In many folktales the weather plays a symbolic or psychological role—thunder before a battle, for instance, or snow at a wedding—but real life is seldom so picturesque. Scholars had long noted the discrepancy but been unable to systematically account for it without adding artificial “narratological constants” to their climate models. In 5278, researchers at the Literary Tower of Orsinder took a more direct approach and hypothesized that Viridia Prime’s weather is simply inaccurate. Applying the obvious errata immediately yielded an elegant new solution to the Cat and Mouse Problem, since a cat will naturally diffract when traversing a wet medium such as a raincloud. This solution is inapplicable to interstellar travel due to its reliance on Viridia Prime’s unique atmosphere, but it revolutionized intraplanetary transit. Within a decade, dozens of weather correction stations had been built to facilitate civilian and military transport, most notably Apex Station.

During the 5320s, the by now renamed Atmospheric Tower of Orsinder attempted to adapt their techniques to achieve economic correction, but these efforts ran into theoretical obstacles, leading to the disappointing yet comforting conclusion that the new economic reality was, in fact, correct.

—Thucydides Plutonium