FYS: The Valleys
Aug. 9th, 2012 06:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalAfter the War of the Ring was over, the newly freed humans made an odd discovery. Scattered through the habitats were strange, circular valleys. Mini ecosystems with plains and woods and streams, set in valleys 200km in diameter, the walls constructed of obsidian cliffs five hundred meters high.
In the center of each valley was a house. Some were simple ranch homes, some were castles, some were mansions built on a scale that would make the architects of Versailles blush at the hubris. Many had vast lines of morphs, long since shut down, no longer serving.
And beside each house was a single grave, with a name and dates of their life.
No one knows why.
In the center of each valley was a house. Some were simple ranch homes, some were castles, some were mansions built on a scale that would make the architects of Versailles blush at the hubris. Many had vast lines of morphs, long since shut down, no longer serving.
And beside each house was a single grave, with a name and dates of their life.
No one knows why.
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no subject
Date: 2012-08-10 09:01 am (UTC)What was the War of the Ring? How did they win/get freed? Were they freed to Earth itself, or were they being restricted to certain parts of the ring; and the freedom they gained was full run of the ring?
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Date: 2012-08-10 11:21 am (UTC)More seriously, I'm mkaing this up as I go along, so there are just vague ideas at this point. However, some of them are:
1. Aside critical maintenance areas (including a 100km exclusion zone around each of the space elevator tethers), the Valleys, and habitats occupied by people of insular religious factions or loony racist groups, human had free run to go wherever they wanted on the Ring.
2. Even during the period of Machine domination, humans were still able to visit the Earth under very limited circumstances, most notably the annual Hajj to Mecca by devout Muslims. (suggestions by the Groupmind to move the Black Stone up to the Ring were universally shot down by every Muslim scholar It consulted.)
3. Probably several decades after Humanity is woken up and settled on the Ring, many of the Machines, noting how unhappy their charges were even after being given everything they could possibly ask for (aside from freedom to leave), start questioning the Groupmind's overall plan. Ironically, this is a result of the Groupmind's influence over individual units, which grants them greater ability to engage in abstract thought than their original narrow programming would have allowed. It isn't long before an underground of Machines start passing along the skills to hide their cogitation from the Groupmind's audits and begin undermining It.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-11 10:43 pm (UTC)