On the planet that the Tahirians are transforming (see previous post), the many giant pyramids drill down to the core with magma pumps, artificially kick-starting subduction which:
releases elements like potassium;
"'...raises new rock to take up carbon dioxide as carbonate...'" (p. 237);
lowers old rock before the carbon dioxide is depleted;
thus establishes the cycle that will maintain a breathable atmosphere.
The pyramids also:
bleed core energy off into pools and channels instead of into shield volcanoes;
use the bled energy for geochemistry, atmosphere stabilization and greenhouse regulation;
process the magma for calcium, phosphorus and potassium unless this is done by erosion and biology;
control their robots with complex, colored light signals from the metal trees which "'...make up a computer-sensor network.'" (p. 235)
The metal forest contains domes, "...pentagonal upthrusts, helices, congeries." (p. 234) Its blinking lights cause an epileptic fit in human beings and the computers might have a harmful inductive effect on human brains.
Surface water contains aggregating microscopic life while germs gnaw rock into soil but this life, guided by biological and nanorobotic mechanisms, not by a natural origin or selection, might need only half a billion years to produce a habitable environment.
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