PJ’s Blog

As I explained before, the settlement on Lalande is composed of 17 distinct copies of the original moon base. Each holds a university and research center which, on the moon, was called simply the Aldrin Academy.

Now the 17 Academies are just called “The Academy” when referring to the local version, or “Academy XII”, for instance, to refer to the one that can be found in moon base XII. All academies are independent and distinct, and have a separate administration. This is a strict requirement that came into force after the troubles caused by the Guild of the Old Earth.

The Academies are in a constant state of friendly competition, on education and research, but also on the sports side, and the Academy Leagues of many sports are closely followed by many citizens of the moon bases. Sometimes friendly competitions flare up, but rarely to the point of violence. Students and professors participate in conferences on various topics and in exchange programs between the academies.

The Academies cover all topics relevant to life on Lalande: engineering, medicine, teaching, law and politics as well as of course a large part of research on the Aliens. Despite almost non-existent success in communicating with the aliens or interfacing with their technology, a general portrait of the biology of the Aliens and of their crop species have been drawn up. Scientists know how the Aliens work, biologically, but are still at a loss to be able to understand their behavior. They still seem highly intelligent, even after 300 years of unsuccessful communication attempts, and humans have managed to tap some of the technology of the aliens to bring some advances in energy use and production, in medicine, and in part in space travel.