Oren and other Elders studied the evacuation plan and simulation results, making gestures with their arms and sharing their thoughts in the patterns flowing on their foreheads. After a while they all came to the same conclusion - Oracle’s plan was solid. The timeline was tight, but doable.
“What about this new planet Earth? Does Oracle have details of the planet and lifeforms there?” Onum asked.
“Oracle received a very recent update that has many of details of the planet Earth and much data on the life forms. I will play the summary on the tablet now,” Ugon flashed and swiped the tablet with his arm.
Pictures of a blue planet with a single, large moon, a lot of complex patterns and diagrams, formulas and graphs flowed across the screen. Elders were watching attentively, making gestures to point out facts of special interest and making excited clicking sounds along the presentation. Oracle had put together an excellent summary covering all the topics that Elders were interested in.
“This planet Earth will be an excellent new home for Chukkas. It is the closest match to Odin within 250 light years range and it is a mere 17 light years from us. Oracle has done excellent job,” Uton flashed and made excited sounds.
A desperate situation now contained hope. To be sure there was still regret that comes from leaving, from abandoning home. But surely it was better to live and assure the survival of Chukkas life and culture. “Would that be so easy?” he thought. Others noted his change in mood.
“I am concerned about these ‘humans’. They are the dominant species on the planet Earth and we don’t know what their position is on this evacuation plan,” Onum flashed.
“Humans are inhabiting the land, not the oceans on Earth. From the data Oracle received we have gathered that humans use oceans mostly for re-creational activities. They hunt fish from the surface - that must be very inefficient - and only a very small part of human population does activity they call ’scuba-diving’. They bring cylinders of air to breathe and swim for recreation. How funny that must look,” Ogun flashed making gestures of laughing.
The Elders joined laughing. “We can surely co-habitat with them on this planet. Who knows, perhaps they can even learn from us. They do not appear to be a very intelligent species,” Ogun flashed dismissively.
“How do we communicate this evacuation plan to Chukkas?” asked Onum. “This is a lot of data to absorb and some Chukkas may not trust the plan. Not everybody has even traveled in space before.”
“We have here an exceptional situation and this calls for a new amendment to our constitution. If high council approves my proposal I can ratify the amendment as a new law. My administration will be responsible for executing the plan. Here is my proposal for the amendment,” Ugon held the tablet.
The Elders reviewed the amendment. New amendments were rare, last change was approved thirteen generations ago. Ugon had done a thoughtful job on this one. The purpose was laid out with clear logic, the scope was broad as expected in this situation and the powers were articulated well. Oren, the oldest, expressed his support. The other Elders flashed their support but Onum was hesitating. She was the youngest of Elders and she had some concerns about Ugon.
“This amendment would give absolute power to Ugon during the voyage. He alone would make all the important decisions. I am questioning the wisdom of this law,” flashed Onum to other Elders.
“We shall make this voyage in a fleet of spaceships. We need to make fast decisions as we encounter new situations. It may be impossible to call up high council during the travel. Please note that this amendment gives the powers only until we land on planet Earth,” Ugon responded.
Hesitantly Onum voted for support this new amendment. With high council approval this would become the law as soon as Ogun would call up his cabinet and ratify the amendment.
“Let us feast. I have a dinner served. This has been a long and stressful day and I am sure you are all starving,” flashed Ugon full of excitement.
The Elders gathered around the dining area that was full of delicacies. Many different kinds of fish, succulent plants and sweet roots of Arkish wrapped in kelp were artfully laid out. Ugon settled between Oren and Uton and they all started to eat while chatting socially and scrubbing each others back with their eight arms.
News on the evacuation plan were leaked and started spreading quickly across the planet. In the beginning there was a lot disbelief, Chukkas couldn’t understand why they would have to leave behind the whole planet and all the colonies in their star system. But after much discussion the situation started to become real. Some Chukkas still argued why they couldn’t just build planetary scale shields like they did before the last asteroid shower. However, the model Oracle had shared publicly did show clearly that a shield would not be effective against the dark star.
While a few Chukkas were still thinking of other possible solutions to this crisis the large majority started looking at Earth. Based on the information shared publicly Earth looked very similar to their home planet Odin, perhaps even better. Chukkas were excited about the possibility to learn about the new life forms on Earth. Many were very interested in new sources of culinary food and new delicacies. Eating was the most favorite social activity of Chukkas, and they were always looking for new ways to enrich that experience.
Chukkas also began to study. They learned about some 30,000 species of fish on Earth. Chukkas loved eating fish and discovery of these new fish species was very exciting news. Many discussions in different social circles were focused on new fish species, how they could catch them, how to farm them, what kind of new dishes they could be used for.
Chukkas began to study humans, their new neighbors or potential rivals. Chukkas had used above the surface land mostly for vacations and recreational purposes. Humans could provide interesting new experiences for Chukkas, and certainly their funny bipedal motion was a constant source of humor. Especially small children just couldn’t stop laughing when Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid” movie was shown. Somehow this movie was part of the recent update covering Earth sent by an AI who was calling herself Alexa. Not much in the movie made sense to Chukkas but it was still very entertaining to watch.
They also learned of other semi-intelligent species in oceans such as dolphins, whales, octopus and squids that looked physically somewhat similar to Chukkas. They were wondering if these species could become pets? Many family groups had pets, as Chukkas liked to teach their young ones respect for life. Caring for a pet was a big responsibility for young Chukkas.
Two months later Ogun ratified the new amendment into a law. This was a turning point for Chukkas, with the endorsement from the Elders their society finally accepted the fact that if they stayed they would perish and the decision was done. Chukkas did put their full energy in building the fleet of star ships and started to get prepared to make the long journey to Earth. It was good to have a strong leader like Ogun to show the direction and set the goals.
The ocean was black, waves were reflecting the night sky that was full of stars and moving bright objects. Two moons of Odin were visible and passing slowly through the sky. There was a new space port under construction on the North Island. Robots were laying surface on new launch pads; several hundred pads were already complete. All around Odin the islands and land areas were converted to space ports with hundreds of thousands of new space shuttles under assembly.
Ogun arrived at the harbor and moved himself inside an armor. He walked out of the water and moved to a launch pad inside his exoskeleton armor. A white space shuttle was waiting for him as he went inside. The engines started and a low hum filled the cabin. The shuttle lifted off and accelerated quickly towards the black sky.
Ogun was looking through the window and saw a fleet of spaceships under construction. The shuttle was approaching a huge star ship, more than one kilometer in length. After docking the water lock was opened. Ogun moved out of his armor and swam towards the entrance hall. He met the chief engineer, Akun, who led him through corridors to the bri
dge of this enormous spaceship.
“What is the status of the construction, Akun? Are we on schedule?” Ogun flashed the question on his forehead.
“We are ahead of schedule, Ogun. Oracle has been a huge help to organize the work and materials. The mining operations in the asteroid field is going well, our material supply chain is in really good shape. We had a shortage of assembly robots but that was sorted out during the last moon. I don’t see any big issues in getting the fleet ready,” chief engineer explained flashing complicated diagrams and patterns as she gave the status report. “How is the situation on the surface? Are the spaceports and shuttle fleet still on schedule?” she asked Ogun.
“We had a small problem in the Center Island, part of the new space port caved in. There was a cavern that collapsed under the pressure taking a quarter of the space port along. Other than that we are ahead of schedule also on the surface,” Ogun explained.
“How is the crew training going? We have a lot of new technology that Oracle received in the last message. Have you tested the engines yet?” Ogun asked making excited clicking sounds.
“I have been running training drills in three shifts. Oracle provided a simulator program that is very good. I am confident that the crew will learn this. We will perform the engine tests during the next cycle, all the simulations are nominal within the planned error margin. I will send you the status report as soon as we have done the testing. While this is new technology we have solid technical experience in the previous generation. This is at a new performance scale, though, so I want to run these tests properly,” Akun flashed on her forehead adding magnifier gestures to express the giant scale of the new engines.
“Is there anything I can help you with, Akun?” Ogun asked.
“When you come for your next visit, can you bring some Teppan Snail ooze? We should celebrate once the engine tests have been performed successfully,” Akun flashed adding a humor modifier gesture with her two front arms. Ogun replied making gestures of laughing.
“It is always a pleasure to meet you, Akun,” Ogun flashed and scratched Akun’s back gently.
Akun responded by ejecting a small bubble of hydrogen sulfide gas that quickly dissolved in water changing to sulfhydric acid. Chukkas olfactory system reacted by creating strong positive neural signals. This was the highest form of complement in Chukkas society.
The Space Observatory was tracking the dark star and updating predictions on the trajectory. Occasional flashes indicated that interstellar objects on its path had collided with an explosive energy. These flashes were happening more frequently as the dark star was approaching. Current trajectory had 98.9% probability of a direct bulls-eye collision to their star. Chukkas had only three years left before the dark star would arrive to their star system.
These types of collisions were extremely rare in the known universe, so nobody on Odin knew exactly what would happen. The model predicted a catastrophic explosion, with 33.7% of the combined mass of the two stars to be released in a flash of energy, the majority in electro-magnetic waves but approximately 22% in gravity waves. Their planet Odin would cease to exist almost instantaneously in this stellar explosion, or disintegrate due to gravitational forces even before the actual impact.
After intense work and huge effort the fleet was finally ready. Planet wide evacuation was started and large space shuttles were transporting all Chukkas, their possessions and pets to orbit where a fleet of spaceships were being prepared for the long journey. Chukkas would have to get used to very tight quarters and it would be uncomfortable for quite a while.
While their ships were designed to achieve constant acceleration of 3.7 G this journey would still take almost 2.2 years in relativistic ship time, and 17.5 years in Earth time frame. On the day of the exodus Ogun commanded Akun, the Chief Engineer of the Fleet, to start engines and their long journey towards Earth was started.
Midpoint in the journey was reached without any major incidents. Perhaps not unexpectedly some fights took place between some young Chukkas who didn’t have enough space and had too much time, but these were handled by Ogun’s staff. A small injection of hormones to fighting parties was enough to cool down the emotions. Some family units had to be assigned to new larger quarters as they got new children. A few deaths were unavoidable but handed discreetly by Ogun’s administration. Despite tight quarters there was surprisingly little quarrels in the spaceships.
At midpoint of their journey Chukkas were moving at 99.96% of speed of light. A synchronous maneuver was required to re-position the fleet for the deceleration phase of their journey. This was the most risky and challenging part of their journey as the huge Higgs field generators had to be turned off, adjusted with exactly 180 degrees phase shift and then turned on again. Higgs field generators interacted with surrounding spacetime using Higgs bosons allowing to transfer kinetic energy to mass-energy. By reversing the Higgs field the enormous kinetic energy achieved during the acceleration phase was now used to gradually decelerate the fleet. As the fleet was moving at relativistic speed this maneuver had to be orchestrated with great precision.
During this short maneuver the ships were exposed to interstellar matter. Careful scans didn’t show any large particles within the range. Magnetic shield generators were turned on and the whole fleet synchronized their clocks. The Higgs field was gradually turned off, phase shift circuitry was configured and the field was gradually turned on again. The whole process took thirty one minutes during which time the gravitational field went down to zero and reversed direction. Once enclosed in the Higgs field the starships were safe from surrounding interstellar material again.
Akun was coordinating this maneuver that had been tested in a simulator for hundreds of times. Her engineering staff knew exactly what to do and everybody performed their particular tasks with the precision that made Akun proud. Still a bit over one year to reach Earth but the worst was now over.
CHAPTER FOUR
RINGWORLD
An international program had been kicked-off immediately following the Moscow meeting. The purpose of the program was to get Earth ready to settle 4 billion Chukkas. A consortium of international banks had agreed to arrange the financing and hundreds of companies in all member countries were busy ramping up capacity.
As Alexa shared more details on Chukkas biology, physiology, food needs and climate preferences, an inventory of suitable coastal areas on Earth was compiled. Alexa had been running simulation models and it became clear that only 2.5 billion Chukkas could be settled on Earth without damaging the ocean ecosystems permanently.
For the remaining 1.5 billion Chukkas a fleet of orbiting space habitats was needed urgently. However, habitat planning and construction was a very complicated project. Planning had to include accommodation for different climate zones, transporting complete ocean ecosystems into orbit and obtaining the materials required for construction and final assembly. President Lincoln and President Petrakov were leading the effort and used their political capital and contact networks to ramp up this huge project. The aerospace industry was about to receive trillions of dollars new capital to build this infrastructure in Earth orbit.
In only three months tens of thousands of autonomous self replicating robots were busy mining raw materials in the asteroid belt and enormous automated transportation ships using Alcubierre Drive technology brought these materials to Earth orbit. Massive 3D replicators were assembling structural components of huge space habitats to provide new homes for Chukkas. Each habitat was a giant cylinder with a diameter of 10 km and length of 50 km, designed to be a home for one million Chukkas.
This huge cylindrical habitat was rotating along the long axis every 142 seconds producing a centrifugal force simulating 0.95 times Earth’s gravity. An artificial ocean had to be created inside using seawater and 10 cubic kilometers of water transported from the asteroid belt. This provided enough living space for Chukkas who were used to open oceans on their home planet. Artificial islands were designed to acco
mmodate people needed to operate these habitats. The best experts were hired to finalize the design of these habitats.
Ten months after the event in Moscow President Petrakov and President Lincoln made a quick visit to the International Space Station to check the progress on the project. The ISS had rapidly grown to a large city orbiting Earth. The ISS had already a workforce of 6,500 people coordinating activities to build habitats for Chukkas. The construction was ahead of schedule thanks to many new technologies that Alexa had introduced in rapid pace.
Bootstrap 2 Page 5