by OMAR FINK
“We may never get another opportunity like this. This chance to improve our welfare can still be wasted. We don’t know if the billiard shot solution will work. We hope it will, and we think it will, but it’s still possible for many things to go wrong. Perhaps most importantly, everybody should be asking themselves; if the billiard shot succeeds and Earth is saved from the comet train, what kind of future is the best for humankind? Should we abandon all our work and effort for the last eight years and just return to the way things were, or should we grab the fruits of our labor and ensure that what we’ve built will last? It is worrisome to consider that many people will choose to return to the life they had before.”
“We must make every effort to salvage the opportunities we have created. We must urge everybody to continue what has been started and finish it. We can change the final outcome we are planning for, but must not abandon the effort. The threat we have faced has mobilized humanity to operate at a new level, and we must not give that up.”
+8 years, 9 months, HABITAT-75, AU 2.5
A tall woman with dark hair stood at the center of the circular amphitheater and addressed the group sitting in concentric tiers around the center stage, “My name is Lindsey Crenshaw. I am currently serving as one of the Coordinators of the City Counsel for HAB-75. We have invited Marco Lagorio to speak to us today and share his ideas on city governance. Marco?” She gestured to Marco, “Please remain seated and comfortable along with the rest of us.” She smiled and sat down.
Marco flashed a wide white toothy grin back, “Hi, I’m Marco. I’m here today to tell you about some of my experiences with city development. My background is that I’m a space engineer and have been involved in developing the designs for our space habitat rings. That doesn’t have a lot to do with governance, but in the course of overseeing construction and making changes to the engineering plans, we kept getting involved with governance issues.” Marco swung his gaze around the audience and smiled.
He held out his hands, “Think about what we used to do when we stayed in hotels back on Earth.” He put his hands down and continued, “We’d check in and then go find our room. Once in the room, we’d often use the bathroom and then unpack some of our suitcase. At some point, we’d decide to find some food and explore the environment.”
Marco raised his hands again and slid them back and forth in the air, “It’s pretty much the same thing here. We arrive in a new habitat, we find the bathroom, then unpack, then go look for food and explore. As engineers, we needed to anticipate the needs of new residents and accommodate them to some degree. We had to ensure that basic infrastructure was working. That includes not only the basic life support functions of air, water, food, environmental control, plumbing, waste processing, and medical services, but also communications. Each and every occupant space in our habitats comes with basic communications. All rooms are completely configured for two-way audio visual contacts embedded into most surfaces. The available data includes emergency information, directories, news, entertainment, education, wallpaper decoration on all surfaces, and a variety of interpersonal communication methods.” Marco took a breath.
Marco grinned, “Basic configurable furniture blobs are included, but all higher end furniture and decorating options are available for purchase, but not included. And that brings us to a discussion of how this is paid for. When we all sold everything we had to HU and emigrated from Earth to space, we ended up with some HU coin, and a promise of basic living expenses for life. How is that possible?” Marco raised an eyebrow.
Marco swung his gaze around the room again, “As we moved our civilization out into space, all of our expenses were greatly reduced. Space for habitats is free. Energy is low cost, almost free after initial installation of solar panels, and low maintenance moving forward. Building materials are low cost, using mostly the leftovers from mining operations that extracted valuables. Labor is completely automated. All human effort goes into overseeing operations and working on improving old designs and creating new designs. Our electronics, computing, communications, and software capabilities have increased dramatically. What all of this means is that once we paid for the effort of getting here and building our new homes, there is very little cost required for maintenance.” Marco grinned and tilted his head slightly sideways.
He said, “That still leaves us with some continuing expenses in operating a habitat city. Many of us became rich when our HU coin became much more valuable, and we signed contracts for specialized work. Some of us choose to spend our coin on living resources that are above and beyond the basic guarantee. That coin more than covers the gap, and puts most if not all cities on a profit basis.”
Marco leaned back in his chair a little, “Most of this you already knew, but here’s where it gets interesting. Once new residents are settled in, we start having some new needs. The first most obvious is security. We used to call this function police and military defense, but here it’s quite different. At this point we have no need whatsoever for military defense, although that may change someday. Our crime rates are almost non-existent. There is total environment monitoring everywhere in the habitat. Most of us consider ourselves to be rich, and all of us have dramatically improved standards of living. We want for little. At this point, there is almost no availability of intoxicants and recreational drugs. All of these factors make our social environments safe and nearly crime free. Why do we need security functions at all?” He grinned.
Marco nodded his head, “This is where we get into governance. All cities will start out with a natural state of complete prohibition regarding alcohol, other intoxicants, and recreational drugs. But we can anticipate that perhaps most cities will decide at some point to relax that stance. As this happens, the crime rate will increase and the need for security monitoring, access control, and justice oriented functions will also increase. It becomes the job of a group similar to this city council to make decisions about balancing security needs with privacy rights and social regulation. It’s not just alcohol and drugs. Our greatest single concern for security relates to maintaining our safe living environment. This means protecting the integrity of our habitat hull and our life support mechanisms. Most cites decide to heighten security attention in those areas. This includes placing filtering restrictions of the ability to create dangerous substances and print dangerous items. We can’t afford to allow anybody to manufacture explosives or deadly weapons. With modern bio-technology and nano-technology this becomes difficult without putting in place restrictions that are severe and threaten to invade our privacy.”
Marco leaned forward with an intent look on his face, “Most cities will begin with an assumption of using some form of democratic representation. There can be many forms of this. Most forms of pure democracy and the various forms of socialism are not desirable because they are not stable. They concentrate power and as that happens, devolve into corruption and then tyranny. Ruling out democracy and socialism leaves us with rule of law, which is generally known as a constitutional republic. The republic can be managed on a foundation of democratic representation and can supply socialist-like benefits, but the core must be rule of law that is codified in what we call a constitution.”
Marco continued, “We must understand this and are forced into deciding whether the primary purpose of our government is to supply the needs of the people or to protect the liberty of the people.”
Marco surveyed the room, “Think about this for a moment. This is important. If you don’t consider this carefully, you will be likely to create a body of governance designed to provide for needs by default. Historically, most states have followed this course. It takes some study of history and how different forms of governance develop and progress to understand why this is not wise.”
Marco looked down as though collecting his thoughts, then resumed, “It’s also important to understand how things have changed. We are starting with a blank slate, so we have no established bureaucracy to overcome. As mentioned previously, costs are
lower, standard of living is higher, efficiency and production are higher, and quality is higher. In most of these factors, history has never seen them so extreme. We are living in times of great abundance. Most cities are self-sufficient and will use local governance.”
Marco held out his hands palms up, “Changing needs means changing solutions and perhaps new forms of governance. Our challenge is to create an innovative new government that will put the preservation of liberty above all else and create an environment where everybody has equal opportunity to excel. The most successful example of this in history is the U.S. Constitution. It produced incredible results. But even it, over time, was diluted with centralized power and bloated bureaucracy, and now is unlikely to ever return to its original state.”
Marco shook his head almost sadly, “We have a unique opportunity. I hope we make we the most of it. Thank you for listening to me.”
+8 years, 10 months, BALTRA ISLAND, GALAPAGOS ISLANDS, EQUADOR
Peter Anderson strolled through Seymour Airport on Baltra Island. Several large overhead signs directed passengers to “SPACE ELEVATOR EMIGRATION”. He followed the signs and ended up at an area where multiple lines of people were checking in at stations that were formerly used by some airline, but now had been remade by HU for emigration purposes. After a short wait, he reached the front of one of the lines and gave his ID card to the clerk. She scanned it into a computer system and read some information from a screen. She announced, “Peter Anderson.” Then she said, “You’ve already cleared both medical and educational screening, and you’ve completed your elevator travel training course. If you’re ready to board an elevator climber car, you need to go through the security station over to your right and change into a space jumper, which is a garment specially designed to keep you comfortable and safe during your journey. You are not allowed to take any personal belongings with you. Do you have any questions?”
Peter smiled his crooked smile, “Nope. I’m good. Thanks.” He walked over to the security station and got into another line. Thirty minutes later, he stepped out of the security area, wearing a blue jumper, and found a row of divided communications kiosks. He sat down at one and initiated a video recording. He spoke, “Hello, this is Peter Anderson. This recording is going out to Ulrich Giger, Tony Azaria, Sam Hoffman, and Bill Decker. I just wanted all of our old team members to know that I’ll be leaving Earth shortly. I’m at the Galapagos elevator central station and will be going up one of the elevators nearby within a few hours. I plan to head for HABITAT-58 which is in the Kirkwood Gap at AU 2.5. I’ll be in transit for the next fourteen to sixteen months, depending on connections and I’ll keep in touch so you can still reach me. Looking forward to re-connecting with everybody out in the asteroid belt. Peter out.” Then he said, “End recording and send.”
Peter thought for a moment, then said, “Address to Tony Azaria in Paris, France. Start recording. Hey Tony, just wanted to make sure you have all the information you need to access TYCHE out in space. She’s already been transferred out to a new server farm based on HAB-58. They have some great facilities there and I anticipate no problems. We’ll keep maintaining backups in Seattle until we have some history established at the new location. Let me know if you need anything. Peter out. End recording and send.”
+8 years, 11 months, RRRT HABICRAFT RING, AU 3.3
Keel O’Donnell said, “This is a transmission detailing the status of the RRRT group effort to support what is being called either operation pinball or the cosmic billiard shot. I have gone over this report with Sonny Barton and included his edits and input.”
Keel continued, “Some months ago, we were out as far as AU 4, but now we’re back in to between AU 3.3 and 3.4, right in the most populated part of the belt. We’ve completed our tour and every objective has been successful. All the target rocks have been moved into new trajectories that will accomplish the goal of altering the path of the comet train fragments when they return. We are now transitioning all of our craft to orbits that will position them to observe the return. With many craft and new sensor stations in place, we will have much better visibility of the event and more accurate tracking data. This will enable us to make any fine adjustments if necessary. In most cases, we may have several months to accomplish this. We anticipate no problems. After the fragment train moves through the belt, we will again reposition our resources to record data on the encounter with the Sun and track any fragments and dust that survive it.”
Keel looked over to one side then looked back forward and continued, “It’s worth mentioning that we’re still about sixteen months away from the actual event of the comet train circling the Sun and only then will we know for sure exactly what the outcome will be. But at the moment, it looks like the entire mission plan has been successfully executed. Many thanks to everybody associated with this effort. It’s been an honor to have worked with you folks.”
+8 years, 12 months, PARIS, FRANCE
Gitane Levesque gripped the stem of his wine glass like it was a peg on a rocking ship that he was hanging on to keep from falling. The news feed on the screen over the bar was announcing the success of the cosmic billiard shot and kept using words like ‘jubilation’ and ‘allegresse’. Graphics showed the orbits of the rocks that had been moved and the projected path of the comet train when it was due to return, explaining how the moves can push the comet fragments into the Sun where they will be destroyed. While most of the people in the cafe were smiling, happy, and congratulating each other on the success, Gitane was scowling into his glass.
The bartender looked at Gitane and asked, “Why the long face? We should all be happy today.”
Gitane raised his face and responded, “Why? Why should we be happy?” He waved his arm at the celebrations going on outside on the sidewalk and in the street, “What have we actually accomplished?”
The bartender looked confused and asked, “What can you mean? We are safe, no?”
Gitane frowned and replied, “Oh sure. But safe from what, eh? Have they really saved us? Were we really in any danger to begin with? Or did they make all of this up just so they could take over control of the whole world, then tell us they’ve saved us from some imaginary danger?”
The bartender frowned back at Gitane, “You sound like you’re drunk. And you sound like those Resistance people who thought everything was a fraud.”
Gitane asked, “What has happened? I’ll tell you. Nothing has happened. Do you believe the comet story? Then you must believe it is a catastrophic danger as they told us. And it is still a danger. They have not told us it has gone away. They have only told us not to worry because it will no longer be a danger to us. But nothing has actually happened yet. Is this not correct?” Gitane drained the last of the wine from his glass and tapped it on the bar indicating he wanted more.
The bartender looked closely at him, “Maybe you should take a break friend. May I bring you some coffee instead?
Gitane slammed some bills down on the bar, stood up, and turned and walked away without looking at the bartender again.
15 Billiards
“You can observe a lot by watching.”
— Yogi Berra
+9 years, 2 months, HABITAT-107, AU 3.3
Lee Martin smiled at the viewpoint, “For more than a year, the best resources of human civilization have been focused on moving some large rocks into specific positions in the asteroid belt. Their plan and their hope is that these rocks will create slight changes in the trajectory of the comet fragment train as it re-enters our Solar System. They have computed that these changes, while being small, will be enough to redirect the comet train closer to the Sun. In fact, it will go so close to the Sun that most if not all of the fragments will be pulled down into the Sun and destroyed.”
Lee brushed her blonde hair back off of her forehead and continued, “It’s important to note that the destruction of the comet train has not yet actually occurred, but all of our astronomers and mathematicians agree that this is what will happ
en. Just as the original giant comet-like planetoid was broken into many pieces by the Sun and thrown out into space where it was destined to return and destroy Earth, now the Sun will undo that threat by destroying the danger. The crews that have participated in moving the asteroids into position report complete success with their missions and everybody associated with this project is expressing high confidence in results that will save Earth.”
Lee wiggled her neck as though to loosen up shoulder muscles, “Many have questioned why we could not have planned on doing this nine years ago when the threat was first realized instead of building space elevators and embarking on a migration into space. The answer is simple but with a complex explanation. The simple part is that we could not see these possibilities then. The complex part involves the ability to collect observational data, to perform advanced calculations on many trajectories together, and most importantly, having in place the resources to both collect the data and to move the rocks into positions to influence the comet train. In other words, if we had not migrated out into space, we would never have been able to perceive this solution, much less actually make it happen. So, in a way, the migration will end up having saved humanity, although in an indirect and unanticipated manner.”
