The Omake Files – The Fifth Man
First Colony
"Tauri Alliance"
Planet P5A-944; otherwise known by 'First Colony', and derivations of. No Official Name.
It takes a very long time to create a fully self-sufficient colony from scratch.
The first colony established outside of Sol, by the Tauri, and not simply a populous moved to another planet unwillingly, no... these were all volunteers. It was partly a test, a long term one, to essential prove to the Great Races (be they watching or not, ascended or not) that they were worthy of being "The Fifth Race".
P5A-944 was chosen, because it was far away from any of the new major powers, but still within three hours hyperspace' journey by even the slowest vessel specifically designed to go such distances regularly.
Before the first colonist even stepped foot, (or rather, stepped foot as a colonist, for many who helped build it prior to colonisation, volunteered to be the first colonists) the time between it being officially in a possible project, to all-out finished and ready for that first colonist... Technology advances had gotten to a point that some work had been redone several times.
One new, advanced and very architecture-changing piece of tech, made viable thanks to the Asgard' Matter Converter.
Then, with the ridiculously over-the-top "Black-hole mining" program... well, they were well on their way to being able to have star trek-style Replicators.
But that's getting ahead of ourselves.
Initially, the planet was a low-oxygen planet, but still would, with star trek terminology, be called a Class-M planet. It was similar to Earth, even with the sheer variety of environments...
It took around ten years before the first colonist stepped foot on the planet. The goals to be attained simply by going through the steps to set up the colony were what made it take so long.
It took a year to go from conceptual to the start of the search for a suitable planet. Everything had to be discussed, altered, and so on. After a year, approved and 'final' in so far as concerned with tech of the time, the search began.
During the 2 months of searching, a station was constructed. In pieces, to be towed, or otherwise transported flat-pack style, (well, sort of) and finally, a planet located, 3 months before the station was even to start being put together in orbit.
It was big. Habitable areas not so much, not near as much volume as a Daedalus-class, but a lot of volume was from the relatively simple large hangers, to the complex section of the station made entirely of variable-environment storehouses and laboratories. Two months further to complete.
17 months.
Another month for the initial survey. Simple mapping. "This shape here is this continent, with forest here, desert there, lake there."
Then the next year was the first stage of what the scientists coined as the "Genesis Phase".
No longer was it simple, incomplete Geological studies. Now it was intense study of everything. Which is why it took a year.
Due to the low-oxygen atmosphere, and being a touch closer to its sun than Earth was to sol, (A few hours short of a full 336 Earth days for one of its years) the surface was, indeed, hotter by a fairly large margin. Using a humans' average natural temperature tolerance range for comparison, that is. Too hot for human habitation, although not by very far.
The technology used by the teams, allowed them to conduct their research quite safely.
Thanks to anti-gravity units, and the nice "Effective-Mass Reduction" effect of the more advanced forms of Inertia Dampeners, the survey teams employed re-useable surface-to-orbit/re-entry vehicles fully insulated from the outside.
Vehicles that had been concurrently designed, then constructed at Jupiter Fleet Yards before the planet had even been found. They were very large.
A team of 8 could comfortably take one down to the planet, stay down there a week. Eat, Sleep, maintain their fitness, collect data and so on.
The lower levels, where actually where the work was done. In addition, the rear compartment was a hanger for the "Rover", a vehicle that walked. Short-range boosters allowed it to jump as high as 20 meters for an easy recovery, as the hanger' pad it sat on would drop with an open front and back, (netting on the back for a moving-recovery)
Options were available so they could get closer. Remotely, with small rovers largely similar in design to those used to explore Mars, before the more indepth-study started with the Prometheus, that is. Or, using more advanced enviro suits, go down in person.
So with the Exo-skeleton, the weakness of both was easily handled anyway.
Back to the Survey Vehicle.
The upper deck, almost all the way to the back had the 'Rec Room', a simple room with 8 seats, a pullout table for dinner, and the one-wall-kitchen. Also, the 8 quarters, running the rest of the length of the deck fore-ward of the Rec room.
However, it did have a 3rd deck. The Operations deck. Forward cockpit, Airlock for when docking with the station, various rooms and storage compartments, another airlock, and the Systems Compartment. Computers, engines, and so on.
The large vehicle, outwardly, wasn't really a cylindrical tube. It didn't have wings, either. Thereby, it didn't really resemble any of the civilian passenger planes of Earth.
It's ancient-inspired origins were actually rather clear. It was clear that the middle deck was indeed the widest, and it did have the cylindrical profile, but it wasn't truly that. It was "Slightly squashed," or it would appear so, but the flat planes, all around, counted to 9. Like the 9 chevrons on a Stargate.
From a distance it looked like a large Puddle Jumper, really. It's engine units were 4 very familiar drive pods, attached almost to the rear, All 4 would fold in for docking, but not into the middle, instead, the upper two would fold into a hidden compartment in the upper deck, the remaining space between which would simply be storage space (and accessable from the below engine room for maintenance of side pods)
The lower pods would retract into the lower deck, specifically, be visible inside of sealed units on the roof of the Rover hanger.
Built into the sides of the lower deck, in the space between the sloped hull, and vertical walls, were multiple landing legs. And the floor below, almost the full length in an unbroken chain was the anti-grav units. The rover hanger' downward-extending pad also contained them, those linked but not forming the same unit chain.
From the side, the slope on the front of the ship also was taken from the Puddle Jumper, with a compartment on the lab deck a little more forward than the operations' deck, and the single, team-leaders' quarters, above and almost entirely behind the cockpit.
The hull, at the bottom, was not horizontally flat. Instead, unlike the puddle Jumper, it continued the flat-yet-circular shape of the rest of the hull. From a distance, looking at it head-on, you would not know which way around it was, unless you saw the cockpit window.
Out of design, the heights of the decks were not proportionate. The Living Deck' only had the sufficient headroom, most of it's width, for the tallest 'normal' people. At 7" of height, the Living Deck was the smallest.
The Operations Deck, however, had 8'. And the Lab Deck was a full 10'. Given the two feet between each deck, and floor of the Lab deck to ceiling of the Living deck, was at 29'.
Enough of the Survey Vehicle.
The year of intense study involved, well, everything.
Study of the plant life. Working out what makes them them, poisonous, edible? More accurate, in depth mapping of the planet, too. That was only the 2nd of the 3 mapping stages, too, for the geology. Analysing what's in the soil, and so on. Better study of weather patterns... Everything.
After that year of study, they were ready for Stage 2 of the Genesis Phase.
It was relatively small, actually. Not on the planet, either.
That's where the cavernous multiple variable environment warehouses came into play.
They were actually the terraforming test chambers. Each one would contain the kind of environments found around the planet, each connected, interacting.
Filled with the exact environments of the planet below, air pressure, gravity, air mixture...
Then they'd be tested on a rapid change in environment, mostly.
It had been found that the polar icecaps had the highest concentration of natural oxygen. Melting some of them would release that air, and reduce the necessary work on terraforming the planet later on.
The existence of those ice caps on the planets' poles, was actually due to the cloud cover over those caps.
The hot regions, along the equator, where ocean neared, and in one large ocean, even crossed, provided the sheer amount of vapour into the atmosphere to form clouds, which would be carried and collecting over the poles. The rains would then have the chilling effect on those poles, which hardly ever saw day. It's seasonal tilt was not as pronounced, in that its orbit closer matched the planets' equatorial plane than earths. Indeed, only 5 degrees of tilt, provided no significant change of weather between summer and winter for either hemisphere.
After all the testing, two months of it, it was finally decided on how they would terraform the planet.
Oxygen allowed more heat to pass into space, than the other gasses naturally present in earths' atmosphere.
With more of those gasses on P5A-944, and less oxygen, combined with its closer proximity to its sun, meant that the terraformers would need to increase the oxygen percentage by more than they would if it was the same distance as Earth from their suns.
A balance, very difficult to get to.
That began Stage 3.
First, some of the polar ice caps were melted on the edges. Within a month, the Oxygen level had increased sufficiently, the planet stabilised 2 degrees lower than it would have been.
In the meantime, Terraforming stations, floating in the oceans, were actually, rather intentionally, separating the water molecules into the two base elements... Hydrogen, (which then was stored.) and Oxygen, which was then released into the atmosphere. Which, normally, would have been a rather lengthy process...
However, the gas was released into the atmosphere at around 5,000 feet in the air, at a frightening rate. With an inertial dampener with the handy effective-mass-reduction effect, the stations were literally, hovering thanks to releasing the gas.
So, so many bottles at 500 psi each, releasing the gas. Staggered, with Asgard transporters and automated systems sending empty canisters back down, and new ones sent up so the pressure applied downward was always at a particular range.
With a lot of those, the ocean surface terraforming stations in beaming up all those canisters, plus a few other stations using somewhat different techniques, so far, nothing except the equipment had been brought in to force the change.
That is to say, a planet-sized amount of oxygen was not being brought to the planet.
All the oxygen that brought it down to barely-tolerable levels was simply what was already in the water and ice.
Of course, this period caused lots of weather problems...
Luckily, the Survey vehicles, then converted somewhat but still largely with their labs, were well insulated from the weather, like lightning strikes.
It was only after 5 years since the conception of the program, that, out of the genesis phase, the "biosphere" of the planet safely converted to 'accept' human inhabitation, that work began on the actual human habitation aspect.
They didn't want to send people there, only with no idea on how to live, or even where to live.
During the planning, it had been pointed out that with the advanced technologies now in existence, easily replaced and all that, Earth could finally change from the economic-driven society.
Currency would become worthless.
But, the societal uproar, prevented them from doing it.
And so, the solution, was a multi-stage program, involving the First Colony.
It would be built to exist without the economic model, but with strong emphasis on that which Star Trek so spouted off... the self-improvement of individuals, and collectively, the improvement of the species. So to speak.
Overpopulated as Earth was, with no more farmland available... and given the societal problem in going from currency to no currency and all that...
Well, it would be a key point that the colony, quickly become an exporting planet.
With Matter converters, it is easy to suggest food replicators, but star trek got it right on that it was still a complex matter of giving food, taste... pardon the pun.
Even star trek showed that farms were not that unheard of. Captain Picards' family 'owned' a vine yard, for instance.
So having lots of farmland, was on the planning board.
Hell, Ret. Gen. J. O'Neill almost asked if FC was going to be like that Aschen Member world without the evil aspect.
He'd even insisted on going there, to make sure the planet really was without sentient life. Nothing beyond insect life, which adapted to the cooler habitat.
Thanks to Asgard help, they'd even gotten the details on perfected cloning of Animals. Although, they did have the plan of making human cloning illegal unless where necessary to save a terminally ill patient suffering from otherwise incurable disease. (Nothing about extending life past old age).
So farmland for livestock was too, on there. Of course, the genetic variety for said animals had been exhaustively catalogued by the Asgard for that. Well, it was simple for them, but would have been exhaustive for as many humans to do that.
The plan, there, was to export food to Earth. Being only a few hours away in hyperspace meant it would be a quick matter.
In fact, it was decided that the planet would, in the no more than 35% land inhabited, be of that, 60% farmland, or no less then 30%.
By doing this also, they gave those who did farming because they wanted the chance to do so without the burdens the economic model meant.
On earth, the price of food would therefore drop. However, that would have a seemingly bad effect on the economically-constrained earthbound farmers. They would therefore be given the opportunity to live in a "farming community that is self sufficient, without economic-based constrains."
For transport of that food, Trains would run to the Starports.
Making Starports around the planet necessary...
Some of the ideas would, on Earth, gain significant opposition. And given Earths' society, and associate morality, that would be right, in some respects.
One that couldn't be argued as wrong, however, was that between the ages of 14-16, fitness programs would be a requirement. In the 16-17 bracket, a minimal level of attendance to some club which would keep a strict dieter at a comfortable fitness level (nothing amazing) also be required at the schools to give them continued access later on to the more fun stuff.
One effect that would be eventually seen was that no more where the "Jocks" so much fitter than the "nerds", which in high schools, was one part behind bullying.
After all, if they can fight back, and the Jocks know so, they'd be more hesitant to start one.
Another was that, even those who spend upwards of more than 3 hours a day average per week (even if its all done in one or two sittings on a weekend) on a computer, in a game... they'd still need to attend those fitness things on a regular basis.
One of those enforced "Healthy body, healthy mind" things.
This of course, spread into the education system, and so on. With no economic system, what would the difference be between "private" and "public"?
The answer? How smart a person is. Not as in, "so what if you know Pi to the 90th decimal, your IQ is lower than 120."
But, if you can answer these questions, you're in this class. Answer these too, and the next one up. And so forth.
Aka Grades.
But then, without the economic system, what would prevent a teacher, tired of unruly students, have to do? Well, punishments would include restriction on those fun priviledges like the games and sports stuff, although the not-so-fun fitness things would therefore increase.
Overall, the sheer difference between the two, would challenge anyone moving over.
Then again, those settling there already in the Tauri space' forces (especially those from the SGC, or Atlantis programs) would find it easier.
Even the design of the capital was set down prior to construction.
With the layout being several concentric circles for roads, set at a specific distances apart... the roads leading out crossed them at 9 particular angles...every 40 degrees, with a north road, and 2, 20 degrees either side of south.
Although, they would not reach to meet in the middle, any of them.
The centre would have widely-spaced buildings, the central government and military buildings.
Then, outward, rings of urban districts, in each of the 9 areas of land that were wider then the ones inside them...
Schools, Parks, hospitals, everything.
A fair distance away, would be the intercontinental transport terminal.
Basically a train station, Leading to the nearest Starports, those intentionally kept away from the large city, with only a small supporting population.
Complex as it was, with its own outlying farmland planned, it was known that it would be difficult to find suitably flat land. So they'd need to create it.
And, in the preparation of the chosen location, they had. It was a hilly area, and the hills were removed. Along with a significant portion of the ground the would be built on.
First, the basic city-wide infrastructure was built, for the basic amenities. Power, water. Then, the raw-materials feeding the individual "stores" that produce the plentiful supplies people would want or need.
Each district would be built as needed in the gaps around the road network that then went up.
The central government district then went up.
Power was divided into 4 sectors. A central sector, covering the inner 2 mile-diameter of districts. The Northeast sector, covering 0-120 degree sectors outward of the central sector. 120-240 was the south, and 240-360/0 was the north-west sector.
Once that had gone up, and a year after it had started, the basic forming of the land for the urban districts were built.
Actual construction of buildings would be done when populous were found and chosen their new homes.
It was actually rather funny how that part would be done. The makers of The Sims were recruited to create a Sims version of the First Colony Capital, for use in letting the new people design their homes, to be built to their specs, if you will.
With a limit on certain things, however, like no more than 3 floors above ground minus the loft, and no more than 2 below. (B-2, B-1, G, 1, 2, Attic.)
Captain Gary Allerton, of the Tauri Alliance Military, looked out at the school his four children were attending. He had four. Grace and Robert were in the higher grades, already they were complaining about having to do all the fitness stuff.
While Grace was perfectly happy just being with her mates, and so grumbling because they weren't in the fitness program she was, Robert, he had gotten worried about. He was old enough that his behaviour and grades at school mattered to what his priviledges were. His worldnet access had already been cut off, so he'd not been able to keep in touch with his girlfriend out in the cow farms the other side of the planet. His citynet access had been reduced too, only one hour per day of non-government or education sites. If Robert continued to not participate, he would see his computer priviledges entirely revoked. Robert still complained how it wouldn't happen on Earth.
If he were honest, he preferred this. On Earth, such treatment wouldn't be had, and he'd have to work harder to get the same standard of living that was essentially, freely provided.
All they asked of them, was they put something back into them. Given the currency-free nature of their society, what that was, was up to them. At Roberts' age, all that meant was his participation in the community, helping around and all that.
What would they care if he spent his free time playing Jaffa Warlords when not chatting away to his girlfriend (a fellow JW player).
Another, was that he wouldn't gain his travel pass automatically at 17, which included him being able to put himself forward for the drivers test. (the lessons were optional from 16 with parental permission, without from 17. But the test required the driver be 17 and having had a specific number or more of lessons with high ratings.)
That, sadly, was going to be a long way away, whether or not Robert got his travel pass soon.
Gary looked at the damage of the Ferrari F-40 mockup that he had said Robert could drive to and from school, as soon as he done half the test-required high-rating lessons.
Like all cars on First Colony, the FF40 wasn't an internal combustion engine, but a hybrid of hydro-electric and pure-electric engines.
It was as safe to destroy as any large object going at upwards of 30mph. Unlike Earth vehicles, which even today were still mostly oil-burning.
Robert had crashed on his way to pick up a friend from a district on the other side of the school from their home. The traffic monitoring systems had recorded the events, and already he knew that his son was playing music loudly, although analysis hadn't yet completed to say what or who was at fault.
Loudly, he grumbled that he'd need to get it detailed by the districts' local mechanic, a guy who spent a lot of time building the outer bodies by hand.
Very little work on First Colony was done entirely by automated robots. A lesson learned.
A boom sounded, and looking up, he winced as he heard the sirens of the twice-annual attack drills start. The boom came from the fake weapons fire from orbit. Without any shields, nevermind the overlapping district shields, all that weapons fire would do is burn wood, causing a geyser of ground to shoot up about 20 feet in a small area. Enough to killa person, but only give someone conscussion if they're a foot away from the actual impact site.
With the shields, nothing. Just the boom, boom, boom, of repeated fire.
Mostly, the drill was to get the people used to the idea of "If there's an attack from space, do this", but without doing the paranoia deal of "We can be attacked next month, no, next week! Tomorrow!" that happened after 9/11 on Earth in the USA.
As an active-duty officer in the planet-side division of the Alliance military, he had to stop what he was doing and report in. The excercise wasn't just for civilians.
He knew it was due anytime in the next fortnight, but usually didn't happen first day of the warning period.