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Iamaparakeet
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18 Mar 2015, 8:44 pm

Mods, before you move this into cryostasis in the somewhat, or super, slow subforum this might seem to relate to, I'm asking my opinion regarding book ideas that have plenty to do with my own political and religious views. I'd like constructive criticism, and most of my friends and civilized enemies used to frequent here and I'd like their opinions. I'm going to give a sample of each following the first post here for the sake of reducing entropy and making reading them easier.

Here is my blog where I've posted some of my less controversial writings: https://benjaminartifex1985.wordpress.com/


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18 Mar 2015, 8:45 pm

“Time is now 2:44 PM, test about to begin. First test: sending a grapefruit ten minutes forward; activating now!” The light emitted by the device flooded the catacombs in which the make-shift laboratory incongruously inhabited, revealing the memorials to those slain by the Romans and the conquerors after them. Calvin Nikolas watched as the citrus fruit dematerialized, wondering if it would be painful for that transposition to be underwent by a living creature but unwilling to do tests upon animals. The light suddenly disappeared and the previous lighting looked as dim as candles to his eyes, which had practically adjusted to daylight.


“Time 2:46, test subject has… dematerialized. Thermal imaging reveals only marginal temperature of surroundings increase during transposition process.” That’s good at least, he thought.


Waiting was not difficult for Calvin, usually, but in this case seeing if the citrus survived unscathed by his invention could mean all the difference in the world, and for the betterment of the world at that. If this laboratory were found, though, it could mean yet more horrors inflicted upon everyone than already had been done.


“Time approaching ten minutes, Calvin”, said Sarah Leavenworth, his lab assistant and confidant in this venture to, basically, free the world from more than a thousand years of tyranny. She was wearing her hair down, which is something the government made a capital punishment since they were conquered five centuries ago, and it was nice to see a woman dress how she wanted. The lighting of the catacombs brightened again, but just briefly this time, and the citrus fruit reappeared looking unharmed.


“We did it!”, said Sarah, “Time 2:56, thermal imaging shows minor decrease in temperature compared to previous, grapefruit appears the same as before. We did it! We made time travel possible, we did it! Calvin, isn’t this wonderful?!”


As Calvin was about to answer another bright flash occurred and a letter with bloody fingerprints appeared atop the grapefruit, saying on it, ‘You’ve been found! Get Sarah out now! Travel back now or you never shall, set the self destruct timer for no more than eight minutes’, written in Calvin’s handwriting. Scrambling to get to the controls, Sarah argued to go along back in time with him, while starting the countdown to destroy the laboratory in the catacombs that would, hopefully, be less full due to his actions in the past, replied, “we only know that the grapefruit was okay, but we’ve never done this with a person before, if I die and have no effect on the timeline, at least you’ll still be alive.”


“But if you do what we planned to do, then I wouldn't exist. There is no time to argue, I’m going with you and I rather risk going back with you than live in this timeline’s world.”


“But Sarah…”


“No buts, I’m going with you. Time space coordinates set, timer set for activation in 30 seconds.”


Stepping onto the platform that Calvin was already on, she said, “We’ll both need to keep each other sane anyway, and do you know how to speak any of the languages we’d need to speak?”


As Calvin was considering how to gently remove her from the platform so as not to risk her life on this machine, everything became suddenly bright and Sarah said, “Oh, did I say 30 seconds? I meant 15 seconds. Sorry, that’s my bad.”


They were chilled momentarily, yet now standing in a blindingly bright desert out in the middle of nowhere, with no supplies or equipment apart from just their clothes and their soon useless watches and phones which were now just PDAs. Calvin sighed and said, “We should probably rest while it’s daylight. If we’re where I hope we are, and when I hope we are, there ought to be a city, Heliopolis, about five miles out that way.”


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18 Mar 2015, 8:46 pm

As a person in his teens, barely even a fraction of his potential age (most people could live up to 900 years if they weren’t killed first), Mikel looked upon the stars on a cold clear night. Surrounded by the city throughout his life heretofore, there had always been reasons not to be outside at night or otherwise had not been outside at night without so many ubiquitous portable lights obscuring the night sky with their smothering brightness so proximate. Having run away from the noisy crowded city this evening, Mikel gazed transfixed upon the stars which were clearly visible for the first time. It seemed slightly frightening at first to Mikel, the sheer distance providing a sense of vertigo. Mikel felt as though he would fall upward.


What kept him on the ground? He decided to jump and was pulled back to the ground. By what though? Above Mikel was so much vastness, so much spaciousness, but below him was Eretz, a massive land surrounded by sea on every side. Why shouldn’t he fall upward? Why must he be pulled back to the ground? Why must he be pulled back to Eretz? This massive world of his birth forced him back to the ground… Mikel then thought, ‘why must I be pulled back by this massive world? Why can’t I fly upwards like the birds? Why can’t I push the ground and air beneath me enough to leave? Is there air up there?’


“Mikel, where have you been?!” resounded the angry voice of Yared his stepfather. Ever since Mikel’s father was murdered by one of the myriad raiding parties roaming the land of Eretz, or rather only a handful of months after the loss of his father when Mikel’s mother found Yared, he had to deal with being under the iron sandal of his stepfather. Mikel was always being told that he’s a nuisance and yet always being kept captive in virtual slavery,Mikel could only just keep himself from trying to run away to anywhere else even when there was momentary rest from the incessant and infernal strife of“home”.


“What have you been doing?!” bellowed Yared.

“I’ve been looking at the stars and thinking about why everything is held on the ground.”

“What stupid nonsense, everything stays on the ground because that’s where everything stays, simple as that. But you aren’t supposed to be out here – certainly not at night! What would you do if one of the carnivorous reptiles happened upon you? Try to talk their ears off if they had them, wouldn’t you?” sneered Yared.

“No, I’d run and hide from them, I know better already.”responded Mikel.

“Right, sure you would. What of the raiding parties and various war bands roaming about? I know you’d just spout off some nonsensical routine of, ‘oh, what you’re doing is wrong and I lost my father due to actions such as yours’, yeah, like they’d really care what you have to say. Just whine away about how murder is wrong and how theft isn’t right, and you’d soon see how much they’d care to listen to your baloney.” disparagingly scoffed Yared.

“No, I’d do my best to avoid them too. I know they don’t care about right or wrong. I know they decry good as evil and praise evil as good. And I know they’d kill or enslave me. They killed my father –“

Yared slapped Mikel, grasped his head between his hands to enforce eye contact, and shouted, “I am your father now and you will remember that! Now! We’re going back home!”


Later that night, after returning home and the household quieted down, once the rest were asleep, Mikel opened a window through which the sky could be seen and looking deliberately he could see some of the brighter stars even past the obscurity of the city’s lights. He thought to himself,

“Why must I stay here and be forced to endure this horridness? Why must it be that I remain in servitude to my stepfather in this blood stained world? Why can’t I just run away? Why should I let Yared keep me here… why should I let Eretz keep me here? I will learn everything I can about the operations of the heavens. I will fly, and hopefully I shall fly. I want to fall upwards into the spaciousness of the skies and leave this decaying bloody world behind me!”


As the years passed by, Mikel taught himself everything he could and sought friends who were also exasperated by the world around them and willing to discover as much about the operation of the universe as possible also. Through their centuries of lifespan, they learned of the nature of matter and its constituent particles, of the tremendous energy within matter also and very grateful were they that the others of their world who sought to waste their potential lifespan upon murder had thus distracted themselves from the pursuit of such knowledge. Finding safe locations for research was sometimes exceedingly difficult since any land of value was quite often in dispute and any visible construction usually implied value to somebody and that was enough of a motive for jealousy and ensuing violence for far too many. Among mountainous regions there was some safety afforded. Indeed, upon surveying for possible research locations they happened upon a man and his family building a massive watercraft in the middle of a mountain range, probably because it was the only location he could find where there would be enough peace to construct without being bothered – but how would he get it to the Sea? That would be more of a feat than its construction! Similarly, construction of facilities within treacherous terrain was the only way to allow for the possibility of being left alone and able to study.


Within the planetary system of this star there were numerous worlds, though none quite as naturally habitable as Eretz. Sending out probes from remote launch sites to traverse the system, it had been found that the first two solid planets were nearly completely uninhabitable due to extremely high temperature ranges. The fourth solid world, Daleth, was the most habitable of the worlds apart from Eretz, although lacking in atmosphere its temperature ranges were suitable for technological habitations to be built.Also, having a plentitude of element 26 covering its surface would allow for construction materials to be almost readily made. Its lack of a moon would make for a darker sky than Eretz at night, but would that really be so horrible?Past the orbit of Daleth there were three solid worlds in almost the same orbit and an incredible number of amorphous solid rocks also in just about the same orbit. Such would make for easily accessible resources, for the continued construction of habitations while the populations of Eretz fought and killed each other and boasted about how awesome they thought they were for how many people they murdered. In the expanse of space we would be building homes and making new room for life, while those on Eretz kept seeking death. Past the amorphous rocks were massive uninhabitable worlds, but which had in orbit of them solid worlds upon which future colonies could be settled.

But as far as the immediate situation was concerned,Daleth was preferable for colonization. The moon of Eretz was another possibility, but being tidally locked with Eretz its day was literally a month,making it almost useless for agriculture unless artificial lights were to be used extensively during each of the 14.8 “days” of darkness every month-day. Daleth however, albeit receiving less light intensity than Eretz and its moon,had almost the same length of day as Eretz – while none of the other worlds came even remotely close! The difference in light intensity, being about 40% of that on Eretz, could be an issue, but still able to be surpassed utilizing reflective surfaces to locally concentrate solar light inside of pressurized greenhouses. Additionally, Daleth had approximately the same surface area of land as Eretz, about 1/3rd the maximum gravitational acceleration as Eretz – which would allow for far less fuel to be necessary to leave its gravitational field, and it was closest solid world to the interplanetary resource belt which would allow it to have an economical advantage in comparison to the other worlds even once the rest in this star system were settled.


A worrisome thought kept recurring to Mikel though, about the potential militaristic advantage of the world Daleth as with its closer reach of resources and lesser fuel requirements for launching any given quantity of mass, if there were ever warfare in the expanse within this starsystem it would be quite likely that the future inhabitants of Daleth would be able to build far more massive and far more numerous machinations of warfare –even upon the surface – than could ever be built and launched from Eretz. What worried him yet more was his recalling of the loss of his father and desiring vengeance. Mikel scared himself with such thoughts as he wanted no part in the violence and yet he had been given more potential for destruction than anyone who had ever existed heretofore. If he wanted, he could be the most powerful warlord on this singular world overnight, but that thought disgusted him. The wars and death and violence were so repulsive to him, but the thoughts haunted him nevertheless – an ever present temptation to rule the world and later suppress the violence that had filled it since Cain murdered his brother, but instead Mikel continued to suppress such horrid thoughts and continued on with his resolve to leave this world and never see it again. Mikel wanted no part in adding to death, neither death of his fellow Adamim nor of the animals either. Can and should, they are quite different words indeed, while even though any innumerable combinations of actions may be within ones abilities to do quite a fair percentage of such possible actions are ones which are best not done whatsoever. The destruction possible within Mikel’s reach, such abhorrence to him, was certainly a possibility, but in doing so he would be qualitatively no different than any of the other bloodstained warlords roaming the countryside and staining its fields red. No, he wanted to leave this rabid madness behind and let the virus of violence be left upon the singular world of Eretz alone.As far as possible, Mikel would do his best to ensure that he and his descendants would pursue peace and let this world and its bloodshed be forgotten or only recalled as a lesson for future generations of what not to become.


Being within the same star system however, and if his descendants remained spacefaring, interaction with Eretz would be inevitable.Hopefully the wars of his troubled mind would never occur, but if they did then the populations of Daleth would probably win any wars due to the aforementioned advantages of proximity to resources and lesser fuel requirements as well as ahead start in construction, but would that really be good? Staining the expanse red instead of the countryside would be just plain worse. Was war inevitable?The petty squabbling of the warlords who cut away centuries of their lifespan and that of everyone else for the sake of small patches of land and kills to boast about would seem almost trivial in comparison to the quantitative levels of bloodshed that might happen if the murderous maniacs of Eretz ever were able to become spacefaring. Perhaps it would be better to leave the solar system altogether and not have what he hoped would become and remain a peaceful civilization placed next to a world of perpetual murder thereby forced to eventually fight for its freedom and survival only to stain the skies red with bloodshed.


At present, Mikel and his friends had developed propulsion methods capable of reaching up to about 10% the speed of light,which would allow travel to the closest star to take only about 43 Eretz-years.To the closest star system with only a single star of similar light signature to the sun, however, would be about 129 years travel time at present, but even that would be within the current maximum potential lifespan of 950 years. Such interstellar travel would still take a great deal of time, requiring construction of massive ships with nuclear reactors and self-contained agricultural systems, but not impossible. The current range for a single generation to reach a destination system would currently be 95 light-years at maximum, but if a further destination were necessary to select, would it really be so awful if the next generations had no memory of Eretz and its lands filled with their endless rivulets of blood? Certainly the populations of the destination world or worlds would eventually be that nobody would have memory of things past once the first generation passed away. History would be academic rather than within ones memories of the horrors seen, but that would be another matter also, since if the odoriferous nature of Eretz were proclaimed throughout historical education then it would be likely to cause some to seek the destruction of the world, but what would be right to do? If it is not taught,then history is lost and that would be deception by omission, if something fluffy and cutesy is taught about Eretz – emphasizing the created wonders of the world and its beauty but ignoring the violence of the Adamim which had even spread amongst the animals – such would be intentional deception, but in telling the truth in entirety it may be an encouragement for future wars and such in effect would also be wrong. It really stinks when it seems as though there is no good choice to be made, but there must be one somehow. Truth must be proclaimed regardless, that must be the choice made even if it did lead to potential warfare.


Potential did not necessarily mean inevitable, as was constantly obvious to Mikel as he consciously chose to refrain from using the science and technology available to him in order to become yet another stupid warmonger like those idiots who devoted their lifespan to claiming and reclaiming small patches of land and boasting about how many people they were able to kill without being killed yet. No, Mikel hated that thought and wanted no kills to boast of whatsoever, and in leaving this crazy planet and being the first to colonize the expanse he would be claiming far more land than any moronic warlord could ever hope to claim and without any bloodshed whatsoever.


If the colony destination were placed far enough away, it would decrease the likelihood of conflict. Possibly anyhow, it might. So far as it seemed to Mikel and his friends who had researched and learned the laws ofnature of the operation of the universe, it would be impossible to travel faster than light. But that was only with a virtual handful of investigators over the course of only a few centuries. Presently, ships could be built that could send colonies out for destinations hundreds of lightyears distant but the time taken would be greater than one’s lifespan – which is a manner in which warfare could be discouraged – but if the light barrier could ever be breached,then that discouragement would be gone or at the very least decreased in effect. What would be better to do? Would it be better to colonize a technologically habitable world close by to Eretz, within the same system, or would it be better to search for habitation in another star system? Other systems and their construction remained yet virtually unknown, with only a few nearby with gas giants inferred from data and most systems being binary –having two small stars in orbit of their mutual center of mass – making the prospect of colonization difficult unless artificial habitations were to be made only within space itself and not upon planetary bodies. Such could workout quite nicely if done right and the proper materials were already in orbit of such stars, but if not then the only materials available would be those brought with aboard the interstellar craft itself.

So, assuming the worst the colony ship would be built to be its own self sufficient habitation, regardless of the resources present at the destination. They would have the nuclear resources to provide power for many centuries more than the length of their trip, and once in orbit of a star some power usage could be cut since then plants could be grown using the light from the star they arrived at. If enough proper resources could be found, then more habitations could be built in space, and if there were actually any planets able to be colonized then so much the better!


Mikel sat down by his work table, tired from dealing with everything and somewhat hungry. Going to his food cabinet, he picked out a dragon berry – a rather large fruit that has a thick husk and is reddish inside with black raindrop shaped seeds, a plant that was easier for the larger reptiles to eat but was still good to eat nevertheless. Using one of the knives that would have otherwise been used in the never ending warfare on this planet, he cut a few slices of the dragon berry and covered the remaining food with a sheet of transparent carbon polymer and placed it in the temperature controlled food storage unit.


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18 Mar 2015, 8:56 pm

Keet I do not have time to read your fiction at the moment ( although it should be good as you have shown a great ability to write plenty of fiction in the past :P ) it is good to see that you have stopped denying your feathery ancestry :D

Seriously though I do remember you having a wonderful knowledge of our lexicon and its etymology, so I am looking forward to reading it.


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Last edited by DentArthurDent on 18 Mar 2015, 8:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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18 Mar 2015, 8:58 pm

Wow! Very good writing style!

Watch out for split infinitives "to boldly go," etc. Your prose is very detailed and descriptive without being tedious. Kinda like Tom Clancy.

Loved it! :D


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21 Mar 2015, 11:45 am

DentArthurDent wrote:
Keet I do not have time to read your fiction at the moment ( although it should be good as you have shown a great ability to write plenty of fiction in the past :P ) it is good to see that you have stopped denying your feathery ancestry :D

Seriously though I do remember you having a wonderful knowledge of our lexicon and its etymology, so I am looking forward to reading it.


Time is a valuable commodity, isn't it? When working to make air filters and plastic junk for a bunch of lazy overpaid bums, they had me working practically every day in a stinking row unless I used up vacation time or absenteeism points in order to have a rest. Now, I can choose whether or not I work on Saturday or not and take breaks whenever I want. I'm going to do my best to be a freelance writer now that I can, I just have to overcome writer's block and keep focused on writing stuff that I might get paid for rather than just communicating with friends.

I haven't stopped denying my feathery ancestry, I'm just a spy now. :P

Cool that my vocabulary had impressed you previously. Being homeschooled, spelling and grammar were extremely focused upon. My mom had gone to public school, but that was back during a time when they actually had a focus of education rather than merely the semblance of it along with way too darn much socialization for me.

Anyway, hello again Dent.


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21 Mar 2015, 11:48 am

AspieUtah wrote:
Wow! Very good writing style!

Watch out for split infinitives "to boldly go," etc. Your prose is very detailed and descriptive without being tedious. Kinda like Tom Clancy.

Loved it! :D


Thank you. I will try to, as carefully as possible, avoid splitting infinitives. :P Seriously though, thanks. I haven't read too much of Tom Clancy's works, but some of the movies made off from his books are pretty good (Red October being my favorite.) Glad you liked my writing.


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21 Mar 2015, 11:50 am

Not an historical fiction novel idea, but a space action/adventure type story, how does this sound?

Quote:
An antimatter containment failure on Io destroys half the moon, putting the colonies of Europa and Ganymede in jeopardy from the debris, which also increases peril for travelers whose ships must answer the distress calls.


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21 Mar 2015, 12:11 pm

I'm guessing this probably sounds a bit stuffy, and the tentative name of the ship might sound a bit too much like Firefly's, but let me know what ye think if you will.

"A bright flash suddenly filled the crew of the Serendipity with dread. Those who had been miners on Mercury were reminded of the sun from how blindingly brilliant it was. Everyone’s eyes just couldn’t look away, watching a small world torn to shreds starting from the surface station. It had to be one of the numerous antimatter storage units. They were due to be replaced years ago, but colonial administration keep delaying the required maintenance because it wasn’t fiscally sound and didn’t seem necessary to all those safe bureaucrats back on Earth. Now the ones on Io really didn’t need to be replaced, because there was no more Io.

Proximity alarms started sounding; the debris approached, some small enough for the shields to divert. General quarters sounded and everyone had ten minutes to don their pressure suits before the air pumps depressurized the ship in preparation for the onslaught of the remnants of that previously volcanic satellite of Jupiter. Hull breaches were likely, but even worse a large enough chunk or blob of that world would most certainly destroy the ship entirely."


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