Itty Bitty Bigger World: Construction
Dec. 16th, 2014 02:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyItty Bitty Bigger World
Construction
[Ten years prior]
As a minor shareholder in San San Arcology, I'd been invited to attend an Engineering Feat. The stated goal of the construction cadre was to construct an entire city in one day. A larger than usual percentage of news media was also present, and even a representative from Guinness Book of World Records.
The construction site had been successfully reclaimed from the Guadalupe Dump in far southern San Jose. Bots had worked tirelessly for years to separate out recyclable items (basically everything we had once considered trash), responsibly process biologicals, remove heavy metals contamination, resolve hazardous materials issues and restore the site to bare earth. The final survey, modeled on "leave no trace" sampling procedures with a sample size of 100%, had completed last week.
The community, to be named Guadalupe Gardens for various historical reasons, had been crowdsource designed. Within the vision of the architect -- a re-creation of Babylonian-style "hanging gardens" from the walls of a stepped ziggurat -- hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world had designed everything from the water fountains to the slidewalks to fit the theme, with weighted voting based on actual time in participation.
I'd even dabbled a bit. I'd flirted with getting my own residence within, but settled for having a strong influence over the single occupancy housing suites, which were three times as many as notionally planned.
The temporary bleachers had been poured yesterday, above the planned capsuleway from what had once been named Camden Avenue. The bleachers had covered and open viewing areas, sanitary facilities, restaurants, privacy rooms, break rooms, public food dispensers, a few sales kiosks (mostly touting various sub-projects in the Gardens) and landing platforms for flyers. Quite basic really - the kind of thing one expected at any large public event.
Wearing my reservist hat, I used my ware to briefly check bot coverage. Eighteen police bots, twelve medic bots, four fire bots, and one each on-duty San Jose Police, San Jose Fire and Valley EMS. Reservist density in the crowd was also a good 30% above normal, although I had no reason to break privacy and get an actual count. Substantial over-coverage for a crowd of only ten thousand.
I sipped from the (fully recyclable, self-heating) coffee cup as I watched the first shafts of dawn rise in the East.
The bots pounced.
To carry the proper emphasis, I should perhaps grab the reader by the ear, shake him a bit and shout loudly "I SAID, THE BOTS @#!$%#@ POUNCED!"
Several hundred construction bots, more than the eye could easily track, rushed into the bare area we were set up to view with a barely subsonic WHOOSH of displaced air.
CRACK! CRACK! Orbital laser time had been rented to dig out the major foundations. What the crowd saw was brief lines of intensely bright light, opaqued briefly for each shot by the rain shield. "Open viewing" does not mean actual rain on your face unless specially arranged - we're not barbarians.
Foam bots immediately began spraying foamcrete into the foundation holes. Structural bots placed truss members in the foamcrete even as it began to harden, held them until sensors indicated sufficient hardness, and then rushed back for the next prefab truss.
The bones of the structure -- the eighty story ziggurat stepped by stories to occupy the base, with a two hundred story view tower offset in one corner rooted in a convenient mountain -- were done within two hours.
After the initial bot rush, which I could not help but think of as a "zerg rush" (old video game, do a search if you're curious) and the orbital shots, the crowd started to disperse. People either had things to do or had gotten rapidly bored.
I don't bore easily. So I kept watching as the bots moved from initial construction phase to build-out phase.
This was the "fiddly bits." What we had was a well designed foamcrete stucture that would stand for at least ten thousand years (unless nuked or recycled sooner). What we did NOT have was details such as data and electrical cables, plumbing of water and septic and gases, air flow and handling systems, and all the appliances and accessories that would hook up to same.
More bots. Some of them were quite small -- a cable placement bot could fit in the palm of my hand, as it crawled through raceways dragging coils behind it. "Pigs" or plumbing bots were invisible as they worked in the pipes, extruding them around themselves as they went.
Agricultural bots were next, placing many tons of processed dirt and fertilizer and preseeded hypergrass, which grew even as we watched and obediently stopped growing at design length. Only about a third of plants were actually to be transplanted today; the rest would go in over the next few weeks, to spread out transplant shock.
The hard limit on what can be sped up is biological. The thought-speed of the engineering team, backed up by crowdsourced observers, was the true limit on construction. The key members of the hundred-strong team were mostly physically present in the workspace below.
My smartware paged.
"Life safety alert, medical emergency, Guadalupe Gardens gazebo, work space level two."
I discovered that I was already running for a hatch marked "EMER SLIDE," which I had mentally noted earlier. My ware fed me information on the person down as I ran. I considered it as I slid on the suddenly wet slide, down six levels to the workspace.
Eighty year old male, significant neural augments and implants, prior stroke history, currently experiencing complex CVA. Pulse 130, blood pressure 100 over 40 and widening.
The CT scan provided by his augments read ... Shit. Aneurysm. About to blow.
I landed from the slide on the edge of a crowd. They seemed to be doing some sort of exotic dance routine, waving their arms, waggling their fingers, and flicking their glance in all directions.
The construction crew. The people actually coordinating all these bots.
I subvocalized as I ran towards the patient, "Emergency traffic. Extreme measures, antistun field engage. On site surgical STAT. New traffic, new incident. Life safety alert, complex process interrupt, establish California Search & Rescue for industrial emergency. Need Incident Command for process interrupt."
The patient had been one of the key construction controllers. Dressed in a wizard's robe complete with pointy hat and a now-fallen cane, he'd played a pivotal role in coordination. He'd overridden medical warnings telling him to stop, rest, seek medical attention. His role was important and this was a project he'd worked months if not years on. He was not going to stop working just because some ware didn't like his heart rate. He was used to making his failing body obey his will.
Not today.
One of the people dancing stopped cold, stared _hard_ at me, and an icon lit over their head. "INCIDENT COMMAND - GUADALUPE GARDENS INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT" They then resumed dancing, frantically, and the entire tenor and tone changed. If they had been dancing a complex ballet, they were now running a particularly rough mosh pit, with three different DJs who couldn't hear each other.
The bots working outside slowed to a stop, the exact opposite of the construction controllers. A couple ran into each other and promptly exploded. The crowd gasped and the construction area arrested all of their attention.
It took up none of mine. Keeping this biological failure from cascading into a construction failure was NOT my problem. I'd called for help, much as an untrained person would call for help upon discovering something way beyond their ability to handle.
But a CVA? That was my baby, mine to handle, as I flicked out a knife from my backpack and immediately cut the victim's throat with a one-two slash, either side of the carotid arteries. Fortunately for both of us, he'd already passed out while still standing.
I then followed up as he fell by lifting his bare legs and slashing again one-two, cutting the femoral arteries below the thighs.
His blood spilled all over the place, including me, as police bots rushed towards me and someone immediately, properly tried to stun me with a handheld.
My defense field held. They fired again and again, then ceased as a police bot interceded.
Apparently I had some really good reason for cutting the victim up like a butchered pig.
The remainder of my attention was on the continually updated CT scan graphic. The aneurysm was fading as the patient's blood pressure fell to zero.
Think of a tire about to blow -- a bubble forming, weaker and weaker as the air pushed on it.
What I had done, in utter desperation, was to let the air out of the tire to keep it from blowing wide open. Because unlike a tire, an aneurysm could not be patched in the field.
This caused all sorts of new problems, but these could be managed.
A medic bot quick-foamed the neck injuries before I could tell it to stop. That was fine, the BP was already 60 over 20 with estimated 70% exsanguination. But I put my hands over the femoral bleeds to keep the second medic bot from closing those wounds.
The frustrated medic bot rudely blatted at me, then spoke part of an automated message, "Step BACK from the..." before fading into a human voice saying, "Anderson, what the HELL?"
"Aneurysm, about to blow, deliberate exsanguination, need BP low pressure management and complex on site neurosurgery. It's a deep one."
"Neurosurgical arrival thirty seconds. ANLS activated. Rapid sequence intubation, 100% oxygen. Central line cutdown." At each phrase, the medic bots performed complex medical care. Fasten a cradle around the head and a spinal cord augment down the back. Spray something down the throat, shove in a tube, inflate the trachea anchor, flow gases. Open the torso, cut two incisions, run tubes to each.
I stepped back once the central line was established. The second medic bot pushed in and proceeded to repair the femoral arteries with direct laser surgery.
Several more bots, much larger, and two humans in surgical gowns strode into the scene. One of the bots was itself a hospital bed. I helped the bots lift the patient into the bed, which promptly folded out into a surgical suite. The humans went to work, ungloved, with an array of tools. Their focus was the head.
I put down the bloody knife. Then I held up my hands to coordinate the police bots in crowd control, reviewed the incident graphics to make sure something I hadn't notice wasn't about to hurt or kill me, and basically sank to my actual level of competence.
I really hoped he'd make it. Explaining to friends and relatives why I'd cut his throat would be... awkward.
Like an orchestra out of practice, the dancers got back in sync and rhythm. A firebot snuck around the construction bots, reached the crash site, and put out the small fire before retreating to a safe area. Recycling bots picked up the extra debris, and construction bots repaired the damage to the set. In twenty minutes, one would never have known that two bots collided at several hundred miles per hour and crashed.
The surgical team stopped, shook hands, and the surgical bot packaged itself to fit into a capsule and thereby transfer to an advanced facility. One surgeon went with the bot; the other approached me.
"Alan Anderson?"
"Yes, Doctor?"
"That was a crazy stunt. You should really go to medical school before attempting something that asinine. Good work. If you need a recommendation for medical school, let me know."
I didn't have the heart to tell him. I'd taken a year of medical studies before deciding that medicine was not for me. But I'd stuck with it long enough to get a paramedic certification, because saving lives WAS for me, and initial emergency medical care was a big part of that.
The crowd control problem abated as the surplus bots left. The incidents were now resolved.
On command, an overhead fire sprinkler sprayed me with pressurized water and I spun like a top. One last medic bot took a sample of the residue and departed back to its standby area.
I opened up my smartware and started a document.
"PARAMEDIC - PROTOCOL EXCEPTION REPORT. This document must be filed within one (1) hour of an action that exceeded the normal scope of care. 1) Briefly describe nature of action."
Now, how do I write, "I slit his throat" without sounding like I badly needed a civil intelligence hearing...?
Construction
[Ten years prior]
As a minor shareholder in San San Arcology, I'd been invited to attend an Engineering Feat. The stated goal of the construction cadre was to construct an entire city in one day. A larger than usual percentage of news media was also present, and even a representative from Guinness Book of World Records.
The construction site had been successfully reclaimed from the Guadalupe Dump in far southern San Jose. Bots had worked tirelessly for years to separate out recyclable items (basically everything we had once considered trash), responsibly process biologicals, remove heavy metals contamination, resolve hazardous materials issues and restore the site to bare earth. The final survey, modeled on "leave no trace" sampling procedures with a sample size of 100%, had completed last week.
The community, to be named Guadalupe Gardens for various historical reasons, had been crowdsource designed. Within the vision of the architect -- a re-creation of Babylonian-style "hanging gardens" from the walls of a stepped ziggurat -- hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world had designed everything from the water fountains to the slidewalks to fit the theme, with weighted voting based on actual time in participation.
I'd even dabbled a bit. I'd flirted with getting my own residence within, but settled for having a strong influence over the single occupancy housing suites, which were three times as many as notionally planned.
The temporary bleachers had been poured yesterday, above the planned capsuleway from what had once been named Camden Avenue. The bleachers had covered and open viewing areas, sanitary facilities, restaurants, privacy rooms, break rooms, public food dispensers, a few sales kiosks (mostly touting various sub-projects in the Gardens) and landing platforms for flyers. Quite basic really - the kind of thing one expected at any large public event.
Wearing my reservist hat, I used my ware to briefly check bot coverage. Eighteen police bots, twelve medic bots, four fire bots, and one each on-duty San Jose Police, San Jose Fire and Valley EMS. Reservist density in the crowd was also a good 30% above normal, although I had no reason to break privacy and get an actual count. Substantial over-coverage for a crowd of only ten thousand.
I sipped from the (fully recyclable, self-heating) coffee cup as I watched the first shafts of dawn rise in the East.
The bots pounced.
To carry the proper emphasis, I should perhaps grab the reader by the ear, shake him a bit and shout loudly "I SAID, THE BOTS @#!$%#@ POUNCED!"
Several hundred construction bots, more than the eye could easily track, rushed into the bare area we were set up to view with a barely subsonic WHOOSH of displaced air.
CRACK! CRACK! Orbital laser time had been rented to dig out the major foundations. What the crowd saw was brief lines of intensely bright light, opaqued briefly for each shot by the rain shield. "Open viewing" does not mean actual rain on your face unless specially arranged - we're not barbarians.
Foam bots immediately began spraying foamcrete into the foundation holes. Structural bots placed truss members in the foamcrete even as it began to harden, held them until sensors indicated sufficient hardness, and then rushed back for the next prefab truss.
The bones of the structure -- the eighty story ziggurat stepped by stories to occupy the base, with a two hundred story view tower offset in one corner rooted in a convenient mountain -- were done within two hours.
After the initial bot rush, which I could not help but think of as a "zerg rush" (old video game, do a search if you're curious) and the orbital shots, the crowd started to disperse. People either had things to do or had gotten rapidly bored.
I don't bore easily. So I kept watching as the bots moved from initial construction phase to build-out phase.
This was the "fiddly bits." What we had was a well designed foamcrete stucture that would stand for at least ten thousand years (unless nuked or recycled sooner). What we did NOT have was details such as data and electrical cables, plumbing of water and septic and gases, air flow and handling systems, and all the appliances and accessories that would hook up to same.
More bots. Some of them were quite small -- a cable placement bot could fit in the palm of my hand, as it crawled through raceways dragging coils behind it. "Pigs" or plumbing bots were invisible as they worked in the pipes, extruding them around themselves as they went.
Agricultural bots were next, placing many tons of processed dirt and fertilizer and preseeded hypergrass, which grew even as we watched and obediently stopped growing at design length. Only about a third of plants were actually to be transplanted today; the rest would go in over the next few weeks, to spread out transplant shock.
The hard limit on what can be sped up is biological. The thought-speed of the engineering team, backed up by crowdsourced observers, was the true limit on construction. The key members of the hundred-strong team were mostly physically present in the workspace below.
My smartware paged.
"Life safety alert, medical emergency, Guadalupe Gardens gazebo, work space level two."
I discovered that I was already running for a hatch marked "EMER SLIDE," which I had mentally noted earlier. My ware fed me information on the person down as I ran. I considered it as I slid on the suddenly wet slide, down six levels to the workspace.
Eighty year old male, significant neural augments and implants, prior stroke history, currently experiencing complex CVA. Pulse 130, blood pressure 100 over 40 and widening.
The CT scan provided by his augments read ... Shit. Aneurysm. About to blow.
I landed from the slide on the edge of a crowd. They seemed to be doing some sort of exotic dance routine, waving their arms, waggling their fingers, and flicking their glance in all directions.
The construction crew. The people actually coordinating all these bots.
I subvocalized as I ran towards the patient, "Emergency traffic. Extreme measures, antistun field engage. On site surgical STAT. New traffic, new incident. Life safety alert, complex process interrupt, establish California Search & Rescue for industrial emergency. Need Incident Command for process interrupt."
The patient had been one of the key construction controllers. Dressed in a wizard's robe complete with pointy hat and a now-fallen cane, he'd played a pivotal role in coordination. He'd overridden medical warnings telling him to stop, rest, seek medical attention. His role was important and this was a project he'd worked months if not years on. He was not going to stop working just because some ware didn't like his heart rate. He was used to making his failing body obey his will.
Not today.
One of the people dancing stopped cold, stared _hard_ at me, and an icon lit over their head. "INCIDENT COMMAND - GUADALUPE GARDENS INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT" They then resumed dancing, frantically, and the entire tenor and tone changed. If they had been dancing a complex ballet, they were now running a particularly rough mosh pit, with three different DJs who couldn't hear each other.
The bots working outside slowed to a stop, the exact opposite of the construction controllers. A couple ran into each other and promptly exploded. The crowd gasped and the construction area arrested all of their attention.
It took up none of mine. Keeping this biological failure from cascading into a construction failure was NOT my problem. I'd called for help, much as an untrained person would call for help upon discovering something way beyond their ability to handle.
But a CVA? That was my baby, mine to handle, as I flicked out a knife from my backpack and immediately cut the victim's throat with a one-two slash, either side of the carotid arteries. Fortunately for both of us, he'd already passed out while still standing.
I then followed up as he fell by lifting his bare legs and slashing again one-two, cutting the femoral arteries below the thighs.
His blood spilled all over the place, including me, as police bots rushed towards me and someone immediately, properly tried to stun me with a handheld.
My defense field held. They fired again and again, then ceased as a police bot interceded.
Apparently I had some really good reason for cutting the victim up like a butchered pig.
The remainder of my attention was on the continually updated CT scan graphic. The aneurysm was fading as the patient's blood pressure fell to zero.
Think of a tire about to blow -- a bubble forming, weaker and weaker as the air pushed on it.
What I had done, in utter desperation, was to let the air out of the tire to keep it from blowing wide open. Because unlike a tire, an aneurysm could not be patched in the field.
This caused all sorts of new problems, but these could be managed.
A medic bot quick-foamed the neck injuries before I could tell it to stop. That was fine, the BP was already 60 over 20 with estimated 70% exsanguination. But I put my hands over the femoral bleeds to keep the second medic bot from closing those wounds.
The frustrated medic bot rudely blatted at me, then spoke part of an automated message, "Step BACK from the..." before fading into a human voice saying, "Anderson, what the HELL?"
"Aneurysm, about to blow, deliberate exsanguination, need BP low pressure management and complex on site neurosurgery. It's a deep one."
"Neurosurgical arrival thirty seconds. ANLS activated. Rapid sequence intubation, 100% oxygen. Central line cutdown." At each phrase, the medic bots performed complex medical care. Fasten a cradle around the head and a spinal cord augment down the back. Spray something down the throat, shove in a tube, inflate the trachea anchor, flow gases. Open the torso, cut two incisions, run tubes to each.
I stepped back once the central line was established. The second medic bot pushed in and proceeded to repair the femoral arteries with direct laser surgery.
Several more bots, much larger, and two humans in surgical gowns strode into the scene. One of the bots was itself a hospital bed. I helped the bots lift the patient into the bed, which promptly folded out into a surgical suite. The humans went to work, ungloved, with an array of tools. Their focus was the head.
I put down the bloody knife. Then I held up my hands to coordinate the police bots in crowd control, reviewed the incident graphics to make sure something I hadn't notice wasn't about to hurt or kill me, and basically sank to my actual level of competence.
I really hoped he'd make it. Explaining to friends and relatives why I'd cut his throat would be... awkward.
Like an orchestra out of practice, the dancers got back in sync and rhythm. A firebot snuck around the construction bots, reached the crash site, and put out the small fire before retreating to a safe area. Recycling bots picked up the extra debris, and construction bots repaired the damage to the set. In twenty minutes, one would never have known that two bots collided at several hundred miles per hour and crashed.
The surgical team stopped, shook hands, and the surgical bot packaged itself to fit into a capsule and thereby transfer to an advanced facility. One surgeon went with the bot; the other approached me.
"Alan Anderson?"
"Yes, Doctor?"
"That was a crazy stunt. You should really go to medical school before attempting something that asinine. Good work. If you need a recommendation for medical school, let me know."
I didn't have the heart to tell him. I'd taken a year of medical studies before deciding that medicine was not for me. But I'd stuck with it long enough to get a paramedic certification, because saving lives WAS for me, and initial emergency medical care was a big part of that.
The crowd control problem abated as the surplus bots left. The incidents were now resolved.
On command, an overhead fire sprinkler sprayed me with pressurized water and I spun like a top. One last medic bot took a sample of the residue and departed back to its standby area.
I opened up my smartware and started a document.
"PARAMEDIC - PROTOCOL EXCEPTION REPORT. This document must be filed within one (1) hour of an action that exceeded the normal scope of care. 1) Briefly describe nature of action."
Now, how do I write, "I slit his throat" without sounding like I badly needed a civil intelligence hearing...?
