Chapter 45:

Here was a front page editorial.

It is the day after our world has been upended, more world changing news is promised, and I feel fine.

Do we believe their claims about aliens? I think so.

Have they been working for good? If you judge them by their fruits so far, seems so.

However, where is their accountability? You can say that each government has agreed, but it is a take it or leave it deal, which leaves a nation significantly behind if they leave it.

How would oversight of Starfleet even work? The United Nations has made some idiotic rulings, and I wouldn't trust a majority vote of the world's governments to rule my nation. Perhaps obscure rule by unseen rulers works better? Perhaps for now, but what about in the future when it has accumulated more power over us?

The proof of aliens is now being used as a justification for a planetary state of emergency? Seems to make sense, but why now, and not during any one of the previous 61 years when it was known, by at least one government?

There were some new stories, leaked from more than one government, that the recently installed power stations used throughout the world cannot work without continued maintenance by Starfleet. That they are sealed, supposedly to prevent weapons proliferation, and if the seal is broken the power station stops working, and no recoverable material is found.

By September, there were in depth articles about the basic needs centers.

The Starfleet basic needs centers are being built with incredible speed. When local approval is given and land is allocated, the construction area is obscured from view. Electric helicopters travel back and forth to the site. Then within a few days a new center is opened. Most of them are underground, and built with no utility inputs or septic system outputs, which makes local approval much faster.

Starfleet says these are experiments for the design of spaceships, that the designs vary as experiments to see what works best, both for these centers, and later for spaceships. They are self contained, use recycled water, seem to grow their own food, and are self powered. Astonishingly, some of them are built in places with high water tables, others in areas of ledge made of rock. Those are built just as quickly.

Starfleet, at /BasicNeedsCenters/Design, explained, "We are trying out different ratios of common areas to private areas, number of people per dorm rooms, distribution of water closets, sinks, and showers, distribution of small versus large lounge areas. Generally there is only one cafeteria per facility for efficiency, and to allow more variety of food. Cafeterias are also made larger than otherwise needed since they are open to the public and not just to the center's residents.

For the typical below ground plan, the surface area contains parking for private vehicles and conveyances, and for electric buses. Free electricity is available for all of these to recharge. The local government only needs to provide drivers for the electric buses.

Within each center, an automatic security system makes sure that attacks and thefts will not occur within the center or on its land on the surface. Beyond that law enforcement is up to the local government. Services for those with living challenges are also up to local governments, including how to handle substance consumption issues."

An investment briefing, sent to subscribers from a New York analyst firm, wrote,

A New World of Investing

We expect drastic changes in valuations of real estate, labor, material goods, technology, and everything else.

The effect on real estate should be a considerable lowering of value. Residential real estate now must compete with a free alternative. While most will probably prefer existing housing stock, some would switch to having no cost. That will put a downward pressure on all residential real estate.

Labor force participation is likely to decline, as work is no longer going to be needed for bare essentials. That also means a decline in commercial real estate.

The fast food industry, and the groceries industries will likely shrink, since they will now be competing against free cafeterias that seem to have their own source for food.

The construction industry is likely to collapse, since the new Basic Living Centers are being built without using construction contractors. Newly unused buildings will likely take up the slack that formerly required new construction.

Wages are might increase at the low end, since it will now need to be enough to motivate those who might be satisfied with free basic needs. On the other hand, there is no means testing for basic needs, so a recipient might decide to work part time for some spending money.

Finally, there is what will become an increasing part of the economy, and that is space. We do not yet know to what extent that economy will be run by Starfleet, and to what extent private companies and investors will be involved.

Meanwhile in the magical world there were increasing numbers of charmed devices factories. There had been a great recruitment effort for any and all unemployed witches and wizards. If needed they were sent for additional schooling in charms and runes. Then they were put to work, using mass production techniques used in the non-magical world, to produce magical devices. Some of the work needed witches and wizards, some could also be done by squibs, some could be done by non-magical people, and some could be done by robots and other machinery.

Since there was such a demand for squibs, those that can perceive forms of magic that completely non-magicals cannot, there was an extensive world-wide recruiting effort. Ads that only squibs and magicals could see were used to encourage them to apply for jobs directly on Starfleet's website.

The scale of some of these factories were amazing. Every magical technique was used to scale up production, from the inputs, to distribution. As well, every non-magical technique was used. Think of the factories that make millions of mobile phones, or billions of potato chips. Non-magical efficiency experts were used. Some of their naive questions about magic helped in finding new approaches that were not even considered by tradition bound magical communities.

A lot of research went into discovering just how much magical human attention was needed to create runes. Similar research went into making charmed objects. How to increase the daily capacity of a witch or wizard to charm objects. More education? More practice?

At the same time as all of the announcements, there was some thought that the broadcasts by television and radio would reach extra-terrestrials at some point, and maybe they would consider Earth as having reached a threshold of being contacted even without having faster than light travel. To deal with this possibility, the research into fusion power and the designing of experiments into warp fields were accelerated.

Another research approach was started for warp travel, to be based on the appearance of the Vulcan ships in the Enterprise episodes Kir'Shara and Breaking the Ice, and other episodes. Those ships had a ring, instead of two nacelles. One physicist, looking at the pictures said that it could be a particle accelerator ring, or looking closely at it, probably two rings with the particles moving in opposite directions.

There was design work done on how to put together a ship using the two known appearances of warp capable ships. That is two pylons, or a linked pair of rings. For both, plans were made on how to structurally attach the warp drive to the ship and how to deliver power to it. It was concluded that the warp drive isn't actually pushing the ship, it is only warping space while conventional drive systems have their normal effect resulting in faster than light travel. With this conclusion, it was determined that there wasn't a need for a super strong attachment of the warp drive to the rest of the ship.

The school year starting in September 2008, at Starfleet Academy, Luna taught two classes in Vulcan language and ancient culture. Those classes were all recorded, and the plan was that for future years, the recordings would be used, and the best students would teach the class, and then Luna would only occasionally help out with the teaching.

Luna's columns on Vulcan Logic, published in the Quibbler, were repackaged as books and sold by the Quibbler. It included a self study guide, but Luna was considering teaching a class on Vulcan Logic the following year, using it as the textbook.

Another class was put together by a team viewing my memories of Star Trek Enterprise and some episodes of other series. This class was going over what was known about the culture and history of Earths nearby galactic neighbors, mostly their cultures about 150 years from now. I consulted in the design of the details of the class but was not involved in teaching it.

In late 2008, there were many Basic Living Centers built. They were experiments for both Starfleet and the local communities. The procedure for getting local permissions started getting more routine, as more experience with the centers accumulated. Suggestions from residents and local governments were, in some cases, incorporated into the next ones built. In some cases, existing ones were retrofitted based on results. The numbers and capacities of the centers started to be adjusted for demand. Initially, they were few, so always had a waiting list to get residency. In later waves of building there was starting to be an understanding as to the total demand for residency in centers.

In some areas of the world, the design of Basic Living Centers were more shifted towards being drop in centers for those who want to grab a free meal, or get some free clothes, or just use a computer or sign up for lectures and activities held there. The clothes were functional, but had very prominent markings, "Starfleet Issue. Not for resale." It was assumed that recipients would prefer to spend their own money to not have that marking on their clothes, but surprisingly it became a fashion trend to wear them.

In parts of the world that had homeless populations, there were several challenges for the Basic Living Centers. Those populations often perceived a dangerous environment in shelters from each other, and also found strict rules used to try to keep those environments safe and orderly, to be so unacceptable that they would rather be outdoors. The Basic Living Centers had a magic based security setup to prevent attacks and theft. It wasn't explained how it was done, but people's experience showed that the centers were safe. Also, they mostly had small rooms instead of large rooms with cots.

Another concern populations previously homeless had was in losing their possessions, often kept in stolen shopping carts. The Basic Living Centers handled this by using magic cleaning rooms to clean existing possessions and clothing of people on intake, but not taking away their possessions. Cleanliness and hygiene rules were imposed on the residents, but in ways that did not result in destroying items, and with private bathing facilities. Smoking and most drug use was not allowed within the centers, but nothing was taken away from people, although these were not sanctuaries. Local law enforcement were free to enter the centers and enforce laws. Rules for alcohol, enforced by the centers, were the local law.

Another issue was in whether these centers would be attractive to people who were living in apartments, but would prefer to have no housing costs. Would they mind sharing quarters with people who were formerly homeless. The centers attitude toward that is, take it or leave it. Hygiene of people and possessions were enforced, and protection from attack and theft were enforced. The rest of interactions were up to the people. If people were hostile to each other, either individually or due to membership of groups or populations hostile to each other, they would get along or not. Behavior that bordered on harassment or threat, would be dealt with by warning, or moving offenders to different locations. There was no provision to kick someone out, but they could be put in something resembling a prison, but a voluntary one, where they are free to leave the center, but if they stayed their movements would be restricted.

Facilities within the center included various viewing rooms for popular film and TV programs. There were lecture rooms. There were computer use rooms. Those were not provided in the dorm rooms, but people could bring their own mobile phones or computers. There were easy links to remote learning from Starfleet. There was also recruiting for Starfleet jobs. Finally, some of the lounges were always showing information about Starfleet values, goals, and news.