Setting for a Sci-Fi Novel
iamnotaparakeet
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05 Jan 2011, 5:36 am
The basic idea I have is for an interplanetary network of space-stations to be the setting for a story. There would be stations in between planetary orbits which would serve for multiple purposes: transportation nodes; communications; cold-storage of food products; barracks; hangers; shipyards; solar power arrays; greenhouses; and a few other purposes. Earth and Mars would be the only planets with population, Venus would be undergoing the process of terraforming by microbe bombardment, and the moons of the gas giants would also have population along with research outposts on Pluto, Ceres, and the other planetoids of the Solar system.
Perhaps the story could follow a plot revolving around a crew assigned to retrofit an terraformation support platform in orbit of Venus which was abandoned due to a particularly violent series of solar flare activity decades earlier. At least that is where the story could start out, though I’d like it to traverse the solar system and talk about the cool features of the planets, planetoids, and moons, along with the technological structures which would allow humankind to see how cool creation is if time is permitted by God to be had.
It will not have all the needless evolutionary baggage which most science fiction authors place in it, but I also don’t want to inappropriately bring in theological issues which may sound weird if not stated correctly either. Perhaps my novel could just be a cool story rather than a disguised piece of rhetoric, unlike way too many other novels. Movie makers today try to appeal to everyone by throwing in random elements of “religiousity” and promiscuity, and in doing so they more often offend others cutting themselves off from the multiple audiences to which they try to simultaneously appeal and thus fail in so doing.
For some ideas of spacecraft: One ship could have a lot of independently controlled mirrors, which would be able to function as a weapon, as propulsion, and when using only a small amount of them for illuminating objects of interest. In a Popular Science article a few years ago I read about a usage of LCD crystals on windows to electronically cause the windows to be opaque or transparent. Such could be incorporated into the mirror arrays for a variety of purposes such as shutting off infrared light from a target and decreasing visibility against the darkness of space.
Another ship could be a troop transport vessel, or pair of vessels. If using two vessels, they could tether themselves together lengthwise and then rotate to allow for centrifugal gravity. In such an arrangement, the crew quarters could be at the edge of the centrifuge so that their bodies maintain, or even develop, muscle tone while asleep. The working areas could be in the decks closer to the rotational axis so as to allow for more ease of movement while awake and performing tasks.
And then there would be pirate ships to deal with, whose tentative base of operation would be the planetoid Ceres. The technology incorporated in their ships would depend upon the ships that the capture, of course, … I suppose the only difference between them and regular pirates is that these operate in space which thus makes them cooler.
I would like to have a realistic logistics system incorporated into the setting, perhaps with minimum travel time per individual ship, multiple transit routes enabled by space stations designed for the holding and transfer of cargo from one vessel to another (like the pony express), sufficient weaponry aboard cargo ships to at least put up a fight against pirates, military fleets on patrol of the solar system and hanger stations in orbit of planets and of the sun throughout.
Mars would be both for mining of resources and for more immediate terraformation (or it could already be terraformed), the moons of Mars would act as space stations for transfer of cargo and communications.
These are just some basic preliminary thoughts as to what I would like to have in my novel, should I ever get around to just writing. Any constructive criticism is welcome. Mere squawking because I mentioned God once (or twice as of now) is unappreciated.
DemonAbyss10
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05 Jan 2011, 6:52 am
there are many different directions you can take this. I for one felt a hint of corrupt and/or oppressive interplanetary/station government in which a civil war of sorts breaks out.
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iamnotaparakeet
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05 Jan 2011, 12:40 pm
Actually, I don't plan to have the government to be super corrupt or oppressive. The military stations would be there to defend commercial and private transports and stations against pirates. Space pirates would be inevitable, so long as other vessels are traveling between stations at regular intervals they'd have the ability to sustain themselves by looting.
Not yet. Is it similar to my ideas above or is it just a good read?
richie
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05 Jan 2011, 4:14 pm
A couple of political models come to mind as far as intra-solar system settings go.
One is "The Dispossessed" by Ursula K. Leguin which describes a binary planet system around Tau Ceti: Anarres and Urras.
Anarres is essentially a renegade utopia while Urras is very much like Earth with warring nations great wealth and enormous poverty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dispossessed
Another novel that deals with Solar System politics is Norman Spinrad's "Agent of Chaos".
http://www.amazon.com/Agent-Chaos-Norma ... 1584450428
I read this over 30 years ago, and it offers some insights as to why all revolutions ultimately fail.
Before Spinrad made his name with Bug Jack Barron, his rude, energetic fourth novel, his earliest work had passed without much notice. In this second novel, written in 1967, the tyrannical Hegemony, which has given its citizens peace and prosperity, easily thwarts the small, gadfly Democratic League, with its goal of freedom, but is stung at the heart by the old and efficient Brotherhood of Assassins, whose object is simply to increase chaos in the placid utopia. Although there is nothing here of the verve, iconoclasm, rock rhythm or mass-media amplification that have characterized Spinrad's best work, the anarchic, id-driven social philosophy underlying this slight pulp adventure is certainly more interesting in the retrospective light of those later science fiction classics.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
First published in the 1960s, Spinrad was one of the first writers to perceive the totalitarian implications of the cradle-to-grave welfare state. But at the same time he was too organically a radical ever to be confused with a conservative. Result: "Agent of Chaos!"
Boris Johnson thinks he wants democracy. But in the course of his adventures he discovers that democracy to him means freedom. It's a banned concept from the Millennium of Religion. Like God.
He finds himself dealing with a byzantine political situation worthy of anything from the banned past. The dictatorship is the Hegemony. Opposition is provided by the aptly named agents of C.H.A.O.S. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood of Assassins plays a game that no one can fathom. Whose side are they on? Whose fool are you?
Spinrad explores his philosophical theme in a manner all too rare in contemporary science fiction. The problem is that Order will always try to eliminate any random factors. By its very nature, it encourages opposition and that feeds the forces of chaos. But chaos has built in problems as well. Its victories cannot help but feed the forces of reaction, of order. The heroes in this novel ultimately opt for personal freedom. The villains try to establish a dictatorship over the very nature of reality itself.
And then Spinrad throws in the discovery of aliens. A starship sets forth to meet them, the Prometheus. The Hegemony doesn't like that.
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