All Good Things

by on September 17, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Today I come off my first solid two weeks of vacation in something like twenty years. I enjoyed a weekend on a Northern Minnesota lake with family. Then one of my best friends came home from England for the first time in three years and stayed in my home. I went to Nerdin’ Out Con with him and others in Rochester. We went to the Renaissance Festival, which was fun if a bit too hot. I even talked to a coworker I haven’t seen in years who covers my weekend shift so I don’t have to. I spent two weeks and three weekends sleeping at night and awake during the day like most people in the world. Today I go back to my normal schedule, working at night and sleeping during the day. My vacation was good. And now I go back to work. That is good too. It is a job that has helped me buy two houses, multiple vehicles, and gives me time to enjoy my life. So I go back to work today with a smile and a joyful heart. All Good Things do come to an end in time. But there are always more Good Things to follow if you recognize them.

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The New Voyager Program

by on September 16, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Book of Civilizations

When the leading edges of the Alpha Centauri New Voyager Program probe swarm fired the energies of a star back at the trailing probes, they drove themselves directly into Cen A. They died, but their combined lasers impacting on fully-deployed solar sails brought the surviving probes down to a speed where they could successfully perform a breaking maneuver around Cen A, through to Cen B, and then back in a giant figure eight. The probes swept back and forth throughout the Alpha Centauri system until they finally achieved a stable orbit. That was how the AI Council came to Alpha Centauri.

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Sundown on the Lake

by on September 15, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

There’s this moment when the sun goes down on the lake when day and night meet. The evening chill rushes across the water, chasing the heat of the day away. You get to feel it with every sense if you’re on a boat. You hear the wind in the trees. You feel the chill on your skin. You can smell and taste the water on the air. Everything is right there, all around you, ready and waiting to be experienced by anyone who is willing to sit back, relax, and just let it come. It’s paradise.

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Chloe

by on September 14, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Character Profiles

Chloe grew up in a world where the Islamic Brotherhoods declared her and her kind as abominations before Allah. She watched them protest against her very right to exist, while others worked their entire lives to give birth to exactly what she was. None of them knew she actually existed, but everybody knew the technology was there and the battle lines for or against her were already drawn. That is why Chloe knew who her friends were even before they knew she lived. And that is why she moved to protect them when the time came.

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The New Voyager Program

by on September 13, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Book of Civilizations

When the first New Voyager Program probe swarm fired all of their collected energy into the face of the second probe swarm, their targets’ solar sails were at maximum extension. They soaked up the energy the forward probes had collected just like they had originally soaked up the energy from the massive laser arrays orbiting Earth. Those arrays accelerated them up to twenty percent of lightspeed, and the overloaded communications lasers of the forward swarm slowed the surviving probes back down to the speed of the Alpha Centauri Trinary star system. It was a simple plan. Expensive, but simple.

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