My story idea

[Cmdr Hidama]

I have an idea for a story I've been wanting to write for a while now. Tell me what you think. I'm trying to make the story as realistic as possible and much of the technology used in the main ship is actually possible, to some extent, today. But in 30 years, has been refined and enhanced.

In 2030 or so, space travel is fully commercialized, several colonies have sprouted up on the moon and the mars terraforming project has begun. Humanity has depleted much of Earth's resources and raw materials are collected from the asteroid belt and various moons in our solar system.

A wealthy businessman (the main character and owner of the most prominent mining corporation) is disgusted with the way society has developed, so he uses all his resources and begins construction of a huge ship. This ship (haven't thought of a name for it yet) is basically a huge flying city. Fully self sufficient. The main character gathers the best scientists and engineers he can find and anyone else who has grown tired of the way society has evolved. The construction of the ship takes about 8 years of dedicated labour. The ship is equipped with mining, refining, research, living, recreational, manufacturing and hydroponics facilities. They managed to keep the construction of the ship secret by constructing it away from common shipping lanes and cloaking it from radar using a plasma shield ( www.space.com for info on plasma shield technology ) The ship is armed with 8 rail guns (4 at each corner on top and bottom) and several missile tubes which are mainly used to destroy incoming asteroids that the ship is unable to avoid.

The ship is built with a modular design which allows the people aboard to build addons to the vessel. It's driven by ion and plasma engine's with several, large nuclear reactors. The ship has a slow acceleration/deceleration due to its mass. It has two hangers and launch bays. Equipped with four shuttles, four mining craft and one experimental fighter (pathetic if you compare it with fighters in such games as freespace2 or starlancer). Current population after launch is 304 528, and it's currently capable of providing for 500 000 people without further upgrading.

The main character has created a government aboard the ship, with the leader of each caste (science, manufacturing, military, hydroponics, etc) present to discuss any changes or suggestions.

The main goal of this ship is to escape the spiraling human civilization and explore the universe.

This ship is by no stretch of the imagination a combat ship, as there aren't enough guns on the ship to ward off smaller ships, the missiles have a high payload, but are slow, being designed to break apart large rocks in defence of the ship or for mining purposes.

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That's all I can remember at the moment. I'm open to any suggestions you all have to offer.

[This message has been edited by Cmdr Hidama (edited 08-18-2000).]

[Whisper]

Niffty idea! It's a new spin on an old storyline (i.e. people get fed up, leave Earth in really big honkin' ship, do stuff). I do a smattering of sci-fi writing myself. A very intresting premise, you could do alot with it. Below are some things that might help you in making your story as plausible as possible (say that times times fast ),question you should at least be aware of as you write this story.

If this ship is going to explore the galaxy, might I suggest you think of another means of propulsion other than ion and plasma drives? They are only capable, in any shape or form, of propeling the ship slightly under c. You could get by with the two that you have mentioned, but it would be dreadfully slow (our local star cluster would take many centuries to explore). Some reasearch into plausible FTL drives might be in order.

The nuclear reactors would have to be tremendously big to power such a monster as your ship, and the radioactive waste in would produce will be a nightmare. Also, finding uranium and plutonium to power this gigantic reactor could be a problem (while lending to the plot and pontential dramatic twists ).

But it strikes me that in 30 years we will have accsess to fusion reators, which generate more power, are very clean, and uses easy-to-come-by fuel (hydrogen). But if you were thinking of fusion nuclear reactor, shame on me! You got that.

NASA has slated the first human-crewed ship to land on Mars in 2015. If you are going to have colonies and terraforming in 2030, you should explain to the reader how a infrastucture capable of supporting multiple colonies and global manipulation would come about so quickly. The same with asteroid mining. How was the resources collected to build the ships? How are the miners supported? Where and how are the minererals processed, shipped to Earth (where it sounds like they need it!) in a manner profitable enough so that one man can build a immense ship requiring immense resources? Could all this be done in 15 years after the first human set foot on Mars?

You mentioned Mr. Billionaire (for lack of a name) built his ship in secret. Doing so would require him to use elaberate measures to hide not only the ship (as you noticed), but to hide where his sums of money is going, to hide the shipments of vast materials into empty space, to gather up the 300,000+ plus people needed to run the thing, and to hide the large numbers of skilled workers required to build it. The question is not only how is this done, but if it should indeed take place at all! Why must this be done is secret? You could add some intresting backstory explaining why it is so essential that this project be undertaken with the cloak-and-dagger.

However, while all these questions I listed above are important, perhaps the biggest question to ask is: how much does you audience need to know? Don't bore them with technical wizardry. Keep to the characters and the plot. But if you are going to raise ceratain issues, most people will be intested in how you can explain thier existence. Ask yourself if it is important to mention the colonies on Luna. And if it is important, try to let the Luna colonies add to the story, to add flavor and depth, so the information won't just be stale. You should ask yourself "how can I make this part of the story?" over and over.

And that's my two bits.

[Cmdr Hidama]

Thanks for expresing your opinion. This is the first literal endeavour I've ever embarked upon, but I've been dreaming up the storyline and content for years. I'm also contemplating writing a game based on this story, but am still undecided.

hmmm, plausible FTl...possibly stumbling on some alien artifacts under the Mars Face or other location, maybe an alien crash site on Jupiter's Triton?

The ship would have 4 (at least) monster Fusion reactors (yes, that's what I was thinking of) for a quick fill, they could send the shuttles and collect the hydrogen from the upper atmosphere of a gas giant. or maybe deuterium fusion, a couple glasses of water fueling this massive ship

in regards to the rapid expansion of 2015-2030, as the human population grows, so does their manufacturing/research facilities, exponentially in fact, simply due to basic human greed. people need better products to get more money. This would require more factories and laboratories, which requires more space than Earth can provide, hence the terraforming breakthroughs. If real society takes the same turn as it does in my story, 'Mr. Billionaire' wouldn't have too much trouble keeping the construction a secret. He own's the company, so he could falsify the ore reports, send several shipments to the construction site, and charge pretty much anything he wants for the rest back at Earth, since he dominates the market and Earth is severely dependant on his services, they'll pay top dollar and not think twice about it.

Since he funds the project out of his own pocket and gets the ore for free (only paying for the expenses of mining it) as everyone working on the ship are volunteers and there is no economy aboard the ship, he doesn't need to pay the crew.

There are any number of ways he could spirit away the 300 000+ crew members in such a day and age. But they're only hiding the construction of the ship until the launch, where they're bound to be noticed by sight (radar invisible).

But Mr Billionaire feels he must hide the project because people would either: try and take it from him, destroy it, corrupt his new society into that which he is fleeing.

I feel it's important to mention at least some of the colonies we've made as that will give the reader some idea of how much human's have expanded. I also think I should explain why this very wealthy man would want to leave all that as it doesn't seem very logical.

[Guest aramike01]

Rapid growth certainly shouldn't be a problem explaining. Can anybody explain why, in the last 75 years, technology has advanced futher than it did during the prior millennium?

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Cmdr. Michael Kristophers

Spectre Fleet

Commanding Officer, Spectre StarStation

ICV-Intrepid

"You won't get the Purple Heart hiding in a foxhole!"

[Cmdr Hidama]

Technology has taken leaps and bounds in the last 75 years because there are more people working to develop it. more people are FREE to develop it. That includes women, who weren't allowed to do anything outside the house in the last millenium. Thoughts were restricted and dictated, mostly by the church. Now that we've grown up a bit, we have more people who are free to dream up new things and the resources to make them.

[This message has been edited by Cmdr Hidama (edited 08-18-2000).]

[Whisper]

Well, also, there is a scientific community, as opposed to back in the 'ol days when there was a certain, ahem, "lack of communication" between researchers (with a few notable exceptions). Nowadays, with phones, faxes, science journals, airplanes, Internet, ect. scientist are much more connected. So now that a scientist in Moscow already knows a team in Zimbabwe found out this-and-that, the Moscow scientist can build off the Zimbabwe work. As can the rest of the world. People aren't repeating each others mistakes, they're building from each others succeses.

Hidama: It's great to see you have all that stuff thought of. I wasn't really expecting an answer from my questions! Just as a guide.

[Cmdr Hidama]

well, I have a boring life, so all I do is play games and think about stuff

[Guest aramike01]

I dunno, I believe the tech revolution wasn't a result of more people working on it. I mean, the renaissance had plenty of open minds.

I think it was the result of intitial new technologies helping to inspire even greater technologies, and the increased understanding of the physical properties of the Earth. You have to agree; in most cases, it was one or two people that invented something which inspired expansions on their inventions.

Think: Orville and Wilbur Wright, Alexander Graham Bell, Edision, etc.

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Cmdr. Michael Kristophers

Spectre Fleet

Commanding Officer, Spectre StarStation

ICV-Intrepid

"You won't get the Purple Heart hiding in a foxhole!"

[Cmdr Hidama]

perhaps it was a mix of factors, the revolutionaries that began it all (bell, the wright's, etc) but after that, people began to build on it. refine it, expand it. From the first aeroplane to the 'Hyper-X'. the first phone line to satelite communication.

I'm sure you get the idea.

so I agree with you that a few people started it all, but many people have built on that foundation these recent years.

[Commander Zeke Stone]

Good luck to you. I can't think of anything helpful right now, but now that I have some fellow writers out there listening, I got a question for you. Maybe it's just me when I say this but would you agree that you need to be just a little crazy in order to be a writer? I mean, we think up these characters that are sometimes nothing like us. If you ask me, that's like having multiple personalities, =)

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Commander Zeke Stone,

UCV Guardian - "Never Give Up, Never Surrender"

**Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job** -- Douglas Adams

[Guest aramike01]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cmdr Hidama:

perhaps it was a mix of factors, the revolutionaries that began it all (bell, the wright's, etc) but after that, people began to build on it. refine it, expand it. From the first aeroplane to the 'Hyper-X'. the first phone line to satelite communication.

I'm sure you get the idea.

so I agree with you that a few people started it all, but many people have built on that foundation these recent years.

---

Which is precisely what I said.

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Cmdr. Michael Kristophers

Spectre Fleet

Commanding Officer, Spectre StarStation

ICV-Intrepid

"You won't get the Purple Heart hiding in a foxhole!"

[Commander Zeke Stone]

heh, I was thinking of using Plasma Sheilding for my behemith as well. Only mine is completed around 2150 and I plan on getting ship upgrades from friendly alien races or destroyed enemy ships, =). Say, what's the approximate size of your ship?

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Commander Zeke Stone,

UCV Guardian - "Never Give Up, Never Surrender"

**Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job** -- Douglas Adams

[Cmdr Hidama]

sorry bout my last post...I was a tad intoxicated

I was attempting to agree with you aramike

anyway, I believe that anyone who dreams up these worlds HAS to be crazy! But my definition of crazy has been described as a paradox wrapped in an enigma.

Approx size of my ship, well, haven't measured it out yet, but it's huge, it's the size of, say, 3 Ottawa's stacked on top of one-another. and I don't want to measure it out right now so use your imagination.

one thing I'd like to ask you Zeke: Although I haven't done the math, at a glance, the size of your multiple fighter bays added together seem to be larger than the ship itself, I may be wrong of course.

The main characters on my ship will most likely be modeled after some friends of mine, I do know that Mr Billionaire will be modeled after me, since I would LOVE to make that ship and haul ass away from our civilization

EDITED: had to correct spelling errors, I gotta leave soon

[This message has been edited by Cmdr Hidama (edited 08-19-2000).]

[Commander Zeke Stone]

If my bays were in a straight line they would be larger than the ship, but they're not in a straight line. There is 3 layers of docking bays, one on top of the other, but not touching each other. The top layer has three rows of 11 bays, middle layer has 2 rows of 11 bays, and the bottom has 1 row of 11. I should've cleared that up earlier. I still remember back about 3 or 4 years ago when I wanted it to be 500 miles long, =), sheesh, what was I thinking.

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Commander Zeke Stone,

UCV Guardian - "Never Give Up, Never Surrender"

**Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job** -- Douglas Adams