Federation and Earth, page 1
Federation and Earth
Federation Trilogy Book Two
Tony Harmsworth
Table of Contents
Title Page
Federation And Earth (Federation Trilogy, #2)
1 Refresher
2 Federation Deliberations
3 A Word From Me, Rummy Blin Breganin
4 London
5 UN
6 Washington
7 Eskorav
8 Sibernek
9 Militia
10 Security Council
11 Operations
12 Pittsburgh
13 Surprise
14 On the Road
15 Orbit
16 Seat of Government
17 Arlucian
18 Sibernek Laboratory
19 Free America HQ
20 White House
21 Voting
22 North Korea
23 Escape
24 The Spawning
25 The Monster’s Beard
26 Federation Meeting
27 Presidential Rant
28 My Involvement
29 Marine Barracks
30 California Dreaming
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1 Refresher
[Note for non-British readers – Tony writes using UK English spelling, punctuation, and grammar.]
[A word of caution or warning or whatever you wish to call it, from the author: – A small proportion of readers wrote critical reviews of the first book because, in their opinion, it criticised America and promoted communism or extreme socialism.
[I suppose most of them will not read this second book in the trilogy, but I would like to remind readers that this is a story, a work of speculative science fiction.
[That an empire somewhere in the galaxy is able to make communism work, prevent all wars and rid their worlds of poverty and disease, does not mean that I would advocate it for use by humans in any country in the 21st Century.
[I reiterate, the Federation Trilogy is a work of speculative science fiction, not a promotion of any particular political system. Enjoy it for what it is – a view into one possible future. Tony Harmsworth.]
[There is a glossary at https://harmsworth.net/glossary.pdf which you might like to bookmark.]
Author Rummy Blin Breganin, a citizen of Daragnen, wrote his Federation Trilogy when he discovered that the Earth had been prohibited from all space flight and use of quantum technology, the key to interstellar travel.
His first book, written long after the events described in this second book, follows the story of Earth’s first contact with the Federation.
Initially things seem to go well, but the Federation’s economic system conflicted with that of Western Europe, the United States of America and many other countries. Its similarity to communism immediately caused suspicion and distrust.
The leaders of more than twenty countries were each taken to visit five Federation worlds, including one new member world and the capital of the Federation, Arlucian.
Gradually, President Spence of the USA began to be won over by all of the benefits of membership, but he realised that the Federation’s economic system was going to be a hard sell to the wealthy minority who held much of the power in western democracies. They would have to forego their wealth in order to allow the general population to benefit.
The Federation began to make sense to him.
Its economic system relies upon automatons. Over several hundred thousand years, the manufacture of robots has been perfected. They can do anything and everything people could ever be asked to do. On Earth in the twenty-first century, we consider that a robot which can pick strawberries is the height of sophistication, but utility robots in the Federation can handle any task. Most are not designed to perform one function well, but to use their AI minds to work out how to do virtually anything. If a robot were asked to peel a grape, it would do so perfectly and then go on to prepare a seven-course gourmet meal or strip an engine and perform a complete mechanical rebuild.
Those same utility robots can also handle many other jobs from caring for paraplegics, handling all of their hygiene and other needs, to fetching and carrying in homes or industrial workplaces. A domestic robot could be asked to go and do the shopping. It would find out what was needed by examining the contents of the refrigerator, the store cupboards and freezer. Before it left it would even ask if anything special or unusual was required. Saying, ‘Yes, get everything for a barbecue for eight people this Sunday, too,’ would not result in a further string of questions. The robot would then get into the autonomous vehicle and go shopping.
Of course, some robots have more specialised functions. Medibots diagnose and treat all manner of medical problems and some are even more specialised to conduct surgery, from repairing cataracts to stenting blood vessels.
In an industrial or farming setting, robots would carry out all duties ever handled by people, from planting to dealing with cattle insemination programmes. If they ran into problems, they would ask for help – no, not from a person, but an overseer bot or monitoring system. During visits to worlds by leaders during the last book, some bots told the leaders they had not had contact with a living being in hundreds of years of manufacturing.
The upshot of the expertise of robots and other AI systems is that people no longer have anything to do. Profit from all the state-owned businesses goes into a pool and is distributed equally so that everyone shares in the wealth of nearly a quarter of a million worlds.
However, if people want to work they can do so and all are encouraged to work about ten per cent of their time. Inventors suddenly have the time to come up with new ideas and innovations and can get access to the equipment and machine shops or laboratories they might need. This means that, instead of having to develop it themselves, including all of the hassle of raising finance and running the business, they can hand over the idea to robots. They produce the items, keeping in production the successful products. They also keep stocks of more niche items which would never be profitable, but add to the life satisfaction of people. Inventors also receive small bonuses as reward for their ideas but it is never excessive, perhaps the value of another off-world holiday that year.
The system was of course seen by some as communism, a reviled system which reared its head on twentieth century Earth. It was so despised that many people were unable to get their heads around the fact that, in a world where the work was all done by automatons, it could actually work. In fact it was the obvious solution to the capitalist system which exploited people, often in other countries, to make others into billionaires. This saw wealthy countries ignoring poverty, starvation and disease in poorer countries; and consuming resources to the serious detriment of the general population and the environment.
In the Federation, the system resulted in everyone having a great standard of living, all receiving the same level of medical attention, living anywhere they wished on-world or off-world somewhere else in the galaxy. Poverty is non-existent in the Federation, but so is obscene wealth. Whether it be a person in a rural setting on Veroscando or the Federation president itself (a sexless budding creature), the income was the same. Volunteers could participate in the Federation rapid-reaction force to deal with natural disasters and unexpected outbreaks of disease, or they could volunteer as carers or write books, produce films and develop the arts. Anyone could do anything they wished to do which did not hurt others or their planets.
Eventually, President Spence achieved some progress with politicians and industrialists, but then there was an unexpected power grab by Vice President Slimbridge who had the president arrested for treason, claiming that he was about to hand over control of the United States to communist aliens.
The president suddenly found himself in prison, but the FBI soon realised that the charges were trumped up and helped him break out with the house minority and majority leaders, the main democratic candidate for president and several of the captains of industry who had been with the president at the time of the arrest and arrested as co-conspirators.
From the outskirts of Washington, they escaped in a Chinook helicopter to New York where they were going to claim diplomatic asylum in the UN complex. However, Vice President Slimbridge, with all the resources of the military, pursued them and had the helicopter shot down as it reached the UN building.
The UN had called a meeting to approve an application for Federation membership and Slimbridge intended to veto the vote. Unknown to him, President Spence and the other Chinook passengers had been rescued by the Federation from the helicopter an instant before it exploded. UN troops arrested Slimbridge under a warrant from the International Court of Justice in the Hague when he arrived for the debate.
Then, with Spence back in charge, the meeting was rearranged, and all the leaders of the world met at the UN HQ. In the meantime, the US military sprung Slimbridge and plotted against Spence.
On the day of the vote, Slimbridge had a small nuclear bomb exploded under the UN building killing all of the world leaders and the entire Federation diplomatic team. Virtually all of New York was destroyed in the explosion.
A new Federation ambassador was appointed and, after discussing the situation with the Federation Cabinet, it was decided to visit the UK prime minister. That chapter is included below and will bring you up to date.
2 Federation Deliberations
[Taken from a copy of Cabinet minutes, conditionally released early to me (Rummy Blin Breganin) by the Federation Cabinet Secretary when I told him it was research for my books. They are normally kept secret for fifty years. Because the following is taken from minutes, it is a considerable block of dialogue. I have removed almost all names and job titles to simplify it. RBB]
‘We have to give Ambassador Trestogeen a concept policy,’ said President Dimorathron to the fifteen members of the inner cabinet.
‘These barbarians have killed an entire diplomatic team. Surely it’s unprecedented?’ said one of the group.
‘Well... there was the case of Garrstend,’ said another.
‘That’s delving deep into history,’ said the President. ‘That was more than two hundred years ago.’
‘Did it get resolved?’ asked another.
‘Yes. They reapplied and complied the second time and there was no violence. At least, not like this,’ said yet another.
‘The group who carried out these murders must be punished.’
‘How can we punish them without punishing their whole world?’
‘Ha. They killed millions of their own kind to take this action. Surely something is wrong with the entire species!’
‘The punishment must not physically hurt the people.’
‘How can we do that? Not being members of the Federation will hurt almost everyone. There were thousands dying of starvation in a place called Sudan before this occurred. It won’t get any better now.’
‘Well, we can’t continue membership discussions with such creatures.’
‘Okay, colleagues, we are going to have to provide a punishment which their whole population will realise was caused by the rebels’ violence,’ said the president.
There were several calls of ‘Agreed.’
‘I’d still like to get some emergency aid into the famine regions,’ said one.
‘We can’t put our own people in danger!’ replied another.
‘Right. How about we shut them off for a while? Isolate them?’ asked the president.
‘The way we did over Operiom?’ asked another.
‘Oh, yes. The plague planet,’ said yet another.
‘Well, yes,’ said the president, ‘but in that case we had teams of medics assisting them. It was more of an unfortunate quarantine.’
‘Something along those lines.’
‘Trouble is that the people who did this actually want isolation, so we’re rewarding their actions.’
‘That’s a good point, but we have no choice really.’
‘Let’s ensure there is a way back for them – a way for them to contact us and start over.’
‘Yes, that’ll do it for me.’
‘Okay. Isolation with a route to future membership?’ asked the president.
‘Yes, and leave a few spybots on the planet to keep an eye on changes within their political systems,’ said the Cabinet Secretary.
‘I’ll inform Ambassador Trestogeen,’ said the president.
‘Is there no way we can drop emergency aid in the famine areas, Ye President?’
‘I’ll ask Ambassador Trestogeen to look into it. It should be possible to send in supplies on a drop and leave basis,’ said the president.
««o»»
[Taken from Ambassador Trestogeen’s files. RBB]
‘Commander Wukkundi, you will be responsible for carrying out the plan. Is everything clear?’
‘Yes, Ambassador, my FEU team can carry it out within a day or so, once you give the command. We’ll also organise some freighters for provisions drops in the famine areas.’
‘Okay. Do it.’
««o»»
[Taken from official FEU files and body-worn cameras. RBB]
Commander Ya Dustul Wukkundi, looked resplendent in her FEU uniform, her eight feelers each protruding from braided sleeves. She stood in front of her force of twenty-four volunteer operatives. The briefing had been long and detailed. Some of the Federation’s largest freighters were already en route from Ecisfiip, fully loaded with provisions. Finally, the squad was ready to take action.
The stealth rapid-reaction vessel, Hidome, left the Ronoi’s vicinity once the ambassador had come on board to monitor the Isolation Policy of the Federation. The Ronoi had been Ambassador Moroforon’s flagship.
The Hidome changed orbit and was soon sitting alongside the International Space Station.
‘Human Space Station, please respond,’ said the commander.
The space station sat silently for several minutes, navigation and interior lights giving the only sign of its habitation.
‘Ian Watson here, ISS commander. How can I help?’ was the message which came through after twelve long minutes.
‘They’ll have been asking NASA what to do,’ said the ambassador to the commander.
‘Yol Watson, I am Commander Wukkundi of the Federation Enforcement Unit on board the Hidome. You are aware of the recent murders of our diplomatic team?’
‘We are, but had no hand in it. We are a peaceful research facility only.’
‘Nevertheless, my orders are to remove your space station from orbit. How long will it take for your crew to leave?’
There was a break of almost ten minutes.
‘Yol Watson, please respond.’
The silence continued for another three minutes. ‘Commander Wukkundi, the ISS is a non-partisan, international scientific research facility. It plays no part in the defence of the planet and has no political leaning,’ said Ian Watson.
‘How long will it take for you to leave the space station? Our orders are not subject to appeal.’
‘To do so in an orderly manner would take about a week. An emergency evacuation would take a day,’ said Ian Watson.
‘You have forty-eight hours commencing now,’ said the commander.
The Hidome dropped into a lower orbit and began destroying satellites. Detection beams located working and derelict equipment in orbit around the Earth.
What was called an “aconstik net” was released. It comprised an electronic network which held its shape as it moved through its retrograde orbit. Everything it encountered was slowed down enough to force it to drop out of orbit. The process would be complete and orbits of up to two hundred and forty miles cleared of satellites and old space junk within ninety minutes. The population was about to be treated to a stunning show of shooting stars.
Once that was complete, the Hidome raised its orbit to a geosynchronous location where a second net was deployed to destroy all satellites from three hundred miles to thirty thousand miles in altitude.
From that point, the commander began search and destroy tactics to locate larger satellites like the Hubble, Kepler, Tess, and others. By the time the Hidome returned to the ISS, all Earth and moon orbital satellites were destroyed, larger ones being flung sunwards for eventual burn up.
‘ISS. Please confirm you have evacuated the space station,’ said the commander.
There was no answer.
‘Lieutenant, check the space station for signs of life,’ said the commander.
‘Yes, sir,’ said the lieutenant, saluting and leaving the bridge.
A few minutes later he returned and advised that the only life signs were a container of bees.
‘Bring the bee container aboard, check they are safely contained. Tell me when that’s done.’
More waiting.
‘Bee container on board, sir.’
‘Captain, calculate the vector needed to have the ISS fall into an isolated section of ocean.’
‘Done, sir.’
‘Push it into that trajectory.’
‘Done, sir.’
All of a sudden, the radio came to life, ‘Attention Commander Wukkundi of the Hidome. This is Prime Minister Church of Great Britain. What are you doing? Our weather, communications and global positioning satellites are no longer responding.’
‘Ambassador?’ said the commander.
‘Prime Minister Church, Ambassador Trestogeen here,’ said the ambassador. ‘All will become clear shortly.’
‘We want to make it known that it was a small group of violent Federation-sceptic politicians and military men who caused the explosion. Most of the people of Earth were absolutely horrified,’ said the prime minister.
