Notes on lightning harvesters

As the mind responsible for the prototype, I feel it would be remiss of me to leave the workings behind these wondrous contraptions a mystery. Documentation on a large project is lacking at best, so I have taken the liberty of writing a high-level overview of how this Lightning Harvester works.

Assuming all internal systems are normal and operational, initialising the Harvester Boot Protocol will start the Storm Creation Process. This begins with the harvester superheating the atmosphere directly around them, creating pockets of hot air that then discharge upwards.

These pockets of warm air rise into the colder air and begin to cool, but still retain more heat than the air around them. This creates a feedback loop where the pockets of hot air begin cooling and forming water droplets that would in normal circumstances fall as rain. However, due to the constant stream of hot air from the harvesters, this cooling air & vapour is pushed back up into the atmosphere which is eventually what causes clouds to form.

During this cycle of heating & cooling the water droplets become bigger, inevitably rubbing against one another which causes friction and generates electricity. The harvester supplements this by discharging small amounts of electricity, using reserves kept from the last cycle.

Now that the storm is created, the next stage is for the harvester to dissipate it safely. They are designed to be struck by lightning; when this happens the harvesters retain the charge from the lightning strike & store its energy in the custom silver-cored battery reservoirs built into the base of the harvester. Once sufficient energy has been gathered, the Storm Dissipation Cycle can be activated. This will flash-cool the air around the harvester, project it upwards into the storm cloud, kill the hot air causing friction and allow the water vapour to fall properly as droplets. This reverses the effects of the storm, resulting in clearer (and chillier) weather.