Better Gardening 2 (Patreon)

Commissioned by Kejmur

Better Gardening

Chapter 2

-VB-

I now knew my purpose and found myself … questioning.

I didn’t question that I chose to partake in this. It was exciting. I may not remember anything but I feel something akin to an agreement welling up within me as I accepted my place in reality. I had wanted this.

But if I wanted to this, then I needed to do this properly.

That meant learning, understanding, and experimenting with what I had.

So this was why instead of toying with everything the space station had, I sat down and asked Mana for help.

And help she did.

“So the station is currently powered by a … what did you call it again?”

“A zero-point module. They are power sources that derive their energy from maximizing entropy within an artificial subspace. They can be recycled at a designated location, which can be found on most glitterworlds. They will contact you if they notice that your ZPM reserve falls below a certain point.”

“I see. Well, I’m glad that I don’t have to worry about that at least,” I said while looking down at the three-dimensional layout of the space station. “And how much energy is that, exactly?” I asked her.

“The maximum safe output of a single ZPM is somewhere around 15 Terawatts.”

“Is that a lot?” I asked her, not quite understanding how much a joule was.

“Many smaller light bulbs used by primitive planet-bound civilizations range from 5 joules per second, or 5 watts, to 200 watts,” Mana replied. “So if we assume that we are using 100 watt lightbulbs, then you would have 10 billion lightbulbs. For reference, your space station, NLS-9, only has five-hundred thousand light bulbs or equivalent.”

“So… it’s a lot of lightbulbs.”

“Yes. Or if you want to measure in bigger expenditure, a ZPM can power three simultaneous interdimensional portals indefinitely… for a given value of indefinite.”

“And those portals are how I will be going around collecting specimens for the world below, yes?”

Mana nodded on the screen. “Yes, and speaking of collection, you have access to EcoBalance app which will measure the rough ecological stability of the ecosystem you create with transplanted specimens. The app uses my computing power and scanners, though it acts independently of me, to measure the impact of new specimens at the start and then collects real-time data afterward to plot out five data points for you to follow.

“Those data points are biodiversity, biomass, population fluctuations, disease, and resource balance. Biodiversity indicates whether or not if there is an imbalance of power in any of the species. Biomass refers to whether there is an increase or decrease in overall biomass of the ecosystem; we want the biomass to grow but not overwhelmingly quickly as that can cause other problems. Population fluctuation looks at how volatile the overall ecosystem is. The more volatile the ecosystem is, the less balanced it is and thus more likely to suffer long-term damage from smaller crises. Disease is just that: how unbalanced the macro and micro-ecosystems are in a given regional ecosystem. Resource balance shows whether or not there is a net drain or net loss. This data point has deep correlation with population fluctuation and biomass.

“EcoBalance, or EcoBal as many shorten it, will be your primary application when it comes to monitoring the overall regional and planetary ecological balance.”

“Huh,” I muttered as I opened up the app on my tablet. “... There’s nothing.”

“Of course. The world below doesn’t even have microlife. You’ll have to seed those, too. Most administrators like to mass transport soil and water samples.”

“... huh.” I paused. “What does the station use the energy from the ZPM from? Aside from the portals.”

Mana pulled up a list on the screen. “The greatest expenditure is Station NLS-9’s gravity well. Gravity wells require a lot of energy to maintain the standard gravity. Gravity wells are only active in the residential, command, fauna, and maintenance quarters, which make up 60% of the space station.”

“Wait, only half of the station?”

“Yes. By volume, the armor makes up 5%, the structure makes up 25%, and the spaceport and its hangars make up the rest.”

“And just the gravity well… uses 275 gigawatts?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a lot.”

“It is. Primitive civilizations on their first contact often describe the energy expenditure as wasteful.”

“Is it?”

“Gravity is often associated with physical and mental health. Considering that this space station operates on four ZPMs, there is plenty of energy to spend for the wellbeing of all residents.”

“Nice.” I paused again. “But, isn’t there only me right now, though?”

“Yes.”

“Couldn’t we shut off the gravity well in other areas, then? We should have … batteries, right?”

She smiled. “While your thoughts about saving for the future is good, you don’t need to worry. Station NLS-9 is based on Frontier Fortress Stations used by the Second Helgan Empire during the Fourth War of Liberation. Nothing short of an antimatter hypermissile will breach the energy shields, which make up 40% of the energy expenditure when it is active.”

I looked at her with wide eyes. “40%? That’s … that’s a lot.”

“It is, which is why I said nothing short of an antimatter hypermissile will breach it, and even then, whoever wants the station gone will need a battle fleet’s arsenal to do so. The standard antimatter hypermissile carries 10 kg of electromagnetically isolated antimatter. The hypermissile, which is a missile that enters hyperspace and exits on top of the target to prevent interception, cannot bypass the hyperspace interdiction field that all active nuondeonite radiation exerts.”

I frowned. I knew what an antimatter was, but not exactly what 1 kg of antimatter meant.

“How much firepower is that?”

“10 kg of antimatter is just enough to remove a small island completely off the map, though its stump will remain underwater.”

“Huh. I guess the people who made the station really wanted to keep us safe, didn’t they?”

“Indeed, administrator. After all, the NLS missions are closely tied with the Human Parliament’s mission to prevent the extinction of life in this universe after the extinction of life in the Andromeda Galaxy.”

---

“So would you like to know a function given to only administrators?” Mana asked her administrator after she reluctantly told him about what led to the catastrophic loss of life in the neighboring galaxy. He still looked shellshocked. Maybe because he was horrified to learn that he was a veteran of that very war and may have been the catalyst as to why he volunteered to take this position and why he may have needed the memory wipe.

She had refused to show him his war record at least until he fully settled in.

“Uh, sure, I guess,” he muttered quietly.

She shouldn’t have told him about the Scouring of Neo-Babylonia VII.

“One of the functions given to administrators to facilitate their role is the ability to teleport in and out guardians.”

“Guardians?”

“Guardians are modified animals near human intelligence tasked with the protection of the administrator. As of right now, you have been given one default guardian that all administrators start out with. Try teleporting in your guardian, administrator.”

“Okay, uh, how do I do that?”

“It should be linked to the standard voice command. Try to say ‘Guardian 1, report to duty.’”

There was a dim flash, and Mana watched her administrator freak out a little when a Sacrosuchus excubitor appeared with its body in a half-crescent bend with the administrator in the center in a protective stance. Like all Guardians assigned to administrators, it was much larger than its normal counterpart. Most Sarcosuchus imperators ranged from eight to ten meters and Sacrosuchus excubitors ranged from eight to nine meters. This particular guardian, however, was at least fourteen meters long with powerful legs and tail to allow it to move even faster than its smaller cousins.

It was, in essence, a big crocodile.

“Meet Sacrosuchus, administrator. Many an administrator has called them Sarco, though there was that one administrator who called this magnificent beast Narco.”

He keeled over in a dead faint.

“Ah.”

She didn’t think he would react this strongly.