Uptown Saturday Write

We come to this place in the sun, there local that I call “Breakfast”, and I express my thoughts for some to read.  Today I tell you that I’m on the last chapter of my work in progress, Suggestive Amusements, and if I’m exceptionally lucky, I’ll finish the story tomorrow.  If not, I’ll finish it Monday night, but in the next three days, rain or shine, hot or cold, the first draft is complete.

I look at the text card in Scrivener that’s going to be Chapter Eighteen, and I know what’s going in there; I’ve seen it for a few months, and I’ve been waiting to get to this point for many weeks now.  I know, with Scrivener I can just write when I feel like it, I don’t have to do everything in sequence.  Scrivener makes the writing experience like making a movie:  as you film all your particular scenes when you are on the right set or location, you can write your scenes as the need arises.  Need to write the last chapter now?  Do it.  Need to add a scene that makes sense?  Do it.  Scrivener liberates you to do that–

If you so want.  I don’t.  I’m too old school, in that I have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and I do them in that order.  Which is not a bad thing  to do for a first draft, because there were things I did in the last few chapters that have minutely changed events in the last chapter.

If I didn’t want until the end to write the end, I’d have to rewrite.  I hate rewrites.  Best to write it correctly the first time.

Chapter Eighteen is on tap for this weekend.  Three thousand words, put it a little over the seventy thousand word line, and finalize it with the big finish.  But . . . that’s not all.

I’ve decided to write an article today.  I’ve passed off a couple of my old game reviews for a friend who runs another site, and he’s posted one, and will likely post the other in a few days.  A long time back I promised him an article, so today is a good day to write said article, and it’ll be a far better usage of my time than playing Facebook games when I’m not word slinging.

I don’t know if this article-writing thing is going to be something I want to get into all the time.   My friend was asking about the possibility of doing a few articles on spacecraft propulsion systems, both real an imaginary, and I was like, “Well, yeah, I could do one of those . . .”, but the brain often says what the fingers can’t deliver.

However, I’m going to be in a lull for a bit.  I’ll be waiting on a book cover, and I’ll find myself mostly editing throughout April.  With that in mind, writing a few articles to keep the brain sharp might not be a bad idea.

If nothing else I might just entertain someone with what I have to say.  Or piss them off.

Isn’t that sometimes the same thing?

Options of Light and Darkness

The end is approaching.  Not that we should be sad about that, because the end I mention is the end of my current work in progress.  The penultimate chapter has started, and people are talking about what had happened up to this point.

This is the chapter I’ve been thinking about for a while, so it came easy to setting up the meeting between Erin and–lets call her one of her bosses, a member of the upper Goddess echelon that has come to sit with Erin and find out just what in the hell is going on.  I’ve imagined the conversation for some times, and when I was writing last night the idea was coming out on to the page well.

We’ll see where it goes tonight when I continue Goddess Chat.

There was something else going on while I was writing, however, because if nothing else, I multitask like mad.  I was chatting with someone I know, someone who I’ve written things for in the past, and whom has enjoyed my writing.  As I was working through my chapter I was also working through a discussion of some articles I’d written some time back, and the comments that came my way were sort of like, “Hey, you ever going to write any more of these?”

There was a time when I was writing a lot of different things.  For a while I was doing game reviews on another website, and writing a few articles for another site, all of which occurred while I was blogging and working on my first completed novel.  It was a lot of fun, and it helped me develop my talent as a writing, and even more as a researcher and editor.

But all good things come to an end, as it is said.  I was doing all this writing when I was “between jobs”, as the saying goes, and I had a lot of time to put pen to computer.  Then I found a job, I had to move, I had to find time to write while I had spare time, and with spare time at a premium, I found that if I wanted to work on my stuff, I had to cut other things out of my life.

Ergo, no more articles.

But there is another saying:  nothing that dies ever stays dead.  True, they might only say that in the Marvel Universes, but there is some precedence for that in the real world as well.  When I started thinking about the stuff I’d written once, it made me realize that, hey, that stuff was pretty good, and it was a lot of fun to write.  And I was reminded that, at one time, I did tell this person that I’d write them another article . . .

Today I pulled out something I’d written nearly two years ago, a game review that I’d put up and sort of left.  I read it, edited it, and sent it off to the person I was speaking with last night, ’cause I told him that reviewing Science Fiction type role playing games is a good thing to do–and there are probably people out there who’ll want to read them.

Does this mean I’m back into doing articles and reviews for other people?  Hard to say.  After all, Jean Grey hasn’t popped up from the dead again–

Yet.

Mons Pico Musings

Run here, run there–it was a day for running.  Had to get a toll pass for my car, then went looking at earrings–I need a good, everyday pair, but I love my gold hoops–then . . .

Well, here comes the thinking and the wondering and such that makes up a good part of my day.

Late last night I got back into Replacements and ended up breezing through about a thousand or so words for the second chapter.  There were likely about eight hundred words when I started on my editing expedition, but by the time I’d finished I’d added nearly three hundred words to the document.

I felt a lot better while going through the editing process.  Maybe it’s the feeling that I do have a story here, and this thing, this pantsing that I did, got me started, but didn’t really create my story.  For most of my writing I feel as if I’m in control of the story, but with Replacements, I started feeling a bit lost with the action.  Now that may be changing, because I’m seeing something a little differently now.  We’ll see how the editing goes today, because I’ll likely do some afternoon work on the third chapter.

Part of my time deals with my alternate space story, which I sort of have a name for, but don’t.  I hate when I don’t have a name for the novel–or, in this case, novels, because I can see how this story could be broken up into parts.  Gee, just what I need, another series.

I was doing my “thinking” bit, which is to say I was coming up with ideas for how things might progress in the story.  I’ve imagined beyond the point of getting the history into place, and getting my people into orbit for the first time.  I’m into the part where my characters are trying to establish a foothold in high orbit, and–well, hell, there’s the moon, lets go visit.  Of course they gotta go to the moon–I mean, who doesn’t to go there?

The idea I had was that the proof of concept ship would be modified and upgraded to be able to take a lander and an extended living model, launch the lander with a BDR (that’s Big Dumb Rocket for the less knowledgeable, something that arose out of an extension of space shuttle technology, but never came to fruition.  The BDR was used by Stephen Baxter in his novel Manifold: Time, so even though I’ve known about it for decades, I can’t claim complete credit), pick the lander up in order, then rocket off to the moon.

Because they were able to take extra fuel, the lander will be able to make three trips to the surface of the moon, and give everyone a change to look about and get their exploring done.  Two of the landing cover things that should have happened:  the first landing goes to the Descartes Highlands, the landing site for Apollo 19, and the second heads for Tycho crater and the Surveyor VII site, the landing site for Apollo 20.  After twenty years, my characters feel they needed to give NASA a little closure.

But what of the third landing, you say?  Well, that’s going somewhere else.  Originally the main character–who is taking the ship down himself–said they were going to land near Mount Pico, because he always wanted to see it after reading Arthur C. Clarke stories.  (The climax of his novel Earthlight takes place near Mount Pico.)  Eventually they end up landing near the southwest flanks of Plato, very near the foot hills of the Montes Teneriffe.  When it’s pointed out that no one says, “Mount Pico”, that the new terminology is “Mons Pico”, my character will chuckle and say, “Yeah, we’ll, I’m old school.  I can learn only so many new things in a day.”

No school like old school, they say.  Sometimes learning takes a lot of work.  And sometimes, all you have to do it think about what you need to learn, and just start.

As for me?  I’ve learned I have a lot more to learn.

Just keep it coming, people.  There’s still plenty of room up in my brain for more.

But First, A Gaming Interlude

If you’ve read this blog for any period of time, you’ll know I’m a gamer.  So imagine my surprise when I found another blogging writing about her love of the game.  Head on over to The Tilting Windmills and give it a read.

The Need For Make Believe

It may not look like it, but that’s Iceland and Hatsune Miku in the picture to the right.  Oh, sure, it looks like a couple of girls in funny, costumes, but trust me on who they are.  I know, because I spend the day with them, and I’m familiar with their back story.

Yesterday was a day spent at a local anime con, and while I wasn’t all that much in a hurry to go–mostly because I had a lot of editing to do, and being there was going to take away from that time–I went, mostly because my daughter wanted me to go.

While I walked around a bit, and mingled with the otaku crowds–and even spoke with a few old friends that I hadn’t seen in a few years–I mostly found a place to sit, plug in my computer, and chat a bit while I snapped pictures with my phone and uploaded said pictures to my Facebook page.  And I wasn’t being a creeper; the one time I snapped a picture of someone else, I asked if I could take her picture.  There is a certain decorum one should maintain when you are at a con, and people–particularly woman–are in costume.

Otherwise you should stay home and leave the people having fun alone.

There was a time when I had my own anime fandom.  I like to tell my daughter I’m “Old School,” which is a way of saying, “None of the stuff I watch has been around for decades.”  But I’ve worn by share of crazy tee shirts, and sat through my share of films that, back in the day–aka, twenty years ago–were subtitled by fans because that was the only way you could see that stuff that, at the time, wasn’t suppose to be seen outside of Japan.

The only time I’ve every gotten into costume goes back even farther:  1984, to be precise.  It was at a Doctor Who convention in Chicago, and I decided to dress up at the Forth Doctor, complete with a twenty-one foot scarf.  It’s unfortunate that no pictures of this event exist any longer–the ex-wife has them all, I believe–but somewhere there is a picture of me mugging to the camera while I stand next to a Dalek a couple of guys made in there high school auto shop.  Good times, let me tell you.

Since I don’t have that picture, I’ll have to give you something else, which is likely to be a bit frightening.  So here you go:  me as Hatsune Miku.  Kawaii!  You’re welcome.

I wish my earrings had been longer . . .

There is nothing wrong with getting up in costume–or, as the kids called it, cosplay–and having a good time.  Make believe is what I do for a part-time living, remember?  Maybe I’m not getting into a costume every time I write, but I am getting into there heads.  In a way, I have to be my characters so I can deal with them, deal with how they are suppose to be feeling, and help them figure out where they’re headed within the context of the story.

You have to get inside their skin, put on their clothes, and walk in their shoes.  When I read a story, I can tell when someone has gotten into the mind of their character, and when they are just “writing them out.”  And I’m not talking about Mary Sueing someone; I mean when you have sat and thought about what the character is suppose to do, how they are suppose to feel, knowing their dreams and aspirations, their fears and flaws.  Particularly those last two, because what is a real character if they have no fears, no flaws?  I’ll tell you who they are:  someone named Mary Sue.  Please, you may love the ground I walk upon.

Getting in touch with an inner child is important when you write.  Neil Gaiman said it best:  ”Growing up is highly
overrated.  Just be an author.”  Think about how much fun it was pretending you were someone else, and channel that feeling into something that brings a feeling of wonder to some place inside yourself that hasn’t been touched in a while.  Sometimes you gotta break out the imagination.  Some times you gotta remember what it was like trying to wear mom’s high heels.  As a famous doctor once said, “There’s no point in being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes.“

As for getting the mind limber and going to different places . . . Miku-chan (not me, the one at the very top) had reddish hair under that wig, and she said she wanted people to call her Pepper Potts–who, as we know, is the only thing that allows that drunk Tony Stark to do the things a normal person does–though I’m sure a fifth of Crown Royal helps.  Thinking ahead, I told her she should keep her hair color, and come to the con next year as Rescue, wearing her own powered armor suit.

If you look at the picture to the right, you can see just how fetching an Iron Pepper would look.  Who cares if it’s gonna be a lot of work to put it together, because if you show up at a con looking like that, you’re going to rock.

So let that cosplay flag fly.  Use it in your daily life, because we don’t have as much fun as we should, and if you aren’t having fun day-to-day, then what’s the point.  And let it come out and play when you feel the need to create something that’s going to entertain others–even if that “other” is only you.

And you know what?  I look good in a wig.  I don’t know about the blue hair, though.  Maybe something in a red, then I can say, “I wear ginger now . . . gingers are cool.”

Catchy line.  I should use that more often.

The Factual Fiction

Among the genres I play with, science fiction is one I work in a lot.  Considering I have five stories set in a universe of my own creation–four novels and one short novella–it’s save to say that I’m most tat home when I’m writing about people living in a world that is far different than ours.

I like to give advice on world building as well.  One of the area where I think I’m pretty good is in building solar systems.  By far I’m no expert, but I do take some pride in the systems I’ve created using available software.  Yes, some people buy software to help them build scrap books:  I buy software to help build solar systems.  It’s a hobby, one that’s better than cooking meth in the Superlab.

Last night I was chatting with another writer who has asked, from time to time, on help for the systems he’s created for his own stories.  I like helping where I can, because it is fun, particularly when you see the bug you have has taken hold in another.  There was a comment I made, however.  When discussing something that might be just a little on the fantastical side, I said, “I don’t always do things that are fully scientific.  I cheat a little myself.”

It makes you wonder:  at what point do you cross the line from science fact into science bullshit?

When it comes to the systems in my Transporting universe, the majority of them are, I believe, factual.  There is one, however, that I know it pretty much bull, and I don’t mind saying so.  In my stories I have the center of government on a planet in orbit around the great summer star Altair, in the constellation Aquila.  While there is some great science fiction heritage in using Altair as a place to have a habitable planet–one with a green sky, I might add–it can’t happen if we follow the current theories about the creation of solar systems.

You see, Altair is a big star:  an A7 V class.  The “V” means it’s a main sequence star, but an A class means it’s far larger than the Sun.  As such, it should burn through it’s fuel a lot faster than the Sun, which means it’ll live a shorter life than the Sun.  This doesn’t mean that it can’t have planets:  A class stars have been found with Jupiter-sized planets in orbit.  But the likelihood of finding an earth-like planet is rare, if not almost impossible.

Still . . . it’s such an exotic location, you can’t pass it up.  The long year–about 3.65 Earth years for my world to make one trip around Altair–the long day–about thirty-three hours–and the bright star in the green sky . . . yeah, I like that.

It’s not so much science fiction as it is science fantasy, but there are times when you succumb to the desire to throw in a location that’s too good to pass up.  I should know better, but the kid in me can’t help but think that once one of my characters shows up on this world, the first thing he’ll do is crack jokes about looking for Krell.

At least he didn’t get there on the C-57D.  Otherwise he might have ended up on Miranda . . .

Alien Conjugations

If you want to read me at my snarky best, head on over to Sci Fi Ideas and check out the article I wrote on alien hybrids.  You’ll laugh, you’ll cry . . . probably cry.

Where Do I Get My Mecha Licence?

My dreams–there is no control over them.  They just come.  Sometimes good, sometimes bad . . . sometimes extremely interesting.

I’d have to say last night was well into the later category.

I’ve used a couple of different drugs to try and help me sleep the last couple of months.  The first one I was taking didn’t seem to do much for me, but it did cause me to have some very lucid dreams.  My doctor then put me on the one that uses that big, glowing luna moth to help you sleep, but, in my case, that lazy bastard hasn’t been helping me out at all.  Maybe it was the blue moon the last few night that’s kept it away, but the moth is definitely falling down on the job.

Last night, worn out from a long day and a very long drive, I switched back to the first drug to see if it might help me drift off to slumber land.  Not at first, because I lay about for a while before I crashed.

But when I did . . . oh, man.  Dreamland, baby:  here I come.

There was a big section where it seemed like I was spending my time helping people out.  How?  By jumping in what looked like a mecha and going after bad guys.

Now, if you don’t know what a mecha is, let me give you a quick primer.  In a quick sentence, it’s usually a humanoid like machine that’s piloted by a human, or many humans.  And they are usually very big–as in like three or four times the size of a person, up to mile-long spaceship long.  While a lot of mecha can be quadrupedal, the Japanese like to get into the Super Robot and Real Robot stuff.  Last night’s dream was petty much in the Super Robot stuff, although it wasn’t so much a suit I had, as it was just a walking death machine.

The me in the dream was the Cassidy me, and she . . . well, I was walking around in a jumpsuit and a head scarf for the majority of the dream, though I know I was wearing an abaya at one point.  That made for an interesting vision, because the Cassidy me has never been like that at any time.  It was very strange seeing the dream me strap in and slip in some earbuds under the head scarf before heading out to blast the shit outta things.

I was even more surprised that I remembered so many things in such details after I woke, because the last few weeks my dreams have been sorta impossible to pin down.  I think it’s that damn luna moth; it’s not helping me sleep, and it’s taking my dreams.  Probably selling them to someone who’s going to write the next Fifty Shades of Grey.  Which is just my luck, because I was seriously considering writing some mommy porn . . .

Speaking of ideas–is there one there?  Maybe.  Who knows how my brain works:  I’m certainly still learning.  But every time something like that hits me, I start wondering if I have something I can flesh out into a story.  Since I’m setting up my idea file today, I might as well thrown that one in there, because you never know–I might just have the next big thing that people want to read.

Or not . . .

You never know until you take that leap of faith.

A Life Less Hackneyed

Speaking of the above title, how does it look like . . . that –>  

Did you ever wonder what A Life Less Hackneyed looks like in Gallifreyan?  Well, now you do.  The crazy-ass things I find on the Internet, huh?  What’s next?  We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?

Anywhere, where was I?  Oh, yeah:  stories and ideas.  They are still there, rumbling about in my head.  That’s not always a good idea, because, before you know it, I’m trying to do something with it.

The last couple of days I’ve run the story idea I wrote about yesterday around again and again.  I’m about this close to getting it into Scrivener, because there are things I need to keep straight about how one gets from place to place in the galaxy of the 28^th Century.

This is world building time, and though I don’t want to get distracted from other things I’m doing–I have one story I need to finish, and I was given an idea for one to write in October, and there’s that looming hell-bound train known as NaNoWriMo to tackle . . .

But this is one of those ideas that’s just hanging with me.  I can’t say why, but it’s there.  Probably because the story is a bit challenging.  It’s one of those science fiction ideas that’s been done before, but I like the idea of bringing it into my world, into something that could be real.

I love world building, and getting everything done for this one is nice.  I will admit, I’m nicking a few ideas here and there from other sources, but it’s not so much the tech and the sci-fiey things (is “sci-fiey” a word?  It is now), as it is the characters and the story.

However . . .

As I’ve stated from time to time, I like to have most everything thought out before I start writing.  I’m rarely one for sitting down and just going for it, because the characters don’t tell me jack.  I’m thinking through the plot, such as it is, and there’s a point where something just doesn’t make that much sense.

Now, I think is have the situation worked out; I feel that I have a reason for why one of the people in the story does what they do, but there was a moment when I was thinking out the story that I thought, “Wait . . . hasn’t this been done already?  And better?”

I won’t say what the “has been done already” was, because to do so will give something away.  It would also have geeks going, “You loser!  You’re doing that?”  So I had to change things around.  Just a little, but enough that it worried me.

Over lunch I figured it out.  I actually had it figured out before that, but lunch finalized it.  That’s me rolling like a writer again; I can finalize something over a cup of coffee and a burrito.  All hail my writing coolness–said phrase which I’ve also translated into Gallifreyan right over there . . .  –>

It’s easy to do something that’s been done before, and not realize you’re treading over worn ground until you’re half-way through the muck.  I guess I’m used to the way Australians used to clear minefields during WWI:  they’d drive a flock of sheep into the area, let them blow up, and follow the cleared path.

A story line can be as treacherous as a minefield, and you want to clear that sucker as much as possible before you head across.  Face it:  it’s either you or the sheep–

Wouldn’t you rather you not be the one getting blown to hell when you’re half way across?

Stepchildren of the Circus Master

A very long time ago–maybe 2003, which is a long time these days–I had an argument with someone with whom I used to work.  I don’t remember what brought about his comment–I do know it was something I said that he didn’t care to hear–but it is a statement I’ve heard from a number of other people over the years.

It’s simple:  ”You can’t believe anything you read on the internet.”

My response was to ask him if, since NASCAR results–he was a huge race fan–were posted on the internet, if I should consider them fake as well.  This only pissed him off more, as, of course, they were correct since they reflected an action that had been seen by many.

Any medium can be fraught with errors.  Back when I was growing up, I know some of the things found in my parent’s encyclopedic weren’t really, truly, totally correct.  Or so we know now.  It’s all a matter of information gathering; don’t get your data from one source, but rather from many.  Then factor the information, and come to a decision.

It’s called thinking, y’all.

The Internet is going to have is fair share of crap floating about.  You have websites on just about everything, so it’s inevitable that pure, unadulterated BS is gonna come floating your way eventually.  It happens all the time to me, probably more so to you.

There is one current going around this weekend:  the tale of the planetary alignment of Mercury, Venus, and Saturn, with the Pyramids at Giza, on 3 December, 2012.  Only happens once every 2,737 years, you know.  Hey, there’s even a picture taken at night showing you want it would look like–

Only it’s stated that this happens an hour before sunrise.  So that’s easy enough to check out, because there are all sorts of programs that will let one see the sky in Cairo just before sunrise.  Oh, and hey, there are those same three planets in the sky on the 3^rd.  Only they’re in the south-southeast sky, which means the picture is wrong, as a quick check of Google Maps shows the picture was taken from the south-southwest.  So, to see this alignment, you have to be standing off to the north-northwest.  And you have to be standing in the right spot at the right time, neither of which is given.

You can also see this same alignment on the 2^nd and the 4^th, so you can blow off that “once every 2,737 years” meme, too.  Because when you can stand somewhere and make your own alignment, those years roll away very fast.

Yet, people buy this shit readily.  The number of, “That’s incredible!” or “I never knew that!” comments are numerous.  It’s not only on the Internet, but there’s a picture!  So it has to be true, right?

It seems there is an inherent need for people to buy into bullshit of this nature, if for no other reason than to say, “Hey, see!  This makes sense to me.”  So many false memes float about, and yet I’ve seen comments to the effect that people don’t care if it’s fake, they like what it says.

Bullshit or not, it’s getting a like.  Just deal with it.

Maybe I make too much out of this.  Maybe it’s the writer in me saying, “Hey, just because you try to think things out, it means everyone else should as well!”  Or maybe it’s just me wondering if people think this fake alignment is cool because it proves that aliens built the pyramids–

Hey, I already knew that last.  I mean, haven’t you ever watched Stargate SG-1?

By the Time I Get to the Galactic Rim

Yesterday, when I wasn’t wishing for the car-mounted, large-caliber weapons, needed to blow away idiot drivers on I-65, I was out among the stars.

Specifically, those stars way the hell out on the edge of our galaxy.

A very long time ago–a year or so after I started writing Transporting–I had an idea for another grand story, something of a space opera, but a little more grounded in reality.  One that dealt with a interstellar vessel that was part of a special organization that–well, to put it bluntly, they showed you the horror of war before war come a knockin’.

It’s one of those things I haven’t thought about in years.  Yet, the last couple of days, while I’m doing nothing in the writing arena, I’ve been giving the story a lot of thought.

At some point, maybe 1991, or ’92, I wrote the first three or four chapters of what would have been the first novel.  It sucked.  Trust me, I wouldn’t mislead you.  The dialog was clumsy; one of my main characters was far too hard-assed even for me; there was little motivation for why one of the main characters acted in a certain way at the end of the opening action sequence.

In short, I had no idea what I was doing, or what I was writing.

Still, the story never left me.  I started working on a time line for the story:  I think I started this in 1994, and finally finished it about 2003, 2004.  It’s a pretty good time line of the universe.  War on Earth, countries band together to form an origination known as the TSA–no, really, that’s what the tyrannical bastards are called–and the TSA is later overthrown by another group known as The Coalition, who are slightly less tyrannical, but still bastards.

The entire timeline became twelve pages, and overviewed the action in the first novel, and set up the action for the section novel.  Yeah, you heard that right:  two novels.  The entire story of this group of people would cover a trilogy, no more, no less.  And when the third novel came to an end, that would be it:  none of this, “Oh, I always envisioned it as four or five novels,” bullshit.  I know the start, the middle, and the end; it’s all in my head, all worked out.

I’d only have to write them.

Since the timeline is only twelve pages, were I to take the action all the way out to the end, I’d probably end up with eighteen or twenty pages.  That’s very likely, since I just love to get my world building out of the way so I can jump into my universe and give my characters life.

Where am I going with this story?  I don’t know–not yet.  It’s bouncing around in my head, and it’s another of those “Projects From the Past” that has never really left me.  But is there a desire to get back into it, to write the first novel, when there are other things I could work on instead?

Ah, such are the dilemmas of a writer.  You have all these things going on at the same time, and then–Wham!  You get blindsided with an idea the moment you decide you’re going to take a break.  Yet, there are no breaks when you’re a writer.  You are either writing, or editing, or thinking about either of those–or having your Muse show up at your front door, dressed like Barbarella, telling you, “Hey, I’m about to leave for HD 151985, and I need a co-pilot, you wanna come along?”  You hesitate a little, then she added, “Oh, and the ship only has one bed, I hope you don’t mind sharing–” and you’re just about ready to pack your bags . . .

Man, when you get an offer like this, it’s hard to say no.

The Repetitive Apocalypse

Despite the best efforts of Daniel H. Wilson and Steven Spielberg, the robot apocalypse has been postponed.  Indefinitely.  Probably forever.

The whole idea of the destruction of mankind as brought about by robots is an old one.  R.U.R., a play by Karel Čapek, was the first to bring about the idea of letting robots (based upon the Czech word, robota, which is forced labor of the kind that serfs performed on their masters’ lands, and is derived from rab, meaning “slave”) do all the crappy heavy lifting that humans didn’t want.  And what happens?  The robots get pissed off, revolt, and kill all the humans.  In some circles this is called “progress” . . .

Now, Čapek’s robots were really more like androids, humanoid-like machines that could be mistaken for a human.  And those suckers were imitated to hell and gone almost as soon as word got out that, hey, there’s this new thing called a “robot”, and it totally science-fictiony, and they kill people!  Lets write stories!

So for a while, there were stories of robots running all over the place, smokin’ humans left and right, because–science?  Hey, why not create something that’s going to kill us brutally?  Makes for good stories, right?

Someone wasn’t pleased, however–and that someone was a writer named Isaac Asimov.  He was damn tired of all these robots running around blowing shit up and killing humans with impunity, and thought, “What sort of idiot builds a semi-aware machine that’s going to kill us when it doesn’t like something?”

Good Doctor Asimov is one of the main reasons why there will never be a robot apocalypse, because there are The Three Laws.  Now, I realize that humans are a lot who try to find the easy way around everything, and programming The Three Laws into androids–notice I didn’t say robots, and there’s a reason for that–so they didn’t try to murder us would probably be something a programmer would skip over so they could get home and play Skyrim.

But writers can do this.  They can make sure that, in their futures, people take this little note into account.  In a few of my stories, one of my characters is flying about in a ship that is, in reality, the body of an AI, and there are a few mentions in one story about how the avatar–which is what the AIs are called–has a modified set of The Three Laws.  Without them, my characters are flying around in a ship that could kill them for the hell of it; what could go wrong there?

We take care of the AIs, we put off being killed in the revolution.  But what about the robots?  What about them coming in the night and killing us because they’re tired of building our cars and putting together our packaged foods?

Well, now, have you seen these robots?  They’re bolted to the floor.  They’re just arms and filling devices, doing the same thing over and over.  They will only have a chance at hurting us if we throw ourselves into the area where they work.  I know I’m not visiting any factories in the near future.

Oh, sure, there is a possibility that were a robot apocalypse to occur, people would get hurt.  But the casualties would be low, and in the end, they’d probably hurt themselves badly during their attacks upon us.  It’s really a non-event, a Pyrrhic victory at best.

So lets think about something else, and not worry about the robots coming after us.  To be honest, the Japanese will probably have the first self-aware androids, and chances are the majority of their programming will involve whether or not their panties are showing.

I mean, what could go wrong there?