Tales of the Vuduri: Year One

  So why would the dimming of a star cause the Overmind to scramble? It is because while Capella appears to be a single star to the naked eye, it is actually made up of four stars in two binary pairs.

  The first pair is made up of Capella A and B. Capella A is a G5-class star and Capella B is a G0 star both of which are very large. The other pair, Capella Ha and Hb are smaller, dimmer, M-class stars. Capella B was the star that disappeared which we now know was caused by the Stareater. So what looked like a single star got dimmer. The Vuduri scientists had theorized that Winfall's disappearance was caused by an optically opaque gas cloud. The fact that just one of the four stars of Capella disappeared and not all of them meant it was something else. Something scary. Since the Capella system is only 42 light years from Earth, the Overmind finally got off its incorporeal ass and decided to investigate.

 

  Entry 1-349: December 9, 2013

 

  Throwing OMCOM Away

 

  The Vuduri, as a whole, are not invested emotionally in much of anything. In fact, that is what Rome's Revolution is all about: making the Vuduri start to feel and think for themselves. As mentioned in a previous post, I discussed that fact that there are no Vuduri programmers. They allow the computers to program themselves.

  Well, the OMnipresent COMputer known as OMCOM was built from scratch, in the Tabit system, for the sole purpose of helping determine what caused Winfall to disappear. This particular OMCOM didn't have a whole lot to do so he programmed himself to care. He cared about Rome. He sort of cared about all the Vuduri and he cared about himself. He knew that when the answer regarding Winfall's disappearance became clear, the Vuduri would leave and would leave him behind with nothing to do. They thought of him as not much more than a glorified thermostat.