Tales of the Vuduri_Year Five

by Michael Brachman

  “Despite the fact that she likes it, maybe you could take it a little easy this one time?” Aason requested.

  “Roger that,” replied the sleek starship, the first of a breed “born” rather than built. “Even so, hold on to your hats.”

  The powerful EG lifters came up to speed and the jet-black craft leaped into the sky.

  When I originally wrote this, MINIMCOM was the spacecraft so at least I had the foresight to switch it to MINIMCOM, Jr. And on that note, this is the end of the review of Rome’s Evolution, tomorrow, we'll examine some of the big ideas I wanted to exploit in The Milk Run.

  Entry 5-350: December 16, 2017

  Big Ideas

  Yesterday, we wrapped up our discussion of Rome’s Evolution including the teaser for The Milk Run which was written before I actually wrote the novel. I had painted myself into a bit of a corner but it was a large and generous corner. At the end, we left Rome and Rei on their home world of Deucado and take up the mantle of the new generation, a grown-up Aason and Lupe.

  Now we look to the future. You may find this a bit of bad news but it is for a good reason. I've really enjoyed writing Tales of the Vuduri over the last five years but it does eat up a lot of time. I found that many weekends, all of my writing time was eaten up by trying to create daily posts. I have a lot of stories left in me and a lot of big ideas and I have come to the conclusion that the only way I can get back into writing is to put this blog on pause for a while.

  I will certainly finish out this year, Year Five, but then that's it for the foreseeable future. Over the next two weeks, I'll try and pull out the Big Ideas from The Milk Run so you can spot them in the narrative. But then that's it. As I said, I will hit the pause button. So what will I do instead?

  As I have mentioned before, I have split off Part 1 of Rome’s Revolution and rewritten it nearly completely as a standalone novel entitled Rebirth. I will do the same thing for Part 2 (Rebellion) and Part 3 (Redemption) and call this new series The Rome’s Revolution Saga. Then I will record each of the 60,000 word short novels as audiobooks. I'll publish all three electronically and audibly simultaneously.

  Finally, I will take all three novels, smush them back together and re-release Rome’s Revolution as a three-part epic, similar to the current edition. I got permission from Audible to reuse the previously recorded portions for the mini-novels so there will be a super-sized audiobook for Rome’s Revolution as well. I hope to finish all of this in 2018. I really want to move forward and get my body of work to Netflix. They are always looking for fresh, original material and I believe I need all these novels "in the can" before I approach Netflix or another streaming service or even an agent.

  Once that process is launched, then what? Who knows? I am thinking of writing MASAL - The Robot War and The Vuduri Knight. I also want to write the series called The Immortals. Maybe something else will come to me by then completely off the beaten path? Stay tuned.

  Entry 5-351: December 17, 2017

  More on Big Ideas

  Yesterday, I mentioned that I had a lot of "big ideas" for new novels moving forward. As I was writing that post, I realized that I also had "big ideas" when I decided to write The Milk Run. Since I don't have a lot of time left (only two weeks) to cover these, I cherry-picked the best ideas from that book and will cover them over the next 15 days or so. Here is a list of just some of the ideas I wanted to cover:

  - Exploring a grownup Aason and Lupe Bierak

  - Creating a cosmic detective story based upon a mistake

  - The amazing coincidence of that "new to Lupe" was really Nu2 Lupi

  - Creating the mystery of the K'val by writing the story backwards

  - Revealing what happened to the final Ark, Ark IV

  - Exploring what an ice planet might be like.

  - Exploring creatures with blood based upon cyanoglobin

  - Reliving Rome's training with Aason and Aroline

  - Trying to create a realistic first contact with a true alien species

  - A 35th century dogfight over the skies of Ay'den

  - Exploring plant people, from seedlings to ambulatory to trees

  - Speculating on silicon-based DNA, the living crystals

  - Introducing a creature, Molokai, who claimed to be a god

  - Slicing off Aason's hand as the ultimate act of friendship

  - Creating the largest starship in the galaxy

  - Speculating on higher and higher dimensions, in infinite directions

  - Bringing back the Stareaters as a plot device

  - Exploring life as a shrimp (huh?)

  - Demonstrating that purgatory is real and speculating on its purpose

  - Determining the purpose of the soul

  - Proving that Hell is mathematically impossible

  - Speculating about a Heaven, inhabited by gods

  - Speculating on God, above all else

  - Bringing back the characters Jack and Lacy Henry, in Heaven

  - What would gods fight about?

  - The nature of consciousness and the soul of a machine

  - Creating a "cute" version of Junior, Junior, Jr.

  - Granting Rome and Rei immortality

  These are just some of the ideas that I wanted to explore in The Milk Run. If I had another year of blogging left in me, I would cover them in much more detail. But as it is, you'll have to settle for a capsule version so I can embark on my quest to take Rome’s Revolution to Netflix and beyond.

  Entry 5-352: December 18, 2017

  Is this Rama?

  About a month and half ago, I wrote an article about a strange object that scientists detected as it was passing by our Earth. The object was originally called A/2017 U1 and was first discovered on October 19, 2017. It has since been renamed 'Oumuamua and last week, scientists trained the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia on the object to see if it was emanating any radio transmissions. Why would they do that? Just take a look at artist M. Kornmesser's rendition of what the object might look like:

  (Image courtesy of M. Kornmesser/European Southern Observatory/AFP)

  Does this look familiar? It should. It appears to be taken straight from Arthur C. Clarke's novel Rendezvous with Rama which was a story about an alien spacecraft that swings by our solar system. Rama was clearly artificial in origin and its only purpose was to attract technologically competent species and take them who knows where. Sort of an intergalactic Venus fly-trap or zoo keeper.

  So far, the object has been silent. That doesn't mean it isn't artificial in nature but it doesn't mean it is, either.

  The mission to "listen" to the object is part of the Breakthrough Listen initiative: a $100 million project, backed by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, to hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence. The project is also sponsored by Stephen Hawking to apply more sophisticated techniques to SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, that have been utilized previously.

  Of course, had they found something, you would have heard about it by now. 'Oumuamua's unusual shape and trajectory are intriguing but certainly not out of the realm of possibility for a natural object. Most asteroids are spherical in shape so 'Oumuamua elongated appearance might just be odd or perhaps a proper interstellar spacecraft. Only time will tell but so far, not a peep. And we aren't quite up to sending an exploratory probe to an object leaving our solar system at 196,000 mph, nearly 27 miles per second.

  I guess we'll have to wait for the next one. I suggest you read Rendezvous with Rama in the mean time to get ready.

  Entry 5-353: December 19, 2017

  Aason and Lupe

  Two days ago, I reminded you that as we hit the home stretch for Tales of the Vuduri, I won't have time to truly flesh out all the Big Ideas I had for the novel The Milk Run. Today I would like to cover why using a grown up Aason and Lupe Bierak was such a neat idea.

  The 35th century world of Rome’s Revolution was a hard place to map out. I had to write an entire future history of what happ
ened over the next 14 centuries. I had to imagine a society that was knocked back to the Stone Age and had to pull itself up by the bootstraps so that it rivaled our exceeded our technological competence but not so far as to be incomprehensible.

  I also spent a long time developing the characters of Rei and Rome and even spotted them two children when the story seemed to dictate it. Each of them had a unique personality so it was actually enjoyable to figure out how their children would grow up and who they'd become.

  Because Aason was the first born, almost the first of a new species, I made him a sweet, intelligent, brave and kind individual, handsome of course, so that he would truyly represent the White Knight that Rei only aspired to be.

  Lupe, the younger one, had to craft a different personality to distinguish herself and pull herself out of Aason's shadow. That she was prophesied to be the great communicator of the galaxy was probably a burden she resented to some degree. So I made her a little bratty but someone whom everybody loved nonetheless.

  But it was Aason's personality that drove the story so I had Lupe kidnapped within the first two paragraphs and Aason spent the rest of the story looking for her. We learned more about her personality from flashbacks to Aason's life and his experiences with his little sister.

  It was kind of a fun way to write a story. I don't know that I'll do it again. And if I ever get around to writing The Vuduri Knight, starring Aason's son, Rory, Lupe will be the "guest hero" who saves the day.

  I hope you get to read the book some day and enjoy it for what it's worth. A little slice of life of two extraordinary kids growing up in an age of wonders.

  Entry 5-354: December 20, 2017

  A Cosmic Detective Story

  Several days ago, I reminded you that as we hit the home stretch for Tales of the Vuduri, I won't have time to truly flesh out all the Big Ideas I had for the novel The Milk Run. Today I would like to explain why I decided to write this book as a cosmic detective story.

  In all the previous books, I had clues and foreshadowing as that is standard practice in writing any kind of novel. It wasn't a problem since I knew about what was coming but this time I went full bore and wrote the entire outline before I started. Therefore I knew presenting each event when it occurred, even if it appeared out of context, would be mystifying to the reader but they would ultimately be able to put all the pieces together at the end.

  Stated another way, to write a proper detective story, you have to write it backwards. This whole book was to be Aason's voyage of discovery and I had to know what he was going to discover. I knew he was going to find the lost Ark IV by accident. I knew he was going to meet a creature who thought he was a god. I knew Aason would meet plant people. And finally, I knew Aason would travel to Heaven (and Hell) to find his sister.

  So each section of the book was divided up into its own sub-mysteries and as the answers became clear, they would only lead to more questions and more mysteries. The overriding mystery, of course, was who kidnapped Lupe and why. But the sub-mysteries were what did Lupe mean by "New to Lupe" and who were the K'val and why did they have an invisible planet? Also, another mystery was who was Molokai and did he really come from Heaven? I even wanted to explore the mystery of the meaning of life, the soul and the afterlife. You might not agree with my conclusions but I am hoping you at least enjoy the journey.

  It was quite liberating and quite fun to do it this way but I don't think I'm going to do it again. Maybe someday I'll write a true detective mystery, not science fiction, and take my cues from how I approached The Milk Run. I think that would be fun.

  But for right now, I have to buckle down, finish up this blog, finish up The Rome’s Revolution Saga and get it on Netflix. Then maybe I'll look at other worlds to conquer.

  Entry 5-355: December 21, 2017

  New to Lupe

  Several days ago, I reminded you that as we hit the home stretch for Tales of the Vuduri, I won't have time to truly flesh out all the Big Ideas I had for the novel The Milk Run. Today I wanted to talk about a critical plot element which was totally coincidental. When Lupe is kidnapped at the beginning of the book, she whispers "New to Lupe" to Aason and then disappears. But the fact is, that wasn't what she said at all. She was saying "Nu2 Lupi" which is the name of a star and, as it turns out, the target of the long lost Ark IV. So how did this happen? Did I plan this?

  I have always claimed these stories were true but that they just haven't happened yet. How else can you explain the amazing coincidences when elements I throw in randomly, years earlier, coalesce and become critical plot elements that drive future stories forward?

  For example, I wrote about a terrible plague called "The Great Dying" as part of my future history. And later when I was constructing how the Arks were to be built, I made the forward 20% of the sarcophagi armored so that they would survive even a catastrophic crash. And I also wrote about a crazy future war between returning spacemen, the Ark V, and a hero named Hanry Ta Jihn, who started a revolt and saved the Earth.

  I did not know until I wrote The Ark Lords that these seemingly random events were all related. I swear I did not know about the Darwin Project and the Darwin Virus Strain 4, aka the Lupine Flu, until I wrote that sequel. Everything fit together like a glove and I had the revelation that the Darwin people were, in fact, the ones that released the virus as part of their long term plan to "reboot" the Earth. How could I have known?

  And so it was, when Rome and Rei were going to have a daughter, I decided to name her Lupe which was my daughter's Spanish name when she was taking Spanish in high school. After all, I named Rome and Rei's son Aason after my own son, Aaron. It seemed only fitting that their daughter be named after my daughter.

  I had always known that the Ark IV had gone to Nu2 Lupi but I never put two and two together. It wasn't until I started writing the book that I came up with that phrase which supplied enough juice to power two chapters. What are the odds?

  I don't know where these ideas come from but sometimes they are so weird that I have to believe they stem from a non-random information source. In this case, a possible timeline to the future. Do you believe me?

  Entry 5-356: December 22, 2017

  Creating the K'val

  Several days ago, I reminded you that as we hit the home stretch for Tales of the Vuduri, I won't have time to truly flesh out all the Big Ideas I had for the novel The Milk Run. Instead, I am presenting some capsule summaries of the motivation behind a subset of those ideas. Today I wanted to talk about the first actual aliens that my humans of the 35th century encounter, the plant people named the K'val. Here is a picture of Sh'ev, in case you don't remember:

  To me, it is obvious that there has to be other planets out there with intelligent life. On Helome and Deucado, we had life and on Deucado, we had evidence that there was intelligent life some time in the distant path. There is no argument that the Stareaters were intelligent but we still don't know if they are alive or just incredible machines. Nonetheless, it was time to invent true aliens and I didn't want to just to take some humans and slap on some plastic prosthetics and have them speak English. So I decided let's start with intelligent plants.

  To start, I wanted to take you to Hades, the sixth planet out in the Nu2 Lupi system and make it hellishly cold. When the Ark IV set out for that star system, the scientists back on Earth figured that the fifth world, Planet E, later to be known as Ay'den would be the most suitable for humans. But when the colonists got there, Planet E was nowhere to be found. Luckily, and I use the word loosely, the scientists also knew that Planet F, later known as Hades, could also sustain human life, however uncomfortably.

  The people living on Hades were under duress during their entire four decade stay so the last thing they needed was a bunch of rabid aliens coming in, torturing and killing them and kidnapping them. What could possibly motivate an intelligent alien race to do that to a bunch of cold and hungry people, a thousand strong?

  So I wrote the long history of the K'val and then w
orked it backwards. They owed their very existence to the would-be god, Molokai and he commanded them to go forth and grab the humans under the threat of pain to their loved ones. In other words, they were not inherently evil, just extorted into performing acts which were actually against their nature. The history of the K'val was recounted fully in the short story collection The Vuduri Companion. Keeping in line with the idea that The Milk Run would be presented as a cosmic mystery story. So the K'val became a mini-mystery.