Table of Contents
Blog
The blog namespace is for catching stray ideas. These may be less polished than the stuff you see in the Lore namespace.
Underlay Tunnel Interface Card
Here's an Underlay tunnel interface card used in an Ansible. A tailstone wafer is visible under a layer of glass.
Vestibule
Nearly every building, including private homes, has a vestibule to act as a buffer between the outside and inside. Where hygiene is a concern, such as medical buildings and restaurants, a washing pool is found here, as shown in Table Manners and Everybody Poops Together. Otherwise, there is a bristly floor mat for wiping the paws off before entering. Humans are expected to remove any outer footwear and leave it in the vestibule. On orbital colonies, the vestibule is an airlock separating the detachable habitation module from the hull of the colony.
Rock Eater
The Rock Eater formula perfected by the Lifebringers and used in terraforming looks a lot like sourdough starter. There is a gel or liquid medium that sustains the microbes during transit. The microbe mixture is stored in tanks. The microbes convert the nutrients in the medium to oxygen, just like they do during the actual process of terraforming. This oxygen has to be removed as soon as possible to avoid killing the anaerobic microbes used in the early phases of the terraforming process. Prior to the invention of force projectors, the oxygen was used as extra reaction mass in the delivery vehicle. Afterward it is vented into space.
When it comes time to deliver the payload, there are a number of strategies used throughout history and depending on the local conditions. Sometimes, the mixture used has a low enough viscosity to be sprayed as an aerosol. The delivery vehicle enters the atmosphere and, upon getting close to the ground, sprays the rock eater in long streaks on the ground below.
Another method uses a more viscous mixture. This mixture is stored in tanks until the vehicle enters low orbit around the body to be terraformed. The vehicle injects small amounts of the mixture into what are basically paint balls, and fires the balls at the ground as it orbits.
Whatever the dispersal method used, the goal is to cover as wide an area as possible. Without pre-existing life on the planet, the microbes spread virulently, nomming the lifeless rock and turning it into breathable air.
Burial
In most yinrih cultures, one honors the dead by making good use of their remains. Burying the body after death is a statement that the remains aren't worth using and the person they belonged to isn't worth remembering.
When willed by the deceased, burial is regarded as sacrilege in the Bright Way. It's often done by Partisans and Atheist Atavists as a rejection of Claravian teaching on the nature of the body (and the universe as a whole) as a deliberate work by an intelligent mind. Burial was also used in the past as a posthumous condemnation, as demonstrated with the corrupt overseer who founded the City of Eternal Noon.
The usual use for bones as architectural adornment is less costly than a human burial because the defleshed bones take up much less space than a coffin and headstone. Nevertheless, if cost is still a concern, one can elect to have their bones pulverized and incorporated into the brickwork of new lighthouses or other structures. This process is also the typical ultimate fate of bones displayed in a lighthouse once space runs out.