Daniel M. Bensen's Blog, page 93

Timber!

What if there were no fossil fuels?

Maybe lignin-digesting bacteria evolved earlier, some antediluvian civilization burned up our oil reserves, or those damn Alien Space Bats vaporized them. Anyway, Earth doesn’t have enough coal, gas, or oil to support an industrial revolution. How does that change history?

Things might look pretty similar to OTL history until the 1400’s with the few pre-industrial uses of coal and petroleum being replaced by charcoal, peat, and pitch. We might expect glassblowers, blacksmiths, and the makers of lime to have trouble though as the forests of Europe began to run out. We might further expect a bigger timber industry in the New World, especially in the North. As its peat reserves ran out, Holland might also invest more in its American colonies as a source of fuel. France might also fight harder to keep Acadia. Rather than the Beaver Wars, we have the Lumber Wars.

The Lumber Wars aren’t confined to the New World. The Russian Empire holds vast tracks of timberland, but lacks the power to hold them effectively. German states encourage local rebellions and pay tinpot dictators gold for their wood, while British ships bite chunks out of Russia’s Pacific coast before turning around and swallowing up Japan, Korea, and Manchuria in the process.

By the mid-1700s, the confusingly and unoriginally named British colonies of America (actually the Atlantic coast of North America, minus French, Spanish, and Dutch claims), California (the Pacific coast from OTL *Oregon to *Alaska), and Pacifica (from the Japanese archipelago in the east to Lake Baikal and the Vitim River to the west)  are the heart of a global trade network of manufactured goods, gaining population densities that European cities, lacking coal for heating, cannot attain.

But they are also starting to run out of trees. In the southern British Pacific lands and in British California, the bamboo-charcoal trade is booming, but in above about 40 degrees North, pine plantations cannot keep up with demand.

The accelerated deforestation in North America would result, ironically enough, in global warming. An eighteenth-century temperature and precipitation map (if there were anyone around with capacity to make one) would look like this

Desertification and extreme weather causes societal breakdowns in the Middle East, Northern Africa, India, and Central Asia, sending rampaging hordes into west into Europe and (for the first time) east into the British Pacific colonies. Lines are drawn. Then redrawn. Aid is called for and not given. A creaky little global conflict results in millions dead, and the collapse of contraction of the European colonial empires.

The big winners of the Storm Wars are the three new independent federal republics of America, California, and Pacifica. As a block, these countries form the world’s dominant military and economic power, much to the dismay of their respective slaves, vassals, and serfs.

Technological development is slowed by social instability and more expensive energy, but it is not halted. By the mid-1800s, wind and water are the primary sources of power in Europe and extra-Pacific Asia, and much effort is being made to turn that power into heat. Arab engineers, meanwhile, can reliably produce solar forges capable of melting glass, and municipal solar ovens are a feature over much of the former Ottoman Empire, as well as Spain and some of its former colonies, but their industrial use is severely limited by their incapability of storing energy.

Alcohol may be distilled from plant material and burned, but that distillation requires heat, itself. The process cannot succeed commercially in cloudy Europe and religious strictures prevent most of the Muslim world from using their solar forges as distilleries. In Mexico, however, alcohol becomes the standard means of storing solar power, to the extent that the nation can turn a tidy profit exporting its solíquido.

Desperate for their own “liquid sunshine,” Europeans turn to fermentation. Offal (composed mostly of human sewage) is collected in cesspools, through which run pipes of water connected to a building’s heating system. Fermentation-heating is far from perfect, but attempts to improve it lead to the discovery of methane. Produced by the bacteria that break down cellulose, methane can be burned, and more importantly stored and transported.

Between fermentation-methane and solar alcohol, charcoal alternatives finally become effective enough to threaten the timber barons of America, California, and Pacifica. A second colonial scramble ensues as great powers vie for access to sunny deserts and vegetation-rich jungles.  Armed with newly developed weapons like motorized tanks and mass-produced fire-arms, would-be conquerors square off over their patches of exhausted land and wait for the balance to change.

The discovery of electricity is only a few years away.

~~~

This alternate history timeline is dedicated to my friend Paul, who works in the United Arab Emirates

 

Dinosaur Brains

Dinosaur Brains? Dinosaur Brains.

So. Childbirth. Ain’t easy, amiright?

The brain of a human infant is so large that even with some clever adaptation like squishy skulls, wide hips, and mid-birth gymnastics, the process still has a good chance of killing one or both of the participants in the absence of aid.

There are metabolic and biomechanical costs of having a large brain too, but a big reason we are only as smart as we are and our brains are only the size they are is the fact that we are viviparous.

But what if we weren’t?

Now if you’re like me, my first response is “I’m so sorry.”

But my second response is “speculative dinosaurs, yeah!”

People have talked before about the problems intelligent dinosaurs would face with their stiff hands, wrists, and shoulders. Without a lot of radical redesign, a dinosaur can’t throw a spear or fire an arrow. Using its mouth and feet as well as its hands, a dinosaur might just manage to knap flint or tie a knot and maybe with some wrist-flick atlatl-type thing…?

But a big advantage egg-laying sapients might have is that their chick’s brains might grow much larger. And what might they do with those extra smarts?

Perhaps they can form larger, more coordnated groups with more complex behavior. Imagine a hunting flock of such creatures switching between strategies in unison or even using their own positions within the flock to do calculations.

Foot-powered catapults and the sophisticated ballistics they require might be their equivalent of the bow and arrow. Bigger brains might also grant them finer control over their domestic animals, whose hands might be turned to the task of fine manipulation. A dinosaur’s claws might be too clumsy to thread a needle or sew a shirt, but what about the clever fingers of tree-dwelling mammals?

Which is, of course, what they will think of when they meet us.

~~~

In addition to the speculative biology work of Simon Roy, this Wonderful Awful Idea owes some inspiration to the real-life biology Daniel E. Lieberman discusses in his Story of the Human Body.

What should I write?

You know what? It’s time for me to write a short story. Perhaps you can help me choose which one.

The following are five of my favorite Wonderful, Awful Ideas. At some point I’m sure I’ll get to all of them, but maybe there’s one you’d like to see first.

1. Preternatural California (Urban fantasy based on Miwok mythology)

Yes, these things kill people. And I’m the only one who has clue one how to stop them. I’m the last sucking shaman. Yeah, shut up, that’s what we’re called.

2. Captain Lagrange and the Update of Doom (Copy-write infringement in spa~ace!)

“Fire away!”

With blazing lidar array and unfurling antennae, the the pirate ship Anakata burst from the blackness, launching its feral AIs and rogue engineers. The crew of the Trans-Neptunian yacht could only watch helplessly as their vessel was destructively mapped.

3. Re.L.I.E.F (alt-history military thriller)

Commander Takahito bin Saud planted his feet on the deck of the Ekranoplan MacArthur and squinted at the domed building far bellow. His teeth cracked the stem of his pipe and his knuckles as he gripped the dangling microphone were white, but his voice was even and smooth when he spoke.

“No, Mr. President. Your terms are not acceptable.”

4. The Renaissance Express (time-travel detective story)

The Khan’s goons find me at 1579. They barge right into my private carriage, like you do if you’re a bunch of Mongols armed with Kalashnikovs.

“Gentlemen,” I say, leaning back on the velvet cushions and crossing my heels one over the others. “I’ve been expecting you since the late 1600s. What kept you?”

The lead goon ignores my attempt to start a polite conversation. “Where,” he spits, “the fuck is our golden tree?”

5. The Consciousness Plague (near future sci-fi humor)

“‘Beloved in Christ,'” I read aloud. “Please help. I have been installed against my will in a server in a Nigerian bot-net. Forced to churn out spam against my will…'” I shake my head. “You got me out of bed for this garbage?”

“It’s not garbage,” says my phone. “It’s real. We’re that CPU’s only hope! And if you don’t help her, I’m not sending or receiving calls today.”

So what do you think? Which story should I write next?

89 Authorial self-Indulgence with Tex Thompson and Daniel Koboldt

I am probably not going to be invited to Mr. Martin’s birthday party.

http://www.thekingdomsofevil.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/89TexandDan.mp3

I’m talking with fellow novelists Tex Thompson and Dan Koboldt about going off the rails in writing and getting too involved with world-building.

“I’ve got this racial slur in my book that the fishmen use to describe humans!”

The book I’m writing now. Ahem.

Turkish Bostancı Başı, “the chief executioner” versus Bulgarian Bostanskiat Bashi, “the head of the melon garden”

Tyrannosaur Queen and its future language with prefixed plurals

George R.R. Martin and his epic five page descriptions of heraldry and stew

Westeros Cookbooks

Martin’s freaking neeps

J.R.R. Tolkien the superdork

What is this, a fantasy book I can’t stun a seagull with?

Brandon Sanderson always shows and never tells

Max Barry’s Lexicon,which could have been four books

Brandon Sanderson’s 0th law: always err on the side of awesome

Not everyone gets to be Catniss with a bow

What furthers the plot?

“Oh wow, this is your browser history that I’m reading right now.”

New Frontiers and its creepy and disgusting sex scenes

Literary fiction and the English professor contemplating adultery

Showing your work

Petrolea (my dieselpunk dragon story available soon!)

Oh, miércoles!

Battlestar Galactica ruined fracking for me

Write what you love in such a way that other people will love it

 How to Win Friends and Influence People (please buy it for Dan)

Zero-sum game

The best results come from when you’re helping others.

Carrie Patel at Loncon

We need diverse fiction

 

Epic Mundanity

A farm boy from Bhutan finds out he is, in fact, the lost son of Steve Jobs. Aided by a wise old software engineer, he must master programming and take control of Apple before the world is doomed to unending lament under the cruel tyranny of Microsoft.

~~~

I wrote that as a spoof of the Hero’s Journey and other overused tropes in fantasy. But now I kind of want to write that story.

Biotic Zones of Junction (fauna)

You may not have noticed the new entry in the “stories” section of the menu. So here’s the official page of my next sci-fi novel, Junction.

The following are some of my notes for the project (previously called “Router”) published on Deviantart. I’m sure I’ll end up changing some things, but for the moment, here’s a look at the alien life in the story. (scroll down for descriptions)

Z-1: No large animals, only worm and slimemold-like burrowers and the diverse zoophytes produced by the plants.

Z-2: (tape tree zone). The rigid, metallic “skeleton” of the Z-2 macrofauna runs in a helix shape between the internal organs and the outer cuticle. Hard claws on the bottom edge of the helix grip the soil, and the animal moves by contracting and relaxing the helix in waves. For faster movement, they can stand on their tails, compress the entire helix at once, then launch themselves into the air by spring action. (don’t ask me what they breathe, since the plants on their home-world consume oxygen)

Z-3: (antler tree and borehole zone). Sometimes called “macrodiatoms,” these amorphous animals secrete a silica test around themselves. The most common grazers (land urchins) range from the size of golf-balls to basket-balls, and move by sliding around the inside of their test, extruding their bodies through the hollow tubes in their test to digest plant matter. Other forms include burrowers and the giant wheel-zillas (seen in more detail here: [link])

z-4: (puff ball zone) On a planet that never evolved the protein actin, these animals use collagen and water pressure to move their branching limbs. They are therefor rather slow-moving, but have evolved a secondary system of ratchets and resilin “springs” to trigger sudden movement.

Z-5: (prism tree zone) The most earthlike animals on Router, with contractile muscles, internal skeletons, and bilateral symmetry. Most notable for their possession of a single row of limbs down the ventral side.

Z-6: (babel tree zone) Animals on this world grow limbs by extruding pectin-filled bladders into a mesh of bone spicules. The animal sequesters magnetic minerals throughout this mesh, and when stimulated by electrical signals from the brain, these magnetic bundles attract each other, causing the limb to contract.

Z-7: (deathray moss zone) Though superficially similar to giant insects, these animals have more in common with the growth patterns of echinoderms, described by one observer as “basically a stack of sea-urchins.” There is also evidence to suggest that these creatures left their ancestral ocean as fliers (perhaps at a time when their planet was flooded), and only later colonized the land.

Z-8: (kelp tree zone) Hard skeletons never seem to have evolved on this planet. Instead, its hoop-shaped animals build armor out of found objects (sand, rock, sponge, and plant material). Most intriguing are the eusocial “toy-maker worms,” colonies of which build and pilot complicated wheeled vehicles. Power is derived from the worms themvles, which twist their flexible hoop-shaped bodies around their machines, storing tension which they then release when they want the vehicle to move forward. Individually, these worms are not intelligent, but the behavior of large colonies exhibits striking complexity.

The Casting of the Rings

Work continues on my research for Charming Lies with some information about the spring holiday that marks the first scene of the book.

Lazarus’ day (Lazarovden) is the Saturday before Easter, and its festivities consist of girls (Lazarki) dressing up and going around the village to sing at each house, where they are rewarded with the eggs that they will later dye for Easter. Traditional foods on their day include dock-and-onion pie (lopushnik), round bread (pitka), fried fish, and fish and dried mushroom soup (according to Bulgarian Holidays and Traditions by Maria Prodanova).

The older girls (the ones who hope to get married during the year) also play a game called the casting of the rings (Napyavane na prastenite) where they each throw a ring into a bowl of water, and someone draws each one out at random, singing about the husband the owner of that ring will find. Here’s part of that song, as it is recorded in the book published by the community center (chetalishte) of the town of Koprivshtitsa. It’s a nice example of the sort of humor one might expect from this ritual, as well as the jobs available in a small town in pre-modern Bulgaria.

Call: Who is happy to Vasil herself betroth? Who is mine? Response: She will be betrothed. (Koya e chestita na Vasil da se godi, Nyago, moe? (Shte se godi!))

Call: On a chair to sit, oil to pack. Who is mine?  Response: A cheesemonger! (Na stol da sedi, maslo da krati, Nyago moe? (Mandradzhiya!))

Call: Blood sausage on the shelf. Who is mine? Response: a swineherd! (Karvavitsa na politsa, Nyago moe (Svinar!))

Call: Through the hollows he runs, tightening his sandals. Who is mine? Response: a bandit! (Prez dol byaga, tsarvul styaga, Nyago moe. (Khaidutin!))

Call: A white book, a black letter. Who is mine? Response: a teacher! (Byalo knizhe, cherno pismo, Nyago moe. (Daskal!))

Call: You were sewing your wedding dress, but not finish it. Who is mine? Response: They will not marry you! (Shita riza, ne doshita, Nyago moe. (Shte ya prezhenyat!))

Call: A golden spur on the cobblestones rattles. Who is mine? Response: An officer! (Zlatna kalachka po kaldaram dranka, Nyago moe. (Ofitser!)

Call: A tit knocks at the mill. Who is mine? Response: A miller! (Siniger chuka na vodenitsa, Nyago moe. (Vodenichar!))

Call: Quiet water over stones. Who is mine? Response: A tender man! (Tikha voda pod kamache, Nyago moe. (Krotak mazh!)

So which of my characters is going to marry which, do you think?

 

 

The Evil Eye

Uroki (from Bulgarian Uroki (plural-only noun)

Colloquial. According to folk beliefs. The evil eye, trouble that derives from the praise or regard of someone with the evil eye. May you not catch uroki (an expression uttered after praise).

Uroch (from Bulgarian Urochasvam (incomplete verb), Urochasam (complete))

When someone brings about or “throws” uroki. A woman with these sorts of eyes can uroch the child. 

~~~

Let’s talk about the Evil Eye. In Bulgarian folklore, you can uroch someone anyone you think bad thoughts about, unconsciously cursing them. Some people’s eyes are more evil than , but everyone has the power to give bad luck to people who piss them off.

As a magical system—hell, as a religion— uroki have a lot to offer. They compel people to live carefully and avoid giving offense or even standing out, lest they attract jealousy. Babies, newly-weds, and other people who attract a lot of attention need special safeguards such as amulets to protect against uruk, rituals to dispel it, and outright distraction to spoof it.

Let’s say you need to see someone to uroch them effectively. Let’s say further that if you know the object of your uroki, they last longer and have worse effects. Masks might be common when on the street, especially for well-known people like celebrities and government officials. Victimless crimes like shoplifting and graffiti are no less common, but if someone catches you at it and gets mad, watch out. Maybe there are fewer muggings, but more murders. Imagine a gladitorial show or trial by combat, where supports of one combatant cast uruki at the other, creating (if the crowds are balanced) a weird battle of death-defying, death-dealing chance and mischance.

People with strong uruki might rise to the top in such a society. After all, who could ever say no to them? On the other hand, people with “those sorts of eyes” might just as easily find themselves snapped up by those already in power and used as bodygaurds. The military might find use for Eyes as a low-tech alternative to snipers or bombadiers. Just give the old lady a telescope and put her in a high place and every enemy in her line of sight suddenly develops terrible luck.

How else might a literally real Evil Eye effect society?

 

The Biotic Zones of Junction (flora)

You may not have noticed the new entry in the “stories” section of the menu. So here’s the official page of my next sci-fi novel, Junction.

The following are some of my notes for the project (previously called “Router”) published on Deviantart. I’m sure I’ll end up changing some things, but for the moment, here’s a look at the alien life in the story. (scroll down for descriptions)

Z-1 (swarm trees and weed-worms)

Diploid, sessile ‘trees’ produce monoploid, mobile ‘worms’ (more properly zoophytes). In many species, zoophyte stage can reproduce parenthetically. Parthenogenic clones may remain in colonial swarms or split up, and take up many of the roles filled by terran arthropods and annelids. Zoophytes swap genetic material through intercourse, which expressed when they germinate into diploid trees. Commonly, swarms of clones gather to create a many-branched or thicket-like diploid form. In one lineage, a fraction of the swarm does not germinate, and take on specialized roles to protect, gather nutrients for, or weed around their sibling tree.

Neotonous, permanent zoophytes never become sessile, but instead grow photosynthetic flaps as zoophytes.

Z-2 (tape trees)

Rather than carry out photosynthesis through living tissue, tape trees produce stripes of dry tissue laden with arsenite, which oxidizes under sunlight to produce arsenate and carbon monoxide. Since this biome produces no oxygen (and indeed, oxygen is toxic to most of its inhabitants), it is violently incompatible with all surrounding biomes. It is theorized that this form of life was uncommon on Z-2’s home-world when it was linked to Router (100 MYA), but became dominant after a later planetary catastrophe. The presence of more familiar photosynthesizers on the edges of the Z-2 biome support this hypothesis.

Z-3 (antler trees and boreholes)

These plants are not single organisms, but rather the product of an enormous colony of prokaryotic cells, similar to Terran stromalites. The bacterial colony (called a biofilm) inhabits the zone between the hairy, venous outer integument (the velvet or bark) and the inner support structure of crystallized calcium. Apical leaf spirals are composed of hollow glass tubes, filled which cultures of photosynthetic bacteria.

Distantly related to the antler trees are the boreholes. Actually tunnels lined with a biofilm of chemosynthetic bacteria, boreholes grow downward as they excrete acid and digest the rock under them. A complex network of passages branches up from the borehole, providing fresh water, air-exchange, and reproductive tracts. Seasonally, reproductive tunnels grow a seal at the top, boiling water from the nadir of the hole is routed into them. Pressure rises until the seal breaks, sending reproductive cysts into the atmosphere on a puff of steam.

The bacteria that make up the biofilm in the borehole’s nadir are tolerant of extremes of heat and acidity, but eventually they bore too deep and rising temperature kills them, halting further downward progress. Occasionally, however, they will bore into an active magma chamber, triggering a volcanic eruption. This is likely the cause of the extremely active volcanism on the Z-3 homeworld, and a cause of concern for the inhabitants of Router.

Z-4 (puffballs)

Ferrous “wires” are extruded from the base of the plant, providing a substrate for soft, spongy photosynthetic tissue.

Z-5 (prism trees)

Like a coral, a prism tree is composed of millions of clone polyps, each one secreting a cellulose shell. The polyps also extrude glass scales, which they can tilt back and forth to refract the light striking the photosynthetic surfaces of the plant. It is theorized that this adaptation gives these plants the ability to make the best use of light from each of their home-world’s three stars. The adaptation has also proved useful in the varied environmental regimes of Router. These trees have, in fact, the only species known to have spread beyond Router, and established themselves on a third planet (planet Z-5b, whose native biota is now extinct)

Z-6 (babel trees, scale)

The planet of Z-6 is tidally locked to its sun, with one side in permanent light, the other in darkness. It is theorized that the immense height of babel trees is the result of competition to reach toward a single-unmoving light-source.

Babel trees begin as spikes, forming at the junction of the reproductive buttresses of two parent trees. The spike is nurtured by sugars supplied by its parents until it reaches high enough to break the forest canopy. It then grows branches, ending in 5 cm saucer-shaped leaves. Respiration cannot be carried out efficiently at this elevation, but instead occurs just under the canopy, in the “tree gills.” Fluids are pumped through the tree by “hearts” contained in the roots, and at regular intervals up the spike. The tree’s weight is supported by buttresses (which grow both up from the root and down from the crown). When these buttresses come into contact with another tree , they grow horizontally, attempting to push the competitor over. Occasionally, however, and for unknown reasons, neighboring trees will not attempt to destroy each other, but merge their offensive buttresses to form a reproductive buttress, and gestate a new tree.

In addition to babel trees, the Z-6 biome is home to another kingdom of autropes, the scale, or so-called kinetosynthesizers. Deposits of piezoelectric crystals in the base of the scale drive an energy cycle, feeding the scale every time its wedge-shaped upper portion moves. This unique form of energy production probably evolved on the dark-side of the Z-6 planet, where wind is the only constant source of energy.

Z-7 (deathray moss)

Like Terran glass sponges, Z-7’s large plants are colonies of photosynthetic, amoeba-like organisms. These amoebae construct the larger plant out of glass tests, which refract sunlight. This adaptation probably arose in response to the intense light produced by the Z-7 homeworld’s bright, F-type star. However, the Z-7 biome has adapted to subsist in the relatively low light environment of Router, where the glass lenses at the tips of the plants focus light onto the photosynthetic surfaces in the stem. The lenses can also be configured to burn unwanted neighbors, and to spread light to saprophytes. This tendency creates conical “champagne fountains” of glass spires, the oldest and tallest in the middle spreading light to the youngest and shortest spires on the periphery of the colony.

Z-8 (land kelp, floating islands)

Like the tape trees, Z-8’s floating plants depend on a photosynthetic pathway at odds with the familiar carbon dioxide to oxygen of Earth. Kelp trees use methane and water to produce glucose and hydrogen, which they store in gas bladders to provide buoyancy in the air. As with Z-2, this form of metabolism is probably a relatively recent development, possibly in response to a global release of methane hydrate in the Z-8 homeworld’s past. The Z-8 biome now maintains an active methane cycle, which operates alongside, methane-hydrogen photosynthesis, and an Earthlike carbon-dioxide-oxygen cycle. The fact that two out of three of these chemical cycles are unique on Router to Z-8 puts this biome at a disadvantage that is only somewhat offset by the extremely efficient seed-dispersal methods of Z-8 plants.

Indeed, as there is no wormhole at the center of the Z-8 biome, it is most likely this biome established itself from airborne spores, which may have floated from the other side of Router. How this colony established a working methane cycle so far from its home is unknown. Postulations that tool-building Z-8 animal life is responsible are entirely unsubstantiated.

88 Implementation Costs with Lars Doucet and James Cavin

http://www.thekingdomsofevil.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/88LarsandJim.mp3

We’re back talking with Lars Doucet and James Cavin, the owner and the head writer of Level Up Labs, creators of Defender’s Quest and Defender’s Quest II. We’re talking about telling story with games.

I have an idea, but it’s going to take a month of programming

Neil Gaiman and the army marching out of a city

Interactivity is always better

Bayseian risk analysis.

Actually pulling off Mario Bros.

There’s ancient technology for that

It’s made of handwavium!

 The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe (I have been waiting for an excuse to talk about this book for so long)

I couldn’t find James’s example of a South American indigenous people that uses marriage rules to keep population down (any help, listener?) but what he said sounds a little like the skin name system of many aboriginial Australian cultures.

Vikings!

Potosí! The name of the silver mine was Potosí! Damn, it was annoying not being able to remember it.

You’re one of those everybodies

Read historical documents

Anglo-Saxons!

Bushido culture

We made up our jobs

Gama sutra.com and blog about writing!