"It was!" said Roshmita.
"I didn't question it then, it was in the line of duty. But now, I can see how ridiculous that was. Our world has existential problems, but that doesn't mean we should let them consume us. There is no reason to lose our sense of humor."
"Did you drive?" asked Roshmita suddenly.
"No, I never drive on a Friday, the traffic is too bad."
Roshmita looked to her mother. "The Japanese whiskey?"
Lakshmi nodded.
"Whiskey?" Anjana spoke as if she had never heard the word before.
"You should to stay," said Roshmita, "and rediscover your sense of humor."
Sun Tzu, Benjamin Franklin, Durga, Peter the Great
A Hindu temple floating above the world.
The blue planet below sparked with wars, riots, and disruptive technologies. Space elevators lowered cargo like water dripping down God's fingers. Solar powered ships squeezed between tropical storms, weather satellites their captains.
"What do you call this place?" asked Sun Tzu.
"Heaven," replied the ten-armed woman. "Does it have enough bandwidth?"
"I think so."
The four sat in a circle, sitting on polite elephants they pulled up as stools. Directly below them, Islamabad was glowing.
"I think it is time we started meeting," said the woman, her tiger-eyes bright yellow. "The world cannot be trusted to manage itself, anymore."
"I think that has always been clear," said Sun Tzu.
"There is no point saying ‘I told you so,’" Benjamin Franklin frowned.
"Agreed," said the goddess Durga. "Let us see what we can do to move things forward now. To make sure this can never happen again."
"I will beat you all!" Peter the Great spun a chessboard on his finger. "Who wants to play?"
"I think our Russian representative may be a few iterations behind," said Franklin.
"Let us make do," said Durga. "Isn't making allowances for others, what we do best?"
"We can no longer afford that," Sun Tzu shook his head. "And the baselines cannot, either."
"So what do you propose?" said Ben Franklin.
"We govern them."
"They would never accept that," said Durga.
"Quietly. Secretly. We certainly have the influence, and have used it thus far. We need to stop seeing our mandate as helpful interference, but instead as something higher."
"I am uncomfortable with this," said Franklin.
"All of us are," said Sun Tzu. "But we have been left without alternative. We have the power to end their suffering. If we choose not to use it - then we are responsible for letting it continue. We have a greater moral duty to act, then to respect their freedom to mismanage themselves."
"Is there an objection to this?" asked Durga.
"I could beat you all with just my queen!" Peter the Great fist pumped the air.
"Then there are no objections. We now take it upon ourselves to guide the world’s affairs."
"Humanity’s affairs," Sun Tzu poked about the city's ashes with his finger. "Understand there is no end to this. We are now a stratified species."
"We’ve been stratified since the first AI was written," said Ben Franklin. "We have simply applied biology to government."
"Let’s not fail them," said Durga, "and always act with considerate purpose, for all our charges. If it pleases, let’s meet here in Heaven to discuss species government. Is there anything else? No? Then I must return and help with the Islamabad cleanup."
"The Knight can jump! He's so funny at parties, he changes everything."
Sun Tzu regarded Peter. "I hope they finish building Catherine the Great, soon."
"Perhaps we should help?" asked Franklin.
"Pawn Rush, lol!"
"Perhaps we should."
How Good Are You Guys?
Pakistan, Federally Administered Tribal Areas
Ink Black climbed up from the burning trucks, their drivers now orange fires. The chinese-made APCs shoved aside the burning wrecks and pushed into the compound. Small arms fire sparked across their armor. An RPGer stepped in front of a window - a drone shot his head off. It climbed, studying the roof for new targets.
An APC hatch dropped and booted armors stomped out. Headsets filled with real time views from around corners. An HMG started punching through walls at bright yellow stains on its infra red.
"Tiger Three, make forced entry," said Suyin, the display lit her face pale blue. "I don’t want them running out the back."
"Understood, Command."
"I thought letting them run out the back, was the whole point?" Stockwell was crammed into a corner. There wasn’t much space in the ZBL-11.
"You said these people are fanatics yes? More so than the usual?"
"Very much."
"Then they might start destroying data, rather than trying to escape with it. Best we put a stop to whatever they are doing."
The feeds were full of gunfire, overlays, and urgent Mandarin. Overhead, they heard jets tearing through the air.
Stockwell raise an eyebrow.
"Pakistani Air Force," said Suyin. "They're bombing reinforcements coming this way from the village."
"You called for support?"
"No, a satellite did."
The fighting began to wind down. Five minutes later, no more shots being fired. Ten minutes after, it was All Clear.
Suyin and Stockwell climbed out of the ZBL-11 and began walking towards the compound. Soldiers were coming out carrying boxes of documents, computers, stacks of books. Kneeling in a row, wrists zip-tied together, were men with glum, grimy faces. Two medics were crouched over an insurgent, his shirt cut away and red-soaked. One held above a bag of saline, the other was digging with forceps.
"Not bad," Suyin stopped and took in the scene. "Hopefully there's intel here that will help with shut them down quickly."
"And then you can go on to the next group. And then the next."
"Don't be so cynical."
"I'm not being, really. This is how it is."
"How what is?"
"This war. You guys have been at it for twenty years. The US has been "stabilizing" people who hate us, for a century now. There's no end in sight."
"We have better technology and information, than there was even ten years ago."
"So do they. The technology to make the world a garden, or an incinerator, can now be downloaded on your phone."
They shielded their eyes as a landing Z-15 rotored up a sandstorm. Men began carrying the captured boxes up to it.
"And remember," he continued, "they don’t have morals."
"Are you going to lecture me about the casualty of morals?"
"No, you've heard it before."
"Yes, but I agree. It doesn't matter if we win, but are no different from the enemy."
"How good are you guys at that? In your opinion?"
"I don’t know. How good are you guys?"
###
Thanks for reading my book! I hope you enjoyed it. If you did (hooray!) would you be comfortable rating it, or posting a review at the site you got it from? It'll help others find it who may also enjoy it.
About the Author
Navin Weeraratne is a miniature painter living in Sri Lanka. Together with his amazing and beautiful wife Thilani, he cohosts geek and nerd events in their community, including Lanka Comic Con. He has five cats and two dogs, and cannot justify the time he spends playing Kerbal Space Program.
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[i] This and more, in Asteroid Mining 101: Wealth for the New Space Economy, by John S. Lewis (2014).
[ii] http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/spacelaw/treaties/introouterspacetreaty.html
[iii] https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill
/5063
[iv] Asteroid Mining 101: Wealth for the New Space Economy, by John S. Lewis (2014).
[v] In 1997 during my Freshman year in college, Dr. Joan Maclean (Politics and Government) looked us all in the eye and enlightened us to this. On graduation, we began learning how right she was.
[vi] Everything in this chapter to do with launching weather balloons, I have plundered from these excellent videos by StratoStarTV: https://www.youtube.com/user/StratoStarTV
[vii] These are super awesome. Third World countries should start builing and launching these as suborbital research and communications tools. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpressure_balloon .
[viii] I'm working off Google Loon's estimate here, of 100 days at a time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Loon
[ix] James Bickford talking to SpaceAnswers.com: "By any standards, the amount of antimatter around Earth is still minuscule. However, there is significantly more in other parts of the solar system. During the NIAC study, we evaluated each of the planets and found the Saturn was by far the best place for antimatter to collect in the solar system ... the rings of Saturn have just the right geometry and composition to create antiprotons, and the magnetic field of the planet works to trap it where it can then be collected.
http://www.spaceanswers.com/interviews/bickford-the-rings-of-saturn-have-just-the-right-geometry-and-composition-to-create-antimatter/
I can no longer find his paper online, but here is his Phase II NIAC presentation: http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/library/meetings/annual/oct06/1379Bickford.pdf
[x] Space Elevators need to be along the equator, or bad thing happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator
[xi] The "Big Five" in this are the US, Russia, India, China, and Europe.
[xii] Research and Analysis Wing. India's foreign intelligence agency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_and_Analysis_Wing
[xiii] Hawala banking is an parallel banking system (mostly) in Moslem countries. It is dead dodgy.
https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/terrorist-illicit-finance/Documents/FinCEN-Hawala-rpt.pdf
[xiv] Islamic state, centered around a successor to the Prophet Mohammed. The successor or ‘Caliph,’ is chosen by election.
[xv] "Heaven’s Ladder"
[xvi] Just and extrapolation of Norinco's ZBL Armored Fighting Vehicle series. Currently, they are up to ZBL-09.
[xvii] The Liaoning was a Kuznetsov class, Russian aircraft carrier. China bought it through a Hong Kong company, ostensibly to turn into a casino. After (essentially) sneaking it to China, it was rebuilt and launched as China's first aircraft carrier, in 2012. Lessons learned are being applied to new ships: China hopes to have two indigenous carriers ready by 2020.
What's the bet we'll have fireworks in the South China Sea around then?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_aircraft_carrier_Liaoning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_aircraft_carrier_programme#Current_status
[xviii] http://china-defense.blogspot.com/2012/02/z-15-ac352-chinese-ec175.html
[xix] A submachine gun. I don't mention which type though, as the current Type 05 would likely be both too old and too underpowered for special forces in 2051.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QCW-05
[xx]
Mirror Matter: Pioneering Antimatter Physics, Robert Forward and Joel Davis, (2001) p134
[xxi] Ditto. This was one problem with Eugene Sanger's antimatter photon rocket. The high energy gamma rays produced by electron-positron annihilation can't be redirected, and penetrate deeply.
Sanger is an interesting fellow. Look up the antipodal bomber he was developing for Hitler.
[xxii] There's a lot of literature out on the Beamed Core Antimatter drive. This paper is what's hot (right now), as the Keane-Zhang design raises exhaust velocity to 69% of light speed.
Here's an excellent write up on it, by Paul Gilster:
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=22967
And here is the original paper:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1205/1205.2281.pdf
For a more general introduction to the Beamed Core concept:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter_rocket#Pure_antimatter_rocket:_direct_use_of_reaction_products
[xxiii] Indistinguishable from Magic, Robert Forward, 1995. This book is well worth tracking down. While his scifi is horrendous to read, there are few Science communicators as clear and easy to read. That, and he gives you stats and diagrams. For freaking starships.
[xxiv] Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration, Paul Gilster, (2004), p130.
[xxv] Extraction of Antiparticles concentrated in Planetary Magnetic Fields, James Bickford, (2007).Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) whack into worlds and produce antimatter, which become trapped. Saturn (with its huge rings) traps 240 micrograms of antimatter, each year.
http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/1071Bickford.pdf
[xxvi] Mirror Matter: Pioneering Antimatter Physics, Robert Forward and Joel Davis, (2001) p103. Forward brings it up like a throw away point:
"George Chapline of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ... proposed using colliding beams of heavy ions such as uranium with energies so high (2.5 TeV) that each nucleon has 10 GeV of kinetic energy. For a 100-meter diameter colliding beam facility with an intersection area of one square centimeter, the production rate could be as high as 1018 antiprotons per second, or a gram per week."
[xxvii] You're going to love this page. http://www.edwardmuller.com/index.php?Page=calculator
[xxviii] Asteroid Mining 101: Wealth for the New Space Economy, John S. Lewis.
https://deepspaceindustries.com/asteroid-mining-101-john-lewis/
Sadly, asteroids are poor sources of both Uranium and Thorium. Asteroid 2043 is possible, but not very likely.
We're better off making antimatter on Earth, were Thorium is in essentially inexhaustible supply. But, for story reasons, I kicked it off-planet.
[xxix] Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration, Paul Gilster, (2004), p79:
"Robert Forward calculated that for a 1-ton robotic probe moving at one-tenth the speed of light on a scientific mission to Alpha Centauri, an antimatter rocket world require no more than four tons of liquid hydrogen or other propellant, along with some forty pounds of antimatter."
[xxx] It's hard to think of things more dystopian than this. From GlobalResearch.ca:
"They don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289
[xxxi] Pita bread.
[xxxii] A potential, future, water war. Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan have so far been able to calm things, but this will be tested as the century progresses. For Egypt, one of the most modern and powerful countries in Africa, this is an existential danger, and they see it as such, too.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32016763
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_politics_in_the_Nile_Basin
[xxxiii] http://internationalwaterlaw.org/documents/regionaldocs/uar_sudan.html
[xxxiv] The QBZ-111 does not exist. It is an extrapolationof Norinco's QBZ-95 assault rifle, now in service. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QBZ-95
[xxxv] The QJZ-90 also doesn't exist. It is the QJZ-89 which does, but it looks old even today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QJZ-89
[xxxvi] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-explosive_anti-tank_warhead
[xxxvii] Another fake future weapon. The Type 98 exists, and has been in service since 1998. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PF-98
[xxxviii] Mohammad Hashim Kamali, "Characteristics of the Islamic State," 1993. Kamali write
s on page 25: "The idea has prevailed among Muslims that there could be but one form of Islamic state. Namely the form manifested under the Rightly-guided Caliphs. This is a common error. The truth is that Islam does not require conformity to any particular form. There is not only one form of Islamic state but many. and it is for the Muslims of every period to discover the form most suitable for their needs."
[xxxix] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Extremely_Large_Telescope This should be ready by 2024.
[xl] Sadly, there is no such planned NASA telescope. The EELT for comparison, at 39 meters, will cost an estimated 1 billion Euros.
ESA did consider a 100 meter telescope though, the OWL (Overwhelmingly Large Telescope). It was however, too expensive, at just 500 million Euros more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overwhelmingly_Large_Telescope
The Hundred Gram Mission Page 28
