Yuri Nesterenko PROJECT GENESIS (from corporative correspondence) (Original text is in russian) (This story was also translated to bulgarian) ------------------------------------------------------------ Characters: - Jehovah, general director and chief executive officer; - Gabriel, chief of the marketing department (marketing manager); - Michael, chief of the strategic planning department; - Rafael, chief of the testing and technical support department; - Lucifer, chief of the system design department; ------------------------------------------------------------ To the general director Jehovah from the marketing manager Gabriel The marketing reports within the Genesis project had shown that the systems of following hardware configuration would be the best prospects on the market. Planet: 1 - Radius: 3000 km - Gravity: 0.5g (4,905 N*m/s^2) - Land to water correlation: 1:1 - Temperature: +24 - Atmosphere: oxygen - Seas: freshwater - Rivers: milk, honey - Fauna: herbivorous Periphery: - Luminaries: 2 (daily & nightly), velocity: 0.0007 RPM (1 rotation per day) To the strategic planning department for preparing technical requirement - Jehovah ------------------------------------------------------------ To the general director Jehovah from the chief of the strategic planning department Michael In purposes of reduction of the system prime cost, I suggest: 1) to combine power supply of both luminaries to one source of energy and 2) to replace oxygen to nitrogen. At least 50% of oxygen is necessary to leave, or the user will suffocate - Rafael 25% enough - Jehovah ------------------------------------------------------------ To the general director Jehovah from the chief of the system design department Lucifer While working over the Genesis project (the "May the light be!" stage), the following difficulties were revealed: the uninterruptible phosphorescence supply with a distributor on two luminaries is absent. I suggest using a standard source of a "red dwarf" type, and as a nightly luminary to use a mirror. "Yellow dwarf" will be better. The prime cost will raise not so much by comparison with red, but such a luminary will be looking much more commanding - Gabriel But this is a server source. Why the user of a single planet needs it? - Lucifer The marketing division will explain to user, what it is necessary to him and what it isn't - Gabriel Lucifer, concern about the questions of your competency. "Yellow dwarf" confirmed - Jehovah And with such brightness that gives yellow dwarf, it's possible to use a standard planetoid instead of a mirror - Michael I Agree - Jehovah ------------------------------------------------------------ To the general director Jehovah from the chief of the system design department Lucifer After correcting the technical requirement the following difficulties were revealed: the mass of the UPS much exceeds the mass of the planet and as the consequence the supply refuses to revolve around planet. Instead, the planet revolves around the supply. Besides, the power of the source is so high, that the temperature exceeds technical requirement specification approximately on 2 orders. Increasing the distance to the source, means greatly enlarging dimensions of the system. Gabarits are a very prestigious point, but planet revolving around the peripheral could cause user to be able to sense his inferiority. Maybe, we would change the gravitational constant? - Gabriel If we will change it, there might be some problems with compatibility - Michael What difference this matter will make to user - around what he will revolve? Let the marketing department thinks up some theory of relativity - Jehovah ------------------------------------------------------------ To the general director Jehovah from the chief of the system design department Lucifer After the enlarging an orbital radius of the planet, all attempts to accelerate the planet to the speed, specified in the technical requirement, brings system to a crash (the planet flies deep into space). Apropos, there's the same situation with the night source. Never mind what occurs in the system - only the user's sight matters. Why don't we force the planet to spin around it's axis? Then user will think, that sun and moon will revolve around it with the frequency as it specified in the technical requirements - Gabriel But if the user, somehow, will get the truth? - Jehovah If he'll get it, the project will be completed for a long time ago - Gabriel I agree - Jehovah ------------------------------------------------------------ To the general director Jehovah from the chief of the testing and technical support departament Rafael The primary system testing have revealled some difficulties: 1) stable overheat exists; 2) spin axis deviated on 23 degrees from vertical position, and as the consequence of it the cyclical temperature anomalies appeared; 3) rivers reception capacity is not as specified in project; 4) the herbivorous fauna is absent; 5) orbit is unstable, planet tends to fall on the sun 1) But what did you want with such land to water correlation? For optimal cooling we need something like one-third or one-fourth; 2) we are working on it; 3) just because milk is souring and honey candying; 4) herbivorous fauna needs grass, but grass isn't growing because of such heat and without a water. I suggest to put water into the rivers, thus it helps us to solve a third problem; 5) as a gravitational counterweight we should launch another planet into outside (external) orbit - Lucifer There's impossible to shorter the land, so, we must enlarge the areas of the seas. But that means growing of volume and gravity. And an extra planet... - Michael ... will be OK for a user. We will register the extra planet as a feature. But we've just announced milk and honey. We would leave it at least in the most observable rivers - Gabriel I want to remind you that the time is nearly out, but your "horse did not yet wallow" [russian common expression - comments by translator]. And by the way, designers still haven't presented a horse project, 'cause they are still nursing with dinosaurs. Who needs 'em? - Jehovah But user likes dinos... - Gabriel Well, OK, but horses must be too - Jehovah ------------------------------------------------------------ To the general director Jehovah from the chief of the testing and technical support departament Rafael 1) Aside from undecided problems with axis, the planet have a tendency to fly to the outer space; 2) herbivorous fauna is absent again. 1) We'll make another counterweight, but on the inner orbit; 2) fauna multiplied, ate all the grass and died - Lucifer How much counterweights do you need? Michael In common, after the calibration works, we stabilized the system using nine - Lucifer Do I understand correctly? Instead of one planet the user will get nine?! - Jehovah And what? All the same, eight of them are useless for life - Lucifer But the dimensions of the system? - Jehovah But it's unnecessary to user to know them! You can't see half of that planets with a naked eye. I suggest to add to the Users Guide the 11-th commandment: "Do not invent the telescope!" - Gabriel There's no need in this, because than they will discover the telescope certainly - Jehovah By the way, after increasing radius of the orbit, the brightness of the night luminary fell lower down than the project minimum. I suggest installing a mirror instead of it - Rafael But where you were earlier? We just balanced the system! Do you want to readjust all?! Anew?! - Lucifer No anew! Only six days is remaining before the final commissioning of the project. Lucifer, you should force all of this to work, or I'll low your official status! - Jehovah Am I guilty, that first TR [technical requirement] wasn't good enough? Now the conclusion. Deviation of the axis we have to leave as it is. At least, it will be +24 in the gardens of Eden, and if the customer will 'climb' somewhere else, it will be only his troubles. We haven't enough time to complete the dinosaurs, but we will finish the horses. We couldn't do something with milk and honey, so we started the water for the rivers. The truth is, that rivers brings salt to the seas. We released a predator patch, 'cause of herbivorous not to ate all resources, but we haven't time to install a program to differ user and prey. But, in common, somehow it will work. - Lucifer And that's good - Jehovah ------------------------------------------------------------ (C) Yuri Nesterenko (YuN), 2002 Translated by Yuri Lapitskiy, 2003