MoonBeach

 

It's been 13 lunar months since Moon Beach was sent to subscribers to my Patreon. This is the 2nd of 3 moon themed pieces they got last year, and now it is time for it to be released into the wild. If you would like the third, then you can either pay and go here, or wait until I let it out.

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Moon Beach

Mare Imbrium, on the moon, had never expected to be a holiday resort. Though named for a sea, it became clear there was no water, no air, nothing but rock and dust. And so it waited, perhaps to be a scientific base, or a low-gravity manufactory, or simply to be overlooked by the travellers from Earth, a place to be admired from a distance in the night sky and otherwise ignored.

Until the Robot Employment Act was passed that gave artificially intelligent beings four weeks of paid holiday a year.

Robots continue to be chronically low paid and their wages absorbed by power, maintenance and repair costs. As such most lunar bots are unable to afford the expense of interplanetary travel, even to their neighbour the earth. However travel on the extensive lunar rail network is almost free, if you do not need an expensive climate controlled passenger wagon.

To human eyes – the few there are, the expected science station eventually arrived, an outpost of the new discipline of AInthropology – the resort appears undeveloped. Solar panels and recharging ports, a few paved areas, the odd bit of wall and occasional tower to casting stark shadows. To the robots they can see the games being played. Strategy, where teams sit and wait motionless for hours before a flurry of action. Artistry, as they trail coloured dust. Discussion groups where machines exchange ever more recondrite ideas for days.

The races are the most accessible, though the rules change between every heat, and sometimes during thanks to negotiation in a framework of meta-rules. The robots try to keep it comprehensible; payments for viewing rights have paid for the majority of Moon Beach’s improvements.