The Crown of Happenstance

By Dennis Patrick Treece

The Crown of Happenstance tells the story of a search for something which might not even exist but is wanted badly by various people on Earth and by the people of Shonak. It is rumored to confer god-like powers on whoever wears it. This story details two serious efforts to find and exploit the Crown. The Shonakian named Bon, who is that planet's

• Language: English
• Publisher: AUTHENTIC PRESS
• Release date: Mar 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9798869180735

Dennis Patrick Treece

Dennis Patrick Treece grew up in a Navy family and lived all over the world. His father retired to Phoenix, Arizona when Dennis was in the seventh grade. He attended Cortez High School and Arizona State University and was commissioned in the Army as a Second Lieutenant in 1970. After infantry and intelligence training, he went to Vietnam in 1972, for the last full year of the war, and was wounded in action. He spent thirty years in the Army, in Military Intelligence, seventeen years of which were overseas, mostly Europe, but also Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and the Balkans. He retired as a full colonel and settled in Atlanta in 2000 where he worked for two years doing cybersecurity for banks and insurance companies. After the tragedy of 9/11/2001 he was hired to run the security program for the Massachusetts Port Authority, with its airports and seaports. He retired for the last time at the end of 2013. Today he lives quietly near the beach north of Boston with his lovely wife, and their dog, cat, koi pond, and garden. They enjoy traveling, dressing up in period costume for vintage dancing, playing golf, and socializing with their friends. His wife, Dr. Eleanor Ruth Fisher, PsyD, is a semi-retired psychotherapist and successful commercial artist and Dennis enjoys helping her with her art business.

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The Crown of Happenstance

Copyright © 2024 by Dennis Patrick Treece

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher or author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Although every precaution has been taken to verify the accuracy of the information contained herein, the author and publisher assume no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for damages that may result from the use of information contained within.

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The Crown of

Happenstance

Second Edition

by Dennis Patrick Treece, 2024, All Rights Reserved

Number One in the Shonak Series

Contents

Dedication

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

The Energy Being Itself

Chapter 2

Bon the Student

Chapter 3

Bon the Intern

Chapter 4

Bon the Adult

Chapter 5

Bon Meets Atsa

Chapter 6

Eldests Bon and Lek

Chapter 7

Bon Gets to Work

Chapter 8

Focus on Atsa

Chapter 9

Bon Meets a God

Chapter 10

Atsa and the Cave

Chapter 11

The Bandit Attack

Chapter 12

Gift of Spears and Arrows

Chapter 13

The Partnership

Chapter 14

Bon’s Approach

Chapter 15

Atsa’s Approach

Chapter 16

Finding the Crown

Chapter 17

Examining the Crown

Chapter 18

Itself’s Message

Chapter 19

Carrying On

The Crown of Happenstance

Second Edition

Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.

Albert Einstein

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all those who appreciate the message within the message.

Preface

This book is a fictional account of how three totally separate cultures interacted some 3000 years ago. As it progresses, we learn how their cultures function and how they interact with one another. They all have their own agendas and it’s the way they come together that carries the story. On its surface it’s a story about a search for something that is much sought after but very elusive; sort of a Grail story. Another thread to this story examines the world of the Spirit. Whatever you choose to call them they don’t really have names for themselves, just vibrational signatures. These Spirits, or souls, permeate everything but in a good way, or anyway, in a good way as they would define it, not necessarily how we would. Our story also examines parallel Earths which exist at separate vibrations of our same existence. They are in the same place but never touch, and until this story, have had no knowledge of each other. They coexist in the same place but at different frequencies in the same way many different signals at different frequencies or modulations coexist in a single fiber optic cable. I have called the other Earth most central to this story Shonak. I use a good many pages introducing you to the people of that world and examining why they are visiting Earth and how they are doing it. Our Earth, the one we live on, I refer to as Plus-Five, since it is five planetary frequency bandwidths higher than Shonak. And anyway, in 1,000 BCE, our time, there was no common term for Earth and most people did not even know they were on a planet, circling our sun. Refer to the Glossary for details on the differences in time and space.

Acknowledgments

I want to acknowledge all the people throughout human history who have looked beyond what they are told to believe and have accepted their own perceptions of what real really is.

Chapter 1

The Energy Being Itself

Author’s Note: For a full examination of this complex character with an unusual history I refer you to the Glossary. When you want more information to better understand what Itself is up to, you should find it there.) Over its billions of years of existence Itself gained knowledge, wisdom, authority, and responsibility. It understood how it came to its present circumstance without formal appointment or words of guidance or encouragement. Such things were ir relevant.

It’s work of interest to this story is on the physical planes which make up some five percent of Creation. While Creation is limitlessly vast, Itself’s beat is a microscopically small sliver of everything which consists of the six subsets of the physical planes, each with its own galaxies and solar systems. Out of the millions that exist Itself is essentially the overseer of six of these solar systems separated by their different resonant frequencies. His mission is not to direct what goes on there but rather to do what he can to incorporate these six solar systems into The Plan.

There are of course various planets in his solar systems and this story focuses on the planets which are three out from their star. In particular, the world at the bottom of the vibrational spectrum and the world at the top vibration have large, developed or developing civilizations of living beings with the humanoid populations showing the most promise with regards to The Plan. All energy beings with Itself’s responsibilities have a hands-off modus operandi. Intervention is allowed, as long as neither free will nor The Plan are violated. Those interventions are therefore exceedingly rare.

Chapter 2

Bon the Student

Bon 305058.141.61.05.01 emerged from his shell at precisely that time in Region 12’s Hatching Center Number 74. There had been 305,058 Solar Rotations (S-Rots) since the establishment of their current social order. It was the one-hundred-forty-first Planet Potation (P-Rot) of that S-Rot. It was the sixty-first Portion (Prt) of P-Rot 141, and further, it was the fifth Segment (Seg) of that portion and the first Sub-Segment (S-Seg) of that fifth Seg. At about half the size of an adult, he was barely conscious right out of his smooth, pliable, leathery shell. He did not flinch or cry out when he was grabbed by the Age Team member assigned to HC 74. Swiftly and with practiced skill, Bon’s right arm was tattooed with his name and the numbers 305058.141.61.05.01, forever marking his seniority, and place in the social order as a living Shonakian. He was immediately sent for the usual testing in preparation for transfer to his Education and Training Center.

Physically, Shonakians look the same their whole lives. In fact, they all look remarkably like each other and often it is only their name/age markings and team badges that help to sort out people they know from ones they don’t.

Like all Shonakians, Bon grew slowly, physically, after hatching, at a pace to reach full physical stature in thirty or forty Planet Rotations. During these years they double in size. This slow growth is of course not a problem for long-lived people on a world with no threats to their survival and plenty of easily available food. In his physical growth Bon was average. During his time at the Ed Center he did grow to reach his full, if diminutive, height and girth. His mind, on the other hand, was fully sharp almost immediately, which is less normal for healthy hatchlings who often take many P-Rots to reach full acuity. It took a P-Rot or so before his eyes and mouth functioned properly, but his mind was unusually sharp even before he emerged from his shell. As is the custom, the hatching center used audio stimulation to teach pre-hatchling Bon, and the other pre-hatchlings, basic things like language. And of course, he was hungry when he hatched so they quickly fed him after tattooing. This first meal was the same as every other meal for the rest of his and every other person’s long lives. With no taste buds Shonakians simply consider food as the fuel needed to sustain themselves. And most of the liquid their small bodies need comes from their wet meals, squeezed out of a flexible tube, made from a plant material that is eaten after the wet food is squeezed out. This helps keep their small, sharp teeth clean, too.

Like everyone else, Bon was born in one of many hundreds of hatching centers around the planet. Bon’s parent deposited his small, soft egg in the special reception bin at the Center a full Solar Rotation earlier and then simply walked away. There was no record made of this act and there never is. There are no families on Shonak, no family culture, no government, even; just Teams. No Shonakian knows who their parent is, and they don’t care to know. It just doesn’t matter to them. Bon was no exception. Where Bon 305058.141.61.05.01 was different however, led to the success he enjoyed throughout his life. Bon had a different way of thinking about things than most of the rest of his kind. Not that he was smarter just that his mind worked differently enough to make him a rare thinker. In every ten S-Rot only one hatchling per class shows these mental tendencies and all of them do very well in life. In the land of brilliant but straight-jacketed thinkers the brilliant creative thinker is king.

Shonakian society has always felt that homogenous, unadorned appearance and non-controversial behavior and superior performance results in a more placid and enjoyable life for everyone. They feel that this calmness, this rationality, reduces uncertainty and therefore reduces anxiety and is therefore highly prized. Bon fit into that from an outward view but inside he was full of the desire to do things just a bit differently and he was clever enough to hide this from the plodders throughout his entire life. That he achieved wondrous things was hailed but always within the narrow confines of what others expected of him, not by what he expected of himself. Of course, the people who thought as he did recognized his unique abilities instantly. As Bon was to learn later in life these connections were invaluable to all of his type.

Itself mused that it all happened with a little help, of course, which Bon had no clue about. Itself was making suggestions to Bon carefully and persuasively through Bon’s spirit partner, an entity Bon was also totally unaware of. No Shonakian was. Not that it made any difference. Itself quipped internally that in the land of the lowest vibration the Spirit was king!

Instructing the young on Shonak is largely a process of self-study. The students all have access to vast amounts of information which is tailored to their age level. First-year students have a totally different database to choose from than students in later age groups. Year two students have access to all of Year One data plus all of Year Two. And so it progresses.

What follows are highlights of the instructional materials Bon noted as significant as he was reading them or hearing them. The instructors at the Centers provide audio visual lectures to supplement what the students read for themselves and also provide irregular one-on-one Q&A sessions about materials that are being presented. The face-to-face sessions provide staff their best opportunity to judge the students on their progress and how they are thinking and adapting to life as a Shonakian should. It is important to note that every word spoken by Shonakian students is recorded as is every line they read. Word searches are made to discover trends in thinking which highlight student interests and concerns. Because Shonak prizes peace and tranquility they are always on the lookout for any deviation to this norm. People at all stages of their lives must be seen to adhere to this principle and those who don’t face interviews, retraining, or in severe cases, self-termination.

In Bon’s very first class the instructor was doing a face-to-face session. The instructor said, Welcome to the first day of your education. This is the beginning of your journey of education and training that will span the next forty S-Rots.

Bon noted that the instructor looked like they all did except he was twice their size and he had a yellow dot in the middle of his forehead. He also had a yellow emblem on his left wrist and noted that none of the students had anything like either of these things. He assumed they would all eventually be told about that.

We here at the center feel it is important for you to know the basics about who you are, what you are, and how you got here. With that, the students all took their seats and the instructor continued, Everyone here is a Shonakian, even me. We all live on the world known as Shonak which orbits its star and is one of many worlds that do so in what we call our stellar system. You will learn all about our stellar system later.

Evolution. The random chemical and biological events that resulted in us, the people of Shonak, yielded what you see here in class, hairless, dark-skinned, very slender, bipeds with three long fingers and a thumb, plus large ears and heads that make up one-third of our height. What does not show on the outside is our great intelligence, which is evidenced by your ability to understand these concepts at your very young ages. At less than a single Stellar Rotation, or S-Rot as we shorten it, you have nearly the same intellectual capability you will have when fully adult. The only thing you lack today is knowledge, and experience, which we will provide over the course of your time here. What you will do is assemble your growing fund of knowledge and experience into an understanding of the world around you and how to work favorably within it. We call that wisdom. Wise people know it is best to work within our social system which has long since proven itself to be the best way to a productive life.

Physiology. You will notice that we all look almost identical to each other which pleases us a great deal. We prize conformity and harmony above all else. Our leathery skins are uniformly brown in color, our eyes are uniformly orange, and our teeth uniformly black. Our adult height varies from each other less than a tenth of one percent as does our weight across the entire population. We attribute this to the fact that we all eat and drink the same foods in the same amounts all our lives. We do not suffer from disease, but records indicate there was disease among the earliest of our kind. We eradicated it through careful selection. Anyone who had any history of any disease was not allowed to bring an egg to successful hatching. We have many tests for intelligence and again all of us tend to be identically smart although there are subtle differences which results in different team choices. This is good news for us since if everyone wanted to join the same team and do the same things there would be chaos and it would mean the end of our current social order. He smiled at that, and continued, We are cold-blooded and wear no covering on our bodies. Since our bodies are always at or near the same temperature as our environment, and as we have a tough outer skin layer, there has never been any need for body adornments of any kind aside from our age tattoo, forehead mark, and Grand Team wrist badge. As he mentioned those features, he gestured to point them out. All of them were keenly aware of their age tattoos since they were all still a bit itchy after being applied.

You may have counted the size of this class.

Bon thought to himself that there were 49 others there, and including himself, this made 50. He had assimilated the in-egg education well and came away with a keen sense for this sort of thing."

Population Control. There are 50 of you here and there are 50 in every class when there are sufficient students to make that happen. We are very careful to distribute our population evenly over our world and this is assisted by the limits we put in the number of education centers and the number of classes in each. Since we anticipate you will all graduate in something like 40 S-Rots and enter society as an adult with your red dot, we have forty classes here and so do all the other Centers. We therefore have forty classes of fifty young blankheads here and this does not vary over time. Where you receive your education is unimportant as it makes no difference to what you learn and how you learn it. All of you are taught exactly the same things at exactly the same time in your lives as all the others. S-Rot One students, like you, will all be exposed to the same materials. Around your 30th S-Rot you will be sent for internships with various Grand Teams. That part of your training usually lasts for ten S-Rots and then you graduate. We are able to do this with such precision because Shonak does not have significant fluctuations in new egg hatchings. This also means we have no population pressure since we can choose if and when to have offspring and when to die, as well. We have long recognized that it is counterproductive to overpopulate our planet. The population of Shonak is almost always one hundred forty-two million individuals. This has not varied by more than 1% for many tens of thousands of S-Rots. It has proven to be a number adequate to the missions our Teams have and provides a stable number of people to feed, house, educate, train, and provide with basic services. While not mandatory there is consequently a hatching/death target of 101,555 persons per S-Rot that enables us to stabilize our population at that 142,000,000 target.

Reproduction. We are egg layers and can lay as many as two eggs in our lifetime. Most of us feel the compulsion to reproduce at around our 400th year and this is done simply by willing the egg to form. When it is ready we simply cough it up and catch it. Once the egg is out, we take it to the nearest Hatching Center and leave it with them. If population maintenance requires it, our regional Councilor from the Council of 142 will ask for volunteers to produce a second egg for hatching. A second egg may also be produced even without the announcement but most Shonakians do not take advantage of this option. Our air-permeable eggs are kept warm and moist in the hatching centers as they grow to maturity. The beds the eggs lie on are in a warm room with nutrient-rich air and soil for the young inside the egg to breathe and draw sustenance. This promotes healthy growth until hatching. In the last Planetary Rotations of life in your shell, you are all subjected to learning through the shell itself. This taught you the rudiments of language and calculations which enables us to begin teaching you more formally immediately after hatching. This is why you can all understand me in this, your first day of your first class, so soon after you emerged from your shells. The hatching centers you came to us from all tested you and found you ready to begin. The ones they did not find ready are receiving some additional education and if that is successful, they will be sent to an education center like this one. If they are not found successfully trained, they are not allowed to continue.

Bon wondered where they went instead.

On the screen you see the size of a newly laid egg. It is about the size of the palm of the hand of its parent, which you see here dropping the egg off at the hatching center nearest his team. You all looked like this just a single S-Rot ago. In your Hatching Center your stretchy leathery shells expanded to accommodate the growth of your young Shonakian bodies. There is no precise length of time it takes one of these eggs to hatch but it generally takes about one S-Rot. After hatching, tattooing, and feeding, you were evaluated to determine your overall health and aptitude. The fact that you are here gives evidence that you passed their tests and were transferred from the Hatching Sub-Team of Grand Team Medicine to Grand Team Education and Training.

Achieving Adulthood. When we deem you are ready you will emerge from this education and training fully ready to begin life with a functional Team in some field of specialization. At graduation you will be marked with your red dot. Your lives will be devoted to caring for your fellow citizens through fields of endeavor like transportation, communications, engineering, manufacturing, electronics, utilities, architecture, arts, and the infrastructure of living. You will work in one and possibly more of these disciplines for the duration of your long and productive lives. You will live with your teams in dormitories and all your work and social lives will happen within your team. Friendships are of course formed among team members that carry over beyond the task of a team so whenever your team disbands the former team mates can enjoy staying in touch with each other – but again, their discussions are always related to their work.

Time. "Time on Shonak is based on one constant: A single complete rotation of Shonak around our star. This is referred to as a Stellar Rotation or S-Rot. We also use planet rotations, of course. The planet rotation was established first, long before we recognized we were on a world traveling around a star. So, our time calculations follow this system:

Each Stellar Rotation (S-Rot) has 365 Planet Rotations

Each Planet Rotation (P-Rot) has 100 Portions

Each Portion (Prt) has 100 Segments

Each Segment (Seg) has 100 Subsegments

Each Subsegment (S-Seg) has any number of Microsegments (M-Seg) as measured by the technicians observing them during experiments or equipment trials, etc. These are only in common use in the science and technology community.

So, for example, a meeting between two Shonakians is desired for mid P-Rot tomorrow. That would be expressed like this: S-Rot305158.P-Rot 50..Port 50…Seg 0 which would be a meeting at mid-planet rotation on the 50th S-Rot of year 305158.

There are no holidays or weekends only days and every day is a work day. We do take time off between mission tasks or team assignments. One of our favorite Team sayings is, If you’re not doing anything, don’t do it here. Shonakians between missions or even between team assignments partake in leisure activity on their own or in groups but only until the next team assignment or mission task is available."

Age Seniority and Social Order. Since age is our only social stratifier we keep meticulous records concerning the age of all living Shonakians. Not surprisingly, therefore, the thing Shonakians find most interesting about others is their age, even before their Team assignments and experience. Once the age issue is out of the way we can then move on to what Teams you have been in and what Team you are in at present, what missions you have been on, what you have achieved, etc. This can and is often done electronically rather than bore everyone with verbal descriptions. Commonly a group of Shonakians who find themselves with strangers on a transport, for example, will enter the name and age information from their arms into their pads and read the history of each person before engaging in conversation, if they converse at all. Most conversation would center around common experiences or questions about various team assignments. Team members with the same color dot will simply refer to their age tattoos to see who is the oldest among them but this is not a preoccupation with them, just a matter of fact. Learning the precise ages of those around you is considered courteous as it eliminates many social errors. Minor sub-teams will have a preponderance of younger members and very important teams will favor a more senior membership. When a team has one or more members with a gold dot, which are accorded to people who have reached one thousand S-Rots of life, then the team is accorded a huge amount of respect and importance, which means that it has first pick of resources, both materials and personnel. Another important factor in Social Order is the fact that Shonak society is monolithic. We all speak the same language, and all identify simply as Shonakian. To that we add age and our Grand Team affiliation. There are no separate countries. There are no separate languages. There are no separate histories. A placid people, Shonak society is largely unstructured since there is no natural desire to be in charge or dominate anyone. People who meet socially do not meet for dinner. They may have a tube of food while meeting but that will be incidental. They meet socially to talk about their work and possibly about some recent leisure activity, so rare for most of them that this is a remarkable thing. Most socialization however takes place in our teams which preoccupy our entire population. We form and re-form Teams when we want to achieve something, and leadership automatically falls to the eldest team member. Date and time of birth, right down to the sub-segment, are strictly followed as these are always used to determine placement in a Team or in society throughout a person’s life. In fact, our birth date and time act as the only rank that exists in our simple social structure and this is tattooed on our upper arms, as was done to all of us right after hatching, to eliminate the need to always determine seniority. There is also another way to tell how old a person is, at least in general terms. Every adult Shonakian who has reached maturity has a colored dot in the middle of their forehead to signify their age group. They are considered mature when they are released from their education and training centers, after passing all the required tests, which usually happens at the age of 40 S-Rots. There are seven basic color levels for Shonakian age groups, corresponding to the colors of a prism, that change after every one-hundred and forty-two S-Rots have been completed. These are red, for the youngest people, then orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. You will have noted that I am a Yellow, which means my age is between 286 and 428 Stellar Rotations. My age tattoo will inform you that I am currently in my three-hundred and first S-Rot. If or when a person has been violet for 142 years, that is, on the first day of their 1000th S-Rot of living, they are accorded a gold dot which then does not change regardless how much longer they live. Age for gold dots is not terribly relevant unless there are more than one on a Team at which point the normal age seniority rules come into play. There is a specific salutation of greeting for each of the eight colors which includes the golds. You will get practice with them as you have more exposure to your variety of instructors and guest lecturers, but I will tell you now that my Yellow accords me a three-finger touch to the chest with the right hand, which he then demonstrated. Reds get a one-finger touch to the chest with the right hand, also demonstrated. Orange gets a two-finger touch to the chest with the right hand, like this. Yellow I have already covered. A Green dot receives a one finger touch to the chest with the left hand, just like this, and Blue receives a two-finger touch to the chest with the left hand, like this. Indigo receives a three-finger touch to the chest, again demonstrated. Violets get a two-hand touch to the chest with arms crossed, like this, and Golds get a two-fist touch to the chest with the fists bumping each other, like this. It is unlikely that any of you will meet a Gold before your internships beginning around your 30th S-Rot but there will be opportunities to practice with real Colors long before then.

To reiterate, then, and this is vitally important for you all to understand, there is perhaps nothing of more importance to Shonakians than our placid, uncontentious social order. Age seniority is an important driver of this well-regulated social order, but the real manifestation of our human nature lies in the team structure that dominates our lives and our planet. Our historians say that the dominance of the Team in our lives derives from our earliest social groups. Shonakians are tribal by nature. We do not function well by ourselves, so we formed groups and it was these groups which formed the basis of the present team structure that defines us as a people. They had no competitive spirit amongst themselves and no drive to dominate. They just wanted to succeed at survival and the pursuit of comfort. Teams were an easy solution to this desire and instead of forming different tribes that competed with each other they formed teams which competed against time and the excellence of their work. Whether it was building shelter or food storage or transport or furniture, or tools, or whatever, they gladly worked together in harmony to get it done and done well. The second driving component of this is age seniority. There is no competition to be in charge since that falls automatically to the oldest person on the team. The automatic cooperation given the Eldest practically ensured their success and the success of any team’s efforts.

Governance. "There are no governments on Shonak, no policy making institutions of any kind. We have no laws to follow, just customs. We do have the need for basic community services which are taken care of by various Teams. Trash collection teams collect and dispose of garbage. Drinking water and food teams ensure that all Shonakians have access to drinking water and food in their homes and wherever they go. Same for power, health, entertainment, etc. We have no crime and no wars so no reason for a police force or armies. Respect for life and dedication to the objective of our Teams is what really matters to us. It is rare to have disputes over resources or team or mission assignments, but it does happen. When it does, it does only briefly since the oldest person wins all disputes. With no government to make laws on such things we only have the time-tested team system and age seniority to go on. Since we Shonakians are a calm, rational people, any conflicts over the importance of projects or who made the largest contribution are never physical. Instead there is calm review of the facts and the truth of the matter always comes out, because we keep meticulous records and virtually every action in teams is monitored and recorded. In those rare occasions when teams need resolution or guidance, they seek it from The List of Twelve, composed of the twelve oldest Shonakians who are younger than the oldest living Shonakian, known simply as Our Eldest. Our Eldest is absolutely the last resort in deciding any unresolved differences of opinion or ordering of priorities and his decisions are never challenged since there is no avenue of further resolution. When an issue is decided by a member of the List of Twelve the decisions is final unless Our Eldest feels he must intervene, a very rare event. It is good for the List of Twelve to involve itself because it is a good method for them to gain the experience, they will need to perform their duties as Our Eldest when they automatically assume that post on the death of all those older than they are. Because these are the oldest Shonakians their deaths come frequently so there is a good bit of turnover amongst them. A significant role for the List of Twelve is the resolution of Grand Team disputes. Grand Team assignment arbitration most often involves team assignments based on the recommendations and requests from Grand Team Eldests who have competing desires. Typically, these disputes arise when two or more Grand Teams are trying to recruit the same person. The individual’s desires are considered but do not matter if GT Eldests are unable to agree. The other aspect to Team assignments is making sure that the various Teams in each region have enough people in the right skills to fulfill all their missions. Assisting them are the Council of 142 which are assigned geographic regions, each containing very close to one million people. The Regional Council has one major task. Its 142 Regional Councilors manage our population. It is the Regional Councilors who monitor the annual hatching and death numbers for their regions.

Teams. "Team structures on Shonak all follow the same pattern. There are the Grand Teams, each with numerous subordinate sub-teams. Currently the Grand Teams on Shonak are as follows: Science and Technology, Exploration, Information Systems, Energy, Power, Transportation, Manufacturing, Construction, Maintenance, Sustenance, Medicine, Public Utilities, Arts, Age, Mining, Education and Training, and Archives. Each Grand Team is led by the oldest member of that team, known as the Grand Team Eldest, or GTE. The Grands all have numerous sub-teams at many levels which may be dispersed geographically around the planet, or even off-planet. These are like Public Utilities, which has geographic sub-teams everywhere Shonakians are living. The Grands’ specialty sub-teams, like GT Science and Technology’s many, many sub-teams each representing different scientific and technology disciplines or projects. There are also subordinate sub-teams which again, further narrow the field of work for the sub-teams in their category. Grand Team missions very often intersect with other Grands in the performance of their missions and it is common for members of one Grand Team to work on a project with people from one or many other Grand Teams. As always, the oldest member of any joint Team at any level is the Eldest of that team or sub-team and is completely in charge which is never disputed by anyone. All adult Shonakians who are in a team wear a wrist band with their Grand Team logo to identify the Grand Team they belong to. The color of the band matches the color of their age dot, so their seniority and age can be estimated even if they are facing away from you. As you have observed my Yellow band bears the badge of Grand Team Education and Training. There is a fair amount of team loyalty among Shonakians, and the focus of that loyalty is to the tasks the team has been formed to achieve, rather than to the individual members of the Team, or even of the team itself. Mission focus is the closest thing to a cult following on Shonak. Many of the missions the teams have are long-standing or permanent, like sewage treatment and basic public infrastructure. Some are short lived, like building a bridge or a dam. If the team has been formed to construct a