Chapter 307 (1/2)

Bo'okdu'ust swivelled the chair he was sitting in, surprised at the comfort. He knew it was a modified Treana'ad office chair, but it was so comfortable he really didn't care. He simply straddled the 'seat' and then the backrest swivelled to behind him so he could lean back against it, and the armrests lifted up to allow him to comfortably rest his four arms.

He sighed in pleasure. Getting old wasn't fun but it beat the alternative. His hooves were duller, the white of his coat had gone silver and the dark brown and black patches were shot through with silver. His feeding tendrils were thinner and longer and more fragile, he had bags beneath all six eyes, and his crests were wrinkled even when he inflated them as best as possible. Some of his joints had a tendency to be swollen, especially his knees and elbows.

But considering his advanced age, he felt fine all things considered.

He looked out the window at the lawn. The Terrans had been in possession of the system for nearly two years and had quickly become adept at landscaping that appealed to the Lanaktallan senses as well as was functional. It was an excellently designed trotting and relaxation yard.

Bo'okdu'ust got up from the chair, the back swinging into position to allow him to move off the chair as well as the armrests moving away. He glanced at his simulation that was running and had been running for nearly two days, snorted, and made his way slowly and stately out of the building and onto the lawns.

He walked around, lost in thought as he tried to wrestle with the socio-mathematics that he was attempting to apply to the Terrans.

While the Terrans had offered to give Bo'okdu'ust access to their research in socio-mathematics Bo'okdu'ust wanted to see if his own work could be applied to the Terrans and their allies. The formulae worked on the Lanaktallan and their allied species, but if they could not be applied to the Terrans and their allies then either Bo'okdu'ust's theories were invalid outside of a homogenous group or there were variables that he had not taken into account.

Bo'okdu'ust also knew that part of the problem was the amount of advancement and the progression of the humans in such a short time.

He idly wondered if perhaps the time variables should be eliminated as he picked a flower and stared at it. His mind automatically counted the petals, the stamen, and ran the computations to figure out the leaf to vein placement without having to access the datalink.

He had to admit, the Terran datalink was much better than his old one. While Lanaktallan datalinks had not changed in millions of years, it wasn't uncommon for a Terran datalink to have a firmware or even a hardware upgrade every year or two.

Bo'okdu'ust liked the retinal display implants. A tiny, almost microscopic implant at the corner of his eyes that used his own vision to display data.

It was invaluable to a researcher.

Looking at the flower, considering the datalink, the problem suddenly had a solution propose itself.

He had been using the time variable as static time. The variable was used to track how much time, in relative to the universe and the 4th Dimension itself.

The mistake was glaringly obvious.

The time variable, as he was using it in his computations, should have been used to signify the length of time in relation to the age of the species as well as in relation to certain xenospecies advancements.

He used the retinal link to bring up a quick scratch board and wrote out the mathematics for the time from developing agricultural methods to improvements in animal husbandry and shelter construction. He replaced the standard variable with a variable that represented another mathematic computation, then ran a few tests through it.

It fit. There was some slippage in the formulae, but that was to be expected when one dealt with living creatures rather than hard physics. Still, more refinement could remove a lot of slippage, although it would make the formulae more cumbersome.

Historically, it worked fine. Although the Predictive Analysis algorithms were less stable.

Satisfied he trotted slowly around the yard, letting the sunlight warm him. His right leg hurt him a bit when he was done with his daily exercise, but that was a complain he had gotten used to over the decades.

He had broken the leg grav-skiing and attempting to impress a younger female.

She had been quite impressed.

So had everyone else in the cafe he had cartwheeled into.

Bo'okdu'ust snorted to himself at his own foolishness so long ago as he trotted back into the house. He had long ago gotten tired of just wads of cud. The constant gnawing on nutrient infused plas wadding or even actual nutricud made his jaws ache. He went inside and got together the ingredients and made himself a light meal.

He had found that his appetite had gone down and he was hungry less frequently the last century or so.

Bo'okdu'ust thoughtfully tapped the mixing spoon against his flank covering as he considered the fact that he finally had a species that he could examine their actual history.

He had long suspected that the Lanaktallan governments had obfuscated actual history and he had wondered what they were trying to hide.

His simulation, done on the far more powerful, robust, and flexible Terran systems, would support one of his theories no matter what the results.

He checked his retinal link. It was almost time.

Bo'okdu'ust finished up his meal, put his dishes in the reclaimer, and trotted back into his office just in time for his implant to chime, letting him know his guests were present.

Day, the Rigellian female general, and several other Terrans. None of them academics.

If only his fellow academics could understand the results of his work, much less his mechanisms, then his work was essentially useless and nothing more than extensive intellectual masturbation. True, he might have to translate it, but even then, they should be able to understand and recognize the results once he had explained it.

The newcomers were a Treana'ad, a russet Mantid, and three humans. One a heavily modified cyborg, who introduced himself as Magnussen, another was a chimera with a type of canine, and the last was a 'standard Terran' from Earth/Terra itself.

Bo'okdu'ust welcomed them all to his humble abode, leading them into his workspace.

Unlike a lot of historians, his work required holotanks, book shelves, chalkboard sized transparent dataslates, and other mechanisms.

Bo'okdu'ust led the group in just as the massive holotank chimed and the words ”SIMULATION SERIES COMPLETED” appeared.

”Tell us about the simulation,” Day said, walking up and looking at it. At the time, it was little more than mathematical symbols.

”Allow me to add the interpolation layer,” Bo'okdu'ust said. He twiddled a bit and moved the simulation to a second tank and then added the layer that would show graphical representations rather than just pure code values changing.

”I map possible and potential population growth, disease spread and information spread (which can move at roughly the same speed in some population types), availability of resources, environmental pressures, and attempt to predict that past via simulation before comparing it to actual the actual history,” Bo'okdu'ust said. He sighed. ”Sadly, it is rare I can use it on a species that is actually undergoing growth and historical progress as most cultures appear to stagnate, regress, or even fail once certain mileposts have been reached.”