The valley is an outdoor zoo. Humans are generous with food. Animals have GPS trackers so that humans can find their favorite animals.

Tundra Valley has abundant waterfalls, hot springs, and whitewater rafting. Fission reactors make discard heat that powers a river and keeps it warm in winter. The valley is deep and holds heat. The discard heat also makes an underground hotspot that looks like Yellowstone. The river has a section where water is focused into a surfing wave.

Kane Heft's campground is lush with flora and fauna.

Dense pines give privacy and block sound and wind.

It has a daredevil playground called Risk Park. It hosts the Heft Open, a contest for humans with gadgets. Many invent their own gadgets. It's a mixed martial gadget contest. A selfie factory.

Upon a mountaintop is the first tee of Meltdown golf course. 1000 yards, par 4. The green lies in a valley.

A foursome takes shots. Among them is Boss Dogg, Blizzard County Commissioner. His shot is caught by the jet stream and sails over the green and lands in the lake behind it.

Dogg: The lake has geese that are trained to fetch golf balls. From a goose's point of view, golf balls are currency that can be exchanged for food. A goose sees golf balls the way a 49'er sees gold nuggets.

Aurora Wavecrest is a celebrity actress and Blizzard County Director of Tourism. She produces films in Blizzard County harnessing the scenery. Her shot goes straight like a sniper bullet and then veers downward and crashes into the fairway. It bounces and rolls, and rolls and rolls, and comes to rest on the green.

How did you make the ball sink?
Wavecrest: This is a negative one wood that makes topspin. What's in yeeeeeeeeer golf bag?
Forcefeld: It's like the man that skied down Mount Everest. He crashed early but still made it to the bottom.
The man that wiped down Mount Everest.

Kane Heft's shot slices and hits the cliff to the right of the fairway, stopping in the fairway below.

Heft: Happy I'm not in the water. The wind up here is too fierce to manage.

Brutus Forcefeld is a member of the PGA Tour and he used his winnings to build the golf course. His shot is bullied by wind currents like a knuckleball but magically lands on the fairway, a short distance from the green.

Forcefeld: Bank shot.

Thanks everyone for the intel on the wind currents.
Brutus has a superpower. He can see air.
He can simulate fluid dynamics in his head. Computational physicists co-author papers with Forcefeld, and Forcefeld outperforms supercomputers.

The golfers mount unicycles and roll down to the green. The fairway has moguls and jumps and is a ski slope in winter. Heft is a professional unicycle athlete and X games coach.

Dogg's ball was last seen splashing into water and now lies on the green. It's coated by a telltale sheen of water and a goose stands nearby.

Dogg pulls a loaf of bread from his golf bag and hands it to the goose.

What's in yeeeeeeeeeeeer golf bag?
This course has Easter eggs.
Goose eggs. That's Spruce Goose, the boss goose of Blizzard County.

Boss Goose tackles the loaf like a contestant at the Coney Island hot dog eating contest. He does his best but the loaf is too big and he succumbs to a food coma. He gives the rest of the loaf to other geese and experiences the thrill of being a goose pimp.

Why is Spruce the boss?
Spruce is biggest. Well fed by Dogg's golfing.
The geese float in the lake at day and fly off twilight. Spruce Goose decides when it's time to fly. He stands on a tall rock and honks and geese take off. Spruce himself takes off but takeoff is difficult for Spruce. That's why he's on a tall rock. He jumps off the rock and flaps his wings and his wingtips touch the lake 5 times before he achieves enough speed for cruising flight. But once in the air, he's like a World War 2 superfortress bomber.
Spruce needs refueling. He can get bombs to high altitude but then he needs a snack. Geese refuel Spruce.
Spruce is a celebrity at my campsite. He occupies the Iron Throne in Central Pond.
How did you make the ball sink?
I'm writing Spruce into my films as a stunt goose.

As Dogg walkes toward the green he slips on goose poop and falls on his ass.

Dogg is a narcissist. He's accompanied by a fleet of camera drones at all times, operated by a van full of media engineers. The van is envied bv NFL referees. The engineers post the video of Dogg falling on his ass and it goes viral. A meme mother lode. It will be used in commercials for Dogg's merchandise.

Dogg is tall and fat and an opera bass singer. He pays an orchestra to follow him around and often expresses himself in libretto. Aurora adds soprano. Forcefeld and Heft are bad singers. They add percussion by pounding golf clubs on the ground. The orchestra also backs up birds. The wind players have an arsenal of instruments that sound like birds.

Biplanes from the World War 1 era appear in the sky and fight a scripted dogfight. It will be a scene in an upcoming Wavecrest film. 2 planes are shot down and crash into the mountain at pre-arranged places, with the pilots ejecting before impact. The golf tournament pauses to watch the fight.

An orange Dodge Charger is parked in a parking lot in Lizzard County and inside is Bo Nuke, Blizzard County Sheriff, and Luke Nuke, Agent 0009 in the Blizzard County Secret Service. They operate a fleet of stealth drones to surveil a factory farm that's suspected of animal cruelty.

Luke: The farm has anti-aircraft defenses. I can't get the drones close enough to get video or audio of the interior. The buildings have no windows. The animals never see daylight.
Bo: I'm using infrared to measure the heat output of the buildings so our nerds can calculate the animal density. I'm collecting goose down that's floating in the air so we can see if it's live-plucked.
The farm cranks out fish. There's a fish pond in there somewhere.
Humidity sensors report a likely location.
Carbon dioxide measurements can give us the fish biomass magnitude.
The nerds have work to do.
The audio dish is picking up goose sounds. They're in a foul mood.
I'm scattering calcium isotope tracers in the air.
The loading docks are shielded from view.
We can count trucks on the highway. We can install a secret cable under the highway to measure truck mass.
Party's over. Their sensors picked up our drones and they're sending a fleet of drones to fight our drones.
Top gun time.

Bo turns the car key and revs the engine while Luke operates the drones. Bo leaves a calligraphic tire streak on the pavement and gets on the highway that leads out of Lizzard. The Sheriff of Lizzard County, Bossco Ricotrain, builds a roadblock to stop them. Bo accelerates toward the roadblock like he's going to ram it. Shortly before hitting the roadblock the car sprouts rockets and launches into the air and clears the roadblock while serenading Bossco with a Dixie Horn with 10000 Watts. Everyone in Lizzard County hears it. Luke's drones capture footage and post it to social media and it goes viral. Aurora Wavecrest will use the footage for a film.
We thank Bossco for being an extra in Aurora's film.
Lizzard's last chance is drones. Lizzard's drones go after the car as it nears the county border. Luke shoots them down.
Turkey shoot. You can't beat Blizztech drones.
Bo and Luke get back to Blizzard County in time for rugby practice.

A fleet of vehicles rolls into the valley and parks at Heft's campground. This is Barfleet, a fleet of land yachts and barships. It tours golf courses and golf tournaments. Barfleet is a mobile city, with trucks for water, gasoline, generators, sewage, etc. When it parks, people live in land yachts or deluxe tents. The Barfleet captain is doctor Brute Nuke, an eccentric billionaire and Blizztech Professor of Physics.

The Blizzard Institute of Technology was formed when oligarchs bribed a set of mighty scientists, mathematicians, and engineers to come and teach. Blizztech is the new Rome and kids come from around the world. Once upon a time, kids from Wyoming went to Boston for school and now it's the other way around. Many gadgets at the Heft Open were custom-built at Blizztech. Blizztech's main campus is in Blizzard County and it has a mobile wing with Barfleet.

Blizztech teachers have it good. They get a house, a lawn, a monster truck, free energy from fission reactors, and free good from local farms. Their yards are landscaped by students.

Blizztech has no administration. Students handle administrative tasks in exchange for reduced tuition. Tuition is negotiated directly between students and teachers.

Blizzard County has many homeschools, and they're part of a global homeschool network hubbed by Blizztech. Homeschools are hip and public schools are stale. Teaching is done by an ensemble of parents, pastors, older kids, the elderly, and specialists.

The Blizzard Institute of Technology is hosting a high school Science Olympiad contest in the Blizzard Bowl. Oligarchs pledged $100000 in prizes and attracted elite teams from around the country. The contest field is stronger than nationals. The number of teams is unlimited and 300 teams appeared. Blizztech scholarships are up for grabs.

Blizzard citizens hear a deep bass sound and the sky darkens. An Airbus A380 flies overhead and lands at Blizzport.

The plane carries 2 pilots and no passengers. The pilots debark and are greeted by Brute Nuke, who hands them cheesesteak sandwiches and the keys to a Ford F-150 truck. The pilots drive off in the truck, which carries a ton of gold.

Blizztech engineers strip the plane down to minimum mass and cut a hole in the back for bombs. On the outside of the plane they paint the name "Le May".

General Curtis "bombs away" Le May: Flying fighters is fun. Flying bombers is important.	Bach: Playing violin is fun. Playing viola is important.

Engineers load the Le May with fake bombs. Vesta Garnet boards the plane and takes a seat in the cockpit. She's an aircraft pilot, race car driver, video gamer, and violinist. It's all the same in her mind. She's spent big time in simulators for the A380 and she's thrilled to put her hands on the real thing. The plane is thrilled to feel her hands. Vesta can Vulcan mind meld with machines. Her Lamborghini is her emotional support machine. She lines the plane up on the runway, cranks the engines to full power, and takes off.

Aurora Wavecrest is an aircraft pilot and she sits in the copilot seat. Vesta and Aurora horse around with the plane and get a feel for its maneuverability. They take the plane to 15 km altitude and drop the bombs.

The Le May lands and engineers load one large fake bomb into it. The A380 is the world's biggest bomber with a payload of 300 tons. Vesta drops the bomb and practices handling the plane. Boss Dogg rides the bomb on the way down and parachutes before impact. Dogg needs a supersize parachute. It will be a scene in a Wavecrest film.

The Le May lands and engineers load a rocket into it. The Le May drops the rocket at 15 km altitude and Mach 0.9. The first stage is a ramjet with wings that gets the rocket to Mach 5, and then the ramjet parachutes down. Then 2 stages of solid rockets get the payload to orbit.

The rocket reaches orbit and unleashes its payload, a kevlar balloon 8 meters in diameter. The balloon has many layers for redundancy. Between layers is low-density filler. Goose down. Kevlar converts micrometeors to plasma and the filler absorbes plasma heat. The balloon is impervious to space junk like a runflat tire. The inside has sticky patches to paste over holes. On the outside of the balloon is painted the words "Boar's Buffet".

Another rocket reaches orbit and delivers a prep kit to the Boar's Buffet with things like canned food, whiskey, coffee beans, spices, playing cards, gamestations, and air.

A rocket delivers a Santa Clause bag of gadgets. Another delivers rockets that burn H₂+O₂ fuel, along with fuel. Another delivers communications satellites destined for geostationary orbit over Blizzard County.

A rocket carries astronauts to the Boar's Buffet. They are competitors from the Heft Open deemed the most daring, the most willing to take risks for space selfies. The astronauts practice operating the gadgets.

More balloons and fuel arrive from Earth and the astronauts use them to go to the moon.

A pack of Blizztech students grill burgers and drink beer. They repose on tailgates. Upcoming is a lecture by Gregor Rigel, Blizztech professor of science fiction, history of science, and Tamarian language. An hour before lecture a monster truck pulls up and from it emerges professor Rigel. He opens the tailgate and sits on it and students hand him burgers and beer. This is office hours.

It's winter. A bonfire cranks out heat and gasoline generators crank out electricity and people have electric blankets. It's a sauna.

Rigel: The Starship Enterprise has the mission of exploring new worlds. Can anyone give more examples?
Hickory Cloud: Odysseus
Arcturus Bulleye: James Cook
Vega Jade: Lewis and Clark
The Argonauts
Vikings
Marco Polo
If I'd been Cook and discovered Hawaii, I would have stayed. I’d send letters to my friends telling them that paradise exists and welcoming them to join me.
Cook blew it. He could have pulled a Kurtz and been a god but he was a jerk and the Hawaiians killed him.
Cortez was a hero when he vanquished the tyrannical Aztecs but then he proved to be a tyrant.
It took 3 months to sail from England to Hawaii. You had to commit to one or the other. If a new paradise is discovered, how long would you be willing to travel to get there?
I wouldn't travel to Alpha Centauri on a sublight ship.
You'd die of old age before arriving. Perhaps your children will prosper.
Your ship better be as luxurious as a family van. No rest stops in space.
Don't get on the first ship to Alpha Centauri. The second ship will be faster and get there first.
If you're fleeing tyranny you'll travel far, like the Pilgrims and Mormons.
In Europe, every square inch of land has been owned for millennia. Owned by kings not farmers. Farmers were feudal slaves. The New World had unowned farmland.
People want to farm in peace.
The U.S. government gave 160 acres to anyone willing to get their ass to the frontier and farm it. People showed up.
People hustled to gold rushes in Alaska.
Ancient Romans knew the distance to China and they knew the size of the Earth. Could their ships have reached China?
For a bonus point, what was the tonnage of Columbus' flagship?
Each student writes down a number on a white board and the student that is closest gets the point. The student that's designated Scribe of the Day records the point.
Ancient Roman warships were 50 tons, Columbus' ship was 150 tons, American Revolutionary War warships were 4000 tons, and WW2 battleships were 60000 tons. Kon Tiki was a mere 10 tons and it crossed the Pacific.
Kon Tiki was uncomfortable but unsinkable. A raw raft.
Daring sailers.
Aircraft are like warp drive to sailships.
For Tamarian language, one has to make wise choices about what to include in the canon.
You want material that everyone knows and that's rich in scenes and characters.
Contenders include Star Trek, Star Wars, Bond, Avengers, X Men, Superman, Batman, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, and Game of Thrones. Christianity, Greco-Roman mythology, Norse mythology, and world history. Greco-Roman and Norse mythology won the canon war because they're cool.
What if canon goes off the rails like Star Wars?
The Guardians of the Canon meet in a smoke-filled room and excommunicate bad canon. Papal bulls are issued.
Triggering religious schisms.
Canon wars.
Reboots unnecessarily discard canon that took hard work to build. Praise House of Dragon for sticking to canon. That being said, Game of Thrones season 8 should be excommunicated and done over.
Nuclear retcon.
Sometimes a reboot is necessary.

The astronauts land on the moon and unpack gadgets. Topaz Snowbank uses a rover to do jumps off craters.

Topaz: Someday we'll terraform the moon and you'll be able to hear a Dixie horn.
Beryl: In space, no one can hear the vuvuzela.

The rovers have 8 foot wheels and predictive suspension, giving a smooth ride on lunar terrain. They hop over obstacles. They're powered by europium-152 radioactivity and solar cells.

Ezekiel Aaberg erects a soccer goal and Topaz takes shots while Ezekiel practices saves. Beryl plays sweeper.
Stay close to the ground. If you're caught off the ground it takes time to get back to the ground.

After the soccer session everyone grabs golf clubs and practices shots. The drivers have a club face of 45 degrees, the right value for vacuum. Their drives go 4 kilometers and disappear beyond the horizon.
We need tall flags and artificial turf.
Zeke: The moon is a bigass bunker and balls sink into regolith. I brought an iridium wedge to blast balls out of deep regolith.

After the golf session, Topaz, Zeke, and Beryl get on rovers and drive off in different directions to survey for potassium, phosphorus, ice, and metal asteroid craters.

Enough damn science missions. We need prospecting missions. Every square inch of the Earth has been prospected.

A team of miners lands at the lunar south pole with equipment for mining ice. They build an underground base to be safe from cosmic rays. They use some of the ice to make rocket fuel by using solar cells to split ice into hydrogen+oxygen. They load ice onto rockets and launch it to space where it then goes to various base stations. Some goes to low-Earth orbit where it's used to lift spacecraft to higher gravitational potentials.

Ice is needed in space for radiation shielding against cosmic ray protons. Hydrogen has the best shielding value per mass.

In orbit is a high-energy proton storage ring. It fires bursts of protons at the moon, which penetrate 10 meters of rock and make x-rays. Some x-rays escape to the surface and a survey bot measures the element composition.

Ganoo is an alien from planet Hulkan in the Alpha Centauri system, 4 light years from Earth. He lives in Blizzard County in a Hobbit-like house and he adopts a humanoid form to socialize with humans. No one knows he's an alien. He's a Packers fan and has season tickets. Underground is a secret base with space ships and nuclear reactors.

He's been on Earth for millennia, recording Earth history with bird drones and broadcasting it to the galactic web, adding Attenborough-style commentary. Game of Thrones is a galactic hit. The galaxy is just getting the first seasons and is hungry for more. It's in for disappointment.

Ganoo follows the Prime Suggestion. He usually doesn't interfere but sometimes feels mischievous, and the galaxy eggs him on.

The "Boondocker's Guide to the Galaxy" has an entry on Earth that says:

Earth mastered gasoline and has nice cars. It has the technology to go nuclear but declines. Its space program is retarded. Earth is the Amish of the galaxy. Retro. Quaint. A contrast to nearby planet Hulkan, home of the Milky Way Institute of Technology. Earth is unaware of the existance of Hulkan and Hulkan likes it this way. Hulkan sees Earth as a nature reserve. But there's hope. A fellow named Helon Busk finally figured out how to get stuff to space.

Earth is a tourist spot for aliens wishing to experience primitive culture. It has nice fjords. It's a galactic park, rich in therapy animals. Avoid humans. They're bad therapy animals.

Kingfisher	The Kingfisher, the first ramjet, built in 1951

Ganoo has a ship that he calls the Kingfisher. It's powered by a fission reactor that heats hydrogen for rocket exhaust. Ganoo uses the Kingfisher to entertain UFO fans. They want to believe and they need hope. Ganoo likes to role play and often poses as Batman. He has a stockpile of exotic isotopes to power his gadgets.

The Kingfisher's hull is a molecular composite of carbon nanotubes, graphene, amorphous LiMgAlScTi alloy, beryllium-aluminum alloy, diamond, and sapphire. The diamonds are isotopically pure and in the form of a space frame. The frame consists of 200 nm wide microbeams, which have 10 times the strength of macroscopic diamonds. The outer skin is tungsten alloy for high-temperature operation and it has sapphire windows for sensors.

The Kingfisher has a megawatt laser, a megawatt proton beam, smart missiles, EMPs, and jamming gear. It has a bay of combat drones powered by uranium-232 radioactivity.

For interplanetary space, Ganoo has a bigger ship powered by a fusion plasma ring, with an exhaust speed of 2000 km/s.

For interstellar space, Ganoo has a colossal ship powered by fusion bombs, with an exhaust speed of 4000 km/s. Refueling it consumes an icy moon. The ship's metal comes from metal asteroids.

The mountain interior has fission and fusion reactors with 10 GWatts, using Yellowstone as a heat sink to cloak their existence. The reactors power a 10²⁴ flops computer and the computer drives a holodeck. Ganoo has the history of all galactic civilizations and can simulate any era from any civilization.

Ganoo has solar cells in space that produce 10²³ Watts, and they power a fleet of planet-sized radio dishes that connect to the galactic web.

Dogg tees off with a nine iron to get loft to go uphill. The ball is seized by the jet stream, reverses course, and lands in the lake behind him, the same lake that ate his last tee shot. The trajectory is captured by drones and posted to social media.

Forcefeld: Are you feeding the lake?

Wavecrest grabs a four-inch tee from her golf bag, 4 inches being the maximum allowed by the rules. She sets it on an uphill spot and hits the ball with upswing with a negative one wood. The upswing gives the ball loft to go uphill and the topspin brings it down before the jet stream can take it.

Heft grabs a one-inch tee and set the ball to be just above the ground, in deep grass. He hits it with a zero wood and as the ball plows through grass it gains loft and topspin, and the ball follows a trajectory similar to Wavecrest's.

Forcefeld: Kane is master of bank shots.

Brutus tees off with a 9 iron and aims at a tree on the fairway. He hits the tree and the ball falls to the ground before the jet stream can take it.

Base camp one.

A goose brings Dogg his ball and Dogg gives it a loaf of bread.

Dogg's golf bag has a high-capacity bread magazine.
When Dogg golfs, geese gather.

They're playing in the Forcefeld Open. The field is open to players in the PGA Tour, European Tour, Japanese Tour, Asian Tour, Korn Ferry tour, LPGA Tour, and LPGA Japan Tour, as well as Cinderellas from qualifier tournaments. There are sponsor's exemptions for celebrities and there is the option to buy entry for $20,000. The purse is $20 million, enough to rival a PGA tournament. The field has 1000 players, 20 from the PGA. Players play 4 18-hole courses and there's no cut. If you pay, you get to play, and you get to play among pros and celebrities.

A group of bombers appears in the sky and gives an air show, dropping bombs on prearranged targets. A scene in an upcoming Wavecrest film. Tanks are destroyed. The tanks are military surplus.

A bomber drops a tank and the tank uses its gun to steer and try to land on a tank on the ground. The gunners eject before impact. Spectators place bets on the accuracy.

The falling tank misses. The bombers drop another tank, this one guided by rockets, and it hits the tank on the ground. The falling tank is loaded with extra weight to increase speed. Debris from the collision lands more than a mile away. Cameramen capture glorious debris falls.

A bomber drops a tank and the tank crashes into a cliff. For the film scene, CGI will make it look like a wizard uses telekinesis to throw the tank into the cliff.

Wavecrest gets a call from Bo and Luke Nuke. Dogg's orchestra plays a ringtone. Dixie horn.

Bo: We have proof of animal cruelty at factory farms.
Luke: We couldn't get video for your documentary because everything's indoors in windowless buildings.
See if you can go undercover and get a job at a factory farm.
Dogg: I installed nuclear mass spectrometers all over the world. Anyone will be able to take samples to a spectrometer and get spectra. This reveals the isotope tracers that you planted at factory farms, and also the tracers that were placed at Heft's farms. It can also measure the metals in coins.

E strings are like skiing on ice	Take the path of most action	C strings are like skiing in powder

A pack of wheelchair enthusiasts repose in rugged wilderness. The terrain isn't wheelchair-accessible. One wonders how they got there. Most of the riders are elderly and Ajax is among them.

The wheelchairs are the Model Goat, designed at Blizztech and manufactured by Dogg Industries. They have an electric and gasoline motor, batteries, a generator, and 00 gadgets. It's a Bat Chair. It's a transformer that can grow a cabin around the rider. It can recline like an easy chair and it has a telescoping headrest. A telescoping trunk extends from the back. The seat can telescope upward to bring the occupant to standing level. In high speed mode, the axles widen and the front axle telescopes forward. It can hit 45 mph.

The wheelchairs can sprout legs and navigate rugged terrain like a mountain goat, with software designed at Blizztech. They can drive autonomously. Some riders have functioning legs and are in wheelchairs because they dig the chairs. One wheelchair carries a baby. Ajax has a monster truck with 8-foot wheels. It has a tailgate that lowers to the ground like a ramp so that Ajax can roll up to the truck bed, and then he opens the door to the cabin and rolls to the driver's spot. Ajax is differently-abled. The cabin fits 8 wheelchairs and the truck bed can grow a cabin to fit 6 more wheelchairs. The floor sprouts pop-up chairs in case a passenger doesn't have a wheelchair. The cabin is convertible.

The truck is a mobile church and sports a gold cross on the grill. The truck has a crane and Ajax is part of a lumberjack crew. The crew includes an elephant. Ajax's wheelchair has a fancy control panel that runs the truck, crane, winch, and log splitters. It can guide the elephant with a remote-control tactile device. Sometimes Ajax rides the elephant. If the truck bed is full, the crane can hoist wheelchairs into the cabin. Aurora often borrows the truck for film scenes.

Ajax often sermonizes while the crew works. Ajax is a standup comedian and his sermons are hilarious.

The elderly home has a saw mill. The home is a temple of stone and lumber and it's mostly carved out of a mountain. It's well-heated by firewood. It has a cistern system within the mountains above the home that can soak the home in case of fire.

The home is well-padded. There's a room of foam balls and an indoor pool.

Dogg owns a coat factory in Blizzard County. The coats use down feathers that are molted by wild birds of Blizzard County. No bird is plucked. The down costs $2000/kg and is one of Blizzard's prime exports. Bird down is special because it has a lower density than any synthetic fill. Dogg turned a chunk of land into a bird presidential suite full of nests and food and birds lay eggs there. Dogg collects the molt down. Virtue down. Plucked down is conflict down.

Dogg has a farm of minks, lynxes, and chinchillas, and he makes fur coats from animals that lived a luxurious life and died of old age. The pelts cost $4000/kg.

A Dogg coat has batteries and heaters that can make a blizzard feel like a sauna. It has platinum-catalytic heaters that burn butane flamelessly. It has a gasoline-electric generator that produces 100 Watts and weighs 1 kg. It has inflatable air pockets for extra insulation, with hoses, pumps, and a fancy control panel. The hose system can heat the coat with exhaust from the generator. The coat has a circulatory system.

The coat is made of lightweight kevlar with an optional heavy layer of bulletproof kevlar. It has pockets for tactical gear and can carry enough gasoline to survive a month in a blizzard. It has a hip strap and internal skeleton in case of heavy load. It has a 100 Watt ultra-long-wave radio transceiver for long-range communication and a 10 meter extendable antenna. It has a tranceiver for connecting to Blizzard's geostationary satellites and communications balloons.

The coats are made entirely in Blizzard County and the brand is protected by making the coats uncounterfeitable. They contain isotope tracers that need an expensive accelerator and calutron to produce. There are also secret tags that are not disclosed. Each coat is an NFT with a soul.

Blizzard astronauts use a version of the coat that's heated by plutonium-238 alpha radiation.

Boss Dogg gets a call from Ajax Boulderfield, the Blizzard press secretary.
Ajax: The commissioner of Lizzard County, Boss Bogg, announced he's abandoning all vice rules. Pretty much everything is legal in Lizzard now. It's a swamp. I'll give a press conference and emphasize that Blizzard County is family-friendly, that Blizzard values family tourism. A safe space from vice.
Dogg: Tell people that Blizzard confines vice to an isolated valley, and boast that Vice Valley's casinos are better than Lizzard's. They have exotic games designed by Blizztech professor Gage Arch.
Kane: Tell people that Kane Park is family-friendly.
I'll emphasize the churches and schools next to the park. They buy ludicrous playground equipment for the park.
Toy stores abound next to the park.
It's a boom town for toys and X games.
Blizzard is a lumber superpower. There's also a firestation and hospital next to the park, and Blizzard has a fleet of air ambulances and waterbombers.
If a Blizzard citizen or guest goes down, a jet gets to him and drops a bomb consisting of a doctor and medical equipment. Moments later a VTOL aircraft arrives to take the patient to the hospital like M*A*S*H.
Aurora: The Mormon tabernacle is vast. Some of the churches are engaged in a spire contest. A rich city slicker built a vanity Buddha temple with a gold Buddha statue. Rich source of movie settings.
Disneyland charges $120 and Kane Park charges $5. Disneyland gouges food prices and Kane Park lets you cook your own food. It has grills, sinks, fridges, freezers, electricity, and a farmer's market.
I'm using the park to film a scene with a spice-eating contest. Curry chefs from around the world are holding a convention in the park.
I'll emphasize that Blizzard is a cheap place for conventions, and that Kane's campground costs way less than a city hotel.
Lizzard is building wind turbines on the border with Blizzard, to sabotage the view and disrupt Aurora's movies.
Blizztech programmers can erase the wind turbines from the movie.
I built an agriculture lab on the Lizzard border, and the prevailing wind blows into Lizzard. The lab has abundant cows. Manure that's generated in Blizzard is shipped to the lab for processing. Before processing, it's aged, like wine. The lab specializes in sewage treatment.
Lizzard plans to launch balloons to clutter the sky with ads.
Nuke will out-balloon them. Blizzard welcomes a strategic balloon arms race. Plus Nuke has a loud aircraft.
I'm building a golf course for cannons on the Lizzard border.
The Blizzard bass orchestra holds rehearsals on the Lizzard border.
Lizzard casinos will project powerful lights into the sky, to pollute Blizzard's night sky and disrupt our asteroid-finding telescopes.
Lizzard has 1 Gigawatt and Blizzard has 10.
My agriculture lab will compel Lizzard to bend the knee. I ordered the researchers to explore sulfur chemistry.
Professor Sundial drilled a deep hole on the Lizzard border to release volcanic gas. She found a sulfur deposit.
At the Oracle of Delphi, the Pythias were high on volcanic ethylene gas. The temple has a volcanic vent in the basement.

The golfers are at the 3rd tee and the green is on a mountainside. 150 yards, par 3. If a ball misses the green and falls off the mountain, you lose only one stroke, and you can lose a maximum of 3 strokes. If you miss 3 times, you get to keep shooting until you get it on the green. It's the "Dogg rule".

Dogg gets the ball on the green on the 2nd try, the best he's ever done on this hole. His first ball rolls down the mountain and geese fetch it and fly it to Dogg. Dogg's social media team posts videos of geese scrambling for the ball like a fumbled football. There's a grandstand at the foot of the mountain where fans watch the scramble and make bets.

Forcefeld's first shot misses and falls down the mountain, which is rare for Forcefeld. Loose Goose catches the ball in the air and brings it to Dogg, having assumed that Dogg hit the shot. Forcefeld's second shot hits the green and stops 1 yard from the hole.

Statistics are tallied for geese getting balls. Spruce Goose is ranked #3. He has an edge with his mass and long neck but Caboose Goose's trickery usually wins and Caboose is #1. #2 is Loose Goose who specializes in catching balls in the air. #4 is Juice Goose who is small and fast. Each goose has a jersey with a name, number, and colors. Each goose has fans that wear the goose's jersey. Caboose's jersey is purple and gold and he has Vikings fans. Spruce's jersey is green and gold and he has Packers fans.

Each tee has a bartender and cook. Forcefeld orders carrot juice. He's a Mormon with a wife and 11 kids. Everyone else orders beer. Dogg orders food at most tees. You can call ahead to upcoming tees to give them time to cook.

A falcon race flies by and the golfers pause to watch.

Most of Blizzard County is mountainous and inaccessible by road. Many use hydrogen blimps, which have the virtue of silence. Plus hydrogen can power the motors. A blimp is the slickest way to store hydrogen fuel. Solar cells convert water vapor to hydrogen so that blimps can stay aloft indefinitely.

There are high-altitude blimps with cell phone hubs so that reception is good throughout Blizzard County. Phone blimps are shaped like long vertical cylinders to have minimum cross section when viewed from the ground and they're painted sky blue for cloaking.

A hydrogen blimp 10 meters in size can carry 2 people. Blimps tend to be shaped like cigars to make them easy to fit into hangers. Hangers are carved out of pine forests.

Nobody's afraid of blimp fires. Hydrogen blimps have an outer shell of helium. If a blimp ignites, people have parachutes. There's plenty of time. It took the Hindenberg 30 seconds to burn up, and the flames didn't touch the cabin. 2/3 of the passengers survived. If they'd had parachutes, all would have survived. A 2 kg parachute can support a 100 kg person.

Previous to the Hindenberg disaster, the Hindenberg had flown 100,000 miles without incident. Pretty good safety record, especially for 1936. No heavier-than-air aircraft was as reliable. The Hindenberg crossed the Atlantic many times and survived lightning storms.

Hydrogen fuel in a ground vehicle is a bomb under your ass. It's stored by liquification or by pressure vessel, and a crash releases it all at once. If you crash, you burn. Hydrogen is the most volatile flamable substance that exists. Volatility is inversely proportional to boiling point, and the boiling point of hydrogen is 20 Kelvin.

Electric planes are common. An electric plane is robust because it can have multiple batteries and propellers, and it doesn't need a powertrain like a gasoline plane. It has enough power to hover. The weakness is a maximum range of 50 km, but this is enough to cross Blizzard county.

Nuke also owns an array of shotgun telescopes to find asteroids optically. They have wide fields of view and they survey the entire sky every night.

Nuke has a team of scuba divers in the oceans trying to communicate with whales.

Heft's agents have been feeding birds all over North America to steer their migration patterns to Blizzard County. His agents tag birds and he has a bird tracking database.

A machine pounds lunar rock into dust and then Topaz adds potions of microbes and worms to the dust to turn it to soil. The potions come from Heft's lab where he studies techniques for turning volcanic rock to soil.

There's a pond where biowaste is converted to sushi. There's a ranch with experiments on how large farm animals can get in lunar gravity. Big spherical cows. Farm animals wear VR goggles that make them think they're in Wisconsin.

Nebula Sundial is Blizztech Professor of mining and she's here to mine the metal asteroid, with the goal of extracting platinum-group metals. Metal asteroids are mostly iron, nickel, and cobalt, and these have lower boiling points than platinum-group metals. Metal ore is put in a distillation chamber and an array of aluminum+mylar mirrors heats the chamber. Once platinum-group metals are isolated they're shipped to Earth to become coins. The chamber is made of hafnium carbide for its high melting point.

Growing a kilogram of biomass takes 15 grams of nitrogen, 15 grams of potassium, and 2 grams each of phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, and sulfur. All these elements can be mined on the moon except nitrogen, so nitrogen is the prime target of nutrient recycling.

Nebula is focused on potassium and phosphorus mining because they are only 1 part per thousand in lunar material. She found deposits with 4 times this concentration and she chose the best ones to mine.

At low-Earth-orbit the situation is reversed. You can scoop nitrogen from the atmosphere but there are no other nutrients. Ice from the moon is shipped to LEO where it powers a nitrogen scoop, and the nitrogen is shipped to the moon.

Asteroid iron is great alloy. It's 91% iron, 7% nickel, and 1% cobalt. Historical swords of meteorite iron are stronger than swords of human iron. Game of Thrones has a meteorite iron sword. Nebula operates a machine made by Professor Forge that melts down metal to remove impurities, and the output goes to a machine that forges railgun track. Railgun launch works well on the moon. The goal is to launch vast ice and iron to space. Nuke plans to use lunar iron to build vast radio telescopes in space to look for aliens.

In the Age of Sail, the people that got rich were the ones that shipped the most spice. The Age of Rail produced oligarchs, and space launch produced the richest person in the world, Elon Musk. It's all about shipping.

The fourth hole follows a mountain ridge. 700 yards, Par 7. The grass is tall so that balls stay put on slopes.

Aurora Wavecrest, Boss Dogg, Gregor Rigel, Ajax Boulderfield, Nebula Sundial, Gage Arch, Nuke, and Ganoo are in the Blizzard Bowl watching a Blizzard rugby game. Ganoo is an alien in a human body, and no one knows he's an alien.

The Blizzard Bowl is a stadium-shaped valley that amplifies sound. The surrounding cliffs support a retractable dome and retractable upper deck by suspension. The river that's heated by nuclear reactors heats the valley, and it runs through a tunnel under the field. The turf is natural. Warm tundra.

The stadium has subwoofers, drums, organ pipes, mountain horns, bass instruments, and cannons. Many are bigger than 20 meters. Underground mass drivers can shake the stadium. The jumbotrons are projectors aimed at cliffs. The subwoofers consume 100 megawatts and can be heard in neighboring counties. Blizzard has an orchestra with 100 string basses, 100 tubas, 100 bassoons, and 100 percussionists. Aurora uses the orchestra to record sountracks using the acoustics of the Blizzard Bowl.

The Blizzard Bowl has luxurious locker rooms. Visiting teams and their fans are accomodated by Heft's luxurious campground. The Honey Badgers are highly sought after for games because of their nice stadium and accomodations.

They're watching the Blizzard Honey Badgers, a team owned by Aurora Wavecrest. She taps players for stuntmen for her films.

Gage Arch is Blizztech Professor of Mathematics and he owns a video game production company. He composes sountracks for the games and for Aurora's films. The company is mobile and spends much of its time with Barfleet. The company is supportive of employees with families and Barfleet has a homeschool. Employees value the perspective of their kids regarding gaming. Game production is fun for the whole family.

Blizztech has a world-class high school gaming team coached by Professor Arch. Professor Arch is world champion in many games.

Nuke: The Le May and the Boar's Buffet are equipped with zero-gravity film studios. The walls, ceilings, and floors are all-LED. We have Zeppelins with an all-LED exterior. LED Zeppelins. We can make a Zeppelin look like a Klingon warship.
Rigel: I'm writing scenes that happen on low-gravity moons.
Sundial: The elevator studio is complete. A bigass elevator with LEDs. Kung fu artists can defy gravity. The elevator can also move sideways. It's housed in a 4 km shaft in a mountain. It gives 50 seconds of zero gravity. The moon landings could have been faked with such a studio.
Sideways lurches will be great for spaceship battles.
Boulderfield: Let's have a scene with gravity-defying wheelchairs.
Ganoo: Most science fiction writers aren't strong scientists. Their job is to predict the future of science and most get it wrong. Neil Stevenson is a rare author that gets it right. Most science fiction is merely fiction. They don't even try to respect the known laws of physics. Technobabble.
We have technocandy. Blizztech has a team mapping out the future of technology.
My scripts rigorously respect the laws of physics.
Wavecrest: In most science fiction, no matter how bad a starship is damaged, artificial gravity still works. I'm making a film where starships don't have artificial gravity.
Give Babylon 5 credit for using centripetal gravity.
When a starship is in battle taking hits, one rarely sees seat belts. People on the Enterprise were often thrown around. Control panels were poorly designed. They should never blow up.
There are scenes where a control panel blows up and then still works.
It feels dumb that Star Trek puts the bridge in a vulnerable place. Why not have it in a hardened bunker at the center of the ship?
Klingon ships do this. Human bridges are spacious and have comfortable chairs. Klingon bridges are small and full of structural beams. A human ship is a family van and a Klingon ship is a Hummer.

Shields are boring and explosions are exciting. I'm glad Babylon 5 doesn't have shields. Shields are a literary anathema.
How do we handle FTL and time travel?
It will never happen, even for an advanced civilization. Science fiction authors should come to grips with this. There are deep physics reasons. The Standard Model of particle physics is built from 2 foundations:
*) Information can't travel faster than light.
*) Information can't be destroyed.
These laws are bank all the way up to the energy of quantum gravity.
Time travel is a literary anathema. It's impossible to make a time travel story that's consistent.
What if you have a black hole?
A black hole can do cool things but it can't do FTL or time travel. It can extract 50% of the energy from matter, and aliens likely have a black hole energy source. My X-ray telescopes look for such a thing. A black hole can also boost the speed of a fusion rocket like a powered pinball buffer, using the Oberth maneuver. The alien shipping network likely uses black holes. If the black hole is spinning it workes even better, and LIGO found that most black holes spin.
What's the nearest black hole?
The nearest known black hole is 1560 light years away, but there could be a closer hole. If a hole isn't eating it's hard to see. Astronomers try to find them by their gravitational lensing effect on background stars.
Can something like the Star Trek transporter exist?
You need a transmitter and receiver. The transmitter transmits brain information and the receiver places the information in a pre-prepared robot body. Star Trek is absurd because there's no receiver.
The only way to have FTL is to make the universe a simulation. The simulation can be on a real supercomputer that respects physics. It's reasonable to give the supercomputer ludicrous speed and memory. We could imagine a supercomputer powered by a black hole. Let the simulation have a set of planets and civilizations, all respecting physics, including the starships. Give starships a magic warp drive. Then you minimize the breaking of physics within the simulation. We have a scenario where a set of planets reach warp technology at the same time and another scenario where they're in the medieval age at the same time.
The simulation can have the history of every real galactic civilization, and be able to re-create any time period from any civilization.
If you have warp drive it means you can do lots of other cool things that break physics. We gloss this.
My gaming company strives to make vivid simulations. Gamers have the option of paying more money to boost vividness. The more you pay, the more effort you get from the supercomputer. There's an oligarch that pays $10000 per day for a presidential suite and it thrills his family. The vividness is also boosted by Ajax's elderly home, which the company pays to serve as dungeon masters and non-player characters. The elderly have cool stories to tell and they have a fine sense of mischief. They're like fairies from Midsummer Night's Dream. A house of Pucks.
If kids get too much virtual vividness, do they lose interest in reality?
Virtual reality is integrated with sports. We emphasize that the supercomputer can make you look like Tim Tebow or Lindsey Vonn in virtual reality, but not in real reality. A real soccer ball can only be influenced by a real foot.
Lizzard County's gaming company doesn't have sports and it encourages detachment from reality. It has addictive vices. It's an offer that kids can't refuse. It's turning kids into Daleks, a weak biological organism surrounded by a machine. Not many pedal bikes in Lizzard. My truck can run over Daleks and my crane electromagnet can pick them up and put them in a log splitter. Excommunicate!
I'll work such a scene into a film. Lizzard County is a rugby minnow. We don't play them because their stadium locker room is uncomfortable and their fans are hooligans. Lizzard doesn't drink with visiting teams after the game.
Their gaming team is formidable. The Blizzard gaming team spends big time training for games against Lizzard.
My virtual reality simulator has a family-friendly zone. Plus, my supercomputer is far faster than Lizzard's and my algorithms are far more powerful. Blizzard has math supremacy. We can win the vividness war.
The film "The Matrix" Was all about escaping the Matrix. Turns out most humans willngly dive into the matrix.
The gaming community discusses D&D rules. A possible set of rules is:

Everyone gets time as Dungeon Master. Have multiple domains where each person is DM of a domain.
If characters die, they're reincarnated.
Avoid identity spoofing.

Those are the Prime Directives. The Prime Suggestions are:

Characters are entitled to a backstory, and characters should study the backstories of other characters.
You are entitled to a character that possesses the powers that you possess, when you were in your prime. You may add a reasonable number of new powers and you need not include your weaknesses. Make interesting characters. Give them interesting strengths and weaknesses.
Dungeon Masters should make dungeons that are interesting and fair, and that reward synergy.
Don't be obsessed about level. Concoct scenarios where level is minor in importance.

Your LARP team is a asset for my films. Instant extras. Stealthy. Nobody sees them coming. Flash mob. Well trained in role playing and well trained as a military unit. They make things easy for directors.
The LARP team likes having a piece of the action. Many are students in my LARP class and the games are homework.
I wish my college had had a LARP class.
I'm launching a reality show where a pack of millionaire city slickers try to survive in the wilderness with no gear. All they get is a magnesium spark stick to start fires.
How did you convince them to do it?
They're narcissists and they want to be social media lords. If you want to stand out you need to do something original.
I'll produce a wilderness survival video game to go with the show. My games get the physics right and Lizzard games don't.
Classes are pass/fail and the wilderness is live/die.
I'll zone a wilderness survival park for tourists. On the edge of the park will be a crash lounge if people want to bail. The crash lounge will have full ammenities.

Wavecrest is filming a commercial for the Spruce Goose land yacht, manufactured by Dogg Industries. Boulderfield is the spokesman. He drives his monster truck and it tows a Goose. The Goose is the size of an 18-wheel shipping container and windows fill all sides. The interior is posh. Boulderfield parks by a lake and presses a button on a fancy control and the Goose transforms. The width extends from 8.5 to 14 feet and the roof sprouts railings. Decks and canopies extend out. Boulderfield drives the rig into the lake and it floats on inflatable airbags, and the truck and Goose sprout propellers. A lakestead. A fishing mansion with extendable fishing nets.

X games athletes emerge from the Goose driving aquatic X vehicles and they play around on the lake. Beavers and birds also emerge from the Goose.

Boulderfield races around in his powerboat truck while geese stand on the roof, stretching their wings to feel the moving air. The truck sprouts inverted wings that direct air upward and geese use it to glide.

Brute Nuke, Gage Arch, Aurora Wavecrest, Otto Forge, Nebula Sundial, Gregor Rigel, and Boss Dogg are in Nuke's isotope factory, under a mountain. The factory produces exotic isotopes for gadgets and medicine.

Otto Forge is Blizztech Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science. He's a billionaire and he funds his own lab. He makes gadgets for the Blizzard County Secret Service and for Dogg's catalog of tactical gear.

Nebula Sundial is Blizztech Professor of Mining and a professional hockey player. She drilled the caves that house the factory.

Sundial: I made a cave for a new supercomputer and I installed a cooling system with liquid helium, liquid hydrogen, and liquid nitrogen. It's just under the mountain peak at an elevation of 3500 meters, where the air is always cold, and there's a system to blow cold air through the cave.
Wavecrest: Make the computer cabinets fancy, for film scenes. Don't use boring cabinets like other supercomputers. Make them transparent so you can see the bubbling helium. If the supercomputer is operating at high power, I want it to look dramatic.
Forge: I'll also design some fake cabinets that do cool stuff. I'll channel the style of a Tardis control room.
Rigel: Include some fake cabinets that can be rigged to blow up.
Nuke: The prime projects will be CGI, alien searches, metal asteroid searches, nuclear simulations, materials science simulations, fluid simulations, and gaming.
Arch: The supercomputer will consist of a set of fast cores with serial logic, cooled by liquid helium. A decision engine. It drives parallel engines, cooled by liquid nitrogen. The parallel engines are networked hierarchically, with local communications that are low-latency, and global communications that are high latency. It's a mix of CPUs and GPUs.

Nuke: I got a new shipment of burnt fission fuel. I need more cave.
Sundial: You're never not needing more cave. The mountain is already Swiss cheese.
I need more mountain.
I already did the survey.
Rigel: Thousands of years from now, the cave will be abandoned and Dungeons and Dragons players will stumble on it and wonder what happened.

Nuke buys "fishium", which is burnt fission fuel that's aged at least 60 years. Age removes short-lived isotopes, making fishium easier to handle. Age also allows plutonium-241 to decay to americium-241. The americium is extracted and neutronized to make americium-242m for fission afterburner rockets.

Fishium has abundant rhodium and palladium, which have high value and are great catalysts.

The heaviest isotope that's abundant in fishium is curium-244, at .1%. This is extracted and neutronized to make heavier elements like californium, einsteinium, and fermium.

Nuke's fission reactors make 10 gigawatts. Power is their primary purpose and they're also used as a neutron source for transmutation. The reactors are surrounded by a shell of material to capture neutrons. In the shell is lithium, which neutrons transmute to tritium, and then the tritium decays to helium-3. Helium-3 is for dilution refrigerators and Nuke built up a stockpile of 1 ton. Tritium is also needed for fusion reactors and for boosting fission bombs.

The shell has cheap tungsten and neutrons transmute it to expensive rhenium, osmium, iridium, platinum, and gold, and these metals become coins.

The shell has europium and thulium, which neutrons turn into nuclear batteries. The batteries power Iron Man gadgets designed by Otto Forge. Thulium can be used around humans because it needs only minimal radiation shielding.

The shell has thorium-232, which neutrons transmute to uranium-233, which can be a fission bomb. Neutrons also make uranium-232, which can power a turbofan or a thermal rocket.

Radium was once used for glow-in-the-dark watches but was banned, prompting people to sell their stockpiles. Nuke bought every ounce available and amassed 20 kilograms.

The caves host a vast number calutrons for isotope separation. Heavy isotopes that differ by only 1 nucleon can be separated. Boron-10 is separated from natural boron for fission afterburner rockets. Carbon-12 is also isolated for nanomaterials.

The shell has osmium for producing osmium-194, which can deliver heat at high temperature. This is cricial for turbines and thermal rockets.

The shell transmutes iodine to xenon. Xenon is a great anaesthetic.

Some isotopes need to be aged. For example, neutrons turn stable thulium-169 into thulium-170 (half life .352 years, 970 keV x-ray) and thulium-171 (half life 1.91 years, 96 keV x-ray). Thulium-171 is the desired isotope, so aging the mixture by 8 years eliminates the thulium-170, leaving behind pure thulium-171.

Uranium-232 is aged to produce thorium-228, which is for alpha rockets.

Accompaning the science contest are professional gaming contests with purses far exceeding the Science Olympiad purse. There is also a science fiction convention that Aurora Wavecrest uses as a source of extras for her films. Saves money on the costume budget. Some extras find a way to steal the stage and are promoted to bigger roles. Wavecrest has a stockpile of costumes that she bought from conventioneers.

The Blizzard Open features the standard 23 Science Olympiad events plus exhibition events, and exhibition events get most of the attention because they carry most of the purse. Exhibition events are designed to be thrilling to watch, such as robot soccer. The standard events are spiced up to make them more thrilling. The pentathlon event has a legit military obstacle course designed by SEALs.

The Fermi event has the biggest purse. It consists of back-of-the-envelope style numerical estimates with all of science and mathematics as fair game. It's science speed chess. Mixed martial science.

Teams can compete either in-person or online, though most of the purse goes to in-person teams. There are 2000 online teams and the Open has a fancy system for handling grading.

The balsa used in the contest comes from Heft's campground, where Heft breeds balsa.

The finals for a gaming contest are often the halftime show for a rugby game.

Nuke, Arch, and Dogg have been funding math and science contests for decades and they've given a billion dollars to competitors. Arch's gaming company hires Science Olympiad competitors.

Boss Smogg: Mars has no pesky governments.
Boss Fogg: No pesky environmental regulations.
No labor laws.
No reporters.
Boss Sogg: What can be mined?
Metal asteroid craters. Platinum-group metals will fuel future oligarch wars. We need them for the currency war.
Boss Bogg: We need the ingredients for farming. Nitrogen is available from the atmosphere and there are potassium deposits. Phosphorus is likely the limiting element. We could ship a ton of phosphorus to Mars for 10 million dollars, or we could brute-force extract it on Mars with nuclear energy. Phosphorus-concentrating bacteria can extract phosphorus from biowaste.
What if laborers revolt?
Boss Waterlogg: The machines have kill switches that can be triggered from Earth. We can turn off the power and oxygen like in the film "Total Recall".
I'll go to Mars personally. I've always wanted to be a colonial governor. I've been studying historical governors. The Belgians were especially effective at extracting natural resources. I designed a board game based on colonialism.
Boss Frogg: You have an impressive record for extracting natural resources on Earth.
Mars has no pesky natives. What a dream. Natural resources with no natives. Only our indentured servants. A ticket to Mars is 10 million dollars, and that's steerage class.
Boss Pogg: We can ship more material to Mars than any nation. Nations won't be able to keep up with us. We can own Mars.
Is there science fiction that relates to this?
Orwell's "Animal Farm" is a good manual for how to run a colony. I write Animal Farm fan fiction. There's an online community for this.
Boss Cogg: Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". Don't make the mistakes that the oligarchs made in the novel.
In fiction, rebels tend to win. We know that oligarchs win in real life. I'm not worried about rebels.
Boss Clogg: Helon Busk already launched 100 tons of material to Mars and 4 astronauts. I'm obstructing Busk's rocket industry.
Boss Flogg: We can ship more material to Mars than Busk, but Busk's rockets have a better survival rate. Our steerage-class survival rate is 75%, the same as for Everest.
A sporting chance.
Boss Slogg: Crossing oceans in the Age of Sail was dangerous.
Boss Balrogg: Can we improve the survival rate?
Yes, but it costs too much. We have an expensive reliable rocket and that's what's taking me to Mars. First class.

They adjourn the business part of the meeting to play the colonialism board game. The board is made of gold and the tokens are made of cobalt, uranium, rare earth metals, conflict diamonds, elephant ivory, and rhino horn. It's styled like a Game of Thrones maproom. They dine on spotted owl.

Doctor Fathom Abyss is an oration professor at an elite university. He has a cult following among students. His teachings are powerful but scary. He built an institute in Blizzard County in the temple district where he stages debates. The debates are streamed to seminar rooms at universities. Debates often trigger food fights.

Ponceton is an elite university.

Ponceton professors are dining at the faculty club. They're accompanied by professor Quasar and professor Abyss, who gave seminars at Ponceton that day.

Professor Obfus: The average GPA of Haavaad inflated from 3.8 to 3.9. Ponceton should inflate its GPA.
Professor Hack: We achieved a graduation rate of 100%. It's impossible to fail a class.
Professor Quasar: Aren't you worried about the Ponceton brand tarnishing?
Professor Quack: Our endowment is 20 billion dollars. We can give free tuition to all students. We'll always be able to attract any student we want. We are an eternal feudal lordship.
Professor Bullhorn: Universities aren't about classes anymore. It's about being part of an exclusive club. Our admissions department decides the next set of oligarchs.
Professor Slack: We created a set of awards for undergraduates. Every undergrad gets an award of some kind before graduating. We designed cool trophies. We have award ceremonies with cookies.
Professor Abyss: How do you decide awards?
Professor Yack: By how much students kiss our asses. We're building a crony network. The modern measure of merit is ass kissing.
We kissed ass to get where we are and we decide the next generation of ass kissers. It's the cycle of life.
Darwinistically questionable.
Darwin didn't envision a 20 billion dollar endowment.
Darwin didn't envision that tuition is food for professors.
Jabba the Hut.
In nature, adults feed the young. This is the other way around.
Professor Crack: Brilliant, isn't it? Kids seeking advanced degrees pay us until they're age 30.
Professor Flack: We eat filet mignon. Let students eat ramen.
Professor Lack: A student should praise our papers in his thesis if he wants to someday eat filet mignon.
Is it possible for a professor to be hired from outside the academic nutshell?
No.

Aurora Wavecrest is filming a commercial for the Mastiff gun, manufactured by Dogg Industries. The actors are Bo Nuke and Luke Nuke.

The Mastiff is 50 caliber, 9 inch barrel, pneumatic recoil, rubber grip, and telescoping pneumatic shoulder stock with a rubber end. It has a silencer, whose purpose is not silence it but to make it less loud, and to suppress flash. It has a 10 cm telescope and lasers.

The telescope has a camera that sees visible, infrared, and UV, and it has a selection of band-pass filters. It has a laser for each band. It has a gallium arsenide detector that can see infrared all the way to 20 microns. The detector is cooled by liquid helium. The gun has a module with a liquid helium dewar, and another module for making liquid helium.

The telescope displays an image. Algorithms enhance contrast and classify targets.

The gun has gyroscopes and accelerometers for stabilization and aim, and algorithms connect the telescope to the aiming system.

The barrel has an inner shell of tungsten alloy, then a shell of titanium alloy, then a shell of kevlar. The bullet energy can be up to 4000 Joules. It's overengineered and heavier than it needs to be, which helps with recoil. The mass is 4 kg and it can handle supermagnum cartridges that are 80 millimeters long. The barrel supports a barrel extension that amplifies the bullet's speed and accuracy.

The gun is fully automatic and comes with clips of varying sizes, including a clip with 100 cartridges. In a gunfight, one wants the luxury to splurge ammo. The clips can shuffe ammo. Clips support multiple ammo types at the same time, with the option to select the ammo type for each shot. You can compose a bullet symphony.

The gun comes with a belt with a holster for the gun, a holster for the barrel extension, and docks to hold clips, bullets, and other gear. There is a radar module with a mass of 1 kg.

There's a buffet of projectile types. Tungsten is used for its strength and density. Projectiles with a diameter less than 50 caliber have a sabot to connect to the barrel.

The Yap gun is a mini Mastiff. 50 caliber, 3 inch barrel, 400 grams, 400 Joules, 6 cm cartridge, and shuffling clip.

The Chihuahua gun is a subcompact 22 caliber pistol with a shuffling clip. The mass is 100 grams and the bullet energy is 100 Joules.

The Tuba gun is 100 caliber, 20 kg, 24 inch barrel, 20000 Joules, 20 cm cartridge, pneumatic recoil, muzzle break, and shuffling clip. It has the option to eject exhaust gas rearwards. It has a 36 inch barrel extension with a scabbard. It has gyroscopes that restore the gun's orientation after firing. It has straps so that the shooter can carry it like a sousaphone. The wearer wears a Tubasuit that's like a football suit, with elastic straps to distribute recoil.

Dogg Industries makes a helmet that has automatic ear muffs. It's wirelessly connected to the guns and knows when a gun fires, and deploys the ear muffs. The muffs have speakers to create an antipulse to cancel a gun pulse. The helmet has sensors to sense enemy gun pulses, using flash and sound. The helmet has a visor that can display the telescope image. The visor has sunglasses, band-pass filters, and a system to block sudden flashes. It has the option to block all light and project images from external cameras to the wearer. The suit has helium dewars and a helium generator to support infrared optics. The helmet is airtight and comes with 10 minutes of air, with oxygen from sodium chlorate (NaClO₃) and nitrogen from iron nitride (Fe₂N).

Aurora films a scene in a rock quarry. Luke Nuke has a Mastiff in his right hand and a Yap in his left hand, and he's dressed like Rambo. The Mastiff gives cover fire and the Yap gives bombs. Bo Nuke fires a Tubagun. Bo and Luke are focused on destruction and not on accuracy. Rock shards fly around.

Aurora has a Chihuahua and hits everything that Bo and Luke missed. She does trick shots.

Aurora straps on a Tubagun and Tubasuit and fires the gun, and the recoil jumps her back 2 yards. Then she fires it in fully automatic mode and flies. She dances in the air.

Everyone grabs a Chihuahua and loads it with rubber bullets and they play billiards.

The flying bomb has wings and a rocket. It's guided by a gyroscope, accelerometer, and GPS. The range is 100 km.

Dogg Industries makes kevlar suits of varying weights, up to 40 kg. They come with helmets with bulletproof visors.

Dogg Industries makes the Kodiak cannon for cannon golf. 6 inch bore, 4 foot barrel, 1 foot cartridges, 200 kg, 200 kiloJoules, and a shuffling clip. It rides on a 4-wheel cart with wide 4-foot wheels. The cart has active suspension and navigates automatically. It fires magnesium balls that make nice sparks. The balls are lightweight and susceptible to wind, which adds challenge to the game. The cannon barrel can adjust to control the ball's spin magnitude and orientation. It has dial-a-yield cartridges for golf.

The Koala cannon is lightweight and can be carried. It fires projectiles with large volume and low mass, and it can integrate with a tuba suit.

The laser has algorithms to map a room in the dark and project an image to the visor. There is a module for a UV or IR laser, and the telescope can see these wavelengths. The UV laser is 295 nm and the infrared laser is 980 nm. Lasers range from 5 milliwatts to 30 Watts, at 3 Watts/kg.

A laser can see farther through smoke than the eye, and algorithms can use the laser to see through a smoke cloud. Algorithms look for the most transparent parts of the cloud and reconstruct an image.

UV travels farther through smoke than visible light. There is a module that has a focusable beacon for UV or IR.

Algorithms can construct an image from a flash or a strobe.

The Dogg gun catalog
The Mastiff projectile catalog
Gun module catalog

Oligarchs enjoy a posh party. $10000 tickets. Many are in the Legion of Gloom, a cabal of Bond-style villains.

There's wine that's a century old. Doves and cats roam around. A fish tank holds live seafood. A chamber orchestra plays. Candles burn precious metals. A fellow in a Santa Claus suit hands out swag. There are fountains for chocolate, cheese, and vodka.

Lithium	Strontium	Rubidium

Among the attendees are Bo Nuke, Luke Nuke, Vesta Garnet, and Nova Sharpstein. They're in disguise and here to spy. They're agents of the Legion of Boom, a cabal of oligarchs that includes Boss Dogg and Brute Nuke.l The agents pose as oligarchs that manufacture stuff that the Legion of Gloom needs. The agents are backed by a set of companies that are owned by The Legion of Boom, and the ownership is cloaked.

The Legion of Boom ordered the agents to splurge money to attract attention. Bo and Luke wear Nuke Suits, Spy suits with gadgets woven into them. Their belts, ties, and shoes have gadgets. The suits were designed by Otto Forge and manufactured by Boss Dogg. Vesta and Nova wear Nuke Dresses and they have gadget necklaces, earrings, and shoes. It's all in the Dogg Catalogg.

Planet Hulkan

Star sizes and colors are to scale. Brightness is scaled logarithmically. The image is 40 light years across.

The Alpha Centauri system is 4 light years from Earth and has 3 stars. Alpha Centauri B is slightly smaller and cooler than the sun and it hosts planet Hulkan. Hulkan was built by an ancient alien civilization. Hulkan is a double planet, 2 Earth-sized planets orbiting close together. The orbits and spins are locked so that the same point on each planet is always the closest point to the other planet. The distance between the planets is 10 km at the nearest point, and there's a bridge of atmosphere between them with zero gravity. Whales can fly there.

Hulkan hosts the Milky Way Institue of Technology.

Space mirrors direct starlight uniformly over the planet's surface. The entire planet is temperate and the mirrors control weather. The light passes through a copper film that passes visible light and blocks infrared, so that all light reaching the planet is useful for photosynthesis. The sky is vividly blue. Both planets are rich in biomass.

The atmosphere is:

         Earth     Hulkan     Hulkan    Molecule    Atmospheric
        pressure  pressure    density     mass      height at 1g
          bar       bar      kg/meter3   Dalton         km

Oxygen     .21      .25        .35        32.0          17
Nitrogen   .79      .05        .06        28.0          20
Helium    0         .3         .05         4.0         140
Xenon     0         .01        .06       131.3           4.3
Hydrogen  0         .005       .0004       2.02        278

Total     1.0       .52        .54

Hulkan's air density is low, enabling flying organisms to go fast. Hulkan's atmosphere has hydrogen and there are organisms that can use it for energy. There are plants that generate hydrogen. Helium is restocked continuously because it leaks into space.

Hulkan has low density to maximize surface area.

The crust has abundant metals of every type that were put there by metal asteroid impacts. Hulkans also use rocky asteroid impacts to give the planet volcanism.

Meteors are rigged to give Hulkan mountains up to 50 km tall and basins up to 20 km deep. In valleys, xenon is dense, making it easier to fly. Helium's large atmospheric scale height ensures that the tallest mountains have atmospheric pressure, so that water can be a liquid.

Hulkan has creatures that are genetically engineered. Some have skeletons of metal and carbon fiber. Feather is preferred over fur for its higher mechanical performance. Earth mammals should have chosen feathers over fur. There are creatures that can fly at extreme altitude.

Hulkan has a high concentraton of phosphorus and potassium, which helps biomass. It also has abundant lithium, magnesium, calcium, rubidium, strontium, caesium, and barium, and many creatures can use these as ions. It's nice to have a variety of ion sizes.

The eyes of a Mantis shrimp see 12 colors, including UV, and they see linear and circular polarization. Each eye is trinocular, giving it a total of 6 channels for depth perception.

Hulkan has creatures with eyes that are more advanced than the mantis shrimp. They can see into the deep infrared. There 1000 ton creatures that with eyeballs that are 2 meters in diameter. They can see by starlight.

Hulkan has creatures that can kick the butts of James Cameron's aliens.

Aliens and humans both divide the octave into 12 tones. It's decided by pure mathematics. Just tuning is based on integer ratios and equal tuning is based on logarithms. Violins use just tuning and guitars use equal tuning. For a 12-tone scale, just tuning is nearly identical to equal tuning.

Red = equal tuning           Orange = just tuning

The 7 harmonic modes and the 7 melodic modes are also decided by pure mathematics, and both humans and aliens use these modes. A melodic mode is a 7-note scale with 1 tritone, and a melodic mode is a 7-note scale with 2 tritones.

Edward Lasker: While the Baroque rules of Chess could only have been created by humans, the rules of Go are so elegant, organic, and rigorously logical that if intelligent life forms exist elsewhere in the universe, they almost certainly play Go.

---

An earthquake hits San Francisco and destroys most of the buildings. All bridges are down. Big glass office buildings like Google and Apple are shards.

Loot rush. Looters rush into San Francisco and loot every store, office, and home. They take the loot to other towns and fence it. San Francisco is a material town and now there's no material wealth in San Francisco. No gold.

The 49ers football stadium is destroyed. The 49ers are a refugee and move to San Antonio. San Antonio is a big market without an NFL team. California state tax is 11% and Texas is 0%. Free agents flock to the San Antonio 49ers because of tax.

San Francisco becomes an anarchy ruled by gangs. Every homeowner in the city moves out and city property crashes to zero value. San Francisco loses its property tax income and goes bankrupt.

San Francisco suburbs recover fast. Suburb land tends to be worth more than the house on it, and those with destroyed houses quickly rebuild. Those that move out find that their property has high value.

Rurals drive trucks around San Francisco suburbs selling guns, ammo, generators, gasoline, and farm food. They do big business. Everyone with a Tesla buys a generator and fuel.

A team of oligarchs meets in a smoke-filled room. The Legion of Gloom.

Boss Fogg: We expected this would happen and we planned ahead.
Boss Pogg: I have a square kilometer of rural land outside San Francisco.
Boss Sogg: I have 5.
Boss Frogg: I have 20.
Boss Bogg: Everyone put your chips on the table.

The chips are tallied and the oligarchs formalize an oligumvirate based on the chips. The private land is assembled into a confederacy to be ruled by the oligumvirate.

Boss Flogg: We are medieval lords now. We should appoint a king.
The medieval age never ended and never will.
Boss Waterlogg: We need walls. I stockpiled 1000 kilometers of barbed wire fence.
Boss Clogg: The zombie apocalypse is now.
Boss Slogg: I have autopilot trucks to ensure shipping within the confederacy. The trucks are armed and armored like in the game Car Wars.
Boss Balrogg: I have combat drones for package delivery. Pirates can't touch them. They can drop packages down chimneys.
Boss Cogg: I own land throughout the world, and it's stealthy. No one knows I own it. I imagine y'all have such land.
Everyone laughs. They adjourn the business part of the meeting to play Car Wars, using an updated version that includes drones. They play a zombie apolalyse scenario. They burn napalm for aroma.

---

A smoke-filled room is occuped by Boss Dogg, Boss Togg, Boss Jogg, Boss Blogg, Boss Nogg, Boss Ogg, Boss Glogg, Boss Sprogg, Boss Waagg, Brutus Forcefeld, Aurora Wavecrest, Otto Forge, Nebula Sundial, Kane Heft, Ajax Boulderfield, Gage Arch, Bo Nuke, Luke Nuke, and Brute Nuke. The Legion of Boom. Their base is on a mountaintop. A map of the United States is on a table and there are game tokens on it.

Nuke: Metal asteroids have platinum-group metals, and I sent a team of astronauts to fetch one. They used explosives to steer a metal asteroid to collide with Earth. It's the size of a football stadium and it will hit in remote land. Forcefeld owns the land. The asteroid is cut into pieces and it will hit one piece at a time, to moderate the impact.
Sundial: There's a coal deposit at the impact point that's deep underground, and the impact will expose it. Asteroid strip mining. Asteroids can also frack. Asteroids are great drills. There's vast kinetic energy in the asteroid belt to be tapped. Drill baby drill! Smash baby smash!
Forcefeld: I'll build a mining town on the land after the impact. Let there be an economy. An economic big bang.
We'll extract geothermal energy from the impact.
Wavecrest: I'll use the impact for film scenes.
Boss Glogg: A Lex Luthor plot.
Boss Ogg: Y'all are mad scientists.
Mad scientists are good for film.
Mad scientists win wars.
We need sports teams.
Ogg puts a table of sports leagues on the projector and everyone examines it.

                   Team value  Average pay
                       M$        M$/year

Football    NFL         4000     2.7
Baseball    MLB         2000     4.2
Basketball  NBA         2000     7.7
Hockey      NHL          650     3.2
Soccer      MLS          325      .051
Rugby       MLR            4      .04

Football    NCAA      Varies      .05
Football    UFL           10      .04
Football    FCF           10
Football    Arena League  10
Basketball  WNBA          50      .12
Soccer      NWSL          50      .038
Hockey      PWHL          10      .015

Soccer      England 1    400     4.7       Premiere League

The cheapest ways to make a new team are with Major League Rugby and with the United Football League. We can invade college sports with NIL.
Places that can support an NFL team are Salt Lake City, Oklahoma City, and San Antonio. Build a stadium in Salt Lake City and let Utah University use it. Utah U needs a bigger stadium.
Forge: I designed a stadium that uses the local mountains as a foundation. The upper decks are suspended like a suspension bridge and are adjustable. It can handle large crowds by retracting the upper decks to make the stadium look like Michigan's Big House. It can handle small crowds by extending the upper decks forward.
Forcefeld: It costs 4 billion dollars to put a new team into the NFL, and a billion for the stadium. The Mormon Church has more than 100 billion in the war chest. Dare them to do it. It's worth it. NFL teams make 400 million in revenue per year. The NFL club is good to be in.
Arch: Let's build up the United Football League and add teams on rural turf. We can put teams in Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming, Alaska, and West Virginia. There are lots of college stars that didn't make the NFL. We can put UFL teams next to colleges and use the college stadium. Put stars from a college on to the local UFL team. An alumni team. UFL salaries are 50 thousand per year. We can easily pool money to top this and attract the best alumni.
Oligarch put tokens on the map representing salary money. The stacks of tokens reveal where the new UFL teams will be.
We can also play games in both stadiums and arenas and make the Arena Football League obsolete. We can also have a flag football league for seniors and ally with PGA senior events. Wondering if Sanders can still run.
I'll put the money down to host a senior event.
College football is an oligarchy where the Big Ten and SEC are far stronger than other conferences. We have to lift up teams outside the superpower conferences, and NIL empowers us to do it.
Oligarch put tokens on the map representing NIL money for players. The stacks of tokens reveal which colleges will be uplifted. Boss Ogg is the coach of a college football team and the oligarchs put lots of chips on Ogg's college.
Celebrity coaches attract players. We can allocate money for celebrity coaches.
Let's lift the Mountain West Conference. We can offer to be easy on players so they don't get banged up before the NFL. Let them live luxuriously in college. No onerous rules. We'll stress that we're training players to pull down big NFL contracts. We'll encourage players to jump to the NFL early if they can. We will, however, demand that players play bowl games. They owe it to the team and the fans.
The jerks at Florida State that skipped the bowl game caused the humiliation of their conference. Endorsers should shun them.
Hockey pro minor leagues have larger revenue than college hockey. College hockey has the potential to eclipse the minor leagues, like college football does.
College hockey conferences are even more fluid than football conferences. Hockey conference supremacy is up for grabs. There are many strong conferences. The most strategic conference to uplift is the Big Ten Conference. It includes Notre Dame.
Senator Herb Kohl donated money to make an large arena at the University of Wisconsin that can do hockey and basketball. The Las Vegas Golden Nights built such an arena. We need more such arenas at colleges.
I'll fund a sumo tournament and invite wrestlers of all styles. We can synergize with the UFC. Sumo has the virtue that there's a sporting chance of an upset, and that you can wrestle many matches per day.
Boss Togg: How about a pickleball tournament? The Tennis U.S. Open is 60 million dollars of prizemoney and the Pickleball U.S. Open is 60 thousand. We can take over pickleball.
Chips are put on the table for a pickleball tournament.
The women's pro hockey average salary is $15000. It wouldn't take much money to invade the league. With 2 million, you can outclass the existing teams. Who wants to make a team?
Boss Nogg, Boss Waagg, Boss Blogg, and Boss Glogg volunteer to make teams and they put tokens on the table where the teams will be.
The price to buy into Major League Rugby is 4 million. I'll put down the money to get the Blizzard Honey Badgers into the league.
Several oligarchs volunteer to contribute to the team.
The Science Olympiad is the premier K-12 science contest. It has 23 events and 5000 schools compete. It inspires kids to study science, but the events are poorly designed and it holds the contest back. The events are also not TV-worthy. I designed a set of thrilling events that are scientifically legit. Let's host a contest near Salt Lake City.
Chips are put on the table totaling 3 million.
We'll spend it on prizemoney, travel, and gear. Some events need expensive gear. We'll run the standard 23 events and we'll also run our custom events. Our tests for the standard events will set an example.
I'll MC and make it like a WWE event.
We'll include a math contest. Bafflingly, the Science Olympiad doesn't have a math contest. There will be a contest in pure mathematics and a contest in computational physics. The computational physics contest is similar to the Mathematical Contest in Modeling.
We can include college. The Science Olympiad doesn't include college and it should.

---

Aurora Wavecrest, Vesta Garnet, Ajax Boulderfield, and Brutus Forcefeld play billiards. They're on a boat and in the background is an ocean with fierce waves, yet the table and floor are curiously stable. Aurora takes a shot and the ball rolls straight.

They're shooting a commercial for the Model Gull seastead, manufactured by Dogg Industries.

Wavecrest: This isn't a film studio. This is a real boat. That's a real ocean.
Boulderfield: The billiards table has active suspension. It has lasers and level sensors and it calculates where the balls would go if the table were flat, and it dynamically adjusts the table to get them there. It has internal actuators to correct table warp. It's like a telescope mirror with adaptive optics.
The balls have magnets and the table has electromagnets. Computer algorithms can make the balls do cool things.
Garnet: The boat deck is 10 meters above water to be above waves, and flotation elements are 10 meters below water to be below waves. They're connected by columns that are trussed together, and the columns are rigged to have minimum cross section at water level to minimize bobbing. It looks like a bamboo forest. There's a lower deck 1 meter above water level for calm weather.
With a standard ship, waves crash into the side and are deflected upward, often making it to the deck. The Gull has no sides.
Forcefeld: The boat is actively stabilized and there's a hidden breakwater just below the surface surrounding the boat. The boat and breakwater have fins for damping, and also motion damping systems that power generators.

The Gull has links to link to other seasteads, and the links improve stability. Gulls link like Tinker Toys. The links have adjustable length and orientation and they're disguised as cute Japanese garden bridges.
Boss Dogg collects retired wind turbine blades and turns them into motion-damping breakwaters. Oligarchs are buying Gulls and building a vast linked city, and they're moving their companies to the city. An oligarch bought a massive platform the size of a football field and built a family park on it, and seasteads cluster around. The park has a freshwater pond called Galt's Gulf that's full of waterfowl and seagulls.

Kane Heft designed an underwater coral platform that's mobile and depth-adjustable. The seastead is in a warm part of the ocean where there's minimal shipping noise, to attract whales. It's on a bird migration corridor and serves as a rest stop. The seastead shines UV beacons to attract birds.

Heft harvests guano and sells it as virtue fertilizer.

---

The Big Bang

Brutus Forcefeld won big money on the PGA tour and feels like spending it. He hires agents to investigate rural land in North Alaska and they find a patch. Forcefeld buys 10 km².

Later on, a metal asteroid crashes onto the land. The asteroid has platinum-group metals. Nebula Sundial arrives with a mining crew to extract the metals. The crater exposes a deep coal deposit and Sundial mines coal. She also builds a system to extract geothermal power from the crater. The ground around the crater is warm and the crater is in a valley that holds heat. Winters in the valley are pleasant.

Forcefeld is a Mormon with a wife and 11 kids. Him and his family often ride with barfleet and he owns 5 Spruce Gooses. 3 are for family, 1 is a Mormon tabernacle, and 1 is for Mormon missionaries. Forcefeld supports 8 missionaries.

Forcefeld designates an admissions committee and the committee decides who gets to move onto the land. Mormon values are emphasized. You don't have to be Mormon, but your values must be synergistic with Mormon values.

Miners flood onto the land. A platinum rush. A boom town forms. Forcefeld offers land to rent. The land is zoned for big yards. Alaska-sized yards.

Forcefeld builds a golf course on the land. He hires 18 golfers from the PGA senior tour and asks each to design a hole. Each hole hosts a statue of the designer.

Forcefeld hires a team of elderly oligarchs to design a clubhouse, and also to design an elderly home next to the clubhouse. Forcefeld puts down money and it's matched by the elderly, and they build it.

The clubhouse has posh telecommuting gear, an office wing, a Mormon tabernacle, and a Christian church. Many companies move their employees to Forcetown. The goal is to have a big yard and a short commute, which is impossible in a city.

Forcefeld buys a mountain of fertilizer and hires Kane Heft to distribute it on the land. Heft also plants seeds, especially apple seeds. Forcefeld likes apple juice. It's part of his style. He drinks apple juice when he plays. There's always a fruit snack nearby on Forcefeld's land.

The tee of each golf hole features a snack bar with roasted nuts and fruit juice. There's also a bar.

Forcefeld donates money to create the "Forcefeld Chestnut Foundation", with the headquarters on his land. The hope is to vanquish chestnut blight. Heft plants chestnut trees around the world and researchers study the trees.

Forcefeld's land includes a mountain and he builds a ski slope. There's a bullet train that hoists people from the valley to the mountaintop in comfort.

The residents of Forcetown gather in the clubhouse.

Parent #1: Let there be a school. K through college. I have kids in the 4th, 6th, and 8th grades and I hired a math teacher that my kids like. My kids persuaded the teacher to move from his previous school to here. The teacher is a professional gambler that's a master of probability. He designs games for the kids. He helps them with sports metrics for fantasy sports.
Forcefeld: Teachers get lease discounts and other privileges. Put out word that Forcetown seeks teachers. The school will be part of a global homeschol network and Blizztech will goose the school. We'll be a colony of Blizztech. I fund Blizztech professors.
Parent #2: I'll build a boarding school to attract students.
Parent #3: Let's call this school the Kodiak Institute of Technology.
The crowd approves.
Parent #4: Our bear is bigger than rival bears. Kodiaks dwarf grizzlies.
What about the sideline mascot?
Baby kodiak
Perhaps a panda instead? They're chill.
The room debates and settles on the panda.
We need pandas. I'll build a panda town.
It feels like they think they're humans.

---

Cigar galaxy	Mimas

Drunk students horse around with a backyard telescope.
Al: I have the Cigar galaxy lined up.
Loraine: You often have a cigar lined up.
Margold looks into the telescope.
Margold: Nice prank. How did you add a death star to the image?
You're drunk and hallucinating.
Look into the telescope.
Could this be Mimas? Mimas looks like a death star.
Mimas is on the other side of the sun now.
It's smooth metal and I don't see any heat exhaust ports.
Al looks into the telescope.
It's moving. It's getting closer to Earth.
Al pulls out his phone.
I'm making stock trades and betting on volatility. Whatever the death star means, the market is about to get volatile.
Everyone pulls out phones and starts trading stocks.
We have the opportunity to tweet a tweet that launches a billion retweets.
The longer we keep this to ourselves, the more money we make.
After that, our souls are in the hands of god.
Let's start a religion of alien worship. Let's build a temple and get busy worshipping.
What do aliens want?

---

Nuke's telescope team finds the death star shortly before the backyard telescope. Nuke hails the Death Star.
Greetings from Earth. I'm Captain Nuke of Barfleet. What can we do for you? We have tourist resorts. We have cookies.
An alien appears onscreen. The alien is humanoid with blue skin and he's ruggedly good-looking. He wears a gangster suit in the style of 1920's Chicago. His head, eyes, and ears are massive.
I'm Captain Zorf of the Galactic Empire. We're taking over and installing humans of our choice to run Earth. Boss Dogg will be President of the United States and Spruce Goose will be Vice President. Dogg will pull Earth's strings and we'll pull his. We chose Dogg for his flexibility. It's very much a matter of flexibility.
At that instant, all Earth military hardware bricks and all military software deletes itself. Earth is as helpless as a worm in an Eagle's claw. The death star fires a ray at a mountain and blows it up to punctuate the point.

I formally disclose that I have a secret isotope lab under a mountain that could easily be mistaken for a weapons lab. In fact it is a weapons lab. Tour on offer.
We know about it. Fine work. Don't worry, we won't tell anyone. We enjoy good mischief. Carry on. We'll give you a piece of the action.
I've always wondered why aliens never destroyed Earth. I kiss the turf every day in thanks it's still here.
Aliens feel that Wisconsin farmers are doing a fine job converting starlight to cheese. Wisconsin cheese dominates the Galactic Cheese Championships. Wisconsin is unaware that aliens import Wisconsin cheese and that the Green Bay Packers have fans throught the galaxy. We also import Scotch.

The milk must flow!
The Scotch must flow!
Grill smoke must billow!

We like Blizzard's resorts and we booked suites. We're here for therapy animals, not humans. We also bought tickets to the next Blizzard rugby game. As currency, we offer Hulkan ale that's aged a billion years.
An offer we can't refuse. Blizzard County apologizes for the light pollution from Lizzard County.
The Death Star opens fire and destroys Lizzard's lights.
We like darkness.
Thank you. Blizzard astronomers especially thank you. What's the beam made of?
1000 TeV uranium nuclei that penetrate a kilometer of rock.
There's also a 1000 TeV neutrino beam that goes through a planet and zaps what's on the other side. The Death Star doesn't need to be above the horizon to zap.
How long have aliens been on Earth?
A long time. Congratulations on being the first to see us.
Why wait until now to take over?
We held hope that humans are capable of governing themselves but then abandoned hope. We judge humans a failed civilization. Earth matters more than humans and the galaxy expresses its vote. Humans are arrogant in thinking that only they have a vote regarding Earth. Time for humans to learn their place on the galactic totem pole.
Nuke is on a barship with his crew. Vesta Garnet drives.
Garnet: Have you ever taken over before?
I did during the early Egyptian era. I acted the role of an Egyptian Pharoah.
Sounds fun.
At the time, humanity was enmired in gang wars and the only way to bring peace was to take over. Imagine explaining to Galactic Command why I pulled a Kurtz and took over.
Sledge is Barfleet Chief of Security.
Sledge: Does there exist undiscovered archaeological evidence?
Yes. I'm disappointed that humans haven't found the stargate yet. Earth linguists need to raise their game. I left a trail of heiroglyphic clues and linguists whiffed.
Your Death Star is beautiful. Compels humans to bend the knee. It's something they understand. Humans need to understand that they're under the boot. What if you also had a space pyramid? Pyramids look formidable and they look even more formidable in space.
Cool idea. I'll add a space pyramid.
I love the Washington Monument. I'm imagining a replica of the Washington Monument in space.
You got it.
Have you helped human technology in the past?
No. In fact I'm disappointed in the slowness of human discovery. Humans are retarded by galactic standards.
Have you solved quantum gravity?
Yes.
Have you solved the Riemann hypothesis?
Yes.
Have you solved turbulence?
No. We approach turbulence partly with theory and mostly with brute-force computing.
Nova Sharpstein is Barfleet Chief Doctor and also an Alexander Technique practioner. She reads body language so well that she's jestingly regarded as telepathic.
Sharpstein: Is Elvis an alien?
Yes. He didn't die. He tours planets and he moved on to the next planet. I'm giving Earth his new music videos. New dance moves.
Earth music is in decline and needs uplift. Does Earth have more aliens?
Yes.
Who?
Not telling.
Given how Charlie Chaplin moves, I'd guess he's an alien.
No comment.
Ajax Boulderfield is Barfleet Chief of Communications.
Boulderfield: Do you talk to whales?
Whales and us go way back, way before Ancient Egyptian civilization. We socialized with whales when humans were apes.
We're having trouble connecting to whale language.
You need to know galactic canon. I'm giving Earth the canon. Galactic Tamarian. Also, whales are sensitive to the Hulkan mind meld. You need to learn it. They can teach you.
Otto Forge is Barfleet Chief of Engineering.
Forge: What powers the Death Star?
Antimatter. I can blow up the Earth.
Gage Arch is Barfleet Chief of Games.
Arch: What games do you play?
Aerial rugby is big on low-gravity worlds.

History of Science
Death Star specifications

---

The Death Star opens a bay door and a warship emerges from it. The warship goes to Earth and parks on the White House lawn and androids emerge from it. They look like bodybuilders and wear sunglasses. The president and his entourage greet them.
Android: Get out.
As White House staff evacuates, androids install bird feeders. Alien animals emerge from the ship and play on the lawn.

---

Air Force One lands at Blizzport and alien androids emerge from it. Boss Dogg and his entourage greet them.
Android: Get in.

---

In the Oval Office, President Dogg sits in the presidential chair and his feet are on the presidential desk. His boots are staggeringly large and made of blue suede. He wears a blue suede gangster fedora with a 6 inch brim that makes his big round head look like Saturn. His suit is black with a blue suede tie. Dogg smokes a Hulkan cigar and a fancy air system hustles smoke out of the room. The androids smoke cigars. Vice President Spruce Goose stands on the desk accompanied by Caboose Goose, the Court Jester. Caboose pushes the microphone stand off the desk. Spruce and Caboose wear gold jewelry and look like goose pimps. The office is full of cabinet officials and reporters. Androids stand stoically at the periphery. A chamber orchestra stands behind Dogg. Dogg passes out cigars.

Dogg: Let's have a new fairway and green on the White House lawn, and a waterfowl pond next to the green. Professor Sundial found exotic sand for bunkers and ponds, and colorful marble for the house. Professor Heft will landscape. Brace for biomass. Geese value good grass. Install Kentucky bluegrass using seeds from Lambeau Field, and hire a bluegrass band for tonight's party. Make the tennis nets adjustable to accomodate pickleball, and add cornhole and wrestling courts. We thank President Truman for the horseshoe pit and bowling alley. Also add a goose coop. I like fresh goose eggs. Business starts when roosters crow and geese honk.
Most of the reporters are groggy because it's 5 AM. Dogg and the geese are energized. Birds are awake and singing.
Spruce: Honk
DC is a swamp with murky water. Blizzard's Lake Phurba is 60 meters deep and you can see the boulders at the bottom. Import Blizzard water for the pond and microbrewery.
Blizzard has insects under control. Put abundant birdseed next to the pond to attract insect-eating birds, and install anti-insect lasers.
Reporter: Has the government been hiding the existence of aliens?
I order the release of all government files on UFOs, and give Geraldo Rivera first crack at the vault. Have Area 51 give public tours and tell them to kiss Rivera's ass.
Caboose flies from the desk to the reporter's shoulder.
President Wilson owns the record among presidents for the most number of golf rounds played and was regarded as the worst golfer among presidents. I hope to outdo him on both counts. If it snowed, Wilson still played, and he painted the balls black.
Caboose flies to a shelf full of busts and pushes the busts off the shelf.
The aliens added an amendment to the Constitution. Retiring presidents must farm. I shall serve exactly one term and then farm. I like farming. My favorite president is Polk and that's what he did.
What's the Galactic Empire's plan for Earth?
To colonize it and pump up the biomass. Earth is unfit for self rule and is better off a colony. You'll find that being a colony of the Galactic Empire is a good thing.
What's your energy policy?
We need more power. I'm licensing fission reactor designs. We're not scared of fast neutrons. Large reactors with fast neutrons and portable reactors with slow neutrons. Nuke baby nuke! I love the smell of radioactive ash in the morning. Also, forest fires are 600 Watts per person up in smoke, and we'll capture the energy.

A gold statue catches Caboose's eye. It's a replica of the soccer World Cup trophy, identical in every way except that the real trophy is hollow and the replica is solid gold. The real trophy is 6 kg, light enough to be hefted by soccer players with skinny arms. The replica is 30 kg. Caboose tries to push the statue off the shelf and fails. Caboose is confused. Given the statue's size it should be easy to push off the shelf. Caboose experiences the concept of density. Caboose gives up and poops on the statue.
We'll harness asteroid energy, which is colossally vast. An asteroid will make a crater in Alaska near the Yukon river, and hydro power is extracted as the crater refills. Then another asteroid blasts the water out of the crater for another round of hydropower. Brace for impact.
What about fusion?
Fusion won't be commercializable for a long time. A solar cell has a power per dollar of 10 Watts per dollar, and a fusion plant .025 Watts per dollar. Fusion falls short by 3 orders of magnitude. Also, fusion energy per dollar is orders of magnitude worse than coal. It's embarrassing that people pass around pop science articles about this. Fusion is a grift. Let it go.
What's your climate policy?
Solving climate is easy using ocean iron fertilization and tree carbon capture. Also, asteroids can trigger snow for albedo management. Do the homework. Read Dr. Koonin's textbook: "Unsettled" and read Blizztech's textbook: "Science for Politicians"
What's your science policy?
Particle physics is starved for data. We'll build a particle collider.
What's your environmental policy?
The oceans will have zones where motors are forbidden. Whales value quietness and the aliens value whales. They hold little valuefor humans.
Honk
We'll construct biomass reactors in rainy zones where we'll hyperfertlize, to maximize biomass density and species density. The aliens want more biomass. We need more power for fertilizer production.
Will the aliens give us advanced technology?
No.
Will they tell us what's out there in the universe?
No. We have to figure it out for ourselves. Aliens enjoy watching new civilizations figure stuff out. It's what makes us cute and we need to be cute. Be thankful that they give us the opportunity. Be thankful they didn't exterminate humans.
On a shelf is a replica of the Stanley Cup that's full of Jack Daniels. President Dogg takes a hit and dares reporters to take a hit.
My comedy is 6 drink minimum.
Caboose flies into the Stanley Cup for a swim.
The aliens demand a redo of Game of Thrones season 8. The galaxy is unhappy with this season.
Isn't your cigar intolerant of non-smokers?
Many non-smokers are intolerant of smokers and they need more tolerance. They crybully smokers. Cigars can make you feel good and the smoking section is an exclusive club. Non-smokers miss out.
Caboose flies to the chandelier and perches on it and everyone under it moves to a different place.
The Goose of Damocles
Caboose flies out the door to explore the White House.
Loose wild goose.
Reporters chase Caboose because he gets great ratings. People wager on what his next act of mischief will be. In Professor Arch's video game world you can play a mischievous animal.
Most people talk too much and rarely listen. Cigars help you talk less. Once upon a time tobacco was integral to socializing and there's a reason.
NFL?
The commissioner will be decided by votes from people who bought tickets. I hope the salary cap is abolished and that the NFL begins inter-league play. An NFL team of 2nd and 3rd stringers can play minor league teams. Get rid of preseason games. As it stands, you need 4 billion dollars to buy into the NFL. The money goes to existing owners and that shouldn't be. Plus the buy-in price is a tall barrier to entry.
College Game of Conferences?
Fighting the collusion of the Big Ten and SEC requires that teams outside these conferences collude. Humans are good at collusion. It's human nature. In the good old days colleges decided their own game schedule and now it's locked in by long-range TV contracts. College sports needs more flexibility. During the Covid year, BYU and Coastal Carolina played a game on 3 day's notice. The Big Ten adjusted conference championship day on the fly. Ask professor Arch for analysis.
Honk
The rules of American football are inelegant. Humanity needs to design better sports. Rugby is more elegant but it's still not perfect. Soccer is elegant but the offside rule is inelegant. Soccer should have less people on the field or there should be a 2nd ball. There should be an end zone beyond the goal like hockey. Hockey nets should be bigger and goalies should wear tight clothing, like soccer goalies.
I'm holding a conference at the White House with players and fans to discuss game design. We'll channel Teddy's spirit.
An android enters the room carrying a cage of bird-like animals and opens it.
Unleash the tibbles!
Tibbles fly around the room. They're social and cuddly and they interact with humans. The humans are overwhelmed by the cuteness of tibbles. They have soft pinfeathers. Their skeletons and feathers are carbon fiber and they fly easily, even though they're as heavy as turkeys. They have big heads and their eyes are twice the size of human eyes. Spruce and the tibbles horse around together.

---

President Dogg is in the White House kitchen socializing with cooks. He's thrilled by the vast selection. The spice rack has thousands of spices. Dogg feels like he's in Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory.

Dogg: To make a Blizzard sandwich, marinate thin-sliced meat in curry, smoke it over hickory, dunk it in Scotch and set it on fire. Use swamp Scotch like Laphroaig and Aardbeg. Stack layers of meat and smoked cheese and melt the cheese. Lettuce and tomato on top. Make a sauce with olive, mushroom, onion, garlic, avocado, bell pepper, lemon, lime, sour cream, butter, and egg yolk. Mince it, cook it, and spread it on both buns. Dense sesame on the buns. Use ribeye, dark turkey, bacon, tuna, Wisconsin sharp cheddar, parmesan, Swiss, and rye bread. I plan to get even fatter while in office. Food energizes. Cigars energize.
What should go in the curry?
Make it a du jour surprise.
It's fun to experiment with the spices.
Make a dewar with a thermoelectric cooler to keep the drink at just above freezing. The drink is Mountain Dew, orange, grapefruit, peach, tangerine, lemon, and lime. In the evening, add vodka. The aliens rigged the country failsafe so that even Homer Simpson couldn't melt it down.

---

Dogg is on the White House golf green and is greeted by Zorf.
I love how the androids add gravitas to the room.
Zorf: You add gravitas with your girth.
I'm assuming you're referring to my shoes.
Ha ha.
Hilarious how irreverent Caboose is of the androids. Hilarious how tolerant the androids are of Caboose.
We like geese.
What's my budget?
We'll fund science projects like the collider. It needs to get built fast. We'll also produce fertilizer for a biomass reactor in Florida. We'll use platinum currency. Humanity needs to design better currencies, especially heavy metal currencies. By the way, add metal to the White House band roster.
Happily. In my mind the Baroque Age evolved to the Metal Age and I don't give a damn about most of what's in between. Bluegrass is hillbillie metal.
I'll be at tonight's bluegrass concert. Human pop music forsook instruments and needs to get them back.
As an opera singer I'm nice to the orchestra, the way a quarterback is nice to the offensive line.
Chess is inelegant and go is elegant. The rules of go are so natural that most alien civilizations discovered it. I'm giving Earth the rules to the most interesting board games that the galaxy plays. We have games that will flummox your AIs, like Hulkan chess.
We need inspiration for nerds.
Sumo and Mongolian wrestling have simple rules. They're fine as is.
The only sports where I have game.
Humans are enacting the film "Idiocracy". The galaxy mocks humans.
The Blizzard Science Olympiad team mocks California.
We enjoy watching the Science Olympiad. Congratulations on Blizzard winning the national championship.
California is prideful and didn't see it coming. Professor Heft has been breeding balsa since he was a kid and his balsa grove makes magic balsa. His high-end balsa sells for $1000 per kilogram. He can sense the breaking strain of a piece of balsa without having to break it. Heft is a telepath to fauna and flora.
We'll fund worldwide Science Olympiad contests and we'll fund gear for worthy contestants. Arch, Nuke, and I designed new events that make the contest more TV-worthy. As it stands the Science Olympiad gets poor galactic TV ratings. I'm taking over the Science Olympiad and installing Arch as commissioner. Events need to be more quantitative and Blizztech published example tests to show what quantitative is. The flagship event is the Fermi event and top competitors will get prizemoney on par with top professional gamers. Caltech pioneereed a class on Fermi style and Earth needs to see it. Fermi style is the right way to think, and humans need to learn.
How are human film ratings on the galactic streaming network?
Not good, however Blacklist and Magnum are popular, as are Aurora's films. Humans should revisit the classical film age. Modern film is in decline.
Are humans in danger of being cancelled by the galaxy?
Yes.

---

Dogg and Zorf move to the horseshoe pit.
Can you hit a hole-in-one on a par 5?
Yes, but only with a fleet of insect drones measuring wind and a supercomputer to calculate turbulence. You need the full power of the Death Star's supercomputer. I have a "drunk mode" where I function at reduced capacity to be sportsmanlike with humans. I can even play as bad as your handicap.
Is it euphoric?
Yes.
What should I do with the military?
Downsize it and maintain a small military for movie props. The military teaches skills and builds character. Keep the SEAL program. No federal military funding. People have to pay to play. Designate a zone for wargames. Auction off the combat gear and let people use it in the wargame zone.
Thrilled about the films Aurora will make.
An Iron Man suit appears, flying in the air. It lands next to Zorf and Dogg. The suit is empty.
I want you to manage by flying about. I'm equipping you with a Presidential Suit. It's like an Iron Man suit. It has rockets that can hustle you around America. I want you to go where no president has gone before. Appear by surpise. Make people feel like the president could appear any time, like Batman. Cabinet secretaries and congresspeople also get suits. The duty of congress is oversight and to stick its nose in people's business, and this gooses its ability to oversee. I fired Congress and appointed a new Congress, consisting of people with common sense and proven honor.
What about the Supreme Court?
I'm disbanding it. I'm the Supreme Court.
How's the suit powered?
A fission reactor with californium-251 powers a thermal rocket. The thermal rocket dissociates water into hydrogen and oxygen and expels them. The hydrogen exhaust speed is 12 km/s. It has a freezer to extract water from air.
Can you make suits for Spruce and Caboose?
Cool idea. I'll make goose suits.
Imagine the mischief Caboose will do.
I'll equip the suits with mischief gadgets.

---

An asteroid crashes into Mars and astronomers analyze the data. Spectra show abundant nitrogen, oxygen, and water, indicating that it was a comet from beyond Neptune, where all of these things freeze. The comet was large, 100 kilometers in diameter. It gives Mars enough nitrogen and oxygen for a breathable atmmosphere, and enough water for an ocean. The collision outgasses enough carbon dioxide from the crust to heat Mars to Earth temperature by the greenhouse effect.

---

A comet crashes into the moon and does unto the moon as was done unto Mars.

Topaz calls Aurora. Topaz is on the moon and wearing a tank top and no space suit. Her athletically-sculpted arms are in view.
Topaz: What an improvement! Wushu without a spacesuit. Please send wingsuits and aircraft. If the moon has an atmosphere, humans can fly with a wingsuit. Please paint my wingsuit like a pigeon.
Ezekiel: I want mallard.
Beryl: I want Canadian goose.
The Apollo Crater is a good place for a ski resort. Two crater rims smashed together. We're headed there. Send skis. Send golf clubs optimized for lunar air and gravity.
Can you make a gyrosuit that doesn't need the bulk of a spacesuit? I want to do ski jumps. Send wide skis.
Solar-powered aircraft can fly on the moon. Ask Otto to make lunar aircraft. It'll help with surveying.

---

An agent notifies President Dogg about the comet strikes.
I'll need to make a statement.
Tell humans I terraformed the moon and Mars. All you have to do is crash comets into them, or a Kuiper belt object, or a moon of Neptune. A fusion bomb can steer a comet to Earth with a delivery time of 30 years. Humans could have done this 50 years ago and it's disappointing they didn't. I manufactured oxygen and added it to the comets. The oxygen density on the moon and Mars is 20% larger than on Earth. I'm surrounding the moon with space mirrors to direct sunlight to the moon. The mirrors are silver that doesn't reflect UV, and they're coated with glass that absorbs UV and IR, so that all the light that get to the moon is useful for photosynthesis. I released genetically-engineered microbes on the moon that extract phosphorus and potassium from soil, and also fix nitrogen. The best Earth plants are 4.3% efficient for photosynthesis and these bacteria are 10% efficient. They can photosynthesize green light. We want the moon to burst with biomass.
Can you make Jupiter into a star?
No. Its mass is too low for hydrogen fusion. Too low even for deuterium fusion.
Will the moon's atmosphere leak into space?
Yes, but slowly. You'll have to periodically hit it with comets.

---

Professor Heft hastily assembles a team of ecologists to figure out what to put on a Noah's Arc to the moon.

Heft: I can't wait to see animals play on the moon.
Boulderfield: I'm coming with you. Many residents in my elderly home want to move to the moon and I'm going to build a home there. Most have pets. There are people with disabilities that would find the moon more comfortable. We'll design a version of pickleball for the moon. Boss Jogg will fund a lunar pickleball tournament.
Spica Smokering, Vega Jade, and Crux Centaurus are Blizztech students that will accompany the Arc.
Smokering: No rats. Include pigeons. Pigeons have been bred by humans since the beginning of civilization in 3000 BCE. Pigeons served humanity well and deserve a place on the Arc.
Jade: Pigeons will notice that there's no magnetic field.
I made of a potion of microbes and worms to unleash on the moon. The Green Bay Packers gave us Kentucky bluegrass seeds from Lambeau field.
Are you worried about the possibility that there's already life on the moon?
Not possible.
President Dogg released all seed patents.
Once we're on the moon we'll be busy breeding plants to adapt to the moon.
Redwood and Sequoia. We can make monster trees like in Avatar.
Centaurus: Let's breed big eagles.
Can ostriches fly on the moon?
If they had full-size wings they could. We could give ostriches wing extensions. A human can fly with a wingsuit. I'll have Dogg manufacture wingsuits optimized for the moon.
We'll have big biomass production, limited only by how fast plants can harness regolith nutrients.
Day and night last a long time. Noon and midnight will be extreme.
Zorf is installing space mirrors to moderate climate.

---

Margold feeds wild cats and birds and she tends a public garden. As she feeds animals an android drives up in a truck. The android gives Margold 100 kilograms of sesame seeds, 100 kilograms of bread, 100 kilograms of salmon, and a kilogram of platinum.
Android: We're giving grants to humans with a proven record of feeding animals. Karma. We know who's naughty and nice.
The android releases alien animals into the wild.
Margold: Can alien animals eat Earth food?
Yes. Aliens store energy as sugar and fat, like Earth animals. Fat has the highest energy/mass of all biological foods. Their proteins are different but they can synthesize protein.
Does alcohol get them drunk?
Yes.

---

An android drives a truck to Al's house and in the truck is a 1-meter telescope. Al greets the android.
Congratulations on being the second person to see the death star, and that you did it with an amateur telescope. The Galactic Empire presents a gift.
The alien uses his android strength to carry the telescope to the back yard.
It has adaptive optics and fancy detectors.
The android returns to the truck and carries a keg of Hulkan ale to the telescope.

---

Zorf and Ganoo drink Hulkan ale at the top of Mount Erebus in Antarctica. There are no humans around.
Ganoo: You're just in time. I was about to take over Earth myself.

---

President Dogg is at the podium in the Rose Garden.

Dogg: Brace for impact. The aliens will bombard Earth with asteroids. They published a schedule of impacts so people can get out of the way. Many will hit oceans. The asteroids are small so tsunamis will be mild. There will be many asteroids. The aliens are landscaping.

There are big undersea plateaus northwest of Hawaii that are less than 10 meters deep. The aliens will carve undersea harbors in them for whales. Plateaus are quiet zones because ships avoid them, and the harbors will be extra quiet. The impacts will also stir up nutrients and make biomass.

The aliens built a whale internet and they're equipping whales with interfaces to the whalenet.

Asteroids will hit deposits of phosphorus and potassium to kick up dust to fertilize the Earth.

Asteroids will cut a gap in the Aleutian archipellago so that water can flow between the Pacific and the Arctic. This increases oxygenization of the deep ocean.

Asteroids will strip mine for deep coal. The deeper the coal, the higher the formation temperature and the higher the quality. We need coal for smelting metal.

Asteroids will make a deep crater next to the Yukon river. Hydro power will be made from Yukon water flowing into the crater. When the crater fills, an asteroid blasts the water out of the crater to repeat the cycle. This gives 30 Gigawatts. We'll also do this with the Mackenzie river.

Icy comets will crash into America's southwest plateau to make lakes for irrigation. Farmers should rush to New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada. Zorf wants to increase Earth's biomass and oxygen. Zorf is importing species that need big biomass.

---

The Oval Office is full of physicists and miners.

Dogg: Zorf pledged to fund a collider. What should we make?
Physicist #1: The choices are a linear electron collider vs. a ring proton collider. We prefer the electron collider because it gives better measurements. Proton collisions are hell to analyze.
Physicist #2: A linear collider can be built incrementally whereas a proton collider is all-or-nothing.
Nuke: There are cool things we can do with an electron beam, like an x-ray laser. We can also use other particles, like heavy ions. We want to study quark-gluon plasmas.
Boulderfield: We can also use the collider for proton-antiproton collisions, which can zap cancer. There are people that will pay big for this treatment. It can reach cancers that nothing else can.
How big can we make it?
The collider collides electrons and positrons head-on. The maximum energy is decided by the Earth's curvature. Electrons following the curvature of the Earth's surface lose energy to synchrotron radiation and this limits the energy to 23 TeV. We can add a straight section after the curved section to get the energy to 40 TeV. The curved section is 230 km long. The straight section is 200 km long and requires deep tunnels. Totaling the electron and position sections comes to 860 km.
Where do we build it?
Sundial: I mapped a route in the rockies.
Physicist #3: A linear collider can be built incrementally. Once it reaches the energy of the Higgs boson and the top quark, it can be used as a factory for these particles and it can make precision measurements. Once we reach 1 TeV we're beyond the Large Hadron Collider and in fresh powder. Then we'll build up to 40 TeV.
How do we power it?
Zorf will beam power from space as microwaves. The collider will need big power to produce the needed luminosity.
There's another reason why we want an electron collider. We don't know if the vacuum is the lowest-energy state or if there's a lower-energy state. If there is, then the universe could spontaneously undergo a new big bang and destroy all life. The only way to know is to have precise measurements of the Higgs mass and the top quark mass.
The univerese could spontaneously cease to exist? Why isn't this widely known?
Even if there's no spontaneous big bang, the universe is doomed to be destroyed by dark energy. Protons are also doomed to decay. All matter will disintegrate. Even black holes disintegrate.
We should scale back funding for laser fusion. It can never be profitable and there's not much new physics. The money is better spent on the collider.
We should scale back funding for plasma fusion. Let the sun do fusion and harvest the energy with solar cells. Solar cells will always have better power/$ than plasma fusion.

---

Moon Rush

People rush to the moon. Earth is at peace and people are at liberty to launch enterprises. The rocket industry can't keep up with demand. Moon tickets see a bidding war. People gather at the south polar craters for ice and they bring as much solar cell power as they can to mine it. A boom town forms and attracts entertainers. There's a casino for high-rollers, and everyone on the moon is a high-roller. The World Series of Poker adds a table on the moon. Iron is mined and made into a stadium. A tall tower is built.

A rail launch system is built to launch ice and iron to space, and space stations are built. A station is built at Lagrange point #2 and massive telescopes are built.

---

Mastodon	Argentavis	American Lion	Megatherum

Zorf is on the Death Star bridge, sitting in the captain's chair.

Zorf: Bomb Earth with mastodons, mammoths, and other extinct megafauna.
Suits deliver megafauna to Earth and they float down with colorful parachutes.
Release colossus whales.
Suits deliver whales to the oceans.
Release big extinct birds like Haast's eagle, argentavis, titanis, and dodo.
Big birds glide down to Earth.
Release androids. Form male androids in the image of James Bond and female androids in the image of Ursula Andress. Set their personalities to "charming". Have them patronize bars and tell stories about galactic history to humans.
Androids go to Earth in Iron Man suits.
Choose an uninhabited Pacific island and release dinosaurs.

The next release is mammoth birds, which are genetically-engineered and have carbon-fiber bones and feathers. They're 100 kg and can fly. They're grazers and naturally friendly.

---

A party at Heft's campground consists of Nuke, Arch, Wavecrest, Sundial, Forge, Rigel, Heft, Dogg, and Zorf. They drink Hulkan ale and animals play around.

Nuke: Do you have antimatter?
Zorf: Yes. It's hard to make. Antiprotons are easy to make but hard to fuse into heavier nuclei. Even for ordinary matter, heavy nuclei are hard to make. Only a star can do it. To make heavy antinuclei, you need enough antiprotons to make an antistar that's heavy enough to supernova, which means at least 10 solar masses. This takes the energy of 100 million stars going down a black hole. The antistar goes supernova and makes heavy antinuclei and ejects them into space. A black hole confines the ejecta and the ejecta collects into antiplanets, and antiplanets focus antimetal into the cores. Then bust antiplanets into antiasteroids, exposing chunks of antimetal that can be herded electromagnetically. Antimetal can herd antirock.
You can make antimachines by sculpting antimetal. They're powered electromagnetically. You can also make a still and isolate antielements, and make a chemistry set and do chemistry. We can synthesize any antimolecule. The still is made of antitungsten for its high melting point. Antitungsten can be isolated by boiling a chuck of antimetal until only tungsten is left.
Wavecrest: How do you move stars?
Fusion bombs steer asteroids, asteroids steer planets, and planets steer stars. Space dominoes.
Rigel: How long have aliens existed?
The first aliens appeared 2 billion years after the big bang and we had antimatter 10 million years later. One of the most expensive things in the galactic catalog is whiskey that's been aged since early civilization.
Making antimatter leaves behind a big black hole, at least 100 million solar masses. There's a factory in Andromeda and a bigger factory in the Sombrero galaxy. The Milky Way doesn't have a factory. Its hole is only 4.2 million solar masses.
The hole boosts antimatter rockets with the Oberth effect, plus the hole is spinning maximally, which improves the Oberth effect. Probes are sent out at half the speed of light and they use another hole to stop. The universe is full of probes and we have the complete history of the universe going back to the first civilizations. We have information from 12 billion light years away.
Do superheavy nuclei exist? Up-down quark matter?
Let's call it "udqum" for short. We need a snappy term for film dialogue.
They exist. There's an udqum factory at the white dwarf in the Sirius system, and a bigger one at the galactic center. You need an extreme neutron factory. The factory is an expanded version of Nuke's factory, with a neutron compressor added. It orbits a compact object so that it can move at high speed, for cooling. It has a quintillion tons of uranium.
Zorf pulls a metal hammer from a backpack.
This is an udqum hammer, using the element 2 spots below tungsten. It's twice as strong as tungsten and the melting point is substantially higher than tungsten. The metal's chief use is turbines and armor.
Zorf hefts the hammer easily, as though it's lightweight for him. He puts it on the ground.
If you can pick it up, you get to command the Death Star.
The humans try to pick it up and all fail.
The hammer is 300 kilograms. It's twice as dense as tungten.
Zorf hands Forge a coin made of the metal.
For you to experiment with.
What isotopes can you make?
Zorf hands Nuke a box with a radioactivity symbol on it.
Rubidium-83. The low-energy gamma isotope.
It'll be fun making compact power sources with this. This stuff is hard to make. I only have a few grams.
Forge: I can use it to make a drone the size of a hummingbird that flies for a month. I can make tiny implants for animals.
I'll provide a continuous supply because it has a short half life.
I'm already hooked.
Udqum elements exist with all values of Z from 1 to 163, and the negative versions exit as well. The neutral version exists but it's hard to confine. The nucleon number is at least 300 and can be arbitrarily high. The negative nuclei have a nucleon number of at least 940.
We refer to elements in the row below tungsten by reference to the tungsten row. For example, the element below osmium is osmine and below that is osmane. The element below platinum is platinine and below that is platinane.
I'll provide a stock of all udqum elements.
Imagine the materials.
Otto is a material man. We'll make a music video. Topaz will sing and dance. Otto can be like Tim Allen from Tool Time and show off the materials.
Udqum is galactic currency, like latinum from Star Trek. There's no material analogous to dilithium. Reacting matter and antimatter doesn't need a fancy crystal.

---

Zorf is the guest on a late-night talk show.

Host: Why did you conquer Earth?
Humans are the village idiots of the galaxy.
Host: What will you do with Earth?
I have DNA for all extinct Earth species and I'm unleashing the coolest species on Earth. Humans need to be humble and understand that their place on the Earth totem pole is zoo staff. Humans aren't the top species. Humans are a failed species. Bad therapy animals.
Why are humans village idiots?
The galaxy mocks humans for base 10. Should be base 16. Units should be based on Planck units. Humans need to learn galactic units if they want to do business with the galaxy. Praise English units for being base 2. They also have short names that are good for sports, such as inch, foot, yard, and mile. Metric names suck for sports.
Can the Death Star blow up the Earth?
Yes. I have a stockpile of antimetal.
What will you do with humans?
Humans are a failed species. Dogs are naturally friendly and humans are naturally unfriendly. Cool kids bash uncool kids. Humans form gangs, empires, and oligarchies. Human leaders are tyranical and human voters are dumb. The Galactic Empire has humans under quarantine. If humans are left on their own they go Lord of the Flies. Humans need galactic supervision. I'm going to goose education. Give humans better goals. I'm launching a worldwide STEM contest with 1 billion dollars in prizes, and I'm handing out a trillion dollars in grants.

---

Characters

Boss Dogg. Blizzard County Commissioner. Owner of factories in Blizzard County. Sumo wrestler. Bass vocalist
Kane Heft. Owner of a campground in Blizzard County. Blizztech Professor of Bioengineering. X games unicycle athlete.
Aurora Wavecrest. Celebrity actress. Film producer. Opera soprano. Blizzard County Director of Tourism. Owner of the Blizzard Honey Badgers rugby team.
Brutus Forcefeld. Member of the PGA Tour and owner of a golf course in Blizzard County. Mormon with a wife and 11 kids.
Bo Nuke. Sheriff of Blizzard County. Member of the Blizzard rugby team. Tubist
Luke Nuke. Agent 0009 in the Blizzard County Secret Service. Member of the Blizzard rugby team. Trombonist
Gregor Rigel. Blizztech Professor of Science Fiction, History of Science, Tamarian language, and Wookie language. Author and scriptwriter. Professional gamer. Percussionist
Ajax Boulderfield. Christian priest with a congregation in Blizzard County. Owner of an elderly home in Blizzard County that hosts a church and a golf course. Himself elderly. Standup comedian. Barfleet bartender. Tenor vocalist
Brute Nuke. Eccentric billionaire. Barfleet Captain. Blizztech Professor of Physics. Sumo wrestler. Violist
Vesta Garnet. Aircraft pilot and car racer. Professional gamer. Alexander Technique practitioner. Violinist
Otto Forge. Oligarch. Blizztech Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science. Owner of a research laboratory. Barfleet Chief of Engineering.
Gage Arch. Blizztech Professor of Mathematics. Soundtrack composer. Owner of a computer gaming company. Owner of a casino. Professional gamer. Violinist
Topaz Snowbank. X games athlete. Blizztech student. Soprano vocalist
Sledge. Barfleet Chief of Security. MMA fighter. Member of the Blizzard rugby team. Percussionist
Hickory Cloud. Blizztech student and member of the Blizzard rugby team. Audiovisual engineer.
Ezekiel Aaberg. X games athlete. Blizztech student.
Beryl Finchfeather. X games athlete. Blizztech student.
Nebula Sundial. Blizztech Professor of Mining. Member of the Blizzard women's hockey team. Percussionist
Nova Sharpstein. Barfleet doctor. Cellist and Alexander Technique practitioner
Spica Smokering. A student in the Blizzard high school homeschool network and member of the Blizzard Science Olympiad team. X games athlete
Crux Centaurus. A student in the Blizzard high school homeschool network and member of the Blizzard Science Olympiad team. Audiovisual engineer. Pianist
Vega Jade. A student in the Blizzard high school homeschool network and member of the Blizzard Science Olympiad team. Member of the Blizzard women's hockey team.
Governor Gunn. Governor of the state that includes Blizzard County
Procyon Cliff. Member of U.S. House of Representatives, representing the district that includes Blizzard County.
Ganoo. An alien that masquerades among humans. Author and scriptwriter
Zorf. An alien that's captain of a death star of the Galactic Empire.
Spruce Goose. Blizzard County Boss Goose
Caboose Goose. Court jester for Spruce Goose
Boss Bogg. Oligarch. Lizzard County Commissioner
Boss Fogg: Oligarch. Owner of a university
Boss Smogg: Oligarch. Colonial governor
Boss Sogg: Oligarch. Owner of mining companies
Boss Waterlogg: Oligarch. Owner of tech companies
Boss Frogg: Oligarch. Leader of a mutual fund that promotes mischief
Boss Pogg: Oligarch. Owner of a video game company
Boss Cogg: Oligarch. Owner of many political action committees
Boss Clogg: Oligarch. Part of the military-industrial complex
Boss Scrogg: Oligarch. Owner of an amusement park
Boss Flogg: Oligarch. Owner of a rocket company
Boss Slogg: Oligarch. Owner of a shipping empire
Boss Grogg: Oligarch. Owner of an online news empire
Boss Balrogg: Oligarch. Owner of a film production company
Hack: Ponceton Professor of Anthropology
Quack: Ponceton Professor of Marketing
Yack: Ponceton Professor of Public Policy
Slack: Ponceton Professor of Business Administration
Crack: Ponceton Professor of Astrology
Flack: Ponceton Professor of Journalism
Lack: Ponceton Professor of Art History
Obfus: Haavaad Professor of Law
Lumen Quasar: Haavaad Professor of Divinity
Fathom Abyss: Haavaad Professor of Oration
Boss Jogg: Wizzard County Commissioner
Boss Togg: Gizzard County Commissioner
Boss Ogg: Coach of a college football team
Boss Nogg: Oligarch. Owner of whiskey and beer factories
Boss Blogg: Oligarch. Owner of a media empire
Boss Glogg: Oligarch. Owner of wineries
Boss Sprogg: Owner of a United Football League team
Boss Waagg: Oligarch. Owner of a seastead

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Textbooks

Off-grid living	Astronautics	Materials and elasticity	Science for politicians	Nuclear power	History of Science	Ecology

Electric vehicles	Natural disasters	Astronomy	Astrobiology	Flight	Explosives	Bird down

Large flying creatures

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Appendix

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Nothing was written by A.I.

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Currency

Blizzard County uses rhenium coins because they're uncounterfeitable. All metals more dense than rhenium are more expensive than rhenium. Also, rhenium will always have value because it's vital for aircraft turbines.

There are rhenium coins of mass 2 grams, 4 grams, 8 grams, etc. Rhenium is 3500 $/kg and a 2 gram coin is $7. One gram of rhenium is a "drachma".

Iridium coins are used for large transactions. Its density is rivaled only by osmium, and osmium is more expensive. Iridium is 115000 $/kg and a 32 gram coin is $3680. A briefcase of iridium is 1 million dollars.

Platinum is also used, which is $35000/kg. Neodymium is used for small-value coins and costs $58/kg.

Blizzard County has abundant public machines where you can test coins for authenticity. It measures the density and also the X-ray absorption and emission spectra. X-rays verify the metal and they also detect the isotope tracers in the coin.

Coins are named after presidents.

                Gram    Kg

Washington         1
Jefferson          2
Lincoln            5
Hamilton          10
Jackson           20
Grant             50
Franklin         100
McKinley         500
Cleveland                1
Madison                  5
Chase                   10
Wilson                 100
Polk                  1000

---

Barfleet

Barfleet is a fleet of land yachts and mobile bars that tours golf courses. It can park anywhere in the wilderness and has all the utilities of a city. It has things like electricity generators, water tanks, and sewage treatment plants. A cycling race tour often accompanies barfleet.

Barfleet vehicles:

Barship x20
Command ship
Gym & weightroom
Playground
Pool
Zoo & garden
Kitchen
Market
Soundproof nightclub
Temple, Christian
Temple, Mormon
Temple, Buddha
Food.  Refrigerator, freezer, pantry
Generator, 10 MWatt
Tanker, gasoline
Tanker, water
Tanker, helium
Tanker, hydrogen
Sewage treatment plant
Electronics.  Supercomputer (10 petaflops), radio transceiver (100 kWatt), satellite dishes, lights, projectors, etc.
Carrier for vehicles x3
Carrier for tents & furniture
Carrier for storage
Carrier for large musical instruments
Subwoofer, 1 MWatt
Warehouse
Auto repair shop
Machine shop

---

Death Star

The Death Star has a particle ring with an energy of 1000 TeV. It uses uranium for high-power beams and muons for high-penetration beams.

On board the Death Star:

Particle ring
Particle linear accelerator
Antiproton factory
Muon factory
Fission reactor
Fusion reactor
Radioisotope warehouse
Supercomputer
Uranium stockpile
Deuterium stockpile
Tritium stockpile
Helium stockpile
Battery
Capacitor
Lasers

A muon beam converts to neutrinos, which can penetrate a planet. High-energy neutrinos are more strongly interacting than low-energy neutrinos, so high-enerygy neutrinos can stop on their way through the planet and deposit energy.

The beam energy is:

Death Star radius                                 =  101  km
Ring collider radius          =  R                =  100  km
Ring collider magnetic field  =  B                =   33  Tesla
Particle energy               =  E  = .00030 B R  = 1000  TeV

The outer surface is a heat sink with a maximum continuous power of 600 PWatt. The maximum surge power is 100 EWatt.

Surface temperature       =  T                =   1000  Kelvin
Stefan-Boltzman constant  =  s                =5.67e-8  Watt/meter2/Kelvin4
Heat flux                 =  F  =  s T4       =  57000  Watt/meter2/second
Heat sink surface area    =  A                =     12  Tmeter2
Maximum continuous power  =  P  =  F A        =    600  PWatt

---

Rocket launch by airplane

                              km/second   Mach

Earth equator speed                .45     1.5
Ramjet speed                      1.5      5
Solid rocket stage speed change   3.2     10       2 stages for 6.0 km/s total
Orbit speed, minimum              7.8     26
Rocket total speed change         8.3

---

Canon

                  Films   TV Seasons   Novels   Graphic novel  Video games
                                                   seasons

Avengers            33      14                    Many             27
James Bond          27       0           50         13             31
X Men               14      17          170       Many             30
Star Trek           13      34          850         27            139
Star Wars           12      41          450                        88
Batman              11       4           41       Many             41
Superman            11      11                    Many             17
Harry Potter        11       0            7                        20
Indiana Jones        9       2           47                        22
Game of Thrones      0       9            0

Novelizations of films are not counted.

---

Fertilizer

Crustal composition of fertilizer elements in ppt:

             Earth   Moon   Mars     Earth        Mars       Titan
             crust   crust  crust  atmosphere  atmosphere  atmosphere

Potassium    15        1.5   11
Phosphorus    1.0      1.0   14
Calcium      50       30     56
Sulfur         .42     ?     28
Magnesium    29      190     70
Carbon        1.8      ?      ?
Hydrogen      1.5      1.5    ?

Nitrogen       .02     0              781          19         984
Oxygen        ?        ?              209           1.4         0
CO2           ?        ?                 .39      959
CO            ?        ?                             .6

---

Dogg Catalogg

Dogg Industries publishes a catalog, and the following sections are from the catalog.

---

Star Trek tricorder

Tricorder accessories:

                    Power/mass   Minimum mass
                     Watt/kg         kg

Battery, high energy/mass  500   <.005     .6  MJoule/kg      LiNiCoAlO2
Battery, high power/mass  2000   <.005     .2  MJoule/kg      Li4Ti5O12
Capacitor               100000   <.005     .01 MJoule/kg
Supercapacitor           10000   <.005     .1 MJoule/kg
Generator, gasoline        100    .1
Generator, butane           50    .1       Platinum catalyst. Flameless and safe indoors
Generator, photoelectric    60   <.005     Solar cell
Generator, radioisotope     20   <.005

Tape measure                 -   <.005
Thermometer                  -   <.005
Barometer                    -   <.005
Hygrometer                   -   <.005
Accelerometer & gyroscope    -   <.005
Mic                          -   <.005
Bluetooth                    -   <.005
Wifi                         -   <.005
Light                      200   <.005
Speaker, treble             50   <.005
Speaker, ultrasound         50   <.005
Laser                       50   <.005
Flash                        -   <.005     10 MJoules/kg
Periscope                    -   <.005
Camera, Visible              -    .01
Camera, Infrared             -    .01
Camera, Ultraviolet          -    .01
Sensor, blood pulse          -    .01
Scale for weight             -    .01
Flare                        -    .01      10 MJoules/kg
Antenna, audio dish          -    .01
Joystick & haptic sensor     -    .01
Electronic multimeter        -    .015
GPS                          -    .015
Keyboard                     -    .015
Antenna, radio dish          -    .02
Radio transceiver           40    .02
Cell phone, no screen       40    .02
Taser                    10000    .02
Drone, flying              500    .025
Cell phone screen           40    .05
Magnetometer                 -    .06
Electrometer                 -    .06
EMF, radiofrequency          -    .06
Speaker, vibrating          60    .1
Radar                             .1
Projector                   50    .1
Satellite phone              -    .1
Telescope,  7x,  25 mm       -    .15
Telescope, 30x, 100 mm       -   6
Microscope, 50x              -    .01
Microscope, 120x                  .05
X-ray calorimeter            -    .15      Resolution =  10%
Speaker, bass               20   1
X-ray spectrometer           -   1.5       Resolution = .02%

---

Gun module catalog

Silencer
Muzzle break
Barrel extension
Telescope
Laser.   Red, green, violet, UV, IR
Beacon.  Red, green, violet, UV, IR
Inertial damper
Flash
Smoke machine
Shuffling clip
Battery expansion
Capacitor expansion
Computer expansion
Liquid helium dewar
Liquid helium generator
Liquid air dewar
Liquid air generator

---

Generators

The Dogg generator is lightweight, weighing one pound. It makes 50 Watts of electricity and has an AC outlet with 120 Volts. It burns butane flamelessly with a platinum catalyst. It's safe indoors, with non-toxic exhaust. It makes 80 Watts of discard heat that can heat a coat. It uses a Stirling engine, which is quieter than a piston engine or a turbine. The engine is made of high-performance materials to be lightweight.

Dogg also makes a stealth generator that has no moving parts and is silent. It uses thermoelectrics.

Dogg makes an isotope generator that uses radioactivity to make heat, using thulium-171. The generator needs only minimal radiation shielding. The shielding requirement hinges on the maximum energy of gammas produced, and Thulium-171 doesn't produce high-energy gammas.

The generator has no moving parts. It uses ionelectric, photoelectric, and thermoelectric generation.

Dogg makes an isotope generator with rubidium-83 that needs even less shielding that thulium. The rubidium generator is tiny and fit for microbots.

Model      Fuel                 Engine         Power/mass  Electric   Power  Mass   Gamma
                                                Watt/kg   efficiency  Watt    kg     MeV

Pocket     Butane catalytic     Thermoelectric      500       .05       50      .1    0
Backpack   Butane catalytic     Stirling            150       .4        50      .33   0
Party      Gasoline combustion  Piston              100       .4      1000    10      0
City car   Gasoline combustion  Piston              100       .4     10000   100      0
Freeway    Diesel   combustion  Piston              100       .4     50000   500      0
Truck      Diesel   combustion  Turbine             100       .4    200000  2000      0
Isotope    Thulium-171          Ion, photo, thermo  500       .2        50      .1     .096
Micro      Rubidium-83          Ion, photo, thermo  400       .15         .4    .001   .032

Each generator has a supercapacitor for power regulation and for surge power.

---

Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Boulderfield House has an MRI machine, a high-end model with 3 Teslas. For MRI machines, most of the lifetime cost is staff, but Boulderfield House residents know how to work the machine and there is no staff cost. The machine costs 3 mil, liquid helium is .1 mil per year, and operating cost is .1 mil per year, for a total cost of 5 mil over a 10-year lifetime. This translates to $60/hour. Residents get a full-body scan every year, which is 4 hours.

Boulderfield House has a full set of diagnostic equipment, such as X-rays, CAT scans, etc. It has a liquid helium generator.

Boulderfield House is part of an online network of patients that can often solve problems by themselves. The House also has many residents that are retired doctors, and they get privileges in return for serving as consultants.

---

Dogg strings

The Dogg Catalogg has strings for orchestral instruments and guitars. It includes strings with ultra high and ultra low frequency.

---

Gun projectiles

The Mastiff projectile catalog:

Projectile          Mass   Speed   Energy   Recoil   Diameter  Length
                    gram    m/s    Joule   Joule*kg     mm       mm

Bullet, standard      30     516    4000       60       12.7     25
Bullet, armor-pierce  40     447    4000      160        7       60
Bullet, heavy        150     231    4000      600       12.7     60   Maximum momentum
Bullet, fast           8    1000    4000       32        5.6     18   Snipe
Bullet, harpoon       20     632    4000       80        5       60
Bullet, rocket       120     100     600       72       12.7     60   The rocket gets the bullet to 2000 meters/second
Bullet, weak           8     300     360        3        5.6     10
Blank                  0       0    1000        0       12.7     60
Shotgun               40     447    4000      160        -        -
Shotgun, heavy       150     231    4000      600        -        -
Paint ball             6      50       7.5       .04    12.7     60
Rubber                 6      50       7.5       .04    12.7     60
Foam                   6     100      30         .2     12.7     60   Lightweight foam with a tungsten weight in back
Bomb, high explosive  40     447    4000      160       12.7     60
Bomb, armor-pierce    40     447    4000      160       12.7     60   Shaped charge of high explosives
Bomb, napalm          15     100      75        1       12.7     60
Bomb, thermite        30     100     150        4.5     12.7     60
Bomb, slow (mortar)   40      30      18         .72    12.7     60
Bomb, smoke           15     100      75        1       12.7     60
Bomb, flash           15     100      75        1       12.7     60
Bomb, loud boom       15     100      75        1       12.7     60
Bomb, chloroform      15     100      75        1       12.7     60
Bomb, tear gas        15     100      75        1       12.7     60
Bomb, laughing gas    15     100      75        1       12.7     60
Bomb, rocket         120      40      96       12       12.7     60   The rocket gets the bomb to 200 meters/second
Bomb, fly            120     100     600       72       12.7     60   Long-range artillery
Bomb, confetti        10     100      50         .5     12.7     60
Bomb, radar foil      15     100      75        1       12.7     60   Foil to confuse radar
Bomb, glue            15     100      75        1       12.7     60
Bomb, web             15     100      75        1       12.7     60
Bomb, web + glue      15     100      75        1       12.7     60
Bomb, lubricant       15      20       3         .04    12.7     60
Bomb, lubricant+balls 15      20       3         .04    12.7     60
Bomb, caltrops        15      20       3         .04    12.7     60
Flare                 15     100      75        1       12.7     60
Flare, fast           15     730    4000       60       12.7     60   High altitude
Flare, whistle        15     100      75        1       12.7     60
Flare, IR             15     100      75        1       12.7     60
Flare, UV             15     100      75        1       12.7     60
Strobe                15     100      75        1       12.7     60
Dart, tranquilizer    15     100      75        1       12.7     60
Speaker               15      20       3         .04    12.7     60
Bug. GPS & Wifi       15      20       3         .04    12.7     60   Transmits audio and video
Fireworks             15      50      19         .3     12.7     60
Kevlar cable +hook    15     100      75        1       12.7     60
Tungsten cable +hook 150     100     750      112       12.7     60

---

Guns

The Dogg gun catalog:

Gun     Barrel   Cartridge  Barrel   Gun   Bullet  Bullet  Bullet   Bullet   Bullet    Bullet
       diameter   length    length   mass  energy   mass   speed   diameter  length  energy/area
         inch       cm        cm      kg   Joule    gram    m/s       cm       cm     Joule/mm2

Kodiak     6       30        120     200    200000   3400     343      3        25       280
Koala      6       30         40       4      1000      -       -      -         -         -   Not designed for bullets
Tuba       1       20         60      20     20000    400     316      1.2      18       180
Mastiff     .50     8         25       4      4000     40     447       .7       6       100
Yap         .50     6          8        .4     400     15     231       .5       4        20
Chihuahua   .22     3          3        .1     100      3     258       .3       2        14

A typical gun has a value of bullet energy per gun mass of 1200 Joules/kg.

---

Blizzard Science Olympiad

Blizztech holds a science contest for K-12. Many events are modeled after events in the national Science Olympiad and many are unique to BSO. The BSO events are:

Fermi
Math
Physics
Astronomy
Chemistry
Earth Science
Ecology and climate
Programming
Codebusters

Robot ramball
Robot flying ramball
Robot golf
Catapult

Probability wargame

Human bumpercar hockey
Human ramball
Obstacle course & questions

Fermi
Science and history of science
ID elements
ID rocks and minerals
ID trees, plants, and flowers
ID mammals
ID birds

---

The Polk

Brute Nuke's land yach is the "Polk". It's amphibious and submersible. It's 56 feet long, has 8 axles, has 6 wheels per axel, and can carry 200 tons without stressing roads. The wheels are 6 feet in diameter and runflat. It has electric motors and can drive autonomously. Onboard is:

                         Power   Mass   Power/Mass
                         kWatt    kg     Watt/kg

Goat chair x4                     200
Off-road vehicle x2               400            Compact and amphibious. Has a snow tread
Haast aircraft             400    600            Twin propeller.  Pistons.  150 meters/second
Tungsten Man suit x4              800
Blimp, small                80    400
Blimp, large               800   4000
Animals                          1000
Plants                            200
Food                             1000
Fridge and freezer                100
Scotch                            100
Lab & equipment                 10000
Drones, flying                   1000
Drones, land                     1000
Drones, amphibious               1000
Drones, submarine                1000
Rockets                          2000
Satellite dish                    100
Antennas                         1000
Satellite phones                   10
Flares                           1000
Telescopes                       1000
Musical instruments               100

Battery, high energy/mass 3750   7500     500    .6  MJoule/kg   4500 MJoule   LiNiCoAlO2
Battery, high power/mass 10000   2500    4000    .2  MJoule/kg    500 MJoule   Li4Ti5O12
Capacitor               100000   1000  100000    .01 MJoule/kg     10 MJoule
Generator, gasoline       1000   5000     200
Generator, radioisotope    100   5000      20
Solar cells                 10    250      40

Earthwoofers              4000   1000    4000    Connect to the Earth and shake it. Also sonar
Subwoofers                 200  10000      20    Doubles as sonar
Projectors                 500  10000      50
Lasers                     500  10000      50
Electric motors           1000    250    4000
Supercomputer               50   2500      20    10 Petaflops, 1 Petabyte RAM, 10 petabyte disk, 1000 petabyte tape, 300000 cores
Monitor x4                        100            7680x4320 pixels
Speakers, trebble           20   1000      20    Doubles as sonar
Speakers, ultrasound        20   1000      20    Doubles as sonar
Lights                     200   1000     200
Railgun                   1000   1000    1000
Radio transceiver           40   1000      40    Ultra-long wavelength
Radar                       20   1000      20
Gyrotron jammer          10000  10000    1000
Electromagnetic pulse   100000   1000  100000

Gasoline tank                     800
Gasoline                         4000
Water tank                        200
Water                            2000
Helium tank                     10000
Helium                           1000
Air tank                        10000
Air                              2500
Nitromethane tank                  10
Nitromethane                      100
Oxygen and nitrogen candles      1000
Kevlar pond x2                   1000            One inside and one that deploys outside

Submarine hull                  40000
Submarine propulsion      1000   1000    1000    Stealth
Submarine air system             1000
Kevlar flotation bags           10000
Tires                           10000
Axles and suspension            10000
Cooling system             100   1000     100
Fire extinguishing system        1000
Sewage system                     100
Generator soundproofing          1000
Water pump                  40     10    4000
Gas pump                   400    100    4000
Hose                              100
Burst guns & ammo                1000
Shotguns                         1000

The lasers are mostly UV because most materials don't reflect UV. UV also pierces clouds better than other wavelengths.

A burst gun packs cartridges end-to-end in a long barrel and can fire them all in a short time.

---

Supercomputers

Supercomputing is driven by speed per dollar, and mobile computing is driven by speed per power.

Speed per dollar, CPU   =    2  GFlop/$
Speed per dollar, GPU   =   40  GFlop/$
Memory, RAM             =   .2  GByte/$
Memory, solid state     =    7  GByte/$
Memory, disk            =   33  GByte/$
Speed per power         =  200  GFlop/Watt   (GPU)

Battery energy per mass = 1000  MJoule/kg
Battery power  per mass = 1000  Watt/kg

                                   Speed      RAM      Disk     Tape     Power   Mass
                                  exaflops  petabyte  exabyte  exabyte   GWatt   Mkg

Gage Arch's gaming computer            1        100        1       100
Nuke's mobile computer                  .01       1         .02      1
Barfleet computer                       .1       10         .1      10
Dogg's weather computer               10
Ganoo's computer at Yellowstone  1000000
Ganoo's computer in space     1000000000
Zorf's Death Star computer    1000000000
Frontier computer                      1.1                                             World's fastest computer as of 2023.

---

The Haast aircraft

The Haast aircraft is twin-propeller and piston-based. It has Ferrari engines and can take off vertically with ease. The engines are over-engineered, ultra-reliable, and minimum maintenance. It has an option to attach a solid rocket. For the Haast,

Aircraft mass, empty  =   1000  kg
Aircraft mass, full   =   2500  kg
Engine mass, total    =    400  kg
Engine power/mass     =   4000  Watt/kg
Engine power          =   1600  kWatt
Hoovering power/mass  =    300  Watt/kg
Ballistic factor      =    5.3
Maximum speed         =    220  meters/second
Range                 =  10000  km
Ceiling               =     10  km

---

The Tungsten Man suit

The suit outer shell is tungsten for strength, hardness, and temperature resistance. The inner shell is layers of foam, kevlar, and titanium alloy. The suit is submersible.

                       Power   Mass   Power/Mass
                       kWatt    kg     Watt/kg

Battery, Lipo              10     20      500    .9  MJoule/kg
Battery, Li4Ti5O12         80     20     4000    .2  MJoule/kg
Capacitor                 500      5   100000    .01 MJoule/kg
Generator, radioisotope     1     20       50
Rockets                 20000     20  1000000    Kerosene + H2O2
Human                       1    100       10

Electric motors           100     25     4000
Computers                    .2   10       20
Subwoofers                   .2   10       20    Doubles as sonar
Earthwoofers                4      1     4000    Connect to the Earth and shake it. Also sonar
Lights                      1      5      200
Projectors                   .05   1       50
Lasers                       .2   10       20
Radio transceiver            .08   2       40    Ultra-long wavelength
Radar                        .04   2       20
Gyrotron jammer             2      2     1000
Electromagnetic pulse gun 200      2   100000

Armor and foam                   200
Ducted minipropellers             20
Drones                            10
Heavy gun                         10
Light guns                         2
Ammo                              50
Telescopes                         2
Flares                             5
Bombs                              5
Missiles                           5
Oxygen and nitrogen candles        2
Cooling system                    10
Fire extinguishing system          5

The radioisotope generator is 50 Watts/kg and 50% efficient for converting radiation energy to electric energy. It makes electricity with radiovoltaics, photovoltaics, thermovoltaics, and thermomechanics. It uses thulium-171 because it needs only small radiation shielding. Thulium-171 needs to be aged to remove thulium-170.

The top speed with rockets is Mach 1.1. It can strap on solid rockets and get to Mach 5. The top speed with ducted minipropellers is Mach .22. Mach 1 is 295 meters/second.

Air density         = ρ               =  1.22   kg/meter3
Speed               = V               =  320  meter/second  =  Mach 1.1
Cross section       = S               =   .5  meter2
Drag coefficient    = C               =  1
Drag power          = P = ½ C S ρ V3   =  20 MWatt

---

The Kingfisher

Ganoo has a ship that he calls the Kingfisher. It's powered by a fission thermal hydrogen rocket, where a fission reactor heats liquid hydrogen to 4000 Kelvin and expels it at 11 km/s. A hydrogen+oxygen rocket is a mere 4.4 km/s. The reactor is liquid uranium-235 encased in hafnium carbonitride, which has the highest melting point of all materials at 4370 Kelvin.

The hull is a molecular composite of carbon nanotubes, graphene, amorphous LiMgAlScTi alloy, beryllium-aluminum alloy, diamond, and sapphire. The diamonds are isotopically pure and are in the form of a space frame. The frame consists of 200 nm wide microbeams, which have 10 times the strength of macroscopic diamonds. The outer skin is amorphous tungsten alloy for high-temperature operation and it has sapphire windows for sensors.

The ship is compact with a length of 10 meters and a power/mass of 00,000 Watts/kg, dwarfing the F-22 Raptor's 10,000 Watts/kg. Ganoo uses the Kingfisher to entertain UFO fans. They want to believe and they need hope.

The Kingfisher has a megawatt laser, a megawatt proton beam, smart missiles, EMPs, and jamming gear. Clouds can stop lasers but they can't stop high-energy protons. The explosives are heptanitrocubane and aluminum+LOX. It has a bay of combat drones powered by uranium-232 radioactivity.

Electricity comes from generators with hyperconducting carbon nanotube wires and amorphous ferromagnets. They achieve 1000 Watts/kg whereas the best human generators are 150 Watts/kg.

The fission thermal hydrogen rocket has a fission afterburner that adds beryllium-7 to the exhaust to improve the exhaust speed to 100 km/s. Beryllium-7 has the highest fission cross section of all isotopes.

For interplanetary space, Ganoo has a bigger ship powered by a fusion plasma ring, with an exhaust speed of 2000 km/s.

For interstellar space, Ganoo has a colossal ship powered by fusion bombs, with an exhaust speed of 4000 km/s. Refueling it consumes an icy moon. The ship's metal comes from metal asteroids.

Ganoo has an antimatter stockpile with every element, including transuranics. It's in interplanetary space. He has a billion kilograms of antimatter.

The Kingfisher:

                       Power   Mass   Power/Mass
                       MWatt    kg     Watt/kg

Battery, high energy      1     1000     1000   1.6  MJoule/kg
Battery, high power      10     1000    10000    .4  MJoule/kg
Capacitor               100      500   200000    .02 MJoule/kg
Generator, fission        1     1000     1000
Generator, radioisotope    .1    100     1000
Rockets, fission therm  100     1000   100000

Electric motors         100     1000   100000
Lasers                     .02  1000       20
Railgun                  10     1000    10000
Computers                  .1   1000      100

Ducted propellers                100
Cooling system                  1000
Fire extinguishing system        100

---

Asteroid bomb

Nuke moves asteroids with tamped fission bombs. A bomb is buried in a metal asteroid and asteroid is a tamper. The bomb consists of a supercritical mass of uranium-233 with gadolinium neutron absorber inside. A gun expels the gadolinium, triggering criticality. Outside the uranium-233 sphere is a shell of tons of uranium-238, which undergoes fission with fast neutrons. Outside the uranium-238 shell is a metal asteroid, which tamps the explosion. A large fraction of the uranium-238 fissions by fast neutrons.

The bomb has a core of solid deuterium and tritium, for a fusion boost.

Shell                      Radius (cm)

Deuterium and tritium         1
Uranium-233                   6
Uranium-238                 100

---

Nuke's isotope stockpile

                Price/kg     Stockpile   Half life
                 M$/kg          kg         year

Deuterium              .004    10000     Stable      Fusion
Tritium              30          100         12.3    Fusion
Helium-3              1         1000     Stable      Dilution refrigerator
Lithium-6              .06      1000     Stable      Breed tritium and helium-3
Boron-10                        1000     Stable      Fission afterburner rocket
Carbon-12                        100     Stable      Exotic materials
Carbon-14                           .1     5730      Low neutron capture
Nickel-63                                   100.1    Low radiation shielding
Thulium-171                     1000          1.91   Radioisotope with low shielding requirement
Tantalum-182                                   .313  High-temperature radioisotope
Tungsten-188                                   .191  High-temperature radioisotope
Iridium-192                     1000           .202  High-temperature radioisotope
Osmium-194                                    6.02   High-temperature radioisotope
Polonium-210                     100           .379  Alpha rocket
Radium-226                        10                 Breed thorium and uranium isotopes
Uranium-232                        1         68.9    Radioisotope power, alpha rocket
Uranium-233                     1000     159200      Fission
Plutonium-238                                87.7    Radioisotope power, alpha rocket
Americium-141          .7         10        432      Breed transuranics
Americium-142m                     1        141      Fission afterburner rocket
Curium-246                         1       4730      Breed californium
Curium-248       160000             .1   340000      Breed californium
Curium-250                                 9000      Spontaneous fission
Californium-249  185000                     351      Breed californium-251
Californium-251                             900      Compact fission reactor
Californium-252   60000                       2.64   Spontaneous fission

The price is the classical price. Once Nuke launched his isotope factory and flooded the market, prices went down.

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Ganoo's isotope stockpile

Ganoo has everything Nuke has, in large quantities. He also has:

              Half life (year)   Decay

Beryllium-7           .146       EC
Sodium-22            2.6         &beta+ or EC
Promethium-145      17.7         EC               Low radiation shielding
Rubidium-83       .236           EC               Low radiation shielding

Darmstadtium-293    37.7         β+fission        Island of stability
Darmstadtium-292   133           α+fission        Island of stability
Copernicium-294    355           α+fission        Island of stability
Darmstadtium-294   380           α+fission        Island of stability

Ganoo has superheavy elements, which have a proton number from 95 to 163. They're made of "up-down quark matter", which is the state of quarks when there are more than 300 nucleons worth of mass.

Ganoo has antimatter for every element, along with antimatter machines and computers. The antimatter is in a base in interplanetary space.

Ganoo can make everything except superheavy elements and antimatter. Superheavy elements come from a factory on planet Hulkan and antimatter comes from a factory at the Andromeda central black hole. There's a catalog.

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Metal asteroid

Elements in a metal asteroid:

      Metal asteroid   Earth crust
           ppm             ppm

Phosphorus   2200      1000
Sulfur        360       420
Selenium        3          .05
Arsenic        11         2.1

Potassium       0     15000
Lithium         0        17
Rubidium        0        60
Caesium         0         1.9

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Meltdown golf course

1	2	3	4

Hole   Par   Horizontal   Vertical
               yards       yards

 1      4      1000       -1000
 2      5       300         300
 3      3       150           0
 4      6       100           0   Miniputt hole
 5      9       900           0   The fairway is deep rough
 6      9       900           0   The fairway is all bunker, with tiny islands of fairway
 7      9       900           0   The fairway is a tree obstacle course
 8      6       200         -50   The ball is a whiffleball the size of a golf ball
 9      4       500           0   Superball allowed
10      5       600           0   Tee-off from a ledge so that you can use a driver that's 8 feet long
11      7       700           0   Mountain ridgetop

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Extinctions

Mastodon	Woolly Mammoth

Argentavis	American Lion	Megatherum

Deinotherium	Macrauchenia

Extinction       Myears ago     Mass
                                 kg

Haast's Eagle          .0006      12    Year 1400 CE
Woolly Mammoth         .0040    4100
Mastodon               .010     6300
Megatherum             .012     4200    Sloth
Macrauchenia           .010
American Lion          .011
Glyptodon              .011
Diprotodon             .046     3500    Largest marsupial in history
Steppe Mammoth         .20     11000    Largest land mammal in history
Titanis               1.8        150    Flightless bird
Deinotherium          7
Argentavis          ~10           71    Flying bird
Colossus whale        ?       180000    Largest whale in history
Spinosaurus          66         7400    Largest carniverous dinosaur
Bruhathkayosaurus    66       140000    Largest dinosaur
Pterydactyl         148          200    Flying dinosaur

Mute Swan         Alive           12    Largest flying bird
Ostrich           Alive          100    Largest bird
Kodiak bear       Alive          450    Largest bear
Saltwater croc    Alive          450    Largest reptile
African elephant  Alive         6000    Largest land mammal
Sperm whale       Alive        45000    Largest brain at 8 kg
Blue whale        Alive       110000    Largest whale

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Up-down quark matter

We use the term "udqum" for short. Udqum elements are hypothesized to exist for Z up to 163.

We refer to elements in the row below gold by reference to the gold row. For example, the element below gold (Au) is goldine (Au^′) and below that is goldane (Au^′′). The element below osmium is osmine and below that is osmane.

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Galactic currency

Star Trek currency is "latinum", a silver liquid.

Strip = 100 Slip
Bar   =  20 Strip
Brick =   ? Bar

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Dogg industries makes the Condor blimp.

Blimp mass, empty      =   200  kg
Blimp mass, full       =   500  kg
Top speed              =    22  meters/second
Engine power           =   160  kWatt
Engine power/mass      =  4000  Watt/kg
Engine total mass      =    40  kg
Propeller mass         =    20  kg
Diameter               =     6  meters
Length                 =    20  meters
Volume                 =   500  meter3
Lift                   =   520  kg
Helium gas density     =   .179 kg/meter3
Air density            =  1.22  kg/meter3
Buoyancy               =  1.04  kg/meter3
Helium cost per mass   =    24  $/kg
Helium cost            = 12000  $

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Maps

Rain

Rivers

American national parks

Click for larger image.

Yellowstone	Zion	Bryce Canyon	Acadia

College conferences

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Main page

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© Jason Maron, all rights reserved.

Data from Wikipedia unless otherwise specified.