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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" lang="en">
<head><title>Spaceship Earth</title>
<meta charset="UTF-8" />
<meta name="generator" content="TeX4ht (http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~gurari/TeX4ht/)" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="ebook.css" />
</head><body
>
<!--l. 177--><div class="crosslinks"><p class="noindent"></p></div>
<h3 class="sectionHead"><span class="titlemark">7 </span> <a
id="x8-70007"></a>Spaceship Earth</h3>
<p class="noindent">From the view of my tomb I see that most of the oceans have sublimated, it feels
like this mountain is much higher than before, because the ocean floors are the
new visible floors.
</p>
<p class="indent">Quite suddenly I notice a lot of construction, especially of the shiny blue steel
variety, and my entire surroundings get covered in several stories of steel
buildings. A crawling robot comes to visit me and discuss, I ask him about what
is happening. He explains.
</p>
<p class="indent">Zooming out it is in fact the entire Earth that gets covered in steel, perhaps
several kilometers thick of buildings, except for two massive holes, one in the
Pacific and one in the Atlantic, where the main excavations take place. I guess
they started by expanding the Mariana Trench and the low point of the
Atlantic.
</p>
<p class="indent">Their aim is not oil this time, or even so much energy, but to get resources for
building space ships. The core of Earth is rich in iron, nickle and other heavy
metals, it becomes a resource planet once again.
</p>
<p class="indent">Eventually they excavate so much they meet in the centre and the steel all
around starts to make sense, it is the reinforcement to keep the crust from
collapsing in on itself. The core itself is left for a while, and it just hangs there in
a form of equilibrium itself. Apparently it is too highly radioactive to allow for
direct mining, and instead they set up several lasers that heat it up, it starts to
glow bright and for a little while I think they have made a little star within the
earth. But it does not last long and the core cracks into various pieces from the
lasers.
</p>
<p class="indent">I notice there are star gates on either side of the Earth, so the ships can
come and go from many distant solar systems and dock on Earth or
resupply.
</p>
<p class="indent">Then small high speed ships hurtle through the earth hollow and catch various
fragments and speed off with them, being able to use them as fuel and such for
other ships. In such a way all the core excavation is finalized and the Earth
becomes somewhat of a ring world, a hollow cylinder even if somewhat rounded.
The hole inside is probably several thousand kilometers across, and extends all
the way through.
</p>
<p class="indent">There is enough mass in what remains of the crust that it has a gravitational
pull, so people can still walk on the surface even though it is more like walking on
the surface of a large asteroid than a planet in terms of gravitational pull. This is
why the robot is crawling, as he is latching to the ground.
</p>
<p class="indent">As times drifts on, on occasion when it is known that a flare is coming, some
large space ships come to seek shelter in the hull of the Earth, and it becomes
somewhat of a local space port.
</p>
<p class="indent">Eventually the red dwarf is getting old, and there is talk of throwing the Earth
into it to keep it going a little longer. Red Dwarves usually last between 1 and 12
trillion years, so presumably the Earth is approaching a trillion years old by this
point. The Earth doesn’t get hurled into the Red Dwarf to extend its life,
instead comes along what appears to be a massive balloon rocket that that
goes inside the hollow of the Earth and propels us back into interstellar
space.
</p>
<p class="indent">There is a lot of spinning that goes on, perhaps to attain a form of centrifugal
force, or to help with maintaining course direction. It makes me feel dizzy just
thinking about it.
</p>
<p class="indent">Eventually we are dropped off at a brown dwarf, there are much fewer stars in
the sky at this time. The cosmos is getting cold.
</p>
<!--l. 241--><div class="crosslinks"><p class="noindent"></p></div>
</body>
</html>