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  May 9, 158408

  Uvenji System (Menjag Kingdom)

  Yavin 219

  The moon known as Yavin 219 was small, with only .48gs of gravity, so the Star Force cities there had to add extra to bring them up to the standard 1g inside as they orbited the planet of Viegan along with three other moons. All were inhabited, but the people living here were not the same. Yavin 219 was off limits to the Bsidd that inhabited everything else in this system, and some of their bigger cities could be seen in the sky of the moon during night, spread out across Viegan’s surface in small patches that didn’t require magnification to observe.

  093 was looking at them now, sitting on the rooftop observation lounge protected by an invisible energy field to make sure none of the young Terrans fell off, but it did give her a chance to feel the planet’s natural air when she chose, for the rest of the Terran city was internal and mostly unavailable to her, given that she was still in the maturia. Only 12 years old, and still with years to go before she’d get her first assignment…or the option to choose an unstructured life, though few did. All the Terrans in her class wanted to get in on the action, for in this system everything was already claimed and packed with people, but in the Outer Core where the Hadarak were, other Terrans were fighting to claim worlds of their own, and 093 wanted to join them as soon as she could.

  There was no room left in the Rim to build colonies…at least not good ones. All the best planets were taken, and this was one of the few Terran colonies that even had air, according to her information. Most were on lifeless moons or asteroids, producing new Terrans either through natural births or cloning. 093 was in a class of clones, though they were identical to the natural births in every way. Still, more Terrans were needed, and needed badly, for they were proving to be amongst the best warriors Star Force had in this war, despite their youth. They might not be the strongest, the smartest, or the quickest…but they worked together the best. Even more than the hive-minded Bsidd or Paladin. The Terrans just clicked with each other, and the more of them that were involved in a project, the better that project would turn out. Which was why Star Force needed a lot of them, the quicker the better.

  But 093 was a long way from getting to the war zone. Even when she graduated from the basic maturia she would have a lot of advanced learning left to do, if she chose, though she hoped to get some non-combat role in the combat zone. Anything to get out of the ‘safe’ Rim and into the action, but as she looked up at the Bsidd planet in the night sky and imagined the billions of people up there doing who knew what, part of her wondered what the point was. Defending people made sense, but to what end? So they can just sit on that world and do nothing? That didn’t make sense. It never made sense, and she’d been up here looking into the night sky many times trying to figure it out while her trainers told her she’d get answers to that question later by Andromeda, but they never said who Andromeda was and her information terminal didn’t have any explanation about how any other races started other than her own.

  As she looked into the sky the wristband she and all the others wore chimed, calling her to an unscheduled summons. That happened fairly often when there was training or information to be revealed that wasn’t part of the normal schedule, and the trainers said the surprise of it was part of the process, so 093 had just gotten used to the random summons and kicked herself off one of many ledges on the rooftop and walked to the stairwell that led inside, feeling the heavier normal gravity return when she went back down into the building.

  093 followed the tracker until she came to an amphitheater with more than half her class already there and took a seat amongst the others as most were yawning, for it had been a hard day of physical training and they were in their last free hour before the normal sleep cycle.

  When the remainder of the 100 entered and sat down, the doors closed and the lights dimmed…then a hologram appeared on the platform that all the tiered seats faced. A hologram of a naked woman with chin-length dark hair and her hands clasped behind her back.

  “Hello cadets. My name is Andromeda, and while I’m not a real person, I’ve been programmed by many to sound like one. I can respond to questions, but for now just sit and listen. There’s a great deal of valuable information that needs passed on to you, but having real people do it over and over again is a waste of their time. They need to pursue their own growth and not sacrifice it to help you in yours. To this end they created me, an interactive computer program to endlessly repeat this important information to class after class of Terran younglings, and today I am proud to announce that you are ready for deeper information on several topics that some of you have previously broached with the trainers.

  “Now, based off the gleam in some of your eyes, I can assume that you’re quite happy to see that I’m naked and are wondering why…the guys, anyway…and the obvious response is to point out that a computer program doesn’t need clothes, but why do I need a body at all? The answer to that is that you respond to a person differently than you do a database, and some discussions need to be interactive. I have been programmed for this, and in the future I will be responding to many of your questions, but today is a day for you to listen. Then you can ask questions about what you heard.”

  “The biggest reason I’m naked is that it’s a promise. A promise that I will hide nothing. All the knowledge I have been programmed with I will share with you. All my secrets are yours, though it will take time for you to learn them. And learning is the key.”

  “The key to what, you may ask?” Andromeda said, beginning to pace sideways on the stage as she talked, with her audible footfalls sounding as if she had real bare feet padding on the stone-like floor. “Learning is the key to the Great Mystery, and it can be simplified down to the basic questions of why are we here and where did we come from. Throw in the ‘where do we go when we die’ and you have a trifecta of paradoxes that Star Force has not been able to figure out to date.”

  “That’s right. Star Force doesn’t know everything. Far from it, actually, and that can be scary for many people. Terrans have been genetically engineered to embrace the Great Mystery rather than run from it, but there’s only so much your genes can do for you. They’re a starting point, and when you come face to face with the Great Mystery…which we often refer to in short hand as the Question Mark…do you explore it or ignore it? Some people can’t handle not knowing what is going on, so they make stuff up and pretend. These people are cowards, mostly, but sometimes pretending can help you get through a temporary situation when the fear would have crippled you. In the end, though, you must either face this fear or run from it. And those who run from it usually behave in a predictable way.”

  “A part of them knows where they can’t look. What questions they can’t ask. They’re not naïve, they’re willfully trying to remain ignorant…but that’s impossible unless they know a little bit about what not to explore further. A truly ignorant person wouldn’t know where not to go and what questions not to ask. So the people who are running away from the Question Mark are always doing so willingly, if often subconsciously. This creates an internal disconnect with their senses that can lead to many problems, so it’s important you understand the Question Mark and how to face it.”

  “The universe exists. Right here, right now. It doesn’t need you to see it to exist. The planet of Nubarik you were taught about previously. You saw pictures of it, geographical stats, and battle records. You know of its existence even if you have not been there, but you have been taught nothing of Trivora. Yet Trivora exists today, and existed yesterday when you didn’t even know the name. All of the universe exists whether you know it or not, and it does not need your permission to exist. Some people who run from the Question Mark claim the universe is only what they personally experience and everything else doesn’t exist. This is bullshit, and another way they hide from the truth. And the truth is, there is more to the universe than we will ever know, no matter how much exploring and learning we do.”

  “We can’t know it all, and that’s something a lot of Terran younglings of your age have a hard time understanding, because you have a database where you can look up a lot of information. You have trainers to answer questions. And you now have me to do the same. But we don’t know everything. It just seems like we do, and the more you learn, the more you will begin to find areas where we are lacking. And it is in those areas where you will encounter the Question Mark, elusive as it may be now.”

  “When you’re busy training and overcoming challenges, you often don’t have a lot of time to wonder about things, but eventually you may get around to asking where did the first Human come from? And I don’t mean Human originating on Earth. I mean our entire genetic line going back through Zen’zat and Ter’nat. Where did the first of us come from?”

  “Star Force has learned of an occurrence called a ‘Life Spring’ where new races will just pop into existence when there is a lack of life on a planet. Sometimes even an entire planet just pops into existence. We don’t have any recordings of this happening, because we don’t know when it will occur, but the natural question to then ask is…where did they pop in from?”

  “We don’t know. We know our Cores come from the Essence Realm, but how did they come into existence? How did the Essence realm come to be? If we go back in time as far as possible, what do we find at the very beginning…and once we find the very beginning, what happened 5 minutes before that? The past is fixed. It’s not up to interpretation, or your point of view. What happened, happened. The future is in flux, but the past is not. And even if we don’t know what happened, something did. What was it? And what happened before the beginning?”

  “These questions seem to defy logic, and are what we call ‘paradoxes.’ A paradox is not a question without an answer. It is a question we can’t even theorize a possible answer for. There is one, we just can’t see it, and when you can’t see it you imagine all kinds of weird stuff. For example, people once thought black holes were smaller than your fingertip, or a gateway to another universe…which is insanely stupid, because the term ‘universe’ refers to everything, and you can’t have two everythings. No, the lack of knowledge about black holes was because you can’t see them without certain types of sensors. And if you don’t know those sensors exist, you have a black spot in the sky with no information about it. It is a gigantic Question Mark, and a lot of people made up stuff rather than admit they did not know what it was.”

  “Another paradox is how big is the universe? You’ve seen a lot of maps, which we have of explored areas of our galaxy. Now imagine a map of the areas we haven’t explored. We don’t have access to it, but it exists none the less. Now assume that map is for the entire universe. Picture it in your mind. Countless galaxies spreading out in all directions. Now go to the edge of the map and tell me what you see there?”

  “Is there a line? Is there a fog? Is there nothingness…because nothingness is technically still part of the universe, and would therefore be included in the map. So that begs the question, where is the end of the Universe…and what is beyond the end? It can’t just stop at a line, because there would have to be something on the other side of the line. And yet it can’t go on forever. It might look like it can, but remember your mental map has everything in it. Whatever is out there, is out there now. It doesn’t need our permission to exist. So what’s on the edge? Where is the edge? How can there even be an edge?”

  “When you try and think it through, your brain feels like it’s tied into knots and you get no answers. Not only that, it makes you feel like there’s no sense in the universe, as if it’s all fake, because it doesn’t make sense. If there is a map, there has to be an edge. But if there’s an edge, what’s on the other side of it? There can’t be anything, because if there were it would count as part of the universe because the universe includes everything. So what does that even look like?”

  “The answer is we have no idea. And the more you try and run that through your head the more it will hurt…because it is a paradox, and a paradox is a Question Mark that is not just unknown, but you’re looking at it the wrong way. Sometimes it’s helpful to look at old paradoxes that have now been solved, and I’ll give you one. The birthplace of Star Force was a planet called Earth in the Home One Kingdom. Back before they had spaceships…or at least before they knew they did…people asked the question where were the ends of the Earth? What would happen if they just started walking in a straight line and never stopped? Would they come to the end and fall off, or would it just go on forever. How could it go on forever? It had to be there now, and even if they couldn’t get to it, it had to end somewhere…yet it couldn’t end, because what was beyond it?”

  “It’s a similar paradox to where is the edge of the universe, but the key problem here was the people of Earth back then were assuming that the Earth was flat. The ground does look flat, especially on the bigger planets, and it was an easy assumption to make…but it was wrong and it was the problem with the paradox. If you know the curvature of a planetoid, you know that if you keep walking in a straight line, the gravitation curve is going to bring you back to your original spot…because your straight line isn’t really a straight line. The planet is curved, not flat. And when that was discovered, the paradox was broken.”

  “So it was a bad assumption that was preventing them from solving the paradox. So, does that help us with our question? Does the universe curve around on itself? Unfortunately no. The curve of a planet can be measured if you look closely enough, and measuring straight lines in space is how we travel between stars, so we’re quite good at it. There is no curvature to a vacuum. So if the universe doesn’t curve back on itself, we’re back to the original paradox of where is the edge?”

  “Knowing that another paradox was the result of an assumption helps settle your brain and give you confidence that there is an answer, we just haven’t discovered it yet. But without that confidence, paradoxes can be quite scary. When you face one of those big Question Marks, remember that an answer exists. An answer always exists. You just don’t know it. Maybe nobody knows it, but an answer will always exist. If you let the fear fuel your imagination of things that you have no data to work with, your mind can become quite warped and put you into a state where you don’t want answers to anything. Analysis, testing, learning…these things can become viewed as the enemy and even knowledge itself can be reviled and targeted for destruction. Many civilizations have been destroyed in this manner, and it all comes down to the fear of the Question Mark and how people reacted to that fear.”

  “Face it, don’t run from it. And if you can’t figure it out today, shrug your shoulders and try again later, but let it go for now. Temporarily. There will always be plenty of universe to explore. You’ll never run out, as far as we know, and you don’t need to rush it. What you do need to do is work on the pieces that you have access to. The places where you are, not the places you’ve heard about or the places you don’t know exist. The place you have the most interaction with is your body. It is your home, and you need to learn about it more than you need to worry about the edge of the universe…assuming there is one.”

  “And to that point, we come to the gleam in most of the guys’ eyes right now. You’ve seen pictures of naked people before, seen each other naked, but there’s a part of you that is still geeking out over the fact that I’m standing here naked for you to see. The girls are probably cringing a little bit, because I’m in better shape than you and you don’t like it, or more likely because you’ve been instinctually programmed to be attracted to naked guys and repulsed by naked women. That’s basic mating instincts, and don’t worry, there will be other informative programs in the future that will be naked guys…in which case the reverse will be true and the boys will be cringing a bit.”

  “Unlike some other races, your reproductive instincts are quite powerful, and you’re going to be having to cope with them as they come online. We’ll discuss this in more detail later, but the key to mastering them is learning about them. Until you do, they will run you, for they are part of your ‘Training Wheels.’ You’ve learned how to deal with pain, which is another training wheel, now you have to deal with pleasure, and it works differently, but it is still encouraging you to do something your genetic instincts want you to do, while pain discourages you from doing something. It tells you what to do and what not to do, and it will continue this until you realize it’s not you, it’s the instincts. And they’re suggestions, not orders.”

  “But you also have a lot of instincts we designed, or more accurately copied, from others that were desirable. Many of these will unlock as you go through life, but only if you continue to learn and grow. Fear of the Question Mark leads you to not look, not listen, not learn. And that leads to stagnation. Stagnation leads to attrition winning out over healing when you don’t try to heal. When you don’t try to solve problems, fix malfunctions, or upgrade in any way. Stagnation leads to death, and as such, fear of the Question Mark has led many people into a self-destructive path.”

  “Now, what is naked? It is a feeling you get more than anything. If you wear heavy winter clothing for a month, then take it off to just a T-shirt and shorts, you will feel naked. Likewise, if you never wear clothes, you won’t feel naked. Why not? Because the feeling of being naked is a more exposed state than ‘normal’ and ‘normal’ changes over time. Now, some of you are going to want to feel naked in a few years. You’re going to like it. And you’re going to want more of it…but when you stop wearing clothes that will become normal and you’ll lose the sensation. The same is true of mating. It’s the newness of it that is the most powerful lure, and the more you do of it, the less intense it gets. Why? Because you have knowledge of it. It’s not a black hole with no data. That’s why you’re given naked pictures to look at, and why you’ll be given the opportunity for sexual training later, so you can get some data for your mind to chew on. And after a while, you won’t even see me as naked. You’ll see this image of my body as normal…but every new class of Terrans will be smiling just as much as you guys are now.”

 

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