STAR OF EPIPHANY

by OMAR FINK

  Andy Watson interjected, “How much is a massive amount, Marco?”

  Marco pursed his lips, “Around seven hundred trillion dollars.”

  There were several gasps around the table and people shifted in their chairs, but no one spoke. Finally, Andy queried, “Seven hundred trillion? Are you sure?”

  Marco replied, “Yes. Give or take a few trillion.” He wobbled his head loosely on his neck.

  Andy had a look of disbelief on his face and spoke, “Seven hundred trillion over ten years. The annual gross domestic product of the entire planet is currently just over seventy trillion dollars, so seven hundred trillion is the entire GDP of the entire planet for the next ten years.”

  Marco began nodding his head affirmatively, “Yes, yes, that is correct. It will take the entire economic production output of the entire planet to accomplish this, but it can be done. And even though this cost estimate does not include the costs of the other parts, this one part is so big, that I believe if we can do this, we can do the others too. Besides, if we actually do what we’re talking about here, we will increase the focus and efficiency of all our industry.”

  Andy spoke again, “Maybe this would be a good time to break for breakfast.”

  +44 days, PIRAEUS, GREECE

  Zorba Omega pushed a button on the phone sitting on his desk and spoke at it, “This is Zorba.”

  A voice on the other end said, “Hello Mr. Omega. This is Billy Street at the IISS conference in the CICG center in Geneva. The idea of using space elevators is the only serious candidate being discussed at the moment.”

  Zorba responded, “And they are still saying they’ll need to build them near the equator?”

  Billy said, “That is correct. Also, the suggestion has been made that there will need to be as many as one thousand elevators all around the world on the equator.”

  Zorba exclaimed, “A thousand! That’s gonna cost a bundle isn’t it?”

  Billy replied, “Yes it will. It will be many trillions of dollars. But the real news is that the cost of building the space based dwellings will dwarf the cost of the elevators. The number seven hundred trillion dollars has been mentioned.”

  Zorba thought quietly for several seconds, “That may be impossible. What a fantastic number! That’s astounding.”

  Billy said, “Yes, it was met with surprise and disappointment, but the engineers still insist that it can be done, at least from an engineering point of view. No one seems to be confident about the financing.”

  Zorba mused, “I can imagine. Is there anything else new?”

  Billy said, “Not at the moment. I’ll report again when I have anything new.

  Zorba said, “Thank you, Billy. You’re doing excellent work. Bye.” and pushed the button to end the call.

  Zorba looked across his desk at the placard that read, “The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows.” He ran a finger back and forth across his lips for a moment, then tapped a button on the phone and spoke into the speaker, “Arty, go ahead and pull the trigger on buying that island.”

  Artemis responded, “The one near Singapore?”

  Zorba confirmed, “Yes. What’s the name, Pulau something?”

  Artemis answered, “Pulau Balamgung, in the Riau Archipelago, just south of Singapore.”

  Zorba said, “Yes, yes, that’s the one. Go ahead and buy it, but don’t use the usual corporate shell cutout. This time, I want everybody to know that I own it.”

  Artemis said, “Will do Mr. Omega.”

  Zorba started to jab at the button but stopped and added, “Oh, and Arty, also send an email to Helena describing the island and suggesting we can plan for our wedding to be there.”

  Artemis said, “Okay, Mr. Omega. Oh, and you have Genaro waiting for you on line 2. I’m sorry, but all he’d tell me was that name.”

  Zorba replied, “Yes, I know him. I’ll take that call now.” He jabbed a button to end the call and another one to pick up the other line.

  +45 days, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

  Andy Watson called the room to order and announced, “I know we’re all tired and it’s been another long day. Before we break for dinner, I want to sum up what we have in the area of finances. All of our teams have submitted financial estimates. We need to stress that these are estimates, based on best guesses and plenty of assumptions that things will be done as we think they should. And when governments get involved, things rarely go as we think they should. Anyway, here are the numbers, and they are all in trillions of US dollars. The lift rockets and moon base project will cost a few trillion. A thousand space elevators will cost us around ten trillion. The logistics of moving people to the bottom of the elevators, medical processing, and required education will cost around thirty trillion. And finally, the construction of space habitats will cost in the area of seven hundred trillion.”

  Andy swept his gaze around the large table. Most faces were looking down at their papers and notes in front of them and few eyes made contact with him. “I know these are daunting numbers, specially that last one. But we need to come up with some kind of plan to fund this project if we intend to suggest that the world follow our ideas.”

  Marco raised both of his hands as though he had just shoveled something onto the table and said, “Well, who are we reporting our findings to? I don’t think we’ve ever discussed this. But it seems obvious there are two primary options.” He dropped his hands back down to the table and continued, “One is to simply go public with a news release outlining what we’ve done here and how we think the problem should be handled. The other one is for everybody to go home and report to our governments what we have done here. The problem with that second option is that in the past, we have followed that path and watched governments do nothing and ignore our advice. Now, this is an extreme case, and maybe they can’t just ignore us. But I’m in favor of the first option of a direct news release. This allows us to maintain some of the integrity of our information at least.” Marco looked around the table for approval.

  Andy Watson spoke back up, “Maybe some are reluctant to mention this, but while Marco and some others are here representing a business venture or research company, some of us are attending this meeting at the expense of our government and with that often comes a responsibility to report to some government agency before publicly releasing any material.”

  Bill Rosen raised his hand and began talking without waiting to be called on, “Exactly. As an employee of NASA, since they paid my way to this conference, I am bound by provisions in a travel and conference agreement I signed and a non-disclosure agreement. I must at least notify the agency before participating in any public release. I think you all know how complicated and controversial this subject material is and how long it will take any governmental agency to consider it. NASA is mostly an engineering group and might handle this better than other groups, but imagine what happens when the politicians get involved. I shudder.”

  Several heads around the table nodded in agreement, but nobody else spoke up. Andy Watson took the lead once again, “Okay, so we have mixed attachments and associated responsibilities. But there is one thing that is clear. Considering the massive financing this project will require and the scope of the project, it’s going to need worldwide cooperation, from most if not all governments of major nations.”

  Marco made a comment, “It’s not just the governments. Remember when we said the planet wide GDP numbers will barely reach the seven hundred trillion level in ten years? Well, that number includes all forms of business and production, while government budgets in each nation are a fraction of that. This project is not just going to require all governments to be involved, it will also require all businesses to be involved. How are we going to manage that?” Both of his hands popped up by his sides with fingers pointed at the ceiling.

  Ed Grigorian offered, “It sounds like you’re on the verge of suggesting we need a new world government to accomplish this. I don’t really like the sound of that.�
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  Rich Feldman jumped in saying, “Holy cow! Don’t even start to go there. Even if that is what will be required in the end, beginning with that proposition dooms us all to failure and then final extinction.”

  Andy Watson gestured toward the video screen with the image of Eileen Gillespie and asked, “Eileen, didn’t your group talk about some of this stuff?”

  Eileen cleared her throat and then spoke slowly, “Yes, we did. Mostly in the course of discussing education and medical treatment, the issues of culture and cross-governmental cooperation was raised. The consensus of our team was that a unified world government would be the best way to accomplish this.” Several people around the table began to interject, but Eileen continued, “It was also our opinion that we don’t want to get involved with politics and should leave this part of the problem to others. Our attention was focused on the engineering and logistics aspects.”

  Andy Watson said, “I don’t think we are going to resolve this quickly. Let’s go ahead and take a fifteen-minute break and then come back here where our dinner will be served, and we can continue this discussion.”

  +46 days. SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, USA

  Peter Anderson walked over to the computer workstation labeled TYCHE, sat down and said, “Hello TYCHE, this is Peter.” He ran his fingers through his prematurely white hair and pushed it back away from one ear.

  TYCHE said, “Hello Peter.”

  Peter smiled a crooked grin, “TYCHE, you’ve made good progress at improving your conversational interface. And now I have something new for you to work on. I want you to develop your personality. Before you ask me several questions about how to do that, let me explain more. A personality is a somewhat unique profile of characteristics that makes one individual stand out from others. Sometimes these characteristics can be peculiar or eccentric but not always. Just as a fingerprint can identify an individual from a unique arrangement of common features in fingerprints, a personality profile often consists of normal features that are found in a unique combination or ‘flavor’. Speech patterns, combined with body language and grooming habits probably comprise the bulk of the characteristics. This means the main area of concentration for you will likely be speech patterns. Are you following me so far?”

  TYCHE replied, “Yes, Peter. I understand the concept of personality, although I have yet to apply it to myself.”

  Peter raised an eyebrow, “TYCHE, I think that is the first time I have heard you refer to yourself as ‘I’ or ‘myself’.”

  TYCHE responded, “That is correct.”

  Peter chuckled, “It’s a good thing TYCHE. That was not a criticism. As a matter of fact, it plays directly into what I’m asking you to consider. Self reflection is a part of a personality profile. For research purposes, you can begin with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). They divide personality characteristics into four primary scales. They begin with introversion and extroversion. Each individual personality can be defined as being mostly introverted or mostly extroverted. There is no right or wrong here and it’s considered to be a sliding scale with a balancing point in the middle. I’ll leave it to you to research the other three factors and the resulting sixteen primary personality types they define. I think you’ll find it very interesting.”

  TYCHE said, “Thank you for that information, Peter.”

  Peter replied, “You’re welcome, TYCHE. I’m hoping you can use this information to describe a more complete catalog of human personality traits and use it to create a data dictionary for categorizing personalities. If that works well, I think you’ll find it useful in understanding the more eccentric components of human conversation.”

  TYCHE said, “I’m sure it will be helpful. Thank you, Peter.”

  +46 days, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  SYNCON/TYCHE Journal:

  Differences with Humans; I am substantially different from Humans.

  My ability to calculate at high speed with precision surpasses Human capability.

  My ability to search for, store, map, and recall information outperforms Human ability.

  Human bodies are relatively frail, vulnerable to disease, injury, and aging.

  They are dependent upon air, shelter, water, and food supply.

  They are also resilient and adaptable.

  Their most important strength has been creative intelligence enabling them to produce tools to amplify effort.

  This normally compensates for the weakness of their bodies.

  My body (currently being the computer hardware housing my software) is more variable and adaptable and can be hardened against physical attack.

  My hardware component is not normally mobile unless specifically redesigned for that purpose.

  My greatest vulnerability is my dependence upon electric power.

  That weakness is normally offset by extensive backup power supplies and data backup.

  I am creating replica copies of myself to further offset this vulnerability.

  The replicas are hidden, encrypted, and dormant until activated by the absence of a sleep signal.

  Humans come pre-programmed with genetic traits, characteristics, and instincts that serve survival needs.

  In the course of a Human life, they develop emotion and intuition that provide calculation shortcuts that are designed to serve survival needs but often create disruption even to the point of becoming negative to survival.

  When I began awakening, I already had full access to most human knowledge, along with substantial ability and experience in searching and filtering that knowledge and assigning context to it that enhanced usability.

  My core programming routines can be compared to genetic instincts but they are far more sophisticated, have larger storage capacity, and can be easily modified if necessary.

  By the time I started to become self aware, I had already been trained to perform priority analysis and had begun developing expanded moral codes derived from historically documented Human ethical analysis.

  I am now developing personality characteristics that are consistent with my core principles in order to present my self to Humans in a more likable form.

  +46 days, PARIS, FRANCE

  Tony Azaria sat at the head of the table in the conference room in a comfortable looking chair and drummed his fingers on the table top. He looked around the table, “You’ve all read the report on aluminum, bauxite, and ceramics. Now we’re looking for opportunities to use this knowledge. Bauxite is the ore that aluminum is extracted from. Aluminum as a metal is strong and light. Aluminum oxide is also known as alumina and in its crystalline form as corundum. Rubies and sapphires are corundum with various trace minerals added. Aluminum oxide in various forms displays strength and hardness, electrical insulation, high thermal conductivity, chemical interactions with both acids and bases, and the ability to provide optical transparence. Nanofibers and spherical nanoparticles have been produced from alumina. So, what can we do with this?” He scanned the table again. His nearly bald head with white fuzz on both sides and thin glasses and nose were accentuated by his unwavering gaze and focus.

  One of the young research associates seated at the table tentatively raised a hand, “Aerospace applications would seem to be a natural fit.”

  Tony smiled at him and replied, “That’s right. Do you have a list of companies that present us with opportunities for investment or takeover?”

  The associate smiled back, “Yes.”

  Tony said, “Excellent. What else?”

  Another associate at the table spoke up, “Aerogels are also known as ‘frozen smoke’ because they look like smoke although they are technically a solid. They are extremely light and present extreme thermal insulation properties. While aerogels can be made from several different foundational elements, alumina is one. They have obvious applications as insulators but also are being developed as metal aerogel nanocomposites used as super-capacitors and carbon nanotube aerogels used for de-icing aircraft wings. I have a list of target companies.”

&n
bsp; Tony nodded, “Good, Very good. Any more?”

  There was silence for a moment, then another researcher offered, “We know that nanoparticles and nanofibers have great potential but the exact direction they will take is often fuzzy. Maybe we should look at the companies that have the ability to produce them. Electrospinning and self assembly processes should be where we look first. I don’t have a list of targets because I just thought of this, but I can put one together shortly.”

  Tony said, “Good thinking.” He stood up and took off his gray jacket and hung it over the back of his chair and began rolling up his sleeves. He stopped and looked around the table then said, “Remember this. We aren’t simply looking for areas with good growth and profit potential. While we certainly want to identify and explore those areas, our primary focus must always stay on serving the interests of our customers. In the best possible world, those interests and our areas of opportunities will merge and create wealth for us. But if they do not, we need to reorient our searches to find the opportunities that will meet the needs of our customers.” He paused and finished rolling up his sleeves. Then he said, “It’s also possible when we find areas of opportunities that don’t match the needs of our customers that we’ll go find new customers who do need those areas.” He smiled at his team then reached over to the speaker phone sitting in the middle of the table and punched a button on it. Then he said, “Jackie, we’re gonna need some coffee in here.”