Moony was born in Australia, on Earth in 2113
In a time of peace and enjoying a lifestyle that was far better than the residents of the northern hemisphere areas described as Europe. In contrast, the Asian economic parts of this planet were in a seriously chunky growth phase and bought up resources from places like Australia, like there was no tomorrow. Indeed there was a tomorrow and Australia’s financial stability was riding on this limited resources boom. It sold all that it had and then slid into an odd decline, of course that didn’t happen until 2202.
All the cheap as chips manufactured goods snapped up by the rest of the world, were made by these Asian countries and sold to the wealthier ones. The downside is that the purchasers of all this cheaper stuff ended up with no chance of a sustainable future. Their future depended on the asian countries and the mess that Europe had become.
This in some small way, helped Moony become a pilot, and a polite one at that. He was raised in a mainstream, often described as middle class environment, within a loving family in the beach side town of Port Lincoln. This warm, beach side location, was a summer all year round kind of a place ( due to global warning as it turned out ), and it offered no drama, other than that offered by the local government of the day.
The Federal Government during this chaotic period dissolved parliament, being that the population was unable to vote in a majority. Even after three attempts, it was a complete mess, giving oxygen to the rat bag single issues groups as they scrambled for their chance to dictate public policy. They failed thankfully.
Moony swanned about in Port Lincoln, carefree, heterosexual and bronzed with a tan that would make a dedicated dermatologist scream. He didn’t care, he had all the surf, beer, girls, job, and a great family, one man ( or women for that matter ) would want. No real issues that would make him think or care. He worked at selling homes in Port Lincoln and as such, met loads of new people, slept with some, drank with some and surfed with others. Sometimes he managed all three with the same person.
He grew up with two older sisters that pretty well left him alone, let him grow, taught him loads of sensible “modern thinking tolerance type ideals” and how to deal with life in general. Moony was a good learner when he bothered, it was just that he didn’t bother that much, until he got the phone call.
One of the last things the less than cohesive Federal Government did, at the behest of the angry small minded conservatives, was to create a compulsory military draft system and poor well tanned Moony’s number was pulled out this draft system. He was scooped up and sent to Alice Springs in the middle of Australia to learn to fly and become a serious armed forces participant. This reluctant acceptance was an indicator of the way Moony would live his life.
He was rather good at this flying lark and learnt how to skate his way through the military machinations. he was seconded to the space program in his early twenties. just in time to catch the newly invented extremely long hibernation technology that allowed him to appear in 2140 on board the space palace. He awoke ready for action and like Kevin, he was ready for a rather large body waste evacuation. He also had a tbaoo post to write and a ship to meet.
The darkest and wettest part of the ship had a design about it that denied its real purpose. The featureless walls, floors and ceiling did not really welcome human entry, but it wasn’t designed for that. It was the secret place that Trevor had built. A back up in case of his own untimely demise. Trevor was after all an employee, a very important one yes, but still an employee. He had created a number of tricky escape mechanisms that would ensure his continued existence.
This slim chance of an eternal Trevor like life ( in some form or another ) had driven Trevor to deposit his genetic material in a number of safe, dark and wet places. This one, here on the space palace in the stars, might just be the one that triggers itself into existence. No-one knew of this, except for the droid that was guarding the material and it was very tired, sitting there in the dark. It’s extremities rusting away in the damp.
The ship had no knowledge of this nursery or its guard. The ship had other things to worry about. Interestingly the ship didn’t really worry, but reacted while conducting itself in the most professional manner. This manner was polite, courteous and friendly. Well, friendly enough when it could, dispatching humans and unwanted rubbish such as Kevin was only a small component of its protocol. Learning how to understand human behaviour was well beyond it, so far.
The ship had decided to engage in some long overdue introspection
The course it had set, the drama of the wiring and that large smelly creature had revealed that internal systems needed to be purged, swept and cleaned. A bit of what used to be called defrag. A stupid term but everyone knew what it meant, even the older humans still alive when computers first made it into peoples homes.
These unfortunates where very frightened by the new technology, but many adapted, sent photos, used facebook and even some tried Skype. These companies had been destroyed and replaced by splodger of course. Mumblet had ended up buying the older people as well, when it took over earth. They were stored in chambers and kept for parts.
The ship sailed on and so did Carol and Moony, they slept like they’d never done before.
The space palace was the envy of all who designed and built space craft, well there were only three people who did, but they were envious. They had watched the cheeky newcomer to this industry win the contract and undercut their bid by 18 trillion. Not so much under but enough to embarrass them into rethinking their costings and reason for living.
Mumblet didn’t like too many variables and having four to choose from made Nobby exceedingly uncomfortable. These remaining three, the losers, tossed a coin and the winner ? decided to end it’s life by being shot into space from earth like a semi rigid water filled balloon, but without a space ship or other suitable protection. Then there was three again. That’s how business was conducted now, a three and no more, pretty well in every line of work and tender process. Anytime a new one arrived, off another would go, dying in a method of their choosing.
Droid 78 stirred and moved the seven of its cohorts up from the stack it lay beneath. Droid 78 did not understand just why it stirred, but it moved off the rack storage platform out into the corridor and made its way to the funnel. The reason became clear on the way, it had to help the captain and kill that human female he had seemed to become very fond of.
Droid 78 had an order and an order had to be obeyed, the Carol creature had to be discarded and droid 78 was going to do it. It walked at a casual pace as it realised it would take at least a day to get to the funnel. The path was arduous, dark, wet and risky as it had to talk to the wiring at each level access door. The wiring asked the same bleeding questions every-time as it could not remember the previous questioning.
The sleeping, the defraging and the walking droid 78 was all that was stirring on the space palace.
How many gods have their own particle ?
Carol was dreaming. She had a load of wild thoughts in that human brain and they all flew about like an ant colony on the move. The colours, memories, drama, love and dislikes were all trying to find a nice place to nest. Only when she was asleep did Carol’s body let them all run like mad things together, awake she was very controlled and dedicated. Her and Moony had ended up getting on very well, and the sex was great as well. Sex wasn’t something she’d thought about when she first got the call up to the space palace in the stars. In fact it was probably the very last thing she was thinking about.
Carol was raised in a small country town, occupied by three families. These families had stretched the allowable and decent gene pool scenario. They met outsiders with a vigorous indifference and subdued hatred. Her father was the local bank manager and her mother a stay at home mum with Carol and her four brothers.
The mother was a spirited red headed wonder who had decided to settle for a boring second best and married the local social outcast. He was the best choice for marrying, as his father owned the bank, but he was not a lover, a thinker or a very nice person.
One of Carol’s brothers became a scientist, a researcher in fact. He went on to invent and develop new contraceptive vaccines, a byproduct of the small genetic pool he was born in. The local gene starved community did not believe in science, they believed in a christian god.
The odd thing was that in 2130 there were so many different gods, cults and hundreds of political parties, all bragging that they had one of the gods on their side. There was even a god particle, which was adapted, harnessed and now utilised in pushing new space palaces about the universe.
The community had struggled to choose its god. It was put to a popular vote, but since there were only three heads of families it was pretty easy for the final outcome to be reached. Carol’s father who was one the head of families, had the remains of two heads, but that’s another story. The gene wars in America had seen quite a torrid exchange between mythical fairy tale beliefs and scientific explanation. The science won. This community called “nooblers” had decided on the christian god and that was that. No argument was entered into and no dissuasive discussion allowed.
Carol had struggled with this point of view. She had excelled at school and while her teacher was impressed, her parents were not. This exploration of knowledge and willingness to question the commonly accepted view was not befitting the daughter of a family head. Peter had fought in the gene wars and the scars at his shoulder would, if he ever took his shirt off, provide tell tale evidence of this second head. Carol was a clean skin, although one of her brothers had sadly inherited all the genetic mess in one foul soup.
Her brother “Vic” would entertain the tourists for many years, before his peculiar deformity finally had the last laugh.
It wasn’t a laughing matter for the medics that had to clean up the explosion that was the release of vic’s interior parts. These parts had grown that much that they simply had nowhere else to go and burst of out poor vic, like a peaky boil at the beach – boom. The family of tourists who absorbed in the front row would need therapy for years. Their second child was that badly covered by the genetic escape, he’d be dead from serious medical complications within six months.
As Carol had qualified for university, she wished to spread her wings and the frightening realigning of her brothers body parts gave the family a moments distraction. She snuck off the day of the funeral and never went back. The company snapped her up at university, she had skills, a willingness to study and what seemed to be a single minded sense of dedication. Mumblet used such institutions to search for humans and Carol was only one of thousands to become snapped.
Only when Moony moaned in her ear, did Carol’s wild dreaming find a place to nest. Carol slowly came back to life and reality. The life and reality of the space palace that is.
There had to be a downside and the dumbass
Rick could always be relied upon to dwell in the low side. The downside of brains, knowledge, thought, aptitude and application of life. He was as thick as two transfield condensers and if you haven’t seen one of them, don’t worry they’re pretty thick. A bit like a thirty eight occupant accommodation module only bigger and with no style or positive attributes at all. The trouble with Rick, is that he had a continued and unfettered access and strangely annoying presence in the Mumblet communication centre.
He was able to relay, receive and send all the messages that flew about the universe. These communications did not really have to be Mumblet messages, the system just grabbed them all and spied on everyone, everything. No matter what race, creature or life-form they came from or where sent to. Stupid Rick couldn’t understand that the access to knowledge he pushed about, could really make a positive change to his smelly, disease ridden, drug fuelled existence.
He just continued on his altered way, ignoring anything that mattered and anything that would broaden his bottom feeder lifestyle. A worm had a better perspective on modern life than this duffus could possibly imagine. He did rave on about fixing things and his huge collection of old shit. He hoarded stuff like a possessed second hand dealer and proudly drained on about his cleverness in doing so.
Shit is shit and his shit was shit no matter who used to own it. If you want to talk about antiquities, rarities or things that have some intrinsic value, don’t talk to Rick, all he has is shit.
So there was Rick, scratching his balls while draining on about a new tv he’d bought from some hapless troll who’s time had come. He’d bought the tv for next to nothing, it was in 300 pieces, had no server and no screen, but shit it was cheap, in fact it was cheap because it was shit. He was so incredibly excited about this life changing detail he nearly missed the message from Trevor Nubleous.
As with everything else that goes on around him, Rick didn’t understand. He did have a story to tell though and he kept telling the same fucking stories over and over and over again. To say that Rick was boring was to say that the universe was big, so feck’n obvious and tremendously correct – yes Rick was bat shit boring and so was his bat shit collection.
Trevor Nubleous – # droid 78 @ the space palace in the stars …
“Get yourself to the funnel and kill that randy, orgasm packed female that seems to be cavorting with Captain Moony at every given opportunity. Kill her! then report back when the job is done. Hurry up”.
Rick read this as it swept by on the screen and though wow. Droid 78 that’s a cool call name sign. I had a droid once and it was called Bolt, he told the less than interested workmate who’d heard this bleeding story about eight times already.
“Yes Rick what did you do with Bolt ?” … Bill replied while holding back a yawn that was as big as something big.
“Well”.. Rick replied with enthusiasm, not knowing that Bill was simply filling in time and taking the piss out of him. “I had him for ten years and made two dollars profit when I sold him” … “Fantastic, he used to fetch the drinks, make my drugs and when I was lonely he filled a void, or indeed allowed me to fill his.
I’m not gay as you know Bill, but it was very lonely and cold on that relay station, I mean I was there for seven years on my own, just me and Bolt that is. I had to sell him though, a two dollar profit couldn’t be ignored.”
Bill stated the same old reply he did very single time, “you’re the tightest human i’ve ever met, you’d die to save four dollars and rave about how wonderful that saving was when you were brought back to life.”
“You are an idiot Rick and i’d think that having sex with a make droid would be close enough to being gay. But hey you keep on thinking that if it makes you happy.”
Rick never got the intent of the playful mischief that Bill poured back at him, even though it happened every shift. Rick was rereading that message and thought to himself, how can I swap Bill for a human like Carol ?
Bill was thinking the same thing, how to get a new work colleague, when he read a message that shot by him. It was from Nobby. When Nobby sent a message it was really important and Bill snuck a look.
Nobby – Moony @ the space palace in the stars …
Get yourself and that horny beastie you are so fond of pleasuring out of the funnel and hide from droid 78. There’s been a change of plan.
Get yourself to the escape module two and await my next message. The droid will be dealt with and the company is waiting on your safe arrival at trumular 7.
Droid 78 knew nothing of this contradictory message of course
It was following direction from Trevor and of course Trevor knew nothing about it either. Rick and Bill did not tell each other of their recent interest in the company’s goings on. They just kept talking endlessly about Rick’s shit, Rick’s stupidity and his bat shit boring, bat shit collection. Life went on as normal, as well as it could do in the communications room at least.
The Science Palace in the Stars hurtled through space like a “scared little funtilied rodent” up a greased transit tube. It was so fast and so smooth that those on the planets it passed, were oblivious to it’s trajectory.
In fact one small planet moved ever so slightly in it’s orbit after it passed that it kicked started a dramatic change within it’s inhabitants. They were in the dark literally and could only feel their way around. That was until the subtle shift occurred and many generations later they came out of the dark and transmogrified into a bipedal species with eyes that saw. What they saw filled their hearts with joy.
The Science Palace hurtled on. It was designed to be functional, fast, very adaptive and a light shade of yellow. It looked a bit like an lemon. Lemons were still around in 2140 except they had been genetically altered into growing in a square shape. This was very handy. The ship had a computer, droids, automatic operation and a self cleaning feature that was the envy of a great number of civilisations.
So good that it had to be reigned in sometimes. It interrogated humans, droids and other guests with their ultimate disposal, much to the surprise of the invited guests, who over the years had been unceremoniously ejected into space. The ship took cleaning out unwanted items very seriously.
The designers had a sense of humour as they integrated the features. All surfaces of the human occupancy areas, were smooth, plastic like and rounded. This aspect annoyed many of the human occupants over the years as they couldn’t balance any blasted thing on a table or bench as they were always sliding off. The colour palette was grey, green, yellow and white.
Some areas were that white that it looked like the birth of a planet. It was so freak’n bright the humans need phase welding masks to navigate through them. The droids were not really affected by these design quirks, they were troubled by the rounded edges though, they kept sliding all over the place.
Each of the control panels were pleasing to the human eye. They read the human’s eye and reacted to the movements, if the human hands were busy. A bit like those very old fighter pilot operations. Look there it worked, looked somewhere else – it then worked.
The smell permeating through the ship was also deliberate. It was a soft garden smell, a bit like rain, wet grass and chocolate all mixed up together. The idea being that it would calm the humans and allow for greater scientific endeavours. Sometimes the droids overdosed on this aroma and went a bit bonkers. The sliding, smells and programming errors made life very tedious for these human like machines.
The machines on the science palace were a different story. They were designed for one task and they had no redeeming feature other than that task. They sat, wriggled, prodded and poked their way about their daily duties. It was a reassuring feature the designers had insisted upon. Robert the wanker’s predilection for having mechanical sex with them had messed up some programming, but not enough to alter the routine goings on, on the science palace.
The non human areas were also a different story, filled with wild wires, dark spaces and labyrinth passages throughout the inner working on the palace. That was also deliberate, keep those pesky humans away from the real nuts and bolts. The loony human nuts couldn’t be trusted in these areas. They were strictly encouraged to keep well clear.
The adventures of humans and machines on board the palace was widely read on universal news reports, much to Trevor’s annoyance. He wanted things to be a bit more mysterious. Actually he wanted no-one to know what was going on, certainly not the seemingly daily reports on the ship’s progress. He didn’t know about Nobby’s secret agenda or the “news/ship’s/chip” that provided these intricate details. The chip had a wonderful turn of phrase and appeared to know everything about the goings on.
One story in particular had captivated the universal news audience
One of the most exciting aspects of the space palace history told in schools, was the sheer tedious and definitely not exciting nature of space travel at that time. They just sat about, talking, reading, exercising, having sex ( when lucky enough to ) and eating. They’d also rid themselves of waste, both physically and mentally and just waited. They waited for a bloom’n long long time. They could still be waiting now.
Students of the future were able to just walk into the “hyperwackler machine” and be sent like the famous science fiction writers of the past thought, just decomposed molecularly and then reconstructed at the other end. No-one flew about in funny shaped box like ships any more. They questioned why a ship was shaped with a pointy end anyway. It was unnecessary.
There was no resistance, as resistance was futile ( thanks Douglas Adams ) the field of science fiction writing ran out of steam in 2167, everything they thought about had, and would, instantly become reality. As soon as they thought of it, or made motion pictures about it, it became reality.
Science had come a long way. Forwards and backwards rather pointless then struggling to dream up new stuff, when they could make gazillions of money inventing new things. So they would dream it, think it, be frightened by and bingo it was made and then dealt with. Not much thought went into the ramifications until it was built and it’s impact endured.
In fact a whole race of very overweight pleasant peasant people in a small earth country called “China” were vaporised when a newly created weight loss device was put to use. The small rubbery thing just wiped out anyone with a body mass index deemed to be unattractive at the time. 6 Million people just disappeared, it was said there was a loud popping sound and then they were gone.
History has a funny way of distorting or clarifying the past, that’s why it’s called history. Time travel had mucked up this truest of trues though. The people responsible for time travel were not very jolly folk. They had Nobby to thank for that. He ran the whole thing, had in the past, did now and will in the future, no matter what anyone tried to alter.
Nobby was clever and even though he was a cross between a snail a man and a duck – he got about a bit. Trevor on the other hand was not very good at getting around. He hated space travel, time travel and would only go out when his carer took him for a walk. Short legs and his dog chemistry made for a very complicated lifestyle. Rude, basic and active, but complicated non the less.
Meanwhile as the Palace continued on it’s way, Carol asked …”Where the shit did you get the name Moony ?”
“Well it was an unfortunate nickname given to me by my school mates back on earth in Australia.”
“Why – what does it mean ?”
“Well when we used to go for school trips around port Lincoln we had had a road vehicle that would take three classes at once with a teacher or two to keep us in line. The day that spawned my name was not all that special except that we pulled up alongside a local politician’s press conference and it was packed with screaming news media from all over Australia. I couldn’t resist.” …
Moony yawned and sat back extending the telling of the tale.
“Oh come on resist what ?”
“Well i’d read that young people ( many years before ) had taken great pleasure in exposing their backside at such important events and spreading their cheeks to really bring home the point .. It was called showing, or giving a brown eye, or even described as mooning someone. My name as you know is Brown, so the Moony just felt natural to my hysterical classmates.
The teachers and Australia’s media got quite a kick out of it as well. My arsehole was spread all over the news, tv, radio and an older version of one of splodger’s acquisitions called youtube.”
“My arse was famous and that’s why i’m called Moony, Moony Brown.”
They both giggled their way into another mind-numbingly boring wait as they palace sailed on. Sailed and sailed and sailed. It was a slow news day.
We may be able to check on their progress one day.
