Dead Star Dockyards

340 Yield

"Tastes good.""That's it?"

"It's bread, Diana." As bland as his answer was, Donovan had actually taken the time to judge the loaf properly. Either he just didn't have the same culinary sense as Diana, or she had been expecting much more from it.  "It could be the best bread in the universe and it would still be bread. What else do you want me to say?"

"It's much richer than the other loaves we eaten!"

"What does that even

"Can't you just feel how full it is? How much better it settles in your stomach?"

Donovan took another bite. He'd definitely call it 'tastier' than most of the other varieties of bread, but he wasn't sure how much of this was owed to the grain itself and how much could be attributed to the loaf being fresh from the oven. 'Tastes good' was really all he could say.

"I'm gonna be completely honest with you, Diana. I can't tell the difference." Even a visual inspection didn't reveal anything noteworthy, not that the aesthetics were in question. "It's good, don't get me wrong, just not 'wow' good."

Diana stuffed another piece of the gluteny goodness into her mouth in what appeared to be a desperate bid to affirm her position, a pitiful display from a woman led to believe all food harvested on this planet would be substantially better than that grown elsewhere. This wasn't to say this position was wrong, the few fruits and berries that had been confirmed as 'not poisonous' through testing in the Pegasus's lab were sweeter and juicier than anything one could find anywhere else, it's just that grains weren't the most flavorful item to begin with. The rather basic and uninspired recipe for this loaf didn't help the culinary calculus either.

"I'm not sure bread was the best choice for this demonstration, Diana." Titanyana finished nibbling on the leftovers of Donovan's slice and immediately offered her opinion. "The bread we bake on Nekh isn't the best, but even that tasted only slightly more stale when fresh out of the oven. I have no doubt this is much more nutritious though."

"Will the people eat it?" Diana had some concerns that the lack of a difference in quality might remind them of what they ate on Nekh.

"Of course they will! If anything having an ample supply of fresh bread will be a boost to morale." Slightly indignant at the implication such a small matter would disappoint her people, Titanyana pouted. "All of the crops are growing much bigger than we're used to, and we our supply of food has always been precarious, so I'm more concerned they might end up eating too much"

"I'll have to ask Seppard to keep an eye on it." It was only after Diana's nasty look that Donovan realized the rather unfortunate joke. Even if Seppard didn't mind, Diana felt it in poor taste to draw attention to his missing optical organ. "How is the Littervine doing?"

"Arc said it's started climbing the trellises, but he couldn't understand what the gardeners were saying so he didn't know what the status was." Donovan had been far too preoccupied with the construction of the industrial district, orchestrating material logistics, and training personnel for jobs considered 'novel' to both the Nekh and Holifanian labor pools to keep up with every little project, so Diana had been asked to check in on the smaller things every now and again. The development of a supply of Littervine technically fell under Titanyana's jurisdiction as a result, but she was too busy calming her people and organizing the clans to check in every day. "You talked to them recently,  right?"

"I believe the gardeners were still a bit skeptical about the long term efficacy of the greenhouse, but they all seemed optimistic about the growth exhibited thus far. At the current rate of growth we should expect a few flowers within the week, and the first fruits by the end of the month. They don't know if the fruit will ripen at a normal or accelerated rate, but the first harvest will probably only be big enough for a few bottles. The vines are still quite small, after all."

"The plants live a few decades, right?"

"Mhm. Yields increase year on year as they grow, usually stopping about the five year mark, after which they have about a decade and a half of peak production before falling off again." This time spent standing around a loaf of bread was one of the few moments Titanyana had been able to be around Donovan in relative privacy, which she took advantage of by rubbing her cheek against his arm. "Who's to say what will happen here though. If that structure can keep them growing all year they may end up deviating from the norm."

"Hopefully they recognize they aren't in a seasonal habitat and maintain growth year round." Finishing off the bread with a pout, Diana hugged Donovan's other arm. 

". . . what of the grain from Nekh? When will that be harvested?"

"Um, I think the first variety should be ready for harvest in a day or so."

"And how did it look?"

"Healthy, indescribably so. If I hadn't seeded some of it myself I would have mistaken it for a different crop."

"How so?" There were so many different patches of land experimenting with various food and utility crops that he couldn't remember which was what. Differentiating a seed bearing plant from a root or squash based one was easy enough, but there were upwards of seventy different 'wheat' grasses being tested in a bid to determine which would be most productive per unit labor and farmland. Some regard would be given to taste - it wouldn't do to demoralize everyone with livestock feed - but quantity was the biggest factor. A better yield meant less people working the farms, which meant more hands to use elsewhere.

"Well, the grain back home would only grow up to my waist, and the other grains we are growing tend to go up to my eyes." Titanyana grabbed his hand and put it at the relative levels, twisting her head for some opportunistic ear scritches as it continued to elevate, stopping at Donovan's nose. "The different grains from Nekh have all gotten to around here, and they still haven't fully matured. This is where I would expect our maize to end up, but those are looking more like trees now."

Donovan put his hand atop her head once she let go, giving in to her desire for affection.

"My knowledge of agriculture is minimal, but that seems to support my hypothesis. Ideally the increase in growth won't cause too many problems logistically."

Clueless as he might be to the workings of split, Donovan had a few theories pieced together from information gleaned over the course of various conversations and observations he made. This one in particular pertained to the affinity of a lifeform for Split, specifically how those born to strong parents will have a much stronger affinity for split themselves. Given the prevalence of this view there was undoubtedly truth to it, however Donovan was suspicious of how much they emphasized the strength of the parents at the time of conception as a marker for the strength of a child, stronger children generally being born to couples later in life. To be clear, Donovan was not attempting to disprove this 'fact' but instead prove that the 'reason' was primarily genetic.

In other words, he was suspicious that this nugget of knowledge was twisted in its presentation, and he had three pieces of evidence for this.

The first was really more of a thought experiment than anything else. If strong parents begot stronger children, which in turn begot even stronger grandchildren, would the average proclivity for split not rise over time? Even if the nobility were engaged in something of a pseudo-eugenics program with how they intermarried, he would expect the peasantry to gradually be growing in strength with time, and given how much 'time' had passed before his people came into existence he'd expect them to be far stronger than they are now. Perhaps there was some generational decay at work to push the average down, but that would only further cement the idea inherited ability was genetic.

The second was Titanyana. Her strength was frankly anomalous in relation to both her people and prior generations of her family. The Strappers were supposedly much stronger than the Nekh as a whole anyways, however she was quite a bit stronger than nobility from planets without such issues - something he'd consider an inconsistency if this strength by birthright idea to be true. To Donovan this was indicative of a mutation of sorts, though there was always a chance she got lucky with the proclivity genes from her parents, flipping heads the way down the line.

The third was the existence of the Terrans generally, and the persistence of the Nekh hypothetically, evidence tied to the method by which the Arboreal Maiden and the Great Csillacra created the Terrans. Why was there a need for the Terrans to exist in a world practically devoid of split? What purpose did that serve if ultimately they were going to end up using it anyways? Would it not have been better to inundate them with split and force that recursive loop? Donovan trusted those two to know much more about split than the general public, and started asking himself why this decision was made.

"Remind me what you wanted to prove?" Diana reached around Donovan and started stroking Titanyana's hair. "I get the challenge to the 'present strength' argument or whatever you called it, but I'm fuzzy on genetics."

"I'm not necessarily attempting to refute the claim wholesale considering children generally don't get 'stronger' with the age of the parents, I just want to see if there's a genetically inherited component."

"And you want to prove that with grain?"

"Yeah. An environment gradually reducing in split over time would introduce the perfect selection bias for better proclivity to split. The individuals that couldn't survive the dearth of split will have died off, increasing the average proclivity of the population as the level of split further decreases. Therefore if we take it as truth that a heightened concentration of split increases the yield of crops, then the grain from Nekh should give substantially more food than those from other origins."

". . . but how can you be certain of your condition? Wouldn't we need to perform a control experiment on different planets with the same strain to establish the pattern?"

Diana made a good point. Control experiments were incredibly important to the scientific method, establishing a regular pattern so that the effect of variables could be determined. 

"The Holifanians have that handled. They don't have anything like an equation predicting crop yields based on split concentration because there are too many other variables on a yearly basis, like weather and pests, but they do have a plethora of studies elaborating on the phenomenon. Same strains, roughly same environments, centuries long data collection intervals and excluded Verdant Globes. Accounting for drought, pestilence, and crop infestations, the top ten percent environments were close to 15% more productive than the lowest ten percent, about 5% greater than the mean, and a little under 10% greater than the median. A separate study interested in the five Verdant Globes the Holifanians are in control of suggested a yield per harvest of almost 50% higher than the mean of  the previous study with the caveat that a Verdant Globe can reliably get two harvests - possibly three - in the time a standard yellow star will give one."

"So if our grain is more than fifty percent more productive in a harvest then it was before, then it will indicate a better proclivity for split?" Titanyana shook herself free of the affection, recognizing their morning huddle was coming to a close. Another Trawler would be landing today, so she would be busy.

"More like fifty percent more than what other species yield. Remember, you were already living in a place without much split to begin with."

"Right, right."

"Anyways, if my hypothesis turns out to be correct we can probably expect the people to grow stronger at a rapid rate, the children especially."

- - - - -

"I wonder if he's right." Titanyana stared blankly at the distant mountains as the car trundled up towards the Littervine greenhouse. They were a sight to behold on these clear days, their magnitude and majesty far outstripping anything on Nekh, and she was reliably informed they were far from the tallest. "Will we really be stronger than the average? After such a long period of weakness?"

"I-, hrrm, wouldn't be able to tell you." Petunia, who at this stage was nearing the status of 'heavily pregnant', felt the divots and pockets in the gravel surface much more intensely than Titanyana. "I can only hope it's true, though. Little Boromir being able to grow up stronger than his father would make me happier than anything else."

"Would it even be good for us?" She placed a hand on the stomach containing her cousin, helping a distressed Petunia stabilize the eccentric mass. "Our relationship with the Terrans, I mean. Do you think the people will accept their rule if we end up becoming stronger than them?"

"Do you think we would forget such a favor over some trivial power?"

"I don't know, that's why I'm asking."

"Then put the question to rest." Petunia covered Titanyana's hand with her own. "Personally, I've not heard anything to suggest anyone is amenable to the idea of a coup. Just focus on the issues as they come, Titanyana. What you fear is much less likely to happen if you don't give them a justification."

"Alright . . ." A light bump graced Titanyana's fingers. Boromir had been getting much more active recently. "I'm starting to understand Diana's desire for a baby better."

"Are you now?"

"Mhm. All that time around Katherine and getting to feel Boromir kick is making me . . . anxious. Like I'm missing out on something incredible. I think she called it baby fever."

"They certainly have some strange names for things." Petunia finally relaxed once the car came to a stop, paying no mind to Titanyana as she jumped out of the car over her. These open top rovers encouraged some rather uncivilized behavior from the athletic lady, but nobody was about to tell her off for it. "Thank you for getting the door."