Galaxy University
(part 2)
by Thadd Presley
We walked quickly through the over-capacity cafeteria. Her carrying a stolen tray and I hoping no one recognized me as the Compu-Server Attendant. I had shed my green and brown shirt and tried to keep from running. I felt much better once we got outside in the open air.
On beautiful days, the dome is barely visible and the red dwarf shines through like a small furnace at the end of a long hallway. Most people don’t appreciate the clarity of a dirt-free dome and it should be a crime to not hold the Honorable Guild of Dome Scrubbers as a cultural treasure. It’s not many who would go into the harsh elements of a hostile planet and power spray, acid wash, towel dry, and shine humongous domes, some the size of large cities.
The open spaces of the campus were freeing in a way that only an institute of higher learning could make is seem. It lifted my soul to know such amazing architecture of intellect like Campus 514 existed. Not all Campuses were like ours.Just to know that any place could gather together people from across the galaxy and openly share ideas of life and the future in a fearless way made all the hardships of being away from home worth it.
Back on Earth, the people who controlled the wealth controlled the schools and the food and the many of the workers had no choice but to do what everyone else did.Wars were fought and ended at the whim of the wealthy. But here, at The Europa Science Academy, no one had money. In fact, currency had become tied solely with oxygen. All data was encrypted and compiled in a closed computer system that adjusted the oxygen according to the schools placement, ranking, and listing against all other Campuses. It allowed us to be independent from economics of the system and most importantly it loosened the hold Earth had on us.
Only a few families held all the wealth of Earth and it’s Companion Planets. They dictated the cost of ore, goods, foods, and water. For most, oxygen was free. But everywhere the air was free, it was polluted. In places jobs flourished, famine and disease was rampant. Only the cities of theIdle Rich were clean, healthy, and overflowing with abundance.
There was once a great scientist, a man who’s name is only known by few and utterly unimportant to the rest of humanity due to his not signing his research papers. He explained in a lengthy letter to all the Heads of States on Earth and it’s companion planets that the culture of “currency” as we know was soon going to become nothing but a reason for war. When he wrote is paper, he described it as being invented more than 6,000 years ago and was no longer a viable way to distribute resources. He went on to describe a system of a “resource-based-economy” and how it could be initiated. He drew blueprints from what cities would look like and described how everyone would have what they needed and there would be no need of excess. Machines would build, mine, and make everything needed.
His paper was ignored by the powers and unknown to the public due to the media being owned by a very biased, but wealthy and powerful, few. The self-made videos and published books were uncovered long after his death. It was one of his students who brought the paper to light and showed the academic world the amazing promise of a resource based system.
Even as the people of Earth counted their money and scoffed at such high minded idiocy, a team of ship designers and specialist were building the first of twenty“free-ships” which were to go into orbit the very next year.
Copyright Thadd Presley — All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.