Skyward - (NaNoWriMo 2013 Novel)

All the Little Seeds - (Nov 14, Thursday)

What story to tell today?

Is it the one of the skypirates? How they are the only uncontrollable element in the otherwise predictable system of the MegaDos. How they swarm up the abandonned 'Dos, making true baronies out of them, and live like victorian, steampunk rejects. How they scavenge all that has been left, and then, when nothing is left, how they launch explosive attacks on the MegaDos proper: stringing rickety rope bridges from building to building; using looted air compressors and jackhammers, demolition charges, and other construction technology to break through the glass or concrete that stands between them and the rich insides of the MegaDos. About their massive cannons, powered by compressed air, to propel titanic, anchor-like constructs of iron across the gulfs off space between buildings; about how these sky anchors make short work of glass and are nearly unmoveable when snarred in the snarled debris of a concrete facade that has been torn open by the pirates.

Is it the story of the Peacemakers, who have little enough to do in the 'Dos now other than to put down Sky Pirate attacks. About how they were founded in the early days from the ever growing and involving ranks of what had once been known as building security. The security forces of the MegaCorps had adopted a quasi-military status as the size and reach of the Corps grew exponentially. The first true demonstration of their power and ability came in the Sino/Cathay Civil Wars, where the Corps, dissatisfied with how seriously the UN was taking perceived threats to their manufacturing interests in the area, elected to assign additional North American security to the area.

The force that arrived to defend the factories looked less like security and more like a mercenary force as they were better equipped than some national militaries. They succeeded not only in the defence of their employers' interests in the area but actually went so far as to "liberate" a goodly number of facilities that hadn't been of interest to their employers before but certainly were thereafter. The conflict devastated the political powers in the region to such an extent that they were in no position to pursue any kind of legal action against what was, essentially, a corporate-backed invading force, particularly when the Corps put their support behind political groups more willing to defend their interests.

Some would call this the first strike in the corporate cold war against public power, but the reality was that a culture of special interest groups and paid lobbyists had wormed its way firmly into the political system beginning a decade earlier. When foreign powers attempted to codemn the bold power grabs of the Corps, they found their financing dry up completely and a number of formerly trusted political allies suddenly decide to side with the Corps "for the good of economic growth; for jobs and the national dream."

The mercenary security units of the Corps were not only accepted but began to be hired and deployed by world states with a dearth of their own forces but a glut of wealth.

Is it the story of Fever, the cabin-fever-like madness that eventually comes to haunt every civilian over a certain age and can only be controlled with the regular vitameds perscribed by 'Do med staff. Once the first hints of Fever set in, it lingers just on the edge of the victims' minds for the rest of their lives. The name for it was derived from the idea of "Cabin Fever", or the odd kind of anxiety that can afflict those who spend

inordinantly large amounts of time shut up inside. As the population of the Core spent its entire life shut up inside, it was of little surprise that they had come down with such a malady. Instances of more traditional conditions like gastro-intestinal bugs and influenza had been curbed by the rigorous filtering and scrubbing routines built into the ventilation systems of the MegaDos, by extensive use of antimicrobial layers in all of the construction materials. However, all of these controls couldn't curb the rise of Fever, leading the researchers who still had an independent voice to conclude that it was not something that was transmitted, but rather something that was endemic to the life of a MegaDo dweller.

At one point it was thought that it may have been caused by a lack of exposure to sunlight.

Some suggested that perhaps the solution was to re-evaluate the way that people lived, shut up in MegaDos, that perhaps there should be some system where residents were cycled up and down through the layers that actually had access to natural sunlight. Passable sunlight replicators had been built into the Vidnows and sunstrips that ringed the outer walls of each layer, but perhaps this wasn't enough. A solution was divised whereby all of the internal lighting fixtures would be retrofitted to also contain sunlight synths, and the new design was rolled out to all of the MegaDos through considerable expense and time expenditure.

The retrofit made no difference. Fever remained.

Such criticisms were always defused with a strawman argument: with some official energetically demanding whether the individual who had spoken up meant to imply that the population of the 'Dos should turn back to The Wild.

The story of how The Core lost touch with the rest of the world. The Corps only made superficial attempts to explain it, and then said nothing of it any more.

The story of the nutrient mash. The story of how it was discovered that the best way to feed the 'Dos was not via shipments of meat and produce from the Farms but via a hyper-rich nutrient mash derrived from algae. Layers for farming algae were far easier to incorporate into the existing hierarchy of the 'Do than were farms for actual animals or plants. Better still, the particular strain of organism chosen to farm didn't require true sunlight to flourish and could be grown under synthetic sun.

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Still behind on wordcount, but still ahead on good time with good friends, so hopefully that means we're breaking even; hopefully Sunday's planned writeathon will make everything as right as rain.

Sorry for not having more to show for today, but I hope I partially made up for it by wandering all the points of the map today: trying to get started on big ol plot holes that need to be sorted out. That being said, they're only just starts, so they're not much.

Damn. Even my reflections are pedestrian. Time to turn in, clearly.

Be well. Fight for dreams. Seek out Shane Kocyzan and his Short Story Long.