Can't sleep. I think the difference between the training simulations and reality is that in simulation the power systems worked right. I cannot get the hab cool enough at night -- the AC just doesn't have the amps it needs.
In theory, of course, it works great. The usage/generation curves are all correct and the system should be performing well, but it doesn't. First of all Sigma 957 is a humidity singularity. It must be 100% humidity or more at all times, and yet rain is rare. How does that work? I sweat and I sweat and I never get cool. Fortunately there's no direct sun, but the perpetual overcast still seems to radiate the same heat but from all directions at once, even in the "shade".
Second, the flux is too high. I can feel, once I power everything else off, that the little air conditioner goes into overdrive and starts chugging on the sodden atmosphere, but it's never enough. It's still 30 degrees out there, and the hab is impermeable to neither air nor heat. It's simply a losing battle.
Of course part of the problem could be I've over-adapted. When I first got here I was asleep in seconds every night. The heat and the 1.19 gravities left me with no reserves at all -- I would collapse. But now here I am, wide awake in the middle of the night. Not sure if that's good news or bad.
e2's can sleep anywhere. They can visualize their own brain states like a built-in PSI scanner, and they have the tools to change them. They just have to learn the pattern for sleep and they can play it back. Admittedly it's a high-level pattern -- a kind of fuzzy picture of what "relaxed" might look like in a complex brain -- but it's enough. I've seen Umam sleep balancing on a horizontal water pipe 4 meters off the ground. Of course for Umam that might be normal, but she's e230.
She's also confided in me about an unapproved network hack that allows one e2 to experience the brain states of another. If two people do this at the same time they can see how their actions are affecting the other person and tune their behavior to produce desired outcomes. She claims it's not common, but she has done this with several lovers. Sex with brains wired together is either incredibly disappointing, or it results in pleasure of soul-shattering transcendence. The key, she said, was feeling joy from your partner's pleasure states, so that even a light stroke could cascade into a feedback loop of ecstasy.
Great. Now I can't sleep and I'm horny.
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