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Total Members Voted: 28

[Gizogin]

Gizo X watched the little automata scurry around for a while, trying to figure out the underlying order.  As far as he could tell, they weren't working on anything specific.  It just looked like general maintenance.  That made sense; if, as it appeared, the complex was abandoned, the droids wouldn't have been given a task to complete in a long time.  What he really needed to do was to capture one of the robots and take it apart.

[wierd]

Weird stopped in the hall, looking through an open door where the others were.  Inside was a familiar sight. The NC machines were of an unknown design-- and he had seen just about all the name brands-- but if you've seen one, you've pretty much seen them all.

Automated conveyors, gantry cranes, and sweepers manufactured parts, brought in new materials, swept up chips, and delivered them to a pucking system. Likely, the pucks were themselves melted down and recycled.  He wondered if that was why the upper levels had fallen into such disrepair? Lack of fresh raw materials?

Then the idea hit him. The pipes in the power room had been huge. Way bigger than the little janitorial droids they had seen. Clearly, there were some heavy duty service units in this motley assortment too.  Then he caught X clearly manouvering to apprehend one of the small service units.

"Uhm... X..."

[WillowLuman]

[Hey, geothermal. just what I was thinking ]

In about the middle of the long "Systems" passage, another passage branched off to the left between "Power Room" and "Secondary Mainframe." Far down at the end of this passage was another sign protruding from the ceiling marked "Living Quarters," though just beyond this was a large, closed bulkhead door labeled "Secure Area - Authorization Required." To the right, a staircase going downwards.

The other rooms in the systems area were "Greenhouse," "Secondary power," and "Gas Supply/Storage."

Ninja'd

[WillowLuman]

[For the record, the "Carvings" we've seen were etched into stone slabs by NC machines in another part of the compound, then later embedded into the walls.]

[wierd]

[NC machines require maintenance and downtime. They have very large, complex parts. They require frequent retooling, as the cutters wear down. A fully automated factory would have to be painfully rendant with several specialized manufacturing cells. Parts sufficient to completely replace over a third of the units in operation would have to be in active stockpile, and the majority of manufactured goods would be service robots, service robot parts, and cutters. NC machines for cutting stone would be derelict, but still maintained. They aren't involved in maintenance operations.]

[Also, to replace the NC operator, some form of semi-intelligent robots would have to be on hand. You can't rely on machine sensors inside the NC machines because of coolant overspray, chip buildup, etc.  We could well find something like the G-bodies in here.]

[WillowLuman]

[Ninja'd from Triple post. I was thinking that most of the parts would be stamped or molded, or produced by some fast, automatic means. Probably not going to find AI like that in here. As for the stone cutting ones, well, just wait. That detail fits perfectly with what I had in mind.]

Gizogin X picked up the small robot. It immediately stopped moving; all vibration within it just ceased. "What is it, Wierd?"

"You might want to put that down."

X placed the machine back on the floor, causing it to immediately begin whirring again. After a moment of seeming confusion, it resumed the path is had been following. "What's wrong?"

[Gizogin]

[Hmm, my sleep schedule once again interferes with my ability to participate in the advancement of the story.  Alas, I must retire to my bed.  Fear not, for I shall return in several hours!]

[WillowLuman]

Attempted map, not to scale:

Code: [Select]

"Greenhouse"     "Gas Supply/Storage"                "Automaton Center"    "Water Treatment"
=====|=================|=====================|===============|=================|==============[Entrance Room]
"Secondary Power" "Secondary Mainframe"      |           "Power Plant"   "Climate Control Center"
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++|
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Stairs==|
                                           "Living Quarters - Restricted"

[wierd]

"To coordinate all these units, there has to be a central processing system. Deactivated units would surely attract the attention of the others, as evidenced by the lack of inactive ones."  He looked at X closely. "You aren't exactly alive, so you might not trip any safety features in that things's larger cousins... and I don't want to initiate any emergency programs on accident by beating them off you... maintenance on things like that--" he pointed at the nearby NC machines "need much larger muscle to take down, disassemble, and repair than those little things do. I really don't want the big brother of the little rollerskates to come investigate, when it informs the rest of the network about a rogue automaton."

Weird sighed.

"It may have already happened."

[WillowLuman]

"Well, best get moving then," said HugoLuman. They left the room, made sure to close the door, and noticed that aside from the center of automaton activity, the entire place seemed pretty silent and motionless. That was almost worse than if there had been distant rustling: it left too much up to the imagination.

[wierd]

[Just to put things into perspective... this is a makino Mag3 EX from my place of employment. This is a "largish" unit. Most NC machines, like Makino D500 or A51 are smaller. The Mag3, with all the support systems, is about the size of a doublewide trailer. A D500 is about the size of a large truck, and an A51 is about the size of a single-wide.  One look at the machine table in that image, and you can clearly see how a tiny service bot is *not* gonna cut it for maintaining one. We have it maintained with a service contract with Makino, and they use a small army of japanese people and forklifts when it breaks. The platform with all the people on it is the NC operator's platform, where the controls are. The guy over the haimer unit on the floor is checking a cutter to make sure its still good for operation. That particular system is attached to an auger system built into the floor which pushes the chips through a channel to a pit, where it gets conveyed into a pucking system.]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[WillowLuman]

[Well, as I described it, there are larger machines in the room that disassemble, assemble, and repair the little ones, using parts that the little ones carry up from somewhere below. The little ones occasionally repair the larger ones. Presumably, another version of the large ones maintains the machines that create the parts in the place below.]

[Where next?]

[Oliolli]

Oliolli stood at the top of the stairway, looking down. Lights were off for the most part, and the lights at the top didn't illuminate the stairway enough to tell what was down there.

[WillowLuman]

[Think I'll continue this in the morning.]

[Eric Blank]

[Haven't been posting because I've been playing EVE Online. Not a problem as there's not much for my character to do besides work behind the scenes while everyone else goes and plays in ancient ruins. Seems to happen a lot.]