IDEA ON TUESDAY 647

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding horror, I found this insight in line with WIRED FOR STORY: “ We seek out…stories which give us a place to put our fears…Stories that frighten us or unsettle us - not just horror stories, but ones that make us uncomfortable or that strike a chord somewhere deep inside - give us the means to explore the things that scare us…” – Lou Morgan (The Guardian)

H Trope: adaptational heroism
Current Event: “Throughout this work, we advance four primary ideas: (a)The concept of heroism is a way to unify several types of courageous or brave actions that have largely been treated independently in the literature to date; (b) that the simple presence of risk accompanying prosocial behavior is not enoughto define heroism; (c) heroism is viewed as distinct from otherprosocial activities, such as compassion and altruism (and may represent an entirely different behavior); and (d) that while heroism is primarily a positive and prosocial act, a simplistic view of this behavior misses important (and sometimes negative) aspects of the phenomenon.” (http://www.scribd.com/doc/161425346/A-Conceptual-Analysis-and-Differentiation-Between-Heroic-Action-and-Altruism)

Altered Definition: This idea originally meant that when people write scripts of books, they make the main character BETTER than they really were. No doubt – in the HP books, H himself is a jerk. They maintained that pretty much in the movies, but he STILL came across as “wunderkind”. I interpreted this to mean that a normal person will become a hero under the correct set of circumstances: to win the girl, save his parents, get the golden fleece, whatever. It takes a really good writer to create a situation and character in which the character even CAN become a hero…

“My baby sister tells me you can help us find Carlos,” Carmita Rodriguez Cruz said. Her eyes narrowed, “She’d better be right.”

Austin Ventura remembered then that she was also taking kickboxing lessons – and that his best friend was missing. “I’m not sure exactly where he is. I just know that there are certain places he’s likely to be.” He dared, “We’re in probability together. You do the math.”

She scowled darkly at him, but didn’t contradict him.

Score one, he said to himself.

Paulina Rodriguez Cruz, sister to Los Traviesos Gemelos, said, “Quit flirting, you two! Carlos has been kidnapped and we have to rescue him!”

Austin exclaimed, “I’m not flirting!”

Looking at him, Carmita said, “She’s right, A-man.” Looking at Paulina, she said, “¿Qué te hace pensar que fue secuestrado?”

“I have another question for you, dear sister – what would he be doing out in the middle of the night, by himself, without telling one of the three of us? Aren’t those enough reasons?”

“The bigger question is why would anyone kidnap him,” said Austin.

Carmita bristled, “Just ‘cause he’s not rich like you, doesn’t mean that there’s no reason to kidnap him!”

“You two have to cut it out! Carlos may need us out there!” Carmita and Austin looked at each other then looked away, hanging their heads. “You both know that Carlos is a better person than all three of us put together.”

Austin felt a chill run up his spine. He said, “What would that have to do with kidnapping?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It just…felt right. Don’t you think?”

He grimaced as a chilly breeze blew from across the parking lot, chasing bits and pieces of leaves and paper over to them. “Much as I know about him, I have to say I agree.”

“What do you mean?” Carmita said. “I’m his twin. I’m just as good as him!”

“Better,” Austin said.

“What?”

“You’re better than him in everything. It’s like when you guys were conceived, you sucked all the talent out of him. You got everything.” Carmita was glaring at him. He added slowly, “You got everything except his good heart.” She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it. Austin said, “You look like los peces de colores loco.”

“A crazy goldfish?” she echoed, puzzled.

“Yep. You ever seen one?”

“No.”

“Sure you have. Someone who’s locked up and can’t do a single thing – and if they don’t start moving, it’s gonna drive ‘em crazy.”

Paulina said, “Fits you like a glove, Cabroncita.”

Carmita snorted and said, “Let’s get going.” She tossed her gigantic purse over her shoulder, “A-man, we’re gonna need your car.”

Source: http://www.remezcla.com/2012/latin/top-5-latino-halloween-legends-and-monsters/ -- Carlos’ kidnapper #1? (http://able2know.org/topic/26631-1)

Names: ♂ Mexico, Mexico; ♂ Minnesota, Italy (= “baby in the woods”, “foundling”); ♀ Spanish form of French name ‘Paul’
Image: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51niGRrH6DL.jpg

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 25: “Rez Ex of the Drones vs the Brigands of Space” (currently under submission)

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me…

“…Rura Penthe was said to be an ‘asteroid archipelago’ in the script for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, though the same screenplay otherwise treated it as a single asteroid (with two references to things being ‘on Rura Penthe’) and dialogue in the film also established Rura Penthe as a single asteroid.”

George Zebrowski: “It is the twenty-first century. Convicts are sentenced to asteroids that move in ever-widening solar orbits, timed to return when their terms run out. But a few ambitious administrators discover that small ‘errors’ in velocity can rid them of selected groups altogether: the hardcore violent, the mentally defective, and especially the political dissidents. Enduring the black vise of interstellar space-time, these human rejects--men and women mixed together--create their own Darwinian societies, struggling to survive. Back on Earth, a handful of sympathetic and curious scientists have not forgotten these lost citizens. When a technological breakthrough makes it possible to overtake these scattered asteroids, a courageous team sets out to go where none has willingly gone before. What they discover in these ‘brute orbits’ is both provocative and moving--a startling vision of humanity you will never forget.

So, my idea for making prisons out of asteroids isn’t new; but then, in the Bible, it’s written in Ecclesiastes 1:9 “What has been, it is what will be, And what has been done, it is what will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.”

What am I bringing new to the concept in my short story, “Rez Ex of the Space Drones vs the Brigands of Space”?

Couple things: My prisoners are trained (one might say “brutally”) with the intent of creating a team who will not JUST serve their time, but create something of value for (supposedly “all of Humanity”, but in reality, some corporation that has invested in the infrastructure of an asteroid with the ability to house the prisoners, mine identified minerals, and make a profit – while offering anyone who survives and behaves themselves WHILE making money for the company, will receive a pardon, as well as the opportunity to work-for-pay for the company and leave behind a crowded Earth and become among the first citizens of Sol…)

Of COURSE not everything goes as planned – either with the prisoners OR the mining; and the possibilities of wealth for the plucking without having to WORK for it is too much for some.

Now – notice I called the villains of my story “brigands” rather than “pirates” – which seems to be a normal way of naming the individuals who plunder the loot from others who came by the valuables at LEAST in an approved, criminal-prisoners-sort-of-way…

But why the change? Because of the definitions:

Pirate:
1) “a person who attacks and robs ships at sea.”
2) “a person who appropriates or reproduces the work of another for profit without permission, usually in contravention of patent or copyright.”

3) “rob or plunder (a ship).”

Brigand:
1) “a member of a gang that ambushes and robs people in forests and mountains.”

While neither one of the definitions is really accurate, brigand is the one that fits most of the facts best: “a gang”, and “mountains”. As far as pirates, there is no “sea (implying liquid water)” in space, the second isn’t appropriate (usually and certainly not in this story) because intellectual property isn’t part of the story at all, and again, while they might technically be plundering a “ship”, ships are generally understood to be on liquid water somewhere (though the argument could be made that a vehicle carrying people and their equipment in space COULD be called a “ship”, though just as easily, it could be called a wagon train or a dump truck, or even a “mobile mine”…

I’ve decided to call my erstwhile and stereotypical “pirates”, BRIGANDS instead.

Of COURSE, to keep the story moving, my “bad guys” act like stereotypical “pirates” who lived and worked in the Caribbean. However, Wikipedia notes: “Brigandage is the life and practice of highway (the orbit of an asteroid could certainly correctly be described as being on a “highway” around the Sun) robbery and plunder. It is practiced by a brigand, a person who is typically part of a gang and lives by pillage and robbery. (my bad guys/gals are CERTAINLY a gang who are attempting to create a new job by pillaging and robbing orbiting asteroid mines).

“The word brigand entered English as brigant via French from Italian as early as 1400. Under the laws of war, soldiers acting on their own recognizance without operating in chain of command are brigands, liable to be tried under civilian laws as common criminals. However, on occasions brigands are not mere malefactors, but may be rebels against a state or union perceived as the enemy.”

I find that this is enough for today; but NOT all I have to say!

Today’s Source:
Foundational Resource: (A general Wikipedia post detailing what the authors currently know about asteroid mining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining)
Noted Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth, https://www.pharostribune.com/news/local_news/article_7fcd3ea5-3c14-533f-a8d5-9bf629922f34.html, https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/04/29/like-asteroid-mining-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/, https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/learn/historyculture/theroadtothefirstflight.htm, https://hackaday.com/2019/03/27/extraterrestrial-excavation-digging-holes-on-other-worlds/, https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/every-small-worlds-mission 

Image: https://everydayastronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/Post-Launch-Reviews/CNSA/Long-March-2C_Xinhua-1200x800.jpeg

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 646

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them? Regarding Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa McPhail.

Fantasy Trope: Fantasy that is an “Appeal to a pastoral ideal: Much genre fantasy, of all genres, appeals to the pastoral ideal…There are some fantasies, however, which…deliberately take the opposite stance...”
Current Event: http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/10/asia/china-pika-magic-rabbit-new-risk/

Wú Méi Hé pursed her lips and shook her head, saying, “This is bad.”

Sūn Wén, her partner and sometime boyfriend, grunted and said, “So you say.”

Wii, as her friends called her, said, “How can incorporating ancient magical rites into what’s supposed to be a computer-controlled irrigation system be a bad thing?”

Sunny, as her friends insisted on calling him, shrugged. “It just makes things twice as hard. First they’re learning how the system works, then they have to learn antiquated rituals that will only slow things down.”

Wii stood up straight, peering through the heavy security glass. “This is the latter part of the Twenty-first Century, the whole point of the Central Party’s Future Program is to catapult us over the pathetic remnants of the American technological and educational edifice and prove once and for all…”

Sunny rolled his eyes and turned away, “I’m a member of the Communist Party just like you are. We’re ahead of the Americans; after being behind the Americans; after being ahead of the Egyptians; after being behind the Egyptians...”

“Stop already! I get your point. We’re finally a 21st Century people. The religious rituals they want to perform have all the significance of Santa Claus does to American post-Christians.”

Sunny hummed, then said, “I’m not sure the rituals are as insignificant as you think they are.”

She turned on him. “That’s absurd! What makes you think…”

He lifted his chin and said, “It may have something to do with that…um…thing growing over the substation.” She spun back to the window in time to see a cloud of brown-laced storm cloud forming the vague shape of a Chinese magic-rabbit...

Names: ♀ China (woman martial arts); ♂ Guangdong, China

Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

JAX LUNAR LUMBER Chapter 8: The Deposing of a Cheat and Swindler and A Man Named Brad...

On the way to the neighborhood Home Depot for the obligatory weekend project as well as a load of flowers and potting soil, I started musing on my hitch as a “yard ape” for a company called Knox Lumber. We, too were busy this time of year, and it was a familiar feel whenever I went to one of these stored. Know was one of the original “Do It Yourself” (aka DIY) stores, a precursor to today’s Lowes, Menards, and Home Depot. Eventually bought out by Payless Cashways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payless_Cashways, the rumor in the store was that you could build an entire house by waiting patiently for a year while EVERYTHING went on sale…Rolling down the driveway, I suddenly had a thought and snickered.

When my wife asked, “What?” I shook my head. “No, what?”

I reiterated the train of thought above, then added, “I was wondering if it would be possible to build a colony on the Moon using just what you could buy at Knox?”

We pondered it for a few moments, then suddenly said in unison, “Yes!” Inspired by Matt Weir, the result of my musings continues below.

The grandkids pushed them aside and went to Roza, gently taking her hands and leading her past Sturdlan Vilbix, ignoring them.

As they did, every piece of spy equipment Turdland’s people had brought had its electronics and quantum circuits scrambled. Turdland shouted, “Hey!” and they found themselves alone – and in the flesh without the Image Enhancement Field surrounding them.

I was startled to see “they” were a “he” with blaze orange hair, coiffed into something they’d called a beehive in the 1960s – the grandkids’ great great grandmother had worn one just like it, but brunette instead of orange. It wasn’t really flattering on either Studland’s real or virtual face.

They stood looking like a pretty ordinary early-forties-with-no-life-extension-procedures person with a slightly crooked nose, the skin damage caused by acne just under his eyes, and a remarkable five-feet-eleven-inches (1.8 meters for a small slice of Earth) of non-height, and I said, “Nice to finally meet the unenhanced you, Brad.”

His eyes bugged, he looked wildly around him, seeing his monster-multiple-sense-recording drones and sputtered. “You’ve destroyed a billion credits of…”

“We didn’t destroy anything, Brad. It’s all been deactivated and gently dropped to the lunar surface. The grandkids – two of whom are twenty-nine-year-old-Earth-standard and so are legal chaperones to your superstar.”

“She’s not ‘my’ superstar! She belongs to all of…”

I tapped my Fourfold cellphone and it unfolded into a laptop screen and lit. “According to this, while you do indeed release her artistic output to the rest of the System you both do so solely to,” I glanced down to read it precisely, “ ‘consumers who can appreciate the brilliance of ‘Roza Rymbayeva Golovkin, Six-Times-Great-Granddaughter Of The Last Walker’ and have been rigorously cleared by the RRGSTGGOTSLW Corporation’ – which, my grandkids’ diggerprograms inform me consists entirely of yourself.”

A dark, raging anger burbled to the surface, darkening the person’s face. Their arms twitched and they looked surprised. They twitched harder, then stomped a foot. Their visage darkened even more and they leaned closer to me and breathed, “I can still kill you with my unenhanced muscles. I was once…”

“A fake MMA champion. Yeah, Natalie was quick to find that because her father was a REAL MMA competitor when he legitimately served in Combined Forces back in the day.”

“I served…”

I cut them off, “Beers. At a really…how can I put this diplomatically?” I paused, “Let’s just say that your bartending license was as fake as all of your other licenses. So, lets skip the rest of your empty threats…”

“I’ll show YOU EMPTY!” They twitched and then froze in place.” I could still see their muscles pulling against the restraint-field the grands had thrown up around him.

“You know, Brad, I’m gonna give you exactly one time to make this all right. You’re going to give Rosa back her life – and that includes ownership of all her music that is currently funding your not only greedy lifestyle but a lifestyle astoundingly debauched depraved, and corrupt, reminding me of a politician from the early 21st century who ran for a high office a couple times. Now, I’m going to release the field around your head. You can respond, but before you start cussing me out, I’d like you to remind you that we have all of the records you’ve tampered with, as well as how you’ve set up the dispersal of fees and investments so that most go to you and a fraction goes to Rosa. You can still manage her fame – which appears to have been the case before you got greedy.” Brad’s face grew red. “Hmmm…maybe you do have a conscience that might be shocked back to life. We’ll see. I expect to hear two words from you. Those words are, ‘I accept’. If those are not the words I hear, the AI is recording this entire encounter and will broadcast this event to our lawyers – as well as several lawyers you have retained in various places both normal and amazingly corrupt. Also, in the event you totally lose it, this encounter will instantly be broadcast live to several live feeds – and instantaneously translated into forty-three languages. Am I clear?” Brad’s eyes had nearly bugged out of their sockets. “I expect two words from your mouth. If it’s more than that, all of this as well as your records and passwords will be broadcast to anywhere Humans are listening.”

I grinned at him. I waited. The grands were waiting too. Probably Natalie – who had just finished her training as a sergeant in the Solar Marines – was a specialist. It wasn’t clear exactly what she’d specialized in, but I don’t dig that deeply into my kids or grandkids’ lives.

I waited a bit longer then opened my mouth…

Resources: The Moon Trees, https://www.urbanforestdweller.com/we-almost-forgot-about-the-moon-trees/ ; https://www.space.com/moon-colonists-lunar-lava-tubes.html Image: https://external-preview.redd.it/xL2Y2UHb2B0JN5P162FShQfxqCTYNuOp3WEYxdF86j4.jpg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=6955074e421a5e98c69b2da35179a3a91faa5662

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 645

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Octavia Butler said, “SF doesn’t really mean anything at all, except that if you use science, you should use it correctly, and if you use your imagination to extend it beyond what we already know, you should do that intelligently.”

SF Trope: Intelligent Robots
Current Event: This Arizona wildfire was predicted to go down in history as the Third Largest in that state. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43290922/ns/weather/ If it continues much longer, it may well go down as the second largest – maybe even the biggest one ever. They’ll bring in everything to stop it. Eventually, there will be robots – not humanoid ones like in I, Robot, but more like water, fire and chemical squirting tanks. Or possibly like the robots above. Of course, they’ll have to have a certain amount of autonomy. So what happens to them after the fire?

“The fire was a decade ago! Everything should be fine!” said Ismat Hassan.

“I’m not worried about the fire. This was one of the first sites that ever used an entirely robotic firefighter team,” said Mohini Jyotsana.

“Whad’ya mean?”

She rolled her eyes, “Do you EVER do anything but watch racing and car part Youtubes?”

“Yeah,” he said, sullen.

“Right. If you did, you’d know that they started using robotic firefighters like “RS1-T2 Thermite, the initial firefighting robot; unveiled in 2012 and based on technology created for the U.S. Army. These robots are, technologically speaking, distant descendants of those, and were deployed in the Western Drought Fires of 2027.”

“Oh, yeah, the year Climate Change almost…”

“It wasn’t Climate Change – that’s massive and happens over periods of thousands of years: this was pure Human stupidity – California doesn’t EVER clear brush, and idiots toss cigarettes wherever they feel like it and figure ‘the government’ will take care of all that stupid stuff. Their job is to eat, drink, and then eat some more, watch Youtubes, and blame someone or something else besides their relentless pursuit of laziness and self-pleasure…”

Ismat was staring at her and finally said, “No, tell me how you REALLY feel.”

“2027 was the first year Californians deployed entirely robotic firefighters.”

Ismat shook his head. “Sounds like using wild robotic firefighters was the stupid part!”

Mohini studied him for a moment then nodding, said, “It might just have been one of the dumbest things we’ve ever done.”

Ismat blinked several times before he could say, “You’re agreeing with me?”

She looked at the edge of the fire through her binoculars, then readjusted her chest microphone and called down the LiveTV drone. When it was buzzing as it hovered in front of her, she said, “This is Mohini Jyotsana reporting at the edge of the Western Drought Fire near East Los Angeles where I just witnessed the recently deployed robotic firefighter squadron lighting fires…”

Names: ♀Korea, Near-east ; ♂ India, Rapper
Source: https://online.eou.edu/resources/article/future-of-firefighting-firefighting-robots/
Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg/220px-Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Writing FLASH FICTION

On October 7, 2007, I started this blog. Sixteen years later, I am revising and doing some different things with my blog. My wife and I are now retired senior citizens, our kids are both married, we have a bonus daughter and her wife and we have three grandchildren, the oldest of whom just became a teenager. I have forty-five professional publications, plus countless other essays as a sometime  contributor to Stupefying Stories https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/.

These days, I write whenever I want to – or when I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife or kids or grandkids. I write and read constantly. Then I discovered that I was writing longer and longer pieces. My new focus is to write shorter; and to write HUMOR. On purpose. Maybe I can still irritate people while being funny. It works pretty well for John Scalzi! We’ll see what happens. Oh, I also discovered that more and more of my stories are falling into a set of futures I’ve invented. This is all because I dislike "disposable worlds" -- too much like the society we live in. I want to reuse the places.

YEARS ago, I was nominated for a Nebula Award by popular SF writer Catherine Asaro ( http://www.catherineasaro.net/ ).

The nomination was for a short-short I wrote for ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION AND FACT called "Warning! Warning!" (October 2005).

It was inspired by something that irritated me -- a label in both Spanish and English plastered inside the lid of my wheeled recycling tub, UPSIDE down when you're opening the can's lid; right side up when it's open. It read: "Caution: Owner may trip if lid is not closed." This was such a stupid warning that I knew immediately that someone MUST have tripped while rolling the tub with the top open and tried to bring a lawsuit against the company that made the garbage can. They probably won.

It SO irritated me that checked several other appliances and furniture in my house, finding to my horror that just about everything had a warning label on it. I wrote a short-short SF story carrying the absurd increase in "warning" lables to its obvious conclusion -- everything, everywhere on Earth and in space will have to carry some sort of warning label on it. In addition to being adhered to and engraved on objects, these warnings will be broadcast from a special "Warning Broadcast Network" as well as visually projected on to all surfaces capable of causing harm. In this future, mea culpa (Latin, "my fault") will be struck from the English language and everything will be the fault of "someone else".

Like essay writing, short-short writing has to come from a passionate heart. There's no time to develop character, so POINT becomes all important. What is the POINT of the short-short? Can you state it in three or four words? Are you passionate about the POINT you are trying to make?

Then perhaps you'll have a saleable short-short story when you're done!

(I don't know if Ernest Hemingway INVENTED Flash Fiction, but this piece of his is quintessential flash!)

IMAGE: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiWXWfkWGlzaE2vYmNN_glfyjD4ms9FzXWlr4I8OoyoXtaxsQGyNPq-Rs-vxcn6zlJLYf4BHNtHQi3fE-QP_O5mPEQvM7eOLAVEq6hvw3OURQfOYb2DGWJ2sf2PZH-Ou66ToMtHUIt44Gk/s400/baby+shoes.jpg

IDEA ON TUESDAY 644

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding horror, I found this insight in line with WIRED FOR STORY: “ We seek out…stories which give us a place to put our fears…Stories that frighten us or unsettle us - not just horror stories, but ones that make us uncomfortable or that strike a chord somewhere deep inside - give us the means to explore the things that scare us…” – Lou Morgan (The Guardian)

H Trope: Apocalyptic Diary
Current Event: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385522045/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_3?pf_rd_p=1944687402&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0143036874&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=12GZ8H98NAT6JAAX4NBC

July 4, 1895
Mother said that when she was a girl, they ate pigeon every day at a time, and sometimes for days and days at a time. She said she hated pigeon meat.

She also said that pigeon didn’t make you vomit until you brought up only blood. She said there were days when pigeon’s didn’t fill the sky and eat everything in sight, including people sometimes. When I asked her if they sounded nicer when she was a girl, she said, “No, they’ve always sounded like a rusty mill wheel pump in an afternoon breeze.”

July 19, 1895
I’ve been thinking about what a time traveler could possibly want with pigeons. They’re monsters and the preachers round these parts think that they are a curse placed on mankind for the hubris of thinking he was better than nature. Most of them are old enough to remember when people actually ate pigeons instead of pigeons eating the clothes and food off us. Pa says that the pigeons don’t eat Human meat – except for the eyes. Mother hushed him up real fast and asked me if I’d heard what he said. I turned around and said, “What?”

Mother managed a pained smile and a glance at Pa that would have peeled paint from the outhouse – if there’d been any paint left on it.

Later that day, a pigeon flock passed over our town and it was dark enough to have to light the lanterns. The sound is horrible and we could hear the sound of the birds as they relieved themselves on our house.

Mother shouted at the roof as if she was trying to scare them away. She scared the littles so much, I finally had to hold the youngest and let the others lean on me.

It took fifteen hours for the flock to pass. Mother said, “This is the end of Humanity. The very, very end, and we will have died surrounded by meat we can’t eat any more, bereft of what food we grew and might have eaten, with our waters poisoned by pigeons who drop a deadly rain as they pass over us…”

Pa said nothing but hung his head. Danforth and me looked at each other until finally Dan looked down. He was so much like Pa, it made my heart clench tight.

Outside, the deafening shriek of the passing flock faded into complete silence.

Names: ♀ American Midwest, ; ♂ American Midwest
Image: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51niGRrH6DL.jpg

CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 38: Talking To A Sapient Apartment Building

Five decades ago, I started my college career with the intent of becoming a marine biologist. I found out I had to get a BS in biology before I could even begin work on MARINE biology; especially because there WEREN'T any marine biology programs in Minnesota.

Along the way, the science fiction stories I'd been writing since I was 13 began to grow more believable. With my BS in biology and a fascination with genetics, I started to use more science in my fiction.

After reading hard SF for the past 50 years, and writing hard SF successfully for the past 20, I've started to dig deeper into what it takes to create realistic alien life forms. In the following series, I'll be sharing some of what I've learned. I've had some of those stories published, some not...I teach a class to GT young people every summer called ALIEN WORLDS. I've learned a lot preparing for that class for the past 25 years...so...I have the opportunity to share with you what I've learned thus far. Take what you can use, leave the rest. Let me know what YOU'VE learned. Without further ado...

You can check out the Wikipedia article linked below as well as a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY I wrote a couple of years ago when I first started poking around the idea of “intelligent jellyfish”. First thing I found out was that jellyfish are single organisms – like Humans. But the siphonophores are COLONIAL organisms are made up of thousands – and potentially millions of individual creatures working together but still separate. One way to look at it is that Humans are individually identified; and Le Lignon in Switzerland is considered the largest apartment building on Earth with 6000 full-time residents. A jellyfish would be a Human; the apartment a siphonophore.

In the event of a first contact, the Siphon (I’m calling them that for the sake of brevity and admitting that, like every other long word, Americans would shorten names to nicknames; but not all cultures do it so, it’s my blog and I’ll do it how I want to! ;-)…Sorry, let me pick up the statement before I wandered off…wouldn’t be speaking to a Human as an individual, but as if it were a…I suppose “city” or “town” would be closer as the siphonophore is a co-dependent colonial organism. While distantly related, they are NOT jellyfish.

OK – enough biology.

How would I communicate with a sapient apartment building? Unlike talking to an individual Human, talking to a Siphon would of necessity be like talking to each resident of the apartment building alone. A decision made by one of the residents would be completely independent of every other resident.

That’s how it would go with a non-sapient creature. While incredibly tedious, it could, I suppose, be done. “A siphonophore is much more than the sum of its parts. In fact, none of its parts could function on their own. Each siphonophore is actually a colony of individual parts, called “zooids”, which are produced as the siphonophore grows, and stay connected together. Some form rope-like chains that can grow longer than a whale. Each zooid has a distinct job in this colony: some catch prey, while others digest it, and still others reproduce, swim, and keep the colony upright. The result is a biological marvel that makes us wonder just what it means to be an ‘individual’!”

But if a Siphon were to evolve to Human-equivalent intelligence there would be other types of organisms – probably brain-type cells as well as electrical communication-type cells. These would link up with the light-emitting cells, and while the Siphon would NOT have a brain or a mouth or one voice…hmmm…

Siphonophores live (at least on Earth) in the oceans, so if an alien Siphon came to Earth, we would likely be speaking to them in the open ocean. Probably the best way to work this is to bring a large submarine with Humans who serve all kinds of capacities. And once we made contact, the Siphon should be able to understand that while we appeared as they do – a huge massive “creature”, they would instead be a colony serving individuals. Maybe something like this:

The entire Contact team gathered in the forward Light Emitter of the Contact Ship. A disk of transparent plastic, each Human lay in a tube with a light disk facing outward – something like a giant, circular honeycomb.

The Siphon alien drifted across from them. Each Human Emitter was linked with the others via headset. At the back of the disk, Control was made of a cluster of Human monitors. Still others controlled the buoyancy and forward and reverse motion of the Contact Ship. They were banking on the probability that the Siphon would use light to communicate. As far as Humanity was concerned, if they were going to contact them via mental telepathy…well, it could be argued that if it WERE possible, some Human, somewhere would have heard the Siphon already.

WHAT they would have heard was a complete unknown. They had proceeded under the belief that “psionic powers” continued to remain fictional. Light seemed the most logical.

Control sent out a message from each console – scripted, but allowing for slightly different expressions. They had decided to initially use the ten most common languages on Earth, including JavaScript: Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, English, Bengali, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, and German. The language was transcribed into electromagnetic pulses and translated into the same frequency of light the Siphon was emitting in and appeared on multiple light emitting disks of different intensities.

The first message: “Do you wish to speak to us?”

The response was nothing less that powerful and stunningly beautiful. Rather than a simple disk of light, messages flashed back to the Human Contact Ship from many parts of the Siphon. Not every message was identical, which the Humans had expected, but sometimes the response was radically different, not just in frequency, but in content.

At least that’s what appeared after that first flash of communication…

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonophorae, Youtube: https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=566487c1e8374dca&sca_upv=1&hl=en&authuser=0&q=flashing+siphonophores&tbm=vid&source=lnms&fbs=AEQNm0AiWqXpwpi4y_F8VDYetL6Dlnkps_EIKkohBFm2lDUsiBepNBjmASBr9uelbUYBbgOgSinKnsikOw8eX0WEsCCwGvOIvfwleINDrjuVTRluMTv3nX8Frtmxn4Qe_W2QKK1dJN5mLvfVGYgDzBpTcFZ4qRW9sb2H-dwGidyfFM4hXfFGP2K7PF0m3LKNusD786nNUaJGQIHCM3Az9G-LUbh-I4FUCw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjb_-yiiNKIAxX7nokEHbhUM1gQ0pQJegQIEhAB&biw=1528&bih=704&dpr=1.25#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:bbefe8ba,vid:OeflgYWxyVI,st:0;
https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/search?q=siphonophores; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPUF40j47-o, https://twilightzone.whoi.edu/explore-the-otz/creature-features/siphonophore/
Image: https://www.mbari.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/blue-siph-glow-640b.jpg (Frillagalma vityazi)

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: NOT Alternate History! “Time Alteration” Science Fiction

Time Travel Movies are undeniably my favorite genre of movie – ranging from obvious one’s like the iconic  BACK TO THE FUTURE franchise to the eerie soft time travel mainstream movie, “The Lake House” (ranked “Rotten” by Rotten Tomatoes because regular people didn’t understand it or accept the premise, and in Wikipedia is defined as a “romantic drama”, probably to keep the genre safe!)

While I’d love to review them all, I’m going to focus on three, all of them multiple episodes but part of a seamless whole. I’ll start with the one-sentence-blurbs from the Internet Media Database:

BACK TO THE FUTURE – “The trilogy is about a teenager named Marty McFly who is able to travel in time. This is due to the invention of an automobile time machine made by scientist Dr. Emmett L. Brown. Living in 1985, Marty McFly travels to future 2015 and also to past 1955 and 1885. During these times he has several adventures in his home town Hill Valley in California.” (Simple English Wikipedia) Well THAT plays down what happened! My synopsis? Marty (more-or-less accidentally) and using Doc’s time machine, screws up the timeline by creating successful parents, then wrecks it again making nuclear waste and Mafia rule in his home town of Hill Valley, CA the norm. He’s unintentionally murdered his dad, and got Doc put into an insane asylum. Trying to fix THAT, Doc himself then screws up a timeline and Marty helps Doc find a wife and ends up almost back where he started from, though his gf now knows about time travel as well, but it doesn’t matter because the time machine’s scrap. (The body count in these movies is unexpectedly large: three Libyans (I); his dad, future 2 kids, and any number of other people who have died as Biff established BiffCo…(II); Doc, Mad Dog Tannen (III – who will obviously hang), but Doc doesn’t die and the formerly dead Clara Clayton is now alive…so 3 + 3 + 1 = 7.

Also, Marty never meets the “new him” who was shaped by the events he and Doc changed. He’s still the old Marty who remembers Biff bullying his dad and (possibly) raping – which is implied but never stated – that lead up to his trips into the future of 2015 and the past 1885. Who is Marty in the altered timeline?

STAR TREK: The Next Generation deals with the personality-changing results of this kind of time meddling in “Tapestry”. Jean Luc Picard, legendary and archetypical captain of the USS Enterprises both D and E finds himself a lieutenant of average skill, average personality, and most notably, an individual who was never interested in taking a single risk, always playing it safe when Q gives Picard a chance to change one event he regretted. He ends up unraveling the tapestry of his life.

STAR TREK: Voyager, “Year of Hell”, a “alien” scientist, fiddling with a machine that can alter the timeline in order to make the empire he lives in even greater than it is – imagine Hari Seldon in Asimov’s Empire able to instantly alter time so that he can achieve his goal of an eternally stable, galaxy-spanning Empire! He inadvertently erases his beloved wife and spends two centuries making carefully calculated changes to get her back – to no avail. Voyager’s sacrificial plunge into the ship as a last resort resets the original timeline, returning his wife.

I looked at the effect of altering a timeline we actually seem to be approaching in STAR TREK: Deep Space Nine’s episode, “Past Tense” in which the poor and indigent in San Francisco are herded into Sanctuary Districts that leads to the Bell Riots – https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2019/02/possibly-irritating-essays.html.

So, my question however, is, “Why do these stories touch something deep in you?” or more simply, “Why do they touch something deep in ME?”

First, I realized that these are different from Alternate History. MAN IN THE HIGH TOWER looks at “What would the world be like if Hitler had won?” In a recent issue of ANALOG Science Fiction and Fact, “Bonehunter” posits a present where the dinosaurs hadn’t gone extinct. AVENGERS End Game seeks to rescue half the lifeforms in the Universe from oblivion. These are stories that deal with huge issues and vast populations, and while there might be repercussions for individuals, the focus is on All Time. I love these stories, too, but they aren’t my favorites.

In a Time Alteration story like Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman’s “Kate and Leopold”, the grand sweep of history is beside the point.

The point is making individual characters happy.

During the landmark, paradigm changing Eleventh Series of the long-running BBC series, Dr. Who, The Doctor and her Companions find themselves in 1955 Montgomery, Alabama. In a (slightly) judgmental episode, filmed in Cape Town, South Africa, the English save American History by keeping the time-traveling mass-murder, Krasko from keep Rosa Parks from sparking the Civil Rights movement that continues today. While it seems like it’s an attempt at an Alternate History story, it’s far more a Time Alteration story – Krasko is a racist and wants “his side” to win. He identified Rosa Parks’ influence as a critical event.

In the Disney animated film, “Meet the Robinsons”, Lewis The Orphan wants to find his real family and rejoin them. Inventing a time machine, his sole focus is to change time to give him a family. The villain in the story, The Man With The Bowler Hat is just as intent on changing history, though in his case, it was a self-inflicted wound. While the future DOES change when The Man With The Bowler Hat – who has been a pawn of the evil artificial intelligence robot, Doris – steal a time machine, the intent of the story is to make Lewis happy…clearly a Time Alteration story.

So, coming back to my question, “Why do I like these?”

The answer on reflection, is simple, there are events in my past that I’d like to change. For example, I was a pretty sickly little kid, so when I was seven, my parents agreed with the doctor and I had a tonsillectomy. In 1964, this was a pretty standard operation, “In the United States, the number of tonsillectomies has actually declined significantly and progressively since the 1970s. The frequency with which tonsillectomy is performed varies from region to region. 30 years ago (1978), approximately 90% of tonsillectomies in children were done for recurrent infection; now it is about 20% for infection and 80% for obstructive sleep problems (OSA)…Extensive data shows the negative effects of OSA in children on behavior, school performance, and bed-wetting. Improvement for such behaviors following tonsillectomy is very well documented. Tonsillectomy for recurrent tonsillitis is effective at significantly reducing the number and severity of sore throats in children who are severely affected. There is also anecdotal evidence that some children’s quality of life is transformed by the surgery. This may be caused by a combination of factors that include the tendency of the frequency of recurrent sore throats to resolve over time and the elimination of a source of infection and of obstructive symptoms.”

So, in my experience, once my tonsils were removed, I started eating. Constantly. I became blimp. BUT WHY? I remember being “abandoned” in the hospital overnight by my parents. I had no idea WHY. Then someone came in, shoved something up my butt, and then I woke up with a horribly sore throat, and spent the next several days eating ice cream and drinking 7 Up. The rest, as they say, is history. I have struggled with my weight since then. What if I had gone back, cured my “tonsillitis” with a current-day drug? Would I still struggle with my weight? Would I have my self-confidence? Would I be a published science fiction writer? I don’t know. But, I’d like to have seen the results.

Also, being able to change other events in my childhood and teenage years WOULD have made me a different person. A better person? No idea. So, the idea of playing with Time Alteration is fascinating; I’m even exploring my own feelings regarding my inability to “change people” in a series of stories I’m working on.

I know it’s not going to happen, but at least I have some idea why I like these things!

Resource: My other Favorite Time Alteration stories: “Men In Black III”, “Arrival”, STAR TREK: The Voyage Home, STAR TREK: The Original Series “City on the Edge of Forever”, STAR TREK: Enterprise “Carbon Creek”, TIME TUNNEL, and finally QUANTUM LEAP (1989-1993 version).

Source: https://www.entnet.org/content/tonsillectomy-facts-us-ent-doctors
Image: https://poweredbyrobots.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/1-1-18-newman-timetunnel.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 643

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them? Regarding Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa McPhail.

F Trope: Appeal to a pastoral ideal: Much genre fantasy, of all genres, appeals to the pastoral ideal, one reason for the pseudo-medieval settings. Even urban fantasies will quite often depict cities as blots on the landscape, whose denizens /are blinded to what really matters by material ephemera. There are some fantasies, however, which either deliberately take the opposite stance or present a more balanced worldview.
Current Event: “The Minnesota Renaissance Festival is a Renaissance fair, an interactive outdoor event which focuses on recreating the look and feel of a fictional 16th Century ‘England-like’ fantasy kingdom.”

Svenja Johannson puttered around the edge of the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. She crossed her arms over her chest, tossed her platinum blonde hair and said, “I was hoping for a bit more authenticity.

Matias Gallagher, strawberry blonde hair curled like a swim cap over his head, shook his head and said, “Then you should have tried out for ‘Castle Life’.”

She snorted – a sound worthy of a horse, Matias thought – “That’s just as fake.”

He scowled at her and said, “Just because you Germans have all kinds of castles...”

“Not ‘all kinds of castles’ – Wartburg Castle. That is the only castle.”

He shook his head and said, “Speaking of Martin Luther, what makes you think you’d even like the real Renaissance?”

“Are you kidding? My ancestors lived then, there was no pollution, no noise, and definitely no people!”

“What’s wrong with people?” Matias asked as a pair of teenaged boys in basketball shorts, wearing high-topped basketball shoes and suggestive slogans, walked past them using an F-bomb every other word. They looked at him and Svenja. One flipped Matias the bird, the other asked Svenja if she wanted to engage in a sexual act. After Svenja fired a crude rejoinder back at him and Matias leaned back and folded his arms across his chest, flashing both his six-pack and expanding his pecs, the other boy waved him away. The two of them faded into the mob of 21st Century Minnesotans stuffing their faces the way they did at the State Fair and pretending they were in the 16th Century, Svenja glared at Matias.

Matias sighed, “Point.” He paused and said, “Let’s just enjoy the RenFest for what it is.”

Svenja scowled as a parade of knights in armor entered the Festival grounds, the earth trembling under the pounding hooves. The steel plate, gold trim, and silver filigree flashed in the brilliant afternoon light. There was a coolness in the air, a tiny bite of autumn hinting at the winter not far away. There seemed to be hundreds of knights prancing by. “There are so many...” she said.

“What?” Matias shouted. “I can’t hear you!”

“There are so many knights! Where did they come from?” The sun abruptly dipped behind a cloud. There was a flash of light and clap of thunder, yet when Matias pressed his hands over his ears, it seemed that only he and Svenja did so. Others around them seemed oblivious to the darkness and cold. “What’s happening, Matias?” she shouted.

“I don’t know...”

An instant later, the sun came out again. Matias blinked in surprise and Svenja stepped closer to him, grabbing his arm, long fingernails digging into his muscle. The first thing he noticed was the stench of open sewer and the legless man on sitting on the ground in front of them...

Names: ♀ German, Swedish ; ♂ Norwegian, Irish Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg