The Data Traders

Master Traders

Master Traders are collectively responsible for the operations of their assigned trading desk. In most ships traders are organized into trading desks such as Commercial Design, Weapons, Arts & Entertainment or other subjects. There is no direct guild policy on the internal organization of a Guild Ship, but only Masters can take responsibility for the operations of a given trading function and they are solely responsible for managing banned content for their trading desk.

Excerpted With Permission

Data Trader’s Handbook

Copyright 3250, Interstellar Data Trader Guild

Craig and Ramona were sitting at side by side consoles in the Weps pit. Or what would someday become the weps pit if they ever had an actual weps desk instead of just one trader.

Craig was swearing as he worked madly with the console. “There can’t be that much banned material in here.” Ramona glanced over as Craig continued to work furiously with an occasional muttered curse. “This ship is only month’s old, for fuck’s sake!”

Finally, Ramona couldn’t contain her curiosity. “Craig, what are you doing?”

Sighing, Craig looked up. “I was just trying to run the monthly banned report, but the data is all messed up. There are items in here going back years. Something is royally screwed up.”

Ramona shook her head. “What is a ‘monthly banned report?’”

Craig laughed. “Just one of the fun things that masters have to do.” He pointed disgustingly at the screen. “Someone has to look at the items flagged by the system as possible banned items. For us A&E types it’s usually horrible stuff. However, you sometimes get a false positive so the master for each pit has to review it. There’s no hard and fast rule, but most pits do the review monthly.”

“Why didn’t I know about this?”

“Only masters have access to banned content.” Craig sighed again. “However, there are items in here that seem to predate the formation of your ship. Something must have happened when you did your first full sync, these items should not be here.”

“Oh, I guess that stuff was in the cores that were left behind.”

Stunned, Craig turned to face her fully. “Left BEHIND?!?!”

“Uh, I think that Leo should tell you the details.”

Craig reached over to the panel. “Leo, would you mind joining us in the weps pit please?”

Ramona made an exaggerated surprised face, here mouth forming an O and her eyes wide. “Please?”

Craig laughed again. “Well, don’t tell anyone, but I’m not as much of an asshole as I pretend to be.”

Ramona laughed also. “I’m pretty sure nobody is that much of an asshole.”

Leo strode up at that moment. “Who’s telling who they’re an asshole?”

Craig raised a hand. “Yo. That’s my department.”

Leo just looked back and forth between Craig and Ramona who were both chuckling. “Oh man, I think I was right about you two being trouble..”

Craig sobered but was still smiling. “Only the best kind of trouble son.”

“What’s up?”

“It appears that we have a bunch of banned content in the system that predates your forming the ship’s company?”

“Wait, how do you know that?”

“Well, it’s in the system. Not a huge mystery.”

“Yes, but why were you looking in the banned files?”

“Just part of the job. Doing my monthly banned content review.”

“Wait, what?”

Craig exaggerated his words, speaking slowly. “BANNED…… CONTENT…. REVIEW…..”

Leo rolled his eyes. “Yes, thank you. I heard what you said, but I don’t know what that is.”

“Didn’t your pit do a review of flagged banned content once a month?”

“What? No. We just did it when it came in.”

“How often was that?”

“I think we had two or three.”

“Per day?”

“No, while I was on the Reggie. Like two or three the whole time I was there. Why?”

“Ah, OK. In the A&E business, a ship normally gets half a dozen PER DAY when in system. It adds up.”

“What? That’s crazy. How do you deal with all that?”

Craig just looked at Leo.

“Right. Monthly banned content review…”

Craig winked. “Got it in one….” Looking at the console, he flicked through a few entries. “It looks like you have several thousand in here that haven’t been reviewed.”

“Yeah, we haven’t done ANY reviews since we took over. There haven’t been any for ComDes and I didn’t think to look at the A&E queue.”

Craig investigated a bit further. “Ah, OK. It turns out that MOST of these have review flags but they’re not valid because the review was done by someone who is not a member of ship’s company. That means the review isn’t valid and they’re listed as needing review.”

“Can you just accept the previous reviews to get us current?”

“Yah, sure.” More console tinkering. “OK, that’s better. Now we have one hundred.”

“One HUNDRED?”

“Yah, we were in systems for almost twenty days all told. That’s only five per day. Not a massive list.”

“And you do this EVERY MONTH?”

“Yep. Part of the gig.”

Leo thought for a moment. “Are there any unreviewed items outside the A&E queue?”

“Lemme see…” More work on the console. “Oh, yeah. One for the comms pit.” Craig chuckled. “Ah, yes. The old standby. Quantum data transport.” Chuckling, he marked the item as banned.

Ramona suddenly stood up and pushed Craig away from the console. Almost feverishly, she brought up the details, reading the IP description and system drawings.

Leo was startled by Ramona’s reaction. She seemed more rattled by this IP application than when confronted by an armed assassin. “Ramona, what is it?” Ramona just continued working with the console. She seemed completely unaware that anyone else was in the room.

Craig watched her with an interested expression, slowing stroking his chin. “Ah, Ramona my sweet summer child. You’re a Seeker, aren’t you?” Ramona just glared at him and returned her attention to the console.

Leo looked at Craig, suddenly remembering a conversation between Gunny and Thorsten. “What’s a Seeker?”

Craig sighed. Much more serious than Leo had ever seen him. “A Quantum Seeker.” Leo shook his head, still puzzled. “Raeburn’s world has a very interesting social structure. Besides universal service requirements, they also have pretty much banned religion. However, the social pressures and human needs that drove creation of religion in the first place needed some sort of outlet. This gave rise to what they call Cliques. Rayburn Cliques are kinda like secret societies. Members have to pledge to uphold the bylaws and follow the principles. Over time, they became like religions. There are certain things that members of a Clique are supposed to believe and ways they’re supposed to live.”

Leo was fascinated but still not getting how this applied to Ramona’s current behavior. “And?”

“And… One of the most elite Cliques on Raeburn is called ‘The Seekers of Quantum Truth’ or just Seekers. The Seekers believe that it possible to transmit information via Quantum entanglement and pledge to seek out practical mechanisms to do this.”

Leo threw up his hands. “But that’s just a myth!! It’s been proven again and again that it’s not a practical method.”

Craig nodded. “Yes, hence the banned file here. It’s just a false IP application, like all the others.”

Finally, Ramona seemed to notice the conversation around her. “Like all the others?”

“Yes, certainly. Just like perpetual motion or zero-point energy. There are an unlimited number of whack jobs out there trying to sell fake IP. They’re either hucksters or just deluded fools who think they’ve solved the one problem nobody else has solved.” Craig shrugged. “Some people are just stupid.”

Ramona was regaining her composure. “But how do you know?”

“Because it’s impossible.”

“Yes, but how to you KNOW?” She gestured at the screen. “Did you print it out and try it?”

“No certainly not.” Craig moved back to the console with a shooing gesture to Ramona to give him space. “I bet you a guilder that this IP form doesn’t include replicator patterns.” He hummed a bit as he dug into the file.

“Why do you think that?”

“Because replicator patterns would make it too simple to disprove. Just print it out, ya?” After a few moments he tapped the screen triumphantly. “See! Here you go, ‘subject device operates at the quantum level and thus cannot be replicated. The procedure described in this IP document must be followed precisely or the described function will not be operable.’” He threw up his hands dramatically. “Yea, if it don’t work, it’s because YOU did it wrong, not because the design is just snake oil!”

“But what if it DOES?”

“Does what?”

“WORK!!” Anxiously looking from to face, Ramona flailed her arms. “WHAT IF THIS ACTUALLY WORKS?!?!?”

“It won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it is impossible.”

“So was FTL, until someone did it.”

“That’s different. They just didn’t understand the physics.”

“No, it was ‘proven to be impossible,’ I learned that in school. They PROVED that FTL wasn’t possible using math and experiments.”

“Yeah, but that was in a gravity well. Any particle moving that quickly within a solar gravity well is gonna’ do weird things.”

“Yes, but they didn’t know that.” Visibly trying to get herself under control, Ramona sat down. “I mean, why not try it out? It can’t be dangerous; it doesn’t use much power.”

Leo transferred the IP application to his pad and started flicking through the design. “Ya, nothing dangerous to the ship here. Just some quantum circuits and a ton of control circuitry. The application mostly focuses on how to establish the entanglement and how to apply signals to one side and monitor them on the other side. To be honest, it looks like a laser comm relay more than anything else, just without the actual laser.”

“Claimed throughput?”

Leo flicked through some screens. “10 meg per second.”

Now it was Craig’s turn to be surprised. “Ten MEGABYTES!?!? Are they using coconuts and string also?”

Leo looked up. “What’s a coconut, Craig?”

Craig just threw up his hands. “I’m among the heathen. What the hell was I thinking? I’ve joined the kiddy cruise!” Still muttering about children running his ship, he stalked out. “Fucking quantum magic, my ass!”

Ramona was looking intently at Leo. “Leo, I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you that I am a Seeker.”

Leo looked up, startled. “Why would I care about your religion? It’s certainly none of my business.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not a religion. More like a cause or a calling.”

“Well, I don’t really know anything about religions, causes or callings. At any rate, it’s not my business. You can have whatever personal beliefs you like as long as you do your duty to the ship and the guild.”

“And of those things come into conflict?”

Leo frowned. “Well, that would be a problem, I guess. Do you think that’s the case here?”

Ramona spread her hands helplessly. “I just don’t know. Everyone back home thinks that the Guild is suppressing knowledge about Quantum based communications. There is an entire institute dedicated to making it work, but nobody has been able to. Now we have someone claiming to have solved it but nobody bothered to try it out. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe Craig’s right. Maybe it doesn’t work.”

“Yes, but I have to try, right?”

“I guess there is no reason why you can’t. We are allowed to test false claims if we wish.”

“It’s not a false claim.”

“Well, the point is we are allowed to try it if we want, that’s part of any IP application.”

“So, I can?”

“Sure.” Leo tapped his pad. “I’ve moved it from banned into the evaluation queue. You should have access now.”

“Leo, thank you!”

“It’s not really a big deal.”

“It is to me.”

“Well, then you’re welcome, I guess.”