CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 34: We REALLY Need To Get A Handle On Our HUMAN 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...

I was thinking about angels, demons, monsters, and (currently) reading GODRIC, a novel about a man the book is named after, and his journey from being a cutthroat, thief, extortioner, and really, the worst of the kind of Humans we’ve all experienced.

The book, by Frederick Buechner was one of three nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction in 1981 and along with SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW by William Maxwell the two lost out to John Kennedy Toole’s A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES. Toole took his own life in 1969 after five years of rejections. His mother found it, sent it out seven more times until it was finally published in 1980 – seventeen years after Toole had finished writing it.

All of this is to ponder how Humans, Earthly animals and ultimately, aliens might experience emotions.

“‘In the last decade or two, people have gotten bolder and more creative in terms of asking what animals’ emotional states are,’ explains Georgia Mason, a behavioral biologist and animal welfare scientist at the University of Guelph in Canada. They’re finding thought-provoking answers amid a wide array of animals.

“For instance, recent studies hint that picking up a mouse by its tail casts a pall on the animal’s day, and that an unexpected sugar treat may improve a bee’s mood. Crayfish might experience anxiety; ferrets can get bored; and octopuses, and perhaps fish, can experience pain.

“Such findings could drive changes in how we treat the animals in our care….certain invertebrates such as crabs, lobsters and octopuses should be considered sentient — that is, capable of subjective experiences such as pain and suffering.”

“Her team created a simplified, portable EEG device…measures a horse’s brain waves. Horses that were able to graze freely with a herd had more slow theta waves than horses that spent more time restrained alone in a stall. In humans, such waves reflect calmness…horses that roamed with their herd outdoors, grazing at will, had more brain waves called theta waves, which have high amplitude and move slowly. In humans, theta waves are thought to reflect calm and well-being. By contrast, the animals that lived in solo stalls with little contact with other horses had more gamma brain waves, the fastest of all brain waves. In people, gamma waves are associated with anxiety and stress.”

Of course, the problem here is that the assumption is that two brains evolved along almost entirely different lines are being compared as if they were the same…and also, of course, certain scientists cry foul and: “investigat(e) animals’ feelings through the lens of human psychology. Looking for parallels in how humans and other animals process experiences makes sense because our brains and behaviors reflect a shared evolutionary history.”

Of course the problem here is that the “shared evolutionary history” is something most people wouldn’t bother to check. The fact is that Humans and Horses evolved from WIDELY divergent lines. To impose sameness on two fundamentally dissimilar brains (if you still want to do studies of the emotions of brains similar to our own, you might look to rabbits, lemurs, and rats.) is...not very sensible.

And now, finally, my point: most of the science fiction stories and novels I read; most of animal husbandry I see (I live in a FARM state, people here have suburban farms in their back yards. EX: teacher I worked with has some 40 quail, 16 chickens, two honeybee hives, two grape arbors (one wine, one table), plum trees, pumpkins, squash, and other plants I can’t recall).) assumes that animals feel exactly as we do.

How many friends do you have who feed their dog from the family table – on Human food? You could more logically assume bats, rhino, reindeer, and pangolins would have the same feelings as your dog and cat – but your DOG feeling about you the way YOU feel about them? The distance on the evolutionary tree is too far to easily bridge: your dog does NOT love you the way you love them.

We cannot assume that aliens will act like us. Sarek and Amanda (Spock’s “parents”) or Fred Kwan and Laliari would NOT be likely to feel the same about each other (or even in the way they feel emotions) that GALAXY QUEST implies.

She’s descended from aquatic crustaceans and he come from savannah-dwelling primates. Though, to give props to GALAXY QUEST, there’s a scene where Captain Taggart tells the Thermians to “look around and try and find…” something – they look UP. While it seems like a behavior your average adolescent would do when you ask them to look for something they’ve lost; with the Thermians, it’s a NATURAL reaction. They are evolved from creatures who not only lived on a single level of a three-dimensional world like WE do; their ancestors live under water – and would have had to be cognizant of dangers from ALL AROUND THEM.

I don't think so... How do they “feel”? We CAN'T POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND!

“ARRIVAL”, the movie starring Jeremy Renner, Amy Adams, and others, posits aliens who rather resemble five-legged octopuses – or the “heptapods” comes a bit closer to how alien aliens might “feel” than pretty much any other alien movie I’ve ever seen.

BESIDES that fact that they experience time differently that we do and have five legs and appear to swim like squid, our IMMEDIATE assumption is that not only CAN we communicate with them, is that Abbot and Costello are “friends”. Let’s just start with the simplest question: do Earthly squid have friends?

We’ve got no idea because the very idea of squid having FEELINGS is repulsive to Humans. We’re A-OK with horses and dogs and cats loving us exactly as we love them; but *EEEEEWWWWWW* when we suggest that you love your pet octopus as you love your dear, baby, cutie-kins-puppy-wuppy-momma’s-little-baby-furball; most of us would run to throw up in the nearest toilet.

What gives us the idea that we can like alien aliens? Shoot Dr. Louise Banks Agent Halpern of the CIA can’t even stand to be in the same ROOM together, let alone communicate effectively with each other – and they’re genetically related FAR MORE than Abbot and Costello are related to Dr. Banks…

We aren’t going to be able to bandy humorous colloquialisms between a Human primates and an androgynous, humanoid Octopodiform like Asta Twelvetrees and Max Hawthorne with Harry Vanderspiegel in the TV show “Resident Alien”. I’ll grant the script-writers occasionally try to grapple with Harry’s alienness; but usually briefly, and typically humorously. He “miraculously” decides to like Humanity because he’s been in our form for longer and longer times and attempts to thwart a pre-Human-historic methodology of dealing with other alien species.

Of course, this makes the assumption that “to know us is to love us”, which is, as usual, Human-o-centric thinking.

I’m stopping for now, but I’m going to come back to this some more!

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confederacy_of_Dunces; https://www.writingroutines.com/renowned-writers-on-overcoming-rejection/, https://www.sciencenews.org/article/animal-emotion-behavior-welfare-feelings;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:An_evolutionary_tree_of_mammals.svg; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Alien_(TV_series) Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 632

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: Absolute xenophobes
Current Event: http://io9.com/what-will-human-cultures-be-like-in-100-years-453934475

Diandra Ngobogo and Guychel Kolchak walked side-by-side in the Mall of America. The Mall was crowded – more so than it had been in decades. The entire building had been renovated and vertical banners proclaiming, “Fifty Years Of Quality Shopping” floated from antigrav advert-eyezers, brushing shoppers with trailers of brilliantly colored silk.

It was just as effective as elaborate signage had been in the last century. Most of the people ignored them. While it was true people ducked into and out of shops, the majority simply walked, talking.

To themselves.

Even so, it was quieter. The near silence was broken only by the squeak of tennis shoes and murmuring voices, as if someone had stumbled into a Buddhist temple filled with saffron-robed monks doing their morning prayers.

Diandra said, “What could you possibly want with that?”

Guychel said, “Where would she go with someone like him?” He squeezed Diandra’s hand so hard, she yelped, yanking her hand away from his.

He didn’t notice even when she glanced at him. He did notice when she shoved him hard enough to stumble into a column that rose up all seven stories to support a semi-transparent roof panel. He said, “I’ll talk to you in a minute,” tapped his phone and glared at Diandra and exclaimed, “What was that for?” He tapped his phone again and muttered, “No, not you! I’m talking to Diandra.” He paused. “She’s my girlfriend.” Paused again then said, “Why would you think that?” and hung up on the caller. He finally looked at Diandra and said, “What?”

Balled fists on her hips, she jerked her head sideways once, calling Guychel. She murmured, “We haven’t said a word to each other since we got here.”

“We’re talking now,” he murmured back.

“You didn’t even notice when I stopped holding your hand!” she said.

He looked stupid at the offending member then at her, murmuring, “So?”

“Why do we even go to the trouble of getting together if we’re just going to walk alongside each other and still talk to the rest of the world?”

He stared at her then swallowed hard. He hung up and said to her directly, “Are you breaking up with me?”

She hung up as well and said out loud, “I like you a lot. Why would I break up with you?”

“You’re not talking to me, though,” Guychel said.

“I’m talking to you.”

He gestured angrily, “You know what I mean! We’re not on the same circuit!”

Diandra stared at him for several seconds before he looked away. She said, “I skipped fifteen times from Jakarta to here just to be with you. Do you see any more couples here?”

Guychel looked. He frowned. Then he turned in a circle and finally said, “None that I can see. They’re all here by themselves for whatever reason, but they’re with their real friends, too. What’s wrong with that?”

She’d done the same thing, tracking various Mall walkers. She finally said, “I ain’t a genius…”

“You are, too. That’s what the datafile says. It’s why I texted you.”

She blinked in surprise then smiled, “You flirted me because I was smart?”

He grinned lopsidedly, “That and you’re a sexbag.”

She sniffed and slugged him on the shoulder and said, “You’re no outtrash yourself.”

He blushed under his pink dyed blond hair. The two colors clashed remarkably. He said, “So, what you’re saying is that we should like, really talk to each other?”

Diandra shrugged, “Could be new.”

Guychel grinned then looked up. Way up. He frowned. “What?” Diandra asked.

He jerked his chin up. “Someone was watching us.”

She touched her headset then said, “I ran it back. You’re right. Who was that?”

Names: ♀ Indonesia, Central African Republic; ♂ Democratic Republic of Congo, Russia (Siberia)
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

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: Top Grossing Movies of All Time 1976 - 2022 And What They Mean To Me

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

These days, I write whenever I want to – or when I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife, kids, and grandkids and sometimes friends. I write and read constantly. Then I discovered that I was writing longer and longer pieces. My new focus is to write shorter; and to write HUMOR. On purpose. Maybe I can still irritate people while being funny. It works pretty well for John Scalzi! We’ll see what happens.

This week? "Top Grossing Movies of All Time 1976 - 2022" and what it means to me...

The YouTube below showed up on my FB feed a few weeks ago. I watched it with rapt interest! Truth? I was beginning to think that I should either give up writing to get published altogether because I just haven’t been selling to the markets I care about. People seem to prefer watching TV, YouTubes, and other media that doesn’t require anyone to anything but CONSUME.

I am not a couch potato – my wife and I are in the habit of watching either news or movies with our meals (when we’re not out with friends). As the non-print media follows the desires of its vast constituency, the number of readers continues its slow decline: “In 2021, 17% of U.S. adults said they read no books in the past year, about the same percentage as in 2016 and similar to most readings since 1990. At the same time, there was a decline in the number reading more than 10 books, from 35% in 2016 to 27% in 2021.”

Surprisingly, “Estimates suggest that in 2024 U.S. adults will spend an average of nearly three hours watching traditional TV each day. This figure has generally fallen in recent years and the downward trend is forecast to continue in the years to come.” (https://news.gallup.com/poll/388541/americans-reading-fewer-books-past.aspx#:~:text=In%202021%2C%2017%25%20of%20U.S.,2016%20to%2027%25%20in%202021.)

On the other hand: “Streaming services have achieved a near-ubiquitous presence in American homes, as highlighted by the latest findings. An overwhelming 99% of U.S. households now subscribe to at least one or more streaming services, with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+ topping the charts. This near-universal adoption is a testament to the shift in how entertainment and media are consumed, moving away from traditional models like cable TV to more flexible, on-demand streaming options.” (https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/internet/streaming-stats/)

So, I still like books. People still READ books. So, how do I compete with the upturn in the number of media consumers and the slow decline in readers?

What if I start WRITING what people are WATCHING? This question leads then to another: WHAT should I be writing?

Below you can find a visual link to a YouTube that shows the shift in the movies that have made the MOST money from 1976 to 2022.

You know, if you’ve read this far, that I mostly write Science Fiction (SF, NOT SciFi!!!!), with a bit of fantasy tossed in there for interest. My science fiction ranges from a focus on aliens to a focus on the impact of technologies.

What I discovered is that I’M WRITING IN THE CORRECT FIELD!!!

Watch the video. If you don’t want to take the time, here’s the end result: as of 2022:

In case it’s not clear, the TOP SEVEN ALL TIME (as of 2022) grossing movies are: Avatar, Titanic, Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars VII, Avengers: Infinity War, Jurassic Park, and ET: The Extraterrestrial.

The first involves aliens and virtual reality; the second is a plain, old-fashioned romance that takes place during one of the most identifiable disasters of all time; the third and fifth both involve numerous aliens, some of whom are the Avengers themselves (and an AI in human form (which is also what Star Trek’s Data was…)); the fourth has literally COUNTLESS aliens and takes place in a far-away galaxy; the sixth involves futuristic and (literally) MASSIVE epigenetic manipulation, and the seventh, a "soft" alien invasion movie.

All of which, I might add, are science fiction – except for Titanic, which (let’s be honest) is probably mostly “fantasy set against the backdrop of an essentially unwitnessed event”. [UNWITNESSED???? WHAT??? Really?] It was dark and even though there were 706 survivors out of the original 2200 passengers and crew, few of those were interested in watching the ship sink – and they couldn’t see what was happening once the generators stop and the lights went out.

So…what should I be writing? Let’s see what I can parse from this list:

1) I need aliens.
2) Three of the seven had “war” as a backdrop. The others include crime, history, and alien invasion (of an admittedly mild sort – and how DID ET’s people survive in the wide universe? Or were they the sole sapients beside Humans in our part of the galaxy)?
3) ALL of them involve exceptional characters, usually as part of an ensemble “cast” – the only loner being ET, and that was accidental…Aliens, war, crime, history, alien invasion, and exceptional characters usually as part of a coherent “group”.

A surprisingly prosaic list, I think. Virtually every science fiction story I’ve read in the recent issue of ANALOG fits this “formula”. So, if the PARTS aren’t what’s important to hit the multi-gazillion-dollar movie bracket then…what IS?

Food for thought!

Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXRA9s-A-gA

Image: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LXRA9s-A-gA/maxresdefault.jpg

IDEA ON TUESDAY 631

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: Ghosts
Current Event: “To be a ghost in space, I expect you would have to die in space. There is a rumor that just before the Americans landed on the moon, the Soviets had a manned mission crash on the dark side. The cosmonauts died, and no one collected them or their rocket...”

Uiloq Chokim pursed her lips then said, “You know the advertising slogan for the old pre-D movie about some space mining ship that picks up an alien infestation?”

Lachlan Maposa squatted as much as he could in the surface suit to gather up the aluminized shroud. Flotsam and jetsam from the thirty-something annual Jules Verne Medallion Races dribbled down from the “race course” between the International Space Station Museum & Bed & Breakfast and the luxury orbital resort, Kubrick. He grunted as he stood back up and said, “Of course, ‘In space, no one can hear you freak out’.” He moved off in pursuit of another piece of shroud, following a silvery fiber wending its way across the surface.

“No, stupid! It goes ‘In space, no one can hear you scream’. It was for the movie ALIEN. Late last century it was all the rage. Grandpa talks about it all the time.” She looked up to see him disappear around a lunar stone. “Are you listening to me?”

There was a long pause. She frowned. Then Lachlan said, “Good. Scream. Grandpa.”

She sighed. She was definitely thinking about breaking up with him. He wasn’t the worst boyfriend she’d ever had, but he sure wasn’t the brightest bulb in the Dome. Besides, she’d started to think that she was never going to make her fortune up here. Mineral rights were tied up by two dozen conglomerates and a handful of nations – the Moon looked like Antarctica had in Early Twen – so there was no way to get a job if you didn’t work for them. Service jobs were plentiful – clerks, programmers, stockers, teachers, and suitjockeys – but you needed licenses for that, too. It was the license that cost as much as a year’s apartment rent. She heard a gag on her headphones and said, “Lachlan?”

“What? Quit bugging me! I’ve got a good lead on a big strike, but I think I see another light over the horizon. It’s reflecting off the Dome Base.” He was panting. She should make them exercise more often. Especially since she was semi-planning to head back to Earth sometime soon. He suddenly spoke up, “Besides, it was a stupid movie. I zipped it once,” she heard the swish of the snoopy cap against the helmet rim. He continued, “Aliens! There aren’t any aliens in the universe, let alone on a backwater like the Moon.”

“How can you know something like that?” she asked, irritated despite the fact that she agreed with him. “No one can know that!”

“Just like I’m supposed to believe in Lunar ghosts?”

Stung by the mocking tone of his voice, she snapped, “Two cosmonauts died in 1968 – almost a year before Aldrin and Armstrong. Their spirits inhabit the Moon! It’s a well-known fact!” One more nasty word from him, and she would break up with him here and now!

She opened her mouth to tell him just that when he shouted, “What...”

Names: ♀ Greenland, Kazakhstan ; ♂ Tasmania, Botswana
Names: ♀ ; ♂
Image: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51niGRrH6DL.jpg

Stories of a PERFECT Length on a website I work for to PICK the stories!

https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-week-in-review-7-april-2024.html?fbclid=IwAR02FxxlxtKIcn84NAbMxouP-z_HZNG33qxoeOC35uZW_LEP-Hzt_ViIgR4

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 21: The Startling Vision of Open Asteroid Impact

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…

Published recently on April 1, 2024, the vision of a new company, Open Asteroid Impact is a stunning vision of what Earth might really BE once more of us capture the vision of the value of asteroids in the Solar System!

Pulling inspiration from Hillary Rodham Clinton, one-time presidential candidate, who said in a typical summation of existential wisdom, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Indeed the rigid logic of this statement is entirely inescapable.

OAI’s intent is to offer Humanity another way to mine the asteroids. Their mission is “to have as high an impact as possible. We are an asteroid mining company. When most people think about asteroid mining, they think of getting all the mining equipment to space and carefully mining and refining ore in space, before bringing the ore back down in a controlled landing. But humanity has zero experience in Zero-G mining in the vacuum of space. This is obviously very inefficient. Instead, it’s much more efficient to bring the asteroids down to Earth first, and mine it on the ground. Furthermore, we are first and foremost an asteroid mining *safety* company.”

In other words, instead of us going to the asteroid, having to invest incredible amounts of money to be able to send Humans into space, we instead invent robot slaves (OOPS! surrogates) to go to the asteroid and bend their efforts to our will! do the mining for us. The ROBOTS will be blasted with radiation, exposed to zero-air environments as well as experiencing air, water, gravity, and food shortages of likely difficult size.

OAI’s mission is clear: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from human-directed asteroids should be a global priority alongside other civilizational risks such as nuclear war and artificial general intelligence.”

However, I don’t understand why they feel it’s necessary to get rid of miners: “But before the point where most jobs are obsolete, some specific jobs (e.g. miners) may no longer exist. Entire mining towns may no longer be viable. We believe firmly in the value of education and retraining for upwards mobility. We are thus setting aside a $250,000 pot for scholarships for former underground miners to retrain in astrophysics, astrogeology, or rocket science, so that the miners of yesterday can become the astrogeologists of tomorrow.”

The thing is that, once the asteroid impacts the surface of the Earth, it will likely be buried, and after the surface solidifies, the ore that we have chosen to diligently pursue, will once again be underground. I believe they should be marketing their company as a “resource replacement provider”. Absolutely mineral ares are depleting – for example, in my own home state of Minnesota, “…while the Mesabi Range had single-handedly supplied the iron for steel during World War II, it essentially dug its own grave. The Range totaled output of over 188 million tons of ore during the course of the war, and exhausted itself of natural hematite until the process of making taconite into iron was discovered into the 50’s and 60’s…”

How MUCH iron is there on Earth? As far as I have been able to find, about 1.6 septillion tonnes. Anyway, there’s still a lot of iron on Earth, as well as the other minerals (even though iron is THE most common metal after aluminum…

So, mining the asteroids – all it involves is crashing an asteroid into Earth – though we don’t have the METHODOLGY down yet, and I’m pretty sure that there’s no Class Asteroid on a Minnesota license yet, so who’s going to guide it in for a nice soft landing? For a discussion about this question, see the Physics Stack Exchange link below; but the simple answer is…

“Nope.”

It would be impossible to soft-land an asteroid on Earth according to any direction the people on the website twist it.

So, aside from the fact that it’s impossible, and the fact that Open Asteroid Impact was posted on April 1, 2024 (notoriously known as April Fools Day in North America), you can safely bet that this was a joke.

HOWEVER…it seems a bit obnoxious as well, making fun of the serious possibility of mining the asteroids for minerals we need. Again, I live in the state on Earth that STILL produces 75% of the total US output of iron ore; but I know from personal experience, that iron is a finite resource. Even China, now the number one producer of iron on Earth…will run out someday – perhaps SOONER rather than later.

This humorous post on the OAI is great. We all need to be able to laugh at our foolishness! I know one of the strengths of our marriage is that my wife and I LAUGH A LOT.

In the following article, “The clean energy transition away from fossil fuels…will require significant increases in mining of critical materials for clean energy technology…demand for key minerals such as lithium, graphite, nickel and rare-earth metals will balloon significantly according a 2021 report by the International Energy Agency: The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions…There is insufficient mining capability in the world today to meet this [new] demand, and if capacity were ramped up to these levels, there would be serious environmental and economic consequences. If we ignore other promising alternatives such as ramping up licensing of new nuclear fission power plants and funding development of fusion energy or space solar power, what can be done?”

There IS hope on the horizon. “One of the companies on this frontier is UK based Asteroid Mining Corporation which has the goal of becoming the first profitable space resources business. The startup is working on an autonomous robotic platform call Space Capable Asteroid Robot Explorer with a roadmap that plans for revenue payout at each milestone with eventual return of asteroid resources in the mid-2030s.”

So far, however, all they have is a nice website, and one POSSIBLE actual photograph of the SCAR-E walking into a tunnel on Earth:

Whereas Astroforge (https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2023/05/mining-asteroids-part-13-new-kid-in.html) ACTUALLY has a probe in space on a secret mission that DID hitchhike with the ship that brought the failed Psyche LANDER to the Moon (the one that tipped over after landing…)

I eagerly await the results of THAT mission. So…we shall see who actually makes it into space!

New Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tBy4RvCzhYyrrMFj3/introducing-open-asteroid-impact , https://www.cnas.org/publications/commentary/a-sci-fi-concept-that-should-become-reality, https://www.cnas.org/publications/commentary/a-sci-fi-concept-that-should-become-reality , https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/244606/could-an-asteroid-land-slowly-on-earths-surface ; https://spacesettlementprogress.com/2024/01/
Foundational Resource: (A general Wikipedia post detailing what the authors currently know about asteroid mining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining) , A Sci-Fi Concept That Should Become Reality: Asteroid Mining Is Essential for the Future of U.S. National Security | Center for a New American Security (en-US) (cnas.org)
Noted Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth, https://www.pharostribune.com/news/local_news/article_7fcd3ea5-3c14-533f-a8d5-9bf629922f34.html, https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/04/29/like-asteroid-mining-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/, https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/learn/historyculture/theroadtothefirstflight.htm, https://hackaday.com/2019/03/27/extraterrestrial-excavation-digging-holes-on-other-worlds/, https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/every-small-worlds-mission

Image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 630

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

Fantasy Trope: Magical Realism (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicRealism?from=Main.MagicalRealism)
Current Event: http://www.shockmansion.com/2014/11/19/video-real-life-magic-carpet-ride-canopy-flyer-surfs-on-the-back-of-a-wingsuit-flyer-in-norway/

Filip Møller took a deep breath and held out his arms to catch the wind roaring up the jutting spike of stone called Trolltunga as it jutted over a branch of Hardangerfjord in western Norway. It would the jump of his life and make him the youngest boy to do it. His guardian had signed off, the law had been called, and on his thirteenth birthday, Filip would do what he’d dreamed of doing.

Jakob Sjöman was Filip’s best friend and figured it would have been better for him to wear a diaper than have skipped eating for the past week. At least he wouldn’t be trying to crap his pants with nothing in his stomach. Instead, the cramps wouldn’t leave him alone. He KNEW Filip wasn’t trying to kill him. He KNEW he was eighteen and legally capable of signing his life away as Filip’s guardian, but this was crazy! There had to be an easier way to let someone know...

Filip shouted, “This is it! Let’s go!” He ran and leaped from Trolltunga jutting out into nothingness.

Jakob closed his eyes, took a breath, nearly puked his empty stomach out and ended up only gagging, then ran at the cliff edge. He closed his eyes when he reached the point where his father shouted, “Jump!” He did and fell into nothingness.

He might have passed out if he didn’t hear Filip scream just then. Jakob’s eyes flew open behind the goggles in time to see his “little brother” disappear into a roiling gray cloud. “What’s wrong?” he asked the wind roaring past his face at a hundred and sixty km/hour. “Slapping my face, more like,” he said, tipping the wingsuit a fraction to follow Filip. The cloud was wet, exactly like fog. “If fog moved instead of just sitting there.” He shot free of the cloud and started. There was no water beneath them. Instead, pine trees marched endlessly to all the horizons. What was going on?

Filip slowed until they were flying side-by-side. “Where are we?” he shouted.

At least that’s what Jakob thought he shouted. He pointed down with his chin. No point talking up here. Landing was the only way they could do anything. Still horrified by the whole thing, he also didn’t want to die doing this. He’d worked harder at the training that Filip had – the kid was crazy when it came to jumping, but he had a pretty normal thirteen-year-old’s sense of reality. He figured he could do anything. After the car crash that killed his mom, Jakob was absolutely certain there was nothing HE could do about anything except push it all back and figure whatever happened, happened.

The ground was rushing toward them. It was close to the time to deploy the chute. That was when he saw the airfield. Beside it were open fields, just starting to turn gold at this time of year. He jerked his chin toward them and Filip tweaked his flight so that he was alongside but a ways away. Jakob frowned. Were those bleachers alongside the fields? As they swooped lower and lower, they roared over a small town as they yanked the ripcords of the parachutes in unison. They billowed out overhead and before they knew it, they were running as they glided into a landing.

Of course, Filip landed without a hitch. Jakob tripped over his feet and fell, rolling as a gust of wind ballooned the parachute and dragged him along for several moment until he was hopelessly tangled. By the time the laughing Filip had released him a crowd of people stood around them.

Jakob, trying to regain some sense of dignity, stepped up to the person closest to him and said, “Where are we?”

The older woman said, “Jeg snakker ikke norsk.”

He switched to English, which he could speak, though badly, “You speak that...”

She laughed and said, “Min norsk er veldig rusten.”

“What?”

Filip elbowed him and said in Norwegian, “It’s an American idiom.” Then he turned to the woman and said in English, “My friend doesn’t speak English very well, either. Forgive him. My name is Filip...um...” his self-assurance suddenly deflated as he said, “Where are we?”

Names: ♂ Norway, Denmark ; ♂ Norway, Sweden

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

Minnesota Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction Convention!!!!

NO POST SATURDAY AS I WILL BE AT THIS PREMIER EVENT Friday Evening, March 29, 2024 through roughly 3:00 Sunday afternoon, March 31, 2024.

I will resume posting on Monday!

If you READ the book, would you post a Review???

 

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: The Current State of Our Solar System...and SHEER Speculation About How It Got There

My other trouble with David Grinspoon's book is that when discussing Venus....he makes virtually no mention of the fact that Venus has a retrograde rotation when compared to the rest of the planets (I don’t count Uranus among those having a retrograde rotation. That gas giant’s rotation is retrograde only because its “north” pole is actually south of its “equator” (the Solar Equator, if you will. 

That is, the planets and minor planets orbit the Sun orbit in the same direction on pretty much the same plane. Confused? OK, this is how I explain it to my astronomy classes. Imagine your head is the Sun. If you stick your arms out and start to turn slowly in (ignoring the direction at this time) and stuck ball bearings of increasing sizes on your arms with duct tape at increasing distances from your head, you would have a basic illustration of the Solar System as it turns in space. Imagine then, that each of the ball bearings are turning the same direction: except for Venus. It rotates in the opposite direction of everyone else – and it turns VERY, VERY slowly. When you reach Uranus, let it keep spinning in the same direction, but tip its north pole 98 degrees (90 degrees is like a “90 degree angle” or as you may remember from geometry or trigonometry, a “right angle”.) Uranus is tipped MORE than that…but it’s still rotating the same direction as it did when it was upright…but now it’s spin, relative to the other planets, is backwards (aka “retrograde”).
At any rate, Dr. Grinspoon talks about what it is that has created Venus’ hellish conditions and while he does include its location (closer to the Sun than Earth), the fact that the Sun is brighter and hotter today than it was when the Solar system formed), and a peculiar venology (it can’t be “geology” and “aphrodology” just sounds weird…) that includes a sort of cyclical disruptive plate tectonics (pages 171-173); he doesn’t mention the slow, retrograde rotation. By slow, I mean that a “day” on Venus is 243 Earth days; and the Sun would rise in the west and set in the east…eventually.

It could be that I haven’t reached those pages yet, so we’ll see...

AND THEN I DID REACH "THOSE PAGES" A FEW DAYS AFTER WRITING THE ABOVE...Perhaps the biggest “kick-in-the-teeth” is that he clearly lays out what happened to alter our Solar system longer ago than 65,000,000 years: “As the planets approached their final sizes, giant also-rans, the contenders that could have been planets, came hurtling down to Earth (and Mercury, Venus, etc.) at speeds of tens of thousands of miles per hour. These final giant impactors left a trail of destruction throughout the solar system, stripping Mercury of its outer rock mantle, leaving Venus spinning backward, and knocking Uranus on its side And in an event as propitious for us as it was random, a Mars-size protoplanet smacked into the young, still-forming Earth, splashing a massive ring of vaporized rock into Earth orbit, which quickly condensed to make out singular, giant Moon.” (page 82)

In my new novel, EMERALD OF EARTH I have a slightly more fantastic explanation for the current state of the Solar system: Emerald Marcillon’s mother, Nhia Okon, explains to a group of high-ranking military brass:

“The evidence we’ve gathered so far clearly indicates that a massive object, probably a microscopic black hole, grazed Uranus and tipped it on its side….A fleet of invading interstellar warships, using black-hole-energy technology probably experienced a disastrous explosion shortly thereafter. Debris swept through the solar system, probably missing Saturn but raining down on Jupiter and setting off the Great Red Spot hurricane…The worst was yet to happen…Mars had shallow oceans that teemed with microscopic life forms. A large rock, possibly an asteroid knocked from a stable orbit and carried on the shockwave of the explosion, slammed into the planet, blowing away much of its air allowing the oceans to boil away under low pressure…Another asteroid carried on the shockwave struck off the coast of what would one day be the Yucatan Peninsula. The dinosaurs and thousands of other life forms, already environmentally and genetically stressed, were launched into extinction…This is the world of an alien, probably sauroid intelligence native to the planet we now call Venus. They were aggressive and powerful. Spreading through our solar system, we have evidence that they conquered beyond it. The invasion fleet had come to put a stop to it….But the accident that destroyed the fleet and saved the sauroids from certain invasion, next threatened them with the mindless destruction of chance…An object nearly large enough to split Venus in half hit the sauroid moon, knocking it cleanly out of Venus’ orbit, where it drifted until the sun captured it again, the molten scar on its surface glowing red hot for nearly a century. The world we call Venus was pounded by meteorites sleeting through the vacuum of space. A second monstrous object was large enough to reverse Venus’ rotation…The solar system had been reshaped and the intelligences on the new, second planet of the shattered star system were extinct. We are the heirs of those shattered spheres. We are the ones who must piece together the details. We are the ones who must find the bits of technology that we can use to go to the stars...”

I go into both more detail, and the event is a driving point of story's plot.

If you want to find out more, read a bit more below.

Links: PSI's David Grinspoon Appointed to New NASA Post (spacedaily.com)

Original Post: POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Where Writing, Christianity, and Speculative Fiction Interact : POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Part II – The State of Life in the Solar System and Exoplanets (faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com)

The Kindle version of my Book EMERALD OF EARTH (that incorporates the story above) WENT LIVE on Wednesday (3/20/2024), and is now available here: 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CYMCV6XP?fbclid=IwAR2X_buOGcC5b4wBQoeAcc3onAdptyFtpJHnItjIdMme_XuCBYkJAb3QRbQ

The trade paper version will be released at the end of March.

Image: Personal Files

MY NEW BOOK IS LIVE FOR PURCHASE: Trade Paperback, EBook, and Audible!

(If you DO buy a copy and read it, make sure you share a few words in a review on any of the sites!)

My book, EMERALD OF EARTH is NOW LIVE both for Kindle/Nook, and other electronic platforms AND TRADE PAPERBACK!!! on Amazon.com and many other of your favorite online book sites!

The link for Amazon is here. (I'll add others as I find them!)

Amazon.com: Emerald of Earth: Heirs of the Shattered Spheres: 9781958333167: Stewart, Guy

Also -- on STUPEFYING STORIES, Bruce Bethke has some interesting commentary on how the publication came about and a sidenote about the Audible Version at 

"WHAT, *ANOTHER* NEW BOOK RELEASE?!

By ~brb March 21, 2024

https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2024/03/what-another-new-book-release.html

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 629

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.” These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them.

SF Trope: Alien artifacts
Current Event: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/27/tibetan_alien_statue_discovered_by_nazis/

Hans Bonhoeffer and Sa’Niah Green pursed their lips as they leaned over the Plexiglas box protecting the ‘Pseudo-Tibetan Nazi Buddha’ under the lights of the University of Minnesota’s Weisman Art Museum.

His voice heavy with a German accent, Hans said, “Why would they carve it out of meteorite iron?”

“You’d think they’d just sell it. I’ll bet they coulda got twenty grand on ebay,” said Sa’Niah.

Hans snorted, straightening up. “Even so, it’s strange. Why would anyone go to the trouble carving it and then pretending it was collected by Himmler?”

Sa’Niah straightened up as well and looked at her friend. They were about as opposite as possible – he had blonde hair, blue eyes, almost two meters tall, lanky to the point of skinny with hands large enough to grip a basketball with just five fingers (if he cared, he was a European football fanatic). She was barely a meter and a half tall, her grandparents had come from Sudan, she was squat and round (her friends called her Black Winnie – after Winnie the Pooh) and she wanted nothing more than to play on the Minnesota Lynx.

Good thing he was gay, otherwise she’d live one frustrated life. They were also both history majors. Which reminded her, “Hans – how’s your book?”

He looked up and arched an eyebrow, “Why do you think I’m standing here with you discussing pseudo-Nazi alien artifacts?”

She snorted softly, “Because we’re best friends?”

“No, because you’re the only person I know of who’s read Harry Turtledove.” She grinned. They’d met in the Wilson Library during finals first semester of their freshman year the year before. They’d gotten into an argument over who would be able to check out the newest Turtledove novel. Ultimately Hans had won because he held the book over his head and there was no way for her to get at it. She said, “It’s a good thing you decide to share it with me at Caribou.”

He grinned at her and said, “Speaking of which.” He lifted his chin and made a motion toward Dinkytown proper.

She nodded and said, “I’ll even walk outside.”

Mock-amazed, he said, “What’s wrong? Have you contracted some spinal fungus you haven’t told me about and you are preparing to die?”

She laughed. Several other arts patrons glared at her. The Weisman wasn’t for giggling college sophomores. They headed for the exit then started up East River Parkway, heading for Southeast Fifth Street. Sa’Niah said, “So, what’s the story?”

Hans fell into one of his brooding moods. They’d almost reached Dinkytown when he said, “It’s not a story.”

“What?”

“It has to do with my family,” he said, his accent thicker than usual. She’d noticed that happened when he got emotional – which happened every time he broke up from his current love interest. She just listened and walked, huffing slightly. When he wasn’t paying attention, he took long, long strides and it was hard for her to keep up.

“What would a fake Nazi-Buddhist made out of meteorite iron have to do with your family?”

They reached the Caribou, ordered their favorites and settled in a booth that allowed him to stretch his legs before he said, “My family were Nazis.”

She blinked in surprise. “What?”

“My grandparents – both sides, except for one of my father’s uncles. His name was Dietrich and he was executed by the Nazis.” She didn’t know what to say. He continued, “They also dealt with the regime in antiquities.” He paused, scowling then said, “The Nazi Buddha? It’s legitimate.”

“How would you know?”

“Because I have a picture of my great-great-great grandfather holding it. And he does not look Human.”

Names: ♀ USA, African American culture ; ♂ Germany
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

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: Living In An iPod World With YA Fiction

Eight billion people live on Earth along with 350 million iPods and 55 million iPads.

Next year, the total number of active cell phones on Earth will surpass the total population of that same planet.

We have seven billion people who spend more time on their phones talking to people far away than they spend physically talking to the people they live next door to.

The generation to which my two adult kids belong to has even made a sort of “game” out of the dilemma. Ask your nearest twenty-something if they’ve ever played the game where a group of friends gets together at a bar, a restaurant or a party and they pile their cell phones in the center of the table. The first person to give in and answers their phone during the face-to-face event pays…the tab, the bill, for the next party…whatever.

My guess is that even if they have never played it themselves, they know people who have and almost universally they find the idea offensive, horrifying, unbelievable, or ridiculous.

It is not at all uncommon for my kids to come home with friends and have the entire group sitting in the living room not interacting with each other at all, but hunched over their cell phones incidentally not talking to each other. In fact, they are not even really communicating in English but in a dialect that has replaced “you” with U; “to” with 2; and has created LMFAO for…well, I have no doubt that you know what that stands for.

What does this have to do with the writing life?

Everything. While people are still reading – more and more are moving to ebooks, but that’s a completely different issue that I addressed in a published short story I wrote (http://www.perihelionsf.com/1306/fiction_6.htm) – they are reading less and reading shorter.

It’s also nothing new. Teaching a writing class to young people, we do a brief unit on journalism. The journalistic writing style is best defined as an inverted pyramid:




It would be easy to say that today’s text language is simply a logical growth from this style. The question remains: what does this mean for writers? For me?

What would it have meant for Tolkien? What kind of impact did it have on the Harry Potter books? How does it affect a midlist writer?

It is my belief that among other things, the “novel” will shrink. The move to “shorter” novels has already begun as young adult fiction sales have experienced a tremendous upsurge – and the people who are buying and reading YA fiction are full-on ADULTS. Publisher's Weekly reports that, "According to January 2023 WordsRated statistics, 51% of YA books are purchased by people between the ages of 30 and 44, and 78% of those buyers said that they intended to read the books themselves." My guess is that number has grown.

There’s all kinds of speculation about why adult adults read young adult novels. Young adult author and professor of English, Marie Rutkoski summarizes them neatly: “…adults like YA because young people feel things very strongly, and the representation of this makes for a potent read…YA is ‘easy,’...adults these days live in an unnaturally prolonged state of adolescence... Perhaps the best explanation given to me, though, is that readers are drawn to stories about first experiences...readers...want to behold a transformation. First experiences draw us in because they are the crucible for change.”

While I’m sure all of these factors come into play, I believe that the main reason is that adults began to read “little” stories in programmed reading books; they graduated to newspapers; then online news sources mostly supplemented by Youtubes and video clips. This condition was exacerbated by television programs in which every event is compressed into a slice of thirty minutes – which is actually 22 minutes of programming. An hour-long television show like BONES (one of my favorites), solves a grisly murder in 44 minutes.


Even when directors strive for reality in movies like Warren Beatty’s REDS (compresses two years into 3 hours and 25 minutes) and Richard Attenborough’s GHANDI (compresses seventy-nine years and the lives of nearly one billion people into 3 hours and 21 minutes) or Fox Television series 24 (24 episodes, each one 44 (“one hour”) minutes long) which attempt a realistic representation of a twenty-four hour event – they compress time into watchable bytes.

Why would ANYONE be surprised that adult adults have embraced generally short YA novels?

If what I believe is true, then Robert Jordan’s WHEEL OF TIME is the end of an era and the Harry Potter books are the last time we’re going to experience extended stories of nearly two million words.

What we once called a novella (17,500-40,000) will become the New Novel (surprise! This is how long the average YA “novel” is!); and the categories will change name and move backward until what we think of as a “long” novel will be what our forebears thought of as a longer short story.

As a writer, I need to plan several things:

1) Write shorter
2) Show dramatic transformation with a “first experience” sensibility
3) Drop big words which, while making for precise ideological communication, take too long to read and are subsequently skipped
4) Make the characters adult, but younger – even the old folks (oh, that’s right, there’s no such thing as “old adult” fiction – ‘cause even though they can read, they can’t see! (PS: I'm within striking distance of 70!, so don't accuse me of ageism!))
5) Don't do anything TOO new

There you go. Comments?

Resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iPod_models, http://ipod.about.com/od/glossary/qt/number-of-ipods-sold.htm, http://adrianofarano.com/2012/01/how-many-ipad-have-been-sold-in-the-us-so-far/, http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/mobile-phone-world-population-2014/, http://io9.com/the-real-reason-why-grown-ups-love-young-adult-fantasy-1172843218, http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index? qid=20090118200609AAgNayT ; Who Is YA For? (publishersweekly.com)

Image: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_me7k3m9ysC1qdx4lmo1_500.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY AND WRITING ADVICE – Lisa Cron: Readers Expects the Protagonist Will Have a Longstanding Misbelief

In 2008, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, Lin Oliver speak at a convention hosted by the Minnesota Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. To learn more – and to satisfy my natural tendency to “teach stuff”, I started a series of essays taking the wisdom of published writers and then applying each “nugget of wisdom” to my own writing. During the six years that followed, I used the advice of a number of published writers (with their permission) and then applied the writing wisdom of Lin Oliver, Jack McDevitt, Nathan Bransford, Mike Duran, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, SL Veihl, Bruce Bethke, and Julie Czerneda to an analysis of my own writing. Together these people write in genres broad and deep, and have acted as agents, editors, publishers, columnists, and teachers. Today I add to that list, Lisa Cron who 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. Again, with permission, I am using her article, “A Reader’s Manifesto: 15 Hardwired Expectations Every Reader Has for Every Story” (2/16/18 http://blog.creativelive.com/essential-storytelling-techniques/)

“The reader expects the protagonist will have a longstanding misbelief that has kept her from easily achieving that goal.”

This is a tough one for me to figure out because belief is so deeply ingrained in us, that even atheists seem to have trouble after dragging themselves free from anything not made of matter, ie, “the divine”.

Case to point that I can support: aliens.

Astrophysicist Carl Sagan had no patience with those who believe in any sort of invisible deity: “How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, ‘This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?’” [Odd – he never asked me…] “Instead they say, ‘No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.’ A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.”

Stephen Hawking wasn’t interested in God, either: “‘We have finally found something that doesn’t have a cause, because there was no time for a cause to exist in,’ Hawking wrote. ‘For me this means that there is no possibility of a creator, because there is no time for a creator to have existed in.’”

Yet, neither man has any trouble believing in aliens: beings who exist solely in the imagination of Humans. Those of you who read my blog, know I write science fiction that includes aliens. No matter how intellectual the person believing in them is, they are believing that aliens “must exist”.

But when pushed (I teach a class called Alien Worlds for gifted and talented kids from 9-16), I have to say that the science teacher in me; the one that insists on EVIDENCE to support a position…has no response other than, “There is no evidence anywhere that there is life ANYWHERE but on Earth.”

“None. Nothing. Nowhere. No one has anything.”

“THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS.”

One of these avowed atheists had no trouble writing: “If it is just us, seems like an awful waste of space.” – (Contact, screenplay by Carl Sagan).

Additionally: “Contrary to the popular belief that aliens would be destructive to mankind, Sagan advocated that aliens would be friendly and good-natured.” https://www.famousscientists.org/carl-sagan/

Stephen Hawking said: “‘One day, we might receive a signal from a planet like this,’…referring to the potentially habitable alien planet Gliese 832c. ‘But we should be wary of answering back. Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn't turn out so well,’ he added…” https://www.livescience.com/62015-stephen-hawking-quotes.html

So, if my protagonist has some sort “longstanding misbelief”, and the reader agrees with that misbelief, will they follow the story through to its conclusion? To THEM, the conclusion is foregone.

What if the character has a misbelief that the readers violently disagrees with, will they assume that it was that “misbelief that has kept her from easily achieving [her] goal” and throw the story aside, assuming that it was all propaganda, so not worth the reader’s time of day or effort?

How much leeway does a writer have when giving the protagonist a misbelief?

For some people, “…are concerned for the wellbeing of all, are committed to diversity, and respect those of differing yet humane views. We work to uphold the equal enjoyment of human rights and civil liberties in an open, secular society and maintain it is a civic duty to participate in the democratic process and a planetary duty to protect nature’s integrity, diversity, and beauty in a secure, sustainable manner.” Others, “We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” Either would be guaranteed to put off some number of readers.

Or is Cron just talking about something like, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Even so, I suppose that someone, somewhere would find that statement objectionable. Some would find it objectionable in the extreme; or biased and homophobic…And yet, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE continues to be popular and the plot foundational to literature written in English (possibly in other languages, but I could only find PRIDE, PREJUDICE, AND OTHER FLAVORS (Sonali Dev), so there’s never been a groundswell of hatred and rejection of the books, so maybe my thoughts are absurd.

Any thoughts?

Source: https://scientificliteracymatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/carl-sagan-1024x576.jpg, https://www.livescience.com/63854-stephen-hawking-says-no-god.html, https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/manifesto3/, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+3%3A+21-25&version=NLT, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/5882-it-is-a-truth-universally-acknowledged-that-a-single-man, https://www.amazon.com/Sonali-Dev/e/B00JOSJQFO/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1 Image: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/51ddbf8fe4b0bf85e2f4edd2/t/592c2f0b414fb5ddd3a1259d/1496067864402/BookImage.jpg?format=300w

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 628

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: (reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmutation. I think I’m going to mine THIS idea in various ways for a while!) , more specifically covered here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underworld_(1985_film)
Current Event: http://altimatrix.com/2012-and-your-dna (Truth? I can’t imagine that ANY person would actually believe this. Really.) Let’s focus on this little tidbit: “According to what the dowsing reveals, there will be 6-9 DNA upgrades for these people before our critical juncture in the photon belt. Their ascension will take place at the same time as other people, however they will have more advanced evolutionary changes initially. In the meantime these people’s subtle energy bodies will be exposed to even higher frequencies of consciousness than the average person. This will be possible due to the individual’s higher self, having the option to do this. Once the first 3 DNA upgrades are complete, the connection to the higher self is so much less corroded that the higher self can do this type of work for individual chosen for such a role.”

Snorri Benediktsson and Hofi Flosadóttir, late of Iceland were working together in the physics lab. "If I can get this stupid file to work with these special effects..."

Hofi said, “Komdu og líta á þetta!”

He sighed. He hated when she used Icelandic. “We’re in America now! Speak English!”

“Ekki allir hér tala ensku.”

“I know that. My roommate speaks better Spanish than he speaks English,” said Snorri.

“Mine is fluent in Ojibwe, but she speaks English most of the time. She does use her native language when she chants at night,” said Hofi.

“But we’re supposed to be experiencing a different culture.”

“So why are we dating each other? Shouldn’t you be going out with a ravishing latina?”

“And you should be hanging out with some fratboy who only wants you for your body and has no idea you’ve got a brain that’s as sharp as the curves are beautiful.”

Hofi blushed and turned back to the window in the lab that looked north, out over Lake Bemidji and toward the frigid air of the pole. A particle collector floated in the atmosphere some hundred miles north and twenty miles up, the display near the window was connected to the college through a satellite uplink. She pointed at the rippling patterns in the sky. “That’s what I wanted you to look at.”

For a moment, even Snorri couldn’t ignore the display. When he finally worked up the nerve to put his arm around her, she turned away. “All right. This has all been done before. Electrons, ionized gasses and the lot has been done to death.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m going to do something no one has ever done before.”

Scowling, he walked over to her humming machine. A small box, open on the side facing them, emitted an odd, pulsing sound. He said, “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to really collect particles from the aurora. I’m using one of the new particle transporters from England to move some of the particles directly from the upper atmosphere to here.”

“Is that safe? I mean, I know I’m not a physics whiz like you, but I do know that high energy particles – like UV light – can burn human skin.”

She shrugged. “Sure. But there are other particles up there. That’s what I’m trying to measure. That’s what I want to find – the other particles up there.” She waited a moment and then said, “Stand back.” She flipped a switch. The box sparked and she fell back, covering her facing a screaming. An intensely pink colored, gaseous substance flowed from the box, coalescing on the floor around where Hofi was writhing on the floor.

Snorri dropped to his knees, hands grabbing her shoulders and coming into contact with the pink, amoeboid gas. For a moment he froze, then the cloud began to crawl up his arms. Both of the Icelanders shivered but otherwise didn’t move.

Instead, their skin began to crawl.

Literally…

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

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Emily Blunt, Edge of Tomorrow, and Alien Aliens

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

These days, I write whenever I want to – or when I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife or kids or grandkids. I write and read constantly. Then I discovered that I was writing longer and longer pieces. My new focus is to write shorter; and to write HUMOR. On purpose. Maybe I can still irritate people while being funny. It works pretty well for John Scalzi! We’ll see what happens.

The movie, Edge of Tomorrow, with Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt came out a decade ago. My wife and I watched it a few nights ago and I came away AMAZED. (I also found out tonight from Dale, that I’ve seen the movie, albeit several years ago.)

By the way – this is NOT a movie review! If you’ve never heard of the movie, I suggest you watch it. I was able to check out the DVD from my friendly neighborhood library. I could probably ((WILL, probably), pick it up for a couple bucks somewhere eventually.

A couple of things impressed me.

First of all, it was startling to see Mary Poppins as an enhanced mechanized soldier who easily blew alien monsters away! It reminded me of a scene from GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 2, where “Yondu [is] yelling ‘I'm Mary Poppins, y'all’ while using his arrow to float back to the ground. It turns out that wasn't originally in the script. When [the writer] was visualizing the scene, it didn't look quite as heroic as [he] intended it to be. So then [he] put the Poppins line in Peter Quill's mouth. And Yondu, of course, not knowing the name Mary or Poppins might think he's sort of a Lee Marvin type and he owns it.”

Of course, I mean actor Emily Blunt. My wife and I discovered we’re a pair of Emily Blunt fans! Besides playing Mary Poppins, a fashion magazine secretary (alongside Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and Stanley Tucci); she has played memorable characters as diverse as Young Queen Victoria, Miss Piggy’s Receptionist, the mother of a psychic child marked for execution by a time-traveling agent, a Baker’s Wife, an Amazon River adventurer, a nuclear physicist’s wife, and a pharmaceutical executive-then-whistleblower…

And, of course Sergeant Rita Vrataski, (also known as the Full Metal Bitch) a mech-suited Army soldier. Amazingly, the movie is considered a horror “comedy”, mostly for the repartee between the Sergeant and Major/Private William Cage. While the die repeatedly in variously gruesome ways ranging from Vrataski shooting Cage to start the loop cycle again, to both of them being violently torn to shreds by the…sort-of-micro-tornado of tentacles of some sort, to crashes, crushing, and literally dozens of creative ways someone can die on a battlefield.

How she comes across as HUMOROUS in this splatter-gore movie escapes me – though I personally believe that while the humor is sometimes slapstick, it leans more heavily on sarcasm between Vrataski and Cage. That’s my FAVORITE form of humor.

At any rate, Blunt’s performance and her and Cruise’s increasing skill at blowing the Mimics away leads me to contemplate the aliens themselves.

It’s bluntly (no pun intended) stated pretty much from the beginning that they want Earth. But WHY? They LOOK absolutely alien – but to me, they make no sense whatsoever. Created for their “creep factor”, they’re typically nothing more that flailing tentacles that kill Humans.

Why? Why do they even CARE about Earth or Humans? Their blood is obviously not iron-based so they’re not going to use Earth as a cattle ranch (so to speak) – how do they breathe on Earth? They don’t have suits – at least not suits a Human would recognize. They don’t even really have weapons, except slashers and hard skin: they can only be destroyed by intense, high-speed machinegun fire. Also, there’s no way they can really SEE, as there are no obvious eyes. I believe at one point, the movie alludes to them having psychic powers. But that’s even MORE ridiculous! In order to telepathically link with a life form, your electrical/psychic system would have to be able to synchronize – and based on what we see, Human-Mimic psychic link would be impossible: they aren’t even the same SPECIES – and the Mimics don’t appear to have any kind of central nervous system.

The following discussion online offers some interesting insight into the Mimics: https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/24557/what-is-the-origin-of-mimics-in-edge-of-tomorrow

So, let me take a stab at it – as the Mimics obviously come from an entirely alien environment and we know their either evolved there or were created there – then they must have some kind of environment that they were designed for. Their ability to “spin through soil” might point to their origins or life as a…sort of mole-like creature. As they originally attacked from the oceans, like us, they might have a saline internal fluid like blood. You get a better sense of the tentacles if you scroll through this link: https://aliens.fandom.com/wiki/Mimic_(Edge_of_Tomorrow).

Despite their wild appearance, their movement would suggest that they not only originated on a high-gravity world, but they were, at one time, “prime prey”. To survive, they would have had to develop defenses against their main predator. Humans became SMARTER than just about everything that hunted them. Did the Mimics do the same – or are they simply “animals”? Maybe the drone Mimics are, but the Alphas and Omegas are NOT – they’re a hive organism, somewhat like a beehive, though NOT precisely…

Anyway, this is getting long. I think I’m going to stop here and continue later. Have a good day!

Inspiration: “Live. Die. Repeat.” or EDGE OF TOMORROW
Links: https://bleedingcool.com/movies/james-gunn-reveals-im-mary-poppins-yall-wasnt-script/#google_vignette ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Blunt
Image: [Webb image of the Horsehead Nebula…looks like dragons to me!]
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/stsci-01gfnn3pwjmy4rqxkz585bc4qh.png

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 627

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: (reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmutation. I think I’m going to mine THIS idea in various ways for a while!) , more specifically covered here: “…sexual transmutation, is the attempt, especially among some religious traditions, to transform sexual impulses or "sexual energy" into creative energy. In this context, sublimation is the transference of sexual energy, or libido, into a physical act or a different emotion in order to avoid confrontation with the sexual urge, which is itself contrary to the individual's belief or ascribed religious belief. It is based on the idea that "sexual energy" can be used to create a spiritual nature which in turn can create more sensual works, instead of one's sexuality being unleashed “raw.” The classical example in Western religions is clerical celibacy. As espoused in the Tanya, Hasidic Jewish mysticism views sublimation of the animal soul as an essential task in life, wherein the goal is to transform animalistic and earthy cravings for physical pleasure into holy desires to connect with God. Different schools of thought describe general sexual urges as carriers of spiritual essence, and have the varied names of vital energy, vital winds (prana), spiritual energy, ojas, shakti, tummo, or kundalini. It is also believed that undergoing sexual sublimation can facilitate a mystical awakening in an individual.”
Current Event: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080428062406AAqmB2e

“That’s ridiculous!” Beatriz Velastagui T. exclaimed.

“No! Really, I read it online!” replied Kaew Savane Xiong (“precious” “mountain” “bear”)

“I KNOW you don’t believe everything you read online, so why this thing?” Her lids narrowed as she looked at him through her long lashes.”

“Are you trying to seduce me?” Kaew [she said it like she’d say ‘cue’; he’d snap, ‘keh-oo’. She’d reply with the same word and he’d roll his eyes] said.

She sniffed and said, “No, I’m trying to send you into godhood so you’ll get out of my hair.” She stepped around him and hurried on her way to chemistry. He followed and she said, “I’m gonna call the deans and charge you with stalking!”

“You can’t because you know I’m going to physics.”

“Then it’s amazing that you believe in something like,” her voice dropped, “sex making someone into a god or goddess.”

He shrugged, “That’s what these crazy Americans think.”

“We’re crazy Americans now!” she said as she turned in to her class.

He sniffed and shook his head. The teasing had gone out of him, snuffed like a candle in a harsh wind. He passed her, head down and slipped into his own classroom. Beatriz was certain she heard him say, “You might be, but me?”

They met for lunch like every other day, but Kaew seemed as depressed as he had been when she’d started teasing him. She dropped her books on the table, startling him. “Why’d you do that?” he exclaimed.

“All right, I’ll listen to your theory. How CAN a Human use sex to transmute themselves into a god or goddess?”

He shook his head, “Supposedly it all has to do with focusing the sexual energy tightly enough.”

“Like how are we supposed to do that?” She pulled an orange out of her string pack and peeled it, making a neat little pile of rough fruit skins at her elbow.

Kaew opened his own bag and pulled out a notebook. An odd figure had been scratched into the green ink that used to cover it, leaving a white circle-within-a-circle and a bunch of odd lines and curlicues. “With this.”

Beatriz closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. “So we hold this magical circle between us and think about sex and, ‘poof!’ you’re a god and I’m a goddess?”

Kaew made a face then said, “You promised you’d listen to me.”

“This isn’t just some cheap trick to get into my panties, is it?” She was rewarded by his deep pinkish-pale blush.

He always stammered when he was nervous, so she knew she’d pricked him as he said, “N…n…no! It’s real! I’ve been studying this for a long time!”

She shook her head, eating three sections of the orange then saying, “Why do you want to be a god?”

He glanced both ways, then prairie-dogged to get a view of the whole lunchroom, then leaned forward and said, “There are people here who deserve to come under the wrath of a vengeful god!”

Names: ♀ South America ; ♂ China (Hmong)

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