Saviors(working title) post 1

We were trying to save the world.

Forward:

The democratization of everything. Information. Media. Government. We believed that when given enough information, people would naturally make the right choices. In some cases, it worked. Pharmaceutical companies had to compete with home based bio hackers. Prices fell, quality and ingenuity went up. There was real competition, not lobbyists pandering to their government whores.

In other cases it was a shit show. With new innovations came new problems. We always heard the phrase, “unknown unknowns.” In other words, you don’t know what you don’t know. We thought we knew what it meant. We thought we had thought through our plans enough. In the end, we learned how important those unknowns can become. Even with something innocuous, the repercussions can be overwhelming.

We called ourselves makers.

We wanted to make the world a better place.

We destroyed it.

1.

It was a Wednesday. I don’t know if it actually was, but it makes me feel better to put a day to the event. At the time, nobody foresaw what would happen. It was just another breakthrough. A major one, granted, but still just a breakthrough.

A research team out of Australia had been working for years on extracting magma directly for digital fabrication. In other words, 3d printing, but instead of using plastic filament, they were using raw materials from the core of the earth.

When they announced their project, we all chuckled and thought ”man that would be cool.” Direct access to untold amount of iron, titanium, aluminum, etc. It was the dream. It could be processed into ingots and used in traditional manufacturing processes, but with the advances in 3d printing with individual atoms, the scope became so much larger. As the printers became faster, larger, and more capable, the face of manufacturing would change.

When the day came, we were stunned. They had done it. We also started to see how expensive it would be for anyone to replicate their results alone.

Where we were limited by raw materials on the surface, relatively speaking, there was an almost endless supply that we had never been able to tap. The team was trying to open the gates. After a decade, they did. They also open-sourced all of the research and information that they had gathered. It was free to anyone who had the money, time and skill to duplicate it.

At first only the large corporations and universities pursued replicating the technology. The average maker could only dream about the printers or extractors. Some people even went back to school for another degree to gain access.

As more people put their eyes on it, changes happened. People found ways to make it simpler, cheaper, easier. It would never be cheap, but they managed to get it into the realm of possibility for smaller groups of makers to pool their resources and build up the infrastructure.

A decade after the first dissemination of information, we were decentralized and making.

I still remember the day that our extractor came online. It was a Wednesday as well. We finished plugging all the parts together. Checking and double checking the code. Making sure all the fittings and insulation were tight. One leak or major malfunction could end our dreams, if not our lives.

Our hackerspace was in an old warehouse. It wasn’t pretty, and barely had a roof. It had walls, and more importantly, lots of power. The windows were still intact, and blacked out. Prying eyes weren’t a huge concern.

Part of the innovation was a smallish sonic drilling rig no bigger than a fullsize pickup truck. It didn’t need to be large as the vibration was the magical part of the recipe. The vibration was setup in such a way that it would essentially make a fluidized solid of the debris it was drilling through. The fluidized powder also had relatively low friction, as long as we didn’t stop the vibration.

It could load 10 foot drill rods made of refractory metals. It would take 528 rods to drill a mile. We had to go at least 5 miles, maybe more.

After months of drilling, we made it through. 8.5 miles deep and we were into the mantel. We were ready to hook up the pump, connect our processing station, and turn it on.

“We ready for this?” I asked.

A few nervous grunts returned. It was as good as could be hoped for under the circumstances. In the recent years, 3 groups had failed to get their extractors running properly. Two groups had component failures that destroyed the extractor pump. One group ended up with a leak and spilled magma across their work space. The latter group all died in the resulting fire and lava flow. We all knew the risks, but it was still a moral shaking day for the movement.

“Hit it.”

The emergency stop was disengaged. The pulsing green power button was pressed and grew to a solid glow. The only sound was that of a small fan cooling the cpu on the control computer.

After a minuter that stretched eternity, a low throbbing began in the machine. It sounded like the bass beat from a rave buried a hundred feet underground. No treble to be heard, this machine was all about that bass.

The status window showed all green. No errors or issues. Now it was just a waiting game. Imagine sucking molasses through a 100 foot straw. That was essentially equivalent, in a very non-scientific way. It’s probably a good enough analogie to visualize the slow and painstaking process.

Eventually a slow snake of magma started to emerge from the extractor outlet. It wasn’t fast, but it would be enough.

We had a large crucible stationed under the outlet. As it slowly filled, we let out a collective breath. It was working. After a few more hours of extraction we started the shutdown procedure. This involved back purging the suction line. If any of the magma cooled and hardened in the line, we would have to drill a new hole. A process which we had neither the time, money, nor inclination to take on.

After an hour the line was purged and the machine was shut down. We were all exhausted and horribly excited. We left to get some food and speak in hushed tones about our dreams for the future and the miracles we would unleash upon the world. How we would change it. How we would make it better.

Looking back now, I guess even accomplishing one out of two didn’t look so bad.