unVeiled » Science & Technology
David Hunt on Galileo, the First Civilian Off-World Settlement
By Wilbur Henderson (⁂uV_Henderson)
Published 20/07/2037, 11:51
The Moon, the only Earth's natural satellite and the home of Galileo.
The Moon: an integral part of Earth's culture and environment. We've all seen it, we all know it — and we all know that without it, the Earth wouldn't exist in the form it exists in today. The Moon is as inescapable as it is unreachable — it might be an inseparable part of the Earth experience, but that doesn't change the fact that it's more than 384,000 kilometers away from us. A distance seldom traveled, and for good reason; to venture this far beyond our cradle is an endeavor bordering on impossible. It's no wonder, then, that we have never truly attempted to expand onto our natural satellite — when even getting there is almost undoable, actively living in its distant, hostile environment has always lay firmly in the realm of fantasy.
Or so we thought.
When the Veil of Normalcy collapsed back in 2021 and the true world became revealed for all to witness, most of our old beliefs were challenged, if not outright debunked. The realm of fiction was no longer as distant a land as it had once been — and now, over 16 years later, it is safe to say that our home lies firmly in what we would have once considered to be utter nonsense. We are no longer mundane peoples — now, we are the folk of the impossible, a society born and molded by what it had once thought to be utterly and thoroughly unthinkable. So who could tell us anymore what we could and what we couldn't do, in an era where everything seemed to be within our reach?
That's what David Hunt — formerly a member of the SCP Foundation's Astrophysics Department — thought when he heard a new age had come. With a new position in Vanguard and new horizons before him, David realized that, really, there was no reason why we couldn't think that big, why we couldn't try and conquer our space neighbor. So, in 2027, with a few friends from his old job and a dream to make true, he proposed the most insane idea most people have ever heard of to his superiors: a city built on the Moon. A shared project between various branches of our new world, created as a true monument to cooperation and progress.
When the media first heard of it, they called him a madman.
And yet, ten years later, here we are — enjoying coffee together with David in Ambrose Luna, a local of the famous chain of restaurants located in Galileo, the first city ever built outside the confines of the Earth. As we speak on the 20th of July — the International Moon Day — in the halls beneath us, Galileo is being officially declared open by Vanguard's Lunar Settlement Initiative, a project led by David and a few of his colleagues.
So, how did all of that come to be?
Thanks for being here, David. Let's start with the obvious one: why the Moon? What's so important up there that we spent a whole decade's worth of taxpayers' money building a city in the middle of nowhere?
Thank you for having me, Wilbur. In the last 16 years, many things have changed — magic is now real, actual gods ride with me on the metro during my transit to work, and my neighbor is a talking dog. Still, one thing remains the same — the laws of physics. But we don't really like their limits, do we? We've always dreamed bigger, and our interest in the infinite possibilities space offers has always been a very clear indicator of that.
Unlimited and free clean energy. Asteroids to mine rare minerals from, excavated without detriment to the natural environment. Whole planets we could one day call our home. These things are still a distant future for us, and we must not get carried away by our own hubris. We all remember Elon Musk's tragic accident in 2023 shortly after the fall of the Veil, when he tried to travel to Mars in a vessel constructed from old Prometheus Laboratories paratechnology, ignoring warnings from specialists who were fired shortly before the accident for attempting to unionize.
Getting to other planets — let alone living on them — is still very difficult, even with portals and reality-warping technology. To even establish portal networks we would need to get there in the first place, and the only way to actually do that is via properly constructed spaceships — a terrible endeavor on fronts both scientific and economic, a beast so great many have feared even contemplating slaying it. Until now.
We can't become an interstellar civilization overnight, but Galileo is an attempt at igniting the sparks of that revolution. We might not yet have the capability of reaching distant stars and planets, but before we try to run, it would be best to learn how to walk. With a lunar hub of operations — a scientific, economic, and cultural center whose existence makes undertaking other extraplanetary endeavors far simpler — we can finally take our first step. Change begins with Galileo — a city built with the intent of constructing, supplying, and launching the resources Earth needs to expand into the stars.
How did you do it, then? Like you said yourself — expanding off-world is a terribly difficult task. So how did Vanguard manage a project so impossibly complicated in just a decade?
With the help of pretty much every nation on Earth, mostly. I kid, but I really do mean it — even with our occult resources now available to the world, this couldn't be done without the help of several nations who were generous enough to supply their own scientists and funds to Vanguard's Lunar Settlement Initiative.
Galileo is a shining example of what can be achieved through international cooperation. If it weren't for the combined efforts of countries like China, the United States, India, the nations of the European Union, Japan, and many more, we wouldn't be here now. Let's also not forget about the significant contributions of the city-state of Druv'tuul, organized by its King Eldröl Gérunda. With the terrible curse that had tethered his people to the Earth for so long now gone, he dedicated a significant portion of his nation's resources — especially those related to biomancy and metallurgy, but I'll get to that in a second — to our case. We hope that despite the recent political scandal and the revolution that followed and resulted in the dethronement and exile of Eldröl, the new revolutionary government will still remain avid supporters of our Initiative in the future.
The wonderful people over at Phoenix Technologies have certainly also been of great significance — the support provided by their astronomers, astrophysicists, and astrologists cannot be overstated. Our joint research undertaken inside the High Earth Center of Orbital Research (formerly known as the HECOR superweapon under the SCP Foundation) was a key element in orchestrating this endeavor. I take pleasure in saying that our friends from the company carry Prometheus' scientific flame as truly worthy successors.
And how does it all work? Surely, designing and maintaining a functioning city in the most hostile environment known to science couldn't have been easy.
Yes, it has proven — and continues to prove — to be quite a task. We began where all great ideas begin — by defying the natural order of things. We had a starting point — the former SCP Foundation Lunar Area-32 was a natural pick — but we knew that we still needed a stable source of artificial gravity to encompass the whole city once it was built. Thankfully, Druv'tuul has once again come to aid us. With the help of its expert thaumaturgical knowledge, we were able to create a core that, when fed with tremendous amounts of energy and EVE, generated a field of gravity around it. And let's just say that now that we have finally mastered the art of splitting the atom via reality-bending and creating cutting-edge Everhart Resonators, these two things stopped being issues almost instantly.
We are still trying to iron out some of the core's kinks, however. It's an immensely powerful piece of paratechnology, so tuning it to perfectly align with the city's borders has proven to be rather difficult. As of now, we have been able to achieve full artificial Earth gravity in the most frequently traversed areas, such as tourist hotspots, hubs for research, and living areas. The borders of the city are where it's the weakest — the flora that grows in those strange conditions is certainly quite something to behold, let me tell you. Not like you'd be able to see it, though; the borders of the city are also where, so far, our air systems start to falter, so those areas are strictly restricted to maintenance personnel.
Utilizing VNP-120 allowed us to solve one of the biggest problems of expanding off-world — the lack of a stable permanent connection, a feat that is unachievable at such great distances with Ways and apportation. With the help of Dr. James Micheals of Vanguard — who, at the time, was already developing his very own stable portal network — we were able to alter VNP-120 by changing its point of exit, making its gateway two-sided, and increasing the teleportation area, connecting the Earth and Moon together, allowing for smooth transit between the two points.
With that — and artificial gravity already operating to aid us — over the next seven years we were able to very quickly construct a hollow shell, designed by Bauhaus4 — a paranormal architecture art school and member of the Global Occult Coalition's Council of 108 — of what would later become Galileo. Once again, the Druv'tuulian metallurgists proved to be of immense help.
We had our infrastructure and reliable connection to get back home — all we needed to do now was to actually make Galileo habitable. Thanks to Yeren bioengineers and sidhe druids, we managed to guarantee the production of sufficient amounts of oxygen for the city, and with strange and lush bioengineered flora adorning its streets, we managed to successfully create a properly hospitable environment. Galileo was now a very lush and very uniquely green city, fully capable of supporting life and ready for its future inhabitants.
What's living in Galileo like? It is all that different than living down here on Earth?
The rent isn't cheap, let me tell you that much!
In full seriousness, though, it really is a spectacle — how could it not be? We've all seen photos of the Earth taken from the Moon, but… the weight of it all never really dawns on you until you get there and gaze upon that one-third of a million kilometers separating you from home. It's not just humbling — it's touching, inspiring, and powerful like little else I've experienced in my life. Seeing that gap, that great reminder of just how large the universe is and how small we are, every single day beyond the windows of your home — it never does get old.
In truth, though, a lot of what happens in Galileo is very similar to what happens in large cities on Earth — everyone is always in a rush to get things done. Even if the space around the city couldn't be further from home, the shops and homes and restaurants are still all the same. They're brands we already all know and recognize —the only exception to this is some of our research facilities, which are located far enough into the Moon to avoid light pollution coming from the Earth and Galileo. Even then, I will say that there is one more unique thing about our city: the space it occupies has… a feeling of order to it, I suppose. Galileo is a very meticulously designed project, a city where every part of it is important and was created with a specific function in mind. It's tidy and it just makes sense, you know? Its arrangement and organization are almost an antithesis of the chaotic way we develop cities on Earth.
That, and, unlike in places like New York City, the architecture really is just stunning up here. Seriously. The organic and seamless white curves the city is composed of are beautiful — they remind me of the parametric work of Zaha Hadid, in the way they come together with the everpresent greenery to form a single, flowing form. It's a clean piece of architecture that knows and executes its purpose and grandiose nature rather well, I'd say — a feat not many projects of this scale can say they achieved.
And the people of Galileo? What are they like? What does a lunar community look like?
Busy. Beyond anything else, we are all very, very busy.
I really do mean it — very rarely do you see people up here, other than tourists, who can afford to just stay and relax. There are always more research projects to oversee, more parts of Galileo that still need work. With how much it costs to live up here, only a minuscule part of its population isn't here by necessity, somehow tied to the city's ongoing development — and with just how large this entire project is, there is always more work to be found.
In most ways, the population of Galileo is just like that of Earth. Though there is one noticeable difference between them, I think. Not to say that the Earth's population is full of uncaring bastards — ever since the collapse of the Veil, I've been noticing an uptrend of genuine human kindness and solidarity all around me — but in Galileo… the community really is just tightly knit together, you know? Be it because of the view making us humbler or the realization that we are all here only because of cooperation — the spirit of unity is rather high in Galileo. Not to say capitalism doesn't still reign supreme in our city — it's just that the community is a lot closer than those I've lived in on Earth.
On the topic of capitalism, how does a project this large even maintain itself? Surely, good intentions only go so far, so where do you get all the resources necessary for Galileo to survive?
Galileo stands almost entirely on four pillars: donations, tourism, trade, and research.
Donations mostly come from our generous benefactors over at Vanguard, the Global Occult Coalition, MC&D's SkyMarshall, and several other private investors who are, it seems, just as excited to uncover the mysteries of the universe as we are. From my understanding, it is their belief that through investing in projects such as these, they are also investing in their own endeavors — after all, who wouldn't want to expand their turf onto the literal Moon?
Tourism plays by far the largest role in Galileo's economy. Like I said — there aren't a lot of people who wouldn't want to gaze upon our home from up here. The myriad restaurants, hotels, museums, shops, and other locales that the city offers are there to make sure that their visit is as comfortable — and as costly — as possible. A particularly popular attraction is travel outside the city — a pastime seldom experienced by anyone in Gallieo except the tourists due to its price. My personal favorite is definitely the Wondertainment Lunar Opera — a truly beautiful theater with a great glass ceiling. There aren't many things that beat the sight that it offers, once it starts displaying the plays of Wonder.
Research and trade play a far simpler role than the other two pillars. While they of course also generate a non-insignificant amount of revenue (JOICL, Oneiroi Incorporated, Phoenix Technologies, and our asteroid-mining projects more than make sure of that), it is thanks to the advances of science conducted here that we produce most of our non-monetary resources. We get clean energy from solar panels and ontokinetic nuclear fusion, we are currently working on extracting water from the Moon's interior located in hydrated minerals and potential ice deposits, and we obtain food from the rich, artificially-designed flora that thrives throughout Galileo. It has always been our goal to make Galileo as self-sufficient as possible — and we are now closer than ever to achieving this.
If we're talking research, what are your current priorities? Now that you've conquered the Moon, what's next on the docket?
Well, the Moon is just a stop on our journey to the stars — it's definitely not our final destination.
Now that Galileo is fully functional and no longer requires active intervention from us to continue in peace, we are hoping to go bigger and wider, to expand our reach even further than the Moon. Our first mission is going to be working together with the Global Occult Coalition to repurpose their Farpoint station on Pluto as a base of operations similar to Galileo: a place that we shall use to take us to the ends of our Solar System and well beyond.
Speaking of the edge of our Solar System: now that the Lunar Settlement Initiative has achieved its primary objective, most of us are going to be working on a new project: the SCADIS Space Exploration Initiative, where we will take to the Scattered Disc region and investigate what lies within. Recent surveys of ontokinetic, EVE, and Hume counts of our neighboring planets have revealed several inconsistencies in their makeup on Eris. Though there exist several theories that link this phenomenon to the existence of a hypothetical ninth planet, we cannot yet give a straight answer as to what this phenomenon might imply or what its origins are, but we won't give up until we can provide you with an explanation.
Another point of future interest is several strange objects we had previously detected within the confines of the Solar System. From the unusual activity of Jupiter's Great Red Spot to the evidence suggesting the past existence of extraterrestrial life in the universe, we will be hard at work at deducing exactly what secrets they might still be hiding. We will also dedicate significant resources towards the Sidhe Lounge's ongoing research into the potential former existence of a second Moon — a still unconfirmed hypothesis based on ancient myths that suggest the existence of a celestial body having orbited the Earth during the era of the Fae Empire, before being allegedly struck down by Queen Mab herself.
You might also have heard about Phoenix Technologies's recently announced project to terraform Mars, but there's still a long way to go before we will be able to do that. It's little more than a marketing stunt, originally invented by Elon Musk to get investors. We shouldn't get carried away by fantasies; we've barely managed to build a single settlement on the Moon, so terraforming an object as giant as Mars still firmly lies within the realm of fiction.
But these are all projects for the near future. In the upcoming decades, our main plan is to research faster-than-light travel and spread out beyond our cradle and into the rest of the Milky Way galaxy — specifically, in search of new worlds to inhabit and several past points of interest to research in more depth than ever before. Not every planet that looks like an eyeball turns out to be a fluke — there exist numerous extrasolar places of interest that we are more than eager to finally get a chance to explore. And, with the right resources and some time, we promise you that we will get that chance.
Well, thanks a ton for talking with me, David. I'm sure that after our conversation, our readers will be left with a much better understanding of how Galileo works. Do you have any last words you'd like to tell our audience before we wrap this up?
Shoot for the stars, kids. Don't give up if you miss, though — the Moon might be just as good.
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