It was anarchy. Eärendil loved every second of it.
In the massive hallway outside, Zach and Rock were busy climbing in the upper ceiling crossbraces, which they were permitted to do when (
and only when) dad was home, because they knew that if and when they slipped and fell, dad would catch them. Since they were getting bigger and better, he'd started giving them motivation: a fifteen-minute chore to complete every time they needed to be caught, as motivation to get better at staying up there. They had one day a week exempt from this rule - one day a week to scramble up and race around with abandon, throwing themselves down deliberately upon occasion, just to enjoy the thrilling fall.
Annabeth was reading a book while occasionally giving her younger adopted sister Azalea suggestions for how best to shape clay. Azalea was busy trying to make a set of plates fit for the dinner table - Eärendil had promised to have the family use them if they were good enough, and he used her best mug (complete with painted flowers) to drink from regularly.
Using Telekinesis, Eärendil expertly piloted the controls on an advanced set of VR gear, piloting a Sniper character in a video-game / battle simulation. The other player was dozens of miles away, sitting in the center of the blank spot (empty in the warp, agony to the senses, but that's nothing new to Eärendil) - and was, indeed, Eärendil's fifth adopted child, Benjamin, an extremely powerful Immativore*. No normal person could so much as listen to recordings of his voice without flinching, leading to Eärendil being his main
direct contact with the outside world. His other children mostly interacted through written word - or through exchanging projects - poor substitutes for personal contact, but all Eärendil could figure out how to give.
* Immativore, a combination of for "Immaterium" and "-Vore" (for "devourer") was a much kinder and more official term (also, frankly, a more accurate term) than "Soul-Eater" (or, forbid - Benjamin was too young to remember but Eärendil wasn't - "Abomination").
Eärendil had theorized Benjamin might someday learn to control his aura - and had made sure the simulation would give him feedback on any progress however slight, so long as Eärendil was around to input the relevant information to the simulation in real-time. He'd made only very slight progress… yet he was reliably capable of increasing his drain on a given Immaterial effect by five to ten percent, which was a significant victory. Now if he could only figure out a way to tone the drain down a touch, he'd be in truly great shape.
Lyon and Lumillia Cobbilus had shown up earlier, and the two had joined Samuel Vimes for a friendly three-way spar. Lyon and Sam were straightforward - though very different takes on the concept, as Samuel was far and away the strongest, whereas Lyon was the most skilled - but Lumillia had a slight edge over either by virtue of being maddeningly unpredictable.
Zach and Rock ran by, having scrambled down, shouting about a stilts contest. Both had been able to effectively use - without outside help - stilts that made them "taller than Dad" since they were little kids, since Eärendil had condensed down lessons he'd observed from thousands of professional dancers, gymnasts, and so on.
All in all, a typical afternoon.
Eärendil had never truly expected to adopt a child - certainly not so soon - but once he did, three things became apparent: first, that to do right by this young one who depended upon him (and day by day was slipping away…), he would have to grow tremendously in parenting skill; second, that parenting brought tears (of joy and sorrow alike) to his eyes easier than anything he had ever done or imagined; third, that with his Cosmic constitution and minimal need for sleep, parenting several children at once was probably more efficient than parenting one at a time.
There was, also, a small part of him that looked out at the baseline humans around him, and wondered - "I'm smarter and more skilled, yes. A seemingly-singular, Cosmic existence. But… if I
really tried, just how smart and skilled could I train them to be? What
are their limits? It's obvious they could never equal me, surely - but I'd sure like to disprove that hypothesis." (He, ultimately, both proved that he was Cosmically unlikely to be equalled by a baseline
and proved that baselines could be incredibly more than they usually were.)
And, finally, a certain line from a book had always resonated with him: "Ask not who your father was; ask who you can be a father to." In his case, blessed as he was, it was a matter of 'paying it onwards' instead of 'outgrowing his roots.' But the line stuck nevertheless.
He'd ultimately concluded he could raise 5 to 15 total kids effectively (including Sam), and rolled a 10-sided die (roll: 2) and added 4. "Let Anarchy Decide," he mused. The final total of 6 felt… wrong, in some way (fitting, but wrong; 6 children raised +2 children half-raised (the other half by his second cousin) totalled 8 which also felt fitting-but-wrong), but he shook his head and went with it. And, on the whole, he felt things worked out.
As a side-note, even as Eärendil had never expected to adopt, he had never truly expected to have a child of his own either - barring, perhaps, some unforeseeable future developments.
He'd once mused at length to his parents: "I still wonder what my growth pattern really is. Am I a preteen, stabilizing for the moment before some Cosmic Puberty? Truth be told, I hope not - my emotions are difficult enough to deal with already! Am I a fully grown adult, and been such since somewhere in the ten to thirty range? Possibly.
"My instincts don't answer, but they do say one thing: I am unlikely to die of old age any time soon. … You know, I'll put 'better life-extension augments' on my TODO list.
"Hmm… A completely different theory is that I might be a true Mule. I seem to be half-Human and half-Elf, so I might well be completely infertile, like certain hybrids such as Mules, and my Immaterial self might simply
know it deeply enough to not bother trying. So, then, hypothetically, I might be A Cosmic Mule."
"You certainly could be as stubborn as one, growing up," his mom teased gently.
"Touche," he grinned.
Eärendil was no expert in covert operations - but he had witnessed an appalling number of them with his Sight, to the point he could only really afford enough time and attention to interrupt the most blatantly terrible of them.
This gave him some insight into Intrigue in general, and a good deal more into "well if you do A, then B or C or D might happen, and you need to be on guard for E." This let him design harmless scenarios to test Lumillia Cobbilus on… again and again and again. By the time she turned 18, she had more experience
being a spy than anyone else on the planet (more than anyone could have racked up normally without being found and killed a dozen times over).
(He had done something similar for Lyon and Sam's combat training. They flourished proportionately less, but still quite a bit.)
Lumillia was, as a graduation present, given a set of the absolute best Cybernetics the planet could produce. Which, with Zetaron B, even after the damage, was still an excellent set. Eärendil considered making a better set, but she actually preferred to wait a decade or two to get used to the implants before getting an upgraded set - "Your standards can be a
bit overwhelming, uncle. Just a bit." Eärendil sheepishly agreed.
An unsteady but growing stream of refugees left Hive Vincent, typically leaving without full consent of the hive's government. They were kept under watch until Eärendil could get around to glancing at them with his Sight, and while most then became full citizens a few percent of them had to be sent back - due to being despicable human beings or active agents of Hive Vincent. (Or, in one exceptional case, "sent back" - but that was just Lumillia's graduation exam, which scared Eärendil more than it did her. Scoping out Hive Vincent and putting in a bit of work ensuring their resistance movement could evade Vincent's authorities' watch.)
Eärendil gave permission for anything that wasn't military intel to be communicated freely, so a fair number of refugees were able to establish communications with those left behind - which itself further contributed to the growing stream of refugees.
Vincent had, at some point, started trying to send assassins Eärendil's way, though this didn't seem to be a unanimous choice by the leadership. Regardless, none of them had become a meaningful threat yet - but he'd keep an eye out for the future.
Waking up early, full of energy, Benjamin took his dog Spot for a run through the corridors. It was a long run - Spot too had a lot of energy today.
(It had taken Dad and him nearly three years to convince Spot to be a friend, but now that he was convinced, there was no convincing him otherwise. Spot kept his feet warm most nights, better than any blanket, and let Cheshire sit on his spare pillow.)
Once he got back, he saw that Dad was in, and started running all the fast - which Spot picked up on, and managed to outrun him to their house.
"Dad dad dad!" he shouted, and jumped in for a hug. It wasn't every week Dad was
physically present, and while all the other methods of being present were fine, he was going to make the most of this.
(The slightest wince, scarce to be seen to any eyes, flitted across Eärendil's face, before being wiped away again in a millisecond by utterly inhuman Self Discipline.)
Dad tousled his hair, whirled him around through the air, and beamed down at him. "That's my son," he said. Benjamin cuddled into his Dad's strong arms and knew it would all be OK.
He wasn't the only one that wanted attention, of course - Spot was beginning for treats, and Cheshire was determined to (once again) mark Dad's ankles with his scent (and stray hairs).
(Cheshire and Spot got along fairly well. Indeed, they'd originally been banding together in common fear of the small child that Benjamin then was. Cheshire had realized that Benjamin was actually fine far sooner than Spot, but allowed himself to be persuaded to
act like it only after Spot was already wavering. Now he had a quiet disdain for anything implying he'd
ever been afraid of Benjamin - what nonsense indeed.)
They did the usual schoolwork and exercise drills together - with Dad naturally lifting literal tons, but Dad was Cosmic so obviously he needed bigger weights - and they worked together on Benjamin's personal project to fully reverse-engineer a ruined Cogitator the exploration teams had found. It was still years from producing anything, but maybe someday.
When the day finished, Eärendil gently tucked Ben into bed and read him a story. As usual, Spot laid down on his feet and Cheshire cuddled up to the side of his face.
And he slowly drifted off to sleep.
Eärendil waited until he was sure Benjamin was fast asleep, then quietly bolted out of his - beloved but OUCH - son's radius of effect.
He'd been growing significantly better at enduring Benjamin's Immativore aura, essentially from sheer determination, but 'better' was a relative term.
Eärendil's every second was pain and effort, normally. "No, not you, never." Something he'd gotten so used to, it became normal, and he learned not only how to function, but how to
live despite it.
He was hoping another decade or two led to the same thing here.
As his son grew older, he explained more and more of the context. Early on, he'd admitted: "My son, like many other Heroes, you were born with an incredible gift. You have the ability to damage and unmake the Empyrean, and are yourself immune to all but the greatest emanations thereof. Also like many other Heroes, your gift is… inconvenient, at first."
Just recently, he'd finally answered "Does it hurt?" with the understated but honest, "It does, but I've hurt worse."
…He wasn't sure he'd ever admit that it was one of the five most excruciating things he'd ever endured.
But, with all of this, Eärendil made sure to take a long break to study something - Psychology, in this case - after every time he visited Benjamin. Best to use his healthy coping mechanisms before they were
strictly necessary.
It was evening, Samuel Vimes' favorite time of day, the time he always felt most energetic.
This was, admittedly, also the time he usually had to carefully sit down and force himself to
study. But, also admittedly, the effort forced his mind to
focus, and left him clearer headed the next day.
(Meditating and avoiding blood were essential for ensuring his temper stayed stable. Dad was already working on getting him a collection of bloodless and ranged weapons for any true battle that should someday transpire.)
Today, a topic of study was Philosophy, and while critiquing Nietszche, he came across: "We cannot be expected to have any regard for a great creature if he does not in any manner conform to our standards. For unless he passes our standard of greatness we cannot even call him great. Nietszche summed up all that is interesting in the Superman idea when he said, 'Man is a thing which has to be surpassed.' But the very word 'surpass' implies the existence of a standard common to us and the thing surpassing us. If the Superman is more manly than men are, of course they will ultimately deify him, even if they happen to kill him first. But if he is simply more supermanly, they may be quite indifferent to him as they would be to another seemingly aimless monstrosity. He must submit to our test even in order to overawe us. Mere force or size even is a standard; but that alone will never make men think a man their superior. Giants, as in the wise old fairy-tales, are vermin. Supermen, if not good men, are vermin."
He snorted. "'Supermen, if not good men, are vermin,' huh? No wonder Dad keeps this book around, he'd love that quote."
Shortly before bed, Azalea tackle-hugged him and managed to take him by surprise.
Deep within his mind and instincts, something stirred-
Threat. Kill! KILL!!!
And deeper still, the Guarding Dark replied:
NO.
"Hey, sis, it's not nice to startle people like that."
"But you always think it's funny," she replied.
"…I do at that. But don't do it to people who might lash out, OK? Now, do you want me to read you a story?"
"YEAH! The cow story!"
"Alright…" And, yet again, he read his littlest sister her perennial favorite story.
Eärendil occasionally, for a family outing, took an unofficial surprise visit to a Hive - and they generally were fun field trips for the kids - but they doubled as a clever way to figure out who thought they could time things trying to find who was trying to time their criminal activities to hide stuff from him (not that it worked well in the first place).
Eärendil's notes to self, indexed under "ages 41-50", "parenting", "teaching", "theory of teaching", "iteration", and 110 minor tags.
"It's hard to teach something you intuitively understand. It's so obvious; how do you go about explaining it to someone who
just doesn't get it?
"One answer, of course, is to break the intuitive understanding down into smaller pieces, and see if you can get your student to understand any of those. Apply recursively as necessary. It's effective enough.
"Another answer is to study how other people teach things. How other students understand them. Get someone less gifted than yourself - but who has learned this before - to put a thing into words, and you're often able to turn that into a teaching method.
"Balancing different learning styles helps. Visual, Auditory, Read/Write, and Kinaesthetic are all officially accepted styles, but obviously individual students can be detailed further…
"Making a game of things - and other methods of generally making learning pleasant and fun - is generally a good move. 'Play' is an example of such, particularly often used by children, but potentially more broadly applicable. Ensuring a good learning environment, and ensuring pupils are not unnecessarily frustrated, is generally a good idea. (Note: Ensure students learn to deal adequately with frustration.)
"And iteration. Oh, iteration. Make an attempt. See what fails and what succeeds. Learn, update your understanding, and try again. And again. And again. Eärendil was, as always,
fantastic at this - it was in many ways a brute force method, but it
worked. Try to teach. Use your Sight to notice, for each student, what bits
clicked and what bits didn't. Update your understanding of Teaching. Again, and again, and again. Forget nothing; ignore no iota of information that might lead to victory. Until at last, you are a master, because every other option has already been discarded and disregarded."
(This had an awful lot to do with Uplift Research. Indeed, that was his main experience with
teaching. Very different environment, very different students; but both were
teaching.)
Eärendil would rather have his kids building their own video-games or apps or such, than learning to code conventionally. Sure, the conventional method was necessary in limited amounts at some point (early, mid, and late), but the version that got them learning ferociously
and understanding the purpose, all without outside impetus, was generally the best.
It was anarchy. Eärendil meticulously orchestrated every second of it.
Just a few hours ago, little Azalea had used her incredible cuteness (and considerable social skills - Lumilla had been tutoring her) to talk a single Mook into giving the party
just a bit more information than would probably be good for his paycheck.
Since then, they'd had the long sequence of skill, knowledge, ability with their own gear, and careful stealth usage, to sneak into the fortress.
And here the party now were, fighting back waves of robot guards and guarding a small plug-in device that they'd jammed into the secure cogitator bank. Ben (present remotely as (nearly) always) put his considerable hacking skills to use frantically downloading files.
Annabeth chanted another complex mnemonic (this one regarding the typical neutron counts of elements) and made a sharp hand-gesture, and the next wave of robots slowed spectacularly. (While she had no power of her own, she'd asked for a Wizard class, and while Eärendil made her work for the results, he was more than happy to use his own power to mimic whatever effects were necessary.)
Rock and Zach were an amazing team. Rock was by far the larger of the two, and happily wore armor durable enough for a prince. And his Master-crafted Chainsword ensured no Robot could slip past him. Zach, meanwhile, was probably their best technology expert and a skilled sniper, steadily taking down a reliable and unrelenting two robots per second.
Azalea (she'd wanted to summon a Unicorn; Eärendil specifically told her that summoning was usually a bad idea - but he
did ensure she got a Unicorn (the horn was cybernetic and actually quite useful) to ride on between battles) shouted commands at the party's drones, which constantly dodged and rained a steady deluge of relatively-weak blasts on the opposing robots.
At last, the download was complete, and the party had to fight their way out of the base in turn. At one point, an explosion was about to engulf Zach, before Eärendil froze it with his will - but also froze Zach, and put a frowny-face hologram in the air above him.
"Zach! NO!" Annabeth cried, less 'overdramatic' and more 'really into the mission.' "You'll pay for this, you monsters!"
"We are GALACTIC DEFENDERS," said the robots in unison. "No monstrosity is too terrible for our purpose."
Well. The surviving robots said that. Every word cost them another robot, as all the survivors went to town on them. Ultimately, the surviving heroes made it out without losing another member.
This whole sequence was simply the latest rendition of "Eärendil Tries To Make Learning Fun - semi-educational live-action RPG edition." Most of it was technology, though a few chunks were sustained by his Psyker Powers - Telekinesis was something he was particularly good at, and combined with the right small prepared devices it was amazing just how much it could justify. The Robots had been paid for by Eärendil - it was amazing how many students were happy to get free materials to throw together into prototype 'robots' - it was great engineering experience for a lot of those, and some of them were even known to avidly watch to see how well their particular robot did.
"So what did we learn from the files? Was it worth me dying for?" Zach texted Ben.
"No. The files are obviously fakes," replied Ben.
"WHAT!?!?" all the other adventurers screamed in shocked unison. Eärendil carefully controlled his expression - lest a silly grin start taking over his face.
"The files are claiming that our enemy's upper leadership are trying to lead to Droids taking over the galaxy… to get rid of the problem of killer Droids.
Nobody's that stupid. It would
never happen," Ben confidently replied.
Eärendil mentally facepalmed and resolved to triple the 'never underestimate stupidity' lessons. It seems this particular throwaway villain story was going to be more important than he'd originally thought.
Azalea was officially having the best life anyone ever had, period.
The memories were blurring more with every year, but she remembered having only Mommy, and Mommy getting sadder and meaner, and everything getting worse and worse, and not having anything she could
do-
But now Dad had adopted her, and Mommy was doing better (even if not well, still better), and Dad was the King so she was officially a Princess.
With a real live Unicorn, that she'd named 'Oath,' even if she secretly wasn't sure it counted as Magic. Unicorns should be Magic.
But really advanced gadgets were kind-of Magic, too, and one Azalea was a lot better at than Magic Magic.
So she supposed it counted.
Across the decade, Eärendil had countless conversations with his parents. To summarize a few:
Mom: "The number one thing to remember about parenting - like most relationships - is to truly love the other person. If you will someone's good, and are reasonably effective at it, the relationship will generally prosper."
Dad: "The second thing to remember about parenting - like most relationships - is that you need to balance hard and soft love. 'I want you to succeed' vs 'I want you to feel loved.' Both are critical."
Mom: "Third, I'd say, is that there are an awful lot of things which can make parenting easier. For example, while bribing children is generally a bad idea, I think you'll agree that the 'you can read a textbook per ten minutes getting used to normal human interaction' rule we set you was effective, however unconventional…"
…
Dad: "Extraordinary successes merit extraordinary rewards. Ordinary successes merit ordinary rewards. …"
…
Mom: "At some point in their lives, it will be important to ensure your kids know you are
not, in fact, God. You are not, actually, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, or omnibenevolent, despite generally having just spent their entire childhood doing your best to convince them otherwise. We were warned about this one, but never really had to face it with you, but I'm
nearly certain it will be exceptionally important for you to pay attention. After all, you are probably one of the best in existence at pretending
to be perfect and able to fix everything; it's doubly important that you think through carefully how to ensure they learn your flaws without getting emotionally scarred or caught up in the aftermath. It is, of course, traditional - and with good reason - to teach this lesson in their teenage years, but your own example suggests that it might be possible to ensure a child simply grows up with this as a fact from the beginning, and only the depth of understanding and relevance of said fact grow over time?"
…
Dad: "Definitely don't forget to apply meta-logic. For example, you're fantastic at research. However, keep in mind that many of the best researchers, on researching 'ways to best understand life,' concluded that a certain amount of 'actually experience life' was necessary to best truly and fully understand. For another example, the optimal way to live generally involves
not worrying about making your sock drawer perfectly ordered…"
…
Mom: "Remember the old adage: 'Maxim 70: Failure is not an option - it is mandatory. The option is whether or not to let failure be the last thing you do.' You
will make mistakes in parenting. Learn to put them to good use, or at least recover quickly from them. …"
…
Dad: "As much as none of us really love the experience, a 'Review Quiz 3' exercise - as you've mentioned from military training - is probably something they need at some point."
Eärendil: "Ironically, I'm lucky on that one. I'd already had mine in real life; the fact they couldn't give me the full experience of failure - horrifically expensive as it was - doesn't actually matter meaningfully to me."
…
Mom: "Sometimes they learn best by making their own mistakes. Though I admit that I never got to use that much with you - you typically jumped straight to the actual answer."
Eärendil: "Which likely means it will be doubly necessary for me to remember here, yes?"
Both parents: "Doubtless."
…
Eärendil: "I trust I can ask you to teach my children about romance as necessary? Since I have little practical experience on that front?"
Both parents: "Of course."
…
Now
that series of conversations were probably the most Eärendil had ever been directly taught by another,
including Military Theory (if by a narrow margin in that case). He had, of course, to reverse his parents' advice on a few points - he was a Cosmic Human parenting Normal Humans, and they were precisely the opposite - though they'd already remembered to, more than half the time, and generally saw the discrepancy with a brief discussion.
…Eärendil had genuinely learned more about
how to ask good questions just from all of that. Now
that was a skill he would hopefully
never stop using.
All of his kids - even Sam, and the twin Cobbilus's - had teamed up against him. "OK, Dad! You've taught us how to to do
science. Now you're going to help us with an experiment. We notice that you're too tall for doors, but fit fine anyway. Now we're going to figure out how that actually
works."
Eärendil considered, and nodded. "I've always known it was something something Immaterium something something, but you're right. It'll be good to understand the extents and limitations of the ability."
Taking the time from his schedule? Expensive.
His kids' expressions when he focused on how strange it was for him to fit through a small door, and he promptly
didn't? Hilarious.
His kids making real-world scientific discoveries? Priceless.
At one point, Eärendil spent a full day just looking through and considering the 33 billion odd complaints and suggestions people had sent to his government over the last year. There was a lot of repetition in there - but an oft-repeated complaint likely affects most of the people. On the other hand, occasionally a unique idea was important - or concerning.
He also spent enough time to keep up with the various governments of the Hives, orbital and terrestrial, and ensure things were at least
mostly working throughout New Menor.
Once, when he needed to particularly consider a difficult negotiation, he stood near the top of Oroshral's highest spire, and just watched the stars. "That one," he murmured to himself, Cosmic eyes picking out the correct tiny dot, "is Sol, I think. I wonder…"
The stars twinkled on, just as they had for eons uncounted. Eärendil gazed at their beauty, and pondered.
From the Exploration fleets, two ships showed back up in the New Menor system, having turned themselves around by accident, saying that the vast Golden lighthouse in the far distance had guided them to safety from otherwise sure Warp catastrophe. Eärendil was thankful - and noted both the resemblance of Gold to his earliest memories, and the fact that the few surviving ancient star-maps indicated that it was
probably coming from the general vicinity of Terra, Humanity's distant lost homeworld.
Forty-two ships reported successful exploration. Thirteen of them had found or made contact with some form of civilization; the rest had merely added information on new Star Systems to New Menor's updated Star Maps.
And one barely fled in time from some sort of cult, that had disturbing memetic hazards.
"The Hand and the Hunger," Eärendil muttered quietly, when he heard. His eyes tightened, and he began mentally reworking ship schedules to help his people prepare for war,
this war in particular, if and when it should come.
Eärendil had given the disparate pieces of his Research Organization several years to learn to work together, and to fill each other in on technologies, with only minor interference here and there. At last, however, they had fairly well caught up, and it was time to do some minor research - a shakedown run, so to speak, for the major Research he planned to accomplish shortly.
His full plan involved creating books (or massive digital archives in the later cases) to teach Technology to a civilization, able to bring planets from Feudal technology to… well, as high as Eärendil himself could reach, or as far as he found himself able to teach, whichever came first. Uplift Primers.
There were immediate uses to some such volumes. Ice 'n Guard would find them useful from Interstellar up - but their client worlds also stood to benefit from any lower-technology Primers.
The people of Cobas - while their infrastructure was nearly nonexistent - had a relatively easy time grasping technology up to the Modern level. Their understanding - as an overall planetary people - had slowed down significantly at that point, however.
So there Eärendil started. And, with a large group of decently-organized Research assistants, and his own Sight, understanding how to teach was considerably easier than it once had been. Without much difficulty, Eärendil directed the creation of his first Uplift Primer: Modern through Interplanetary.
The people of Turavilya A were grateful for the information, as it filled in dozens of gaps in their own understanding - though it didn't truly push their knowledge any further. That was the job of the next Primer, that Eärendil and company immediately started on: Interplanetary through Interstellar.
Upon shipping the completed Primer to Ice 'n Guard, they replied roughly: "We congratulate you on the excellent decade of research and look forward to a long and fruitful alliance." Eärendil scratched his head - according to the messenger's own thoughts, Ice 'n Guard genuinely believed this was about the best New Menor and Eärendil could reasonably hope to achieve, and considered it a genuine boon. This, in turn, implied that they were functionally certain he'd wildly inflated his own technological accomplishments. That was… definitely annoying and possibly very convenient. Well; either he'd get a good chance to show them or he wouldn't; one way or the other - he certainly
hoped to be able to dedicate himself to Research in the upcoming decade.
But what this showed about a given civilization's understanding of Technology… Well, New Menor made extensive use of several titanium-gold alloys, as they could be plentifully scavenged from the ruins. Ice 'n Guard had a few Iron-based metallurgical tricks Eärendil had never seen before, because their System included huge numbers of iron-rich asteroids. Just taking a look at Cobas' own System showed Eärendil that
neither approach would work for them.
Every civilization had to be a bit different, because every civilization had access to different resources. The overall technology
could be combined, but it required not only teaching the same thing to different groups, but a degree of teaching different things to different groups - each one taught as needed.
And all of that was without getting into the fundamentally different views on several higher Physics equations, between New Menor and Ice 'n Guard and Turavilya A, where no two groups quite agreed on every point (and, for that matter, the handful of bright researchers from Cobas had a fourth opinion, because of course they did).
The different groups should have had technology more compatible than they did.
Should. But they didn't, and it was slowing them down, and there was no good Summa Technologica.
The bloody groups couldn't even agree on
standard units of measurement without Eärendil.
It was anarchy. Eärendil hated every second of it.
So he rolled up his sleeves and started bringing order to the madness.
(To be continued next turn. Hopefully.)
