The Overseen book project

Scopes provide a powerful way to view worlds. It’s a simple concept that allows some of the most experienced techs, called overseers, to determine what life is like on each planet and at what stage.  The overseers are simple folk that use scopes with skill, dexterity and above all, attentiveness. Years of practice are required to perfect the art of planetary scoping. In fact, in order to start as a trainee overseer, you will need a few distinctive qualities; patience, the ability to sing to yourself, and an insatiable appetite. It’s certainly not the most stress free job, as one particular overseer is about to tell you. His day was about to get a whole lot worse....

Dave was finishing his slides; one drop of planetary solution was carefully layered onto a piece of clear glass.  It was really quite remarkable how a planet can be transformed into a solution like this. It’s amazing what one can do with a blender, a void full of worlds and a planetary capturing spacecraft that can harmlessly remove the essence of civilisations. 

Dave was on the preparation shift today. This consisted of preparing planet slides for viewing on the scopes for the overseers. Once he had a minimum of 5 planetary slides, he placed them in a special carrying box and transported them to the observatory room. The observatory room was close at just over 32 Earth hours.