A Magic Vault

The Encyclopedia Foundation has to plan for every eventuality. Including some bizarre ones. For instance, one of sub-missions is to keep an eye on the state of space travel, and to make sure that any colony ship has some metal discs on them. Much like the Catholics did in the book “A Canticle for Leibowitz” just before some future atomic war.

But this is about a different eventuality, perhaps more likely.

The hypothetical year is 02711, 700 years from now. It has been 200 years since a terrorist released nanites that were designed to eat any unobtainium, which is what all the high tech stuff in the future is made out of! Kelvin of the Peorians (a small farming autarchy in Illinois) has traveled far in search of old style goods for trade. There were still caches of tools and such to be had, if one had wits, time and tools. Kelvin had all three.

He comes across a house, and one with an X with a bar over it! He has heard the tales of how the ancients, fearful that their wonders would be lost, made caches of knowledge and scattered them to the four winds. Could this be one of those places?

He enters, and sees that the house has been thoroughly looted…but the basement door is still closed! And what a door! Steel, like a Keepsaker’s vault! (Bank vaults storing currency were obsolete by 02147.) He could see the scratches and chisel marks of waves of looters, but it was unbreached.

Unfazed – he was the son of the Chief, and of no small amount of intelligence – he went to the bedroom. He saw the bed moved already, someone else had had his idea, but there was no trap door, and the hole previous scavengers had made in the wood only showed a criss cross of rebar over smooth metal.

Grinning with the knowledge that whatever was left was untouched by a dozen generations of scavengers, he treks back to his cart. He wheels it patiently back to the house, and making sure there’s nothing to indicate to wanderers that he’s inside, he starts to work.

At the vault door, he starts on the frame with his father’s torch. No small measure of his father’s authority rested on his absolute control of an enormous warehouse of tools and supplies that he inherited from his father. It had taken a lot of persuading to get him to loan an acetylene torch, but this would pay off big!

Seven hours later, Kelvin was able to pull the door away from the frame. He used a rope to do so, not wanting to push it in and disturb any goods. Climbing over the door, he entered, felt the floor give ever so slightly…and was surprised when it lit up! Soft light came from either side of door, enough to let him see a large chamber with a table in the middle with an odd box with a cone coming out of it.

On the right, another table, smaller, held a lantern. On the far wall was a safe box, from floor to ceiling and a man’s height wide. He examined the lights first, and found that they were glow sticks that had been crushed by a piece of metal attached so as to be thrust up when he stepped on the plate in the floor, just inside the door. Those would not last forever, and did not give enough light.

He wondered how he was going to get into the safe without damaging what was inside, and hoped he had enough acetylene left to do so. He doubted it. Nor was the safe small enough to move. There were strange markings on the walls everywhere, and on the safe, and on the tables. And squares of metal with more marks on them on either table.

He took out his tinder box and got the lantern lit, and received another surprise – an images of men appeared on the wall! It seemed to come from the lantern, the light went through some thick and curved piece of glass, and landed on the wall in the image of the same man, over and over. In the first he was bent over the box with the cone, holding the handle. The next one, he was still holding the handle but the handle was in a different position. The third, same, and another different position of the handle.

He looked, and there was a handle on the box. He eyed it warily, then held it, then tried to move it. He cranked it, let go, and promptly jumped in surprise again – for a voice was speaking to him now.

“Welcome to the Encyclopedia Foundation. This is a store house of knowledge on how to rebuild civilization. The round discs when placed on this box will make my voice come to instruct you. The instructional ones are on the side of the table with a picture of a horse on it. The ones where the picture of the dog is are the same thing, but in other languages.”

“Bienvenido a la Fundacion Enciclopedia…”

*ahem*

So you get the idea. The Encyclopedia Foundation must design their vault to cover all bases.

First, note how we are assuming that the Long Now Foundation will succeed in getting their "Ten Thousand Year" idea and symbol in the public's consciousness. The X with a bar over it is the symbol of a "myria" or "ten thousand". It's a symbol every long range foundation should use.

Do not assume you’ll have a power source that will long out last your disappearance. We may well have some lights that are solar powered in the vault, but how long these will last unattended…well, less than ten thousand years, that’s for sure! Not really sure that the glow sticks are all that viable either, but if they don’t work because too much time has gone by, then all the more reason for them to light the lantern.

You can also have those images that the lantern casts simply drawn on the wall. But we think that the lantern idea is kind of cool, and will sure make what they are seeing seem important! (And yes, it is possible to design a lantern to do that. If you don’t do this, at least have an ordinary lantern for light for them. And those pictures on the wall.)

Do not assume literacy. As this is the case, you will have to have your vault teach them to read. Which means they must first be interested in that. A phonograph can be hand powered. But they don’t know about phonographs, so you must show those pictures.

Once they hear the voice, they will be hooked. The introduction should be the opening paragraph in the five major languages of English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Hindi and Arabic. Yes, have Spanish second if you are in North America. It’s the second most likely language of the listener.

You cannot say “on your left” or “on your right”. You don’t know which way he is facing, or even if he knows what “left” and “right” is. “The side with the picture of the horse” is safer. Or “mountains”. We’re still evaluating which pictures to mark left and right will be most easily known for the longest time. After all, by 02711 horses may have been extinct for 500 years.

Other aspects of design that the story of Kelvin didn’t get to was the various writings on the wall. They should be instructions on how to read. At least one wall. Pictures and normal print. As to those who speak the other languages, the records will direct them to metal plates that have the same learn to read instructions but in that language.

The safe should have writing on it. Principally instructions on how to get in. “The first number of the combination is what you get when you add 15 and 6. If you do not know this, find the round disc with the picture of trees on it, place it on the box with the cone and it will tell you.” Hence they will learn addition. “The second number is what you get when you multiply 4 times 6. If you do not know this, find the round disc with the picture of people on it, place it on the box with the cone and it will tell you.” Etc.

While the little story was too short of a detailed description of the vault, one would have other things in it. A box full of metal pages, for instance. Ones that duplicate everything to be found in the vault. This will be the “plate holder” box another article mentioned, but it will hold more than one metal page of data.

Another box filled with records. Records, if you are too young to remember, do not play a notably long time. You will need a lot of them. In theory, they may be all the illiterate man has to draw on. The focus of these will be to teach reading, writing and arithmetic. In all those languages. Records can be made to last a very long period of time, however they should be special records, specially made. To be more durable, and if possible, to play longer. Attention will have to be given to the phonograph. It will need to be specially made, extra durable, and made for the specific special records you make.

Some mechanical items and tools should be there. Too pique interest, if nothing else.

Don't forget a box of lenses. Securely stored to not be damaged by earthquakes. Along with instructions as to there use. By phonograph and picture. More on that in another article.

One should also have pictures. Engravings on metal can be quite artistic. Show things. Either things you want them to do, or in other cases, simply pictures to pique their interest. Like a photo quality etching of airplanes over a city. Or a rocket landing on the moon, Earth in the background.

The metal pages themselves should be artistic, and designed to attract interest. More on that in another article.

This is by no means complete – or necessarily the best. We are working towards this, it is not a finished plan. Our interactions with other like minded fellow travelers has already helped us, and will continue to. The Encyclopedia Foundation welcomes any thoughts, criticisms or suggestions.