A New Tomorrow

[Wayne23]

DDS:CB 2020: A New Tomorrow
April 27, 2177: Jake Bender here. I just got a new job- well, not really a job, sort of a hobby related job, but I'm pretty happy about it. I'm going to be coaching basketball. But before I get to that...

I'm kind of a historian, although that's not a real job here, so I'll do a little historical background as to who we are, where we are, how we got here, and all of that.

Back in around 2055-2060 it became obvious that time was rapidly running out for the human race on planet earth. A long history of "La, la, la, I can't HEAR you," around climate change, taking only minimal actions to exacerbate the problem, and good old denial had led the people of Earth to the point where it no longer mattered what they did. They were screwed.

So the usual powers that be- the wealthy, the well connected... tried to come up with a plan to save some part of the population- mainly the wealthy and the well connected, of course. After a great deal of study they concluded that there was no way to do that "on planet."

That meant a space ship, or a bunch of space ships. These people had all of the money and all of the power, so they started doing what needed to be done to make it happen.

Scientists, engineers, techies, all other relevant personal were hired. Money was not an issue but time was. It seemed that within a couple of decades most of the planet would be underwater.

Well, the STEM folks got going on the problem. Theoretically none of this was a problem but practically there were lots of issues to overcome. The heavy hitters were thinking multiple huge ships. Ideally they wanted a million people to be able to escape Earth.

This turned out to be a little too ambitious. But over a period of a decade and a half, by 2075, the ships had been conceived, planned, designed, and finally, built.

Thirty-five ships, each with the ability to house 10,000 people were built in space and ready to populate and launch. Nothing remotely at this scale had ever been accomplished. The ships were built in space, of course.

It had been decided they they would launch at half capacity so that there would be room for population increase.

The ships would head out from Earth in a caravan, destined to explore space in hopes of finding a habitable planet.

By this time the tech had advanced to the point where ships could safely travel as fast as .2 light. This, while incredibly fast, meant the trip would be multi-generational. No possibly habitable planet could be reached within the span of a single lifetime. If someone wanted to sign up for this trip they had to understand that they would spend the rest of their lives in space.

And here's where it got interesting on two fronts:

First, a last minute technical advance had made it possible for these thirty-five ships to be connected, in a roughly spherical pattern, with connecting tubes between ships. It might be necessary to make a few connections to get from one specific ship to another, but with a little patience, any resident of any ship would be able to travel to any other ship. This would be enormously helpful for any number of reasons.

Second, the STEM people pulled a fast one on the money people. All the while they were working they were also compiling very secret lists... lists of people who should be invited to board the ships. Interestingly enough, not a lot of these were the people who were financing the work. How they went about this and how they kept it secret would be a book in itself. Suffice it to say, that they managed to make it happen. They included all the necessary scientists, techies... but they also thought about the kinds of people who could keep the ships running efficiently over what would inevitably be a very long journey over a very large amount of time. They added innovators, philosophers, artists of all kinds- just a population rich in the expertise needed to sustain life, as well as the sensitivity to make it worthwhile to be alive in the necessarily confined area of a ship, even a very large ship. They thought about all of this a great deal, of course.

So on September 23, 2075, the hub had been constructed and all 35 ships connected to it. 175,000 people boarded shuttles from earth (actually, a few thousand were already on board the ships), and the hub took off, leaving thousands of startled and enraged wealthy people behind, with no way to catch up.

So that's how it all started. I'll continue with details about life on board the ships in my next segment.

[Wayne23]

April 28, 2177: So yes, 175,000 people on 35 ships, headed for another solar system far, far away. Now there are about 295,000, and we'll max out at about 350,000; we don't really have room for more than that many people.

What do we do? Well, all of us have jobs. I'm on the S. S. Enrico Fermi, and I'm the chief statistician. It is my job to track all kinds of things- what's on hand, needed, in short supply, surplus... There is a LOT of stuff to keep track of. As a matter of fact I have three people on my staff. I also must report to the chief statistician for the entire mission, and occasionally meet with her and with the rest of the statisticians.

Other jobs? Everything needed- chain of command to run the various vessels, a government, rudimentary in many ways but there, engineers in large numbers, techies in large numbers, scientists in large numbers, maintenance staff, people to work in all the vital areas- the engines first and foremost, air supply, water supply, food supply, waste management, health care, child care and education, repairs and upkeep, cleaning, entertainment and recreation...

Everyone age 16 and older works a 21 hour week, three 6 hour days and a 3 hour day. There are shifts working around the clock. LOTS of people work more, often many more hours than that, but that's the requirement. Oh, yes, we have maintained Earth standard time and calendar. It's what we're used to. And the ships operate on 80% of Earth gravity.

We have holodecks on every ship. Lots of them. They pretty much operate the way you've seen them on futuristic video programs or in books about the future, and they enable us to do lots of things we could not otherwise do. They are vital to the well being of all of us. More about them later, probably lots more.

We also have tremendously efficient and effective 3D printers that can make virtually anything, and usually within less than a day. More about them, too.

I think that's enough intro. I'll move onto basketball in my next post, and continue to fill you in on life aboard ship as I go along.

[Wayne23]

April 29, 2177: I am very excited to announce that I am the new head Coach of Umass-Lowell, in the America East Conference. Okay, before I go on, that itself needs some explanation.

Basketball and soccer have been the two primary sports that have been played aboard the ships practically since the day they launched. Other sports are played but informally. Over time leagues of one kind and other were formed. This year, after 102 years in space, it was decided that we would launch the "New NCAA." There are no universities as such here, but we thought it would be fun to run our leagues exactly as they were run long, long, long ago. So all of the Division I teams and conferences were formed, and here we are. Oh, one more thing.

Before launching, the scientists in the field collected DNA from tens of thousands of people, living and dead, in every imaginable field. Among those fields was basketball coaching. So the DNA of guys like John Wooden, Bobby Knight, and just about all of the others was taken, preserved, and brought along.

That didn't have much use until recently. But a few years ago our scientists managed to create artificial life forms- synths (synthetic human beings); well, they were created a long time ago actually. I should say they were pretty much perfected a few years ago. I defy anyone to tell a synth from a "real" person if they don't have inside knowledge. So now all kinds of "people" are with us, in synthetic bodies, from Einstein to Frank Sinatra to Babe Ruth, they're all here. The DNA was implanted and lots of work way more complex than I understand was done to make these synths as much as possible like the actual humans were.

We have other synths that were never people, used for other purposes, but more on that later.

So, just about all of the famous coaches from the past are with us in the New NCAA, and if I get good enough to get into a top flight conference I'll be competing against them. Can't wait!

I'm going to be one hell of a great coach! How do I know that? Well, a few reasons. First, I played for a great coach here. This was before the New NCAA, and it wasn't a historical coach, but Frank Bailey was the best. He knew I was interested in coaching so he took me under his wing and taught me everything he knew. As it happens I have an eidetic memory. I not only don't, but I can't forget anything I've learned. So I have all of that knowledge at my disposal. Not only that but I've read just about every really worthwhile book on coaching college basketball, and that's all in my memory and available to me. Finally, I'm good with people and I'm a real motivator. So I plan to get it done in a big way, and I plan to move up quickly.

Here's how I'll run the River Hawks:

On Offense it will be Princeton and Triangle against man to man, a little more Princeton.

On Defense I'll run man to man about 60% of the time, 2-3 about 20%, 3-2 about 20%. I won't press unless we need to.

I don't expect to have a real deep bench. Probably play 7 or 8 guys most of the time. I am BIG on rebounding. We will go to the boards on both ends.

I run a pretty fast paced O, and I like my D to be pretty intense.

My three assistants are all fairly new to all of this. Mika Paris is a biologist. She loves hoops and is a quick study; she's my practice/bench coach. Nick Leno is a statistician in my department. He loves the game too, and I hope he'll pick things up. He's my recruiter. Lou Hinn is a hydration tech (He works in the water department, testing division). Very analytical mind. He'll scout.

Our goal is to finish in the top 3 in the AEC. We'll see.

How did we decide who coached where and which players they got? After the "Great Coaches" were assigned it was simply done at random. I could have landed anywhere. Assigning players was a VERY complex process. It was all computerized and more of the better players by far went to the top flight schools. That's about all I know. The programmers could probably tell you more.

All games are played in the holodecks, but each game is played on the appropriate court- home team court, or neutral site. Fans are anyone who is not working and wants to watch a game.

Oh, all real players, no synths. At least for now. It takes some shift adjustment at times but people simply trade shifts.

And we get to the games that are not on our ships via the tunnels.

The tunnels are called that but they aren't really tunnels. They're moving walkways, next to moving roadways for vehicles. The walkways run at 4 miles per hour and the roadways at 30 mph.

The conferences are set up at adjoining ships so there's usually just one walkway involved in conference games, but when we're playing the pre-conference schedule and the post season there can be multiple tunnels to traverse.

What do I think of my team? Not sure quite yet, and we won't start practice until the beginning of October, but from what I've seen of these guys in the past we should be solid up front and in trouble in the backcourt. Hoping I'm wrong about that but we only have one even decent guard. We'll work the guards really hard once practices start and hope for the best.

[PointGuard]

Dayum! I obviously didn't have the $$ to get aboard and guess not the expertise either. So am trying to read this dynasty report while keeping my head above water here on earth.

[jksander]

That's some serious backstory!

[Wayne23]

This is the way I do my dynasties, jk. Lots of back story.

[jksander]

This is the way I do my dynasties, jk. Lots of back story.

I dig it

[Wayne23]

May 1, 2177: Today my assistants and I decided which scouting reports to purchase. We don't have a big budget so we settled for the Atlantic East Basic report. We won't do much recruiting out of our area so this should be fine.

Oh, team budgets are based upon how strong the team is expected to be. We're way down near the bottom on that scale. We're decent academically but our facilities are pretty much what you'd find at a decent but not great high school.

6/25: We're not going to any of the camps. We can't afford it.

6/26: Recruiting starts today. It's hard to say what we can expect. I'm hoping to get some decent guards. We're going to need them. We have 4 scholarships to give.

8/14: There's an awful lot to this coaching business and I have lots of other things that need to get done so it's not easy to fit it all in. As I said I'm the head statistician here on the Fermi, with a staff of three, and I report to the chief statistician for the entire hub of 35 ships. At times I am required to go to another ship to do the stats there. It may be that someone is ill, or at times there are other reasons. Anyway, my 21 hour work week is more usually 30-35 hours. On top of that I exercise regularly. We all do. It's the only way to stay healthy on a ship, even one with 80% gravity. I get into a holodeck and jog along a trail somewhere. I vary the trails so that I'm seeing new things often.

I'm on the Fermi's governing council, a ten member board that serves as the ship's government. We meet twice a week to discuss what's happening, to take care of any problems that may arise, and to hear reports from the various agancies.

Then there's my passion for history. I study as much as I can about life on Earth. None of us will ever see it again, and by now no doubt everything is underwater anyway, but it is where we all came from and I think we need to remember what it was like. I also play duplicate bridge once a week.

8/21: We offer scholarships to two PGs, an SF, and a PF, but we'll be lucky to land even one of them. They're not showing much interest. We'll keep at it but my guess is that we'd better save some money for the Spring when we may have better luck by going after guys who weren't offered to by the schools they were most interested in.

9/18: No luck with recruiting so far but we have a schedule. We looked to play the weakest non-conference schedule possible. I want to get some wins.

9/25: We lose a recruit but I think we're getting close to a PG.

10/2: Still no luck with recruiting. Today is the first day of practice. After practice and after my meeting with my staff I am definitely still concerned about the back court. I think we're fine inside, but I don't know if we'll take care of the ball and get it to the players we need to get it to. Same on D, inside we'll be tough but not in the back court. Oh well, we've got about six weeks to make things better and we'll certainly work at it.

I haven't talked much about food. First we eat in cafeterias which stay open 24 hours a day since people are working throughout the day and night. Hungry people drop in and get a meal, and breakfast, lunch, and dinner are all served at all times.

There's no meat here, no dairy, no eggs. And that would be difficult except that so much progress has been made with plant based foods that look and taste like meat, eggs, cheese, yogurt, milk... that they work. And when you consider that no one alive has ever tasted the "real thing" we're fine.

We, of course, grow all of our own food, but not every ship grows everything. The tunnels bring the various foods from one ship to another. We grow berries here, blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries, and apples. They grow all year long in our gardens, and we supply the entire hub. The Sagan, which is right near us, grows broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower, again, for the entire hub. There are a few ships that grow and process the "meatless meats," and that's the general idea. Some ships have one or two products, some have several. Some grow the same things all the time, and others grow some things for a while and then switch to others. It all works. We have a varied, healthy diet, and there's always plenty of food. The rule is take all you want but eat all you take. We want to stay as close to zero waste as possible even though everything is recycled.

The quality control people do vitally important work keeping the farms running and producing.

10/30: I'd have to say that the back court is looking better. Not sure if they'll be good enough but they are definitely ahead of where they were.

11/14: Tomorrow we head through the tunnels to play on the court of Houston Batfest. They don't seem to be a very good team but then I have no idea if we're any good either. This will be our first indication.

[jksander]

Houston Batfest lol ... I gotta use that one. I hate those fuckers, they just beat me in my dynasty, sneaky Baptists lol

[Wayne23]

Stay tuned. I think we play Incoherent Word soon.