Michael Brachman's Blog: Tales of the Vuduri, page 168

Rei's first taste of Vuduri food

(This is part of the continuing series about the design of Skyler Base)

In Rome's Revolution, Rome takes Rei to the food preparation area to enjoy a brief meal in the Center Court.

This scene was meant to demonstrate several things. Rei's brain was slowly waking up and through his interview with Rome, he discovered that the differences between their societies was not just a technological or philosophical one. The 24-chromosomes within their blood made them beholden to the Overmind and it changed group dynamics making them fundamentally different.

This is when it truly hit Rei that the Vuduri were a different species. Their distancing themselves from art, music, being social, even joy made them colorless and devalued the individual to the point where any of them were almost completely replaceable. Their food was simply a reflection of this.

Except for the fact that people had to eat, the entire experience set Rei back. The first thing he ordered was some soup and it was tasteless and he discovered the Vuduri no longer used spoons.

His next attempt at eating were protein blocks which reminded Rei of soggy, styrofoam chunks. They had virtually no taste. It was here he discovered the Vuduri no longer use forks or knives. Instead they used long toothpicks call biskars to stab at their food.

The Vuduri didn't even consider it food. They just thought of it as sustenance. Given that context, Rei found the meal was satisfying, if not tasty. He used the opportunity to interview Rome and find out what happened to Vuduri society.

The Center Court

(This is part of the continuing series about the design of Skyler Base)

In Rome's Revolution, after Rei leaves the isolation chamber and walks down the south corridor, he and Rome enter the center courtyard. Because the starbase was originally built using a tentpole and mylar sheath, the whole thing is pyramidal and the top of the ceiling in the center is very high.

I believe the Vuduri removed the top section and put in some sort of translucent or transparent panels but I cannot be sure. Nor can I be sure why they did it in the first place. I can only tell you that my recollection of the place was that it had some windows. Perhaps since all Vuduri cities have "The Tower" this was an attempt to approximate some of its functionality.

What was the purpose of the center court? You will see the annular layout of Skyler Base makes it difficult to build useful extensions of the rings in this tight. And also the standard Vuduri design always has a focus of attention in the middle. As such, it was only natural at Skyler Base. The open section in the middle was fairly spacious. It had two main areas. The first was the food preparation area where they had a fairly elaborate bank of food synthesizers.

The other side of the courtyard was seating areas. The Vuduri are not very social creatures so most of the tables were designed for one person, two at the most. There were a few four-man and six-man tables but those would have been for meal-time meetings, not a bunch of friends.

Rei's first exposure to Vuduri food was at the synthesizer station. His introduction was less than auspicious. I will cover that in more detail tomorrow.

Skyler Base: Rei's apartment

(This is part of the continuing series about the design of Skyler Base)

In the original long form version of Rome's Revolution, Rei was given quarters while the Vuduri finished up their packing. When he asked Rome why they had spare apartments in space (after all, who was going to drop by?), she told him it was the room for a crewman who had been killed.

In the modern version, I actually stole one of the excised attempts on Rei's life to create the backstory as to why there was a spare apartment. I'll give you that scene in a future post. In the current version, I even gave the crewman who was killed a name: Calum.

Anyway, here is a picture of Rei's apartment (you can click on the picture to see a full-sized image):
 
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There are several oddities about this image which were downplayed in the original long-form and eliminated in the modern version.

First, why doors? This is covered in Rome's Revolution as Rei and Rome are headed back to Earth. Next, why is there a sitting area with a place for multiple humans when the Vuduri never socialize? This was touched on briefly in the original long-form. Next, why do they have dressers when the only thing they ever wear are jumpsuits? Same goes for the nightstand. Why bother?

Finally, there is the refresher, aka bathroom, covered in an earlier post. At least this thing has a reason to exist but I put a door on it. Why?

The answer is very simple. None of these things are important but when I "choreograph" a scene, I have to know where things are so people can move in a fluid manner and not bump into things. So this isn't really Rei's apartment, just a prop. Rei's real apartment hasn't been built yet. You will have to wait 14 centuries to see the real thing ;)

Skyler Base: Why rings?

(This is part of the continuing series about the design of Skyler Base)

The answer is: that's the way the Vuduri build things. This is seen numerous times in Rome's Revolution, The Ark Lords and Rome's Evolution. The Vuduri decided that the circle is the optimal geometric shape so all their cities are circular rings. It is only natural that they build their base in this way as well.

There are two main corridors going north-south and two minor corridors situated diagonally. The idea is it should take you the least amount of time to get there from here. You can see the basic layout here:




In Rome's Revolution, when Rei first awakened, he peered out of the bulkhead and tried to look up and down the corridors. He could not see very far because they curved around. When he first saw Rome, when she walked away, she disappeared down one of the corridors very quickly. As you will recall, when they released Rei, Rome took him down that corridor, past all of the rings, to the central corridor.

Tomorrow: Rei's apartment.

Rei's Isolation Chamber

(This is part of the continuing series about the design of Skyler Base)

When Rei is first awakened in Rome's Revolution, the Vuduri are not positive that he isn't harboring disease or worse. After all, the Essessoni were responsible for the near-extinction of the human race because of an artificial virus (explained in The Ark Lords). So their solution was to isolate Rei in one of the airlocks which was part of Skyler Base on Dara. Here is a picture of the room (you can click on it to see a full-sized image):
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From the image you can see that the room is fairly large. It is not only an airlock but a locker room where the Vuduri get dressed or undressed to go outside or into space. Normally, there is not a sarcophagus in the way so if the Vuduri want to go outside (having already dressed), they simply open the inner airlock door, enter the chamber, then lock the door and evacuate the room and exit by the door shown on the bottom.

There are lockers on the right and benches if they need to dress. The interior of the starbase is on the top side. The rectangle labeled "Airlock to Base" is the bulkhead where Rei first set eyes on Rome. The wall labeled "Monitoring Equipment" is the display panels and grille where Rei first encountered OMCOM. This is also the chamber where Rei almost met an early demise at the hands of Estar but luckily his wits and reflexes saved him.

Tomorrow: Rei's home away from home - the "apartment" Rei was assigned during his time at the base.

Into the corridor

In the original long-form of Rome's Revolution, Rei was escorted out of the airlock turned isolation chamber (which will be covered tomorrow) and into the corridor by some Vuduri guards. In the current form, Rei is escorted out by Rome.

So what did Rei see? Why are there corridors at all? The concentric circle design (again in a future post) was the Vuduri idea of perfection but do they really need ceilings? I am guessing they did. At least in their rooms. They sleep to and there is constant activity within the starbase.

The next question do the corridors look industrial, with spars and crossbeams or more like a conventional hotel? The answer is because they are made of aerogel, they are actually smooth and rounded like large tunnels. Think Star Trek but smoother and no panels.

As I mentioned the other day, their corridors, tunnels (and in fact all their rooms) exhibit electroluminescence so there is no discrete source of illumination. The tunnels are high, maybe 10 foot at the top and curve around so you can never see very far in either direction. In fact, if you were blind-folded and dropped in a corridor somewhere, you wouldn't know where you were without additional information.

My hope was this draws a very futuristic picture and when the movie gets made, the set design should be very easy.

Tomorrow: Rei's iso chamber.

Aerogel

You've heard me mention aerogel numerous times throughout all the books in the Rome's Revolution series. A previous post covered Sklyer Base initial construction with aerogel. So what the heck is it?

Aerogel is very real. Here is a basic description courtesy of Aerogel.org.

What, you may ask, is aerogel? Aerogels are the world's lightest solid materials, composed of up to 99.98% air by volume. Aerogels are a diverse class of amazing materials with properties unlike anything else. Transparent superinsulating silica aerogels exhibit the lowest thermal conductivity of any solid known. Ultrahigh surface area carbon aerogels power today's fast-charging supercapacitors. And ultrastrong, bendable x-aerogels are the lowest-density structural materials ever developed.

Welcome to Aerogel.org. Here you will find an encyclopedic reference about aerogels, how-to guides for making aerogels and building a do-it-yourself supercritical dryer, the world's most comprehensive aerogel image gallery, a podcast with the world's leading aerogel scientists, and more.

Aerogel's not just for NASA anymore. Welcome to open-source nanotech.

So the bottom line is it is a very light, very strong material which can be made from silica, polymers and many other substances. Because of its nearly perfect structure, it is great for building a structure which is light weight and airtight.

Oh, yeah, my version of the Vuduri aerogel is also an electro-capacitor and exhibits electroluminescence which means it glows when a charge is put through it. On Skyler Base, it glows white. On Helome, they decided to make it glow blue but then the Vuduri on Helome always were a little different.

So, let's step into the corridor of Skyler Base, made of aerogel and see what we can see.

The Blog turns 200!

Wow and wow. Yesterday was my 200th post on this blog and I still haven't even scratched the surface!

As I mentioned in my previous milestone post, I have been working on the world of the Vuduri since 1973... that's 40 years. So the pile of back stories and information that didn't make it into the books is undented. Looking ahead, I think I have probably another year or two of blog entries before I make it through Rome's Revolution alone!

This continues to be fun and stimulating so right now I do not plan to stop. Thanks for reading and stay tuned.

Mike

Skyler Base: Basic Construction

You can see from this picture the basic organization of Skyler Base but it tells you nothing about its construction:

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When the Vuduri first arrived, they used their pressure suits to uncrate the tugs, split the cargo containers and created the egress to the Algol as well as the tug hangars. The final piece was the placeholder for the stellar cartography lab.

When this was complete, they marched to what was to be the very center of the base and erected a huge tentpole. They draped a mylar-like substance from the top and attached it to each of the four half-cylinders then pinned the corners. They used aerogel generators to coat the mylar and create the basic pyramidal structure of the Base.

Finally, they brought out the hangar doors from another cargo section and sealed off any other openings. At this point, they had a structure where they could start moving equipment. After they established the power plant and molecular sequencers, the actual internal construction began.

Tomorrow: aerogel. What the heck is it?

Skyler Base: A new series

Skyler Base, located on the moon Dara, is the main focus of the action in Rome's Revolution. The base, also called a starbase (since it was created as a stellar observatory), sits on a moon orbiting Skyler's World (originally called Schuyler's World) which in turns orbits Tabit. I pretended that Rei called it Pi3 Orionis but in Rome's Evolution, we find out Rei does call it Tabit as well.

The base was built from the ground up using a combination of aerogel generators as well as the molecular synthesizers augmented by equipment and supplies transported there aboard the Algol. Here is a picture of the base (you can click on the image to see a much larger copy):

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The base is strictly utilitarian and built upon the only design the Vuduri ever use: concentric circles. It would never occur to them to deviate from that plan although the Vuduri on Deucado build Vuduri City resembling a Star of David in The Ark Lords. We also learned that the Vuduri on Helome deviated from the plan slightly but not in any significant way.

In this series, I will review the features of the base that may or may not have been explained or even introduced in the current version of Rome's Revolution.