I had a dream that I jokingly proposed one day that we send things to Jupiter that would increase its density and turn it into a terrestrial planet. Then one day, they did that. I felt responsible for that, even though I’d just been gabbing to people about it, and had nothing to do with it. But I still felt like I missed having Jupiter in the solar system, so I felt like a jerk.

Then one day I joked that we should colonize Jupiter. Then one day, they did. I ended up on about the fifth wave of colonization. By the time that happened, Jupiter had been occupied for a few decades.

When I got there, I found that the colony had decided to all be vegan. Horray. Then I found out that people were unhappy with their leader, and he’d been forcing his way and imposing unpopular decisions on people. The earth-based director was yelling at the colony leader about that, and I happened to be in the room. I suggested that instead of her appointing a new leader, we have a council of four people, and elect them. Checks and balances. I decided to run for election, and my platform would be “I am an outsider with a fresh perspective”.

Here is what I learned about the colony:

The town I lived in was called “Venice”, which was supposed to be a pun on “Venus”. This was the colony that was approved by the earth authority. But apparently, a group of people had split off from this colony and formed their own. They did not have contact with the project back on earth, and were thus not directly supported by the project back on earth anymore. In fact, they had little contact with Venice, even. Their big point of contact was trade days. On trade days, the other people showed up to a place just outside of Venice, and we conducted silent negotiations that I did not understand the intricacies of. The impression I got, though, was that the main trades were the people of Venice giving away clothes and non-vegan food that came from earth, and receiving clothes that the other group made right here on Jupiter from linen grown on Jupiter. What I found troubling, though, was that the people of Venice were largely white, whereas the people not from Venice were largely Southeast Asian. Were Jupiter colonies starting out on a foundation of racism?

I went to a baseball game. It was attended only by people from Venice, and most of them came. It turned out there were like 6,000 people in Venice. I figured I would go around and start to talk to people to do politics. It turned out that a bunch of other people that I didn’t know were running had all gotten together and made a flier. Someone printed out a copy and was going around showing it to everybody at the game. I kicked myself for not being organized enough to get on the flier. Apparently, printing resources were at such a premium on Jupiter that it would be unthinkable to print more than one copy of the flier, and even that one was kind of an extravagance, which is why I didn’t think of it.

Um, then I woke up I guess. The end.