Honestly a church that committed to ‘love thy neighbor’ by turning themselves into a comms hub would be pretty cool. Our Lady of the Everlasting Signal.
i often think about how much of a fucking shame it is that i hate the concept of organized religion, because if i could stomach it there’s so much potential in joining the church and getting/helping them do great things for the local community.
Churches could be shining beacons of simply doing good things because good things are good, but unfortunately the most they usually do is let people use the toilets and donate some food.
Our Lady of the Snooping on Your DNS Traffic.
That church is making some bank, I hope they pay their taxes
Some communities weren’t large enough to get isps to come out and lay infrastructure. Being that the church was typically at the centre, these churches found a community project in setting up these mini wisps. The ones I heard of were selling more or less at cost, to locals only. I presume they are still like that, but don’t know for sure.
WIPS programs are great, I worked related to tower installations and supported these programs. I also know the shit ton of money people make for letting someone install an antenna on your property, great business…. I hope they pay their taxes.
Thanks for that, I needed a good laugh
Manifesting the omnissiah into existance
It must be blessed 5G instead of the sinful 5G
the statue of Jesus the King (of free internet)
Thought that was a Burger King crown painted gold at first glance.
Now I’m imagining Jesus and the apostles pulling through a Burger King drive through with the apostles piled into the bed.
This would looks pretty cool if it hadn’t bled into the white bit. That boundary encroachment makes it look like electronic barnacles growing
Looks cooler like this, imo, looks like Combine tech! Also a very poignant representation, tech as an infection. Very Cyberpunk!
Most useful church
Our Lady of Perpetual Bandwidth
How appropriate! I like it and I will be borrowing it. Thanks, OP.
All hail Motherboard!
Church towers are built so high that their prayers can reach God up in the heavens, but in this case it’s just WIFI signals
This is the “plot” of the Czech song Čekám na signál (Waiting for Signal) produced to promote the movie Signál the singer stars in. Note that neither the official music video’s color (movie) nor monochrome (singing) scenes really mirror that “plot” and the ending where they convince the priest to help with the installation is baked into the song as released for radio and CD.
🎵 Za zatáčkou u rybníka máme kutila
🎵 A Tom sváří, pájí, krájí, český ruce všechno znaj’
🎵 Do týdne tu stálo dílo hodno génia
🎵 Kam že tenhle skvělý přístroj daj’?🎵 Připojme na kostel v naší vesnici
🎵 tuhletu prapodivnou krabici
🎵 Vyšlem signál na všechny družice,
🎵 ať rozšíříme obzory i hranice🎵 Nikdo však u nás neměl tušení,
🎵 že globálně způsobíme rušení
🎵 Že způsobíme těžké časy, no co
🎵 Opět budem pěstovati klasy, no co🎵 Tohle je vzkaz pro všechny kutily,
🎵 kde bychom byli, kdybyste nebyli
🎵 Vždyť vaše výtvory jsou báječné,
🎵 progresivní, ba i bezpečné🎵 Osmý div světa byste stvořili,
🎵 kdyby však vodiče víc vodily
🎵 Dočkej času jako husa klasu,
🎵 zejtra tu bude stát i stroj časuThis essentially boils down to: A village still living off the land in an otherwise digital era decides to modernize. A local DIY guy (we have the lovely word kutil for those, akin to German Bastler and used to describe people like Pat & Mat) builds a weird device in a week that can “contact all satellites”. The local church is assessed as of being of no use (we have a very low worshippers-to-medieval-churches ratio) and people strap the mysterious box to it. Upon powering up, it blows all electronics worldwide and causes everyone to live off the land but the village is oblivious because nothing changed for them.
This is very loosely inspired by the 2012 movie’s plot, the script of which was written about a decade prior and does not make sense in ~2007 when the movie is set (most people have cell phones there already, and we had more than 1 active SIM per capita).
Spoiler for a bad Czech movie you shouldn't watch sober anyway
Two 20-something boys get a van and some radio equipment and leave their city to fuck with a village in the middle of nowhere, pretending that they’re from a surveying agency to pick the optimal location for the region’s new 2G mast. Major telecoms would use this tower as a BTS and pay many euros in rent. Many people try to convince the boys that their plot should be chosen, using corruption, sex, underhanded tactics and other shenanigans. Meanwhile, a telecom sets up an actual mast atop the local castle ruins that overlook the village, blowing the dudes’ cover, and they have to flee with the expensive equipment they had borrowed.
I want to check that film out, thank you for the rec.
It reminds me of a Turkish film called vizyontele, where a similar village gets their first BW TV which pisses off the local cinemas owner and has a similar neurodivergent handyman (at least Tourettes)
In my country during the Communist era (1963), the first 100-ish TV owners in a tiny river valley town were pissed about bad reception. The Communists obviously didn’t want to appease the richest few but they allowed this to go through if the TV owners personally built the tower for free, mostly on Sunday mornings. Thus, the Alexandrovka lookout tower’s ruins were restored and heightened, the authorities basically just inspected the resulting structure and installed the repeater equipment. Source (Czech, obviously)
Finally a good use for those old buildings!
A lil’ cyberpunk never harmed anyone.
Oh shit Deus Ex; I only read half the link and thought it was going to be a 40K thing
Church towers being used for cell sites are extremely common. Usually they’re designed to blend on a bit more though.
A lot cheaper than building a separate tower, and the church usually gets a reliable lease payment for providing the space.
A long time ago, when I was a church goer, I remember the pastor mentioning that some cell network had approached them and asked if they had any plans to build a steeple because they’d pay to put antennas on it.
when I visited family out in the countryside I saw a few church cell towers. It just makes a lot of sense
