"Out there in the North Sea, 50 years ago, they used to drill for oil, you see. Then it ran out. And although BP, Chevron and all the rest were supposed to dismantle their rigs, they had other things to worry about. So they just packed their last workers onto helicopters and left.
"It didn't take long for the rigs to be recolonised, though. Pretty soon every doomsday cult, outlawed gangster, smuggling ring and utopian socialist from here to Stavanger was living in one of those things. And those rigs go way down, and these are some resourceful people. Before a decade was out they were extending their living spaces down, down, down, with not a little help, most reckon, from the People's Republic of Greenland. A few decades on from that and some of these rigs have 50, 100 levels, extending all the way down from the original platform almost to the sea bed itself, and honeycombed with living quarters all the way through. They're home to the weirdest and worst people this side of Tehran.
"Oh, some of them you can deal with. Those living on the platforms, they might be doing as much smuggling as they do fishing, but they know the price of money just like everybody else and they do fair trade with the Orkneys and Shetlands. It's the ones further down you have to worry about. You don't live 200 metres below the surface without strange things happening to your mind after a while...if it was normal to begin with.
"What's that? Why do the Scottish and English governments tolerate it? Well, we all know the former kingdom is heading for a war, if it isn't at war already. Where do you think the Royal Marines are being blooded these days? And where do you think the Scots are testing their anthrax delivery systems? You think anybody does anything nowadays without there being a reason for a government to let it happen?"
Cyberpunk says data havens. So what happens if you use the north sea to cool massive stacks of servers, say a hundred levels or so? You get a heat dump, with the resultant boom in surrounding sea life. So I'd postulate an autocrat who has built a massive data haven or banking house below, with a community of fishermen and smugglers encrusted on his upper decks like barnacles. Allowed to flourish because they disguise his customers and business like rattan decking and paper lanterns on a thirty foot cigarette boat in a broke down South Florida marina.
ReplyDeleteGort's friend
That's even better.
DeleteOr maybe combine the two. Oil fields dry up. Autocrat buys one, uses it to cool servers. Sea life blooms around it, smugglers and fishermen live on top. Gradually doomsday cults, outlaws, utopian socialists and whatever - people who want to disappear - arrive and start filtering down into the server stack. The autocrat has by now uploaded his consciousness into the rig itself and only intervenes in the affairs of his parasitic guests if they ever seem likely to endanger the physical structure of the thing, or the servers. Or maybe they bribe him somehow and he likes playing the demigod.
DeleteI am going to steal of that for a megadungeon in my postapoc setting. People (and other things) have been living there so long they nolonger realize that the autocrat is a digital consciousness, and treat it as an insane god that has become protective of its people, not allowing them to leave venture to the upper levels anymore.
DeleteEven rival factions on rigs that are close to each other warring. Leading to armed camps of cultists using old cargo ships, vtols, etc for raids against their foes.
ReplyDeleteBioshock 2099.
ReplyDeleteWow. Everything, every reply, is pure gold.
Another wrinkle. An AI moved in and wiped the autocrat years ago, but plays the part in an effort to lay low and avoid detection by the shadow org that created it.
AI has developed an obsession with sea flora and uses sub drones to cultivate and grow the most elaborate underwater garden ever. If you're playing Shadowrun, it cultivates primo deep weed, and the server techs are in charge of distro.
Totally a great location for Eclipse Phase. A North Sea oil rig, too far from the others to get hit by TITAN viruses, too old to have any workable AGI in the first place, holed up in first by refugees and then by who-knows-what.
ReplyDeleteCant forget the cia stronghold or other government agency Running black ops out of them .
ReplyDeleteHow could I forget AI, have to have an AI.
ReplyDeleteI can see an archipelago of oil derricks here, all converted. Filled with the scum of Glasgow, one part Irvine Welsh, two parts Anarcho-Trotskyites fleeing the rule of a BNP led Britain. One the home of an AI, another a monastery of digital cyber priests establishing a Skellig for the new age, a lost nuclear arsenal on a cold-war era Soviet Sub, a nest of CyberVikings (why must they always be Cowboys Mr.Gibson?) all data havens encrusted with smugglers, refugees, dealers, prostitutes, outlaws, and gamblers. A Kabukichō for the North Atlantic, a Newer Amsterdam, an interstitial space to fill with adventure, chaos and profits.
Add in a refugee raft city ala Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. cloak each tower in a web of of rusting freighters, junks and fishing boats. Celts in modern day fiber glass submarines (like the coke dealers of Baja) crossing the North Atlantic like their ancestors did in hide covered coracles.
Do the whole thing old-school Dungeon Geomorph style by just making a half dozen or dozen ships and sticking them together at random with cut n paste, then mark connections, set up a random encounter table and you're set for chase scenes across the decks of any of the platforms. Throw in the occasional deux ex machine of a storm and you're set.
Ping. Now there is a completely different idea. Use a a refugee raft city as a cyberpunk Free City of Greyhawk, a convenient home base for a campaign which slowly moves into a variety of areas for adventure.
Yours Truly
Gort's Friend.
Yes, I think modelling the weather would be important. The North Sea is not calm. I would have a random storm generation table, I think.
DeleteRather than trying to model the weather in a random fashion, I suggest just lifting an entire season from history, perhaps even a particularly stormy year. No need to reinvent the wheel.
ReplyDeleteGort's Friend
Even better. I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
DeleteWell I guess that is the tipping point to make me stop just lurking.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it is difficult proving I'm not a robot...