Hey, another apology post, haha. School is fighting to take over my life again. I know, crazy, right? Well, I kind of want to graduate eventually and get a job, so I guess I should put homework first. I'll get back to this as soon as I can.
But I gotta say thanks to all you guys who read my stuffs! It makes me feel pretty cool. :)
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Monday, March 25, 2013
Making a Timeline
So I was wondering if this story really needs to take place nine hundred years in the future. I don't even remember why I picked that long anyway. To remedy this conundrum, I figured I should just make a timeline and see what I come up with. I thought it'd be easy, but I kept asking more and more questions.
My first question was how long would it take for humans to invent near light speed travel? Or want to begin terraforming and colonizing new planets? Then I wanted to know how far they'd have to travel to find around forty ish (totally random) habitable planets, but I could easily do research for that one. A few wikipedia articles later and I got a rough estimate of seventy five to a hundred light years. Traveling around ninety five percent the speed of light, the travelers would experience somewhere between thirty to thirty five years on the ship to get to the furthest planets. At least it's less than one lifetime.
Then I wondered how long my world war would set the human race back? What would their level of space technology be before it happened? When would they send terraforming crews? How would they terraform planets? How long would it take to make them habitable? How long would it take to establish colonies? How long before space trade would become common enough for space pirates? I guess that's the final question, but it conjures all these other questions.
So I think humans have maybe tried to colonize Mars before the war so they at least have a little bit of experience before they have to start sending people off planet to repopulate. Let's say I give the world one hundred years to start terraforming Mars, then the war hits and wipes out people, land, and probably puts a damper on up coming technology. During the rebuilding, Mars would slowly become habitable and would be the first place to start really rebuilding humanity. We could probably have near light speed travel become available some time in this period. And perhaps terraforming takes one hundred ish years? So now I'm two hundred years in.
Now scientists are trying to broaden our territory by sending terraforming crews, scientists, engineers, other speciality crews, and normal people to settle these other earth-like planets, the furthest being about one hundred light years away. Seem to really like the number one hundred. Anyway, that means it would take two hundred years (from Earth's perspective) to simply get a colony to touch ground on the furthest planet. Now I'm at four hundred years from now.
So how long until these colonies set up interplanetary trade? Because that's where Scarlett comes in. There would probably be some trading among the closest planets because they got terraformed first and could begin establishing themselves while the furthest planet are still being terraformed. So shall we say, ehh, another two hundred years to get into the swing of things? That would mean Scarlett is only six hundred years in the future. Seems a little more manageable, I think.
Thoughts? Contradictions? Better ideas? Other points of interest along the time line? Please let me know.
Next I want to think about the technology people in this time would have at their disposal, including weapons. :D
My first question was how long would it take for humans to invent near light speed travel? Or want to begin terraforming and colonizing new planets? Then I wanted to know how far they'd have to travel to find around forty ish (totally random) habitable planets, but I could easily do research for that one. A few wikipedia articles later and I got a rough estimate of seventy five to a hundred light years. Traveling around ninety five percent the speed of light, the travelers would experience somewhere between thirty to thirty five years on the ship to get to the furthest planets. At least it's less than one lifetime.
Then I wondered how long my world war would set the human race back? What would their level of space technology be before it happened? When would they send terraforming crews? How would they terraform planets? How long would it take to make them habitable? How long would it take to establish colonies? How long before space trade would become common enough for space pirates? I guess that's the final question, but it conjures all these other questions.
So I think humans have maybe tried to colonize Mars before the war so they at least have a little bit of experience before they have to start sending people off planet to repopulate. Let's say I give the world one hundred years to start terraforming Mars, then the war hits and wipes out people, land, and probably puts a damper on up coming technology. During the rebuilding, Mars would slowly become habitable and would be the first place to start really rebuilding humanity. We could probably have near light speed travel become available some time in this period. And perhaps terraforming takes one hundred ish years? So now I'm two hundred years in.
Now scientists are trying to broaden our territory by sending terraforming crews, scientists, engineers, other speciality crews, and normal people to settle these other earth-like planets, the furthest being about one hundred light years away. Seem to really like the number one hundred. Anyway, that means it would take two hundred years (from Earth's perspective) to simply get a colony to touch ground on the furthest planet. Now I'm at four hundred years from now.
So how long until these colonies set up interplanetary trade? Because that's where Scarlett comes in. There would probably be some trading among the closest planets because they got terraformed first and could begin establishing themselves while the furthest planet are still being terraformed. So shall we say, ehh, another two hundred years to get into the swing of things? That would mean Scarlett is only six hundred years in the future. Seems a little more manageable, I think.
Thoughts? Contradictions? Better ideas? Other points of interest along the time line? Please let me know.
Next I want to think about the technology people in this time would have at their disposal, including weapons. :D
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Finding Dmitri
Yes! I finally finished another snippet! The only thing about it is that it would only show up in my book as a flash back, if it did at all.
It's a little story from when Jayden and Scarlett were only a duo and hadn't met anyone else on the crew, but it is significant because it is how Scarlett came by her special wormhole drive. She also meets Dmitri, as you can see by the title of this post and the snippet. He's a pretty cool dude, even if I can't write his lines very well. They're supposed to sound like broken English since Scarlett chose a weird filter for her translation program and it sounds like a stereotypical Russian accent. That's right, I worked in accents, haha.
I liked writing this story because it helped me come up with questions to make the universe a little more real, like what would movement on the ships be like, how are the ships laid out, how do their PCs interact with the world around them, and most importantly, how my characters think, speak, and act.
I hope it makes sense and sounds good, but it's a first draft. I already had to go back through it when I was almost done because I realized I was writing like the ship would have gravity on it. Just had to rewrite a few sentences so it made more sense and stayed consistent. It was actually more fun to write like that because I really had to think about how that would change everything in the scene. Space is really cool.
Finding Dmitri
It's a little story from when Jayden and Scarlett were only a duo and hadn't met anyone else on the crew, but it is significant because it is how Scarlett came by her special wormhole drive. She also meets Dmitri, as you can see by the title of this post and the snippet. He's a pretty cool dude, even if I can't write his lines very well. They're supposed to sound like broken English since Scarlett chose a weird filter for her translation program and it sounds like a stereotypical Russian accent. That's right, I worked in accents, haha.
I liked writing this story because it helped me come up with questions to make the universe a little more real, like what would movement on the ships be like, how are the ships laid out, how do their PCs interact with the world around them, and most importantly, how my characters think, speak, and act.
I hope it makes sense and sounds good, but it's a first draft. I already had to go back through it when I was almost done because I realized I was writing like the ship would have gravity on it. Just had to rewrite a few sentences so it made more sense and stayed consistent. It was actually more fun to write like that because I really had to think about how that would change everything in the scene. Space is really cool.
Finding Dmitri
Saturday, March 23, 2013
I. Love. Science.
Seriously. Science is like the coolest thing ever.
Today, I had some awesome conversations about how my spaceships would be able to transport people literally trillions of miles away to colonize other planets as well as do trade and what not. Scientists (real scientists today) have discovered planets with earth-like conditions as close as thirteen lightyears away. That doesn't seem too bad, I guess, if you could get a ship that could travel at, or close to, light speed. I wondered how I could get a ship that could travel as close to the speed of light as possible, as well as sustain that energy for years of travel time. This is where the fun really starts.
I got a few ideas from friends that included constant acceleration and nuclear pulse propulsion, both of which sound pretty cool. Basically, if the ship accelerates at ten meters per second squared for fifty percent of its journey and decelerates at the same rate for the other half of the journey, so it can stop at it's place of arrival, the ship reaches near light speed on it's way across space. With this method, it would take about fourteen years to reach the closest hospitable planets. But here's a cool feature! The people on board the ship would experience the journey as only about five years or so instead of fourteen. Thank you, relativity. ALSO. Because of the acceleration speed, the ship would have artificial gravity on it that is similar to Earth's. Boom. This is awesome.
Now think about using nuclear pulse propulsion to do this accelerating and decelerating. One way to do this is to detonate atomic bombs behind the ship, on the other side of some kind of wall/shock absorber combo of course, that provide specific impulses of six thousand to one hundred thousand seconds. For comparison, the engines in NASA's space shuttles can produce specific impulses of 453 seconds in a vacuum. Just think of specific impulses as measurements of thrust. I personally like the idea of having thrusters that are powered by lasers shooting at specifically designed fuel that compresses so forcefully that it creates nuclear fusion (what powers the sun) explosions. The energy from these explosions can be funneled in certain directions so that the ship can have control over its movement, as well as use some of the energy to run the ship and whatnot. Science.
Now on to Scarlett's wormhole magic. The current idea is that she finds a wormhole drive (actually the snippet I'm working on now) that is able to open wormholes to another point in space. This drive shall work because in this universe, the the third dimension is actually folded over on itself in the fourth dimension. This creates mappable "close points" where the drive can open a wormhole to specific coordinates. Scarlett can get to these close points and activate the drive, put in the coordinates, and open a wormhole with little energy required, at least compared to opening wormholes willy-nilly. This means she can jump on ships from out of nowhere to raid them, but it puts in a little bit of excitement because she has to reach a close point through straight space before she can disappear. How's that sound?
See? Science is fun. I got so distracted by these conversations that I didn't have much time to actually write, though. But hey, these ideas are pretty cool! At least I'm having fun.
Today, I had some awesome conversations about how my spaceships would be able to transport people literally trillions of miles away to colonize other planets as well as do trade and what not. Scientists (real scientists today) have discovered planets with earth-like conditions as close as thirteen lightyears away. That doesn't seem too bad, I guess, if you could get a ship that could travel at, or close to, light speed. I wondered how I could get a ship that could travel as close to the speed of light as possible, as well as sustain that energy for years of travel time. This is where the fun really starts.
I got a few ideas from friends that included constant acceleration and nuclear pulse propulsion, both of which sound pretty cool. Basically, if the ship accelerates at ten meters per second squared for fifty percent of its journey and decelerates at the same rate for the other half of the journey, so it can stop at it's place of arrival, the ship reaches near light speed on it's way across space. With this method, it would take about fourteen years to reach the closest hospitable planets. But here's a cool feature! The people on board the ship would experience the journey as only about five years or so instead of fourteen. Thank you, relativity. ALSO. Because of the acceleration speed, the ship would have artificial gravity on it that is similar to Earth's. Boom. This is awesome.
Now think about using nuclear pulse propulsion to do this accelerating and decelerating. One way to do this is to detonate atomic bombs behind the ship, on the other side of some kind of wall/shock absorber combo of course, that provide specific impulses of six thousand to one hundred thousand seconds. For comparison, the engines in NASA's space shuttles can produce specific impulses of 453 seconds in a vacuum. Just think of specific impulses as measurements of thrust. I personally like the idea of having thrusters that are powered by lasers shooting at specifically designed fuel that compresses so forcefully that it creates nuclear fusion (what powers the sun) explosions. The energy from these explosions can be funneled in certain directions so that the ship can have control over its movement, as well as use some of the energy to run the ship and whatnot. Science.
Now on to Scarlett's wormhole magic. The current idea is that she finds a wormhole drive (actually the snippet I'm working on now) that is able to open wormholes to another point in space. This drive shall work because in this universe, the the third dimension is actually folded over on itself in the fourth dimension. This creates mappable "close points" where the drive can open a wormhole to specific coordinates. Scarlett can get to these close points and activate the drive, put in the coordinates, and open a wormhole with little energy required, at least compared to opening wormholes willy-nilly. This means she can jump on ships from out of nowhere to raid them, but it puts in a little bit of excitement because she has to reach a close point through straight space before she can disappear. How's that sound?
See? Science is fun. I got so distracted by these conversations that I didn't have much time to actually write, though. But hey, these ideas are pretty cool! At least I'm having fun.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Backtracking Just a Little
I've had a lot of really good conversations about my story since the other day, and I realized that I want to know why I'm writing this story, what I'm trying to say with it so when I don't know how to continue, I'll know why I should. One person said that great sci-fi is about what it means to be human and it made me wonder what mine is about.
My goal is to write a story that has believable, relatable, and interesting characters that make one want to read about them and the portion of the their lives that is shown in the book. I don't have a message that I want to share with the world, nothing like a critique of society or a profound moral. I just want to write a story that is as much fun to read as it is to write and vice versa. This is a venture to have fun and create interest, creativity, and deeper thoughts for all those involved, like future readers and my friends who are helping me now.
Reading has always meant a lot to me and it is something I enjoy immensely; it's part of the reason I want to be an English teacher. By writing my own story, I can add to the world of literature and perhaps have people who will think my writing is pretty darn cool. I'm not saying this story will be something that gets published and becomes popular, but maybe someday I can get something published. I just want to write for fun to create fun, I'm not expecting anything great.
Bu by writing about these characters and their lives as they do their best to follow their own dreams, I feel like I am writing about what it means to be human. I want them to seem real; I'm just telling their stories from a specific time in their lives. All I'm doing is just adding in a bunch of nerdiness, science, and technology with dashes of awesome pirate-ness and witty humor. And maybe some not-so-witty humor. If I haven't made this apparent already, it's all for fun!
So, I think I need to spend more time figuring out the universe that these characters live in so I can understand why they are on the track they're following. Jeez, so much to think about! It kind of hurts my head. Now I just want to play guitar and not think about how much work I have to do, haha. Not to worry, I've got some great ideas to post coming up soon. I'll try to finish my characters, so I can at least have an idea of who they are, and I'm not so sure about writing two more snippets before spring break is over. I'll try, but certainly no promises. Thanks again to everyone that's helped me so far. :D
My goal is to write a story that has believable, relatable, and interesting characters that make one want to read about them and the portion of the their lives that is shown in the book. I don't have a message that I want to share with the world, nothing like a critique of society or a profound moral. I just want to write a story that is as much fun to read as it is to write and vice versa. This is a venture to have fun and create interest, creativity, and deeper thoughts for all those involved, like future readers and my friends who are helping me now.
Reading has always meant a lot to me and it is something I enjoy immensely; it's part of the reason I want to be an English teacher. By writing my own story, I can add to the world of literature and perhaps have people who will think my writing is pretty darn cool. I'm not saying this story will be something that gets published and becomes popular, but maybe someday I can get something published. I just want to write for fun to create fun, I'm not expecting anything great.
Bu by writing about these characters and their lives as they do their best to follow their own dreams, I feel like I am writing about what it means to be human. I want them to seem real; I'm just telling their stories from a specific time in their lives. All I'm doing is just adding in a bunch of nerdiness, science, and technology with dashes of awesome pirate-ness and witty humor. And maybe some not-so-witty humor. If I haven't made this apparent already, it's all for fun!
So, I think I need to spend more time figuring out the universe that these characters live in so I can understand why they are on the track they're following. Jeez, so much to think about! It kind of hurts my head. Now I just want to play guitar and not think about how much work I have to do, haha. Not to worry, I've got some great ideas to post coming up soon. I'll try to finish my characters, so I can at least have an idea of who they are, and I'm not so sure about writing two more snippets before spring break is over. I'll try, but certainly no promises. Thanks again to everyone that's helped me so far. :D
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