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Science Fiction: A giant space ship, Virus, struggle to urvival, new Order,

jeffken ๐Ÿšซ
Updated:

I plan to write this story when I get older or study how to write story enough in english (you will notice how my poor english below). So i will write this story at some point since im just 23 years old. Plus, I can refine the ideas here with everyone comment :)

The earth runs out of resource to sustain the human, and the land is tainted with radiation and dangerous substances. Before those thing happened and war began, four billionaires spent all their fortune to build a giant spaceship in the space called Icarus. They gathered everything like animals, fertile soil, fuel and millions of people.

The central theme about this story are about materialism and Virus(Nano-tech).

The virus also determine the citizen level

Alpha Virus: Only Four billionaire got this virus and their descendants.it enhances healing, endurance, intelligience and free of diseases. Can make people live for hundreds of years

Omega Virus: No special characteristic. Rather as a means to control people. Every people will get this virus. The dark effect will activate after people reach 15 years old. After that, they need to drink the bio-water. It works as a fuel for those virus to keep going. After reaching 15 years old, people need to drink the bio water every 24 hour. They will die instantly after 24 hours without the water.

Delta virus: Can only be bought. It is an upgraded from Omega. It is very costly. Rather than 24 hours, people will lives for a year without drinking the water.

Beta Virus: Free of disease, Enhance of Healing. The most expensive one. Cost more than 10 Billion Units(currency).

It makes the person live for a few hundred years.

The spaceship has 3 floors, which are Babylon,The Garden, and The Pit. Delta, Belta and Alpha people live in Babylon, while Omega live in the pit.

The Garden is where the crops grows. This is where food will be produced.

The whole spaceship is controlled by a single intelligence computer called the Eye. The Eye control food producing machine, the Keeper robot to keep order and take care of crops. It also creates artificial weathers at Babylon and the garden as well. For this reason, food producing needs only a small amount of people to help.

The Babylon people have jobs like normal earth society ,while, the Pit people work as servants, hookers, and low end jobs. However, even those jobs are very selective since those jobs are hired at Babylon. And people at Babylon are very discriminated toward lower citizen. which means the majority will work as the recycler of junks at the Pit.

The food is limited since there will be bad decades of harvest when soil needs to recover in a very long period of time. So they need to control the population or reduce it down.

When people have children, the children will have their own allowance until they reach 15 years.

To control the polutaion, there is a battle coliseum once a year that any people can register when they reach 15 years of age. There are no limited of participants. Since the place is big, and it is a deathmatch. The promise of becoming the Delta Citizen and living at Babylon make people eager to join in order to escape the Pit life.

The second method is to inflate the price of the water which will make the water more expensive to buy. It is use when the harvest suffers the dry decades.

The POV character will be one of the descendant of the Four. The Four will have authority over everything even the Eye, except toward another of the Four. They can use the Order of robots to kill any citizen without question. History: there was a rebellion to stop the use of virus which results of the massacre by the Keeper . More than half of Pit and babylon was slaughtered. This was order by the Four. The Four only allows to have one child only, in order to keep from internal power struggling. The child will put into coma after they reach 15 years of age which they will put into the capsule that freeze the aging process. They will be woken up when their parents dead. This is to make those children grow on their own, as well as again to stop power struggling and such. Usually, the father or mother will die from the dying of alpha virus which is unpredictable when they have lived more than hundred of years.

The story begins when the boy of the Four woke up when his father got assassinated which is a rare occurrence.

The boy will disguise himself as Omega, and hunt down the truth and go down to the pit and accidentally participate in the coliseum to find the truth, and uncover the darker side of corrupted people in the Babylon who want to take over Icarus.

Well, this story is in my head for years, it feels good to let it off. I guess it is like a prologue or something.

Replies:   Lumpy
richardshagrin ๐Ÿšซ

That's the problem about talking about it. Now the pressure to actually write it will either go away or at least be less.

Lumpy ๐Ÿšซ

@jeffken

ha, the alpha virus reminds me very much of the evolutionary changes I gave the main character in my story. there is even a secondary control element when passed on, sort of like your omega virus (although the actual control mechanism is very different).

Concurrent invention has always struck me as a funny thing. (not that my ideas were original in the first place, but still...I found it entertaining.)

jeffken ๐Ÿšซ

while I never read your story, I am going to read it to satisfied my nerdy science fiction thing. :D

About the alpha virus, I can say that this idea came or got inspired from Resident Evil series. G-Virus and T-Virus. However, the alpha virus doesnt give any super human strength like Alice in the Movie at all. But, it gives only high resilience to injury and physical exhaustion.

PervOtaku ๐Ÿšซ

Class struggle stories are always popular, because people like to see underdogs topple people in charge who are, of course, evil (in varying degrees from "working actively to keep the underdogs down" to merely "not caring enough about the plight of the underdogs"). Scifi is also useful for this since it gives you more license to create such a system and justification for it to exist.

Replies:   Vincent Berg
Vincent Berg ๐Ÿšซ

@PervOtaku

Whew! When you write your story, be careful of your backstory getting too complex. Outlining the back story all at once gets a little ... tedious. It is better to release the details a little at a time, or at least in discussions between characters.

The other key, is to focus on common issues. While the different classifications is interesting, it won't drive the story as much as the common human elements of class-struggles and political connections.

I'd also suggest you start your story now. Writing is a learned process, and you need to keep your skills sharp. Also, I've found that stories left on the shelf for too long become too ... static. After a while (a year, in my case) it becomes so entrenched in your mind, that the story can't adapt and change as you write it. I generally abandon any stories I can't write in a years time.

Also, don't be afraid to write in your native language. What you need most, when you start, is feedback and evaluation. You need to discover what works and what people like. You can do that in any language, and build your skills doing it. Then, when your English skills get better, try new stories in that language, and see how the ideas change between the two languages.

Replies:   tppm
tppm ๐Ÿšซ

@Vincent Berg

The Author needs to know the backstory, if only to keep it straight while writing, but he doesn't need to tell it to the reader, beyond what's immediately relevant. The viewpoint character will take the backstory for granted, and that's how it should be presented to the reader. If the story, or series, is long enough more and more of the backstory will come out through incidental stuff.

Replies:   Lumpy
Lumpy ๐Ÿšซ

@tppm

I agree with this. I think it should be reiterated that the best way to give back story is from the mouth of characters. Just writing out backstory, either in a prologue or expositionally in the story, is always less satisfying.

Exposition dumps, if in movies or in books, is always a bit distracting.

Replies:   Vincent Berg
Vincent Berg ๐Ÿšซ

@Lumpy

I agree with this. I think it should be reiterated that the best way to give back story is from the mouth of characters. Just writing out backstory, either in a prologue or expositionally in the story, is always less satisfying.

Alas, I've always tried to do this, but for my newest (next to be published/posted) I wrote a background piece that I thought was really insightful. As a result, I thought the readers would appreciate it. I included it, all in dialogue, in chapter 3. However, I immediately ran into trouble with it. (It was sexual, and was considered 'a bit much' by my beta readers.) I ended up yanking it. Sometimes an information dump, as entertaining or as pleasantly presented, is just an information dump!

Now, if my SOL readers want to know about it, they'll have to demand the prequel I've since shelved. ;P

richardshagrin ๐Ÿšซ

If there is something the reader has to know to understand the story, perhaps you can spice up the chapter/prolog/prequel you present it in with the two standbys, sex and violence. Lights, Camera, ACTION.

Replies:   Lumpy  Vincent Berg
Lumpy ๐Ÿšซ

@richardshagrin

Or better yet, have the characters explain what the reader needs to know in story....

Vincent Berg ๐Ÿšซ

@richardshagrin

If there is something the reader has to know to understand the story, perhaps you can spice up the chapter/prolog/prequel you present it in with the two standbys, sex and violence. Lights, Camera, ACTION.

As an experiment in story pacing, I defined each character's conflicts with each other. That way, anytime the story had to explain something (like how a fight worked out or how the science operates), the character conflicts keep the tension up, keeping the pace quick.

Unfortunately, it required lengthy opened chapters to define who everyone was and explore their personalities, which doesn't help sell a story to skeptical readers.

jeffken ๐Ÿšซ

Thank you guys, for amazing feedback. I'm very much appreciate it.

docholladay ๐Ÿšซ

For science fiction and other related items. My suggestion is not to explain the science or technology too much. Instead give logical reasons for a character's understanding or use of the knowledge and or technology.
Refer to their schooling or training in some form. Mention how tough it was in Math or other aspects. Unless it falls into a scientific law that will never change don't use try to give too much detail, just give logical reasons for the character's knowledge and usage of the science or technology. Just look at how school subjects have changed in just the last 30 years or so at the primary levels let alone at the college or university levels.

Its funny how the questions tend to stay the same over the years, but the correct answers change.

richardshagrin ๐Ÿšซ

@docholladay

Questions tend to stay the same but laws and sentences change. Before 1900 taking drugs was not a problem. Opium and derivatives were in lots of over the counter potions. Coca cola is alleged to have had cocaine. After Prohibition selling alcoholic beverages was illegal until repeal, and even then licenses were needed to sell liquor and beer and wine. Colorado, Washington and at least Portland Oregon license marijuana dealers. Driving automobiles didn't used to be licensed, certainly not using current age requirements. Marriage Licenses are newish. In the "old west" you lived together and told people you were married. Of course there were restrictions on same sex and multiple race marriages. It can be surprising what the courts can find in the constitution and amendments. I wonder if the founding fathers thought about abortion rights or homosexual marriage. Or if there would be laws regulating ownership and use of firearms.

Legislation tends to make lawyers more necessary and better paid. The severity and length of sentences tends to vary. Lets hope for short sentences for whatever you do that turns out to become illegal. I have read that pregnant women who drink alcohol can be imprisoned in some southern states for something that breaks down to attempted abortion. One of the three big lies, "I'm from the Government, I am here to help you."

Replies:   docholladay  docholladay
docholladay ๐Ÿšซ

@richardshagrin

The primary law is "Do not leave any evidence that can be used against you in court". And that means nothing that can be proven scientifically as coming from your person. Any thing else is either hearsay or just a theory which is not proof in court.

docholladay ๐Ÿšซ

@richardshagrin

One of the best arguments for legalization is the money factors. The only ones making money legally off booze during prohibition was the Lawyers and the Bail Bondsmen. Same factors apply to drugs of whatever category. None of the rest paid any taxes on the money as a rule since it was illegally obtained, so how would they include it in the income tax form (for one example). At least by making it legal taxes are collected on the products both sales and income tax are collected at some point.

Vincent Berg ๐Ÿšซ
Updated:

@docholladay

For science fiction and other related items. My suggestion is not to explain the science or technology too much. Instead give logical reasons for a character's understanding or use of the knowledge and or technology.

Refer to their schooling or training in some form. Mention how tough it was in Math or other aspects.

I agree. It's best to not include too much complex mathematics in works of fiction.

Seriously, though, techheads, which most sci fi fans tend to be, like the subject to be taken seriously. You don't need to delve too deeply into it, but they like the stories to 1) make sense and 2) not to break their believability. If you state something that's patently wrong, you'll get criticized for it whether you present it as magic or science. The idea is to guide the reader along, not drag them kicking and screaming, and not dragging them down the wrong path.

Replies:   docholladay
docholladay ๐Ÿšซ

@Vincent Berg

You don't need to delve too deeply into it, but they like the stories to 1) make sense and 2) not to break their believability.

That is where mentioning their training whether through schools or apprenticeships covers the knowledge base. Heck even Star Trek never explained the dang science behind most of the stuff used. The training and/or education made it clear that it called for special training or schooling at some point. Otherwise the tech and science was just presented as a fact of life in their time period or culture.

It would be like trying to explain Television to the people living in the 17th century. There would be no basis for the knowledge so it would be unbelievable to them. Scientific and technological advances from either extraterrestrial or future generations would fall into the same category for us today. The education and/or training gives the foundation. Sure some knowledge like the speed of light will remain constant but other knowledge and tech is constantly evolving. Just look at how much computer technology has changed in the last 10-20 years.

Vincent Berg ๐Ÿšซ

@docholladay

That is where mentioning their training whether through schools or apprenticeships covers the knowledge base. Heck even Star Trek never explained the dang science behind most of the stuff used.

That's the difference between 'hard' and 'soft' science fiction. Hard science fiction takes new advances in science, and proposes how they might affect people's lives (that's what I specialize in). Star Trek and Star Wars are soft science fiction, and as you say, are perfectly acceptable, though they sometimes border on fantasy in that, as you point out, the science borders on magic. In those cases, the story glosses over the details, so you paint the scenes with a broad brush. However, it's up to the author to decide which type of story they're telling ahead of time.

Jeffkin didn't initially say which type of story he's aiming for, and he likely doesn't even know yet. I was trying to give him some directions on the story building process. Similar to your point, I was suggesting he tone down the back story (painting it with a broad brush, rather than covering the details).

Dominions Son ๐Ÿšซ

@Vincent Berg

Star Trek and Star Wars are soft science fiction, and as you say, are perfectly acceptable, though they sometimes border on fantasy in that, as you point out, the science borders on magic.

That brings up the Geek's corollary to Clark's law.

"Any technology that is distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."

:)

Replies:   Vincent Berg
Vincent Berg ๐Ÿšซ

@Dominions Son

"Any technology that is distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."

It's not an essential detail to the story, but a different approach to storytelling. In one, you're telling a universal story which doesn't get bogged down in nonessential details. The other focuses on new scientific discoveries and asks: how would that impact humors, and what might it reveal about the human condition.

You don't want to get the essential details incorrect in either case, but in one case, the minor details are unimportant (consider all the blue show-girl aliens) while in the other the details are the story.

Perv Otaku ๐Ÿšซ

@Vincent Berg

though they sometimes border on fantasy in that, as you point out, the science borders on magic

Of course the other side of that is stories where they have magic down to a science. It's not magic in the sense that something happens with no explanation, it's magic that obeys strict, well-documented laws and cause/effect relationships.

richardshagrin ๐Ÿšซ
Updated:

@docholladay

How much has computer technology changed in the last 10 years? 20 years? Computers are faster and cheaper in real dollars than they used to be, but Microsoft still rules most of the market for computer software. I didn't say telephones or other electronic boxes, but computers are mostly PCs. Anyone from 2005 would recognize the competitors and lots of the computers still in use by the slow adopters of the latest and greatest. In 1995 that statement might not be true, but what computers could do hasn't changed that much. Speed and power improve by orders of magnitude, and the data storage media have changed, and programs and displays are more entertaining, but IMHO computer TECHNOLOGY is understandable by a well informed person from 1995.

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