Star Sailors

Chapter 6 - Backroom Sports

"Citizens of the universe, welcome back to the Senate. Can everyone please stay in their assigned pods for the duration of this meeting."

Jayin's voice boomed out from the center of a small chamber. There were little honeycombs around this chamber, with small models of pods situated around the area, creating an illusion that everyone was there. Everyone was situated on differing asteroids, with this being both a security measure and a way to ensure maximum efficiency for all the Senators and their aides (and occasionally the governors of the planets, who were the ones who nominated their Senators). What had been discovered was that when there were millions of people in one room, with thousands of Senators, things tended to get a bit messy and chaotic. To solve this, everyone was in their own room on their own Asteroid, which was artificial spaceships designed to look like asteroids; they could be piloted up and down to the surface of Midgard. "It makes sense now," Gilbert thought. "I don't understand why we didn't have this system back on Earth." He had also been wondering about the stability of such a set-up, with many thousands of asteroids in orbit around a planet so close to a large moon (about 10% of the area above Midgard was uncovered by satellites, and another 5% was only covered by research satellites). "So the moon is actually a hollowed-out planet that was nudged into orbit around this planet - Midgard - and that's where the asteroids stay until the Parliament/Senate is in session." He'd heard it be called the Parliament and he'd heard it be called the Senate. Regardless, he was here now.

He looked to his right and saw one of the Keplernian Greys next to him. Seeing that he wanted to say something, he unplugged the earpiece he'd been using to listen to the audio feed that Jayin had given him, which was describing the political system.

"My friend, we're glad to have you with usss." The grey spoke with a lisp and strongly exaggerated his "s" sounds. "There are many Keplernians, with each species in the Keplernian family being nominated as a Senator from their home planet. For example, I've been nominated by the Governor of Kepler-22 and ticked off by Jayin." His eyes fluttered when he said this, and he looked around the Honeycomb in what Gilbert assumed was a look of excitement.

"I thought there was one senator for each world, and they each had their own pod?" Gilbert was confused. Wasn't that how it had worked in Star Wars?

"Ah, yes, you've watched too much Star Wars. Plenty of factual inaccuracies, but it did get a lot of things right" The grey did like to demonstrate his mind-reading capability, but at that moment an alien with green head-tails ("lekku") walked past. The grey watched Gilbert's eyes be drawn towards the Green. "That's Kfit. He's from Kepler Glee."

"Is this some kind of SW fantasy?" Gilbert asked himself, not for the first time. How much had George Lucas gotten right? He knew that Opus would love to hear all about this, and Gilbert (once again) promised himself that he'd rescue Opus from the mess that he'd gotten himself into. "So what about the pods?"

"Ah yes," the grey answered, stroking his chin-whiskers thoughtfully. "So each species family, for example, us Keplernians, is related to each other. Every Keplernian is related closely, we have similar genetic code. We have a small amount of DNA which is very close to identical to yours. Deoxyribonucleic acid is found in all life forms, even microbes - your scientists got that one wrong." He chuckled and continued - "but they did get something right. They found RNA, and mRNA, which is what some of us Keplernians, including myself, are 'coded" from. So each species family has a pod. Every planet that houses a species from that family is sent to a pod, so you, and I, and Kfit, were sent to this pod by Jayin and our Planetary Governor. After this, Jayin nominates a "lead" Senator from this family, who will act as a "mini-chancellor" within our pod. This means that there are millions of Senators, and many of these share a hive mind (well, we all do, but to differing effects and efficiency). This is how our senate works."