Disclaimer: There will be typos probably, I’m typing fast and just letting my mind go crazy.
1/26/2022
I’ve always wanted to start writing an actual blog about my creative process, or just about writing stories in general. This will be somewhat brief but I wanted to put something out for people to read today so here it is, my first blog post on my site.
For anyone who doesn’t know, which I’m guessing is nearly everyone in existence, I’m working on a book that is tentatively titled, Saviors of Novus. Its very much a science fiction story about a young man named Loy Neumann who embarks on his first voyage out into deep space.
Lately I’ve been going back to the drawing board so to speak and laying the groundwork for this tale. I’m not an educated person but I would like to give this story all the attention to detail it deserves when necessary or required. That is why I’ve been driving myself crazy trying to establish exactly how advanced I’m making the humans who live on Novus. Technology and culture are seemingly intertwined in most scenarios, and so when creating advanced technologies for a people who are the first to live their lives in the light of a different star, many things must be taken into account. How will this affect how they live? What morals will they have? What’s important to them in life? While technologies won’t help answer every question that arises, it certainly helps establish how these people might think and behave.
Of course one can’t take such an idea to such an extreme that it becomes boring, no , once I have a general idea I then mesh it with how I would personally like them to be according to the story; if any of that makes any sense. I suppose a summary of that thought would be, invent a people and their culture based upon how you think it would realistically pan out, and then modify it with your own personal flare that gives the story some color or vibrancy.
The first and most important technology to narrow down and establish is their faster than light capabilities. There are hundreds if not thousands of concepts already out there in other works of science fiction, so how can I make mine unique? Fresh? Or different? Well, I came to the conclusion that I obviously cannot create my own way of traveling faster than light, but I can call it something else entirely to make it sound or seem different. So far I’ve been working on the various terminologies that will be used by characters within the story to describe such an advanced piece of technology, and then once those are established I will visit the actual scientific implications afterwards. The first term or phrase I will share on this is, “Constructing bridge.” I have a thought out explanation of how one of their faster than light methods of travel will work, but the act of traveling faster than light will be referred to as, “Crossing bridges,” and those that orchestrate or “construct” the act of crossing a bridge will be referred to as, “Bridge Engineers.”
My method of FTL (Faster Than Light) travel is basically employing the use of wormholes to take shortcuts across spacetime. But since wormholes are used plenty enough already, and its boring to not call it something else, I decided upon this “bridge” theme. They’re essentially constructing bridges across vast canyons that are the enormity of space to reach their destinations. Some bridges are more dangerous than others, which will come into play when creating drama and thrilling scenes throughout the story. Some bridges will be unstable, similar to a ship from the 1700’s crossing an ocean during a hurricane, and thus the crew of the main character’s ship will need to be brave and strong to make it across alive. Or perhaps they will need to get somewhere quick, but the only way is to cross a “rickety bridge.” I think you get my point.
I will obviously be describing such technologies and terminologies through exposition in the actual story, but here I can hastily talk about it without worrying about it sounding good. That is the point of this blog, I need a place where I can just write and not think about editing each sentence as I write it, its very freeing and I’m really enjoying this so far. Its like I’m explaining my story to someone who’s eager to learn more about it, so that’s what I’ll keep doing.
The last topic I’ll cover as I wrap this up will be the capital city of Novus, Astrum. This is the home of the Novusion people, Loy’s people, his home. It is the first major city built on Novus and the central hub of human civilization in the Mira system. The design of the city will be similar to the liking of a giant clock. The circumference of the city will be kilometers upon kilometers as there will be triangular sections outstretching from the center to the edge, each full of farms. Each section will grow a different crop, and after each harvest they will grow something new, literally rotating crops. But, one section will always remain barren of any crops so as to be studied and analyzed for the effects the crops have had upon the Novusion soil. Another interesting, if not gross, weird, or cool thing about this people I’m making, they will also grow meat instead of traditionally farming it. Not for any moral reasons mind you, they simply didn’t want to have to deal with caring for livestock as they transported it across the cosmos, and so growing meat during this time period was more convenient and energy efficient, at the time. Details are still being worked out.
This has been the first blog update on my story, Saviors of Novus, and I hope you liked it! It was fun rambling on and on, and I hope it wasn’t boring for you either. I will say this is just a glimpse into what I’ve been working on, I could go on about my FTL ideas, or the city of Astrum, but I have to leave some of these details in the shadows so the story itself can tell you!
Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!