Guy Stewart's Blog, page 15

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 22: The Dream Is Growing Bigger and Bigger Wings!

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

IDEA ON TUESDAY 634

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding horror, I found this insight in line with WIRED FOR STORY: “ We seek out…stories which give us a place to put our fears…Stories that frighten us or unsettle us - not just horror stories, but ones that make us uncomfortable or that strike a chord somewhere deep inside - give us the means to explore the things that scare us…” – Lou Morgan (The Guardian)

H Trope: Abduction = Love; a stranger kidnaps a total stranger 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 either of them could remember. The windows – Natasha Reno-Pardo assumed that the boarded up, black painted rectangles near the ceiling of the basement were once windows – were impossible to open.

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

Light came from two fluorescents set behind thick plastic. They never went out. Food and water came in bags dropped from a hole in the ceiling 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 were being watched all the time. Once, when they’d tried to sleep together on the same pile of blankets as far from the bathroom hole as they could get, Rudyard had gotten very excited. Natasha was willing. Snakes had suddenly dropped down from 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 had been bitten, but they threw the blanket covered in snake guts in another corner after stomping it to death.

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

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

He leaned against her, cried a while longer and finally rested 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://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51niGRrH6DL.jpg

JAX LUNAR LUMBER Chapter 5: Celebrity Visitation...

On the way to the neighborhood Home Depot for the obligatory weekend project as well as a load of flowers and potting soil, I started musing on my hitch as a “yard ape” for a company called Knox Lumber. We, too were busy this time of year, and it was a familiar feel whenever I went to one of these stored. Know was one of the original “Do It Yourself” (aka DIY) stores, a precursor to today’s Lowes, Menards, and Home Depot. Eventually bought out by Payless Cashways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payless_Cashways
the rumor in the store was that you could build an entire house by waiting patiently for a year while EVERYTHING went on sale…Rolling down the driveway, I suddenly had a thought and snickered.

When my wife asked, “What?” I shook my head. “No, what?”

I reiterated the train of thought above, then added, “I was wondering if it would be possible to build a colony on the Moon using just what you could buy at Knox?”

We pondered it for a few moments, then suddenly said in unison, “Yes!”

Inspired by Matt Weir, the result of my musings continues below.

The thing is, the Last Moon Walker picked a coconut tree to be buried under. Just so happens to be one of the larger species of coconuts – the Cocos nucifera. You’ve seen it, I’m sure. It’s pretty much the “coconut” tree everyone imagines when they think of a coconut palm.

The problem is that Moon soil is totally wrong and the only way we can grow trees on the Moon is if they are actually planted in the soil…

After the Second Wave reached the Moon and started expanding the places you could find footprints in the fine Lunar dust, what followed was fifty years of Colonization. Not all of them stayed, and some colonies were dreadful failures, but gradually, the population of the Moon began to climb.

The Americans were NOT alone this time. Chinese, Indians, Australians, European Union, Saudi Arabians, Brazilians, Japanese…in all, forty-two nation states sent astronauts. Multiple genders fed their spirit of adventure, inspiring people of multiple viewpoints to come to the Moon. Multiple faiths claimed their point of view from the Moon as well. (Despite the vocal fears and horror of those whose only allegiance was to Humanity, predicted an outbreak of sectarian warfare to rival anything in Earth’s bloody religious history. After another fifty years, the fears abated, and while cautious, mutual respect and conversation – and of course arguments! – seemed to hold sway.

The Second Wave is marked by the last person to come to the Moon to “visit”. Her name was Roza Rymbayeva Golovkin, named after a famous Kazakh singer and song-writer. She’d done several touristy things, then returned to Earth.

She was coming to Jax Lunar Lumber to see her tree. The Lunar and Earth press started to bother us the day after. Of course, no one had ever paid attention to Jax Lunar Lumber until the Last Lunar Walker contacted us to see her tree.

In other words, she was making another “Visit-To-The-Moon”.

I was irritated, to tell you the truth. I’d made the Moon my home. I was a resident. What was she…a celebrity. I’d honestly never had much use for celebrities. I’d half a mind to tell her what she could do with her visit.

Then I got a personal message from her.

Hand-delivered by an old man who worked in the bowels of the Communication Needle at the South Pole Station, also known as Chandrayaan, the Indian lander that touched down in August of 2023, he physically knocked on the door to my quarters. I’d just finished planting both a species of corn designed for Lunar gravity, and flooding a shallow one-hectare pond after seeding it with dried Prochlorococcus, the algae species that produces more oxygen than any other species.

He waited for me to open the paper note and read it. The lower sheet of paper was blank. He held out a pen when I looked up.

I said, “Have you read this?”

“No, Mx. It’s not allowed.”

“So you don’t know what it says?”

“We’re very discrete. That’s in our company slogan.”

I nodded. I wrote, “Please feel welcome here. We look forward to seeing you.” I handed it back to him, he bowed, and made his way slowly out of Jax. I went back to the cavern, then headed to the deepest cave. We’d blasted a hole through the surface, then used nanomachines to build a transparent dome of Lunar glass. Light flooded down, falling on the palm tree which now stood four meters tall. The signature torso – slender and straight, swelling, and the leaves fountaining from the swelling made the image perfect. It didn’t have any fruit – coconuts – yet. Coconuts take a year from appearance to falling off the tree. These still had several months to go. I’d noted when a good time would be.

Several days later, I got a not delivered by the same man. When I opened it, I read, “Dear Mx. Jax: I am coming to the Moon to die. I would like to die hear my coconut tree. I would also like my remains to fertilize the tree. I will be arriving in eight weeks. My doctors tell me I have that, plus an uncertain number of days.” On the bottom, she wrote, “Whatever amount of credit is required to do with, I can afford it. Spare no expense. Whatever remains will be given to Jax Lunar Lumber. Perhaps you can arrange for the trees wood to be harvested and made into a box in which to place my rendered body and a few mementos. Thank you for doing this.”

I brought the letter into my bedroom and sat at my desk and stared at it for several hours. Finally I stood up. There were some things I had to get done before I had a celebrity die in my lumberyard…

Resources: The Moon Trees, https://www.urbanforestdweller.com/we-almost-forgot-about-the-moon-trees/ ; https://www.space.com/moon-colonists-lunar-lava-tubes.html ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-3Image: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/YkAeUwwE2aksDqd5tgwyec-970-80.jpg.webp

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 633

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

Fantasy Trope: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasticNoir
“Current” Event: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/december/narniapoliceman-dec10.html

Alambil shook her head and said, “I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to be writing down what I say.”

Uvilas snorted, as any good centaur can do, and said, “Who said you were Sherlock and I was Watson?”

Alambil, once a star in Narnia and currently a visitor to the Court of Caspian XII, snorted just as loudly. Her mother would have said it was unladylike – or unstarlike. Alambil didn’t really care as she said, “You were Sherlock last week. I get to be it this week...”

“Him. In the book Queen Susan the Gentle sent with Her Most Kind and Royal Majesty Queen Lucy the Valiant, Sherlock Holmes is a Human male.”

She brushed him away, saying, “Whatever.”

There was a knock at the door. Alambil and Uvilas looked at each other then she bowed and gestured to the door. Uvilas scowled and crossed the floor of the cottage, reached for the door then stepped back.

“Just do it, Sissyhoofs!” Alambil hissed. Uvilas clenched his jaw cantered a meter forward, threw the bolt and yanked the door open.

Four Calmorenes, wicked scimitar swords drawn pointed at Uvilas’ heart but instead of swinging, they prodded him backward until he gave way. A moment later, a woman, whose head was wrapped in a turban and whose face was entirely veiled swept into the room. She turned once, then clapped her hands. The soldiers and their swords fell back and closed the door softly behind them.

The woman lifted her turban, trailing the veils over her face until they saw that she was an older woman, face seamed with laugh lines and hair silvered with age.

Alambil gasped and fell to her knees, “Your majesty!” She looked up at Uvilas and hissed, down on your front knees Sissyhoofs! This is Queen Aravis of Archenland, Princess of Calormen, Duchess of the Lonely Isles!”

The elderly woman smiled and looked down on them and said, “I have need of your criminal detection skills.”

“Your majesty?” said Uvilas.

“Yes, my horse, Hwin, has been kidnapped. You must find her!”

Names: ♀ Narnia; ♂ Narnia Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 35: ALIEN ALIENS HAVE INVADED MY WIFE!!!!

MY POST IS A DAY LATE BECAUSE...WELL READ THE POST AND IT MIGHT MAKE SENSE...
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...

My wife of 36 years was invaded Friday (though on reflection, probably the actual assault began the day before on Thursday while we were preparing our gardens) by an organism that is NOT supposed to be inside the "Universe known as My Wife".
 How do I know it was an alien invasion?
She had a violent allergic reaction to it after the organism breached the protective layer of the body called the Skin and began to reproduce.
If it was a virus, it invaded My Wife’s Cells, injected a bit of DNA into the original cell, that replaced a bit of DNA in the original cell’s copying program and induced My Wife’s Cell to begin to make copies of the Viral Cell.

My Wife’s Cell became a minion of the Alien Cell and set about creating copies of ITSELF to take over other of My Wife’s Cells.

This is purely and completely the plot of the 1950s movie, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”.

If the invader was instead, a single-celled organism, it did a much more “HG Wells War of the Worlds invasion”: aliens overwhelm the rightful inhabitants of the world known as My Wife’s Body and go about wreaking havoc on My Wife until most of My Wife has been annihilated and the Aliens have taken over – for whatever their Nefarious Purpose is.

Entire organisms are a different story, so I’ll only point out that a creature many of us know, love, hunt, and eat in this central part of Abya Yala is known by the Latin name, Phasianus colchicus. The Common pheasant was introduced in Abya Yala in 1773 to become well established throughout many of the Rocky Mountain states, the Midwest, the Plains states, as well as Canada and Mexico. This is, also, an invasion of massive proportion, which few (if any of us) care about.
But, who the freak cares?
Funny you should ask! The INVASIVE pheasant, who is definitely NOT FROM AROUND HERE, ie: an ALIEN, “There are a number of negative effects of common pheasants on other game birds; pheasants lay their eggs in the nests of grey partridges, prairie chickens, ducks, grouse, and turkeys. Pheasant eggs also have a shorter incubation time and when they hatch, the female parasitized by the common pheasant abandons the rest of the incompletely incubated eggs, which then die. Also, pheasants raised in other species' nests imprint on their ‘alien mom’ which result in them act totally weird for pheasants. They often use resources for bobwhites, partridges, and grouse due to habitat and food competition, and also survive certain infection easily, while ruffed grouse, chukar, and grey partridge die. Pheasants also harass or kill other birds like prairie chickens.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_pheasant)

We are surrounded by Alien Invasions…maybe that’s WHY the idea of Alien Invasion and Alien Aliens are so fascinating to us? It’s written into our very DNA. Maybe the Universe is trying to tell us to FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO TO PROTECT FROM ALIEN INVASIONS!
*ahem*

Just a bit of food for thought…

Sources: Image: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg

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

Five decades ago, I started my college career with the intent of becoming a marine biologist. I found out I had to get a BS in biology before I could even begin work on MARINE biology; especially because there WEREN'T any marine biology programs in Minnesota.
Along the way, the science fiction stories I'd been writing since I was 13 began to grow more believable. With my BS in biology and a fascination with genetics, I started to use more science in my fiction.

After reading hard SF for the past 50 years, and writing hard SF successfully for the past 20, I've started to dig deeper into what it takes to create realistic alien life forms. In the following series, I'll be sharing some of what I've learned. I've had some of those stories published, some not...I teach a class to GT young people every summer called ALIEN WORLDS. I've learned a lot preparing for that class for the past 25 years...so...I have the opportunity to share with you what I've learned thus far. Take what you can use, leave the rest. Let me know what YOU'VE learned. Without further ado...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She’s descended from aquatic crustaceans and he come from savannah-dwelling primates. Though, to give props to GALAXY QUEST, there’s a scene where Captain Taggart tells the Thermians to “look around and try and find…” something – they look UP. While it seems like a behavior your average adolescent would do when you ask them to look for something they’ve lost; with the Thermians, it’s a NATURAL reaction. They are evolved from creatures who not only lived on a single level of a three-dimensional world like WE do; their ancestors live under water – and would have had to be cognizant of dangers from ALL AROUND THEM.
I don't think so... How do they “feel”? We CAN'T POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND!
“ARRIVAL”, the movie starring Jeremy Renner, Amy Adams, and others, posits aliens who rather resemble five-legged octopuses – or the “heptapods” comes a bit closer to how alien aliens might “feel” than pretty much any other alien movie I’ve ever seen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 632

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Octavia Butler said, “SF doesn’t really mean anything at all, except that if you use science, you should use it correctly, and if you use your imagination to extend it beyond what we already know, you should do that intelligently.”

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

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

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

To themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m talking to you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diandra shrugged, “Could be new.”

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

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

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

Names: ♀ Indonesia, Central African Republic; ♂ Democratic Republic of Congo, Russia (Siberia)
Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg/220px-Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg

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

On October 7, 2007, I started this blog. Sixteen years later, I am revising and doing some different things with my blog. My wife and I are now retired senior citizens, our kids are both married, we have a bonus daughter and her wife and we have three grandchildren, the oldest of which just became a teenager. I have forty-five professional publications, plus countless other publications as a slushpile reader, and sometime essay contributor to Stupefying Stories https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/.These days, I write whenever I want to – or when I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife, kids, and grandkids and sometimes friends. I write and read constantly. Then I discovered that I was writing longer and longer pieces. My new focus is to write shorter; and to write HUMOR. On purpose. Maybe I can still irritate people while being funny. It works pretty well for John Scalzi! We’ll see what happens.

This week? "Top Grossing Movies of All Time 1976 - 2022" and what it means to me...
The YouTube below showed up on my FB feed a few weeks ago. I watched it with rapt interest! Truth? I was beginning to think that I should either give up writing to get published altogether because I just haven’t been selling to the markets I care about. People seem to prefer watching TV, YouTubes, and other media that doesn’t require anyone to anything but CONSUME.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What I discovered is that I’M WRITING IN THE CORRECT FIELD!!!
Watch the video. If you don’t want to take the time, here’s the end result: as of 2022:
In case it’s not clear, the TOP SEVEN ALL TIME (as of 2022) grossing movies are: Avatar, Titanic, Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars VII, Avengers: Infinity War, Jurassic Park, and ET: The Extraterrestrial.

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

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

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

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

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

Food for thought!

Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXRA9s-A-gAImage: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LXRA9s-A-gA/maxresdefault.jpg

IDEA ON TUESDAY 631

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Regarding horror, I found this insight in line with WIRED FOR STORY: “ We seek out…stories which give us a place to put our fears…Stories that frighten us or unsettle us - not just horror stories, but ones that make us uncomfortable or that strike a chord somewhere deep inside - give us the means to explore the things that scare us…” – Lou Morgan (The Guardian)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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