Your story - a friendly landing spot

[webberg]

This might be better in the Sanctuary but that part of the forum seems a little devoid of life right now.

When we row we all have time to think.

I'm going to guess that many of us make up stories in our heads and/or they come to nothing post row because we don't capture them.

Like many of us here I'm sure, I've dabbled in the past with writing for publications and whilst I've had a few minor triumphs in publications that have long since gone out of existence, I've certainly never some close to making enough per words to make a living from writing.

My particular preference is science fiction - note the "science" which excludes all fantasy (especially dragon) related topics - and to be more specific apocalyptic and post apocalyptic fiction.

I've read some interesting stuff in that space recently (try Ben H Winter and his Last Policeman trilogy). Without giving the game away too much this is about a an asteroid on a collision course with earth but which is known about and tracked for two years pre impact and the resulting reaction of the population.

Do you have ideas that come to you mid row and which you might be willing to share and perhaps let somebody have a pop at turning into a longer article or short story.

Just remember that in creative writing and ideas, there are no bad ones so don't be shy.

I'll post a thought I had below and let you all take make whatever suggestion enters your head.

[webberg]

As promised/threatened, a stray thought that may or may not have enough weight to be a story on its own or part of a larger story.

Earth is old. The sun is in its last phase and no longer heats us enough to sustain life. Soon the sun will expand and engulf the Earth, destroying life.

The population is already driven underground and surviving on geothermal heat and power.

Suspension/hibernation technology has failed to allow humans to survive centuries long space travel. Faster than light engines remain fantasy.

There are three choices for survival of humans.

One is to make the entire planet a spacecraft and power it away from the dying sun to a new home perhaps half a thousand year away.

One is to use perhaps a quarter of the Earth's mass to produce a globe around and enclosing the sun and to allow perhaps three quarters of the population to survive another few thousand years in the hope of finding a better solution. It means that a quarter of the population does not survive.

One is to send "breeder" ships to all corners of space, crewed by family dynasties with known longevity, boosted by the best science, but carrying enough fertilised eggs and genetic material to start a new colony. What might become of the survivors of such a journey. Madness? Despotic hierarchy? Eden?

Resources permit only one option.

Discuss.

[Iain]

Sadly my thoughts are mainly about my row or occasional concern in my general life that pops into my head. Interesting idea. Not sure I understand the "globe" idea. Not at all sure how you could protect from plasma at 3% of speed of light! But given that you need a really powerful energy source to move the earth, I would have argued for a solar powered engine that will make use of the supernova coming in your direct (as well as helping to shield you from it). As for the journey, I think you may be some way out on time scales. 500 years to the nearest star is an average of nearly 1% of speed of light. That is a big ask given:

1) Mass of the earth
2) You will need to slow down to be captured by the star you are heading for so needing to slow for a good proportion of the flight. You can use planets to accelerate you, but these cannot accelerate faster than the planets move and Mercury (fastest planet) only moves at 0.016% of the speed of light!

Interesting mention of the effect of your breeder ships in Emma Newman's Planetfall Series. This is the easiest to envisage, but unlikely to be agreed to by those left behind!

But otherwise I look forward to reading it in print!

[Mike Channin]

I'm a big SciFi fan too, Graham - maybe start a thread on that in the Sanctuary?

[webberg]

Iain, you're over thinking this!

A globe is essentially an artificial structure that completely surrounds a star. In doing so it captures all the energy that star creates and allows for huge engines to be powered.

It's an idea that's been around in sci fi for a long while (see Larry Niven's Ringworld) and has even been offered in serious science circles as an explanation as to why some observed starts apparently no longer appear to us.

Sci fi stories can (and often are) divided into three camps.

There are "hard" science stories in which the science is the star and the science shapes the reactions of people around it. See Alastair Reynolds and perhaps Stephen Baxter.

There are "people/society" stories in which the science is merely a device to explore how society reacts. Think Philip K Dick, Ben Bova, David Brin.

There are then those which create a landscape which has forced change upon the people and the science and has created a world in which the normal rules do not apply. New world stories. Think Iain Banks (and his "culture"), Neal Asher, William Gibson.

Hard science is difficult to write credibly unless you have the science background. It was often said that Arthur C Clarke was the best science writer there was whereas Isaac Azimov was the best science fiction writer. I think Clarke has been surpassed now (although 2001 will be a classic for ever) and Azimov (I Robot and other stories) was rather too fond of himself to relate to.

People/society is also tricky to write but easier for a lay person to research and at least give the impression of some knowledge. An early example would be a book called "Earth Abides" written by George Stewart in 1949. In many ways this is prescient in describing how even an advanced society can fall apart very quickly and what qualities the survivors need to continue. Stephen King is good at this sort of story but for me he spoils it with his straying into the supernatural.

New world stories are the easiest to write for a lay person and perhaps the most difficult to get right. Each world needs it own rules and keeping to them is tricky. Philip K Dick was perhaps the best at this. Do Androids dream of Electric sheep (filmed as Blade Runner), VALIS. Vernor vinge was also very good (A Deepness in the Sky for example).

The key to all of this is the initial idea.

I have a number of ideas here including one I've been working on for about five years now (and will not share because I've not seen it elsewhere and don't want to put spoilers out). Many of these ideas occur to me as a distraction whilst exercising.

I'll post one that occured to me today and perhaps the team can develop it.

[webberg]

A short story, opening page and pitch.

The ship was massive. Close on 50km in length, perhaps 10km diameter for most of that distance. 3.9 million cubic kilometeres.

It was home to 400 million.

It was estimated that the dying Earth had used nearly 10% of all its resources to build, crew, populate, fuel and launch this ship.

It was one of three Ark's launched by Earth in the last days. One of those had met disaster within the first year if it acceleration cycle. One had simply disappeared from contact after 76 years. So far as the present Captain and his Executive Committee knew they were alone. Or alone as you could be in a sealed container with close on half a billion people moving through space at 7% of light speed.

And there was a problem. The ship had thousands of engines arranged in rings around the hull every kilometre or so. It had two main clusters, front and rear. Their first target planet was now within 50 years of them at present speed and slowing the vessel needed to be done - now. Despite the maintenance and attention the working crew had devoted to the task over the last 150 years, not enough engines were working to bring the ship into orbit.

The Executive Committee meeting was not going well.......

[Iain]

... there was a growing group of rebels in quadrant 4 purple who wanted to break away and run their own "nation" and control what they saw as their "due resources". While he thought that they could be controlled in the short term without drastic action that might cause a backlash from other groups, unless they could be given the prospect of their own space within the lifetimes of some of them this was likely to grow out of control...

[Iain]

Sorry, I was mainly thinking along the "hard science" line. As a former scientist I find it unsatisfactory where the science underpinning SF is not convincing. I agree that this can be a small or large part of the setting for the story, but it is one that annoys me when it is not achieved. I'm probably old fashioned having been "brought up" on the "Golden Age" of SF that majored on hard science books. I see the benefit of SF in expanding the possibilities beyond the familiar to give greater scope for stories, but to me just as unrealistic characters jar so do unrealistic scenarios.

- Iain

[webberg]

Interesting thought line Iain even if it was not where I was going.

My plot line was running different threads.

One is that the population of the ship is unaware of the situation and the Exec fear the consequences making this known because, as you say, keeping 400m people happy all the time is impossible and this news could create the idea of self governing republics in the ship. However there are members of the Exec who would welcome such disruption for their own ambitions.

Another is the classic - not enough resources to keep everybody alive but enough to keep say half alive - which half? Could the ship be divided with half slowing for the colonisation - an uncertain future - and the other half continue the journey - with uncertain outcomes?

Another is the "hard science" options. The ship will have landing craft. Can these be adapted, perhaps by cannabalising the main ship to a degree, to allow the majority of the crew to be slowed and landed. How long would that take? Is there enough resource to do that?

Another is what I call the "cult" option. Does a faction believe that the ship is a god or deity and that slowing the vessel until such time as they are all enlightened is a heresy?

I find that running more than four themes/plots in a short story is unmanageable (certainly for a writer of my meagre talents).

The above however allows us to comment on whether an elite could/should have information and power and be able to exercise it? The second allows us to explore what value we place on people and their abilities. The third is allowing us to explore the ability of humans to produce a last minute answer or solution and the ingenuity that has keep our species alive for thousands of years. The last is a particular itch of mine which I explore often and involves the (to me) shocking ability humans have to convince themselves that certain things can be true and real. In this scenario I was going to introduce a new disease which reaches epidemic proportions forcing isolation and containment at the same time the news of the problems is broken. Is the disease a means of selection of those who will be landed, leaving the infected to continue the journey? In other words a conspiracy theory which in fact is a circumstance driven coincidence (or is it?)

I also like to have a title when I start. It does not always survive the writing.

Here - The Last Ark: Journey's End.

I'm already thinking the the sequel: The Last Ark: New beginnings

And to finish. The Last Ark: Homecoming.

not sure about the middle one - a bit too Star Wars perhaps. Maybe The Last Ark: Rendevous

Anyway, next time you row (and anybody else who reads this) have a think and put some ideas out. We'll see if we can't create something out of our time on the stell horse, (other than superbly fit bodies and immaculate CV systems of course.)

[webberg]

Based on the above, I've drafted the first 20 or so pages of what is in essence an extended pitch.

Takes the story from genesis to the crisis point.

I'm looking for sub editors, commentators, anybody with half an hour to spare to read what I have and add a thought or two.

Any takers?

[Mike Channin]

Wow. Keep going!

[webberg]

Thanks.

It's shaping quite nicely but I'm pondering a crucial point.

Almost all sci fi stories from the "golden age" (circa 1935 to perhaps early 1970's) were what might be called "space opera".

Basically stories from human history on the themes of love, death, disaster, resilience, courage, etc.

When 2001 hit the shelves we see a move into "hard" sci fi in which the science and more especially the machines and the realities of physics and travel across a universe shapes the story. The story becomes how does technology make us live rather than how do we live to technology.

Later we see the rise and rise of the virtual world (captured in cartoon form in Tron and others) where again the interaction of people to the internet is key.

Any story which starts with the building of an ark to save humanity from disaster, fits space opera. Tracing the evolution of closed societies over generations and how they might evolve is standard fare for that sub genre.

The hard science element I want to cover by having an engineer cadre on board who are constantly "upgrading" the vessel.

One idea however is that the ship has a "shield" of rock and water held together by a metal lattice which can be flexed to suit by electro magnetics. This shield is perhaps 100+km out from the hull. The idea is that travelling at 10%c, potentially dangerous objects can be on the ship before they are detected and evasion can be effected. A shield can slow/capture such objects perhaps. More likely an object hitting such a shield would create a huge release of energy (explosion) - can that be leveraged?

The idea of the engineer group is however crucial.

And that is because rather than create sympathetic (or not) human characters who the reader cares about or gets invested in, I'd like the ship to be the "character".

I have an idea for an ending for the first part of the story in which I need readers to become invested in the idea of the ship as a living entity and to care whether it lives or dies.

Any thoughts?

(I'll be doing 10k later so I'll have a pnder myself).

[Iain]

Can't instantly see how the force of an impact could be utilised much as it's momentum is in the wrong direction. The material could be anhilated and possibly heat / shock-wave converted to useful energy.

Re sympathy for the ship, you could make the AI for the ship a character as per Blake 7 / Hal etc.

[webberg]

Thanks Ian.

The HAL style AI is pretty trite these days and basically if that was used all I'd be doing is moving the furniture around in Arthur C Clarke's universe. And frankly he's a way better writer than I will ever be.

There was a story some years ago about how Earth became sentient due to reaching a critical mass of linked technology monitoring its every moment. That might be worth exploring as the crew/passengers could evolve the ship over the journey.

IN terms of the shield, you're correct that anything meeting it at the relativistic speeds we're speculating on, would produce instant annihilation. Harvesting the energy could be done but only if the initial impact was sufficiently far ahead of the ship to allow rock and solid matter to have dissipated. Given that heat, radiation and energy in general travels at light or close to light speed, that is doable but the shield would need to be much further in front of the ship.

At 10% light, the ship is doing 30m metres a second. To give a minute's warning therefore, you need 30m x 60 or 1.8bn metres. That is too far to be controllable.

I think therefore I'll have to invent some form of intangible shield/harvester and have the shield out at say 10,000 km.