Tag: The Last Colony

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Truncated 30 days of world-building, part 4

Back to 30 days of world-building.  Only got a couple days to go before the commencement of Nanowrimo this year.

Skipping Days 17 and 18

 

Day 19 – Characters and what they’re all about

I’m not going to bore most folks with the character list.  Hell, I want to keep a lot about the characters a secret, since characters are often the key to my success in writing.  Instead, I’ll just offer a brief taste of some of them.

Here they are, in alphabetical order.

  • Grant Channing – Member of the Psychean Guard held by the Eurydice Compact for at least fifteen years.  Father of Lindsay Farragut.
  • Alana Chase – Born to the Eurydice Compact conglom, heavily cybered soldier.  She escaped to E-557 eighteen years before the story begins.
  • Brendan Cho – Born to the Chinasia Corp conglom and trained as a military pilot.  He is the only survivor of a ship shot down over E-557 eleven years before the story begins that was allowed to stay.
  • America Farragut – Member of the Psychean Guard held by Chinasia Corp. for at least fifteen years.  Mother of Lindsay Farragut and sister of Rachel Farragut.
  • Lindsay Farragut – Born a member of the Psychean Guard two years after the decimation of Mimir, the home of the Psychean Guard.  She is the Oracle and came to E-557 with her aunt twenty-three years before the story starts.  Member of the Rose Council.
  • Rachel Farragut – Member of the Psychean Guard who came to E-557 twenty-three years before the story starts.  Aunt and surrogate mother of Lindsay Farragut, the Oracle.  Member of the Rose Council.
  • Ezra Grace, MD – Born and bred on E-557, Ezra is of genius-level intelligence when it comes to medicine and the interactions of humans and cyberware.  He’s not quite thirty when the story starts.
  • Adam Windsor – Member of the Psychean Guard who came to E-557 shortly before Rachel Farragut, after the destruction of Guard HQ on Mimir.  High-ranking military officer on E-557; one of the Guardians (military commanders of E-557).

 

Day 20 – Oh, the plot!

This particular directive — that is, starting to outline plot — is something I started a bit ago, as scenes started to form themselves in my head.  Basically, the exercise for day 20 asks the writer to say what the story’s about — what’s the overarching plot.

On the Nanowrimo forums, there’s a thread that was fantastic: the 20-word summary of your plot.  This was mine:

Humanity has killed dozens of worlds. They’re not allowed to kill this one.

Thirteen words to describe the plot of The Last Colony.  We’ll see what the ending holds.

I do have one major subplot already in mind, which deals with the rescue of America Farragut and Grant Channing from the Chinasia Corp and Eurydice Compact congloms respectively.  Of course, Lindsay isn’t going to like the plan that Ezra (since it will be Ezra that comes up with the majority of the plan) comes up with for rescuing her parents.

 

Day 21 – Flora and Fauna

Largely skipping this one, except for to jot down the note that there are various terrestrial species that have been preserved since the loss of Earth that have become semi-domesticated.  Other species were used to populate the lands of E-557 long before the colonists ever landed there.  No one’s really sure who terraformed the planet or seeded it with terrestrial species.  There is some data to indicate that E-557 was a world that had once harbored life before being terraformed, but for some reason had been abandoned in a very distant past.

 

Skipped to Day 24 – Mood (again!)

Day 24 is all about artwork, mood, and music playlists for working on your project.  Of course, this can take a long while to put together, especially the artwork.  So, for the moment, I’m going to forgo some of the artwork but share some of the music that’s evocative and inspiring lately…

Other songs include “Keep Holding On” by Avril Lavigne, “Now or Never” by Three Days Grace, “Wonder” by Natalie Merchant, “Believe” by Staind, “Carry You Home” by James Blunt, and “World” by Five for Fighting.

 

Day 25 – The Sky (and what’s in it when)

This isn’t so important, since I don’t have any nighttime sequences in mind that will require moonlight.  I love the moon in all its phases, and if it becomes important to have the moon be a certain way at a certain time, I’ll be sure to keep track of phases.  Though the exercise is a wonderful cautionary tale.

 

The rest of the days on the world-building lists are mostly wrap-ups — finish up with this, that, and the other thing.  So I’ll be spending my last few days before Nanowrimo working on school work and doing some outlining for November 1!

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Truncated 30 days of world-building, part 3

Back to my brainstorming fueled by 30 days of worldbuilding, of which I’ve skipped several days (in part due to finishing up a paper for the Great Lakes History Conference — which is almost done, mercifully, and will be completed on Thursday).

 

Day 8 – It’s all about the Economics and the Resources

Basically, the Foundation and the Psychean Guard control the resources–all of them–of E557.  Other congloms would love to exploit the virgin planet.  That’s not going to happen.

  • On E557, most goods are shared communally–everyone contributes based on their own skills to the whole and in return get what they need (it’s something of a highly advanced barter system, with goods in return for services, ect).  Most people grow their own food (at least some of it) on small plots near their homes.  Those who cannot are supported by the community (such as those in military service who have little or no time to tend a garden plot, ect).
    • Natural resources are prized and protected.  There are stringent limits set on what can be taken.  Still, there is often major surplus that is exported back to New Earth, and that income is in turn invested in the Foundation’s efforts and the survival of E557 and the colony, which is rapidly becoming self-sufficient.

Skipped Day 9-11.

Day 12: What ifs and the speculative element – brainstorm some speculative elements embedded in your story.  It doesn’t matter if they end up making the final cut or not.

  • Limited/dangerous FTL
  • Terraforming/colony seeding
  • Psychics
  • Wetware
  • Genetic engineering
  • Sustainable energy technology
  • O’Neill cylinders/colonies/stations
  • “Hover” technology (crossing the sea, salt flats, deserts, ect)
  • Psychic enhancement technology?
  • Wetware/psychic dependant fighters/armor suits?
  • AIs (this would be mostly on the Conglom end)
  • Hardcore resources extraction technology (Conglom end)
  • Nanotechnology (medicine, weapons)
  • Advanced satellite communications and scanning technology

Skipped Day 13

Day 14 – Education: So, what kind of educational system does your society use?  How are people educated and what does that mean for the societies?

  • Education depends on which Conglom you’re born to, and where.
    • Psychean Guard – Children born psychic in the Guard (which most, but not all, are) are trained from an early age to hone and control their abilities.  This continued after many fled to E557 (though their numbers had been greatly reduced).  They also enjoyed an education heavily committed to knowledge deemed “esoteric” by most of the other Congloms–a curriculum based on the humanities, research, social sciences and science and math.  especially bright children are channeled toward their passions in terms of study.
    • Chinasia Corp – Children are exposed to science and math early on and all are expected to be literate by the age of eight.  At age ten or eleven, children are channeled into different training cadres for particular pursuits.  Those deemed physically suited enter military training at this stage.  Only about half of those selected for military training survive the first five years of training.  Other children are tracked for technical activities and are trained accordingly.  A bare handful are identified for “other duties” and are trained accordingly.
      • Children (indeed, most people) are only numbers.  Many find they cannot remember their given names, only their family names, after entering the training cadres.
    • Eurydice Compact – The Compact works on a caste system–what your parents had been, so too shall you be unless the leaders of this conglom see fit to change your stars.  Children can expect to begin training at about four or five and become part of the workforce by twelve or thirteen.  Children who are born psychic  are sterilized (this began around the same time that the Foundation was founded – psychic ability when parents are not themselves psychic is generally not discovered until the first manifestation of abilities, which tends to take place during adolescence) and subjected to genetic testing and other experiments.  Most die before the age of twenty.
      • The Psychean Guard rescues a disproportionate amount of psychic children from the Eurydice Compact.  It is suspected by the Compact that they have moles that alert them to the discovery of psychic children, or ways of finding these children before the Compact does.
    • Rose Foundation – The Rose Foundation focuses on a liberal arts education with additional education in ecological and technological sciences as well as survival and other practical skills.  It’s sometimes said that the Foundation raped the Congloms of the best and brightest thinkers of the past 400 years.  Much of the Foundation now resides on E557 and most children are publicly educated with opportunities for higher learning based on strengths and aptitude.
  • Most of the congloms are combinations/variants of the above.

I hope I’ll be forgiven for not sharing character notes that related to the above, though I did scribble down some stuff about Brendan Cho (a refugee from Chinasia Corp), Alana Chase (a refugee from the Eurydice Compact), Lindsay Farragut (the Oracle and thus a refugee from the Psychean Guard), and Ezra Grace (who was born and raised on E557 to an old Foundation family).

Skipped Day 15.

Day 16 – Refining and further detailing speculative elements

Psychics – Some psychics, such as the Oracle, who are particularly strong can and will suffer sensory overload when all six of their senses are available to them in most types of “public” settings.  The overload can cause discomfort ranging up to causing eventual brain damage in the most powerful psychics due to repeated “trauma.”  Training can alleviate this for most psychics, but for the most powerful there is simply no way to prevent psychic “seepage.”  Some use drugs to control their abilities, but this isn’t considered an entirely viable solution and is only turned to (within the Psychean Guard) when absolutely necessary.

Cyberware/Wetware – Often used in military and technical applications, but very, very hard on the body.  The most heavily cybered individuals often don’t live long, either dying or going insane.  In most congloms, this isn’t a problem, since most of the time these people are expendable.
– Cutting-edge, less invasive wetware techniques have been pioneered on E557.  They’re also the leading experts on decybering, which was prevously thought impossible.
—-> Part of deybering requires genetic engineering and limited cloning technology.
– Very few psychics can tolerate cyberware.  More can handle basic wetware, but usually not too much.  There has been some research that suggests it does somethign ti kill psychic ability because of chemical imbalances caused in the brain as a result of installation.
—> The Psychean Guard developed techniques for determining whether or not particular individuals could handle wetware/cyberware.

FTL Travel – Faster than light travel is possible, but tricky and dangerous outside of known corridors.  Even in known corridors, 1 in 50 ships never make it to their destinations–and no one knows what’s become of half of these vessels lost.  When traveling outside of known corridors, the number jumps to nearly half of the ships lost.  As a result, most travel is restricted to known “safe” zones and ships drop from FTL usually days from their intended destination (the system surrounding New Earth is an exception).  For example, “safe” routes to E557 have ships coming in 5-7 days away from the planet.