From Venus to Jupiter
Just about everyone in the Venusian habitat asked what was happening on Jupiter and how big was the revolt there. General Pura Cintron, known as Gen, smiled as she climbed back into her ship. There was no revolt, they just wanted to go to Jupiter. Or so they thought.
However, on their way there, and much to their surprise, they received a message from the local Mirror agents letting them know that, indeed, all but one of the Jupiter habitats were no longer loyal to Earth authorities. The Mirror agents begged that they make contact with them first in the loyal habitat Basecamp where they were supposedly barricaded. Basecamp was in what was the first habitat built near Jupiter and one of only two that orbited the giant planet. Others had been built on Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede and other habitats orbited around Io, Metis, Amalthea and Thebe.
Gen boarded the Basecamp habitat with a small detachment of Marines and she was welcomed by a small group, including the Mirror agents and the three top leaders. As the Mirror agents told it, Basecamp had started to become disloyal to Earth’s authority but eventually it snapped back to sanity “thanks to these five determined men who got it back on track.” They explained that they had not warned Earth because they were afraid of the repercussions from the others but now they were sure that the disloyal habitats could be brought back into the fold in no time at all.
Gen and the other Marines went back to their ship and let their peers know what was going on. As she told them, she and the other Marines broke out into laughter several times. “Compassion, folks,” she reminded them. “These folks are just like we were once upon a time, driven by fear. I think the impact we would want to have is to have them learn how to not let fear dictate their actions, to leave behind a healthy, fear-free Basecamp community, so people can go about their lives contributing all they can.” Obviously, seeing the effects that getting out from under a Fiat regime had on the other habitats was not enough. A handful of people had been able to imbue the Basecamp habitat with fear that was palpable.
A handful of Marines co-organizes a Leadership Huddle to put together a plan for Basecamp. The first thing they decided was not to reveal all at once to any of the habitats that they, too, were “disloyal.” However, they would not lie if they were asked; and healthy adults would eventually ask. They agreed to break apart the “five determined and strong” cadre. The rest of the plan was left somewhat vague, but they agreed to have regular Huddles to refine it.
“Oh, and we also decided that from now on Gen is going to be addressed as General Cintron.” Everyone laughed, even Gen.
As luck would have it, the Mirror agents themselves suggested that the “top Basecamp leaders” would be the ideal people to bring the deviant habitats back to their norms that Earth authorities had defined in the past. General Cintron made grunting noises as she pretended to think about it. Then she looked up, as she always did because she was very short, and fixed them with a very stern look. Then she pretty much repeated what the Mirror agents had suggested as if it were her own idea. The agents were ecstatic at having the General appropriate their suggestions.
With military precision and all the pomp and circumstances required, all three top leaders were sent off to the disloyal habitats they were put in charge of, along with a small detachment of Marines. “This force will be enough to brush aside any resistance these people might hope to put up,” General Cintron told them. The leaders were delighted by the assurance, even though they knew that they wouldn’t encounter any violent resistance. Heck, a big part of the problem is that those people were not aggressive enough.
General Cintron stayed in charge of Basecamp. The bulk of the Marines stayed there, too, but they would eventually move to the other habitats as the leaders rotated from one to the other.
Two of the leaders, Arsen and Regan, were put in charge of three habitats each, the other, Amin, was put in charge of two. They had to rotate from one to the next and they moved, one Marine detachment stayed behind and a different one received the leader at the next habitat. Marines dressed casually and didn’t carry weapons so that, or as they told the leaders, “we carry hidden weapons to be less noticeable and make it easier to catch locals in acts of disloyalty. Just like we did in the Venusian Habitat.” In reality, it was a way to spread through the habitats and build trust in a low key fashion.
With the three top leaders gone from Basecamp, Gen called a meeting with the next level of bosses in the Basecamp hierarchy. Everybody introduced themselves and then the General got down to business, “Basecamp is the worst performing Jupiter habitat. Lowest in financial returns and engagement, and highest in absenteeism and transfer requests which have been ignored and hidden from Earth authorities. Please, explain.” Unfortunately, one of them gave her a patronizing smile and said, “The reports from those habitats are fake. They trained their Worms to cover their tracks, but they are pure fantasy. We are the most productive habitat in the system.” The other bosses started to smile and signal affirmation. Then Gen stood up, slowly, and the room went quiet. As the smiles faded from everybody’s face, Gen asked, “And how do you know that? Have you compared their real results with Basecamp’s real results? Because I have and they are actually doing better than they are reporting, while Basecamp is doing worse than reported. They might be faking some of the other details like punishments and demotions, but when it comes to innovation, new discoveries, and all the other important stuff, they are doing really great.” Everyone was scared and in shock and nobody got past mumbling. As they furtively glanced at each other, General Cintron raised her voice just so and said, “well, what’s the plan to fix this? WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT IT?”
“We didn’t… haven’t… we… we don’t… .”
“You’ve had five levels of management for 83 people and YOU DON’T KNOW what’s going on? That’s fraud and insubordination!” The General made grunting noises while pacing around the room, and then she said, “This is what is going to happen then.” As she said that ten Marines marched in right away and saluted. Addressing the bosses, she said, “Each of you is going to meet with your people with one of these Marines present. They will intervene as they see fit and as often as necessary. Bottom line is that I want a plan to correct this situation in double time. You have 24 hours. Civilians, dismissed. Marines, please stay.” The meeting with the “civilians” had lasted less than 10 minutes.
Once they managers filed out of the meeting room that the General had appropriated, one of the Marines said, “Gen, you said ‘please?’”
“Did I? Shit! Well, they probably didn’t notice, they were in such a shock. anyway, I’ll have to be more careful in the future.”
In the discussion that followed, they decided that each Marine was going to act as a coach-facilitator at the team meetings. They went through several scenarios, from best to worst, and came up with various ways to deal with them. One of the Marines, Rahul, still had RADs from the Applied Molecular Evolution in Florida so the next day he joined the team that worked with the DNA molecule for the meeting Gen ordered.
People filed in and chit-chatted until the top manager, Lei, his sub-manager, Takor, and his sub-manager, Anouk walked in. Then everybody went quiet. Everybody that is except Rahul. As soon as Lei tried to start the meeting, Rahul said, “Sir, you are five minutes late. By that action, you have wasted a total of 45 minutes. Is there a good reason you’d like to explain, sir?” Rahul stood erect in his uniform, calmly waiting for an answer. Lei was visibly flustered and went back and forth between acting offended or submissive. Finally, he stood up and told Rahul that there was no need for that and “let’s get started with the meeting.”
“Sir, stop.” He turned to the rank and file and with a gentle look on his face he said, “Sorry to waste your time. We’ll resume this meeting in one hour’s time, at 900 hours, sharp.” Then he turned towards Lei, Takor, and Anouk and sternly said, “Get up and proceed to Gen’s… General Cintron’s business quarters.” Their blood drained from their faces and for a moment it seemed like Takor was going to pass out but they all managed to walk in front of him, as ordered. When they got there, there were two other Marines with their respective terrified crews waiting outside the General’s business quarter.
The meetings with Gen did not take long. They had planned this the day before. The easy part was stripping them of their power over the others in the team, but they didn’t want to “break” them. Ultimately, the goal was to have them become contributing members of a healthy community.
“I won’t waste time as you obviously have,” said Gen in a way that Rahul had never heard her use before. “You and your assigned Marine will have a one hour conversation with each of your reports so you can figure out what problems are causing such low performance. I don’t know what gave you the idea that you could do what I asked you to do by having a general meeting; maybe you love the sound of your voice. If the problem is the work, then the people who actually do the work know best how to fix the problem. Any questions?”
Not a peep came out of the three managers so Rahul simply said, “It seems that all’s clear, General.” In one motion, he saluted, pivoted around, and marched out of the room followed by the managers. The whole thing took four minutes.
Europa
Arsen Dewitt, formerly Top Leader of Basecamp, finally arrived at Europa, the largest of the three habitats he was now in charge of under the title of Guide. He was disappointed by his welcome which was a lot more toned down than he expected. There were two people at the docking port he didn’t recognize. He had only had contact with Anabel Khoury and Dora Landavazo McKenna, the Senior Director and HR Director of the Europa habitat, respectively.
Obviously upset, Arsen asked them, “Where are the Directors?”
They gave each other a puzzled look and then with a smile they introduced themselves, “Hi, I am Dayra and this is Jose. I think Anabel is on the Anchortron and I am not sure about Dora?”
“Didn’t they know I was arriving?”
“Oh, we all knew. We talked briefly about it and we signed up to welcome you.”
Dayra was young and didn’t recognize how upset Arsen was becoming, but Jose did. She had never lived under Earth’s authoritarian ways; to her it was a story that older people told. They knew that Arsen now was The Guide of Europa, Backpack, and Io habitats and was here to bring back the old fiat ways. Jose recognized that the Marines who arrived with him were Arsen’s muscle.
Arsen demanded that Anabel and Dora meet him at the executive meeting quarters.
“Where?” asked Dayra, but Jose quickly intercepted and said, “We repurposed all the executive areas. But you could meet in the food hall… it’s empty and pretty private at this time.”
Arsen went from being furious to almost catatonic. He just managed to spit out, “Stop speaking nonsense and take me to them. NOW!”
Dayra didn’t know how to react to such a violent tone. So she smiled. Which made Arsen even more furious. As Jose was trying to intervene, Arsen turned around to the Marines and told him to, “take care of this!”
“Sir, there is no threat of violence, sir.”
As Arsen gasped, Jose quickly said, “We will take you to a private room and Munjez and Dora will be there. Please, follow us.”
As they walked toward the food hall, Jose kept thinking about the reaction from the Marines. They never brought up their weapons; they didn’t seem upset at all—in fact, they seemed to be amused. Arsen, too, was now wondering about these Marines and their cavalier attitude—he would talk to them later, and maybe to the General, too.
Arsen recognized Anabel and Dora right away. But how could they… they were wearing overalls! Nevertheless, he extended his hand to Anabel but she reached out in an embrace instead. He didn’t know how to react, but he was ready when she stepped back and Dora opened her arms, signaling another embrace.
“Stop this nonsense right now. You are not going to win me over to your chaotic ways by hugging me. I came here to give you the courtesy of speaking with you first before I speak to the habitat’s crew to explain how we plan to get back to a proper structure. This is a space habitat, not the infamous Haight-Ashbury.” Dayra and Dora were too young to understand the reference and they crunched their foreheads as they smiled. Arsen turned around and went a few steps before he asked, “who is going to be my assistant?”
“Arsen, via an Anchortron and your neuromorphics you can speak with anybody or collaborate with anybody and contribute to the habitat. We haven’t had anybody be anybody’s “assistant” for, like, ever and I don’t think anybody is going to be interested in being yours.” He turned to look at Dora and she was wearing her big signature smile.
Arsen was now beyond being furious. Now he wanted blood. He turned to the Marines and ordered them to put Dora in the brig. “They don’t seem to have a brig, sir. Best we can do is confine her to her quarters, but then we would have quarters for Anabel.”
“Then confine them both to their quarters. For goodness sake, do I have to deal with every detail? Do your job, men!” He noticed the change in the Marines and quickly corrected himself, “I meant, do your job, Marines.” No matter, the Marines, including the woman Marine in the detachment, continued to hold their weapons just a smidge higher than before.
The woman Marines said, “Permission to take actions, sir.” Without waiting for an answer she spoke directly to Dora and Dayra, “What is the most effective problem resolution method in this habitat?”
“Talking. He could send a general message and see who comes, somebody may be interested to try it for a bit.”
“Action outlined, sir. You can proceed whenever you’re ready. We will assist you in the meantime.” But that didn’t sound like the kind of assistance Arsen had in mind.
It took a while and many similar incidents throughout his stay at Europa, but by the time he was preparing to leave for the Io habitat, Arsen was starting to change. He had not been able to get Europa to kowtow to him and the Marines were helping him, though not as he expected. On the other hand, he couldn’t help but notice how well things were running. In particular, he enjoyed the kudos that the General and Earth Authority had bestowed to the whole habitat, but she managed to say a couple of nice things about him in particular. And the whole RAD distribution thing, crazy as it was, had had a positive effect on him; and since he started attending retrospectives and listening to the feedback he had become personally close to many of these folks. Now he was going to Io, although he knew he didn’t have to go there in person but the General insisted. Who knows, it was the smallest habitat and things may be different there.
Basecamp
Basecamp, the General, and the phasing out of the fiat hierarchy.
One of the worries about how to “reward their people” and the General suggests something very similar to a RAD Distribution, but with Stars instead of RADs and Flags instead of Banners.
Regan Regis
At 64, Regan was the oldest of the three leaders. She had two children, Neil, 23, was born on Earth Surface and 17-year old Ron was born in Backpack. In fact, she was pregnant with Ron when she came out to the habitat, just as it was getting started. Ron and the Jovian system had grown up together. These days she didn’t have a good relationship with either of her children: Neil hadn’t spoken to her for a couple of years and Ron didn’t talk to anybody and didn’t seem interested in anything. In fact, she worried more about Ron because he was overly compliant, almost docile, and totally lacked any drive that she’d recognize.
She and Ron arrived at Metis with their Marine detachment, and she found the habitat chaotic. Well, not quite chaotic but it felt totally disorganized, lacking direction. Her parents, Wilson and Anne, had been honest-to-goodness hippies in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She was born in a commune and Metis brought back unpleasant memories and feelings from those times. She was at the commune until she was 7 when strangers carried her away after her parents died from a drug overdose. Thankfully, the Earth Authority got established and took over soon after that and it gave her a path to the future. She was a born leader, they told her, and she dedicated her life to proving them right. Arsen saw it as a demotion and Amin just didn’t give a shit so long as he kept his privileges and the grindr hookups it got him. Instead, Regis saw it as an opportunity and she’d make sure that she’d come out of it on top of it all. Maybe even Neil would talk to her then.
She had studied these people at Metis. Since transparency was a big thing for them, Regis could learn all about them effortlessly with her Worms and an Anchortron. They had started with the typical Earth Authority regime, with a Commander on top and multiple layers of lesser bosses beneath them. However, as Lucia had told her in the Anchortron, “This crap don’t work out here. A fiat structure is all about power but this is a big experiment, and the Jovian system is the biggest experiment of all. The Authority system is all about division and silos and we are going to kill ourselves out here unless we get a lot more nimble and effective.” Lucia was one of the Metis leaders, since deceased.
Kim was another early leader in moving away from Earth Authority’s imposed hierarchy and she had left lots of commentary, “it all comes down to collaboration, and that includes dealing with people who didn’t sleep well or didn’t get laid the night before. You have to have some form of explicit, conscious guide to not let circumstances get in their way. Or as Doug put it, “When it comes to people, nothing happens in a vacuum; there are countless interdependencies between people. The whole power thing gets in the way of that.” Kim and Doug were still very much alive, but Regis wanted to get a sense of them when they were young and full of piss and moving against the grain.
The thing she found surprising is their lack of ambition for personal power. It’s not like they wanted to impose their ideas on others, they acted more like a shining light revealing a different path. In a way, they reminded her of Ron and how excited he got when he came up with ideas, as opposed to her own excitement in getting her own ideas implemented and getting her way. To Regan, that was leadership and Earth Authority had rewarded her nicely for it.
The more she studied the development of Matis’ radical management at her Anchortron, the more convinced she became that there was nothing wrong with the way it was run. The results were consistently beyond expectations and they flowed more effortlessly. People contributed openly, unembarrassed to make fools of themselves. She had not figured it out, yet, but she knew she would find a way to put her on top of Arsen and then remove him and Amin from the Jovian system. Arsen was a brute and Amin a sociopath and the system would be better without them. She just had to figure out how to leverage Matis and her other habitats to get the power she wanted, and, more importantly, the recognition she craved from Earth Authority.
Neil Regis
Neil was in Callisto but moved to Ganymede as soon as he heard of the changes. He didn’t want his mother to be his boss ever again; twenty years of that was enough.
Ironically, he now understood her better and why she was so insufferable, but he still could not let go of the anger he felt, for himself and for Ron. Always being fed the latest medications and updates, but to no avail. He was completely dependent on her and his way to cope with it was to be indolent, just like she expected everyone else to be.
He knew that she would study Metis and how it got to be the way it is. She was not stupid, and that’s what made her so dangerous. He tracked her everywhere she went and every Solarnet crumb her Worms delivered. As she got closer to the Metis habitat, Neil left just in case she managed to install software that allowed to track what was going on. After all, Solarnet was controlled by Earth Authority and it was only their ineptitude that made the network vulnerable to the Jovian habitats. Regan was high enough in their chain that she would be able to get permission to have Worms spying on everybody. If that happened, it would be a lot easier to evade them in Ganymede than if he stayed in Metis.
Of course, as Neil learned, so did the Metis community. They might have acted surprised, but they weren’t.
Ron Regis
From the moment he arrived at Metis, Ron felt it was different. People walked around looking very comfortable. But it was more than their shorts or their clothing in general. They didn’t seem tense and according to his neuromorphics, they weren’t tense. Even in the presence of his mother, they felt very open and… healthy?
He had been watching Neil track their mom from the moment they left Basecamp. He would do something like that. He wasn’t particularly careful and Neil had noticed him, but it didn’t matter. They had learned to track each other when they were kids, and by now they were both very, very good at it.
IRL Ron was not particularly sociable, but on Solarnet he was a different animal altogether. His Worms could really dig out other people like him and they had come together as a community that had grown exponentially. They had dreamed of a place like Metis but they thought it impossible, yet here it was.
IRL Ron was not particularly sociable. He felt Others’; pains too sharply and too painfully, so he stayed away from the resigned people, that is, from most people in Basecamp. In Solarnet, Ron had worked on his Worms tirelessly until they could really dig out other people like him. As his Worms found them, they had come together as a community that had grown exponentially. They had talked about and dreamed of places like Metis but they thought it impossible, yet here it was. The feelings emanating from them, their clothes, how they celebrated and helped each other, and the tokens, they called them RADs, that they used to recognize each other… It was, like, a wet dream come true.
He was like a kid in a candy store. And not just him, requests to move to Metis were coming and growing every day. Ron’s network was excited and they wanted to live and experience everything that Ron reported to them. Of course, Metis was not big enough and he pointed to Callisto and Amalthea. He figured that populating her mother’s domain with radical people would make it that much harder for her to corrupt their way of life. As it turned out, this was quite aligned with Regan’s plans to show Earth Authority that her presence and her management savvy had turned a backward corner of the Jovian system into a popular destination for the young and brightest.
Regan’s Howl
It finally happened: Regan got her wish and got the top dog position from Earth Authority. She was the top boss of the Jovian system.
Arsen talked to her a while back and confessed that he was changed by the experience at Europa and Io. He was at Backpack now and was much happier. He was connected with people he felt safe and… at home with, and not just people in “his” habitats, but throughout the Jovian community. As far as he was concerned, he would not fight her any longer, so long as she promised not to out him to Earth Authority. They valued the illusion of control more than anything else and he and the Jovian habitats would be punished if they found out.
Regan and Amin had also talked and he acknowledged that he had not been well and tried to compensate by being plain cruel to people. He was still working on it, but he could see the light at the end of the tunnel he had dug himself into as a way to survive in the authoritarian system of controls that the Earth Authority had created. The people around them were helping him to health and wanted to keep on that path, not fight with Regan for the imperial top position.
Regan confided to both of them that she had changed, too, but they needed to keep the illusion for Earth Authority. She would make Arsen and Amin titular bosses of their respective habitats and she’d make her son, Ron, the boss of her habitats. Of course, the reports would continue to be manufactured by the Worms. Earth Authority would be happy with the real results, they just didn’t need to know the details of how they got them.
Amin asked her if what had made her change, what convinced her and she teared up. Without thinking, he reached out to her and embraced her until she was ready to talk. “It was Ron. It was the effect that Metis had on him and how he transformed literally in front of my eyes. He went from being quiet and docile to being firm and assertive. I made a derogatory comment about how they did things at Metis and he changed, right in front of my eyes. ‘You need help,’ he said at the end, ‘and I am here for you.’ That was it for me. Something snapped in me and I felt I was going to fall down but he hugged me and welcomed me to a different world.”
And Neil talked to her now.
New Basecamp
Layer by layer, Gen and the Marines dismantled the fiat hierarchy at Basecamp. No longer was a few people able to swipe aside the work of many as it happened in the past. Step and step people gained the confidence and skill they need to run their lives and the habitat. It was interesting to watch the transformation, in particular with the mix of new transfers. They kept falling back on the habits they had learned from childhood and tried to dominate one forum or another. The Marines had their hands full coaching them all. No matter their comfortable clothes and their relaxed ways, they still carried the “Marines” baggage. Having other newcomers to the habitat made it easier.
People hold on to their unhealthy ways because they have also been survival traits in the culture they grew up in, a culture driven by fear, division, and dominance. The radical mindset leads with trust and trust as a concept was foreign and fraught with peril for people that had survived by keeping everyone at arm’s length. Fortunately, they could see the newcomers’ excitement and they had the support of the Marines. That made the transformation possible and relatively quick at Basecamp. Results went through the roof, they had people joining them instead of trying to escape, and everyone felt better about themselves and the habitat as a whole. The Worms didn’t have to work too hard on the reports, they just put it all in the language of command-and-control so valued by the Authority.
The Marines took their time to leave. The Jovian habitat ecosystem was vast enough. And maybe it would be a good place to help other habitats to leverage their experience at facilitating transformations throughout the Solar system. Maybe they could even take on Earth Authority at some point and let humanity scale outside the Solar system. That was a thought…
