The Quartermaster
| The Quartermaster | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | "The Line" (March 29, 2026) |
| Created by | Molecular Reality Corporation |
| In-universe information | |
| Occupation | Head of the hardware office |
| Affiliation | Molecular Streaming Corps |
| Form of address | "Corpspeople" |
The Quartermaster is a sender persona in the inbox of EQBio-OS, the member software of Molecular Reality Corporation. He runs the hardware office of the company's volunteer community, the Molecular Streaming Corps, and addresses its members, the Player Scientists, as "Corpspeople". His first message opens with an order: "Corpspeople, stand at attention!"[1]
Creation
The Quartermaster entered the software's table of characters on March 16, 2026, the third persona to do so, after Jeanne d'Arc and Anna-Nirvana. He is the only one whose name is a job title.[2] His portrait, made with an image generator, is a pixel-art figure in a cream lab coat and helmet, with large green-tinted goggles, a brown mustache and red gloves, holding a green tool that trails a cable. His messages appear in the inbox's tab for the Corps, which the software's guided tour describes in his terms: "You'll also find provisions, hardware, pores, and accessories here."[2] Both of his messages were posted from the founder's own account. The other personas are described in Sender personas of EQBio-OS.
The title is older than the Corps. The United States Army's supply department dates from 1775, "when the Continental Congress authorized a Quartermaster General",[3] and its branch is still called the Quartermaster Corps.
"The Line"
His first message, sent on March 29, 2026, under the label "Provisions", defines the office: "Everything about hardware, reagents, accessories, pore cartridges, and chips with pores will come through my office." It promises messages "about materials we've created in the past, in various states of usability", and then presents one: "Behold, the line array!"[1]
The arrays were made in 2020 with an outside fabrication company for the Molecular Aquarium, using a modified form of deep reactive-ion etching, the process that cuts deep, straight-walled holes in silicon by alternating short etching steps with steps that coat the walls in a protective polymer.[4] Their purpose was "to test sliding-occlusion at scale". The pores, "all under 10 microns", were spaced so that two arrays would pass over each other "at precise angles and positions, with slight variations in the size of each pore", and one array "was designed to slide across another array of dozens of pores, while only allowing a single juxtaposition to be open at the same time".[1] That is the principle of the vernier scale, which Pierre Vernier described in 1631: two scales with slightly different spacings, of which only one pair of marks lines up at a time.[5] The company has compared the Aquarium's moving aperture to a vernier caliper.[2]
The accompanying video was taken "with my iPhone through the eyepiece (we didn't have a camera adapter at the time)". The message explains the colors: "When it turns red, the light is coming from below, with the red color indicating a membrane single-digit-microns thick."[1] Silicon absorbs blue and green light within about a micrometer but lets red light through several micrometers, so a thin silicon membrane lit from behind glows red.[6]
The message closes with the arrays' status: "Kemmishtree has a bunch of arrays like this sitting on his table. They're ready to go when the Corps has the resources to test them." It says that the Molecular Aquarium will be described "in another message".[1]
"provision carousel"
His second and last message so far, sent on April 25, 2026, under the label "instrumentation", reads in full: "Cool stuff we've built. Join a live meeting to discuss!" It carries seven photographs: a joystick with a badge of Maxine, the shielding box of the company's amplifier, the Molecular Aquarium chip in its carrier, a tall stack of machined plates, small 3D-printed flow cells and pushers, an old piezoelectric stage, and a model of the demonpore 64 console.[7] A "Saturday TELETHON", one of the company's BioSingularity TELETHON video meetings, was held on April 25, with a reminder sent by Keltar.[2] The promised message about the Aquarium has not been sent.
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e Quartermaster (March 29, 2026). "The Line". EQBio-OS.
- ^ a b c d "Company records". Molecular Reality Corporation. October 2026.
- ^ "Quartermaster: QM Department of the Army". Fort Scott National Historic Site. National Park Service. Retrieved October 25, 2026.
- ^ "US5501893A: Method of anisotropically etching silicon". Google Patents. Retrieved October 25, 2026.
- ^ Vernier, Pierre (1631). La construction, l'usage, et les propriétés du quadrant nouveau de mathématiques.
- ^ Green, Martin A. (2008). "Self-consistent optical parameters of intrinsic silicon at 300 K including temperature coefficients". Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells 92: 1305-1310.
- ^ Quartermaster (April 25, 2026). "provision carousel". EQBio-OS.