POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Part V – In Space, No One Can Hear You…

NOT using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose, CA in August 2018 (to which I be unable to go (until I retire from education)), I would jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. But not today. This explanation is reserved for when I dash “off topic”, sometimes reviewing movies, sometimes reviewing books, and other times taking up the spirit of a blog an old friend of mine used to keep called THE RANTING ROOM…

I know I’m a few years behind, but I just checked out a copy of LONELY PLANETS: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life (2003) by David Grinspoon. He does, of course, have a “doctor” in front of his name, but it appears that he doesn’t use it very often. He also has the endorsement of Neil deGrasse Tyson – the quintessential new face of astronomy and the immediate successor to Carl Sagan.

Tyson said of Grinspoon’s book “…brings together what has never before been synthesized…he is a planetary scientist as well as dreamer, born of the space age.”

As is apparent to anyone who reads my blog, I LOVE aliens! I write about aliens! I do (guardedly) believe that there is intelligent life “out there, somewhere” – HOWEVER, I don’t believe that we have any real proof yet and that it is, at this point, an intellectual and philosophical exercise.

Be that as it may, I’m approaching the end of Grinspoon’s book and have skimmed his website (http://funkyscience.net/) several times. While it’s been “frozen” on his newest Pluto/Horizon book, I find myself looking forward to following this guy for some time to come!

I’m well into the book now (page 229) and I got my own copy on Wednesday through a Half-Price Books near me. After (*gasp*) dog-earing my Library copy, I transferred the noted pages to my own book.

So now I’m at the end…Dr. Grinspoon has titled this part of the book simply, “Belief” and he patiently teases apart the rationale of the SETI. However, outside of Grinspoon’s 2003 book, we have this: https://www.space.com/39474-search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence-needs-new-name.html

Fifteen years past the book’s publication date, and even so a year old, Dr. Jill Tartar, the current “name” in the Human search for life beyond Earth, believes we need to leave behind the acronym to indicate the real search that is currently underway – the search for technological signatures that would be evidence of life off of Earth, a rebranding of SETI into something like the Search for Extraterrestrial Technology Signatures – SETS so to speak.

Dr. Tartar explained that the phrase “‘…search for extraterrestrial intelligence’ generates an incorrect perception of what scientists in this field are actually doing. A more appropriate title for the field, she said, would be ‘the search for technosignatures,’ or signs of technology created by intelligent alien civilizations.”

Grinspoon tentatively poses a sort of caveat to this idea in this part of LONELY PLANET: “The problem of survival is not fundamentally technological. It is spiritual and moral. It is evolutionary. Technical solutions may provide temporary Band-Aids, but they do not save us from our nature. If we want to be one of the survivors, we must create a global society where curiosity is tightly bonded to compassion, and where (this is hardest to picture) not a lot of people want to do violence to others. You’re probably not going to like this next though, but one solution would be to just surrender to the machines.”

Another thing that has happened in the fifteen years since the publication of the book is the call by scientists to throw out the Drake Equation as well as its successor in 2013, the Seager Equation (Sara Seager, MIT), which looks for BIOLOGICAL traces of life in the atmosphere of planets. At the time of her adaptation of the Drake, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite was in the works. TESS launched this year (April 18, 2018), but as I write this, there have been no real releases of data except for a scan of Southern skies and images of comet C/2018 N1 snapped by the craft (https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13030). There are plans for future conferences however: (https://tess.mit.edu/news/tess-science-conference/conferences/)!

So we’ll be seeing more data regarding the SETS or, alternately, the Search for Extraterrestrial Biological Signs – or SEBS.

Looking for technosigns based on the philosophy of Dr. Tatar; looking for signs of atmospheric modification via biology based on the philosophy of Dr. Seager; or looking for something else…

In a recent article, “Alien Hunters, Stop Using the Drake Equation” by Paul Sutter (Astrophysicist, Ohio State University; Chief Scientist at COSI Science Center. PhD in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Paris Institute of Astrophysics, research fellowship in Trieste, Italy.) (https://www.space.com/42739-stop-using-the-drake-equation.html). He points out that “…the Drake equation's power is more as a philosophical treatment, to help guide our thinking and help us navigate the murky waters of a deep and fundamental existential question…huge uncertainties in the parameters, the unknown ways those uncertainties mix, and the absolute lack of any guidance in even choosing those parameters robs it of any predictive power. Prediction is at the heart of science. Prediction is what makes an idea useful. And if an idea isn’t useful, why keep it around?”

Grinspoon has an article of faith that more or less incorporates all three of the views above: “We calculate and speculate about finding others that are slightly spiffed up versions of ourselves and take it as an article of faith that such a stage will arise soon after the one that we are in now...it takes more than technology to be a broadcasting society. It requires that you survive with high technology for many thousands of years…they ‘must’ have solved many of the great social, political, and spiritual problems we now face.” (p393)

I’m not confident that ETs have “solved…the great…problems we now face.” That seems to ME to be in the province of spiritual changes that (at least as it appears to me) God in man in the form of Jesus Christ can cause (lectures about the Crusades, the Reformation, the Inquisition, and Manifest Destiny are not appreciated unless they acknowledge the POLITICAL aspect of all of the above, which, as politics always does, coopts whatever belief system is useful to create places for the majority of politicians to gain as much money, power, and influence. Call me whacko if you’d like. That’s where I stand. Grinspoon points out, “We blame spreading irrationality on scientific illiteracy. Yet, in my opinion, it is alienation from science, not science illiteracy that is the root problem…if we want the world to see us as wizards, not muggles, then we can’t sell our services to the highest bidder, and we need to spread the magical (and spiritually evocative) story of Cosmic Evolution…Technical advancement without spiritual progress creates a dangerous and unstable condition that will be selected against.” (pp411-412).

Hmmm…

“So say we all,” (Battlestar GALACTICA) or in Earth English, “Amen”.

Part I: http://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2018/11/possibly-irritating-essays-philosophy.html, http://www.openexoplanetcatalogue.com/

Part II: http://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2018/11/possibly-irritating-essays-part-2-state.html

Part III: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2018/11/possibly-irritating-essays-part-three.html

Part IV: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2018/12/possibly-irritating-essays-part-iv.html

Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUGOthVSNSUaxivRh0p8U5Ub4NEr0KxiZyPOIBI91G4gAPdcWmSQ-krJynDH2RQu93hHeS6EFbgOFZiDNaZ3M35LGLVbwklBZDB_dEB6symLvWTaYSgbFymOAqbFO4rVwd4qGcEBnzlDk/s1600/Unknown-4.jpeg, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen)

MARTIAN HOLIDAY 138: Stepan of Burroughs

On a well-settled Mars, the five major city Council regimes struggle to meld into a stable, working government. Embracing an official Unified Faith In Humanity, the Councils are teetering on the verge of pogrom directed against Christians, Molesters, Jews, Rapists, Buddhists, Murderers, Muslims, Thieves, Hindu, Embezzlers and Artificial Humans – anyone who threatens the official Faith and the consolidating power of the Councils. It makes good sense, right – get rid of religion and Human divisiveness on a societal level will disappear? An instrument of such a pogrom might just be a Roman holiday...To see the rest of the chapters, go to SCIENCE FICTION: Martian Holiday on the right and scroll to the bottom for the first story. If you’d like to read it from beginning to end (100,000+ words as of now), drop me a line and I’ll send you the unedited version.

QuinnAH threw both arms around Stepan, adding, “You hide. There’s a little door under the third window over. Push in, slide right. Go in. It’s tight, but it’ll keep you safe ‘til I get back. These crazy Vatlings you made friends with’ll get in trouble if I don’t get ‘em outta here.” He squeezed Stepan once more, adding, “Once I get them to Breachport, I’ll be back. I whistle comin’ in, then knock twice, stop and knock once.” Stepan didn’t move, Quinn pushed him into the office, saying, “Go, man!”

Stepan cleared his throat, “I’ll run as fast as I can as soon as you let go of me.” Quinn did, and Stepan ran. Quinn ran into the office but stopped. Quinn met the other Artificial Humans – Daneel, Az, Mish, and the angry Han. He smiled. Han was so much like his own father. He shook his head then leaned into the vast warehouse, barely able to see the group as Quinn chased them down the dropshaft there. When they were gone, he stepped out.

He hadn’t intended to lie to Quinn, but God had laid a call on his heart, not only to feed the poor here on the Rim, but to bring hope to the hopeless. He was fairly certain that the rioters outside the warehouse had been set up for this by his father – if not personally, then set up by agents acting for the Home Owners District. He just didn’t know if the mob was made up of Rimmers or hired thugs from the HOD. He shook his head. There was only one way to find out.

For an instant, he felt like he should spend some time praying, then smiled. An old Christian he’d known had been leading an underground – literally underground, in the maintenance tunnels under the stuffcap tubes – service when Security blundered into one of their alarms. He signaled the group to disperse silently. Stepan had whispered, “Shouldn’t we stop and pray for our safety?”

The man had clapped him on the shoulder and whispered back, “Don’t worry, son, I keep prayed up for times like this!”

In the here-and-now, Stepan left the office. He could return to the hiding place if the riot was Rimmers and he’d calmed them down. If they weren’t, no amount of hiding would have kept him safe. He jogged across the warehouse floor, then slipped out through heavy door, pulling it tightly shut as he went out into the wan light of Martian noon.

There was no way to see the crowd of rioters, but they were easy enough to hear. This far from Breachport and the HOD, the streets were laid out in a circular pattern, following the curvature of the Dome exactly. Each road – technically a thoroughfare, though the Councils had never gotten the colonists and then citizens to call them anything but roads! – paralleled either the curved Wall or the major Spokes that ran laser-straight from Rim to Park Place under the center of the Dome. The seven hundred hectares held Government Pylon as well as most of the branches of planetary government like the courts, stock exchange, planetary administration buildings – all branches of Martian Government offices in the titular capitol of the planet, Bradbury.

He ran toward the angry roar and came to a stop when he saw the first cluster of other Martians running toward him. He flagged them down, shouting, “What’s happening?”

All but one ignored him. A young woman skidded to a stop and stared at him then said, “Mayor Nasseri has closed everything down!”

“Why?”

“Someone’s got a bio bomb. He lives on the Rim and is threatening to set if off if everyone in the Dome doesn’t convert to Christianity and appoint him Mayor of Burroughs!” She shook her head, “It’ll be the breaching of FirstDome all over again! Eighteen thousand men, women and children! The backup “bubble” technology was sabotaged by the Buddhists and an entire neighborhood of toddlers newly dedicated to the United Faith and they all died of explosive decompression!”

He considered telling her the truth: an evangelical Christian gang and a radical Buddhist gang were having a turf war and a Jewish gang and a Muslim gang had gotten drawn into it. There was an accident. The media spun the gang war into an intentional terrorist attack. Mars panicked and attacked, the resulting pogrom making Earth’s legal maneuvers against all religions but the UFH look reserved by comparison.

But she looked wildly around then said, “There’s a warrant out for the arrest of the ringleader!” She held her hand flat, palm up and a 3D image formed from her data implant. It was blurry, though he didn’t say so; and the supposed instigator was wearing a hat so part of his face was shaded. She looked at him intently then said, “You look like a nice person, maybe you work with the poor here on the Rim. I do, too. But things are about to get ugly. You should find somewhere to shelter until the riot’s over. Excuse me, I’ve got to go.”

He nodded as she dashed away. He pulled up the image of the ringleader on his own data implant. The small image was poor at best, but in a mob, anyone who looked even remotely like the perpetrator could easily become the victim. That was what decided him. He strode toward the roar of the crowd being funneled down the narrow alleys of the Rim – if someone was going to be lynched today, it would be him. The thought of an innocent man or woman dying because they happened to look like a very old image of himself was unacceptable.

At the end of the street, people were running. Copdrones hovered in the air, laser scanners flickering over the faces while at the same time dodging flying debris, clubs, sticks, and stunner shots. Projectile weapons had been banned on Mars a century ago and had never made a return. But the technology to kill without projectiles had been honed to create seriously deadly weapons. Before he could reflect on the ability of Humanity to create more and deadlier weapons, and the failure of the Unified Faith in curbing that desire not at all, the mob took a sudden turn and he found himself facing a wall of running, cursing, and panicked Humanity.

Image: https://media.recovery.org/wp-content/uploads/recovery-shutter280148666-man-watching-sunrise-over-city-640x300.jpg

A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL! STRANGER THAN FICTION and A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1999 TV Movie with Patrick Stewart)

We’ve watched both movies many, many times – but this is the first time I’ve seen them in tandem.

I was startled to see that STF is a reworking of ACC!

It’s just from a different angle...

Let me back up a bit.

Lately, I feel like I’ve hit a wall with my writing. I KNOW I can write well enough to be published in major magazines: ANALOG, CRICKET, CICADA, CAST OF WONDERS, even THE WRITER.

But I have not been able to do so consistently.

Why is that?

Does the quality of my writing vary wildly from professional quality to crap? Sorry, I don’t think so. I’m not that cavalier about editing and rewriting!

Am I in a good mood one day and a bad mood another day and this schizophrenia is reflected in the writing? Doubtful. I don’t think I’ve ever written a story in one sitting. Usually it takes a month or two to finish a short story and over a year to write a novel...

Maybe I should get myself to a shrink and have them see if I have Dissociative identity disorder and there are two or more of me alternately trying to pursue a writing career. *sigh* If only it were that simple, maybe I could get therapy and forge a partnership with the part of me that’s a good writer.

But I don’t think any of those a really the problem.

I think the problem is twofold: character development and choosing the right story to tell.

Back to STF and ACC. Both of the stories are about a crotchety person who has no interest in humanity. One is a loan shark…er…accountant, the other a writer. Both of them employ a caring, kind individual, though with extreme prejudice and make life miserable for that person...while at the same time interacting with them consistently and deeply.

As well, both of them come face-to-face with ghosts. Ebenezer Scrooge quite literally; Karen Eiffel in the form of a man she thought was imaginary who turns out to be quite real.

Both also confront a tragic death that will occur if they continue on in the course of their lives. The dramatic tension in the story keeps us following, wondering if Scrooge will let Tiny Tim die and if Eiffel will let Harold die. Both have a foil against whom they must battle – Scrooge duels with Bob Cratchit and Eiffel fences with Penny Escher.

The same story, turned on its side becomes not ONLY a well-received modern film, but apparently escaped anyone else noticing the connection with a story that has been adapted over a hundred times since its publication in 1843.

So – I need to choose more recognizable stories and adapt them to the things that concern me, and the themes I visit most often in my writing.

Easy, right?

Bah, humbug…

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_than_Fiction_(2006_film),http://askville.amazon.com/versions-Christmas-Carol-Patrick-Stewart-version/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=31268843

Image: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/718eVuATFtL._SY445_.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”, Easter, and Science Fiction

NOT using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in Helsinki, Finland in August 2017 (to which I be unable to go (until I retire from education)), I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. But not today. This explanation is reserved for when I dash “off topic”, sometimes reviewing movies, sometimes reviewing books, and other times taking up the spirit of a blog an old friend of mine used to keep called THE RANTING ROOM…

“The red light on my portaphone blinked not quite in time with the few Christmas lights I’d strung to decorate my spare apartment.”

This is how Jeff Kooistra’s story – “Easter Egg Hunt: A Christmas Story” (ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION & FACT, December 1997) begins. I’ve read this story at least 20 times since it was first published because, for some strange reason, it evokes in me the “true meaning” of Christmas.

No – not a wimpy secular attempt to re-write the meaning of God sending his only Son to Earth to redeem Humans from their sins. [(WARNING: Possibly Irritating (brief) Essay: I’m weary of repeated attempts to accuse Christianity of stealing various and sundry holy days, celebrations, symbols, and traditions. Humans constantly co-opt and adopt concepts from other cultures. Simple example is that hamburgers, a quintessential American food, originated in Germany. Macaroni and cheese was born here, in the US. We’ve coopted fajitas from the Mexican cattle ranges. The California Roll was adapted from sushi rolls in a Japanese restaurant in LA; fortune cookies as well. Most of the people in my part of the US don’t speak Spanish – but have no problem talking about their favorite taco, burrito, and tequila. A personal favorite of this family is popcorn – how much more American can you get than that? Probably not much more, though the land didn’t have that name when the Cochise tribe – or possibly the Aztecs – were using it regularly. We like to steal stuff. All of us. Atheists love to think that atheism is an outgrowth of Modern Scientific Thought, but it’s not. Even Wikipedia confirms its ancient (aka as “dumb savage”) origins…]

The true meaning it evokes is sacrifice – the main character, while he doesn’t make a sacrifice until the end of the story, eventually gives up the grim past he’s held onto since childhood. The anger and apathy has protected the yearning heart, which finally leads him to go out into a blizzard to save a place he originally had a very low opinion of.

A movie version of “A Christmas Carol” [(David Hugh Jones (as David Jones) David Hugh Jones (as David Jones); Writers: Peter Barnes (written for television by), Charles Dickens (novel)] is a classic story of an old man who has…um…walled his heart off with anger and apathy – in his case directed at Christmas. In the end, he…um sacrifices the packed anger because he realizes that it will lead only one place. But even more, his pain and anger and rejection of the sacrifice the Christ made at Christmas would lead not only to his own literal, grim, and friendless death; but to the death of a child. The child wouldn’t have the chance to even MAKE a choice to reject the true meaning of Christmas.

The second…well, the connection may seem tenuous at best until I tell you something about it…The actor who portrays Ebenezer Scrooge is Sir Patrick Stewart, known to science fiction fans the world over as Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise D from STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION.

So Ebenezer Scrooge [does anyone out there know what the word “Ebenezer” means? “The place Eben-Ezer, being the name of a stone raised by Samuel to commemorate a victory over the Philistines at Mizpeh (1 Sam. 7:12), from Hebrew eḇen ezar, "stone of help," from eḇen "stone" + ezer "help"...” There are lots of theories about where Ebenezer’s last name came from, but suffice it to say that in the English language, it has become synonymous with “miser” and “mean”], after conversations with time traveling specters, chooses a future more in line a man he once was.

His affliction was an ancient one that the Bible warns against: “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (I Timothy 6:10). Unlike the rest of us, he gets a second chance to alter one of the futures we saw.

He sacrificed; as Jake Morgan in “Easter Egg Hunt…” sacrificed – both men sacrificed their anger (which, I can tell you, is a comfortingly solid thing to hold onto) in order to make a positive change in their world. Ebenezer to save both himself and the life of an innocent; Jake to save both himself and the lives of many innocents. Ultimately, Jesus came to Earth to offer himself as a ransom; to save the lives of all Humanity.

And THAT is both a Christmas and an Easter message for this holiday season.

Image: http://i1.wp.com/alternativeministryproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/manger_crossbackground.jpg

LOVE IN A TIME OF ALIEN INVASION: CHAPTER 98 The Trials of Team Two – 5

On Earth, there are three Triads intending to integrate not only the three peoples and stop the war that threatens to break loose and slaughter Humans and devastate their world; but to stop the war that consumes Kiiote economy and Yown’Hoo moral fiber. All three intelligences hover on the edge of extinction. The merger of Human-Kiiote-Yown’Hoo into a van der Walls Society might not only save all three – but become something not even they could predict. Something entirely new...

The young experimental Triads are made up of the smallest primate tribe of Humans – Oscar and Xiomara; the smallest canine pack of Kiiote – six, pack leaders Qap and Xurf; and the smallest camelid herd of Yown’Hoo – a prime eleven, Dao-hi the Herd mother. On nursery farms and ranches away from the TC cities, Humans have tended young Yown’Hoo and Kiiote in secret for decades, allowing the two, warring people to reproduce and grow far from their home worlds.

“We had nearly fallen into stagnation when we encountered the Kiiote.”

“And we into internecine war when we encountered the Yown’Hoo.”

 “Yown’Hoo and Kiiote have been defending themselves for a thousand revolutions of our Sun.”

 “Together, we might do something none of us alone might have done…a destiny that included Yown’Hoo, Kiiote, and Human.” (2/19/2015)

All seven – Xurf, Fax, Doj, Zei-go, Hil-hi-el, Jus-hi-el, and Eel-go-el dropped to their knees and bowed. Only the least of them dared murmur, “We are here to serve your Office of Saint Admiral, Martyr and Defender of Children.”

He smiled and waved as if he were royalty and said softly, “You may rise and come with me.”

Xurf whined. He wanted to ask where they were going. He wanted to doubt this Human but he wanted to accept him at his word. For a moment, he was torn. But this small male was somehow related to St. Admiral – a Human who not only saved Earth from total destruction, but who managed to persuade the Kiiote and the Yown’Hoo to sit down at a peace table and speak of why they were are war.

The worst part was they neither the Yown’Hoo Fleet Mother nor the Kiiote Fleet Pack Leaders could say. Earth was an incredible distance from Kii and Y’eh One of Seven Hundred and Thirty-nine. The leaders of the Homeworlds were trillions of tail-lengths away and the war had been waged for a thousand years.

Because none knew what they were truly fighting for, pettiness overcame the conference and though St. Admiral struggled to bring them back to the table, in the end the combined might of the three peoples destroyed her security forces and murdered her.

From there, the war had become something of a civil war waged among three peoples – who fought both themselves and their ancient enemies. It was why Earth was slowly being laid waste by the conflicting might of Kiiote and Yown’Hoo. It was why the Triad Corporation had made a last bid to both save Earth and to save Kiiote and Yown’Hoo. Xurf took a deep breath, closing his eyes, not only savoring the scent of the Human, but analyzing it; taking it apart and seeking the  message in each of its parts. He was without his mate and only the male Fax in attendance. He said, “It is a complex creature. I want desperately to trust it, but I am not sure.”

Fax pulled himself to his bipedal form and took slow steps to the Human. Face-to-face, he said, “My Pack Leader wishes to trust you.”

“Good!”

“But I am second to trust, and so I wonder if I should tear your throat out here and end this.” He snarled. He knew Humans feared the Kiiote most in this form as it tapped a deep set of legends involving creatures called ‘werewolves’. He had taken it deliberately. “Give me a reason to trust you.”

The Human hung his head and said, “There’s nothing I can give you as proof, except my scent. We all know the scent of my great-grandmother. She tried to save all of us but failed.” He paused, “My great-grandmother failed.” He lifted his head. “She failed but you are part of a mission to complete her dream. You are on a quest to redeem her sacrifice, to realize the world she sought to create. I do not know if I can help, but on my grandmother’s grave, I pledge to help you in any way that I can.”

The rest of the small Pack moved forward.

From the wood behind the great-grandson of St. Admiral, shadows moved forward…

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Rhll_wire_rope.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 383

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.

Popular Fantasy Story/Series: Harry Potter, et al (Hogwarts was HARDLY the first “wizarding academy” to appear in fiction! See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_magic_schools if you don’t believe me!)

F Trope: A “magical” academy

Far below Andre Xavier Xavier, a Bryshwyn of Bryshwyns and Raven Zoe Jefferson, who called herself a Nobody of Nobodys, the evening meditation tone sounded. A cross between a buzzer and an ancient longhorn, the instrument was blown by a family with a tradition as deep as Andre’s. The young man said, pushing his turban back up on top of his head where it promptly released a curl of very pale, very curly hair, “There’s Fendwyri tooting his own horn again.”

Raven shook her head. Her turban was always perfectly wound. It was the only thing that could control her wild kinks. She loved it for that. The turbans gave everyone a similar look – even though in the dorms, certain girls made sure to see how long, and straight, and silky black THEIR hair was. She said, “You have nothing to be jealous about.”

“I’m not jealous!” he exclaimed.

Smirking, Raven headed for the stairwell that would lead them five stories down to the courtyard. “Come on, we need to hurry or we’ll be late.”

“We’ll be late if we take that way,” he said.

Raven spun around and said, “No!”

Ignoring her, Andre lifted both arms and said, “Jheregi SSothimazhu,” the stones around them began to glow red and tremble in their mortar cradles. Andre moved his hands slowly, seeming to grip the air. The temperature around them dropped precipitously until Raven could see her breath. Andre said, “Forginiway thoomITas herogiNOMUL!”

The stones leaped into the air, drawing their ability to form steps from the energy in the once sun-warmed air. Andre grabbed Raven’s hand and leaped to the first step.

Four stories above a stone courtyard, Raven knew better than to fight. Instead, she followed Andre as the stones assembled themselves into a flight of stairs switch-backing at a comfortable angle and leading them downward as they hurried for meditations. “We’ll be on time…”

They were still two meters above ground when the bricks that had been hastily assembling themselves into stairs and glowing in the deepening shadows of the courtyard as they ran down…suddenly turned the color of bricks and fell into a pile directly below them. Andre shouted in surprise, then cried out, “FeshET siMAYlee!” Immediately the air below him gained the ability to roar up and buoyed him the last meter, setting him gently on the ground.

Raven tried the enabling, but couldn’t pronounce the words correctly, and instead fell on to the pile of very ancient – and very hard bricks at a rate determined not by ability  but mathematically by velocity and time, specifically where a= Δv/ Δt. Not that either of them knew that in this world. But not all students in all worlds were equally naïve.

Either way, the sound and the abrupt stop would have been identical whether it had been caused solely by ability or solely by gravity…

Names: ♀ Popular African American name, Australian Capital Territory, Common African American last name; ♂ Popular American name, Brazil

Image: http://www.skyscrapernews.com/images/pics/6255CaernarfonCastle_pic1.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Part IV – Contacting Aliens (Oh, NO!) and A Living World Idea…

NOT using the panel discussions of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose, CA in August 2018 (to which I be unable to go (until I retire from education)), I would jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. But not today. This explanation is reserved for when I dash “off topic”, sometimes reviewing movies, sometimes reviewing books, and other times taking up the spirit of a blog an old friend of mine used to keep called THE RANTING ROOM…

I know I’m a few years behind, but I just checked out a copy of LONELY PLANETS: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life (2003) by David Grinspoon. He does, of course, have a “doctor” in front of his name, but it appears that he doesn’t use it very often. He also has the endorsement of Neil deGrasse Tyson – the quintessential new face of astronomy and the immediate successor to Carl Sagan.

Tyson said of Grinspoon’s book “…brings together what has never before been synthesized…he is a planetary scientist as well as dreamer, born of the space age.”

As is apparent to anyone who reads my blog, I LOVE aliens! I write about aliens! I do (guardedly) believe that there is intelligent life “out there, somewhere” – HOWEVER, I don’t believe that we have any real proof yet and that it is, at this point, an intellectual and philosophical exercise.

Be that as it may, I’m approaching the end of Grinspoon’s book and have skimmed his website (http://funkyscience.net/) several times. While it’s been “frozen” on his newest Pluto/Horizon book, I find myself looking forward to following this guy for some time to come!

I’m well into the book now (page 229) and I got my own copy on Wednesday through a Half-Price Books near me. After (*gasp*) dog-earing my Library copy, I transferred the noted pages to my own book.

Grinspoon flits effortlessly between history, the present, and the future. Occasionally, all three collide as when he begins to talk about the shift from the “wacky” field of exobiology to what that same field has become today: Astrobiology. It’s legitimized and not only is it part of NASA, it has its own Homepage (https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/)

What is it? Grinspoon defines it this way: “Astrobiology…is not for profit…We explore space for reasons that are romantic and idealistic…[it is] a scientific movement that is justified fundamentally on spiritual grounds…also potentially revolutionary in its attempt to reverse the slide toward increasing scientific specialization and isolation. We want to blur the borders and tear down the walls that modern academia has erected. Astrobiology at its best is a step toward the reunification of science and, perhaps, the rebirth of natural philosophy.” (p243)

Wow.

Astrobiology, the concept of discovering life somewhere besides Earth, is the foundational belief of NASA's astrobiology program. With it comes a strong belief: “I think we’re going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we’re going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years,” said NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan."

While the science of astrobiology has no detractors, what happens once we DO discover life elsewhere and in particular if we discover intelligent life elsewhere does indeed seem to have provoked dissent among the ranks. Some individuals have taken to the blogosphere and conference circuit with extreme confidence that their opinion alone is the correct one. To ME, they seem to flail wildly and appear to be close relatives of Chicken Little. One of their names became instantly recognizable by a large portion of the English-speaking world several years ago, and even before his recent passing, was spoken in the same sentence as Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and...Stephen Hawking; who said a bit before his death, that contact with aliens will be BAD: “One day, we might receive a signal from a planet like this, but we should be wary of answering back. Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn’t turn out so well”.(https://www.sciencealert.com/stephen-hawking-warns-that-we-might-not-want-to-reach-out-to-aliens)

Another, not-so-well-recognized-name, a science fiction writer popular in the 80s and 90s, David Brin has added his voice to Hawking's warning, “Optimistic scholars may be right that we have nothing to fear from that eventual encounter with wise beings from the stars. Still, we cannot be reminded often enough to look back on our own history of contact among humans here on Earth, a litany of dire cautionary tales. We are, all of us, descended -- only a few generations back -- from folk who suffered horribly because they weren't ready for the challenges brought on by new vices, new technologies, new diseases, new ideas, new opportunities, new people. And those ancestors were the lucky survivors! Many peoples and cultures – including every species of hominids other than our own – left no descendants at all...How ironic that this reminder should come from someone who is a dedicated believer in the new!...Ironic, and yet somehow apropos. For I would rather bet on a horse that I know – human improvability and progress -- than on salvation from some hypothetical super-beings high above...We have tried that route, countless times before, and the lesson has always been that we should rely (mostly) on ourselves...In this article I've only touched on just a few of the dangers conceived by various gloomy thinkers and writers over the years. I could go on, but a complete listing isn't necessary. What matters is the lesson, one of circumspection and caution. The worst mistake of first contact, made throughout history by individuals on both sides of every new encounter, has been the unfortunate habit of making assumptions.

"It often proved fatal.” (http://www.setileague.org/iaaseti/brin.pdf, page 22)

While he doesn't talk specifically about first contact, the general sense I gather from his writing is that he isn't quite to negative as the two quoted above...

Once we reach chapter 17, Grinspoon takes a decidedly spiritual turn – not Christian, certainly, he has the most respect for Buddhism: “Although I’ve never found a religion that seems a perfect fit, I love what I know of the teachings of Buddhism. Its most important principle seems to be compassion. If there is a perfect spiritual principle, I would vote for this.” (p384)

He takes time explaining complexity theory, though the book was published in 2003 and in 2018, Wikipedia has this to say: “The term complex adaptive systems, or complexity science, is often used to describe the loosely organized academic field that has grown up around the study of such systems. Complexity science is not a single theory—it encompasses more than one theoretical framework and is highly interdisciplinary, seeking the answers to some fundamental questions about living, adaptable, changeable systems. The study of CAS focuses on complex, emergent and macroscopic properties of the system. John H. Holland said that CAS ‘are systems that have a large numbers of components, often called agents, that interact and adapt or learn.’” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system)

It’s hard to summarize briefly what Grinspoon lays out in this chapter, but let me take a stab at it. Grinspoon wonders, (I think this is gist of it) if Earth itself is alive in a unique way.

The idea stems from the observation that not only does the planet – it’s temperature, composition, distance from the Sun, mass, and every other factor that we used to call the abiotic factors of an ecosystem – affect the biotic, but that the biotic factors are intimately entangled with the abiotic factors. It certainly seems logical, but in 2013, Toby Tyrrell, professor of Earth System Science (https://www.southampton.ac.uk/oes/about/staff/lrtt.page) seemed to drive a stake through the heart of the hypothesis: “I believe Gaia is a dead end. Its study has, however, generated many new and thought provoking questions. While rejecting Gaia, we can at the same time appreciate Lovelock's originality and breadth of vision, and recognize that his audacious concept has helped to stimulate many new ideas about the Earth, and to champion a holistic approach to studying it”. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis)

I'd never run across this more science-based Gaia theory. Grinspoon's presentation and enthusiasm for it won me over and the idea that biotic and abiotic factors are more intertwined than we thought is compelling. Even so, I'm not going to begin to worship Mother Earth. My basic belief is that while they have trouble stomaching any sort of supreme being or supernatural guidance, many scientists seem to hold with the idea that there's "something beyond us".

While I call that "something" a Someone, they struggle to give it a different name and add concrete proofs to construct a something to believe in. I am a realist -- I suppose, except in my belief in God and in the Redemption of Humans through his sacrificial death on the Cross. Was his sacrifice on the Cross for ONLY Humans, or was it for ALL beings who broke covenant with Him and chose disobedience over obedience? No idea.

I suppose in that, as well as in the argument over the efficacy of shouting out our presence to a universe that holds malevolent Intelligences who will soon come to stomp us out...I can only join with the rest of Humanity and wait and see.

Whew…lots to think about. Lots to consider.

Lots to figure out how to incorporate into my writing! I’ll take up the end of the book next week!

Part I: http://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2018/11/possibly-irritating-essays-philosophy.html, http://www.openexoplanetcatalogue.com/

Part II: http://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2018/11/possibly-irritating-essays-part-2-state.html

Part III: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2018/11/possibly-irritating-essays-part-three.html

Part V:

Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUGOthVSNSUaxivRh0p8U5Ub4NEr0KxiZyPOIBI91G4gAPdcWmSQ-krJynDH2RQu93hHeS6EFbgOFZiDNaZ3M35LGLVbwklBZDB_dEB6symLvWTaYSgbFymOAqbFO4rVwd4qGcEBnzlDk/s1600/Unknown-4.jpeg

MARTIAN HOLIDAY 137: DaneelAH & Company

On a well-settled Mars, the five major city Council regimes struggle to meld into a stable, working government. Embracing an official Unified Faith In Humanity, the Councils are teetering on the verge of pogrom directed against Christians, Molesters, Jews, Rapists, Buddhists, Murderers, Muslims, Thieves, Hindu, Embezzlers and Artificial Humans (They are HanAH, the security expert (m); DaneelAH, xenoarchaeologist (m); AzAH, language expert (f); MishAH, pattern recognition (f).) – anyone who threatens the official Faith and the consolidating power of the Councils. It makes good sense, right – get rid of religion and Human divisiveness on a societal level will disappear? An instrument of such a pogrom might just be a Roman holiday...To see the rest of the chapters and I’m sorry, but a number of them got deleted from the blog – go to SCIENCE FICTION: Martian Holiday on the right and scroll to the bottom for the first story. If you’d like to read it from beginning to end (100,000+ words as of now), drop me a line and I’ll send you the unedited version.

“What about Stepan?” DaneelAH said.

“Like I said, he’s a big boy,” said QuinnAH. “If he can’t talk the crazies down from a suicidal riot, then he ain’t who he says he is. Fact, if he gets hisself killed, then seems to me like he don’t serve this god he’s talkin’ about – it’d have to be as ‘maginary as U-fee.” He slithered into the hole.

HanAh gestured to AzAH, then DaneelAH, then MishAH. He looked up to the roof. He couldn’t see Stepan, but knew he was watching. He whispered, “Good luck…” he snorted, changing his invocation, “Your God protect you and go with you, Sir.” He followed the others. A moment later, the wall door and the floor hatch closed. There was a puff of air, and the dust they’d disturbed was evenly sprayed over the exit, and it was gone.

DaneelAH followed the muttering group until they came to a wider room. Pale, biological light came from some growth on the ceiling. “This is where you gotta go down first, cause I gotta close and lock the door.”

“What?” HanAH exclaimed. “There’s no way…”

QuinnAH bent and tugged. A deafening shriek went along with the opening of a circular floor door. “This here tube is a slide into the underground. Once you’re down, I’ll follow and we can catch a car from here to the HOD after I seal up.”

HanAH hesitated. AzAH took a breath and pushed past him. “We’re in this up to our chins. We either go forward…” she shrugged, “There is no ‘or’.” She sat down on the edge of the black hole and pushed up, vanishing. MishAH followed, then DaneelAH.

He said, “Either stay or come. It’s up to…”

“Shut up and go so we can get this over with!” HanAH snarled, shoving him. The sound that followed DaneelAH was clearly laughter.

HanAH turned to the kid, then pointed two fingers at his eyes, turning the same fingers to QuinnAH’s face. “If you hurt any of them, I will either find you and kill you myself, or I will haunt you from the grave.” He dropped down the hole without sitting on the edge.

They slid down a filthy metal tunnel that angled into the Martian crust. Before Stepan could protest, the boy twisted in the tunnel and grabbed Stepan’s wrist, dragging him headfirst into the hole.

The dust was so thick in the enclosed space, he was wondering if they’d suffocate before they reached the bottom. The angle decreased until they rumbled to a rusty, dusty stop.

Standing at the bottom of the cavernous tunnel, lit dimly by a row of LEDs set into the ceiling. They didn’t exactly illuminate the tunnel, but were definitely brighter than the ghostly bio. They waited in silence until QuinnAH popped out next to them, rolling neatly to his feet.

“You done pretty good for old folks.” He hawked and spit. He set off across the platform until they came to a rail. “Walk or ride?”

HanAH snorted, “Burroughs is thirty kilometers across. It takes about five hours to walk across it.”

“When you walk on the surface in the streets.”

“How long does it take through the tunnels?”

“Five hours or thirty minutes.”

DaneelAH frowned as he stepped up to the rail. In the distance he could hear a deep rumbling overlain with a static hum, like a cheap fluorescent lamp from the early 21^st Century. “Where are we…”

Quinn lifted a hand that was deep purple in the light. The ground started to shake. “We’ll be in the HOD in thirty minutes.”

“How?”

The ground shook like the million-year marsquake was about to let loose.

“Get ready!”

“For what?” cried DaneelAH and MishAH together.

“To...” Quinn grabbed them by the wrist and crouched.  “Jump forward when I tell you to!”

An instant later, a circular wall filled the far end of the tunnel, the boy backpedalled abruptly, dragging HanAH and AzAH with him, screaming, “Don’t jump!” He waited for a split second, then screamed, “Run!” dragging them behind him. Then they were running together. He screamed, “Jump!”

They did, and fell in a heap as a noise like a violent rushing wind filled the whole tunnel where they’d fallen.

“What is this?” DaneelAH shouted, his voice over loud in the rumbling, empty chamber they were riding in now.

“A stuffcap. Usually enclosed capsules full of stuff for the HOD. Me and Stepan had to walk to the HOD, but this one was open. Everyone in the underground hitches rides on them have been able to hitch a ride.”

“Thanks, then,” said DaneelAH as he got to his feet.

“For what?” QuinnAH said.

“Saving our lives. We owe you a debt.”

In the flickering light from above, they could see QuinnAH shrug. “Just get the Wilkerson back to his gardens. We need him.”

HanAH said, “Don’t worry about your pet preacher, kid. He can take of himself. But we’ll keep an eye out for him. We have a mission to accomplish,” he gestured to DaneelAH. “You have to gather the evidence, then present it to the Mayors.”

“I can’t do the presentation. I’m not Human.”

AzAH said, “Stepan can do it, but we need to get word to people who can help him.”

HanAH snorted, “Like who?”

“Our mystery guide, Paolo. He seems to know what’s happening on Mars. He’s certainly been manipulating us.”

“I don’t trust him,” said HanAH.

“You don’t trust nobody,” said QuinnAH. “‘at’s why we get along so well.” His street urchin drawl had returned. “I don’t trust nobody, neither.”

AzAH said, “You trust Stepan.”

QuinnAH snorted, then dodging the statement, “Sit and take a breather. Once we get back up and into the HOD, we have to pass through it to get to Breachport.”

“Then we keep on from there. Paolo has some kind of plan to gather the artifacts and change Mars,” said MishAH. HanAH snorted derisively as the stuffcapsule slid through the tunnel deep under the surface of Mars.

Image: http://img11.deviantart.net/c3c5/i/2009/067/9/3/dr__manhattan_by_theknightinhell.png

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 382

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.

SF Trope: “The Chronocops travel in time to catch a Bad Guy who escaped into some other era.”

Current Event: http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/13/opinion/opinion-time-travel-paul-davies/

Bolormaa Teuku scowled at her physics partner, “What do you mean when you ask, ‘Could we travel so fast that we’d start to slide back in time?’”

“We’re supposed to brainstorm, not beat up every idea someone throws out,” said Rayyan Batkhuyag. “The point is to ask questions that may not have immediate answers.”

“Yeah, but the questions have to make sense!”

Rayyan used the vernier jets on his EVA suit to gently turn until he faced the Sun. It loomed giant in space. In the previous century, he would never have been able to do anything like this. But his suit was unlike anything else in the Solar System – except for the rest of the team on the Gravity Well Mission. “You think floating around in mirror suits less than sixty million kilometers from the sun makes any sense?”

Bolormaa grunted as she turned in the same direction. “I see your point.”

“So then – my question: could acceleration reach a point where we would actually go back in time?”

“That’s so very…STAR TREK of you.”

“Right, right, I know. I don’t mean we fly some tiny tin can into the well then yank it out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Gravitational redshift follows on from the equivalence principle that underlies general relativity. The downward force felt by someone in a lift could be equally due to an upward acceleration of the lift or to gravity. Pulses of light sent upwards from a clock on the lift floor will be Doppler shifted, or redshifted, when the lift is accelerating upwards, meaning that this clock will appear to tick more slowly when its flashes are compared at the ceiling of the lift to another clock. Because there is no way to tell gravity and acceleration apart, the same will hold true in a gravitational field; in other words the greater the gravitational pull experienced by a clock, or the closer it is to a massive body, the more slowly it will tick.”

“So?”

“The Doppler effect goes both ways. We’ve been stuck on the red-shift end of the EM spectrum – the effect that stretches out time making it appear to slow down to everyone around it. But we’ve never really looked at time and gravity the other way...”

Bolormaa turned to face Rayyan even though they couldn’t see each other. She finally said, “When an ambulance with a blaring horn is coming toward you, the wavelengths are shortened and we hear a higher pitch – with light it means that the waves are shorter, which means they’re blue.”

“They move faster. So – if we move slow enough, will be go back in time?”

They had continued to roll in space and as they turned to face away from the Sun, there was a brilliant flash of blue light. An instant later, two silvered bubbles floated toward them from the center of the flash…

Names: ♀ Mongolia, Malaysia; ♂ Malaysia, Mongolia

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Shuttle-c_launch_painting.jpg