Dead... and Back is a survival horror Role Playing Game. The Anarchy Zones is its official setting - aliens, reanimates, and the ruins of 2055 America.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Welcome to Tesla 1

15:03 Current Time
Ah welcome, welcome! Can I get you a cup of coffee?

Those bewildered stares, the incredulous responses, the patent certainty that there is no fresh coffee to be had on this continent since trade with Brazil, Columbia, and Myanmar stopped. Elsewhere, city state and anarchy zone, that may be true. But its also true you probably meet a lesser caliber of person there. But here in Tesla - we have the will! That is what it is all about!

We live in an underground man made cave system that is fully controlled in humidity, temperature, and lighting. If we want to make a tropical room to grow coffee tree in - we can do it. With the will, we could make the same set up in Antarctica, or on the moon! I'm sure the Mars colonies have made their own coffee supply - or committed suicide by now. With the desire to see something, and the desire to see it through, anything is possible.

Ha, ha - NO. Money and resources are not necessarily impediments. If anything - they're an abstract measure of will - how much currency you're willing to acquire to make it happen, how many people you're willing to negotiate with. In theory, with enough will, you could acquire all the material you need for free - by force of rhetoric or arms. Tesla is a society of people who want to see things get done!

You're sadly predictable you know. I keep hoping someone is going to avoid asking that question, about how do you govern a bunch of strong willed anarchists, and while not always, I'm usually disappointed.

Simply put - you don't. Really - what the hell is government? Some guy who makes lies and promises about the old values and lowering taxes, and keeping out foreigners pandering to his base, and then stuck on a committee making choices about farm-subsidies when he's never handled a bag of fertilizer and deciding standards of elementary school education without any knowledge of childhood developmental psychology. There might be a few who aren't corrupt soulless monsters, but nine times out of ten, they're making rules for a game they don't play.

In Tesla, we have savants. We're all connected to the sphere augmented reality system, we can all receive real-time updates and vote. And all the debates are lead by people who are actually competent in the area up for discussion. Want better farms - talk to a farmer, not the defense industry puppet.

Right -there you go - a combination of meritocracy and direct democracy assisted by a computerized hive mind. Well, not hive mind yet. Soon maybe.

Yeah - I liked that TV show too, but for all its forward thinking, there's a bit of sour gapes in there too. Humans aren't immortal, but hey - immorality sucks so its fine. How would the writers know if they haven't tried it? If you only watched all the movies that came out each year, you'd probably kill a few decades without getting too board, and all the languages to learn, beautiful sights to see, the advance of society as it goes on... Just think of how much the world changed in the 20th century alone.

We're a little more grounded than immortality of course. But that doesn't mean we can't make lives longer and free of pain. Why force a woman to carry a defective parasite for nine months and spend years caring for it, when we can use nanotech to modify its genome and grow it in an artificial womb? You're not a parent if you don't want whats best for your child, and who wants the kid to be autistic, or asthmatic...

Here we go - the usual revulsion about us playing god, about ignoring ethical constraints and old international laws. Its not even worth the waste of breath to explain. Walk around for an hour. Anywhere you want. See if we're a bunch of crazy mad scientists for yourself. GO! Go - shoo!

14:25

So we meet again mister... what was your name again? Right, right. Enjoy your walk? What did you see?

Yep - too be expected. Everyone is quite generous. Can you have theft if nothing is owned, and if its just a matter of desire to acquire, then acquiring again is simply needing the same desire. We realize there are limits to resources and thermodynamics but was anyone a right bastard - besides Charlie? Didn't meet him? Well, you didn't miss too much.

The people are nice, we have a common goal such as it is, we just don't feel the need to have a centralized government or stick to certain two thousand year old edicts.

Naughty, naughty outsiders. Always seem to notice that. As I said before, we can control temperature to the point of growing coffee in in the Northern US seventy five meters underground. There is no weather unless we say so, and in turn, clothes are more a convenience than a necessity. Obviously, most of us don't indulge in that freedom - but if you're so afraid of your own skin that you can't see if uncovered, how can you have the bravery to face tomorrow?

If you're still intrigued, I can set you up with a coffin and you can stay a while.

Yes, I said coffin. Do you really need ten or fifteen cubic meters of space to lie down and go comatose for eight hours? A little alcove two and a half meters long, one and a half wide, and about that tall will suffice, put a few personal items in a nearby locker and its all good. Saves space for more important functions around the arco too.

I've got some work to do, and you're eating into my flex time to finish it - so find another guid for a bit, or mediate in one of the halls, and we'll meet again in Indigo seven...

Thats the second big dining hall.

No, that's the meeting room. Go around the spiral clockwise inward two levels...

Screw it, just make your way to the entrance about six and someone will lead you down.

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