Guy Stewart's Blog, page 17

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 628

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: (reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmutation. I think I’m going to mine THIS idea in various ways for a while!) , more specifically covered here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underworld_(1985_film)
Current Event: http://altimatrix.com/2012-and-your-dna (Truth? I can’t imagine that ANY person would actually believe this. Really.) Let’s focus on this little tidbit: “According to what the dowsing reveals, there will be 6-9 DNA upgrades for these people before our critical juncture in the photon belt. Their ascension will take place at the same time as other people, however they will have more advanced evolutionary changes initially. In the meantime these people’s subtle energy bodies will be exposed to even higher frequencies of consciousness than the average person. This will be possible due to the individual’s higher self, having the option to do this. Once the first 3 DNA upgrades are complete, the connection to the higher self is so much less corroded that the higher self can do this type of work for individual chosen for such a role.”

Snorri Benediktsson and Hofi Flosadóttir, late of Iceland were working together in the physics lab. "If I can get this stupid file to work with these special effects..."

Hofi said, “Komdu og líta á þetta!”

He sighed. He hated when she used Icelandic. “We’re in America now! Speak English!”

“Ekki allir hér tala ensku.”

“I know that. My roommate speaks better Spanish than he speaks English,” said Snorri.

“Mine is fluent in Ojibwe, but she speaks English most of the time. She does use her native language when she chants at night,” said Hofi.

“But we’re supposed to be experiencing a different culture.”

“So why are we dating each other? Shouldn’t you be going out with a ravishing latina?”

“And you should be hanging out with some fratboy who only wants you for your body and has no idea you’ve got a brain that’s as sharp as the curves are beautiful.”

Hofi blushed and turned back to the window in the lab that looked north, out over Lake Bemidji and toward the frigid air of the pole. A particle collector floated in the atmosphere some hundred miles north and twenty miles up, the display near the window was connected to the college through a satellite uplink. She pointed at the rippling patterns in the sky. “That’s what I wanted you to look at.”

For a moment, even Snorri couldn’t ignore the display. When he finally worked up the nerve to put his arm around her, she turned away. “All right. This has all been done before. Electrons, ionized gasses and the lot has been done to death.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m going to do something no one has ever done before.”

Scowling, he walked over to her humming machine. A small box, open on the side facing them, emitted an odd, pulsing sound. He said, “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to really collect particles from the aurora. I’m using one of the new particle transporters from England to move some of the particles directly from the upper atmosphere to here.”

“Is that safe? I mean, I know I’m not a physics whiz like you, but I do know that high energy particles – like UV light – can burn human skin.”

She shrugged. “Sure. But there are other particles up there. That’s what I’m trying to measure. That’s what I want to find – the other particles up there.” She waited a moment and then said, “Stand back.” She flipped a switch. The box sparked and she fell back, covering her facing a screaming. An intensely pink colored, gaseous substance flowed from the box, coalescing on the floor around where Hofi was writhing on the floor.

Snorri dropped to his knees, hands grabbing her shoulders and coming into contact with the pink, amoeboid gas. For a moment he froze, then the cloud began to crawl up his arms. Both of the Icelanders shivered but otherwise didn’t move.

Instead, their skin began to crawl.

Literally…

Names: ♀,♂ Iceland
Image: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51niGRrH6DL.jpg

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Emily Blunt, Edge of Tomorrow, and Alien Aliens

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 or kids or grandkids. 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.
The movie, Edge of Tomorrow, with Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt came out a decade ago. My wife and I watched it a few nights ago and I came away AMAZED. (I also found out tonight from Dale, that I’ve seen the movie, albeit several years ago.)

By the way – this is NOT a movie review! If you’ve never heard of the movie, I suggest you watch it. I was able to check out the DVD from my friendly neighborhood library. I could probably ((WILL, probably), pick it up for a couple bucks somewhere eventually.

A couple of things impressed me.

First of all, it was startling to see Mary Poppins as an enhanced mechanized soldier who easily blew alien monsters away! It reminded me of a scene from GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 2, where “Yondu [is] yelling ‘I'm Mary Poppins, y'all’ while using his arrow to float back to the ground. It turns out that wasn't originally in the script. When [the writer] was visualizing the scene, it didn't look quite as heroic as [he] intended it to be. So then [he] put the Poppins line in Peter Quill's mouth. And Yondu, of course, not knowing the name Mary or Poppins might think he's sort of a Lee Marvin type and he owns it.”

Of course, I mean actor Emily Blunt. My wife and I discovered we’re a pair of Emily Blunt fans! Besides playing Mary Poppins, a fashion magazine secretary (alongside Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and Stanley Tucci); she has played memorable characters as diverse as Young Queen Victoria, Miss Piggy’s Receptionist, the mother of a psychic child marked for execution by a time-traveling agent, a Baker’s Wife, an Amazon River adventurer, a nuclear physicist’s wife, and a pharmaceutical executive-then-whistleblower…

And, of course Sergeant Rita Vrataski, (also known as the Full Metal Bitch) a mech-suited Army soldier. Amazingly, the movie is considered a horror “comedy”, mostly for the repartee between the Sergeant and Major/Private William Cage. While the die repeatedly in variously gruesome ways ranging from Vrataski shooting Cage to start the loop cycle again, to both of them being violently torn to shreds by the…sort-of-micro-tornado of tentacles of some sort, to crashes, crushing, and literally dozens of creative ways someone can die on a battlefield.

How she comes across as HUMOROUS in this splatter-gore movie escapes me – though I personally believe that while the humor is sometimes slapstick, it leans more heavily on sarcasm between Vrataski and Cage. That’s my FAVORITE form of humor.

At any rate, Blunt’s performance and her and Cruise’s increasing skill at blowing the Mimics away leads me to contemplate the aliens themselves.

It’s bluntly (no pun intended) stated pretty much from the beginning that they want Earth. But WHY? They LOOK absolutely alien – but to me, they make no sense whatsoever. Created for their “creep factor”, they’re typically nothing more that flailing tentacles that kill Humans.

Why? Why do they even CARE about Earth or Humans? Their blood is obviously not iron-based so they’re not going to use Earth as a cattle ranch (so to speak) – how do they breathe on Earth? They don’t have suits – at least not suits a Human would recognize. They don’t even really have weapons, except slashers and hard skin: they can only be destroyed by intense, high-speed machinegun fire. Also, there’s no way they can really SEE, as there are no obvious eyes. I believe at one point, the movie alludes to them having psychic powers. But that’s even MORE ridiculous! In order to telepathically link with a life form, your electrical/psychic system would have to be able to synchronize – and based on what we see, Human-Mimic psychic link would be impossible: they aren’t even the same SPECIES – and the Mimics don’t appear to have any kind of central nervous system.

The following discussion online offers some interesting insight into the Mimics: https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/24557/what-is-the-origin-of-mimics-in-edge-of-tomorrow

So, let me take a stab at it – as the Mimics obviously come from an entirely alien environment and we know their either evolved there or were created there – then they must have some kind of environment that they were designed for. Their ability to “spin through soil” might point to their origins or life as a…sort of mole-like creature. As they originally attacked from the oceans, like us, they might have a saline internal fluid like blood. You get a better sense of the tentacles if you scroll through this link: https://aliens.fandom.com/wiki/Mimic_(Edge_of_Tomorrow).

Despite their wild appearance, their movement would suggest that they not only originated on a high-gravity world, but they were, at one time, “prime prey”. To survive, they would have had to develop defenses against their main predator. Humans became SMARTER than just about everything that hunted them. Did the Mimics do the same – or are they simply “animals”? Maybe the drone Mimics are, but the Alphas and Omegas are NOT – they’re a hive organism, somewhat like a beehive, though NOT precisely…

Anyway, this is getting long. I think I’m going to stop here and continue later. Have a good day!

Inspiration: “Live. Die. Repeat.” or EDGE OF TOMORROW
Links: https://bleedingcool.com/movies/james-gunn-reveals-im-mary-poppins-yall-wasnt-script/#google_vignette ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Blunt
Image: [Webb image of the Horsehead Nebula…looks like dragons to me!]
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/stsci-01gfnn3pwjmy4rqxkz585bc4qh.png

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 627

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.

F Trope: (reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmutation. I think I’m going to mine THIS idea in various ways for a while!) , more specifically covered here: “…sexual transmutation, is the attempt, especially among some religious traditions, to transform sexual impulses or "sexual energy" into creative energy. In this context, sublimation is the transference of sexual energy, or libido, into a physical act or a different emotion in order to avoid confrontation with the sexual urge, which is itself contrary to the individual's belief or ascribed religious belief. It is based on the idea that "sexual energy" can be used to create a spiritual nature which in turn can create more sensual works, instead of one's sexuality being unleashed “raw.” The classical example in Western religions is clerical celibacy. As espoused in the Tanya, Hasidic Jewish mysticism views sublimation of the animal soul as an essential task in life, wherein the goal is to transform animalistic and earthy cravings for physical pleasure into holy desires to connect with God. Different schools of thought describe general sexual urges as carriers of spiritual essence, and have the varied names of vital energy, vital winds (prana), spiritual energy, ojas, shakti, tummo, or kundalini. It is also believed that undergoing sexual sublimation can facilitate a mystical awakening in an individual.”
Current Event: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080428062406AAqmB2e

“That’s ridiculous!” Beatriz Velastagui T. exclaimed.

“No! Really, I read it online!” replied Kaew Savane Xiong (“precious” “mountain” “bear”)

“I KNOW you don’t believe everything you read online, so why this thing?” Her lids narrowed as she looked at him through her long lashes.”

“Are you trying to seduce me?” Kaew [she said it like she’d say ‘cue’; he’d snap, ‘keh-oo’. She’d reply with the same word and he’d roll his eyes] said.

She sniffed and said, “No, I’m trying to send you into godhood so you’ll get out of my hair.” She stepped around him and hurried on her way to chemistry. He followed and she said, “I’m gonna call the deans and charge you with stalking!”

“You can’t because you know I’m going to physics.”

“Then it’s amazing that you believe in something like,” her voice dropped, “sex making someone into a god or goddess.”

He shrugged, “That’s what these crazy Americans think.”

“We’re crazy Americans now!” she said as she turned in to her class.

He sniffed and shook his head. The teasing had gone out of him, snuffed like a candle in a harsh wind. He passed her, head down and slipped into his own classroom. Beatriz was certain she heard him say, “You might be, but me?”


They met for lunch like every other day, but Kaew seemed as depressed as he had been when she’d started teasing him. She dropped her books on the table, startling him. “Why’d you do that?” he exclaimed.

“All right, I’ll listen to your theory. How CAN a Human use sex to transmute themselves into a god or goddess?”

He shook his head, “Supposedly it all has to do with focusing the sexual energy tightly enough.”

“Like how are we supposed to do that?” She pulled an orange out of her string pack and peeled it, making a neat little pile of rough fruit skins at her elbow.

Kaew opened his own bag and pulled out a notebook. An odd figure had been scratched into the green ink that used to cover it, leaving a white circle-within-a-circle and a bunch of odd lines and curlicues. “With this.”

Beatriz closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. “So we hold this magical circle between us and think about sex and, ‘poof!’ you’re a god and I’m a goddess?”

Kaew made a face then said, “You promised you’d listen to me.”

“This isn’t just some cheap trick to get into my panties, is it?” She was rewarded by his deep pinkish-pale blush.

He always stammered when he was nervous, so she knew she’d pricked him as he said, “N…n…no! It’s real! I’ve been studying this for a long time!”

She shook her head, eating three sections of the orange then saying, “Why do you want to be a god?”

He glanced both ways, then prairie-dogged to get a view of the whole lunchroom, then leaned forward and said, “There are people here who deserve to come under the wrath of a vengeful god!”

Names: ♀ South America ; ♂ China (Hmong)Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

JAX LUNAR LUMBER Chapter 4: The Judge’s Descendant and the Coconut Tree

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.

We got the email from Earth a few days ago, from the last living Lunar Walker. He wants to come and see the Tree.

Yeah, we have our Tree. It’s a redwood and it’s been growing for the past seven years not far from Jax Lunar Lumber. Oh! Don’t worry, we’re not planning to cut it down or anything. It’s sort of our mascot, actually…if you can have a tree for a mascot. It’s on our website. I should know, cause I’m the one who put it there. I’ve been planting trees on the Moon for the past two years. I leased a lava tube and using some plans I found on the internet, I started to create a habitat that they can survive in.

I know saying that I’ve been planting trees for the past two years makes it sound like I’m some sort of Johnny Appleseed – though that would be Cedric Allen Easternpine, which kind of sounds cool, but my real last name’s just Allen.

Anyway, travel from Earth to the Moon and back has become sort of routine – as routine as taking a vacation in the Antarctic is back on Earth…weird if not impossible. But like I was saying before I got sidetracked, the Last Lunar Walker wants to come up here, look around, and I guess he wants to die here.

Creepy, but I had an aunt in my hometown of Crosby, Minnesota who wanted her body entombed in a casket carved from iron ore, and sunk to the bottom of one of the old iron mine lakes. She was rich, and threw enough of her money at it while she was still smart enough to manage her own affairs, that they eventually gave up resisting her and named the lake after her and called it the Ceilia Anne-Johnson Usorituen Water Cemetery.

I will say a few of my relatives nearly had heart attacks of their own before she ended up getting what she wanted.

So, she’s there, and the Last Moon Walker is using HER case (and law team) to make it so that he can be buried on the Moon.

Of course, Lunar Law being so new and all, there’s a statute that says you can’t technically bury anyone in a hole in the surface. It’s got to be part of some sort of structure. While the Last Moon Walker hasn’t named himself, we have a fair idea who it is and so I wrote to the whole group and offered the possibility of being made into humus and being used to grow another tree of their choice – though they have to bring several seeds with them when they leave Earth.

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…

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/Coconut Image: https://i.insider.com/6285a7720fdb180018cc15a3?width=1000&format=jpeg&auto=webp

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 20: The DAWN of Asteroid Mining May Be THIS Year! (And a few random thoughts)

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 20: The DAWN of Asteroid Mining May Be THIS Year! (And some other thoughts)

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…

That DAWN may be starting with a secret destination…

Can you say “California Gold Rush”?

Cloaked in secrecy, asteroid forerunner, AstroForge, won’t be doing anything flashy to get to its secret destination. In fact and in order to save money, it “will hitch a ride alongside the Nova-C IM-2 lunar landing mission by Intuitive Machines. The Odin mission (previously Brokkr-2)”…will ride a ways with the IM-1, then depart for Asteroids Unknown.

In fact, IM-1 launched successfully yesterday (February 15, 2024)! Has the era of asteroid mining now begun? Maybe!

OK – I need to take a deep breath. Odin WON’T be landing on any asteroid, but will be doing flybys of not ONLY Secret Asteroid #1, but perhaps others along the way.

At any rate, while I’d love to think that Humanity is looking to the planets again out of the sheer joy of exploring our Solar System, the thrust is also being driven by some of my least favorite philosophical activists – the Climate Change lobby is slowly getting behind the idea of mining moving off of the rock that has a breathable atmosphere that’s already been polluted and trashed by a few hundred years of Human abuse.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t doubt that our activities have had an impact on the planet’s atmosphere. BUT I also don’t think that our tiny scratches on the surface have somehow magically DESTROYED the ecosphere. Just the air on Earth weighs some “5.5 quadrillion tons, or roughly one millionth of Earth's mass.” Humanity as a whole “390 million metric tons, which is slightly less than the weight of domesticated cattle at 420 million metric tons.” So…COWS weigh more than we all do.

I think it’s an adventure in hubris to claim that stuff that is two orders of magnitude LESS has an Earth-DESTROYING force. But if it makes people feel better and more powerful, then that’s fine with me.

But, our Green Friends may have some power in driving the mining of asteroids – in fact, now that I think of it, maybe their time would be better spent going door-to-door to collect money for asteroid mining companies like AstroForge rather than spraying the glass boxes that protect priceless works of art and documents like the US Constitution (the documents the right they have to spray the document with damaging red dust in a really vain attempt to stop Anthropogenic Global Warming…which they contributed to by driving to the exhibit in order to spray it) with red dust… ( https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/02/15/watch-climate-punks-dump-on-the-constitution-national-archives-rotunda-in-dc-evacuated-after-climate-activists-dump-pink-powder-on-case-holding-us-constitution/ ) 

I dunno. I’m wondering if the Climate Folks and the Asteroid Mining Folks shouldn’t get together and coordinate their efforts and get mining off Earth faster? At any rate, AstroForge – and other companies – are actually making the move to change science fiction into not only science fact, but FINANCIAL fact. They’ve initiated exactly what the first gold miners had to do in order to stake a claim – they had to do a SURVEY of the land. And isn’t that what AstroForge is ON THE WAY TO DOING?

Next time - “Should Private Companies Reveal Their Space Activities? What Does Space Law Say?”

New Source: https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/astroforge-space-mining-company-headed-for-asteroid-but-wont-say-which-one#:~:text=AstroForge%20is%20a%20private%20asteroid,aren't%20telling%20which%20one. ; https://www.mining.com/asteroid-mining-startup-to-launch-mission-in-early-2024/ ; https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/01/06/wyoming-could-be-a-space-pioneer-when-not-if-we-start-mining-asteroids/ ; https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/mining-in-space-is-coming ;
IM-1 Mission Nova-C Lunar Lander Successfully Enroute to the Moon Following SpaceX Launch, https://www.intuitivemachines.com/im-1 Surveying for Gold: https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2013/05/homestead-and-mining-claims-in-19th-century-america/
Fundamental Resource: (A general Wikipedia post detailing what the authors currently know about asteroid mining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining)
Noted Resources:
https://www.britannica.com/story/how-much-does-earths-atmosphere-weigh#:~:text=While%20mass%20and%20weight%20are,one%20millionth%20of%20Earth's%20mass. ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth, https://www.pharostribune.com/news/local_news/article_7fcd3ea5-3c14-533f-a8d5-9bf629922f34.html, https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/04/29/like-asteroid-mining-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/, https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/learn/historyculture/theroadtothefirstflight.htm, https://hackaday.com/2019/03/27/extraterrestrial-excavation-digging-holes-on-other-worlds/, https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/every-small-worlds-mission Image: https://everydayastronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/Post-Launch-Reviews/CNSA/Long-March-2C_Xinhua-1200x800.jpeg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 626

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: Dystopia Is Hard
Current Event: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/28/us-korea-north-pyongyang-idUSBRE96R0BB20130728

Adéla Stoica hung her head. She’d practiced abject submission just like all the other teenagers in the Orientation Class did. Beside her, Enio Cassar did the same thing.

What the Master before them didn’t see was Adéla open her eyes and shoot a sideways glance.

This time she beat Enio to the punch and could barely hold in the giggle that bubbled up inside of her when he opened his eyes an instant later. They were supposed to be contemplating the worthlessness of their own lives in submission to the Great Cause. She sighed – an acceptable sound – because the Masters of the Great Cause thought they’d beaten everyone down.

Standing before the class, Master Farkas scowled at her. He said to the class in Esperanto, the Language of Submission, “Estas bone ke vi kontempli vian propran senvaloreco ĉiutage, kaj konsideru la grandecon de la Lando anstataŭe.”

This time Enio sighed. It was the motto of the regime, “It is good that you contemplate your own worthlessness every day, and consider the greatness of the Country instead.” The education of the youth after fourteen years of the Society of the Great Cause was predictable. Master Farkas continued, “It should make you feel the weight of that responsibility so deeply that your spirit groans with the burden of it. It is only through sacrifice to society that the individual might live best. It is only through society that all wisdom, all knowledge and all discovery might be directed by the National Science Foundation. Through that wisdom, humanity might live again in the luxury to which it had become accustomed.”
Enio muttered, “Ai mund të marrë zbetë e tij idiot horseshit gojën dhe të fus atë deri gomar e tij, ku ai erdhi nga." Like everyone else at the camp, their mother language was the one they cursed and made love in; Esperanto was the language they learned to mock in; English was the language everyone could communicate across ethnic walls in. Of course, there were to BE no ethnic walls because the Great Cause united all of North America into one Cause – the betterment of humanity.

It was too bad Master Farkas was also a linguist from the Old Order. His gaze arrested Enio and he said in the same language, “Merrni ass tuaj i dobët këtu lart tani, ju mut pak.” Enio’s eyes bulged as Master Farkas added, “Your girlfriend can come up here, too.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Enio blurted.

Adéla elbowed him and they stood their ground. The line behind theirs shoved them forward and the lines in front of them opened up. She looked at them and said, “Cowards.” But none of them looked the slightest bit afraid. They looked bored. Like they wanted something interesting to happen; kill the mold growing on their lives of dull sameness. Like jackals. When Master Farkas looked up at them though, their faces transformed to slack idiocy then morphed into hanging heads.

He gestured to them and led them out of the classroom, his white lab coat flapping behind him. Two other technicians wearing the shorter, lower-ranked blue lab coats went into the classroom to take his place. Leading them down a half dozen short flights of stairs, he stopped at a metal door and used his passkey to unlock it. Pushing it open, Adéla and Enio could see that a huge screen covered one wall and that a face filled the screen, looking at them. Master Farkas grabbed Enio’s arm and shoved him into the room. Enio sighed and walked in. “I can’t believe you’re doing this…” The door slammed ponderously.

He touched Adéla’s shoulder and said, “You’re next.”

She knew exactly what was coming and shook her head, remembering the really fascinating books she’d read as a precocious two-year-old. First, she grabbed her older brother’s copy of THE HUNGER GAMES and read it, then the other six sequels. She fell in love with Scott Westerfeld’s UGLIES books. Devoured Haddix’s THE HIDDEN. Every dystopian book she could find from HG Well’s TIME MACHINE to the seven LAST SURVIVORS books; she read and cherished in her heart.

Then the Great Cause overtook the countries of North America – and her life had been tedious boredom ever since...

Names: ♀ Czech Republic, Romania ; ♂Albania, Malta
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

WRITING ADVICE: Short Stories – Advice and Observation #25: Adam-Troy Castro “& 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!
Without further ado, short story observations by Adam-Troy Castro – with a few from myself…
You write both short and novel-length fiction. Do you have a favorite? Are the tools required different for each? Depending on its length, a short story can be just a feeling, an idea, a place invoked with evocative prose; a novel has to start somewhere, travel somewhere, and arrive somewhere, and I’ve learned from terrible personal experience that it’s dreadful to get over a hundred thousand words into an epic and then realize you have nowhere for the characters to go. Putting it another way, in science fiction a short story can be a diagnosis. A novel has to be the course of treatment, whether or not the patient is fated to live.

I’ve learned this through (as he wrote) “from terrible personal experience”. The first time I tried to write a novel (a long, long, long time ago. It was called PLANET OF STORMS). I shudder to remember what I wrote. It’s absolutely true that writing long HAS to bring the reader to the denouement – a satisfying conclusion to the problem that you started with.

A short story can look at a problem that the writer sees. I just started a short story (currently) called “The Miscreated School of Trade and Technology”. I started to wonder what would happen once genetic engineering reached for its full potential by creating Humans for specific purposes. It sounds interesting – but it would also be fraught with problems and challenges. In the story, Canada (along with most countries) has started engineering soldiers. The US has done the same thing. Then the collective Canadian conscience objects – the practice is abolished and becomes illegal.

But what do they do with the individuals who are already living with their enhancements? The government has declared them non-persons (similar to what the Federal government and California’s Governor Culbert Olson (D) did to Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor). At the time of the story, many are marked for disposal. Two characters cross over into the US. BUT – the story doesn’t offer a solution. It’s just about particular characters in a particular situation.

“As for being discouraged: I agree with Theodore Sturgeon that if you can be discouraged, you should be discouraged. This needs to be something you MUST do. But if the passion ebbs for short periods, that’s a different animal. That’s normal. Go jump in a swimming pool or go out and meet people. See a movie. You need fuel.”

I confess I go through periods of discouragement. I don’t get published as often as I’d like to, and as of the end of the 2023 (though my records vanished with the death of my ROM – which I had stubbornly NOT saved to the web), I had been pretty consistently getting about 10% of my work published. Since 1997, when I started keeping records. So I think I have the “discouragement” thing under control!

“My career has been a series of light bulbs going on, some brighter than others. I still remember the thunderbolt, the absolute thunderbolt, that stories couldn’t be just clever ideas, but had to be about something. I knew this intellectually but had not internalized it. I also recall the thunderbolt that surprise endings were usually not worth the trouble and that I should give up the effort I was putting into concocting them. (Sometimes, they arrive naturally.) The light bulbs will go on in varying order, depending on the order in which your own skills develop.”

It may seem strange, but I only REALLY figured this out about two years ago. Before that, I’d just write the story and send it out. When I reviewed what was ACTUALLY PUBLISHED (look over on the right and scroll to the bottom – you can follow links to my on-line stories. If you read the oldest and newest, you can best see what he’d writing about here.

My CURRENT struggle is to better integrate a story that’s entertaining with my “message”. That’s a hard change to make – how can I integrate message and be entertaining at the same time? Someone who HAS done it is my “teacher” up above. His “message”, if anything, stems from something he said in an online interview with Emily Hockaday at ANALOG. It’s a place he calls, “‘AIsource Infection’ future history”. Now, coming into the computer age from the back door (I graduated from high school in 1975. We DID get to play with computers, indicating I have to lay off my grandkids, as they spend an inordinate amount of time playing games on their phones – I spent my ONLY time on a computer when we had to “call” a mainframe computer in downtown Minneapolis; there was no “computer screen”; and we “shot cannon balls at a target by adjusting the angle of fire” – and the end result PRINTED OUT on a very long sheet of off-white tractor-feed paper…like this only WAY less fancy:



I have no idea what an AIsource infection is, though this is Adam-Troy Castro’s explanation: “a substantial alteration in the nature of humanity”.

“I have written three novels and three novellas about far-future murder investigator Andrea Cort, whodunnits on space habitats and the like, and they cannot be even begun unless I already know the nature of the crime, what clues exist for Andrea to find, how she will follow these clues to the eventual solution, and so on. There are similar planted clues, involving the mysteries of the character’s world, in each volume and in the mega-story of the series, within the GUSTAV GLOOM middle-grade books. I have to know these things going in. The destination is always clear; it’s just the path there designed to invite discoveries in the telling.”

After almost completing my 250,000 word novel, MARTIAN HOLIDAY, I have discovered what NOT to do next time. It involves extensive plotting BEFORE writing (though in my defense, the book was written as a series of blog entries over several years…)

“My favorite advice to writers is to wring the emotional reaction from yourself, first. When writing humor, you need to barely stand how witty you’re being; when you’re writing tragedy, you need to weep; when writing horror, you need to be appalled that this monstrous stuff is coming out of you. Hell, if you’re writing a thriller, you need to fear for your characters. Honestly, if you don’t react yourself, if it’s just a technical exercise, no one else is going to care either.”

This is also a fairly recent discovery! I put a story away and move on to my next. I quickly forget the specifics of that story. When I return, if my reaction is to snicker, feel horrified, appalled, or SOMETHING, I know I’ve been successful. When I don’t feel anything, I computer trunk the story and figure I can come back to it at a later time and figure out what I DIDN’T do. I recently did that to another piece, “The Suicide of AutoTech #35469” and saw the problems right away. I repaired them and the story is awaiting one final read to see if it hangs together.

And THAT is that for today!

References: https://www.adamtroycastro.com/about/ Who he is and where his website is: Adam-Troy Castro made his first non-fiction sale to SPY magazine in 1987. His 26 books to date include among others four Spider-Man novels, 3 novels about his profoundly damaged far-future murder investigator Andrea Cort, and 6 middle-grade novels about the dimension-spanning adventures of that very strange but very heroic young boy Gustav Gloom. Adam’s darker short fiction for grownups is highlighted by his most recent collection, Her Husband’s Hands And Other Stories (Prime Books). Adam’s works have won many awards.
https://odysseyworkshop.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/interview-adam-troy-castro/; https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-adam-troy-castro-24/ ; https://theastoundinganalogcompanion.com/2019/08/28/qa-with-adam-troy-castro-3/ ;
Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhK6miXJMTMNyB3kzq-r6I2LVCTZJj0CDS0dPV2Qapl6e9rZPuHx2u5QKcKT1QGeDg1_tPMv-lpnuSr_eiBjwPXmex9mcgtuH2-SUtZEpGWV0_HdtJQelVt5K69NulJBUqNju5GNjHgQibXsIo4NeWpTOj4ai85jCRjMHOtwtkqshzxFvZPUSjXZNq6=s320

WRITING ADVICE: Short Stories – Advice and Observation #X: Adam-Troy Castro “& 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!
Without further ado, short story observations by Adam-Troy Castro – with a few from myself…
You write both short and novel-length fiction. Do you have a favorite? Are the tools required different for each? Depending on its length, a short story can be just a feeling, an idea, a place invoked with evocative prose; a novel has to start somewhere, travel somewhere, and arrive somewhere, and I’ve learned from terrible personal experience that it’s dreadful to get over a hundred thousand words into an epic and then realize you have nowhere for the characters to go. Putting it another way, in science fiction a short story can be a diagnosis. A novel has to be the course of treatment, whether or not the patient is fated to live.

I’ve learned this through (as he wrote) “from terrible personal experience”. The first time I tried to write a novel (a long, long, long time ago. It was called PLANET OF STORMS). I shudder to remember what I wrote. It’s absolutely true that writing long HAS to bring the reader to the denouement – a satisfying conclusion to the problem that you started with.

A short story can look at a problem that the writer sees. I just started a short story (currently) called “The Miscreated School of Trade and Technology”. I started to wonder what would happen once genetic engineering reached for its full potential by creating Humans for specific purposes. It sounds interesting – but it would also be fraught with problems and challenges. In the story, Canada (along with most countries) has started engineering soldiers. The US has done the same thing. Then the collective Canadian conscience objects – the practice is abolished and becomes illegal.

But what do they do with the individuals who are already living with their enhancements? The government has declared them non-persons (similar to what the Federal government and California’s Governor Culbert Olson (D) did to Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor). At the time of the story, many are marked for disposal. Two characters cross over into the US. BUT – the story doesn’t offer a solution. It’s just about particular characters in a particular situation.

“As for being discouraged: I agree with Theodore Sturgeon that if you can be discouraged, you should be discouraged. This needs to be something you MUST do. But if the passion ebbs for short periods, that’s a different animal. That’s normal. Go jump in a swimming pool or go out and meet people. See a movie. You need fuel.”

I confess I go through periods of discouragement. I don’t get published as often as I’d like to, and as of the end of the 2023 (though my records vanished with the death of my ROM – which I had stubbornly NOT saved to the web), I had been pretty consistently getting about 10% of my work published. Since 1997, when I started keeping records. So I think I have the “discouragement” thing under control!

“My career has been a series of light bulbs going on, some brighter than others. I still remember the thunderbolt, the absolute thunderbolt, that stories couldn’t be just clever ideas, but had to be about something. I knew this intellectually but had not internalized it. I also recall the thunderbolt that surprise endings were usually not worth the trouble and that I should give up the effort I was putting into concocting them. (Sometimes, they arrive naturally.) The light bulbs will go on in varying order, depending on the order in which your own skills develop.”

It may seem strange, but I only REALLY figured this out about two years ago. Before that, I’d just write the story and send it out. When I reviewed what was ACTUALLY PUBLISHED (look over on the right and scroll to the bottom – you can follow links to my on-line stories. If you read the oldest and newest, you can best see what he’d writing about here.

My CURRENT struggle is to better integrate a story that’s entertaining with my “message”. That’s a hard change to make – how can I integrate message and be entertaining at the same time? Someone who HAS done it is my “teacher” up above. His “message”, if anything, stems from something he said in an online interview with Emily Hockaday at ANALOG. It’s a place he calls, “‘AIsource Infection’ future history”. Now, coming into the computer age from the back door (I graduated from high school in 1975. We DID get to play with computers, indicating I have to lay off my grandkids, as they spend an inordinate amount of time playing games on their phones – I spent my ONLY time on a computer when we had to “call” a mainframe computer in downtown Minneapolis; there was no “computer screen”; and we “shot cannon balls at a target by adjusting the angle of fire” – and the end result PRINTED OUT on a very long sheet of off-white tractor-feed paper…like this only WAY less fancy:



I have no idea what an AIsource infection is, though this is Adam-Troy Castro’s explanation: “a substantial alteration in the nature of humanity”.

“I have written three novels and three novellas about far-future murder investigator Andrea Cort, whodunnits on space habitats and the like, and they cannot be even begun unless I already know the nature of the crime, what clues exist for Andrea to find, how she will follow these clues to the eventual solution, and so on. There are similar planted clues, involving the mysteries of the character’s world, in each volume and in the mega-story of the series, within the GUSTAV GLOOM middle-grade books. I have to know these things going in. The destination is always clear; it’s just the path there designed to invite discoveries in the telling.”

After almost completing my 250,000 word novel, MARTIAN HOLIDAY, I have discovered what NOT to do next time. It involves extensive plotting BEFORE writing (though in my defense, the book was written as a series of blog entries over several years…)

“My favorite advice to writers is to wring the emotional reaction from yourself, first. When writing humor, you need to barely stand how witty you’re being; when you’re writing tragedy, you need to weep; when writing horror, you need to be appalled that this monstrous stuff is coming out of you. Hell, if you’re writing a thriller, you need to fear for your characters. Honestly, if you don’t react yourself, if it’s just a technical exercise, no one else is going to care either.”

This is also a fairly recent discovery! I put a story away and move on to my next. I quickly forget the specifics of that story. When I return, if my reaction is to snicker, feel horrified, appalled, or SOMETHING, I know I’ve been successful. When I don’t feel anything, I computer trunk the story and figure I can come back to it at a later time and figure out what I DIDN’T do. I recently did that to another piece, “The Suicide of AutoTech #35469” and saw the problems right away. I repaired them and the story is awaiting one final read to see if it hangs together.

And THAT is that for today!

References: https://www.adamtroycastro.com/about/ Who he is and where his website is: Adam-Troy Castro made his first non-fiction sale to SPY magazine in 1987. His 26 books to date include among others four Spider-Man novels, 3 novels about his profoundly damaged far-future murder investigator Andrea Cort, and 6 middle-grade novels about the dimension-spanning adventures of that very strange but very heroic young boy Gustav Gloom. Adam’s darker short fiction for grownups is highlighted by his most recent collection, Her Husband’s Hands And Other Stories (Prime Books). Adam’s works have won many awards.
https://odysseyworkshop.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/interview-adam-troy-castro/; https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-adam-troy-castro-24/ ; https://theastoundinganalogcompanion.com/2019/08/28/qa-with-adam-troy-castro-3/ ;
Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhK6miXJMTMNyB3kzq-r6I2LVCTZJj0CDS0dPV2Qapl6e9rZPuHx2u5QKcKT1QGeDg1_tPMv-lpnuSr_eiBjwPXmex9mcgtuH2-SUtZEpGWV0_HdtJQelVt5K69NulJBUqNju5GNjHgQibXsIo4NeWpTOj4ai85jCRjMHOtwtkqshzxFvZPUSjXZNq6=s320

IDEA ON TUESDAY 625

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: “Alucard” – Dracula Written Backward as a way of disguise…
Current Event: http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2012/10/50-scariest-monsters-movie-history/

“The word ‘monster’ comes from the Latin word monstrum which is an aberrant occurrence, usually biological, that was taken as a sign that something was wrong within the natural order,” read Wyndham D’Aquino.

“So, what are you trying to say?” said Charlotte Mogwai.

“Nothing,” said Wyndham, looking out the window at the house across the street. Small, run-down, it was just like the rest of the neighborhood. Pathetic. It was easier than looking at Charlotte. But he added, “You know, the fact is that it’s an aberrant occurrence.”

“Are you saying Dejario is a monster?” She snorted – a most unladylike sound, Wyndham thought – and said, “You’re just jealous!”

He shrugged and put down his tablet computer. “Yeah, but that doesn’t make Dejario any less a monster.”

“There is nothing wrong with the natural order! It’s just that...”

“It’s just that he’s not natural?”

“It’s not like he’s a vampire or a werewolf...”

“Those things aren’t even ‘monsters’ according to this definition! They were just made up in Hollywood to make money for the studios…” Wyndham said.

“So you’re saying that Godzilla was part of nature?” asked Charlotte.

He opened his mouth, paused to reconsider, then said, “Inasmuch as mutations are natural, Godzilla was.”

“Dracula’s natural?”

He shrugged, “Based on a real villain with as taste for bloody impalement of his enemies, then ‘yes’. Perverse but natural.”

Charlotte scowled, whipped out her tablet computer and said, “Cyclops, Mr. Hyde, Dracula, Frankenstein, Werewolf, Invisible Man, Mummy, Bigfoot, Dinosaurs, Zombies, King Kong, the Blob, CHUD, Cthulu, Kraken, Medusa, Triffid, Trolls, Freddy Krueger, Ghost, Hulk, Evil Clown, Leprechaun, Megalodon, Predator, Wolfman, Wyvern...”

“Stop! No, they’re not all natural!”

“So, he’s not a monster.”

“He is a monster!” Wyndham said. “Besides, his name is Namel B. Isivnieht, from Russia.”

“So? Lots of people have strange names! Especially when they come from Russia.”
“His name is The Invisible Man, backwards – what? You failed spelling and grammar in school as well as math?”

“I didn’t fail math!”
“I was there – you did! Big time!”

Charlotte was ready to slap his silly face off his silly head and raised her arm to do it when something gripped her wrist – and another part of her body – and said with a Nigerian accent, “You don’t have to worry about him anymore, girl!”

As she struggled against the unseen hands, Wyndham suddenly crumpled across the room, blood spattering out from the back of his head as he pitched forward. A woman’s voice said, “Get your hands off her, Name – or the next bullet will be for your head!”
Names: originate from LOTS of placesImage: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51niGRrH6DL.jpg

CREATING ALIEN ALIENS Part 33: Alien Mindscapes

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’m going to START with a quote from the END of article cited below, Alien Mindscapes—A Perspective on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence:

“Ultimately, SETI's (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) vision should no longer be constrained by whether ET has technology, resembles us, or thinks like us. The approach presented here will make these attributes less relevant, which will vastly expand the potential sampling pool and search methods, ultimately increasing the odds of detection. Advanced, intelligent life beyond Earth is most likely plentiful, but we have not yet opened ourselves to the full potential of its diversity.”

So…let’s unpack this one sentence at a time FROM MY POINT OF VIEW AND IN MY OPINION…

“SETI’s vision should no longer be constrained by whether ET has technology…”

I’d like to start by defining exactly what a mindscape is. A mindscape is “all the things that a person, or a particular type of person or group of people, thinks about and believes” (Yourdictionary); “A mental landscape; the world of the mind” (Wiktionary); “The landscape of thoughts, a reification [definition (Merriam-Webster): “to consider or represent something abstract as a material or concrete thing; to give definite content and form to a concept or idea of imaginary entities, memories, feelings, ideas, fears or any other object in the mind, seen together as making up metaphoric features: forests, jungles, deserts, rivers, valleys, cloudy mountains, etc.]

So, in the alien mindscape we “should” be looking for, the aliens we’re seeking may or may NOT have technology. We shouldn’t be concerned whether they have it or not.

How about we define “technology” then? (For a lengthy definition of the word, follow this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology) For the purpose of my discussion, I’m going to define it a bit more broadly that I’d normally use it: “…a systematic treatment’, craft, art, study, knowledge’, ‘knowledge of how to make things’, ‘a way of doing – including dancing, navigation, or printing, whether or not they required tools or instruments; the academic discipline studying the methods of arts and crafts, or to the political discipline’ ‘intended to legislate on the functions of the arts and crafts,’ as a result of scientific progress and the Second Industrial Revolution, technology stopped being considered a distinct academic discipline and became ‘the systemic use of knowledge to practical ends.’”

I think these authors – and most of the rest of us – have started using “technology” in an extremely narrow way. Especially in that by SETI no longer concerning itself with “whether ET has technology”, you’ve excluded us looking for ANYONE “like us”.

But if we use the broader definition that, as it comes from the PAST, it includes a far more inclusive range of what we can look for AND INTERPRET as a “technological civilization”.

An example from past science fiction (which I read starting from when I was 13), included a story by Spider and Jeanne Robinson, is the novel STARDANCE (I encountered it first as a series of stories in the issue of ANALOG Science Fiction and Fact ). This synopsis from GOODREADS reads as follows: “Shara Drummond was a gifted dancer and a brilliant choreographer, but could not pursue her dream of dancing on the Earth, so she went to space, creating a new art form in three dimensions. Then the aliens arrived, and there was only one way to prove that the human race deserved not just to survive, but to reach the stars. The only hope was Shara, with her stardance.”

By the narrow definition of technology, the aliens in STARDANCE would be excluded. But if we step back to an OLDER definition of technology, we get “a way of doing – including dancing, navigation…”

The question I would ask the authors here is HOW can we search the cosmos – or even the stars within twenty light years? That 20-light-year bubble of stars contains 83 star systems holding 109 stars; and around those stars, we would find at least 18 planets. Those are the ones we HAVE DETECTED.

If we can’t look for technology as we narrowly defined it above, how can we EVER tell if there are other civilizations out there? If the stardancing aliens of the Robinson’s stories are included in the larger definition of sapient aliens who communicate via DANCE, how can we FIND them (in the novel, of course, THEY found US).

I profoundly hope that the sentence “we have not yet opened ourselves to the full potential of its diversity” is NOT hinting at some sort of psychic or telepathic contact with aliens – or that it is not supposing that the (more than a few) ufologists who claim, like Spike from the movie “Notting Hill” to “be in contact with some quite important vibrations”…

I have no tolerance at all for woo-woo – how can two aliens communicate telepathically with each other (sorry, Vulcans) instantaneously? Language itself is hard – interpreting the mindscape of a being who perhaps processes the world around themselves in a way that is not even remotely similar to how a Human would process it strains the edges of CREDULITY!!!

So, let’s assume that the authors of the paper meant something else – possibly more metaphorically speaking that we have to sort of “open our hearts and minds” to include more that just Humanoid-like intelligence. Yet…how helpful is that injunction?

Given interstellar distances (and my resistance to telepathic woo-woo) how COULD we communicate with aliens at a long distance without some sort of two-way-compatible technology of SOME SORT?

Food for thought as I begin heading in new directions using the paper as a jumping off point!

Sources: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5111820/ ; https://astronomical.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_nearest_terrestrial_extrasolar_planetsImage: https://image.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/alien-human-600w-136457129.jpg