IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 605

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: sanitation in the future is non-existent in cities…
Current Event: http://www.smh.com.au/world/mexico-city-fails-to-solve-its-garbage-crisis-20120127-1qlr2.html, http://fryingpannews.org/2012/02/09/big-step-taken-to-resolve-las-trash-crisis/

Trey Jackson and his family live in rural Nebraska – but the city of Omaha is a big part of their lives.

Especially the smell.

The city has been nearly buried under its own waste since, in 2029, the state legislature banned Omaha from dumping outside of a 20 mile radius. While few people in the CITY agreed to the law, legislators from outside the urban areas voted them down.

In 2041, Omaha has been walled in and in order to deal with the trash situation, they have moved their garbage to the edge of the city and hire companies to come in and search through the trash to find reusable, recyclable and useful things. Because the US economy slid into The Really Great Depression after an unprecedented eight Democratic Party dominated legislatures from 2008 through 2040, few people work – but everyone continues to produce garbage.

Trey and his family are part of a garbage caravan heading into Omaha to collect and distribute the trash West. When they arrive, they make camp in their covered wagons in Collector’s City and file for a permit to dig through the trash of a particular dump Trey’s dad and mom have researched. His twelve little brothers and sisters wait for their permit to clear.

In the meantime, Trey’s parents allow him to take the older of the siblings to the Collector’s Carnival. There he meets the amazing Francine La Flesche, descendant of the Indigenous people for who the city is named. She’s not supposed to be there, though.

In fact, she’s missing from her parent’s home – and they are powerful lawyers deep in the center of Omaha, living among the city’s wealthy elite. On the Ferris wheel ride, as it stops so that they are at the top and can see the Core City, she tells him she’s run away to see the world and was wondering if she can go with his family…

Names: ♀ France ; ♂ Latin

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 ESSAYS: Alien Humor? "Foipiargnaaadi"

On October 7, 2007, I started this blog – and NO, I’M NOT DONE BLOGGING!!! – I’d just hit the half-century mark, and I had nine professional publications. My son was 20, my daughter 16; and my wife and I had celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary two months earlier.

Today, August 31, 2023, 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 and I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife or kids or grandkids. I’m working on my writing, reading constantly, and because I discovered that was writing longer and longer pieces, I thought I might focus on saying what I need to say in fewer words. I also discovered that I CAN’T write humor, even though I can TALK humor (several people will attest to that; the biggest proof is that I can make most of a room of 30 middle-schoolers laugh at something I’ve intentionally set up.

My GOAL is to learn to write short humor. To that end, I’ve been both reading about humor and trying my hand at writing short humor pieces. So, I’ll be posting both musings on humor and experiments in writing science fiction humor here from time to time. Today is one of those times.

I think our sense of humor makes us Human…and that ALL OF US play with language in order to make ourselves laugh. Take for example the silly words we create.

HOBBIT: The vast majority of those of you reading this know that this word is a pronoun denoting a very specific imaginary being as depicted in JRR Tolkien’s LORD OF THE RINGS novels. He invented the word.

NARNIA: A large number of you know that this is a proper noun attached to an imaginary land found in the works of English author, C. S. Lewis. He invented the word.

PERN: Many of you know that this is an acronym from an interplanetary survey done by a future Humanity imagined by Anne McCaffrey. It stands for Parallel Earth Resources Negligible. For some of us, that abbreviation explodes into memories of a world colonized by Humans seeking a simpler, agrarian existence on an alien world inhabited by nothing that seemed capable of harming us. Fate of course constantly surprises – and Pern was a cyclical victim of an alien plague that jumped from an eccentrically orbiting moon. Humans had to bioengineer a creature to combat these “threads”. From tiny, harmless flying lizards who could also teleport themselves when face with grave danger; Humans gengineered telepathic dragons…

FOIPIARGNAAADI: None of you will recognize this as a word meaning something like “the humorous power of made up words”. That’s because myself, my wife and four young adults (two of them related to us, two of them not) invented it one night playing an impromptu game of SCRABBLE®. We even invented a grammar: the triple “a” pluralizes the word and the suffix “di” feminizes the noun. Why did we do this then conclude the game with gales of laughter?

I think it’s because on Earth, language (and the humor it creates) is innate and perhaps even unique to Humans. Don’t get me wrong. Every living thing communicates. There are levels of communication as well. Few people would question that flax plants and flatworms communicate differently than orcas and octopi.

There is good evidence that certain animals have a sense of humor: Dogs, meerkats and rats laugh…chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans do, too. Chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest relatives, have the most human-like laughter. The Dogs of Spokane laugh, as do ravens and dolphins – at least provisionally. However, I think I’m safe in saying that two adult chimpanzees with four young adult chimpanzees in a safe environment at a Primate Research Center somewhere; would be unlikely to make up a word, create a simple grammar then find the whole thing amusing.

I contend that it is the “spark of the divine” (aka God) in us that gives Humans the ability to use language of extreme complexity. In the Bible, Numbers 22 tells the tale of a man who was beating his donkey who had refused to walk past an angel because it recognized that the angel was about to kill the man. The man’s name was Balaam. In the end, the angel granted the donkey the ability to speak to the man. Even the rankest “animals-are-the-same-as-humans” activist and those who believe that animals deserve all the protection granted humans under law, would find it hard to credit this story as fact. At best, I could muster up enough BELIEF to grant that it might be possible. Even so, when talking about having a sense of humor, there are more complex ways to communicate and simpler ways to communicate.

Humor is communication at its most complex and least understood. “What makes us special is the range and amount of laughter we seek and produce, which in large part stems from our unique evolution, as well as our culture. Indeed, as Martin writes: ‘…being able to enjoy humor and express it through laughter seems to be an essential part of what it means to be human.’” (SURVIVAL OF THE FUNNIEST)

It is the complexity of humor that separates us from the animals. While it’s been said that “a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.” (The Infinite Monkey Theorem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem ), the same article goes on to explain that the obvious meaning isn’t the significant meaning of this statement. Monkeys aren’t going to write “Much Ado About Nothing” because monkeys aren’t Human. I suppose, though that it might be that monkeys would write a MONKEY equivalent of “Much Ado About Nothing” – but would a Human find it funny?

If or when we meet sapient aliens, will we be able to share a sense of Humor? I suppose that the family of STAR TREK aliens might be able to. Supposedly Humans, Cardassians, and Klingons – and at the end of the episode, Romulans, implying that Vulcans, Ferengi, Bajorans, Tellarites, Andorians, and all other Humanoids in and near the Federation are descended from a single race of sapient aliens who “seeded our” part of the galaxy with their DNA. It makes sense that Klingons and Humans can laugh together; certainly that Cardassians and Humans can forge relationships based on humor, and while Vulcans and Humans don’t “laugh together” per se, they can certainly share a sense of humor.

All this to say that we play with language in order to make ourselves laugh. It MAY be possible, but unlikely that Humans and aliens can EVER share a laugh, though I suppose they MAY share some sort of alcoholic (or its metabolic equivalent) beverage that would ease relationship tensions.

I am working at being able to WRITE funny for my fellow Humans – whose to say that an alien wouldn’t find my writing funny!

Sources: https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-07-29/do-animals-have-a-sense-of-humor-this-scientist-has-been-tickling-rats-for-years-to-prove-it.html, https://exploringyourmind.com/do-animals-have-a-sense-of-humor-science-says-yes/, https://www.smallanimalplanet.com/the-science-behind-animal-laughter-do-animals-have-a-sense-of-humor/, Survival of the Funniest: A review of Rod Martin, Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/147470490800600111 Image: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/qWigLxdUzjXa6hmKdQGGuY.jpg

CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 30: Fermi’s Paradox, Alien Nations and the Past, Present and Future of Humanity

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...

Fermi’s Paradox: “the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations…”

One of my favorite movies was DISTRICT 9. The immediacy, intensity and the sheer audacity of aliens picking a nation to hover over that WASN’T a super power made it one of my favorites.

But my all-time favorite in the category of Aliens Who “Crash Land” On Earth And Have To Be Integrated Into Human Society movie is ALIEN NATION. For me, both the movie and TV show were revolutionary in concept and fascinating in execution.

D9 and AN dealt with very similar issues from utterly different points of view. With arguably different intent, the two movies illustrate the same sad-but-true perception of Humanity: given aliens in need, we’ll accept them with open arms then tie them up in red tape until they have no choice but to become us (ALIEN NATION) or revolt and break free of the tape (DISTRICT 9).

And how is this any different from the rest of Human history? During World War II, it’s what Americans did to anyone who was even remotely suspect of having Japanese heritage following The Day That Will Live In Infamy? Even if they were second generation, born and bred Americans, they were suspected of being Japanese sympathizers and needed to be locked away.

What about the red-headed Irish refugees fleeing the Potato Famine of 1845-1852: “One honest immigrant wrote home at the height of the potato famine exodus, ‘My master is a great tyrant, he treats me as badly as if I was a common Irishman.’ The writer further added, ‘Our position in America is one of shame and poverty.’ No group was considered lower than an Irishman in America during the 1850s.” (http://www.kinsella.org/history/histira.htm).

It's what happened to African slaves when they were brutally captured or bought from other African tribes who had captured them during intertribal conflict. They were put away on plantations and legislated out of Humanity and into the realm of tractors and land – possessions to be bartered with as the “owner” saw fit.

Virtually every society has oppressed women at some time or another, freed them then oppressed them again. Islam is NOT unusual in this on-again-off-again granting of women’s rights: India, Europe, Iran, Britain, the United States, Mexico, Sweden, Japan, Arabia, and Germany have all extended then retracted rights at some time or another.

Then there’re those Greeks and Romans, “The Paragons And Inventors Of Freedom And Democracy”…

During the reign of Greece, “Thucydides recalls that 7,000 inhabitants of Hycarra in Sicily were taken prisoner by Nicias and sold for 120 talents in the neighboring village of Catania. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Greece);

“The institution of slavery in ancient Rome reduced those held to a condition of less than persons under their legal system. Stripped of many rights, including the ability to marry, slaves were the property of their owners.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Rome)

The thing is, is that it isn’t any different from the rest of Human history. What is frightening is that we in the 21st Century believe that First Contact will be a happy event and SHOULD happen and that POOF! the aliens will be welcomed with open arms and a new Golden Age will ensue as we solve all our problems because we know that we are no longer alone.

What might happen though is that our Visitors will be tied up in red tape so thick they won’t know what hit them. Hopefully they won’t have seen the ENTERPRISE episodes that take place in the Mirror Universe (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkp-MI5hxVw&feature=related). We often bemoan the Fate of those alien civilizations – in face scientists no less great than Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and science fiction writer David Brin, have expressed real doubt about whether contact with alien civilizations will lead to anything but disaster for Humanity: “"One day, we might receive a signal from a planet like this," Hawking says in the documentary, referring to a potentially habitable alien world known as 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." (https://www.space.com/34184-stephen-hawking-afraid-alien-civilizations.html

But what about the OPPOSITE point of view – I’ve honestly never read a story or article or seen a movie or TV series pondering what WE would do to “THEM” if aliens were to land on Earth. Would we lure them in with sweet words and deals, then turn on them, enslave them, and steal their technology.

Where are the stories in which HUMANS enslave the ALIENS? Maybe we’d be such perfect predators and slave masters – as indicated by our history of enslaving each other given half a chance…

Then again, if They have read our history, seen our TV shows and watched our movies – maybe Fermi’s Paradox isn’t a paradox. Maybe aliens are afraid of us…

Sources: https://theconversation.com/blasting-out-earths-location-with-the-hope-of-reaching-aliens-is-a-controversial-idea-two-teams-of-scientists-are-doing-it-anyway-182036 Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg

Mining The Asteroids: Part 17 Psyche -- Understanding the Solar System, OR NASA STAKES ITS CLAIM?

Psyche (nasa.gov); https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxyKApIma2lEHlckqt4gSXUt3rihv6QaKRLBYw3e13xJtxdAJ7KEIGPYJawu3l48VQ8YngQMkELx_5csIkC9MjvVbDhomtc1R-uO7RSSVm8V2xbdsD3koZXgLZJSRuF5r1DNiYr7bfDsA/

NASA's PSYCHE MISSION

Event by NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Public  · Anyone on or off Facebook

NASA’s Psyche mission is preparing to launch on October 5 to embark on a 2.2-billion-mile journey to a unique metal-rich asteroid that could help us understand the early formation of rocky planets in our solar system, like Earth. Join mission experts Wednesday, August 23, at 3:30 p.m. ET for an opportunity to learn more about Psyche. Submit your questions using #askNASA for a chance to have them answered live during the show. 

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Slice of PIE: The Future of Forensics!

Using the panel discussion, I heard at the 2016 World Science Fiction Convention in Kansas City in August 2016, I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide.

Panel Experts discuss what is current in the methods and technology of analyzing scientific evidence, and suggest where it might go next, including Jason Sanford, Alistair Kimble, Jack Campbell Jr., Diana Rowland and Anna Yeatts.

Let me just say right here that I love forensics.

I used forensics to assess students in my special education science classes at the end of the school year. I taught several special classes at my middle school using forensics to find out who killed the school principal. I have in my possession an FBI manual describing various ways people die and how they are classified in the report every agent has to write.

Let me also say that I NEVER thought to use my love to write a science fiction story involving forensics! Weird, huh?

So – what’s NOW in forensic research and where might it go in the future?

Certainly, gel electrophoresis is a contemporary tool in forensics that’s used to separate mixtures of DNA, RNA, or proteins according to molecular size. In gel electrophoresis, the molecules to be separated are pushed by an electrical field through a gel that contains small pores. After treatment, the end result is banding in the gel.

How could that be “future-fied”? How about speeding up the process? How might that happen? Could you play around with amperage and voltage? Amps are a unit of charge, (the coulomb) that is the quantity of electricity carried in 1 second by a current of 1 ampere. Conversely, a current of one ampere is one coulomb of charge going past a given point per second; and voltage is electric potential difference, electric pressure or electric tension is the difference in electric potential energy between two points per unit electric charge. Maybe with new materials we could push that up; maybe make it in the detective’s head?

How about a “gun” that fires a cartridge full of nanobots that spread out and begin to process evidence at a scene immediately? Of course, what if a criminal gets hold of the programming? What’s to keep the nanobots from destroying or altering evidence…and (IDEA!) what if a Human detective had to work with a Gwelch detective – and the Gwelch, being a multi-organism, communal creature whose individual members look like cockroaches; work like millimeter-bots, sampling a site by eating things on it and processing, then passing on findings to the greater organism? This would work for trace evidence analysis, evaluation of body fluids, and compound determination, such as drugs or other hazardous chemicals.

In something called fluorescence spectroscopy, forensic technicians can determine the amount of light emitted after absorption to give information on the components of the sample. Recent developments allow for fluorescent nanosensors that allow the measurement of oxygen in biological fluids such as blood, interstitial fluid, and cerebral spinal fluid. How this could be USED, I have no idea!

However, I CAN imagine something that appears an accident in the power unit of a ship, station, or colony and these futuristic detectives using an inductively coupled plasma/mass spectrometry (ICP/MS). “Under the best conditions, ICP/MS detects elements down to the parts-per-quadrillion level.”

I’d have loved to be at this session, but you’ll have to excuse me, I had a “tiny idea” written down somewhere that’s just exploded into my head as a workable idea for a story!

Source material: http://www.labcompare.com/Forensic-Laboratory-Equipment/
Program Book: https://midamericon2.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/MACII-PP-Interior-Final-HiRes.pdf
Image: https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3129/3213140125_57c7bfdba5_b.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 604

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: “Grave Clouds for the variant where the weather is simply miserable at graveyards and other creepy areas, and which is possibly a sister trope to this. See also Evil Is Not Well Lit…”

Current Event: http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/afterlife/scary-graveyard1.htm

Niaria Xiong-Walker squinted, trying to see through the gathering mist that apparently hung over the cemetery every night. She said, “How can mist hang over this place EVERY night? Fog’s a function of temperature, humidity, and dew point.”

Seth Bakhsh stood near an obelisk, pitted from ages of lower-than-water pH acid rain that drizzled from the Rochester, NY sky on a regular basis, giving it the dubious distinction of the being the American city with the most rainy days and its unofficial slogan, “If it rains, it’s Rochester”. He said, “It’s the oldest municipal graveyard in the US and has 400,000 dead people in it. Don’t you think that all those ghosts might have an effect on the weather?”

Niaria snorted and said, “They don’t even act as creeped out as you are doing in my parents old village in Nigeria! You’re a wimp, Seth!”

He snorted just as loudly, “I prefer to think that I’m prepared for all eventualities – even ephemeral ones.”

Shaking her head, she tapped her tablet computer and plugged in a cord. “I’m going to see if there’s any truth to the old wives tale that cemeteries are always foggy and creepy at night.”

“How many have you tested?” he asked. He usually ignored her scientific researches in favor of tapping her fascination in anime movies by presenting her with the latest rerun of her favorite Miyazaki film.

“Sixteen,” she replied.

“What?” he stepped from the obelisk, saying, “This isn’t the first time you’ve done this?”

“Duh,” she grabbed the tip of the cord and pulled, a long sensor extended, glowing blue.

“What’s that?”

“A data staff. It collects information and feeds it into a program I wrote.”

“So you can detect monsters?”

“Nothing so solid. Ephemerals. Like you said.”

“Ghosts?” he breathed the word – and his breath fogged in front of his face. “How come it’s so cold here?”

She shook her head, “Because the temperature’s low, dummy.”

“No – I mean it wasn’t cold a second ago and now I can see my breath.”

She looked at her tablet then back up at Seth, “The data confirm your sensations.”

“Duh.”

She looked around, scowling. “But there isn’t any reason…” As she said the words, something congealed out of the fog. It wasn’t humaniform, more like a lizard-like; possibly saurian, large as the obelisk.

Seth said, “It’s coming out of that gravestone...”

“It’s a monument…”

“Whatever it is, I think it has big claws.”

Names: ♀ India, Hmong, English-Scottish; ♂ Hebrew, Pakistan
Image: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51niGRrH6DL.jpg

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 16: IS NASA Doing It???

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…

In a recent video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvCSZHfjmZ4, NASA ASU Professor and Asteroid Scientist, Lindy Elkins-Tanton, gives a pretty firm and unambiguous answer: “No NASA is not mining asteroids…” BUT… “What NASA is doing is fundamental science, research missions that go out to the asteroids and try and understand more about them and they will help any eventual future efforts to mine the asteroids. We ARE going to go visit an asteroid we think is made largely of metal.”

So, the answer Dr. Elkins-Tanton gives is clear and unambiguous.

“Or,” (as my granddaughter and grandson are fond of saying), “IS it???”

The NASA mission to Psyche, the metal asteroid they’re targeting, is set to launch on October 10, 2023 for the Psyche orbiter to launch and get to the asteroid by August 2029. But is that realistic? Anyone reading this KNOWS how NASA sets it sights, budgets bloom, Congress gets antsy with repeated requests for “more funding” and eventually a good idea gets buried – especially since we no longer have anyone breathing down our neck.

“Or,” (as my granddaughter and grandson are fond of saying), “do we???”

China’s efforts at asteroid mining, while typically wrapped in layers of secrecy about specific facts and technology, this article from SKN News in September of 2020: (St. Kitts and Nevis, east of the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) ran nothing but this headline: “China to send first-ever ‘asteroid mining robot’ into space this November” (https://sknnews.com/world-news/china-to-send-first-ever-asteroid-mining-robot-into-space-this-november-42276979/)

That’s it. Nothing else. No story, no nothing.

But digging around deeper, I found this: “The SuperView Neo 1-01 & 02 satellites were designed and manufactured by the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) for China Siwei Survey and Mapping Technology Co. Ltd. (China Siwei), a leading company providing geospatial information services in China…Neo constellation will include at least 28 satellites of 3 series. The first one is called SuperView Neo-1 and it aims to provide 20 to 30 cm optical images. SuperView Neo-2 will produce synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) images with 50 cm resolution in spotlight mode, whereas SuperView Neo-3 will acquire large swath-width optical images with resolution higher than 1 meter. On this mission, two satellites of the first series (SuperView Neo-1) were launched. These satellites have a mass of 540 kg each, with resolution down to 0.3 meters.” (https://everydayastronaut.com/superview-neo-1-01-02-long-march-2c/)

In an article dated September 2020, India News (https://www.mining-technology.com/news/origin-space-launch-mining-robot-space/) reported: “As part of this mission, Origin Space will use a small satellite called NEO-1, weighing nearly 30kg…NEO-1 will be launched as a secondary payload by a China-made Long March series rocket. The launch of NEO-1 will mark the ‘first steps’ taken towards testing capabilities as part of efforts to detect and extract space resources. India Today quoted Origin Space co-founder Yu Tianhong as stating: ‘The goal is to verify and demonstrate multiple functions such as spacecraft orbital manoeuvre, simulated small celestial body capture, intelligent spacecraft identification and control.’ The long-term objective of the space company is to develop rare-earth metals and mineral resources from near-Earth asteroids.”

So…China launched NEO-1 and NEO-2: “The NEO-01, developed by Nanjing-based Origin Space Technology Co, which claims to be the first Chinese company dedicated to exploring and utilizing space resources, was launched on a Long March 6 rocket for space debris removal and asteroids mining experiments in deep space in April 2021…the robot prototype completed an experiment of using a large net to capture space debris and the relative technique verification in key steps, which is the first commercial company in the world to complete such an experiment.” (https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202211/1279404.shtml)

So the race has begun – not between the defunct Soviet Union; nor the ineffective regime currently in the Kremlin, mired down in a war that was supposed to last weeks, but has stretched into eighteen months of slogging push and shove with absolutely nothing to show for it as it rapidly descends into a punchline for a joke...

First soldier: “Russia is second most powerful military nation…”
Second soldier: “Da, in Ukraine.”

but between the US and China; and right now, it seems that China might have more enthusiasm than we do… “Or,” (as my granddaughter and grandson are fond of saying), “do they???”

New Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvCSZHfjmZ4
Fundamental Resource: (A general Wikipedia post detailing what the authors currently know about asteroid mining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining)
Noted Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth, https://www.pharostribune.com/news/local_news/article_7fcd3ea5-3c14-533f-a8d5-9bf629922f34.html, https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/04/29/like-asteroid-mining-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/, https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/learn/historyculture/theroadtothefirstflight.htm, https://hackaday.com/2019/03/27/extraterrestrial-excavation-digging-holes-on-other-worlds/, https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/every-small-worlds-mission
Image: https://everydayastronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/Post-Launch-Reviews/CNSA/Long-March-2C_Xinhua-1200x800.jpeg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 603

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? 

Fantasy Trope: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/index_report.php
Current Event: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army

I know this is just a wiki, but this idea was inspired by a former student of mine who became a physics teacher and is currently teaching in China. He visited this site several weeks ago and has posted pictures on Facebook. His pictures of this army came up recently and though I couldn’t link directly to his Facebook, I linked here:

It got me thinking – if there are some 8000 pieces (and about as many are still buried)…what if the mother of a teenager was working as part of an international team and uncovered something unusual (not that a standing army of 16,000 horses, soldiers, acrobats and various and sundry other “people” isn’t unusual enough!) What if an archaeologist intern, Wu unearths a unique figure, say a woman, knocked down, crying out in terror, with her arm upraised as a man draws back a spear and is obviously about to run her through…

Is there a curse on this piece that comes to haunt the head archaeologist’s teen boy, Shun when he sees it and is strangely attracted to it?

Or is it case for a forensic anthropologist (or would it be, more appropriately a forensic terracottaist) and was a MURDER involved which someone commemorated? Who did the commemorating, who was the perpetrator – and what if it had a connection to the present?

Names: ♀ China; ♂China

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

Slice of PIE: “Free Guy” Is Just “Stranger Than Fiction”…But With VR Headsets…

NOT using the Programme Guide of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON III, 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…I WILL NOT use the Programme Guide to jump off, jump on, rail against, or shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. 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…

My wife and I love both the “Stranger Than Fiction” (2006) and “Free Guy” (2021). In case you’re too young to watch old movies, here’s the plot of “Stranger than Fiction”: “IRS auditor Harold Crick suddenly finds his mundane Chicago life to be the subject of narration only he can hear: narration that begins to affect his entire existence, from his work to his love life to his death.” This film stars some real names: Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman (none of the “Free Guy” targets know who he is), and Maggie Gyllenhaal. (For the 2022 generation: Ferrell is best known as the Elf in “Elf”…; Emma Thompson is best known for lots of things, but for the target audience of “Free Guy”: Professor Trelawny at Hogwarts)

“Free Guy” (2021): “In the extremely popular video game, Free City, a NPC named Guy learns the true nature of his existence when he meets the girl of his dreams, a human player. This player's interactions with Guy has massive effects on him, the game, and real world as they play it.” This film has some big names as well, Ryan Reynolds (for the target audience, he’s Deadpool); Jodie Comer (Rey’s Mom in STAR WARS: “The Rise of Skywalker”); and Taika Waititi as the Calm Blue Rock Guy in 2 of the AVENGERS movies…

SO…how are “Stranger Than Fiction” and “Free Guy” basically the same movie – one made for people who read books, then other for people who play video games?

A fairly short list of events in both movies might serve my argument:

FIRST:
Harold Crick in “Stranger Than Fiction” is a fictional character – both in the movie; and in the book in the movie.

Guy in “Free Guy” is a fictional character – both in the game; and in the real world.

SECOND:
Harold figures out he’s a fictional character. Guy does as well.

THIRD:
Guy finds out he’s going to die when the game shuts down (or before if Antawan catches him). So does Harold – but his person isn’t a real villain. She’s an accidental villain. Actually, Dustin Hoffman serves as a sort of “low-key” villain, insisting Harold HAS to die if the book is going to be a fabulous piece of literature.

FOURTH:
Both Guy and Harold object to dying.

FIFTH:
Someone CRAZY is in charge of Harold’s story – she just thinks she’s writing her newest novel. Guy’s not even supposed to BE a character – until he puts on the glasses and goes from being a Non-Playable-Character to a FORCE in the video game…albeit, he’s not technically controlled by ANYONE at first. Then Antwan sends his controllers in.

SIXTH:
They both meet the story creator eventually – Harold at the very end, Guy when he falls for one of the creators after he has the glasses.

SEVENTH:
Neither Millie nor Keys; and not Karen Eiffel have ANY CLUE that their fictional characters are in fact an artificial intelligence and a real person…until the very end and they are ALL totally freaked out.

EIGHTH:
Both Harold and Guy have a happy ending: Harold gets Ana; Guy gets Millie…and then it turns out he’s actually KEYS…who gets Millie and Guy gets his best friend back.

There are only two differences:

Karen Eiffel and Millie/Keys are HORRIFIED to find out that Harold and Guy are REAL. While Karen lets Harold survive getting hit by a bus instead of dying; Millie and Keys set Guy free (actually all of the Free Life characters).

Karen Eiffel isn’t actually evil, Antwan is.

So, if it’s been done twice, in two very popular and award-winning movies, what are they trying to say to us?

“Free Guy” was almost universally considered a fluff movie – pure fun, no thought, just a good-old time. Esmerelda Gomez at SocioMix however, disagrees: “…the NPCs are more than coded programs for gamers to play with…this theme is centered on civil rights being messed with…by the government…[and] how citizens will fight for them…interactions and movement for change create more room for others to have the ability and rights to…live better lives.”

“Stranger Than Truth” is instead considered a piece of existential thought: “…there’s something very poetic about the understanding of one’s place in the universe, but it’s far more dramatic when such understanding occurs only days before that life ends…Each of these characters ends up doing little things to save one another. There's an underlying theme that the things we take most for granted are often the ones that make life worth living and actually keep us alive.”

The two quotes above might be swapped – STT is certainly about free will and civil rights, and how interactions and movement create room for others to have better lives. FG is certainly about understanding one’s place in the universe, and it absolutely IS more dramatic when Guy understands just before his life ends.

For both, I’d say that there is indeed an underlying theme that the things we take for granted are things that make our lives worth living.

And so, I rest my case…

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_than_Fiction_(2006_film), https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0420223/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Guy, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6264654/, https://www.sociomix.com/diaries/entertainment/the-philosophy-of-the-movie-free-guy-on-reality-purpose-and-change/1633291983#:~:text=Free%20Guy%20Displays%20The%20Change%20An%20Individual%20Can%20Make.&text=Yet%20Guy's%20interactions%20with%20other,the%20NPCs%20he%20interacted%20with.
Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/1c/Free_Guy_2021_Poster.jpg/220px-Free_Guy_2021_Poster.jpg, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/ff/Stranger_Than_Fiction_%282006_movie_poster%29.jpg/220px-Stranger_Than_Fiction_%282006_movie_poster%29.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 602

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: robots
Current Event: http://www.livescience.com/topics/robots/

“The Serpent In Eden, Nebraska”

Caleb Ogallala stared at the hole in the ground. “‘bout wide enough for me to get my arm down. Probably to my elbow,” he said. Looking up at his sister, Isabella Pearson nee Ogallala, he said, “You probably don’t believe I saw what I said I saw.”

Isabella – who went by Bell at SolaRobotics in the far, frozen northland of Winnipeg – said, “You’re my brother and I believe you saw what you thought you saw.”

“Not the same thing. You may be all of twenty-three and all I am is seventeen, but I know what I saw. It was a robot shaped like a snake and it dug this here hole.”

Bell winced at the Plainsism. She’d barely managed to ditch the weird accent after she did her undergrad work at the University of Minnesota. She’d finally got that accent right. Now she was struggling to fit in at her newly adopted home in Canada. She nodded, then squatted, “All right then. I apologize. You saw a robot shaped like a snake go down this hole.” She looked up at her brother. He didn’t seem as happy as he used to. Mom and Dad dying from MERS while she was away at college probably hadn’t helped with the mood. Not that their family laughed much. Salt-of-the-Earth Dad had called them...She shook off the melancholy image and shielded her eyes with her hand as she said, “First question is: has the county let the prairie dogs back in?”

His lips twitched in a smile. It was the first one since he’d picked her up at the skip-port in Ogallala, sixty klicks straight north of here. He said, “Not that I know of, but people ‘round here, they don’t much trust nobody’s government, even when it’s the Accordion Party.”

She stood and straightened up, “It’s the Accord Party.”

He shrugged then said, “It had your logo on it.”

“What?” she said, suddenly intent.

“The second letter of your name the round sun with black diamond eyes. It was on the snake head.”

Unexpectedly, Bell was cold despite the heat from the late morning sun…

Names: Nebraska, Nebraska ♀ ; Nebraska, Nebraska ♂
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