Solomon's Private File #70
These stories about Stephen and Solomon take place starting in
1950's. Stephen wrote about his life in letters to a penpal, and then
in a secure blog, in case he lost his memory again, in the master
computer in his school for gifted students, which he started attending
in 2016 in a new incarnation, until his death. Now his son Solomon is
attending the same school, and is writing in his own secure blog for
his future incarnations.
All characters are fictitious, even if some of them might have names
that belong to some actual people, or act like people we know.
Solomon is 15 in this story, in the Winter of 2041-2042.
Solomon's Private File #70 "Quake and CNN"
START Page
Greg said on air, "We are continuing with the coverage of the Alaskan
earthquake, and the tsunamis it's caused. Solomon is with us." I said,
"But not completely. What you see is my image. I can't physically be in
more than one place at the same time, even though my mind and attention
can, so I use my personal images for that, in communicating with people
during this problem." Greg said, "Thank you for the explanation. We had
on air a pastor who said you were being immoral for doing what is
common practice in handling prisoners in prison. What is your opinion
of that?" I said, "The anchor at that time suspected that the pastor
did that because of a personal dislike of me. I think it was more
something else. I was just a convenient stepping stone for this need to
become relevant and famous. Like some who do that, he succeeded a
little, but didn't achieve anything positive for himself or the world.
I suggest we all ignore that now, so we don't make it worse." He said
with respect, "You're being unusually serious today." I said, "This is
not a fun time for me." He said, "I understand. You came out in the
open for this. With your usual desire to avoid that, what changed your
mind?" I said, "Whether or not I like it, I've been made famous. That
shouldn't be wasted when it can and should be used to significantly
help people in an emergency. And it's foolish to try to keep my
involvement in this kind of thing a complete secret. It wouldn't work,
and it's not nice to ask people to do too much of that when they really
don't want to, and have other more important things to take care of.
That's more important than my own feelings about this."
He obviously didn't know what to say, so we went to break. He said to
me, "You really dislike doing this." I said, "You know that." He said,
"And I don't like doing it to you." I said, "I know that. But you have
to, within limits. And I agree to it. So let's not make it worse by
reminding us about that." He said, "Right. Sorry." Back on air, he
said, "You said God gave you the math to predict earthquakes. Could you
explain that?" I said, "That was a simplified statement. The full truth
is more complicated. I was on a mission out there in the galaxy. Part
of that was healing the effects of the problem. To do that, I broadcast
my love to a number of planets at the same time, and asked God to do
the healing. Sometimes he takes that opportunity to communicate to us.
My father part of God did that this time. Said he loved my odd humor,
and gave me something like a gift package in my mind. I opened that up
later, and found the math for plate tectonics, and related systems like
the weather. And a message. He said he knew I would have developed
those things in time, when I thought I needed to, so he gave it to me
to save time. I didn't know I would need it that soon, but he obviously
did."
He said, "Your father, Stephen, is God?" I said, "It's complicated.
There aren't words, or even clear concepts, for us to really understand
it in this life. He's a separate person there, and also part of God at
the same time, like The Buddha, and the other past fully enlightened
people are. Some people have reported they can feel him in the healing
part of the love broadcasts. They are correct. I and my family can feel
that the most. And we are NOT at all unhappy about that!" He said,
"Thank you for the explanation. That math he gave you, will you be
sharing it?" I said, "I would like to, but it's not all that possible.
If I put it in a book with normal type, well, it would be bigger than
this studio. It's too much even for the advanced computers on the most
scientists are NOT stupid! They are VERY intelligent and knowledgable.
But there are limits to everything. Not even my mother is able to work
with this, and you know how smart she is." He said, "I see. Thank you."
We went to break.
He said, "I'm surprised you defended the scientists so, er, with so
much heat. I shouldn't be. I think I can't help still assuming you're
like your father." I said, "Right. Don't. He dead. I aint!" He
chuckled. Back on air, he said, "You said you broadcast your love to
more than one planet at the same time. How many?" I said, "Thirty
seven. No, I don't want to talk about it anymore. Let's stick to Earth.
Don't want to, beware; I've got glue." He chuckled. He said, "What
causes earthquakes?" I said, "Everything. Oh, I see you really meant
what are the significant causes of them." He said, "Yes. Thanks." I
said, "In order of power, the Moon. The Earth's rotation and internal
heat differences. The sun. The other planets. Radioactivity in the
earth's core. Other influences are too little to discuss for this, but
are still included in the math."
He said, "I think I see a major connection; gravity." I said, "Right!
The Earth's crust floats on hot liquid rock, like solid scum in a
mostly stagnant pond. But there are things piled on top of it, like ice
caps and oceans. Less and more of those things wants to change the
shape of the crust, with their changes in weight. So does the moving
pull of the Moon. We see that influence in the tides. The crust wants
to have tides like that, too, but that puts strains and cracks in it.
It's not NEARLY as flexible as water is. And the plates that make up
the crust are moving, fueled by all that stress, and the world's
rotation. But the plates completely cover the Earth, including under
the oceans. So when they move, there is a gap between them that gets
filled in from the liquid rock from the area underneath, called the
Mantle. But the leading edge of the plate that's moving, has to go
somewhere, but the edge of another plate is blocking it. So it either
slides on top of it, or under it, or they slowly crash into each other,
and the edges rise up into tall mountains. I'll illustrate that here."
I showed images of that between us. I said, "This has been going on for
billions of years. This means there are a lot of faults in the crust
from past plates that joined and split from others. Here's a map of the
major ones. A lot of them still have stresses. When the rock can't take
it anymore, the crust moves along these old fracture lines to relieve
that stress. Well, it sure can't use prozac!" He chuckled. I said,
"That sudden movement causes a big jolt in the ground we know as an
earthquake."
I said "Being solid, sound waves travel REALLY fast in the crust, and
can cary a LOT of energy, and it bounces around a lot. That can cause
other fracture lines to give way near the original quake, and even set
off quakes quite some distance away. And sometimes the original quake
doesn't make enough of an adjustment, and so more quakes happen, called
aftershocks. Volcanoes can cause quakes, too. But that's another topic
for another time." He said, "So it's the moon's fault." I said, "No,
that would be a moonquake. Alright, I know what you mean. It's been a
very large influence in practically all that has ever happened on
Earth. That's actually a kind of a pun. Large moon, compared to the
planet it rotates around. Ours is VERY unusual in the cosmos. And more,
it's extremely rare for such a setup to have intelligent life, but when
it does, watch out! That species is just as fractious as their moon
caused environment." He said, "Wow! This is new!" I said, "Not really.
Billions of years." He said with some irritation that made me grin, "I
meant new to us." I said, "Sure. Old, wouldn't be news. This IS a news
network, isn't it?" He said "Let's go to break, while I have some words
with Solomon." Laughter in the control room. I just grinned at him. We
were silent.
Back on air, he said, "Sol was telling us about how unusual our large
moon is, and how it's affected us. Now he's going to explain why so few
such situations have intelligent life." I said, "That's different. A
news Anchor is actually trying to run an interview with me. We didn't
discuss anything during the break. I'll discuss that this time, just to
be nice. Most intelligent life doesn't usually survive the
environmental disasters that such a large moon causes, which also
caused speeded up evolution because of that. We did survive. We are
different, because as a species, we live in almost all the land
environments of our planet. Most other intelligent species don't. They
didn't need to learn how to do that, with their much more stable
worlds. We are much more adaptable than they are, by evolutionary
necessity. From our industrial revolution to manned space flight, well,
it took the other species thousands of years to do that. That our moon
caused speeded up evolution, also caused our world and its lifeforms to
be used to seed a large part of the galaxy with life. A little
something we can take some pride in, even thought they don't actually
know that yet. Would be really grossed out, for sure." He chuckled.
He said, "More about the moon. Why is it the moon only shows one side
to us?" I said, "That feeling I know about! Embarrassment." He
chuckled. I said, "Oh, alright. It's unusual. Almost everything in
space rotates. The Moon does. It's just that its rotational period is
the same as it's orbital period. That's still unusual, though. It's
caused by the Moon's composition, and how it came to be our Moon. A
gigantic asteroid collided with the newly solid Earth, in the early
formation of our solar system. It actually took a lot of the Earth with
it into itself. The energy of that collision melted most of the er,
stuff that made up what would become the Moon then. That ball of liquid
rock fell into a close orbit around the still more massive Earth. Now
our planet was spinning madly from that collision. Something like a ten
hour day night cycle. Being partially solid on the surface, and with a
relatively high gravity, it didn't explode with the stress. The molten
moon, being almost all liquid, didn't spin much in its very fast low
orbit. Less than half it's present distance from Earth now. It slowly
cooled. But it's core wasn't completely round, due to the Earth's
gravitational pull. One side of the Moon was heavier than the other.
That side was attracted to the Earth more than the other. Over time,
that caused the Moon to revolve so that, despite the gradual changes in
the orbit over time, that heavy side always faced the Earth. Here's a
speeded up demonstration. If the Earth had just captured the Moon as a
solid, it would have not been locked into that situation." He said,
"Wow! I must say, that was well done!" I said, "Er, thanks."
During the break, I said, "Another aftershock. 5.9. No tsunamis
expected, but still watching." He reported that as soon as we were back
on air. Then he said, "Can you give us a look at the damage?" I said,
"Yes. Downtown Anchorage." Very little was intact. He said, "All those
records lost!" He must have caught my expression. He said, "Sol. Did
you do something? Did you save those records? We have a call from the
Command center in Alaska. Chief, you're on the air! How is it with
you?" He said, "We are still riding it out. Sol isn't going to tell you
what he did, so I will." I shook my head in exasperation and sadness.
They showed that. I vanished my image. The Chief said, "Sol saved all
the records you were concerned about. But he did a lot more. There is a
series of gigantic warehouses and containers full of what would still
be in the ruined buildings, stores, and homes, or destroyed. All
labeled and cataloged. I asked him about that, not knowing he was doing
it. He said he HAD to. He couldn't let people's work and precious
things and memories be destroyed. All their family histories. He was
crying when he said that." They could hear me yell in the background,
"That's enough!" CNN said, "We've lost the phone connection. I think we
know why. Now let's hear what's going on in the rest of the world."
I said to the Chief, "You didn't have to do that while I was with
them on air. I know, I know. They should know. But not all right then.
I asked you to help me with this. You went too far. No, I won't stop
helping, but I don't have to be so personally friendly while I'm doing
it. I had my image here with you as a courtesy. Not now. Goodbye." It
was gone. I said to my family, "There are limits. They both exceeded
them. They need to learn not to do that with me." Hawk said, "Right."
Mom said, "I agree. But it hurts you much more than it does them." I
said, "Always." We hugged and kissed with love.
Public reaction was mixed. Some thought I was being childish, and
some supported me. I didn't personally care, but the research
psychologist in me was very interested in it. I got a lot of work done
in analyzing all that data. I sent an image to the pres of CNN. I
said, "Please note. You want me, I rule. Got it?" He said, "Right. Got
it. Thank you very much for all you do for the world. I know, you don't
need that, but other people have needs, too. Mine was to say that." I
said, "Don't be so reasonable while I'm trying to be forceful." He
laughed. I nodded and vanished.
After the next minor aftershock, I said in the air in the command
center, "That was the last significant aftershock expectorated. Well, I
just had to spit that out." Some good laughter. I said, "Yes, I'm still
me. Buildings are unstable, even without politicians in them." More
laughter. I said, "Some roads are impassible. My team is working on
them, making temporary bridges and such. Underground plumbing, white
and brown, is a complete mess. Will have to be all new. Naturally, now
that it's all over, it's snowing. As if nature wants to cover up it's
bad behavior. When it stops, we'll remove it, and ice, too. Something
my father discovered when he was learning how to ice skate. The surest
way to fall on the ice, is to fall down, and then try to get up. Second
surest way to fall, is to try to help somebody else up. Be careful."
Chuckles. I said, "Live images will continue as long as your center is
manned. Oh, sorry, and womaned. Stupid language! You know how to
contact me for something important. Probably works for unimportant
things, too, but shouldn't. I'm sorry you had an earthquake. Try to
skip the next one. Be well."
Things slowly improved. But not fast enough to suit anybody. That was
very reasonable, considering the extent of the damage, but it did cause
some temper flareups. We helped as much as we thought we should, which
wasn't nearly enough to suit anybody. Understandable. They were under a
LOT of life changing stress. CNN wanted me on to discuss that. I
refused. They didn't make that public. One thing we didn't make public
was my team and I, using different disguises, worked to reunite
separated families. Some suspected, but didn't want to risk that
stopping, by exposing it. Smart of them.
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Grant
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