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--- shellac_records [2025/06/09 06:36] – [Overview] admin
+++ shellac_records [2025/09/08 05:08] (current) – [Related Pages and Further Information] admin
@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 Shellac records — an [[the_humans|exohuman]] [[the_earth|Earth]]-era medium first popularised in the 19th century — experienced an unlikely renaissance on [[the_planet_voi_700_d|VOI 700 D]].
-When the colony ark [[last_frontier|Last Frontier]] crashed on [[day_zero|Day Zero]], the settlers lost their quantum internet, most high-density drives, and any hope of cloud computing. The Tier-1 AGI [[gaia|GAIA]], suddenly marooned in isolated vaults, still needed a way to push firmware patches, security keys, and medical data to each Local Hub — but every byte had to travel on minimal power and leave a tamper-evident audit trail.
+When the colony ark [[last_frontier|Last Frontier]] crashed on [[day_zero|Day Zero]], the settlers lost their quantum internet, most high-density drives, and any hope of cloud computing. The Tier-1 AGI [[gaia|GAIA]], suddenly marooned in isolated vaults, still needed a way to push firmware patches, security keys, and medical data to each [[local_gaia_hub|Local GAIA Hub]] — but every byte had to travel on minimal power and leave a tamper-evident audit trail.
 To meet that need, engineers in [[new kourou|New Kourou]] founded the [[New Kourou Shellac Corporation (NKSC)|New Kourou Shellac Corporation (NKSC)]] in 2625. What they made:
@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
   * Hand-cranked “lathe-writers” that engrave tone-encoded files onto the disks.
   * Clockwork and piezo-pickup sequencers that decode those tones back into GAIA-readable text.
+  * Usage of the [[weber_communication_company|Weber Communication Company's]] [[shortwave_radio_network_of_the_exohumans|Shortwave Network]] for the transmission of the files between settlements.
-Beginning in 2627 NKSC used the same presses for culture: every Friday [[weber_broadcasting_services|WBS]] cut a “Studio Master” live-session disk that couriers of the [[new_kourou_courier_service|New Kourou Courier Service]] and [[firetown_courier_service|Firetown Courier Service]] rushed to pubs across the [[free_state_of_settlers|Free State of Settlers]]. Owning the week’s groove became a status symbol and forged a shared playlist between settlements.
+Beginning in 2627 NKSC used the same presses for culture: every Friday [[weber_broadcasting_services|Weber Broadcasting Services]]  cut a “Studio Master” live-session disk that couriers of the [[new_kourou_courier_service|New Kourou Courier Service]] and [[firetown_courier_service|Firetown Courier Service]] rushed to pubs across the [[free_state_of_settlers|Free State of Settlers]]. Owning the week’s groove became a status symbol and forged a shared playlist between settlements.
-When the Free State collapsed and the [[federal_confederation|Federal Confederation]] rose in 2631, the NKSC was absorbed, re-badged as the [[Federal Shellac Manufactory (FSM)|Federal Shellac Manufactory (FSM]]), and given an exclusive charter to supply the newly founded [[gaia_system|Federal GAIA Agency]] Whether labelled NKSC or FSM, the same workshops still turn out the disks and the rugged readers that keep GAIA’s network alive.
+When the Free State collapsed and the [[federal_confederation|Federal Confederation]] rose in 2631, the NKSC was absorbed, re-badged as the [[Federal Shellac Manufactory (FSM)|Federal Shellac Manufactory (FSM]]), and given an exclusive charter to supply the newly founded [[gaia_system|Federal GAIA Agency]]. Whether labelled NKSC or FSM, the same workshops still turn out the disks and the rugged readers that keep GAIA’s network alive.
-From the improvised ingenuity of the [[beta_age|Beta Age]] to the energy-rationed bureaucracy of the [[the_gamma_age|Gamma Age]], shellac records — and the devices built by NKSC/FSM—carry the Confederation’s lifeblood: firmware, legislation, culture, and contraband alike, all etched into brittle spirals of resin.
+From the improvised ingenuity of the [[beta_age|Beta Age]] to the energy-rationed bureaucracy of the [[the_gamma_age|Gamma Age]], shellac records — and the devices built by NKSC/FSM — carry the Confederation’s lifeblood: firmware, legislation, culture, and contraband alike, all etched into brittle spirals of resin.
 ===== Historical Background =====
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 The crash vaporised the orbital relays and toasted most mass-storage hardware. When the [[free_state_of_settlers|Free State of Settlers]] formed, it ran a laissez-faire economy — no central planning, no nightly ledgers to collect. Communication therefore flowed almost entirely downward from the sole surviving GAIA core in New Kourou:
-  * **Kernel burst (≈23:30) —** each Friday the Kernel pushed firmware patches, security keys, and medical encyclopedia updates over short-wave.
+  * **Kernel burst (≈23:30) —** each Friday the Kernel pushed firmware patches, security keys, and medical encyclopedia updates over the Shortwave Network, operated by the Weber Communication Company.
-  * **Disk engraving (00:00 – 02:00) —** local scribes in every settlement cut the received data onto shellac, verified the checksum tone, then filed the disk in the hub’s vault.
+  * **Disk engraving (00:00 – 02:00) —** local scribes in the Local Hubs of each settlement cut the received data onto shellac, verified the checksum tone, then filed the disk in the hub’s vault.
   * **Hub flash (dawn) —** technicians halted GAIA for ten minutes, swapped in the new build, and logged the CRC on a paper register.
   * When Local GAIA Hubs were finally dug beneath town halls (2626 →), the ritual stayed the same: burst down, disk in, vault flash.
@@ Line 53: / Line 54: @@
 ===== Technical Details =====
-==== Encoding and Storage Capacity: ====
+==== Transmission ====
-  * Shellac records were encoded with up to 6 GB of data using tone-based encryption.
+  * Tone files were broadcast over the Weber Shortwave Network
-  * Text data was stored at a rate of 30 tones per second, allowing up to 9,000 characters on a five-minute record.
+  * Encoding and Storage Capacity: Shellac records were encoded with up to 6 GB of data using tone‑based encryption.
+  * Text data was stored at a rate of 30 tones per second, allowing up to 9,000 characters on a five‑minute record.
 ==== Reading Devices: ====
@@ Line 63: / Line 65: @@
-===== Subcultural and Black Market Uses in the Gamma Age =====
+===== Culture, Subculture and Black Market  =====
-Beyond their official role, shellac records became a cultural artifact on VOI 700 D:
+From 2628 to 2630 the weekly WBS “Studio Master” pressings — live music sessions cut by the New Kourou Shellac Corporation (NKSC) onto mirror-finish blanks and issued in numbered sleeves — quickly became status trophies. Pubs would race to spin the fresh groove on Friday night, and a tavern’s prestige was measured by how many dog-eared Masters lined its shelf.
-**Subculture:**
+To hear them without siphoning a QFB, NKSC also sold EchoHorn kits: a bronze pickup saddle and folding hardwood horn that bolted onto any clockwork sequencer, boosting output to roughly 70 dB. Perfectly legal during the Beta Age, EchoHorns were banned after nationalization, in the Gamma Age they are only available on Firetown's black market.
-  * Some settlers formed a niche community celebrating the aesthetic and acoustic qualities of shellac records.
-  * They experimented with listening to "sonified" data, interpreting the tonal sequences for artistic or recreational purposes.
+Those same late shifts that kept GAIA’s firmware presses running also birthed “ghost pressings.” Technicians lingered after hours, striking surreptitious runs of music disks, Tone-30 Pro upgrade heads, and spare stylus sets, then funnelling the contraband west through a chain of Firetown middle-men.
-**Black Market:**
-  * DIY turntables and playback devices were crafted from salvaged materials and traded on the black market.
+A quieter offshoot is the Data-Art scene: hobbyists feed raw GAIA packets into lathe-writers and perform the resulting atonal hiss as ambient soundscapes — half protest, half meditation on the thin line between information and culture.
-  * These often featured hand-cranked mechanisms for rotation, mechanical amplifiers similar to gramophones, components like needles made from spaceship scrap or native materials.
 ===== Legacy =====
@@ Line 92: / Line 93: @@
   * [[the_gamma_age|Gamma Age]]
   * [[gaia|GAIA]]
+  * [[local_gaia_hub|Local GAIA Hubs]]
   * [[gaia_system|Federal GAIA Agency]] (Gamma Age)
   * [[New Kourou Shellac Corporation (NKSC)|New Kourou Shellac Corporation (NKSC)]]
-  * [[Federal Shellac Manufactory (FSM)|Federal Shellac Manufactory (FSM]]
+  * [[Federal Shellac Manufactory (FSM)|Federal Shellac Manufactory (FSM)]]
-  * [[shortwave_radio_network_of_the_exohumans|shortwave radio transmission]]
+  * [[shortwave_radio_network_of_the_exohumans|Shortwave Radio Transmission]]
+  * [[weber_communication_company|Weber Communication Company]]
+  * [[weber_broadcasting_services|Weber Broadcasting Services]]
   * [[exohuman_technology_of_the_beta_age|Exohuman Technology in the Beta Age]]
   * [[the_exohuman_communication_system_in_the_beta_age|Exohuman Communication in the Beta Age]]