Benthic Auger (CivBE)

Wonders

Benthic Auger
Wonder in Beyond Earth
Cost	550
Maintenance	None
Requires	Servomachinery
Specialist slots	None
Effect	+5 Diplomatic Capital +2 from Coast
Notes	None

The Benthic Auger is an aquatic only wonder introduced in the Rising Tide expansion pack.

• +5 Diplomatic Capital
• +2 Production from Coast terrain worked by this city

Quote

"You fail to reap the bounty of the seas not because your people lack the means, but because you lack the imagination." - Duncan Hughes, The Prime ARK Letters

History

The more autonomous a water city, the more prosperous. The Benthic Auger was an essential advancement in concluding the dependence of trade with land-based cities for production resources. Its unique, helical-bit drilling system is capable of continuously dredging and filtering vast areas of seabed. Detritus from the operation is sifted to gain access to its rich mineral and resource contents. Additionally, the drill casing is designed to latch to the ocean floor and stabilize the Auger amid the harshest currents.

Before the Auger, drudging techniques were primitive. It would previously take a fleet of submarine drill pods to cover an area equivalent to the Auger and the pods lack the precision and power to rupture and process less than a quarter of the sediment and rock processed by the Auger. Furthermore, valuable materials that may lie within larger cuttings are detected and harvested, while the cuttings themselves are fused together to form a near-molten missile that is then shot into the seabed. Nothing is wasted in this efficient, effective behemoth.

There have been many revisions of the Benthic Auger. An early version emitted sonic disruptions, drawing the attention of ocean life. Marine biologists were contracted to investigate after sea dragons attacked the Auger. The biologists concluded the sonic emission was on a frequency and carried a pitch that simulated a sea dragon’s mating call. When the sea dragons arrived and attempts to couple failed, the creatures became frustrated and violent. Future Augers were careful to avoid emitting such disruptions.

To demonstrate its capability of delicate operations, the Auger has been successfully employed in underwater archaeological digs. To demonstrate its raw power, a test at inducing seismic activity was performed, but quickly ended after a nearby coastline collapsed in a resultant engulfing rift.

Images