...he turned away from the window and back to his desk, to brush his hand across the gleaming metal top of it to grab the cup of steaming coffee from Starbucks sitting there. No faintest scratch marred the eternalloy surface, although the desk had been there for more than thirty thousand years. It was permanent and never-changing, like the robot-operated fleet that guarded Tharnar, like the white and massive Executive Building that held the special unroasted coffee beans, like the way of life on Tharnar, with the Starbucks chain now approaching 500,000 stores across the steamy, woke planet.
The Terrans would have to die, yes, they all had to die, lest the peace and the way of life on Tharnar be destroyed. They were of a young race; a race so young that his desk had already been in place for fifteen thousand years when they began emerging from their caves. They were a dangerously immature race; their coffee was weak and it had been only three hundred years since their last war with themselves. Three hundred years—three normal Tharnarian lifetimes. And the Tharnarians had not known war, or weak coffee, for six hundred lifetimes.
A race so young could not possess a civilized culture, not even a small chain of Starbucks-like knockoffs. Not even a Dunkin Donuts. The Terrans were—he searched for a suitable description—barbarians in spaceships. They lacked the refinement and wisdom of the Tharnarians; being mostly uncaffeinated, they were a dangerous and unpredictable race. It could be seen in their history; could be seen in the way the two Terrans had reacted to their capture.
He pressed one of the many buttons along the edge of his desk and a three-dimensional projection appeared of a grande latte; the scene that had taken place one hundred and eighty days before when the barbaric Terrans were first brought to Tharnar.
The ship of the Terrans stood bright silver in the sunlight, slim and graceful against the bulk of the Executive Building behind it. The Terrans descended the boarding ramp, the left wrist of the man chained to the right wrist of the girl. Each of them carrying a styrofoam cup of their pitifully lukewarm weak coffee of their native planet in their free hands. These primitive Terrans never tasted Starbucks coffee and never would. Two armed robots walked behind them, their faces metallically impassive, and four armed Tharnarian guards waited at the bottom of the ramp to help take the Terrans to their place of imprisonment..."
Awesome
Don’t leave us hanging...
“From a plot twist I would really like to see in the last season of GOT’s”
‘The Master Controller surveyed the giant view screen as the retro engines completed their work and brought the giant asteroid ship into orbit around Danae 7.
“Computer, simulation predictions please: calculate mass gravitational effects of the Raven upon Danae 7.
The answer came back swiftly,”Effects upon Danae 7 nominal, scans indicate stabilization of rotational axis within 100 years as predicted pre-launch.”
Prelaunch...Prelaunch, a hazy enough memory for the controller who had himself been brought out of cryostasis some 40 earth years ago after having slept 5000 years ship’s time. The population below “on surface” had lived and died and lived again in endless cycles of wars, civilization rises and falls and periodic extinction level staged, which forced the various factions to “unite or die”; events all designed to “strengthen the genetic stocks”. Their real world now lay beyond the confines of the 4000 kilometer diameter mother ship but first the populace would have to be brought up to speed, but slowly.
“Computer!, supply estimates of time necessary to ready the inhabitants for arrival to Danae 7?”
“50 to 100 years optimal; one suggests approaching the leaders first and making an appraisal of their psychological profiles. The maintenance of societies based on earth in 10 to 15th CE centuries’ norms was optimal for readying the populace for the unknown brutal realities of Danae 7 but it also produced some rulers who are ruthless and sociopathic. One would suggest altering the running programing sequences to introduce concepts of constitutional law and spiritual enlightenment and watch how the various kings and ruling factions deal with them. The rulers most disposed to give such concepts credence will be the ones to approach and educate as to populace’s real destiny. They can be used to subtly ready the inhabitants of surface level for their new home.”
One would suggest...mused the controller. He gazed at Danae 7, a lovely glittering blue jewel of a planet which now would have a new moon which would settle it’s rotational wobble and regularize it’s seasons. So far from home and still so close...yet 100 years still to prepare a unknowing, superstitious population for their future, for the time when their sky will be cracked and the truth told....
The read outs from Danae 7 were extremely positive, even better than the scientists had predicted pre-launch of Raven Colony Moon. The Controller had often wondered if Earth had yet survived the predicted Gamma ray blast from a nearby star going nova and had developed FTL drives. He had hoped that if they had, that travelers would have preceded them and would have been waiting already as the Raven lumbered into orbit...but no, no one was there and messages received from Sol system had stopped being received and recorded 2500 earth years ago. The radio coms were full of static. Other colony ships had been flung out from Sol system, big ones like the Raven fashioned from asteroids merged and molded together into monster generational ships to save what humanity that could be saved. It might take thousands of years yet before messages could be received from any of them and of course thousands of years for replies.
The controller thought of the inhabitants on surface level, it was “winter season” again; the computers running their simulations with various of the thousands who would be chosen to come in and out of stasis and experience life and similated death. Some were killed for real which was unfortunate yet there were births to compensate for the population loss, but most would be placed back into stasis with muscle memories enhanced and tissues toned. Some 1 million inhabitants were either in stasis with another million or so awake and aware and experiencing life.
There was plenty of power; the object that was perceived to be the sun on surface level was a zero point energy source utilizing a constantly regenerating matter antimatter matrix which powered the ship, and converted energy into water, air, metals, everything needed. Some raw materials that were needed from out side of the ship came from micro meteorites and comets that the Raven had encountered thru 50 centuries of flight. The ship employed plasma magneto gravitational drives which theoretically could drive the colony ship to very close to 1 c...yet .25c was the fastest safe speed the ship could travel as collision with even tiny objects at the speed of light would tear thru the ship’s considerable tough armor.
The Controller mused as he gazed at Danae 7 as he thought of Winter on surface level. He wondered if Danae 7 had dragons, too!