Q-Report: Make Me Your Space Admiral for Life, Commander in Chief Donald Trump.
9/11/2038
Dearest Commander in Chief Donald Trump,
I am writing this cover letter from the future, requesting a commission as Space Admiral for Life in your Space Force effective immediately upon receipt. It has long been my goal to build an interstellar space time craft and set solar sail for stars uncharted. It would be the greatest honor of my life to see past differences set aside, and work together on this project. This grand endeavor will ennoble us. In this letter (which I promise will not be too long) I will show my relevant skills, explain my relative experience, and describe a framework by which we can conquer the stars. But, before we can get there, let me tell you about myself.
My name is Quentin Percival Quaddle D.D.S.. I am a swashbuckling adventurer sent from the future to save the past from an unwilling present. Presents. I have saved at least three planets, including Earth. I may be the greatest swordsperson ever. Lots of people would love to be me, but they can’t. They must live their vain, inferior lives. Not me, pal. I’m a cosmopolitan transhumanist postmodernist and frankly I do not have time for you to put together a hiring committee. The fact is, Earth is on the clock. Even if we do everything right, and carbon doesn’t acidify the ocean and kill us all with hypoxia, our planetary leak will eventually vent our hydrogen into space. We need that hydrogen, for things like water. Kicks on a Friday night. Dirigibles. Mostly the water, though. Not to mention the many interstellar objects moving at impossible speeds through space. Towards us. Even now. You’ve seen the film Armageddon, maybe even Deep Impact? We must get into space and hope we find some advanced aliens, willing to sell us more planets, or a functional timecraft, or a taco hole. In return for DVDs of those films. We need big dangerous ships that can turn apocalyptic space debris into ash, and for that? We need a Space Force, and you need me, to command it.
Why would I make the best Space Admiral for Life you ask? Well first off, great question. Thanks for asking. The fact is that I have designed and built a myriad of off-world craft in a variety of formats. I have also witnessed them in the future. That Elon Musk kid thinks he’s going to settle Mars, but what he’s really doing is selling expensive space funerals. He is getting bored selling not enough electric cars to have any impact on our carbon production. I also heard he wants to bring apartheid back. You know how to get rid of that carbon? Solar Airships. But that is not space, buddy. Outside of the mandate of this request. Let’s focus on space, shall we? Theater is the answer. On thousand years long voyages you need carbon neutral group activities. A space commander should be a lot of things, a tyrant, an artist, a healer, but foremost they must be an inspiration. They must be able to convince groups of people that doing the most dangerous things ever attempted will be worth it. That should they perish in the cold darkness of the void, between the infinite stars, lungs blown out of their chest from decompression, that their sacrifice would not be without purpose. We carry the story of humanity into that infinite darkness, even now! Believe me, you want someone who can tell that story, to the aliens and what not. Theater can make that happen. Space theater. Space. Space Force! I have us covered.
My relevant experience includes undergraduate and graduate degrees in interdisciplinary studies, several honorary doctorates from bankrupt institutions, and other forged credentials available on request. I am not really a doctor of dentistry science (FU “board” of medicine). Rather I am a person who removes gold teeth for free, regular teeth on a case by case basis. I have impersonated a space explorer, Henry Higgins, the Emperor of Japan, and Jesus Christ. I have not been crucified but would be willing. If Lin Manuel Miranda would hang himself as Judas just to… you know… hang there. Not die, just worry people, I would get crucified on live television. I don’t know if Legend did that? I don’t like broadcast live performance.
In terms of my kill count, it numbers well into the millions. Millions and millions. Shot, stabbed, lasered, missiled, and shotgunned in the face holes. I take no joy in killing. I wish I wasn’t so great at it. I really hoped to leave a less violent planet to my children, but apparently that involves reducing the human herd through ultra-violence. It is a means to an end. Once we grasp traveling through space and time, then everyone can have a planet. There will be a screening process. We will find places without life, but containing water, breathable air, and a predictable climate. If we happen to run into life? Well, we’ll cross that weird bridge when we come to it. I imagine we’ll just show them our phones and guns, and they will worship us? One worry I want to make you aware of early on is that certain things we have done, and when I say we I mean the United States of America, they may be construed as horrifying. At least to intelligent life. What with the genocides and perpetual warring and global exploitationing and so on. But again, I’m certain that as long as we can take Wi-Fi with us, my phone will seal the deal on them surrendering to our unknown mercies.
My guaranteed plan of getting off world is a three-phase plan. First, we find an asteroid large enough, and containing elements that can be used in construction, and transform it by robot into a spacecraft. Second, we launch and board a human crew of colonist/pirates. Third, we activate a nuclear ionic engine and Jupiter slingshot out of our system at the fastest speed possible. Right now, the Juno space probe holds the record for fastest man made thing at 165,000 miles per hour (265,000 km/h for our commie friends) achieved through plunging into Jupiter. We would try to avoid that, and go faster than that. How fast? Well. Very. But, even at 165,000 miles per hour we could still make the TRAPPIST system in 40,000 years, or so. Providing everything went as planned. Light travels at 669,600,000 miles an hour, and would take 39.46 years to travel from Earth to TRAPPIST-1. So, every mile per hour we travel closer to that 669 million reduces travel time, significantly.
In closing I would just like to make it clear that there is only one Space Admiral for this, and it is me, Dr. Quaddle. Relax. I’m a doctor. Not for reals, of course. But on paper. You can put a lot of stuff on paper, these days. I will expect your commission soon. Just to be clear, I would take no rank lower than Rear Admiral. My time is too precious to waste in meetings. Even if your vision is not in keeping with my own, I can assure you that I am your best bet against space asteroids. I’ve watched Deep Impact dozens of times. Armageddon still makes me cry. Let me be your Bruce Willis, but sexy, and not dead. Thank you in advance for your consideration.
Regards,
Q
Originally published at http://www.gonzotheater.com on June 20, 2018.
