A Faster Earth (part 3)

If the speed of the Earth's rotation increased by 100 mph, regions at the equator would begin to flood as the oceans began to amass there. Regions such as the Amazon Basin and Northern Australia would be about 50 feet underwater. If the rotation increased to 1000 mph faster than its current rate, the centrifugal force would pull hundreds of feet of water down from the poles to the equator, flooding all but the highest mountain peaks in the regions around the equator. Oceans to the north and south of the equator would become significantly more shallow. Water around the equator would also be much less affected by gravity, filling the atmosphere with heavy moisture, fog, and clouds. What would happen, though, if the centrifugal force matched or exceeded Earth's gravity?

A Faster Earth (part 2)

If the Earth spun faster, one obvious change we would notice would be shorter days and nights. If the Earth spun 100 mph faster than its current rate, our days would only be 22 hours long. It would also be colder in the Eastern and Western hemispheres, because these regions would have less time to warm up with the sunlight. However, most changes would be noticed around the Earth's equator. The equator is the fastest spinning section of the Earth, rotating at a speed of 1,037 mph. Regions further north, such as Chicago, rotate at a slower pace of 750 mph. If the Earth's rotation increased by just 1 mph, the ocean levels would rise about 2 inches, though it might take a few weeks to notice this as the waters from the poles moved to the center. We would also notice faster spinning hurricanes in this region, making them even more powerful destructive forces. What else might happen at the equator?

A Faster Earth (part 1)

Other planets in the universe spin at different rates than Earth, so what would happen to us if the Earth started spinning faster? A lot of things would change, but one thing we'd notice is that we would actually weigh less, due to the increased centrifugal force. Did you know that a person who weighs 150 lbs. actually weighs 1 lb less at the equator? This is because the centrifugal force is highest at the Earth's equator. While gravity remains constant, increased centrifugal force reduces the weight of objects on the planet's surface. But if the earth spun fast enough and significantly exceeded the gravitational constant, we would all be flung off our planet, out into space! How much faster would the earth have to spin to do this, and what other changes might we notice? Find out this week...

Prophetic Scifi (part 5)

 

In the Star Legation visual novel, the Humans in the Solar Echoes universe represent us, of course, but they are in a different situation. Being the newest arrivals to the universe, the Humans began as a meritocracy as they established their colonies. Eventually, their meritocracy became a democracy, but now that FTL has been discovered and the Humans are connecting with other alien cultures, a larger question is beginning to emerge: Will the Humans influence the aliens and alter the trajectory of their societies, or will alien cultures change the course of Humanity? In reality today, it is difficult to consider the repercussions of our choices in this world despite our best intentions. Often, we justify the pursuit of technological and societal developments because we have the ability and expertise to pursue them. However, we often fail to pause and consider if we actually should continue in these pursuits. Science fiction gives us the means to re-examine the path we are walking with a glimpse of what might be further down the road. How many of us would have taken a detour in life if we knew where we might end up? In the past, prophets were often ignored, and this was even emphasized through the character of Cassandra in Greek mythology—a woman who had true visions of the future but was cursed to have no one believe her. Scifi is—figuratively and sometimes literally—a glimpse into the future. Hopefully...we won't ignore it.

Prophetic Scifi (part 4)

Solar Echoes is—on the outside—a fun space opera with colorful aliens, Faster Than Light speed travel (FTL), and starship dogfights. However, spend a little time in this universe and you'll start to see more realistic themes based on present-day problems, spun forward into the future. These problems involve ethical and moral quandaries that are embodied in the societies of the different alien cultures. The plant-like Erwani, for example, have embraced technology and developed powerful AI's, even integrating their own bodies with “cyberware” technology. Behind the scenes, however, Erwani society faces a growing problem that involves a threatening technological power structure. Another race, the reptilian Krissethi, has embraced materialism as a form of social status, where the rich govern and those below them struggle to gain wealth and overthrow each other. By contrast, the humanoid Reln place priority on education over all else, and a rising educational inflation has made their lives a competitive race to earn more degrees and higher accolades. Reln biology has suffered as a result, as they produce fewer and fewer offspring in their pursuit of higher educational status. The gelatinous race of Omuls faces its own challenges as their own brand of pure freedom results in volatile anarchy. These are only a few hints at the condition of life in the Solar Echoes universe, and the problems are an extension of real-world problems we face today, taken to an extreme. But how does this involve the Humans?

Prophetic Scifi (part 3)

If you talk to science fiction authors, most will tell you that their work is a cautionary tale. The winner of 7 Nebula and 11 Hugo awards, scifi author Connie Willis says, “While the futurists are plowing ahead and excited about this possibility or that possibility, we’re always standing there going, ‘Hang on just a second. Let’s think about this a little more,’ ” Willis goes on to state that while technology in scifi is meant to intrigue, it's actually a way to talk about the present and address hot issues that readers might otherwise avoid. She says, “They already think they know what they think about any given hot topic of the day, but if you can convince them that you’re talking about a planet millions of miles away and hundreds of years in the future or the past you can actually get people to examine more closely what’s going on right now.” Prophets in ancient times raised questions regarding morality, ethics, and spirituality. They challenged corrupt political structures and encouraged people to rethink how they were living. Today, scifi authors are issuing the same challenges through their writing. With that in mind, is there perhaps another layer to consider in the Solar Echoes universe...?

 

 

Prophetic Scifi (part 2)

Scifi is often written about dystopian societies of the future. Entire genres are sometimes born from the imaginations of scifi writers, such as the ”cyberpunk” genre that was the result of novelist William Gibson's Neuromancer. RPG games such as Shadowrun were successful and reflected the popularity of the new genre, with movies such as ”Johnny Mnemonic” and ”Ghost in the Shell” also set in a cyberpunk universe. The genre continues in popularity today, with the highly anticipated ”Cyberpunk 2077” video game releasing in 2020. Yet is cyberpunk a world that will remain imaginary? Today, successful experiments have already been conducted, linking human neural activity to robotics and computers. Prosthetic arms can now be manipulated by thoughts alone, surface thoughts can be scanned and converted into text messages, and the motor activity of one person can even be hijacked by another person linked through a few wires and electrodes. While the technology of today is slowly beginning to reflect the cyberpunk stories, it's easy to wonder if the society of the fictional world will follow and someday be reflected in our own, with controlling mega-corporations essentially governing everything, unaffected by the laws of country and state. Considering what we're seeing with Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc. these days, it's not a stretch to imagine this future. 

Prophetic Scifi (part 1)

One of the reasons I have always loved scifi is because it involves forward-thinking imagination, with predictions made based on current trends hinting at our possible future. Looking back, we can even see that a number of present-day inventions are inspired by scifi stories. We sometimes also see chilling predictions that have begun to come true, such as the removal of personal privacy through technology, as predicted in George Orwell's ”1984.” Sometimes predictions appear in lesser-known writings, but are so frighteningly accurate that it feels almost as if the writer was a prophet. A friend of mine recently shared a passage from a cyberpunk book written in 1995 called,"Neo-Tribes.” You can find it here on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Neo-Tribes-Nomads-America-Cyberpunk/dp/0937279722

Before you read this quote from the book, keep in mind, this was written 24 years ago...

Star Legation: Alien Languages (part 5)

The challenge in writing a story that involves other languages is doing it in a way that doesn't impede the flow of the story, but instead adds to it. I'm hoping that I've managed that, but there is always the risk of being too realistic to a fault in scifi. Although the Solar Echoes universe and The Star Legation fall into the ”space opera” genre distinction, I do try to keep things based in reality. I wondered a lot about our own world history when writing the story for The Star Legation, and did some reading about people entering foreign countries in attempts to establish peaceful trade relationship between the two countries. Communication is so crucial during delicate foreign relations, and I hope there are at least some moments in the game where you will be nervous about the conversation choices that are available. I'm still working on the script but my goal is to complete it in the next few weeks. I'm spending a lot of time running the dialogue through the game environment to make sure it feels right. Hopefully the story will engage you and you'll enjoy the many choices you'll have throughout this choose-your-own-adventure style visual novel!

Star Legation: Alien Languages (part 4)

Creating an alien language was something I'd thankfully already spent some time on several years ago when I wrote a Solar Echoes novel. However, because of the amount of dialogue in The Star Legation, I needed to expand the language past the short conversations from the novel. I've found several different languages to model these fictional languages after, based on the sounds that I felt the aliens would make. The Chiraktis language involves many more consonants than vowels, with more “hard” consonants than soft. There is an overuse of certain letters and sounds as well, because I imagined the Chiraktis language would sound more like a series of clicks occassionally interspersed with vowels. To give you a small example, here is a sentence in Chiraktis: “Kch oi klekchi tcha e trz'ekok zich och chet'rik.” Try speaking this and you'll hear what I mean about the clicking and hard consonant sounds. The Krissethi language won't be used as much, because most of them speak Universal well, but here are two short phrases in reptilian Krissethi, ”Helitacha gushada!” and ”Croshath dah jira sahag.”

Star Legation: Alien Languages (part 3)

I decided that it made the most sense for the Krissethi to learn Universal very willingly, mostly because of their competitive nature. Though they were not engaged in trade with the other races, they certainly saw the potential for it, and have been teaching Universal in their schools for over a generation. The Omul pass their knowledge on differently than a school system, however, so their grasp of Universal varies according to their parent Omuls. The Chiraktis are uninterested in other cultures because they believe their own to be superior, but the Queen learned it first and then instructed several selected workers to learn it as well, keeping the rest of the hive in the dark to maintain control over their exposure to other cultures. All of this means that these three different alien cultures involve varying amounts of their own language to be present in The Star Legation game. The protagonist, Trey, and the others with him will meet with the challenge of conversations with aliens that don't speak Universal well, or at all. 

Star Legation: Alien Languages (part 2)

In The Star Legation, the time context is at a point where the alien races are aware of each other, but the Interstellar Union has not yet come into existence. Several of the races have peaceful relations, some communication, and the beginnings of a trade relationship—these include the Humans, Reln, and Erwani. However, the Omul and Erwani hate each other, and the Krissethi and Chiraktis have been fighting wars over territory ever since they discovered they were neighbors. In this environment, it is difficult to believe that any of these cultures would share languages, but the Humans and Reln devised a language they could all speak, known as “Universal.” The Reln sent probes out to the other territories with information about the language, hoping to prepare the way in the future for diplomacy. I saw this effort as being somewhat similar to what NASA did with the Voyager probes, where they used two golden records to record sounds of Earth and greetings in 55 different languages. The Solar Echoes universe is farther into the future, so conveying an entire language to other alien races through a space probe did not seem unreasonable. How each alien race received this information, however, testifies to their values and personality...

Star Legation: Alien Languages (part 1)

One detail we often tacitly accept in science fiction is a common language. From Star Wars to Star Trek, very little attention is ever given to the likelihood that aliens will have a completely different language than ours. Often, this is bypassed in scifi by technology—since we're already imagining things far in the future, it's not a stretch to imagine that a universal translator exists, such as the babel fish from Doublas Adam's “Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.” We'd much rather get right to the story than be distracted by barriers to the story such as a realistic language problem. I faced this problem very briefly a few years ago when writing a Solar Echoes novel, but because the time context was during an era where all the aliens had met and were in an established alliance through the Interstellar Union, it made sense that they would have all found a universal language to speak, which is conveniently called, “Universal.” However, the time context of the story in the visual novel, The Star Legation, presented a more difficult language problem...

Blood and Truth VR Review (part 2/2)

There is a lot of VR interactive variety in @LondonStudioHQ's Blood and Truth, in addition to all the gun fights. Many times I arrived at a locked door and had to get out my lock picks and move them just right to set the pins. Other times I opened my trusty kit to use a screwdriver, small shape charge, and wire cutters to bypass an alarm. I had to climb hand over hand up ladders, through air conditioning ductwork, or even swing monkey-bar style in a few situations. At my safehouse, I could manually modify my weapons and practice in my own shooting gallery, throw wadded up paper balls in a basket, practice lockpicking, or light and smoke a cigar (or vape, if that's your thing). There are also collectibles throughout the game, and secret targets to shoot. Some scenes had me riding shotgun in a car, and I shot at attackers on motorcycles or thugs driving by in SUV's. My only complaint is that it is hard to look down the scope of larger guns—I think a snap-to-position feature might have been nice because sometimes the gun clipped when too close to my face. Some people have complained about the lack of freedom of movement being confined to certain cover choices, but I felt it kept the game more focused on staying to cover and it kept the pace moving along. Blood and Truth really mixes things up and gave me a huge variety of things to do in VR, more than I can list here. It all feels incredibly real, so much that I can't wait to jump back into that world as soon as I can. Great graphics, sound, and amazing gameplay. 5/5!

Blood and Truth VR Review (part 1/2)

Blood and Truth is another VR purchase I made recently, developed by the same people that made the small London Heist game for the PSVR releases. This time, they're back, but for a full game experience rather than a sample. The same level of quality and comfort returns (if not better), and there is an involved story that places you--a military-trained member of a tight-knit crime family--into the middle of a mafia family takeover. Revenge, escape, or rescue type missions are interspersed with story sequences that place you either in a room with your crime family members plotting the next move, or at a table telling the whole story as a flashback to a CIA interrogator. There are even a few fun breaks from this formula, such as a scene where you get to explore an art museum with your brother and vandalize it for revenge on the mafia boss owner. But this is primarily an action game. Most scenes have you selecting where you want to move for cover and then shooting bad guys that come running with automatic weapons to take you out. Clear out one group of thugs and move to new cover, advance down a hallway, or climb hand over hand around scaffolding on a building's exterior. There is a lot more VR physical interaction in the game than I expected, though...

Everybody's Golf VR Review (part 2/2)

The graphics in Everybody's Golf VR are average, and slightly cartoony but more on the realistic side. The sound is average with no music to distract on the course, and though the caddy's comments are sometimes helpful (in a Captain Obvious way), the comments do get repetitive and there isn't a way to turn them off. There are three different courses (a normal course, a beachside course, and a Jurassic course with dinosaurs wandering around), but you can also do mirror versions to keep up the variety if you tire of the standard 18 hole course. There is also a driving range for practice, and a tutorial at the beginning of the game to orient you. Once in a while, there are short, amusing cutscenes with your caddy, one where your caddy is trying to stop a mosquito and ends up smacking you in the face. So far, I've unlocked my second caddy, and you can also unlock things like caddy outfit colors, new clubs, and new game modes. There is no indicator for progress towards unlocking the next thing, though, and I think this would have incentivized me to play more often. I would have liked some more customization modes for my caddy or clubs (or even a variety of golf balls?), but the game is mostly a simulator focused on playing golf and improving your skills. I give this a solid 4.5/5 stars for being a really good golf game with excellent physics, despite some missed opportunities, lack of a progress indicator, and only 3 courses available.

Everybody's Golf VR Review

One thing I really like about Everybody's Golf VR is that I can use the Move controller like a golf club. My swing, angle, and force are all accurately judged by the game, so accurately that it's clear I'm really bad at this! Yet that's the draw for me--I can get better, with analysis and practice. One great aspect of the game is the practice option before each swing. I can see how hard I'd hit the ball and see an arrow indicating the direction it would travel. A strobe-like snapshot series of images of my club indicates the angle and trajectory of my swing, so I can make adjustments based on that. Once I think I'm ready, I can switch to "address" mode by a single button press. Address mode looks no different except that my swing really counts this time. Even if I just tap the ball in this mode, the game counts it as one stroke, so I have to be ready and serious. Playing this game has helped me improve a lot of things already, and I have even been occasionally getting par or a couple birdies, though most of the time I'm still a bogey or double bogey away from average.

Two new VR Reviews!

Over the last two weeks, there have been two new VR game releases that I was particularly interested in: Everybody's Golf VR and Blood and Truth. They are both very different games, but I wanted to share my experiences and opinions. My first purchase was Everybody's Golf VR. I'll state up front that I'm not a golfer--I've been to the range several times with a friend, and have played a few holes at different courses times. My friend taught me some basics and lent me some clubs, but I'm a very inexperienced, entry-level golfer, with just enough knowledge of the terms and club types to not feel totally lost. The reason I never pursued golf as a hobby is because I've always hated the sunlight and being outside. But I did like golf, so being able to play it in virtual reality is my chance to enjoy the sport, indoors!