As is my habit for all my stories, I've included supplementary material as spoiler-free extras for interested readers of Longshot. An updated Chapter 1 was posted today, as was a fresh Chapter 2; you can expect relevant notes for each chapter to follow the day of or the day after posting.
Think of what follows as author liner notes with insights, explanations, and references for Chapter 1. Reader questions and feedback are always welcomed in comments or eMail.
My sister and I first experienced the Cupola…
Italian cupola ("small cup"), used to describe a small dome-like structure at the top of a building designed for the purpose of admitting light, air and/or to function as a viewing platform. For reference,
rel="nofollow">the International Space Station's cupola.
Day to day we lived on the banks of the ringriver in the midsection of the hollowed-out asteroid…
Longshot is a deep-space variation of an
rel="nofollow">O'Neill cylinder, built inside an asteroid.
"That aspect of you comes from a place in Old Sol"
Old Sol is the Longshot's cultural reference for the Sun. By extension, it also functions as a shorthand reference for Earth and solar system.
By that then I knew what haplogroups and phenotypes were…
A haplogroup is a related group of genes inherited from a common ancestor; a phenotype is the expression of these genes as unique physical characteristics. In the context of Longshot, haplogroup refers to the
rel="nofollow">Old Sol anthropological type that each person is derived from, after random selection and modification by Ship.
"It was called Hallstatt."
rel="nofollow">Hallstatt phenotype, named for the original Iron Age
rel="nofollow">Austrian village of the same name.
"She is Dinkaid. From the continent of Africa."
rel="nofollow">Dinkaid phenotype.
"Gracile Mediterranid. From Palestine."
rel="nofollow">Gracile Mediterranid phenotype.
The interior of that cylinder, spinning 25 times every hour to create artificial gravity, was our home.
See
rel="nofollow">spincalc as a way to visualize the rotational speed needed to simulate gravity inside objects of different radii.
"I walked into the polis."
The linga franca of Longshot is hybridized from many human languages, but tends to use Greek-derived words for place names: polis is Greek for "city".
"Sailing to 82 G Eridani."
82 G Eridani is a star in the Eridani constellation, currently known to have several exoplanets.
