Science fiction. The corrupt tribunal

Science fiction. The corrupt tribunal

“It was a forced and assertive remark that could not be ignored, because she meant it this time. She had been assertive many times in the past as well, but today she sounded different and her mood was that of someone who would have it her way anyway. Her indignation was justified. Most of us know that, but there are many tribunal members who feel she is being emotionally too extravagant when it comes to expressing her fantasy based scientific ideas and proposals. But I feel her ideas are groundbreaking and they have everything to cause a much needed scientific revolution. ”

These were my views on the girl who was being targeted by most of the senior tribunal members because they feared her intellectual originality. And I confessed it before a few members of the tribunal present in the room where she had addressed us in her inimitable style. Where she mentioned her favourite phrase once again, “Hell will break loose!” 

“Hell. Really hell! Is that what you said? And do you even have the vaguest idea about what hell is? That you so easily announce that hell would break loose. You must be day dreaming or else you would not have said it.”

And this was the worried and pretentiously bold reaction from one of the senior most tribunal members present in the room. He was trying his best not to feel intimidated by her strong words. But he was not able to remove the thin layer of fear that he was dealing with secretly. Secretly for him, but it was very obvious to many of us.

More than anything else and anybody else, at this stage you may want to know more about the girl who warned all of us so boldly. And this time she meant every word that she said, and we all were sure she would do something that would surprise all of us. And you should not be misled by the opposition she received from one of the senior tribunal members. Who in reality was scared and already thinking what the girl might do next.

So, who is this girl?

She is from the family who had established this town and her father is very influential, because now he is the president of the tribunal that has diversified interests. One of them being intergalactic travels. And the girl had been disgruntled with the tribunal members because they had rejected her proposal to modernise intergalactic travel sector.

Her father and the man who spoke to her tersely today were the ones who had opposed her proposal, citing budgetary constraints. And she had walked out of the meeting red faced, because she was of the belief that the tribunal was spending funds on space explorations that were trivial, as they served no purpose at all. Neither were they aimed at generating profits for the tribunal to fund new and bigger missions, nor were they missions seeking to uncover new cosmic secrets that would benefit the scientific community that worked for the tribunal.

And when she heard the tribunal had no funds to spare for her plan to modernise intergalactic travel, she walked out infuriated and miffed with all of the tribunal members. Particularly with her father and the man who was trying to act boldly, although he was deeply worried that she might expose his inefficiencies and his profligate spending spree that he was on through intergalactic projects that made no sense at all.

But I knew something strange and unexpected was going to happen very soon. Something that would disrupt the old order and make way for the new order and new hierarchy in the inter-galactic tribunal. What exactly and when would this upheaval take place, I had no idea. But that it will happen, I was sure about it!

Many days passed and nothing untoward happened. The man who was used to bluffing was busy sharpening his keen sense of bluff, whereas the girl’s father was busy managing the affairs of the tribunal, but what was keeping the girl busy was a mystery. However, I knew she would do something very soon and then everything may either change for good or for worse. But a change anyway!

Then one morning. When one experiences that intervening moment between the morning and the afternoon, I heard her loud and wary voice.  And once again she displayed the same assertiveness, and her every word felt true, because she was telling the facts.

“Our planet is dying, many people are dying, yet the tribunal and the members of the tribunal who occupy high offices, have been very indolent in dealing with pressing matters that would save the planet and most important of all, save the dying people. 

I believe they lack scientific bravery. The ability to take risks. Because they are too naive and they lack the enthusiasm to seek new planets where our race can establish a new base of hope and become a civilisation that is able to live among the stars.

And this man here, who we all know as the chief strategist of space exploration missions, has been involved in the misappropriation of funds. As a result of this they rejected my proposal to modernise space travel. They rejected it based on a very silly excuse. That they do not have the needed funds to support such projects.

So, I have sold my proposal to someone from our neighbouring planet and I shall be leaving tonight. When your planet is dying then you will miss me and more than me, you will miss the proposal I had prepared so painstakingly. I could have offered you something that you cannot achieve even in 200 years. But in the end it is all about destiny, and I guess it is not the destiny of this tribunal to benefit from my inter-galactic travel modernisation proposal. So be it!

Ah, I was so interested in working for all of you but your organisation, which should have been one of the most sacred institutions in the current world, is an institution that breeds malice and ingrate sentiments towards the core values of the tribunal.

And whenever I walk into this hall of great men and women who have contributed so much to our space related advancements. I am greeted by these lines inscribed on the main entrance wall:

Thou shall always flourish and never perish, because here are the men and women who shall always cherish, the scientific thinking and reasoning. And thou shall never perish as long as these values you do not relinquish!

Victory to scientific thinking and scientific bravery!

But, does any of you live by these values?

Let me guess. Your president, who happens to be my father, does not give me any such impression; and if your president is forsaken by scientific values, how can the rest of the members be expected to do any better? 

So, do well and live well. And when you have some time to think. Think about what you are going to leave behind for your future generations. A dying planet and an inter-galactic tribunal that is totally corrupt and unable to perform, because it lacks vision and bravery.”

We all were stunned by her short speech. And I have been working at the tribunal for many years now, but I had never paid attention to the lines inscribed on the entrance wall. This meant she was very sharp indeed.

Her father did not say anything, the man whom she accused of embezzlement of funds, no longer reflected that keenness to bluff. Because her bold statements had left him in a scandalous position where his future prospects with the tribunal seemed dim. Because she had not accused him based on her assumptions. Prior to delivering her emphatic speech she had submitted documents supporting her claim before the tribunal members. 

Her speech definitely stirred most of the tribunal members. Particularly a few members who did not want to be like toads trapped in a pond that was shrinking and drying at the same time. They wanted to do exactly what the girl had proposed in her inter-galactic modernisation proposal. So, it could be said she had a few well wishers in the tribunal as well, but unfortunately, they were either not very influential or they were too reticent.

As the girl walked away, she waved at her father who had bowed his head in shame that arose from his guilty conscience. 

And then a spaceship descended from the sky, it hovered over the main headquarter of the tribunal. As such it was so huge that there was not enough flat ground in our region where it could land. 

From the front end of the spaceship a small craft that looked like a triangular flip-board; ejected, and flew towards her, she stepped on it and then flew towards the spaceship. 

In a few minutes she had reached the main door of the spaceship. The moment she stood next to it, it opened. For the last time she looked at her father, and the rest of us kept looking at her and her grand spaceship, in absolute awe. The door closed and the spaceship along with the president’s daughter disappeared into the sky. 

After that day the tribunal was revamped and everything changed. But it was nothing what it used to be in her presence. There was life in it when she used to be around. But today when we are seeking new life on new planets, we seem to have lost our basic touch with our own lives, and our basic scientific instinct appears to have turned dull now. Because we were pursuing new goals, but they were marred by conventionalities and most of them were like taking a bath. 

Same bath everyday, with the same soap, with the same water, under the same shower, and when we stepped out after having taken the routine shower; for a moment we felt a little fresh. And our tribunal leaders were confusing this short lived freshness with newness, innovativeness, inventiveness. Whereas in reality we were afflicted with an intellectual condition, where taking a bath is confused with renewing one's soul and mind. But the fact is something else. It is just a way to stay clean physically. Just on the skin.

That is why christians recommend baptism and not bathing. Because they know taking a bath and baptising someone are two different things. And our tribunal needed a baptism and not a daily bath under the same shower, with the same water and same soap. But there was nobody left in the inter-galactic tribunal to understand this small, but crucial detail.

It went on like this for many years.

Then in 3050, something happened, something very different and totally devastating. The sun that had been burning gases for billions of years, felt it was growing old. And when stars feel old, unlike humans, they release more energy than usual. When that happens they generate a lot of extra heat. 

As a result of the “ageing sun phenomenon” our planet began experiencing an increase in temperature. It had risen by 7 degrees. And many parts of the planet now experienced temperatures in the range of 56 degrees and 58 degrees. And living in these zones was like being married to the princess of fire and being embraced by her permanently. I will not explain the rest, because it is understood.

Our tribunal was desperately looking for new planets. New habitable planets. Unfortunately we had not been able to spot any. Finally someone from our team had managed to spot a habitable planet but we had exhausted our resources to travel that far. Although we did possess the technology to travel to other galaxies, this planet was located in one of the farthest galaxies in the universe. At least it was so where we were located in the Universe.

And this person had been able to spot this planet based on the idea shared by the girl when she used to work with us. It was one of the craziest ideas but it made sense. More about that idea some other time.

The tribunal members were calling meetings everyday, but they were unable to arrive at a conclusion that would help them overcome the existing limitations that were preventing us from reaching this habitable planet.

It was then I recalled that the president’s daughter had shared something long ago that solved such a problem with a lot of ease.

According to her, all machines, no matter how efficient they might be cannot travel forever, they need some rest. And it is the same with spaceships, even if they use multiple engines, but the core machinery involved with generating the thrust is a single unit and it is bound to suffer damages on voyages lasting for 100 years or more.

She had proposed a plan where one spaceship was actually a main capsule holding the crew members and cargo, launched over 6 engines, where each engine has a dedicated thrust generation machinery. And by alternating the use of engines, the engines will get sufficient rest while the spaceship keeps moving ahead as one whole unit continuously.

And on such journeys to avoid risk, she had mapped planets that were less hostile and could be used as bases for long distance voyages. They may not be suitable for supporting life, but by establishing posts there they could be used as space travel relay bases.

These were brilliant ideas and the tribunal finally came to regard her genius. But too late, very late!

Right now we did not have the time to work on these technologies proposed by the girl two decades ago. Time was not on our side. And though the idea was brave it was not possible to accomplish it under the given time constraint.

So, we started building underwater cities to avoid the heat, and we started growing sea based food and genetically modified plants that could survive in this extreme heat of the terrestrial world.

But there too we had limitations. With the rise in temperature most of the fish began to die and marine life dwindled. And our genetically modified plants were difficulty to grow. Because the soil had hardened to such an extent that watering it consumed a lot of energy.

We had ourselves sealed our own fate, because we had ignored the timely issued warnings of the girl.

70% of our race was wiped out. The planet was hot, and those of us who survived, lived under strict protocols and survival guidelines. It was a life where everyone was living in a prison cell. Only that the prison was self designed and the imprisonment was self imposed. But it was the only way to survive.

One night, when we were sleeping in our cells. The sky lit up like a billion mast lights shining at the same time. It was a huge spaceship that had positioned itself in the sky of our planet. 

And from the size of the spaceship we could tell it was the civilisation that could re-engineer planets and even solar systems. Because they had super computational machines that ran data driven simulations, helping them to cancel out gravitational orbits/zones of planets, and then tug them away to new solar systems where they could once again become life supporting planets. 

Planets in space which are free from any gravitational influence are like an object in still water, you can change and direct their course even with a twig. And these engineers of the cosmos tugged them with huge spaceships and they achieved this via an efficient and highly detailed map of the universe. ( it is not necessary to travel the entire universe to develop such a map. ) It offered them the convenience to avoid the tugged planet from being caught in gravitational fields or orbits while it was on its course to the destination solar system. And how they pushed these planets in solar systems where gravity is already intense and then injected them into these solar systems. Is what makes them the engineers of the universe. But, that is again common sense and very much achievable. Nonetheless, we will leave that for another time.

Their representatives landed on our planet via a smaller ship, and they offered us the space travel map to a habitable planet that they had nurtured. And it was easy to access with our existing technology.

As they left, they said it was based on the special request from the girl, who left you because you had left her! And according to them, this was our last chance, because cosmos does not support those who plan its termination or inadvertently become a means of its termination. 

They meant to say, the cosmos has no place for those who keep committing cosmic mistakes for which the cosmos has to suffer in the long term.

Finally we left our dying planet and we inhabited the planet spotted for us by the civilisation that knows where the universe begins and where it ends. Because they are the engineers of galaxies and planets.

To know how we lived on this planet and what technological advancements we achieved there, please read the scifi novel titled: They Loved in 2075.

And a girl, similar to the daughter of the president, lives among us, and a  boy falls in love with her. But she is unable to understand human feelings, thus unable to value the boy’s love. Because her needlessly excessive involvement with self aware machines has wiped out the layer of human emotions in her. To such an invasive degree that now she thinks and feels more like a self aware machine.

To know what happens and how the boy wins her heart, and if at all he is able to win her heart? You must read the scifi novel titled: They Loved in 2075.

And please always remember: Wars end, but the battles going on in human lives, never do!

When you read the scifi novel, They Loved in 2075, you will definitely become better and brave humans. And you will surely invest in brave science and most importantly in human love and human feelings! Because they are irreplaceable and not reproducible by synthetic means.