Tag: writing

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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.

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Truncated 30 Days of World-building, part 2

Back to 30 Days of World-building!  Some of this I actually did yesterday before my classes began, while I was having some lunch.

Day 4 and Day 5 – I skipped both for now; Day 4 is really something that is important for a world that’s not newly settled (30 Days of World-building was originally designed to help people build fantasy worlds rather than science fiction worlds–a world such as the one I’m designing is recently colonized).  Day 5…yeah, that’s a map.  I just don’t have the brainpower (or the time) to dedicate to making one of those right about now.  But soon.  Probably after next weekend.

Day 6 – Spend 10 minutes figuring out what people who evolved in each major area of your world would look like. Then spend another 5 minutes asking “what if this group encountered that group?” Would they fight? Trade? Both? Inter-marry and blend their genetic types? Would they remain largely separate, with pure strains of both racial groups co-existing (not necessarily peacefully)? How would that encounter be brought about in the first place?

This got me running off in random directions.  What follows is directly taken from my handwritten notes on the subject.

 Because the world is terraformed and there are no true indigeneous people extant, all of the people that come to E557 come from New Earth or near-New Earth settlements and stations.  A few may even be from one of the spacefaring congloms and have only seen land briefly in their lives.

* Genetic mixing – Some congloms are a mixture of different racial types (though this has largely lost meaning since departure from the Solar system thousands of years ago).

– Other congloms, such as Chinasia Corp, are largely of one racial type.  Chinasia Corp members are Oriental in appearance with some Indian/Polynesian features in some, but these are rare (and sometimes the subject of ridicule by their peers).  Members of this Corp are more often considered as numbers rather than individuals. (This idea spawned the idea for one of the characters that will probably play a large role in the story, named Brendan Cho).

– In these congloms, you’re born to them.  You can leave, but no one who does not look the part and match certain genotypic requirements can join.

– Russian/Scandanavian Conglom?

* Psychics – Humanity has produced them for centuries, but largely they have been shunned, feared, or even disbelieved in.  For a time, there was a movement to sterilize any recognized psychic in order to prevent the production of more.  This is still practiced uner some Congloms, but most either ignore psychics or try to turn them to their advantage.  One psychic conglom exists: the Psychean Guard, which specializes in information–how to get it and how to protect it.

– The Psychean Guard was understandably instrumental in the work of the Foundation.

* Congloms are the equivelant of nation-states, for better or worse, but with an economic twist–thye’re also major corporations that have control over a large portfolio of activities and interests.

* Slavery?  Possible – “racially” based in some congloms (Chinasia, Eurydice Compact).  In most cases, it is more a state of eternally extended indentured servitude.

 

Day 7 – Spend 15 minutes outlining the major historical events of the last 100 years before your novel begins.

Well, I started with a little more than 100 years, since the history of my world, E557, is actually pretty short comparitively.  These are just notes I jotted down and will probably get changed quite a bit as I develop the story more — shuffing dates so they make more sense is something I do a lot.  For sake of ease, I started with Year 1 (I haven’t figured out my actual system of dates yet).

Year 1 – Colonization planning begins in earnest when Foundation scouts land on E557 and declare it “extremely habitable.”  Within six months, the first advance party lands on E557 and begins erecting infrastructure for Foundation colonization.  The sites settled are on two continents on either side of an ocean about 2500 miles across.

Year 3 – Infrastructure largely in place for the advance colony, the first settlers arrive on E557 and begin new lives.

Year 10 – Persecution drives some psychics to settle on E557.

Year 15 – First great drought.  The colonists begin to figure out the patterns shortly thereafter.

Year 30 – Second great drought.  Major droughts are determined to be cyclical.

Year 50 – Eruption of offshore undersea volcano creates the island of Tobie off the southeast coast of the western continent.

Year 100 – A new O’Neill colony is established near New Earth.  Three more are completed in the next five years.  Congloms begin making overtures to the Foundation, requesting resource and settlement rights to unsettled areas of the planet.  The requests are firmly denied.

Year 110 – The Eurydice Compact attempts to colonize an area of E557.  Their colony is discovered and dismantled, the equipment seized or destroyed.  Colonists from Eurydice Compact are given the option to leave and return to the Compact or remain and adopt the Foundation’s ideology of sustainability and racial and religious tolerance.  Some settlers elect to stay.  They tell horror stories baout what’s going on “back home.”  The Psychean Guard makes it clear that further interference with E557 will result in dire consequences.

Year 115 – Most of those individuals who were invovled in the Foundation have left for E557 (or died subsequently).  The Psychean Guard remains a staunch defender of the rights of those who have chosen to settle E557.

Year 125 – Open war breaks out amongst the congloms.  The Psychean Guard, usually neutral in these conflicts, becoems a major target.

Year 131 – Most of the Psychean Guard is wiped out in an attack on their capital/headquarters.  Those who survive go into hiding and prepare to flee to E557.

Year 134 – “Oracle” is born, the daughter of two members of the Psychean Guard’s inner circle.  They are still struggling to flee to E557 while creating havoc amongst the congloms to avenge their murdered brothers and sisters in the Guard.

Year 136 – “Oracle” is brought to E557 by an aunt.  Her parents are missing and mourned as lost.

Year 142 – War amongst the congloms ends.  A few smaller congloms have been absorbed or destroyed.  The Psychean Guard is largely regarded to no longer exist.

Year 150 – Another large-scale attempt at colonization of uninhabited areas of E557 is repulsed.

Year 159 – Current year.  War with E557, the remnant of the Psychean Guard, and the Foundation against the other congloms and New Earth seems imminent–and Oracle says it is, though no one knows who she really is.

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Waxing philosophical on paper coffee cups

I am hopelessly addicted to caramel macchiatos.  I’ll admit it.  I have been for nine years, since I was an undergrad at Grand Valley State and discovered them there.  Since leaving GVSU, I’ve found the best at Starbucks–which is to say I can find them at all.  Coffee Beanery and Caribou Coffee don’t make them.  God only knows why.

I know I could make them at home, but I don’t.  Probably because I’m too lazy to steam milk and we don’t have an espresso machine.  Which is okay.  I’ll willingly fork over my $3-$4 a pop and stimulate the economy for my nirvana in a cup.  I drink other things, too (white mochas, peppermint mochas, pumpkin spice lattes, and the “London Fog”–an earl grey latte, all of these among other things) but I generally default to a caramel macchiato.  I can walk into my “usual” Starbucks at John R and 16, or the one at the mall, and they generally know what I’m going to order–and they know me by name, rather than by my drink.

The past couple days on the way to the university, I’ve stopped at another Starbucks, the one at Rochester and South.  I looked at my cup today and got to thinking.  At that Starbucks, they print up a label for your cup and slap it on there and hand it to the barista making the drinks.  At the other Starbucks I go to, they take a marker and write it on your cup.  For some reason, I like that way better.  Maybe it’s because it feels more hand-crafted, with the half-intelligible symbols for a drink scribbled on the cup.  More leisurely, more old-timey (as if Starbucks could feel “old-timey”).  I don’t know.  I just like it better.  Maybe I’m strange.  Maybe it’s just…one of those things, a little quirk.  But that’s what I think I like better than this little printed label that says in plain English what I’ve ordered.

So give my my arrows and my three letter codes for what I’ve asked for.  I know what an upside down caramel macchiato looks like on my cup.  And any self-respecting Starbucks customer should know what their code looks like, too.

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Reconnecting with my research

It’s no secret to a lot of people who know me–in the wake of not getting one last little bit of feedback from my late advisor at the end of the Winter 2009 semester, I took a long break from my thesis work.  It was something I probably shouldn’t have done, but I kept expecting to get somethingfrom him after I sent one last update to him this past April.  But nothing.  We corresponded via e-mail about some housekeeping things regarding my thesis and he said he would get to the submission, but he never got back to me.  In some morbid way, I wonder if it’s sitting there on his hard drive with a mess of fantastic comments just waiting to never be sent.  But I suppose I’ll never know.

For the past week since I heard about his death, I’ve been avoiding really trying to work on my thesis, instead focusing on a paper I need to submit for the Great Lakes History Conference, deadlined in mid-October.  But the research overlaps a bit when I start reading about Edward I, and that’s tripped synapses in my brain that have pointed me back toward my thesis.  This is dangerous, considering that I don’t even know that I’ll even have this be my thesis come next week, or come the end of the OUAAUP strike, whichever happens first (personally, I’m hoping it’s settled after negotiations today so I won’t actually miss any of my classes this semester).  It’s in part hinging on a conversation I need to have with Karen Miller, the head of the history department here at Oakland University.  But in the end, I don’t know what’s going to happen other than I have a pile of research and information floating around in my brain that may turn into a book someday, regardless of whether or not it becomes my master’s thesis.  I’m sure if I have to change gears and start another project, I can find something.  I’m just not sure at this point what.

When I went to Dr. Finucane a couple years ago to talk about potential thesis ideas, I brought with me a short list of potential topics.  I’d originally wanted to do something with the Crusades, but I don’t speak French or Arabic (to be honest, even my Latin is shaky at best, though I’m working on that) so it would be very difficult for me to do that sort of research.  So changing gears, I brought the following list: 

–          Impact of the War of the Roses on English society

o       Potentially limited to women, church, or the aristocracy?

–          Hundred Years War

o       Religion and politics

–          Folk beliefs and spirituality in late medieval England

o       Mysticism in England?

o       English Saints?  Shifting views of what was seen as evidence of the divine working through a person or related to a person? (ties into witchcraft, ect)

–          Kingship and royalty in England, late medieval

o       Touches on the political and diplomatic; alliances through marriage, blood claims to “foreign” territory – importance of women in this context?

o       Political legitimacy and the tools used to convince people of such

–          The Black Death

o       Impact on cultural norms and religion

–          Mystics and miracles in late medieval England

–          Pilgrims and saints

–          Left field: Arthurian mythos and its impact on English culture orthe historical evolution of the Arthurian mythos

o       Use of the Arthurian mythos by English royalty

o       Folklore and stories of medieval England

 

 

I had hesitated to even bring to him that last topic–about the Arthurian mythos.  But I’ve been fascinated with it for easily ten years, so I put it on there, never dreaming that he would look at that and say “Hm.  That’s interesting.  Why didn’t you think you could do that, again?”  Necessary cutting brought the project down to a manageable size and focus, bringing me to where I am now, looking at the uses of the Arthurian legend under (and mainly by) Edward I and Edward III (and consequently the failure to use it by Edward II).  Looking back, I think I’d write on any of those subjects, except for perhaps the Black Death–which is fine, since the Plague has been done to death (no pun intended).  But if I have to change my thesis topic, would I be able to do any of those?  The Hundred Years War, perhaps, since my second reader is a specialist in French history.  But this having been said, I don’t read or speak French (though I have to learn).  It would be a difficult project to gather primary source material for.

The medieval period is something I’m fascinated by and would rather write about than the Renaissance, which I have a feeling would be the period I would end up having to write about, simply based on the makeup of the department.  But we’ll have to see.  I was blessed to work under one of the most preeminent medieval historians of the past thirty years, but cursed to lose that mentorship before my thesis was complete.  Only time will tell what’s going to become of the work I began under his tutelage.

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Post-vacation update #1

Back from Wisconsin, and what a glorious trip without worrying about work calling me it was.  I got a bit of writing done, both WoWFic–including starting a new story, “Family Ties“–and work on Epsilon (Jen mentioned last night after her perusal that there was a marked shift between Sam Cooper’s attitude toward Aaron in one scene and her reaction to him the next morning.  I promised her it’d make sense later).

I’m still working in part on the revitalization efforts for Sentinels (US) — the RP community has suffered since the opening of Wyrmrest Accord and everyone has seen a sharp decline in numbers.  But at the same time as it’s brought out the lazy in some folks, it’s brought out the best in others.  One of the new blogs on the blogroll is one of those “bests” — Ravine of Lichbane has started a new blog with fiction and discussion of RP issues that I plan to be following closely myself.

Other recent addition to the blogroll is Erik’s blog.  I’ve known Erik and gamed with him for a long time (back since the days when I was almost exclusively doing things ISRP).  Lately, he’s been getting his campaign setting ready to hopefully query more gaming companies with.  I’ve seen bits and fragments of it, and while 4E is Greek to me, the flavor bits and pieces (which I think he really wanted me to pay attention to) are looking pretty good.

Also poked at Aurora Force with a stick, got set up for Michael Bullian’s tragic death at the Battle of Ithor.  I probably need to start drafting how that’s going to happen so I have it together and ready to go when we get that far.  If we ever get that far.

All in all, considering I spent several hours by a pool every day I was away, it was a pretty productive trip!  I’ll have to post pictures up here soon.

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Never say never

Never let it be said that when you write your thesis or your dissertation that no one will read it in the future, since that’s simply not the case.  I have yet to e-mail the advisor on this particular thesis, but I’ll let the cat out of the bag right now:  I’m fascinated by a Ph.D thesis out of the University of Minnesota from 2004.  The thesis in question is on St. George of England and English national identity–a subject I’ll at the very least touch on in my own thesis on the uses of the Arthurian legend during the reigns of Edward I (r. 1272-1307), Edward II (r. 1307-1327), and Edward III (r. 1327-1377), since the sense of identity and “Englishness” plays a role in why the image of King Arthur was used during these reigns.

Amusingly (as almost a side note) the thesis cites my advisor’s work on pilgrimages and miracles in the first chapter.  Go figure (then again, totally not surprised, since it is a saint’s cult and the image of the patron saint of England that’s being discussed in the thesis, after all).

In any case, it’s bloody hard to borrow anyone’s thesis–really, really hard, since most universities don’t lend them.  I have to shoot an e-mail to the history department at the University of Minnesota to thank them so much for letting me borrow this text.  I’ve already found quite a few references that I’ve ordered or will be pulling from Kresge Library at OU so I can take a peek at them based on what he’s gleaned out of them for his work–things that it seems to me may well be important for my work.

So, wherever you are, Dr. Jonathan Good — thank you.  You wrote a monster of a dissertation, and I’m very pleased to have had the chance to read it.