We haven't seen the lower decks in almost 8 generations - they're all too clogged up with the dead and their debris. It'd be easier on the engines if we could somehow jettison those decks and pin the power chambers onto the active zones. We'd have better lighting, actual heating and maybe even full access to our own decks instead of our present "Power Is Limited So Nobody Goes Anywhere Until It Is Fixed" situation.
We've tried reasoning with the computer but it finds faults in every single argument we make. It's utterly pointless but it does kill time better than just sleeping all day or staring out into the void of space until your mind starts going funny. They call that the Overview Effect - in layman's terms you suddenly realise just how precarious it is to be inside a ship orbiting a dying planet and your mind just gives up.
We lost most of Deck 213 to the Overview Effect, in hindsight what did we expect from the only deck with nothing but a panoramic view of space to entertain them? There are ripples of rumours, little groups of dissidents that claim each deck is a test and we as a whole are failing. They've even gone so far as to claim that Earth isn't dying, we're just up here to provide entertainment for the rich and powerful who have nothing better to do with their money than to play god.
It doesn't even matter at this point, not with over 378 decks lost within the past couple of centuries and my deck is due next. It's just what happens when in such close proximity to death, like it's some kind of contagious disease that we've carried all our lives until we see it in person and then bam you're gone too.
I think I know how we're going to die as well. It'll be something new, has to be. The previous 57 decks all went to mass suicide and by this point we all know what symptoms to look out for and we're keeping each other closer than ever. It won't be the Overview Effect either - we've welded tables over the windows, the airlocks and anything else that might lead outside.
Our deck's most likely demises are drowning and starvation, strange as it seems to write that. A lot of the outer deck dwellers have been complaining of noisy pipes - the ones that feed the hydroponic bays - and a lot of the botanists have been begging the computer for new seeds and soil as all we have left is sopping mulch and a few weedy saplings.
Whatever's going on isn't triggering the safety systems (if they even exist any more, the upper decks might have dismantled them to save power for all we know) so our only options are to watch, wait and warn the deck above us to prepare themselves.
We don't know when the end will be but we have to warn them still.
After all, death is contagious.
We've tried reasoning with the computer but it finds faults in every single argument we make. It's utterly pointless but it does kill time better than just sleeping all day or staring out into the void of space until your mind starts going funny. They call that the Overview Effect - in layman's terms you suddenly realise just how precarious it is to be inside a ship orbiting a dying planet and your mind just gives up.
We lost most of Deck 213 to the Overview Effect, in hindsight what did we expect from the only deck with nothing but a panoramic view of space to entertain them? There are ripples of rumours, little groups of dissidents that claim each deck is a test and we as a whole are failing. They've even gone so far as to claim that Earth isn't dying, we're just up here to provide entertainment for the rich and powerful who have nothing better to do with their money than to play god.
It doesn't even matter at this point, not with over 378 decks lost within the past couple of centuries and my deck is due next. It's just what happens when in such close proximity to death, like it's some kind of contagious disease that we've carried all our lives until we see it in person and then bam you're gone too.
I think I know how we're going to die as well. It'll be something new, has to be. The previous 57 decks all went to mass suicide and by this point we all know what symptoms to look out for and we're keeping each other closer than ever. It won't be the Overview Effect either - we've welded tables over the windows, the airlocks and anything else that might lead outside.
Our deck's most likely demises are drowning and starvation, strange as it seems to write that. A lot of the outer deck dwellers have been complaining of noisy pipes - the ones that feed the hydroponic bays - and a lot of the botanists have been begging the computer for new seeds and soil as all we have left is sopping mulch and a few weedy saplings.
Whatever's going on isn't triggering the safety systems (if they even exist any more, the upper decks might have dismantled them to save power for all we know) so our only options are to watch, wait and warn the deck above us to prepare themselves.
We don't know when the end will be but we have to warn them still.
After all, death is contagious.
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