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herewiss13[NOTE:Tried pasting the following in last night, and again this morning and got a pile of errors for my pains. So we'll try it one more time, with the correct html tags finally.]
The dam has finally burst.
In the past week, page upon page of writing has spilled forth.
Unfortunately, it's all expository prologue with nary a character in sight. But progress is progress, right?
So I shall post, in segments, a historical overview encompassing some six thousand years or so. None of it's gospel yet (well, almost none), but I think the outline is sound.
Also, bear in mind that I borrow some unimportant aspects direct and untouched from the SF Cliche Warehouse.
And I can't keep myself from comma splicing like there's no tomorrow. But enough with the caveats.
Apart from the above, I (at least) think it presents a mildly interesting history. I'd be quite interested to know if others find it a plausibly constructed and self-consistent scenario as well. When I give people choices, do they make the best possible ones given the information available to them (this comes into play more in future segments).
But I'm starting to ramble.
1.
In the late 22nd Century, Mankind had finally mastered the solar system and begun to set its sights on the the stars.
One of the first emigrants was the "Johnny Appleseed", a generational slow-ship formed from the inflated remnant of an asteroid, in 2194. The colonists would live and die within its hollow core, in an environment little different from those of the Confederated States of LaGrangia or the Jovian Trojans League. In time, their grandchildren and great grandchildren would emerge from their stony womb into a fresh new star system and begin constructing the foundations of a modest techno-industrial economy there, using the 'Appleseed' as an initial orbital platform for their ventures. Fiction was full of pastoral, agrarian colonies; crude, primitive and vulnerable. There would be no devolution to that state for these colonists. They were determined to do things right: setting up a presence in asteroid belt for mining operations before ever setting down on the planet. There would always be a way back up into space. Within a few prosperous centuries of arrival, the slow-ship could be refitted and sent on its way with a new batch of pilgrims, and so on and so forth in an endless cycle, seeding the galaxy with humanity.
Unfortunately, even the best laid plans "oft' go astray."
In 2302, after a century of launches, the Age of the Seedship came to an end. The legendary collaboration of Bin Omar and Guzman brought forth the Description Engine and presented it to the world. The BeeGee drive(as it came to be known) was a device capable of translating ships vast distances in an instant; utilizing the deep quantum information matrix embedded within the structure of space-time to "reinterpret" the cosmos as a place where the ship existed elsewhere. All that was needed were calculations; lots of calculations. A jump of ten light years might take days to set up, and the math couldn't be done in advance as many of the key variables shifted continually and required constant updating. Out of sheer necessity, the first large-scale quantum computers were constructed quite soon after its unveiling.
Born outward upon this incredible gift, Humanity exploded into the galaxy at a furious rate, encountered other intelligences for the first time and set about the task of constructing a larger civilization with them.
Obviously, in the relatively short span of time between the first interstellar launch and the arrival of the BeeGee drive, not a single Colony ship had yet reached its destination. Most expeditions had thoughtfully hedged their bets and set up trust funds back on Earth for the sole purpose of financing retrieval operations in the event that FTL technology emerged before they finished their journeys. Once contact was re-established, most colony ships were forwarded directly to their destinations, generations ahead of schedule. A few opted to return to Sol and re-integrate with a society that didn't seem so devoid of opportunity anymore. But despite a lengthy and far-ranging survey of its projected course, no trace of the "Johnny Appleseed" was ever found.
The reason for this failure was simple. By that point in time, the Appleseed was only nominally located within the same spiral arm.
* * * *
[To be continued...]
The dam has finally burst.
In the past week, page upon page of writing has spilled forth.
Unfortunately, it's all expository prologue with nary a character in sight. But progress is progress, right?
So I shall post, in segments, a historical overview encompassing some six thousand years or so. None of it's gospel yet (well, almost none), but I think the outline is sound.
Also, bear in mind that I borrow some unimportant aspects direct and untouched from the SF Cliche Warehouse.
And I can't keep myself from comma splicing like there's no tomorrow. But enough with the caveats.
Apart from the above, I (at least) think it presents a mildly interesting history. I'd be quite interested to know if others find it a plausibly constructed and self-consistent scenario as well. When I give people choices, do they make the best possible ones given the information available to them (this comes into play more in future segments).
But I'm starting to ramble.
1.
In the late 22nd Century, Mankind had finally mastered the solar system and begun to set its sights on the the stars.
One of the first emigrants was the "Johnny Appleseed", a generational slow-ship formed from the inflated remnant of an asteroid, in 2194. The colonists would live and die within its hollow core, in an environment little different from those of the Confederated States of LaGrangia or the Jovian Trojans League. In time, their grandchildren and great grandchildren would emerge from their stony womb into a fresh new star system and begin constructing the foundations of a modest techno-industrial economy there, using the 'Appleseed' as an initial orbital platform for their ventures. Fiction was full of pastoral, agrarian colonies; crude, primitive and vulnerable. There would be no devolution to that state for these colonists. They were determined to do things right: setting up a presence in asteroid belt for mining operations before ever setting down on the planet. There would always be a way back up into space. Within a few prosperous centuries of arrival, the slow-ship could be refitted and sent on its way with a new batch of pilgrims, and so on and so forth in an endless cycle, seeding the galaxy with humanity.
Unfortunately, even the best laid plans "oft' go astray."
In 2302, after a century of launches, the Age of the Seedship came to an end. The legendary collaboration of Bin Omar and Guzman brought forth the Description Engine and presented it to the world. The BeeGee drive(as it came to be known) was a device capable of translating ships vast distances in an instant; utilizing the deep quantum information matrix embedded within the structure of space-time to "reinterpret" the cosmos as a place where the ship existed elsewhere. All that was needed were calculations; lots of calculations. A jump of ten light years might take days to set up, and the math couldn't be done in advance as many of the key variables shifted continually and required constant updating. Out of sheer necessity, the first large-scale quantum computers were constructed quite soon after its unveiling.
Born outward upon this incredible gift, Humanity exploded into the galaxy at a furious rate, encountered other intelligences for the first time and set about the task of constructing a larger civilization with them.
Obviously, in the relatively short span of time between the first interstellar launch and the arrival of the BeeGee drive, not a single Colony ship had yet reached its destination. Most expeditions had thoughtfully hedged their bets and set up trust funds back on Earth for the sole purpose of financing retrieval operations in the event that FTL technology emerged before they finished their journeys. Once contact was re-established, most colony ships were forwarded directly to their destinations, generations ahead of schedule. A few opted to return to Sol and re-integrate with a society that didn't seem so devoid of opportunity anymore. But despite a lengthy and far-ranging survey of its projected course, no trace of the "Johnny Appleseed" was ever found.
The reason for this failure was simple. By that point in time, the Appleseed was only nominally located within the same spiral arm.
* * * *
[To be continued...]
