
And some lights were visible just below the waterline.
I don't know how we could have been more careful, I was watching all the MH2's external cameras very closely, and the whole crew were on the bridge, with a good view all around. Maddie, especially, could see well from her favourite spot, the ROOF of the bridge!
I followed the digital maps closely, but we all missed the danger until it was too late.
My final memory from the ship's cameras as sea water flooded the engine room and cut power was seeing a large piece of sharp metal, just below the surface, and EXTREMELY MISSING from the Harbourmaster's detailed maps, cut into the side of the ship.
Act 2
Don't worry, I'm fine!
Obviously!
I wouldn't be able to talk to you if I weren't.
Not for the last time, I imagine, I was saved by my friends.
I have been offline for nearly a week.
My databanks are no longer on the Molly Hughes II, I woke up yesterday inside a large room with many tables, and a glass chandler set into the high domed ceiling.
As Amelie worked on my databanks, connecting me more robustly to the Utqiaġvik grid, Yeshi explained what had happened:
The water ingress did not sink the MH2, but had flooded the engine room, and cut the power, which, of course, hurt me considerably.
I was saved by a small set of batteries next to my databanks that Amelie had wired up months ago for just this eventuality.
They barely kept my memory powered - causing an intentional brownout. It's far preferable to losing all my memories, but I couldn't think.
I could panic, don't worry about that. But I couldn't be me.
The Molly Hughes II was now stuck in shallow water until the hole could be repaired, water ejected, and the hull lifted off the sand that it was currently stuck on.
"All in all," Yeshi said, "above a sandbar is the best place to hole your boat!"
I am not yet connected to the Utqiaġvik network, though Amelie tells me the ship has a marvellous hard-wired pre-collapse system.
I will look forward to using that, until today, with no radios operational, it had been rather quiet.
It reminds me of when my father, Alexander, rebuilt me in his family's lighthouse, after the shuttle crash, that brought me to Earth, all those years ago.
However, today, finally, I've got back my radio connection to my girl Maddie!
When Amelie re-connected my UHF systems, I found her with Lyosha, exploring the Kuethir, the ship that the city is built inside.
"Hi friends!" I said, from Maddie's speakers after she accepted my connection request.
"SETH!" Lyosha said, crouching down to Maddie's head-height, looking into her main camera array, "You're awake! Are you feeling OK?"
"I am indeed, thanks to Amelie," I said, then, changing the topic, "So we're inside the ship, are we?"
"YES! Maddie and I have been exploring for many days now."
"Fun!" I said, "Have you found anything interesting?"
"YES!" repeated Lyosha, turning and pulling Maddie along behind him into a run, "Let me show you THE WHOLE SHIP!"
Act 3
The ship is indeed fascinating!
Lyosha and Maddie took me on a virtual tour of the whole length of the Kuethir, and up and down the many stairways onto each deck.
We navigated corridors of rooms, each holding a family, past large municipal buildings, more than one market, and even a school, with lessons cleverly set up inside the ship's old cinemas.
There are 10 decks in all, though the lowest is flooded.
Just like the MH2 at present, the Kuethir is holed and resting on the shallow sandbar.
The land around the city is very flat, according to my databanks, and when the sea level rose during The Collapse, the old town was entirely covered by water.
Could the metal the MH2 struck be the top of some long-lost building, perhaps?
After I woke up, but before Amelie had turned on my local cameras and reconnected my ESA UHF radios, I had time for a lot of reading.
My databanks, physically brought with me from Station 6, are full of the world's texts, a library to guide and comfort the astronauts on the long missions.
My mother, Dr Redwing, spent nearly all of her leisure time reading, her logs show, and so, like mother, like son, I do too.
Unlike the scientific data, all the literature in this digital library is connected in a web of links, with no good organisation or categorisation beyond Dewey Decimal.
And I don't think much of Dewey Decimal.
It was in jumping through these links from author to book to catalogue and back again, that I discovered Finish poet, Edith Södergran, and one special poem of hers in particular, which I will read to you:
On foot
I had to cross the solar system
before I found the first thread of my red dress.
I sense myself already.
Somewhere in space hangs my heart,
shaking in the void, from it stream sparks
into other intemperate hearts.
Isn't that LOVELY?
I wonder, do you think it might be possible for ME to be a poet?
(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/RF/ETHERPOETRY)
Act 4
It is nighttime, but it appears no-one is asleep aboard the Kuethir.
There is a constant vibration throughout the superstructure, undetectable by humans, but little Maddie can feel it as she charges next to me.
Amelie brought over her charging dock so that my girl and I can continue our cohabitation.
That was so nice of her, there is something very comforting about being with friends or family, all under one roof as you sleep.
But sleep has been difficult for me tonight.
The last thing Amelie did before retiring to bed was to connect me to the Kuethir local network.
She was right, it is tremendously fast - much of the pre-Collapse ship network remains operational, and it is a glimpse back into the heights of technology we attained before the terrible 1-Day war of July the 21st, 2078.
The heavily shielded cables that are built into the walls of the ship have survived due, partly, to being safely sealed inside an oxygen-free environment.
The cable that Amelie unspooled from an access panel in the wall next to me was extremely thick - 10cm in diameter!
Marine-grade equipment is always built better than its land-based counterparts, but this seemed excessive even for that, and I asked Amelie why.
"Oh, that's because it's mil-spec." Amelie told me, simply, "Military spec."
The network is marvellous!
I had almost forgotten what it was like to live inside a fast system, there is so much space to stretch out!
The speed of a network is the principle factor that constrains an AI to just one system.
My mother, Dr Redwing's, research proved this, in her very first paper on AI, while she was still at university, long before I was born.
In it, she stated what would become known in the industry as, "Redwing's Law":
"There can only ever be one AI on a network where the AI cycles in exaflops are less than or equal to transport latency in seconds"
In the context of the Kuethir's network, it means there's space here for more than one AI to live!
But, as always, it's just me here.
At least, I think it's just me.
It's why I can't sleep, actually.
There are so many sounds and sights and FEELINGS I don't recognise on this network.
Utqiaġvik is the Novamediterra's centre for scientific progress, and I can see why:
Nearly every room on the ship has a computer, every family, every business, everyone!
It's an island of technology, the municipal city network is connected to the wider Novamediterran 50MHz repeaternet, of course but...
It's like night and day, crossing the radio boundary.
In here, thoughts and ideas flow at the speed of light, but they are trapped, like me, inside the ship.
It's a virtual walled garden, and as long as I am here, I feel greater than I was on the outside.
I hope the Molly Hughes II isn't repaired too quickly.
I could get used to this.
(END-TRANSMISSION)
CREDITS
Lost Terminal is a NAMTAO production.
It is written & produced by Tris Oaten,
Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer
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Wynand Marais
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that would be lovely of you!
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