This is the first entry in the personal log of Dr. Alan C. Barlow, assigned to passenger management, and health services for the Arc-ship Salvation, employee of the Eden Foundation.
My name is Dr. Alan Barlow; I am the passenger management supervisor on Arc-ship EO15 for the Eden Foundation. We have been working on this project three years and two months now, and are nearing our departure window. Two months ago we began shuttling our voluntary passengers to Eden’s lunar base of operations, knows as Tranquility Center 5, for orientation and evaluation. We have elected to assign jobs based on skill level and experience. As this would no doubt cause some conflict, with some we have also established a training program so the less skilled and experienced passengers can move into a “more desirable” position, and therefore become more valuable.
As a whole, we have managed to keep our 1200 voluntary passengers content with this process. There was some minor conflict when we had to reject 200 volunteers due to genetic defects and disease, but the outrage was short lived. We hope not to repeat that misunderstanding, and have since decided to inform our passengers of any procedure, and its intended purpose before we begin. Our mistake was allowing rumor to spread as we screened passengers. Once we explained that we could not afford to have passengers that would strain limited resources and present a danger to themselves and the ship, the outrage subsided. Currently we are fighting rumors that we collected a genetic profile from each passenger in order to match potential mates. While this was debated within the group, we decided that this practice would ultimately fail. We have instead set up programs, not yet active, to encourage relationships and responsible reproduction.
My role, for the time being, is to ensure everyone has been registered, profiled, screened for medical and psychological deficiencies, and assigned a job (as that for some reason falls under psychological fitness). Our facility management group is handling living quarters, and all other equipment. Once we depart, my role will evolve to overseeing the on-board healthcare network. A change I am looking forward to, as I am growing tired of the administrative paperwork involved in this phase of the project. Why did I take this job again?
Dr. Alan Barlow, primary medical advisor, The Eden Foundation.
03/15/2218
Sep 30, 2011
Sep 29, 2011
Chronicles of the Ark-ship Salvation
This is the first entry in the personal log of Jefferson E. Castilion, voluntary passenger on the Arc-ship Salvation.
I volunteered as soon as I could, a chance to live among the stars. I know I won’t live to see our destination. They tell us we could be traveling up to 115 years, but they expect it to be less. We are leaving from the Lunar Tranquility Center next month, they have been preparing this for the past 3 years now. We have all been told that we will have jobs on board, even if we aren’t part of the ship’s crew. I suspect they need a little of everything. Farmers, teachers, doctors, even guys like me. I will be in sanitation. I’m a space janitor. My mom always told me to do my homework or I’d wind up cleaning toilets. Well, I suppose she was right. It’s not the job I chose, but they assigned the more skilled jobs to the people with more experience. They say though that there is lots of time to learn new skills and what you start doing is probably not what you will end up doing. Not that it really matters, we all get paid the same, have the same rooms, except for the families, they have larger spaces, but I guess it’s all pretty equal. When you have a limited space I suppose it has to be doesn’t it.
I don’t know much about the ship, yet. I’m not the most technical, I didn’t pay much attention in school, but I understand more than they think. They keep talking about this bio-steel stuff. And from what I can gather, they are actually GROWING parts of this ship. It makes perfect sense, I mean parts wear out, and if you can just grow some new parts in a lab using basically water and protein you practically have a never ending supply of spare parts. At least I think that’s how it works, all I know is that ship will out in space a long ass time, and if things break, there better be a way for us to fix it. They are calling her Salvation, well, that’s not the official name, that’s our name. The official name is Earth Arc-ship Omega something. Our name is better.
It’s time for more training, maybe this time they will tell us how we are supposed to get the next generation of space babies started. I wonder if they will start assigning us partners. Wouldn’t surprise me, that would be the king of thing scientist running the Eden Foundation would try to do.
J. Emerson Castilion 02/13/2218
I volunteered as soon as I could, a chance to live among the stars. I know I won’t live to see our destination. They tell us we could be traveling up to 115 years, but they expect it to be less. We are leaving from the Lunar Tranquility Center next month, they have been preparing this for the past 3 years now. We have all been told that we will have jobs on board, even if we aren’t part of the ship’s crew. I suspect they need a little of everything. Farmers, teachers, doctors, even guys like me. I will be in sanitation. I’m a space janitor. My mom always told me to do my homework or I’d wind up cleaning toilets. Well, I suppose she was right. It’s not the job I chose, but they assigned the more skilled jobs to the people with more experience. They say though that there is lots of time to learn new skills and what you start doing is probably not what you will end up doing. Not that it really matters, we all get paid the same, have the same rooms, except for the families, they have larger spaces, but I guess it’s all pretty equal. When you have a limited space I suppose it has to be doesn’t it.
I don’t know much about the ship, yet. I’m not the most technical, I didn’t pay much attention in school, but I understand more than they think. They keep talking about this bio-steel stuff. And from what I can gather, they are actually GROWING parts of this ship. It makes perfect sense, I mean parts wear out, and if you can just grow some new parts in a lab using basically water and protein you practically have a never ending supply of spare parts. At least I think that’s how it works, all I know is that ship will out in space a long ass time, and if things break, there better be a way for us to fix it. They are calling her Salvation, well, that’s not the official name, that’s our name. The official name is Earth Arc-ship Omega something. Our name is better.
It’s time for more training, maybe this time they will tell us how we are supposed to get the next generation of space babies started. I wonder if they will start assigning us partners. Wouldn’t surprise me, that would be the king of thing scientist running the Eden Foundation would try to do.
J. Emerson Castilion 02/13/2218
Sep 28, 2011
What I am working on
These are the "working titles" for the stories/books I am currently writing. These may, and likely will change as I develop these stories.
Dreamscaping: What if your dreams were real, and what would happen if you fell across that border one night? How would you get home, would you want to go home?
Chronicles of the journey of the Arkship Salvation: Select log entries from the passengers and crew on a 100 year journey to colonize new worlds.
The Fall of The Five Sisters: 2000 years after the Arkship Salvation arrives in the five sisters solar system, 4 colonized planets are nearing collapse, on the brink of war.
Hi folks.
So this is where I am going to, from time to time, publish stories, and story fragments that I am currently working on. I am doing this for many reasons, but mostly because I am looking to share and receive feedback. I seem to work best when I can get some fairly regular egging on from friends and anonymous strangers. So for what it's worth, enjoy. (once I have something posted for you to enjoy that is.)
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