The Starfighter Invitation

25 new zone

"I wondered whether Mars might have been terraformed," I said, regarding the ever-increasing circle.

[[We rarely terraform sub-optimal planets. And it’s usually easier for Bios to wear an adapted modal rather than try to adapt a planet to a particular type of Bio. Besides, there are more than enough planets that fall into the liveable range for all but one of the major species. Transforming a low-gravity, low atmosphere planet lacking even a magnetosphere would be misplaced effort.]]

"But you can make Dyson spheres and/or ring worlds?"

[[Ring worlds are fun.]]

"Everything seems to be fun to you, Dio. Are you ever bored?"

[[Not often. I can keep myself entirely amused even locked in a box.]]

"Have you ever been locked in a box?"

[[Oh, frequently.]]

Dio didn’t sound bothered, but I recognised the tone te used when te was going to play conversational dodgeball, so I shifted back to my own situation.

"What do Bios usually do on these long, propulsion drive trips?"

[[That is a piece of string question.]]

"I suppose so." I considered logging out, but didn’t want to miss this first experience of approaching a planet, even if it was a slow creep of hours. Instead, while I was still at a distance, I took a relaxing mist shower, then scrolled through the endless list of consumables, trying to decide on my next round of food rewards.

"Dio, is there a filter for gluten-free?" I paused. "Wait…"

[[A penny drops.]]

"Will I react the same way in here that I do out in the world? Or can I just eat…anything?"

[[Some have a muted reaction when they’re aware that they’re eating an item that is usually problematic to them. But there is nothing in the consumables lists that will trigger any allergy.]]

Cinnamon rolls. How long since I’d dared their sticky sweetness? I ate two, and promptly felt sick, but from sugar overload.

I tried to dilute it all with water, while deciding on my apparel rewards and, after approximately a century in close consultation with my paper doll, opted for another coverall/jumpsuit, but this one was closefitting and black, and made me feel wonderfully futuristic when I emerged from the Soup. Then, taking my fancy tablet with me, I returned to the view.

Mars. The red seemed to have diluted, just a little, but I could now see the sphere shape more clearly, and make out craters. My heart fluttered, and I sat down and breathed until my tendency to grin hugely had eased off.

"Does it ever get old, Dio?"

[[Not for me. Not ever. Worlds like yours are an endless delight, but even among the countless featureless rocks out there are, oh, halos and hidden gems, and that moment of descent, the sense of sinking from the vast to the specific. It is among the greatest joys in existence.]]

Insensibly comforted by the knowledge that my virtual alien overlord found pleasure in things that did not involve the screams of other species crushed beneath intangible feet, I gazed at Mars again, then checked the time left until arrival.

"Can people do virtual Challenges when they’re en route?"

[[Yes. It’s a limited selection, but enough to keep most Bios occupied.]]

Settling down to my tablet, I ignored the Challenges in favour of trying to come up with a new design, but there was so much of The Synergis, and it was hard to find the precise spare, striking image I wanted. I’d come close with that first design, the variations of which were selling even better than I’d hoped for, out in the world. "My Core Unit is a Lie" was the most popular, but the full image by itself was also doing well, which pleased me. I sketched out a series of cartoon strips of The Hare character I use as a signature as he booted up Dream Speed, and for the thousandth time toyed with the massive commitment of a daily webcomic. It would certainly be easier to manage with almost five times as many hours in the day.

Pencilling in potential dialogue, I heard a hint of musical laughter. Dio.

"Are these drawings just mist to you too?" I asked, firming up lines. "Or, no, you must see the way we do to read this."

[[Our sight is more complicated than yours. But we can equate default Type Three vision. Think of it as applying a filter.]]

"What about the other senses? Taste, touch, hearing, scent?"

[[Hearing is not dissimilar, although with a wider range. Taste, touch and scent are very nebulous concepts if we’re not wearing a modal. We do have a sense of the environment we are in, in terms of magnetism, radiation, gravitational waves, and so forth.]]

I tried to picture myself as a ball of light, drifting through mist people, surfing gravity. "Are there simulations that let Bios experience being Cycogs?"

[[To a degree. We can’t make your minds as wide as ours, but we can approximate our senses. Most Bios dislike it very much.]]

"It does sound—" Glancing up from my drawing binge, I stopped to stare at a vivid blue-green stripe edging around the curve of a much-enlarged Mars, and abandoned all thought of simulating Cycogs.

"Then that was Mars I saw in the opening cutscene. I thought it must have been something else. I guess that doesn’t count as terraforming?"

[[The largest biodome in this system.]]

I sat silent, comparing the shape and angle of the section I could see to what I knew of Mars, and then shook my head in astonished admiration. Valles Marineris was thousands of kilometres long: a continent-sized crack in Mars' crust. To turn that vast expanse into a biodome was enough to make me believe that The Synergis really did have ringworlds.

When selecting [Valles Marineris], I’d been offered a whole second series of options, and I’d picked [Noctis Labyrinthus], because who could resist that name? That was on the westernmost end of the great tilting horizontal of the Valles Marineris, and the last thing that rotated into view with the slow spin of the planet. By the time I’d reached the point where I could see it all in detail, I had discovered a map overlay, and there were names I’d seen on maps of Mars before: Chryse Planitia; Coprates Chasma; Tithonium Chasma; Hebes Chasma. All painted in vivid blues and greens. On the planet surface to the west of the vivid biodome were a little scatter of ancient volcanos, including Mons Olympus, glimmering with lights. To these names, hundreds of new points had been added. I picked out the Styx. Lethe. Acheron. Eridanos. Elysium. Erebus. Tartarus. Asphodel Meadows.

"I’m starting to wonder if I should expect a theme park," I said, working out how to change my course so I could fly quite low over the main body of the rift, even though this would add another half hour of travel time.

Dio laughed. [[No, although there is a level of appositeness to some of the names. Before we reach atmosphere, go into your Tier 2 Tools options and select [Renba].]]

That was easy enough. The first Renba I looked at was a silver sphere, featureless and completely lacking clues to its purpose. The description was simply "Sphere", followed by some stats about speed and durability. The next was a stylized metal bird, all black and platinum, very Art Deco. Then something that looked like two scallop shells, set around a pearl.

"Are they drones? Or is this what you meant about Cycogs liking to have transport that’s not their Bio?"

[[No, Renba are Bio portable backup. Now that you’ve reached Skipping levels, you’ll begin on lan-based Challenges. Since Core Units can be fatally injured in lan-based Challenges, Bios are rarely willing to risk them without a Renba accompanying them. When a Bios' Core Unit becomes non-functional, they must transfer to another Unit as quickly as possible—the longer they spend unbodied, the greater the chance of dissipation. Some can only survive seconds. Renba are dedicated bio-synths that can preserve your current memory data, and provide an anchor for your lan.]]

"So they’re like Save Points? Better than having to find a typewriter, I guess." I considered all the other death and save mechanics I’d experienced over the years, most of which had involved respawn points. "Do we then run around as Renba, or do we get another Core Unit at the next vendor?"

[[Renba can be very limited in functionality, so it’s rare that Bios want to remain in them. But your Core Unit is a special pattern, one not retained in public systems, and for security’s sake your Cycog would not use a public vendor to create it. Copies of your Core also represent one of the larger costs we impose in The Synergis. We make it possible for anyone to maintain Renba or transfer to a new Core if theirs is destroyed, but we impose a cost that involves a percentage of accumulated points, or a loss of patterns, to ensure that Bios don’t throw their Cores away meaninglessly. While they are only a little more difficult and time consuming to generate than a standard suppression modal, Core Unit replacement is not something we treat lightly.]]

I digested that. Most MMOs had negligible death penalties. You died, and maybe your stats were reduced for a couple of minutes, or you had to spend some virtual money repairing your gear. The kind of cost Dio described was more in line with earlier MMOs, where you could lose everything you had carried, or hours—days—of levelling progress. And I was beginning to understand what a loss of patterns could mean, especially for food. Only having a handful of options would get old very quickly.

"You could transfer to a Suppression Modal if you didn’t have enough to replace your Core, right?"

[[If you have a Suppression Modal, yes, of course.]]

"What do you—?" I broke off, because something was above my Snug.

I’ve always loved that opening of the original Star Wars, with the massive star destroyer passing overhead. The sense of scale makes me shiver every time. The ship that overtook me, and left me in its blue glowing wake, wasn’t nearly as big as a star destroyer, but it could easily have swallowed dozen of Snugs whole. In shape, it reminded me of the old Concorde style of airplane: long, and rather skinny up the front, with a flaring end.

When it passed overhead, its side had been turned toward me, rather than its belly, and I noted with interest that it really had swallowed other Snugs—or rather that a whole series of Snugs were docked between two projecting flanges that would hide them completely on a view from above or below. Bios riding along on this ship would easily slot their Snugs into place, and they would provide a combination of living space, shuttles, and escape pods.

Since the ship was travelling far faster than I, it soon became a moth skimming above the planet’s surface. I watched until it became too small to make out details, then sighed with deep satisfaction, just for the existence of great, graceful starships.

"I want it all at once, Dio," I said. "Exploring Mars, and Skipping to all the planets in the solar system, and catching a ride on one of those, to end up on a world I’ve never even heard of. To go as far as I dare into the galaxy core, and to find a lost alien city, and to see whether you really have ring worlds."

[[Everything at once will drown out the bright notes.]]

"True." I considered the planet. "Mars really does look far less red close up. More a pale cream-caramel."

[[You’ll have to visit Acce. It’s all in stripes of deep purple and crimson. Toxic to Type Threes, of course, but something to see.]]

"Jupiter and Saturn first. And the ring world."

[[Acce is a good deal closer than any of the megastructures.]]

"Can—" I paused, not wanting more snark about independence training, and then sorted through menus until I found how to turn back on that glorious navigation map. I went on a tour of nearby systems, and then figured out how to search for Acce, which looked quite a good distance away to me. "What’s the name of the nearest megastructure?"

[[Not telling.]]

"I’m guessing your assigned Bios try to lock you in a box at least once a year," I observed, returning to the Sol system and then looking at the nearest stars, trying to figure out which had inhabited planets. There was an annoying lack of a zoom in function, though I could see names.

But then I turned it all off, because Mars was getting very close, and I had become someone very small again, a mote descending to enormity. I had found a minimal user interface for the ship functions, and so it gave me atmosphere warnings, and offered up shield stats and safety straps, all while I drank in the enormity of planet, and habitable rift, and the occasional glimpse of other Snugs and ships.

Mars' atmosphere might be less dense than Earth’s, but entry still involved a shallow angle and some way of coping with the heat generated during deceleration. My shielding proved to be a forcefield, and for a while my view was mainly fascinating aurora-plumes in lavender and gold, though I did get lovely glimpses of the atmosphere haze.

And then it was all about the rift continent, as my Snug angled on the new course I’d chosen, and I dropped almost directly toward the great strip of blue and green that was Valles Marineris: a vista of ever-increasing detail rushing toward me. Fields and trees, lake and rivers. And a fascinating criss-cross of white lines almost everywhere, that I couldn’t quite understand. Then a tracery above the whole of the rift caught my attention.

"The sky looks like clear honeycomb."

[[These types of expansive habitats require multiple safeguards against atmosphere venting. This is a common solution—four layers of safety cells, with each descending layer kept at increased atmospheric pressure.]]

"What happens if there’s a meteor storm?"

[[We would destroy or redirect anything large enough to make surface impact. There is also shielding, just as there is on your Snug. The habitat itself is sectioned so that even if one area is breached, shielding will activate to—at least temporarily—retain as much atmosphere as possible.]]

"Has it ever been breached?"

[[Not Mars. Other habitats of this type have suffered various disasters. Usually involving Bios who can’t steer straight.]]

I grinned, and readjusted my course again, so that I was skimming above the honeycomb of Valles Marineris' roof. That allowed me to properly see what all the white lines were, and that left me gaping all over again. They were…bridges? Roof supports? They looked more than a little like Roman aqueducts, but with a soaring central opening wide and tall enough to…

Valles Marineris was I-can’t-remember-how-many kilometres deep, and those central arches went two-thirds of the way up. I goggled at this thought until I passed over the broad reaches of the main rift and entered the fractured columns of Noctis Labyrinthus, where there were criss-crossing white lines like support beams, and no honeycomb ceiling.

The beams were swarming with docked Snugs, and I tried not to think of larvae, keeping my attention on the piloting information as I was assigned a slot and my Snug settled itself in position. And then that was it. I was on Mars. I found I’d been holding my breath again, and made myself relax.

"What happens if there’s no docks left?" I asked eventually.

[[We’d be notified long before we reached the planet—it’s something that’s checked when you set your course. Interstellar trips are a little more complicated, since no variety of signal can travel faster than Skipping. To handle that, almost all ships carry a packet relay that collects information bundles and disseminates them automatically. When a ship notifies of Skip departure, the latest sysnav information is uploaded to the relay, and then transmitted to the next system relays it encounters. And those systems pass on that information to any departing ships. That way available docks, in-system ships, news and gossip can all be spread with minimal effort. There are also some worlds where it is necessary to basically book ahead because available docks are limited and highly sought after. The most valued need to be purchased, or won, or be granted by a person of influence. Most, however, deal with travellers on a first-come first-served basis, and simply start limiting docking duration during peak periods.]]

"So the ship is constantly telling people where we are? Can you hide your presence in a system?"

[[Yes and no. You can set yourself anonymous, but that only limits who can view your ship location: it doesn’t prevent it from being collected. There are also methods for falsifying or blocking your ship information. A not infrequent practice that will win you various penalty marks if you’re caught. Or, if you mean cloaking technology, well, you could sit your Snug in an open Pocket. That is usually quite effective.]]

"For the few minutes I could maintain it."

[[High rank Bios manage it quite effectively. But enough of this. Choose your Renba, and we’ll see how long it takes me to get you killed.]]