{"id":1916,"date":"2010-04-17T15:01:01","date_gmt":"2010-04-17T19:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=1916"},"modified":"2010-04-17T15:01:01","modified_gmt":"2010-04-17T19:01:01","slug":"old-story-notebook-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/old-story-notebook-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Old story notebook, part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alright, it’s time to finish up with the old story notebook I discovered a couple of weeks ago.\u00a0 These ideas were written down back in 2007, when I was writing the first draft of Ashes of the Starry Sea.<\/em> Without further ado:<\/p>\n

\n

In the future, people live in arcologies, and wars are fought outside by robots. It will be a new system of feudalism: arcologies are like castles or walled towns, and people won’t die in the wars, just change sides.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I’m not sure I knew very much about feudalism as an economic system back then, but the basic idea, I think, was that life would be localized in the arcologies and nationalism as a unifying principle would die out. <\/p>\n

In the Middle Ages, warfare was basically a contest between nobles, and though it certainly disrupted the lives of the peasants, they didn’t really care which side they were on because it didn’t make a difference. Napoleon revolutionized the world because he galvanized the peasants through the new concept of nationalism and made them actually care about the outcome of the wars.<\/p>\n

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An AI falls in love with a CS major, but the CS major loves a real girl.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Little Mermaid, with a modern twist. And the mermaid AI commits suicide by uploading herself to a trashy old computer that’s on the verge of crashing. The final scene shows the wrecked computer somewhere in rural China, being scrapped for the metal parts in a vat of toxic chemicals. Awesome.<\/p>\n

\n

A character who’s an android and sees the world in terms of numbers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The story should revolve around the question: if math is a language, how do you say “I love you” in numbers?<\/p>\n

\n

An election where people can scientifically predict best and worst case scenarios, based on each candidate’s qualities and the world situation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Political science may not be a hard science, but it is awesome for science fiction.<\/p>\n

\n

Voter preferences are normally distributed around a common mean, but parties choose opposing points of view because of an information shortfall about the nature of that mean. What if the information problem were solved?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

We would have exactly two parties that are identical in every meaningful way…wait a minute…<\/p>\n

\n

Someone discovers a language that is intuitive in all humans and overcomes many barriers of language in describing the world.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Linguistics is good for sf&f, too.<\/p>\n

\n

What if galaxies themselves were sentient?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sounds like something out of a Robert Charles Wilson novel. I love it!<\/p>\n

\n

A space colony that, due to information technology, is a pure democracy.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I’m using this idea right now in Mercenary Savior.<\/em> When I first started planning the novel, I wanted to do a story about the Mongols in space, but I knew it would need more than that, so I thought “what if one of the places they invaded was this pure democracy?” As soon as I combined the two ideas, BAM! I had a story.<\/p>\n

\n

An advanced society without public education or health care.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Uggggh, don’t even want to go there. Not until Obama’s out of office.<\/p>\n

\n

The Mormon pioneer exodus in space.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I tried to use this idea with Hero in Exile,<\/em> but for some reason it didn’t work. It was as if the story wanted to go in a completely different direction. Oh well–you win some, you lose some. Besides, it’s not a total loss; it’s always possible to recycle.<\/p>\n

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A kingdom that will be cursed if ruled by anyone other than a direct heir. What if the direct heir is a child?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

An attempt to brainstorm some fantasy.<\/p>\n

\n

Robot prostitutes–one who has no feeling or emotion, but develops artificial intelligence. This is what will fuel the development of androids.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sad, but true.<\/p>\n

\n

A spaceship so massive that it generates tides when it enters orbit.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sounds like something out of Arthur C. Clarke.<\/p>\n

\n

A tomagachi becomes sentient and uploads itself to the internet. OR…an AI disguises itself as a tomagachi.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Tomagachis! Whatever happened to them? They were so trendy…for like six months in the 90s.<\/p>\n

\n

What if our most deeply held beliefs had the power, under the right circumstances, to turn into monsters–real, literal, fantastic beings of awesome power?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Now there’s an idea with some interesting potential. We could build battle arenas and watch our beliefs duke it out, literally. Which ones would win?<\/p>\n

\n

A society that values myths more than facts.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I’m sure that societies like this have actually existed–or may still exist today.<\/p>\n

\n

American suicide bombers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Hey! It could happen.<\/p>\n

\n

Ghosts on a spaceship.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide…<\/p>\n

\n

A culture where kissing (or any other public display of romantic affection) initiates marriage.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Now THIS I would like to see, or maybe even use someday. It could be interesting.<\/p>\n

And that concludes the old story notebook, bringing us to the end of 2008 when I finished Ashes of the Starry Sea<\/em><\/a> and left for the 2008 BYU Jordan study abroad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alright, it’s time to finish up with the old story notebook I discovered a couple of weeks ago.\u00a0 These ideas were written down back in 2007, when I was writing the first draft of Ashes of the Starry Sea. Without further ado: In the future, people live in arcologies, and wars are fought outside by… Continue reading Old story notebook, part 3<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[68,44],"tags":[174,83,300,212,155,99,52,4,599],"class_list":["post-1916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bsh","category-ds","tag-ideas-and-concepts","tag-inspiration","tag-political-science","tag-robert-charles-wilson","tag-rough-drafts","tag-science-fiction","tag-story-ideas","tag-the-lost-colony","tag-thoughts-reflections","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-uU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1916"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1927,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916\/revisions\/1927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}