Guy Stewart's Blog, page 25

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 15: Another Player “Believes”!

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…

“We [at Karman+] want to mine space resources from near-Earth asteroids to provide abundant, sustainable energy and resources in space and for Earth.”

Whew! Bold words!

Karman+ is the most recent company to throw its helmet into the hype-filled sea of speculative asteroid mining. They DO note that asteroid mining has “lived at the intersection of scientific research and popular culture for decades, with as many academic papers published as there are books, TV shows and movies about it.”

That being said, everyone knows that the ULTIMATE reason to start mining the asteroids is because what metals that are left on Earth have been mined practically to the bare rock walls. And even MORE ultimately, the mining concerns are facing the possibility of the total depletion of their cash cows.

I live in Minnesota. During World War II, “Minnesota nearly depleted its immense supply of high-grade iron ore to help the Allies win World War II, providing much of the crucial raw material behind America's tanks, warships, guns and ammunition…”

But how MUCH is “much”? “SEVENTY percent of the iron ore that America devoted to the war came from Minnesota…333 million tons, according to Pam Brunfelt, a retired Vermilion Community College faculty member and historian.” She added, “without the Iron Range, we would not have won the war…[Today], our resources-driven growth faces a massive existential challenge, with climate change, ecosystem degradation and resource depletion demanding a complete reset. Humanity needs to shift global transportation, manufacturing, construction and energy onto a sustainable path.”

There are a growing number of companies who are talking a BIG TALK about mining asteroids; just as there are a number of individuals who live in total doubt that something as ridiculous as “mining asteroids” will EVER take place. From these early, serious attempts to realize, these modern day space pirates are intent on sinking any serious discussion or intention to realize any alternatives to mining in space by insisting that Earth is the ONLY PLACE WE WILL EVER GET THE METALS WE NEED TO CONTINUE TO BUILD OUR SOCIETY. (See my blog entry: “Maybe THESE Are The REAL Space Pirates?” https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2023/05/mining-asteroids-part-14-maybe-these.html)

Fortunately, there’s another new company willing to do m ore than talk. The “Karman+” and logo come from the concept of the Kármán line, established in the 1960’s, “a proposed conventional boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space set by the international record-keeping body FAI (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale) at an altitude of 100 kilometers (also: 62 miles or 330,000 feet) above sea level.”

There’s no measurable change in the characteristics of the atmosphere across it, but it IS important for legal and regulatory purposes. Anything flying above it is considered a spacecraft; anything below it is just an airplane, no matter how fancy.

Those two types of vessels are subject to different jurisdictions and legislations. It IS a lot higher than we can reach with a regular jet or a high altitude balloon. But it’s also the point at which a satellite in orbit around Earth will inevitably fall out of the sky.

Karman+ believes in something called “the Regolith Age, powered by abundant space resources, is an inevitability that we can accelerate.” Because they don’t offer ANY kind of definition, I’m somewhat suspicious of their mission…though I think I can parse it reasonably well:

Regolith: “regolith, a region of loose unconsolidated rock and dust that sits atop a layer of bedrock and serves as a source of other geologic resources, such as aluminum, iron, clays, diamonds, and rare earth elements. It also appears on the surfaces of the Moon, other planets, and asteroids. The word is the Greek term for “blanket rock.” So, we expect to not actually DIG into asteroids, but merely swoop in and scoop up the regolith and either refine it in orbital facilities and what? Drop down slugs of iron, steel, gold, frankincense, and myrrh?

Either that or ship raw regolith back to the surface in…space shuttles? Heat-shielded “drop capsules”? [NOW THERE’S AN IDEA! Pack a drop capsule full of unrefined regolith. Send it on a one-way fall into the ocean with some kind of floater ring. Provide a vent in the top of the dropper, and voila, the capsule will be full of partially smelted metal even before Humans get their hands on it.] But wouldn’t it kind of be bad if one of these dropper companies sent a ship down with regolith that shows a high concentration of gold, platinum, or other desirable metals – and some mean, old fashioned PIRATE pirates grabbed it and make off with it?]

Hmmm…Karman+ points out that there have been baby steps made in the returning of samples to our surface from other bodies: from the various rocks returned on the original Apollo Lunar landings (“Between 1969 and 1972 six Apollo missions brought back 382 kilograms (842 pounds) of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand and dust from the lunar surface. The six space flights returned 2200 separate samples from six different exploration sites on the Moon. In addition, three automated Soviet spacecraft returned important samples totaling 300 grams (approximately 3/4 pound) from three other lunar sites.” (https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/)

“That last step has been advanced through the Hayabusa and Hayabusa2 missions run by JAXA, both of which also returned sample material back to earth. This will be expanded in the coming years with the NASA-run OSIRIS-REx mission, taking our total count of asteroid sample return missions to 3. As well, AstroForge did some experiments on asteroid mining earlier this year. (https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2023/05/mining-asteroids-part-13-new-kid-in.html)

So, despite the nay-sayers, doom-layers, and plain haters, the possibility of mining the asteroids is moving forward, albeit slowly. Consider, however, how many years it took between Goddard’s first rocket experiments and Apollo 11’s historic landing on the Moon – forty-three years between his first liquid fuel rocket launch, and “One small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”

Since then, we haven’t stopped and the exploration of space has included virtually every nation with launch capability – or the wherewithal to buy a place in space.

I think our “negativity experts” have chosen to stand in stubborn surety on the WRONG side of Human history.

New Source: https://karmanplus.com/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line ;
Resources: 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

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 598

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.

H Trope: Spiders
Current Event: http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/17/autos/toyota-spiders-airbag-recall/

Nanami Ng stared down at the steering wheel of her Driver’s Training car and said, “I heard like, all of these cars got recalled.”

The driver’s trainer, Marcus, looked up from his tablet computer and said, “What?”

Lan Cai leaned forward from the back seat, sticking his head between them. “Wasn’t it spiders or something?”

“What?” Marcus exclaimed.

Lan turned to Nanami and said, “Yeah. They were like sucking all the gasoline out of some car – like wasn’t it a BMW or something?”

Nanami said, “Mazda, and they didn’t drink gasoline. That would be stupid.”

“What would you know about stupid? You can’t even pass the bio test without writing the answers on your hand.”
Nanami blushed deeply, though mostly just her ears turned red. Marcus said, “Get driving! We don’t have time to waste on stupid Halloween stories.”

“It wasn’t a Halloween story! It was real?”

Lan turned to look at Marcus and said, “Hey, Nanami might not be able to test herself out of a paper bag, but...”

Both of them pushed him back into the back seat and Marcus said, “Your opinion stinks as bad as your breath.”

Nanami laughed as she pulled with jerky pedal pumping out from in front of the school. Marcus said, “You haven’t spent much time practicing, have you Nanami?”

“My dad won’t drive with me! Our car was in the garage! The battery was dead! I was so busy with school!”

From the back seat, Lan sat with his arms crossed over his chest. He muttered, “More like you were too busy lip-locked with the bf.”

“You’re just jealous!” Nanami shot over her shoulder. The car screeched to a stop just before she ran over four ninth grade girls. “I didn’t hit the brakes!” she shouted.
“Good thing I was watching, then, wasn’t it?” Marcus said, making a mark on his clipboard. “That’s the second time this week I had to use the brake. One more time and you’ll have to take a two week break and then start all over again.”

“That’s not fair!” Nanami and Lan exclaimed together.

Marcus looked back over the seat at Lan, then across at Nanami. He said, “I don’t make the rules. I just enforce them. If you two want to file a grievance, start talking to the camera.” He gestured to a spot just above the read-view mirror. A red dot glowed there, recording their words and actions.

Scowling, Nanami edged ahead slowly as a car behind them laid on their horn. She got out to the side road and drove to the stop sign, rolling slowly to a halt. The car behind them honked again. She opened her mouth to comment, then closed it, rolling forward. She was driving past the playground, suddenly tense as a couple of little kids playing on the swings jumped off and started chasing each other. The kids ran toward the houses, away from the road and she was so busy watching them that she didn’t see the car stop at the light. Marcus slammed on the car’s brakes. “That’s it,” he said. “Let’s go back.”

Nanami looked at him and despite the car behind them that started honking. She stuck her fist out the window, flipped them off and then stomped on the brake, then kept stomping on it as she shouted, “Just practicing! Practicing stopping! See! I’m practicing.” She stomped harder and harder, screaming. “Practice! Practice! Practice!”

“Calm down!” Marcus said. A sizzling sound came from the dashboard, like something was on fire.

“Sounds like squirrels are in the engine,” Nanami said.

All three of them were staring at the dashboard when the ashtray popped open and a dozen red spiders came out, followed by more and more and...

Names: ♀Japan, Singapore; ♂ Vietnam, Taiwan
Image: https://cdn.britannica.com/40/11740-004-50816EB1/Boris-Karloff-Frankenstein-monster.jpg

Slice of PIE: Wimpy Excuses for Dark Teen Lit -- "Life is so grim in the 21st Century!"

Popular opinion on the “book circuit” – i.e. public & school libraries and Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, as well as among The Big & Small Publishers Of Both Paper Books And Ebooks – appears to be that teenagers love to read the following because teenagers are responding to the grimness of “life” in this, our "HORRIBLE" 21st Century of HORRIBLE politicians, climate, conflict. (I often hear adults use the word "unprecedented"...often. ALL the time. REPEATEDYLY. AS IF IT WERE SOME SORT OF INCANTATION OF DOOM...). They produce lengthy series such as:

The DARKEST MIND series
The KINGDOM OF THE WICKED series
The HUNGER GAMES series
The GONE series
The HIDDEN series
The  SHADOW AND BONE series
The LIFE AS WE KNEW IT series

Lisa Belkin, a New York Times online writer, is quick to say, “Why are all these book so dark? Then again, isn’t dark what teens do best?” http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/what-your-teens-are-reading/

Of course, the instant assumption is that teenagers in this part of the 21st Century have much more horrible lives than any teens in any other time in history...

I beg to differ and postulate that what teenagers face today is different in specifics but not in substance. In order to give some brackets to my defense, I will limit my timeline to the era with identifiable “teen literature”, beginning with the early 1800s:

The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss (1812): US declares war on England; Napoleonic wars in full swing; US invades Canada; bubonic plague in Egypt, Istanbul, Bucharest, and Malta; Felling mine disaster
Waverley by Sir Walter Scott (1814): War of 1812 continues; Napoleonic wars continues; Britain burns down Washington, D.C.

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (1838): Rioting in Mexico; Cherokee Indians begin Trail of Tears; Central American Civil War begins; Boors slaughter Zulus in South Africa; women allowed to vote somewhere in the world for the first time; major smallpox typhus plagues in the US; (Dickens depicts deplorable conditions in central London, in particular child labor, death and poverty)

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1844): USS Princeton explodes; Jews allowed to return to Jerusalem for the first time in hundreds of years; massive flooding of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers; French invasion of Algeria continues in bloodshed; Paraguayan dictator ascends to his office; yellow fever has ravaged the South

Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes(1857): Major US earthquake; Second Opium War breaks out in China; largest slave auction in US history and slaves declared not people in the US; Tokyo earthquake kills 100,000; the India Rebellion; Panic of 1857 causes financial tremors all around the world; Mountain Meadows Massacre (120 Arkansas settlers passing through Utah are slaughtered by Mormons); SS Central America sinks with all hands (425); Reform Wars of Mexico begin; the end of the Third Bubonic Plague Pandemic; yellow fever in Portugal, smallpox in Australia, influenza in Europe, North America, South America

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (1860): assassination of Venezuelan leader; massive strike of 20,000 in New England; settlers massacre 60 native people in California; First Taranaki War in New Zealand, Maori revolt; Qing army of 180,000 destroyed in China; record-breaking storm sinks 100s of boats, kills people on east coast of England; wars of formation in Italy; PS Elgin rammed and sunk in Lake Michigan, 100s die; Ecuadoran and Peruvian wars; Christians and Druzs kill each other in Damascus; there are 4 million slaves in the American South; influenza in S, N America, Europe

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865): US Civil War breaks out; Abraham Lincoln assassinated; steamboat Sultana explodes on Mississippi, 1700 dead; Brazilian and Paraguayan navies clash; cholera epidemics in Egypt and the Middle East; rebel uprising in Jamaica, British execute 600;

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (1876): defacto slavery; poverty; Batak, Bulgaria massacre of some 5000; war in Turkey; Indian Wars; Serbia and Montenegro declare war on Ottoman Empire; tornado in India kills 200,000; samurai banned from carrying swords in Japan

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884): defacto slavery; poverty; siege of Khatoum, Sudan begins; Colchester earthquake, UK’s worst; Germany takes possession of Togoland and Cameroon; earthquake shakes US from central Virginia to southern Maine inward to Cleveland; Sino-French War continues; terroristic Texan cowboys attempt to murder deputy sheriff for arresting one of their pals; Korea succumbs to rebellion bankrolled by China and Japan; economic depression in US; Japan established police training schools in every prefecture; India, Germany cholera pandemic

Kidnapped by Robert Lewis Stevenson (1886): country of Myanmar (Burma) presented to Queen Victoria as a birthday present; German parliament objects strenuously to deportation of Prussian Poles and Jews; anti-Chinese riots in Seattle; 20 blacks murdered in Carrollton, Miss; Haymarket Riots in US; fire burns Vancouver, BC to the ground; hurricane destroys Indianola, TX; earthquake levels Charleston, SC; Montreal, Canada smallpox epidemic

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling (1894): first significant protest of unemployed Americans, Coxey’s Army; May Day Riots in Cleveland; president of France assassinated; Japan and China go to war; women allowed to vote in Australia; Korean Donghak Peasant Rebellion ends with Japan and Chinese “assistance” fighting each other; Osage Indians become the richest people on Earth; Bubonic plague in Hong Kong; Russian flu winding down around the world

Moon Fleet by J. Meade Falkner (1898): Spanish-American War begins with the explosion of the USS Maine; Massacre of protesters in Milan, Italy; Philippines declare independence from Spain; Turks slaughter 700 Greeks and Brits in Heraklos, Greece; Brits take over Sudan; Empress of Austro-Hungary assassinated; Chinese Empress overthrows government; British conquer and burn Benin City in Africa; tripanosomiasis epidemic in the Congo

I would hesitantly suggest that while SOME of these books are indeed grim reflections of their times; not ALL of them are. I'm fairly certain that the balance of "dark" to "light" books is skewed to dark in the 21st Century where the 19th Century skewed to hopeful.

It’s my thoughtful opinion (and experience) that we need more positive literature for teenagers to read. The supply of that literature is CONTROLLED lock, stock and barrel by the adults who write, publish, market, buy, suggest, check out and assign books to young people.

Perhaps it is time to wake up and smell the coffee and quit excusing our adult angst by telling ourselves that “isn’t dark what teens do best?”

I’d counter that ridiculous assertion (after 41  years of teaching 3rd graders through 12th graders some of whom were special education, gifted-and-talented, English Learners; and average kids in a first ring suburban high school that is 2/3 non-white and 85% free-and-reduced-lunch) with this: “HOPE is what teens do best!”

It’s about time for adults to stop pandering to their own sense of failure at bringing the utopic vision they were sure they’d been gifted with and start giving young people the tools to create THEIR OWN vision of the future. That includes SF, F and Contemporary fiction that offers solutions and hope instead of the angsty attitude of "accept that things are crap and do the best you can".
Image: https://bookriot.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/person-in-hoodie-dark-night-horror-1280x720.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 597

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: a sorcerer who is dead but his “soul” lives on trapped somewhere
Current Event: http://www.alunajoy.com/2012-mar18.html

Martin Jönsson stared at the blog and said, “You’ve read this stuff?” He scratched his scruffy blonde beard – little more than rough peach fuzz

Vukosova Gavrilović, long-time friends and NOT girlfriend, smirked. She learned the Swede phrase for her buddy’s newly sprouted beard was duniga skägg. She considered teasing him, but the look on her face warned her that he probably wasn’t in the mood tonight. Instead she said, “I read it. What about it?”

“It like, says that people can soak up ancient energy and transport it from place to place!”

Vukosova shook her head. Her friend was a philosophy major – she wished him luck in finding a job as something more than an intelligent garbage collector. She was a physics major, and if her freshman grades and undergrad presentation were any indication, she may have just written herself a ticket to the Cooperative Lunar Colony Fusion Research Center after she graduated. The CLCRFC – better known by its euphemistic name, The CooL Co. FuR Center and what NASA insisted on calling ClickerFick in its press releases – was every physicists dream. Nuclear fusion was a hop, skip and a jump away from becoming practical. All they needed to do was solve one or two containment issues...she yanked her attention back to Martin and said, “We’ve been soaking up energy and taking if from place to place since the evolution of the first life form.”

He finally looked up from the screen that showed some wackoid Egyptian goddess background overlain with a the foolish ranting of someone who was certain they’d been able to imbue and ancient Egyptian site with energy sucked up in their souls from Atlantis. He said, “This is amazing! It sounds like what you guys are doing in that science class you’re taking!”

She sighed and said, “It’s called Elementary Nuclear Fusion – and it doesn’t have anything to do with storing energy. It’s about creating energy.”

He frowned then said, “I had some science classes in high school...”

“That was last year, wasn’t it?”

“Hey! Just ‘cause I’m a prodigy doesn’t mean I don’t deserve respect!”

“You were a prodigy in acting, Martin! Now you couldn’t shake a stick at an T-comp without breaking into a cold sweat!”

He stood up abruptly, snapping the cover in his computer. “Shows how much you know! I’m gonna see if I can soak up some fusion energy from...from…”

She smirked and said, “Idfu – it’s on the east bank of the Nile in east central Egypt.”

He glared, “You think you know everything just because you’re a physics major! But there’s another world out there, too. One you can’t see! It inhabits the same realm as your gravitons.”

“Gravitons are real!” Vukosova exclaimed.

“Yeah? Show me one!”

“Well, you can’t just open your eyes and see one! You need special equipment…”

“And then can you see one?”

“Well...not exactly. But we can see evidence that gives a strong indication of the properties and the effects of...”

“So your gravitons are as imaginary as my negative Atlantean energy.”

“They aren’t the same...”

Martin turned away and stalked out of the dining hall. He stopped just before he slammed the door and shouted, “We’ll see whose god is more powerful! The trapped sorcerers of Atlantis and Ancient Egypt or the trapped gravitons of the Unified Field Theory!”

She blinked in surprise as he finished his rant and stomped away. She muttered, “I didn’t know he knew anything about the Unified Field Theory!”

Name Source: Sweden, Serbia
Image:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Creating Alien Aliens, Part 29 A: Sketching the Background -- Can I Make A CRYSTAL Being..um…SING?

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...

Crystalline life forms…if there were such a thing…which there’s not. Though there is a fringe of Humanity that believes that crystals have mystic powers: https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/health/a26559820/healing-crystals/. Certainly the mirror (which is, of course made of glass, aka crystalline silicon (NOT “silicone”, which is a human-made plastic) in Snow White would be considered sentient.

The question I’d pose here is why would the mirror cares what a bunch of Humans were doing, no matter how ravishingly beautiful they were? Fact is that: the mirror; the crystalline silicon being, would find Human affairs dull and boring.

So, what if crystals WERE a sapient life forms in themselves – or when the right number of them are gathered together, could “come to life”? What if what we see as physical reactions, are instead the reactions of a life form I wouldn’t recognize as a lifeform?

In a book I’m reading, A ZOOLOGIST’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY (obviously riffing off of HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY), zoologist and author Arik Kershenbaum writes: “The book argues that the evolutionary processes that are observed operating on Earth are universal, and a necessary requirement for the presence of complex life on any planet. As a result, many aspects of animal behavior are likely to be present in the equivalent lifeforms on alien planets. This includes certain features of social behavior, communication, and movement, the evolutionary origin of which on Earth is underpinned by universal processes.”

On the other hand, Carl Zimmer in his recent book, LIFE’S EDGE, writes this near the end: “Instead [of defining life] scientists should be working towards a theory that explains life…‘assembly theory’…calculates the number of steps it takes to build something…a living organism needs far more [than one step to form]: materials made by living things…are exquisitely complex…’ Life is a state of matter that can spontaneously make things with a lot of assembly steps.’”

“One of the originators of this theory of life is a chemist, Lee Cronin, who has devised an ingenious experiment to test the theory…’The idea is that some of the droplets [that form] will spark complex reactions, creating new compounds that can store information – a condition of life. Cronin’s droplets may even, one day, be declared alive. ‘I’m pretty sure we will crack the origin-of-life problem in the next few years,’ he says. ‘But then everyone will go: ‘Oh, that was easy.’”

I’m not sure yet why Kershenbaum believes that biological laws (which even on Earth) are regularly and spectacularly contradicted, must be Universal everywhere else in Physical Reality.

Associate professor Kevin J Mitchell, at Trinity College in Dublin (Ireland) wrote this: “By taking what is essentially an engineering and computational perspective, we can simplify our view of the functional architecture of living systems. For example, we can recognise that some set of components interacting in a certain way acts as a filter, or a switch, or a coincidence detector, and so on. And when we put several of them together just so, we make an oscillator or a homeostatic regulator or an evidence accumulator. This provides a way to go beyond simply describing what is happening to actually understanding what the system is doing.” Zimmer holds that once we can “calculate the number of steps it takes to build something”, we will if nothing else, be at the beginning of understanding life on Earth – and presumably life among the countless exoplanets.

To summarize: one author believes that all life in the universe will be some understandable riff off of the life on Earth (which, while in its wild variety, is UNDERSTANDABLE), and therefore all aliens will be UNDERSTANDABLE (Kerschenbaum); again, that we will be able to UNDERSTAND alien life, no matter where we find it. “We will use the laws of biology just as we would use the laws of physics and chemistry.”

Mitchell from Trinity expects that once we recognize the components that interact in particular ways, we will understand life on Earth and elsewhere.

What I understand my reading thus far, is that there SHOULD be a “theory/theories of biology” that is as succinct to apply as Newton’s Third Law of Motion: Force = mass x acceleration. Yet all three of these writers – all at the cutting edge of their fields – can’t state one of the Laws of Biology with anything even approaching the elegance of Newton’s Third Law, F=ma.

So, there are currently 5040 confirmed exoplanets in some 3876 star systems. A FORBES online magazine article suggests that one third of these confirmed exoplanets may be in their star’s habitable zone. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2023/05/29/a-third-of-the-most-common-exoplanets-may-host-life-say-scientists/?sh=580cdc972400), so approximately 1,663 of them would be in their star’s HABITABLE ZONE (aka the “Goldilocks Zone” (or, “Goldilocks went upstairs into the bed chamber and first she lay down upon the bed of the great, huge bear, and then she lay down upon the bed of the middle bear and finally she lay down upon the bed of the little, small wee bear, and that was just right.” The Zone would be JUST RIGHT for…Humans…right?)

Dr. Kershenbaum is writing (thus far), he seems certain that life on other worlds will be no more amazing that life on Earth – which is no mean feat, spanning Humans and elephants to Bacillaria and Black Smokers…It almost seems that he’s limiting life to what we both know and understand…

So what does that do to my story?

If life could evolve from regular, everyday single-celled organisms, what’s to stop it from evolving from Bacillaria? It is an organism that is both unique and difficult to explain. Bacillaria paxillifer is a colonial diatom whose members live in colonies and slide along each other, rather like slippery rectangular microscope slides.

The question of WHY they behave this way is essentially unanswerable. The majority of diatoms float freely; though not all of them, and we might as well include my Siphonophoria “alien” based on one of the colonial “jellyfish” recently observed off the coast of Australia. How would a sapient lifeform, descended from paxillifer THINK?

Maybe it would be easier to start with a “single-celled” crystalline organism like the mirror I postulated above? In the movie starring Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen, the crystalline mirror DOES actually have an opinion. It tries to communicate that opinion, which the Queen ignores until the end and the sentient crystal says, “Ready to learn the price for using magic?” and a dark movie actually becomes darker as the crystalline entity exacts its vengeance by allowing the Evil Queen to age to her true age – a wizened and aged crone who can barely walk or talk.

Next time though, I’d like to skip over the philosophy above and look at how I see a crystalline entity behaving – especially looking at how it would perceive the world and wondering how Mirror got trapped into being a simple looking-glass in an ancient kingdom…

Source: https://aliens.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Crystalline_Species
Reference: STAR TREK: TNG – “DataLore”; “Silicon Avatar”; https://blogs.stockton.edu/blogstock/2022/01/20/shhhh-listen-do-you-hear-the-sound-of-crystals/#:~:text=These%20vibrations%20are%20produced%20due,temperature%2C%20light%2C%20or%20vibration.; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillaria ;
https://www.britannica.com/science/mineral-chemical-compound/Classification-of-minerals; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zoologist%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy ; https://www.storynory.com/goldilocks-and-the-three-bears/

Image: https://storage.googleapis.com/adforum-media/34485812/ad_34485812_9ff78217986d290f_1_web.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Creating Alien Aliens, Part 29 A: Sketching the Background -- Can Make A CRYSTAL Being..um…SING?

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...

Crystalline life forms…if there were such a thing…which there’s not. Though there is a fringe of Humanity that believes that crystals have mystic powers: https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/health/a26559820/healing-crystals/. Certainly the mirror (which is, of course made of glass, aka crystalline silicon (NOT “silicone”, which is a human-made plastic) in Snow White would be considered sentient.

The question I’d pose here is why would the mirror cares what a bunch of Humans were doing, no matter how ravishingly beautiful they were? Fact is that: the mirror; the crystalline silicon being, would find Human affairs dull and boring.

So, what if crystals WERE a sapient life forms in themselves – or when the right number of them are gathered together, could “come to life”? What if what we see as physical reactions, are instead the reactions of a life form I wouldn’t recognize as a lifeform?

In a book I’m reading, A ZOOLOGIST’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY (obviously riffing off of HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY), zoologist and author Arik Kershenbaum writes: “The book argues that the evolutionary processes that are observed operating on Earth are universal, and a necessary requirement for the presence of complex life on any planet. As a result, many aspects of animal behavior are likely to be present in the equivalent lifeforms on alien planets. This includes certain features of social behavior, communication, and movement, the evolutionary origin of which on Earth is underpinned by universal processes.”

On the other hand, Carl Zimmer in his recent book, LIFE’S EDGE, writes this near the end: “Instead [of defining life] scientists should be working towards a theory that explains life…‘assembly theory’…calculates the number of steps it takes to build something…a living organism needs far more [than one step to form]: materials made by living things…are exquisitely complex…’ Life is a state of matter that can spontaneously make things with a lot of assembly steps.’”

“One of the originators of this theory of life is a chemist, Lee Cronin, who has devised an ingenious experiment to test the theory…’The idea is that some of the droplets [that form] will spark complex reactions, creating new compounds that can store information – a condition of life. Cronin’s droplets may even, one day, be declared alive. ‘I’m pretty sure we will crack the origin-of-life problem in the next few years,’ he says. ‘But then everyone will go: ‘Oh, that was easy.’”

I’m not sure yet why Kershenbaum believes that biological laws (which even on Earth) are regularly and spectacularly contradicted, must be Universal everywhere else in Physical Reality.

Associate professor Kevin J Mitchell, at Trinity College in Dublin (Ireland) wrote this: “By taking what is essentially an engineering and computational perspective, we can simplify our view of the functional architecture of living systems. For example, we can recognise that some set of components interacting in a certain way acts as a filter, or a switch, or a coincidence detector, and so on. And when we put several of them together just so, we make an oscillator or a homeostatic regulator or an evidence accumulator. This provides a way to go beyond simply describing what is happening to actually understanding what the system is doing.” Zimmer holds that once we can “calculate the number of steps it takes to build something”, we will if nothing else, be at the beginning of understanding life on Earth – and presumably life among the countless exoplanets.

To summarize: one author believes that all life in the universe will be some understandable riff off of the life on Earth (which, while in its wild variety, is UNDERSTANDABLE), and therefore all aliens will be UNDERSTANDABLE (Kerschenbaum); again, that we will be able to UNDERSTAND alien life, no matter where we find it. “We will use the laws of biology just as we would use the laws of physics and chemistry.”

Mitchell from Trinity expects that once we recognize the components that interact in particular ways, we will understand life on Earth and elsewhere.

What I understand my reading thus far, is that there SHOULD be a “theory/theories of biology” that is as succinct to apply as Newton’s Third Law of Motion: Force = mass x acceleration. Yet all three of these writers – all at the cutting edge of their fields – can’t state one of the Laws of Biology with anything even approaching the elegance of Newton’s Third Law, F=ma.

So, there are currently 5040 confirmed exoplanets in some 3876 star systems. A FORBES online magazine article suggests that one third of these confirmed exoplanets may be in their star’s habitable zone. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2023/05/29/a-third-of-the-most-common-exoplanets-may-host-life-say-scientists/?sh=580cdc972400), so approximately 1,663 of them would be in their star’s HABITABLE ZONE (aka the “Goldilocks Zone” (or, “Goldilocks went upstairs into the bed chamber and first she lay down upon the bed of the great, huge bear, and then she lay down upon the bed of the middle bear and finally she lay down upon the bed of the little, small wee bear, and that was just right.” The Zone would be JUST RIGHT for…Humans…right?)

Dr. Kershenbaum is writing (thus far), he seems certain that life on other worlds will be no more amazing that life on Earth – which is no mean feat, spanning Humans and elephants to Bacillaria and Black Smokers…It almost seems that he’s limiting life to what we both know and understand…

So what does that do to my story?

If life could evolve from regular, everyday single-celled organisms, what’s to stop it from evolving from Bacillaria? It is an organism that is both unique and difficult to explain. Bacillaria paxillifer is a colonial diatom whose members live in colonies and slide along each other, rather like slippery rectangular microscope slides.

The question of WHY they behave this way is essentially unanswerable. The majority of diatoms float freely; though not all of them, and we might as well include my Siphonophoria “alien” based on one of the colonial “jellyfish” recently observed off the coast of Australia. How would a sapient lifeform, descended from paxillifer THINK?

Maybe it would be easier to start with a “single-celled” crystalline organism like the mirror I postulated above? In the movie starring Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen, the crystalline mirror DOES actually have an opinion. It tries to communicate that opinion, which the Queen ignores until the end and the sentient crystal says, “Ready to learn the price for using magic?” and a dark movie actually becomes darker as the crystalline entity exacts its vengeance by allowing the Evil Queen to age to her true age – a wizened and aged crone who can barely walk or talk.

Next time though, I’d like to skip over the philosophy above and look at how I see a crystalline entity behaving – especially looking at how it would perceive the world and wondering how Mirror got trapped into being a simple looking-glass in an ancient kingdom…

Source: https://aliens.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Crystalline_Species
Reference: STAR TREK: TNG – “DataLore”; “Silicon Avatar”; https://blogs.stockton.edu/blogstock/2022/01/20/shhhh-listen-do-you-hear-the-sound-of-crystals/#:~:text=These%20vibrations%20are%20produced%20due,temperature%2C%20light%2C%20or%20vibration.; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillaria ;
https://www.britannica.com/science/mineral-chemical-compound/Classification-of-minerals; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zoologist%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy ; https://www.storynory.com/goldilocks-and-the-three-bears/

Image: https://storage.googleapis.com/adforum-media/34485812/ad_34485812_9ff78217986d290f_1_web.jpg

IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 596

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: messiah
Current Event: Song lyrics: “Siamese, Lebanese, Chinese speaking strip TV's

Singapore, El Salvador, Coca-Cola....Mercury, luxury, shove that Fender fist at me…Embryo, UFO, freako psycho horror show; Hips n' lips n' beauty queens
Venus ramp, sexy tramp, make up muck, My vegas vamp” [http://www.releaselyrics.com/8433/sig...]

They’d been waiting in the abandoned port of Duluth for ten hours.

Logan Andrist frowned and said, “You’re sure Professor Buddlorem told you to meet him here?”

Nkokoyanga Pomodimo held up her tablet computer, thumbed the screen to life and tapped until she had the message. She handed it to Logan and said, “Right here. Used to be a downhill ski resort here.”

“What’s ‘downhill skiing’?”

“No idea.”

He turned in a complete circle again, then looked up into the sky. It was a dark, dark blue as the last of the blood red sunlight drained from the sky. Stars came out, wavering at first in the thickening air near Lake Superior. The lake had once teemed with diverse life forms. Now giant salmon and tiny, razor-toothed smelt battled fast-swimming lamprey for the zebra mussels they’d been gengineered to feed on.

None of the creatures had been created for any purpose but weapons in the war that had heated up between the Chinese States of America and Fragmented Canada.

Now neither side could safely fish the waters. Anyone who plied the surface had to run armed as it was said that one of the countries had developed some massive creature – a freshwater whale or octopus or squid or shrieking eel – that lived in the depths of the Inland (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LydQXydQKrc) Sea. Logan sighed and said, “You think it’ll ever look like it used to?”

“When? Like at the end of the Ice Age or you want the middle of the Deglaciation of North America or before the European Invasion of Laurentia?” Nkokoyanga snapped. She tapped her tablet furiously. A moment later, it bleated angrily. She said, “I’m not even getting a GPS signal.”

“What?”

“What are you, deaf and stupid?”

“Neither,” he snapped back. “What I mean is that how can you possibly be signal blocked?”

“We must be out of line-of-sight...”

Logan said, “How can we be invisible to a satellite?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. “I’m being blocked.” She looked around, then down at the harbor far below them. They were standing on a hill that had once been a ski resort – if the ancient map could be believed. But instead off the reflection of the azure sky like the one in the picture, the waters below seemed to surge with murky gray, roiling as something swam through the bay, leaving a faint, oily wake. She stared at the water far below for a while then said, “I don’t think anything we do can turn back the clock far enough for these lakes. Even if we dump a million tons of iron into them, they’re still gonna die.”

“That could be serious...” Logan began, pausing. He’d seen something move back on the tree line. It was movement that couldn’t be caused by the steady wind off the lake. Besides movement, it brought with it a cold, fish smell.

“Of course it could be serious, you idiot! It’s the...”

Cutting Nkokoyanga off, Logan said, “If you’d let me finish, I was going to say it could have serious ramifications for the land surrounding the lakes. All kinds of flora and fauna...”

“Why can’t you just say plants and animals?”

“Because it’s more than that,” he began, when something walked out of the heavy brush at the edge of the clearing.

A tall figure, dressed simply for the mid-summer weather, walked up to them and said something in a language neither understood. Nkokoyanga bent over her tablet, tapping furiously. The figure said in plain Spandaringlish, “You won’t find Ojibwe in your computer, I’m sorry to say.”

Logan said, “Why not?”

“It’s a forgotten language,” the figure said. Logan couldn’t figure out if it was a male voice or a female voice. Maybe both. It said, “Ojibwe was one of the languages spoken in these hills in the past.”

Nkokoyanga snorted, “There weren’t any people on Laurentia to speak...”

He laughed and said, “I’m a native of these parts, Madame Pomodimo, not an idiot.”

“How do you know my name?”

He snorted this time and said, “I know everything, and I’m about to tell you a large part of what I know.”

Names: ♀ Central African Republic, Gbaya; ♂ Minnesota, Minnesota
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: Misbelief and Crafting FLASH Science Fiction

I may have mentioned that one of my goals is to increase my writing output, increase my publication rate, and increase the relevance of my writing. In my WRITING ADVICE column, I had started using an article my sister sent me by Lisa Cron. She has worked as a literary agent, TV producer, and story consultant for Warner Brothers, the William Morris Agency, and others. She is a frequent speaker at writers’ conferences, and a story coach for writers, educators, and journalists. I am going to fuse the advice from her book WIRED FOR STORY with my recent trip to South Korea. Why? I made a discovery there. You’ll hear more about it in the future as I work to integrate what I’m learning from the book, the startling things I found in South Korea, and try and alter how I write in order to create characters that people will care about, characters that will speak the Truth, and characters that will clearly illustrate what I’m writing about.
NOTE: Shortly, I'll be finishing a novel that encompasses this small story. THIS story hasn't sold yet, but considering I wrote it four years ago and I'm a better writing today that I was then, I'm going to try it again -- because I'm coming out of about six months "living" in the world of this piece of flash. For THAT, I'll keep you in the loop to find out whether I could sell it or not!

“Remember when Luke has to drop the bomb into the small vent on the Death Star? The story writer faces a similar challenge of penetrating the brain of the reader. This book gives the blueprints.” – David Eagleman

“The reader expects that the plot will force the protagonist to confront and overcome her misbelief, something she’s probably spent her whole life avoiding.

“As readers we cue into the protagonist’s misbelief surprisingly early, and expect the plot to continually challenge it. And, because misbeliefs are deeply ingrained early in life, we know that the protagonist isn’t going to give it up without a fight. Especially since to her it isn’t a misbelief at all, but a savvy piece of inside intel she’s lucky to have learned early in life.”

I’m trying to write a piece of flash science fiction. I have 1200 words to tell an entire story aimed at young adults – and in the case of SF, that includes BUILDING THE WORLD THAT THE STORY TAKES PLACE IN!

Oh, and having the protagonist and antagonist being best friends. And their parents are dating and that dating may or may not have political overtones, or even be entirely politically motivated.

Twelve hundred words.

The original story went something like this: The guys are on their way to the last few days of “school” (which is ALSO different in this, the 25th Century, “On a well-settled Mars, the five major city Council regimes struggle to meld into a stable, working government. Embracing an official Unified Faith In Humanity, the Councils are teetering on the verge of pogrom directed against Christians, Molesters , Jews, Rapists, Buddhists, Murderers, Muslims, Thieves, Hindu, Embezzlers and Artificial Humans – anyone who threatens the official Faith and the consolidating power of the Councils.” (https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/search/label/SCIENCE%20FICTION%20-%20Martian%20Holiday))

So – our hero and anti-hero are getting ready for being drafted into their chosen profession as apprentices. They’re also getting ready to “vanish” into the depths of Burroughs Dome to celebrate their newly-conferred adulthood. For Kalbin and Waqas though, things are turning sour. Waqas hates Artificial Humans; Kalbin may be a partial AH, which is HIGHLY illegal not to mention unethical and unprecedented as well. Kalbin’s dad (Mom disappeared shortly after his birth) is the Circulation Director for the online tabloid, “UNDER THE DOME, All the News That’s Fit To Whisper!” Waqas’ mom is running for her third term as the minority Liberal party candidate on Burroughs Dome Council (they have a Strong Mayor, Weak Council structure) and has been pushing for extending civil rights for marginalized people (and for the rest of them as well, but that’s not important at this time in Martian history.)

Waqas hates it because the "poor and indigent" are more important to his mom than HE is. (Which is, I might point out, a misbelief of a minor character.)

A lot. He’s a beefed up version of his dad, who owns and operates an ice rig on the bottom of the Northern Dune Sea. Dad is OK with Artificials – as long as they know their place...and stay there.

Kalbin, who was diagnosed with methemoglobinemia (“It’s under control! I just look more blue at some times than at, uh, others…”) as a child. Common practice is to wait until puberty has run its course to do full retrogene replacement. That’s what was going to happen after Kalbin announces his draft choice.

Waqas doesn’t have a choice. As much as he wanted to be an entrepreneur, his dad overruled his choice and he’ll start as an apprentice on the Northern Dune Sea with the rest of his sisters and brother. He’s angry and as he can’t take it out on his family, he’s taking out his frustration on Kalbin, who has issues of his own.

See, he suspects he’s not entirely Human. In fact, he suspects that not only is his dad NOT the Circulation Director, but is the author of the infamous “Not-Quite-Blue-Boy” recurring series in the tabloid UNDER THE DOME.

For whom he is the model…and IS he Human at all? If he’s partially Artificial, then what is he? Was he created as a political statement? Is that why Waqas’ mom is dating Kalbin’s dad – to make some sort of political score? Has his dad EVER really cared about him as a person, a son, or has his whole life been a fake? He’s wondered this for a long time. It’s not only a misbelief, it drives how he sees himself and how he’s reacting to the world around him.

At the beginning of the ORIGINAL story, none of this was clear. Now it is. In the end, Kalbin confronts his father, and not getting any satisfaction, he runs off into the Underground.

That is a MANIFESTLY wimpy story.

The first two lines were awful as well…
“Face2FaceSchool was a drag even when Kalbin’s dad was a kid.
“‘We got five weeks, then finally, the Draft!’ Qusay said.”

That is such a wimpy beginning, I’m embarrassed. It’s as if the writer of my most recently accepted story gave writing the opening line to the thirteen-year-old Guy Stewart instead of to the more experienced writer who recently wrote: “Larry Henry was muttering in the Orion Lunar lander mockup when Mission Control interrupted their regularly scheduled disaster.”

That line was so well-turned it surprised me. And I wrote it.

To the current blog point, though: “The reader expects that the plot will force the protagonist to confront and overcome her misbelief, something she’s probably spent her whole life avoiding.”

This is what the readers will expect in “Not Quite Blue Boy”; it’s something that’s not quite there yet. On the other hand, it’s something that after ruminating on what I was trying to accomplish and (in this case, having to write out the story here, ruminating on how it intersects with Cron’s reader expectations and her other 52 Mass Points. If it’s a formula, thus far it’s been extremely successful – “Road Veterinarian” and “Kamsahamnida, America” were both written under the influence of WIRED FOR STORY; both sold to a top market.

This one, finally, will also be written “under-the-influence”. I’ll keep you posted on it!

(While it's NOT part of the Korean Solar Expansion, all of the stories will now be influenced by my experience in South Korea.)

Resource: https://www.creativelive.com/blog/essential-storytelling-techniques/
Maps and Photos: http://www.faculty.virginia.edu/rwoclass/astr121/marsImages.html
Image: 

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 595

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: Black Barf http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadBlackBarf
Current Event: Ebola Outbreak (http://cydathria.com/ebola.html)

Haysam Akbhar-Sosa shook his head and said, "This is impossible. I can't do it."

Bao Coppage stood beside him. She said, "We don't have any choice. If Ebola spreads any farther, it's gonna take over the world." They looked down at the waves of refugees fleeing Egypt and the Middle East, ravaged by a nearly uncontrollable strain of Ebola. They were on foot, in cars, buses, being pulled by donkey, oxen, and even other humans whom they whipped. She said, "It's stop it here and now or we all go down."

"I don't much care if Europe and the US go down..."

"There are people of faith everywhere, Haysam. They're all gonna die. This strain of Ebola doesn't care if you're a holy man or an avowed atheist."

There was a long pause and she'd known him long enough to expect him to argue. But this time he said only, "I know." He leaned over the sights of the monstrous flamethrower. Mounted on the gondola of the massive helium balloon, they flew slowly along with the river of sick humanity.

"We might not have to do anything," Bao said.

He shot her a look and she was surprised when he said, "Thanks for trying to make me feel better, but it's either kill these...ghūl...ghouls..."

"You know what these things are?"

He nodded slowly, "They're from ONE THOUSAND AND ONE ARABIAN NIGHTS." He paused for a long time, then added, "My brothers would tell me stories about them after I tattled on them."

"Your brothers told you the stories?"

He snorted, "Yeah. They hated me because I was the baby of the family and mom loved me more." She scowled and looked at him. He batted his eyelashes and then burst out laughing.

Leaning into him, she opened her mouth to reply when a commotion broke out below. Directly under the gondola, all they could see was people bunching up instead of trudging on. Bao had to pull back on the throttle and then give it a short reverse spin.

"What's..." Haysam began. Then the faces below looked up at them. There was a wet, gurgling sound, then a mass of humans looked up, opened their mouths. An instant later, what looked like a fountain of tarry black liquid rushed up.

It wasn’t. They’d been told them to wear gas masks, so they were suited up. What no one had mentioned was tentacles. Black, dripping, horrible, the slender, pestilential whips grabbed them, slammed Bao and Haysham, then tore the masks from their faces. Convulsing in a paroxysm of agony, they screamed until...

Names: ♀ China, England; ♂ Egypt, Bahrain
Image: https://cdn.britannica.com/40/11740-004-50816EB1/Boris-Karloff-Frankenstein-monster.jpg

JAX LUNAR LUMBER #4: “What’s So Funny About Little Green…Trees?”

A couple years ago, I related to my wife that, when I was working for the now-defunct Knox Lumber Company, I was told that if someone were patient, they could buy ALL of the supplies necessary to build a house ON SALE from the store. Knowing the company strictly from the perspective of a “yard ape” (aka Outside Lumberyard Attendant), and having moved zillions of tons (or watched it moved by the truly massive forklift that only a few people were allowed to drive) of building materials – from bags of sand to prefabricated trusses…I believed it. After a moment, I said, “Do you think you could buy the supplies necessary to build a Lunar colony from Knox?” We laughed and I said, “That’s ridiculous!” However, as I thought about it, it occurred to me that it might JUST be possible.

That speculation led to the first “Jax Lunar Lumber” little blurb. It wasn’t even a piece of flash fiction. But lately, after discovering that there are actually things called Moon Trees, and that scientists have just grown rock cress seeds in Lunar soil, I suddenly realize that there might be stories I can harvest from this subject…um…so to speak…

So, we’ve got Lunar Trees scattered around the US and a couple other places on earth: “…the Command Module Pilot on the Apollo 14 mission, to bring a small canister containing about 500 seeds aboard the module in 1971. Seeds for the experiment were chosen from five species of tree: loblolly pine, sycamore, sweetgum, redwood, and Douglas fir. In 2022, NASA announced it would be reviving the moon tree program by carrying 1,000 seeds aboard an Artemis Mission.

“After the flight, the seeds were sent to the southern Forest Service station in Gulfport, Mississippi, and to the western station in Placerville, California, with the intent to germinate them. Nearly all the seeds germinated successfully, and after a few years, the Forest Service had about 420 seedlings. Some of these were planted alongside their Earth-bound counterparts, which were specifically set aside as controls. After more than 40 years, there was no discernible difference between the two classes of trees.”

That’s the story. But whatever happened to the other 580? “Nearly all the seeds germinated successfully, and after a few years, the Forest Service had about 420 seedlings.” Did they “unsuccessfully” germinate? What might THAT mean? How about the kids from the class? Did seeing the Moon Tree affect any of them? I mean…for me? I could imagine a slightly different future (though I live in a state that did NOT get a Moon Tree (we’re too far north…). The nearest one for me to see is in Des Moines, IA. My son and grandkids saw one of the three trees in North Carolina.

“Most of the ‘Moon trees’ were given away in 1975 and 1976 to state forestry organizations, in order to be planted as part of the nation's bicentennial celebration. Since the trees were all of southern or western species, not all states received trees. A Loblolly Pine was planted at the White House, and trees were planted in Brazil, Switzerland, and presented to Emperor Hirohito, among others."

So, my senior year in high school, the trees were sent out to their new homes (the complete list of where they went are in the Wikipedia article linked below.

But I’m a writer. Some of the possibilities for story here: the tree that was given to the Emperor of Japan, Hirohito – the man who initiated and led the War in the Pacific – including the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. What??? Why would the US Government give HIM a tree that had gone into space? There’s a story there, I’m sure.

One of the trees was sent to Santa Rosa, Brazil to the “Soybean Fairgrounds, Parque Municipal de Exposições”. Ironically, this Brazilian State was settled by… “European immigrants in 1915, mainly Italians, Germans and Russians. The German dialect traditionally spoken in the region is Riograndenser Hunsrückisch.” Two of the groups were members of the Axis Powers along with Japan; the third a people who would become the second-greatest Communist empire on Earth…

Is this significant? *laugh* Probably not at all; but MAN it would lend all sorts of stuff to a STORY! Maybe throw these “gift Moon Trees” in with fact that “Nearly all the seeds germinated successfully, and after a few years, the Forest Service had about 420 seedlings.” The fact that the trees were handed out accounts for of them; as well, some 47 of the trees later died…though not one of the Redwoods… Based on a count from Wiki and under the assumption that only ONE tree was granted to each recipient (unless otherwise noted), that only accounts for 112 of the 420…so…what if 308 of them were planted on a remote mountain preserve or a place all of the species might flourish: Redwood, sycamore, Douglas fir, Loblolly pine, and sweet gum. They grew, and…(cue eerie music) what happened? What about the trees in Brazil? Planted in the Amazon Rain Forest??? There are even a few whose status is unknown. Why is that? You’d THINK something like that would make a splash; then again, NASA and the world forgot about the trees for a while – did they have something to HIDE?

While none of these trees is precisely "little", all of them share the legacy of having been to the Moon and back. And the fact is that: "Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin were the first of 12 human beings to walk on the Moon. Four of America's moonwalkers are still alive: Aldrin (Apollo 11), David Scott (Apollo 15), Charles Duke (Apollo 16), and Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17)" -- four men left who walked. How many people flew to the Moon and back? In addition to the 24 Apollo astronauts, four others are slated to follow them for the first time in 50 years in November of 2024...
This is going to be FUN!

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_tree, https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/moon_tree.html, https://www.astronomy.com/space-exploration/when-will-artemis-2-launch-and-what-will-the-mission-do/Image: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/moon_trees/moon_tree_campkoch.gif