Songs without Words

Catleya (Katliya) is my imaginary world. I have noticed that many people’s imaginary worlds tend to be set in a fantasy realm, modern day, or historical settings (esp. medieval type settings), or a combination thereof. So, to make sure that no one has misconceptions about Catleya in particular, I will be devoting a few entries to explaining some of the details of my world.

Although there are gods, spirits, demons, princesses, etc. in Katliya, I have no doubts in my mind that if I were to use one word to pinpoint where it falls in a timeline, I would say the future. Many things that we worry about today are kind of inapplicable.

The year, 7371, corresponds roughly to the technology of what I would say is ~2200 on this planet. Although years in Katliya, in the strictest scientific sense, are only 1/3 the duration of those on Earth, time is perceived to move more quickly to make up for it, such that the same amount of things happen in one of their years as occurs in one of ours.

There was a population crisis in Katliya some time back, but it did not turn out in a die-out. Indeed, the world population is nearing some number of trillions, even though the land area is less than that on Earth (the planet is about the same size, but the oceans are bigger). The population continues to grow.

One of the things I wanted to discuss is the matter of energy. I will post illustrations of the structures I am describing after I scan them in.

Since I was little, I determined that the vehicles would run on what I termed then “water gas.” In modern terms, the vehicles are using heavily-shielded hydrogen as fuel. The source of this hydrogen is the numerous arrays of “greenhouses” (ebeeiras) scattered on the outskirts of the cities and, on a smaller scale, atop the enormous skyscrapers. The “greenhouse,” a colloquial term for hydrogen-producing mechani-biological solar facilities (Sueebibime Zu-sasienifesme), is an open structure composed of a focusing unit at the top and then a small clump of trees in the middle. These trees are artificially produced mechanical structures that branch out and have many panels that are covered in specialized algae. Like all plants, they split water into hydrogen and oxygen, but instead of using the hydrogen as protons and electrons, a good majority of their pathways direct the hydrogen to be released as gas which is shuttled down tubes in the trunks and collected. Of course, some photosynthesis has to occur for sustainability. The trees can auto-adjust their branches through hydraulics in order to properly reach the sunlight.

The cars can fly (and therefore are not really cars). It has never made sense to me why there are traffic jams in sci-fi movies as flying cars line up in the air. Traffic jams, and their cause – roads – are an artifact of traveling on land. We follow roads because they are the only flat-terrain, tree-free paths that are easy to maneuver on. In the air, all air is the same. Now, obviously, you cannot just have cars flying about randomly – that would be dangerous. However, there is no need to have such restricted, narrow roads.

The highways which connect cities are a series of enormous tubes. There are seven lanes arranged in a circle around a central region. The lanes have their own air currents which keep you in the lane unless you consciously decide to change. The central column is used for exiting and entering (only one function at a time, obviously). When you enter, you have the choice of seven lanes rather than just one, and the merging is done automatically in order to balance the distribution of cars and thus minimize the disaster that occurs on our highways, where the right lanes are jammed up eternally and the left lanes go quickly.

Although in this setup you can be approached from three lanes instead of two, it’s not really that much of a problem.

Anyway, onto electricity. The power is actually not formally electricity but a more primitive form of energy. The power plant design is more or less borrowed from the design implemented in Heaven, except adapted to handle mixed-energy. There is a big glowing core surrounded by eight large panels that alternate between light and dark (you can see the designations engraved into them). Um, there is a lot more to it, but I can’t really describe it so well – you just have to see it for yourself. In any case, the energy is collected from the air and concentrated, then distributed. The concentration act actually requires energy (this sort of spirit-energy degrades like real energy, but the degradation is through shattering into more pieces, so that is why the concentration requires energy input). Solar energy is used for this purpose (the photons themselves). The double-conversion of energy is a little bit wasteful, but this type of energy is much more useful, versatile, and efficient. We do the same thing: nuclear energy itself, or solar energy itself – it’s all energy, too, but we don’t know how to use it, so we convert it into thermal energy (steam) and then to mechanical energy (turbine) and then into electrical energy (electricity). We lose energy at every step, but we need it to be electrical energy to be properly distributed. Same thing here: solar energy is nice and all, but it is very hard to distribute.

Anyway, maybe more later. Gonna go work on Caroline now. Tata!