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Ace Dreamer

KAR, the 'Kandor Automatic Railroad', was a critical part of the rapid construction of The Watchtower, Old Town, and later the greater Kandor area; Kandor City in general.  KAR took and takes material from the surface and sub-surface mines, to the buried autofabs, processed material to the build yards, and where needed also moves personnel and medium-sized machinery around.  Over time machinery has been deliberately redesigned so it will split into modules convenient for KAR transport.
Early attempts to control the rapidly expanding network were mixed.  The initial monolithic system was quickly replaced by a distributed net of controllers, but none of the classic programming methods made these operate well.  Eventually a system based on a genetically programmed logistic net, which continually simulated future load, and evolved routing schemes, proved to work quite well.
Unfortunately, various contractors learned to 'play the system'.  They tweaked orders and routing priorities so their competitors just couldn't keep up with them.  When this was unravelled the system was re-designed, after the style of the 'Tor Project', so cargo was moved and routed anonymously; all 'routing frauds' promptly collapsed.  Theft of material in transit nearly completely stopped, as well.
There were complaints that you didn't know exactly when your goods were going to arrive.  That KAR was deliberately blocking people's attempts to track their goods in transit (a number of the control systems seem to take a malicious pleasure in this).  But, everything seems to have worked pretty well for quite a few years now.
The 'Ghost of the Lost Commuter' is an urban legend, and a desperate face, looking out from a personal transit car, waving for help, or banging on a window to be released, is believed to be a practical joke a few people find amusing.  A news crew spent weeks trying to track one down, and eventually found a number of cars with disposable holo projectors, configured to show a 'ghost'.  Kandor City Tourist Department declined to comment.
The personal transit cars have proved a popular, though a little slow, way of moving around the rim of Kandor City, to a network of places under the nearby Lunar terrain, and most recently to areas within the crater.  Their free use for light goods has helped a lot of local business.  Transit charges are only made for moving heavy, commercial, goods, and to those who have maliciously abused the system.
When needed cars are automatically routed-off for cleaning and repair.  Short-term logs, thoroughly erased, are kept of those entering and leaving cars. Carefully separated statistics are kept about the need for cleaning and repair after transit.  No logs are kept of who has travelled where.  AIs with designed to be erasable short-term memories watch the stations for security and safety reasons.
Commuters are sent a warning if they start causing statistically significant extra work.  They have to start paying for travel and are eventually charged with malicious abuse if these warnings are ignored.  This system was all carefully secured and anonymised after a transit official was blackmailing businesses with threats they'd find themselves paying for travel.
In more recent years the Heavy Cargo Transport system on the crater rim has become more lightly used, as if possible goods are split into medium-loads to go on KAR.  If you want to move around quickly, then you'll use the Kandor City Maglev trains, as they run on the surface, whereas most of KAR is underground - tourists typically prefer that as well.  KAR is one of the things which has contributed to Kandor City staying green.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Ace Dreamer

META "KAR"

I'd like to add this to the Kandor City description. I feel a railway like this would suit a Supers city, as it results in little need for personal vehicles within the city bounds, which I get the impression is a feature of Kandor, as a 'green city'.

I have, of course, ulterior motives for wanting this. [grin]
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
We've already had scenes written of people driving in Kandor traffic, though...

What sort of "ulterior motives" do you have?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Cars (well, personal vehicles) are not inconpatible with a good transport system, so traffic and trains can share space.

Kandor is a super city and yuu cannot have villain chases on the top of a train if you don't have trains, anyway.

Ace Dreamer

robkelk Wrote:We've already had scenes written of people driving in Kandor traffic, though...

What sort of "ulterior motives" do you have?
This would be really convenient to make The Vault even vaguelly credible.
And...  I might like people in Kandor to be able to say "I went there by KAR"... [ducks]
Did they say what sort of traffic?  Lots of bicycles and the odd electric (robot?) rickshaw would work.  I looked through the wiki, and I didn't see any Kandor traffic scenes, but I could easily have missed them.
Quote:Rakhasa wrote:

Cars (well, personal vehicles) are not inconpatible with a good transport system, so traffic and trains can share space.

Kandor is a super city and yuu cannot have villain chases on the top of a train if you don't have trains, anyway.
I quite liked the Tesla Volt - as an electric spors car.  IC engines generally discouraged in maintained atmospheres.
So, does that mean any tunnels in Kandor City must have enough head room to get through lying flat on the top of a carriage? [grin]
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
I'm not sure whether the story's on the Wiki yet. It's after Legend of Galactic Girls - Yayoi gets her promotion confirmed and Sora gets her "welcome to the Soviet Air Force" gifts, but there's some traffic (and a try at Noah's car) before either of those happen.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Ace Dreamer

robkelk Wrote:I'm not sure whether the story's on the Wiki yet. It's after Legend of Galactic Girls - Yayoi gets her promotion confirmed and Sora gets her "welcome to the Soviet Air Force" gifts, but there's some traffic (and a try at Noah's car) before either of those happen.
There'd certainly be some surface traffic.
But, London, for example, is a city where you live and not need your own car.  In fact, you may be a lot better off not having your own car!  I could see a lot of people doing "Park and Ride", leaving their cars in the space port.  I'm guessing most of Kandor City is at Lunar gravity, which if you've mastered the walking technique, should make getting around a lot less painful on the feet!
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
Actually, if we use the Kandor timeline I set a few weeks back when I was working on Marduk, the area under the dome (all of the crater) is 1 g, using a series of generators instead of a huge one; that is to keep a constant set of g-forces in the actual dome itself, wich helps to prevent stress in it due to different gravities.

But outside the Dome -including potentially the Wathchower- there should not be gravity generators, so Lunar G.
Rakhasa Wrote:Kandor is a super city and yuu cannot have villain chases on the top of a train if you don't have trains, anyway.
Plus we have the City of Heroes tram system as a precedent as well.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Quote:But, London, for example, is a city where you live and not need your own car.
Likewise Montréal and (I'm told) Manhattan - both cities that have good passenger-light-rail systems and are primarily on islands. Kandor is also limited by its geography... er, by its selenography...

So, yeah - as long as we aren't saying the KAR is the only way to get around, I'm okay with adding it to the writeup.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
robkelk Wrote:So, yeah - as long as we aren't saying the KAR is the only way to get around, I'm okay with adding it to the writeup.
In truth, I had actually taken for granted that Kandor, like all other fen cities, had extensive public transport systems and normal traffic; now it seems it was not so evident (a cultural diference?)
I will have to remember to add some lines about it when I finally put Marduk in the wiki.

Ace Dreamer

I've added the KAR (and The Vault, which is what got me writing it in the furst place) to Kandor City on the wiki.

Infrastructure - it can really mess you up. [grin]
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
Ace Dreamer Wrote:Infrastructure - it can really mess you up. [grin]
Not as much as needing it and NOT having it (or having it fall apart on you) does.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-

NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

Ace Dreamer

Star Ranger4 Wrote:
Ace Dreamer Wrote:Infrastructure - it can really mess you up. [grin]
Not as much as needing it and NOT having it (or having it fall apart on you) does.
Yeah...
I've tweaked the wiki entry, in the hope of making it clearer.
I'm assuming there is a lot of patching of stuff in the background, by AIs, all over Fenspace, just to keep things that were thrown-together, so quickly, working.  You can just imagine all the poor AIs getting upset that so many minutes of their days are tied-up with standards and management committees.
But, maybe it helps reduce their boredom level. [grin]
(Can't speak for their frustration level...)
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind