Creating Alien Aliens, Part 29B: Biaxially-Oriented Polyethylene Terephthalate Sapients, Emotions, and Feelings

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...


FEELINGS
Definition: “Feelings. Both emotional experiences and physical sensations — such as hunger or pain — bring about feelings…Feelings are a conscious experience, although not every conscious experience, such as seeing or believing, is a feeling...”

EMOTIONS:
Definition: “Emotions…“can only ever be felt…through the emotional experiences it gives rise to, even though it might be discovered through its associated thoughts, beliefs, desires, and actions. Emotions are not conscious [and] manifest in the unconscious mind. These emotions can be brought to the surface of the conscious state…”

From Sachchidanand R. Swami (Internationally Certified Facial Micro-Expression Detection Expert, Human Behavior Researcher, Analyst and Profiler), we have: “…if any biological species has evolved and survived in its local environment…then it must have…senses, reflexes, emotions, temperaments, traits and different kinds of defenses...if they want to survive, evolve, and expand their horizons then they would venture into the outer space. If any species wants to be more advanced, it has to be able to monitor emotions consciously and remain composed for most of time so that physical, psychological and mental efficiency and capacities could be enhanced…[and] controlling or dominating others technologically could be the sole purpose and goal.”

From Neil DeGrasse Tyson: He “responded to Demi Lovato’s claim that calling extraterrestrials ‘aliens’ is ‘derogatory’ by telling the singer that aliens ‘have no feelings.’” He added, ‘All the aliens that I’ve ever met…have no feelings.’ He did say that Lovato was just being “considerate,’ but he also wondered why they were ‘worried about offending them by calling them an alien.’ He insisted we don’t know what ‘is going on in the head of species of life from another planet.’ Tyson added: ‘When I refer to aliens — just to be specific — I always say ‘space aliens’. And then, what we used to call aliens on Earth — undocumented immigrants, that’s what the new term is for them, and I’m all in on that. … So what that means is — if we all do that — the only invocation of the word ‘alien’ is for creatures from outer space that want to kill us all.’”

So…there may or may NOT be a chance that there is alien life “out there. Some people seem certain; others skeptical. So, let me speculate.

Say we have a star with not much energy – called a Type M star. According to current classifications, two thirds of stars are in this category. The least common stars are the most energetic or Type O stars.

What would be the advantage of crystalline life evolving under each type of star? It seems likely that a crystalline life form would come into existence in order to gather enough energy for survival – in other words, to get smart, it would need to get more energy than any of the other competing lifeforms. Humans grew smart because having a big brain allowed them to gather more food than any other kind of life form – the smarter you are, the bigger the brain, the bigger the brain, the bigger the head, and the more you fed the brain, the more brilliant ideas it would have to keep the rest of the body alive. [This is HUGE over-simplification of how evolution works, but I’m going to keep it for now.]

So, we have some kind of crystalline intelligence developing in order to gather more light – and concentrate it better. Imagine a wide, metallic mirror – maybe aluminum. We’ll start with creatures called “amphipods” who concentrate aluminum and use it to strengthen their exoskeletons to better withstand the pressures of the deepest parts of the ocean. Under a Type M star, the oceans might be shallower – except for perhaps huge cracks in the planet’s crust, like the Earth’s Marianas Trench; where our aluminized aliens dwell.

They change over time – there’s lots of time with a class M star. They burn slowly and can last a long time. So, they begin to group together into colonies, rather like the Siphonophoria I started exploring here: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2023/04/writing-advice-creating-alien-aliens.html

Only instead of long, thin tentacles, these form into sheets. Aluminized sheets, their skeletons strengthened. The wee beasties [Name for a story???] (“In the 17th century, Van Leeuwenhoek looked through a microscope at a drop of water and found it teeming with microscopic life. He was the first recorded person in history (that I know of) to see microbes. He called them “wee beasties”. The science has survived and thrived, sadly the quaint term hasn’t.”) grow in sheets. When peculiar currents well up from below, while the flat sheet is drifting one day, the uneven currents lift the edges but leave the center lower. The effect is startling – focused sunlight carries more energy and the “beasties” in the center are energized. The current persists, and the alteration allows for more emphatic breeding; the adaptation increases the survival rate of colonies that can concentrate sunlight…

OK – enough of life changing over time. Let’s get to the point of this exercise: what kinds of thoughts and emotions and feelings would a colony of aluminized wee beasties that looks suspiciously like a sheet of mylar. While the aspects of a living sheet of BoPET (biaxially oriented polyethylene terephthalate) is starting to interest me, I’ll yank myself back to the topic at hand…

So, based on the quotes above, emotions would come first. Postulate: a floating piece of BoPET would probably be excited the closer it got to the surface of the ocean it lives in. Firstly because it would be able to pull more and more energy from the sunlight as it got brighter and brighter. It would be more energetic. At first, this would just be more energy to reproduce. But as time passed, our BoPET bowl would discover that close enough to the surface and under certain conditions…I’m going to call the creatures Biaxteres…they might catch sight of things above the water. Floating things.

Again, time passes and the Biaxteres discover that they can flex their film bodies and see what the things are that pass overhead ARE. At this point, emotions might spill over into feelings. Probably what we would call curiosity would pop up. What are the things above their world might become a driver of curiosity.

At the same time, they would discover that the “bowling” faced downward might allow them to “see” things both smaller and larger – magnifying and telescoping through the water. They might discover that visible light isn’t the only part of the spectrum there is. And underwater sound might ALSO be magnified by the bowl-effect.

And now we have both emotions and feelings. Emotional “highs” we might call wonder, curiosity, desire…though NONE of these would be emotions and feelings as we would experience them. They also wouldn’t be about things we could see: the Biaxteres would see differently than we would, being creatures of the air, we wouldn’t perceive the flyers or the creatures of the deep as they would. For them, it might be more visceral. Certainly, the other life they experience in this ocean would be threatening in a way we wouldn’t be able to understand – life as aluminized film wouldn’t be the same as life as flesh and bone.

Would it even be comprehensible to us? Could a civilization develop on the Biaxtere’s world? What kind of a civilization would a lifeform that was (merely?) a thin, aluminized film of microscopic creatures? I’ll need to explore that.

For now, we might share excitement and curiosity with them. We might share a sense of exploration with them. HOWEVER, Biaxtere civilization might not be recognizable to us as such. While we may share some emotions and feelings – what else might we share and how might we communicate?

I’ll be thinking on this more in the future…

Source: https://counseling.online.wfu.edu/blog/difference-feelings-emotions/, http://www.nonverbal-world.com/2014/09/would-aliens-have-emotions.html, https://www.wired.co.uk/article/neil-degrasse-tyson-welcome-to-the-universe, https://medium.com/@leecadesky/wee-beasties-d303c7caf019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoPET
Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 601

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: forbidden rooms
Current Event: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial and http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume7/j7_2_1_33.htm and http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/21/3783838/mcmartin-preschool-fiasco-led.html

Thirty years after the infamous McMartin Preschool Incident, Tayna Hopewell’s parents buy the land the day care once stood on to build a golf equipment shop. Everything is past and even though she finds out about the lot’s history through a Google search, she doesn’t say anything.

They aren’t opening a day care!

Tanya who lives in Alondra and takes classes as a high school senior at El Camino College wants to be a forensic scientist after she graduates. Her parents are “golf semi-pros” and while she supports them now that she’s “grown up”, she loathes the sport and avoids it at every chance.

On the eve of a big semi-pro tourney at the nearby Alondra Golf Course, and shortly after the excavation began, Tanya NEEDS to escape her parents! They’re driving her CRAZY!

She lights off along Manhattan Beach Boulevard, jogging toward the beach and some much-needed alone time. When she reaches the excavation site, she sees that the gate is still standing open and she figures her parents own the land, so she has every right to check things out.

A warm breeze is wafting off shore a mile or so away and even though the sun is sinking toward the horizon, she’s comfortable poking around the site.

It’s not particularly interesting until she gets to the back of the lot. It’s been built over more than once – before the infamous daycare (demolished in 1985) it was a housing development, since then The Strand Cleaners which went out of business. Now her parents are building a two-story building; the ground floor will house Hopewell’s Pro Golf; the upper story was unrented yet, but there were plenty of people interested.

At the back of the property, Tanya nearly pitches into a narrow hole in the ground that runs under the fence to the property behind their land. As well, there’s evidence of the trenches running toward Manhattan Boulevard. Scowling, she looked into the hole, though she can’t see a thing. She takes out her cell, flips it to “flashlight mode” and aims it into the hole.

She still can’t see much more than the far side of it. Muttering, she unrolls her towel, lays it on the ground and lays down, scooting to the edge so she can see over it clearly.

She flicks on the flashlight, holding it ahead of her and pointing down and looks carefully.

At the bottom of the trench, at the edge of the cell phone’s light reach, she clearly sees a pile of bones.

Heart pounding, she remembers that there was a buried trash heap under the property that they’d found evidence of even during the trial in the olden days. It’s probably just animal bones.

That’s when she sees it. To one side, barely visible now, staring at her without eyes, is a small skull.

A small HUMAN skull…

Name: ♀ Russia
Image: https://cdn.britannica.com/40/11740-004-50816EB1/Boris-Karloff-Frankenstein-monster.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: Will All Intelligent Alien Civilizations Be Modeled On the Benevolent Government Democrats Are Striving For?

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…

Question: Why do so many people who DON’T read science fiction widely, make the assumption that any Aliens we come into contact with who have starships, no war, unlimited wealth, with a unified, single party government, be ecologically-pre-civilization-static, single-class, benevolent, democratically elected, and all-inclusive civilization... possibly be REAL?

Do they have evidence that “U-SPG-EPCS-SC-B-DE-AI civilization” is the only way to govern well? (WE are evidence to the contrary. Our governments have always been fractured (check history books); but we use nuclear power, genetic engineering, and we travel in space – all of these achievements are limited and the majority of “doom-sayers” assume that we will destroy ourselves…but despite dire predictions, we haven’t as of this moment. We absolutely have wars, threats, and cruelty…yet seven billion of us persist at this time. Countless others have tantrums about how dumb the “others” are and that unless the entire world embraces their ideal of government, we will continue to be hanging by a thread? Maybe a spider silk thread…)

How did Gene Roddenberry’s dream up the idea of a United Earth and a United Federation of Planets? Except for hippies who were dreaming of yellow submarines and Woodstock, the rest of the world was in shell-shocked horror discovering that the SECOND War To End All Wars hadn’t performed as promised. Things were growing worse. How did Roddenberry get to Star Trek?

That’s easy enough to summarize from the article referenced below: “I really don’t consider myself a science-fiction writer, but I’m interested in what’s happening on this planet and what may happen…Intolerance in the 23rd century? Improbable!...If man survives that long, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures…we couldn’t do a space show without at least one person on board who constantly reminded you that you are out in space and in a world of the future…A science-fiction buff since junior high school, he had the idea for a series that would mix…The Twilight Zone..The Outer Limits with a cast of continuing characters…[a]…space-adventure series [like] “Wagon Train to the Stars,” a nod to the westerns that were still the gold standard in popular TV drama in the 1960s…born in the midst of the turbulent 1960s…it…often reflected and commented on the issues of that divisive decade: the Vietnam War, civil rights, Cold War politics, the budding environmental movement. The show had an idealistic, ’60s counterculture mind-set, imagining a 23rd-century world in which humans had outgrown war and prejudice…[STAR TREK] proved that an outer-space action show could appeal to our intelligence, tackle serious issues—and, in a troubled time, offer some hope for the future.” He certainly didn’t base his enthusiastic hope for humanity on any kind of reality, making the assumption that we would reach a point of evenly distributed wealth and overcome all forms of prejudice to reach the

But…

In the STAR WARS Universe, an Evil Empire has overthrown by an UNQUESTIONABLY Good Republic (it’s “goodness” is an unargued given). But shortly after that happens, the New Republic was once again overthrown by an Imperial copycat of Darth Vader called the First Order which launches its takeover in THE FORCE AWAKENS (2015 – ironically, (hmmm or was it political commentary?) the same year Trump declared his presidential bid). On what basis is the Republic declared “good” and the Empire “bad”?

In Frank Herbert’s DUNE novels, his assumption is that humanity can only avoid the extinction of Humanity by creating an Omniscient God-Emperor to derail a religious High Priesthood of Bene Gesserit and capitalistic Traders. “ We've a three-point civilization: the Imperial Household balanced against the Federated Great Houses of the Landsraad through [CHOAM, the Directors of all wealth], and between them; the Spacers Guild with its damnable monopoly on interstellar transport. Reverend Mother Mohiam.” (Note she omits the hidden rule of the Bene Gesserit.” Paul Atreides (aka Paul Muad’dib institutes “…his Golden Path, [Frank Herbert’s]…argument of how to create a healthy society, avoiding despotism and hero worship, a trap in which social groups can be caught: ‘To make a world where human kind can make its own future from moment to moment, free from one man's vision. Free from the perversion of the [any?] prophet’s words. And free of future pre-determined...’” From universal foundation does Frank Herbert’s declaration of what humanity needs depend? On what foundation of human understanding does he make his postulation?

In TV’s extremely popular series, THE EXPANSE, the UN has seized power from most of the world’s governments because of nearly uncontrollable Climate Change – which they stop. They continue to rule Earth as well as colonies on the Moon, Mars, and in the asteroid belt as well as several other Jovian moons and a very few interstellar colonies until rogue Martian marines form their own government, conquer everyone, and call them all the Laconian Empire…[This is all from the resource below. I read the second book, CALIBAN’S WAR thinking it was the first and while I thought it was a great deal of fun, never went back to read the others. I also read A GAME OF THRONES and while it was also fun, (nowhere near as fun as his Haviland Tuf science fiction stories); I didn’t return to that series, either and never watched a single episode of the TV show…]

There are many futures for Humanity portrayed in science fiction literature. These four are currently best known because they were either visual presentations or MADE into visual presentations. Others await production and the passing of time to test their precepts.

Until then, we’re left with what we have here and now, and what we hope in the future – and our own hands to make it – though there are some who believe that we do not labor alone working for the better future or Humanity on Earth, now. [No, I DON’T mean Aliens Among Us!]

Finally, with the perspective added by a few more years, I wonder why so many people today assume that "all is lost" and there's no possible way we could survive to even THINK about a world like the one Roddenberry invented nearly six decades ago? Could it be the BBC's news coverage? Racial unrest (I live in the city and a few blocks from one of the places waves of civil unrest rolled over a bit over two and three years ago...)

Do I have hope for a STAR TREK future? Can we make it? With deep hope and belief, I STILL have to say, "Yes."

Sources: https://time.com/4406710/star-trek-history-excerpt/, https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Galactic_Empire, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizations_of_the_Dune_universe, https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Laconia_system, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muad%27Dib

Image: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/d/d1/Star_Trek_Universe.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20200115144000&path-prefix=en

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 600

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: Comic Fantasy
Current Event: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_You_Think_You_Can_Dance_(United_States)

Sein Ryoo held Yi Ling Guinto’s hand tightly as she spun out from him. The light panel, extremely sensitive to the magic generated by motion, glowed a cool, mint green.

They were both panting. Yi Ling bent over, planting her fists on her knees. A few minutes later, she said, “If we want to get on ‘You Think YOU Got Dance Magic?’, then we’re gonna have to turn that traffic light green – and just as intense.”

Trying to pretend there was no stitch in his side, Sein said, “We’ve been working all summer. Dance Magic’s gonna be here in forty-eight hours. What can we do in two days the we haven’t done in three months?”

With a flick of her finger, Yi Ling changed music tracks on her tablet computer from the sober beginning of the fandango to the wild exuberance of her current favorite metal band, Cursed For Cash. Sein whooped, grabbed her arms and they danced until the panel glowed like a magic spotlight. They collapsed into each other’s arms, laughing. She kissed Sein’s cheek and he pushed away, laughing as well. He said, “You know better than that!”

“I keep hoping,” she said, stepped forward and hugged him. “Let’s call it quits for today. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Mom says to tell your dad that we’ll be there at five am.”

“Ugh!”

Yi Ling sniffed then said, “If we lived in a real city, we wouldn’t have to drive so far.” She sighed, for the thousandth time, wishing she lived somewhere other than Duluth, Minnesota. Hardly a hotbed of dance magic, she was glad she at least had Sein. She relented, “But then we would never have met.”

He hugged her back, “I’ve got no idea what I’d have done if you weren’t here.” He shook his head. “Not only would I NOT be heading to the Dance Magic tryouts and I would have failed pre-calculus and physics.”

“No,” said Yi Ling, “I would have failed.”

“No, I would have,” they headed home. As the magic faded from their practice room, the panel grew dark, only occasionally flickering as flocks of Canadian geese flew their ancient dance to the south, overhead and far away.


Sein’s dad shot over his shoulder, “Five more kilometers to Chicago!”

In the back, Sein and Yi Ling squirmed. The ceiling light flared for an instant as did the dash light. Yi Ling’s mom sighed as her tablet readers glared brightly for an instant. “Stop it back there!” If the two of you keep back-seat dancing, you’re going to short out every light from here to New York!”

Sein’s dad squealed with laughter and squirmed in his own seat. But no lights flickered. The illumination stayed the same. Sein blushed furiously, pale skin under red-dyed and permed hair. Leaning to Yi Ling, he whispered, “I hate it when he screams like a girl.”

She pushed him back, saying, “I don’t sound like that when...”

“That’s cause you hardly ever scream.”

Sein’s dad heard nothing as he exclaimed, “Chicago’s flashing like a lighthouse beacon!”

Looking between the front seat headrests, Sein and Yi Ling gasped as golden light pulsed from the Windy City – as if welcoming them home.

Names: ♀Singapore, Philippines ; ♂ Burma, South Korea
Image:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

The Pretty-Much-Finished-Except-For-A-Few-Tweaks Cover Of My New Book

 

My OLD book:

 (1998)

Sneak Peek At the ALMOST Ready COVER of EMERALD OF EARTH...PUBLICATION DATE TBD!

 

Slice of PIE: What Do We Do When We Find “Them”?

Using the Program Guide of the 2018 World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose, CA, I read the notes and comments on the subject. The link to the original post is below. (I originally posted this on July 21, 2019)

SETI: What Do We Do When We Find Them?
Scientists at SETI, and METI, and other organizations are actively searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. But what are we going to do when we make that first contact?

Andrew Fraknoi: Director of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, author, Asteroid 4859 Asteroid Fraknoi…
Brother Guy J. Consolmagno, SJ: American research astronomer and Director of the Vatican Observatory
SB Divya: author, Nebula Award finalist, co-editor of Escape Pod, degree in Computational Neuroscience and Signal Processing, electrical engineer
Douglas Vakoch: PhD, President Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence, editor
Lonny Brooks: PhD, associate professor of communication at California State University

What to do, what to do?

I’m sure the “answer” was easy for this group and the people sitting in the room. I wasn’t there, though I would have slipped unnoticed and unremarked into the “people sitting in the room” demographic. ALL of us would have intelligently discussed the pros and…well, pros.

I’m sure someone would have mentioned Hawking and Brin, and even though he was listed among the Program Participants, he didn’t attend this particular session because his thoughts on phoning ET are pretty well known (though side-stepped here by quoting the originator of the opinion he echoes at every opportunity): “Jared Diamond offers an essay on the risks of attempting to contact ETIs, based on the history of what happened on Earth whenever more advanced civilizations encountered less advanced ones... or indeed, when the same thing happens during contact between species that evolved in differing ecosystems. The results are often not good: in inter-human relations slavery, colonialism, etc. Among contacting species: extinction.”!

From the grave, Hawking’s opinion would have echoed from the 2016 documentary Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places, “Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they could reach,” he said. ‘Who knows what the limits would be?’ And in the, Hawking reiterated his views: ‘Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn’t turn out so well.’”!

These and other ET “deniers” couldn’t have been “shushed” (both of them carry the status of Super Star, and who would stand against Hawking, whose mind is often compared to Einstein, Newton, and ), but I’m sure their imprecations would have fallen on mostly deaf ears. Certainly a reasonable number of SF writers have a somewhat different view of what interactions between Earth and extraterrestrials would be like. Even in Brin’s UPLIFT UNIVERSE, Humans, while underdogs, were hardly slaughtered wholesale and enslaved (though several intelligences, like the Gubru and the Soro, thought Humanity could use a bit of “finishing” followed by a thousand years of indenture.

No, rather than the faithful and the deniers, the Con should have invited the “person on the street”, the ones who number in the BILLIONS (seven billion to be more accurate), and don’t really give much thought to the possibility of First Contact. Yet, they would be the most profoundly affected by such an event. HG Wells held out little hope for a calm response to First Contact:

“So you understand the roaring wave of fear that swept through the greatest city in the world just as Monday was dawning—the stream of flight rising swiftly to a torrent, lashing in a foaming tumult round the railway stations, banked up into a horrible struggle about the shipping in the Thames, and hurrying by every available channel northward and eastward. By ten o’clock the police organisation, and by midday even the railway organisations, were losing coherency, losing shape and efficiency, guttering, softening, running at last in that swift liquefaction of the social body.” (XVI. THE EXODUS FROM LONDON. Paragraph 1)

 

With wildly differing opinions among the faithful, what do you expect from commoners for whom the appearance of real-live aliens could range from outright, psychologically TRUE denial, to blithering panic, to catatonia.

While I’m sure the session was great fun, I’m pretty sure that they wouldn’t have any idea what a regular person’s real reaction to “when we find them” would be…

Resource: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36/36-h/36-h.htm#chap14,

http://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/shouldsetitransmit.html, https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/stephen-hawking-controversial-physics-black-holes-bets-science/, https://artscolumbia.org/literary-arts/prose/war-worlds-tell-us-human-nature-25393/
Program Book: https://www.worldcon76.org/images/publications/WC76_PocketProgram_2018_Final_WEB08152018.pdf
Image:  https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTyz5mfCZ4KlJUS-L_AF3evIqFEC0HTzIrhGg&usqp=CAU

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 599

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: “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/thumb/e/e1/Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg/220px-Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 15: Another Player “Believes”!

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

“We [at Karman+] want to mine space resources from near-Earth asteroids to provide abundant, sustainable energy and resources in space and for Earth.”

Whew! Bold words!

Karman+ is the most recent company to throw its helmet into the hype-filled sea of speculative asteroid mining. They DO note that asteroid mining has “lived at the intersection of scientific research and popular culture for decades, with as many academic papers published as there are books, TV shows and movies about it.”

That being said, everyone knows that the ULTIMATE reason to start mining the asteroids is because what metals that are left on Earth have been mined practically to the bare rock walls. And even MORE ultimately, the mining concerns are facing the possibility of the total depletion of their cash cows.

I live in Minnesota. During World War II, “Minnesota nearly depleted its immense supply of high-grade iron ore to help the Allies win World War II, providing much of the crucial raw material behind America's tanks, warships, guns and ammunition…”

But how MUCH is “much”? “SEVENTY percent of the iron ore that America devoted to the war came from Minnesota…333 million tons, according to Pam Brunfelt, a retired Vermilion Community College faculty member and historian.” She added, “without the Iron Range, we would not have won the war…[Today], our resources-driven growth faces a massive existential challenge, with climate change, ecosystem degradation and resource depletion demanding a complete reset. Humanity needs to shift global transportation, manufacturing, construction and energy onto a sustainable path.”

There are a growing number of companies who are talking a BIG TALK about mining asteroids; just as there are a number of individuals who live in total doubt that something as ridiculous as “mining asteroids” will EVER take place. From these early, serious attempts to realize, these modern day space pirates are intent on sinking any serious discussion or intention to realize any alternatives to mining in space by insisting that Earth is the ONLY PLACE WE WILL EVER GET THE METALS WE NEED TO CONTINUE TO BUILD OUR SOCIETY. (See my blog entry: “Maybe THESE Are The REAL Space Pirates?” https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2023/05/mining-asteroids-part-14-maybe-these.html)

Fortunately, there’s another new company willing to do m ore than talk. The “Karman+” and logo come from the concept of the Kármán line, established in the 1960’s, “a proposed conventional boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space set by the international record-keeping body FAI (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale) at an altitude of 100 kilometers (also: 62 miles or 330,000 feet) above sea level.”

There’s no measurable change in the characteristics of the atmosphere across it, but it IS important for legal and regulatory purposes. Anything flying above it is considered a spacecraft; anything below it is just an airplane, no matter how fancy.

Those two types of vessels are subject to different jurisdictions and legislations. It IS a lot higher than we can reach with a regular jet or a high altitude balloon. But it’s also the point at which a satellite in orbit around Earth will inevitably fall out of the sky.

Karman+ believes in something called “the Regolith Age, powered by abundant space resources, is an inevitability that we can accelerate.” Because they don’t offer ANY kind of definition, I’m somewhat suspicious of their mission…though I think I can parse it reasonably well:

Regolith: “regolith, a region of loose unconsolidated rock and dust that sits atop a layer of bedrock and serves as a source of other geologic resources, such as aluminum, iron, clays, diamonds, and rare earth elements. It also appears on the surfaces of the Moon, other planets, and asteroids. The word is the Greek term for “blanket rock.” So, we expect to not actually DIG into asteroids, but merely swoop in and scoop up the regolith and either refine it in orbital facilities and what? Drop down slugs of iron, steel, gold, frankincense, and myrrh?

Either that or ship raw regolith back to the surface in…space shuttles? Heat-shielded “drop capsules”? [NOW THERE’S AN IDEA! Pack a drop capsule full of unrefined regolith. Send it on a one-way fall into the ocean with some kind of floater ring. Provide a vent in the top of the dropper, and voila, the capsule will be full of partially smelted metal even before Humans get their hands on it.] But wouldn’t it kind of be bad if one of these dropper companies sent a ship down with regolith that shows a high concentration of gold, platinum, or other desirable metals – and some mean, old fashioned PIRATE pirates grabbed it and make off with it?]

Hmmm…Karman+ points out that there have been baby steps made in the returning of samples to our surface from other bodies: from the various rocks returned on the original Apollo Lunar landings (“Between 1969 and 1972 six Apollo missions brought back 382 kilograms (842 pounds) of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand and dust from the lunar surface. The six space flights returned 2200 separate samples from six different exploration sites on the Moon. In addition, three automated Soviet spacecraft returned important samples totaling 300 grams (approximately 3/4 pound) from three other lunar sites.” (https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/)

“That last step has been advanced through the Hayabusa and Hayabusa2 missions run by JAXA, both of which also returned sample material back to earth. This will be expanded in the coming years with the NASA-run OSIRIS-REx mission, taking our total count of asteroid sample return missions to 3. As well, AstroForge did some experiments on asteroid mining earlier this year. (https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2023/05/mining-asteroids-part-13-new-kid-in.html)

So, despite the nay-sayers, doom-layers, and plain haters, the possibility of mining the asteroids is moving forward, albeit slowly. Consider, however, how many years it took between Goddard’s first rocket experiments and Apollo 11’s historic landing on the Moon – forty-three years between his first liquid fuel rocket launch, and “One small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”

Since then, we haven’t stopped and the exploration of space has included virtually every nation with launch capability – or the wherewithal to buy a place in space.

I think our “negativity experts” have chosen to stand in stubborn surety on the WRONG side of Human history.

New Source: https://karmanplus.com/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line ;
Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth, https://www.pharostribune.com/news/local_news/article_7fcd3ea5-3c14-533f-a8d5-9bf629922f34.html, https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/04/29/like-asteroid-mining-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/, https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/learn/historyculture/theroadtothefirstflight.htm, https://hackaday.com/2019/03/27/extraterrestrial-excavation-digging-holes-on-other-worlds/, https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/every-small-worlds-mission
Image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 598

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.

H Trope: Spiders
Current Event: http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/17/autos/toyota-spiders-airbag-recall/

Nanami Ng stared down at the steering wheel of her Driver’s Training car and said, “I heard like, all of these cars got recalled.”

The driver’s trainer, Marcus, looked up from his tablet computer and said, “What?”

Lan Cai leaned forward from the back seat, sticking his head between them. “Wasn’t it spiders or something?”

“What?” Marcus exclaimed.

Lan turned to Nanami and said, “Yeah. They were like sucking all the gasoline out of some car – like wasn’t it a BMW or something?”

Nanami said, “Mazda, and they didn’t drink gasoline. That would be stupid.”

“What would you know about stupid? You can’t even pass the bio test without writing the answers on your hand.”

Nanami blushed deeply, though mostly just her ears turned red. Marcus said, “Get driving! We don’t have time to waste on stupid Halloween stories.”

“It wasn’t a Halloween story! It was real?”

Lan turned to look at Marcus and said, “Hey, Nanami might not be able to test herself out of a paper bag, but...”

Both of them pushed him back into the back seat and Marcus said, “Your opinion stinks as bad as your breath.”

Nanami laughed as she pulled with jerky pedal pumping out from in front of the school. Marcus said, “You haven’t spent much time practicing, have you Nanami?”

“My dad won’t drive with me! Our car was in the garage! The battery was dead! I was so busy with school!”

From the back seat, Lan sat with his arms crossed over his chest. He muttered, “More like you were too busy lip-locked with the bf.”

“You’re just jealous!” Nanami shot over her shoulder. The car screeched to a stop just before she ran over four ninth grade girls. “I didn’t hit the brakes!” she shouted.

“Good thing I was watching, then, wasn’t it?” Marcus said, making a mark on his clipboard. “That’s the second time this week I had to use the brake. One more time and you’ll have to take a two week break and then start all over again.”

“That’s not fair!” Nanami and Lan exclaimed together.

Marcus looked back over the seat at Lan, then across at Nanami. He said, “I don’t make the rules. I just enforce them. If you two want to file a grievance, start talking to the camera.” He gestured to a spot just above the read-view mirror. A red dot glowed there, recording their words and actions.

Scowling, Nanami edged ahead slowly as a car behind them laid on their horn. She got out to the side road and drove to the stop sign, rolling slowly to a halt. The car behind them honked again. She opened her mouth to comment, then closed it, rolling forward. She was driving past the playground, suddenly tense as a couple of little kids playing on the swings jumped off and started chasing each other. The kids ran toward the houses, away from the road and she was so busy watching them that she didn’t see the car stop at the light. Marcus slammed on the car’s brakes. “That’s it,” he said. “Let’s go back.”

Nanami looked at him and despite the car behind them that started honking. She stuck her fist out the window, flipped them off and then stomped on the brake, then kept stomping on it as she shouted, “Just practicing! Practicing stopping! See! I’m practicing.” She stomped harder and harder, screaming. “Practice! Practice! Practice!”

“Calm down!” Marcus said. A sizzling sound came from the dashboard, like something was on fire.

“Sounds like squirrels are in the engine,” Nanami said.

All three of them were staring at the dashboard when the ashtray popped open and a dozen red spiders came out, followed by more and more and...

Names: ♀Japan, Singapore; ♂ Vietnam, Taiwan
Image: https://cdn.britannica.com/40/11740-004-50816EB1/Boris-Karloff-Frankenstein-monster.jpg

Slice of PIE: Wimpy Excuses for Dark Teen Lit -- "Life is so grim in the 21st Century!"

Popular opinion on the “book circuit” – i.e. public & school libraries and Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, as well as among The Big & Small Publishers Of Both Paper Books And Ebooks – appears to be that teenagers love to read the following because teenagers are responding to the grimness of “life” in this, our "HORRIBLE" 21st Century of HORRIBLE politicians, climate, conflict. (I often hear adults use the word "unprecedented"...often. ALL the time. REPEATEDYLY. AS IF IT WERE SOME SORT OF INCANTATION OF DOOM...). They produce lengthy series such as:

The DARKEST MIND series
The KINGDOM OF THE WICKED series
The HUNGER GAMES series
The GONE series
The HIDDEN series
The  SHADOW AND BONE series
The LIFE AS WE KNEW IT series

Lisa Belkin, a New York Times online writer, is quick to say, “Why are all these book so dark? Then again, isn’t dark what teens do best?” http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/what-your-teens-are-reading/

Of course, the instant assumption is that teenagers in this part of the 21st Century have much more horrible lives than any teens in any other time in history...

I beg to differ and postulate that what teenagers face today is different in specifics but not in substance. In order to give some brackets to my defense, I will limit my timeline to the era with identifiable “teen literature”, beginning with the early 1800s:

The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss (1812): US declares war on England; Napoleonic wars in full swing; US invades Canada; bubonic plague in Egypt, Istanbul, Bucharest, and Malta; Felling mine disaster
Waverley by Sir Walter Scott (1814): War of 1812 continues; Napoleonic wars continues; Britain burns down Washington, D.C.

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (1838): Rioting in Mexico; Cherokee Indians begin Trail of Tears; Central American Civil War begins; Boors slaughter Zulus in South Africa; women allowed to vote somewhere in the world for the first time; major smallpox typhus plagues in the US; (Dickens depicts deplorable conditions in central London, in particular child labor, death and poverty)

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1844): USS Princeton explodes; Jews allowed to return to Jerusalem for the first time in hundreds of years; massive flooding of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers; French invasion of Algeria continues in bloodshed; Paraguayan dictator ascends to his office; yellow fever has ravaged the South

Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes(1857): Major US earthquake; Second Opium War breaks out in China; largest slave auction in US history and slaves declared not people in the US; Tokyo earthquake kills 100,000; the India Rebellion; Panic of 1857 causes financial tremors all around the world; Mountain Meadows Massacre (120 Arkansas settlers passing through Utah are slaughtered by Mormons); SS Central America sinks with all hands (425); Reform Wars of Mexico begin; the end of the Third Bubonic Plague Pandemic; yellow fever in Portugal, smallpox in Australia, influenza in Europe, North America, South America

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (1860): assassination of Venezuelan leader; massive strike of 20,000 in New England; settlers massacre 60 native people in California; First Taranaki War in New Zealand, Maori revolt; Qing army of 180,000 destroyed in China; record-breaking storm sinks 100s of boats, kills people on east coast of England; wars of formation in Italy; PS Elgin rammed and sunk in Lake Michigan, 100s die; Ecuadoran and Peruvian wars; Christians and Druzs kill each other in Damascus; there are 4 million slaves in the American South; influenza in S, N America, Europe

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865): US Civil War breaks out; Abraham Lincoln assassinated; steamboat Sultana explodes on Mississippi, 1700 dead; Brazilian and Paraguayan navies clash; cholera epidemics in Egypt and the Middle East; rebel uprising in Jamaica, British execute 600;

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (1876): defacto slavery; poverty; Batak, Bulgaria massacre of some 5000; war in Turkey; Indian Wars; Serbia and Montenegro declare war on Ottoman Empire; tornado in India kills 200,000; samurai banned from carrying swords in Japan

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884): defacto slavery; poverty; siege of Khatoum, Sudan begins; Colchester earthquake, UK’s worst; Germany takes possession of Togoland and Cameroon; earthquake shakes US from central Virginia to southern Maine inward to Cleveland; Sino-French War continues; terroristic Texan cowboys attempt to murder deputy sheriff for arresting one of their pals; Korea succumbs to rebellion bankrolled by China and Japan; economic depression in US; Japan established police training schools in every prefecture; India, Germany cholera pandemic

Kidnapped by Robert Lewis Stevenson (1886): country of Myanmar (Burma) presented to Queen Victoria as a birthday present; German parliament objects strenuously to deportation of Prussian Poles and Jews; anti-Chinese riots in Seattle; 20 blacks murdered in Carrollton, Miss; Haymarket Riots in US; fire burns Vancouver, BC to the ground; hurricane destroys Indianola, TX; earthquake levels Charleston, SC; Montreal, Canada smallpox epidemic

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (1894): first significant protest of unemployed Americans, Coxey’s Army; May Day Riots in Cleveland; president of France assassinated; Japan and China go to war; women allowed to vote in Australia; Korean Donghak Peasant Rebellion ends with Japan and Chinese “assistance” fighting each other; Osage Indians become the richest people on Earth; Bubonic plague in Hong Kong; Russian flu winding down around the world

Moon Fleet by J. Meade Falkner (1898): Spanish-American War begins with the explosion of the USS Maine; Massacre of protesters in Milan, Italy; Philippines declare independence from Spain; Turks slaughter 700 Greeks and Brits in Heraklos, Greece; Brits take over Sudan; Empress of Austro-Hungary assassinated; Chinese Empress overthrows government; British conquer and burn Benin City in Africa; tripanosomiasis epidemic in the Congo

I would hesitantly suggest that while SOME of these books are indeed grim reflections of their times; not ALL of them are. I'm fairly certain that the balance of "dark" to "light" books is skewed to dark in the 21st Century where the 19th Century skewed to hopeful.

It’s my thoughtful opinion (and experience) that we need more positive literature for teenagers to read. The supply of that literature is CONTROLLED lock, stock and barrel by the adults who write, publish, market, buy, suggest, check out and assign books to young people.

Perhaps it is time to wake up and smell the coffee and quit excusing our adult angst by telling ourselves that “isn’t dark what teens do best?”

I’d counter that ridiculous assertion (after 41  years of teaching 3rd graders through 12th graders some of whom were special education, gifted-and-talented, English Learners; and average kids in a first ring suburban high school that is 2/3 non-white and 85% free-and-reduced-lunch) with this: “HOPE is what teens do best!”

It’s about time for adults to stop pandering to their own sense of failure at bringing the utopic vision they were sure they’d been gifted with and start giving young people the tools to create THEIR OWN vision of the future. That includes SF, F and Contemporary fiction that offers solutions and hope instead of the angsty attitude of "accept that things are crap and do the best you can".

Image: https://bookriot.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/person-in-hoodie-dark-night-horror-1280x720.jpg