The Sphere: Part 1
The planet of Paradise in the Theta Onyx system was unique in that it was a manufactured planet. The Planetary Engineering Corporation, more commonly known as PEC, one of the largest corporations in the galaxy, had built it. PEC specialised in the movement and terraforming of worlds. The planet of Paradise was its greatest achievement so far, though that was soon to change.
Paradise had been created in the habitable zone of the system from an assortment of moons, asteroids, comets and Kuiper belt objects that had been carefully moved from their original orbits to new orbits at around 0.8 of an AU from the star. They were then carefully and systematically merged into the single body that became Paradise.
As the planet was artificial, there was no magnetic field and so an array of satellites had been built, these circled the planet, deflecting the solar wind that originated from the orange sun.
The entire planet had been designed to have a climate that ranged between temperate to sub tropical apart from the mountain ranges at the North Pole, which were set aside for Winter sports.
PEC privately owned the whole system. Special visas were required and any unauthorised entry into the Theta Onyx system could be, and on three occasions had been, met by lethal force. PEC had its company headquarters in the only city on the planet. Executives of associated companies and a few other people managed to holiday there. To be a resident, you had to be a senior employee of PEC.
PEC was holding a board meeting in the capital complex. The fifteen most senior executives were present along with a group of employees from R&D. Android armed sentinels stood guard. These were specially designed to have a low intelligence but high loyalty with special aggression and loyalty programming that was illegal on 99% of civilised planets.
“Gentlemen and lady,” the chief executive boomed. “Today we are going to have a special presentation from the head of our R&D team. The team has been working on a substance stronger and lighter than any so far known. Imagine if you will a planet or the equivalent made from a single crystal of carbon and silicon interlaced with exotic matter. A substance that theoretically could create artefacts as large as a planet, or,” he paused for dramatic effect, “even larger. I will now pass you over to Asaac Singh who leads our R&D department.”
The chief executive sat down as another man nervously stood up and immediately started to speak. “As you know, currently the only way of making planets suitable for life is to terraform sterile planets. Life from different systems is mutually incompatible. We cannot just invade other ecosystems. Not only because of the ethical implications of destroying whole planeoecosystems but because models and the one or two illegal attempts have shown that unless you sterilise the planet first then you are usually doomed to failure, the native life is usually too well established. Therefore, the traditional way of making new planets suitable for humans is to seed a sterile world with terrestrial organisms. This should take time but there are short-cuts.” Asaac Singh paused and looked fretfully down at his notes before he continued.
“The next development was to create a planet from scratch, such as this planet, the one that you are standing on now. So gentlemen and lady, what is the next stage? Well, that is what I am going to talk about now. How familiar are you of the concept of a Dyson Sphere?”
The first slide on his holographic presentation illuminated above his head. Asaac Singh looked about and saw people looking up ‘Dyson’ in their perpods.
“Vacuum cleaners!” somebody said incredulously.
Asaac suppressed a sigh. It was going to be a very long presentation.
Paradise had been created in the habitable zone of the system from an assortment of moons, asteroids, comets and Kuiper belt objects that had been carefully moved from their original orbits to new orbits at around 0.8 of an AU from the star. They were then carefully and systematically merged into the single body that became Paradise.
As the planet was artificial, there was no magnetic field and so an array of satellites had been built, these circled the planet, deflecting the solar wind that originated from the orange sun.
The entire planet had been designed to have a climate that ranged between temperate to sub tropical apart from the mountain ranges at the North Pole, which were set aside for Winter sports.
PEC privately owned the whole system. Special visas were required and any unauthorised entry into the Theta Onyx system could be, and on three occasions had been, met by lethal force. PEC had its company headquarters in the only city on the planet. Executives of associated companies and a few other people managed to holiday there. To be a resident, you had to be a senior employee of PEC.
PEC was holding a board meeting in the capital complex. The fifteen most senior executives were present along with a group of employees from R&D. Android armed sentinels stood guard. These were specially designed to have a low intelligence but high loyalty with special aggression and loyalty programming that was illegal on 99% of civilised planets.
“Gentlemen and lady,” the chief executive boomed. “Today we are going to have a special presentation from the head of our R&D team. The team has been working on a substance stronger and lighter than any so far known. Imagine if you will a planet or the equivalent made from a single crystal of carbon and silicon interlaced with exotic matter. A substance that theoretically could create artefacts as large as a planet, or,” he paused for dramatic effect, “even larger. I will now pass you over to Asaac Singh who leads our R&D department.”
The chief executive sat down as another man nervously stood up and immediately started to speak. “As you know, currently the only way of making planets suitable for life is to terraform sterile planets. Life from different systems is mutually incompatible. We cannot just invade other ecosystems. Not only because of the ethical implications of destroying whole planeoecosystems but because models and the one or two illegal attempts have shown that unless you sterilise the planet first then you are usually doomed to failure, the native life is usually too well established. Therefore, the traditional way of making new planets suitable for humans is to seed a sterile world with terrestrial organisms. This should take time but there are short-cuts.” Asaac Singh paused and looked fretfully down at his notes before he continued.
“The next development was to create a planet from scratch, such as this planet, the one that you are standing on now. So gentlemen and lady, what is the next stage? Well, that is what I am going to talk about now. How familiar are you of the concept of a Dyson Sphere?”
The first slide on his holographic presentation illuminated above his head. Asaac Singh looked about and saw people looking up ‘Dyson’ in their perpods.
“Vacuum cleaners!” somebody said incredulously.
Asaac suppressed a sigh. It was going to be a very long presentation.
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