There is no one in the hall.
You re-enter your room to read. Are you sitting in the bed or at the desk?
--M. J. Young
at the desk. I'll read for about twenty minutes, and if no one shows up, I'll try to remember the way they showed me to get to Engineering, and head that way.
Well, getting to engineering involves going down the hall to the elevator-like door, getting in, saying "engineering", and getting out when the doors open. So it shouldn't be too hard to do.
There is a man in engineering whose height and girth make you think of mob enforcer more than anything else; but he smiles pleasantly and offers an oversized paw. "You must be the new guy, Brock, right? I'm Burt Benson, but most people call me Burly."
--M. J. Young
Oh. I'd forgotten about the moving room.
"Hello, Burly. Yes, I'm the new guy. Reporting for my first duties, you know."
"Oh, we're not so formal as that," Burly says. "Most of the time there's not much to do. Sometimes we pick up some new equipment and need to install it and connect it to the existing systems, but Torbin is pretty good at figuring out what to do with stuff once we tie it to his systems. Things wear out and break, and we get to figure out why--unless it's computer stuff, which is really Phil's department. Right now we don't have much happening. We're really mostly babysitting the systems, which makes us the redundant backup, since if there's anything wrong with the systems Torbin usually spots it before we do."
You spend a few hours looking at consoles and meters and readings, Burly explaining what each one does and what normal parameters are for them. He makes it clear that he doesn't expect you to remember it all at once--simply looking at them every day should over time give you a feel for the normal ranges, and if they move outside those ranges you can call on him or Toni or even Torbin to find out why and whether it's a problem.
Burly then asks, "Did you eat? I've been up a while and could use some dinner."
--M. J. Young
"No, I just got up and made my way here. I'll come with you, if you want."
"Well, you'll want some coffee, then, at least. Let's go see what we can find in the galley."
It is worth noting that you pass no one in the halls as you take the elevator to the level of the galley and enter this rather large dining area. Burly fills a rather large tray with food, offering you a variety of items from breakfast meats to pasta dinners. No one else is in the galley.
--M. J. Young
While we eat, I'll ask: "Where is everybody? Is it late at night or something? Or is something happening somewhere?"
"What's everybody? The galley is usually pretty empty. With how few of us there are on the ship, and a twenty-four hour schedule, it's more surprising when someone else is here than not."
--M. J. Young
"Hmm. Are there really that few people on the ship? I really wouldn't know, you know.
"How many do you think?"
Burly doesn't wait more than a moment for your answer, just long enough for you to reflect on it.
"There's John, that is, Captain Alexander, who gives us our direction because he understand the Federation military best. Phil Banson is his partner and the computer whiz. Gary Kozakowski is the pilot; he drives whenever it's more than the ship's computer can handle. Ann Parker--the blond with the wire coming out of her skull--is our communications specialist. Toni and I manage engineering. Tom Titus and Ishara Takamura we might call 'security', but that's because Tom's a thief who can manage locks of just about any kind, and Ishara's an assassin who can work with or without just about any weapon. Marilyn Wells is an excellent negotiator and good with contact situations. George White does a bit of everything--he's the old guy who's been around the block a few times, and so usually has been through something like anything before at least once. And you make eleven, unless you count Torbin, the central computer. So it's not really that unusual to find the galley empty."
--M. J. Young
"Well, that explains it then. A whole lot less than I thought. You see, I have no idea how big of a ship we're in yet, so it's really not that odd for me to be wondering."
Once we finish eating: "so, back to the grind, eh? Or are you off shift?"
"Oh, the ship is big--biggest I've ever seen. We could probably accommodate a couple thousand passengers. It just doesn't take that many to run it. Doesn't take any of us, really, most of the time, as the computer can do most of it, but if there's a battle it can't do everything at once, and it can't really fix itself if it's overtaxed and something breaks, so we're needed for those times. And besides, it might be able to run itself, but it has no clue what to do without someone telling it. That is, without a crew it would just sit where it is and wait for directions.
"And I'm never really off shift and never really on shift. I work when there's pressing work, or when I want to.
"And right now my job is to help you learn more about how things work, so that you'll be more help if they don't. So sure, let's get back to engineering. We can check the cooling systems for weak spots, and go over life support systems a bit, so you can become a bit more familiar with everything."
--M. J. Young
"whoa. Seems a ship that needs this little maintenance is a real find. Well, I'm certainly eager to learn how to do my job. I do have a question though: what kind of data is available in the ship's console? Is there basic educational data, the stuff taught to everyone as they are growing up, in there? I have a feeling I have some catching up to do."
"That's a good question. No one is really sure how much Torbin knows, and there are probably gaps in the data; but if you tell him what you want and he doesn't have it, he will download it from another computer probably when we're in orbit around a planet that has a satellite internet system."
He shows you how to get the computer to give you data on systems.
"Torbin is sometimes a bit arrogant; he doesn't like the feeling that we don't believe his systems reports. So it's best to tell him you want to check these things so you'll understand how they're supposed to work if something does go wrong with them."
You spend the day learning more about the simpler systems. He says that engine function will wait a while.
--M. J. Young
Once off shift, I'll say my goodbyes to whoever is left in the work area, and head to my quarters. I want to start fiddling with the terminal. First thing I'll run a search on is "General Education".
Just to clarify, you don't really have a "shift". Everyone works whenever they are available to work; there's not that much else to do aboard the ship, and everyone has fallen into jobs they particularly like and for which they are well suited.
The first information you find has to do with how educational systems work on various planets around the galaxy, including what subjects are universally recognized as important and which ones vary more widely. Not surprisingly, math, physics, and chemistry are rather consistent. Biology apparently shows more variation, because life forms have appeared on many planets disconnected from Terran origin, although to date the vast majority is carbon-based with structures similar to DNA. (This has led to arguments between proponents of intelligent design and proponents of random development, based on whether the similarities and differences in the basic molecules indicate that such formations are more probable than would have been expected or whether they indicate intelligent interference with the creation of life, or whether there is some third explanation for the spread of such molecules to so many planets.) History, too, varies significantly, as do studies in politics and political theory, based on the emphases thought relevant in particular areas. Federation planets, though, tend to have a more unified curriculum in such matters, teaching a random origins theory and focusing on those historic events which matter within the Federation, minimizing the importance of the histories of individual planets within the Federation and ignoring those which are not Federation members.
English dominates linguistically, although some other languages are still spoken in some areas.
Educational techniques are also discussed at length, including experiments with teaching machines, which have mixed results and some side effects. The relative merits of independent study versus institutional learning are covered, with a consideration of variants between the extremes. Models for computer-driven study are also included.
--M. J. Young
I'll see if I can call up additional information on the teaching machine experiments.
Ah, that's useful. Narrowed search terms: Federation Developmental Education.
Your search for information about the teaching machine experiments raises many technical articles on mind/machine interface techniques, conscious/subconscious information sharing, memory pathway formation, with a few pieces about the history of the experiments. Most of the failures seem to be in the area of memory pathway formation, that the students would be able to recall the information if the correct questions were asked but not otherwise. That is, a student machine taught that Gutenberg invented the printing press could respond thus when asked who Gutenberg was, but if asked who invented the printing press did not know the answer, even if he had given the first answer earlier that day.
Your search for Federation developmental education brings back a query as to whether you are searching for educational programs concerning the development of the Federation, or teacher training programs in the developmental education of preschoolers and other youngsters used by Federation educational systems, or educational programs for early childhood development used by the Federation.
--M. J. Young
Interesting.
"teacher training programs in the developmental education of preschoolers and other youngsters used by Federation educational systems"
^this^, but I'll specifically look at what they are teaching in the latter days of their education, before specialist training for certain career choices.
I'll also pull up the history of Federation educational programs.
In math, basic calculus and trigonometry are included, as well as set theory and alternative number systems.
General science includes basic information on energy fields, star drives, genetic engineering, robotics, artificial intelligence, and mind/machine interface. Sciences begin specializing in the latter years of what you might call grade school education, so not every student is schooled in all areas.
Some social science is covered, although the sections on economic and political theory seem rather biased and those on sociology and psychology seem very limited and focused on a mechanistic view of human interaction (e.g., the next step would be learning how to control the thoughts of the population at large).
English is taught. Literature is not, and foreign language skills seem to be mostly about reading works from the past, as a sort of archaeological or cultural studies work.
History focuses on the Federation, but you've pulled up that program separately. It gives a lot of detail about the growth of the Federation and its efforts to educate outside worlds in the advantages of becoming part of a united humanity against a supposed threat of aliens (there is no information about such aliens). There is significant detail about previous leaders, all of whom are presented as being completely in accord with current Federation policy and leadership (as if George Washington would have supported Barrack Obama's policies completely, and was working toward the current state of the country). You can get what seems to be a fairly accurate succession of Chairmen and members of the Committee, and some detail on the order in which planets have joined and some of the circumstances under which that occurred, although whenever violence was involved it is clear from the reports that certain irrational rebel factions opposed the will of the people of the planet and had to be quelled.
Any other questions?
--M. J. Young
set theory
alternative number systems
energy fields
AI
I'll see if I can call up an overview of the actual stuff they teach in the above, and see also if there is a way I can save a link to some textbooks of that data on this terminal, to be called up later for studying.
I'll also spend some time delving through Federation history as seen from non-members (aliens or those that secede, etc.) or rebel factions, assuming such information exists at all in the computer's data-base. That is, I'm looking for a second opinion on the Federation's procedures and history. Or a much less biased opinion from a Federation scholar, or something. I seriously doubt that the Federation has never committed an atrocity against relatively innocent peoples or something of that nature in all the time they've been around.
On the math, you are able to download course outlines for those subjects; the courses assume a level of familiarity from taking lower level general math classes (in much the same way that an algebra class assumes that you took pre-algebra and already know how to solve equations in multiple variables). There are no math courses or course materials on the database at present.
The sciences are similar but more markedly so. It appears that at the education levels you're examining these would all be part of a general science program, not separate courses--an introductory course that covers energy fields and star drives along with other aspects of physics, genetic engineering as part of general biology, and basic robotics, artificial intelligence, and mind/machine interface as part of a general computers survey. The specialty courses arise at higher educational levels, and again the on board database does not have those materials.
There are technical manuals covering a variety of computer systems, star drive systems, energy weapons systems, and other equipment incorporated into space ships generally, but these are written at the level of an engineer.
There is no evidence in any of the information available to you of the existence of aliens; humans are thus far the only known intelligent race in this part of the universe. Exobiology resources give information about native creatures on thousands of planets, but nothing to suggest intelligence, invention, or culture. If there are any texts giving the history of the Federation from a less biased perspective, the computer is unaware of them.
--M. J. Young
Thanks. I'll write in the notebook I'm using right now that educating myself on anything but history will be difficult until I find textbooks of some sort.
How long have I been up now? Am I getting tired yet, or do I have a bunch of time to kill?
My recollection is that you slept, met Burly, got breakfast including coffee, took a tour of engineering that ran several hours, spent a few more hours getting familiar with equipment there, then decided you'd worked your "shift" and retired to your room to work on the computer for a couple hours. You're probably hungry (unless my recollection omitted a second visit to the galley or you're a breakfast-only eater), but you would probably stay awake for a couple more hours before you were really tired. That's a tough call, of course--all this reading and brain work may have made you tired early--but most people left to their own devices (absent cues from celestial objects or artificial day/night cycles) fall into a twenty-seven hour day, so you probably would not choose to go to bed quite yet.
--M. J. Young
I do in fact adhere to a 27 hour day-already, that is. Being unemployed does have an advantage. Sounds to me like it is late lunch time, verging on supper, were I on a normal Earth schedule. That's it, then-I'll head to lunch. While I'm there, if i notice anyone else eating, I'll join them for a chat.
As you arrive at the Galley, the captain is just leaving. He pauses in the doorway to greet you and ask how you're doing in engineering, but then excuses himself to return to the bridge.
--M. J. Young
"Just fine, sir. Just trying to get situated."
Hmm. After I eat something, I'm going to go to the nearest terminal and see if there is a map of the ship. I'd like to see if there a lounge of some sort, a place where the crew goes to...gamble or drink or socialize during they're off hours.
Quote: "all this reading and brain work may have made you tired early-"
No more than usual. That's how I spend my day, usually. Looking up something or another, studying, job hunting, reading. Setting up a LARP, maybe playing a card or video game at some point. If anything, my character would be sleeping better than normal because he is spending much less time at it and more time trying to get his bearings. He's probably rather 'stoked' at this point, because adventure has always been my dream, and look at what he is doing right now, heh.
The ship is huge and the map not terribly informative. It appears to be about thirty stories high and nearly a mile from stem to stern, excluding the engines and external weapon systems. Much of it is "cargo hold", "engine support", "crew quarters", "storage", "computer support", and similarly unfamiliar terms. It takes you a while simply to find the galley, and you find that there is a recreation area not far from there. It appears that the crew actually uses a very small portion of the ship, or at least, you're only aware of a small portion being in use.
You head over there and find George White playing chess with Ishara Takamura, and Ann Parker relaxing with some sort movie. She looks up when you enter, smiles briefly, and returns to the film. The other two seem highly engrossed in their game. After a moment, Ann pauses her film, and turns her attention toward you.
"You're Brock. I'm Ann." Ann is blonde, in her mid twenties, and has a patch on her skull where there is a multi-pin connector port of some sort. She seems to have run out of things to say at this point.
--M. J. Young
--M. J. Young
"Hi Ann, nice to meet you! Is that a port for direct neural contact there? I've read about them, but never seen one. Of course, the books I read on it were science fiction..." I point at the patch on her skull as I ask this, smiling pleasantly.
I'll also move to within a few feet away if I'm not already. No need to shout. Not sure how big the room is, so have to make sure.
The room is fairly large--you might be able to set up a tennis court at the far end without interfering with the games at this end. So you move closer.
"Oh--never seen one? Well, they're not that common, but a lot of specialists have them. Mine is for communications; I tie into the broadcast transmissions, and sort them out subconsciously looking for bits of information that would be useful for us. My brain works on these things sometimes even while I'm asleep, but it's better to do it while awake. It's a bit like being in a big room at a party and hearing all the conversations at once, but if you hear someone mention your name or the name of your school or something else, your attention immediately goes to whatever they are saying.
"So how are you doing in engineering?"
--M. J. Young
(did I see a recognizable shower of some sort in my quarters? I'm probably starting to smell.)
"Nah, I haven't seen one. I am not completely sure how I got on this ship in the first place. I remember being electrocuted in my home, and then waking up on a volcanic island. I was there for a couple days and it erupted, and right as I was about to die I woke up on the bridge. They say I just appeared. The captain theorizes I fell out of this dimension, and then back into this one a couple hundred years later."
"Engineering is good. Seems to not be such hard work either, so I'll have an easier time trying to catch up. A lot changes when so much time passes. How are you?"
"Yes, I--I was there. I usually am. I sleep in that chair as often as not, because I can soak up a lot of communications data as long as I'm connected. But your arrival is not something we'll forget. I don't think we knew what the intruder alarm sounded like until you triggered it." She smiled, as if that's a joke.
"Well, things can be a bit hectic down there when you've got to put a finger in a pipe to keep the coolant contained while someone's trying to find a patch for it. Like most things around here, everything is quiet for a while, and then something happens to disrupt it, and we all--or at least, some of us--run around like mad for a bit trying to do everything until it's all back under control, and then it goes back to being quiet. But you were our most recent bit of excitement, so I guess you saw that first hand." She smiles again.
"Oh, I'm well, thank you. I know my job and I do it adequately. I'd say it keeps me out of trouble, but I don't know that my mom would agree that being in a ship fleeing from Federation security forces is exactly 'out of trouble'."
Yes, there is a sort of stall next to a sink and commode in a small room toward the rear of your quarters. It might be a shower, or something like it.
--M. J. Young
"Uhm...fleeing from federation security force??"
I'll sit down nearby, take a breath, and say:
"Do you mind filling me in, pretty please? Because I just finished reading all about the Federation a little while ago, and I think I should know if I'm allied with rebels. Could affect my health, you know." I give her a wary, nervous grin.
"You really don't know, do you?"
She sits down next to you.
"The Federation is not a place for human rights. I would say it is a dictatorship, but really, the President and the Commander in Chief and the Chief Justice are constantly fighting each other for power. They control the media, and have no qualms about assassinating anyone who might be inconvenient. They make a pretense of gestures of friendship, telling the governments of independent planets that they will retain their independence if they join, and then in short order sweep away everything in the name of efficiency and unity. Planets have been reduced to rubble for 'declining an invitation' to join the Federation.
"Captain Alexander use to be one of their best officers, until he was commanded to open fire on the undefended cities of a neutral planet whose crime was telling the Federation ambassador that they would rather not become part of the Federation. I mean, most of us were on the Federation's list of wanted criminals before we came here, but he was on it because he tried to defend the right of self-determination for planets that were not Federation. It's an empire trying to conquer the galaxy. There are those of us in the galaxy who do not want to be conquered. Does that make sense?"
--M. J. Young
"Certainly makes sense. Interestingly enough, When I was reading reports on how great the Federation is, I didn't really believe it. I searched for other opinions, and now it seems I have it. Ugh...I hate dictatorships. I'm an individual rights kind of person, so it seems i lucked out on where to arrive more than I could have thought possible. I'm on a great ship, with friendly people that DON'T kill me on sight, and I happen to be on the side I would have chosen, given the choice!
"So, then, where are we going to get away from them at? Are we starting a rebellion, or just fleeing, or...what?"
"Well, there's more of a resistance than a rebellion, although there is some of that as well, I suppose. Many of the independent planets are loosely united against the incursions of the Federation, sufficiently that the Federation distinguishes resistance planets from independents. They continue to pressure independents to become Federation, but they are less diplomatic with resistance planets. We are something of an independent flagship of the resistance, doing whatever we see needs to be done. We can't take on the whole fleet, but we have done remarkably well against squadrons and the occasional battlecruiser, not entirely because we have the superior ship. It's not so easy sometimes. A couple months back we were trying to persuade the leadership of one planet to share their defensive technology with other planets, but they felt that their inventions gave them an edge they did not want to lose, and spreading the information around made it vulnerable. In the end, they prevailed--we're not the Federation, to take something that's not offered, no matter how valuable it might be to the resistance effort.
"So mostly we wander around the galaxy looking for ways to help the resistance and stop the Federation. Sometimes that means staying out of reach; sometimes that means fighting back; sometimes that means helping in unusual ways.
"Sound like fun?" she smiles.
--M. J. Young
"Fun? Not so much. Work? Very much so. Fulfilling? Now that is the heart of it. Very much so. I look forward to it, difficult as it may be."
"So, this is no ordinary ship. Where did you guys find it? It's already been shown to me it has tech beyond what is seen elsewhere in the galaxy."
"Yeah, that is a mystery. John and Phil found it. I'd tell you to ask them, but Phil doesn't talk so much to most of us and John has his very busy spurts, so you might not get much of an answer from them. What I know is that John escaped from Federation pursuit partly because his crew was fond enough of him to overlook a few orders and fail to report promptly a few bits of information. He ran into Phil on a neutral spaceport, and they swapped stories. Phil's story is perhaps less altruistic but more dramatic. He's the best there is when it comes to computers--a point he makes often--but the Federation treated him as a resource, someone who had to do what they wanted. That's one of the problems with being good at something in the Federation: if the Federation thinks you're good, you work for them, and you're constantly under their scrutiny. But they maybe underestimated him. He crashed the entire power grid of the planet on which they were keeping him, stole a ship, and escaped to neutral space.
"Anyway, they traded in their ships for another, so they would be more difficult to trace, and figured they were hot no matter where they went, so they headed out toward the less populated end of the galaxy. They encountered a ship--this ship, larger than any they had ever seen--and at first thought they'd been caught. When the ship did nothing, they hailed it, and were invited aboard, in retrospect apparently by the computer. There were no traces of a crew, but whether they had abandoned and not returned or had died and been methodically removed by the automated cleaning system we never learned. Between John's spaceship training and Phil's computer skills, though, they soon had control of the systems. They decided to move away from that part of space, since if there actually was an owner out there it would be difficult to explain how they came to be in possession of it, and they started gathering the rest of us. They picked me up when they were provisioning on a neutral planet; I had gotten in trouble for being involved in protests against a government that was trying to stay neutral, when I thought they should support the resistance. The Federation has taken them since then, so I really can't go home again; but my communications skills have helped us stay ahead of them more than once.
"Which reminds me, I should be back to that. I don't want to miss anything." She stands and stretches. "Anything else I can tell you?"
--M. J. Young
"No, that's all I wanted to know." I stand and extend my hand for a handshake. "Thank you very much for being so helpful!" I give her a genuine smile.
I'll head to my quarters, shower, and get an early 'night'. Once I wake, I'll head to work.