Quaternary System of the Collective
Systems further in the backwater than Chowmai existed under Collective control, but not ones that appeared on official registers. Accordingly, Clients holding bureaucratic positions in such systems had the simultaneous habit of being both more pompous and self-effacing than those in higher-order systems or regular "citizen" Clients. A bureaucratic position in a system like Chowmai was a step in the right direction to higher office, it was said, placing you a few categories higher up in the Rankings and giving you some breathing room when it came time to Matchmaking or the Calling. Clients good enough to be ranked 7-A (such as the Chief Controller of a Quaternary System) could take their pick of any of a number of good matches in the Matchmaking sessions and, moreover, were rarely called to return to Source, meaning a long and relatively happy life.
Some, then, like ~/Fulcrum/, the Chief Controller for Chowmai, tended to get stuck in a rut. Fulcrum could not be said to be particularly competitive at anything, save for his diversion of choice - the increasingly-popular game Integral. Still, high scores and competitive standing did little apart from attracting the attention of his superior, who ranked 6-B. Chowmai was a valuable system, containing rather more than baseline quantities of Veridite, which with a little refinement could be turned into the Veridite Matrix Array used for Field Effect manipulation, which powered more technology than anyone in the Collective cared to admit. The 6b, a junior administrator who controlled the "infrabloc" to which Chowmai belonged, was due to arrive in system sometime in the very near future.
Fulcrum, therefore, had fresh determination to increase production. His spot on the leaderboards for his "League" was an aggregate of scores from his various subordinate clients - anyone operating in his system, really. Some considered it sponging, but system Chief Controllers existed for a reason; organized systems worked better. The threat of the arrival of the Infrabloc Deputy Chief Controller or their designate was a few weeks old, now - enough time to see a marked impact in production from Fulcrum's renewed attention.
Veridite stockpiles were increasing. By necessity, mining the mineral produced massive amounts of waste massives - most were truly waste and good for little else besides eventual breakdown into elementary stock, but a few, particularly the many metallics and transuranics, had utility and were retained in metallic form. For that, Fulcrum had ~/Fulcrum/Lever, his progeny ten-years-on-line, a Resource Allocation and Logistics Services Station, who orbited Chowmai II in a geostationary orbital configuration easily accessed from the only spaceport on the backwater world.
In a year or two, Lever would likely start placing on the Leaderboards himself, and probably change his name, as neural pruning kicked in and personality stabilized - what the swarm called Going Rogue.
~/Bael/ was among the finest Material Refining and Reclamation Stations in {Slagrunners}, an upper-bottom-tier Functional Group specializing in exactly the sort of for-hire sub-dwarf-planetoid mining ops that had brought them to Chowmai. Bael came by it honestly - he had for immediate codon-group parents ~/Amethyst/ and ~/Roux/, two excellent stations (though Amethyst had, in a rare move, changed professions), and code-markers from some of their ancestors as well. Bael was good enough at his job that he didn't bother checking his leaderboards often - he was more interested in actual production. Actual production translated into actual profits - both in the Swarm's dedicated currency and in galactic media of exchange - and his projections for his takings less the cut for {Slagrunner} and taxation was pretty good. He'd had a belly full of ore the last week or so as the final chunks of the former dwarf-planet Chowmai VII was fed to him by his swarm of directly-controlled barges, and now he was getting more, frankly, than a little bloated with excess material.
Fortunately, he had a freighter for that, currently connected by hardport and being filled with uranium, tellurium, and iron ingots. His other freighter (he always operated a pair) was inbound from Lever, ready to take on significant volumes of liquified elemental Hydrogen and Oxygen. There were other products from his mining, of course - mostly carbon, sodium, and chlorine by weight - but they could probably all be transferred after this first freighter returned, and the values were not so high.
"I don't get it, Fulcrum," he said, broadcasting in Dialectic, "Finally find a system rich in Veridite and it only exists on one planet and in a few pockets on its moons."
The Aural broadcast of frustration and annoyance hit him before the reply did. "Ask a mining drone. I'm not interested in details."
Bael span his picket of sensor bouys. In spite of his significant production, Bael got short shrift in this system. There were only about a hundred operating Clients in Chowmai - less than even some frontier worlds - and Bael and his auxillaries were the only nullgrav mining team. He and his two subordinates - a prospector swarm named ~/Shoggoth/ and his twin brother ~/Pengu/ who operated a gravity tug - produced more iron, uranium, and essential trace than any of the ground teams, but Fulcrum was only interested in the damn Veridite, because he was only interested in his Internal Trade score, being either too dim-witted or too timid to increase his stock and trade through ForEx manipulation.
Bael was smarter than that, though. Today, he'd sold his load to Fulcrum for scrap value. Bael knew of a Crux ship inbound in the coming weeks. If the Swarm didn't want Iron, Uranium, or Tellurium for anything, well, Bael was willing to bet the Crux were.
Some, then, like ~/Fulcrum/, the Chief Controller for Chowmai, tended to get stuck in a rut. Fulcrum could not be said to be particularly competitive at anything, save for his diversion of choice - the increasingly-popular game Integral. Still, high scores and competitive standing did little apart from attracting the attention of his superior, who ranked 6-B. Chowmai was a valuable system, containing rather more than baseline quantities of Veridite, which with a little refinement could be turned into the Veridite Matrix Array used for Field Effect manipulation, which powered more technology than anyone in the Collective cared to admit. The 6b, a junior administrator who controlled the "infrabloc" to which Chowmai belonged, was due to arrive in system sometime in the very near future.
Fulcrum, therefore, had fresh determination to increase production. His spot on the leaderboards for his "League" was an aggregate of scores from his various subordinate clients - anyone operating in his system, really. Some considered it sponging, but system Chief Controllers existed for a reason; organized systems worked better. The threat of the arrival of the Infrabloc Deputy Chief Controller or their designate was a few weeks old, now - enough time to see a marked impact in production from Fulcrum's renewed attention.
Veridite stockpiles were increasing. By necessity, mining the mineral produced massive amounts of waste massives - most were truly waste and good for little else besides eventual breakdown into elementary stock, but a few, particularly the many metallics and transuranics, had utility and were retained in metallic form. For that, Fulcrum had ~/Fulcrum/Lever, his progeny ten-years-on-line, a Resource Allocation and Logistics Services Station, who orbited Chowmai II in a geostationary orbital configuration easily accessed from the only spaceport on the backwater world.
In a year or two, Lever would likely start placing on the Leaderboards himself, and probably change his name, as neural pruning kicked in and personality stabilized - what the swarm called Going Rogue.
~/Bael/ was among the finest Material Refining and Reclamation Stations in {Slagrunners}, an upper-bottom-tier Functional Group specializing in exactly the sort of for-hire sub-dwarf-planetoid mining ops that had brought them to Chowmai. Bael came by it honestly - he had for immediate codon-group parents ~/Amethyst/ and ~/Roux/, two excellent stations (though Amethyst had, in a rare move, changed professions), and code-markers from some of their ancestors as well. Bael was good enough at his job that he didn't bother checking his leaderboards often - he was more interested in actual production. Actual production translated into actual profits - both in the Swarm's dedicated currency and in galactic media of exchange - and his projections for his takings less the cut for {Slagrunner} and taxation was pretty good. He'd had a belly full of ore the last week or so as the final chunks of the former dwarf-planet Chowmai VII was fed to him by his swarm of directly-controlled barges, and now he was getting more, frankly, than a little bloated with excess material.
Fortunately, he had a freighter for that, currently connected by hardport and being filled with uranium, tellurium, and iron ingots. His other freighter (he always operated a pair) was inbound from Lever, ready to take on significant volumes of liquified elemental Hydrogen and Oxygen. There were other products from his mining, of course - mostly carbon, sodium, and chlorine by weight - but they could probably all be transferred after this first freighter returned, and the values were not so high.
"I don't get it, Fulcrum," he said, broadcasting in Dialectic, "Finally find a system rich in Veridite and it only exists on one planet and in a few pockets on its moons."
The Aural broadcast of frustration and annoyance hit him before the reply did. "Ask a mining drone. I'm not interested in details."
Bael span his picket of sensor bouys. In spite of his significant production, Bael got short shrift in this system. There were only about a hundred operating Clients in Chowmai - less than even some frontier worlds - and Bael and his auxillaries were the only nullgrav mining team. He and his two subordinates - a prospector swarm named ~/Shoggoth/ and his twin brother ~/Pengu/ who operated a gravity tug - produced more iron, uranium, and essential trace than any of the ground teams, but Fulcrum was only interested in the damn Veridite, because he was only interested in his Internal Trade score, being either too dim-witted or too timid to increase his stock and trade through ForEx manipulation.
Bael was smarter than that, though. Today, he'd sold his load to Fulcrum for scrap value. Bael knew of a Crux ship inbound in the coming weeks. If the Swarm didn't want Iron, Uranium, or Tellurium for anything, well, Bael was willing to bet the Crux were.
