Prompts: Insert Story Idea in Slot A, Add Inspiration in Slot B
Sometimes, it’s just embarrassing the stuff I come across in the course of my daily job as a news editor. In terms of items that can be adapted into decent sci-fi stories, some of these are just too easy. I’m not saying my mind works the same as yours, or that my idea would necessarily be the same as anyone else’s, but occasionally I’ll see a press release and my brain will go: Okay, then this could happen, and then add a dash of futuristic social relevance, and then voila, instant story!
Of course, I don’t have the time to actually write all of these, but that’s your job J. So here are a few of the low hanging fruit I have thoughtfully served up on a platter for your consumption.
Recipe for water: Just add starlight
ESA’s Herschel infrared space observatory has discovered that ultraviolet starlight is the key ingredient for making water in space. It is the only explanation for why a dying star is surrounded by a gigantic cloud of hot water vapor.
When astronomers discovered an unexpected cloud of water vapor around the old star IRC+10216 in 2001, they immediately began searching for the source. Stars like IRC+10216 are known as carbon stars and are thought not to make much water. Initially they suspected the star’s heat must be evaporating comets or even dwarf planets to produce the water.
Now, Herschel’s PACS and SPIRE instruments have revealed that the secret ingredient is ultraviolet light, because the water is too hot to have come from the destruction of icy celestial bodies. IRC+10216 is a red giant star, hundreds of times the Sun’s size, although only a few times its mass. (Read more…)
So a dying star can produce water. Interesting, albeit academic, for now. But what about in the year 2345, when the earth’s water supply is hopelessly contaminated through industrial pollution? Faced with a rapidly dwindling reserve, the planet’s eyes will undoubtedly turn elsewhere for a new source of H2O.
A young astronomer identifies a star in the Telemachus galaxy (yes, I made that up!) that fits the right profile: no surrounding planets supporting any life, and just on the verge of becoming a red giant. Scientists dispatch several ships, one armed with a nuclear fusion device that will push the star into eating up its own fuel and aging rapidly into a red giant. The resulting massive release of ultraviolight starlight will trigger the creation of hot water vapor, which waiting ships will begin to harvest.
But while the ships are en route, the young astronomer makes an unfortunate discovery, one of the target star’s orbiting planetoids, hidden from previous scans by larger bodies, bears a thin atmosphere. Upon closer inspection, it is discovered that there are a few thousand primitive creatures, a race that will be destroyed when the star’s red-sun-cycle is triggered. Word is leaked to the media, a planet-wide debate is triggered between two diametrically opposed sides: humanity’s survival vs. stopping the genocide of another race.
The ships, though, are already on their way. Our young astronomer’s job is to feed in constant course corrections. His girlfriend is an ardent supporter of the alien colony, and it’s time for the last set of coordinates. All it would take is a simple fractional error to send the mission off course and save an entire species. Maybe we’d find another star? What will he do…?
Mars’s mysterious elongated crater
Orcus Patera is an enigmatic elliptical depression near Mars’ equator, in the eastern hemisphere of the planet. Located between the volcanoes of Elysium Mons and Olympus Mons, its formation remains a mystery.
Often overlooked, this well-defined depression extends approximately 380 km by 140 km and has a rim that rises up to 1800 m above the surrounding plains, while the floor of the depression lies 400-600 m below the surroundings.
The existence of tectonic forces at Orcus Patera is evident from the presence of the numerous ‘graben’, rift-valley-like structures that cut across its rim. The occurrence of ‘wrinkle ridges’ within the depression proves that not only extensional forces, as would be needed to create graben, but also compressive forces shaped this region. The dark shapes near the centre of the depression were probably formed by wind-driven processes, where dark material excavated by small impact events in the depression has been redistributed. (Read more…)
All that is really known about this strange, huge depression on Mars is that it’s not like the other volcanic or impact craters that dot the surface of the planet. The origin of this weird, striated, ridged bowl will probably remain a mystery for many years, or at least until a manned expedition sets foot on the Martian surface.
When that actually happens is still up in the air. There’ve been many proposed missions, but nothing set in stone. It could be a hundred years, but maybe when the joint US-Russian-Chinese astro-team touches down on Mars, then they’ll understand. Maybe when the first human actually stands inside Orcus Patera, and feels the dust of centuries begin to shift, then he’ll know why it was wrong to wonder. Perhaps only then, when the ridged surface begins to pull back, and man comes face to face with the great eye of the giant beast that has slumbered for countless eons below the cold Martian surface, then we will know to be truly afraid.
Scientists Rip Habitat Claim for ‘Breakthrough of the Year’
Ardipithecus ramidus – a purported human ancestor that was dubbed Science magazine’s 2009 “Breakthrough of the Year” – is coming under fire from scientists who say there is scant evidence for her discoverers’ claims that there were dense woodlands at the African site where the creature lived 4.4 million years ago.
Instead, “there is abundant evidence for open savanna habitats,” says University of Utah geochemist Thure Cerling, lead author of a critique published in the Friday, May 28 issue of Science.
The criticism is important because the claim that the 4.4-million-year-old fossil nicknamed Ardi – found in what is now Aramis, Ethiopia – lived in woodlands and forest patches was used as an argument against a longstanding theory of human evolution known as the savanna hypothesis.
That hypothesis holds that an expansion of savannas – grassy plains dotted with trees and shrubs – prompted ape-like ancestors of humans to descend from the trees and start walking upright to find food more efficiently or to reach other trees for shelter or resources. (Read more…)
So Aramis, Ethiopia was a savanna and not a forest, big deal right? Except maybe it is a big deal to a company called Eco Industries, where a young computer tech goes about his business fixing internal systems and de-bugging e-mail problems. He hears a lot of whispers about these scientific articles being important to the company and doesn’t really pay any attention until he comes across a couple of high level e-mails that just seem a little hard to believe: Aramis, Ethiopia really was a forest 4.4 million years ago. Eco Industries has been covering it up through paid-for scientific articles. But why?
Tech guy smells a mystery, he goes cyber digging. He finds evidence that Eco Industries has another major source of revenue: logging and timber via deforestation. But EI is strictly a “green research” organization. Where is any of this lumber activity even taking place? Turns out it’s not a where, it’s a when. You guessed it, EI is deforesting in the past: Aramis, Ethiopia, ETA 4.4 million years ago, covering up the evidence in the scientific journals.
Tech guy can’t believe it, he finds the secret time portal, sees the heavy equipment going through into the past with his own eyes. But he’s discovered, chased by company thugs through the portal. Now tech guy finds himself alone in the primeval forest, surrounded by nothing but million-year old trees, giant bugs and the distant sounds of machinery. He hides out, desperate to return to his own time and reveal the nasty business EI has been up to. But first, what’s that great big hairy thing with enormous teeth that’s staring at him like he’s something that goes down well with a pint o’ Guinness?
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With a few original twists and turns, you can take these nuggets and make them your own. Or ignore them completely. Take inspiration from something in your own realm of experience. But do something. Just keep writing.
-Jason Kahn
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Authors: Jason Kahn. Form: Column. Length: 1500 words. Editor who accepted this story: Previous Editors.
