Dreams of a Keplernite

Rough draft of a Sci Fi novel I wish to write, currently establishing the universe.

Space, the final frontier, well, actually, we’re quite satisfied with what we’ve discovered.  It is the year 2217, Humankind has terraformed 18 moons in the Kuniper belt. And we’re making way towards colonizing moons  beyond that. Terraforming came about in the year 2150, it’s only now the UEF is making full use of it. Earth remains the most populated celestial body, in order to prevent overpopulation, they offer incentives to people willing to move billions of miles away from home, such as food, shelter, internet, everything a person needs to survive. Terraforming is an easy, albeit, lengthy process, first, a team of eggheads finds a suitable moon, Titan was our first choice, Mars was too big, well, Mars is a lot of things, but more on that later. Basically, Eggheads send a team to the moon decked in spacesuits and all that good stuff you need to, well, breathe, and they set down these…huge octagonal boards. On earth, they weigh about as much as 3 cows and a hamster. They’re loaded onto ships with a very special, very gentle crane. But on moons, they’re easily managed by 3 or so constructonauts. They’re not actually called constructonauts, but it’s a better name than what the UEF gave them. “Colonists”.

                No, Colonists are the folks that leave home, and actually live on these moons after they’re done terraforming. Most of the time, its people that are living in poverty. Or people who’re just sick of their neighbors. You’d be surprised. But I find calling the guys those terraform “colonists” doesn’t do them, or real colonist’s justice. Colonists or interstellar immigrants as the UEF like to call them, migrate to newly formed planets. Because once these moons are fully terraformed and fully hospitable, they leave their respective planet’s center of gravity, and form their own.

                When a moon is terraformed, it becomes a planet. It gets its own atmosphere, its own orbit, ecosystem, scientists are really fraking smart okay? They figured all this stuff out in a lab, and then they applied it to real life. We have planets in outer space, people are living on planets besides earth.

                And getting to these planets is so easy, Scientists back in the day said travel to Mars would mean sacrificing your ties to everyone you knew on Earth. Now, you can go to Titan, for breakfast and be back to Earth in time for Brunch. Actually scratch that, more like, late Lunch. Discovered by complete accident when a scientist put one thing, against another thing, and he made this….huge thing. She called it…Four Dimensional travel. Okay, you know how flying is faster than driving because in an airplane, you can raise and decrease altitude? Well imagine that…but going against airplanes. That is Four dimensional travel. It’s like traveling at the speed of light, except 4D travel isn’t a cruel mistress that ages your friends while you go off doing your own thing. We had one idiot who tried traveling to Titan using some sort of light speed, we haven’t seen him yet.

                I can talk about ships all day, mine’s a beautiful Falcon class, it’s a cargo ship, it feels very empty without friends. But enough about me, ther’s plenty of ships out there in the void…The Spock class is known for it’s artificial habitat, making it well suited for scientists and researchers alike. The Flash Gordon class is known for it’s speed and control, they’re mostly used for fighters in the UEF, they are also used in races. Some rich folks also use them to get around cities, but it’s a total waste in my opinion. Tiberius class ships are colossal vessels, used exclusively by the UEF’s they’re mobile embassys, and sometimes carriers. We haven’t needed to use Tiberius classes as carriers since the war of the Trenches, but you’re too young to remember that. The UEF is just preparing for when we meet any alien life, but I’m sure any aliens we meet will be nice. There are so many ship models, the excelsior class, Starfighter, megazord, gojira class…

                In case you haven’t noticed, the folks who designed all our spaceships are nerds. They think they’re clever, but they’re not. All those names I rolled out are icons from centuries ago, the only ship that isn’t based off some cereal box TV show is the Genghis class vessels, now those are not ships to be trifled with. They can go toe to toe with a Tiberius class, mind you the Tiberius class is 5 times as big. It’s a wasp of a vessel, except wasps die after one sting and Genghis class ships….don’t….

 

….

 

Quit fallin asleep kid here comes the good part. We’re in a golden age basically, there isn’t a hole to be seen in the ozone, except for maybe one…..or two….But basically things are good. Less businessmen in power, more scientists, engineers, more people that want to make love and not war. The most we got in the form of corruption was a scientists syphoning some money to fund his research, can you believe it? And its like…he didn’t know he was syphoning money, he paid all that money back man. It’s crazy. He’s dead now, but that whole scandal was a read.

Okay I’m losing you, you like guns? … I can’t get a read off you. Say something. Nod your head, anything! Whatever, there are lots of guns, unfortunately, they all pack a mean punch, no one loses a finger anymore, they lose arms. This is why soldiers wear such strong armor, like me, here have a knock...or you know what, I’ll knock it for you, see? It’s armor. That usually gets a laugh out of some kids, Are you a mute? Whatever I enjoy the company. Don’t leave.

Some people like old fashioned guns, like the ones cowboys used to use, but instead of bullets, these suckers use batteries. You know how I’ve got this armor? Well, the reason it’s so good at stopping bullets, is because of it’s kinetic shields. Those battery powered weapons, mess them up, but otherwise they don’t really do much to injure you, as long as you have your armor. That’s why in the military, squads have battery troopers, and kinetic troopers. Kinetic Troopers use your standard Pulse Rifles, that blow holes in torsos, and your battery troopers use your good ol fashioned cowboy guns to bring the shields down. Mind you, there do exist modernized battery weapons, but so so so many people prefer the aesthetic of cowboy guns, I mean, I don’t see the appeal in them personally, but whatever.

You know how I said I wouldn’t tell you about the Trench Wars? Well I’m gonna tell you about the Trench Wars. Basically, some colonists didn’t like the way the UEF was doing things, so they cut all communication, which is a big big nono. It’s basically a declaration of war, and that’s basically what happened. But these guys were smart. They didn’t go all in without a good hand. Using the same technology that we use to terraform planets, they made this indestructible force field around their colony. What sucked was that this wasn’t some baby 6 mile in diameter forcefield, it was huge, we couldn’t starve them out because they already had resources to last for years. And this thing was very well fortified, the reason the UEF was freaking out about this colony in particular was because of the sheer population, over a million people. Mostly abled bodied people, worse, they were well armed. An unknown benefactor was funding their campaign, the UEF was never able to find out who….

Anyway, this campaign was tricky, because we couldn’t attack from the air, which meant we needed to go head on, which was mostly greeted by missiles and mortar fire. This is why we started digging trenches. Like our great great great great great great grandpappy’s did in the World War 1…And surprisingly, this tactic worked. In addition to our kinetic barriers, we were able to advance slowly, but surely. In order to halt our advance, the colonists needed to build trenches of their own, so we were able to draw them out…

                Alright kid, there you go falling asleep again. I’m just gonna go now. Stay in school, stand up to bullies, and only respect your elders that show respect to you, like me you inconsiderate doughnut!

 

If your pop asks who gave you the history lesson…tell him it was Gordon Kaluke…The most infamous bounty hunter in the Kepler Bel�"

 

“Who?” interrupted the kid, Gordon lowered his arms, and sighed

 

. “Alright, screw you kid” Gordon muttered.