Help with Book 3

[aktarian]

First let me say I didn't like Centauri dawn much. Thought it would be better to tell that right now so nobody should acuse me of hipocrisy or anything. Some ideas you might consider:



Language:
a. English was mandatory for admission to Unity so no problem there

b. English was not mandatory so you have several options:
-some artificial language like esperanto or something
-mixture of dominating (=being spoken by most) languages (English, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, maybe French, Russian, German, Portugal...). Depending of percentage of population of given society some languages would have more impact on societies language.



Enviroment:

a. How would humans adapt to greater gravity? Would they become shorter? More powerfull leg muscles? Rearangement of internal organs?

b.Could human body adapt to lesser percentage of oxygen and "change" lungs so people could breathe Chiron's air as is (evolutionistic type of change)?



Features

a. Don't discard tatoos. In Journey there is mentioned that Spartans have tatoo on their shoulder. Why not go from there on? Say Spartan society is differented to citizens (=soldairs) and non-citizens. Citizens have tatoos and members of Spartan Coalition have some extra marks to distinguish them further. Add tattos for rank, medals and other acomplishments. How about tatoos for everybody (not only Spartans) that say persons blood type, alergies and such (you could make that under skin implant but that would require some device to read it and this could break down or some other thing).

b. Implants that makes person more efficient at what they do (aming device for soldairs, implats that interact with computers for technicians...). Specially after gaining mind machine interface tech.

[michael_ely]

Hi everyone

Thanks for the new set of ideas. Some more good ones there! Using some names from the game is an idea too...and I actually made up the original T.M. Morgan Reilly name for the superlube quote

aktarian, thanks for your comments and I hope you give Dragon Sun a try. It's more cleanly written than the first book and its plot is bigger in scope. If you do read it, please email me and let me know what you thought.

thanks!
michael

[Avenoct]

Though I havn't read the book, Centauri Dawn, I'm truly impressed by the creative work that went into the game and want to take a moment to thank Michael and others for that great effort. I'm currently working on a 'mod' for the game, as the game architecture and function is just as important to me as the story, which I'm also continuing down other roads...secondly I want to congratulate the responders here with both the nifty and quite scientifically viable ideas and the great names. There are so many gifted and supportive (to the game, I'm not trying to live here..chuckles) people in the Apolyton community..the SMAC community at large.

As to the 'firefly' adaptation, you might check Scientific American resouce searches..there was a nice article there and in the journals Science and, Nature. If I remember correctly, the protein is called Luminase (go figure) and is quite simple. It is actually currently genetically possible to insert this gene into many organisms, though localizing it to say, the fingertips, would involve Embryolgy, which is almost a greater mystery than genetics.

-Smack

[Lonestar]

If I may suggest:

How about greater lung capacity for the teeming masses? Let's say an extra lung has been added to the human race, one that acts as a "scrubber" for the air, instead of implanted filters.

Extensive prosthetics. Day Laborers have cybernatic arms, legs, to help with construction.

Names for Gaians:

Moonbeam
Sunflower
Wallace
Jon Muir (see, there's no "h" in "Jon" here)

just some ideas. Loved your first SMAC book. Will the expansion factions be in the next ones?

[michael_ely]

Hi Lonestar

The expansion factions don't figure into any of the three books, mainly because it's already tricky enough juggling seven strong-willed leaders and giving them all their time in the spotlight (not to mention all of the peripheral characters).

I may sneak a name or two of the expansion factions into book 3, though, as quick cameos.

Thanks for the Gaian names!

michael

[Tai Mai Shu]

Just for yuks, here's a few chinese names for the yang faction

Siu Kwan = Cantonese for little soldier
Bu Haow = Mandarin for not good (It'd come out to But Ho in Cantonese but for some reason I don't think that'd go over very well with publishers )
Ying Hung = Cantonese for hero
Ching Jing = Cantonese for calm

[Guardian]

Heh... Chinese names are funny.
I know of a Swedish consultant who has specialized in helping Western businesses come up with good names and slogans for their Chinese branches...

A western businessman tried to sell his own name, only to have people turn away in embarrassment or laugh their asses off. As it turned out, his name sounded like a Cantonese expression for "fat bastard".

Mercedes Benz (a car company) thought they'd come up with a good name for their business... alas, the name they picked sounded like Mandarin for "so clumsy that you'll die"...

[michael_ely]

Thanks for the final thoughts, especially the Chinese names. I'm putting the final touches on book 3, and some of these things will definitely make it in.

(I have a bad habit of using a lot of placeholder names for minor characters up until the last minute, so that the manuscripts end up full of names like Luke and Leia, Janet Planet, Pastor Disaster, Blinky, Frodo, etc, etc...)

Thanks everyone! Hope you enjoy book 2, let me know what you think at bookthoughts@yahoo.com.

[Sprayber]

I look forward to reading it. I actually went back and read Centauri Dawn again. I actually got more out of it the last time around.

[The Commodore]

Um...I might be to late, but I heard this:

We have developed Silksteel. Goats have had their udders injected with a spider gene(I'm not sure how.), the spider silk proteins are in these goat's milk. These can be spun into useful ammounts of Silk. Funny, but true.