Guy Stewart's Blog, page 14

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: What Do HARRY POTTER, CHUCK (TV Show), STAR WARS (Original Trilogy), a new band called DURRY, and SPIDERMAN – Have In Common?

 

NOT using the Programme Guide of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention, which later became embroiled in scandal (!!!) I WON'T 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…

Short answer: HELPLESSNESS

Long Answer: The rest of this PIE.

HARRY POTTER appears in the first book as a baby in a basket being dropped off at his aunt and uncle’s house by a witch, a wizard, and a guy riding a flying motorcycle with a sidecar. According to most Earth biology, you can’t get much more helpless than a baby.

Most of you are familiar with the story, but if you’re not (“What Culture do you live in – the books are available in eighty languages and Braille!) the story starts with a helpless boy who remains pretty helpless for 1.2 million words. He also manages to defeat the Ultimate Evil with the help of hundreds of individuals who sacrifice their lives (including the most powerful wizard of the age) and wreaks havoc on TWO universes…and remains basically helpless except for the fact that he’s deeply connected to the Ultimate evil and destroys him through that fact with little effort of his own.

In CHUCK, we watch the ultimate Stanford University failure-turned-Nerd Herder (aka Best Buy Geek Squad member) accidentally become the most powerful database known to Humanity, the Intersect. Instead of overthrowing the world and becoming the Emperor of Man, he stays basically the same and is handled until he becomes one of the most powerful tools on Earth; while remaining a clueless, helpless nerd who loves his sister, and has a total dork for a best friend, wins the love of a deadly CIA agent who happens to be Greek goddess-level beautiful – because he IS who he IS: a helpless nerd who loves his sister and his mediocre job, best friend, family, and life.

In the STAR WAR Original Trilogy the same story is reiterated: LUKE SKYWALKER on the brown-end of the Universe on a farm in (almost literally) the middle of nowhere with a grumpy uncle and an aunt who knows everything but can’t do anything about it because she, too, is helpless. When Luke leaves, he’s helpless. When he gets two robots he’s helpless. Even when he finds out he can wield world-bending power…he’s helpless. He remains so for some nine-plus movies.

In 2020, quarantined siblings Austin and Taryn joined forces under their family name DURRY to make music together for the very first time. In 2021 their careers were launched by their tiktok viral track, “Who’s Laughing Now”. Quickly gaining notoriety because Durry bottled up a few inner monologues — everyone from parents, to society, to their church doubted they could “make it”. Their paean to helplessness and lack of support brought them to the attention of Limp Bizkit front man, Fred Durst and became one of Jade's Music You Should Know picks one week. (They are currently touring the US, Canada, and soon Europe (once again!) You can find their schedule (scroll to the bottom) and updates here: https://durry.komi.io/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR19_AOVrNlPs5NrRuqtUJuorM7zaIc2yEGitf9_XdxEmNomzMv3dRCmyvI_aem_AdukQK1Iq1WACPWiSrFmAFmX9gy-G9w3Js-zfTfrh-CvXeq2sH5K3zACHKAMUuqILjg8ZV6W0mEjP30txBIN9JFz )
SPIDERMAN, in all of his iterations, was a kid who lost his parents, then lost his uncle to gun violence (sound familiar?). On a field trip sometime in high school, he’s bitten either by a radioactive spider or a genetically engineered spider and suddenly has the powers of a spider – strength, speed, senses, and no fear of heights – oh, did I mention the ability to stick to anything?

So, Peter Parker has everything any kid could possibly want. He can beat any of his enemies to a pulp, he can take on super villains and after getting beat up some, beat them and live to go home to his Aunt May (who has variously been depicted as elderly to barely middle-aged…). He’s also friendly, works in his neighborhood, and is known as Spiderman. But his most defining quality? He’s shy, quiet, and has so few friends that virtually no one knows who he is. He has no influence on society except for the tiny lives of people he interacts with. Of course WE know he’s destined for greatness, but HE doesn’t know that. In fact, for much of his book-time and absolutely through a big chunk of his movie time, he continues to lament that he’s basically…helpless.

It's been my experience that the vast majority of people feel helpless. I venture to believe that it’s this basic piece of the Human condition that drives everything from the Mother Theresas of the world to the Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin’s

So what?

All of these people, whether real or imaginary, whether musicians or CIA agent, have somehow managed to draw to them literally MILLIONS of fans. Not necessarily billions of dollars…oops, I guess BILLIONS OF DOLLARS is correct, AND millions of fans.

In the beginning, they attracted people just like them – geeks, dorks, the unnoticed, the ones “real society” labeled losers. These losers – and let me tell you up front that I AM one of them. I made countless Batman costumes out of paper grocery bags and carved a STAR TREK phaser out of a block of wood and nailed another one on it for a handle, then pounded five nails into the front end for a barrel – and then when I shot someone, I made a shrieking sound while vibrating my tongue…

These people, like myself, live lives of helpless normality. NOT desperation. Regular people will never get a government data base crammed into their heads, and the only thing a normal person will get after being bitten by a radioactive/genetically engineered spider, is a rash. They will not receive letters with wings announcing that they’ve been accepted to a wizarding school. Dorky farm boys will not suddenly discover that their father left them a light saber that will symbolically challenge an interstellar Empire, and be hailed as one of the last of an extinct order of Jedi knights. A brother and sister will NEVER discover that a TikTok they made in their basement has a million hits, they have an agent and a tour...rather than mom and dad upstairs as their only audience.

What sets all of these stories apart? It’s not the “powers” they got – magic, technology, arachnid power, or a zillion dollar record contract and road tour?

They remained the same: helpless, endearing, dorky. What changed was the world around them. And everything changed around them NOT because they were different. It changed because they were NORMAL people who kept choosing to keep going and not giving up when their worlds seemed to be going to hell-in-a-handbasket.

They believed that what they COULD do was important.

Because Harry, Chuck, Peter, Austin and Taryn, and Luke didn’t become jerks because of their suddenly power. Of COURSE they could act like jerks sometimes (and did, “Are you listening Harry?), but there were normal people around them who brought them back down from their High And Mighty Spaces, elbowed them in the side, and reminded them that while they may be “The Chosen Ones”, their close friends knew better.

They were just normal people tasked with doing extraordinary things WITH THEIR FRIENDS, FAMILY, AND LOVED ONES.

Lisa Cron writes in her book, WIRED FOR STORY, “…we’re wired to turn to story to teach us the way of the world” (p 2). She also writes that our brains experience a story as if it were REAL: “A recent brain imaging study reported in Psychological Science reveals that the regions of the brain that process the sights, sounds, tastes and movement of real life are activated when we are engrossed in a compelling narrative.” (p 4)

When I read a story that is ABOUT a king, emperor, superhero, alien, or a 15-year-old guy, I’m just not as interested, because I can’t really connect with them. They aren’t part of my reality. I can, however, keep reading and putting away my pre-judgement, I can let myself sink into the STORY.

Harry, Chuck, Peter, Austin and Taryn, and Luke are all stories I can fall into because they’re about normal people. They’re about helpless people just like me. But ALL OF THEM BROKE OUT OF NORMALITY AND MADE A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD.

They all inspire normal people NOT by their greatness, but by their persistence and stubborn resolve to keep moving ahead and make a difference in their stories.

Which leads ME to believe that maybe, just maybe, I can break out and make a difference, too.

Image: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRqrDpvtsj4_UYyotB5o8rZgxVjKLuEw6OyQQ&usqp=CAU

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 636

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.

Popular Trope: Harry Potter-esque

Zoe Raven Jefferson a Nobody of Nobody, tried focusing on the hovering obsidian sphere as meditations proceeded, finally and slowly calming her turbulent head games, when a cry went up from outside, “Syzhin devils!”

The assembly leaped to its feet as the land raid siren began its mournful wail, echoing even to the depths of the Kylslithe University; everyone rushing to defend the battlements against the scourge of the world. Andre Xavier Xavier, a Bryshwyn of Bryshwyn grabbed her hand, yanking her to then end of the bench before Fendwyri Alyn Wader – whose family opposed Xavier’s in everything – could take her with him. Even so, she tore free of him and ran with the rest of the students, teachers, workers, villagers, and soldiers garrisoned there and rushed to the battlements.

Raven raced up the stairs, but started when Xavier grabber her arm again, this time yanking her from the ground. She screamed, “I just want to walk!” as a whirlwind lifted them up to the top.

“Just say, ‘thank you’ and let’s defend the school!” he shouted.

Raven shook her head, shoved him away and ran to one of the magnifiers. Looking through it, she could see the boiling cloud far out over the Chapatti Plains of massive syzhin devils. Birds the size of pigs with immense wings, they flew because of a bladder filled with hydrogen ballooned over their backs and held them up. She scowled, shouting, “There’s so many!”

Heading for the garbage dump on in the foothills of the Jag Mountains east of them, Xavier shouted back, “Scavenging must be bad on the Plains.”

“Not as bad as it’s going to be now they they’re here!” said Fendwyri. “Those are UL-42s. Light, fast, but with semi-rigid wings.” The flight of ultralights armed with infrared lasers hummed overhead and out to meet the scavengers.

As the flight closed in, the cloud of devils suddenly expanded. “What are they doing?” Xavier said. The jovial good mood of those on the battlements poised to watch a routine battle where humans came out the winners shifted abruptly. Voices faded as the flight kept on straight as an arrow but the syzhin devils expanded around them.

The flight broke up as the ultralights attacked the targets enveloping them. Fendwyri said, “That the wayk are they doing?”

Someone on his far side elbowed him. He yelped as a girl’s voice said, “Watch the language! There are educated people on these battlements.”

Raven laughed but Xavier stared at the flight as they broke formation to soar and glide in every direction. He said, “No one’s ever flown against a flock of syzhin that’s not a standard head-on collision of forces. The pilots are targeting individual birds without considering the three dimen...”

Raven elbowed him as the ultralights sliced through the first syzhin, lighting the bladder and watching it explode. But while the pilot was shooting one, a second dropped down from above, shredding the wing’s metallic fabric. Spiraling wildly, the ultralight fell out of control along with four others down to slam into the earth and explode in a ball of flame as oxygen met fuel and hot laser parts.

The University battlements were silent now. The other pilots had stopped firing and were fleeing in complete disarray, just trying to escape the shrinking globe of sharp beaks and hooves as the aerial battle dissolved into chaos…

Names: ♀ African America, African Australia; ♂ America, BrazilImage: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Short Stories – Advice and Observation #27: Douglas Adams “& Me”

In this feature, I’ll be looking at “advice” for writing short stories – not from me, but from other short story writers. In speculative fiction, “short” has very carefully delineated categories: “The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America specifies word lengths for each category of its Nebula award categories by word count; Novel 40,000 words or over; Novella 17,500 to 39,999 words; Novelette 7,500 to 17,499 words; Short story under 7,500 words.”

I’m going to use advice from people who, in addition to writing novels, have also spent plenty of time “interning” with short stories. While most of them are speculative fiction writers, I’ll also be looking at plain, old, effective short story writers. The advice will be in the form of one or several quotes off of which I’ll jump and connect it with my own writing experience. While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do most of the professional writers...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!

SUCH A BUSY WEEKEND!! (You’d never believe that a RETIRED person could be busy, you I WAS WRONG! I AM busy!) SO, without further ado, short story observations by – with a few from myself…

1) “Everyone would imagine [Douglas Adams, who created the hysterically funny novel ‘HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY’ would be] an author this creative to be in a joking mood the whole time. Nothing could be further from the truth. Adams knew first-hand what it’s like to hate writing, to give up, and to throw in the towel […the one] he wrote about.”

It's funny, ‘cause I sometimes reach a point when I just don’t WANT to write. For ME, I’m most vulnerable to this after I’ve finished writing, editing, and polishing a work. For example, I recently finished a novel that I began here with blog entries in 17 years ago. Not only did I finish it, I had NOT finished it when I was writing it as a series of blog entries. Don’t get too excited for me – I’m not Matt Weir who “…originally self-published on [blog] blog, in a serialized format.” – which novel was then discovered, published in total, and went on to be made into a movie staring Matt Damon. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(Weir_novel). That’s not my story…

2) “Writing involves worrying. It’s a natural part of the process…Tell yourself that you need to separate the act of writing from the act of worrying. First things first. And writing is always first, right?”

Yeah! Um…sort of. My FIRST thing is to noodle. I write pages and pages of dialogue, directions the story could go, what needs to happen, and possible character names and relationships. I also research – for my last book, I looked up pictures of imaginary Martian colonies; what the Apostle Paul and Queen Esther might have looked like; what a Martian “rover” might look like; and about how long it would take for a Martian, planet-wide colony might take to grow to six million people.

3) “Learn to love editing…[after you write the story]…You can come back and do it again in the light of what you discover about the story later on…] The story needs to develop and so do you as the writer. Once you write the ending, you will have developed more skills as a writer, skills you didn’t have when you started…The idea is to accept that writing and editing are separate processes.”

This was more evident that ever after I finished editing my FIRST novel down from a bunch of blog entries; squeezed it into a novel, then shortened it, then it was published (online only – my theory is that young people can own VERY few things in their world…I certainly couldn’t!...but we COULD own books! Bought with allowance…or mowing lawns.) Buying an online book apparently isn’t the same thing as owning and holding a paper book!

To get to the end whatever novel or book I’m writing, I have to back OVER what I first wrote, then edited, then rewrote, and then finally edited into something I I found myself lost in when I read it “one-more-time” before mailing it out.

That’s when I know the story is ready: I read it one more time, even when I know the ending, and even though I’m the one that INVENTED it!...and I find myself reading the story for the sake of the story.

4) “Fourteen underappreciated quotes for writers…When your plot takes you somewhere you weren't expecting…my methods of navigation have their advantage…I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be…For when you're in need of a different perspective…[you might discover] that solutions nearly always come from the direction you least expect, which means there's no point trying to look in that direction because it won't be coming from there.”

I’ve lost track of the times my story has been abruptly hijacked by my characters who look disdainfully from my imagination and say something like, “You want me to do WHAT? That’s not what I’d do! You made me a person who can’t stand purple martins and you have me working for the American Stochastic Terrorists for the Protection of Purple Martins! That’s not RIGHT!”

I have surprised myself with the ending of a story – my most recent completed novel had one of the main characters die in a gruesome way that I had not envisioned even in my wildest nightmares!

So, I need to be ready to FOLLOW THE STORY rather than trying to force characters – who I have deliberately given brains to think with! Even if they ARE imaginary; they come from my own mind, my own feelings, and sometimes even out of things I didn’t realize I was having trouble dealing with until they suddenly pop into life in a story.

My succinct advice: Write the story, let it take you where it NEEDS to take you, then put it away for a while, then take it out and reread it, changing what CRIES OUT to be changed…and when you reach the point where your own story takes you by surprise, polish it and send it out…

References: https://www.writerswrite.co.za/douglas-adams-on-the-difficulties-of-writing/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3EUfkVUIiJ5e5wmvPVQlnfDmPsaCFV_W44qFOdksJN6ypcIZvws2fYzoo_aem_AcdovO8ji8HPtGguT1wTy1xuVlkfy3YnZ63ayAn-nmQd_ZHY_IGu6sLCrkEfpb6i0e_AFGZ2hxkpw6eHM3kZ08pH; https://www.writersdigest.com/be-inspired/douglas-adams-quotes-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy ; https://www.primedraft.app/blog/douglas-adams-on-writing/ Image: https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/vvzgr_8t62DN58ea90G_ig--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTY0MDtoPTQyNw--/https://media.zenfs.com/en/space_311/c2533ec4e78b65579e68a4920a40802f

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 635

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: robot
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, USA ♀;♂
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

CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 36: If We Altered Aspects Of Humanity, What Kind Of Alien Aliens Would We Get?

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...

At one of the sites I was skimming in preparation for this post, I was one written by Veronica Sicoe. Her site is linked below.

One statement leaped out at me, “Completeness – some things habitually get lost in worldbuilding, unless they’re specifically needed, and we ought to remember to at least give them a cursory glance, such as: the legal systems, burial rituals, infant care systems, medical systems, recreational facilities, etc.”

You can access her site and insight here: How To Create An Alien Species In 3 Stages – Veronica Sicoe (wordpress.com)

HOWEVER, what happened when I read this was something not AT ALL intended by the issue she was opining on. I TOOK IT TO MEAN, “In what way might aliens experience ‘completeness’ that would be entirely WEIRD to us?”

Let me examine my own Human self. I’m cis-gendered, a hetero husband happily married for the past 36 years (almost 37). I am also white, so (by implication), I have had every opportunity that this American society can offer.

HOWEVER…if you stop there, some people will immediately turn on me, vilify me, and make all sorts of assumptions about me that simply are not true. One (for example), is that I will be homophobic. I could provide proof that I’m not, but while it might be entertaining, MY POINT IS THIS: I was not MY OWN PERSONAL-AND-NOT-IMPLYING-THAT-EVERYONE-ELSE-SHOULD-BE-LIKE-ME…most complete. I needed to be in a traditional marriage with a traditional woman. Now again, please don’t leap to assumptions about what I mean by “traditional”. I could once again provide references that would refute many assumptions people would make about me.

MY POINT IS THIS: Completeness for ME MYSELF PERSONALLY is that to be complete, I needed to be in a permanent (as permanent as Humans can be!) marriage relationship to be my best self.

But no matter WHO YOU ARE OR WHAT CREATES THE BEST YOU THAT YOU CAN BE…what might truly ALIEN ALIENS need to “be complete”?

For example, what if instead of being born as I and my wife were – one each of a dual gendered variety of Humanity; aliens were born as followed:

At birth (we’ll make it a mammalian-style birth to keep this simple and something I can understand – if you’re going to accuse me of playing it safe and assuming all Humans are like me, please read this post: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/02/possibly-not-irritating-essay-other.html) I just don’t want to add too many variables into this intellectual experiment because I had difficulty imagining how a school of sharks might relate to each other…as I’m certainly not a shark, but I’m not a fish, either, and I’m really NOT an ancient fish…

So, let’s say aliens have a mammalian birth. Let’s say they’re triplets; not identically gendered. We already know that Human triplets – especially if they came from the same egg and are genetically identical. We already KNOW that creates all kinds of assumptions and comments in our heads when we see them. At one time, the Keinast Quintuplets made the news. “The quintuplets were the first American set of surviving quintuplets to be conceived through the use of fertility drugs.” They were SO unusual, that “Good Housekeeping magazine had an exclusive deal to publish four articles about them in their first two years.”

That was in 1970. They were styled “The Keinast Quints”. Today, they are in their fifties. After their father committed suicide in 1984 when the quints were fourteen. When they were all 31, they gave their last public interview. (If you’re interested and want more information, follow this link: https://www.mrlocalhistory.org/where-are-the-kienast-quintuplets-from-liberty-corner/)

What it DOESN’T talk about is the Quint’s perceptions of each other. They shared the same uterus until birth; they shared the same upbringing. How did that affect them? How did having the same birthday as four other people matter? WERE THEY PSYCHICALLY LINKED???? (JK)

But, oddly, there’s not really much about them besides a few magazine articles, interviews, and this and that. Wasn’t anyone interested in their mental/psychological/intellectual interactions? Apparently not. So, let me speculate.

I had two other brothers and a sister. Birth order among the Quints would have been irrelevant – but perhaps gender or even SIZE would have taken on aspects that we aren’t used to considering (though in many families, the “biggest kid” was the one who got the most things…)

What if, in aliens where multiple, simultaneous mammalian-style birth was NORMAL, something ELSE drove the development of relationships among themselves? What are some things that MIGHT drive their psychology?

1) First to kill a meal.
2) First to identify, choose, and latch onto the strongest being in the birthing tent?
3) First to feed the one who carried them until birth – with one of the other young?
4) First to escape a gauntlet?
5) Last to be born by forcing the rest out first to feed hungry family?
6) Birth is into a cage; first to solve the lock and escape?
7) All are delivered at once; the one who protects the mother best (obviously killed by the rest, which are disintegrated and the protector is resurrected)? Eaten by the father, and its brain joins with his and whose hormones regenerates the father’s body?

Each BIOLOGICAL scenario would generate an entirely different sociological structure leading to a particular civilization that makes sense with the prevailing biology. It would impact what a family is, how it’s organized, and what it’s FOR. In Human biology, take a Bible story as an example: the Hebrew infant Moses was destined for death. He was born, certain to bel slaughtered as all of his peers were. His mother puts him in a basket, he’s discovered by the Pharaoh’s daughter and raised as an Egyptian…history is altered. For the rest of the story, if you’re interested, go to a Bible or a Torah or a Koran, locate, and read the story of Moses.
This is just one aspect of alienness you can explore. How does all of the above relate to how CLOSE the siblings are -- to their parent/s; to their society or protectors? Choose a few aspects and explore them, following the logic of what you image will happen.
You SHOULD come up with a really ALIEN alien!

Sources: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/27103/the-alien-perspective-generating-alien-pov-characters-via-twists-on-human-psyc; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kienast_quintuplets
Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg

CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 36: What Altered Aspects of Humanity Would Create Alien Aliens?

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...

At one of the sites I was skimming in preparation for this post, I was one written by Veronica Sicoe. Her site is linked below.

One statement leaped out at me, “Completeness – some things habitually get lost in worldbuilding, unless they’re specifically needed, and we ought to remember to at least give them a cursory glance, such as: the legal systems, burial rituals, infant care systems, medical systems, recreational facilities, etc.”

You can access her site and insight here: How To Create An Alien Species In 3 Stages – Veronica Sicoe (wordpress.com)

HOWEVER, what happened when I read this was something not AT ALL intended by the issue she was opining on. I TOOK IT TO MEAN, “In what way might aliens experience ‘completeness’ that would be entirely WEIRD to us?”

Let me examine my own Human self. I’m cis-gendered, a hetero husband happily married for the past 36 years (almost 37). I am also white, so (by implication), I have had every opportunity that this American society can offer.

HOWEVER…if you stop there, some people will immediately turn on me, vilify me, and make all sorts of assumptions about me that simply are not true. One (for example), is that I will be homophobic. I could provide proof that I’m not, but while it might be entertaining, MY POINT IS THIS: I was not MY OWN PERSONAL-AND-NOT-IMPLYING-THAT-EVERYONE-ELSE-SHOULD-BE-LIKE-ME…most complete. I needed to be in a traditional marriage with a traditional woman. Now again, please don’t leap to assumptions about what I mean by “traditional”. I could once again provide references that would refute many assumptions people would make about me.

MY POINT IS THIS: Completeness for ME MYSELF PERSONALLY is that to be complete, I needed to be in a permanent (as permanent as Humans can be!) marriage relationship to be my best self.

But no matter WHO YOU ARE OR WHAT CREATES THE BEST YOU THAT YOU CAN BE…what might truly ALIEN ALIENS need to “be complete”?

For example, what if instead of being born as I and my wife were – one each of a dual gendered variety of Humanity; aliens were born as followed:

At birth (we’ll make it a mammalian-style birth to keep this simple and something I can understand – if you’re going to accuse me of playing it safe and assuming all Humans are like me, please read this post: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/02/possibly-not-irritating-essay-other.html) I just don’t want to add too many variables into this intellectual experiment because I had difficulty imagining how a school of sharks might relate to each other…as I’m certainly not a shark, but I’m not a fish, either, and I’m really NOT an ancient fish…

So, let’s say aliens have a mammalian birth. Let’s say they’re triplets; not identically gendered. We already know that Human triplets – especially if they came from the same egg and are genetically identical. We already KNOW that creates all kinds of assumptions and comments in our heads when we see them. At one time, the Keinast Quintuplets made the news. “The quintuplets were the first American set of surviving quintuplets to be conceived through the use of fertility drugs.” They were SO unusual, that “Good Housekeeping magazine had an exclusive deal to publish four articles about them in their first two years.”

That was in 1970. They were styled “The Keinast Quints”. Today, they are in their fifties. After their father committed suicide in 1984 when the quints were fourteen. When they were all 31, they gave their last public interview. (If you’re interested and want more information, follow this link: https://www.mrlocalhistory.org/where-are-the-kienast-quintuplets-from-liberty-corner/)

What it DOESN’T talk about is the Quint’s perceptions of each other. They shared the same uterus until birth; they shared the same upbringing. How did that affect them? How did having the same birthday as four other people matter? WERE THEY PSYCHICALLY LINKED???? (JK)

But, oddly, there’s not really much about them besides a few magazine articles, interviews, and this and that. Wasn’t anyone interested in their mental/psychological/intellectual interactions? Apparently not. So, let me speculate.

I had two other brothers and a sister. Birth order among the Quints would have been irrelevant – but perhaps gender or even SIZE would have taken on aspects that we aren’t used to considering (though in many families, the “biggest kid” was the one who got the most things…)

What if, in aliens where multiple, simultaneous mammalian-style birth was NORMAL, something ELSE drove the development of relationships among themselves? What are some things that MIGHT drive their psychology?

1) First to kill a meal.
2) First to identify, choose, and latch onto the strongest being in the birthing tent?
3) First to feed the one who carried them until birth – with one of the other young?
4) First to escape a gauntlet?
5) Last to be born by forcing the rest out first to feed hungry family?
6) Birth is into a cage; first to solve the lock and escape?
7) All are delivered at once; the one who protects the mother best (obviously killed by the rest, which are disintegrated and the protector is resurrected)? Eaten by the father, and its brain joins with his and whose hormones regenerates the father’s body?

Each BIOLOGICAL scenario would generate an entirely different sociological structure leading to a particular civilization that makes sense with the prevailing biology. It would impact what a family is, how it’s organized, and what it’s FOR. In Human biology, take a Bible story as an example: the Hebrew infant Moses was destined for death. He was born, certain to bel slaughtered as all of his peers were. His mother puts him in a basket, he’s discovered by the Pharaoh’s daughter and raised as an Egyptian…history is altered. For the rest of the story, if you’re interested, go to a Bible or a Torah or a Koran, locate, and read the story of Moses.
This is just one aspect of alienness you can explore. How does all of the above relate to how CLOSE the siblings are -- to their parent/s; to their society or protectors? Choose a few aspects and explore them, following the logic of what you image will happen.
You SHOULD come up with a really ALIEN alien!

Sources: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/27103/the-alien-perspective-generating-alien-pov-characters-via-twists-on-human-psyc; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kienast_quintuplets
Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg

CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 36: WHAT ALTERED ASPECTS OF HUMANITY WOULD CREATE ALIEN ALIENS?

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...

At one of the sites I was skimming in preparation for this post, I was one written by Veronica Sicoe. Her site is linked below.

One statement leaped out at me, “Completeness – some things habitually get lost in worldbuilding, unless they’re specifically needed, and we ought to remember to at least give them a cursory glance, such as: the legal systems, burial rituals, infant care systems, medical systems, recreational facilities, etc.”

You can access her site and insight here: How To Create An Alien Species In 3 Stages – Veronica Sicoe (wordpress.com)

HOWEVER, what happened when I read this was something not AT ALL intended by the issue she was opining on. I TOOK IT TO MEAN, “In what way might aliens experience ‘completeness’ that would be entirely WEIRD to us?”

Let me examine my own Human self. I’m cis-gendered, a hetero husband happily married for the past 36 years (almost 37). I am also white, so (by implication), I have had every opportunity that this American society can offer.

HOWEVER…if you stop there, some people will immediately turn on me, vilify me, and make all sorts of assumptions about me that simply are not true. One (for example), is that I will be homophobic. I could provide proof that I’m not, but while it might be entertaining, MY POINT IS THIS: I was not MY OWN PERSONAL-AND-NOT-IMPLYING-THAT-EVERYONE-ELSE-SHOULD-BE-LIKE-ME…most complete. I needed to be in a traditional marriage with a traditional woman. Now again, please don’t leap to assumptions about what I mean by “traditional”. I could once again provide references that would refute many assumptions people would make about me.

MY POINT IS THIS: Completeness for ME MYSELF PERSONALLY is that to be complete, I needed to be in a permanent (as permanent as Humans can be!) marriage relationship to be my best self.

But no matter WHO YOU ARE OR WHAT CREATES THE BEST YOU THAT YOU CAN BE…what might truly ALIEN ALIENS need to “be complete”?

For example, what if instead of being born as I and my wife were – one each of a dual gendered variety of Humanity; aliens were born as followed:

At birth (we’ll make it a mammalian-style birth to keep this simple and something I can understand – if you’re going to accuse me of playing it safe and assuming all Humans are like me, please read this post: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/02/possibly-not-irritating-essay-other.html) I just don’t want to add too many variables into this intellectual experiment because I had difficulty imagining how a school of sharks might relate to each other…as I’m certainly not a shark, but I’m not a fish, either, and I’m really NOT an ancient fish…

So, let’s say aliens have a mammalian birth. Let’s say they’re triplets; not identically gendered. We already know that Human triplets – especially if they came from the same egg and are genetically identical. We already KNOW that creates all kinds of assumptions and comments in our heads when we see them. At one time, the Keinast Quintuplets made the news. “The quintuplets were the first American set of surviving quintuplets to be conceived through the use of fertility drugs.” They were SO unusual, that “Good Housekeeping magazine had an exclusive deal to publish four articles about them in their first two years.”

That was in 1970. They were styled “The Keinast Quints”. Today, they are in their fifties. After their father committed suicide in 1984 when the quints were fourteen. When they were all 31, they gave their last public interview. (If you’re interested and want more information, follow this link: https://www.mrlocalhistory.org/where-are-the-kienast-quintuplets-from-liberty-corner/)

What it DOESN’T talk about is the Quint’s perceptions of each other. They shared the same uterus until birth; they shared the same upbringing. How did that affect them? How did having the same birthday as four other people matter? WERE THEY PSYCHICALLY LINKED???? (JK)

But, oddly, there’s not really much about them besides a few magazine articles, interviews, and this and that. Wasn’t anyone interested in their mental/psychological/intellectual interactions? Apparently not. So, let me speculate.

I had two other brothers and a sister. Birth order among the Quints would have been irrelevant – but perhaps gender or even SIZE would have taken on aspects that we aren’t used to considering (though in many families, the “biggest kid” was the one who got the most things…)

What if, in aliens where multiple, simultaneous mammalian-style birth was NORMAL, something ELSE drove the development of relationships among themselves? What are some things that MIGHT drive their psychology?

1) First to kill a meal.
2) First to identify, choose, and latch onto the strongest being in the birthing tent?
3) First to feed the one who carried them until birth – with one of the other young?
4) First to escape a gauntlet?
5) Last to be born by forcing the rest out first to feed hungry family?
6) Birth is into a cage; first to solve the lock and escape?
7) All are delivered at once; the one who protects the mother best (obviously killed by the rest, which are disintegrated and the protector is resurrected)? Eaten by the father, and its brain joins with his and whose hormones regenerates the father’s body?

Each BIOLOGICAL scenario would generate an entirely different sociological structure leading to a particular civilization that makes sense with the prevailing biology. It would impact what a family is, how it’s organized, and what it’s FOR. In Human biology, take a Bible story as an example: the Hebrew infant Moses was destined for death. He was born, certain to bel slaughtered as all of his peers were. His mother puts him in a basket, he’s discovered by the Pharaoh’s daughter and raised as an Egyptian…history is altered. For the rest of the story, if you’re interested, go to a Bible or a Torah or a Koran, locate, and read the story of Moses.
This is just one aspect of alienness you can explore. How does all of the above relate to how CLOSE the siblings are -- to their parent/s; to their society or protectors? Choose a few aspects and explore them, following the logic of what you image will happen.
You SHOULD come up with a really ALIEN alien!

Sources: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/27103/the-alien-perspective-generating-alien-pov-characters-via-twists-on-human-psyc; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kienast_quintuplets
Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg

IDEA ON TUESDAY 634

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'dlike to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculativeand teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyeswhen 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.) andthen 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 seefit. 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 whichgive us a place to put our fears…Stories that frighten us or unsettle us - notjust horror stories, but ones that make us uncomfortable or that strike a chordsomewhere deep inside - give us the means to explore the things that scare us…”– Lou Morgan (The Guardian)

H Trope: Abduction = Love; a stranger kidnaps a totalstranger and never lets them go.

Current Event: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/05/08/cleveland-missing-women-berry-dejesus-knight-castro.html

They’d been locked in the basement for longer than eitherof them could remember. The windows – Natasha Reno-Pardo assumed that theboarded up, black painted rectangles near the ceiling of the basement were oncewindows – were impossible to open.

The permanent stairs had been removed and replaced by aheavy, steel drop-down stairs. Rudyard Bernal, her fellow captor had worked atgetting those to drop from the ceiling for a whole week. He’d tried to pry themfrom the ceiling seven times after they woke up. The eighth time, he’d gotten ashock so bad his hands were burned. Not enough to blister the skin, but verypainful.

Light came from two fluorescents set behind thick plastic.They never went out. Food and water came in bags dropped from a hole in theceiling whenever they were both asleep.

They were trapped.

In the dim silence, not long after both of them were awake,Rudyard said, “I think we’ve been here a month.” Then he burst out crying.Natasha looked up at the ceiling and into the corners. They knew they werebeing watched all the time. Once, when they’d tried to sleep together on thesame pile of blankets as far from the bathroom hole as they could get, Rudyardhad gotten very excited. Natasha was willing. Snakes had suddenly dropped downfrom the ceiling hole and the lights had gotten super bright.

They’d spent an hour sweeping the things into the hole.They’d spent most of the time fighting the rattlesnake. Neither one of them hadbeen bitten, but they threw the blanket covered in snake guts in another cornerafter stomping it to death.

This day was different. Natasha stepped over the immensered door in the center of the basement floor and sat down next to Rudyard. Atfirst he flinched and looked up at the feeding hole and muttered, “No. What arethey gonna throw at us next?”

Natasha said, “We’re not doing anything.”

He leaned against her, cried a while longer and finallyrested against her.

As if to curse their closeness a grinding sound came from the drag-down stairs. Real light leaked from a narrow crack that gradually widened, letting in more and more real light. When the stairs were half uncovered, they began to come down from the ceiling, making a sound like a descending castle drawbridge.

It thudded to the floor.

A shiny, black leather boot with a neatly cuffed pant leg dropped down on the top step…
Names: ♀ Russia, Mexico ; ♂ English, MexicoImage: 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

WRITING ADVICE: “The Daily Use of Gravity Modification in Rebuilding Liberian Schools”, OR “God Bless You Gravity Modification”…NEITHER of Which Saw Publication of This Story I LOVE

In September of 2007, I started this blog with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, In April of 2014, I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories. I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. As I work to increase my writing output and sales, I’m taking another look at “old ideas” to see if I can figure out where I went wrong. As always, your comments are welcome!

I FIRST sent this story out 2018 -- about five years ago. It got lost in the Data Crash of December 2023. I'd have to rewrite it from scratch...which I may do someday...Based on what I wrote below, how do YOU think I could fix it?

ANALOG Tag Line: We always think about how paradigm changes will affect “society”, but what about how will it affect the “little people”?

Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)
For the first time ever, I drew on my missionary experiences from my eight months in Nigeria, Cameroun, and Liberia. I wanted to imagine what the introduction of gravity modification would do in a situation of rebuilding after war – war that the “big countries” had never paid much attention to. I was modeling the story on John Brunner’s ANALOG March 1973 short story, “Who Steals My Purse?” In THAT one, repurposed ICBMs are used to drop small TVs on Vietnam along with tools, seeds, and other developmental material that the people could use to raise their quality of living (and presumably grow to love Americans and overthrow the communist regime…)

Opening Line:
“Gordon Oyeyemi Daboh huffed, shaking his head.”

Onward:
“He said, ‘Building five new schools here in God Bless You isn’t impossible. We have clay, concrete, straw, lumber, paint, and bamboo.’ He flicked his hand at the meager supplies piled near the edge of the burned-out clearing. The faint concrete outline of the original elementary school was visible through a layer of fine ash. A pile of debris loomed on the edge of the gravel boulevard, waiting for removal or reuse. ‘But we don’t have time, and we have few volunteers. We have limited building supplies! Your, your,” he karate chopped the air in front of the young woman standing before him. Her eyes widened and she stepped back, ‘handwavium is as useless to us as our three buckets of glow-in-the-dark paint!’”

What Was I Trying To Say?
I wanted to communicate that technology, even when it’s incremental, can be used to dramatically change the lives of normal people for the better. (It contains the obligatory warning against the military machine…the fact is that my son, my father, two of my nephews, and some of my best friends have served and DO currently serve in all of the branches of the military. I STILL stand by my statement.)

The Rest of the Story:
Gordon and Comfort butt heads almost immediately. The shoestring operation of rebuilding the schools (the original title was “The Everyday Use of Gravity Modification in Rebuilding Liberian Schools”) is fraught and gets worse when a squad of wandering mercenaries get wind of Comfort’s gmod device. Expecting to easily find it, they have no idea it’s woven into strips of hook and loop (for a fascinating AND HUMOROUS (I REALLY appreciate the humor!) take on hook and loop and its registered trademark, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRi8L...) that are easily applied to pallets. There are accidents – and then a kidnapping of the village Elder and his daughters – and Gordon has to use the soldiering skills he swore off of to rescue them and get back on track…)

End Analysis:
OK, so writing the synopsis up above, I just realized what my problem is…Lisa Cron’s rules from her book WIRED FOR STORY clearly spell out the mistakes I made:

2) Grab the reader, something is at stake from the first page.
5) Plot (what happens) makes characters confront internal and external issues to confront their inner demons.
9) Start: character’s worldview is knocked down.
11) Character is action and anything they do makes things worse.
17) Challenges start small and end huge.
19) Character becomes one by doing something heroic.

First line has no grab; Gordon’s inner demon is NOT clear (“I REFUSE to ever be a soldier again!”), external circumstances don’t slam into internal issues (He wants to be JUST a teacher! He didn’t even want to be a principal!); his worldview stays pretty much the same – it should start with him thinking he’s escaped notice and that quitting Lagos’ special operations unit of cloning soldiers after meeting his has set him free; he can’t do everything right from the moment he leaves to rescue the Elder and his daughters, he has to screw up.

As well, the title is probably off-putting to SF readers and editors; not only is it WAY too long, my second attempt is trying too hard to “be a witness”. Even Jesus couched his messages to a skeptical public in stories in the form of parables. They were not always clear, but after discussion, they became more so.

When I first wrote it, I didn’t know about Lisa Cron’s advice. Now that I DO, I can rewrite the story with the “rules” (she didn’t call them rules, I did…) in mind; which of course, answers the question below:

Can This Story Be Saved?
Simple answer – “Yes.”

Complex Answer: Some things have to change though – not only in Story According to Cron. I’ve learned some things since I wrote this story. Perhaps the hardest is that I need to say what I have to say and say it CLEARLY and QUICKLY. Even the longest one, The Prodigal Son is only 500 or so words; the shortest is only three! (“Physician, heal thyself.”) My biggest problem lately has been keeping my stories short. I tend now to write in the vicinity of 9000 words and that’s just TOO LONG. I have to pull my punches…or more precisely, I need to conserve my energy and FOCUS my punches.

I ran across this interesting observation regarding parables:

“First: The meaning of most parables (both the short sayings-parables and the longer story-parables) is not so obvious, or at least it shouldn't be. If we assume we know what Jesus is talking about, we are probably missing the main point; if we are too familiar with the story (having heard it so often before), we might not think carefully enough about its real meaning.

“Second: most parables contain some element that is strange or unusual. They should cause you to say, "Wait a minute! That's not how farmers do their work! That's not what kings usually do! That's not what normally happens in nature!" The strange element should cause you to think.

“Third: Parables do not define things precisely, but rather use comparisons to describe some aspect of how God acts or interacts with human beings. Yet to say ‘A is like B’ does not mean that ‘A is identical to B in all respects’ (that also happens to be bad math. Jesus would NOT use bad math – besides being the Son of God, HE WAS A CARPENTER!); so we should be careful not to misinterpret or misapply the parables.

“Fourth: Most parables are open-ended. Rather than reaching a conclusion, they challenge us to keep on thinking! Rather than having us ‘stop thinking’, they invite us to ‘stop and think’.”

My next move? Stop and think...and I need to do this with a couple of OTHER stories I got wordy on...

Resource: https://catholic-resources.org/Bible/Parables.htm
Image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/9f/22/3b/9f223b1e57a36e14db3eb13715fbe3f9.jpg

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 22: The Dream Is Growing Bigger and Bigger Wings (or is it rocket engines?)

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…

“Previous companies have rocketed toward similar goals before but went bust about a half decade ago. In the years since that first cohort left the stage, though, “the field has exploded in interest,” said Angel Abbud-Madrid, director of the Center for Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines.”

The number of players in the field of asteroid mining is rapidly expanding as is international interest, “Another company, called TransAstra, is selling a telescope and software designed to detect objects like asteroids moving through the sky; Chinese corporation Origin Space has an asteroid-observing satellite in orbit around Earth, and is testing out its mining-relevant technology there. Meanwhile, Colorado company Karman+ plans to go straight to an asteroid in 2026 and test out excavation equipment.”

Other companies while their ULTIMATE goal is to mine asteroids, believe that they can practice here on Earth: “For now, though, SCAR-E will stay on Earth and inspect ship hulls. According to one market research platform, this is a nearly $13 billion dollar market globally — as compared to the asteroid-mining market, currently $0, as no one has yet mined an asteroid.”

Also, while it might seem like space is vast, the volume of our own Solar System is finite, and while we have plenty of experience stripping our planet (and are now dealing with the consequences of that), we have NO IDEA what kinds of problems we’ll actually run into.

Living in a state that provided most of the iron used in the steel for ships and tanks in World War II, it was a boom time of mining and spending money on frivolous things – follow the link for a high school built with Iron Range riches in northern Minnesota: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAI3sgEAk4k After that, follow the history of the Iron Range as the wealth vanished and the mining of high grade ore ceased…because it was gone. The subsequent collapse of the economy of the Range left (and I know of this personally as I worked on and lived on The Range for a while…) devastation in its wake.

So, we’re moving forward. Enough so that I’ve started to have ideas of the PERSONAL stories that might come out of the move to mine the asteroids. Others are noodling on the ramifications as well: “The legal situation surrounding space mining gets a bit murkier when you look outside the US, according to Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law. The nearly 40 nations who have signed on to the Artemis Accords agree with the US position, but other countries could take a different position.”

I can finally stop holding my breath and begin to explore the “who and what” of asteroid mining, because it appears that the “we need to explore space!” crowd is slowly being absorbed into the “how much money can we make in space mining” meme…

Today’s Source: https://undark.org/2024/05/08/asteroid-mining-space-metals/; https://payloadspace.com/solid-us-space-mining-regs-could-attract-investors-vc-predicts/ ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Accords ;
Noted Resources: Foundational Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining
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