Revolutionary Power

Rædis and Traveler stood high atop a mesa overlooking a completely flat plain that stretched out before them for tens of thousands of square miles.

“It’s so...flat.” Traveler observed with some astonishment. In fact, the plain deviated in elevation less than an eighth of meter at any given point. The ground was composed of hard packed, alkaline salt and was a natural wonder of the world they were on.

An unnatural wonder of this world is what the people that lived on it did with such a unique geological formation to provide them with an abundance of clean energy.

A few key factors facilitated this scheme, one being the fact that the planet orbited two suns in such a manner that this particular region of their globe received the vast majority of the light of these suns. Another factor was that the skies of this area were, on any given day, free of clouds.

Rædis, who was not typically in the habit of stating the obvious, said: “It is also absurdly hot.”

But despite the heat and the intense light bouncing off of the ground of the plain, both men stared in awe at the sight before them. Standing in ranks, numbering in the thousands as far as the eye could see were huge circular disks each set halfway out of the ground. The disks were hundreds of meters in diameter and at least 100 meters thick. The disks had thick axles through their centers, anchored into the ground by pillars the size of office buildings so that they rotated like giant wheels, half sunken into slots carved neatly into the plain.

Around each giant disk were solar arrays that was positioned to collect the maximum amount of energy not just from the suns but from the rays of light that bounced upward from the bright plain.

The power collected by the rays was used to rotate the giant disks. This was the marvel of this world the pair of friends came to see.

“Gosh, what a hell of a project.” was the best Traveler could come up with as he crouched near the edge of the mesa, adjusting his sunglasses and smoking a cigarette. A faint blue line of smoke rose from the tip in the still air. Rædis was hypnotized by the motion of the disks as they turned. Many of them had been decorated with interesting designs that appeared animated as they spun in their slots.

What the man and machine were looking at was the the main power generating source of the planet.

The idea was this: The giant disks were composed of a very dense metal alloy of enormous weight. The axels around which they rotated were not only incredibly strong and very light, comparatively, but most importantly nearly completely frictionless. The axels were made from an ingenious composite material of nanodiamond particles, graphene nanoscrolls on a structure of diamond-like carbon interface. Simply put, the design produced a unique superlubricity that meant once the giant disks were set in motion, they would spin easily and effortlessly for a very, very long time.

The practical upshot of all this stupendous engineering is once you have an endlessly rotating object, it is comparatively easy to use it to generate electricity. And when you have thousands of these things all spinning away, you can power power a world.

“They’re lucky this plain is so flat.” Rædis said. “The disks have to be perfectly balanced so they don’t wobble and the level terrain makes that much easier.”

“How do they distribute the power? I see no wires. Must be all underground.” Traveler said, crushing out his cigarette and tucking the filter in a pocket as not to litter.

Rædis knew the answer and was delighted to impart some knowledge on his friend that he did not already know.

“While there are indeed vast underground facilities beneath the plain for maintenance of the disks, administrative purposes and other power management functions, the actual distribution of the electricity is as clever as its production.” the robot began.

“Although none can be seen from where we stand, around the perimeter of the plain are towers that connect to a network of other towers placed at key positions around the globe. You see...the power is distributed wirelessly, through the air!” Rædis concluded. He stuck his arms out and turned around on the spot until he once again faced his friend.

“I can feel it. All around me. It’s quite invigorating, I have to admit. It is very much like if you, as an organic, air breathing being, found yourself in an oxygen rich environment with a couple of stiff energy drinks and a few grams of quality cocaine up yer nose.”

Traveler look up from where he was crouched, lowered his aviators and fixed Rædis with an amused gaze.

“I noticed you were a little more zesty than even your normal exuberant self. I thought you actually did get into my stash of quality coke.” he said.

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s this planet. It’s really humming, man. I dig it.” Rædis grinned. His silvery eyes shone brightly behind the dark lenses that he only was wearing because they looked cool. He did not actually need sunglasses. “I believe there was a scientist and inventor on your home planet who proposed transmitting energy through the air in such a manner ages ago.” he said.

“Yeah, his name was Tesla. He was a genius and he could have done what he said too. The entire history of the Earth would have been very different had his ideas come to fruition. Alas, his brilliance lost out to ignorance and greed. It actually set humanity back about 500 years, by my calculations. Also, the unwillingness of humanity whether through avarice or disbelief, it doesn’t matter really which, to opt out of the potential for enormous clean energy in favor limiting fossil fuels, became a source of pollution and strife that nearly ended my world more than once in the generations following the death of the man.” Traveler said with a certain degree of sadness in his voice as he turned his attention back to the plain.

He had been back through the history of the Earth during its worst periods in the past of its people. He had seen first hand its poisoned environment and suffered through the worst of its wars in vain attempts to spare humanity of some of their most greivious errors. But even his prowess in the pool of time was only enough to mitigate the damage they had done to themselves. At times, he could only watch as the civilization of his origin set about destroying itself over resources everyone knew were not only limited but were quickly killing them. More than once he turned his back on his people and sought refuge on wiser worlds in better times.

But he could never fully abandon them and though most people would never know it, they owed much of their current peace and prosperity to his kind and clever meddling in their affairs.

(Some music to accompany this scene: https://soundcloud.com/aeonflux-2/2ndlight?in=aeonflux-2/sets/the-power-of-magnets)