Of Books and Batteries

Quick neighborhood update before I go on: I've finally gotten the light garden to stay lit after I leave. There seems to have been some sort of power-saving behavior that was poling for KI signals and shutting down the power when nobody was here. I've disabled that feature, so I can now leave the lights on indefinitely.

I've spent the past week cranking away at Negilahn. It's going a bit faster than the neighborhood went, but there's still work to do.

Notably, I've fixed the power issue that was causing the pod to never do anything. Something got into the wires that hook the solar panels to the battery reserve, so the battery was just never charging, and had long ago been depleted. With the battery hooked back up to the solar panels, things seem to be working again to some extent. The battery itself may need replacing entirely, because it charges and drains way too quickly, indicating it's gone past its useable charge cycle. Either that, or I need to fiddle with some wiring to optimize power input and output a bit more. Right now I'm using some spare copper cable that I found in the DRC's field station in the City a couple of years ago. I may need a different gauge or something to get the resistance dialed in, at least on the throughput from the battery to the pod. I should probably work on changing the charge speed too, though, since fast-charging the battery may not be terribly good for it.

I've gone ahead and scraped off the coating on the windows that polarizes them when the pod is off. It wasn't in a very good state of repair in the first place, and turning the power on didn't seem to do much to change the polarization, so I've just gotten rid of it all.

I also need to fix the ladders. They're super rickety, and while I have no problem getting down to the bottom floor by slipping carefully over the edge and hopping down, climbing up them is another story. I may save that for later, but I don't want to forget about it, so I've made a note here to remind myself.

One last note and then I need to get some sleep. I've replaced the Nexus Book in the neighborhood with a link to this instance of Negilahn and put a link to the neighborhood in Negilahn, just to save myself some travel time. It took quite a bit of prying to get the Books out of the Nexus book machine, and I banged my knuckles pretty bad at one point, but I finally managed it. Good thing I brought a fresh first aid kit though. Ow. It's a temporary thing (which makes the pain worse, somehow...), but for now, it speeds things up when I need to get around.

Negilahn

So I've been taking it easy this past week, going over everything in the neighborhood to make sure it's ship-shape – or at least as ship-shape as I can make it right now – and yesterday I decided I needed a new restoration challenge. To be sure, the neighborhood was a big deal and took for blessed ever to clean up, but I learned a lot doing it and want to apply my skills to something else, ideally a little smaller this time around.

My instance of Negilahn has been a disaster area for a while now... not sure why, but its power doesn't work, and the windows are all fogged over. I think I'm going to take this opportunity to work on getting those things fixed, and maybe go from there to something new that the DRC left behind. More as it happens :).

Back in the Saddle Again

Good morning Ae'Gura!

Just got off the flight to Carlsbad – a terrifying experience I strongly advise you to avoid if at all possible – and am on my way back to the Cavern as I speak. I've got a few new toys in tow, most notably my iPad and shiny new iPhone, which I hope to use to improve my reporting capabilities. Maybe I'll finally post a picture or two! Gasp!

See you in D'ni!

Neighborhood Restoration Update: Function

Told you it might be a while...

*ahem* Anyway. There's so much working now it's almost hard to remember what I need to record. The light garden is working, though it still seems to be turning off after a while... must be something I've missed, but darned if I can find it. I'll come back to it later.

The Private Rooms are as functional as I think I'm going to get them... I finally managed to pry the doors open on the room facing the entry hallway, so you can at least get into one, but I think I permanently damaged the door getting it there, so it won't be closing again anytime soon. So, your definition of "private" may need some adjusting ;).

The classroom is all polished up and looking fancy. Desks are still askew, but I'll worry about organizing everything later. More on the classroom in a second though.

I've managed to work out how to get the imagers turned on and running. The left imager was accepting uploads just long enough for me to upload a photo I took of Eder Tsogahl a while ago, but now the upload functionality seems to be hosed. Sigh. The imager on the right is even less interactive. I managed to hack in a hello world message, but that's about it. It's not set up to accept pellet scores or anything, so there's not much else I can really do with it at this point. At least it's running...

Going back to the classroom, the imager in there is working as well. Well, "working"... it's running, and again I managed to get an image onto it before that functionality went belly-up. I wonder if there's some sort of flag in the code that's preventing additional updates... I'll have to dig into this more later. For now, like I said before, I'm just glad they're running.

At this point, I think I'm going to take some time and go home for the holidays... I've already missed Thanksgiving, and I'd rather not miss Christmas too. I'll be back after New Year's with some more restoration updates. Until then, happy holidays, and stay safe!

Neighborhood Restoration Update: Inner Workings

This past couple of weeks has been super busy, and I'm writing this so late because if I don't, I'll forget about it again. Sorry for the lack of a regular update. I hope it's been worth the wait, because there's a lot of progress to report.

I've gotten into the Classroom and the Private Rooms. There's still a little bit of clean-up to do in there, but mostly it's just dark because the lights are being fussy. The Private Rooms are a bit frustrating, because for some reason the doors are all shut to the individual rooms. I'm working on prying one of them open, but it's rough going, because these are not doors that were meant to be opened manually from the outside.

I've gotten the fountain working as well. The roughest part was carrying buckets of water up the stairs from the light garden to fill the stupid thing. Once I found the pump controls, though, things kicked on pretty quickly, which was rather impressive. I was honestly expecting it to take more time.

I'm still working on the light garden controls. The circuitry is a bit weird, and figuring out how it all connects is something of a challenge. Hopefully once I get this figured out, I'll be able to take that knowledge and get some other stuff working, like the imagers. May be a few weeks though. Not sure I'll really have much of anything to report on in the meantime, either, since this will be my project until it's done. Until next time, I guess...

Neighborhood Restoration Update: Auditorium

As noted in my last entry, I decided to tackle the auditorium now that the outside areas have been cleaned up. The clean-up process has been a bit quicker in there now that I've gotten some extra lights to work by. Things seem structurally sound, and I've just started getting the actual light fixtures working again rather than using loose firemarbles lanterns, and flashlights to light my way. It does get shockingly dark in here, I will say.

Assuming all goes well, I should have this area pretty much done by the time I post again.

Neighborhood Restoration Update: Cleaning

So. Much. Cleaning.

I've gotten rid of a lot of the grime. Knowing where at least some of that stuff came from (the poison that Veovis released during the Fall of D'ni) I've been careful to wear gloves and a mask whenever I work on getting rid of it. It's probably safe to work without them, but I'd rather not take the chance.

Now that the surfaces have been cleaned up in the outside areas, it's starting to look a lot more familiar. I've also gotten the lighting working practically everywhere. There's a few lamps that I haven't gotten to, like the ones on the back stair by the waterfall, but most everything else is lit up again. Again, I say he outside areas, because I haven't managed to get into the Classroom or Private Rooms yet, and I've been avoiding the auditorium for the time being. Now that I've got most of the outside cleaned up, though, I may have to turn my attention to that room before I try and get the doors working.

Neighborhood Restoration Update: Light Garden

Sorry it's been a bit longer than a week this time around. I've been working hard on getting the light garden working. The mushroom-y things on the big lamp posts have been trimmed down to a more manageable size, and I've got the lights working, but the controls up on the bridge are still giving me hassles. For now I've bypassed the control circuit so the lights are just all on all the time.

I finally jimmied the lock on the Book Room doors, so they're open now. The Nexus link has one of the more functional Nexus Pedestal contraptions instead of the bare-bones book stands like the DRC-restored 'hoods do. Not sure why, and not sure what the purpose of pointing it out is, but there you have it. Just thought it was interesting, I guess.

There's still a layer of dusty grime over everything down here. I've been working on cleaning it up, but it's very slow going. I've managed to clean some small patches, and they stand out pretty starkly against the flat, almost featureless surroundings. Clean-up and getting the rest of the lights working will be my focus for the next work cycle.

Neighborhood Restoration Update

These post are all probably going to share similar titles, so I apologize in advance if things get confusing. I'll try to specify what I've worked on each week(ish) from now on.

I've been slowly getting some lights turned back on in here. Mostly I've been focusing on the fixtures on the outside of the residences, but I've also gotten a handful of the square "hand" lamps working again as well. I've hoarded a few spare cones from one of the DRC's work sites in the City to mark off hazards, and brought a beach ball in for tradition's sake. It doesn't really benefit the restoration process, it's just a nice piece of nostalgia having Eddie rolling around the neighborhood. Well, it would be if he rolled anywhere... right now he's still boxed away in a corner.

Small update, but I've been taking it slow and trying not to get in over my head. Still haven't been in the auditorium, and all of the doors are still locked. Thankfully, my new Relto Book has been making it possible for me to get out of here quickly and easily, since the Book Room is still closed off as well.

New Beginnings

It's been a while...

Truthfully, I nearly forgot this blog existed. I remembered it last night while I was digging through some old material in my KI and found my post about leaving in my out queue.

It's odd to be back, now that the Cavern is buzzing with activity again. Well, maybe "buzzing" is too strong a word... "humming quietly" with activity. Anyway, things are back up and running down here for the most part, as explorers seem to have once again gotten in despite the DRC's ongoing absence. The Council seems to once again be taking a "just don't hurt yourselves" approach to the resurgence of explorers, as it has a few times in the past.

I've been largely avoiding the crowds, truthfully... there's so much work to be done, and I've been using this new lease on access to the Cavern to practice some actual restoration skills. I found a neighborhood that the DRC hadn't managed to get cleaned up for explorer use, and I've been trying to clean it up and get it working again. It's slow going, but there is progress. I'll try to once again use this space as a log of my activities.

So far, things are pretty quiet. There aren't a lot of working lights in this 'hood, and nothing else seems to be working. No fountain, no light garden... all of the doors are locked shut and there seems to be little to no power in this place. Still, I have managed to clear some debris and the major open areas are explorable without hazard. I haven't gone into the auditorium yet for lack of sufficient light – my one lantern isn't really going to cut it – so I'm unsure of its condition. In all, the only thing that seems seriously damaged so far though is the Ahyoheek table, which seems to have gotten smashed at some point.

In order to hopefully manage expectations, I'll probably only be updating on a weekly basis, if that, going forward. Unlike before when I was mostly just poking around, this is long, difficult work, and I don't want folks to expect me to work miracles here. More will come, though.

Inevitability

Sigh. I hate that I'm going to have to do this, but I don't really have a choice at this point.

I'm going to have to leave for a while.

I really don't want to. I've gotten quite comfortable in my tavern house here. I just don't have the funds to continue buying supplies, and I've been unable to make myself completely self-sufficient down here, despite my best efforts so far. Unfortunately, ghosts and lake water make for a pretty lousy diet. I've got an Age that makes lake pellets and an Age with a fruit orchard at this point, but neither is very good for feeding me on a regular and long-term basis.

I'm going to have to take a job in Carlsbad doing something so that I can start saving up for a return at some point in the future. I may not be able to come back for a couple of years, realistically, and I need to leave soon so that I have enough of a buffer in my supplies and funds to last for a while in case I can't get a job immediately.

I hate that I have to leave. But as much as I'll miss D'ni while I'm gone, I know I'll be back. I'm not sure when, but I will be back eventually. Until then, good night and good luck. To those of you who may find a way back into D'ni on your own, be careful down there.

Exotic Gardening, Day Only

Yeah, this Age really isn't big enough to merit another full day of exploration at this point. I'm really only still here because it's such a nice, relaxing space, though 200 years of neglect has made it grow a bit wild. Nothing is even remotely interested in being contained by the boxes, fences, flower beds, and formerly-sculpted topiaries. I imagine it used to resemble a bizarre formal English garden back in the day, but right now it's closer in appearance to some sort of crazy alien jungle. I think it's clear that this was a private garden Age for a wealthy member of D'ni society who either had a green thumb themselves, or paid a number of others who did to enable him to enjoy the fruits of their labor. It's got a very different feeling from the more unbridled and open "garden Ages" of Eder Kemo, Gira, Delin, or Tsogahl, all of which feel more like parks than gardens.

The whole Age – which my KI tells me is Eder Deeahno – seems to consist of an island with some pretty clear signs of heavy D'ni-made efforts to sculpt its final appearance away from a purely natural design. There are terraced rows of plants in one area, and a long-overgrown waterway wide enough for a small one- or two-person gondola cuts its way through the landscape at hard angles, now softened by years of growth and decay. The gondola itself is a small pile of rotten timber at this point. There's a hedge maze (for lack of a better word for it) that has almost completely choked itself shut. The waterway leads into it, and from the faint glimpses I've gotten through the slightly thinner hedge overgrowth around the entry point, there seems to be a fountain of some kind inside, with small stone bridges criss-crossing the waterway which are presumably retractible in some manner.

Other features include a small orchard of citrus-like fruit trees – which is good news and means I'll have some fresh, seasonal fruity additions to my collection of MREs, beef jerky, and canned goods. Elsewhere a waterfall that runs down the steep side of the island and into a series of stone waterways that at one time seem to have featured mechanisms for making sound and moving small art sculptures around, but the mechanisms have been totally frozen by rust. A wide stone walkway arcs out at a downward slope to sweep through the air around this installation, providing what I imagine are some really nice views. I opted not to tempt fate by walking out onto it without some closer structural inspection. The walkway then carves into the terrain, providing a colonnaded walk around the backside of the waterfall. This continuing downward spiral finally terminates in a small balcony at the base of the artwork that is built into the falls.

I can tell there used to be a Linking Book in a gazebo not too far from the link-in point, but it's mostly been decayed down to the binding at this point. Luckily, in addition to the Linking Book I brought with me, the DRC saw fit to put a Nexus Book on a second, covered pedestal to shelter it from the elements.

The weather here is pleasantly mild, and the sky has been relatively clear of clouds so far. The sun set a couple of hours ago, and the fireflies have come out to play since then. For as overgrown and wild as it is, it's still a nice place. I can see myself coming back and probably trying to re-tend the various gardens as a side project. Tending plants is a lot easier than shoring up buildings when you're all by yourself. I do think it would make a nice retreat, and I can see putting links to it in a public space once it's been cleaned up a bit for folks to visit and relax.

I don't think I'll be spending the night here though. It's too open to the elements, and I don't have my tent with me because the sand in Er'tsuda beat the crap out of its weatherproofing.

Exotic Gardening Prologue

Today I take off on my trip to explore the garden Age I found in the DRC tent all those months ago. I don't expect this expedition to last more than a day or two. I'll be posting back-dated daily reports once I get back to the City. Hopefully nothing there will kill me, since I still haven't found a link to Gahreesen that I can use to "borrow" a Maintainer's suit for this purpose.

Updates later!

Resurfacing

Mid-day update today.

It turns out that the guy who's been working in the DRC office is in fact a native Carlsbad resident, so I don't really have to worry about him vanishing on me in the future. I think he's gone on to other employment at this point though, because the DRC surely don't have the money to keep paying him. In any case, I'm glad he's willing to help drive me back and forth for a supply run. I've got enough funds for another couple of months, but I'm seriously approaching the point where I may have to take up a job in town to cover expenses. I really don't want to have to do that, because it'll slow my plans down considerably, but life being what it is, I probably don't have a choice.

I'll re-evaluate in the new year; my supplies should last me until then.

Anyway, I'm writing this while I wait at the edge of Zandi's property for my ride to get here. I still haven't made an excursion into the garden Age; I've spent most of my time since my last update trying to figure out what I need and how much it'll cost. I ultimately decided to save the trip until I get back to D'ni tomorrow so it's not rushed.

Colonizing

Oy, quick update before I collapse.

It's been a hectic three days since I got back from my hike in Er'tsuda. The trip exhausted a large portion of my supplies without really getting me much of anything in return, so I've been re-rationing the remaining gear until I can make a return trip to the Surface and do some more shopping in Carlsbad. Should be able to make that happen in a few days; coordinating anything with the last straggling employees of a virtually non-existent organization is really difficult (in less bizarre terms, I have to get a hold of a DRC lackey who can come pick me up at the Cleft). Aside from that, I've been pouring over both the DRC's notes and my own looking for information about the DRC-stamped garden Age I found a while back at the research tent. Other concerns and my then-plentiful supplies made the Age a low priority on my list, but now it's moved up the ranks a bit, as my supply of cash has been getting low, and coordinating these Surface trips gets more and more difficult each time they're necessary. I think this will be the last for a while, and will refresh my stores of non-perishables like canned goods and jerky, which I can supplement with fresh food from the garden Age if all goes well.

I still need to locate another spare Nexus Book to take with me, in case the DRC's own way back was again lost in the intervening years since their last expedition. I've been contemplating trying to find a Gahreesen Book as well, so I can steal a Maintainer's Suit for these initial trips just to make sure nothing nasty happens to me. Bacteria, viruses, chemicals, and even plants and animals can all be potentially deadly out in the Ages. Having an extra layer of protection is always a good idea, I think. The trick is just getting a hold of one. I guess I'll burn that bridge while I'm crossing it, as Dr. Watson was fond of saying.

In other news, the tavern is looking more and more like home now. I've probably reorganized the main dining area five times since I first moved in and got it all straightened up, trying to keep my growing piles of paperwork – as well as the copious volumes of material I've found from the DRC – properly categorized and uncluttered. I think I've finally hit upon a layout that does so without breaking up the flow of the room itself, so it's still easy to get around. In the past couple of days I've also been tinkering with one of the wall-mounted holographic projectors to see if I can get it working again. Nothing so far but a few unpleasant shocks from the circuitry, unfortunately. Did I mention that I'm better at orienteering than engineering? I don't think "Restoration Engineer" was ever really a very good summary of my talents, heh. I'm usually pretty good with electronics, though, but working without schematics or even a frame of reference, it's really rough going.

Okay, it's late and I'm exhausted. Hopefully I'll have more exploration-oriented updates in the next few days.

Er'tsuda Expedition, Day 14

Wow, what a hike.

The past eight days have been long and largely dull, though I did cover a lot of ground and get a much better handle on how the whole harvesting operation must have worked back in D'ni's heyday.

About 20 minutes from the factory, the canyon split into four sub-canyons, with a harvester track leading into each. Determined to get an idea of what to expect if my harvester ever starts working again, I continued to follow its track into the unknown. Beside me, the irrigation canal forged an angular path along the base of the canyon.

Eventually, the walls of the canyon widened a bit, and I entered what can only be described as a forest. Plants not dissimilar to those in Er'cana towered above me, thick as a pine tree forest back on Earth and in some cases just as tall. The irrigation canal apparently still functioned well enough to provide a regular flow of water to these plants, and they thrived after the Fall. Some seem to have infiltrated the canal itself, so some repair work will no doubt be necessary once this initial overgrowth is dealt with. Assuming the harvester blades are capable of cutting through growth this substantial, it might be a good idea to clearcut some of this for future use and replant it with seeds or spores (or whatever) from these now-ancient specimens.

Interestingly, the walls of the canyon themselves gave me a pretty solid idea of just how overgrown the plantlife here had gotten. In some of the naturally narrower parts of the canyon, the walls had been widened at the height where the harvester blades once passed, creating an odd and distinctive shape that served as a handy benchmark for roughly how tall the plants needed to be to be harvested efficiently. This benchmark was easily forty feet over my head, and in some cases the plants stretched thirty feet above that. Hardly what I would call optimal harvesting conditions now.

It would also seem that at least some of these plants had seen the last days of the D'ni empire, as the growth above the harvest line was considerably thinner than that below it, indicating that the plants can be cropped off at the top and still continue to grow. To what extent this may still be true in this now-forested mess is unclear. I'll have to remember to get a hold of a botanist at some point now as well to try and get some answers.

After walking for eight days through dense, inhospitable forestry to find little of ultimate interest besides the fact that the harvester tracks are at least fundamentally intact for several miles despite the overgrowth of the plants, I'm ready to get back to the cavern and do some more exploring in the city. Funny how fast my interests can change, but I've had enough of this dry and dusty place for now. Hopefully I can come back in the future with more assistance and get this place up and running again. It'll take more than what I have at my disposal right now to make that happen though, so for now, it's back to D'ni.

Er'tsuda Expedition, Day 6

Early update today. Still no success getting the harvester going. I think that it, along with most of the rest of the machinery in this Age, will need to wait until I can get a few more folks "down here" to assist me, since mechanical engineering is not my forte; I'm more into orienteering. On the bright side, I have plenty of documents and manuals to show to whatever linguists and mechanics I eventually manage to con into taking over for the DRC...

Rather than spin my wheels – no pun intended – any longer I've decided to pack up and hike along the track for this harvester to see if I can get a better lay of the land outside of the factory. I spent most of the morning breaking down camp and assessing my supplies. I figure I can be gone for 10 days at the most if I take it easy and ration my food and water well. The weather has so far been fairly favorable, so hydration shouldn't be a huge problem, even in a desert-ish environment like this one.

Assuming the rest of this Age is anything like Er'cana, I have a reasonable idea of what to expect along my hike, but I'm still likely to be surprised along the way. Will probably not have an update until I get back from the hike, though since these entries are all being back-dated anyway, it won't really matter in the long run.

Er'tsuda Expedition: Day 5

I've got a rudimentary shelter built in the shanty town for the Nexus Book. While I was salvaging materials from some of the collapsed shacks, I came across a few bleached skeletons. I wouldn't be surprised if Veovis and A'Gaeris linked a plague-ridden body into this Age, landing it smack in the middle of town. Nobody who lived here would have stood a chance, and anyone who fled back to D'ni would have been equally doomed. I found a place off to one corner of the village where the ground was soft enough to dig, and gave them as proper a burial as I could manage before returning to the task at hand. Within a couple of hours, I had a lean-to and a basic pedestal put together to shelter the Book from the wind and dust blowing around.

I returned to the factory afterwards and continued to rifle through stacks of moldy or disintegrating papers to see if I could find anything that might help me get the harvester back online, or even just have it start. I think the thing runs on powermarbles, much like the ones Gehn used on Riven to power his firemarble domes, but with a lower yield and a more controlled output. There are still a few boxes in the maintenance room I uncovered with cautionary labels on them that look like they might be what I'm after, so now all I need is a diagram of what the engine is supposed to look like so I can make sure it matches. Little success on that score, though there are a couple of hard-bound books with voluminous amounts of D'ni text in them. God help me if that's the only user manual the thing came with...

If I can't get anything accomplished with this thing within a couple of hours tomorrow, I'm going to leave it for later when I have more skilled hands at my disposal, and go on a hike to see what lies along one of the irrigation canals. I'll probably follow the one that runs beneath the track my broken harvester is sitting on, so that if it ever does start working again, I'll have some idea of what to expect when I take it for a spin.

Er'tsuda Expedition: Day 4

I'm honestly starting to get a little frustrated by how inoperative a lot of this equipment is. I don't know if any of the factory machinery still works, and it's going to take a long time with a haz-mat suit to clean out the crap that's grown in the harvester hoppers. On top of that, there's the one inoperable harvester in the factory, and the seven other harvesters that are lost out in the fields somewhere, which could very well be totally unsalvageable.

On a bright note, I did finally find the Linking Book back to D'ni. Unsurprisingly, it goes somewhere that the DRC probably haven't investigated, as there is no stamp on the Book. I suspect their original expedition to this Age used a Nexus Book to get back to the known areas of D'ni, and it's been blown away or buried or something else. It looks like I'm going to need to build a shelter of some kind up in the shanty town and make sure that the Nexus Book I brought with me is well protected so that I don't need to worry about losing it in the future.

No further progress on finding spare parts or replacement lube for the harvester engine. I'm not a mechanic, unfortunately, so I really have no idea what's going on in there. It seems relatively straightforward, as most D'ni machinery is (their electronics are a different story, but machines are all pretty basic), but lacking even so much as a blueprint, I'm not sure where to begin with tinkering. Let it be known that the D'ni built everything to last, but they did so with the assumption that they'd be there to maintain it. Grr...

Er'tsuda Expedition: Day 3

A bit of an early update today...

I've found a way out onto the canyon floor from the factory. There is a small service passage at the outermost end of the harvester receiving area. This leads to a narrow flight of stairs, some ladders, and a claustrophobically thin hallway before finally ending in a door. The door took me outside, where I followed a very weather-worn path down to ground level. The enormous arc of the pellet factory swept up and away from me across the breadth of the canyon, backlit by the light of the morning sun; a sight so incredible I nearly fell over trying to take it all in.

I planted a stick in the ground, marked the position of its shadow, and set up some equipment to record the passage of time here. I have a time-lapse camera and a stopwatch attached to a tripod and trained on the stick. Some time tomorrow, I'll come back and check on the stick to see how long it took the planet to make a full revolution. The science of exploring these worlds is arguably my favorite part... I could take or leave the heavy manual labor of fixing everything, I just want to look at stuff and see how it works.

I also set up a more permanent camp down here near the bottom of the canyon. Like Er'cana, it's a wide basin rather than a more precipitous chasm like most of the Grand Canyon, so my concerns about a storm potentially flooding my base of operations require less drastic precautions... it takes a lot more water to fill up a broad, flat canyon than it does to fill up a narrow one. I'm set up about 15 feet from the bottom right now, on one of the widest parts of the access path.

Cursory efforts to get the docked harvester up and running have proven unsuccessful. I'm not exactly surprised, though. As I said yesterday, the thing's been sitting for at least 200 years now. Any lubricant and fuel that could possibly have been in the thing is gone now. I'm going to do some more searching around the crawl spaces in the factory this evening and see if I can find any useful replacement materials that might have survived (I doubt it... might need to make an excursion to the Surface again for some engine repair stuff).