Minkowski: Defying Gravity

Minkowski: Defying Gravity

By Gina Val, correspondent at large for the Landing Independent

There’s a strange cognitive dissonance in ZOCU about the League. On the one hand they were our valiant allies against the Magnates, and if you ask a policy maker on Kanon or Londenium or Tempest about them, she’ll probably tell you how wonderful it is that there’s a strong power working for the freedom and prosperity of the rim.

On the other hand, if you catch the very same individual after she’s got a dose of something warming in her, she might be happy, off the record to shake her head at what a joke they are. Minor powers with hardly any technology, retroengineering what alien wonders they can to compete with the far superior and more civilised powers that came before them. She will certainly not welcome anyone pointing out that this is exactly what the Core would say about us, but might ruefully admit the point if she’s had enough.

But who are the league? People on earth have barely heard of them, few in the expanse even care about them. Despite this, the League is a vibrant, growing force, and the general perception of it as an almost undifferentiated mass of parochial, low tech isolates is not only in error, but guilty of the same form of essentialism that tends to characterise Core perceptions of ZOCU. With that in mind, I decided to travel to the league and find out who they are and what they think about.

The first stage of my trip around the League was Minkowski, home of Minkowski Transcendentalism.

Arrival

If you ask someone on the Tempesti subway what she thinks of Minkowski, she’ll look at you blankly for a second while her lace dredges up the information then say something along the lines of “Oh, that weird cult place who hate gravity?”

If she is particularly knowledgeable she might suggest that they’re a strange small time religion who are probably destined to get ploughed under by the Magnates or (after their state turns to a proper form of democracy) die off in the same way as Kirnaism, Reshanki Christanity or any of the other kooky cults who have briefly lived and then eventually died in the Expanse.

Sailing into the Minkowski system in the passenger bay of a tramp freighter and looking out of the virtual windows at the incredible high frontier spread out across it makes such easy assumptions seem rather juvenile. Minkowski is full of ships: drone whalers, short haul shuttles, cargo pods with engines, ships from China, from the other league powers. The system is full of life. Our traffic vector is complicated, most merchant shipping doesn’t head directly into the Gagarin, but rather heads into one of the stations with gravitational sections, and on the way in, our crew and passengers are desperate for a glimpse of Mara, the system’s black hole and its halo of posthuman mechanisms.

The local authorities keep at us a distance, so the view isn’t all that great. With a black hole being a literal the mouth of hell I can understand their concern for our safety, though I suspect it also has something to do with preserving the lucrative fees that the tour boats charge for a close look at the whirling maelstrom of the black hole.

More spectacular than the distant machinery is the sight of a pair of Minkowskan battleships, passing us like great whales in the night, their running lights gleaming. The Firmament class are great blocky engines of destruction, their outlines softened slightly by the organic looking alien technology bonded to them.

At Gagarin I pass through a customs check: an airlock with a large bank of scanners of every conceivable sort. Air sealed containers are forbidden, even so long after the war paranoia about magnet bioweapons runs high. The customs official, a brusque male with ebony black skin asks me several probing questions about the purpose of my visit, perhaps mistaking my Red enhancements for the architecture of one of the more elegant magnate combat-morphs, but he’s somewhat mollified when I tell him the purpose of my visit. “You’re here to write about the achievements of Minkowski?” he asks through the microphones “I didn’t think ZOCU was interested in us.” It was hard to tell through the microphone but he sounded slightly bitter.

“I’m here to tell my readers about what it’s like.” I reply, hoping my mild correction doesn’t annoy him and keep me stuck in this cold airlock too much longer.

“You have come to the right place then; Gagarin is the greatest of our habitats.” He opens the door “enjoy your visit.” And I step into the interior of Gagarin colony.

The first night

Towing my duffle I try not to look too clumsy as I head down the streets of Gagarin. I get more than a few odd looks, despite my tan I’m obviously not a native, and I simply don’t have the same impossible grace they do in Zero-G. There’s a few titters at my progress, not to mention more than one frown at my being here.

The hostility is muted however by the desire to sell me stuff. Along the area exiting the port are all manner of hawkers, each with a web of items hanging on display in front of them, happy to provide me with everything from flat screen maps of the colony to aerosols of various types (including enough antiperspirants to keep a small city in trim) to various Minkowski Transcendentalist icons, mostly small bubbles of glass with a drop of liquid inside them, shining and gleaming as it floats in zero-gravity.

I buy a map and those sealed items I’ll need, along with a few other bits then head to my hotel. I had expected at least a hint of claustrophobia in an asteroid settlement, but it seems airy enough, with large flat screens giving a view of the stars, everything painted in bright colours and large enough passages not to give me too much bother. The cold glances begin to bother me though, increasing in intensity as I head away from the space port. Reaching the hotel where the staff are at least superficially cordial is something of a relief.

The hotel sticks up above the surface of the asteroid, with a pair of massive, metre thick windows of ice and crystal giving an amazing view out over the starscape. The clerk, a truly stunning looking young woman with skin several shades darker than mine informs me (in a manner that says she’s not quite sure I understand English) that the restaurant serves a variety of local and out system cuisine and that the chief is famous all across the system. Dinner is at a set time, unlike a hotel on Tempest, and any additional services I should require are available by calling the desk, rather than from an augmented reality menu.

At dinner, the food was excellent, though I fear I distracted the other diners. I was a full head taller than anyone there, and suddenly realised how a Valeran might feel visiting Tempest. The food was excellent, and better yet I had company who was willing to tolerate my host of small social gaffes (for instance, it is impolite to put your drinking bulb back on the table; you should always let it hang in the air).

The priest was an older woman, her skin only lightly pigmented for a Minkowskan. She asked if she could join me, saying that someone far from home shouldn’t be required to eat alone, and then set about trying to convert me to Minkowski Transcendentalism in the course of a conversation about anything and everything.

The priest’s name was Vega Novoa, and she was quite willing to talk in intellectual fashion to me about all manner of subjects, and express a seemingly informed opinion of all kinds of matters, including ones (such as EU/ZOCU relations) that she was shockingly naive about. I found her a pleasant enough dinner companion however, as she was able to fill me in on Minkowski dinner customs, not to mention the finer points of her religion.

“Ours is an intellectual faith” she told me after a while “without modern science we know that we could never have been saved.” She smiled “I hope your article can spread the good word back in your home. I think you could settle much of your problem if you would realise that planets are not only irrelevant in the modern day, they’re sinful, certainly not worth fighting for.”

“I’m afraid there’s many people back home who would disagree.” I winced inwardly, trying not to show just how insensitive that comment had been and rapidly changed the subject “I’m really more interested in your people though. I write about politics.”

She smiled “Sometimes I wish that priests could rule directly, but it is a foolish thought, speciality, that is the modern way yes? Men and women of good conscience and guided by the will of god selecting competent specialists to run the business of policy.” She paused to drink “I think that’s much less messy than democracy, there’s always a minority of people who are damaged by that.”

Maybe so, but later, reading the local news sheets I found out just how messy even the word of god could be, with the holy book and various notes and decisions of religious scholars being continually picked over for meaning to support this political ideal or that. It seemed to me a far more messy business than the representative or direct democracies I’d seen in my travels.

After doing some local research on the local networks (an adventure in its self) I decided to meditate for a few hours before my meeting with the main subject of my interview, Foreign Minister Altair Singh.

the Interview

Altair Singh’s office was pretty spacious and neatly decorated, with the bright colours I’d come to recognise as typically Minkowskan and a living plant (a dwarf tree of some kind) sitting on the desk. Other than the desk, furniture was minimal or retracted into the walls. This charming minimalism was Singh joked, to prevent the ordinary citizens from feeling that their policy makers were too ostentatious and remind visitors of the time when such minimalism was the height of luxury on the earlier and much smaller colonies.

The empty space had the added benefit that Singh could lean back far enough as to find my presence less intimidating. I don’t know if it was my size or my Colour’s somewhat violent reputation that caused him to worry, but despite how much he tried to hide it I could see him trying to control a touch of discomfort at my presence. It helped me too, compared to the somewhat cramped hotel room this was paradise.

His manner was pleasant enough, with a firm handshake and an easy smile. He’d apparently researched me a bit as well, as he asked about several of my more or less famous articles, after this small talk was out of the way, we got down to business.

I asked him what he thought of future prospects between ZOCU and the League, and his view on ZOCU/Core hostilities.

“Both ZOCU and the Core are too inward looking. The rim is where human civilisation can truly flower” he answered “We regret the loss of life in the war, and are very willing to be friendly to any power that offers us friendship, we have fought alongside ZOCU against the Magnates, but they should recognise the League’s strength as well as their own.” He paused, “Earth is extending its reach too far, they don’t belong out here, their souls are too held down by gravity...” his mouth turned up in a slight grin as if at a private joke “even you people of the Zodiac are held down.”

Surely, I asked, the league must have a view about the conflict between Earth and the Expanse “Such conflicts are far away.” He shrugged “And don’t really concern Minkowskans. Because we have abandoned planets, we are rich, the void gives us all the living space we need if we just make use of it, perhaps ZOCU and the Core could do the same if they but tried.”

And the Magnates? I asked, wondering if he believed it possible to live with them. “The Magnate war never formally stopped. The fact they’ve retreated means nothing but a pause for breath.” Singh sighed “eventually, we will fight them again, until they are disarmed and no longer a threat to us or anyone else.”

My final question; where did he see Minkowski going caused him to pause for a moment “We are destined to go upwards, away from the pull of gravity. Our industry is burgeoning, our population and faith ever expanding and the treasures that the past has left on the rim are at our fingertips. I think Minkowski is destined to become one of humanities strongest states.” He said, the last part almost shy, as if he worried he’d upset me.

The idea of escaping planets and need for territory was a noble sentiment perhaps, both times Minkowski expressed it too me, but given the territorial ranges that human politics now expand over, an unrealistic one. As Tempest did, Minkowski and its boastful, intelligent, wary people are going to have to learn how to live with the rest of the human sphere, as much as the rest of transhumanity will have to learn to live with them.

One thing is for sure though, however crazy their faith might seem to some in the sphere, Minkowski is not going to go away.