Coding Scarlett I: Chapter F

Capacity, Exponential Industrial Revolution

“No wonder they call you the Genius of Serenity, swift and clever improvising,” Rpsai flew face up, as if watching northern lights on his bed. “Do you know why all continents lie on the equator of this planet?”

“Not really,” Scarlet shook her head.

“I put a fast-spinning black hole in it,” Rpsai exploded in laughter.

“You,” Scarlet almost yelled, her face twisting, “f… put a black hole in the planet?”

“Well,” Rpsai appeared amused, “you guys put a slow-spinning black hole in Mars, too. Please don’t have a double standard. I didn’t teach them, eh. It’s just a natural thing to do. I chose a fast-spinning one merely to set up a research-oriented planet. The Food Planet is too small. We needed to generate artificial plate tectonics, for a strong magnetic field and a stable atmosphere at least. Don’t you love physics? Oh, we’ve arrived, ready to land.”

The three-minute flight from the equator to the north pole did not give them much time to digress. Very soon they were at the concentric circular square enclosing the Splendor Tower, the destiny of all northern airways to join for a powerful polar gala. The tower was two and half miles tall, straight and half transparent without any sign of steel in it. You could feel the suffocating pressure when you gazed at it from below, not sure whether it would fall on you or not. Made of dazzling and twinkling white crystals, its walls glimmered in variable emerald-like green as its background, which extended all the way to its top where the tower eventually blended perfectly into the color of auroras. Curious, Serena ran to touch a white crystal wall. Nevertheless, she could not tell what material it was, unaware of any crystal strong enough to support such an architecture. Intrigued, she checked the encyclopedia on her phone, only to discover a desert of knowledge, no 3D molecular drawings or whatsoever related to it.

Serena turned to Rpsai, realizing he was showing off his tower to Scarlet, whereas Liam winked at Serena, and then looked away immediately to pretend nothing happening. Well, Rpsai was not the owner. However, he designed the Food Planet along with its landmarks, including the polar towers. Fortunately, a Psittacian came to them, greeting Rpsai the Psittacian way. Psittacians evolved from giant parrots, a civilization in the Triangulum Galaxy with a history of science and technology around thirty million years, namely, behind Elves by twelve million or so. They befriended Elves, understanding they could never conquer the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy. In the end, Andromeda had twenty-five times more stars than Triangulum, plus Elves ahead of them by millions of years. Elves accepted their friendship, and ultimately formed alliance with Psittacians, knowing that the sixty-million-year-old Draconian civilization in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the oldest throughout the Local Group of galaxies, was their greatest common enemy and threat. The Psittacian came right in time, for Scarlet needed her to maintain a good distance with Rpsai.

Psittacians were not weak, who essentially ranked number four among the five powers of the Local Group, which in descending order were Heroes (Homo heros), Enthusiasts (Apigenius studiosus or Apians), Nationalists (Aceroculus callidus or Draconians), Poets (Mensensus poeticus or Psittacians) and Elves (Homo dryadalis). Alright, the Local Group Committee decided this way because the Elven population was now too small, no longer capable of handling a prolonged war. The order of powers changed all the time. None of them were weak. In fact, Homo dryadalis and Homo heros were formerly one civilization, whereby Homo heros first appeared about eleven million years ago, an era when Elves were the strongest in the Local Group of galaxies, far mightier than Draconians. Unable to believe in the Elven monarchy anymore, they started a revolution four million years later, which continued for five million before seeing any hope of success. They fought hard, and finally won independence and democracy, rapidly ascending to the greatest power and the sole superpower in the Local Group, surpassing the original ancient four, each beyond thirty million years of formal history.

Heroic independence astonished the entire Local Group of galaxies, as Heroes defeated the very superpower of their time, Elves. The Elven civilization plunged quickly following Heroic independence, a movement where they lost too much population, falling from number one to number five within centuries, no more able to lead the Local Group. Instead, Heroes succeeded Elves as the new superpower by winning many Elven hearts into their dominion. Democracy played a role in their success, yet not the key factor. After all, the majority of civilizations over a millennium of rule and reign had some form of democracy, or they would have to change dynasties frequently, at least once every few centuries. Democracy ensured that you could vote down a government without shedding any blood, a mechanism to improve stability and development significantly. To be a superpower, you would need much more than democracy alone. Heroic exponential industrial revolution changed everything, now the standard socioeconomic structure of any surviving power.

Like parrots, Psittacians were very protective and social, not as social as ants and bees, but social enough to share partners and children. Of course, they were still monogamous by their own definition. None the less, they would take care of any parrot dropped in their nest as one of their children, and mate openly with any parrot in their tribe while in a Psittacian monogamy. For them, the monogamy was more a parenthood than a partnership. They were faithful to their children as couples, and not to each other. Consequently, they had perfect gender equality, as there was no difference between Psittacian males and females in their roles and responsibilities. Psittacian females were slightly stronger, except after laying eggs, a physical condition that further propelled their impartial view on gender, to take turns in protecting one another. All Psittacian names were neutral, to reflect this unique value. Psittacian IQ averaged 590, amidst the highest and the most respectable in the Local Group.

The Psittacian bobbed her head back and forth as she walked to them. “Rpsai,” she ground her beak, “dating Homo sapiens girls again? Is this your one or two millionth trophy? Only Elven losers date Homo sapiens. Are you a loser?” Chatty as a typical Psittacian, she was four to five feet tall, larger than ravens and hawks, roughly equal to the size of an albatross, save for a shorter wingspan. Her eyes appeared intelligent enough for anyone staring at her to be in a cold sweat.

“Hi,” the Psittacian turned to Scarlet, “my name is Darcy, given you can’t possibly pronounce it in Psittacian. Rpsai is a loser. Be wary. We lost Earth and the Milky Way because of him. Unfortunately, we couldn’t kill him, for the Elven emperor favored him and hired him as a freaking royal physicist. We had to forgive him as a result. He isn’t really too bad, surprisingly able to make into the top hundred physicists in the Elven world. You know the University of Andromeda at the Tender Valley? He founded that physics school and named it after himself. That’s why it’s called the Tender Valley, and not the Tender City.”

“So,” Rpsai grinned, “you came to seek help, I suppose. Triangulum is a flight of nearly seven years from here. Why do you need a loser’s help?”

“Wait,” Liam stopped them. “I’m not here to hear you argue. Rpsai, you’re actually the founder of my school, Dr. Rpsaidastle Vkjuiacdueo, or the Upholder of the Golden Sun, of the Tender Valley? It’s amazing that you’ve changed your hairstyle, cuz I almost don’t recognize you anymore. I didn’t expect you to be such a morally corrupted person. Luckily, I have graduated. What can you do to me?”

“Liam,” Rpsai tittered, eyeing Scarlet, “I can get you into the Royal Council of Physicists to work directly for the King. Please cooperate with me. Let Darcy answer my question.”

“You know the Doomsday Problem that truly bothers your king,” Darcy looked behind Rpsai, as if he had been invisible. “There’s a new discovery that suggests it’s closer than you earlier thought. That’s why I came all the way from Triangulum, for your king and not you. He pays me ten million Elven dollars a year, an offer I can’t reject. What more can I say?”

Speaking of the Doomsday Problem, we must date back to the Canadian physicist Serge Guilbert, whose genius pictured an interesting scenario where our 3-sphere universe had two entwined faces, one facing out and the other in, in 2199, the year after we had successfully breached spacetime on a tangent line through high gravitational turbulence, namely, literally flying out of our universe. The one facing out was the universe we observed on Earth, whereas the other facing in might be a mirror faster-than-light universe of ours. In other words, we saw our past in the current slower-than-light universe yet saw our future in the mirror faster-than-light universe, both interlinked. First seen absurd, the quantum system had a mechanism for this, known as Schrödinger’s cat, which could be simultaneously dead and alive when superimposed as an example. That is, our Schrödinger’s cat might be somehow superimposed in future if existing on the inner face of our universe, whose every possible outcome may be measured and estimated with a probability. Provided so, we could have a predictive faster-than-light radar. The future would be ours to see.

We desperately needed a faster-than-light radar. Else, our faster-than-light ship would virtually see nothing in front. Taking a faster-than-light flight without an even faster radar was like running at full speed in a dark cave, not knowing what to hit the next second anytime, extremely dangerous at best. Moreover, when major earthly powers standardized faster-than-light missiles internationally in 2154, the faster-than-light radar turned into a critical component for any possible faster-than-light anti-missile system. In 2202, we finally sent our first unmanned vehicle to the inner face of our universe, by penetrating orthogonally its 3-sphere surface from outside of spacetime. It was not easy, as it later took decades of signal processing and analysis to eventually discover patterns in how faster-than-light particles interacted with our slower-than-light particles through photons. The future was ours to see.

We naturally began to search our fates, such as the end of our universe, that of Earth, that of the Sun, that of our life, and que sera sera. Given it did not require us five thousand years in science and technology to see the future, neither did it take long for other advanced civilizations out there. Very soon, the Doomsday Problem, also known as the Next Big Thing, became a common expression among advanced civilizations in the Local Group of galaxies, which referred to the closest possible coming end of their civilization. For Elves and Heroes, their Doomsday Problem was the possible rise of Draconians into a 5D civilization, the +1D that would wipe out every single 4D enemy of theirs, which obviously included both Elves and Heroes. For some strange reason to everyone’s disbelief, the upcoming 5D Draconian civilization would not attack Psittacians according to faster-than-light radars. That was not good news for Psittacians, because it cast doubt and shadow on the Elven-Psittacian-Heroic alliance against Draconians, which had brought Psittacians thirty million years of peace with Elves and Heroes.

Darcy’s compensation shocked Rpsai, who suddenly felt jealous, and started to contemplate a countermeasure. “Darcy,” he carefully chose his words, “that sounds competitive, approaching mine already.”

“Surpassing yours, actually,” Darcy clicked her tongue. “Your king begged me to join. I agreed on two conditions: one to reveal your pay, and two to exceed yours, by at least 50%. Surprisingly, your Elven king was so generous to just quadruple yours as mine. Quad, that sounded big! Do I trust you, or your king?”

Hearing Darcy’s reply, Scarlet, Serena and Liam all burst to laughter. “Darcy,” Scarlet held her stomach, “I’ve never seen a Psittacian so much smarter than Elves. You’re amazing! May you stay with us for the rest of this two-month cruise? I want a physics teacher like you.”

“What say you?” Darcy watched Rpsai, protective as always. “Do we go back to your king now, or do you continue your cruise? My husband came with me, a terrific physicist, too. He can take care of the kids for you.”

Darcy rarely praised another physicist, tickling Rpsai’s curiosity. “Which husband?” Rpsai appeared baffled. “When have you got a physicist husband? Blair became a renowned physicist? I can’t imagine that.”

“Oh,” Darcy purred, flapping her wings, “it’s Indigo. We’ve been steady for six centuries. It shows how long you and I have not gathered.”

Coding Scarlett I: Chapter E

Earth, Middle of Orion–Cygnus Arm

The world was big, and even more so was our universe. Immortality was the very solution to see it all. Scarlet needed that Elven identity, the ticket to eternal life and youth, and possibly Elven wealth. Life was all about a balance between time and money. Was it possible that Liam thought he now had time, hence justifying his current lifestyle, saving everything for his future? For Scarlet, until she became an Elven citizen, time was the most precious resource she had. She would never bother with saving Elven dollars till then. Seizing the day was more important. She reminded him of the Elven graduation ceremony, a scene she had watched many times since childhood, where every graduate took an oath in the observance of Elven responsibilities, and finally entered adulthood. Their university was the ternary free and required seven-year phase, a sum of twenty-one years in compulsory education from the age of three, filled with pain and gain.

Apparently, Scarlet’s singing was too professional, attracting the attention of everyone on excursion. An Elf came to them, singing and sighing along:

A gorgeous beauty sang a song
In kindness, love and zeal,
To calm his friend who might belong
In worlds that seemed unreal.

For science and technology,
Past forty mill’on years,
Have moved beyond our fantasy,
Which bring you Earthlings cheers.

The universe is ours to own
If we forget the past,
Collaborating strong in bone
For peace to ever last.

So now you have a wish like this,
Why not unite with us,
In one society of bliss
Forever synchronous?

“You were there with us at lunch, bastard?” Scarlet snickered at the Elf. “Were you behind me?”

“You remember your script, Miss Gorgeous Genius of Serenity.” The Elf smiled, possibly friendly.

“I’ve got photographic memory,” Scarlet defended. “Plus, I’ve been doing this on TV for over six years. Any trick of this sort would be noticeable to my audience.”

“If you memorized and shuffled your stanzas, or even intermingled your rhymed verses within each stanza,” the Elf asked, as if curious, “would your audience discover?”

“My director can tell the difference,” Scarlet shrugged. “Tricks are useless. It takes one out of millions, or maybe billions, of those who watch the show to point out, and spread across the Internet. I can’t survive with any trick.”

Elven IQ averaged 780, given forty million more years in evolution. Improvising a poem would be effortless. None the less, few Elves spoke English, as they would not likely bother. Those who did were usually quite sick, often out of a desire to date tall and slim Homo sapiens girls. They eventually married them, but people kept a distance with those Elves, because they had a spooky taste, and enjoyed weird roleplaying games. The Elf approaching Scarlet may be one of those, creepy at best. Elves impulsively preferred blondes, for they were mostly blonde, some with darker hair colors and skin tones as a result of the differentiations in MC1R, KITLG and TYRP1 genes, which many primates shared, including humans and chimps. One trait that set Homo dryadalis, namely, the Elven species, apart from the rest of the Homo genus was the golden color of their eyes. The lady walking by with golden hair, golden eyes and golden white skin must be an Elf, unmistakable.

Unfortunately, reproductive isolation existed between Homo sapiens and Homo dryadalis, making it necessary to design their babies if they indeed married. This was why Elves who dated Earthlings were odd and strange. Scarlet was a tall and slim blonde girl, embodying every single Elven dream characteristic, from head to toes save for her eye color, especially her long and straight hair flowing to her waist, which, according to Elves, was captivating and irresistible, lethal and deadly. Constantly surrounded by Elven men wherever and whenever she dared to get out alone, Scarlet had much experience in dealing with troubling Elves. To avoid overly complicated scenarios, she would always ask her friends to join her at her place before leaving home. Such was the life of a poetry queen at Serenity. Elves valued privacy, inherently shy and timid. They would not go too far with you if many were watching.

“You are very smart,” the Elf admired. “I’ve been watching your show since day one. I was shocked because I had never expected a Homo sapiens to do this. Earthlings write good poems, generally taking half a day to complete one. The faster among you finish within minutes, not enough for a live show. I learned English in year 736. We’re now in 11854. That was a long time ago. My name is Rpsaidastle, the Upholder of the Golden Sun or simply Upholder, from the Flower City.”

“Rpsai,” Serena chimed in, “we all speak Elvish. Scarlet and I study at the University of Serenity, whereas Liam graduated from the University of Andromeda, which everyone knows. The Elven official encounter with Earthlings was in year 4253. I’m interested in everything before that year, which isn’t covered in our textbook. Did you visit China or other countries back then? How many Earthling languages do you speak? You were obviously on a special secretive mission, which should have been unclassified by now. May you share with us what you did? It must have been exciting for you, right?”

“Serena,” Rpsai tilted his head, “you’re definitely a very smart girl. National security sees differently. Whether a file is classified or not is based on relevance and not age. We have critical files from forty million years ago that still are classified today. Earth is now under Draconian control. Anything about Earth that has not already been in public is classified. We learn everything about Earth, including your languages, among which I speak English, French, Chinese and Russian, basically the languages of the United Nations Security Council. I’ve been on Earth for twenty million years. Trust me. I’ve seen everything about Earthlings.”

“So,” Scarlet questioned, “how are you supposed to tell us, if it’s classified?”

“If you visit Elven libraries often,” Rpsai replied instantaneously, “and read or watch our understanding of Earthling histories, you may have seen my name. Earth is classified. I am not.”

“Oh…” Serena giggled, although Scarlet could not take it lightly yet.

“Why not learn German?” Liam appeared dissatisfied, an expert in pretension.

“Boy,” Rpsai put his hand on his forehead, “I had to learn more than five hundred languages and manage relationships with thousands of civilizations, which were distributed over a thousand planets in the Milky Way. I gave Earth four. Trust me. I adore Earth, at least percentagewise. I’m tired. I’m now taking a vacation of ten thousand years. I was born at the Flower City thirtysomething million years ago. I love my hometown and wish to stay there forever.”

“Your Elven textbook says,” Liam sneered at Rpsai, “Earth is located in the middle of the Orion–Cygnus Arm, controlling the three largest arms of the Milky Way in that region, including Scutum-Centaurus, Perseus and Carina–Sagittarius, while concentrating an abundance of critical resources nearby to greatly facilitate the defense of a galactic military base, the most strategic position in its quadrant of the galaxy, one of the best choices for a galactic capital. You should have learned German. It’s worth your time. Every Earthling language is worth your time, Mr. Elven Ambassador. That is your textbook, not mine.”

“Yes,” Rpsai all of sudden turned serious, “I wrote that. Nevertheless, you’ve got to know that galactic arms don’t move, though the stars in them do. Twenty million years ago, Earth was in the middle of nowhere, unlike today.”

“It means you had plans to conquer the Milky Way,” Scarlet interrupted them. “Am I right?” She looked a bit afraid, and worried.

“True,” Rpsai shook his head, “we still do have plans today. There’s no other way out. We either wait for Draconians to conquer us, or corner them back to their homeland, namely, the Large Magellanic Cloud, in which case Earth becomes a suitable candidate for our galactic capital in the Milky Way. Scarlet, you’re a very smart girl. You can figure out everything by yourself. Twenty million years ago, they attacked us first. We must push them back.”

The excursion started, giving them no time to discuss on the ship. Excursors followed their guide in Elven aerosuits, which could fly up to Mach 100 and enable wearers to breathe and chat in open air during their flights. Elves opted for a low-gravity planet as the Food Planet, such that they could experiment with a considerably greater biodiversity. It happened to favor tourism, too, as people could eat a lot more when food weighed much lighter. The planet had a surface gravity of 0.56 G, thanks to its 0.75 Earth radii and 0.32 Earth masses, fairly close to Mars. The air was fresh, boosting mental alertness, as if IQ had skyrocketed by 50%. Its atmospheric oxygen level hovered constantly at a whopping 45% and its humidity averaged 99%, near saturation, due to an ocean ratio of 92% and a global temperature at 87 °F, all these conditions together for a more effective and efficient research in the highest possible food production per acre.

Beautiful women tended to love meat unless taught otherwise in their society, most probably because they would dine out regularly with their parents, given way more occasions to eat steaks throughout childhood and teenagerhood, thereby developing an appetite for meat. The Food Planet was not meant for humans only. It fed livestock as well, which produced meat, milk and eggs, the heaven of carnivores. Animal protectors fainted not, as Elves synthesized meat from crops, too, which sold at a much lower price. Synthesized meat transformed at the molecular level was no different from natural meat in molecular composition, which even added randomization for a natural feel. There were those who insisted on natural meat, though they may not be able to tell any difference. The Food Planet welcomed all, offering both natural and synthesized animal products.

Most activities were indoor, for the planetary climate was worse than Amazonia, with spiders and all sorts of arthropods far larger than humans. Aerosuits were not complicated to manufacture for Earthlings, either. After all, it was already year 11854. How could that be difficult for us? The challenge was in the Elven particle manipulator, which diverted incoming airstreams at Mach 100 without a windshield. An Earthling aerosuit was bulky and clunky, like a spacesuit trapping our body inside, extremely unpleasant, unlike an Elven aerosuit, sleek and relaxed as a backpack. There was no market for Earthling aerosuits, no matter how cheaply they sold, for we would rather jump into a car than a spacesuit. Within three minutes, excursors arrived at its arctic ocean, one of the most comfortable spots on the planet, away from those horrible creatures. Rpsai seemed nice, losing every argument with them on their way.

Unlike Earth where continents encircled its north pole, and whose south pole was a continent itself, the Splendor Ocean centered about the north pole on the Food Planet engulfed the entire northern hemisphere, extending its water all the way to the equator, hence extremely splendid and calm. It was their arctic winter night, from November to February without the sun. Water was freezing, not frozen. Northern lights danced across the sky, from all directions blending into a tall crystal tower that floated on the ocean, which shimmered and sparkled in heavenly orchestration, as if the tower had been the source of their energy, now stretching out its arms to protect the arctic sanctuary under a light shield, magical and magnificent. The tower was the Splendor Tower, five hundred floors above water and another five below, whose fame stormed the Local Group of galaxies on completion, and whose beauty took everyone’s breath in a blink of the eye. Scarlet had seen its photos and videos many times, yet never in person. Stunned and awed by its wonder, she sang and sighed:

When beauty takes my breath away
And calm surrounds my whole
On northern lights that pave our way
To where the stars extol,

When words cannot describe it all
And songs do not express
Such noble grace by nature’s call
That glows to effloresce,

Auroras dance and congregate,
Converging to the queen
Whose glory gleams to activate
A shield in silky green.

The Splendor Tow’r through darkness shines,
Exuding love and peace,
Of class and style the world enshrines,
By faith to never cease.

Coding Scarlett I: Chapter D

Food, Foundation of Advanced Civilization

“No wonder they call you the Genius of Serenity, swift and clever improvising,” Liam seemed overwhelmed. “What was your love tossed, Scarlet? It’s never too late if you start today. You are truly too young to sigh and lament. You always break my heart with your poetry, each and every time!”

“You knew me already? Suppose I’m too popular even outside of Serenity?” Scarlet was suddenly on the alert though joking in disguise cautiously, her tone perfectly pleasant.

“We should have introduced one another anyway,” Liam explained directly, attentive and observant by nature. “I totally wasn’t following you both. How could I have possibly known you bought tickets to this cruise?”

“You knew this dining hall would be less crowded,” Scarlet winked in cold blood. “Why did you come to ours and lead us to this one? You knew we were there, didn’t you?”

Liam quickly realized one thing: Scarlet had pretended to be naïve and harmless all along, but he had never noticed the sophistication of the prudent mind behind her innocent eyes. She was terribly and incredibly smart, not a swift and clever poet only. “I had not been aware of your presence till I saw you both at the hall,” Liam defended instantaneously. “I like to make new friends and go to the busiest halls always. There I’ve got the best opportunity to meet interesting people. You’re on TV all the time. I of course recognized you right away. Everybody knows you, Scarlet. Nothing fishy about this.”

“Sounds plausible to me,” Scarlet smirked at him. “If I see you follow us to our cabin, you’re dead. The Flower Arc has the fastest and most responsive police in Andromeda. I bet you don’t wanna mess with Elven police. They have a dedicated cabin on the ship, to which you may be accustomed.”

“Well, you win. So, what have you missed, Ms. Scarlet Robinson?” Liam attempted to change the topic. Scarlet’s beauty was stunning, captivating and mesmerizing. He obviously could not give up yet, regardless of any risk, any threat or any danger.

“Oh,” Scarlet rolled her eyes, this time authentic, “physics is my true love. Unfortunately, I chose computer science for an Elven job. I didn’t know they’d hire Earthling physicists. Thinking about changing my major now.”

“Hmm,” Liam dissuaded her, “as a Homo sapiens, you can’t get an Elven physicist job without internal referrals. Even then, you must work damned hard to meet their expectations. Your best shot will be to do a double major in physics and mathematics, such that if you fail to land an Elven physicist offer, you still can easily find something related to software in the Elven world, which is a lot easier. I didn’t have a backup plan like this, because I grew up at the Grace of Andromeda. I believed in my success rate.”

“Math?” Scarlet chuckled, half contemptuous. “Math is just your imagination, no matter how logical it is. If nature doesn’t implement your math, either physically or socially, your math is no more than a fiction.”

“Check with the math department of your school,” Liam responded instantly, shocked to certain extent. “There’s an Elven branch of mathematics called physical mathematics, where you can possibly specialize in a computational view of nature, which isn’t the only view of physical math. If you do specialize in this view, your chance to secure an Elven software job is essentially as good as that in computer science.”

“Seriously,” Scarlet giggled, mysteriously, “they do that in math? I heard that view before but didn’t expect it to be big enough to give titles. Draconian academia leads the entire Local Group of galaxies. A dragonfly talks with eyes and wings as you know, therefore having a highly graphical mind. Geometry is the mainstream math in the Local Group.”

“Of course, they can,” Liam sounded encouraging. “In Elven math, you can specialize in any set of axioms, so long as one of their proof machines can verify your proofs. Freedom is the highest Elven value as you know, well reflected in their mathematics. Elven mathematicians are no different from developers, except that Elven computer scientists focus on computing models and architectures, abstract or concrete, physical or virtual. They build computers, platforms and applications, often leveraging proofs from mathematicians. Tell me. Isn’t that what you do?”

They had an extended conversation on a better strategy for Scarlet, although Serena was not exactly interested in physics. For her, life was all about money, typical among Chinese. She eventually would like to run an Elven software company, hiring Elves to work for her, making them miserable. Liam attracted her, too. Nevertheless, Serena exchanged looks with Scarlet numerous times during the conversation, just to make sure of her friend’s attitude. She would rather not date a loser. The best scenario would be that Scarlet liked Liam, yet not liking him enough, just so she would look good before Scarlet without ruining their friendship. Given Liam’s cousin at the Grace of Andromeda was wealthy, close to a billionaire, there may be better opportunities. It was simply wise to keep Liam around, whether he would finally end up with Scarlet as the lucky man or not.

Scarlet was not stupid. She had been the weekly TV social queen at Serenity from the age of twelve, improvising songs and poems while engaging in fierce debates and discussions, where she commented on politics and economy through extremely unusual though highly accurate and practical views. She knew what Serena was thinking from her body language and carefully chosen words, smiling unconsciously at times. Liam was knowledgeable about Elven cuisine, consistent with his claim to have grown up at the Grace of Andromeda. He recommended dishes for the two ladies new to the Elven world, charming and desirable as an educated gentleman. He eyed Serena occasionally, every time caught by Scarlet who coughed in response. Still, his heart was all for Scarlet. In the end, he had been watching her shows for six years, which had always been his favorite TV programs. Their first stop was the Food Planet, focusing on the highest possible food production per acre, approximately four hours or sixty light years away from the Flower Planet.

There were obviously many fantastic planets in between the two planets. Sadly, the Cruise must offer cruisers time to familiarize with the ship, hence skipping them all. To facilitate the process, they assigned every cabin a robot guide, who normally would introduce travelers to the newest upgrades and the most popular spots. The Elven ship was gigantic, shaped like a donut with a perimeter beyond six miles and a hundred passenger floors, each circling the donut and stacked up toward its center. That was in fact a whopping total of three hundred square miles, the size of New York City inside a ship. None the less, Liam knew every inch of it by heart, who had been on this cruise twice a year since his first year at the University of Andromeda. Over years, he slowly felt at home on the ship, enjoying the freedom and carefreeness of an all-inclusive cruise life. The afternoon was all theirs. Liam took Scarlet and Serena to every less known corner of the ship, cherishing and reminiscing their long-forgotten childhood fun.

How come Elves did not simply synthesize any food they wanted from molecules? After all, they were forty million years ahead of us. They could and they did. However, biostructures posing a less demand on mining already functioned quite effectively and efficiently, whereas their photosynthesis transformed carbon dioxide into oxygen, reducing the greenhouse effect on a planet. Furthermore, industrial production was centralized, and agricultural yield distributed. Cost-wise, agriculture could defeat any form of synthesis industry single-handedly, because land was almost free. This rationale justified the existence of the Food Planet, where the eternal fight was about whether corn or potato. An annual contest was run, and corn always won on the local maximum output, yet equal with potato on average yield. People argued that potato was more nutritious. Regrettably, economy won any day. It was nothing new. All civilizations faced it. Even back in early 2000, US was pushing agricultural yield per acre every year, where field corn on average delivered fifteen million calories or megacalories per acre, in contrast to wheat at four, soy at six and rice at eleven. Few crops could rival field corn in delivery of energy.

Cruise excursions were available, but not free. Scarlet and Serena previously included four excursions with their cruise tickets, on top of the base price at $250 Elven dollars, only to squander everything they had and indulge in the thrill of spending. Unfortunately, Liam had never purchased any, because excursions were expensive for Earthlings, each roughly $50 Elven dollars, close to one day of Elven average full-time income. He came all the way from the Grace of Andromeda to the Flower Port twice a year, a flight of two weeks or five thousand light years, merely to save some hard-earned Elven dollars. How could he just spend? Incapable of saying goodbye to Scarlet, Liam for the first time of his life bought an excursion, swearing ferociously deep down, almost about to mutter. He had to swallow it, as his image was far more important in front of Scarlet. Well, did he fall too deeply in love?

You might wonder why Elves could afford numerous routes and frequent flights throughout the entire Andromeda Galaxy, resulting in a high-traffic network. The answer lay in omnipresent gas giants. An Elven ship requiring refueling could effortlessly dive into any of them and come back out full. In the end, black hole engines were not fussy, eating everything free of charge. It was around noon where they landed, the sun high up in the sky as if to consume everything. The Cruise announced seven hours for excursions and free trips, allowing generously and intentionally the two most extravagant meals on the Food Planet, lunch and dinner, which translated to dinner and midnight decadence for cruisers. As always, passengers could feel free to enjoy the all-inclusive meals on the ship. Who would do that, however? Given a third of them were usually Earthlings, the Cruise provided free temporary aerosuits, which must be returned after excursion.

It was their first time to put on Elven aerosuits. Serena nearly screamed. “I told you,” Scarlet shouted to Serena. “Excursions are well worth the money.”

“Trust me,” Liam objected. “I’ve been on this cruise a gazillion times. I know where to get the best food on this planet. Free trips are better, free as in freedom.”

“Mr. Elf,” Serena chortled, “you walk on a free trip by yourself, cuz we… are gonna fly!”

Scarlet was speechless, for it was her first time to hear Serena speak English like a kid, sounding completely genuine. Noticing Liam upset, she decided to comfort him. “Liam,” Scarlet asked, “would you like to hear me sing, like on TV?” He nodded, so she went on and sighed:

So little time, so much to do,
Is this our life to be,
To always drift, to always screw,
To live on offers free?

The Tender Valley’s where he came
Across the galaxy,
Beyond the stars all you can name
To our humility.

Our days are bittersweet and tough
Until the Elven time,
But when are pain and sweat enough
For dignity sublime?

Magnificence and splendor shine
Through hearts of rectitude,
Where trust and character entwine
In faith and love construed.

Scarlet had written many melodies for common meter in the past. Not finding a suitable one, she would improvise to the occasion. Although Scarlet and Serena were fairly affluent in Earthling currencies, they all of sudden became poor as soon as they entered the Elven world, together with their Earthling folks staying there, everyone equal. Scarlet fully understood how difficult it had been for Liam to struggle through the University of Andromeda, as the University of Serenity was not exactly easy for them, either. His school would simply be much harder given it was the best across the entire Andromeda Galaxy and beyond, including all of its satellite galaxies. Scarlet had respect for Liam. Nevertheless, she could never imagine living a lifestyle like his, saving each and every penny every day. Was his Elven physicist job not paying enough? She began to have questions. Perhaps, an Elven life was not what she sought.

Coding Scarlett I: Chapter C

Physics, True Love for Scarlet

What if we collided two oppositely fully charged black holes? Would mutual annihilation unleash sufficient energy to explode the combined black hole? When immense spacetime compressed into a singularity instantly flattened, its expansion was instantaneous, far above the speed of light. Plus, there was estimation that a black hole explosion would release inflationary energy, much like the Big Bang, whose inflationary epoch expanded the early universe by ten to the sixtieth times per second, enough to pass through sextillions, if not septillions, of universes lined up in a row, all within a second or a blink of the eye. Somehow, our universe looked too small. Excited, we successfully verified a black hole collision in 2147, almost a century later, whose engineering pushed our science and technology to a whole new level. With everything mature and ready, it did not take long to build our first faster-than-light ship in 2163, which visited Alpha Centauri for its first mission. It was not exactly fast, to our disappointment, at ten times the speed of light only.

Very soon, we noticed an issue. Pioneered by a joint force of Perimeter Institute and Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, who decided to study gravitational turbulence despite its non-linear nature that had scared away many researchers, its science made great strides well into 2161 through a global effort. Unfortunately, the turbulence could not reduce spacetime resistance by much. Like a torpedo trying to surpass the speed of sound, where water and not the limitation of its motor became its worst enemy, so did our faster-than-light ship. In order to reach higher speeds, we must exit spacetime, escaping our universe like a hypersonic missile gliding atop water, no longer a torpedo. How did we know there must exist higher dimensional space? Well, by geometry. When Greeks saw their ships sinking into the Mediterranean Sea beyond the horizon, they knew Earth was round. Similarly, when we observed that the Big Bang had no center, we knew our universe was the 3D surface of a higher dimensional object.

Like a 3D explosion having a 2D outer surface as it blew up, the Big Bang was a 4D explosion with a 3D surface inflating, in which we could not find its center until we left our universe. As gravitational turbulence reached its threshold, it tore spacetime with an opening. We found hope. We wanted to see the outside world. In 2198, we successfully breached spacetime, flying out of our universe on a tangent line. Faster-than-light travel skyrocketed from seventy to a thousand times the speed of light, namely, 70 c to 1 kc. We called it the second-generation engine, which enabled us to defend a radius of five hundred light years, governing over two million stars. Technology was interesting, for we had either nothing or everything. Once we discovered a new platform, optimization was always immediate and instant, suddenly saturated. Science to take us to a new stage was usually the hard part and where we put our big money.

We never got above 1 kc. Like a flying fish that must return to water following each glide, so did our faster-than-light ship. We did not know a way to make W boson black holes outside spacetime, thus not able to stay out too long. Switching in and out of the universe frequently was neither efficient nor economic. We needed a third-generation engine. Two thousand years past, we got nowhere. The problem was far more difficult than expected. Scientists placed hopes in the invariants of our universe, such as dark energy, the Higgs field, quantum vacuum, and so forth, which remained constant no matter how fast spacetime accelerated in expansion, as if they had belonged elsewhere. We imagined our universe in acceleration expanded into an ocean of the Higgs field and vacuum energy, thereby able to sail further with our faster-than-light ship.

Sadly, no one knew how to make the Higgs boson black hole, which would be our very chance with the black hole platform. Unlike a W boson black hole whose charge we easily finetuned with electricity to boost its purity, there was no way to ensure that the bosons inside a black hole must be Higgs bosons. We thought that a Higgs boson black hole might induce a 4D explosion like the Big Bang, creating a universe of its own and magnitudes more powerful than photon or W boson or Z boson black holes. Elves came, in 4253, to befriend and teach us the third-generation engine. In 4256, the United Nations formed alliance with the so-called Elves and Heroes, together defending a radius of ten thousand light years centered about the Sun. We finally made it to 10 kc.

The Elven third-generation engine was largely based on empirical science. We pointed it out and they admitted it. In fact, the holy grail of physics in the Local Group of galaxies was to discover the inner workings of the Higgs boson black hole. Unlike most photon black holes in the observable universe, which had collapsed from supernovae and were 3D by nature, the Higgs boson black hole was indeed 4D, capable of the Big Bang to end up with a 3-sphere universe like ours. All 3D black holes, including photon, W boson and Z boson black holes, were rather easy to study, given our ability to escape spacetime. Nothing 3D could be a secret in 4D. We had long monitored from 4D the complete formation process of every single type of 3D black holes, to develop theories for each of them and to optimize their efficiency and economy. We could not study the Higgs boson black hole the same way. To do so, we would need to be in 5D.

The ship had turned off its slower-than-light black hole engine on the outermost shell, now rotating to generate an artificial gravity of 1.5 G, for Elven comfort obviously. A 150-pound person on Earth would weigh 225 on any Elven ship, not terribly hard to walk yet, a difference you might not even notice without a heavy exercise. Understandably, Elves loved it, because like Neanderthals they preferred a colder climate and a higher gravity, which might have supported why we had not won in their evolution. In any case, we considered the issue too controversial due to political correctness. Homo sapiens had long decided to not put down Homo neanderthalensis in the research of human evolution, out of respect for Elves. In the meantime, the ship lifted into position, by 45°, for its central faster-than-light inflation engine to ignite and rush out exploding Higgs boson black holes, which to propel the ship beyond 120 thousand times the speed of light while hovering above our universe. It was quiet. You would not discover any vibration, for the black holes were isolated and suspended, pushed out by electricity without any contact.

Scarlet got off her bed, watching space from a window of their cabin, picturing the progress we had made in faster-than-light travel, thousands of years at a glimpse, thoughts racing through her head. Serena gave her a pat on the shoulder, saying it was time for Elven lunch, something they could not possibly miss. She laughed, not knowing if it was out of joy or sadness. Apparently, Elves used us, but we had no other friends in the universe. Serena seemed to understand her feelings, reassuring Scarlet by pointing out that we would treat people as individuals, Elven, Mammalian, Avian or Insectan alike. It was time for the group lunch, the best opportunity to make friends.

Shaped like a donut to withstand at least two thousand standard atmospheres on its outer shell, such that it could launch from a deep ocean, the ship had a diameter of two miles and a perimeter past six miles, which then divided into a hundred passenger floors, each about six miles long and half a mile wide, circling the donut and stacked up toward its center, for a total area of roughly three hundred square miles, the size of New York City and a capacity for five million cruisers. The dining hall was therefore enormous, approximately the size of a soccer field to accommodate a thousand people comfortably. There were five thousand similar halls, permitting all cruisers to dine at the time, together occupying 6.8% of the total passenger area, each with a unique style and decor. Serena found a seat quickly, taking Scarlet with her.

A third of diners were Earthlings. Nevertheless, Scarlet and Serena sat with Elves anyway, just to learn new things. An Earthling spotted them. Stunned and awed by their beauty, he squeezed into a seat nearby, spinning an Elven pen around his thumb. Scarlet noticed him, slightly charmed by his handsome face. She walked over with Serena, intending to find new seats together. The guy appeared familiar with the ship, leading them to a less crowded dining hall. There they easily had available seats. As soon as they had settled, the handsome man introduced himself. Scarlet stopped him abruptly, pointing to his Elven pen, which actually was an id.

“You,” Scarlet smiled, “already Elven?”

“Yes,” he grinned, “I worked hard to be Elven, and finally am. My name is Liam. You?”

“Irish?” Scarlet tilted her head, “but you’re German. Am I right?”

“You’re absolutely right,” Liam spun his pen again, a little annoyed. “My mother is German, yet my father American, half German. I was born American. I’m three-quarter German indeed. Liam is a popular name in US. Aren’t you aware?”

“Not exactly,” Scarlet rolled her eyes, continuing her acting. “I was born at Serenity, the door to the Elven world. My both parents are Canadian. So am I.”

Somewhat concerned with her theatrical attitude, Liam chose his words carefully. “Aren’t you curious about how I got my ticket to eternal life and youth so quickly, plus the right to resurrection at any time?” he asked politely.

“You believed in Jesus?” Scarlet answered with a question, jokingly.

“Yes, I did,” Liam erupted in laughter, “but that wasn’t the whole story. Interested?”

“Of course, I am,” Scarlet nodded. “Remember that I walked to you? My name is Scarlet. This is my friend Serena.”

Scarlet was testing him. When Liam led them to another dining hall, showing he might not have been at the first hall to dine, that was already fishy and alarming. She needed to ensure he was genuine with manner. Now that she was certain of his character, Scarlet introduced her friend as well, protective as always. They exchanged greetings before a conversation.

Elvish was complicated, requiring an IQ of 780 to master mostly due to the sheer size of its base vocabulary at four million. Elves were complicated themselves anyway, with way subtler emotions than Homo sapiens. Many affluent families moved to the Grace of Andromeda, the Elven capital, for their kids to begin elementary school there. Liam’s family was not exactly wealthy. However, a far cousin of his was. His parents then sent him over at three. Elven compulsory education divided into three phases – primary, secondary and ternary – each seven years. Graduate studies were optional, demanding seven additional years. Liam graduated from the University of Andromeda at Vkjuiacdueo, in Elvish meaning the Tender Valley, where he completed his ternary phase in physics and astronautical engineering. He worked really hard, sleeping five hours a day from the age of eight. He came to the Flower Port for the Flower Arc Cruise, one of the cheapest in Andromeda thanks to Serenity. The Elven government sponsored and subsidized the cruise business near Earthling cities, for us to experience and adore an Elven life.

Scarlet had been greatly interested in physics since childhood. She chose computer science just for an Elven job upon graduation. Computer science was fascinating, poetry was intriguing, while physics was her true love. She was jealous, for she never imagined the possibility to become an Elven physicist one day. It was impossible, inconceivable and simply unthinkable. Her eyes brightened, and everyone saw it, yet they were not clear whether Liam or physics did it. Smiling, Serena interrupted them, pointing out time to order dishes. She waved her both hands, and a robot came to them. The menu looked dull to Scarlet, as her mind was all about a future in physics. She improvised and sighed:

For all my life since when unknown
Have I been ever lost
On rainbows where my heart has flown
In which my love was tossed?

We labor hard as people do
For food and clothing warm,
Plus paying bills by deadlines due
When int’rest charged is norm.

Our youth is time to dream afar,
Beyond infinity,
To go discover who we are
And who we want to be!

The universe is ours to own
If we forget the past,
Collaborating strong in bone
For peace to ever last.

Coding Scarlett I: Chapter B

Speed, Meter of Science and Technology

“No wonder they call you the Genius of Serenity, swift and clever improvising,” Serena appeared stunned. “We are in the same direction, Scarlet. It’s just that you focus on content and semantics, and I seek to unify poetry’s abstract syntax altogether, for a greater level of universality, much like universal algebra. I heard you write in common meter only. Is that true? If so, did Emily Dickinson influence you?”

“Well,” Scarlet grinned, “she’s certainly interesting, but I don’t do common meter for the same reason. I choose it because English works better with the ABAB rhyme scheme. Now, if you alternate your rhymes, you better do the same with meters for the best effect, hence common meter. I keep meters short, the shorter the more powerful. What works better than common meter? You? What do you like? I see you translate. Do you create? Any desire to be original?”

“As you said,” Serena looked down, “content is way more important. I rather focus on syntax now, till I feel confident enough. I was born in China, grew up in France, and finally came to Serenity for high school, because my parents expected me to speak Elvish. I’m not exactly good at Chinese, neither French nor English, basically good at nothing. When I translate, people criticize less. I wish I’d be like you one day, though English may not be my choice…”

“Excuses,” Scarlet interrupted her. “Just write. There’s no other way. You’ll never be confident until you write. Start with a stanza, get a grasp, once you find a touch, double it, and then double again. By the time you can write four stanzas in a row as one unit, you can write whatever you want at that point, including the slightly more difficult sonnets. A sonnet is easier to rhyme, but harder to hold, because there are fourteen lines to keep as one piece, with its last stanza being a couplet, breaking symmetry and uniformity in our patterns of thought.”

Both Scarlet and Serena majored in computer science at the University of Serenity, an Elvish school founded as a door to the Elven world, welcoming all qualifying life forms. Sadly, Elvish was not easy. Spoken by a forty-million-year-old civilization, with way more time to advance in evolution, Elvish required an IQ of 780 to master, not a joke at all. None the less, the situation was not as dire as one might expect, since an IQ of 200 would be well within our imagination, insufficient for its own level of language, while that of 50 without assistance could not survive as a human or an animal, the scale of IQ totally not as linear as it should. That said, Elvish was never easy, as anyone must agree. Most non-Elven students could not make it to graduation.

Their academic year started in March, the first month of a year for Elves, with every two months a semester. Students enjoyed two vacations, summer from July to August and winter from January to February. Why would March be the first month for Elves? Well, we should wonder why January could be the first for us. Did we all love winter so much to begin a year in winter? It turned out that Julius Caesar named January after Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, thereby making it our first month. Before Caesar, the Roman Empire started a year in March, namely, spring and time to initiate an agricultural cycle, similar to the rest of Earth. March was simply natural. Anything else like January or September was in fact the one to question. Given a year lasted 394.19 days or 435.76 Earth days on the Flower Planet, a month felt much longer than on Earth. As Christmas approached, Scarlet planned carefully her two-month winter vacation. The day neared its end. It was about time for dinner.

“Your English is pretty good already,” Scarlet encouraged Serena. “You’ll rise to my level within a couple of years for sure. If you are looking to be the best of the best, there’s of course a long way to go. Even I the best of Serenity can’t get too far in the Anglosphere, now a whopping two trillion in population, full of amazing talents. Serenity is a small town of two million, a mere millionth of it, not where you want to be if English is your destiny. At any rate, a Homo sapiens comes to Serenity for Elvish, the door to the Elven world that includes the entire Andromeda Galaxy and beyond. If we want Earth back from Draconians, we’ve got to maintain a good relationship with Elves. That’s probably why you’re here. Winter vacation is coming. I prepare to squander all of my savings in Elven dollars from the TA job. You? Wanna join?”

“Elven dollars aren’t easy to make,” Serena hesitated, biting her lips. “I prefer saving for a trip to the Elven capital, the Grace of Andromeda. That’s where you’ll elevate your world view.”

“That’s where I’ll land my first full-time offer,” Scarlet stroked her. “You’ll never save enough for the Grace of Andromeda. Plus, that’s where you’ll live after you graduate, no reason to save up for a trip. You’ve got straight A’s so far. Why worry?”

“The first year is the easiest,” Serena retorted, conservative as always. “You can’t use it for reference. However, you may be right. I suppose we must seize the day.”

Vora was how you would call the Flower City in Elvish, where vo- meant city and -ra flower. Elvish was monotonic and monosyllabic, whose single syllable could become highly sophisticated to prevent homophones. Simple concepts had simpler structures, thus explaining why the Flower City was easy to pronounce, as both city and flower were everyday notions. Likewise, the Flower Port was Vera, the Flower Planet Lora and the Flower Arc Dora, all common by nature. Because these names sounded uncool and confusing in English, most Serenitians referred to them as the Flower City, the Flower Port, the Flower Planet and the Flower Arc, a convention easy to follow and enforce as all Elvish syllables had meanings. To begin their winter vacation, Scarlet and Serena rented an aero at Serenity and drove it to Vora, pronounced without stress.

An aero was the least expensive vehicle available to Earthlings, for the Flower Planet had no roads. Wherever you wished to go, you must fly there. Since Earthling technologies were incompatible with the Elven, an aero could not find a gas station. Whenever you ran out of fuel on the road, you would call the refueling service, and they normally would arrive within five minutes, wherever on the planet. The service was reasonably fast thanks to the prevalence of another popular Earthling vehicle called omni. Unlike an aero, an omni literally could fly, run, swim, dive and even tunnel, had you a license. An omni needed refueling, too. That was why the refueling business became one of the largest industries at Serenity. How about Elves? Well, their daily outfit was their vehicle. Unfortunately, aerosuits and astrosuits sold in Elven dollars, not exactly affordable by most Earthlings. An aero flew up to Mach 30, able to reach any spot on the Flower Planet within forty minutes. Given the Flower Port was five thousand miles away from Serenity, the trip took approximately thirteen minutes.

Everything required Elven dollars outside Serenity. There was no currency exchange rate, as Elves absolutely would never take US dollars or any Earthling dollars. The only way for an ordinary Earthling to get them was to find an Elven job or offer tourism services. Business was impossible with Elves until you saved enough Elven dollars. Scarlet and Serena had a TA job at the University of Serenity yet could do little with the few hundred they had. They came to the Flower Port for the all-inclusive two-month Flower Arc Cruise, which cost them $250 each only. The cruise was popular among Serenitians. After all, it was well worth the money. For $250 Elven dollars, roughly the two-month pay of an Elven single-course TA, you got to visit sixty different terraformed planets, almost one per day, where you could experience diverse climates and cultures, seeing the world from a distinct perspective.

Elven warships mobilized at 150 thousand times the speed of light or simply 150 kc, crossing thousands of light years within days. Cruise ships were slower, not far behind at 120 kc. Elves taught us how to build a ship with a speed of 10 kc. We had thought we could be friends at that point, until they rejected further knowledge transfer. As a result, Earthling businesses could not compete in the Elven markets due to technological gaps. We ended up with our own economy, separate from theirs. It was rumored that Draconian ships traveled at 410 kc max, despite twenty million more years to advance in science and technology. There may be a bottleneck around that speed, hence explaining why Elves had a reserved attitude with anything beyond 10 kc, as going from 20 to 100 kc might be a trivial leap forward. Excuses were excuses. We knew we were not equal. Scarlet and Serena passed by the fabulous streets at the Flower Port, doing window shopping as they walked to their gate.

Located on the equator, the Flower Port leveraged the highest possible eccentric force to save on fuel. Space elevator was a joke because space stations orbited Earth at Mach 25 and above. For an elevator to have a zero horizontal ground speed, it must ascend all the way to the geostationary orbit, nearly thirty hours away from Earth at Mach 1. That was really too slow. In fact, the cheapest, simplest and fastest way to go to space was via recyclable rockets, which Elves termed elevators for those unable to afford astrosuits. However, Scarlet and Serena went on a cruise. It would be more convenient to just lift the whole ship into space. This was why the Flower Port was far into the ocean, combining a seaport, an airport and a spaceport into one, where water was four miles deep as a buffer for ships. Their gate opened, passengers streaming onboard.

It was their first time to board on an Elven ship, every inch of it Elven, spacious and luxurious. Elven cuisine was pricey at Serenity. Now, they could have it all-inclusive for two months, exquisite zests, flavors and tastes from over a trillion stars in Andromeda, many times more than in the Milky Way. The ship dived, like a vertically hanging donut, sinking and sucking the ocean as its fuel and propellant, while everyone fastened belts on their beds, ready for a rough ride at 0.3 G. In the meantime, its black hole engine hungrily devoured everything flowing to it, tearing particles apart and annihilating them into pure energy, heating the ocean into steam, pushing the ship into space like a gigantic whale soaring out of water, muscular and powerful, a scene you would never want to miss. Within five minutes, the ship exited the atmosphere of the Flower Planet. Its outer metallic shell opened, giving passengers a view of space through glass windows, which blocked cosmic rays and high frequency electromagnetic waves but permitted visible light to pass. Unfortunately, they could not yet get up from their beds.

The 0.3 G acceleration continued for seven minutes beyond 160 miles into the sky, before touching the inner Van Allen Belt, at which point it would finally be legal for the ship to turn on its faster-than-light inflation engine, and for its cruisers to start a wonderful onboard life out of their beds. Speaking of faster-than-light travel, we must date back to the Canadian physicist Nathalie Parent, whose genius discovered a trick in 2049, so simple that it almost looked stupid. That is, when a quark star collapsed into a black hole, its quarks, being already elementary, would not have a chance to form composite bosons again, or they would have done so prior to the pure quark phase. According to the Pauli exclusion principle, identical fermions could not occupy the same quantum state within a quantum system simultaneously. Therefore, for a black hole to be optimally charged right before its electromagnetic explosion, a portion of its quarks must transform into charged elementary bosons to maintain charge conservation, whose sole opportunity was the W boson, keeping its internal structure simple and elegant. There was no other way out for quarks.

Coding Scarlett I: Chapter A

Serenity, Door to Elven World

It snowed gently, in fluffy flakes that caressed the streets, and in fuzzy mists to embrace skyscrapers, all gray and white, a scenery that extended into infinity and immensity, on hills and rills, on vales and lakes, on everything to ready for Christmas. It was late December at Serenity, a mid-sized city in the Andromeda Galaxy, around two to three million in population, roughly the scale of Greater Pittsburgh that was the second in Pennsylvania and the sixty-eighth in US. Pittsburgh was home to the richest town in Pennsylvania, fairly wealthy among American cities. So was Serenity amid Earthling towns in Andromeda. Sitting on the arctic plateau of the rather warm Flower Planet, Serenity was cold and comfortable enough for Earthlings, averaging 28 °F in winter and 82 °F in summer. Unfortunately, the planet had a surface gravity of 1.22 G, thanks to its 1.15 Earth radii and 1.61 Earth masses. In other words, a 150-pound person on Earth would weigh 183 at Serenity, feeling slightly harder to walk.

Four thousand miles south of Serenity, you would find the Flower City, the capital of the Flower Planet, which in turn was that of the Flower Arc on a galactic orbit, in a span of 60° or twelve thousand light years, whose chord formed an equilateral triangle with its galactic center to facilitate defense. Governing millions of synchronous terraformed planets, which mass produced flowers, fruits and wines with a quality topping the entire Local Group of galaxies, the Flower Arc enjoyed the highest honor and repute beyond Andromeda and the Milky Way in the research and development of flowering species, acknowledged and celebrated by hundreds, if not thousands, of highly advanced civilizations that at a minimum exceeded two million years of formal history in science and technology. None the less, the Flower Arc was no more than one of the three thousand galactic arcs that tightly orbited their galactic center, together known as the Heart of Andromeda.

The Heart belonged to Elves, who derived from a species close to Neanderthals, not exactly tall and slim, yet had insisted on that name in translation since their official encounter with Earth, about seven thousand years ago, or year 4253 to be precise. The Elven civilization was one of the most ancient in Andromeda as well as throughout the Local Group, approximately forty million years of formal history in science and technology, long but not exactly so compared to the age of our universe. It was a mystery, because even the oldest known civilization, Draconians who evolved from dragonflies, had no more than sixty million years of formal history, all too young compared to the universe, especially given the fact that Andromeda and the Milky Way were in the midst of the largest and oldest observable galaxies, both surpassing ten billion years of age. Many attempted to answer this question, while none succeeded. Worse, those going too far in their search and journey all passed away very soon, by either accident or disease, as if there had been a supernatural power dedicated to maintaining an important secret.

Literally forty million years ahead of Earth, the Elven civilization was unthinkably advanced. They were way past our nuclear era and the later photonic era, well into the complete understanding of gravity and spacetime, effective and efficient in higher dimensional manipulation. Any weapon at or below the speed of light sounded like a stone-age technology to them. They were able to create satellite universes that orbited our universe, virtually dominating a multiverse. They were more than gods to us Earthlings. Elves would not die, would not age and would never be sick. Their Elven 4D surgery could operate on every single molecule of our body simultaneously without pain, without cutting any opening, namely, precision, accuracy and scale, all aspects to perfection. They considered resurrection a basic low-tech service, available to all Elves free of charge.

Immersed in exotic fragrance, the Flower City actually rained flowers, which flew in all directions from mountains towering above thirty thousand feet, home to quintillions of the most precious and delicate flowering species, natural or artificial, prehistoric or futuristic. They gathered here for research in top flowers, fruits and wines. The city inside a deep valley powered a gravity shield to protect the Flower Planet, capable of deflecting the scariest faster-than-light missiles when they triggered its faster-than-light predictive alarm system. This was done through a streamlined underground production and annihilation of micro black holes, which sucked tremendous 4D energy into 3D. In order not to alert the shield, the Flower Port was set up on the equator, controlling all traffic in and out of the planet, a thousand miles south of the city. The Flower City was the face of the Flower Arc, where you could find the best and largest schools, hotels, restaurants, museums, galleries, theaters, and shopping centers, just to name a few. Fortunately, Elves were far behind Draconians by twenty million years, not quite yet able to afford arrogance, thus mostly friendly and respectful.

Serenity was one of the few English-speaking cities in the Elven world, its majority formed by early immigrants from Earth, ours taken by Draconians centuries ago. The war as part of a greater Draconian invasion affecting a quarter of the Milky Way lasted over a hundred years, hence creating waves of refugees from the Milky Way into Andromeda. We finally retreated completely from Earth, keeping the same governments to occupy the few planets donated by Elves in Andromeda, all in the hope to fight back one day. Serenitians voted to join US after the war, only disapproved by Elves, who deemed the city too strategic for severance. Since then, Serenity had been serving as the most significant cultural and economic bridge between Elves and Earthlings, where mosaic multiculturalism became a key value, similar to Montreal in Canada, a North American city known for its European taste, fitting diversity into one piece. Therefore, Serenity was seen as the door to the Elven world.

Scarlet, a top coder and poet, well known at Serenity for her genius, was now sipping coffee with her new classmate Serena. Coders were common. So were poets, but the two combined together were few, and even more so were true talents in both. Nevertheless, Serenity was not a big city. The best of Serenity sounded a little like the best at Pittsburg or Montreal, not really the same as the best of New York and definitely not as sound as the best of America. Scarlet wanted more. She wanted to be the best coder in the Local Group of galaxies, defeating the best Draconians and bringing honor back to Earthlings. Meanwhile, poetry was fun. She planned to win a few awards, paving the way to be the best poet in the Anglosphere. This was her childhood dream, inspired by her elementary school teacher, though not as important among her many priorities. After all, English poetry lost its significance outside the English sphere.

Poetry as a universal language was difficult to establish across species. Birds did not think the same way, and neither did dragonflies. Scarlet did not like limitations. She wanted freedom and universality. She wanted to break all boundaries. Obviously, Serena was not as good at English as Scarlet, most probably because her first language was Chinese. However, Serena understood Chinese poetry and could translate it nicely to English for Scarlet. That was why Scarlet made international friends. For Scarlet, Serena functioned as a bridge to Chinese poetry, which was central to the Chinese culture and literature, once the very door for Chinese peasants to join royal governance, a selection system for nearly two thousand years in China. Scarlet was attempting to expand English poetry into the Sinosphere, the second largest language sphere on Earth. To illustrate, Serena picked “In the Mountains” by Wang, Bo:

The Yangtze flows though carries not;
My yearning aches but deepens still.
Along with high winds late by fall
Are leaves to fly in ev'ry hill.

“Natural parallelism embedded in natural flow and iambic rhythm,” Scarlet commented politely, “a truly remarkable translation! Plus, the rhyme ends effortlessly, as if from a master.”

“Aren’t you familiar with the trick of reverse rhyme, Miss Top Poet of Serenity?” Serena chuckled. “If you try to rhyme before and not after, every rhyme feels natural, because we psychologically check ‘hill’ and not ‘still’ in this case. Parallelism and rhythm aren’t difficult with a thesaurus, either. Let me show you a simpler example where parallelism doesn’t transition from an outer view to the inner world, by the same author who wrote it at a much younger age.” She displayed another translation on her laptop, this time “A Field View in Early Spring” by Wang, Bo:

The water's vast, its spring tide white;
The mountain's long, its dawn peaks blue.
Away from home afar I see
The tow'rs of fire in red blooms new.

“Chinese avoids rhyme at odd verses, save for opening lines. Parallelism is higher than rhythm, and rhythm than rhyme. Rhyme is no more than a tool to maintain coherence in Chinese poetry. That’s why we almost always rhyme all the way to the end. We rarely change rhymes in a poem, unlike English with lots of complex rhyme schemes,” Serena elaborated.

“Is this why Chinese poems are short?” Scarlet asked curiously.

“No,” Serena appeared insulted, “Chinese poems are usually quite long, many in hundreds of verses. Short poems are mostly informal, just so you can output something on demand under a minute, often out of courtesy. Let me show you a longer example, which I don’t do till my audience voices interest, because it might be boring.” She chose “Reflection on the Red Cliff” by Su, Shi, in tune of “Pretty Forget-Me-Not,” for opportunities to introduce more important Chinese concepts:

The Yangtze rushing east,
　　Its waves devour
　　Millennia of warriors we know;
The fortress lying west,
　　As people say,
　　Is where Sir Zhou defeated Cao his foe.
The tumbling rocks in clouds,
　　On billows crushing walls,
　　Raised piles of foams and sprays like snow:
Our homeland beautiful,
　　How many lion hearts who fought we owe!

And that's exactly when Admiral Zhou,
　　Who just had married Junior Qiao,
　　Marched on to put a show:
He held a fan in chats,
　　His head in bands,
　　At ease to set invading ships aglow.
This scene replayed again,
　　Just call me much too sensitive,
　　To now have white hairs grow.
Our life's a dream indeed,
　　So let us cast this wine in river flow.

“What’s a tune in Chinese?” Scarlet raised a question as Serena had calculated. “How’s it different from a melody? You know, we usually say melody and lyrics in English. Tune sounds weird.”

“Well,” Serena smiled, “I use the term ‘tune’ for a reason, because it absolutely isn’t a melody. A Chinese tune is a contract between musicians and poets, much like an interface in programming languages, such that they can work together independently.”

“Fancy!” Scarlet seemed sarcastic.

“No,” Serena exclaimed and explained, “it’s nothing fancy. A tune basically says how many syllables in each verse, where to rhyme, and where to switch rhyme and rhythm, if necessary for the best effect. That’s why it’s a syntactic contract in poetry, nothing to do with semantics or musical notes. It’s highly practical. You can have as many melodies and lyrics for a tune, all without musicians and poets knowing one another’s work.”

“Interesting,” Scarlet grimaced, “cuz life goes well without Chinese tunes. We’ve been writing English poetry for thousands of years, but never needed them.”

“You actually did,” Serena objected, “because you have sonnets and meters, whose specs are basically tunes. It’s just that you don’t call these specs tunes. Specs are critical in any form of engineering. You always need tunes, one way or another.”

Scarlet sat by the window, looking into the sky, as if in very deep thoughts. She improvised a poem, sighing:

So here is Christmas time again
With you by windows white,
Who can a diff’rent world explain
But end in nothing bright.

The soul of poetry laments
On why it’s hard to see
The heart obscured in rhymes prevents
A spirit dancing free.

Serenity in gentle snow
Calms not a mind that yearns
For skies above the stars aglow
Of truth who humbly learns.

The sound of poetry transcends
The senses we possess -
Infinity is where it ends,
Beyond our finest guess.

“I can go on and on,” Scarlet laughed, “but I must stress one thing. Poetry surpasses all cultural and language barriers. If it doesn’t speak to your heart, it isn’t poetry. We speak with sound, but dragonflies communicate with light, through their eyes and wings. In the most sophisticated shades and gradients, dragonflies have their own poetry. If all life forms in our universe must speak one same language, poetry is that language. Poetry is universal because it speaks to the heart.”