Michael Brachman's Blog: Tales of the Vuduri, page 166

Rei's final joke

In the original long-form of Rome's Revolution aka VIRUS 5: Part 3, OMCOM was supposed to make a surprise appearance and inform Sussen that her war was over before it started. The joke started out as: Knock, knock. Who's there. If you were Vuduri, you'd already know. Here is how it actually turned out. This scene was excised from the current version and Sussen's fate became a mystery until the release of Rome's Evolution.

     “I have a short message for you,” said OMCOM. “It may make things clearer for you.”
     “A message? For me?” asked Sussen, exasperated. “Who left me a message?”
     “It is from Rei.”
     “The Essessoni? How did he know I was coming?”
     “We all did,” OMCOM replied. “Your escape did not go exactly unnoticed.”
     Sussen felt every muscle let go. She was weary beyond measure. “What is the message?” she asked, completely drained of spirit. The realization that her sacrifice was totally in vain set in to her core.
     “It is called a joke,” said OMCOM.
     “What is a joke?” asked Sussen.
     “It is a humorous story. It has a build up and a point called the punch line.”
     “I do not care,” said Sussen, tonelessly. “Proceed if you must.” There was no will left in her.
     “It comes in two parts. The first part is simply knock, knock,” said OMCOM.
     “Knock, knock?” Sussen replied. “What is that supposed to mean?”
     “It is what humans do when they come to a door and wish to announce their presence. Rei said your proper response is supposed to be ‘who is there?’”
     “But as a Vuduri, I would already know who is there,” countered Sussen.
     “Do you know?” asked OMCOM.
     Sussen thought about it but said nothing.
     “Please answer,” insisted OMCOM.
     “No,” said Sussen. “I do not know who is there.”
     “That,” OMCOM replied, “is the second part. That is what Rei called the punch line. Your future has been unwritten. In its place is a new unknown. Rei and Rome both said to welcome you to the new human race. Your place in it is up to you.”

Thank goodness I excised this joke. Otherwise I would have had no plot for Rome's Evolution!

The Wait Equation

The book Rome's Revolution is all about people from the past using the best technology they could find to get to the stars. They had no confidence that had they simply waited, eventually mankind would have invented a faster-than-light (FTL) stardrive. Because of the degrading conditions on Earth, they thought that mankind might not survive long enough to see that day.

In July of 2005, Andrew Kennedy wrote a paper entitled "Interstellar Travel: The Wait Calculation and the Incentive Trap of Progress" and published it in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society (JBIS) 59 (7): 239–246. His conclusion was simple. Don't wait. Go now.

So the principles behind my story are supported by a noted academic. Similar concepts as mine were used in the original Star Trek episode called "Space Seed" and remade in the latest J. J. Abrams Star Trek Into Darkness.

There is one story that is even closer to mine. A. E. van Vogt (one of my favorite authors growing up) wrote a short story entitled Far Centaurus in 1944 which, in simplistic manner, is exactly the same as mine. However, in this story, it took over 500 years to reach Alpha Centauri and they sent four men. No women! What the hell were they thinking? It most certainly was a one-way trip.

Anyway, they get there and there are already people there, people from the future. Sound familiar? There are certainly some striking overlaps with my story. They are a little sick when they first wake up. One of the men died somewhere along the trip. The people at Far Centaurus are repulsed by them (because they smell?).

Then, in a goofy twist, the three surviving men fly back to Earth and break the time barrier and return only a year and a half after they left. And there is a girl waiting for them - not named Sally.

Oh well. I didn't even know about this story nor did the wait equation even exist when I started Rome's Revolution back in 1973. I think my story is way better than A. E. van Vogt's. He died in the 2000 so he can't defend himself. I guess it's up to you to decide.

Rei's third joke

In the original long-form version of Rome's Revolution, in Part 2 (when it was still VIRUS 5), Rome has just given birth to Aason. Rei, Rome and Aason are in Rome's room in the Vuduri compound as she recovers. They know they have to leave for Earth and soon to head off a possible strike force that would come and wipe out the Ibbrassati. Rei wants to lift the tension in front of them:

     “Yes,” said Rome, “another day or so. Then we must go.”
     “Great. Can’t wait,” Rei said, resignedly. His mind worked furiously trying to figure out some way to lighten the mood. He looked down at little Aason who appeared to be drifting off.
     “I got it,” he said, snapping his fingers.
     “Got what?” Rome asked.
     “I just thought of my first Vuduri joke.”
     “Tell me,” Rome said.
     “OK. What did the one Vuduri say to the other?” Rei asked.
     “I do not know,” Rome said. “Tell me.”
     “Nothing. The Vuduri don’t talk to each other.”
     “Heh,” Rome laughed. “That is funny,” she said. “Do you have any others?”

I think Bruce gave me this one. Rei has one other joke. I'll reveal that in a day or two.

"Legal" Time Travel

In the marketing materials for Rome's Revolution, I am quite proud of the fact that my books contain only "legal" time travel. As a hard science enthusiast, I simply cannot tolerate time travel stories where people go back in time and change the past. So what does the term legal mean in reference to time travel?

Let's start with the simplistic: you go to bed at night, close your eyes and poof, it is eight hours later. Not really time travel? Well, imagine if, instead of falling asleep, you were frozen solid and thawed out 14 centuries later. Still legal, right? So traveling into the future is always legal and creates no time paradoxes. Don't think it could happen? It already did. Some Russian scientists were able to take tissue from a plant that had been frozen for over 30,000 years and get it to grow, thus resurrecting a species 300 centuries old. The plant is still growing and fertile and producing white flowers and seeds. So traveling into the future is a piece of cake.

But traveling backwards in time, that's always a problem. Everyone has heard of the grandfather paradox. You go back in time, kill your grandfather before your father is born, so you were never born, so you could never travel back in time and kill your grandfather. Some authors side-step this with the "multiverse" theory. They allow you to travel back in time, change things and thus create a new timeline. Your original timeline is preserved.

Not for me. But my characters can travel faster than light. How do you harness this capability to travel in time? You cannot do so interactively but you could do so "observationally" and thus legally. My characters send out the starprobes which turn around and look back snagging photons that were emitted farther in the past. Thus the star-probes and their lens-less camera are time machines but only in the sense that they can see into the past. They cannot actually travel backwards in time. They can never interact with anything in the past and they can never disturb the one true timeline.

The final method is explained by Rome in Rome's Evolution. She explains to Rei that time is like a river and a consciousness, not a body, can travel up and down the river without interacting with anything or changing anything. To Rome, it is another form of observational time travel. To see definitive proof, you will have to read the book!

Rei's second joke

In the original version of Rome's Revolution, Rei's character was much more shallow and joked around lot. Too much. The current version of Rei has a sense of humor but some of his funnier jokes got excised. Here is the joke he told Rome when she was in respiratory distress in the Vuduri compound in the second book aka Part 2. The leader of the Vuduri, Pegus, is about to connect her to the Overmind of Deucado. Rei has to rub her belly to distract her from the pain.

     “Keep rubbing while you are thinking,” Rome said.
     “Oh yeah,” said Rei. “OK, I’ve told you all about my world. You know that we had lots of crime and police officers that help the victims and try and find the perpetrators?”
     “Yes, like our Cavaliers. I understand,” Rome replied.
     “OK, here goes: The story takes place in New York which was our largest and the most sophisticated city in our country.”
     “You have explained this to me,” Rome said. “Go on.”
     “OK,” Rei continued. “A turtle was walking down an alley in New York City…”
     “A turtle again?” Rome interrupted him. “Is that the only type of joke you know?”
     “It’s kind of hard for me to remember a joke that doesn’t have all sorts of cultural references,” Rei answered defensively.
     “All right, continue.”
     “Anyway, the turtle was walking down an alley when he was mugged, that means attacked, by a gang of snails.”
     “Snails?” Rome asked. “The kind that crawl?”
     “Yes, snails,” Rei replied. “A police detective came to investigate and asked the turtle if he could explain what happened. The turtle looked at the detective with a dazed expression on his face and replied ‘I don't know, it all happened so fast.’”
     “Snails? Oh!” Rome said. “So fast. Yes, I get it,” she said and she started to laugh. “Oh! Oww!” she said plaintively. With a tortured look on her face, Rome closed her eyes and forced herself to cease acknowledging sensory input from the outside world.

Rei was pretty funny!

Rei and the bands, part 3

In the original, long-form version of Rome's Revolution, Rei and Rome used the espansor bands but the experience was quite different. It was not nearly as intimate and it did not cause Rome to fall in love with Rei. The scene is fairly long so I will break it up into multiple entries. Here is part 3:

     She reached down and took his hand again. Rei didn’t mind. With his free hand, he reached up and rubbed his eyes. He sighed deeply and said, “That was so intense. How do you stand it? I don’t think you could do that for very long without going crazy. Is that what the Overmind is like?”
     She smiled at him. “No,” she said, “the Overmind only connects the higher brain functions, just the intellect. Your feelings, your memories are your own unless you want to present them to the group. It is more like a conversation, more like a verbal interchange. These bands were built long before the need for such a distinction was made clear.”
     “Wow,” he said. “I have memories now that I know are from your head but they feel just like real memories.” He looked down at their hands, fingers now intertwined. She didn’t seem to be in any hurry to let his hand go. “Rome, you had it rough as a kid.”
     “I survived,” she said. She pulled her hand free and touched another depression on the box. Rei’s band loosened and he removed it from his head. Rome did the same and he could see that there was a mark on her skin where the band had been. She popped open the box and placed the bands in there gently. Then she closed it.
     “We can do that again sometime if you would like but it would be best if we waited a few days so that your mind can assimilate what it has acquired now.”
     “I’d like that,” he said. “Now that I know what to expect, I think I would really enjoy that.”
     “All right.” She stood up and carried the box over and placed it back in the dresser drawer. Rei considered all that he had just been exposed to while she came back to sit down on the bed again.
     “You didn’t reconnect to the Overmind yet, did you?” he asked.
     “No. Why?”
     “Because you like this. You told me you didn’t but you and I both know you do."

In this older version, Rome did not realize that Rei was her Asborodi Cimponeti. This is long before I knew that Rome's parents used the bands as well. It is pretty neat to learn things about the characters as you write them. I wonder what happened to Rome's brother and two sisters. The modern Rome has no siblings. Oh well.

Rei and the bands, part 2

In the original, long-form version of Rome's Revolution, Rei and Rome used the espansor bands but the experience was quite different. It was not nearly as intimate and it did not cause Rome to fall in love with Rei. The scene is fairly long so I will break it up into multiple entries. Here is part 2:

     Rei shuddered as a wave of sensation flooded over him, over her. He looked down and saw that they were holding hands. He couldn’t really tell which was his hand and which was hers because the perspective was so blurred but it didn’t matter. It was what they both wanted, the contact. He had to close his eyes because he was becoming dizzy and that made her dizzy. She knew how to handle this, it was second nature to her so he let her lead and he became an observer.
     Breathing was no longer a natural action. Each breath became a conscious effort although he wasn’t sure who was directing it. They were now past the level of intellect and purely within the realm of emotion. He could feel Rome, he was looking at her soul. She was gentle, kind, not at all like the reserved woman he had first met. With a start, he realized that she was physically attracted to him. He knew that he was attracted to her and even as he thought it, he knew that she knew. He forced his eyes open and looked at himself then forced the perspective to be him looking at her. Without conscious thought, they leaned forward and put their arms around each other. He luxuriated in the feelings as their personalities were laid open. This was no collaboration. This was a merging of the minds. What had been two people was now one entity, holding on the body of the other, breathing in synchrony. Thoughts, images, sounds, memories, all swirled around in a maelstrom of history.
     There was a tiny beep and suddenly, it was all gone. It was just Rei, holding Rome in his arms, silent but for the heavy breaths. He lowered his head to her shoulder and with a start, realized she was wearing perfume. He wanted to know why but the connection was gone.
     They just held on to each other for the longest time. Rome did not appear to have any desire to let go either. Finally, she whispered in his ear, “what did you think?”
     “Unbelievable,” was the only word that came to mind and so he said so. Without even realizing it, he kissed her gently on the cheek then used all his strength to sit up straight and let go of her.

Seriously: Rome wearing perfume? More tomorrow.

Rei and the bands, part 1

In the original, long-form version of Rome's Revolution, Rei and Rome used the espansor bands but the experience was quite different. It was not nearly as intimate and it did not cause Rome to fall in love with Rei. The scene is fairly long so I will break it up into multiple entries. Here is part 1:

     Rome pulled her long hair back then placed the other band on her head. Rei could actually see it constrict around her brow indenting into the skin a bit.
     Rome closed the box and then flipped it over. She touched a depression in the design there and the bands began to vibrate ever so gently.
     At first, nothing happened. Rei started to speak but Rome interrupted, saying only “shh…”
     He looked into her brown eyes and began to imagine what it must be like to be inside her head, looking at him. With a start, he realized, he wasn’t imagining it. He really was looking at himself, looking at her. He jerked his head back and put his hand to his temples, pinching the band. He blinked rapidly, trying to focus and then his point-of-view switched back to his own and he saw Rome smile at him. But her smile bespoke more to him. He could feel the warmth in a way that defied words. He could feel that she was…he widened his eyes. The image of looking at an image of a mirror within a mirror within a mirror confused him. He wasn’t sure if he was thinking his thoughts or listening in to her thoughts. The distinction became fuzzy. Certain images, he knew had to have originated in her head.
     He saw Rome as a child. She was always a little different. Taller, stronger. The taunts from the minds of the other children rang in his head. Talker! That’s what they called her. He saw that it hurt her at first but later she embraced her individuality. He saw her parents, always doting but always, no, ashamed? Proud? A mix? He couldn’t tell. He saw that she had two sisters and one brother. He was delving deeper when he heard her ask him to open his mind, that she wanted to know his past. He relaxed and felt her guiding his thoughts to his own childhood. To his crowded world. To the poisons in the city and ocean. Of his hard work, the construction of the Arkships. She recoiled as she felt him slip into cryo-hibernation then forced herself to relive his reanimation.

Rome was tall? She stood out from the crowd? Boy, did that change. More tomorrow.

Estar tries to kill Rei again!

In the current version of Rome's Revolution, Rei is almost killed twice. He later deduces it was Estar behind these murderous attempts. However, in the original long-form version, there were actually four attempts on his life making it pretty easy to figure out that somebody was gunning for him. As mentioned in a previous post, I stole one of the attempts on his life and used it to explain why the Vuduri had spare quarters. Here is the deleted scene:

     Without so much as another word, Rei jumped up and went out the door and turned to his left and left again, walking up the East Corridor toward the Algol. When he got there, he saw that the door was open and no one was around so he went in.
     The connecting corridor was open. The tunnel that led to the Algol beckoned to Rei but he could not stop himself from looking around. Once again, the sheer size of the area and the fact that everything he saw here was transported aboard a single ship impressed him. To his left, the entire wall was filled with shelves holding white and grey containers, some large, some small. Unable to suppress his curiosity, Rei walked over to them and touched one of the smaller ones on a lower shelf, trying to ascertain its purpose or contents. The container was completely sealed on all sides and there was no apparent latch or lock. Rei ran his hands around all the surfaces but he could feel nothing.
     He tugged on the box and saw that it moved easily. He pulled it all the way out and was surprised to see how light it was. The material comprising the box was almost translucent so Rei lifted it up to hold it against one of the overhead lights, hoping that he could see into it.
     A slight tremor shook him a bit and the box wobbled in his hands, just enough that past it, he saw a motion on one of the upper shelves. Unbelievably, the whole shelving unit began to pitch forward, moving quickly. Rei leaped to the side, just in time. The entire wall of shelving crashed down to the floor, spilling containers everywhere and had he remained in the way, he would have been crushed for sure.
     Some Vuduri crewmen came running in and saw Rei gathering himself up from the floor, still holding the box. There were shelves and containers everywhere.
     “I didn’t do it,” he said sheepishly. “It was the quake.”
     One of the crewmen flung his hand towards the door in an angry motion and Rei took the opportunity to get out of there. Slinking might be a good word for his actions. There was no chance they were going to let him aboard the Algol so once again, he headed back to his quarters which was apparently the only place in the entire habitat where he could be safe.

As always, the fact that Rei can think for himself is at the bottom of it all.

The moment in the loading dock

(This is part of the continuing series about the design of Skyler Base)

This little moment was in the original, long-form version of Rome's Revolution but got excised because I had to move the plot along more quickly.

     Rei and Rome arrived at the dead end of the East Corridor and stood before some very large doors, perhaps two stories tall. Rome pointed to their top.
     “This is loading dock for the Algol,” Rome said. She pressed a stud and the two doors slid sideways, disappearing into the walls. A semi-cylindrical room opened up in front of them, a half tube with a 20 meter ceiling. Unlike the rest of the Vuduri complex, this one area was illuminated by bright lights hanging from the ceiling. At the far end was a round door, rolled back, leading to a sizeable airlock. Several workers were bustling about the room, carrying cargo bins. Others were operating a conveyer and yet others were moving parcels on what appeared to be a cushion of air. The frantic pace reminded Rei of loading operations at an airport, of all things. No one looked at them or even acknowledged their presence. Each and every one them were dressed in the ubiquitous white jumpsuits.
     Rei ignored them ignoring him. He walked over to the far wall and touched it.
     “This doesn’t look like aerogel like the rest of this place. What’s it made of?” Rei asked.
     “It is a metallic alloy,” Rome replied, coming over to where Rei was standing. “This is actually one half of a cargo section from the Algol. We used it for a staging area to begin construction. This is where we started.” She pointed to where the crewmen were entering. “That is the connecting corridor. Beyond that is the Algol.”
     “Can I go inside and see?” Rei asked.
     “No,” Rome replied. “We cannot go aboard right now. They are busy loading the equipment that is to be returned with us. Perhaps later.”
     “Is there somewhere else we can go so I can see it? Somewhere with windows?”
     “Not really,” Rome said. “We do not have windows on this station.”
     “No windows?” Rei asked, perplexed. “What if you want to look outside?”
     Rome shrugged. “There is nothing to see. Just Dara. If we need to observe anything else, we use our instruments.”
     At this point, all Rei could do was sigh.

Tomorrow, another attempt on Rei's life by Estar. It was removed from the current version of Rome's Revolution but I thought you might want to read it.