Shoshone Station: The Galactic Consortium season 2

Episode Four: Meteor #10

Dan had no chance to ask any more about the local politics, or how they might tie into the rumors back on Earth that day. After breakfast Sarvin gave them a tour of the creche.

Dan had heard about creches on the Corelean and was anxious to see one in action. This one had nearly fifty adult members and two dozen children. The younger children lived and were cared for in one of the "child vaults" by about a dozen primary parents. Primary parents lived on site and were compensated by the creche for their work. Children older than the second dek lived in a warren of rooms and semi-independent apartments along with most of the secondary parents. Unlike primary parents, secondary parents worked regular jobs outside the creche. They served mostly as mentors or role models for the older children. It was an intriguing idea to Dan, who had never consider having kids himself.

The first vault that Sarvin showed them was school-age children, and they were already gone for their field trip. The vault itself was a wide, dome-shaped room not unlike the guest vault. Each child had a small individual bedroom in the center, and the main room was filled with low tables, various toys, and shelves brimming with art supplies. The second vault was preschool age children and they were having a much more leisurely morning, with about half the children eating breakfast or playing and the rest still sleeping.

Neither the primary parents nor the children themselves seemed to have any regard for not being biologically related. They were a mix of human and Neanderthal people, and Dan saw a number of skin tones as well.

The warren of rooms outside of the vault was mostly quiet. There were at least three different kitchen areas, and the secondary parents took turns making sure there was a meal served at each of them, but it was left to the children to decide with which family group they wished to eat. Overall, it appeared that the teens had a great deal more freedom but also more responsibility then American teens.

The system, Sarvin was quick to point out, was by no means perfect. Sometimes one of the primary parents had to intervene to make sure a particular teen was getting their needs met or because of disciplinary problems. However, "all families have their problems." Despite this, they had been raising kids in creches for eons, and they were every bit as good as any other arrangement.

After their tour, Sarvin turned them over to Ashain. She offered to take them to see where she worked, on one of the big data cores. "I never pass up a chance to show Kavi what she's missing," she joked. Data engineering was the major industry in this part of Shin Station. And about half of her family was employed in this industry in some form or another. Kavi's decision to switch from studying physics to healing seemed to be a good-natured joke between them.

Dan had heard the terms "data" and "data core" numerous times regarding Consortium technology but he had no clue what it really meant. He was eager to see it for himself.

They walked a fair distance through the station and came to couple of small malls before reaching what was unassuming office front. Ashain greeted the receptionist warmly and identified them as visitors. From what she had said as she led them within, Dan gathered that a core was somewhat analogous to a supercomputer or computer network on Earth. The difference was several orders of magnitude—the Consortium slate could hold virtually all of the information on Earth's Internet all by itself. A data core built on the same technology could hold many times that amount. But what you did with that much information was beyond Dan.

The first work pod that they were shown was mapping the orbit of a small asteroid that Shin's tech crew thought was too close to the station. The room itself was maybe four meters square with a dark floor and four low benches around an empty center space. The lights were dim, and a holographic projection showed the asteroid at the center of the room. Two beams of light, one in red and one in blue, passed through the asteroid and extended out in either direction.

Four people sat on the benches, staring at the asteroid. At first it appeared that was all they were doing. Then one rose, inspected the asteroid from a different angle, and prodded it with her finger. An equation appeared, and she entered a couple of symbols into it. The red and blue lights altered their trajectories slightly.

"The red line represents the asteroids projected orbit, according to our best data," Ashain explained. "The blue line is actual data we've gathered." She reached up and held her finger and thumb on each line. A number flashed temporarily. "As you can see, our prediction is within a few meters of the true orbit. The discrepancy is likely due to the gravitational pull of neighboring bodies. Before we can be certain of this body's orbit or any possible ramifications of removing it, we must get our prediction as close to the actual data as possible."

As she spoke a second man rose and touched the asteroid. New lines sprouted off in a different directions, and he entered a complex mathematical calculation which shifted the lines. Those lines faded, and the red and blue lines got that much closer together.

"See? He just entered gravitational calculations for the weight of the station itself and its effect on the asteroid's orbit," Ashain said. "Eventually we can store data for every single object in the solar system, compare it to mathematical models of orbital mechanics, and then adjust either our models or look for on-scene objects that are throwing our model off."

"Have you done this?" Dan asked. "Back in the other galaxy?"

"Oh yes," she replied. "We have thoroughly mapped most of the systems in this fashion."

"Holy crap!" Dan said as it hit him. "You mean to tell me this computer, this data core, can not only mathematically predict the orbits of every single thing in a solar system, but can also store actual sensor readings of where those objects are and show them side by side for comparison?" He tried to imagine just how many terabytes or petabytes of information that must be, and failed.

"Yes, though only the biggest, best data cores can do this," she replied with a measure of pride. "Only Shin has enough data cores, or enough physicists, to undertake such a huge project."

"And why would someone want to undertake such a project?"

"It is by far the safest way to ensure safe travel routes for spaceships, and it is really vital if you want to mine asteroids, alter planets, or even smooth out orbits."

"Smooth out orbits?" Dan echoed.

"Of course," she said. "In a civilized solar system, you don't want to let objects go smashing into each other willy-nilly."

Dan knew with the sudden certainty who benefited from rumors of meteors crashing into Earth.