IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 597

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: a sorcerer who is dead but his “soul” lives on trapped somewhere
Current Event: http://www.alunajoy.com/2012-mar18.html

Martin Jönsson stared at the blog and said, “You’ve read this stuff?” He scratched his scruffy blonde beard – little more than rough peach fuzz

Vukosova Gavrilović, long-time friends and NOT girlfriend, smirked. She learned the Swede phrase for her buddy’s newly sprouted beard was duniga skägg. She considered teasing him, but the look on her face warned her that he probably wasn’t in the mood tonight. Instead she said, “I read it. What about it?”

“It like, says that people can soak up ancient energy and transport it from place to place!”

Vukosova shook her head. Her friend was a philosophy major – she wished him luck in finding a job as something more than an intelligent garbage collector. She was a physics major, and if her freshman grades and undergrad presentation were any indication, she may have just written herself a ticket to the Cooperative Lunar Colony Fusion Research Center after she graduated. The CLCRFC – better known by its euphemistic name, The CooL Co. FuR Center and what NASA insisted on calling ClickerFick in its press releases – was every physicists dream. Nuclear fusion was a hop, skip and a jump away from becoming practical. All they needed to do was solve one or two containment issues...she yanked her attention back to Martin and said, “We’ve been soaking up energy and taking if from place to place since the evolution of the first life form.”

He finally looked up from the screen that showed some wackoid Egyptian goddess background overlain with a the foolish ranting of someone who was certain they’d been able to imbue and ancient Egyptian site with energy sucked up in their souls from Atlantis. He said, “This is amazing! It sounds like what you guys are doing in that science class you’re taking!”

She sighed and said, “It’s called Elementary Nuclear Fusion – and it doesn’t have anything to do with storing energy. It’s about creating energy.”

He frowned then said, “I had some science classes in high school...”

“That was last year, wasn’t it?”

“Hey! Just ‘cause I’m a prodigy doesn’t mean I don’t deserve respect!”

“You were a prodigy in acting, Martin! Now you couldn’t shake a stick at an T-comp without breaking into a cold sweat!”

He stood up abruptly, snapping the cover in his computer. “Shows how much you know! I’m gonna see if I can soak up some fusion energy from...from…”

She smirked and said, “Idfu – it’s on the east bank of the Nile in east central Egypt.”

He glared, “You think you know everything just because you’re a physics major! But there’s another world out there, too. One you can’t see! It inhabits the same realm as your gravitons.”

“Gravitons are real!” Vukosova exclaimed.

“Yeah? Show me one!”

“Well, you can’t just open your eyes and see one! You need special equipment…”

“And then can you see one?”

“Well...not exactly. But we can see evidence that gives a strong indication of the properties and the effects of...”

“So your gravitons are as imaginary as my negative Atlantean energy.”

“They aren’t the same...”

Martin turned away and stalked out of the dining hall. He stopped just before he slammed the door and shouted, “We’ll see whose god is more powerful! The trapped sorcerers of Atlantis and Ancient Egypt or the trapped gravitons of the Unified Field Theory!”

She blinked in surprise as he finished his rant and stomped away. She muttered, “I didn’t know he knew anything about the Unified Field Theory!”

Name Source: Sweden, Serbia
Image:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Creating Alien Aliens, Part 29 A: Sketching the Background -- Can I Make A CRYSTAL Being..um…SING?

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...

Crystalline life forms…if there were such a thing…which there’s not. Though there is a fringe of Humanity that believes that crystals have mystic powers: https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/health/a26559820/healing-crystals/. Certainly the mirror (which is, of course made of glass, aka crystalline silicon (NOT “silicone”, which is a human-made plastic) in Snow White would be considered sentient.

The question I’d pose here is why would the mirror cares what a bunch of Humans were doing, no matter how ravishingly beautiful they were? Fact is that: the mirror; the crystalline silicon being, would find Human affairs dull and boring.

So, what if crystals WERE a sapient life forms in themselves – or when the right number of them are gathered together, could “come to life”? What if what we see as physical reactions, are instead the reactions of a life form I wouldn’t recognize as a lifeform?

In a book I’m reading, A ZOOLOGIST’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY (obviously riffing off of HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY), zoologist and author Arik Kershenbaum writes: “The book argues that the evolutionary processes that are observed operating on Earth are universal, and a necessary requirement for the presence of complex life on any planet. As a result, many aspects of animal behavior are likely to be present in the equivalent lifeforms on alien planets. This includes certain features of social behavior, communication, and movement, the evolutionary origin of which on Earth is underpinned by universal processes.”

On the other hand, Carl Zimmer in his recent book, LIFE’S EDGE, writes this near the end: “Instead [of defining life] scientists should be working towards a theory that explains life…‘assembly theory’…calculates the number of steps it takes to build something…a living organism needs far more [than one step to form]: materials made by living things…are exquisitely complex…’ Life is a state of matter that can spontaneously make things with a lot of assembly steps.’”

“One of the originators of this theory of life is a chemist, Lee Cronin, who has devised an ingenious experiment to test the theory…’The idea is that some of the droplets [that form] will spark complex reactions, creating new compounds that can store information – a condition of life. Cronin’s droplets may even, one day, be declared alive. ‘I’m pretty sure we will crack the origin-of-life problem in the next few years,’ he says. ‘But then everyone will go: ‘Oh, that was easy.’”

I’m not sure yet why Kershenbaum believes that biological laws (which even on Earth) are regularly and spectacularly contradicted, must be Universal everywhere else in Physical Reality.

Associate professor Kevin J Mitchell, at Trinity College in Dublin (Ireland) wrote this: “By taking what is essentially an engineering and computational perspective, we can simplify our view of the functional architecture of living systems. For example, we can recognise that some set of components interacting in a certain way acts as a filter, or a switch, or a coincidence detector, and so on. And when we put several of them together just so, we make an oscillator or a homeostatic regulator or an evidence accumulator. This provides a way to go beyond simply describing what is happening to actually understanding what the system is doing.” Zimmer holds that once we can “calculate the number of steps it takes to build something”, we will if nothing else, be at the beginning of understanding life on Earth – and presumably life among the countless exoplanets.

To summarize: one author believes that all life in the universe will be some understandable riff off of the life on Earth (which, while in its wild variety, is UNDERSTANDABLE), and therefore all aliens will be UNDERSTANDABLE (Kerschenbaum); again, that we will be able to UNDERSTAND alien life, no matter where we find it. “We will use the laws of biology just as we would use the laws of physics and chemistry.”

Mitchell from Trinity expects that once we recognize the components that interact in particular ways, we will understand life on Earth and elsewhere.

What I understand my reading thus far, is that there SHOULD be a “theory/theories of biology” that is as succinct to apply as Newton’s Third Law of Motion: Force = mass x acceleration. Yet all three of these writers – all at the cutting edge of their fields – can’t state one of the Laws of Biology with anything even approaching the elegance of Newton’s Third Law, F=ma.

So, there are currently 5040 confirmed exoplanets in some 3876 star systems. A FORBES online magazine article suggests that one third of these confirmed exoplanets may be in their star’s habitable zone. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2023/05/29/a-third-of-the-most-common-exoplanets-may-host-life-say-scientists/?sh=580cdc972400), so approximately 1,663 of them would be in their star’s HABITABLE ZONE (aka the “Goldilocks Zone” (or, “Goldilocks went upstairs into the bed chamber and first she lay down upon the bed of the great, huge bear, and then she lay down upon the bed of the middle bear and finally she lay down upon the bed of the little, small wee bear, and that was just right.” The Zone would be JUST RIGHT for…Humans…right?)

Dr. Kershenbaum is writing (thus far), he seems certain that life on other worlds will be no more amazing that life on Earth – which is no mean feat, spanning Humans and elephants to Bacillaria and Black Smokers…It almost seems that he’s limiting life to what we both know and understand…

So what does that do to my story?

If life could evolve from regular, everyday single-celled organisms, what’s to stop it from evolving from Bacillaria? It is an organism that is both unique and difficult to explain. Bacillaria paxillifer is a colonial diatom whose members live in colonies and slide along each other, rather like slippery rectangular microscope slides.

The question of WHY they behave this way is essentially unanswerable. The majority of diatoms float freely; though not all of them, and we might as well include my Siphonophoria “alien” based on one of the colonial “jellyfish” recently observed off the coast of Australia. How would a sapient lifeform, descended from paxillifer THINK?

Maybe it would be easier to start with a “single-celled” crystalline organism like the mirror I postulated above? In the movie starring Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen, the crystalline mirror DOES actually have an opinion. It tries to communicate that opinion, which the Queen ignores until the end and the sentient crystal says, “Ready to learn the price for using magic?” and a dark movie actually becomes darker as the crystalline entity exacts its vengeance by allowing the Evil Queen to age to her true age – a wizened and aged crone who can barely walk or talk.

Next time though, I’d like to skip over the philosophy above and look at how I see a crystalline entity behaving – especially looking at how it would perceive the world and wondering how Mirror got trapped into being a simple looking-glass in an ancient kingdom…

Source: https://aliens.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Crystalline_Species
Reference: STAR TREK: TNG – “DataLore”; “Silicon Avatar”; https://blogs.stockton.edu/blogstock/2022/01/20/shhhh-listen-do-you-hear-the-sound-of-crystals/#:~:text=These%20vibrations%20are%20produced%20due,temperature%2C%20light%2C%20or%20vibration.; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillaria ;
https://www.britannica.com/science/mineral-chemical-compound/Classification-of-minerals; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zoologist%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy ; https://www.storynory.com/goldilocks-and-the-three-bears/

Image: https://storage.googleapis.com/adforum-media/34485812/ad_34485812_9ff78217986d290f_1_web.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 596

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: messiah
Current Event: Song lyrics: “Siamese, Lebanese, Chinese speaking strip TV's

Singapore, El Salvador, Coca-Cola....Mercury, luxury, shove that Fender fist at me…Embryo, UFO, freako psycho horror show; Hips n' lips n' beauty queens
Venus ramp, sexy tramp, make up muck, My vegas vamp” [http://www.releaselyrics.com/8433/sigue-sigue-sputnik-21st-century-boy-(tv-messiah)/]

They’d been waiting in the abandoned port of Duluth for ten hours.

Logan Andrist frowned and said, “You’re sure Professor Buddlorem told you to meet him here?”

Nkokoyanga Pomodimo held up her tablet computer, thumbed the screen to life and tapped until she had the message. She handed it to Logan and said, “Right here. Used to be a downhill ski resort here.”

“What’s ‘downhill skiing’?”

“No idea.”

He turned in a complete circle again, then looked up into the sky. It was a dark, dark blue as the last of the blood red sunlight drained from the sky. Stars came out, wavering at first in the thickening air near Lake Superior. The lake had once teemed with diverse life forms. Now giant salmon and tiny, razor-toothed smelt battled fast-swimming lamprey for the zebra mussels they’d been gengineered to feed on.

None of the creatures had been created for any purpose but weapons in the war that had heated up between the Chinese States of America and Fragmented Canada.

Now neither side could safely fish the waters. Anyone who plied the surface had to run armed as it was said that one of the countries had developed some massive creature – a freshwater whale or octopus or squid or shrieking eel – that lived in the depths of the Inland (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LydQXydQKrc) Sea. Logan sighed and said, “You think it’ll ever look like it used to?”

“When? Like at the end of the Ice Age or you want the middle of the Deglaciation of North America or before the European Invasion of Laurentia?” Nkokoyanga snapped. She tapped her tablet furiously. A moment later, it bleated angrily. She said, “I’m not even getting a GPS signal.”

“What?”

“What are you, deaf and stupid?”

“Neither,” he snapped back. “What I mean is that how can you possibly be signal blocked?”

“We must be out of line-of-sight...”

Logan said, “How can we be invisible to a satellite?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. “I’m being blocked.” She looked around, then down at the harbor far below them. They were standing on a hill that had once been a ski resort – if the ancient map could be believed. But instead off the reflection of the azure sky like the one in the picture, the waters below seemed to surge with murky gray, roiling as something swam through the bay, leaving a faint, oily wake. She stared at the water far below for a while then said, “I don’t think anything we do can turn back the clock far enough for these lakes. Even if we dump a million tons of iron into them, they’re still gonna die.”

“That could be serious...” Logan began, pausing. He’d seen something move back on the tree line. It was movement that couldn’t be caused by the steady wind off the lake. Besides movement, it brought with it a cold, fish smell.

“Of course it could be serious, you idiot! It’s the...”

Cutting Nkokoyanga off, Logan said, “If you’d let me finish, I was going to say it could have serious ramifications for the land surrounding the lakes. All kinds of flora and fauna...”

“Why can’t you just say plants and animals?”

“Because it’s more than that,” he began, when something walked out of the heavy brush at the edge of the clearing.

A tall figure, dressed simply for the mid-summer weather, walked up to them and said something in a language neither understood. Nkokoyanga bent over her tablet, tapping furiously. The figure said in plain Spandaringlish, “You won’t find Ojibwe in your computer, I’m sorry to say.”

Logan said, “Why not?”

“It’s a forgotten language,” the figure said. Logan couldn’t figure out if it was a male voice or a female voice. Maybe both. It said, “Ojibwe was one of the languages spoken in these hills in the past.”

Nkokoyanga snorted, “There weren’t any people on Laurentia to speak...”

He laughed and said, “I’m a native of these parts, Madame Pomodimo, not an idiot.”

“How do you know my name?”

He snorted this time and said, “I know everything, and I’m about to tell you a large part of what I know.”

Names: ♀ Central African Republic, Gbaya; ♂ Minnesota, Minnesota
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: Misbelief and Crafting FLASH Science Fiction

I may have mentioned that one of my goals is to increase my writing output, increase my publication rate, and increase the relevance of my writing. In my WRITING ADVICE column, I had started using an article my sister sent me by Lisa Cron. She has worked as a literary agent, TV producer, and story consultant for Warner Brothers, the William Morris Agency, and others. She is a frequent speaker at writers’ conferences, and a story coach for writers, educators, and journalists. I am going to fuse the advice from her book WIRED FOR STORY with my recent trip to South Korea. Why? I made a discovery there. You’ll hear more about it in the future as I work to integrate what I’m learning from the book, the startling things I found in South Korea, and try and alter how I write in order to create characters that people will care about, characters that will speak the Truth, and characters that will clearly illustrate what I’m writing about.

NOTE: Shortly, I'll be finishing a novel that encompasses this small story. THIS story hasn't sold yet, but considering I wrote it four years ago and I'm a better writer today that I was then, I'm going to try it again -- because I'm coming out of about six months "living" in the world of this piece of flash. For THAT, I'll keep you in the loop to find out whether I sell it or not!

“Remember when Luke has to drop the bomb into the small vent on the Death Star? The story writer faces a similar challenge of penetrating the brain of the reader. This book gives the blueprints.” – David Eagleman

“The reader expects that the plot will force the protagonist to confront and overcome her misbelief, something she’s probably spent her whole life avoiding.

“As readers we cue into the protagonist’s misbelief surprisingly early, and expect the plot to continually challenge it. And, because misbeliefs are deeply ingrained early in life, we know that the protagonist isn’t going to give it up without a fight. Especially since to her it isn’t a misbelief at all, but a savvy piece of inside intel she’s lucky to have learned early in life.”

I’m trying to write a piece of flash science fiction.

I have 1200 words to tell an entire story aimed at young adults – and in the case of SF, that includes BUILDING THE WORLD THAT THE STORY TAKES PLACE IN!

Oh, and having the protagonist and antagonist being best friends. And their parents are dating and that dating may or may not have political overtones, or even be entirely politically motivated.

Twelve hundred words.

The original story went something like this: The guys are on their way to the last few days of “school” (which is ALSO different in this, the 25th Century) “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 else who threatens the official Faith and the consolidating power of the Councils.” (https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/search/label/SCIENCE%20FICTION%20-%20Martian%20Holiday))

So – our hero and anti-hero are getting ready to be drafted into their chosen profession as apprentices. They’re also getting ready to “vanish” into the depths of Sojourner Dome to celebrate their newly-conferred adulthood. For Kalbin and Waqas though, things are turning sour. Waqas hates Artificial Humans; Kalbin may be half AH, which is HIGHLY illegal not to mention unethical and unprecedented as well. Kalbin’s dad (Mom disappeared shortly after his birth) is the Circulation Director for the online tabloid, “UNDER THE DOME, All the News That’s Fit To Whisper!” Waqas’ mom is running for her third term as the minority Liberal party candidate on Sojourner Dome's Council (they have a Strong Mayor, Weak Council structure) and has been pushing for extending civil rights for marginalized people (and for the rest of them as well, but that’s not important at this time in Martian history.)

Waqas hates it because the "poor and indigent" are more important to his mom than HE is. (Which is, I might point out, a misbelief of a minor character.)

A lot. He’s a beefed up version of his dad, who owns and operates an ice rig on the deserts of the Northern Dune Sea. Dad is OK with Artificials – as long as they know their place...and stay there.

Kalbin, who was diagnosed with methemoglobinemia (“It’s under control! I just look more blue at some times than at, uh, others…”) as a child. Common practice is to wait until puberty has run its course to do full retrogene replacement. That’s what was going to happen after Kalbin announces his draft choice.

Waqas doesn’t have a choice. As much as he wanted to be an entrepreneur, his dad overruled his choice and he’ll start as an apprentice on the Northern Dune Sea with the rest of his sisters and brother. He’s angry and as he can’t take it out on his family, he’s taking out his frustration on Kalbin, who has issues of his own.

See, he suspects he’s not entirely Human. In fact, he suspects that not only is his dad NOT the Circulation Director, but is the author of the infamous “Not-Quite-Blue-Boy” recurring series in the tabloid UNDER THE DOME.

For whom he is the model…and IS he Human at all? If he’s partially Artificial, then what is he? Was he created as a political statement? Is that why Waqas’ mom is dating Kalbin’s dad – to make some sort of political score? Has his dad EVER really cared about him as a person, a son, or has his whole life been raw material for a news article? He’s wondered this for a long time. It’s not only a misbelief, it drives how he sees himself and how he’s reacting to the world around him.

At the beginning of the ORIGINAL story, none of this was clear. Now it is. In the end, Kalbin confronts his father, and not getting any satisfaction, he runs off into the Underground.

That is a MANIFESTLY wimpy story.

The first two lines were awful as well…
“Face2FaceSchool was a drag even when Kalbin’s dad was a kid.
“‘We got five weeks, then finally, the Draft!’ Qusay said.”

That is such a wimpy beginning, I’m embarrassed. It’s as if the writer of my most recently accepted story gave writing the opening line to the thirteen-year-old Guy Stewart instead of to the more experienced writer who recently wrote: “Larry Henry was muttering in the Orion Lunar lander mockup when Mission Control interrupted their regularly scheduled disaster.”

That line was so well-turned it surprised me. And I wrote it!

To the current blog point, though: “The reader expects that the plot will force the protagonist to confront and overcome her misbelief, something she’s probably spent her whole life avoiding.”

This is what the readers will expect in “Not Quite Blue Boy”; but it’s something that’s not there yet. On the other hand, it’s something that after ruminating on what I was trying to accomplish and (in this case, having to write out the story here, ruminating on how it intersects with Cron’s reader expectations and her other 52 Mass Points. If it’s a formula, thus far it’s been extremely successful – “Road Veterinarian” and “Kamsahamnida, America” were both written under the influence of WIRED FOR STORY; both sold to a top market.

This one, finally, will also be written “under-the-influence”. I’ll keep you posted on it!

(While it's NOT part of the Korean Solar Expansion, all of the stories will now be influenced by my experience in South Korea.)

Resource: https://www.creativelive.com/blog/essential-storytelling-techniques/
Maps and Photos: http://www.faculty.virginia.edu/rwoclass/astr121/marsImages.html
Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhM_ZcVNsBOzQKZdZ_jsFm2jpgBuI62sZlWrZC0IdJfILOB3nG1GRq3dNa-Nw-ffFvGU25jNsme6YZtZt-8cBa_xWIKt2npA5vTQkC03O7p7fqz3AGkLZzaxPxvU4BlDkYV2094AcN6Ln1JzNh78FhzkzVkh896GZp1fDDu0HzD7H4E1P44JOTV1dz2=w640-h360

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 595

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: Black Barf http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadBlackBarf
Current Event: Ebola Outbreak (http://cydathria.com/ebola.html)

Haysam Akbhar-Sosa shook his head and said, "This is impossible. I can't do it."

Bao Coppage stood beside him. She said, "We don't have any choice. If Ebola spreads any farther, it's gonna take over the world." They looked down at the waves of refugees fleeing Egypt and the Middle East, ravaged by a nearly uncontrollable strain of Ebola. They were on foot, in cars, buses, being pulled by donkey, oxen, and even other humans whom they whipped. She said, "It's stop it here and now or we all go down."

"I don't much care if Europe and the US go down..."

"There are people of faith everywhere, Haysam. They're all gonna die. This strain of Ebola doesn't care if you're a holy man or an avowed atheist."

There was a long pause and she'd known him long enough to expect him to argue. But this time he said only, "I know." He leaned over the sights of the monstrous flamethrower. Mounted on the gondola of the massive helium balloon, they flew slowly along with the river of sick humanity.

"We might not have to do anything," Bao said.

He shot her a look and she was surprised when he said, "Thanks for trying to make me feel better, but it's either kill these...ghūl...ghouls..."

"You know what these things are?"

He nodded slowly, "They're from ONE THOUSAND AND ONE ARABIAN NIGHTS." He paused for a long time, then added, "My brothers would tell me stories about them after I tattled on them."

"Your brothers told you the stories?"

He snorted, "Yeah. They hated me because I was the baby of the family and mom loved me more." She scowled and looked at him. He batted his eyelashes and then burst out laughing.

Leaning into him, she opened her mouth to reply when a commotion broke out below. Directly under the gondola, all they could see was people bunching up instead of trudging on. Bao had to pull back on the throttle and then give it a short reverse spin.

"What's..." Haysam began. Then the faces below looked up at them. There was a wet, gurgling sound, then a mass of humans looked up, opened their mouths. An instant later, what looked like a fountain of tarry black liquid rushed up.

It wasn’t. They’d been told them to wear gas masks, so they were suited up. What no one had mentioned was tentacles. Black, dripping, horrible, the slender, pestilential whips grabbed them, slammed Bao and Haysham, then tore the masks from their faces. Convulsing in a paroxysm of agony, they screamed until...

Names: ♀ China, England; ♂ Egypt, Bahrain
Image: https://cdn.britannica.com/40/11740-004-50816EB1/Boris-Karloff-Frankenstein-monster.jpg

JAX LUNAR LUMBER CHAPTER 2: “What’s So Funny About Little Green…Trees?”

A couple years ago, I related to my wife that, when I was working for the now-defunct Knox Lumber Company, I was told that if someone were patient, they could buy ALL of the supplies necessary to build a house ON SALE from the store. Knowing the company strictly from the perspective of a “yard ape” (aka Outside Lumberyard Attendant), and having moved zillions of tons (or watched it moved by the truly massive forklift that only a few people were allowed to drive) of building materials – from bags of sand to prefabricated trusses…I believed it. After a moment, I said, “Do you think you could buy the supplies necessary to build a Lunar colony from Knox?” We laughed and I said, “That’s ridiculous!” However, as I thought about it, it occurred to me that it might JUST be possible.

That speculation led to the first “Jax Lunar Lumber” little blurb. It wasn’t even a piece of flash fiction. But lately, after discovering that there are actually things called Moon Trees, and that scientists have just grown rock cress seeds in Lunar soil, I suddenly realize that there might be stories I can harvest from this subject…um…so to speak…

So, we’ve got Lunar Trees scattered around the US and a couple other places on earth: “…the Command Module Pilot on the Apollo 14 mission, to bring a small canister containing about 500 seeds aboard the module in 1971. Seeds for the experiment were chosen from five species of tree: loblolly pine, sycamore, sweetgum, redwood, and Douglas fir. In 2022, NASA announced it would be reviving the moon tree program by carrying 1,000 seeds aboard an Artemis Mission.

“After the flight, the seeds were sent to the southern Forest Service station in Gulfport, Mississippi, and to the western station in Placerville, California, with the intent to germinate them. Nearly all the seeds germinated successfully, and after a few years, the Forest Service had about 420 seedlings. Some of these were planted alongside their Earth-bound counterparts, which were specifically set aside as controls. After more than 40 years, there was no discernible difference between the two classes of trees.”

That’s the story. But whatever happened to the other 580? “Nearly all the seeds germinated successfully, and after a few years, the Forest Service had about 420 seedlings.” Did they “unsuccessfully” germinate? What might THAT mean? How about the kids from the class? Did seeing the Moon Tree affect any of them? I mean…for me? I could imagine a slightly different future (though I live in a state that did NOT get a Moon Tree (we’re too far north…). The nearest one for me to see is in Des Moines, IA. My son and grandkids saw one of the three trees in North Carolina.

“Most of the ‘Moon trees’ were given away in 1975 and 1976 to state forestry organizations, in order to be planted as part of the nation's bicentennial celebration. Since the trees were all of southern or western species, not all states received trees. A Loblolly Pine was planted at the White House, and trees were planted in Brazil, Switzerland, and presented to Emperor Hirohito, among others."

So, my senior year in high school, the trees were sent out to their new homes (the complete list of where they went are in the Wikipedia article linked below.

But I’m a writer. Some of the possibilities for story here: the tree that was given to the Emperor of Japan, Hirohito – the man who initiated and led the War in the Pacific – including the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. What??? Why would the US Government give HIM a tree that had gone into space? There’s a story there, I’m sure.

One of the trees was sent to Santa Rosa, Brazil to the “Soybean Fairgrounds, Parque Municipal de Exposições”. Ironically, this Brazilian State was settled by… “European immigrants in 1915, mainly Italians, Germans and Russians. The German dialect traditionally spoken in the region is Riograndenser Hunsrückisch.” Two of the groups were members of the Axis Powers along with Japan; the third a people who would become the second-greatest Communist empire on Earth…

Is this significant? *laugh* Probably not at all; but MAN it would lend all sorts of stuff to a STORY! Maybe throw these “gift Moon Trees” in with fact that “Nearly all the seeds germinated successfully, and after a few years, the Forest Service had about 420 seedlings.” The fact that the trees were handed out accounts for of them; as well, some 47 of the trees later died…though not one of the Redwoods… Based on a count from Wiki and under the assumption that only ONE tree was granted to each recipient (unless otherwise noted), that only accounts for 112 of the 420…so…what if 308 of them were planted on a remote mountain preserve or a place all of the species might flourish: Redwood, sycamore, Douglas fir, Loblolly pine, and sweet gum. They grew, and…(cue eerie music) what happened? What about the trees in Brazil? Planted in the Amazon Rain Forest??? There are even a few whose status is unknown. Why is that? You’d THINK something like that would make a splash; then again, NASA and the world forgot about the trees for a while – did they have something to HIDE?

While none of these trees is precisely "little", all of them share the legacy of having been to the Moon and back. And the fact is that: "Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin were the first of 12 human beings to walk on the Moon. Four of America's moonwalkers are still alive: Aldrin (Apollo 11), David Scott (Apollo 15), Charles Duke (Apollo 16), and Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17)" -- four men left who walked. How many people flew to the Moon and back? In addition to the 24 Apollo astronauts, four others are slated to follow them for the first time in 50 years in November of 2024...

This is going to be FUN!

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_tree, https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/moon_tree.html, https://www.astronomy.com/space-exploration/when-will-artemis-2-launch-and-what-will-the-mission-do/

Image: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/moon_trees/moon_tree_campkoch.gif

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 594

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: “jerkass gods” (CS Lewis Till We Have Faces; Neil Gaiman American Gods; Rebecca Roanhorse Trail of Lightning)
Current Event: http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/9-investigates-dolphin-manatee-deaths-indian-river/nZYSx/, https://www.fau.edu/newsdesk/articles/radio-tracking-bottlenose-dolphins.php?platform=hootsuite

Abril Molina stood with balled fists on her hips. “They did this, you know.”

Santiago Ribeiro pursed his lips and said in a low voice, “It’s the easier answer. You know, blaming jerkass gods rather than taking responsibility for polluting the lagoon ourselves.”

Abril bristled, “You blame Humans for this?” She grunted, “I know you hate all of us who are pure blooded Humans…”

“Please! Don’t bring magism into this! I may be three fourths elf, but I can no more conjure poisons from the water than you can conjure a will-o’-the-wisp to light your way to bed!”

Abril turned to belt him. He caught her fist but was powerless to stop her words, “How dare you! I am no magist! We’ve been friends since...oh, I don’t know, since I had to change your nest litter! I am no more magist than you are thoughtful.”

Stung, he released her and returned to the side of the lagoon. Squatting, he reached out and spread his fingers, lowering his hand until it was centimeters from the surface. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and stilled himself. After a few moments, the same stillness seemed to flow from his hand and across the surface of the lagoon, traveling from shore and farther and farther into the water.

The stillness spread until the air seemed to stop gusting; even the light grew gellid, thickening until the image of near-elf and water appeared to be a painting.

After some time, dark began to creep upward from the water. Boats, barges and skiffs collecting dead animals slowed until the stopped moving. Abril felt her breath congeal in her lungs and could not breathe.

Then Santiago stood up, turned to her and said, “We are both right.”

“What?”

“True war brews and this is but the first skirmish.”

“There’ve been other die offs! Twelve years of them – how do you explain that away with magic?”

“It’s the dolphins and the manatees.”

“What?”

“It’s the dolphins and the...”

“No, no! I know what you said, I mean to say, ‘What have dead dolphins and manatees...”

“And the pelicans and the algae and other microscopic life,” he interjected.

She nodded, adding, “…and pelicans and phyto and zooplankton have to do with magic and pollution?”

He lifted his chin to the farthest reaches of the lagoon, the water between a barrier island complex, “There is a war brewing.”

“Between who?”

“I can’t tell, but the gods jerking the strings have stuffed each dolphin and each manatee with a spirit and they are the front line – and the manatees are losing.”

“Which side is the good side?”

Santiago turned to look at her, his gaze boring deeply into her own. Abril shuddered as he said, “In the war between these gods, their only good is their entertainment.”

Names: ♀ Uruguay, Spain; ♂ American Hispanic, Portugal
Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Reaching Micro People Groups

We love to talk about missions. We love to “go” on mission trips. I went to Haiti over twenty years ago on a two-week mission trip. I’ve been to Nigeria, Cameroon and Liberia for an eight-month mission trip. I’ve even been to Hawaii as a youth chaperone to do miming on Ala Moana Beach as well as doing a year-long stint working with Mary’s Place in Minneapolis and Place of Hope in St. Cloud (not at the same time!)

Many of us find ourselves as I did, on missions to “people groups”. A people group, for the purpose of sharing the love of Christ and the hope of salvation, has been clearly defined. It is “‘…the largest group within which the gospel can flow along natural lines without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance.’ This simply means that unless the gospel comes from someone within one’s own people group, it is foreign.”¹

Lately China has been on my heart. Virtually everyone would agree that the cultures, languages and socioeconomic clusters within the nation of China could be called “people groups”. But I don’t speak any of the seven to fourteen dialects of Chinese. If I ever went, I’d expect to hear languages I didn’t understand. If I were in Beijing, I’d most likely have a Chinese pocket dictionary application on my cell phone. I might be able to find out where to catch a bus that will take me to a statue of Mao Zedong or find a “house church”. While officially “atheistic”, China is operationally polytheistic and while there are accommodations permitting minor religions, official stance is against any sort of organized religion. But current estimates put anywhere between 40 to 130 million Christians in China and Wikipedia reports that “Although China bans foreign missionaries and sometimes harasses and imprisons Christians, especially in rural areas, Christianity is booming in China.”² With a population of 1.3 billion, it’s clear that reaching Outsiders in China is carrying out the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…”

Are there people groups in the US?

Clearly, the answer is “yes!” I’ve sponsored youth on mission trips to the Appalachians and to the Navajo reservations of southwest Arizona. I traveled with an organization whose sole mission was to reach youth with music. I’ve gone on mission trips to the poor of downtown Minneapolis. All of these groups are small and have their own “language” or way of speaking that’s different from how I talk. China is a gigantic people group. Haiti was smaller, the Navajo of Arizona smaller still. But these aren’t the smallest groups of people who need to be reached with the Good News of Jesus and discipled for Christ.

There are, in fact, really SMALL people groups. A micro people group is a “sparsely populated indigenous tribe consisting of 5,000 to 25,000 people”.³ These “micro people groups” can be even smaller than that and it can be argued that they share a language only they understand. These micro people groups don’t have to be in another country, either. Stand outside of a group of politicians, fantasy sports players, quilters, manga readers, sheet rockers or Star Wars fans and it can be as strange as standing on a street corner in downtown Beijing. These other groups are speaking English but the words you hear can have totally different meanings than what you’ve come to expect.

For example, a “lemon” can mean a bad car, a mature manga or a yellow fruit. It depends on what group you’re listening to. A “cave” can be a place you find bats, a student-run pub, an Italian commune or a political term for a group of people who oppose development. Among fantasy sports players a “bust” isn’t a piece of art, it has nothing to do with drugs, and it doesn’t mean “to break” – it’s a player who’s expected to have a poor season despite predictions. These small groups of people don’t make formal dictionaries – insiders are expected to know the jargon or it’s painfully obvious you aren’t part of the group.

Science fiction with its alien races, faster-than-light starships and interstellar empires might be considered a micro people group. Fantasy with its elves, massive wars and wizards might also be considered a micro people group. Mysteries, with their murders, suspects and deduction might be considered a micro people group, as well. If you doubt this then see if you can answer the following questions:

1) What is a con?

2) What is a Gandalf?

3) What does “specfic” mean?

4) What is an Edgar?

5) What are the Hugo and the Nebula?

6) What is a cozy?

7) What was Excalibur and why was it important?

8) Who was Hercule Poirot and where did “Murder on the Orient Express” take place?

9) What is Dune’s other name?⁴

If you can’t answer ANY of those, then specfic fans and writers can be defined as a micro people group and they might be considered a legitimate mission field for those who “speak the language”.

These people can also be isolated from the Church by choice, distance or simple apathy and no one should argue that they need to hear the Good News in a language that makes sense to them. In their book UNCHRISTIAN, David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons point out that, “While we are trying to convey the most important message in human history – that Jesus offers a new life through faith in Him – something gets lost in the translation.”⁵

People who can speak the language of a micro people group can communicate the Gospel more easily than an outsider could. They can determine the best way possible to clearly and unequivocally show the love of Christ and point the way to salvation and discipleship.

Most of us belong to micro people groups. Are you a speculative fiction fan? How about a politician, fantasy sports player, quilter, Minnesota Wild fan, public school teacher, manga reader, sheet rocker or Star Wars fan? What micro people group are you part of?

Once you’ve identified your micro people group, pray for them and ask the Lord how to convey the most important message in human history to them. How can you present the gospel so that it can flow along natural lines without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance? What message will you send so that the gospel comes from someone within your own people group and make sure that the message of Christ isn’t foreign to them? Can you enlist others to help? When will you begin? My micro people avidly read, write and are fans of speculative fiction. I’ve identified the group, considered the message and spent time in prayer and fasting. I have my target events – though I have no one to join me and I’m wondering if I should wait or go ahead with it.

But that’s between God and me.

Missions to large people groups are good efforts to get involved with. But finding your micro people group and reaching them with the Good News of Jesus Christ can be exciting and can help you be a bigger part of God’s call to all of us to “go and make disciples of all nations”!

Bibliography

1) “The Challenge of the Unreached Peoples” by John Robb, Tuesday, November 24th, 2009, quoted in http://www.etnopedia.info/?p=254

2) Church growth in China.(Century marks)(Brief article) Industry & Business Article - Research, News, Information, Contacts, Divisions, Subsidiaries, Business Associations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_China

3) http://www.imb.org/main/news/details.asp?LanguageID=1709&StoryID=585

4) Answers: 1) Short for a speculative fiction CONvention; 2) A major award for fantasy 1974-1980; 3) SPECulative FICtion; 4) A major award for American mystery; 5) The “people’s choice” award for spec fic; a “peer reviewed” choice for spec fic 6) A “quiet” mystery that usually doesn’t involve gruesome murder, sex or profanity; 7) The sword Wart pulled from the stone; it made him King Arthur of Camelot; 8) Agatha Christie’s main brain detective, a train that ran from Calais, France to Istanbul, Turkey. It ceased operation completely in 2009; 9) Arrakis

5) http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_rate.htm

image: https://images.freeimages.com/images/large-previews/e8e/legos-people-group-1240136.jpg