Tales of the Vuduri: Year Two

by Michael Brachman

  So instead of leaves, pine trees have developed needles to minimize their surface area and therefore moisture loss. Their light collection area has to go from tip to toe and they have a conical shape so that no section is in shadow. I.e. they maximize their light collection surface.

  Bottom line: the shape of trees and the shape of leaves evolve to suit their environment. We found out in Rome's Revolution that Deucado has cane-trees. The gravity is a little lighter there and sunlight is a little redder but there is plenty of it. Their trunks don't need to support much weight and up they go.

  But what about on Hades, the cold, cold world in the upcoming The Milk Run and Ay’den, the world of the living plants? Stay tuned.

  Entry 2-140: May 15, 2014

 

  Animal, vegetable, mineral

  I have covered this topic in a previous post but I wanted to circle back and discuss creatures in general. While I proposed two days ago that all intelligent aliens that are about our size will look like us, what if they are not intelligent?

  Animals have taken on every size and shape imaginable, both those living today and those long extinct:

  So when it comes to animals, you can propose pretty much anything (including Ice-sabers) and get away with it. If the shape or capabilities don't work, eventually the animal will go extinct but there are no limitations.

  In The Ark Lords, we found out about batwolves and lurkers. In Rome's Evolution, we found out about the falling blankets. I have plenty of new animals coming up in The Milk Run. Yesterday, we discussed plants and why they take on the shapes that they do. The plant people called the K'val follow those plans.

  That leaves us with mineral. What would a mineral-based creature look like? As I showed you once before, they featured one on Star Trek, The Original Series called the Horta:

  But I think that living crystals should be given the freedom to take on any size or shape that they want. Like the animals cited above, if it doesn't work from an evolutionary standpoint, well, the creature will disappear.

  So far I have come up with crystalline dinosaur-y type creatures, bat-like creatures that can fly and some living boulders that can crush you. I'm sure I'll think of others before I get there. I just have, in my mind, a great scene where Aason is digging in the ground to get to a special substance and he and OMCOM are being attacked by flying crystal creatures. Unfortunately for the crystals, the armor that Aason wears and the OMCOM livetar are harder than anything they have ever encountered and they just shatter upon impact.

  I hope I can do that scene justice.

  Entry 2-141: May 16, 2014

 

  To outline or not to outline

  When I started VIRUS 5 which eventually became Rome's Revolution, I never really outlined the book. For some reason, I kind of knew the whole story from start to finish. So while the individual scenes may have wobbled or mutated, there were certain constants.

  Rei, standing alone, seeing Rome for the first time was one. The two of them using the bands and instantly falling in love was another. OMCOM was always there. The Stareaters bearing down them was another. And the mutation scene. All were part of the story before I set down a single word. The rest, well, the characters filled that in for me.

  When the time came to write The Ark Lords, while I had an idea of what the story was, or least the beginning and the end, I really didn't know the whole story. So I made an outline. It wasn't hard and fast but it kind of blocked the story out into three acts and gave me a bit of guidance on what each chapter meant, how long it had to be and so on. You can see this stretched a bit thin with the Legend of Jack Henry. It really only takes up three chapters but for the purposes of the book, I needed it to become four. So I arbitrarily split up the final battle at the Tevatron into two pieces even though it doesn't really make sense.

  Regardless, the outline served as a nice guide so when I went to write Rome's Evolution, my outline was more detailed. Every chapter was scripted and had a length assigned to it. Some didn't quite fit the bill and others ran over but mostly I followed it fairly carefully.

  I did make one mistake. I thought it would be cool to have Rome and Rei take on Steele in the cane-tree forest and THEN break up the story with the second Intermezzo. My first two readers screamed at me. They like the information that the Intermezzo (Rei's space walk) provided but it was a horrible break in the action. My friend Helen calls it shaking your reader out of the 'fictive dream'.

  So I moved it up to right after Rome and Rei captured Troutman. I needed you, the reader, to get the information but it didn't bother me that you got it sooner rather than later. So that's the version that is out now. Nobody but those first few readers will ever know that I changed it around.

  With the upcoming novel, The Milk Run, I have outlined it as well. There will be one flashback and one flash-sideways but I know now to place them where they don't interfere with the flow of the story.

  Other writers may not agree but I think an outline is very useful.

  Entry 2-142: May 17, 2014

 

  A girl spaceship

  First of all, how can a starship have a gender in the first place? In theory, they are genderless. Yet when MINIMCOM gave "birth" to Junior in The Ark Lords, it was natural for you, the reader, to think of him as a mother. He quickly cleared up the confusion:

  “What is that?” Rome asked, pointing at the smaller spaceship.

  The mouth slit of MINIMCOM’s livetar curled upward into a smile.

  “I had to do something with the mass I gave up,” said the all-black livetar. He nodded and suddenly a small gray livetar, barely two feet tall, appeared beside him. The eye holes and mouth hole were round instead of the normal slits. “I would like you to meet MINIMCOM Junior,” MINIMCOM said proudly.

  Rei started laughing. “You gave birth? You’re a mother?”

  “Although I do not have a gender, I would prefer to think of myself as a father.”

  So, in reality, the gender of the spaceship, if there is one, has more to do with mind-set than reproductive equipment.

  In preparing the back stories for the upcoming novel The Milk Run, I decided that Lupe Bierak (Rome and Rei's daughter) was going to get a starship of her own. In the outline that I worked up, MINIMCOM gave "birth" to another spaceship when Lupe was about 12 years old. However, from the day she was born, Fury (the name of Lupe's starship) was clearly a female.

  It wasn't just that she was pink and curvy. It was also reflected by her design and her attitude. Whereas MINIMCOM and Junior (as he grew up) were more traditional transports, Fury was more of a flyer. She wasn't really built for hauling large quantities of items or people. She was just designed to get Lupe to places fast.

  Lupe's primary skill set and what she was trained for was first contact. She was trained to get into the minds of aliens and communicate with them before anything could get out of hand. So Fury did not need armaments or cargo capacity. She was just an advanced shuttle.

  Her livetar was also bright pink and very feminine shaped. Her voice was higher pitched than Junior's. However, think about her name. Fury. That should tell you something. She isn't one to trifle with, especially when it comes to Lupe's well-being.

  Oy, what a world. Girl spaceships!

  Entry 2-143: May 18, 2014

 

  Future jobs or why didn’t I think of this?

  Bruce sent me an article recently on Yahoo which described some possible future jobs imagined by the Canadian Scholarship Trust Plan (CST). In fact the title of the Yahoo article is "9 Futuristic Jobs We Could See By 2030" and the premise is what could be. Rome's Revolution takes place in the 35th century which certainly qualifies as the future.

  Here is a list of the jobs they cited in that particular article:

  1. Tele-surgeon

  2. Nostalgist

  3. Re-wilder

  4. Simplicity expert

  5. Garbage designer

  6. Robot counselor

  7. Health
care navigator

  8. Solar technology specialist

  9. Aquaponic fish farmer

  As Jack Bauer likes to say, "dammit" - why didn't I think of that. I was so busy trying to get my people to the stars, it never occurred to me that there would be whole new jobs that don't exist today. I just made Rei a general engineer. I could have made him an aquaponic engineer. I made Silas Hiram a farmer and ag professor rather than a re-wilder.

  But then again, maybe I wasn't so far off. All of the occupations cited above are built upon the premise that society continues along the path we are now and address issues coming up. However, on the world of Deucado, for instance, there are no aquaponic farms or health care systems. There's nothing. Life is very primitive initially. So the skill sets required would be more basic. They would have to address issues that confronted our grandparents rather than our grandchildren. Here is what Bonnie Mullen said about it in The Ark Lords:

  “We were born and schooled to live a certain lifestyle,” Bonnie said indicating the room with a sweep of her arm. “There’s nothing here. No supermarkets. No stores to shop. Nothing to buy and nowhere to buy it.” She pointed to the far wall, her mind envisioning a three-v that was not there. “We have no movies. No entertainment. No amenities.” She waved at the small coffee table in front of the sofa. “Take appetizers, for example. I wanted to serve you cheese and crackers. But what I have is embarrassing. We’re really nothing but glorified farmers now.”

  Oh well, I just made myself feel better. I can always claim that I thought of those future occupations but rejected them because of their impracticality rather than lack of imagination. But I'll have to be more careful in the future.

  Entry 2-144: May 19, 2014

 

  How did Rome blow out the penlight?

  I've always wondered about something. Even when Rome's Revolution was in its original long form, I always had the "birthday" scene where Rei presents Rome with a small cake meant to commemorate her one month anniversary of being Cesdiud (cast out).

  Rei and Rome were still learning about each other at this point so he was taking a gamble by reminding her but his gut told him she would take it in the right spirit. I knew I didn't want candles in space so Rei rigged up a penlight to simulate a candle.

  Here is the actual scene:

  Rei took a deep breath. “It’s…kind of a birthday cake. Well, not a birthday. Maybe more of an anniversary.”

  “I do not understand,” said Rome.

  “It was one month ago today, well, one of my months, that you were Cesdiud.”

  Rome frowned and stared at the cake.

  “Are you upset?” Rei asked.

  She looked up at him. Then she smiled again. “Oh no, you are exactly correct. On that day, I was liberated. That is the same as being reborn.”

  She cocked her head. “What is the purpose of the penlight?”

  “Oh, when I was growing up, we always put candles on the cake,” Rei said. “You’re supposed to make a wish and blow it out.”

  “How do I blow out a penlight?” she asked.

  “Pretend,” Rei replied. “Close your eyes, make your wish then blow.”

  Rome pulled her head back. She closed her eyes then opened them again, leaned forward and aimed a puff of air at the light. The penlight went out. Rome clapped her hands together. “How did you do that?”

  Rei just smiled and laughed quietly.

  The purpose of this scene was so that Rome could utter an "epic" line - She said, “Do you mean other than losing instantaneous access to the sum total of all human knowledge?” I've always wondered how Rei got her to blow out the penlight. It's such a minor plot hole that I seriously doubt anyone has ever worried about it. But still... Rei never told me.

  I know that Rei had the penlight custom made so he could have had any kind of special electronics integrated into it. I'm assuming that either a) Rei had MINIMCOM build in a "wind detector" so that it actually shut of when Rome blew at it or b) MINIMCOM just shut it off at the right moment.

  Who knows? Maybe it was magic. Do you have any ideas?

  Entry 2-145: May 20, 2014

 

  What did Rome wish for?

  Yesterday, I reviewed the "birthday" scene in Rome's Revolution whereby Rome blew out a penlight and made a wish. But what did she actually wish for? Rome did not understand the tradition regarding secret wishes so she attempted to tell Rei what she wished for. Here is the actual exchange:

  “It is a nice place to visit, but I never wish to live there again,” she said. “All connected, there is no creativity. You were right about our humanity. All the Vuduri lost something when we joined the Overmind. And now I have found it.” Rome paused for a second then continued. “I want to tell you what I wished for.”

  “No!” Rei insisted. “Then it won’t come true.”

  Rome furrowed her brow. “All right. You will see some day.”

  She never mentioned it again until the last few lines of the novel. Rome and Rei had made peace with The Stareaters and vaporized MASAL and they were lying in their own bed on their first night in their new home on Deucado. Here is how it went:

  Rome closed her eyes, nestled even closer and breathed a happy sigh. “I love you, mau emir,” she whispered.

  “I love you, too, Romey,” Rei said, kissing the top of her head.

  “Rei,” she said breathily as she drifted off.

  “Yes, honey?”

  “Do you remember when we had my first birthday? The candle? You told me to make a wish.”

  “Sure, I remember. Why?” Rei asked.

  “You made me promise to not tell you what the wish was for. You said that would make it not come true.”

  “That’s the way it is with all wishes.”

  “Well, you were right but it no longer matters,” mused Rome.

  “Why?”

  Rome replied, “Because everything that I wished for has now come true.”

  So what did she mean by that? We have to assume she could not have known about MASAL or stopping the civil war on Deucado. I'm thinking she wished for something like wanting a happy, peaceful life with Rei. Maybe a baby. Stuff like that. I'm thinking she wished that someday they'd live happily ever after.

  Well, she almost got her wish. Rome and Rei had to go through the traumas of The Ark Lords and Rome's Evolution but eventually things settled down and they did live happily ever after. Quite frankly, they deserved it!

  Entry 2-146: May 21, 2014

 

  MINIMCOM's cloak of invisibility

  After MINIMCOM was transformed by the VIRUS-based constructor units, his entire airframe was built out of a mutable material and he could change shape at will. Less well documented, although on display in Rome's Revolution was MINIMCOM's outer layer which used a modified form of constructors with larger than ordinary PPT projectors. This allowed MINIMCOM to throw up a shield of invisibility (similar to the cloaking shield developed by the Klingons and stolen by the Federation).

  It lets light pass through one side of MINIMCOM and out the other, bidirectionally, essentially rendering MINIMCOM invisible. Here is the scene where MINIMCOM first revealed this capability:

  “How are you going to tow us?” Rei asked.

  “I think transport would be a better word,” MINIMCOM answered. “Please activate the rear cameras. I want to show you my new trick.”

  “All right,” Rome replied and reached forward to press a button on the console. She tapped an icon twice and the viewscreens switched to show part of the planet below them with MINIMCOM’s black bulk obscuring most of the star field behind them. Suddenly MINIMCOM disappeared.

  “Where’d you go?” Rei asked, perplexed.

  “I am still behind you,” replied MINIMCOM.

  “No, you’re not,” Rei replied. He looked down at the MIDAR screen. MINIMCOM’s outline was still there. He looked at the viewscreens and all he saw was stars. He looked down at the MIDAR screen. There was no mistaking it. The 3
D field of view showed MINIMCOM there plain as day.

  “Is that your trick? Messing up the cameras?” Rei asked.

  “No, the cameras are untouched,” MINIMCOM said. The hybrid computer/spaceship winked back into view. He was exactly where he was before. Then he disappeared again. Then he popped back into view again. Then he was gone, this time for good.

  “What the he..,” Rei stopped speaking. He glanced over at Rome. “What the heck?!” Rei asked. “What are you doing?”

  “It is magic,” MINIMCOM said with cybernetic delight.

  “MINIMCOM, do not fool around,” Rome said sternly. “What are you doing?”

  “I took a page out of the book inscribed by the Deucadons,” the former space tug replied. “My new skin permits me to project a sphere - froth might be a better word - of PPT tunnels around me. Light and radiation pass through the tunnels from one side to the other. No light reflects so you cannot see me. The tunnels are very short range and I can choose what frequencies pass through them. Unless you knew I was here, you would not know I was here.”

  “So it’s like you’re invisible? Sleek!” Rei said admiringly. He looked down at his instruments. “But I can still see you on the MIDAR screen. Your cloak isn’t perfect.”

  As soon as Rei said it, the image on MIDAR screen went blank. Rei glanced over at Rome. She switched the MIDAR off and on again. The instrument was working. There was simply nothing there.

  “As I said, I can control what frequencies travel through the tunnels, including those used by MIDAR.”

  “Buddy, I gotta hand it to you,” Rei said, laughing. “You really are a magician.”