Sigilian Docks: PVD briefing

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NeverOutPunned
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Posted by NeverOutPunned »


*As one would expect when the committee was formed in the manner that it was, nothing was going to happen quickly, even if some had decidedly different areas of interest in regards to the project. The representative from the godsmen had received very little guidance from the bulk of their faction about what their greater interest was aside from the obvious industrial concerns, thus, Zharixious was perusing their own interest in the project. While well known as a weaponsmith, their area of expertise wasn't blacksmithing or stonecutting, it was fleshshaping and the wider topic of biological engineering. This time, their interest had gone far beyond macro scale weapons-platforms and into ecological manipulation. The believers of the source weren't widely known for "cleaning up" pollution, but if she got her way, they might be in the future. To that end, one of their "internal design documents", a suspiciously broad overview was "leaked" back into the wider believers of the source, and then probably elsewhere.*

Project Verdant Dawn

The construction of the sigilian spelljammer docks provides unique challenges, its a feat of macro-engineering on a scale most primes simply can't afford and it will be the focus point of both personal, mechanical and magical traffic moving through one of the most polluted and least equipped regions to support the infrastructure required to support the various initiatives required to centralize spelljammer traffic. Flatly, this project is bigger then any single faction or group would like to recognize as it spans and extends the centralized governance of sigil into many realms which it previously outsourced to other places on the ring, skeleton rigged dry-docks or on the other side of a portal. As necessary as this development is, there is not enough funds or materials available to the project to make this project successful using the “usual” construction methods and environmental management systems. I, for one, have no desire to be responsible for the fast or slow massacre that would result from a unmanaged “spine” style dock.

Yet, we have no need to use the usual methods, both the talents and more exotic materials required to make something better are available to the city of doors. We need to stop thinking of the dock as something to be slapped down someplace in the “skyline” and simply block the acid rains, this is the chance to engineer a ecosystem, and it starts with engineering the biosphere that will be at the heart of it. I propose a synthetic triumvirate intelligence for maximum stability and adaptability, interconnected, but distinct. The first intelligence shall be charged with the functionality and environmental maintenance of the docks and its immediate vicinity, modified creeper vines for moving, holding and assembling objects as required. Filtration, surfacing and temporary infrastructures can be performed by mosses. Certain volcanic trees and bushes can be modified to filter and concentrate environmental toxins and particulate matter into “fruits”, which can be sold, used or removed from sigil as waste depending on their affinity. The second intelligence will be charged with supporting and supplying the first and third intelligence with biomatter and maintaining ground level environmental conditions. While the docks might or might not be anchored to the ground, borer tendrils can collect recycled biomass, hives of supplementary forms and ammunition from a distance, with nexus of operation able to be integrated into the superstructure or on the “ground”. Recycling pools for both solids and liquids could be hosted in separate nodes and could potentially be routed to supply recycled water and unneeded biomass in the form of palatable fruits to the local population. Repulsing, containing or eliminating invasive species and biological threats will be a shared task between the second and third intelligence. Razervine especially might be a concern, its property make it incomparable with most other plantlife and it is notoriously hazardous to experiment or interact with. As such, it will be repulsed from nodes and the structure, but not designated as hostile.

The third intelligence and the forms under its domain are still a work in progress, both due to the complexity of its main task and the eventual role the docks will play in the greater sigilian environment. It is intended as the defensive intelligence, identifying threats to the dock, the greater biosphere and its intended users. While setting its exact priority and encoding its laws will be a challenge to be tackled once more information is established, weapons and combat forms will be far more dynamic and feasible then manned weapon emplacements and local defense vessels alone. Toxic spore projection, soporific gas emissions and acidic sprays should be able to handle infantry infantry along with more exotic (elementally aligned) emplacements will be required for infantry scale constructs and magically hardened invaders. Mancatcher vine colonies and volatile emission ampules can be launched over long distances to disable and bring down civilian spelljammers intact and entangle large threats or simply act as active area denial. While it will most certainly to be changed as experimentation and the engineering process move further a combination of defensive means seems optimal. Large scale “thorn” throwers, hosting sub-munitions seems to be the optimal weapon for long distance realmspace control against hardened and or military vessels while specialized borer tendrils, distributed among ground based nodes and on the docks would perform excellently against large threats closing to medium or short range.

My experiments in red sigil and later, in hive ward indicate that while it is possible to produce fruit and integrate sensitive animals into the service, either directly or loosely to such a intelligence, it is not wise to attempt such at this stage. Hive ward and low sigil atmosphere is far too heavily contaminated at this time and while arguably better then starving, the toxins leached into product would necessitate external countermeasures to prevent buildup in the local population or the integrated lifeforms. Once the area is partially leached of existing buildup by the other mechanisms, these options could be revisited.

While clearly not the typical method, and somewhat atypical to most species, a multivector approach to operating in sigil's classically inclement “climate” and taming its dangers, the large, elevated structure makes the optimal starting point for environmental control. Hopefully, the mechanisms and tools provided will enable the intelligence to expand their efforts over time, eventually cleaning the local atmosphere to the point of precipitation “downwind” from the platforms will be more liquid then otherwise.
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mimifearthegn
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Posted by mimifearthegn »


Zharixious' peers in the Godsmen showed great interest in the plans. It was ambitious. Designing with plants and animals in Sigil, after the manner of the elves on the primes? Could it be done? It was a matter of debate.

"What I don't understand. . " piped up one Godswoman, a Factotum by the name of Eluned, "Is how you are planning to get anything to grow except for razorvine on such a scale. What creatures are you planning to use for these. . . intelligences? And how will you convince them to do what you want?"
NeverOutPunned
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Posted by NeverOutPunned »


Thats a bit of a complicated answer, isn't it? Sigil doesn't have much nutrition, but it does have a good deal of heat and moisture, making it equivalent to a “jungle” environment, if not somewhat harsher and with a pre-existing and hostile species. Thus, I'm going to be using some invasive species myself in the design but the first issue is logistics and that I'm going to address by transplanting the second network and rending pools first. They smell awful, but that can be accounted for and sigil isn't lacking for biomass in a more general sense. I'm sure the prospect of sustainable and sanitary waste disposal is going to be a boon for the public relations side. This, along with atmospheric filtration should provide sufficient nutrition for the forms.

Asfor the intelligence, I am somewhat spoiled for choice on the matter. Most magically saturated forest have at-least one creature or plant which manages or assist the plantlife, and is supported by them, but oncemore, the jungles provide the best answers to the question with several variants ranging from predatory vines and mantrap trees up to native generated spirits and invasive networks. Asfor getting them to do as I want is part of the reason I'm using three instead of one. They require eachother to survive and I have the ability to implant mission objectives into their consciousness on the level of concepts. Thus, the chances of rampancy or undesired adaptation are reduced and can be curtailed... I'm going to have to account for a sign language tutor as part of the construction crew.
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