302 Seconds and Years (1/2)
They tested it out. Ten times acceleration. One hundred times acceleration. Two hundred times acceleration! Three hundred times acceleration!! Four…
”Stop! Stop! That's too much!” Remian's head was spinning and he felt like the whole world was tilting.
Three hundred times. That was his limit. Even the Corpoman let out a low whistle. ”That level of Psionic Power… if I didn't know better, I'd suspect you were a Human Ascendant, or a Revanan. But that's impossible. You'd have been registered long ago if you were either one.”
”What's an Ascendant?” Remian asked, holding his head.
”A member of the Human Ascendancy. Like me. The Ascendancy consists of the Io Republic, the Blue Star Conglomerate and the Orion Empire. Members of any of our factions are called 'Ascendants'. Not to boast, but we're almost the most powerful human factions in the galaxy.”
”Almost?”
”There's the Human Supremacy, but they usually don't mess around or get involved with others.” The corpoman paused. ”You can learn all about them when you start your sentencing.”
At three hundred times acceleration, the ten years that Remian would spend imprisoned would, in real-time, take just a little over 12 days.
***
”We can't wait.” Mindy decided, drawing her sword.
”I'll draw their attention. You guys hit them as hard as you can.” Wulfgar stretched, and dashed out. ”URAAA!”
He bowled directly into the center of the five Tier 3 Spectres. Joshu, Jans and Denise started shooting just as the Spectres were scattered.
Ten seconds into the fight, Mindy stabbed a Spectre in the side...
***
Ten seconds for Mindy was 3000 seconds for Remian.
In these five hours, he found himself stuck with the most basic of basic beginner lessons available in Blue Stars Educational System.
Seated in the Edu-Sphere that was set up in his holding cell, Remian learned.
One of the first subjects he took up was Intro to Galactic Stellargraphy. In short, who the main powers in the galaxy were and how they were qualified.
According to the system, civilizations and interstellar factions were determined by Class according to their capabilities. At the very beginning, a Class 1 Civilization was qualified when they became a Tool Making Society, typically with wooden or stone tools for most basic purposes like farming or cooking. They were promoted to Class 2 as soon as they harnessed energy in any form, most commonly with the use of a waterwheel or windmill.
Class 3 Civilizations or Factions were reached when they were able to access all of their world's habitable zones. The exact definition of what was 'habitable' remained in debate, but commonly this was achieved by motorized travel. Some more exploratory groups achieved it earlier, other more placid ones did so later, but generally they'd all achieve it roughly within that same century.
Class 4 happened when they colonized local space. Whether for resources or living space, when a civilization started building orbital space stations for cities and mining local asteroids for resources, they were considered to have left their native planet and begun to be a space civilization. Often this occurred with the help of their first Space Elevator or Electromagnetic Rail Launcher or something similar, depending on what sciences or technologies they advanced quicker. There was even one legendary civilization that advanced into space with botanical sciences, using what amounted to a colossal beanstalk that enabled them to build orbital cities where their people grew to giant proportions due to the lower gravity.
But a real space-faring civilization were Class-5; the ones who managed interstellar travel. Whether they did so by gravitic drive, use of natural or artificial wormholes or the popularized Warp Gates, they were able to travel from star to star within their natural lifetimes (as well as often extending such lifetimes). These were considered 'young' human civilizations, of which there were hundreds listed in the Blue Star Conglomerate's database.