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An excerpt from an email conversation I've been having with a friend:
"That being said, a different sort of story about an alien invasion modeled on the conquest of the new world would be extremely interesting. Better yet, model it on China or India, which were carved up by colonial powers then mastered the alien technology, gained independence, taught the aliens something new, and became major world players.
My problem with War of the Worlds is that I am far more interested with the long term consequences of the invasion than with the invasion itself. I don't like how the disease makes everything go back the way it was. That never happens with a foreign conquest. Look at Africa, which is a pretty good match for war of the worlds. Even though the foreigners were subject to African diseases and set up few successful colonies, they still radically changed Africa's history. Imagine if that happened in war of the worlds. The Martians mostly die, but they still have destroyed most of Earth's infrastructure. The next time they come, they do not try to live here, but enslave us to mine resources. Earth is carved into regions controlled by various Martian factions, and as the factions fight, humans are conscripted, traded, killed, or ignored. When human states are left to become independent, they'd evolve into anarchy or dictatorship. A story set in this world would consist of solving these problems, and readers would learn something about the situation in Africa, and what they might do about that.
Actually that's kind of an awesome idea. The story could be set now, in the 2000s. The history of the 20th century was one of war with various Martian colonial powers. Some of them want to establish colonies on Earth, which necessitate pressurized domes and sterilization of huge tracks of land. Others want resources or slaves. Others want to set up missionaries to spread their religions. Others don't particularly care about the Earth, but want to use it as a staging point to get to Venus (imagine human slaves being taken to work on the Venus terreforming, forming a triangle trade rout between Mars, Earth, and Venus). The moon is also useful real-estate. The history of the twentieth century is composed of some countries falling apart, others striking deals with the Martians, and others frantically trying to reverse-engineer Martian technology and build some sort of defenses. The Martians, meanwhile, are busily having their own wars and technological developments. This could be a fascinating way to examine Africa, Europe, and the New World in the 15 and 16 hundreds. Dude!"
"That being said, a different sort of story about an alien invasion modeled on the conquest of the new world would be extremely interesting. Better yet, model it on China or India, which were carved up by colonial powers then mastered the alien technology, gained independence, taught the aliens something new, and became major world players.
My problem with War of the Worlds is that I am far more interested with the long term consequences of the invasion than with the invasion itself. I don't like how the disease makes everything go back the way it was. That never happens with a foreign conquest. Look at Africa, which is a pretty good match for war of the worlds. Even though the foreigners were subject to African diseases and set up few successful colonies, they still radically changed Africa's history. Imagine if that happened in war of the worlds. The Martians mostly die, but they still have destroyed most of Earth's infrastructure. The next time they come, they do not try to live here, but enslave us to mine resources. Earth is carved into regions controlled by various Martian factions, and as the factions fight, humans are conscripted, traded, killed, or ignored. When human states are left to become independent, they'd evolve into anarchy or dictatorship. A story set in this world would consist of solving these problems, and readers would learn something about the situation in Africa, and what they might do about that.
Actually that's kind of an awesome idea. The story could be set now, in the 2000s. The history of the 20th century was one of war with various Martian colonial powers. Some of them want to establish colonies on Earth, which necessitate pressurized domes and sterilization of huge tracks of land. Others want resources or slaves. Others want to set up missionaries to spread their religions. Others don't particularly care about the Earth, but want to use it as a staging point to get to Venus (imagine human slaves being taken to work on the Venus terreforming, forming a triangle trade rout between Mars, Earth, and Venus). The moon is also useful real-estate. The history of the twentieth century is composed of some countries falling apart, others striking deals with the Martians, and others frantically trying to reverse-engineer Martian technology and build some sort of defenses. The Martians, meanwhile, are busily having their own wars and technological developments. This could be a fascinating way to examine Africa, Europe, and the New World in the 15 and 16 hundreds. Dude!"
Fellow Tetrapod
Alright, here we go! My speculative-evolution serial novel Fellow Tetrapod is finally live on Royal Road. Go check it out. If it looks like your sort of thing, follow the story. It updates every weekday. (if you want to know more…) Koenraad Robbert Ruis used to be a paleontologist, but now he’s a cook at the United Nations embassy to the Convention of Sophonts. His bosses must negotiate with intelligent species from countless alternate earths, and Koen must make them breakfast. It turns out, though, that Koen is rather better at inter-species communication than any other human in this world (all nine of them). Everyone loves to eat (certain autotrophs excepted). Fellow Tetrapod is an speculative-evolution office comedy about food preparation, diplomacy, and what it’s like to be a talking animal. Serialized every weekday on Royal Road (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/59198/fellow-tetrapod) and (one week earlier) Patreon(https://www.patreon.com/danielmbensen) Cover art by Simon
The Cicada
So, there I was, stalking the East Aegean cicada*. Its insistent, gearbox cough rose out of the electric pulse of the other insect life on the hillside behind the restaurant in northern Greece. When the buzzing stopped, I knew I was close, but it still took me another minute of looking before I picked it out against the bark of a sycamore**. The bug's spotted olive-gray shell matched the tree perfectly, but its symmetry gave it away. I called over Maggie and her cousin and pointed the cicada out to them. They went off to find a half dozen cast-off molts. I showed them the folded, piercing mouth-parts, telling the girls how the nymphs suck sap from tree roots until they climb out of the ground and molt into adults with wings but no mouths. If that's a metaphor, I don't want to use it. And I don't have to! Doing research for this newsletter, I found out that at least some adult cicadas do feed. Anyway, so do I. The reason we were at this restaurant in the first place is because I was
Doing Good
So there we were, giving this stranger 200 leva. "What? Are you serious?" He wasn't being sarcastic. He really wanted to check that what he thought was happening was actually happening. His face scrunched up, trying not to cry. That was when I was finally sure this wasn't all a scam. read on
Congratulations, Your Nightmare Came True
(see posts like this a week earlier on my Patreon for $1 a month) Our little blue car emerged from the tunnel and hummed up Botevgradsko Boulevard. To our left: a mural of chains melting off someone's forearms. The kids were looking out the windows, there was nobody to interrupt us and nothing that needed cleaning, and I relished the ability to complete a thought. "Ha!" I said. "What?" asked Pavlina. We stopped at a red light. "Congratulations," I said. "My nightmare came true. I've been called a racist on the internet." "Well, not exactly," said Pavlina. "Okay, I was called – " I corrected myself, " – my work was called 'problematic' in an email. That's like halfway there. That's a benchmark." "Yeah, okay. Congratulations." She wasn't being sarcastic. We turned and headed south toward Mount Vitosha, and I burned with joy. (see pictures and good formatting here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/63082454 ) In Man's Search for Meaning, psychologist Viktor Frankl talks about his brand of
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good idea...that will be a good story i would read.