The Untitled Story(the beginning!)

“The flash lights don’t work either..” Mark, call sign Beagle, said as he entered the opening of the cavern. Mentally, his eyes were still adjusting to the abrupt dark that set in with the night coming in for the first time in days. The binary system of Unatute stars ensured that this G-class planet had night once every six days. It played hell with the weather patterns, causing huge storms that lasted for months. That this planet had ever survived the formation of the binary system was still a mystery that threw academia into a tempest when it was discovered.

Two years ago, the planning for this expedition had started. Unatute was part of Phase Six space, eventually to be terraformed into an industrial planet for the dynasties that currently controlled the affairs of the Space Confederation formed in the early 22^nd century. Nearly 450 years had passed since its formation when its founder Zachary Wolf had discovered the hyper wormholes. By latching on to tachyons, the user could be transported from one place to another within the space of seconds according to Earth time, now an anachronism on many planets. With people now settling across the galaxy, Earth was just another planet, albeit the cultural centre of the Galaxy. Space Confederation was like any other bureaucracy, now large and unwieldy controlled by the few that could afford the luxury of appointing the men and women to agencies of their choice. With all the planets of the Confederation pledging allegiance to it, the Confederation directly controlled the lives of a quintillion people now spread out over a sector of the Galaxy.

The discovery of Unatute I and II had spawned a widespread intellectual tumult in that by all known laws of physics, the planet should not have existed, yet there it was, as if in cosmic defiance to all that could care. Its shape too perfectly round, and featureless save for a cavern that existed on the far side of the planet. In all respects the planet was stationary and was there as if the stars revolved around it. An expedition was eventually planned and launched by the Confederation in due course towards the planet.

“Beagle, I read you. Check and use thermal imagers, see if you can find anything. Scan all frequencies. Something is causing this electrical storm, and I don’t think it’s the weather. This is Mitt, out.” Mitt Rowell was the commander of the mission. This was supposed to be a routine run of the mill mission on exploration of a planet and its attributes. He had a wide experience of those, and they had almost always ended the same way, in most cases the planet being very docile and ready for terraforming.

“Negative on all frequencies, sir. I am switching over to sub space transmitting frequencies. Nothing here either. The quantum signatures are not registering on any modules. I will attempt to move inside and report from there. Will maintain an open comm link to report.” Mark said as he switched his sensors on. After thirty minutes of walking into the cavern, he switched off the sensors. “Sir, negative on all readings still, will return to shuttlecraft and wait for further developments after the storm. This is Beagle out.”

“Beagle, I read you. Maintain an open comm link throughout the storm, we do not wish to lose your coordinates due to the energy pulses emanating from the storm.”

“Yes, sir. I understand. Will catch you on the flip side of the storm sir. Wait a minute, I am picking up something on the subspace scanners. Switching to active, hold steady.” Beagle’s voice emanated over the comm link. “Its some sort of code and its repetitive, sir. I am uplinking the signal to the command module sir. See if the computer can analyze it.”

“Beagle, advised to maintain position and transmit. Receiving signal, now. Computer, analyze the signal for any known messages. Run it through the Loki-Nuth Algorithm.”

“Captain, I am picking up large amounts of quantum fluctuations in the subspace arrays. Advise that we put our shields up.” the ship engineer called out over the link.

“Very well, shields up. Go to red alert status.” Mitt was fully alert now, and at the helm during this time. This was his first red alert status that he had ever ordered but training and discipline from his training days at Earth, it came automatically to him. “Lt. Commander, bring back Beagle to the ship, and take us out of orbit.”

“Yes, sir. Beaming Beagle back to the ship. Beagle, stand by.” As soon as Mark was back on the ship, he came to see the Captain.

“Captain, inside the cavern I saw something that should not have been there, and I did not wish to transmit over the comm link. Sir, you remember the part of the Confederation’s code dealing with time travelling and what to do in case we encounter members from the future?” Mark asked him.

“But, that was just mumbo jumbo from some hare brained scientist, who didn’t know what he was saying and they ratified it as it is really nonsense. Time travel does not exist and is not possible. I know what all the stories and the strange theories predict that some day it might be possible but I don’t see how it could be relevant in this case.” Mitt replied, surprised that a crew member would even bring up such a clause of the Code.

“Sir, this is in the strictest of the confidences that I tell you this. I saw a ship inside the cavern. It looked old and disabled, larger than any ship in the Confederation. It looked abandoned and was just hanging there. No lights, no subspace communications, nothing on the scanners for life. Also the scanners picked up that no one had been inside this cavern for over a million years. Sir, a million years ago, humans were closer to their ape compatriots.

“That’s ridiculous. The scanners must be wrong. Send me what you found.” Mitt thought back to the time he reported an anomaly on Mars, the first true colony of Earth. Green cadet that he was, his shipmates played a trick on him by reprogramming his scanners to show a large invasion force from an unknown alien, apparently hostile and destroying the planet. In the confusion, he never looked out the window to see all was fine on the surface of the planet. He trusted the scanners to do what they were doing. He raised alert levels on all planets to high levels and the entire defence force was mobilized in seconds only to find a cadet who was scared not to look out his own window. From then on he decided to trust his instincts rather than what the machines showed. Old fashioned thinking though that might be, after the fiasco, he rapidly rose through the ranks to the point where there weren’t many people left to remind of this particular story. “What’s the status of the storm? Give me updates, I want all heads in on this.”

“Captain, this is Beagle. The storm is holding still as if to cover the cavern. The quantum fluctuations are increasing. In a few moments, I will have to leave this position sir. My scanners report all normal. I am uploading the data now.”

As Mitt went through the data, he was shocked to find that this was real. There was a ship there in the cavern.

“Captain, the ship appears to be moving. It’s moving to portside. Hold on. I will try to get a visual of the ship. The scanners are going crazy. I have never seen anything like this before. The readings are off the scale. The ship appears to be powering up. I am now within visual range of the ship. There is some red light that seems to be emanating from it. I am trying to get a reading, sir. I ...”

A loud explosion rocked the vessel as Mitt was thrown to side. Warning lights flashed all around him, as he tried to stand up.

“Comm, what the hell is going on?”

History Revisited!

I got an argument against history from my friend that there is an opportunity cost to everything we do. The time that we spend in doing something, could be used in doing something else more profitable or more time worthy I suppose. She argued that learning history, going through books and all, were time taken away from other things like academics (I mean getting higher in school and all which is a commendable goal despite what the cynics might have to say about the education system), athletics (being more fit), or having fun with friends (hanging out and having a life in general I suppose).

Anyway, to refute these points one by one, I want to first state that people have different goals in life. Each of the above categories, people give different weightage to depending on their goals. Some might give entirely to academics, some to sports and some to hanging out. So depending on what you want to do, reading etc, will always have an opportunity cost. Since it does occupy time, it will always prevent you from doing something else. But isn’t that true of all activities? Will not every activity have an opportunity cost with this reasoning? However, reading about history I want to argue that its opportunity cost is much lower. History is one way of learning to sift through myth and reality, which is pretty important for any businessman who has to read a multitude of reports. The ability to summarize entire texts within a coherent brief of a couple of pages is very important in today’s world of infinite knowledge. This can be pointed out by the fact that HP’s former CEO Carly Fioriana was a major in Medieval History, and she did relate to this skill when she explained her success as a CEO. In athletics, or physical development, history isn’t all that important, but don’t we always like to know about the sport we play? Wouldn’t we want to about the greats that played the game and how the game evolved over time? Isn’t that a way of enjoying the game itself? Sure, there would be an opportunity cost of not playing the game, but would you be playing 24x7 that there would be no time left during the day? I mean most of the knowledge you pick up by watching tv which you do retain, and I don’t think that this would be major inconvenience of any sort to learning. And then hanging out in general, again it is not a 24x7 job that would force you to not have any time to yourself. There are 24 hours in a day and life is too short to spend it sleeping. I think longer than 7-8 hours a days is indulgence which has a higher opportunity cost than anything else. With average work being around 10 hours a day, that leaves about 8-9 hours a day free which I am sure increasing your general knowledge and a little about history shouldn’t take more than an hour or two. Besides that, we all have history and all taught to us during our school years and if we can relate what we learn in class and retain a part of it, (which also increases your academic knowledge at any rate), that would be quite a knowledge base to begin with. Although there is an opportunity cost attached to this, considering that we use only about a small percentage of our brains at any rate, I don’t think this would cause an overload at any rate. Also, a lot of history can be learnt by just reading the newspaper everyday and relating what you know to what is happening in the world today. A question of relating events more than anything else to understanding foreign policy of various nations, for example the fight in Ossetia in Russia and the Russian response to the insurgency, the blunted American protests in response. Also we can relate more to what’s happening in the world through what we know especially in a world where cross country borders are becoming more lines in the minds of academicians as today’s technologies bring the world much closer to each other.

Personally, I don’t think it was a high opportunity cost in learning history, which is totally unrelated to my field of choice which was engineering. I still did well academically, played sports, hung out with friends and did many more activities. I may not have done too well, but I don’t think I would blame my excessive if not obsessive book reading mania for that. There were probably other reasons for not doing too well, but this was one of my ways to escape the confines of reality and let my imagination take me away…Its like the song, Overkill, “I can’t get to sleep, I think about the implications of diving in too deep, and possible the complications, especially at night, I worry over situations, I know will be alright, perhaps its just imagination. Day after day it reappears, Night after night, my heartbeat shows the fear..Goes to be here and fade away, Come back another day… (This is for my friend that gave this argument than anything else).  

Empty homes and history!!

Ok, simple enough explanation for this title I suppose. The short story, I am writing this as I sit in my empty home now, devoid of all furniture and electronics, books and shelves, an empty home. Anyway, I can’t help feel sad that this is the last time I will look upon this place and see it no more. Rather from Edgar Allen’s poem, The Raven… “Quoth the raven nevermore”. Or could be the Green Day’s song Time of your Life… “Its something unpredictable but in the end is right, I hope you had the time of your life” Looking back over the last five years that I lived here, well not exactly “lived” considering that four years I have spent in a hostel, yet there was the knowledge, that yes, there was a place I could go back to… Now I am civil engineer without a home… Where’s the irony in that? Anyway, getting back to more saner things in life… Anyway, I was having a long conversation with one of my good friends, namely Tulika, on the importance of history… I mean why is it important? How does something, someone did a long time ago affect our daily lives? I am probably sure that everyone can get on through life without knowing any history at all as well…But as an ardent learner of history, I feel compelled to defend it. There is a saying, Those who do not know history, are condemned to repeat it. To me this sounds just like a bromide, and this is not the defense I want to use. It seems a very weak defense as well. There are good examples of this being true through the course of history of course. I am sure if people look up the European wars through the ages, it can be seen tat the shortsightedness of the statesmen in looking at immediate gains rather than longer views forced countries into wars which were neither profitable nor worthy. If we can see Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, and Hitler’s invasion nearly a century later, we can see that both failed due to the same reasons of fighting wars on two fronts, and of course the perennial General Winter of Russia. Both stopped with sighting distance of Moscow and turned back. Then we can see the colonization processes of Britain, France and now the US and how they all proceed in the exact same manner. It can be even said that they are following centuries old policies of the Romans itself, mainly divide and conquer. Anyway, leaving that defense, I wanted to see how it is useful everyday life itself. What it means to know history and relate it to yourself. I agree that you can go through life without ever knowing history, probably never bother about it all. However imagine how much more richer would the knowledge make you, being able to see things as they are now in their historical context. For example, Giacometti’s statues which to an observer would just seem like badly made cariacatures, but put in their context of being made between the two world wars depict the lonely, desperate times and what man yearned to get out of. An energetic being brought down by an impending sense of doom almost, lonely as it stands against the tide that seems to wipe over humanity. Or Wagner’s music, which on first hearing would seem very good, and it in fact is excellent. But put in the context of Wagner’s philosophies and teachings, would put an anti Semitic face to the music, deploring it of all music. The Nazis would later use this as their purifying music fit for their Master Aryan race. So playing this music for your Jewish friends might not be the best way to fit in with them. Also history teaches us a way of sifting through facts and myth to come up something real, as how people were all those times ago and seeing if what we live in is a better way now? Has the quality of our life been improving or simply a repetition of what our predecessors did? These might not be questions we ask ourselves in the course of daily events, but these are relevant questions if you want to be able to do something different, something what the world had not seen before. In the future, people might debate as to how we used to live, what were our outlooks on life, what were our beliefs, what code of standards did we use to live by. Anyway, history to me personally is like a story, a tale of how man has progressed through the ages. How we have grown from living in caves and dwellings and now have skyscrapers and high rise buildings built into the sky, as if to challenge the very gods themselves to dare stop us.

Anyway, I have been thinking of writing a story for some time now, and have found a good plot line I think… I will put up the starting on the next blog and see how people like it…Guys remember, I am no Isaac Asimov, so don’t expect too much either…

Strange Things

I guess this is the take off from the movie Wild Things, which I am sure every engineer has seen wide eyed. Anyway, in a lighter vein of things, I have modified the line Dilios says in 300 to suit any engineer to tell the truth:
“The old ones say that we engineers are descended from Newton himself. Taught never to look at women, never to sleep. Taught that cheating in the exam is the greatest glory he could achieve in his life. Engineers: the finest drunkards the world has ever known”
So moving on, with the song Cocaine stuck in my head.. “if you wanna get down, down on the ground; cocaine; she dont lie, she dont lie, she dont lie..cocaine” Actually this is the product of a person whose senses right now are numbed to the point, where coming up with something to put on the blog is becoming a pain itself. So over the weekend, read a book called War 2020, a world in which the US influence is decreased due to increased Japanese technology whose laser weapons have created a stalemate in the world. Basically Russia is down, and the Cold War continues with Japan and US on opposite ends. The US military is obliterated by the Japanese war machines, and the economy due to extensive outsourcing is controlled by outside forces. Now the Americans decide to support Russia in an unprecedented move to push back the rebel forces in Russia and thus regain some of the lost pride which they lost in wars to South Africa, Mexico, Los Angeles(internal gang rebellion) and Latin America in general who were being supplied by the Japanese. Also a disease without a cure ravages the western world while the eastern world somehow survives it unscathed. Now this all sounds very unbelievable to the point of being ludicrous, but hear the author out after the setting. It’s a pretty interesting book as to what happens and all. I personally think that this has to do with the outsourcing issue and the irrational fear that the Americans have about it. I mean the jobs that are being outsourced to other countries are the non essential jobs, that one could argue could have generated jobs in US but is being outsourced to India. But the fact remains that the corporations save a lot of money here, which they reinvest to have meaningful jobs back in the US. I mean, they pay software engineers in India the equivalent of what a guy flipping burgers in a McDonalds in US. Would people want to really do those jobs, or will the corporations be willing to pay them higher for those jobs? It could signal the end of the software bubble that India has been riding on for the last couple of years. Otherwise, it could lead to a monumental loss to the US market, as the jobs don’t get filled and the corporations claim the taxes… However, with both candidates set against outsourcing, we will have to wait and see the results of their policies.
Also the other thing was seeing John McCain selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate. This is a disappointment coming from a senator of 30 years to select someone who does not seem qualified to hold the post of Vice President. I don’t have anything against her, but it just seems an amateurish way to capture the women vote and appease the Conservatives… It just seems like this might blow up in his face with Sarah Palin being inexperienced whereas McCain attacks Obama on being inexperienced.
Anyway, enough of the American elections, I am too tired to discuss that any further today. I instead wanted to talk about a section I belonged to while in IIT Roorkee. It was called Program Management or PM for short, part of Cultural society. Once upon a time in my first year, I remember going to an interview with a group of people. I thought generally at the time, to stay away from my room. I figured, either I should be in the room to study or outside enjoying. So I sat down, and two people took my interview. It was a weird interview. In two minutes they figured out I didn’t know hindi, could not draw, and wasn’t all too imaginative. I figured, that’s the end of it, lets have pizza at Nescafe and go back to the room, but for some reason they passed me through. Again, probably a clerical error of putting my paper on the wrong stack now that I think back to it. So I made it to this group at the time. It seemed like a fun group and the people seemed fun. The first meeting we had, I was christened Yella at any rate. One of the seniors found Rahul too hard to remember and thus shortened my last name to that.. Now four years later, that’s the name everyone knows me by. I honestly don’t think anyone knows me as Rahul. I even wrote an article in third year in a magazine claiming I am not Yella. Actually I tried to emulate Leonard Nimoy who plays Spock in Star Trek. He wrote a book I am not Spock as everyone associated him with that only..Later he wrote a book called I am Spock. Anyway after that article, people called me Yella even more… Back to the story, PM was a big part of my time in IITR. I worked and the people in the group were fun and energetic as hell. It involved basically organizing events for Cult Soc. Through this group, I had some very cool seniors and some very good juniors. I made some of my best friends there and four years was too short a time to spend with you guys there. I will always treasure the moments with you guys. Actually the trip down nostalgia lane was brought upon while discovering a greeting card given four years back by these guys on my birthday. I found it when I was packing my parents stuff so that they could move. I guess at the end of all things, all you are left with are memories of a time you left behind.