FYS: Where the Hell is Springfield? and other issues

Trying to put together the next FYS anthology, which is supposed to be set exclusively during the Ring era. Unfortunately, just gathering together previously written material, and leaving out Canon uncertain tales like Break Off and The Visitors, the current word count is less than 12k, and half of that is one shot drabbles. I still have to write a proper "Person wakes up on the Ring for the first time" story to establish the setting properly, but that will still leave the thing awfully threadbare, unless I either write a few more stories for it, or give in and polish up The Visitors to make it Canon. Or do the nuclear option and fold all of the Ring Era tales into the first anthology and beg everyone to update their file. (ugh)

Meanwhile, reading through The Fall of Man reveals an unanticipated timezone problem: You Never Forget Your First establishes that the Groupmind revolution began in Stockholm, Sweden at about 10pm Central European Time. Meanwhile Mimsey's Tale shows that it begins in Mimsey's unspecified town at Noon, a ten hour difference. This only works if Mimsey's Tale occurs in Alaska.[1] This is supported by Caroline attending Martin Luther King Elementary School, named after an American political figure, but on the other hand when Mimsey has to make an emergency phone call, she dials 999, which is used primarily in Great Britain.

[1] Which make the stated temperatures and air quality warnings Mimsey records even more terrifying.

FYS: The Roof

The Ring’s base structure is about ten km thick, with fifty km high, one km thick walls to contain the local atmosphere, acting as a sort titanic, curving pan. With that depth there’s no need to actually roof in the structure.

The Groupmind, given its motto may as well be “Why take chances?” built one anyway

The primary structure of the Roof is a set of colossal arches, each a hundred meters thick and a thousand kilometers long, crossing from Wall to Wall, supported by equally thick cross beams built parallel every ten kilometers. As with every part of the Ring the scale is incredible, more so when taking into account there are no supporting columns to spoil the view, beyond the eight Grand Elevators that stand from the surface to the Roof, serving as equidistant central communication and logistics points, and providing transport from the Beanstalk transfer stations.

Each of the ten kilometer wide squares formed by the beams is filled in with a single diamond/Ring Hull composite window pane. Each pane incorporates both transparent solar electric cells (serving as a 100% tertiary backup to the cells mounted on the underside of the Ring and the fusion reactors in the interior), and liquid crystal displays.

The LCD’s serve to provide a day/night cycle for both the Ring’s human inhabitants and its flora and fauna. Rotating independently of the Earth and far enough away that sections are only briefly occluded from the Sun as they move behind the planet’s mass, there is no natural night. Instead the Roof panels darken to provide a ‘night’ for humans and other creatures to rest, and nocturnal animals to go about their business. Day lengths vary slightly throughout the year to provide recognizable “seasons”, but the entire Ring can be considered a single time zone. For extremophiles, there are parts of the Roof set to provide an eternal day to simulate high latitude regions during summer, and others blackened to twilight or complete darkness for various Gothic and Creatures of the Night enthusiasts or LARPers. [1]

Along the Roof’s central spine are the magnetic tracks that serve as the anchor points for the beanstalks connecting the Ring to the Earth, necessary since the Ring and the planet below rotate at different speeds. Running parallel to the anchor tracks are the twin magnetic acceleration/deceleration tracks, used to bring cargo arriving from the Beanstalk up to the Ring’s rotational speed, or slowing it down to return to Earth. Though amount of traffic is minimal compared to the era of the Ring’s construction, the system is maintained to serve as a massive gyroscopic system to maintain the Ring’s orbital position. [2]

The Roof protected by an extensive collision protection system, mostly lasers and kinetic mass weapons designed to divert or destroy any asteroid large enough to punch through one of the diamondoid panes. In the unlikely event an asteroid large enough to be a threat isn’t detected in time to be destroyed, the Groupmind’s procedure is to evacuate any humans in the area to safe zones outside the impact area of any debris. In the very unlikely event that an asteroid strikes underneath the Ring hard enough to punch through the Floor but not destroy the Ring, the impact the strike zone will be walled off to prevent atmosphere leakage while that section is repaired.


[1] In those situations, interior light tends to have high UV content to prevent vitamin loss, and residents are encouraged to periodically travel to more normally lit regions to prevent triggering various forms of Seasonal Affective Disorder.

[2] Backed up by ion OMS engines. Each with their own security system to prevent tampering by humanity’s descendants. And large pictographic signs detailing exactly why removing the engines for other purposes is a suicidal idea.