DDR Sci-Fi: Sinobara

Sinobara

Thomas K. Reich, born 1951 in Reichenbach, Saxony, was an educated Meteorologist and Geologist. He wrote mostly scientific non-fiction. Sinobara is his only Sci-Fi work.  

In this future, the earth has received transmissions from the distant Eridanus civilization, which lies outside the reach of current space travel. Instead of going there directly, the earth must build a multi-generational chain of outpost worlds, such as Sinobara, where a colony is presently being built.

Sinobara has no complex animals or even insects, just plants and bichordates: a primitive and harmless crawling animal. A supernova had caused the extinction of all sophisticated life more than a million years ago. It has life, but not much diversity; it is lonely in a creepy way.

The outpost on Sinobara can survive with the mineral reserves it has found, but they need coal to be truly independent. A mission had already been sent into the wilderness of forests, but disappeared suddenly. 

The next mission employed an armored vehicle, like a camper with lasers for clearing the way. On this mission, two petrologists for preparing the test bores, a chemist for analyzing the minerals, a biologist, and the leader. 

The team quickly does find a limited amount of coal reserves, and the success ameliorates the colony’s energy deadline, but the team continues. A recurring theme is the friction between Ronson the chemist and Ingstorm the biologist, who have survived a gruesome incident together, wherein a beloved comrade, Mirjam, died, and which they blame each other for. Ingstorm has his famous astrobiological theory, which states that although life is infinitely diverse, plants remain immobile and animals mobile: 

"Plants are open Systems, animals are closed … there can be no intermediate form."

Ronson criticizes the theory as geocentric, and indeed the planet Sinobara threatens to undermine the theory, when it reveals a yet unknown denizen of the wild forest: the mobilophyten. These life forms have plant cells and growth characteristics, but are mobile like animals, and have a sensory ability to seek out the nitrogen afforded by bichordate colonies. The pose little threat to the humans, but may unwittingly have caused dangers, from their modification of the local geology to build terraced breeding ponds which spontaneously burst and sundered the previous mission. 

Ingstroms fundamental theory of astrobiology is under threat by the half-animal half-plant intermediate forms, and he defends his theory arrogantly, giving up in the end. The crew must think creatively to understand how the mobilophytes operate, to avoid endangering themselves and the lifeforms. 

The story is told from a group perspective, and instead of a violent monster or alien cliche, the challenges are more subtle, and a spooky depth comes from the perplexity of trying to understand the truly incomprehensible alien. No revelation or communication comes in the end, but the mission returns to plan the first coal mines of many at the edge of the wilderness.

Glossary 

• Protonenwerfer: the multipurpose weapon and tool of choice on board the Herkules, a titanic land exploration tank. 
• Mobilophyten: Plants that have mobility on planet Sinobara
• Zwischenformen: A form of life with characteristics in between two kingdoms.
• Reizempfindlich: Sensitive to stimulation. The problem is how does a plant communicate and react to stimulation without a central nervous system.
• Analogtheorie: A scientific process of relating two systems with seemingly similar properties, such as Sinobara's mobilophyten with Earth's plants. However, the limits of this theory are tested. 
• Kombination: A typical Soviet future has the crew dressed in one-piece uniform overalls. 
• Vernunftgabe: Beings capable of reasoning. It is hard to detect whether the mobilophyten can reason, or even communicate. However, they do modify the environment in a way that suggests goals, creating wetland habitat for bichordates as nutrients, and raised limestone structures for reproduction. In the end, it is dubious that they are reasoning beings with goals, but rather their life processes themselves induce survival. What Richard Dawkins means when he postulates that genes have a survival instinct. Also, like the scallops in St. Brieuc Bay, part of a network with agency assigned to non-reasoning actors.
• Geozentrismus: The idea that on an alien planet, scientists try to understand the phenomena by referencing earthly processes, that may be a false assumption.

Cover by Burckhard Labowski and Regine Schulz

Quantus Barney: Secluded Residence @ Radio Shack, Part XIII

The president wants to switch the internet off.

The button wants to be pushed. It has a force field of power of trembling hands that dare approach it, for fear of interrupting all online commerce instantly.

Monassi is an amber, assymetrical button, with an unpleasantly yet tacky side to the rear, a void of unmixed epoxy resin created by the artist, late at night, after a chariot ride, who all too hastily improvised a button out of too hastily stirred materials. Monassi seemls like a popup alien technology from a cheap movie. Little air bubbles are suspended in the improperly mixed material, along with a pubic hair.

"Might as well add a seashell and snow to make a duckpond landscape within," snorted Blanc, who was currently inside monkletto. "I've casted lead, i can steam bend wood, but i've never spent so long on a single resin button. This'd better be good."

"Monklert, it will be good." Monklert is the name of the persona when Monkletto talks to himself late at night, to the Blanc inside himself.

Monassi wants to be pushed, and wants to feel like an ancient relic, like grandma's face, when finally touched. There's no internet in grandma's house, but memories of freshly washed, old, bedsheets.

Monassi gives you your smell memory back. Like a band of scrolling material, impregnated with different touch sensations: gravel, duck feathers. At such a concert, the audience is invited to approach the band at the edge of the stage, and regain your touch memories. The scrolling touch band is the thin shoreline between the ocean of senses and the land of drinkers.

Monassi is another rocker on this stage, wanting to actuate, yet there is a powerful field surrounding it, the hesitancy, or angst, of other actors to actually trigger Monassi. 

Monkletto stepped outside. The clear sun warmed him, and the cafe chatted with itself behind its yarns. Monassi caught some sun and sparkled like honey.

"Maybe the gooey back part will cure in time, in the sunlight?" Monkletto wondered to himself. But it didn't ever really cure, remaining gooey to accumulate a crust of pigeon debris, as Monkletto and Blanc tossed it back and forth outside the cafe. 

After speaking for a bit with a grunge dude about last nights chariot rides, Blanc felt down on Monassi, bursting with the trembling of masked emotion, "This button isn't any better than a piece of gum embedded in the sidewalk of a tiny Ohio town."

"Monassi will be great, though, by forming an emotional field by her imperfect electronic materials."

Under the fearless hand of the president, Monassi as button, gooey in the back, creates emotional tension for all internetted Americans, some of them authentic, some not.

The idea of the band of touch sensations, I owe to my dad. Late one night, he was driving me alone in a car, through the mountains of Pennsylvania. He recounted this idea, as one personally beholden to him, that he had imagined as a child. In it, he imagines a musical show occurring on the stage, and at the front lip of the stage, a band of canvas is scrolling that has different materials embedded, so the audience can feel certain sensations on their fingers, cued to the music.

Bonus Poem

Blanc poked in the papyrus.

Blanc attended the conference of detritus painters.

Monkletto is the pharoah, naturally narcissistic.

Blanc teaches authenticity to gilded, but deaf, ears.

Good Blanc is ancient Blanc. 

Bad Blanc is modern. Their identities smudge,

Blanc and Monkletto together in a ghillie suit.

Blanc posing in ghillie suit, face unseen, in front of Hanumann's barn.

Ages later, the basement rooms are painted black, 

the new youth program is about astronomy. 

posters of planets and galaxies cover the walls. 

space rock is played there, after a prayer, 

micro doses of psychedelic mushrooms are distributed.

Mister Norton, Poetics and Principles, Chapter 4, The Tierhorn

Ted was high in the castle tower that he rented, daydreaming of ivy.

Bill was in the tower too, leaning out and watching a herd of 

    deer approaching the village clearing. 

When they were at the edge he shot an arrow that killed the deer

    and the people who cheered all came below except for Ted, 

    who appeared high atop the castle tower:

• In anakin leathers,

• Pale and clammy

• Lips stained by the wine of truth

• Ostensibly To celebrate the feast of the beast, waving an arrow. 

His face suddenly puckered and aiming at bill he said,

We are the same person therefore if 

    we both hunt deer one will disappear.

Then he shot, and hit a crow which the 

    village ate quietly along the deer.

 

What follows are the usages of Norton amplifiers in the new instrument by Ciat-Lonbarde, called Cafeteria. It is a complete rehaul and recreation of the Cocoquantus, divided into three modules: Digital Cafe, Quantum Experiment, and (special edition) Tier Horn.

The preamp of the cafe uses one Norton amplifier (Application Note 72, LM3900, A new Current-Differencing Quad of Plus or Minus Input Amplifiers, Texas Instruments), with two PNP differential pairs, one for digital feedback and the other an input preamp. Thus, the most direct path between DAC and ADC is driven with the simplest silicon. Each differential pair is driven by a current mirror, serviced by an arp-serge apparatus.

There are five such oscillators in the Quantum Experiment, which is depicted at the bottom as platters of bric-a-brac shapes in a loop of flitty voltage samplers. The Quantum is thus abstracted in this schematic. At the top, one Norton (Application Note 72, LM3900, A new Current-Differencing Quad of Plus or Minus Input Amplifiers, Texas Instruments) acts as VCA to modulate the frequency of the main oscillator, composed of two Nortons: integrator and hysterizer. It gets a miniscule biasing current from the fourth Norton in the package. The VCA is controlled by a simple arp apparatus, and the main oscillator, by an arp-serge apparatus.

The tierhorn is a special edition deerhorn with a true heterodyning theremin. In the center are the two radio coils, feeding a four quadrant current multiplier, integrated by Mr Norton (Application Note 72, LM3900, A new Current-Differencing Quad of Plus or Minus Input Amplifiers, Texas Instruments). Continuing down, the sine wave is converted to pulses for a tachometer, like on the datasheet. Flip flops make the pulses into undertones for the dubstep filter. But first the voltage from the tachometer goes through two boundary circuits with variable decay. The boundary signals and tachometer are subtracted to create an error signal for the stereo enveloped theremin outputs. The boundary signals also feed a wobble oscillator (top right), which bounces between those boundaries, then modulating the state variable filter (top left, note that it only requires two Nortons). 12 Nortons total in the fleet.

What is Tarsh

 

Tarsh is an adaptation of Shtar.

Now there are at least four things:

-A Shtar with sculpted body

-Shtar with chunky body

-Tarsh with sculpted body

-Tarsh with chunky body

Whilst the Shtar had 17tet scale,

which is regarded as whimsical, DIY, punk 

all in all radical version of the sublime neutralities 

The Tarsh adopts a just intoned one.

based on a scale by Khyam Allami, but modified,

i had to switch some razios to 19, a high prime,

to fit it into eight bit music.

 View of the actual ratios in the layout, which are printed on the circuit board.

Whilst the shtar circuitboard was black, tarsh is green.

What follows is code for the scale, from shbobo:

 

<@ oc 
 [[48 48] [57 54] [60 55] [63 56] [57 48] [81 66] [81 64] 
 [64 48] [72 51] [80 55] [72 48] 
 [95 60] [90 55] [81 48] [96 54] [96 51] [64 33] 
 [96 48] [114 54] [120 55] [126 56] [114 48] [108 44] [81 32] 
 [88 33] [96 34] [96 33] [120 40] 
 [114 36] [108 33] [108 32] [96 27] [64 17] [128 33]]> 
 
 
 
 
 <@ cars 
 <# [o] 
 <? o <tank <" <" o>> <cars <: o>>> o>> 
> <@ cadrs 
 <# [o] 
 
 <? o <tank <" <: <" o>>> <cadrs <: o>>> o>> 
> 
 
 
 {(right (fog (dust 11) 
 (smoke 4 4) (smoke 10 100) (ladder (finger) <cars oc>) 
 (ladder (finger) <cadrs oc>) 
) 
 (brass (horn 27 11)) (brassb (hornb 24 11)) (slew (steel) 2 2 (saw 32 48)) 
 
 
 
) 
 (srate 40)};the ratios are brought kindof into the middle (mean) of 128

Mister Norton, Poetics and Principles, Chapter 3, The Ringler Clicker

 April 2003:

A Musik like whirring propeller blades was heard, 

and the plush curtain lifted from Ted’s plant.

It was withered.

Ted said, this April we had a freezing event, 

which bonsai of the sumac, 

crippling and making micro leaves. 

But here is the symphony in the wound, 

Ted said, brushing the foliage.

You-- 

            bald trombonists gaze into the curly mysteries at the event.

 

Here is a new circuit using only BT:NORTONs. It is for making two clicks, such as in the military clicker for seeking landscape features at night, using your ears. Thus each click must have a symphony in a millisecond, according to Jan St. Werner. An hysterical oscillator is purposed for pulse trains and envelopes, with varying slopes and frequencies.


 

Two oscillators and two swoops, which is almost identical to oscillator but it has a pulse input and it is saturated to stay low until triggered. The capacitors of the two oscillators and two swoops are switched to heavier ones by a guest star, the 4066, to make musical mode out of click mode. The two oscillators enter a ringmod at the north pole, and the two swoops enter a ringmod at the south pole, and these and their inversions become the modulations for the oscillators. Rungler inspired ringler, in that they process and feedback to the modulations. Ringlers, however, are a gentler more analog and symphonic sound. In this cursive schematic, hollow twiddles are npn and dotted twiddles are pnp. The curly cue of each 3900 is verted input, because it pulls back and towards the main thornal output. Both inputs are current to ground, which inspires the whole foliage of dotted curlicue eyes (Application Note 72, LM3900, A new Current-Differencing Quad of Plus or Minus Input Amplifiers, Texas Instruments).

Bt had a speaker rotated back into a concrete bunker, that way he can access the volume controls and input, which are on the back, and he can test pulses echoing in a concrete chamber

The rungler was a data misinterpretation of a modem. The ringler is a simpler analog confuser fed back.

Mister Norton, Poetics and Principles, Chapter 2, My Other Faces

The ferret comes at night and chews my wires.

I'm a technician, it’s a devil,

So i make ultrasound techno.

creating tools to modulate country animals.

 

My backwoods friend JIM still has a tube of me in his shed, covered in poison ivy. He still makes simple class A circuits with a yellowed 70s manual about me. They are a little smaller than BILLs class B circuits. He uses me for swine management.

BILL still wears plastic shirts from the 70s. But BILL has moved on from his old manual and now builds modular synths. His special sauce is to use transistors and a secret chip from the 70s. It is the 90s.

BILL also uses me for swine management, in an art gallery in the city. See, his circuit has control inputs, and he creates a web of bubblegum colored cords around a wooden pod, for his art. The name of his art is GWYNNDAMUFFIN.

Country sounds are twangy. Twangy is a sound that easily echoes off the hills, and vibrates over the corn with amateur (movable, flexible tuning, dissonance) techniques. Fast banjo also has a sort of rascal nature, like the shenanigans of bunnies and creek hops.






Faces are important in electronics. The old Mister Norton, ridgid, with a plastic shirt, focusing on class A circuits, which are simple resistor things and bric-a-brac capacitors. The new Mister Norton has transistors in his dreamy eyes. At the very end of the datasheet (Application Note 72, LM3900, A new Current-Differencing Quad of Plus or Minus Input Amplifiers, Texas Instruments), is a hint that you can hack a differential pair onto the two inputs of the Norton, thus expanding it to all the sorts of arp and serge mechanisms. Class AB is a pragmatic mix of simple resistors and the newer transistor installations.

Mister Norton, Poetics and Principles, Chapter 1: My Face

Garden gnomes were once eerie, 

because they held still, 

bleached ancient things looked at, 

But privately,

they bump and scrape the night,

thought bill as he looked out at his yard. 

I want a modern gnome:

one who carts his miniature wheelbarrow around cheerily, 

now, while I stare at it in my sunny yard.

The solar gnome eclipses the butterfly.

But when I sleep, 

he holds stillness, 

a bleached stone in the moonlight.

There are two Mister Nortons, Bill and ted, and they form the foundation of BT theory. Upstairs at the New Zork art gallery, video art was displayed. In the basement, Bill created a synthesizer on a piece of canvas, roughly 2 m long and half meter high, and filled with frames wooden frames, which formed the basis for hand etched circuit boards. He found oscillator schematics in the data sheet for Mr norton (Applcation Note 72, LM3900, A new Current-Differencing Quad of Plus or Minus Input Amplifiers, Texas Instruments). He had some in his Bronx basement, the head flooded many times and was filled with rat poop. At the same time as the exhibition, Ted was working, it was July 2nd 1993. Ted was working on repairing barbed wire and because of the damage to the barbed wire fence, he decided to create ultrasound circuits to control swine. He went to the shed where he had a tube of Mr Norton chips and a yellowed tobacco stained data sheet.
 

The first schematic is a picture of Mister Norton. It is a face. The face arises often in a circular circuit schematic. There's a triangle for the nose and curly cue for the eye and other riffles for the lips. Just the basic symbols of the analog world: triangles, swirls and curlicues.