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NeoGAF Creative Writing Challenge #119 - "Challenge"

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C

Cyan

Banned
Theme - "Challenge"

Word Limit: 2500

Submission Deadline: Friday, May 3 by 11:59 PM Pacific.

Voting begins Saturday, May 4, and goes until Monday, May 6 at 11:59 PM Pacific.

Optional Secondary Objective: Character Casting Call

See next post for details.

Submission Guidelines:

- One entry per poster.
- All submissions must be written during the time of the challenge.
- Using the topic as the title of your piece is discouraged.
- Keep to the word count!

Voting Guidelines:

- Three votes per voter. Please denote in your voting your 1st (3 pts), 2nd (2 pts), and 3rd (1 pt) place votes.
- Please read all submissions before voting.
- You must vote in order to be eligible to win the challenge.
- When voting ends, the winner gets a collective pat on the back, and starts the new challenge.

NeoGAF Creative Writing Challenge FAQ
Previous Challenge Threads and Themes
 
C

Cyan

Banned
Secondary Objective: Character Casting Call!

We're going to try something different with our characters this time. A casting call! I don't know in what order everyone usually comes up with their story pieces--maybe you go setting first, maybe plot first, or maybe character first. Or maybe you wing it the whole way. In any case, at some point along the way, you'll have an idea of who the main character of your piece is--a research scientist, an artist, a grizzled old prospector, a lost soul just looking for love, whatever defines them for you. Once you know who they are, you're going to go to central casting and pick out some possible actors for the role. Think of at least four or five actors--more if you like--and imagine them each trying out for the role. Think of how each would act and speak, how each might change the story just by being in it. And then pick the one that seems the most fun and interesting!

Quick example time. Let's try the grizzled old prospector out in the desert. Here are some possibilities and some brief thoughts:
-Harrison Ford. Still has the stature of a hero and enough presence to carry the whole show by himself. Might be a little on-the-nose assuming our prospector is meant to be heroic.
-Jack Nicholson. I can just imagine him sneering his way through every scene, larger than life, chewing up and spitting out the other characters.
-Morgan Freeman. Suddenly the story is a lot more relaxed and the character more full of philosophy and the wisdom of a life well-lived. Our hero is calm, but powerful and unwavering.
-Jeff Goldblum. Er, uh, yes. That is, I've been prospecting out here for, uh, quite a long time now. Um, and, that is, one might say I've become rather grizzled.
-Dame Judi Dench. Because who said it had to be a man, y'know? And now the story is going in a completely different direction than originally planned. How did this strong-willed British woman wind up in the middle of the desert prospecting? What is she really after?

YMMV, but in this example, I'm gonna have to cast either Nicholson or Dench. Completely different takes on the story, so it'd depend on what I was more interested in writing.

Alternative: if you're not a big movie person or just don't want to use real-life actors, feel free to use fictional characters (casting Darth Vader to play the grizzled prospector or Lizzie Bennett to play a starship captain could be interesting) or else some broad archetypes like the nervous unsociable loner, the roided-up football jock, etc. Just make sure to try casting against type!
 
R

ReiGun

Member
I haven't participated in the last couple. Time to hop back on board!

Dat secondary objective. Sounds amazing.
 
S

Sober

Member
I told myself I would do the last one but then I didn't. Subbed and hopefully something comes to mind this time.
 
S

Sober

Member
Might dig into non-fiction for this. Or at least write something a bit more personal here, still thinking if I should...
 
S

SquiddyCracker

Banned
Who to cast hmmm...

Looking for some feedback on the implication of a particular form of FTL-travel I'm trying to create for the purpose of some sci-fi stories. So if you guys can try to "break" the mechanics I've set up, that'd be much appreciated:

Without going into the techno jargon, it involves manipulating spacetime in such a way to create an inverse space-time field "bubble", where the contents of the time field experience the time it takes for the "bubble" to move through space, but the bubble itself moves through space with no time taking place - and vice versa (the contents of the bubble can move through time instantaneously, albeit only "forward", while the bubble itself moves through space at the time it jumps forward within.)

Example:

Bubble-encapsulated spaceship travels from solar system A to solar system B, a distance of 120 LY, instantaneously. That is, if the clocks on A and B are synchronized, then the moment it disappears from A, it will appear on B. The spaceship on the other hand, and its passengers, have to experience the flow of time instead, as if they were traveling from A to B at lightspeed, and thus a hundred-twenty years pass within the bubble. So without designing the ship as multi-generational ark, or have it contain cryogenic freezing facilities that can stop the aging of the passengers, it may arrive at B in no time - but everyone aboard will be dead. The ship itself ages as well, so if it's not structurally stable enough to survive 120 years of general material decay, or lack self-repairing facilities, the FTL-engine (or any other components) might very well fail from age and cause catastrophic failure.

The second use of the technology, to move the bubble through space at the time it would ordinarily take if at the speed of light but with no time passing for the contents of the bubble, could in effect make it work like a time machine of sort. By traveling from A to B, and then back again, you would travel forward in time 240 years, per the clocks of planet A - with no time having passed for the ship or the inhabitants of it.

Requirements and details:

Requires an exotic matter generator which can generate a newly discovered form of negative particles that allows reaching light speed with minimal energy expenditure compared to other methods (which require near-infinite amounts of energy). The exotic matter generator on the otherhand has massive energy requirements, a magnitude or so greater than that of the large hadron collider (which has been used to create exotic baryons). This is achieved through a newly discovered phenomena similar to tachyon condensation.

The inverse spacetime field shares some similarities with artificial pocket universes, but are connected to the current universe through an entanglement of the hidden, curled up dimensions of the space time continuum rather than a wormhole. There's no way of entering or leaving the spacetime field as such while it exists (the ship can't break free of the bubble once it has created, it has to reverse the creation process of the bubble in order to reintegrate the spacetime field into normal spacetime). It only exists in the two forms outlined above, summarized below:

Existing modes of travel:
1. "Hyperspeed"
Outside: Instantaneous
Inside: Light years traveled equals years passed

2. "Fast-forward travel"
Outside: Light speed
Inside: Instantaneous

...

Can you think of any way of breaking the above FTL-travel I've devised?
Already touched upon the hyperspeed variant in my last story, and got a couple of more ideas.
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
What do you mean by "break" exactly? Like look for loopholes to abuse the system, or envision catastrophic failures and the consequences in context?
 
S

SquiddyCracker

Banned
Mike M said:
What do you mean by "break" exactly? Like look for loopholes to abuse the system, or envision catastrophic failures and the consequences in context?
Click to expand...

Loopholes to abuse the system, yeah.
But also any overlooked consequences of such a system (a la, if Gandalf had eagles - why didn't he use them to drop off the ring in Mt. Mordor?).
 
C

Cyan

Banned
The first method seems highly abusable.

Just a few thoughts:
-a generation ship populated by a religious cult that wants no interaction with outsiders. It travels back and forth between two star systems, everyone aboard living their lives by their religion, with no escape or rescue possible if it's abusive. Until the ship breaks down...
-a martial arts dojo (or chess mastery, or tennis, or whatever) ship, where parents place their children to learn a lifetime of martial arts (and grow up) while they travel to a tournament.
-a military R&D ship, that again travels back and forth constantly, building up their technology while time stands still outside.
-a factory ship, that produces enormous quantities of some of the fruits of the R&D ships, so the technology can be immediately deployed everywhere at the very moment of its invention.

And so on. You'd have to think that either everyone would be doing this, especially regarding the military stuff, leading to massive instability and constant high-tech oneupmanship warfare, or alternately that the person to invent the technology for this kind of travel would, moments after the first launch, take over the world with an army of cult devotees armed with incredible future-tech weaponry (and then presumably ban use of the ships by anyone else).

My two cents. :p
 
S

SquiddyCracker

Banned
Cyan said:
The first method seems highly abusable.

Just a few thoughts:
-a generation ship populated by a religious cult that wants no interaction with outsiders. It travels back and forth between two star systems, everyone aboard living their lives by their religion, with no escape or rescue possible if it's abusive. Until the ship breaks down...
-a martial arts dojo (or chess mastery, or tennis, or whatever) ship, where parents place their children to learn a lifetime of martial arts (and grow up) while they travel to a tournament.
-a military R&D ship, that again travels back and forth constantly, building up their technology while time stands still outside.
-a factory ship, that produces enormous quantities of some of the fruits of the R&D ships, so the technology can be immediately deployed everywhere at the very moment of its invention.

And so on. You'd have to think that either everyone would be doing this, especially regarding the military stuff, leading to massive instability and constant high-tech oneupmanship warfare, or alternately that the person to invent the technology for this kind of travel would, moments after the first launch, take over the world with an army of cult devotees armed with incredible future-tech weaponry (and then presumably ban use of the ships by anyone else).

My two cents. :p
Click to expand...
Thanks!
I envisioned similar things, but the idea that one could after years of R&D instantly produce whatever you researched hadn't crossed my mind.

What happened following the development of this technology was a rapid expansion from earth, a couple of cults and rich eccentrics using the ships to fast forward in time, and various entities using this as a time dilation device of sorts - allowing extremely long & complicated calculations and computer models to be run in (from an outside point of view) no time whatsoever.

A (or several) tech race(s) happened, plenty wars, Earth nearly destroyed, then rebuilt, and soon thereafter the first self-developing AIs with self-interests came to be as a result of the arm's race (as producing bigger and bigger ships required more and more advanced computer intelligences to control the exotic matter generator) - who ended up using their influence to limit the usage of the technology (though they of course used the technology for the very same purpose).

General universe building done, more or less, I think I'll revisit it for the next NaNoWriMo.
 
C

Cyan

Banned
Interesting!

Actually, come to think of it, you wouldn't even necessarily need superintelligent AIs. An AI of human-level intelligence would have an effectively infinite amount of time to solve any problem, which could effectively have the same outcome as the superintelligence.
 
S

SquiddyCracker

Banned
Mike M said:
So what happens when you nest a field of type B within a field of type A?
Click to expand...

A "Hyperspeed"
Outside: Instantaneous
Inside: Light years traveled equals years passed

B. "Fast-forward travel"
Outside: Light speed
Inside: Instantaneous

Earth---(Bubble A(Bubble B))---------------------------Alpha Centauri

Solution 1:

The field is generated by an engine creating an alteration in a particular set of curled dimensions in the spacetime continuum - creating a spacetime bubble with new properties both internally and externally. Therefore, the second field of another type would take place within the first one and follow the altered properties of that spacetime continuum. I just circumvent your question by simply making it impossible to create a second field as a result of the aforementioned different internal properties of the first field

Solution 2:

The second field would not actually be moving within bubble A, so time does not pass instantaneously (it only ever does so when you move along the spatial dimension). Therefore, bubble B would be created, time continues to pass at the same rate as the time inside Bubble A - which is the LY travelled in the universe. As such, it would only be a more energy expensive way of accomplishing what you can do with just one bubble (A).

...

Other way around:
Bubble A, inside bubble B.

No years pass within bubble A as no light years is traveled (as per solution 2 above, it remains fixed within Bubble B). Therefore, the effect of having Bubble A within Bubble B is the same as only having the latter.

Or I might change how a field functions within another field, as a result of the altered physical internal properties, in case that allows for more interesting outcomes.
I could really do with some actual theoretical physics knowledge, just to anchor it more to actual science (I have no idea what I'm talking about at the moment, just doing my best techno jargonizing it).
 
C

Cyan

Banned
Ah, we already have an entry. Most excellent.

I feel like I need to get started a little early this time, to really dig in on the secondary. But, well. Good intentions and all that. We'll see. ;)
 
C

CoffeeExpress

Member
In the middle of writing a new entry, I didnt get a chance to enter the others but hopefully I should have this up tomorrow or the next day.
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
Mine got off to a good start for a couple paragraphs, then it just kind of ran aground. I finished it, but am nowhere near satisfied with it.
 
N

Nezumi

Member
Man what I'd give for a couple of good paragraphs. I have nothing... nothing at all. I've been wrecking my brain for days running around turning the different nuances of "challenge" over in my head, but nothing comes up. :(
 
M

multivac

Member
Nezumi said:
Man what I'd give for a couple of good paragraphs. I have nothing... nothing at all. I've been wrecking my brain for days running around turning the different nuances of "challenge" over in my head, but nothing comes up. :(
Click to expand...

I know that feeling! I thought for days about "challenge" before finally coming up with something that may work.
 
S

SquiddyCracker

Banned
Right now I'm considering writing about a Dwarven caste society, following the POV of a feisty female aristrocrat (played by Monica Belluci) and her lifelong, brooding body guard (played by Javier Bardem).
 
R

ronito

Member
The first thing you are taught when dealing with disabled teens is not to pity them. They are just differently abled than you and pitying them does not help them nor does it enable you to help them. I didn't pity the severely autistic boy who, despite not being able to say a single word, made thousands off stock trades with the ease of the best brokers in the business. I didn't pity the boy with downs syndrome who had undergone three separate heart surgeries by age fourteen. I even didn't pity the girl with such severe cerebral palsy she only had control of her neck and sections of her face. I was good at keeping my feelings of pity at bay and it was never a problem. Except for Jack. Jack I pitied.

Jack was a skinny freckled sixteen year old boy with buck teeth and straight red hair that jutted out from under the white protective helmet he always wore. He sat next to me on a metal bench rocking nervously back and forth, raw fear laughing in his eyes.

"Whoa look at that! Great job Julie!" Lynn, my fiance, said as workers helped Julie, the girl with cerebral palsy, into a special saddle atop a horse. Julie couldn't smile, she didn't have control of the muscles required to, but she positively beamed.

Lynn worked with special needs kids. I'd often tag along on special outings to help where I could and to be close to Lynn. That day they took the kids to a special ranch that helped mentally disabled kids ride horses. Lynn, along with the rest of her team, were busy helping the kids.

Jack began hitting his helmet with white knuckled fists. I knew that such behavior would get him sent back to the van. The other workers were busy helping the other kids so I put my hand on his wrist and lowered it while looking at Jack.

"It's ok Jack. It's ok. You're fine" I said trying to keep my pity at bay.

"Gffrumm. Gffrumm." Jack forced out.

"I know you want to go home Jack. But its not time to leave yet and I don't want you staying in the van by yourself." I replied.

"Nnnffnn." Jack said.

"Yes, no van. Let's try to enjoy the day together. It's a beautiful day."

It was. It was early May and the storms of April had left everything around a lush verdant color. The sun was warm and the breeze gentle. It was a day to remember. But I knew it was a day Jack would rather forget.

The reason I pitied Jack was that he was largely different from the other kids. He wasn't born with his disability nor did it set on at an early age. Just two years earlier Jack would have been the same as any healthy teenaged boy. Just two years earlier he would have ran with his friends instead of waddling/staggering around as he did now. Just two years earlier he had probably laughed and told dirty jokes like all teenaged boys. Just two years earlier Jack was having a very different kind of day with horses.

Back then Jack's family had a small ranch with horses and Jack had loved to play with them. One day Jack and a friend were playing at chasing and harassing the horses. Jack swatted at a mare with a thorny stick. The mare responded by kicking at Jack's head. The impact of the mare's hoof against Jack's skull was devastating. It had imploded part of his skull and with it a large chunk of his brain. Jack's friend ran and called 911. By the time the paramedics had gotten to him Jack had almost bled to death.

Doctors were able to save Jack, but the brain damage was extensive. Jack had to learn to walk again. He still had problem feeding himself and while he could speak, only those who worked extensively with him could understand him. His parents were unable or unwilling to handle Jack in his new state sent him to a special home for disabled teens. They rarely visited. Yet for all the damage his brain had taken Doctors agreed that his memory was largely intact. Jack could remember a time when the thought of feeding himself wasn't an ordeal that involved a large tray and a bib. Or a time when he could talk to a pretty girl and have her respond with more than disgust or pity. He remembered everything prior to the accident and it tormented him. He wore a safety helmet not because his walking was particularly precarious. He wore it because he would intentionally throw himself down in attempts to injure himself. He would lash out violently and had to be "pinned" almost monthly. His behavior got him labeled as a danger to others and nearly everyone treated him as such. The only exception was Lynn.

Somehow Lynn understood Jack and treated him like a friend instead of a charge. She encouraged him and believed in him, even when he was at his most challenging. Jack loved Lynn and not in a way someone loves a teacher or a friend. He loved her. And then I had shown up and taken her from him. I saw the resentment and longing when Lynn would hold my hand or give me a kiss. We would be married soon and he knew that would probably mean that Lynn would move onto a different job.

"Hey Jack! How's it going?" Lynn called out from the paddock where horses trotted slowly careful of their charges.

Jack lifted a bony arm and waved wildly grunting something I could not understand. The fear and anger from him were forgotten as if they had never existed. It didn't matter that he wasn't "normal" that everything in his life was, and would continue to be, a challenge. He was a normal kid because Lynn believed he was. I studied Jack worried about what my entanglement with Lynn would do to the boy beside me.

"Jack would you like to try and ride?" Marcy yelled from next to Lynn.

I glared at her. How could she ask such a thing? Beside me Jack shook his head violently but he was still smiling.

"Sffndeh. Sffndeh."

"Someday. Someday."
 
N

Nezumi

Member
I think I'll write mine tomorrow. I still did not have a good idea so I'll just use the bad idea I dissmissed for the "The Game" challenge and see what happens.
 
T

tirminyl

Member
wordswritten.png


1800+ words in and I have another 5-600 to write and that will be my first draft. I think I can get that done tomorrow. That will leave Thursday to review and edit it and try to make it good.

Side bar - I've decided to use yWriter for this. What does everyone else use? Do you just open up a word doc and go to town?
 
R

ronito

Member
Man I leave for like 20 or 30 of these and then suddenly there's a whole new crew. I wonder who gets the first nick.
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
tirminyl said:
Side bar - I've decided to use yWriter for this. What does everyone else use? Do you just open up a word doc and go to town?
Click to expand...
Pretty much. I'm toying with the idea of using Scrivner for an attempt at an actual manuscript for November's NaNoWriMo, but the rest of the time it's just Word or LibreOffice depending on which computer I'm using.
 
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