Planet Scandium Mining Colony

Scandium Mining Colony

364 words

         Jacob Rubenstein was a scientist working on developing a working wormhole that will allow people to travel through space and time. The problem they had was that although they could finally open a wormhole, it was not stable and kept collapsing. They were at their wit’s end when Jacob came up with a brilliant idea.

          He said,

         “There are several rare earth elements that have unusual properties. Perhaps one of them might help stabilize the wormhole. “

          After much trial and error, they came up with a mixture of rare earth elements including “scandium”. Mixed they helped stabilize the wormhole.

         They opened the wormhole and send teams across looking for other worlds that would be habitable for human life. They found hundreds of potential worlds, but the first world they chose was a world in which “scandium” was not a rare element but a common element. That world was otherwise a hellhole but they decided to turn it into a mining colony so they could open a string of wormholes to finally allow mankind to colonize space.

         There was an added benefit of finding such a hellhole filled with useful minerals – they could turn it into a prison colony where they could exile prisoners throughout the earth-controlled sector. They soon emptied prisons on earth, and the first few colonies sent them all to "Planet “Scandium” where they labored six days a week mining rare elements that were shipped all over the Earth's Colonial sector.          

         Within 25 years the earth’s population had declined by half as people immigrated to the 25 new worlds leaving behind the home world which continued to be the center of the Earth Federation as the new worlds were now known. Earth people settled in colonies on the Moon, Mars, Jupiter moons, Alpha Centura and Sirius.

         They did not encounter alien civilizations until they pushed out a bit further and encountered the Khan who were looking for expanding civilizations to conquer. The Khan had also just discovered wormholes, and were also looking for a source of Scandium, leading to the first interplanetary war which ended in a truce – both sides shared the wealth of Scandium and engaged in mostly peaceful trade.

NEW PROMPT: Continuing the Cramp's 21st Birthday Week celebration, 21 is the atomic number of the chemical element scandium. Discovered in 1879, it is classified as a rare-earth element. Write a story or poem about someone discovering a new use for scandium. One of your genres must be Sci-Fi.