Tesla External Games (Draft)

Tesla is supposed to be the city on the hill, social experiment of total freedom, open up the human race - yes? Yet all we see from outside is preformed concrete walls and guard towers like a prison, and that damned lightning spewing disco ball in the center. They demand tribute for entrance, and focus on their Dr. Moreau Experiments rather than the real human beings outside. Some bright future it is surrounded by shanty-towns.

People come to the "Free City" because they think its safe - few reanimates, some remaining government forces, and over the mountains from Citizen territory. Damned irony is, its not the city that makes it safe, but all the hopefuls. So many of us are around we can have proper patrols, and work gangs fulfilling jobs from sanitation to fortification. A functional city outside the city. It tough to feed that many, and there is no proper sewage yet - but from barbers to X-ray technicians, we have everything else.

Sometimes we think about storming the walls. If they were just people, I'd give us better than a fifty-percent chance of doing it. But we aren't sure if its just people at all. They have military drones by the swarm, and a bunch of other advanced military equipment the actual solders had left behind as too maintenance intensive. Even the citizens know better than taking on tanks! And the... inhuman stuff spoken of in whispers. Some say its cyborg super-solders, some say genetic modification. I even heard that they can reprogram the berserk nano-vac in reanimates - that's why they're so rare around here despite all the people.

Maybe its worse than that. They do trade some food and medicine to outsiders. What if there is controllable vaccine in those things? God, they could turn us against each other with a flip of a switch! I was wary of the damned stuff when it came out and the government had a hand in it - now now its a bunch of crazy techno-wizards with no government supervision and I know it turns people into monsters.

Others are a bit more trusting. They point out the city does trade, provide some health services, and does equip at least some outsiders as a de facto police force, and keeps drones aloft to assist people during resource gathering missions. Might be sincere, might be playing us against each other.

Not much to do about it in the short term I guess. Though I have to wonder why they want so much useless junk. Titanium aircraft components for instance - steel you can reforge easily enough, sections of wing not so much. Industrial wastes, chemicals, coal - they want toxic stuff other city-states would pay you to get rid of. That makes things a lot more dangerous than trading with other towns. A lot of people prefer long term health issues to short term beaten to death by the undead.

You know, maybe this whole city-state thing is overrated. We just need enough people in one area, and not worry about salvaging a power structure That survived the Event. Could work. Doesn't mean we're leaving though - Tower Reversed loves to prey on people emigrating to Tesla. I wonder if they work together, TR gaining wealth and forcing people to stay here. Hmm. You'd think the end of world government would mean less conspiracies, not more huh?

Tesla Internal Games (Draft)

To many outside observers, the Free City of Tesla seems less like a state and more like a cult. This is not necessarily a false view. With great fervor, the citizens speak of transcending human conditions, life without want, and remaking society into a more functional paradigm. Nor is it false to say that they have made some progress in these claims. It would be untrue, however, to say they have gotten very far.

Post scarcity is not strictly possible - food may be available to all and electricity easily produced, but some things will always be limited. Unless the venue is infinitely large, there will be only so many tickets to the concert, and the bathrooms or front row seats even more limited. (And from what I've heard, even if the venue was infinite, bathrooms would still be rare). From the viewpoint of Tesla's inhabitants - food and energy are available in both greater amounts and types than in many other city-states but it is still not so abundant as to be free. Materials for their social experiments - whether it be nano-feed-stock, superconductor-magnets, magnetic uranium data-storage drives, or biologically safe materials for implants are all limited and neither minded nor produced in Telsa's facilities. Hence there is always a struggle to validate one project versus another.

Living space is also limited, and without access to large tunnel boring machines - the underground portions are not going to increase anytime soon. Although the lifestyles within Tesla de-emphasize personal space - there are far too many hopeful settlers waiting outside the main security perimeter.

Fortunately, most of the competition has not taken a deadly turn yet. Poetry slams, duels with wooden broken, quiz show challenges, and Go tournaments have helped decide things at times, but shootings and poisonings have been rare. More dangerous competitions is usually preformed by outsiders - groups competing by proxy by making teams of hopeful applicants retrieve materials or machines for Tesla. In turn this leads to one of the bigger resentments of Tesla - the Free City dangles to hope of entry above others heads, and forces them to take risks for the privilege, while those inside remain safe.

It is not just the projects that matter, but who gets to work on the projects. Even as Tesla claims to be working towards a total human society, how to grant citizenship is a troubling issue. Should they only accept children to ensure every citizen understands the technology and ideals - or can adults be allowed for practical skills? How much effort does it take to buy in a single person versus a family? Is the buy in enough - or should there be an IQ test or other qualification, for that mater could the other qualifiers override the need for tribute? Does anyone showing up with gifts get to trade, or only those who go on Tesla approved missions?

Tesla is safe and far less concerned with daily survival than most settlements. However, its ability to expand is limited, and the materials for its long term projects in short supply. Meanwhile more hopefuls show up at their gates every day seeking entrance to the great city under the hill, and dealing with these restless crowds is a confusing issue.

Convoy Matters

"Hey Dale - we're in the green! If you've got a location in mind, we can get going any time."
"Got it Jess."
"And?"
"And what?"
"Where are we going?"
"Don't know."
"That ain't gonna go over well with the others in the convoy. They're relyn on you."
"Look sis, I've gotten us this far, but for what? We got torn apart when we tried to scavenge at that city, we're using a bus as a quarantine for a dozen sick children, and our population is now more retire-ees than able-bodied young adults. I'm not sure if there is a place I direct the convoy to."

Jess leaned over and flipped on the air-conditioner. Sure, it was wasteful - but they had the full rocky mountain sun shining on the collector panels, and this was one of those times that deserved it. No point in fretting and arguing when sweating like pigs - is there? Dale already looked half-melted. At one time, someone could have mistaken the two for twins - same short cut brown hair, about the same height, and well much to Jessie's constant chagrin, she didn't have much of a profile. Now lines of dirt and worry made it look like her older brother had aged thirty years in a matter of months.

Behind their camper was a convoy of sixteen other vehicles. Re-purposed city buses transported most of the awake populace, a gyro-stabilized semi-trailer once meant for moving intricate components was the road train's sleeping car. Some modified sports cars were scouts, a lunch truck was a field kitchen, and a pair of six by six APCs rounded out the force protection.

"Aren't we near that big underground complex. They've got enough spare electricity they put on a light show with huge arc lightning the other night." Jess began.
"We're not going to Tesla. I can tell you that much. They've got an entire F-ing city and won't share."
"Well, just cause they have a city doesn't mean they always have enough to go around."
"You've heard the rumors about Tesla. I'm surprised they haven't engineered themselves to not have to eat."
"Oh come on - you know that can't really happen with modern medical technology?"
"Did you know that mom had a false arm?"
"What, no she-"
"It was damn near snapped off when it got caught in the rigging on one of her racing sails. A cotter-pin came loose during bad weather, things swung around, and crunch. By the time the coast guard arrived, blood had been cut off and bones poked out for quite a while. Amputated and grew a new one."
"In a lab - she isn't - wasn't - a lizard"
"Dad pulled a lot of strings to do that you know. They need to DNA match, build collagen skeletons, clone - it took longer to finish the paperwork than the arm. There is a reason why bionic limbs are preferred - you can produce them a lot quicker, and they're easier to take apart and repair if a problem crops up. A problem with the cloned arm during creation - start over."
"What does this have to do with all the people behind us?"
"Well if the rumors are true - the people in that city might want nothing to do with normal humans. Too busy with their new society experiment to bother. What kind of people try to build something new without caring for the old around them?"
"We could turn South to Vegas, but that is a lot of desert."
"Tell them we're camping here for a while. Excuse it with how the prairie gives us good sight-lines or something. I just ain't ready to choose."

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.

Power Tower Hour

In the darkest hours of July Ninth, adults scurry around hiding fluorescent tubes on top of the ventilators or along the agriculture domes, at the base of the wall, and so forth. Starting noon the next day, children race around to see how many they can find. Come 11 pm on July Tenth, Nikola's Birthday of course, we switch on the giant Tesla coil. Everything lights up, wonderful show, the children who came the closest to getting the right count gets a prize, and then we kick in some fog machines and lasers.

That would be the only time of the year we actually turn on the giant electric transmitter atop our home. But not the only reason of course. Its a symbol. There are more efficient means of getting electrons from one place to another, we probably wouldn't have wanted a series of Wardenclyffe Towers around every city for various reasons. But the point remains.

For over One-hundred and Fifty years now, we have had the ability to make free electricity rain from the sky. And that, is awesome.

In fact, the greatest limit on what Humans can do is humanity itself. We could have made changes to our bodies and lives that would have eliminated the need for nano-vac in the first place, but that was too "expensive", or "controversial".

The Silbervogel was conceived in world war two. NASA's 2046 space plane? Pretty similar, just with detail improvements so it actually works - Sänger kinda underestimated the heat of reentry for one. We had track launched payloads, with giant lasers super-heating fuel from beneath for thrust. Russia finally got a Mars base together, and a couple others followed, but by now we should have city sized orbital habitats made from materials we mined out of the Trojan asteroid fields.

Power armor - thirty percent of the modern army - 1950s novel. Electromagnetic Rail-guns - US patents in 1919 and 1922.

I could list these things for days, but I think you get the idea. It people clinging to old manufactured  ideas like religion, privacy, or the sacred form of the human body that are the biggest stumbling block. Our failures and disasters are not so much malicious intent, as mere not foreseeing all the consequences.

So that big AC transmitter up there? That is a reminder that the human condition can be transcended. However this whole crazy time with aliens and reanimates pans out, one thing must be for certain. Trying to restore the old world is a step backwards. We're not going to put the old governments back up just so they can turn around and pass laws limiting what we can do. Hell, they've already overstepped what should be an election year and still call the same man president - how can we respect those who won't even follow their own constitution?

Don't take this as me reveling in the misfortune of the billions who, didn't make it to this day. Far from it. But this is the shake up we needed, like how recovery from the black plague helped with workers rights and the revolution of cities and guilds. Like a plant pruned back before winter, we can grow to greater heights. Stop living on past glory and make something new.

Nothing I can say about our appreciation for life without boundaries or gods besides ourselves is going to change most minds. We're going to come off as new age hippies or atheists inside a giant rabbit warren playing with gene-splicers and creating new Frankenstein Monsters while refusing to help rebuild. But remember, once Alice got through the rabbit hole, she found a most interesting place. Stick around for tea, and learn just where we're going.

KC Tesla Interview

"Welcome back KC, welcome back."
"You run a good show Mr. Hobbes, and I'm glad to contribute to it."
"Where have you been in the past few months? We haven't had an interview in a while."
"I've been heading North a bit, wanted to see around the border before winter set in much, then go in the opposite direction. Motorcycles and unmaintained icy roads don't mix all that well."
"I had a brother that learned that the hard way. Took a whole week for the stain to get him up and going, but he insisted on getting another bike anyway."
"Its great stuff, isn't it. A few more years and surgeons like you would be out of a job."
"It can't deliver babies, so OBs, like me will probably be the only ones who stay employed."
"Not if the people in Tesla have a say, they go for iron wombs and cloning in a big way! I stopped there on my journey over here."
"We've heard all sort of rumors about that place, but haven't gotten anyone to come and visit. What's it like?"
"It doesn't look like much from the outside, and on the inside they do everything they can to freak out visitors. People less open minded than I should probably keep away."
"So the rumors that they'll actually - in public?"
"Yes. I only loosely followed the who transhumanism debate,  but they go well beyond anything... well, lets hold on if you don't mind me monologuing for a few minuets, they should get a fair description before we dive into racy details.

To began - Tesla was started in 2030 or there about as a San Paulo style arcology. It was supposed to be all recycled materials and green living and one with the environment in a way the exact opposite of a NEST. Everything began blended with the land and rounded, rather than a hundred eight story brick, it even went in the opposite direction, and is mostly underground. Its a fairly non nondescript hill as first approach, though there are various entrances and sky lights sticking out, a few buildings, and a giant tesla coil at the apex, though thats a modern addition, as is the surrounding wall and moat. Mount Suribachi or one of those hidden elf villages from fantasy novels comes to mind for aesthetics -its  mostly grass a nice four hundred foot tall hill or so. There are out buildings, including three- no, four large round geodesic domes that serve as green houses and "outside" space as it were.

If the outside is elves, the inside is definitely an old role playing dwarf dungeon. The passageways tend to slope up and down, rather than run completely level with stairs,  an there is a grand spiral too it, with main areas like the mess hall or meeting rooms being direct offshoots of the main way, and rooms for individuals small and central. In theory there is a holistic way to determine where you are at any moment - different light fixtures, the colors used, a certain style of furniture - but for all practical purposes I just plugged floor numbers into my virtual overlay and didn't play their game. The floor is all bamboo matting or some fancy type of carpeting, and there are plasticized screens everywhere, so acoustics are a lot more private than you'd expect in a giant cave - but they aren't too big on doors.

I'm pretty sure the place has everything it needs for self-sufficiency though I'm not going to declare its inhabitants first generation morlocks just yet. Obviously, they didn't show an outsider the internal workings, but I seem to recall some news broadcasts about installing their water purification from years ago.

"Do you recall when it opened for habitation?"
"Sometime in the 40's. There was a big deal made about how it was a lot cheaper, done quicker, and with less government help than the NESTs or any other arco, which began to raise a big stink in the political sector. If an arco is a planned community, then shouldn't it be planed by its community and keep big gov out of it... In retrospect, it seems a lot of people wanted these things to be independent city-states, even before it became an actual necessity."
"I remember some pretty violent demonstrations."
"I wasn't in a position to attend them at the time, and try to keep away from large groups of police but thats neither hear nor there."
"So did they explain how the current mind set came about?"
"Who explains how a car works, every time you let a new passenger in? Nah, they just kind of give the impression its always been a home of free love and tech."
"You know you're not going to get through an interview without explaining that."
"Of course, of course. One of the weirder aspects of their society is that  they believe in "Radical Transparency." As it was explained to me "If my body is a work of god, then there is nothing sinful I can do with it, if it is a secular organic machine, then then it is built the same just as all the others." If something must be private, its encrypted, or there are personal storage areas, but otherwise you can't have theft if nothing is owned, and everyone is entrusted to be part of the police due to personal recording tech. Exchanging privacy keys for software is a sacred bond to these people, while marriage is a an old relic of times when you traded goats. That said, they do understand personal space and the old social mores and the rumors and occasional public act are more about teasing outsiders than standard practice. If anything, its to point out how silly we are about making such a big deal about it."
"So us having this conversation is just playing into their hands."

[Really boss? Really? For a surgeon you can be so immature.

"Thats not what I meant Diego, get your mind out of the gutter"

"Am I allowed to play with the mute and private buttons too?

"I didn't realize there was one on that side of the console - did you Diego?} 

"I'd guess so, but its not like they're trying to take over the world like New Birmingham. Stay independent of the government forces to their South certainly, but they didn't strike me as expansionist. More live and let live."
"Care to expand in another interview?"
"Its not like I've got anywhere else to be?"
"Well thank you again for joining us, this has been Thomas Hobbes interviewing KC Kats on 104.3 WJMK up next is our 80s at eight rock block."

"And we're good. We actually finished an interview without interruption. I'll go get the champaign."
"We're not that bad!"
"I have to agree with your sound technician - how many separate interviews did you have with those aliens?"
"Somewhere between too many and not enough considering the boss agreed to another one on Friday."
"Diego, just start the program and get the booze."