Blaues Gras ™
"Do you find yourself wishing your yard was easier to maintain?
"Do you wish you could just roll it up for the winter, pack it up, send it for professional care, and have it returned you to for the sunny season? Have we got a deal for you!"
Megamisama Sportsplex's own supplier, Blaues Gras, a high-tech supplier of composite and bio-enhanced materials from Brunswick has recently been granted license to sell its unique product, composite glass laminate netting to Kagomine of demanding standards and good taste.
"The composite netting has been proven to resist to the metal spikes of professional casho player's shoes, large pachyderms, roadcars, and the like, while the actual live grass that lives in the netting makes your yard look beautiful!
"Do not wait, operators are standing by."
"Are you interested?"
"In blaues grass? Nope."
"Why not, you can certainly afford it."
"Yeah, but when I visited Dunkehl Stadii, I didn't like the texture, it felt dead. Like the live grass in the ad isn't really alive. Besides, Mom and Nellun are the gardeners, and they're satisfied with actual grass for now, if that changes, maybe. Besides, they can't even inflect brun properly, it's Blausgrass, not blaues grass."
"What do you mean, your mom's the gardener? I thought this was your place?"
"It is, but she's Aumhava?"
"I thought you said I was Aumhava now?"
"Err, yes, yes you are, you don't like our garden?"
"I love your garden just fine, I wish our home was under our care though, not your mom's plaything."
"I think Mom would trade me Garay just to keep this place though, especially the garden."
"Garay, that's like a tenth the empire!"
"No, I wouldn't my son, Garay is yours by birthright, as my heir, except, I can't give it to you if you inherit from Amalthea. It'd be yours to give away, just not to keep in that case. I don't know what I wouldn't give, daughter, to keep managing this ritual garden, it's so peaceful, I've recovered from bad days, I guess you could say 'at work' just by spending time with the stones and the lake and the trees and the shrubbery." That was his mother, who lived here, when she wasn't on mission halfway across the globe.
"I'm not trying to negotiate, 'mother'. I'm trying to make this home, my home."
"Don't be so quick, your home may end up being Innu Palace. And I'm sorry you feel the need to change things, I am very attached to this place being the way it is now, more than my actual official residence, since this belonged to my late husband, who gave his life to save my son."
"Innu-Palace?"
"Na-Meihomei isn't a title, not really, but with you having Amarat's child, you are his children's regent unless found criminally unworthy. And he's Meihomei the moment something happens to Amalthéa, unless she has another child, which she told me didn't appeal."
"Charming, but hardly my point."
"You and Amarat are trying to adapt to a lot of change, just like I did. In my defense, the worse change I had to adapt to was Amarat Sr's death."
"And Firrson's, and ..."
"You're right, I can't forget those lifeguards, they gave their lives..."
"I live here, unless Amarat and you decide I cannot, am I that big a problem?"
"No, you're not that big a problem,. I'm just so... such a passenger."
"No, you're not. You can't be, you're our Aumhava, it's just that I haven't been around enough to require your services."
"Services?"
"You are the high priestess of this place, I will need advice, Zim, Aumhava Rolli, you're my only hope."
"Me? But you have decades of experience on me, you..."
"I'm too close, I live in this life, when I need advice, it has to be from someone that isn't me. That's the first rule a priestess is thought, or at least, it was, when I learned the trade."
"Going back to gardening..."
"Yes?"
"Why do we need to change the status quo? You, Mother, have all the interest and time to spare on the garden, while you, Flora, are Aumhava and can override any decision she makes that displeases you."
"I'd never..."
"You'd not use authority we've given you over us?"
"Well, when you put it that way..."
"I am, you are our Aumhava, it is a sacred compact, you protect us, we support you."
"What's your favorite flower, Flora?"
"I love practically all of them, and it's why I'm called Flora, my mother's earliest memories of getting me to smile was showing me flowers and especially, letting me touch them. And Flora was obviously the first name she tried, for that reason."
"You must have some favourite though."
"Mother, if she says she likes them all, you can just tiebreak on the rest... And if our Aumhava changes her mind, she will tell you..."
"Ok, ok, I have a tiny preference for blue-green tcha flowers." Flora admitted, although it was with apparent effort.
"Oh, like Clovertcha?"
"Yes, although, ours needs not be that big..."
"Well, certainly not anytime soon..."
"I should ask Stepmother Pom for a cutting..."
"Oh, from the very famous tcha bush hundreds visit every year?"
"From the tcha bush she planted with her own hands, in fact, to save time, I'll ask Stepmother Kei-Mist and Dad for a cutting of theirs, as well, so we can have arrangements of blue, green and aqua."
See Peaceblossom for how that turned out.Utility
Since it's relation to nano-mat is known in military circles, some submarines have posited the idea to use nano-mat to distribute water, co2 and oxygen to photosynthesizers aboard submarines and extrastellar spaceships, to make submersible, resilient hydroponics. So far this remains to the leval of conjecture.
Manufacturing
The process is thought to be complex and expensive, but the patent concerns only how the carbon fibers are used, not produced. The equivalent production cost for Pilder powered armor, using carbon and generating cubic-gauche nitrogen is prohibitively expensive, but since the by products are useful military strategic materials, this is not yet a concern.
Competitors do not yet know how to make the fibers, but that may change, as Kagomei is considering legislation that it must be made under license, by a local supplier.
Social Impact
Impact is limited, as it could drive operating costs of some Casho venues up slightly, but otherwise affects no strategic or economic processes.
The capillary action of the material, being carbon nanotube, is many times that of any known material, and much speculation happens because of the possibilities
This is new/experimental tech that is so expensive, only large commercial sports venues have deployed it.
The inventor is trying to market it to large villas and other high-ticket venues where lawn manicure is expensive. Currently, sending the weave and grass blades back, for maintenance is less expensive than doing so 'on site' so there is a de facto monopoly on aftercare of such venues.
No one but Montauk Shibberling has even attempted carbon nanotube production on the industrial scale, and only Pilder armor currently uses related technologies, but that's classified.
Montauk Shibberling founded the company in 804AK, trying to discover new applications for carbon-fibre nanoweave. One of its first applications was nano-mat, a compact composite mat of great resilience and lightness that ended up replacing carpets on commercial flights. Ten years later, he applied for a patent for a similar concept, except the carbon nanotubes added capillary action to bring water to each individual blade of grass in a new suspensive weave.
"Blue grass" as it was called, became high-end artificial turf for sports venues. In 814, he applied for a permit to the Lai Dang Treaty Authority and for trademarks, copyright and design patents as well as a patent to using carbon nanowire to transport water.
All of your story segments are great, although I have to give you the heads up that I wasn't certain what the technology was until the end, since I read the body first! I also had to zoom out a bit by going to the setting's main page to see if this is an influential or minor part of the setting or not! It's also a little unclear to me if it's a weave or a grass-like turf, since descriptors for both are used on it. Overall, really cool to see how a technology like this had an effect on sports and other domestic applications! I feel like this is a technology that could explode into other sectors as well — what prevents that? It sounds like it's already started on the military end, but either way having a tough, flexible, frictional material seems like it might have a lot of applications, such as potentially replacing rubber in an industrial setting!
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