Janet

Hey, let me recommend James Smith's You Can Write a Novel. It's simple, effective, I used it for Run​, it will help you structure the thing. Just don't buy it from Amazon PLEASE. Barnes and Noble or Abe's used books are two other great vendors and you can't beat Abe's prices. You can write fiction! All those old distinctions (artistic vs scientific in particular) are bogus. Good science and good engineering is absolutely as creative as art. Smart people are smart, the rest is finding the right sources. IMHO of thirty years of teaching.

I have been vague on this element. However, in the interviews that will follow the book's release, it might come up and then I will pull this out! 'Uh, well, the ship has nuclear drive, so of course it had enough power.' And then I will thank you, Scotius.

I didn't say the vegans were behind it. I said they front for it, in all their sincerity.

Make money on us by paying us less, Kryten. Big money there.

That is so poetic, sir.

I'm gonna think about this, about methane being an accidental thing, they're mining for something else. Because readers also might think the main source of methane is cows, and not realize it's the main component in natural gas and valuable in and of itself. Like, the miners could be mining for platinum and the methane thing happens just as you said, due to shaking, and poor design of the living quarters introduces it into the space, and then Will O. Yee (a miner who wears a mariachi jacket on off hours) lights a -- hmmm.

Well, just start with one--kid I mean, naturally one girl. Try it out. You might go for two, the third will be a happy 'accident,' and so forth. How they pulverize the water asteroid in the book: not with weapons exactly, they have escaped in a 'mining pod,' which I characterized as having all kinds of suchlike 'lasers' for mining, moving, turning, towing, and pushing asteroids around. I think it worked for plausibility. It IS dramatic. It's very visual, the ship in the midst of a great blue cloud of steam, the CME rushing by. Cue the music. I swear, Cirocco, you could write your own novel. It is so fun.

The whole thing is a way to lower our wages. Grains are cheaper than meat. The vegan lobby has been enlisted to disinform, but they're otherwise innocent. The big money is in weaning us off the good stuff. If you are heavy, forget the plate and the pyramid. Limit the grains and fruit severely, eat veggies and protein. You can eat all you want.

Well, if you forget about evolution but focus on adaptation, then we have seem to have structures that we don't use that come into play when conditions are right. Think about the first creature that crawled out of water and up onto the stump! And took a breath! I am writing a sci fi novel about a claustrophobic guy who has to rescue an injured man on the ISS and to do so has to put on a helmet to pass between a shuttle and the ISS (the entrances were both destroyed in an explosion), and I was tempted to have him just pull off the helmet and take a breath, and discover that he could breath and live on whatever is out there. I didn't do that, but it sure was tempting. The plankton apparently have done it--and I don't believe they went into some kind of dormancy and have now revived; look, life doesn't stay still, it lives, or dies. They lived. You have to think they reproduced. Since there's no Planned Parenthood for plankton, yet.

That's a good question! It's the main component of natural gas and as such is an energy source. So it would be for export to Earth. As another thread on this blog points out, demand is so down everywhere, for everything, due to our cursed economy, we don't need methane from space now, or any other of the very many riches we could reap from space. That's our main problem to exploration now. We've got the technology, we don't have the demand. My novel discusses this, I hope not too much. But it is a real contradiction now. Meanwhile, if you wanted to do something practical about it, could all the great guys using this forum quit playing so many video games, find a nice girl and have about A DOZEN KIDS? Cause that's the best thing you could do for actual space exploration about now.

Oh, Mesons, thanks!! But it's two hundred pages, dear heart! I'll come post a link where you can get it, though, when it's done. It's called Run. That's not very original but the rest of it is. I only have two chapters left, this fight scene, and the very last scene where the good guys pull into their hidden asteroid in the Oort Cloud to build a new world not based on modern society, especially the modern economy, at all. I think I used science in a pretty creative way in one scene. When the good guys rescue the miners and split, they are pursued. There's a little gun play but both pursuers and pursued are interrupted by a Solar Weather Warning that an unanticipated CME of catastrophic proportions is headed straight for them. The good guys are passing an asteroid which happens to be a water asteroid, common in space--a source of oxygen, water, and fuel. They analyze it quickly and just at the right second pulverize it with their lasers and plunge into the steam, and are saved, but the pursuers, not so much. Just like Exodus only not. (Water in any form protects from radiation--God bless Google.) Please don't tell me it's impossible, I'm only going for plausible!

That's what I meant about using methane as the bad guy, because it requires so much less explanation to readers, being common enough in disasters here on Earth. Good point about image control being central, needing to be built in. I have been developing that idea throughout--they have little security, little fall back protection--there's a better word, but I forget it at the moment, no 'safe rooms,' individual survival suits, etc. etc.--on the brand new colony, because they're trying to build an image of a 'Perfect Mankind in Space.' That is, no accidents ever, no worries ever. Like Apple. They think that will attract the scarce young labor force. (They try to build that same image here on Earth but we always mess it up, haha.) Cirocco, you've sure got a great fiction sense! I can re-write a lot, haven't submitted it to the editor yet. Thank you so much!

Why???? I mean, why worse than an environment with gravity?

Wait! I lied! There's one more part I don't have yet! Okay, to start, am probably staying with methane and the scenario they built the living quarters interiorally and cheap so that there's an eventual contact and spark (the above persuasive comments notwithstanding!). That minimizes the need for technical narrative--people would be familiar with the concept etc and the conditions that ensue following such an explosion--like any mine on Earth. But beyond that I need something else for the plot. I have good guys, rescuers, coming which the asteroid mine management BLOCKS from rescuing the trapped, so that a thrilling fire fight ensues. But, why would management do that? I was considering something like, they'd rather not risk the expensive equipment (let's say right outside the blocked area) to another explosion. But can you think of something better? Not that I'd put it past a real management team to sacrifice human lives to capital. But the equipment thing is so bald.

Thanks to all, but I think I have gotten what I need right here. Originally I had thought to have the working face pressurized (in fiction, it doesn't cost much! : ) ) but this information enables me to have the accident happen in the living quarters, giving many more elements for drama insofar as more characters can be affected than would be believable in a working mine. I have already presented the company as irresponsible and greedy, and the living quarters as interior. So I think I've got the elements here for a great chapter. I can still borrow heavily from the Sago Mine disaster. Thanks really, kind of you to help me!