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RED GOLD
SCIENTISTS FROM THE LUNAR CITY OF GALILEO REPORT THE DISCOVERY OF MAJOR DEPOSITS OF IRRILITE, THE MAGIC-CONDUCTING AND MAGIC-AMPLIFYING METAL, BENEATH THE SURFACE OF MARS. IS A MASSIVE RETURN OF THE MOST EXPENSIVE AND THOUGHT-TO-BE IMPOSSIBLY RARE METAL WITHIN REACH?
By Aine Kayi'leigh
| Phoenix Technologies Research Division Database | |
|---|---|
| File Title | PROJECT GRANT: Martian Stormpiercer |
| File Type | Research proposal |
| Author | Fumiko Kimura (Tokyo, Japan) |
| Upload Dates | 31-12-2064 (VER:1-FINAl) |
| 17-09-2063 (VER:0) | |
| Keywords | applied thaumaturgy, irrilite, karnomancy, Mars, railroads, space flight, transport |
1. Proposal
At the time of writing, Martian irrilite mining operations account for more than 30% of the Company's revenue and remain its single largest source of income. Despite this — and the Company's current monopoly on selling the resource — the process is extremely inefficient. Due to their isolation from each other, each of the three mining colonies owned by the Company must all perform mining, housing, and refining operations. In addition, each colony must independently transport its extracted material into orbit, to load it onto the Company's cargo fleet,1 which only leads to further fragmented costs.
Fig 1.1: (top to bottom) Kepler, Gallilei, Sagan; the three Martian mining colonies owned by the Company.
Under normal — terrestrial — circumstances, this issue would be alleviated by constructing basic train infrastructure between the colonies, and having each colony specialize in one part of the process, thus optimizing the entire operation. Unfortunately, due to extremely long distances separating individual colonies, harsh Martian weather conditions, and the inability of preparing adequate transport infrastrcture,2 such a solution is impossible.
I therefore propose another, much simpler method of overcoming both the weather and our financial troubles, thus economically optimizing the Company's irrilite mining operations: the creation of a special means of transportation that would allow the Company to combine its mining colonies into a single, efficient organism.
2. Reason for Submission
2.1 Stormpiercer Hull
Since — as already mentioned — it is impossible to create an appropriate transportation network that would allow for the use of standard vehicles, it will be necessary to develop a vehicle that can survive the Martian weather conditions and can travel from one colony to another without requiring the aforementioned infrastructure.
The first part of the problem will be solved by developing special railcars, which, when combined with outermost modules3 would form a single Stormpiercer. This large vehicle, which would resemble a standard terrestrial train in appearance, would be protected by an Ontokinetic Ontological Field Generator, which, when properly powered with irrilite-enhanced thaumic energy, would be able to annihilate any sand or stone particles that would get too close to the Stormpiercer's hull. In addition, due to the implementation of the rune-writ abstracted Platonic Metal which would be used in the hull's construction, should the Generator shut down mid-transit, the Stormpiercer would still remain capable of withstanding the weather on its own.
2.2 BTIT Organisms
Solving the second problem would be more difficult and would require the use of thaumaturgy operating in accordence with the Law of Attraction.4 This solution would use Stormpiercer engines powered by the aforementioned thaumaturgy,5 which, in order to function, would require some sort of ontological "wholeness" present in each colony that the engines could anchor themselves to and towards which they could guide the Stormpiercers.
Fig 2.1: A thaumo-cellular reaction inside the blood of a prototype BTIT organism, caused by the application of a simple Law of Attraction spell.
To this end, I propose the creation of immobile, unconscious but living simple organisms Bleeding To Initiate Transaport; huge artificial biological entities composed solely of flesh, whose only function would be to produce blood with which to fuel the Stormpiercer engines. These organisms would be hermaphroditic creatures that would be incapable of thought, locomotion, vocalization, or anything else; their only purpose would be to feed and bleed.
Additionaly, it is worth mentioning that the nutritional sustenance of the BTIT organisms would not be a complicated endevour. Since the areas surrounding the mining colonies are overflowing with latent thaumaturgic energies due to the nearby irrilite ores, it would be possible to create a self-perpetuating ritual that would convert this energy into neccesary nutritional values for the organisms. Although under normal circumstances the application of such a diet is not only extremely inefficient, but also extremely unhealthy for the consumer, due to the amount of surrounding irrilite, such a ritual would be enhanced enough to work as intended. In addition, since the health of BTIT organisms would not be a real concern — for their only function would be simply to produce blood, no matter its quality — the health problem resulting from such a process would also not interfere with the operation, for as long as it would not lead to the death of the organism.
2.3 Stormpiercing Engines
As was already mentioned, the engines of the Stormpiercers would be powered by a thaumaturgic reaction stemming from the Law of Attraction.
Fig 2.2: A simple rune utilizing the Law of Attraction.
Utilizing standard engines powered by thaumaturgy, it would be possible to modify their internal structures so that they do not operate on thaumic energy alone, but rather are powered and propelled by an elaborate ritual, centered around runes binding the outermost modules — i.e. the ones at the very beginning and end of the Stormpiercer — to the BTIT organisms that would be present at both ends of the intended journey. Due to this, once the engines of the outermost modules would be been fueled with a sufficiently sizable amount of blood from the BTIT organisms, it would be possible to activate the rituals that would power the engines for long enough to allow for transport along the expected route. Additionally, in order to keep the Stormpiercer from flying away from the planet's surface during transit,6 it would be necessary to create a similar engine system on the underside of the vehicle, so that it could also be propelled towards the sandy surface of the planet.
It is also worth mentioning however that in order for the expected reaction to take place in a manner as drastic as would be required for the project, it would be necessary to use a large number of irrilite elements that would amplify the entire ritual. Under normal — terrestrial and unaffected by irrilite — circumstances, it would be impossible to achieve such a strong reaction without amplifying the ritual.[[1]] However, by using the aforementioned system, the entirety of the Stormpiercer would be capable of performing its task in an exemplary manner.
2.4 Inter-Colony Infrastructure
So as to even allow for the project to be implemented, infrastructural changes inside the colonies would be neccessary. Firstly, it would be required to create suitably isolated housings for BTIT organisms, inside which they could be "fed" and inside which they would indefinitely remain and bleed. Ideally, the organisms should be housed in structures positioned relatively higher than the rest of the colony; this would allow for the transport mentioned in Section 2.3 to pull the vehicles up. Such a positioned target of the ritual powering the Stormpiercer engines would pull the entire vehicle upwards, thus preventing it from descending to the Martian ground and halting in its movement.
Additionally, it would be required to construct suitable transistory unloading stations that could accommodate the raw material transported by the Stormpiercers. They should also be capable of accomodating the vehicle itself, offering it suitable shelter between its travels and allowing it to recharge its thaumic energies and load the materials that the visited colony wishes to be transported further down the journey's path.
3. Expected Costs
3.1 Creation of the Stormpiercer Hull
The primary costs that the project would result in are those relating to designing and manufacturing suitably durable and resistent Stormpiercer hulls that would be able to withstand the extreme Martian weather conditions. Given the sizable existence of suitably skilled personnel internally within the Company, this task could simply be outsourced to the Engineering and Applied Taumaturgy Departments. Due to this, the cost of this part of the project should not be greater than $350,000,000.
3.2 Designing BTIT Organisms
With the Company's recent acquisition of the employees remaining after the bankrupcy of the JOICL organization, genetically designing and streamlining BTIT organisms should not be a significant issue, as this undertaking can be internally undertaken within the company. Consequentially, this fragment of the project should not exceed $50,000,000 in costs.
3.3 Employing External Experts
The actual production of BTIT organisms is unfortunately impossible with the resources at the Company's disposal. The Yoshida-Zartion Genetic Cloning Printers currently owned by the company are incapable of producting entities this large; it would therefore be necessary to hire carnomantic experts — preferably chosen from among the Nälkä people — who would grow and nurture the intended organisms using their magic. The price of such an endeavour would be around $8,000,000.
In addition, it is possible that the project would neccessitate the completion of further studies regarding the spells which would power the Stormpiercers.7 Such an act would require the hiring of thaumaturgical and thaumatological experts, which would cost the Company approximately $5,000,000.
3.4 Maintaining Morale
The most costly part of the project would be the maintanance of the facade of good relations with the employees after the proposal would be implemented. Since its actual application would inevitably lead to sizable layoffs, it would be advisable to give the remaining workforce adequate "compensations" — i.e. one-time cash bonuses that would solely serve the purpose of upkeeping morale at such a level that would allow the colony to continue its operation. The total cost of such compensation — after adding up all of the allegable employees — should not exceed $500,000,000.
4. Usage
The implementation of the proposed infrastructure would allow for a rapid, straightforward, and automated transport of irrilite between the colonies owned by the Company. This would in turn allow each colony to become specialized in individual stages of the process, thus massively decreasing the monetary losses caused by the inefficiency of the current setup. It is estimated that these savings would be so vast that after just one year of the Stormpiercers being employed, the entire operation would already have marked a double investment return.[2]
Fig 4.1: Example of flesh harvested from prototype BTIT organisms.
Additionally, due to Stormpiercers being capable of performing multitple diverse functions, the vehicles could also enable the non-orbital transport of employees between colonies. It is also worth mentioning that it would be possible to establish Stormpiercer lines between colonies owned by the Company and facilities owned by other organisations; this would only deepen the transportation monopoly that the Company currently holds, bringing with it further profits.
A secondary — though originally unintended and much less significant — consequence that the project would entail would be the alleviation of food production inside the colonies. Since the BTIT organisms produced for its purposes would have very quick and efficient regenerative capabilities, and would consist almost entirely of muscle tissue, it would be possible to replace the currently used colony feeding system8 with a diet dependent on harvests directly from BTIT organisms.
5. Potential Issues
5.1 Spell Reach
The biggest problem related to the project is the exact range of the spells that would power the Stormpiercer engines, which may not be enough to cover the distance between the two colonies. Although field tests have been performed in the past on the Martian surface regarding the maximum range of simple irrilite-assisted thaumaturgy,[3] the range of the aforementioned tests was limited to about half of the distance intended for this project.
In the event that, even with the irrilite available to the Company, forming a thaumic connection between the Stormpiercer and the intended BTIT organism would prove impossible, it would be necessary to establish transistory stations on the path between colonies. These stations would be built at the maximum range of the spells powering the Stormpiercer, and would have their own BTIT organisms, causing travel between colonies to be modular in nature.
5.2 Damage Caused by Storms
It is possible that the damage caused by the Martian weather to Stormpiercer transport modules will be greater than the initially expected harm. In such a scenario, replacing individual vehicle components would have to occur more frequently than outlined in the original plan.9 However, this would not prove to be a particularly significant problem, as the profits caused by savings from even one Stormpiercer voyage, would be more than capable of funding the needed replacements and necessary repairs.
Such replacements should of course only be considered if, given this problem would actually be extant, the Company's engineers would not be able to produce sufficiently resistent modules that would replace the defective components and could edure until the originally expected expiration date.
5.3 The Apotheosis of BTIT Organisms
An unlikely potential problem that is still worth mentioning the is the relationship between the colony populations10 and BTIT organisms growing complicated. Due to the relative isolation of the aforementioned populations relating to their circumstances, it is possible that once BTIT organisms are introduced into the colonies, the workforce — secluded and disconnected from the theological paradigms of terrestrial societies — would begin to interact with BTIT organisms as if they are entities worthy of religious worship. This could lead to the excessive generation of Akiva radiation, allowing the organisms to achieve apotheosis.[4]
Such a situation would have two undesirable consequences. Firstly, the deification of BTIT organisms would directly turn the colony populations into inefficient cults that, instead of working, would focus on worshipping a foreign entity. A foreign entity that would now possess power enough to completely dismantle the colony infrastructure. Additionally, such an entity would have to be disposed of and replaced with a non-divine version of itself, carrying with it the need to completely replace the workforce as well. Secondly, a situation in which an entity created via carnomancy would reach apotheosis would be perceived as the worst heresy in the eyes of Nälkä carnomancers responsible for creating the organisms. In turn, this would result in a PR disaster, which would directly and negatively affect the Company's revenue.
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