Journey to Europa

MindRover Backstory

 

To:<> kellyt@green.greed.com
From: pat@asylum.europa.moon
Date: 23 May 2027, 18:32 UT
Subject: I made it!

Kelly:

I'm here and I'm alive! After two months in an artificial coma (keeps the food consumption down on the long flight out here), I made planetfall several hours ago. It's incredible. Right now I'm sitting in the place we call The Canopy. It feels like I'm on top of the world.

Which, of course, is better than sitting under the thumb of the Mother Company. How is Galactic Research, Environmental Engineering & Development treating you these days?

I'm writing this while sitting in a glass dome on top of our research station. This used to be the command console. From here I can look out across the ship and see the icy, dirty plains of Europa curving away from me. This is definitely a small planet -- the horizon is only a couple of klicks away. The stars are unbelievable. Lack of atmosphere helps. :-)

Hanging oh-so-heavily in the black sky in front of me is Jupiter. You can't imagine how huge it looks. It feels like it covers half the sky! Because Europa is tidally locked to Jupiter, it never moves. Thank goodness it's not hanging overhead -- I don't think I could bear to look at it for long if it were.

I've got my own room. Kind of a shocking waste of space, really. But the station was designed to hold more than twenty people, and as you'll recall, there are only six of us here right now. As the "newbie", I've been informed, I get to cook two days a week; everybody else only cooks one. But that only lasts a month, when the next newbie arrives and the "senior" goes home.

Everybody was there to meet me when I came in the airlock. Though they were all very nice to me, I suspect they were more interested in the "care packages" I brought in the mail pouch. In all the flurry of getting settled, I didn't really do much more than get names. I'll tell you more next message.

There are some amazing technologies out here. We've got these amazingly cool holographic display systems. Right now I'm looking at detailed 3D models of some of the Rovers they've built. I can't believe the variety and sheer number.

TTYL

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<>To: kellyt@green.greed.com
From: pat@asylum.europa.moon
Date: 24 May 2027, 22:14 UT
Subject: This will be interesting.

Hey, Kelly:

The first couple of days have been a bit of a whirlwind, but very exciting. My room is just beginning to get a little character as my stuff creeps across the walls and floor. Nobody ever accused me of being tidy. <smirk> I've also begun to glean a little history of the place.

Ten years ago, this station was a spaceship. They built it in earth orbit, and flew it out here. They built a platform for it on the surface and docked it. They claim they can fly it out of here in an emergency, but I have my doubts. Everything's been converted and adapted and painted and changed.

I've gotten a chance to tour the entire station in between training sessions for my assignment here. This place is really amazing. There's a great lab with all these huge windows and skylights. There are even a couple of passageways that are glass on three sides! I got a touch of vertigo the first time I walked through one and paused to be dazzled by the views. Luckily, I didn't lose my lunch! That never makes a good impression, does it? :-)

The folks here are pretty engaging, even when I'm not bearing gifts. I've spent a little time with nearly everyone now, getting introduced to the various station features and my duties. They seem like a clever but mellow group. I'm sure that down time will be fun with these colleagues. Maybe my winning smile and scintillating personality will serve me after all, to say nothing of my innate and irresistible charm. <hehe> Must've forgotten to pack my modesty...

The only thing I don't quite understand yet is a little something I ran across while perusing the Rover databases. I mentioned in my first email that there's a vast variety and number of them. What I hadn't yet realized was that there are some funny things about the specs for these things. Lots of them are TEENY. They're way too small to ever go out on the surface (ostensibly the reason that most of them exist, after all) and they're clearly not built to be station maintenance robots.

Get this: some of them are bristling with weapons! Others look like tiny race-cars. They're plastered with sensors for light, heat, object collision; you name it. It's weird. My curiosity gland's running overtime. I'll have to do a little creative "research."

Gotta hit the sack. I'm supposed to cook breakfast in the morning. Ouch.

TTYL

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<>To: kellyt@green.greed.com
From: pat@asylum.europa.moon
Date: 7 June 2027, 06:36 UT
Subject: I'm not dead yet!

Kelly:

Sorry about the correspondence lag. No, I haven't frozen into a superconductor. I've just been swamped and spending a lot of time getting to know my fellow "inmates" of Asylum Station. I've also spent a fair amount of time learning about the station and those odd Rovers I ran across.

I was working out in the gym a day or two after my last message (low-G workouts are, um, interesting). Selene was also in the gym lifting weights, so I decided to ask her about the odd Rovers. She's a scientist who figures out the potential applications of the core samples we take. She laughed and said that she was surprised nobody had filled me in yet. Apparently, these folks play games with them!

She said that the first occupants of the station started to go a little stir crazy. One day, these two guys built a couple of tiny Rovers and started racing them all over the station. Some people were annoyed when their feet were run over; some thought it was a waste of time. But a lot of them were intrigued. Faster than you can say "Ganymede," people were building miniature Rovers and racing them.

I guess blowing each other apart was the second wave. Do people ever tire of blasting things into oblivion? Trick question. ;-) Rovers sprouted turrets and creative weapons and started programming defensive strategies. According to the logs I read, competition became pretty fierce. Before long, everyone on the station was thinking up new angles. They finally decided it needed a name: MindRover.

Selene also said that as new people joined in, MindRover changed and grew. Everyone had contributions that shaped the game. The sports fans, tired of their meagre diet of delayed replays, started their own. Someone had a thing for treasure hunts and created a bunch of them. Mazes became a favorite and people started trying to figure out what kind of logic to use to solve them.

Anyway, I've got to go. I scheduled some time to try it out this morning, before breakfast. Hope all's well Earthside.

TTYL

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To: kellyt@green.greed.com
From: pat@asylum.europa.moon
Date: 12 June 2027, 20:58 UT
Subject: This is actually FUN!

Hiya, Kelly:

Well, you'll be impressed to know that I've nearly doubled the weights in my lifting regimen; low-G helps a bit. <grin> You've just got to be careful not to try to move them too quickly -- they still have the same mass!

I hadn't realized before how many other stations like this one are out here. A lot of companies other than GREED put outposts here. Funny, you don't hear much about them offworld. I knew GREED had a couple, but there's quite a few of 'em here. And what do you know: they ALL play MindRover! It's like a cult. They submit their specs to a pre-determined computer and they compete. I'd say it's bizarre but I've been indoctrinated into this subculture.

Anyway, once you get into it, there's no going back. I personally have become rather addicted. I started wondering why nobody knows about this Earthside, so I asked Kelvin what the deal was. He patiently pointed out to me that if these companies knew about the game, they'd probably shut it down. Granted, most of the broken or obsolete models get recycled and very little stuff is actually lost, but the vast majority of material overhead goes into these little guys instead of the big Rovers that are doing the work. (Hint -- keep this under your hat!)

Work's settled into a comfortable, if not exciting, groove. I spend some time in the game room or the garden section of hydroponics, though I must confess, most of my free time is NOT spent watching recycled vids. I've been building diminutive Rovers like a lunatic. (Get it? I'm on Europa... Never mind.) <sheepish grin>

The food's pretty good, depending on who's cooking. Jax tends to burn everything but I hear charcoal is good for your digestion. All the associated carcinogens probably aren't, but who wants to live forever?

I've gotten used to that gigantic red ball hanging over us all the time. I've come to appreciate Jupiter's beauty. Probably rationalization in action. Since I can't afford to fear it, I must come to love it. Blah, blah, blah. Pardon me while I wax philosophical.

Ohmigosh! Look at the time! Tonight's big match is gonna start in a couple of minutes. I've been studying hordes of old specs and I've come up with a really sneaky twist on a standard config. Catch you later.

<>TTYL

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