The Good Ship Bison

Wind turbines were cheaper than they had been, but really, nothing would compete with PV.

On a large scale, fusion was great but only if you needed all the power in one place, which isn't the way most humans lived.

We changed the world in other ways, too.

We replaced most chicken and beef with NuMeat, in various flavors and textures that Exactly Matched 'real' meats only were made with yeast-grown proteins. Everyone said - they weren't an exact taste match, they were BETTER tasting than the originals.

The prices? It wasn't even close. A pound ground NuBeef tasted identical but was $0.50/kg vs. $16/kg for beef from an actual cow.

Moreover, NuBeef was guaranteed to be free of antibiotics and disease vectors, as well as having finely-crafted protein and fat components that generated far less arteriosclerosis.

Dairy herds were still around in some small measure since some people wanted that kind of milk, but NuMilk (under various brand names for slightly different tastes) were shelf-stable, free of hormones, and far cheaper. Mix with water, get great milk, cheap.

Companies founded by "friends" of the Bison (read: our crew) were fast-expanding on these markets with more meats and fish, milks, etc. The cheeses were absolutely as good if not better than esoteric cheeses produced all over Europe.

Farmland that had been devoted to cattle was fast being planted with trees and dotted with animal shelters designed to foster small animals so they could grow without predators wiping them out so easily.

In old growth forests, these shelters were naturally created by fallen tree trunks, but in new grown forests we had to help a little.

The Moon-base corporation, Oakville Research, owned a significant number of patents.

Some of these patents let private aerospace firms build bigger and better rockets that could land and be re-used. Granted, some notable companies had already done this, but we sold patent rights cheaply for improvements here and there, and we gave long-term contracts for lots and lots of cargo.

Why would we hire rocket firms to do what I could do in hours with Bison?

Looking at the econ, I couldn't be everywhere!

Besides, it's better to not have all of Earth's eggs in one basket. The big landable rockets did all the small jobs and flitting around, putting the thousands of worker bees on a problem instead of one bodybuilder.

Our contracts gave a floor, a steady guaranteed income stream, that financed more and cheaper rockets, created an industrial base to further drop prices, and give predictable fast service to all the on-orbit needs that were popping up.

It also helped cut costs for these rocket firms to already have a viable city at their destination!

I continued to bring up new members of my crew, while those previous members rotated in and out as their maternity leaves allowed.

On a personal level, then, I was definitely busy. As in, Gettin' Busy, a lot.

Sex is great!

Seeing lots of people, going from place to place on a fast basis, that made a hectic life, for sure.

(That said, I was nowhere as busy as the mothers of my kids. No person is as busy as the mother of a newborn, except the mother of newborn twins, or newborn twins on top of a previous pair of twins, something called, 'Irish Quads').

Ample help was provided for all my new baby-mama's, we could definitely afford it. Long gone were the days of worrying about helping my mom with a car payment or gas money. Or, my dad, who reappeared in my life with a minimum of fanfare.

Some of my trips allowed for contemplation time, too.

Relaxation and meditation are good for the soul, just as sharing skin and joy-making with friends old and new.

I asked Pat about what prompted her to stop observing humanity and start acting.

Pat said, "Humanity had a 5% chance of becoming extinct in the next 30 years, and the probability was rising at a precipitous rate, 1% a decade. Observing was no longer an option. Global warming, pandemics, biological and chemical warfare, and artificial general intelligences were increasingly certain."

This caused the obvious amount of panic and she clarified.

"Breaking destructive feedback loops was essential. We have done that now with irreversible effects for climate change and much of the biodiversity problem. Wars of scarcity and despotism were fueled by resource dependencies and vastly unequal wealth distribution, again broken by the laws of learning curve and experience curve economics."

"And... AGI's?"

"I'm scanning for these and have isolated all researchers attempting it. These people have been convinced it's against their best interest to attempt such things."

Knowing Pat's dislike of violence, I figured she'd done something subtle instead of just killing them, but I wasn't going to ask questions I didn't want the answers to.

We flew on, and that's all Pat would say about our potential future. She had opinions and said if I knew too much I might change history away from her predicted best-practice paths.

This suited me. Every week, a new six crewmates come onboard, six crew stay, and six veterans depart pregnant, cured, and happy. Many opt for one of the freshly opened settlements we've been scattering around the Earth-Mars-Asteroids range.

In answer to your questions, yes, everyone is fully informed ahead of time, and there are plenty of genetically diverse sperm samples aboard their ships to populate many future generations of smart colonists.

We have a lot of work to do, still, vast amounts, but our way forward is clear, and the future looks better all the time.

Human life, expanding in space and numbers, would - probably - survive. On this anniversary of Bison's arrival, humanity is celebrating a much safer but still very exciting future.

== CHAPTER: Second Epilogue, 2055 March 3rd ==

It's fitting to release the above now given it's been long enough that most of those involved won't be embarrassed anymore.

It's also fitting given events of the past tumultuous year.

June 8th, 2054, a series of multi-megaton explosions evaporated 12 large cities across Earth, and one area of the Moon. Happily, the Moon one wasn't close enough to a settlement to actually kill anyone, but it did cause damage.

The Bison was past Mars at the time, near Ceres, and we couldn't get back quickly, though we tried, at high G-loads. It wasn't comfortable.

Following the big explosions, several hundred additional 2 or 3 kiloton explosions sabotaged infrastructure worldwide and killed millions of people immediately, though they were not aimed at people, only factories and transportation centers.

The goal was obviously creating havoc and famine migrants from collapsing the global food and processed goods distribution networks.

Those obviously responsible had a set of demands, or they would inflict further destruction. These demands were odd - prison or death for a set of families of a certain ethnicity native to South America, as well as worldwide-enforced ethnic cleansing of another set of people native to Tajikistan.

We were all confused. Everyone was confused.

These demands did not make sense, nor did what was actually destroyed, vs. what was aimed-at. All of the actual explosion centers were displaced from their obvious targets by about 375 meters north-north-west, a fact which saved a large amount of that infrastructure from actually being totally destroyed. Surprisingly a lot of it survived.

As we got close to Earth orbit, Pat quickly scanned the surface and identified the type of explosions that had been set off. They were caused by force-fields of a similar type to the Bison's, only crude enough to leave a 'signature', as Pat called it.

Pat called it crude because it was inefficient and obviously designed only to destroy things.

Finding such a force field generator took Pat three days, due to its parts being separated and disguised as other machine components.

Pat used that generator to find who had instigated the plot.

The generator was designed by an AGI - it had to be, the physics and math were way too complex for a human brain. So, the question was: Where Was the AGI??!?

Pat Looked. Pat found Nothing.

This mystery remained for another few weeks until Pat found it, buried deep in a distributed network of hardware and software components.

The AGI Pat found had no ethics subroutines.

The trial of the humans involved (brought onboard ship) included as evidence several of them confessing to different parts of the crime (not needed, but appreciated).

Those in the non-confessing group, mostly true-believer racists and conspiracy theorists, were sentenced by me (as is the right of a ship's Captain) to life in prison at an undisclosed location. Those who confessed were allowed to either suicide or have their memories wiped and mental capacity reduced.

Pat regarded this as some of the most severe penalties she could inflict.

The 'life in prison' people were sent 'away'.

I can disclose now where that was. It won't help anyone: it's inside a non-Earth body. It's a complete colony kit, with food equipment that will last more than their lifetime, dispensed from holes in their rock ceiling. Ample water and some amenities have been provided. Entertainment, in the form of the soundtracks from episodes of the TV show 'ALF' from the 1980's, is piped in every other day at noon.

Books can be read to them, the sound piped in again from the ceiling through small holes, on request, but the selection of works is limited to any book written before 1930.

As a prison, it has some compassion, but given the number of people killed, it also isn't a great place to be.

What wasn't generally known is that the rock they're traveling on is spun for gravity and is small. It will pass into the photosphere of a neighboring star in approximately 230 years, which is within their natural lifetimes, extended as a courtesy by Pat. The chances of them surviving that stellar encounter are approximately equal to any of them actually enjoying the TV show Alf.

I asked Pat why she recommended this penal colony idea. She said she did it to prevent these people from ever being found by another AGI and freed. It was still possible, she said, but unlikely. Distances can be bridged by means other than rockets, she said, cryptically.

Killing them would have been more simple, I was pretty sure, but various ethical paradigms prevent that for both myself and Pat.

Sometimes it's just simpler to lock someone in a room and throw away the room.

== CHAPTER: Third Epilogue, 5 May 2203 ==

It's now literally impossible to retrieve the criminals from long ago.

I am also nearing my own end.

I could have taken another treatment and elected to remain alive longer, but there comes a time when it's about time to do something new, and I'm not afraid anymore of my natural end.

Sometime in the next 20 years, some disease or condition will take me, and that's okay.

I have more _generations_ of descendants than anyone else living, but only by about 3. Life extension is a solved problem, but what to do with the time isn't.

For sure, LOTS of sex is a profoundly good thing. Such a simple act, and yet such a deep beauty is revealed about ourselves. We are animals, and we rejoice in our Buddha natures.

I rejoice in the nature of mankind.

Pat understands this choice, and has elected to find, once I'm gone, a new pilot. She will choose from among my male descendants, someone young and fresh-faced and full of sperm to give to the world, I'm sure.

I'm still full of sperm. I'm happily full of sperm, and I share it around with new shipmates, now on a 3 month schedule since I enjoy that cycle length better. It also lets me have a chance to meet and visit with a subsection of my descendants, the ones I happen to find interesting.

Interesting doesn't always mean Nice!

Some are right old bastards (and bitches), and are from various parts of my family tree both near and far on the branches.

I love almost all of them. I don't LIKE some of them, but I do love them.

I visit their houses sometimes as the whim strikes me, and most tolerate me for a few days, enough to make me good food and show off their kids' or grandkids' newest artwork.

It's all crap, of course.

Kids are horrible artists. Everything's distorted.

Right, right, I know, I know. If it's your kid doing the distorting, well, the heart pushes the art critic off the cliff of forgiveness and you end up with one more decoration to show the old relative that comes to visit (Me).

I've seen a lot of bad art. Really, I'm an excellent critic and as far as they know, I love to see the art they create. I don't mention my real opinions, because, yeah, I'm not an asshole.

Along with the art, I get to hear funny stories - several times, usually; they forget I have an enhanced memory tied in with Pat's and my symbiosis.

No matter what the age, though, the reminder has to be consistent - take care of the biosphere around you and it will take care of you and your descendants. Guard it well and nature will provide.

I've guarded this missive and many others for a while. It's time to get them sent off to the distribution hub and wait for the inevitable firestorm of 'insufficient metaphor' and 'malapropism of edification' or whatever crap the _actual_ critics (read: academic analysts) like to spin. Some things never change.

I hope humanity both does, and doesn't, change. Be well in your chosen place, and importantly, I have one final wish for you.

Make Lots of Happy Babies.

== the end ==

Personne, for reference:

Kevin Cooper, first-person narrator.

Mads - madison charles

Alice Peterson blonde tall runner

Lisa Ortiz, 48th President of the United States.

General Schmidt

Colonel Davis

Dr. Marge Davis: lady, my mother's age. She looked fit, very friendly, with NASA,

Jan Watkins, USMC ret, pilot

Danzinger - law firm

Pinella - chairman of joint chiefs

Tina Lowden, dark hair, almost my height at 5'9", Lacrosse player, so trim but had a significant bustline, I knew (she tried to hide it most of the time, though). Smart, for sure - Model UN, debate squad.

Chris (Christina) Unger, technically another Tina, but she went by Chris. Shorter, 5'4, red hair, some freckles, very thin and sizable chest, always noticed in chorus - sang with me. math club.

Lara Tomlinson, black hair, striking blue-green eyes, chess and Math club. Small chest, swimmer.

Carla Chu, black hair, Asian features, medium build, ran track with me. Very pretty, graceful. Was also an Eagle scout, one of the first girls in our area to get that. She was wearing scout pants and a light jacket with the 'Scouts' logo.

Kara Elisabeth Nesbit, of Coral Gables, Florida. Dark brown hair, thin but medium chest, thick glasses. Speaks German and czech. Stanford student.

Rachel Nesbit, Stanford student, double-major mechanical engineering and political science, pre-law. Red haired, med-weight, B-cups, runner.

Dr. Ella Fenwich, Stanford med school intern (1st yr out). Did undergrad ages 16-18 (3 yrs, in bio), 22 yrs old. Focused on space medicine. Short at 5'0", medium-thick body mass, muscular, into weightlifting and crossfit. Very large boobs, short blond hair tied back.

Francine Cheriott, grad student in astrophysics, undergrads in physics and astronomy. French-Canadian, fluent French, Spanish, Algerian-Arabic. Light-skinned Spanish-French background, family from Andorra. Med. height. Likes to be spanked.

Dana Crawford, graduated previous year, italian-looking, speaks Italian (native, at home) and both Hebrew and some Arabic (also at home, Jewish). Gymnastics at Modesto HS, as prev. Year's valedictorian, attending UC Davis, chemical engineering. Jewish-curly dark hair, brown eyes, medium-small bustline, 5'9" taller than normal, very fit. Into anime.

Beth Watts, age 18 but senior at Berkeley in electrical engineering. Frail-thin, small chest, yoga, speaks Ukrainian, Russian, Azerbaijani, and Farsi. Grew up in Odessa, escaped Russian invasion, prodigy.

Anna Fernando, hispanic, black hair, sharp eyes, muscles, horseback riding, track, cross country. Math whiz. Freshman at Berkeley but already done with math major coursework (10 classes). Speaks spanish, portuguese, german, some mandarin (via paternal grandmother)

Willa Johnson. African american. Thin, attractive, larger butt, medium chest. French, creole / cajun. Thick glasses. Westinghouse prize winner. Aerospace engineering major at MIT, senior.

Gretchen Kolle

Allison Kraft, 35 year old lady from Netherlands, worked on ITER, plasma physicist, brunette, medium weight, divorced, one step-child.