Another commonly used trope in science fiction, especially the disaster movie, is the massive asteroid coming toward Earth. In this trope there is either nothing we can do about it, or we make every effort to avert disaster. The second response leads to either destruction of the Earth or salvation for the human species. And from the last, either the whole situation is resolved and life returns to normal, or some find a way to survive and the human race goes on. Now getting hit by an asteroid, or its colder cousin, the comet, is not a good way to start the day. It all has to do with the amount of force generated by a moving object, or the formula ½ M(mass kilograms) X Velocity (meters per second) Squared. As you can see by the formula, velocity is the most important component (squared after all is a big deal). Double the weight of the object and you double the force. Double the velocity and you do a whole lot more than double, you quadruple the force. A big rock hitting the Earth at a leisurely thousand meters a second is not such a big deal, unless you happen to be right underneath it. I use this as a threat in one of my novels, as an asteroid is supposed to be eased into Earth orbit and is set to drop on North America. Bad day for the United States, but the rest of the world (minus some coastlines) will come out of it A-OK. A really massive rock striking at hundreds of kilometers a second is an unmitigated disaster for everyone within thousands of kilometers. Want to know how big a disaster? Do the formula for kinetic energy, which gives the answer in joules, then figure how many joules make a big blast, something like a nuclear explosion. One megaton equals 4.18 X 10 to the 15th Joules. The bombs that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing about a hundred thousand people each, were about one fiftieth this strength. A billion metric ton rock hitting at a hundred kilometers a second would be 5 X 10 to the 17th Joules, or 100 times the power of a one megaton bomb. The Dinosaur killer that hit the Yucatan Peninsula 65 million years ago was quite a bit bigger, much faster, and provided much more energy.
Now the best way to stop a large object from striking the Earth is to get out there and deflect its path so it doesn’t hit us. The further out the less energy actually needed, as the deflection is less. See, if the object is pushed a small distance off course that distance will multiply over time. If the object is close to Earth we have to use a lot more force to move it off course. So what does that mean as far as the trope is concerned that we see so often in movies and books?
The trope works very well in books from the past, like Lucifer’s Hammer and others, when space tech was still too primitive to do much. It even works well today, when we still aren’t able to do more than send some fragile probes out of the Earth-Moon system. Despite movies like Deep Impact and Armageddon, we would probably be toast if a big rock or iceball came flying at us out of the depths of space. But as soon as we are flying around the solar system or beyond on a regular basis, I really don’t think random rocks coming out of nowhere will be much of a threat. First of all we will see them coming. Second, we will be able to get to them and divert them at some distance from the Earth. I recently read a book in which colony ships were sent out to other solar systems to save humanity from an asteroid. Pure nonsense. If we could send a dozen ships out to other solar systems we would be able to move any asteroid, even one the size of Ceres, out of the way. And I also asked the question about other colonies in the solar system, or the establishment of such, given that the tech could get us to another star. The trope just doesn’t work with advanced tech. Unless someone is throwing multiple rocks at us as an attack. But that’s a different story.
I have actually thought of using the trope of the asteroid in a different manner in a novel, but it will have to wait for a different time, probably. What if a colony was to be established in another Solar System, and by the time they got there (slower than light you know) the perfect planet had been superheated and scoured of life by an asteroid hit. Now the colonists are faced with having to establish the kind of colony they weren’t equipped to do, like on an asteroid or lifeless moon. That would be something different in the hard science fiction realm.
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All posts for the month July, 2012
I went to see the new Batman movie last weekend. Now it was not a bad movie, and I don’t want to give that impression. In my opinion it was also not one of the best movies of all time nor a masterpiece. Maybe I was expecting too much. It was mostly entertaining, which is the prime aim of a comic or superhero movie. And it was very dark, almost too dark. There was little in the way of humor in this movie. I went to see the Avengers again at the $3 theater the day after seeing The Dark Knight, and I found The Avengers, a movie I considered much superior, to be chocked full of humor. Humor made me care for the characters. After two hours of pure darkness I really didn’t care what happened to Batman, or the fine citizens of Gotham City. I just wanted them out of their misery. The Avengers was a longer movie that could have been even longer. The Dark Knight was too long for what they tried to do with the material. People clapped enthusiastically at the end of The Avengers. I was among them. People clapped politely at the end of The Dark Knight, and I was not on board.
One of the major problems with the movie, in my opinion, was the overuse of flashbacks. At one point I thought I was watching a remake of Sleeping With The Enemy. A couple of flashbacks in a film are fine. But too many are just, too many, no other way to say it. And when they did a flashback toward the end of the movie, the climax, totally slowing down the action to present a vignette of the childhood of the villain, I almost lost it. Why, oh why did you have to present such an action breaker right in the middle of the action. I also wondered throughout the movie what had happened to the Batman of old. The one who was so acrobatic and well equipped, with a utility belt of gadgets. All he used in this movie was a batarang (once) and some sleep darts sort of shaped like bats. And he fought like a flat footed slugger. I kind of miss the old representation of Batman.
Before the movie they showed a preview of Man of Steel, the upcoming Superman movie. While watching the scenes of the water and the fishing boat at the beginning I got kind of excited, thinking this might be a movie about Aquaman. But no, it is another reboot of Superman. D C seems to be caught in a cycle of making movies about their two main characters, and only those two. Superman, Batman, Superman, Batman. How many times can we watch different takes on Superman’s upbringing? What about the other heroes of the D C Universe? The Flash, Wonder Woman, Hawkman, The Martian Manhunter. Maybe even the Justice League. Sure, they did a Green Lantern movie, but that was the only deviation from the Superman-Batman franchise. D C could learn a lesson from Marvel, which is now basking in the profits from their multiple hero movies. The Hulk, Thor, Iron-Man, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Captain America, The X-Men and derivatives. They’ve even done Blade and Ghost Rider, and will soon be releasing an Ant-Man movie. And all the while D C is stuck in a rut with their two big headliners. Wonder what the next Batman reboot will be like? Maybe they can get Adam West to play Alfred.
Today I finally finished formatting an uploading the second book in the Refuge series, Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2. Technically the third book, as Refuge: Doppelganger was published on Smashwords several months prior, and then on Amazon this last weekend. However, Doppelganger is set two thousand years into the future of the Refuge saga, while The Arrival: Book 2 follows directly from, of all things The Arrival: Book 1, and will be followed by the two book of Refuge: The Legions in the Spring of 2013. This is the description of the book on Amazon and Smashwords:
The adventure continues. Millions of Earth humans are transported to a world of magic and are in the fight for their lives against an evil Ellala Elf Emperor who sees them as soul energy to extend his life as a lich. But the forces of NATO have brought their weapons along, and it’s tanks against wizards, attack helicopters against dragons, nuclear weapons against elder Gods. The technology of Earth will only work for a short period of time on the new world, due to the laws of Refuge finally overwhelming the beliefs of the newcomers. So it’s use it or lose it, and the humans, under the command of United States Major General Zachary Taylor, use it with a vengeance. And the humans have brought along allies unlike an seen on Refuge in recent memory. Immortals of great physical power and an immunity to magic. Centenarian Kurt von Mannerheim, a veteran of the slaughter on the Eastern Front of World War Two. Ismael Levine, the Wandering Jew of legend, born prior to Christ. And newcomers, the American Jackie Smith, and the giant Brit Paul Mason-Smythe. Will they be enough to tilt the balance? Or will the humans have traded the nightmare of a nuclear ravaged world for one in which dark Gods prey on their souls? Allies will be gathered, and new enemies made, as technology fights magic in an effort to gain time and space for the forging of a new kingdom.
Refuge was written for self pub, unlike my other novels that were written for submission to agents and publishers. It was never planned for endless rounds of submission and rejection. This may be the way I am going in the future, as the world of traditional publishing seems to be a no win situation for the author looking to start out on the midlist and build a career. It is only for those writing the next big thing, even though the people doing the selection don’t know what the next big thing is. I may continue to submit my latest offering, Daemon, through a cycle of rejections before self pubbing it, or I may just throw in the towel and put it out there to be judged by the public on its own merits. But back to Refuge. Below is an excerpt or two from the book:
“Not another one,” yelled Anni Goebbels, shielding her eyes, the flash of a detonating nuke lighting the horizon.
Dirk cursed under his breath. It only seemed like yesterday that he had seen one of the damn things going off in his rearview mirror. This one seemed to be much further away, or much weaker, or both. But it was still disconcerting to see one of those fireballs rising into the sky.
“It’s probably roasting a bunch of those evil elves,” said Peter, a smile on his face. “And maybe a passel of those ugly guys they use.” He too had covered his eyes. A yell from outside the car and he quickly turned his attention back to the road, pushing the brake pedal and stopping before he hit a bunch of pedestrians who were also gawking at the far blast.
“That would be a good thing,” said Anni, her frown turning to a smile. “That’s right,” she yelled waving a hand out the window. “Nuke the hell out of those fuckers.”
“And that’s the last one,” said Wolfgang, nodding his head toward the cloud.
“Why do you say that?” asked Reinhold from the back seat.
“One of the soldiers told me there were only three,” said the bass player, holding up three fingers. He ticked off two. “They already let off two of them, so that leaves one. And that would be the one.” He pointed at the cloud which was now leveling off.
“Well,” said Dirk, listening to the cheer that was rising from the people watching the aftermath of the nuke as if it were a party. “I hope they got maximum bang for their buck.”
“I hope it scared the hell out of the elves,” said Anni. She grunted as she looked out the other window and saw a quartet of the woods elves standing on the side of the road, frowns on their faces. “I don’t think our friends approve.”
“I’m not sure I do either,” said Dirk, watching the elves talk among themselves. “But we’re against a hard place, and the damned Ellala are swinging a rock at us. We have to do what we can to survive.”
“And now that they’re all gone??” said Peter, gesturing toward the cloud that was starting to collapse on itself.
“Now we depend on the same powers the natives use,” said Dirk, a smile stretching his face. He watched the military truck just ahead that hand their equipment strapped to it.
“Like musical magic?” said Karl Wilhelm in a slurred voice. “That is so cool.”
“And they haven’t seen anything yet,” said Dirk, nodding toward the truck. “I can’t wait to see what an electrical set does.”
“What a beautiful animal,” said Warrant Officer One Jessica Stuart, looking into the large, saucer shaped golden eye of the creature. A deep rumble rose out of the chest of the dragon with each breath, much like the purr of a cat. She felt a calm washing over her from that purr, despite standing next to a twenty ton creature sporting teeth big enough to cut her in half. One that could also swallow her whole.
“Gallandralla is a beautiful girl,” agreed the Ellala who piloted the great beast. “She is the treasure of my life.”
“The big reds made me feel afraid,” said Jessica, running a hand over a smooth golden scales on the side of the dragon’s head. A head that was longer than her entire body. “I don’t feel that way about these guys.” She gestured around the courtyard of the cliff top castle, where a dozen of the beasts, most smaller than this matriarch, were bedding down for the night.
“They are beloved of the Goddess,” said the Ellala dragon rider, Mishanana, patting the dragon on the other side of her face. The rumbling grew deeper and the dragon gently rubbed her head into the hand. “They are creatures of good, unlike the reds.”
“Well, we’re glad to have you here,” said the helicopter pilot. “We’re spread kind of thin in the air as it is. And this evil empire had what, hundreds of the reds?”
“Over six hundred total,” said the rider, his brows furrowing. “We have about a hundred to oppose them.”
“And it takes forever to raise one to this size, huh,” said the human, nodding her head.
“Maybe not forever,” said the rider, “but over a thousand years to get one to maturity. Most of the dragons here are still juveniles.”
Juveniles at ten tons, thought the pilot, frowning. It would take centuries to raise an air force from these creatures.
“I need to be getting back down the mountain,” said the warrant officer to the Ellala rider, who was the squadron leader. “I would like to see you fly these guys tomorrow.”
“Perhaps you would like a ride on Gallandralla,” said the rider, patting the giant on the head and then following the human as she walked to her hummer.
“I would love to,” said the human, her face breaking into a smile. “It looks like I’m going to have to learn to fly one eventually if I want to fly at all.”
“And I would like to see what it is like to ride in one of your machines,” said the rider, his eyes shining. “Before such wonders are gone from this world.”
“It’s a deal,” said the human, sticking out her hand. “You give me a ride on yours, and I’ll show you what mine is like.”
The Ellala looked at her offered hand for a moment before realizing what the gesture meant. He grasped her strong hand in his delicate one and gave a vigorous shake. A moment later Jessica was on her way down the mountain road, wondering if she would sleep much tonight, with the promise of a dragon ride tomorrow?
Hollywood have given us so many high budget, spectacular special effects movies recently, it’s almost hard to remember that it wasn’t always like this. Science Fiction movies used to be mostly B grade low budgets specials with maybe a guy in some kind of monster suit and spaceships suspended from visible wires. I recently did some research on movies and found that while there were a lot of bad scifi movies dating back to the twenties, there weren’t that many fantasy movies. I guess the effects were so bad that most producers wouldn’t take a risk on fantasy, or else scifi was just more popular. I think the old movie that really went over the top for me was Forbidden Planet. Made by Disney, it had ground breaking special effects and big name stars. It still took a couple of decades before that became the norm. Now we have Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, the Star Trek movies. There are even TV shows with great sets and effects, and all the big name actors seem to jump at the chance to get a role in one of these spectaculars. Now there are still a lot of great books out there that have yet to be made into movies, while Hollywood goes through a remake cycle of old movies that can be updated by new effects. It saddens me that they keep ignoring so many good books. Especially the one I really want to see, Larry Niven’s Ringworld.
I would think that most true hard science fiction fans know the work of Niven. His Known Space series is his most famous setting. And Ringworld is the most well known novel within that setting. Now Hollywood likes to wow us with special effects. Death Stars, miles long spaceships, huge asteroids falling from the sky. Ringworld is so big that the crew of the Death Star would die of old age before they caused appreciable damage to it. It would take a thousand Enterprises beaming their entire crews to the surface to explore even a significant fraction of the surface. What could be more spectacular than a ring built around a sun, with thousand kilometer high walls along the edges to keep the air in as it rotates around the central star. Three million times the surface area of the Earth, with tens of thousands of species that evolved from, well, us. With enormous shades orbiting between it and the sun, mimicking the day/night cycle. Huge Bussard Ramjets using the plasma of the sun to keep the ring centered. Even the defense system is huge, magnetic lines on the floor of the world pulling gas from the sun and turning it into a huge gas laser. Sprinkle in advanced technology and aliens; a half ton carnivorous feline (Kzinti), a two headed herbivore (Puppeteers) and the ultimate killing machine which is what we are supposed to become (Pak) and you have one of the greatest cast of characters in scifi history. And the technology is there to make all of this come to life. There have been many rumors through the years that Ringworld was coming to the silver screen. None have materialized. There is a current rumor going around that it will be done, but I will believe it when I see it. Maybe it is that Hollywood can’t come up with a good enough script dumbed down for those who know nothing about science fiction, the oh wow crowd who goes to see mindless action. It is a shame, but I can see a lot of people coming out of the theater shaking their heads and wondering what all that was about. I do know that I will pay to see this movie, probably a couple of times. And then I will buy the blue ray, and then the extended blue ray, and watch it over and over again. Because even though the wow factor is cool, the wow factor combined with love of the material is the ultimate cool.
Everyone of course knows about Superman, the Man of Steel (though he is actually much stronger than steel or he would have long since been splattered over the landscape). The original Superman (not the comic hero) was actually a villain with aspirations of World Domination. He wasn’t near as powerful as the later comic version. And of course the DC version was a Boy Scout with the ability to fly, lift trains overhead, and bounce bullets from his chest. At some point he entered the absurd, gaining the ability to throw planets into each other and at one point blowing out a sun (like to see how many gas giant planets he had to suck in to pull that one off). It was always shown in the comics that Superman became such a straight arrow due to his rearing by Jonathan and Martha Kent in the very small town of, you guessed it, Smallville. With a kind voice and a firm hand they were able to rear the super-tyke to achieve manhood as a saint, willing to fling his invulnerable body into any situation that needed a helping hand. How realistic is this scenario? (Like being able to blow out a sun is realistic.)
Now I was trained as a child psychologist, and did all the coursework for the PhD, as well as twice the clinical work needed for pre-internship training. I left before getting the degree for reasons that had nothing to do with lack of competence in the field, and continued to work with children seven years after that, before getting into another area of social service. One of the things I remember from graduate school was you can not reason with small children. Talking to a two to five year old (and in most cases even with older children) is a waste of breath. Dr. Spock was wrong. That statement was drilled into me at the same time I was taught the use of Time Out and other disciplinary procedures that did work on the little creatures that someday would become reasoning beings. The fact is that children, while they do posses some reasoning abilities (as anyone who has seen a child figure out how to reach the cookie jar on top of the high cabinet can attest to), about as much as some apes and monkeys, they possess very little in the way of impulse control. They want what they want and they want it now. Only physical force, or the threat of it, can stop them. A firm no can work, if it is backed with a past experience of what it means to ignore the command, like some sessions in time out or a good spanking. Otherwise the word no will get a strange look and then be ignored as the child plunges on ahead with what its little mind is telling it to do.
So how does this concern little Superman, or Super Toddler? The question would be, how do you spank an invulnerable toddler? How do you force a tantruming child into time out? How do you keep a child who can punch out an Abrams tank from splattering you all over the living room if you attempt to discipline him? I guess you might be able to use Kryptonite, if some is handy. Otherwise there is no way to correct the behavior of this child, who, according to my experience, will grow up to be at least a brat, if not a complete Sociopath/Psychopath, and not the Boy Scout portrayed in the comics. This is a Superman who would be better called Disaster-in-the-Making-Man. I see two outcomes for this character. Either he will rule the world. Or mankind will find a way to destroy him. Given that in the comics we seemed to have attracted more than our fair universal share of Kryptonite, I would bank on the latter outcome. But wouldn’t he have made a great villain for someone like the Flash to fight?
Just the other day I was sitting down and doing the kind of nerd stuff I do as a science fiction writer. I was thinking about having particle beam weapons as one of my possible armaments for my military science fiction series Exodus. I had already incorporated lasers and magnetic rail-guns into the mix, and was using particle beams on my ships. I thought of a description in Star Trek in which phasers were described as particle beam weapons, and thought it would be really cool to use something like that in the story, though they wouldn’t disintegrate objects like in Trek, merely vaporize them, with all the attended superheated steam and ash that would fill the area (something else they tend to ignore in most literature and movies). I looked up particle beams on the net, trying to find a description of what they would do to a living creature, and found nothing. I still figured they would put a lot of heat into whatever they hit, since fast moving particles convert kinetic energy to heat energy. So I just figured I would do the equations and see what happened. I started with a gram of matter flung from the weapon at 1/10 light speed, using the formula ½ M(Kilograms) x velocity (meters) squared. This gives a result in Joules, and about 4.184 joules equal one calorie, the energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree centigrade. I figured it would take about a thousand degrees to vaporize a body, which would be an energy input of about a million calories, or 4.184 million joules. I plugged in the figures and came up with an energy of 450,000,000,000 Joules (yes, that much) which was about as much as 450 lightning bolts, a lot more than I would want to stand close to. So I toned it back to a tenth of a gram and a hundredth light speed. This comes to 900,000,000 Joules, quite a difference but still just a bit too powerful. But things are looking up for a weapon that is actually usable and carries enough matter for many uses. What about a twentieth of a gram and a hundredth light speed? Now we get 4,500,000 joules, just what we need to vaporize a hundred kilogram body, and a weapon that makes mathematical sense. Or does it? We have to look at the recoil of the weapon. Recoil you ask? Yes, recoil, because according to Newton’s laws there is an equal and opposite reaction to any action. And the twentieth of a gram speeding out of the barrel of our weapon at one hundredth light speed (30,000,000 meters per second) will cause a force of 1,500 meters per second on our one kilogram weapon, probably too much to handle with a naked hand. It would accelerate the 100 kilogram body holding it at 15 meters per second, or about 1.5 gravities. Quite a kick, but still doable. In Refuge I use a normal space propulsion called grabbers, or Ether Paddles, that could also be used for recoil compensation, so I will go with this weapon for some applications in the story.
The idea of this exercise is to see if certain weapons are feasible. It also points out a problem that is ignored by many writers and most screen writers, who seem to live in a world in which there is no equal and opposite reaction to the actions they portray. First let’s look at some examples from real life. Watch a film of a World War 2 battleship firing its main guns in a broadside. The Missouri was a good example, 50,000 tons of warship, firing 9 one ton shells. The ship actually moves sideways in the water in reaction to the guns firing, even against the resistance of the liquid. For another example watch a main battle tank like the M1A1 Abram fire its main gun. The entire seventy ton tank rocks backward just a bit. Of course this is ignored in many books and movies. I remember reading a book years ago about a high tech helicopter unit that used magnetic rail guns to fire high velocity rounds that could totally wipe out any armored vehicle made. Sounded like a great weapon, but the author didn’t mention anything about recoil effects, which could and would affect the forward velocity of the helicopter. Hell, the way he described the weapons they might have knocked the chopper on its ass. And remember the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, Eraser. They had a mag-rail weapon that could blow a van ten feet into the air. And Arnold was walking forward firing two of the weapons, one under each arm. He should have been thrown through the air like he was holding two forward pointing rockets. These are just a couple of many examples where writers don’t know or just simply ignore the laws of physics. Seems to me that they could write a better story by using the laws of physics to their advantage. Maybe that’s just me, but I intend to do as much of it as I can in my own stuff.
Decades ago I read one of the Kane novels by Karl Edward Wagner. I was impressed by the amoral immortal that was only out for himself, but at the time was only reading things that came easily to hand. I found no more Kane novels lying around and more or less forgot about the character. But not really. This year I looked up Kane and found that Wagner had written three novels and a number of shorts about the man who was cursed with eternal life. I found the complete shorts at the local library and bought the three novels in paperback form over the net. Masterful works full of mood, and an unforgettable character that might be called evil, but was also capable of doing good, even if it was accidental.
I became interested in the character because I was working on a series that featured immortal humans empire building on a world of magic, and wanted to read the perspective of a very successful writer who developed his own immortal character. Now my immortals were more along the line of Milo Morai in the Horseclans novels of Robert Adams. Engaged in life, mentoring the shorter lived peoples around them, sometimes cruel, but always for a good reason. The other immortal I am familiar with that might have lent something to the development of my own was Lazarus Long, Robert Heinlein’s immortal man who cloned himself as female twins and went back in time to have sex with his mother. Long was somewhat amoral, in a society that accepted such. But he was not really a bad guy.
Kane is a bad man in most respects. Part of it has to do with the curse that was laid upon him by a mad God for killing his brother and leading a revolt against the deity. Part of it had to do with living through the passage of so much time, where, as Wagner relates, centuries pass like years for most of us, and Kane grows bored with everyday activities, seeking the chaos that is the only thing that makes it all worth living. And, as Wagner states in another story, short lived beings like humans, whose lives flicker like candles before one who will live forever, seem useless. Kane does not mourn the loss of most people, they are just objects that will inhabit his world for the briefest of times. While he does mourn the loss of an ancient city, or even a tower or a wall, things that could provide constancy for at least some centuries of his existence. This was a different perspective on immortality, a fresh if dark perspective. Kane can still be loyal to friends who stand by him, or lovers who take away some of the loneliness, and even shows kindness toward his stallion, Angel, in Dark Crusade. But mostly he doesn’t really care for the short lived sparks of life that surround him. His attitude seems to be that more will be made, and he will again be surrounded by them as he continues his march through eternity. Makes me wonder what the attitude would be of an immortal race or species toward a shorter lived species. Would they think them worthless because they did not enjoy the same life span, even if the immortal race was not any smarter or stronger? Superiority based on life span alone. It could happen, since we have seen examples of superiority through skin color or circumstances of birth, why not from something that would seem more of a birth advantage.
My immortal characters will be more like Morai and Long than Kane, though he could become the pattern for the more evil characters I will have in my work. But I would not steal Kane whole cloth from Wagner. Kane is one of a kind, and deserves to remain so. I wonder if Wagner’s dark style comes from his having worked in Psychiatry. I was trained to be a Psychologist, and still work in social services, and I know my thoughts tend to run toward the darker aspects of human nature. Whatever the source, Wagner’s dark side brought forth some marvelous works. It was a shame he did not live long enough to give us more of Kane’s story. Just as it was a shame that Robert Adams died before he answered some of the questions in the Horseclans saga. Unfortunately the writers of immortal characters do not enjoy the same advantages as their creations, and death comes knocking sooner than any of us suspect.
