Rise of the Star Ch. 05

Of minor note was that links were already a thing, but to the astorians, the devices were just the newest thing. Quantum storage got better and better so being able to shapeshift your device that much was just the norm, having it use cloud computing to have that performance was just things marching on. It was actually not that impressive compared to the other stuff around them. But the wireless network was sure a new thing, employing that dark energy research in a way that would take 50 pages to explain how you can teleport electricity. Teleporting people was still difficult if you wanted an intact one every time.

Perhaps understandably, New Astoria would be the first planet to get the infrastructure treatment, overhauling the old residential districts into ones that made the previous architecture ugly, replacing the energy generation sectors with ones focusing exclusively on dark energy, which did take a load off having to deal with all that heat, the farms were replaced with nano-gardens... places where nanites worked to give every plant the best regimen to grow to perfection in a much faster time, genetically enhanced animals reproducing and ready to be food much faster than before... and still there was room for research sectors where science was honored to let them go forward even faster. It would take five years to take apart the planet bit by bit and replace it with this much better form... but when people started living in it, they could not complain at all. It was marvelous.

One by one, most other planets got the treatment.

*

"My ancestors would be crying at this."

"Well, I can't promise it'll be the same. We're gonna try to get that gravity more to our standards. Hope you guys don't mind."

Just another break for those two, the recreational area of the scaffold was airtight and had quite the pleasant environment... but just behind the armistice glass before them was space... so the two still had their enviro-suits on, if the helmets were left off for now. Before them was a saddening sight, the shattered fragments of the Gull Homeworld, barely resembling a planet as they held in a stable orbit around the sun, but its moon has long since escaped. Around it was this gigantic scaffold that held a grand ambition. Restoring a planet.

"It'll never be the same. Nobody alive to remember how it was back then. We have footage, but... you know, we don't want it to be the same."

"We?"

"Oh, there's been plenty a talk with other Gull. I mean, most of us know we're just doing this to get a much easier job of getting the resources in it, but it feels like getting our home back. Just a bit. Can't imagine how it was back then."

"Probably hard on them. If NA blew up before we had space capabilities we'd lose our mind... and probably feel like we're crashing on someone's couch if they got us to another planet."

"Some of them said maybe we should do this by ourselves to stop... crashing on your couch.... But I guess it would take forever even if we all put in effort."

No, this was possible due to all their efforts. The first megastructure built by the empire. Technically, you had those relays that improved travel between systems, the automated asteroid factories, and those gateways that were being prototyped... but those were kilostructures... THIS was bigger. Way bigger. A planet is BIG. Even a band around it is quite the engineering feat, but one that's supposed to have gravity manipulators to take the shards of that planet and force it together, one that had terraforming equipment to stabilize it into a living planet... yeah, that's quite the feat.

It was not something for these two to see while they worked on the project, but it was something to see in their lifetime. Bit by bit, the big band was fitted with so much... mega-engineering was certainly its own beast. And one day, it would be done and that fateful process would begin. To anyone who hoped to see the shattered fragments gluing live on TV.... It was possible if you sat still for a month. Most would watch a timelapse. There were gigantic forces involved and you can't just do that all at once... or you might make things worse than before. But once again, little by little would the shards realign, then come closer, then get to the point where people thought they had come together... then the actual point when they did. The process of that explosion was reversed as chunks of the planet were set back into place, any gaps were filled out with prodigious amounts of dirt stolen from other planets that might not need them, and it was a planet again. Add one more month of basic terraforming and it was one lifeless, but habitable planet. After a final check that nothing was going wrong, the band could be dismantled and recycled for other projects, terraforming engineers moving in to give it the Gaia treatment.

This planet would be known as Sanctuary once the first colony ship came down on it, with many Gull being part of that colony, many who thought it was such a significant thing to stand where their ancestors once stood, on the planet that they had to flee or die on... to be able to bring life to it by the grace of the Astoria Empire. But the empire had shared their worlds with them for years and so would they share this one with them.

When that initial colony set its roots, the empire could come in with the last of its big resource stores, gathered over a very long time to finally spend on something, giving it the utopian treatment. Sanctuary would focus exclusively on mineral extraction, fuel production, glassmaking... low-grade materials that could go into other industries. They went far beyond using even mechanized mining, rather sending out drones to do it, machines that were the size of small starships... and they could equally go out into space and pick their system clean for every last deposit that might have not been worth a full extraction operation or going into their planet to get what was left after centuries of those shards being excavated.

Just like it, Dawnlight would focus on its food, the new Nano-gardens making a mockery of what they used to employ to grow food. Solaria would become a center of commerce as its infrastructure made the old buildings look crap. Athuras would become a lot cleaner as the factories were replaced by atomic forges, the utopian treatment coming to every world as soon as they had the materials. There were some that did not get that treatment, like Threadway, Garden, and the two border worlds. Maybe they did get wireless power and some other improvements, but the very nature of those worlds did not mesh with the infrastructure.

And just like those two planets were specialized, you would see others get that treatment. Deliverance would focus on science like never before, the lesser-known Hesperides would weave dark energy like crazy to keep up with the mounting demands of power that the empire had. Now it was really going toward being a utopia, as jobs became easy, as the fortune system assured the highest quality for the lowest cost, as there was an active incentive to improve people's lives and the tools with which to do so.

This was that rise.

*

"You know, I'm proud of this."

James said that as he stood before the reinforced glass separating the overseer's office from the outside world, beyond it the reinvigorated Hope's Landing... its buildings a beautiful, organic sight, the shuttles zipping all over it, yet rare enough to not count as traffic. Behind him, the overseer sat on her chair, hand on the whiskey glass she poured for herself.

This request for a visit was more to ask if they had a good path to refuse all those migration treaties and hordes of refugees. But he had been so absorbed with some other factors that the man did not take a moment to just look at everything.

"I remember how previous leaders said you still knew it could get better. We there or still a ways to go? Because I gotta agree, I can't imagine it better. Though, neither could they."

Gina was in her later years, but she was the right woman for the job. A fit body with good curves on her, her popularity did not come exclusively from knowing how to do this.

"Nah, this is kinda it as far as I can imagine it. Okay, some things extra, but those are showing off. Megastructures, the Maginot Worlds... also they're there to make sure it stays this way."

"Hm. Then I guess we finally did it right by you. Only took 1600 years."

The man turned to look at her. Still the same, right down to every detail.

"Don't get me wrong, I thought even my first house here was the shit and Pam did her best with what we had then. I had to wait years for central heating." A look to the side. "Damn, almost forgot about them with everything."

She could see a sign of grief in him. How often do people think of the Outsider and rarely what they could do for him personally.

"You know that if you wish for something, you need only ask."

"I think I've asked of a lot from you guys. But you did it. Still, don't worry. We're pretty much good now. Just need Athuras to get going with the forging and we can get onto the other projects. Though with the mass of stuff we want, it's gonna be a while."

"This is indeed... quite pleasant. Have we become the most pleasant place in the galaxy?"

"Yes. That's why you keep having to send refugees away and refuse all those migration treaties. Come on, be honest... do you really think our people want to live on other worlds?"

It needed more than a thought. Such things were a constant concern. But it was clear... very, very few would want to go live on other planets, at best they wanted to check them out, but even Threadway was a better place to live than the capital of other empires, even those that still cared about comfort and such.

"No. They just want to live here. Get a piece of the pie. Probably without any expectation to work. The news that the empire is turning into a utopia is spreading, and many expect they can just come here and have everything they want with no cost."

"Ah, yes... the communist enthusiasts. The guys who think that having a place based on cooperation means they can just sit around and tell people what to do. The empire would turn to shreds if we let too many of such people in. No doubt they would skip work from the start. I feel like shooting the guys who think utopia means you don't have to work."

"We still have many who don't want to work, and now the system allows them to do so. Actually impressive that not all take this path. But, we do have your words to tell us that challenges are needed to give value to things."

It was not a too popular policy on their economy, but allowing people to just go on with no requirement of work, with basic covering everything and man being able to just live on it until he's dead even if they produced nothing... but people want to do things, they want to earn things, they want to have a purpose in life and feel terrible if they might be considered a burden. Or at least intelligent people... they had very, very few of the kind of people who would skip jobs while taking drugs and eating fast food while being proud of it.

"That and they'd collapse the system if everyone stopped working. Any scenario where you say 'if everyone' can automatically fail. Even I don't have a 100% approval rating in the empire."

"Eighty-five percent. Higher than in earlier checks. Possibly because they are starting to see what we have been building toward."

"Don't rest on your laurels too hard. I bet there's some amazing technology we'll find in a thousand years that makes this stuff look like a ghetto." Beat. "Or maybe not, I mean... not much ways to go without violating reality and you guys kinda already are doing it a bit."

"Still, I am glad we have brought you the world that you wanted. It feels like we have achieved our divine mission." Beat. "I'm feeling rather lost as to what to do now."

"Just keep it running. There was this book that said if you build utopia, it never lasts because people inevitably fuck it up, because later generations come out all conceited and incapable... that's the hard part. Or people from outside come and fuck it up. Thus the stupidly strong defenses. Gotta keep pumping out strong people to keep the good times rolling."

"Then we accept this new mission. To prove that book wrong. To prove that utopia not only can be built, but it can endure. How long should it go? A thousand years? Ten thousand? MORE?"

Heck, the woman might be tempted to engrave that as the mission of the overseers. Make Utopia endure forever. James thought how so many other works he knew of would cite a distant, pleasant past, only for the present to be grim.

"You know, let's keep that an ongoing mission. Disprove all the books. All the notions that this is just a momentary thing. I bet a lot of people are saying that. I don't want us to be all grim darkness of humanity forty thousand years from now."

"Ah, yes... the many communications with the other leaders. How our way is wrong and time will prove it. I can see the joy of defiance in that."

"Nothing better to prove another guy wrong than by being happy while following another way." Beat. "And not being an imbecile brainwashed into thinking everything is fine."

"We have certainly instructed our people to question.... and it has led to many corrections."

"Then, if you guys want another divine mission, take that one. Make this thing last, make it better if you can. We're beyond the point where I know what to do, so we can learn together."

A warm smile from the woman. This was what she liked about him. No pretense about knowing everything. James might even admit not knowing anything so far, but ever so often he was proven right beyond all means.

"It shall be done. Or we'll never hear the end of it."

She actually engraved that as a stated mission.

*

Not every time is fraught with interesting adventures, at least not ones of such note. The utopian consolidation gave birth to a gentle age of "showing off". Things were better than good. The people had everything they wanted, their resource production was through the roof, culture and arts flourished like never before. If people thought the previous times were a golden age, this might be a platinum one.

When one looks at it from the perspective of the life cycle of empires, it might look like this was another high noon that the empire was approaching only to fall into decadence and depravity, to give birth to less and less capable people who would automate their pleasures and leave the empire in the hands of AI's and other non-feeling entities, to just enjoy their paradise while ignoring everything else. But they didn't do that. The Empire reached its "high noon" and kept climbing. They did more, better, smarter, stronger.

Athuras was indeed the prime source of alloys for space construction of tremendous size, and after a hefty encouragement came to have people gravitate to such jobs, it could output truly insane amounts of materials. Now they could reliably build megastructures. They had been researched and designed for a while, bigger ones waiting for a confirmation that it has any worth to dream bigger. It was.

To keep the flow of materials steady, it was important to get more alloys. The automated factories built on asteroids were a start... but not enough. The Gigaforge was the first built in this new architectural ambition. Set upon a neutron star, it would harness the energy of that celestial object to process materials much better than before... and its method gave birth to a new improvement to the Quantum Armistice Armor. By now, the Empire was using weapons that humiliated the rest of the galaxy... virtual particle thrusters gave an incredible amount of thrust compared to what the rest of the galaxy was using, the Blink drive made the other FTL methods look like steam engines and their weapons could make even James whistle at the sheer power they had. And their scientists were still fine-tuning them, making the guns better and better every few years.

The second project was the Sentry Array, intended to give them detection methods beyond any currently employed. It would take decades, but the gigantic detector would be assembled with great precision until it could listen in on the entire galaxy. Oh, how their enemies would want to have that thing, the thing that let them intercept and decrypt communications from the other side of the Galactic core. To say that the astorians had perfect intel on everyone else would be putting it mildly.

Then came the third project... the Mega Art Installation... designed to be both a work of art in itself as the giant rings were built around a pillar of light, the inside of those rings containing a vast museum you needed months to go through. This was where not just local arts were shown, but alien ones as well, archeological findings and tributes to the many species that came to pass, of which the empire knew only from dedicated digs across the galaxy. No, it was not stealing if nobody was really claiming those stars.

Completion of these allowed even bigger dreams... The Dyson Sphere was more than a megastructure, it was an ambition. Getting all the materials to wrap around a star, monopolizing and harnessing the power of one giant fusion plant... power through the bloody sky and beyond. That one took close to a century to make, but it was worth it in the end. Yes, some aliens complained that they were making their favorite star go dark, one that had ill tidings if it might ever do so. Intention readers saw through their bullshit and all they wanted was to hold the empire back. The overseer told them to get lost.

More and more... The interstellar assembly was like a local branch of the galactic forum, though one that would stay put in empire space. Unfortunately, its creation did open the argument that now there was no need to move the Galactic Forum to Empire space when they might suggest it... after all, they had the Galactic Forum at home. Still, it did give a good degree of weight to their votes as there were a lot more people focusing on that structure, finding a billion things to use in the grand game of coercion.

Then you had the strategic coordination center, made to be the center of all military operations, the orbital bastion doing the same with any land armies, the Yggdrasil Orchid growing immense amounts of food in the atmosphere of a gas giant through some downright arcane methods, the Crystal Megabore, the Gateways that would be placed in any system with a colonized planet or a megastructure, the stellar particle accelerator, the oddly-named device that harvested the atmosphere of a gas giant, the automated strip mine...

And then came the gigastructures. Ludicrous things that made the previous stuff look measured. The Hyperstructural assembly yard could churn out ships like nothing else, the Matrioshka Brain that promised not just insane benefits to research but the creation of virtual universes, the hyperforge was almost as good as Athuras in its alloy production, and there were even bigger options dreamed by astorian scientists but they decided that they finally ran out of space unless they wanted to give up on some particularly useful systems to build the Alderson Disk... now that was an insane technology that they would thankfully not get into building... for now.

Astoria was doing more than succeding, it was downright humiliating other empires as each megastructure was built. Each of their planets got an orbital ring to increase the space on their worlds, the planets with moons had them turned into giant disco balls to illuminate their night sky in a pleasing green light... and the border worlds finally were approaching their final form.

To say that the rest of the galaxy was seething would put it mildly.