22:40 Wednesday, March , CE 0

Tia Monsalle was laying across her couch in a desperate effort to attain comfort. The ‘sun’ had gone down and it was dark outside, with a faint chill to the air. MOTHER had done a fine job of simulating early spring. Tia had known little relief from her incessant cravings for ice cream. Two showers, her lunch with Hawthorne, and her dinner alone had done nothing to help. She was wholly reliant on Ross Fitzgerald’s promise of providing her a reasonable facsimile to finally sate that hunger.

“I wonder if I’m cut out for this…” She sighed softly to herself, lounging alone in her underwear. She ran a hand across her stomach, noticing no signs of a bulge just yet. It would be a few weeks still before she was really noticeable. Her thoughts lingered on Hawthorne and his awkward efforts to meet her halfway in their months-long coupling back on Earth. He had been so withdrawn and introverted when she’d met him. She had nearly dismissed him altogether.

She had, actually. Right to his face she’d declared she had no time for him if he couldn’t get his point across. That was what had set him off. A previously meek and fearful doctor was suddenly inflamed with passion as he expressed his worries about the world, the breakdown of structures that were essential to society, and the increased danger of destruction from within. She had initially given him five minutes of time, but once he’d really gotten going she cancelled the rest of her meetings for the day.

She’d never seen someone so upset before, someone so desperate. It was as if the wolves had already tracked him down and were merely playing with him before they tore him down. Doctor Hawthorne Crenshaw was desperate and fearful, but more importantly he was convincing. He had scoured studies over countless studies from the prior century and correlated them with the long-term trends in crime, corruption, and instability. Everything and everyone had been affected over time, and he showed her all the proof she could possibly need.

Having an engineer deconstruct the woes of society for her was enlightening, and his passion was infectious. Before long she was leveraging her whole company to support him, seeking out candidates for his plan and bringing him together with other geniuses from around the world to help bring his project to fruition. She let him ruin her and her company in the process, generations of wealth burned away in a long-shot plan to escape Earth.

She pursued him then. He was innocent in a way she’d never encountered before. He’d been sheltered by both his parents, as well as his schooling. She’d briefly suspected his parents of drugging him in an effort to suppress his emotions to allow him to excel in academia. The bloodwork they’d done during his physicals had even suggested that possibility, but it had all instead proven to be some sort of natural deficiency. His doctors had suggested to her he might grow out of it in time with the proper influences.

She’d missed her chance though. Evelyn Crenshaw, previously named after herself before changing her name at Tia’s request, had beaten her to it. Granted, Evelyn had tens of thousands of years to evolve and melt the ice around Hawthorne’s heart, if she could even be considered responsible for it. “It was probably worth it… right?” She let out a sigh, wondering who she was trying to convince.

A jingle sounded on her phone, which rested on a coffee table in front of the couch. She reached out to scoop up the mostly-glass device and hold it away from her face. It was Ross! His face appeared on screen. “Hey there boss lady, I’ve got something for you. Want me to deliver it, or do you want to come and get it yourself? I could stand to stay and clean some more if it’s not a hassle.”

Tia’s face lit up as she sat up, nearly forgetting she was in her underwear as she let the camera drift down slightly before correcting it. “Mister Fitzgerald, you just made my day. I’ll be right down.”

He grinned as he saw her expression change. “Yes ma’am! Hope you’re hungry, ‘cause I have a sampler bowl and a biiiig spoon ready for you. See you soon.” He disappeared from the screen, not even giving her a chance to respond.

She leapt up from the couch, rushing for her bedroom to grab up some more casual clothes. Comfy shoes, pants, a blouse, and a light sweater flew onto her before she brushed out her hair and checked her mild makeup. She’d probably go without makeup in the future until it could be produced again, but the Convention had been a reasonable excuse to wear it and she hadn’t washed it off yet. She stuffed her phone into her pocket and double checked whether she needed anything else.

“I’m not accustomed to only needing my phone yet.” She shook her head and went outside, locking the door behind her. Even the door would unlock when she swiped her phone in front of a sensor. It was her key, her bank, her window to the world, and her identity. She frowned as she considered the implications, walking down the street towards the G&F food court quickly. “We’re going to need some other kind of identification.. Maybe chip implants..?”

Tia shook her head as she dismissed the idea for now. It wasn’t a terrible idea, considering the kinds of people they had on the colony. It was primarily intellectuals, military, police, and engineers. Logic was a primary driver in the majority of their population, and the idea of everyone having reliable identification implants might appeal to them. She pushed a hand into her pocket, drawing a finger along the edge of her phone as she wondered about posing it to the network.

The streets were only lightly lit as she walked. It was rare that one of the vehicles of MOTHER’s automated fleet moved by, likely moving cargo or people. The windows in the simple, white, aerodynamic vehicles were often tinted. Their shape left no room for any kinds of normal controls, freeing up the whole cabins for people to sit in. She liked riding in the vehicles, even if she’d only ridden with others a few time. As long as you scheduled your trip, they would intelligently pick up other passengers and get everyone where they were going.

It was all a big machine. The whole thing. She looked up across to the other side of the colony, seeing faint hints of lights twinkling in the sky like manmade stars. This little world of theirs was a big machine, run by a machine, and they were in the early stages of building a political machine to run their society. “I’m so glad we brought so many engineers…”

Tia could hear the soft, distant sounds of clanging pots and pans. Ross Fitzgerald was hardly the only restaurant cleaning up for the day. A handful of other customers were in the food court, picking up packages of pre-made meals to store and cook at home. She waved to them, and some of them waved back as she arrived at Ross’ restaurant. She pushed the glass door open, which jangled an overhead bell in a way that startled her. She’d never been to one of these places so late, so she was accustomed to the doors just being opened all the time.

“Tia! Welcome! Have a seat, I’ll bring your bowl over in just a moment!” Ross’s big, happy face smiled at her from behind the counter, a hand waving at her for a moment before motioning to the tables and booths in the building. The lighting was low in the customer section of the restaurant, but the kitchen was bright in the back.

“Thank you Mister Fitzgerald!” She waved back, moving to take a seat. Large glass windows lined the outer wall, letting people look in, as well as letting her see out. It was a simple design, but it was strangely comfortable. People were getting picked up by cars and swept out into the countryside. So few had opted to live in the city.

Ross settled a bowl down before Tia. The bowl had no less than eight scoops of faux ice cream of different colors. A large metal spoon stuck out of the bowl towards her, as well as opposite of her. Ross sat down across from her, divested of his apron for perhaps the first time that day since the convention, and let out a happy sigh as his weight settled off of tired feet. “It’s a bit cliche, but my father was Mister Fitzgerald, you can call me Ross.”

Tia blushed slightly and nodded. “Sorry Ross, there’s so many titles and other things to remember about people that I just default to Mister for people I don’t know very well.” She looked down at the bowl, picking up the spoon. “I’m not going to lie to you Ross, I think I’m going to destroy this bowl.”

He laughed and nodded, sweeping a hand out to pick up his own spoon. “And I intend to share, Miss Monsalle. You can rest assured that Ross Fitzgerald will attend dutifully to the nutritional needs of the first mother in the colony. That doesn’t mean, of course, that I won’t enjoy some myself though. Feel free to dig in.”

She nodded at that, smirking. “You can call me Tia, if you like, if you’re going to insist on being informal. Anyway…” She scooped her spoon into a pink mound of ice cream and brought it to her lips. It smelled right. It was chilly cold. It didn’t seem particularly moist, but as she took a bite out of it she found it creamy and soft. The taste of strawberry spread through her mouth in a way that sent a chill through her body, tastebuds informing her that it would accept her offer. It wasn’t ice cream, not really, but she knew immediately that it would be enough. “Oh. My. God.”

“Hah!” Ross shoveled up a spoonful of the white scoop, watching the facial expression of a tired, emotionally drained woman become half-ecstatic. “You know Tia, I think you just made my day.” He bit into his spoonful with gusto, enjoying the satisfying way it melted in his mouth.

“How? How did you do this? You’re like… like a Soy Wizard or something!” She marvelled at the rest of the spoonful she hadn’t eaten yet. Ross was already on his second. She realized she wasn’t going to get much of this if she let him outpace her so much. She let him talk while she tried to catch up, sampling other flavors and groaning in delight at them.

He merely shrugged back. “Desperation, mostly. Like I told Hawthorne, I decided to learn how to cook this stuff after I found out we’d be entirely vegetarian over here. Took a while. I already have a franchise in mind for later on. I was thinking Doctor Soy. I’m thinking a big logo, my big face grinning with a sparkling hunk of soy on a fork.”

Tia snorted at that, her hand moving to her mouth to keep from spitting out anything in amusement. “Yeah, that’s what we need, more doctors.” She all but melted as she tasted the green mint ice cream, visibly trembling for a moment. “Is that mixed with green tea!?”

Ross just nodded, eating some more. “Can’t have society without a little caffeine, right?”

She lifted her spoon to point across at the large man. “If we’re going to have more doctors about, I think I’m okay with them being Soy Doctors.” She grinned for a moment at the idea, then let her amusement fall for a moment as she thought quietly. “Hey Ross? Mind if I run some ideas past you? I’m curious about your opinions about a few things. You’re probably the closest thing to a normal person in the colony.”

He reeled back at that, slapping a hand over his heart and pretending to be wounded. “Oh no! God forbid someone be normal, Miss Monsalle!” He laughed, looking back at her. “I jest, of course. I wasn’t brought along for my cooking, I was brought along for my law enforcement experience and rehabilitation training. There were apparently some concerns that everyone would come out of their pods with non-functional muscles after so long or some such.”

“Perfect, well, the law-enforcement part anyway. I was interested in what you thought about identification. At the moment we have our prior records from Earth and the user system that Mother made. Our phones are acting as our identities.” She withdrew her phone from her pocket and waved it around in example before settling it on the table. “I was thinking we should have something a little more inherent to ourselves. Biometrics, chip implants, things like that.”

He nodded, setting the spoon down. “Well, here’s the thing. There’s no identification that someone can’t find a way around. That said, every piece of identification is a way the police can track a crime back to a criminal. The more of those they have, the more they can properly do their work. Fingerprints, retinal scans, identification chips, dental records, medical history, and anything else you can manage to get in file would do wonders. We already have a lot of those based on the physicals we went through to get onto the ship in the first place.”

She nodded at that, wondering. “Is there anything that people might find too invasive? I’ve already seen some distrust regarding the cameras in the buildings and similar devices in everyone’s phones and tablets. Mother insists that the only things monitoring them are programs scanning for commands and vital signs, but…”

“There’s no way to be sure someone isn’t watching or listening. Yeah, that’s an issue, and the fact that it’s apparently the ‘will of the people’ that can determine what access people have to that data. We’ll figure it all out.” He nodded, smiling reassuringly. “None of us came from any countries that were particularly good about people's’ privacy anymore. Maybe no one will want to keep all those things installed? We’ll see how it shakes out.”

Tia sighed, scooping up more ice cream as she listened, mixing some flavors. She took a moment to swallow before responding. “These people are mostly logical types. I think the people who feel paranoid about those things are in the minority, but paranoia’s dangerous. We have to make sure that any government we put in place is trusted to not take advantage of those things. I wonder if people will trust the government.”

Ross scoffed at that. “Tia, if people are smart, they won’t just blindly trust any government. That’s got to be earned, like any kind of trust. It has to show the people that it will use its powers reasonably and only as far as it has to. It needs to be like a good parent. Observe until you need to step in. Don’t just help with everything or the child will become overly reliant and not develop themselves. Give them the room they need to grow without fear, or reassurance that Dad and Mom will take control of everything.”

“I wasn’t expecting parenting advice today.” She laughed softly, smiling across at Ross.

He smirked back at her. “Well, when I need business advice, I hope you’ll be there for me.”

“Well, now that you mention it…”

Earth, The Smith Books

The apprenticeship programs of the United People of Earth evolved out of the necessities of life in the old Smith Bunker, and later the Phoenix Clan’s travels from Seattle to Medellin in the old country of Columbia in South America. At the time money was basically non-existent. A person’s value was based on what they were capable of, how much they were trusted, and what work they produced. If you were a person with less education and less skills, like a teenager, your best way to improve your social value was to increase your personal value and earn the trust of others.

As Barnard read, he read about the essential origins of these programs that were laid out in the teachings of Marcus and Emily Smith. They were interpreted by the elders of the community ever since. To understand their teachings, they provided the context of history as they saw it. As former residents of Seattle, Marcus and Emily had a great deal of time to observe and learn about how the pre-Cataclysm societies operated. Prior to the rise of the Liberated States of Columbia, which had attempted to operate a post-scarcity, heavily automated society in a world that was very much not post scarcity, there had been the United States of America.

To say that the USA was the most powerful civilization the world had ever seen would have been an understatement. It had spread its influence so thoroughly throughout the world that it was incredibly difficult to ever disentangle it from other countries once it became involved. As a capitalistic society, it ostensibly rewarded hard work, determination, and sacrifice with financial wealth, and it had operated that way for the better part of three hundred years.

Unfortunately, human nature is a hard thing to manage, and any system of the era would find humans willing to take advantage of it. Many less reputable corporations consolidated their power in this time, influenced the government, and did their best to erode the social fabric. These corporations also infected the tendrils the USA had spread through the world, allowing them to corrupt other nations as well. The social disorder and chaos that wracked the generations of the mid and late 21st century was largely a result of the death throes of old, obsolete organizations, and the violent rise of new ones.

Education had been the primary vector by which these corporations did their damage. As Marcus and Emily would later do with their own people, corporations used education to produce people of a certain kind of moral character. Selfishness was rewarded under the guise of spreading charity. Honor was undermined in the pursuit of self-gratification. Trust was eroded through the incessant pushing of crimes perpetrated in the minority and attributed to the majority.

This was further complicated by the embrace of a new caste system. Society had willfully divided itself between the rich, poor, and every possible tier in between, crisscrossed through the other tiers to divide people even further. Every group found a way to claim it was victimized, and openly showed resentment to the others. Each of these groups became voting blocks and even armies to be manipulated by anyone who could appeal to them. Promising rewards to them for their service allowed those who could afford to make such promises exceedingly powerful.

Owing to the strength of the foundations they were was built on, even this chaos was able to be maintained for a great deal of time until the corporations became too powerful to be controlled by their governments. Calls to action went out, prior plans to consolidate regions of the world came to fruition, and the old nations of Earth were splintered apart into new nations.

Marcus had the advantage of the sobering realities of his youth, and the cynical education of his father to show him the realities of the world they lived in, and watching the way his country had torn apart the memory of his father and the rest of the crew of the Ark disgusted him to the core. Following the examples laid before him, he sought out allies. Emily had been a natural choice considering she was already infatuated with him, and that she was incredibly intelligent besides.

If his father could abandon Earth, so could they, in their own way.

Barnard began to realize, as he read, that Emily had been the backbone of their efforts. She had the strength to make brutal, difficult decisions that his son Marcus simply didn’t have the stomach for while he’d mostly inherited his father’s passion for building. His son had seen so much destroyed already that he only wanted to create.

Emily had come from a similarly broken home, but had somehow managed to still be raised Christian in a nation that had largely abandoned or demonized it. She clung fiercely to values that the world found quaint or even dangerous in the late 2060s. She was also determined to forsake anyone who couldn’t be brought to understand the danger that the ills of society had become.

Their children had fallen to that society, abandoning their parents at their first opportunity. They desired to be a part of the castes that detested people from unbroken homes, and Marcus and Emily despaired. They built in secret upon their farm in Washington. Construction of a great bunker to weather the storm was well underway when their granddaughter Rachel had sought them out. Rachel was a born skeptic, as well as an athlete, and she adored her grandparents.

Marcus and Emily, their faith renewed, began writing the books that would influence Earth for thousands of years to come, the very books that Barnard was reading over 100,000 years later. They laid out in excruciating fashion the damage that certain ideas had done, like the way education had been mishandled. Technology had advanced far beyond the ideas that originally built the educational systems, and the idea of only being able to be educated in exclusive schools and colleges turned out to become a major problem.

Schools acted like a societal bottleneck, a place where young minds were forced through and could be influenced by a remarkably small number of people before they were spit back out into the world. Society itself pressured people into these institutions, regardless of whether they should actually have been there. The manipulations of people in positions of power turned these places of education into mills designed to take large percentages of youthful populations and turn out new soldiers for their caste activism.

It wasn’t as though such things hadn’t been done in ages past either, but the key difference was the way it interacted with technology. The internet had brought the world together, and it was also used to tear it apart. The castes found their own niches to gather online, and they subdivided society through it. The ideas of other castes were not welcome, and trying to switch castes was a venture fraught with peril as all castes were incredibly willing to utilize the peerless memory of the internet to ruin a person for all perceived crimes.

It was an incredible shame that it had been allowed to continue, considering the access to knowledge humanity had gained, and the incredible ability people had to educate themselves once they had the tools to do so. Education had to change, but it was too late for the old world. Marcus and Emily believed in Hawthorne’s prophecy of society’s ruin, and so they planned for what to do after it had.

They proceeded to carefully pick who they would save. Like the Ark, they chose people with a minimum of diseases, genetic or otherwise. They chose people with as many different genetically diverse traits as possible. They ensured their initial citizens learned all the skills they needed them to, and could survive the rigors of bunker life. Their whole plan had nearly been for naught as they had started to be investigated by the USA as a possible terrorist group, but then the corporations had laid their claims.

The Smiths did their best to ensure their people survived through the war for the LSC’s independence, and after. They kept their aims and allegiances secret in case it would be a great deal longer before they could put their plans into motion. Marcus and Emily had a very real fear they’d die before they could enact their plans, and have to pass the duty on to others, like Rachel.

Barnard knew though, it all came to pass. The weapons dropped, the world burned, and Earth fell silent. The humble people of the Smith Bunker had not all managed to get to safety in time, but enough had. Rachel recovered from her injuries, partially blind, and took her role in the society her grandparents built.

The bunkerites had adopted a set of values with regards to education. Learning a trade was valued, as well as seeking out other knowledge independently. Teaching was even more valued, and taking on apprentices was considered a great honor, as well as well rewarded. Barnard found it interesting that early on people that were willing to teach were allowed to spread their genes more than others. It wasn’t hardly the only trait that the elders of the Smith bunker selected for, but it was one of the most important.

Barnard could only speculate what came after.

Earth, Medellin and Beyond

Once their society had been unearthed and forced to migrate to Medellin, they adapted their values. Their population grew, they diversified, and they found need to return to the use of currency. Seeking out knowledge for yourself was rewarded by the society in both prestige and wealth. Teaching others was rewarded yet further, as well as being a source of labor.

At the ages of 16 and up youths of the Phoenix Clan, and later the United People of Earth, could seek out an apprenticeship. Oftentimes they apprenticed under their parents, but it was not strange for these teens to seek out others in other professions. An apprenticeship was a legally binding thing. There was a one year leniency for people who found a profession incompatible, but beyond that it was binding both for the master and apprentice.

A Master, or Mistress, was responsible for many things. They were not only responsible for the education of their apprentice, but they were also responsible for their survival. An apprentice could work and learn with their Master secure in the knowledge they would be fed, clothed, and housed for the duration of their education. There would be legal ramifications for any Master who failed to adequately care for their apprentice, teach them the agreed upon skills, or otherwise abuse or endanger them. Aside from those costs however, a Master essentially enjoyed free labor from their apprentice.

Professions of greater value to society, like doctors, had both the longest apprenticeships and the greatest rewards. The primary reasoning was that a valuable job needed to be richly rewarded. It also allowed for the services they rendered to be provided at reasonable cost since there was so little financial cost to the education of practitioners. There was no such thing as a debt-ridden doctor, scientist, or engineer in the UPE, and thus they had little temptation to provide their services at unreasonable expense without ruining their reputations.

It was essentially light, voluntary contracted slavery with extensive rights to protect the apprentice. It was very rare that the youth did not take advantage of essentially free education under these highly prestigious individuals as well. Certainly, there were more independent sorts that educated themselves and started new businesses. It was not uncommon for such enterprising sorts to take apprentices of their own in their new field sometime down the line after they were recognized by the Elders or the Council of Thirteen as worthy of the role.

Schools themselves had not been left by the wayside, though they existed almost solely for the purposes of basic knowledge and more importantly, teaching people how to learn in general. It was extremely important to the UPE that all children be capable of seeking out and learning from any apprentices they wished, or that they were able to self-educate themselves using the vast stores of knowledge they still maintained.