Poliismxn

By Caldon Mull

Sancha’s life is a rollercoaster ride and one she is not sure she is presently enjoying. The rescue mission to the neighbouring planet of Galba was a disastrous waste of time. Upon her return home to Claudius, Sancha is the last member of the fledgling colony eligible for the newly formed Claudius Governance Council thanks to a coup in her absence. ‘Protect and Serve’ - Claudius needs a Poliismxn!
Amidst this turmoil, someone needs protect the planet against internal, external, and existential perils and serve all the people of the planet - Standard humans and synthetic humans alike. What Claudius needs right now is an archaic-Earth role that Sancha is convinced is not for her. In this near future, around a different star, what does this even mean for Sancha the Poliismxn?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Silver Bark Books
• Release date: Sep 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9789526975757

Caldon Mull

Caldon Mull is the pen name of a veteran storyteller with continent-spanning work experience consulting for the financial and military sectors. His work includes his primary series the 'Sol Senate Cycle' and his time-tripping fantastika series 'Agency Tales'. He is best known for supporting Games Master Content for the GENCON, UPCON, Oubliette and ICON game and comic conventions but is lesser known for his more edgy literary Fiction.His genre-skipping Fiction work has received 'honorable mention' over the years beginning with the 1986 Q2 Writers of the Future contest and from the SFSA Nova Award over later decades. His shorter works have been published in Omenana, RPGA Network and the SFSA Probe magazines. His longer works have been published under his eponymous Caldon Mull brand and by Sera Blue Publishers. He is currently resident in Finland with his wife and many cats.

Book preview

Poliismxn

Sol Senate Cycle: Diaspora

Copyright © 2022 by Caldon Mull

Published by Silver Bark Books

at Smashwords

Publisher information

Silver Bark Books

Linkorinne 5 A2

Espoo, 02630

Republic of Finland

Credit section

Refugia is Copyright © 2019 Caldon Mull and first appeared in Omenana 14

Poliismxn is Copyright © 2022 Caldon Mull

Cover art copyright © 2022 by Silver Bark Books

All Rights Reserved

ISBN 978-952-69757-3-3 Print Softcover Edition

ISBN 978-952-69757-4-0 PDF

ISBN 978-952-69757-5-7 EPUB

Print Edition License Notes

Poliismxn ... is a work of fiction, any resemblance of any character to any person, alive or dead is entirely coincidental. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Part One Filename: Refugia

Part Two Filename: Poliismxn

Part Three Filename: Bridges

Epilogue

About Caldon Mull

Other Books by Caldon Mull

Connect with Caldon Mull

Acknowledgements

This has been a long hard gap between books, The Diaspora books are not supposed to be this difficult to complete, but here we are. It seems every year there are fewer of us, and this is no exception, unfortunately.

To my friends that have passed: Clint and Eloise. Keep me a place and mind my beer. I’ll be along in my own time, I don’t know when though.

To my friends that are still here: I think of you every day and hope you are as well as you could be.

To my wife and my brood of cats, my family and to coffee. I love you guys!

Prologue

History is most often an odd combination of a simple list of events, and the context in which that list exists. One could argue the merits and interpretation of any context, or one could simply accept a list as the best indication of a point in time.

What is important to this Project Office is the Where and the What of the Project most importantly, as everything else will no doubt be subject to debate.

I cannot imagine what their worlds will be like from where I record this in space and time, to when they return the message perhaps two hundred years from now. I cannot provide context, nor should I even expect to. Here is a precis of the Seeded Worlds for your review:

The Seeded Worlds Project Plan 2395AD:

The entry point for any Seeded Worlds introduction must rest with the wondrous ship; more prototype than actual vessel class: the SS Kristos. Its prototype maiden voyage trip to the Arcturus system (Arcturus Project 2230 – 2395) has proved the maximum speed of its soliton-ion-harmonic-impeller drive (SIHI) at 39% of light speed with reasonable (fuel) efficiency, also its ability to navigate in through 3D space-time at these speeds. This milestone is complete as at present (2396)

The prototype voyage has now passed its proof-of-concept, it has been equipped with the most advanced pods representing every available resource the human species could muster for a one-way ticket into the Interstellar Medium.

This represents a time-sensitive-window as, once humanity’s home star does leave the Local Fluff of low-density matter it is currently located in, ablation from the higher-density interstellar material will render any vessel attempting to traverse it, useless. There would thereafter be a requirement for significant improvements to materials technology.

The project vessel must ensure that it shall launch, traverse the low-density Local Fluff interstellar material, seed the selected destinations, and remain in the same low-density environment for the duration of its mission. Therefore, the SS Kristos shall be equipped with twelve seeding pods each comprising programmable nanite matter, genetic material in digital schemata as well as actual biology and individual colonists. It will set out on its mission of pre-selected destinations that have been based on centuries of exoplanet observations, named after Roman Emperors and never to return to Old Earth.

At some point in this journey, a secondary vessel will be able to split off with a maximum of four pods and, will be able to travel independently to continue with the remaining placements. The SS Mary Magdalena will have neither the range nor the capacity of its host vessel and will be, perhaps, an over-engineered failsafe more so than will have been necessary.

This schedule of pods will take account of every identified exoplanet as well as any information that has been available at the time of departure from Ceres Station. The schedule has been planned as follows: Vespasian 2464, Titus, and Domitian 2470, Nerva and Antonius 2475, Trajan 2478, Hadrian 2482 and, Aurelius 2485.

It is at this point at Aurelius that a triangulation window should appear. There shall be opportunity to reduce the Seed project duration by up to 16 years of SIHI engine burn-time.

In this case the SS Mary Magdalena may then set off with the seed pods of Claudius, Galba, Otho and Caracalla while the SS Kristos would then continue to Commodus. It should then end its voyage back at Vespasian with whatever material it shall have had left, to reinforce this original Seed. If this decision is made, then Galba and Claudius 2495, Otho 2501 and Caracalla 2510.

The SS Mary Magdalena should end its voyage at Caracalla. It shall have insufficient SIHI fuel and ablative repair-material to continue further.

It is important to realize that the entire Seeded Worlds mission will have been completed for over a century before notification as to any state of the mission is reported back to the Solar System. A complication this project must list here, is any competition from the EET Frontier movement. That is, this project cannot account for the individual movements of nationalist and urban initiatives that refuse to contribute to the shared vision of the Seeded Worlds and instead have elected to head to the selected settlement sites on their own accord.

In one sense, these threats to the project exist because they are non-contributing elements to the project that, if arriving late to the Seed site, may consume project resources disproportionate to the establishment efforts of the colonies. If they arrive earlier, then the Seed Project will not be designed to terraform any of their own efforts with any success.

Thus, the Project Office must continue with our deadlines with this uncertainty in mind, assuming the superior speed of the SS Kristos and the unlikely eventuality of any of the rogue Frontier ships successfully making the transit. The former risk of a late arrival is deemed preferable to the Seed Project chances of success, then the latter risk.

The programmable matter Seed Pods.

Each Bay designated for a settlement comprises of a centralized cold fusion power plant, a store of programmable matter, a fabricator, a store of nano-dust and the colonist bays. The colonist bays consist of live colonists that are held in suspension as well as digitized human minds and AI schemata minds.

Initially, of the approximately ten thousand live humans, ten thousand digital human minds and twenty AI schemata minds of all types in each Pod, only the live humans, priority skill synthetics and high-type AI schemata will be deployed first. The other digital human minds will be transplanted into synthetic bodies at the rate to be determined by the colonists with what adaptations would best suit the local environment.

The fusion plant should provide sufficient power for about 2000 earth years after being seeded, thus provide all the power required to deploy every Seed Pod manifesto item into its environment at the slowest possible rate. The fabricators and environment stalks capable of establishing Earth dominant DNA and RNA biomes in their vicinity are engineered to massively reproduce until they have saturated the environment.

These genetic tweaks in all the micro-flora and micro-fauna are regulated only by concentration of solar energy. If these organisms' sense saturation stress of their environment, this accelerated setting will switch to being dormant in the identical that way Earth-based natural selection deselects active genetic traits.

The end goal of all these micro engineering feats is to create useful soil from the seed spikes radiating out in concentric circles from the spikes as they dissolve into the dirt. This process will continue indefinitely from their first drill position until they dominate their