Help with Book 3

[michael_ely]

Hi there fellow fiction writers

For those of you interested, book 2 of the SMAC trilogy was finished a little while ago (Dragon Sun, to be released at the end of august), and by some weird scheduling fluke I have to finish book 3 before book 2 comes out. So I'm working away at it now, and if anyone who wants to stretch their creative muscles, I'm looking for:

* Some names for peripheral characters, esp University, Believer, and Peacekeeper. But heck there are some Gaians and Morganites and Hivers and Spartans in there too: this is, after all, the grand finale.

* Just as a side thought, since book 3 takes place in the later part of Chiron's history, I was thinking of some cool genetic traits that people could have, just to be unique (kind of like people who get body piercings and tattoos now). For example, I read that scientists have bred a mouse whose fur changes color depending on what food it eats. I might add a few extra details like that for the far future of Chiron...like kids with interesting color eyes and things like that. Any thoughts?

Of course there are no guarantees any of this will make it in, because I'm still working on the book. But you never know... If you're interested, post here or email to bookthoughts@yahoo.com

Thanks! It's nice to see so much fan fiction here so long after the original release of SMAC.
michael ely

[DarkCloud]

Well, if you really are the Author of Centauri Dawn: Thank you for coming to Apolyton!

* Since you asked for ideas: here are several of mine.

I. Names/Genetics

1. The University

a. Genetics

(The way I see it, Zakharov, being the meddler that he is, would do some wild social engineering, such as requiring all members of the University to wear genetic tags which would flash when a pair of compatible University people got in close proximity with one another- thus signalling that for the good of the University people, they should mate.
(This would allow Zakharov to genetically engineer the University population.)
(I also see that Zakharov would possibly require names to become more 'efficient', since so few people from earth moved to Chiron, he might require people to choose names... However he could require them to have two last names [like various spanish peoples] these last names would be chosen by the people for the first generation and then applied to be a mix of the mother and father's names.

b. Names

Daniel Jakhobs-Howell
Stephen Francis-Drake
Lawrence Ignatius Molotov-Trotsky
James Dhuval-Markham
Lillith Celeste Anderson-Xanderson
Karolina Ivanova
Kristina Poda
Ira Pavlova
Issac Pavlov
Clark
Karl

2. Peacekeepers

Dawn Willis
David Willis
Prentice Powell
Cassie

3. Believer

Jonah
Jonas Salk (Inventor of the Polio Vaccine *perhaps better for the University)
Jeremiah
Ezra
Lethe (the river in Hades)
Deborah
Esther
Mary (easy choice)
Delilah Armstrong (reminiscent of Sampsons' talent [strength])
Sampson Armstrong (reminiscent of Sampsons' talent [strength])
Sam (short for Sampson) Graves
Clement (reminiscent of clemency)
Hosea
Ignatius (Ignatius of Loyola, Ignatius of Antioch)

(none named Jesus *perhaps they consider it evil or pretentious to name someone after him?)

4. Morganites

Penny Thompson
John Phillip Morgan (Specializes in Toilet Sales *Johns )
John David Rockefeller
Anton Peters
Clemency O'Donnels
Carl Edwards

5. Gaians

Dawn Gray
Del Green
Xenia (xenofungus)
Xena (reminiscent of xenofungus)
Xenos

6. Hive

Mao
Ming
Liao Tse-Tung

7. Spartans

Aeugeus


---

(Thank you for considering my ideas! )

[michael_ely]

Hi DarkCloud

Yes, it's really me! Thanks for the list of names...that's more than I could have hoped for! I'll try and slip a few in. Thanks also for the idea about genetic tags and the University. Hmmm...imagine walking down the hall and having your tag flash...MATE NOW!

Further names are welcome, even some from some of these posted stories (with author's permission to use, of course).

michael

[Alynzia]

Can I just say how much I liked Centauri Dawn. They way you loosely mirrored 'The Iliad' was not lost on me. It was a really exciting read.

I'm afraid I'm not very good with ideas, so here's one I stole from a science article a long time ago. It was about taking the luminescent chemicals from the fire-fly and engineering them to work in the human body. The example given was that people could have little lights on their finger-tips. I guess that could be extended out to having luminescent factional tatooes or whatever.

As far as population genetics goes, I imagine the University to have strict rules on whom the brighest scientists married/bred with. I can't imagine Zakharov tolerating his best scientists marrying for love, when he may insist that his scientists may only marry someone as bright as themselves in order to create a kind of intellectual gradient among his people, with the most intelligent over generations gapping away from the main populus. This may seem a little radical and is just here for idle speculation, but there is no reason in the future world why homosexuals should not have children through artificial genetic means, the only limitation being that lesbians could not have sons using their own genes.

As far as names go, you're welcome to Alynzia, although it sounds a bit weird. I honestly didn't make it up though!!

[Sprayber]

A few of the traits that might happen include

Inplanted breathers instead of the of masks.

Artificial implants for people with specific duties.

Large number of clones for armies and labor intensive jobs.


A few other things that interests me is the effect of a few people living for long periods of time due to the rejuvination tanks. What happens to a leader when their word as been law for a hundred years. How can a democratic leader maintain his or her following for so long without problems? What kinds of variations of languages may appear in a faction that has been cut off from the rest of humanity? Second class citizen status for drones not intelligent enough to work in hi tech areas or in the miliary.

As for names:

Spartan names could be
Marcus Kessel
Leonides (Spartan king at the Battle at Thermopylae)
Ariston
Kinju

[Maniac]

michael_ely, the real one? Yeah right.

All Firaxis members have their company name in their nick. So if he was the real Ely, he should be called something like:

'Mike Ely FIRAXIS'

Of course, if michael_ely would turn out to be the real Ely, my apologies.

BTW, I don't think Zakharov would use such primitive and inefficient methods as mating to create 'better' people. Not when their are technologies such as biogenetics, gene splicing and bio-engineering available. He would just adapt the embryos in a research hospital.

M@ni@c

[MarkG]

Hi Michael

Maniac, open up your copy of Centauri Dawn(dont tell me you dont have it!!!) and see which e-mail address appears on that page

[michael_ely]

Hi again

Alynzia: thanks for the comment about the book, and also for the idea of luminescent skin. Just the kind of thing I was looking for.

Sprayber: Thanks also for the ideas...I like the idea of having people that don't need rebreathers. Book 2 actually deals somewhat with the effect of the genetic tanks (among other things).

M@ni@c: I didn't put the FIRAXIS in the email name because I actually do freelance work now. But like Markos pointed out, I used the bookthoughts@yahoo.com email address to activate this account (the same email that I used to solicit comments in the back of Centauri Dawn).

Thanks everyone!
michael

[DarkCloud]

Thank you for considering my ideas!
Here's one last name idea for the University

Ida.

It sounds like a University name. Short. Efficient. (Sounds like "Idea")

[Raging Mouse]

Hmm, genetics as fashion? Why not!

Uses that I can think of:

Increasing your metabolism, to make you function at a speed fractionally higher than normal people. You'd walk, talk, work, sleep and age faster. But who cares about the last one; they're living in the age of the longevity vaccine!

Giving yourself extra joints on your limbs, or making said limbs more flexible; Having fingers with four or more joints might increase your manual dexterity.. who knows. But it might create other problems.. As for having legs with two knees per leg? Fast runner, better climber, etc. But again, might cause problems of compatibility with the rest of the world (starting with your pants and expanding from there..).

Here's one for the Hive; make the skin-colour sensitive to your health; I.E. if you are hungry you get blue spots in your face, if you are sick you really turn green, etc. Might go as far as emotional signals, whatever..

And for the diving freak: Some external gills. Maybe protruding from the throat, or the back.

Then, there's that cliché, wings. Maybe logical as a bicycle for fish on Chiron's surface, but there's the nice savings of space you get by using all surfaces in a space-station or low-gravity meteorite mine when all the workers know how to fly.

Some subtle changes to your body might aid your work;

IF you engineer your eyes to receive ultra-violet you might become better at caring for plants (not to mention that the night would be brighter). How/if this would look on the outside is hard to tell.

Larger ears, situated on top of your head give you better, more accurate hearing. Look at dogs and cats.

BTW, a really shrewd dictator might iron out teeth from the population (or portions of it). What need is teeth, who only get worn down and infected, if all you eat is a fine porridge of nutrients?


Whoah.. went inventively crazy there; hope this was of use..

[DarkCloud]

If you expand Raging Mouse's idea:

Here's one for the Hive; make the skin-colour sensitive to your health; I.E. if you are hungry you get blue spots in your face, if you are sick you really turn green, etc. Might go as far as emotional signals, whatever..

It could be the method applied by Shen-Ji to eliminate the weak from his society and focus on the strong.

[DarkCloud]

What about a person with:
green eyes which turn to red when they are angry... some sort of Genetic anomaly or designer child- whose parents were deranged and wanted their daughter/son to intimidate all her/his enemies with her/his eyes and not have to fight.

[Argonaut]

There are a lot of names implied through the game, via the quotes etc.

Examples:

Morgan:

T.M. Morgan Reilly (I think he's supposed to be a Trade Minister)
Plus a few others....

University:

Beydor Petrov is cited as Vice-Provost of University Affairs in the Retroviral Engineering Quote.

For Sparta there's a place called Hommel's Citadel. Perhaps named after a General Hommel who founded the base?

Just thought I'd make sure you'd considered those options as well.

Looking forward to the 2nd book

[Maniac]

Originally posted by MarkG
Maniac, open up your copy of Centauri Dawn(dont tell me you dont have it!!!) and see which e-mail address appears on that page

I'm afraid I don't own Centauri Dawn. I can't find it in my usual bookstore over here in Belgium.

Anyway, I'll start bashing my head; sorry Michael...

[DarkCloud]

Oh yes, another idea, (just posting them as I think of them)

The University

Option A: Food Monitor: makes sure that you eat healthy
Option B: Food Pills: These are your food for the day, they supply all of the nutrients and vitamins necessary for you to live healthily and long.

These are outlawed and could cause smuggling problems: Drugs, Alcohol, Cigarettes, Sweets (popcorn,chips,etc)

They are outlawed because they shorten people's lives and productivity.

Everyone could be ordered to walk or run for an hour each day to stay in shape.

[aktarian]

First let me say I didn't like Centauri dawn much. Thought it would be better to tell that right now so nobody should acuse me of hipocrisy or anything. Some ideas you might consider:



Language:
a. English was mandatory for admission to Unity so no problem there

b. English was not mandatory so you have several options:
-some artificial language like esperanto or something
-mixture of dominating (=being spoken by most) languages (English, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, maybe French, Russian, German, Portugal...). Depending of percentage of population of given society some languages would have more impact on societies language.



Enviroment:

a. How would humans adapt to greater gravity? Would they become shorter? More powerfull leg muscles? Rearangement of internal organs?

b.Could human body adapt to lesser percentage of oxygen and "change" lungs so people could breathe Chiron's air as is (evolutionistic type of change)?



Features

a. Don't discard tatoos. In Journey there is mentioned that Spartans have tatoo on their shoulder. Why not go from there on? Say Spartan society is differented to citizens (=soldairs) and non-citizens. Citizens have tatoos and members of Spartan Coalition have some extra marks to distinguish them further. Add tattos for rank, medals and other acomplishments. How about tatoos for everybody (not only Spartans) that say persons blood type, alergies and such (you could make that under skin implant but that would require some device to read it and this could break down or some other thing).

b. Implants that makes person more efficient at what they do (aming device for soldairs, implats that interact with computers for technicians...). Specially after gaining mind machine interface tech.

[michael_ely]

Hi everyone

Thanks for the new set of ideas. Some more good ones there! Using some names from the game is an idea too...and I actually made up the original T.M. Morgan Reilly name for the superlube quote

aktarian, thanks for your comments and I hope you give Dragon Sun a try. It's more cleanly written than the first book and its plot is bigger in scope. If you do read it, please email me and let me know what you thought.

thanks!
michael

[Avenoct]

Though I havn't read the book, Centauri Dawn, I'm truly impressed by the creative work that went into the game and want to take a moment to thank Michael and others for that great effort. I'm currently working on a 'mod' for the game, as the game architecture and function is just as important to me as the story, which I'm also continuing down other roads...secondly I want to congratulate the responders here with both the nifty and quite scientifically viable ideas and the great names. There are so many gifted and supportive (to the game, I'm not trying to live here..chuckles) people in the Apolyton community..the SMAC community at large.

As to the 'firefly' adaptation, you might check Scientific American resouce searches..there was a nice article there and in the journals Science and, Nature. If I remember correctly, the protein is called Luminase (go figure) and is quite simple. It is actually currently genetically possible to insert this gene into many organisms, though localizing it to say, the fingertips, would involve Embryolgy, which is almost a greater mystery than genetics.

-Smack

[Lonestar]

If I may suggest:

How about greater lung capacity for the teeming masses? Let's say an extra lung has been added to the human race, one that acts as a "scrubber" for the air, instead of implanted filters.

Extensive prosthetics. Day Laborers have cybernatic arms, legs, to help with construction.

Names for Gaians:

Moonbeam
Sunflower
Wallace
Jon Muir (see, there's no "h" in "Jon" here)

just some ideas. Loved your first SMAC book. Will the expansion factions be in the next ones?

[michael_ely]

Hi Lonestar

The expansion factions don't figure into any of the three books, mainly because it's already tricky enough juggling seven strong-willed leaders and giving them all their time in the spotlight (not to mention all of the peripheral characters).

I may sneak a name or two of the expansion factions into book 3, though, as quick cameos.

Thanks for the Gaian names!

michael

[Tai Mai Shu]

Just for yuks, here's a few chinese names for the yang faction

Siu Kwan = Cantonese for little soldier
Bu Haow = Mandarin for not good (It'd come out to But Ho in Cantonese but for some reason I don't think that'd go over very well with publishers )
Ying Hung = Cantonese for hero
Ching Jing = Cantonese for calm

[Guardian]

Heh... Chinese names are funny.
I know of a Swedish consultant who has specialized in helping Western businesses come up with good names and slogans for their Chinese branches...

A western businessman tried to sell his own name, only to have people turn away in embarrassment or laugh their asses off. As it turned out, his name sounded like a Cantonese expression for "fat bastard".

Mercedes Benz (a car company) thought they'd come up with a good name for their business... alas, the name they picked sounded like Mandarin for "so clumsy that you'll die"...

[michael_ely]

Thanks for the final thoughts, especially the Chinese names. I'm putting the final touches on book 3, and some of these things will definitely make it in.

(I have a bad habit of using a lot of placeholder names for minor characters up until the last minute, so that the manuscripts end up full of names like Luke and Leia, Janet Planet, Pastor Disaster, Blinky, Frodo, etc, etc...)

Thanks everyone! Hope you enjoy book 2, let me know what you think at bookthoughts@yahoo.com.

[Sprayber]

I look forward to reading it. I actually went back and read Centauri Dawn again. I actually got more out of it the last time around.

[The Commodore]

Um...I might be to late, but I heard this:

We have developed Silksteel. Goats have had their udders injected with a spider gene(I'm not sure how.), the spider silk proteins are in these goat's milk. These can be spun into useful ammounts of Silk. Funny, but true.