The Machines of the City

Each of the major machines was a monumental success and tribute to the golden age the City developed.  But, the crowning jewel of them all was the Weather Machine. It was designed by a few people: the eccentric idealist Tillman and his intelligent, yet pragmatic colleague, Dennis. Together with other brilliant minds, they designed and built this monstrosity that took up miles of previously filled coastline.   Dennis was always wary of the "yes, absolutely we can do that" attitude of Tillman which lead to some agreements by Tillman that were either done poorly or never done at all.  This led to some higher ups and funding becoming agitated with the Machine's progress.  However, despite quite a few missteps and mishaps, the complex, with its Machine and its Plants, was built within a few decades.  Its ability to control the weather, create clouds, rain, sunshine or anything in-between, and solve increasing atmospheric problems, it earned its slot as the First Wonder of the Modern Future.  Powered by solar panels and fueled by desalination plants to provide metric buttloads of water necessary for such an invention, it stood high and above the rest in terms of impressiveness.

Though the structure served a very important purpose, it was not designed without aesthetics in mind.  Starting from bottom, the base of the machine is a hexagon shaped ring with spires on each corner.  Each of these spires are adorned with an enormous rotatable fan.  These fans serve dual purposes. First, they may act as regular fans, driving wind patterns with the ability to rotate a full 360 degrees.  This allows each fan to be able to sweep and blow air in whatever direction.  These fans allow for creation of wind speeds up to 150 miles per hour, F2 level tornadoes.  Due to their inability to create tornadoes, these speeds were never damaging.  The fans were never run that high as well. The fans may also act as wind turbines and harvest wind energy, instead of using energy.  

The Weather Machine sweeps out a large area.  Within this area, surrounding the base of the Weather Machine is a wide array and series of thermal air vents.  These serve to create large packets of hot air, the seed to the possibilities of clouds and rarely thunderstorms. These vents are blocks wide and some stretch up to nearly a mile.  Like the fans, they may also serve to generate large packets of cold air.  These vents could generate temperatures varying from -5 degrees  to 110 degrees Fahrenheit.  These vents were used to create weather in addition to just making easier to live in temperatures. 

Ascending the structure leads to the cloud seeding "arms".  The vents themselves required active seeding in order to generate clouds of any appreciable size.  The seeds were small particulates that were harvested from the water after desalination.  The particulates were chosen just specifically as to not cause harmful health effects as well as be effective in seeding. Once the vents begin releasing heat, the seeders begin to release the small, small dust particles. These then mix with the air from the thermal vents.  The seeders also used electrically charged particles.  This will be explained for later. 

The final part to the creation of the clouds is of course, water.  The water used to create the droplets comes from two enormous water tanks, sitting on either side of the central spire.  These tanks are supported via large metal brackets attached to the central body.   Tubes coming from the underneath the Machine's body, pump the tanks.  Atop the tanks are large, shower heads which spray the water in extremely fine drops so as to create proper clouds and not just rain from the heads.  

With the vents, the seeders, the tanks and the sprayers, the WM can easily create clouds. To top off the structure, the Weather Machine has a large, metal, electrically conducting spire.  This spire stores a colossal amount of charge.  This build up  a large amount of charge. With the large charges built up by the seeded particles, this event can create a large enough voltage difference to create lightning.  The addition of this spire was a highly debated issue back in the day, especially during the design phase.  It was added regardless and to this day, Dennis will still not explain its actual purpose.   

During the whole Age of Lights, brought about partly by the Weather Machine, this device stood above the rest in terms of usefulness and likability.  There was a faction of people that was completely against the machine.  They attributed this hatred to the direct control of nature, something that they believed should not be toyed with.  And defenders of the Machine fought back, asking the attackers to provide a better alternative to the growing heat and extreme weather event issue.  

After the Lights Turned Off, the Weather Machine devolved into a strange comatose state.  It neither controlled the weather around the City nor did it allow for nature's return of total control.  In this state, it removed the clouds and any weather that came with that.  The drizzles, intense thunderstorms and all precipitation in between ceased.  All that remained and currently remains is the eternal daylight.  Every day the Machine stays dormant, the skies remain clear and the intense daylight bathes the City indefinitely.  

Dennis, while still remaining in the City, unlike Tillman, has given up working on the Weather Machine and has since given that responsibility to Edgwus.  Edgwus, while much younger and was not there when the Machine was built, is the only one who seems to care to get it working properly again.  With his protégé, Darren, they hope to get it fixed soon.