#i brought him to school today and together we learned about wormholes

[smile-files]

the bear of all time

[spirit-science-blog]

Ahhh, interstellar, a simple classic movie, about a farmer his family Some dust and a transdimensional interstellar quantum gravitational space travel.

Seriously!

So the basis of this movie is that in the future, the earth has become a global dustbowl due to humanity being excessive. It’s mostly a commentary on monoculture farming, which we’ve explored in our food series. Primarily by farming the same thing on the same land over and over, you lose the majority of your nutrient base due to lack of plant diversity. You also lose your root system, making it easy for winds to pick up dirt and throw it for miles and miles. Interstellar begins with a warning - if we continue living the way we are, this could be our world.

So the film introduces us to our main characters, Cooper, or Coop for short, and his daughter Murph. Now, there’s an interesting thing in these opening scenes, where we see Murph's teacher talking to Coop about his daughter's progress in school. She remarks about how the moon landings were fake. They were entirely propaganda to fool the Soviets into pouring their resources into the space program so that the Americans could gain an advantage in the war.

It’s so exciting seeing a Hollywood movie talk about this, because of course, if you google this, there are massive conspiracies today that say the moon landing was faked. Then again, we also have ex NASA officers and astronauts who publicly have said: “Yeah, we went up there and met a bunch of aliens and it was so crazy that NASA hid it from the world, and never went back.” You can learn more about that in our Sumerian Epic series. Ultimately, you’re going to have to decide for yourself on this one, but still interesting that we even see it mentioned in Hollywood!

Now, in many storylines today, we see this narrative of the hero’s journey, which often begins with a call to adventure. Interstellar features this through these strange gravitational anomalies vibrating morse code patterns in Murph's bedroom, which Coop and Murph translate to be co-ordinated to a nearby location. They make their way there and find none other than Nasa.

In this movie, Nasa is a driving force of the plot, providing the technology and the plans to execute a journey into a magical wormhole way out near Saturn. Now, I’m not here to get into the drama and conspiracies against or for Nasa, though yes, these things exist out on the internet. Curiously, we find a spiritual lesson about this in the film itself, and we’ll come back to that soon.

In these scenes, we see the opposing mentality of the many vs. The few. Mostly, everyone these days are just concerned with farming, they’re focused on survival and just getting enough to make it through to the next season, even though their crops are slowly growing smaller and smaller. The few, on the other hand, such as Coop, exclaim, “we used to be pioneers, explorers, adventurers… not just trying to survive”. And this becomes a question we can personally ask ourselves are we pushing the boundaries of what we know, or are we just trying to get by in life?

So upon the discovery of Nasa, we learn about this wormhole, a link through the spacetime into another galaxy, where there might just be a way to save their dying species. So Coop, Anne Hathaway, and two other characters who don’t make it to the end all get in a rocketship and blast into the universe to save the human race. Bringing with them, some unique and friendly robots, and a bunch of test-tube humans that they plan on growing somewhere, and they intend that if they can, maybe they can even transport some people there.

Perhaps one of the most fundamental hidden spiritual truths of this movie is that the deeper you get into science, into the unknown, into the universe, the more mystical reality gets. We see this with the wormhole itself. The funny thing about the wormhole, though, is that it was produced using the mathematics of an actual wormhole according to General Relativity! The visual fx artists worked with renowned Physicist, Kip Thorne, and used a mathematical representation of a massive black hole, then plugged it into their VFX generator, and this is what it turned into! They even produced a scientific paper about it. So this is an actual wormhole simulation, not just a fancy visual effect.

Now, maybe this is just me - but watching the sequence of going through the wormhole felt to me like my mind was expanding. Like reality was being stretched, like more was possible than it was before. It feels to me like this was an encoded message for the audience watching the movie, implanting within us this idea of what it looks and feels like to perceive spacetime differently, getting us ready for our transcendent evolution of consciousness.

Now, on the other side of the wormhole, they have three planets to visit in hopes of finding a new home for the human race. Their first guess takes them on a short trip to Waterworld, where they go surfing and chilling in the shallow side for the equivalent time of 23 earth years. It doesn’t go so well, and returning to their ship, they’re limited on fuel. So there’s this moment where they have to decide on which of the two planets to visit next, and they better pick well.

So it’s revealed that Dr. Hathaway is in love with one of the astronauts on one of the nearby worlds, Dr. Edmund. And there’s this very rousing speech from her about following our hearts., that love is powerful - it has to mean something. Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that can transcend the dimensions of time and space. It’s an overall very moving and emotional scene, and it might even make you cry.

Now, this IS Hollywood, so OF COURSE, the man immediately takes control of the situation and steers directly towards the other guy. The legendary, the one, the only Dr. Mann.

I gave him a little hype just now because this is how Dr. Mann is portrayed in this film. He is a legend; he is the best of the best; he was the one who brought everyone together and made this mission possible And then, well, this happened.

Dr. Mann is a personification of the ordinary human consciousness and our ego. I mean, his name is Mann. He is the one who could create miraculous things, but watch how quickly that personality can turn when it is filled with fear, dread, and isolation. This is what happened with Dr. Mann - He was isolated, stranded alone on a frozen planet with nobody else for the rest of his eternity. The last time he went into cryosleep, he didn’t even set wake-up time. This isolation and the fear of not surviving caused him to lie, caused him to tell people to come to his planet because it was the one. It caused him to betray his comrades, and in arrogant defiance to the truth - got himself killed. A valuable lesson for all of us doesn’t arrogantly defy the reality, or you shall suffer horrific karmic repercussions.

With the power of persistence, determination, and undying faith in the universe and himself, coop successfully reconnects his ship to the space dock even with it exploded and spinning like mad. Herein lies another secret lesson - if we set our hearts upon doing something, and we do it well, there’s nothing we can’t accomplish!

Okay, let’s pause for a moment and reflect briefly on the events back on earth. Throughout the film, it is slowly revealed that the head of Nasa has been lying. Coop's daughter noticed that it looked like he was doing equations with two hands tied behind his back. Then it was revealed that he knew a long time ago that it would be impossible to save the human race by using science to negate gravity and lifting off into a super space station. He could not reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity. Still, he convinced everyone that it was possible, and he was working on it - so that people would work on the technology and carry out the mission.

THIS is the key to the whole Nasa conspiracy thing that we mentioned earlier. Because look - there is some evidence and speculation that NASA is hiding something, but instead of throwing shade, the film reminds us this valuable lesson that even the people who are behind NASA and other giant organizations are just that - people, subject to human desires and emotions, the positive and the negative, and are easily influenced to do things, such as lie or create deceptions, out of their fears and insecurities. The Nasa chief in the movie wasn’t able to see beyond the solution to his formula, he couldn’t conceive of a quantum interdimensional answer, probably because there was nowhere for him to go and take Ayahuasca. So he fooled everyone in a way that he believed was safe.

Jumping back to another galaxy and another timeline, Coop’s new plan is to slingshot them around the wormhole and over to their last remaining planet where maybe they’ve got a shot at growing some modern humans. In the process, coop sacrifices their robot and himself to make it happen. In a scene of great wisdom, Cooper says, “to get ahead mankind has always had to give something back/let something go,” and in this case - it was him. Honestly, this was a scene of tremendous bravery and courage to let oneself die to save their species.

And this is where Interstellar becomes a mystery school for us all. Cooper falls into a massive sphere inside the black hole, which then becomes these tunnels of lines, revealed to be pockets of time. On the other side of his tracks is his daughter's bookshelf, and he connects through his radio with Tarz, his robot buddy, also trapped inside this wormhole - who explains that he is inside a three-dimensional manifestation of a 5th-dimensional timeline. It’s time represented as a physical dimension, and Cooper can manipulate gravity from inside this time matrix because gravity is the only thing besides love that can go forwards and backward in time.

Cooper realizes that the gravitational anomalies that he saw at the beginning of the movie were him all along, giving himself messages from the future. He realized that the whole time he was thinking, “wow, it was THEM who have been helping us along,” alluding to some alien species. Still, honestly, that “them” was us - it was the evolved human consciousness that became 5th-dimensional beings through conscious evolution. It sent gravitational anomalies through time to help humanity grow in the first place.

What’s especially surprising about this is that that’s EXACTLY what the channeler Bashar has been saying in his channelings for years. That who he is channeling is himself from the future who, along with the rest of humanity, has evolved to higher consciousness, and he’s sending back information from the future about human evolution and how to make it happen.

Now, here’s a fun question that the movie will not even get into…. Why did the wormhole bring him THERE? Why that moment in time? Why that location? Well, in the bigger picture of the story, it’s because his daughter was the genius who could finish the mission and get quantum gravity liftoff to their earth-tech and save humanity. However, that’s only half the reason. The other half is because of something Dr. Mann said. When you’re about to die, you push a little farther to connect with your family and live longer.” The reason he went to the bookshelf was probably just as much because that’s what his subconscious manifested for him. After all, his loved ones were what he wanted most in life. Much of his driving actions in this film were because of his love for his children. Embodying the true spirit of the word Husbandry - the original meaning of which speaks to the nurturing and supporting of everything around the masculine father figure. This film asks us - what is it we truly care most about in our heart of hearts? And to dig deep into ourselves and find out what lights us up inside.

So Cooper transmits the quantum data to his daughter through time using morse code, and then he disappears into the void and wakes up in a hospital bed. A very long time has passed since he first left home, and his daughter is now an older woman on her deathbed. But Plan A is now fulfilled, using the data Cooper was able to send through the wormhole, young Murph was able to solve the gravitational propulsion problem to get Plan A, and the massive space station where Cooper awakens, out in space.

In an absolute heart-shattering scene, she tells him to leave her, she’ll be with her new family now, and that he should be with Anne Hathaway, and start a new life on a new planet and raise a new generation of humans on a new world. I’m sorry, this whole scene made me cry.

And so, that’s what Cooper does, bringing this film to an end. But the hidden spiritual meaning here goes on. See, the foundational message of Interstellar is not what most people think - the most excellent idea conveyed here is that of human evolution. That one day, we will evolve into a higher dimensional species, capable of perceiving time fundamentally different than we are today.

However, it will take some time to get there, and it’s up to us to make it happen. Interstellar warns us - we have to learn the lessons of caring and nurturing for each other and our world if we want to have a world to live on at all. We very well could destroy ourselves with our greed and excess. In other words, we must check ourselves before we wreck ourselves.

One thing Interstellar does make us feel this message takes us through large jumps in time. After Coop’s relatively short visit to the water planet (where he’s there for only several hours), the audience and Coop see both their astronaut comrade and young Murph age by 23 years. After he emerges from the black hole at the end of the film, his daughter is an older woman. These events show us viscerally that time is always passing, and compels the audience to make the most of what time they have, and show us the deep pain of missing out if we don’t seize the day, every day!.

But there is an even deeper message from this - because also if humanity destroys itself, even if we are pushed to the very brink of destruction, we can ALWAYS find our way back. All that it takes is unshakeable faith, love, and determination to see it through and do the things that are both scary and exciting.

So get out there and evolve into a multidimensional being!

Make sure to let us know what else you’d like to see a Hidden Spirituality about, and we’ll be sure to cover it soon! Peace out, and lots of love!

[nctinfo]

[TRANS] WayV’s interview with Leon Young July 2019 issue!

Their musical style changes frequently, sometimes extremely gentle and loving, sometimes explosive and fiery. The seven boys are like seven completely different gems, difficult to gather in the first place, and yet still able to radiate a unique and harmonious light, invoking surprise and curiosity.

KUN | Capricorn leader, full points for his leadership

Blood type: B Star sign: Capricorn Favourite food: Beef Favourite music genre: R&B I am Qian Kun, a treasure boy, waiting for you to unearth.

Qian Kun, who yearned for the skies since young, has a hobby for researching on planes, collecting model planes and also playing flying games. “I especially like to sit on the plane, every time we travel by plane I will take videos of the clouds in the skies through the small circular window.” Other than being a singer, Qian Kun’s biggest dream is to be a pilot. In WayV’s newest single <Dream Launch>’s MV, he could experience his “space obsession” —— traveling through space and time with the wormhole, and launching his dreams towards outer space.

As the leader, he can’t be this imaginative every day. In the team, all seven boys have distinctly different personalities, so collecting everyone’s different opinions, and bringing all the members closely together, will be impossible without impressive leadership capabilities. “Teamwork” is WayV’s team spirit, and Qian Kun is everyone’s “gege” that they admire and listen to.

Kun is very good at writing lyrics and composing, and when asked where his inspiration comes from, his words were quite shocking —— when he’s showering. “Often when I’m showering, a melody will suddenly appear in my head. I will then quickly rush out of the bathroom in a bathrobe and use the fastest speed to record the melody in my phone.”

Q: When did you realize you have a talent in music? A: When I was young, I would participate in the singing competition in our school every year, and would get first place every time.

Q: Who is your favourite singer? A: Jay Chou, I’ve liked listening to his songs since I was in the first year of primary school.

TEN | Be careful! The smiling eyes are electric

Blood type: A Star sign: Pisces Favourite food: Rice cake Favourite music genre: R&B I am TEN, born for the stage.

Born in Bangkok, TEN particularly loves Chinese traditional food.  His favourite is rice cake, soy bean milk, youtiao (fried dough), and lamb skewers. Every type of food brings him a different surprise, and makes him say “wow, this is good!” every bite he takes.

When TEN was studying Mandarin, the other members were available to be his personal “language teacher”, so he improved at an incredible speed. Other than that, TEN has his own study tips as well, which is to learn Mandarin via watching Chinese variety shows. His favourites are <Running Man>, <Our Brilliant Masters>, and <Back To Field>.

TEN’s explosive dancing is one of the highlights of a WayV stage. He looks very gentle when he smiles, but is shockingly powerful when he moves. TEN says that he mainly trains two aspects of dancing: the first is physical strength, the second is the details of the choreography. He spends at least an hour in the practice room every day doing push-ups and planking, amongst others, then practices specific dance moves after completing physical training. Because perfect movements must have good muscle control as a foundation.

Q: What is your favourite sport? A: Badminton.

Q: How have your parents supported you in your career? A: They respect my decisions very much, and let me freely do what I like to do.

WINWIN | Dancing elf, more charming the more you appreciate

Blood type: B Star sign: Scorpio Favourite food: Shrimp Favourite music genre: R&B I am WINWIN, a guy that gets more and more charming the more you look at me.

“I’m slightly introverted, but others in the team always bring me lots of joy, so I feel like I’ve been ‘opened’ by them.” Though WINWIN appears to be mysterious and cold, he’s actually very soft-hearted. His favourite thing to do is to watch movies, listen to songs, and chat with his fellow members in the dorm.

WayV has a tradition of watching a movie together in the dorms every week. They would discuss the plot after the movie and share their own thoughts and realizations. Additionally, they also regularly hold “meetings” to share their own worries with other members, while providing suggestions to others. WINWIN likes to turn off the lights and light some candles when this is going on, creating a relaxed atmosphere around everyone.

From the time he was a primary 5 student, WINWIN studied traditional Chinese dance. Years of dance background gave every move he makes a sense of calmness and elegance. Dance has a priceless meaning to WINWIN, “it is the basis of my everything, dance is what brought me here today.”

Q: Which song from the new album do you like the best? A: <Let me love u>, it’s a love song from us to the fans.

Q: Which of your facial features are you most satisfied with? A: Eyes. The outer corner of my eye tilts up slightly, and seem to have a classical beauty.

LUCAS | Clever and mischievous, imaginative and unrestricted.

Blood type: O Star sign: Aquarius Favourite food: Apples Favourite music genre: The quietest music and the most explosive music I am LUCAS, thank you to all the people who like me, you’re all really cute!

“Comparing before and after I joined WayV, the biggest change I made was learning how to take care of my younger brothers.” LUCAS says he used to always have the image of a “younger brother”, but after joining the team and facing members younger than he is, he naturally upgraded to become others’ “older brother”, and knew more about how to understand and help others.

At 183cm, LUCAS has a tall and straight figure. Coupled with big eyes that seem to be able to speak, his features make fans swoon. LUCAS, as someone who has lots of visuals and even more style, has been nicknamed a “walking poster”. When asked about his method of selecting and matching clothes, he has much to say, “we have to first understand our body before we can better match our clothes, and not just follow the trends.” He thinks colorful clothes can help add colour to the city, and if everyone can wear their own style, then the whole city will have a unique style to it.

Aquarian LUCAS always comes up with strange ideas, for example, he says that when he listens to music, he can not only hear the melody and rhythm of the song itself, but also the feelings of the composer and lyricist, and even how the drummer looks when they drum on the backing track. He also frequently lies down on the carpet to think about “the difficult questions in life”, like “the fans do so much for us, what should I do to let them feel our love too?” What is the answer? It is very simple, and also very pure - make even better music, which makes them happy after listening to it.

Q: What is your biggest wish lately? A: For WayV to hold their own concert, and interact with the fans with no distance between us.

Q: What would you like to remind the fans of? A: Eat more fruits, you can absorb many natural vitamins, which is more effective and healthier than taking vitamin tablets!

XIAOJUN | Honey voice, difficult to forget

Blood type: B Star sign: Leo Favourite food: Sour candy Favourite music genre: Ballad I want to be magic, I want to be bigger than I am.

“Take Off” is XIAOJUN’s favourite from the new album, “Even if I have no wings, I still want to fly, courage is needed to face your dreams. This is similar to my current state of mind.”XIAOJUN’s voice is not one to be easily forgotten, it’s crisp and hoarse, yet soft and dense; it’s fine, and gentle - he’s referred to by the fans as “honey voiced”.

XIAOJUN has been obsessed with music ever since he was a child, and usually likes to quietly practice singing by himself. Even though he is now a member of an idol group, and has to frequently face many busy announcements and tough rehearsals, he still persists in at least three hours of vocal practice every day. How does he protect his “honey vocals”, then? XIAOJUN has his own good practices, of course. “I drink a glass of honey water when I get up every morning, this can reduce heatiness, and moisten the throat.

”Though skilled, XIAOJUN admits that he is very nervous before meeting fans. Not long ago, WayV participated in Hunan Television’s “Happy Together”. When shooting the episode, many WayV fans went to the location of the shoot to support them. “Even though I look calm and collected, my heart is beating wildly. But on that day, the moment the curtains opened, I saw many fans holding boards with our names on them, heard them screaming and shouting our names, and only then did I really calm down.”

As someone who newly debuted, XIAOJUN thinks that luck was most important in him becoming a member of WayV, and that it was intended by the heavens. But he still wants to tell the juniors who carry their dreams and want to debut that, “you cannot lack in luck, but behind luck, you have to have an extraordinary amount of hard work. Luck will only find you when you transform your talents into skills.”

Q: Your eyelashes are long and curled, what’s your secret? A: Actually, you don’t have to take extra care, just use warm water to clean everyday, and don’t rub roughly when you wash your face.

Q: Amongst life’s sourness, sweetness, bitterness, spiciness, and saltiness, which is your favourite flavour? A: Sourness, it gives the tastebuds a curious feeling.

HENDERY | Curious BOY, always “unlocking” new skills

Blood type: O Star sign: Libra Favourite food: Chicken feet with fermented black soy bean paste Favourite music genre: Hippop I am HENDERY, who likes the colour pink.

HENDERY has a new wish recently, and that is to learn to play the jazz drums. He’s roommates with TEN. One night, he unknowingly started to play a beat as TEN sat on his bed and played the guitar. So TEN told him, “you can learn to play the drums, then we can perform together.” This sentence ignited a small flame in HENDERY’s heart, so he resolved to learn to play the jazz drums and was unstoppable afterward. He would go online to watch tutorials on jazz drums when he was free, and frequently forgets to eat because he was so absorbed.

HENDERY always likes to try new things. For example, before joining WayV, he didn’t frequently have hotpot, but was influenced by everyone and loves hotpot like no other now! Whether Hong Kong-style, Sichuan-style, or Chongqing-style, if it’s hotpot, he likes it! “If we have time, we go out to have hotpot twice a week! And it’s seven of us together every time!”

Looking back at his biggest change since debut, HENDERY thinks that his stage experience has become more diverse. He used to focus on the training itself but rarely paid attention to showcasing on stage. However, recently, he frequently finds and watches past performances by the group to re-assess himself on stage from a fan’s perspective. For example, when watching these videos, he would find that at one beat where he focused on a body angle, the camera was focusing on facial expressions instead - amongst his replays, HENDERY keeps working hard to find the best feeling on stage.

Q: The fans call you “Disney prince”, what do you think about that? A: Thank you all~ But I don’t want to be just a “prince”, I would instead like to showcase different sides of myself in songs.

Q: What do you hope for WayV’s future? A: I hope more people listen to our music, watch our dancing, that’s all.

YANGYANG | The most doted on by the group, the maknae is very busy

Blood type: O Star sign: Libra Favourite food: Hotpot Favourite music genre: melody RAP I am YANGYANG, easy-going offstage, perfectionist onstage, this is my “duality”.

As the “maknae” of the team, YANGYANG is the recepient of much love, and is always taken care of by the other members. “Uh…I am indeed a little mischievous sometimes, like when I purposely wake others when they sleep, but they never get angry at me.” WayV haven’t debuted for long, but they have completely become family from brothers, always looking out for one another. For example, when everybody goes out to eat, they would always ask the youngest brother what he wanted to have, then everybody would go according to what he liked.

The fans’ warm-hearted actions frequently touch YANGYANG deeply. Sometimes, when a new song has just been released, the fans still sing the song with them word for word at live performances. “They must have listened to it many, many times, this makes me feel really warm.”

<Say It> from the new album makes YANGYANG particularly excited, as it is the work of renowned band London Noise. YANGYANG has been a huge fan of London Noise since he was a child, and this time, he was able to sing what his idols made for him, so it’s a dream come true!

Q: Other than music, what is your biggest interest? A: I love car racing, my dad and I would go go-karting every weekend when I was little, I really like the feeling of a competition.

Q: Why is it that you can maintain a perfect body while loving to eat hotpot? A: Sorry, I just can’t gain weight, haha. But I usually workout to maintain my strength too.

Translation: Jess, Seol @ FY! NCT (NCTINFO) | Source: Leon Young — Do not repost or take out without our permission!

[roverwater]

What I read: Stars Like Cold Fire

I first entered science fiction through the Heinlein portal and owe my love of of space adventure to those early books. Author Brent Nichols nails the feel of those stories in Stars Like Cold Fire, his latest book on Bundoran Press. An effortless, compelling read from a prolific new Calgary writer, it deserves its place on your bookshelf beside your favourite classics.

Laid-back and friendly as all get-out, possessed of a dry, deadly-bulls-eye-accurate wit that doesn’t come through in email exchanges, Brent is worth seeking out at any writer/book events he may be attending. Until you can, read this. Brent was kind enough to tell us a bit about Stars Like Cold Fire.

•    This is classic old-school space sci-fi. Did you make a conscious decision to write that kind of book, or did it just spill out naturally?  And in terms of your own literary influences, where did this come from?

I didn’t really have a particular style in mind as a goal when I started writing Stars Like Cold Fire. I grew up reading Robert Heinlein and similar authors; I always loved adventure stories set in outer space. When the seed of an idea came along, that was the soil in my brain where it grew. I wasn’t aiming for old-school, I was just showing my roots.

•    In the future you depict, China has a history as one of the original space superpowers. You took some time to map out how some culture from Earth as we know it today still exists in life among the stars. Tell us a bit about the thought process behind that.

 Much of the science fiction I grew up with was written by white American guys, and it reflected their point of view. I grew up in the Seventies and Eighties, reading stuff that was written in the Fifties and Sixties, and in those days not many people were really challenging ethnocentrism. It felt perfectly natural to assume that North American culture would dominate humanity’s future.

Cultures rise and fall, though. When I try to imagine the galaxy in four or five hundred years, assuming we’ve managed to reach the stars, I can’t assume that white Anglophones will always lead the way. I don’t know what the future holds, but it won’t be a straightforward extrapolation of mid-twentieth-century North America projected forward.

 I can easily imagine a future where China has played a major role in the exploration and colonization of space, so I brought that into the book. I wanted to explore issues of discrimination and reverse discrimination, to explore the evolution of racism, and to do it without an assumption that white people will always be at the top of the power structure. I think racism will be with us for a long time, but I don’t think it will look the same as it does now.

 •    You do a great job of setting up conflict for Jeff Yi, from a variety of angles. Tell us about that from a story-building perspective.

When the premise of the story occurred to me, it happily included all kinds of built-in conflict, which made things easy for me as a writer. I knew that I wanted conflict on two main levels, namely the big external conflict of interstellar war and the personal, human-level, largely social and emotional conflict of an officer with a crew that resents him. The beautiful thing about war stories is that they inherently contain both kinds of conflict. Soldiers face all the practical challenges and danger of combat, and they face the interpersonal challenges of working as part of a team under stressful conditions.

 On a half-unconscious level I sifted through a lot of the stuff that my ten-year-old self thought was cool in novels and in episodes of Star Trek and I went looking for organic ways to fit it all in. Ship-to-ship combat. Man-to-man combat in the corridors. The prolonged, quiet tension of an inexperienced officer stuck with a resentful crew. An assassination attempt. Courtroom drama. Space elves who can kill you with their minds. Identical twin Russian stripper assassins. I never found a way to fit in the space elves or the stripper assassins, but the rest of it is in there, and it all feels like it belongs.

 •    Among other things that you need in this kind of novel, you power your spacecraft with the Rasmussen Drive. Give us a little insight into setting up the science of this novel.

 Modern science tells us that faster-than-light travel is inherently impossible, which gives a kind of carte blanche to a science fiction writer. No one can point at an author’s FTL engine and say, “That’s not how REAL faster-than-light engines work!” I think of Rasmussen engines as plot-powered. How do they work? They work as I need them to work.

I didn’t want to deal with the limitations of sub-light travel, and I didn’t want the hassle of things like time dilation. My characters don’t age more slowly as they travel, which is something that happens as you approach light speed. Since the Rasmussen Drive is faster than light, it’s immune to the phenomena of sublight physics.

 Good space opera contains technology that’s a bit hand-wavy. Warp bubbles, hyperspace, wormholes, that sort of thing. Rasmussen engines are part of that tradition. They put the ship into N-Space, where it can travel at many times the speed of light. I didn’t want instantaneous travel, because I wanted my characters to be stuck together on a small ship for a long journey. A Rasmussen drive lets you cross several light years in a day, because that’s what suited my plot.

 •    You’re working on sequel to this for Bundoran Press. What can we expect?

By the end of Stars Like Cold Fire Jeff Yi is still on a fascist hit list, so the same pressures that led the admiralty to give him command of a guppy are still in place. Jeff will get a new ship, just about as small as the last one, and a (mostly) new crew. His nation is at war, so he’ll have a dangerous new mission.

As far as personal journeys go, I want to respect the fact that he’s gained in wisdom and experience and acquired some hard-won confidence as an officer. I won’t have him repeat that arc. Instead he’s going to face new challenges, new stresses, with a new crew, as he goes deep behind enemy lines.

 •    What else are you working on? Is most of what you write in this vein, or do you explore other kinds of fiction at all?

 Currently I’m working on the sequel to Stars Like Cold Fire, tentatively titled The Light of a Distant Sun. Look for it in independent bookstores in September 2017, or at When Words Collide.

 Lately I’ve focused my attention on military science fiction. I’ve just completed a self-published trilogy called The Hive Invasion, under the pen name Jake Elwood. I’m happy to say the trilogy is doing really well right now on Amazon. I’ve written science fiction in a few sub-genres, and some sword and sorcery as well as some steampunk. My successes have all come from military science fiction or space opera, though, so that’s where I’ll be focusing for the next little while.

Go here to find this book and learn about Brent: 

Jake Elwood’s author website: JakeElwoodWriter.com

Books by Jake Elwood on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Jake-Elwood/e/B012QJVUWE/

Stars Like Cold Fire at Bundoran Press:

http://www.bundoranpress.com/product/1/Stars-Like-Cold-Fire

           http://www.bundoranpress.com/product/3/Stars-Like-Cold-Fire-(ebook)

Stars Like Cold Fire on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQQBPKE/