Chapter 307

Bo'okdu'ust swivelled the chair he was sitting in, surprised at the comfort. He knew it was a modified Treana'ad office chair, but it was so comfortable he really didn't care. He simply straddled the 'seat' and then the backrest swivelled to behind him so he could lean back against it, and the armrests lifted up to allow him to comfortably rest his four arms.

He sighed in pleasure. Getting old wasn't fun but it beat the alternative. His hooves were duller, the white of his coat had gone silver and the dark brown and black patches were shot through with silver. His feeding tendrils were thinner and longer and more fragile, he had bags beneath all six eyes, and his crests were wrinkled even when he inflated them as best as possible. Some of his joints had a tendency to be swollen, especially his knees and elbows.

But considering his advanced age, he felt fine all things considered.

He looked out the window at the lawn. The Terrans had been in possession of the system for nearly two years and had quickly become adept at landscaping that appealed to the Lanaktallan senses as well as was functional. It was an excellently designed trotting and relaxation yard.

Bo'okdu'ust got up from the chair, the back swinging into position to allow him to move off the chair as well as the armrests moving away. He glanced at his simulation that was running and had been running for nearly two days, snorted, and made his way slowly and stately out of the building and onto the lawns.

He walked around, lost in thought as he tried to wrestle with the socio-mathematics that he was attempting to apply to the Terrans.

While the Terrans had offered to give Bo'okdu'ust access to their research in socio-mathematics Bo'okdu'ust wanted to see if his own work could be applied to the Terrans and their allies. The formulae worked on the Lanaktallan and their allied species, but if they could not be applied to the Terrans and their allies then either Bo'okdu'ust's theories were invalid outside of a homogenous group or there were variables that he had not taken into account.

Bo'okdu'ust also knew that part of the problem was the amount of advancement and the progression of the humans in such a short time.

He idly wondered if perhaps the time variables should be eliminated as he picked a flower and stared at it. His mind automatically counted the petals, the stamen, and ran the computations to figure out the leaf to vein placement without having to access the datalink.

He had to admit, the Terran datalink was much better than his old one. While Lanaktallan datalinks had not changed in millions of years, it wasn't uncommon for a Terran datalink to have a firmware or even a hardware upgrade every year or two.

Bo'okdu'ust liked the retinal display implants. A tiny, almost microscopic implant at the corner of his eyes that used his own vision to display data.

It was invaluable to a researcher.

Looking at the flower, considering the datalink, the problem suddenly had a solution propose itself.

He had been using the time variable as static time. The variable was used to track how much time, in relative to the universe and the 4th Dimension itself.

The mistake was glaringly obvious.

The time variable, as he was using it in his computations, should have been used to signify the length of time in relation to the age of the species as well as in relation to certain xenospecies advancements.

He used the retinal link to bring up a quick scratch board and wrote out the mathematics for the time from developing agricultural methods to improvements in animal husbandry and shelter construction. He replaced the standard variable with a variable that represented another mathematic computation, then ran a few tests through it.

It fit. There was some slippage in the formulae, but that was to be expected when one dealt with living creatures rather than hard physics. Still, more refinement could remove a lot of slippage, although it would make the formulae more cumbersome.

Historically, it worked fine. Although the Predictive Analysis algorithms were less stable.

Satisfied he trotted slowly around the yard, letting the sunlight warm him. His right leg hurt him a bit when he was done with his daily exercise, but that was a complain he had gotten used to over the decades.

He had broken the leg grav-skiing and attempting to impress a younger female.

She had been quite impressed.

So had everyone else in the cafe he had cartwheeled into.

Bo'okdu'ust snorted to himself at his own foolishness so long ago as he trotted back into the house. He had long ago gotten tired of just wads of cud. The constant gnawing on nutrient infused plas wadding or even actual nutricud made his jaws ache. He went inside and got together the ingredients and made himself a light meal.

He had found that his appetite had gone down and he was hungry less frequently the last century or so.

Bo'okdu'ust thoughtfully tapped the mixing spoon against his flank covering as he considered the fact that he finally had a species that he could examine their actual history.

He had long suspected that the Lanaktallan governments had obfuscated actual history and he had wondered what they were trying to hide.

His simulation, done on the far more powerful, robust, and flexible Terran systems, would support one of his theories no matter what the results.

He checked his retinal link. It was almost time.

Bo'okdu'ust finished up his meal, put his dishes in the reclaimer, and trotted back into his office just in time for his implant to chime, letting him know his guests were present.

Day, the Rigellian female general, and several other Terrans. None of them academics.

If only his fellow academics could understand the results of his work, much less his mechanisms, then his work was essentially useless and nothing more than extensive intellectual masturbation. True, he might have to translate it, but even then, they should be able to understand and recognize the results once he had explained it.

The newcomers were a Treana'ad, a russet Mantid, and three humans. One a heavily modified cyborg, who introduced himself as Magnussen, another was a chimera with a type of canine, and the last was a 'standard Terran' from Earth/Terra itself.

Bo'okdu'ust welcomed them all to his humble abode, leading them into his workspace.

Unlike a lot of historians, his work required holotanks, book shelves, chalkboard sized transparent dataslates, and other mechanisms.

Bo'okdu'ust led the group in just as the massive holotank chimed and the words "SIMULATION SERIES COMPLETED" appeared.

"Tell us about the simulation," Day said, walking up and looking at it. At the time, it was little more than mathematical symbols.

"Allow me to add the interpolation layer," Bo'okdu'ust said. He twiddled a bit and moved the simulation to a second tank and then added the layer that would show graphical representations rather than just pure code values changing.

"I map possible and potential population growth, disease spread and information spread (which can move at roughly the same speed in some population types), availability of resources, environmental pressures, and attempt to predict that past via simulation before comparing it to actual the actual history," Bo'okdu'ust said. He sighed. "Sadly, it is rare I can use it on a species that is actually undergoing growth and historical progress as most cultures appear to stagnate, regress, or even fail once certain mileposts have been reached."

"Species extinction events," the Treana'ad said.

"So who did you track with this application of your theories?" the General asked.

"The Hakanians," Bo'okdu'ust said. "I tracked what should be their ability to govern themselves, including treaties and trade agreements. Let me show you. This starts with your species arriving and putting them in a protectorate status."

He replayed the simulation, on fast forward.

"Now, I've bypassed failure state ones, where they cannot achieve self-determination within twenty generations. However, I will include what variables led to the failure state in the interest of allowing you to adjust for those variables," Bo'okdu'ust said.

They watched the replay through where the Hakanians reached self determination within fifteen generations.

"That is the best I was able to do, with what I know about the Terran legal code and the Confederacy's application of Protectorate statuses," Bo'okdu'ust said, dimming the holotank and bringing the lights back up.

"Whew, that's a long time," the General said.

"Not particularly," the Mantid, who had been introduced as Path to Understanding.

"There are other variables that I might not be aware of," Bo'okdu'ust admitted. "I am using standard Lanaktallan methods but leaving out the Gentling Protocols.

"That's something we would not do," the cyborg said.

"And that is why I came here, to study your methods, learn about them," Bo'okdu'ust said. "As well as continue my research into Terran history."

"If I may, Doctor?" the canine chimera said.

"Go ahead, young lady," Bo'okdu'ust said, having learned through the introductions that the Terran soldiers was a female of their genetically modified branch of Terran Descent Humanity, referred to as the Biological Artificial Sentience Systems.

"I thought you were a historian. Why the complex predictive systems?" she asked.

Bo'okdu'ust nodded. "It probably does seem somewhat counter intuitive that a historian develop tools for predictive analysis regarding populations in the macro-scale," All of his guests nodded. "However, I have often striven to understand why for one species with plenty of copper easily obtainable with minimal effort they practically skipped copper and went straight to iron which was less plentiful and more difficult to extract."

Another rounding set of nodding.

"Sadly, my species has largely had their history erased. All of the data as to important historical events are lost at what I call The Silent Barrier, which is the end of the Precursor War and the time it took for my people to begin to spread out again. I am forced to use the establishment of the Great Herd as the beginning point of history," Bo'okdu'ust admitted. "However, as we have seen with other species, to understand the present we must understand history, the foundation upon which the present, for good or for ill, is built."

All of his guests nodded.

"There has been one hundred and ninety-two species that have risen to prominence and fallen to extinction during my people's time," Bo'okdu'ust said.

He paused, using all six eyes to stare at all of his guests, noting that their faces went suddenly still, suddenly expressionless.

"It follows the same pattern every time, according to every record of the Great Herd I have been able to discover," Bo'okdu'ust said. He paused. "A mathematical impossibility. There is no second or third method of falling, once a species encounters the Great Herd. Data on 'extinct' civilizations is largely discarded, except for generalities," Bo'okdu'ust waved his hand. "Thankfully, once I attained high enough ranking, I was allowed to view the archival data."

"What did you find?" the General asked, walking over to the holotank and peering at the data. Bo'okdu'ust had taught enough students to know that the General was merely finding a place to focus their attention to appear nonchalant rather than actually absorbing the data.

She was looking at the bodily waste addition to pollution matrix.

"The same de-evolution. Every single time. Without fail," Bo'okdu'ust said. "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is something strange, four times is possibly something that happens regularly, and five times might be some sort of thing that keeps happening."

Everyone frowned.

He gave a low self-mocking chuckle. "My race has poor pattern recognition. That's the joke."

Everyone dutifully laughed.

"I am still curious as to why you would want to come here, want Confed aid for your research," the General said, switching her attention quite closely to the coding for establishing sex ratios of population due to genetic markers.

Bo'okdu'ust rubbed his hands with glee.

"You hear things in my profession, things you might not have heard otherwise. Whispers, rumors, idle talk, speculation," Bo'okdu'ust said.

"Whatever it is you heard, you are obviously excited about it, Doctor," Day said, sitting in the middle of the holotank, relaxing on a comfortable chair.

"You would be too in my place," Bo'okdu'ust said.

The General straightened up. "Tell me, Doctor. What is this rumor you heard."

"That the Confederacy is in possession of unredacted data cores regarding species history, culture, and genetics, planetary ecology and geology. That these cores are available to researchers inhabiting Confederate territory that are Confederacy recognized and attributed scientists," Bo'okdu'ust said, unable to stop himself from rubbing his hands together. He sighed, closed his eyes, and willed himself to relax.

Repeating an action and being unable to stop was a symptom of advanced age that annoyed him.

"Mayyyyybeeee," Day drew the word out.

"Excellent," Bo'okdu'ust said, drawing out the word and steepling his fingers together.