Terratron: Just another Sci-fi or an astounding future || A brief discussion on Terraforming

Will it ever be possible for humans as a species to leave all the wars and other earthly conflicts in the pursuit of ruling over the vast emptiness of the universe? Well, no one knows, the future is quite mysterious, although we can predict the future to some extent by observing our present state, then there come some physical limitations like Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle that keep us from perfectly observing the state of the present. And then simply it becomes impossible to determine the future with accuracy, as we can’t even observe the present with accuracy, which is a raw material for brewing the future state in the present. So basically, we can’t predict or know actually what the future is, and if it is a far future then better forget about it.

But that unavailability of getting any knowledge about the future can’t stop the most advanced material of the universe known, the human brain from wandering around in the imagination of a future world or in some cases a future universe. And we can see the example of these creations of the human mind reflected in works of literature.

Now, let’s take a look at one such work of literature.

Terratron: The Literature:

Before going into any further discussion on that excellent work of literature, it will be better to have a notion of the plot and timeline of that piece of literature named “Terratron”.

Terratron: A story of the Milkyway Galactic Empire

The timeline of Terratron is set in the far future of the 40th century, with some insane technologies of that time, and by that time humans have already colonized mars, and a whopping majority of the Milkyway galaxy now comes under their territory, and they call it the “Milkyway Galactic Empire”, which was established by Lord Tenpin Knesset, a secretary-general from mars.

Now, the whole of the literature revolves around this well-respected and recognized martian general and his life, and at the same time, this sci-fi story elaborates the terraforming in detail with the problems the process will face due to some limitations imposed on us by the universe and some limitations of purely human origin, of our nature and behavior.

Overall, terratron is the book you need if you have a mixed attraction toward the sky and the ground at the same time, in this book you will get to know all the things humans can achieve if they manage to maintain peace and with that keep innovating newer things, and in some cases rediscovering old works too will help in achieving the greatness that is mentioned in the book. 

Possibilities of a “Terratron” like system to form:

Is that utopia with peace and advancement and love as mentioned in Terratron even possible? Well, as said earlier we can never know the future to the fullest, but we can project a possibility from the knowledge we have gathered so far.

There can have two approaches to establishing such a utopia as mentioned in the book.

The first approach is quite a bloody and immoral and unethical approach, and in this approach, we just have to find a system that is welcoming to life on earth, and after that, we must deal with that system, either by exercising power on that system or diplomatically. But the latter is not the hard part, the former is. Till now from the search results of some 75 years we humans have failed to be sure about the existence of any such system which will be welcoming or at least hospitable to earthly life. And before that, we are even unable to find any life of other forms, although our knowledge about life forms is also limited. So, the first approach isn’t even able to take off. So for that move to the next possible approach, terraforming a suitable system.

Terraforming: Just a sci-fi tech or feasible reality:

Well, terraforming can be the best option for creating a utopia like the one mentioned in Terratron. As the name says terraforming, which literally means shaping into the earth.

Terraforming: from the eyes of an Artist

In this approach, a species in this case humans, take a suitable system of planetary objects with or without life and make it suitable for their own living. And it is obvious that a life form suitable to earth’s environment will try to replicate the earth’s environment on that planet so that they can live in that system as they live on their home planet.

    Processes and technological aspects:

    Talking of processes, you can take an estimation of exactly that by taking into account evolution on earth. And moreover, any process that we know today is directly or indirectly associated with evolution, which can be the biological evolution or the social evolution that is exclusive to us humans only.

So, you get a rough idea of the bulk of processes that we will be needing to get this thing done. And it seems all the more difficult when you realize that the

Pictorial demonstration of ecosystem services we take .

ecosystem on this planet earth is self-sustaining, and that aspect of the ecosystem took millions of years to appear on this planet earth. And even if we get the technology to recreate that thing, the maintenance cost of that thing will cost something like $125 trillion according to a 2018 report of the world economic forum and the worst part is that the grand total of gross national product of the whole world was something like 88.688 trillion U.S.D. in 2019.

But again we shouldn’t lose hope, as everything takes time when it is the first time. Like it took technologies from the farthest point in the past and efforts of years to assemble the first rocket engine as we know it today, but today, we humans are capable of making rocket engines in a matter of months, and our technology has reached that grade where we can actually reuse rocket engines.

That rough estimation of processes is also not enough, we at the same time need to take into consideration some technical aspects of the planet or any other system that we are aiming at. The object must fit into some criteria set by us earthlings, to fit our habitability requirements. And those are some cosmological criteria that we humans have no hold on. These criteria take into account the planet’s gravitational force, position with respect to the nearest star (whether in the Goldilock Zone or not), its initial composition, atmospheric constitution, and thickness, and a whole lot of other aspects that we take into account while searching for a planet that can be a possible host for earthly life.

The current state of terraforming:

So you can literally see what it takes to terraform a whole planet or something like that. And seeing that all you can predict how challenging it is going to be. For now, one can safely consider terraforming as the final test for the current generation, like flying to the sky in the early twentieth century was some sort of test for the then-current generation.

Now, despite all these challenges, why do we find terraforming interesting? Well, that’s probably because we have the technology, with the help of which we can possibly terraform a planet, and it becomes all the more interesting when we realize that we have a test subject lurking within our cosmological family, yes I’m talking about Mars.

    Terraforming Mars:

    Mars has a major role in Terratron, this planet is the home of our central character Lord Tenpin Knesset, and that’s probably because we are currently seeing a possibility of terraforming Mars. And if this planetary experiment success, then by the time of the timeline of Terratron, Mars would have been the first-ever terraformed and colonized planet by humans. So, yup no doubt, Mars is a hot topic, because that’s where we humans can have a fresh start and will have a great role in deciding our own future. A future with no war between brothers, a future with prosperity everywhere, a future with advanced technology and better healthcare facility, and an educated population devoid of poverty and other problems of social origin, in other words, with that fresh start we can get another chance of creating a future utopian society. So, yes Mars is a hot cake for sci-fi writers from around the world.

    And these all are happening because, in 1961, Carl Sagan thought of terraforming another of our cosmological family members, Venus. But later studies found that Venus doesn’t fit some of the above-mentioned criteria, which makes the planet unavailable for earthly life. 

   Cut to 1973, there released an article with the title “Planetary Engineering on Mars” on Icarus was authored by the same Carl Sagan, and with this article, he pointed out the feasibility of terraforming the planet Mars. And as the days passed we realized that Mars indeed is a more viable test subject for this terraforming thing. Because it has more of the cosmological factors in common with the earth that enhance the probability of supporting an earthly life.

Currently, we are having the technologies and the procedures, and the skills to carry out this planetary experiment, but then there comes another inevitable factor that is stopping us from carrying out that experiment, our economics. Although we have the technologies and skills with which we can carry on the great planetary transformation, still then we are not fast enough, and these experiments will take thousands of years to complete with the current techs we are having. Even if we take into account the acceleration in this field due to ongoing developments, we will not be able to complete this whole experiment of planetary engineering within some 200-300 years. And no government or organization is willing to invest such a large amount of time and with time their money in this field, in which we don’t actually know what outcomes we will be getting.

So, basically, no one is yet ready to gamble on this, except for the physicists and astronomers. But the scenario is changing very fast, with big techs like SpaceX, Blueorigins announcing their plans for a martian trip.

Conclusion:

With the discussion on Terraforming and its scope in the development of a species’ future, we can say that it is a test for the current generation, as flying in the sky was to the generation of that time. And terraforming still needs a lot of innovations and development from a technical and skill point of view, and at the same time, we need to forget about war and other staffs that pull the civilization back, so that we can focus completely on developing our technology and skill so that we can work more unitedly than our ancestors. And this greater workforce will serve as a bigger sample space that will enhance our chance of getting something really useful for taking our civilization further.

Talking of the book “Terratron: A story of the Milkyway Galactic Empire” by Nathaniel Bernadeau, the book is for those who keep interests in thinking that there is always something bigger that is waiting to be explored, it can be some freshly form island in the middle of the ocean, or some unknown technology, or the universe, they just love to wander around seeking things that are unexplored yet. And with that thrill of seeking something unknown the author mixed some action, adventure, power games, love, romance, and a lot of human feelings into a martian. And this cocktail of feelings is exactly the thing that a seeking reader is seeking. I see great potential in that book, not only because it explains a possibility of our future, the utopian future, but also it adds all the emotions and thrills and romance in the perfect ratio, which makes it a great story of its genre with a classical approach.

Whatever be the case, be it the book or the project of terraforming a planet, there is a lot to explore within the system. Hope humans work together toward prosperity to give our far next generations a utopia like the one mentioned in Terratron.

 

Mankind was Born on planet Earth. It was Never meant to Die here.

-from the movie, Intersteller.