All authors please read, i need feedback

[korn469]

my cousin and I are going to start work on a comic book, it is going to be a sci-fi series and here is the preliminary stuff, could you please check it out read over it and ask questions plus give critisism, all feedback will be appreciated. i really respect the talent out there and was hoping you could help me out some...thanks in advance

quote: Here's the first little part of Revolution. It highlights the background and sets up the plot, but there aren't an extravagant amount of details. But this should set you up to start writing your spin-off series. It's the key to unlock the toybox. Write back and let me know if you were able to see it, and what you think. Also, let me know if you still might be coming up Friday. We've got a lot of work to do! The sketch is the preliminary uniform design for Revere and the UTW soldiers/scientists. The picture of the planet is just there for the heck of it. Later

Check it out here!

korn469

[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited March 01, 2000).]

[Captain Kirk]

Sounds good. But I don't think Castro would line that long. Unless there was an awesome new medical breakthrough. By the way do the aliens have a name? Asia nad Europe aren't part of the UTW.

[korn469]

i forgot what he called the aliens...he is going to write the main book and i am going to do a spin off about some really kewl offworld illegal corporations...castro living so long is a little bit of inside irony, (it seems everybody is waiting for him to die so we decided to make him live to be really old)

but is there any other critisism? something doesn't feel like it is clicking and i'm not sure why not...i was hoping somebody could help me figure it out

korn469

[Captain Kirk]

I think I may of found a missing link. It's probably not the one you were looking for. Pluto is the coldest planet in our solar system because it is so far away from the sun. If Janus was behind Pluto than it would to far away from the sun. Meaning it would be one giant iceberg. Is that it ?

[edgecrusher]

sounds like a winner. although there is a problem with the planet. perhaps you can say that 'janus' is actually a gas giant with several moons that could be populated. another thing is this: in every story i've read it seems that the name of the mythical tenth planet is persephone. not to sy that you can't name it janus. hell, you probably picked janus instead of persephony for that specific reason... but i digress...

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i've had the poison leak into my skin
and it corroded my heart away

[korn469]

ok looking on the net gave me some good ideas

quote: Nemesis, the Sun's companion star, 1983-present Suppose our Sun was not alone but had a companion star. Suppose that this companion star moved in an elliptical orbit, its solar distance varying between 90,000 a.u. (1.4 light years) and 20,000 a.u., with a period of 30 million years. Also suppose this star is dark or at least very faint, and because of that we haven't noticed it yet. This would mean that once every 30 million years that hypothetical companion star of the Sun would pass through the Oort cloud (a hypothetical cloud of proto-comets at a great distance from the Sun). During such a passage, the proto-comets in the Oort cloud would be stirred around. Some tens of thousands of years later, here on Earth we would notice a dramatic increase in the the number of comets passing the inner solar system. If the number of comets increases dramatically, so does the risk of the Earth colliding with the nucleus of one of those comets. When examining the Earth's geological record, it appears that about once every 30 million years a mass extinction of life on Earth has occurred. The most well-known of those mass extinctions is of course the dinosaur extinction some 65 million years ago. About 15 million years from now it's time for the next mass extinction, according to this hypothesis. This hypothetical "death companion" of the Sun was suggested in 1985 by Daniel P. Whitmire and John J. Matese, Univ of Southern Louisiana. It has even received a name: Nemesis. One awkward fact of the Nemesis hypothesis is that there is no evidence whatever of a companion star of the Sun. It need not be very bright or very massive, a star much smaller and dimmer than the Sun would suffice, even a brown or a black dwarf (a planet-like body insufficiently massive to start "burning hydrogen" like a star). It is possible that this star already exists in one of the catalogues of dim stars without anyone having noted something peculiar, namely the enormous apparent motion of that star against the background of more distant stars (i.e. its parallax). If it should be found, few will doubt that it is the primary cause of periodic mass extinctions on Earth. But this is also a notion of mythical power. If an anthropologist of a previous generation had heard such a story from his informants, the resulting scholarly tome would doubtless use words like 'primitive' or 'pre-scientific'. Consider this story: There is another Sun in the sky, a Demon Sun we cannot see. Long ago, even before great grandmother's time, the Demon Sun attacked our Sun. Comets fell, and a terrible winter overtook the Earth. Almost all life was destroyed. The Demon Sun has attacked many times before. It will attack again. This is why some scientists thought this Nemesis theory was a joke when they first heard of it -- an invisible Sun attacking the Earth with comets sounds like delusion or myth. It deserves an additional dollop of skepticism for that reason: we are always in danger of deceiving ourselves. But even if the theory is speculative, it's serious and respectable, because its main idea is testable: you find the star and examine its properties. However, since the examination of the entire sky in the far IR by IRAS with no "Nemesis" found, the existence of "Nemesis" is not very likely

i propose that nemesis is a red dwarf star

quote: There are lots of types of dwarf stars: the Sun is called a yellow dwarf, because it is relatively small and yellow (its temperature is about 6000 degrees Celsius). A red dwarf is a tiny red star, pretty much like the Sun but much cooler and smaller.

if it was surrounded by a dust cloud orbiting the red dwarf then it could be almost invisable

how does that sound?

korn469

[President Jakjon]

Perhaps it would be best if you resolved the "why isn't it a ball of ice?" situation by simply putting it in a nearby star system, and then giving the humans near-lightspeed engines and faster than light communications.

FTLC is possible, as something faster than light has been discovered: the interaction between two halves of a quantum particle. I read in the Science Times that researchers split a quanta, seperated the halves, and sent one down some sort of track, like a marble, except cut in half but still rolling. The other half emulated the moves, and the time difference was less than if the interaction was at light speed.

Anyway, I also have a problem with the ideological implications of your story. I describe myself as a (Radical) Leftist (Pragmatic) Patriot Militarist (Neo-protestant) Christian (Anti-Monopolist) Capitalist. [Any questions, just ask.] So, while I liked the part about the USA unifying much of the world, the bit about the soldiers consciously betraying the mission is offensive and unrealistic.

I suggest a new strategy (to quote Admiral Tarkin): the aliens are inherently pacifistic, so they doubtlessly wouldn't UNDERSTAND weapons. Therefore, perhaps they somehow get their hands on some of the humans' weapondry (which is doubtlessly quite powerful by this point) and cause a cultural misunderstanding. The more nervous humans retaliate, which causes further escalation by the Aliens, and so on. The voices of reason/pacifists on both sides then have to somehow calm things down and bring peace. How about that?

As to the "Nemesis" scenario: "Nemesis" doesn't sound very original, but I don't have any better ideas at the moment. As to whether this is scientifically plausible, I will paraphrase Captain Kirk:
"Damnit, Jim I'm an ideologue not an astrophysicist"

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--President Jakjon
--Datalinks

[korn469]

the nemesis idea is to have a really dim small star (a red dwarf) which is close to the sun (less than 5 light years, maybe somewhere between 1.5 to 3 light years), and it is finally discover at some point in the future...the star is about 1/10th the mass of the sun and very dim...also it is surrounded by a dust cloud making it even harder to see...

Janus would be the only planet in it's solar system (that is for a reason)

also the aliens are inherent pacifists...they will never go on the offensive (that too is for a reason) also because they are pasifist doesn't make them stupid

the soldier didn't betray the mission...they are following orders from on high, Radford (the president) has grand ambitions, and he is going to use the threat of some alien menace to further his ambitions

is that too cliche?

the critism is good...keep it coming!

korn469
[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited March 02, 2000).]

[Captain Kirk]

Why do we always have to be corrupt? Why couldn't the alien species have a radical sect. Divergent violent sect apart from the pacifist whole. They attack the humans which makes the UTW declare war putting the innocent pacifists at risk. Bwahahahaha. Sorry.



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Damnit, Jim I'm a doctor not an animal psychologist

[korn469]

Captain Kirk

there is going to another sect of the same aliens who are not pasifist...but tell me more about your idea...go on with it brain storm with it some

you got the team, one who is truly interested in exploration, and a group planted to manufacture an excuse to ruin the mission

we also got alot of renegade corporate entities out there, would it be more plausiable if one of them attacked?

also the name kinda bugs me

which do you like better

United Territories of the World (UTW)
United Communities of Earth (UCE)
United Territories of Earth (UTE)
Federation of Earth Nations (FEN)
Federated Communities of Earth (FCE)
United People of Earth (UPE)


does anyone know any synonyms for united or have anyother suggestions for a good name of an amalgumated government of North America + Africa + South America + Asia (the Aussies, the EU, and some of Asia is independent)

korn469
[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited March 02, 2000).]

[President Jakjon]

This is beginning to work together in my head, I hope you like it. (My sis and her significant other are watching "Cube" in the living room. It is an EXCELLENT movie, and I credit it for affecting my mind right now.)

I am a patriot and a militarist and I want to be a politician and I want to be a soldier- but I recognize that while not every human is willing to "sell his soul" so to speak, too many are. These corporate entities- I assume they would profit from being able to exploit the resources on Janus, whatever they may be. So, wouldn't they want to insure that they could?

They've got more money than God but they want even more, right? So, "they" (A monopoly, or a secret group of corporations) bribe the President- and as many of the mission personnel as they can corrupt, to make sure. So, not all the soldiers would betray the mission- and not all the techs would stay loyal. Less black-and-white that way.

Sorry about making assumptions about the species of your devising. Perhaps they hunt, so they use projectile weapons, but not each other. There is one innate reason why we feel that it is wrong to kill humans except when neccessary, why only the psychopathic kill for fun, etcetera. It is that it is a detriment to our own genetic survival to kill those of our own species for anything less than crucial reasons- we share 90% of our DNA with each other.

If you examined all of our DNA coding, nine tenths of the codes would be exactly the same. So, some basic chemical thing in our brain makes it very very hard to kill each other. However, when it comes to other species, it is different.

But how many of us could handle killing a mammal? More. And killing a bird? More. Killing a fish? Even more. Killing a jellyfish? Even more. A bush? Probably all of us. As the level of genetic similarity decreases, the level of our ability to get ourselves to kill it increases.

What is my point? That these aliens must have a more distant point considering something genetically similar to them. Therefore, they certainly couldn't bring themselves to kill each other, except for extreme cases (perhaps) and could get themselves to kill humans either. But, what if some are able to get around it? Humanity has its "sociopaths," why not them?

I agree with Captain Kirk. In far too much science fiction, the conflict between humanity and alienity is portrayed as black-and-white, cut-and-dry, and victim-victimizer. This is garbage. As much as any race has its "good" and "bad" people, the same holds true for species.

As to the name, I suggest: "United States of Earth". (USE)

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--President Jakjon
--Datalinks

[korn469]

ok for a little more about the corporations because they are my creation...

as the population increases on earth, so does the efficency of industry...soon fuuly automated facilities deployed over a network could eliminate over 98% of present industrial workers...also increased automation could also eliminate many service related employees, fewer employees, means fewer consumers...automation helps losen the labor market and increase profits but soon it goes beyond that...it threatens to increase unemployment to unacceptable levels so the FTC (federal trade commission) passes regulations against preditory production processes (using productions systems that are overly automated)...however this is unpopular amongst a small minority of corporations...so they take their manufactoring proceedures offworld to the astroid belt they also defy environmental regulations on exactly how astroids can be mined...

they create large factories that basically gobble up an astroid and turn it into processed materials, then it docks with other factories which actually turn the raw materials into products...compared to less efficent but legal systems using astro-manufactoring workers they out compete the legit earth corporations

so the USE bans the import of their products...they turn on the legit corporations and blast them out of the astroid belt

an armed conflict begins and after years of protracted fighting the USE abandons the war effort to eliminate the offworld manufactoring cartels

all the while these illegally manufactored good have became like new age narco-trafficing, smuggling the raw materials and goods back to resource strapped earth becomes a very lucrative business and gives them more than enough money to maintain a deadly effective fighting force in astroid belt (their ships are highly automated and require very small crews)

it's just too expensive to blast them out so they try to stop the import of their illegal goods (all goods confiscated become government property) however it's a failing effort for the most part but the war on offworld manufactoring wears on and on

korn469
[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited March 02, 2000).]

[korn469]

one more thing

the offworld corporations have a vested interest in not allowing earth to open up a new source of resources (Janus) and if Earth was going to quietly build up a military fleet to conqure Janus the offworld corps would be more than willing to build it for a nice profitt

so they have motive, so an alliance should exist between them and radford

korn469

[President Jakjon]

Sounds great to me! Write on!

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--President Jakjon
--Datalinks

[Captain Kirk]

I think United People of Earth (UPE)is a great name. Go with it. It gives me kind of a cool feeling. As to President Jakjon's theory of sociopaths I don;t quite agree. What I had in mind was a group of trouble makers. Kind of like a cult. They don't agreewith the pacifist norm. They are xenophobic nad violent. They don't like the UPE prescnence so they attack and kill aprts of the mission. The UPE government declares war against the alien species (Skoralii)?

While on Earth corporations had meddled with things. Say parts of the Traveler's crew had contacted an Earth corporation. Knowing they could strike it rich on Janus they bribe the individuals (what's a few thousand bucks when they're sitting on a gold mine)?

So the crew contacts the cult and arranges for them to attack the rest of the Traveler's crew. Thus making it look like an alien attack. What do you think?