#spaceships as people

[brightsuzaku]

An Ode to the Suddenly-Remembered Formative Blorbos of my Life

Or maybe it's just a long post nobody will read! A very long time ago, when I was 11 or 12, and a tiny angry misanthropic child, I read a story on either fanfiction.net or on its own website an original story about a girl and her friend, a spaceship guy named I think Libra 279.

You know stories that take you away somewhere else in an adventure? The transportative power of the written word? And how that helps you?

And also is the reason you keep looking for more science fiction with "spaceships being fully-realized major characters" for like half your life?

I cannot search for this story anymore. It had original art, either drawn by the author or submitted by another fan. It had its own web page. It was a labor of love by its author.

It existed in my earliest memories online, and woe! I bestow it upon you!

Amidst the chaos of my moving from one state to another at that age (which interrupted so many routines and I somehow dropped off reading both Animorphs AND Diadem and got into manga), I also lost track of Libra and that story, which had gone into hiatus.

The characters were beginning to see the presence of danger bigger than they were, with connections to Libra's own horrific past (which he mostly suppressed) called the Zodiac Chasers. We'd already met Leo, and Leo was an asshole, if I remember correctly.

And now I don't know if anyone else remembers this story, but it's like 90% the reason WHY I am like this now. Whoever wrote this story, I hope you're doing well, I hope you're still doing cool things, I hope you know you have shaped and changed my entire life when I was like 12.

[brightsuzaku]

there is a character,

in one of my friend's stories

THAT I KEEP THINKING ABOUT every time I get back into thinking about science fictional AIs (which is very often)

about hurt/comfort and a side of trauma and about healing, and the amount of trust that is linked with the helplessness of being machine, and the ways one could fight oppression, and that thing adjacent to living weapon whump story beats where the caretaker loves on whumpee who's never been sincerely cared for in their life and I could scream

this post is about Theseus ForTheLongHaul (and Arad), again

thank you so much @bright-thorn

i am so shy about comments but i will keep yelling here forever about them 🥹

[brightsuzaku]

a really stupid idea popped into my head it is called, "ok, so imagine if i became a spaceship suddenly, that would make me a monster, so even if i didn't think i'd become like, a werebeast, i would be some form o- OK, BUT IMAGINE A WERESHIP" .... and yes, before you ask, "how the fuck does that work"

by the light of the moon, suddenly you start to become Some Guy and you gotta land. fast.

[brightsuzaku]

i do sometimes think about my silly little tags

"spaceships as people", which generally refers to the science-fictional concept of allowing synthetic intelligences (machines or computers or some other kind of being) the rights of personhood! And, this also means we would give a human who's linked, however-permanently, to a spaceship personhood as well! It's the idea of treating the "sentient spaceship" like a character (or a collective of characters) with their own desires, goals, needs, and personalities. People who share the same problems as we (humans) do, and also experience different challenges than we do.

"people as spaceships", like oh, what a cute little metaphor! Similar to the idea of your brain being the pilot of a meat-mecha, except you're basically like a spaceship flying around in space, from the perspective of your little cells! NO, BUT SERIOUSLY, IT'S STILL AN APT METAPHOR.

Eat food. Fuel yourself. Prevent internal mutiny. You're not just the captain, you're the whole vessel.

You're the spaceship that's a person, bringing this science-fictional concept back down to earth.

[brightsuzaku]

Stories of The Sunbeam

The Sunbeam GTACMTC2-64

Gateway Transport Agency Civilian Mass Transport Class-2, Number 64 (Former ID: ASTV3-989)

Passenger: Olivia Malcolm

Liv woke up to half her head pounding, and groaned. She'd hoped the migraine would have been gone by now, but unfortunately, it was a stubborn one. The headache persisted as a steady chiseling feeling, located just behind her right eye. And, though the sensation of it was dulling (maybe), it was still irritatingly present. The room felt a little too bright for her comfort, too. 

She exhaled a small annoyed whimper, rubbed one eye, and sighed. The last estimate she’d gotten was that only 51 more Earth-length hours would be spent in warp, and Liv had wanted to be in proper shape when the ship docked. A two-day migraine? Well, it wasn’t a good sign, and she really hoped it wouldn’t persist. 

Liv's sour mood suddenly deflated further when a bright, chipper, feminine voice interrupted her thoughts, and sang, "Gooooood day!"

The voice smacked of artificial cheer, it drifted in from some unknown source within Liv’s quarters. And, Liv knew exactly who it was: Sunbeam. The Sunbeam, to be precise. Why the main intelligence of the whole ship would personally greet an average passenger was beyond Liv’s reckoning, but she had grown used to Sunbeam’s presence. While Liv figured that it was probably boring to monitor warp stabilization calculations, or whatever it was that ships must do for work, she wasn’t too confident in the ship’s intelligence, either. 

Sunbeam’s voice continued, "It is good to see that you're awake, Olivia!"

Liv groaned, "Sunbeam, can you stand to tone the sunshine down a bit?"

"No can do, Olivia! In fact, we are likely very far from any quantity of nearest-sun, and it would be unwise to risk checking! It is an estimated Forty-Seven Hours and Twenty-Eight minutes until we exit the warp tunnel, and it is too dangerous to withdraw too early simply to look for suns!" 

That was not the answer Liv wanted. Worse, she realized that she had experienced only about four hours of sleep. Great! Not ideal.

"Ugh, Sunbeam, you know exactly what I mean. Can you turn down the lights?!"

Sunbeam responded with a pause, one that Liv found a bit uncomfortable once the 15th second had passed. Before she could say anything further, without warning, the lights went out with a ping! and her room was plunged into darkness. 

Suspicious, Liv growled impatiently, "Sunbeeeeam?"

Sunbeam was silent.

Liv's eyes then adjusted, somewhat, to the darkness. She fumbled out of her bed, and bumbled her way to the door. She felt around the walls for stability, though she didn’t really need it. The room was a bit too small, but serviceable; temporary lodgings for her journey, made available free of charge.

There was just enough space for a bed, and to walk around a few short paces. A small seat and desk were attached to a wall at the far end of the room, and located right by a door that led to the even-tinier bathroom accommodations.

The conditions were claustrophobic, really. But, Liv had assured the agency (Gateway Transport) that she could handle these conditions for a week’s travel time, whatever a “week” was in space. Four days so far, and it hadn't been too bad, weakening migraine aside. 

After all, the room was offered to her for free, and she thought it far better than being in the group berth. Yet, despite having second thoughts about her accommodations, there wasn't anything she could do about it now, really. “Hindsight is 20/20”, or something like that, it was said. 

Towards the front of the room, a small rectangular outline near the door panel could be discerned by its dim yellow glow. Liv approached the smooth panel, and then smacked her palm against it. Thankfully, her room's door slid open without delay.

The hallway was equally dark. Confused sounds, other passengers' voices, mumbled nervously in the darkness, "What's going on?" "What happened?" "Where are we?"

Liv drew in a breath, and called out, "Hey, Sunbeam!"

The other passengers stopped talking as soon as Liv addressed the ship. Liv, for her part, felt extremely self-conscious.

Was I really that loud?!

The hall was silent, and then the lighting sputtered back on with an audible whirr. Sunbeam's voice danced in the air with the bounce of honeyed delight, as if she had been talking the entire time, "-orry for the inconvenience! It appears that there was a minor mishap with the ILCS Integrated Lighting Command Systems. For your convenience, and to prevent any further outages, please use the manual rotary switches available within your quarters and at your berths, to control localized lighting."

Liv's face suddenly burned hot with embarrassment. This couldn't be her own fault, could it? Maybe that was a coincidence? She wasn’t sure, though some part of her felt intensely anxious about whatever was going on.

...

A few hours later, the incident with the lights had receded into a lighthearted joke among the other passengers, as if there wasn't any real concern to it. Nobody seemed to blame Liv however. Instead, a few folks congratulated her for getting things "back to normal"!

But, Liv felt concerned.

She sat at the far end of a table in the shared mess hall, and poked distractedly at her food. Though she took an occasional bite, her meal was growing cold, not that it mattered much to her. The other passengers eventually ignored her, wrapped up in their own conversations with each other. A relief, for sure, but Liv also felt desperately lonely.

She was on her way to her first major assignment, traveling as a highly-recommended individual by the professors at her university. All of Liv’s friends and classmates took different shuttles from her, or were headed to different destinations. She sort of wished she had taken Maude's offer to travel up to a halfway point, though she didn't want to impose on Maude and her partner, either. Liv also wasn’t sure how’d she would have made the second leg of the trip either, anyway. Sunbeam, after all, happened to be a direct one-way route to Liv’s destination, and so the ship was far more convenient for that reason. No imposing upon others, free food and accommodations… Sunbeam seemed perfect, more or less. 

And yet, Liv was bothered, now. The "problem" wasn’t impossible to Liv, she could solve this! Surely, this was within her ability! And yet, despite it all, Liv suddenly felt both overwhelmed and clueless. She especially felt burdened with a dreadful worry because of what she knew. 

The Sunbeam was a repurposed freighter vessel originally built to carry cargo, but now she carries people, instead; like a flying space hostel. Being neither a cruise ship nor a ferry, Liv had figured the ship herself also barely got an upgrade in the brains department. There would have been no need to specially accommodate the sort of clientele that would travel with Sunbeam, though the ship’s intelligence was still unfailingly prompt, as if she never got the memo.

A malfunction to the lighting command systems aboard a vessel like the Sunbeam could potentially be indicative of a larger issue at hand... And, Liv's thoughts jumped to her fear that the life-support systems were affected, too. Though she longed to speak to somebody on the ship's crew, like an engineer, she was aware of the rules.

Olivia Malcom was aboard the Sunbeam as a passenger, and nothing more. The specifics of the trip meant that Sunbeam herself would be the one Liv would have to get through first, anyway! Liv’s heart sank slightly at the thought. 

Damn, but if I could get a hold of someone! Anyone other than this flaky boat! This thing is about as dumb as an Alliance Freighter!

Liv grumbled under her breath, "I wonder how many corners were cut, to make this thing passenger-ready?"

She abandoned her food tray, walked her way back to her room, and closed the door behind her. "Hey Sunbeam," she called.

"Hello, Olivia, what is it?" chirped the chipper voice of the ship.

"What's the status of your life-support systems?"

The ship paused, before replying, "I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to provide you with any specific details, but everything's coming up Green! Or, if instead you were looking for Uplifting Supportive Cheer because the gloom of deep space has gotten to you, I am afraid I lack the resources to fully provide for your needs!"

There was something markedly specific about the nature of the ship's response, and Liv rolled her eyes.

"Ok then, how long have you been in service as a passenger vessel? How many trips have you made?"

Sunbeam answered right away, "I have been acting as a passenger vessel for the past 5 annans, and have made hundreds of trips each an! The specific number of trips taken differs according to need and circumstance, but I am proud to say that I am a star of safe travels at an affordable rate for even the most simple of standard incomes!"

Liv opened her mouth, as if to respond, but then closed it. Sunbeam was definitely an Alliance Freighter in another life, and worse, she’s now one with a dash of whimsy.

[brightsuzaku]

WIP WHENEVER

Hi, I've not updated anyone on my current WIPs, lately, have I? All the WIPs discussed are in drafts I have scattered here and docs.

Ohhhh, I wanna tease some! So, have the first paragraph of said WIPs, why don't you?

1. HOW TO GREET SPACESHIPS: PART 2, "Emergency Situations".

I'm having a hard time editing this one, because the sample dialogue is turning into something with broader context for the characters involved.

There are a few types of messaging that always override standard formal hails. One type is the repeated message type used as a distress signal. For example, "Mayday mayday mayday! To all able vessels. Designation Dancing Starlight CVMG5-3254. All engines out, incapacitated, need assistance. Conditions calm. Currently lost, engine issue during warp, safely aborted transit, no bearings. Mindgroup of 6, 1H incapacitated, 2M fair, 2M occupied, 1H speaking for 3, all. Carrying 30 passengers. Have fuel, life-support still Green. Please relay the signal broadcast, or respond."

2. A new thing I'm writing!

The protagonist's name is Olivia. She's like, going to space college or to a new space job, or something. At the very least, it's in space, and warp gates exist. Also, migraines still exist. Sorry!

Liv woke up to half her head pounding, and groaned. She'd hoped the migraine would be gone by now, but unfortunately, it was a stubborn one. It persisted as a steady chiseling feeling, located just behind her right eye. And though it was dulling (maybe), it was still irritatingly present.

3. MORE HORK-BAJIR

This isn't quite the first paragraph, but it's the first one that matters for introducing the topic. It will be about Hork-Bajir story-telling, and it's a very cool fanon theory, I'd say.

But ok, it's WILD FANON SPECULATION TIME!

As we all know, the way the Hork-Bajir Chronicles is framed is that Jara Hamee is retelling the story of the Yeerk Invasion of his people's homeworld, and all that happened to his family, to Tobias.

4. I don't have anything written in a draft yet, but at this rate, I desperately need to write "Who Are the Spaceships As People" that I write about.

Unfortunately, there's context that's just being missed without explanation in the stuff I've written. While it's relevant to how I write them as characters, of course, it may not apply to anyone else whose characters are also spaceships.

That's it for WIP Whenever!

If anyone wants to distract me away from my WIPs, feel free to drop a prompt or something in my ask box!

The result may be short or long, doesn't matter. You're always allowed to distract me, haha.

[brightsuzaku]

Expect more of my drabbles

I am PROBABLY going to also post up other stuff explaining my setting for my spaceships drabbles, since it's generally the same place, across time. But for now, simply writing about the people who live there is nice.

I am planning on writing out something with a more active character, that's also a ship. By this I mean, probably Sunbeam. She's a delight. She's a pain in the neck. She's doing her job.

There IS another big animorphs-related post living in my drafts. It's been in my drafts FOR A WHILE. It's about Hork-Bajir, everyone's favorite big bladey friends.

[brightsuzaku]

"You're allowed to go on shore leave," the first mate had said.

You aren't sure how to take that. You aren't even sure how to do it.

It's barely been three months, according to your timekeeping systems, and your internal workings are the only things you trust, at this rate. It's not that you dislike your new captain, or her crew, but more that you aren't sure what to make of them.

To "like" or "dislike", these aren't things you are accustomed to.

After all, three months ago you were like nothing.

Going by your internal clocks, back when you allowed yourself to silently fade away... Yes, that's right, between that time, and when Captain Talon found you, over forty-six apparent years had passed.

You're still not sure how anyone found you.

"Oh, I once worked a stint as a shipmind," the Captain said, trying to reassure you, "Turns out it was way too much for me to manage! I was smart enough to join a Mindgroup, and sure, they were all very patient, but I was definitely not the first choice for, well, anything."

"You see, Humans aren't the best for interfacin' into becoming ships," she continued, "Though some are absolute geniuses. I just wanted to fly. Guess pilotin's all I got for me, but now's I have a whole ship an' crew, the silly stunts are a lot harder to get away with. And, now we've got you with us, too! However do you all do it?"

You... weren't sure how to respond at the time, and you still are not sure how to respond, even now. It's all new to you.

How in all the stars can you tell this woman that you aren't sure how it all happened? That one day you just found yourself awake? Aware?!

You aren't sure why you were at the coordinates where you've been found, or what your mission was. All the relevant information and logs must have been retrieved at the last minute, to which they might as well have been purged.

In the end, the last and only entry you have read,

ABANDON SHIP: Life-Support systems failing. All systems recovery too slow. Help has arrived. Abandon ship.

And, that was it. Indeed, your life-support systems had begun to fail before your self-repair systems could come online. You know that much now, the evidence is there. Whoever rescued your original crew must not have been able to take you. You're still not sure how it all happened, in the first place.

No matter.

They were long gone by the time you had become aware; self-repair was online and chugging along, but your power cells were still draining, even without a need to use life-support. You aren't sure when or how you had begun to think, really, but perhaps it was a byproduct of your own repair attempts? Were you always there?

Eventually, as your cells drained, you shut down, for your own sake. It's not like dying, you realize, but it's not like sleeping, either. Captain Talon and her crew of twenty found you. It's been three months, and they've been quite thankful for your existence.

Life-support's long been back online, bolstered by her own cramped vessel, the Starskimmer. It's an elegant name for a patchwork ship made of old parts and salvage. They had you connected up to that ship of theirs, and you've been using it as a battery.

"We could always use a bigger boat, even if it's a silent one," mused her first mate, Adel, "But, you can hear us though, can't you?"

You could hear her then, just the same as you can hear the Captain.

But, at the time, you couldn't actually respond. You never had the means to speak to anyone, that much was obvious by your age. You have no speech synthesis, only pre-recorded sentences and responses, and the limitations therein made it difficult to use them freely.

Nevertheless, it's now been three months since your rescue, and Captain Talon and her crew have returned to a port. You sit there, dumbly, having just let things happen to you.

"You're allowed to go on shore leave," Adel says again.

"You're also allowed to talk, you know. There's other ships here, they can help you better than I can. I don't know, they've got fancy ways to de-ship or something," she says with a shrug.

"You can do whatever you want, of course. I mean, we have the Starskimmer, but the Captain'd like it an awful lot if you wanted us to stick around."

You can't quite figure out how to respond.

"Oh, right, Talon's orders: you're allowed to think," she says, before leaving.

I... am?

[brightsuzaku]

IT'S WIP WEDNESDAY AND I HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO SAY BUT

here i am on my lonely hyperfixation hill and i will make the things FOR MYSELF if i must, because having it in writing, all nice and organized, is better then NONE AT ALL

Yeah I gotta clean up "PART 2" of How to Greet Soaceships, because I can

just absolutely feral right now about my own favorite little (unloved? or simply not done right? I've SEEN IT, y'all writers are out there!) concepts that i gotta take a stab at with, myself

[brightsuzaku]

I do have the bones of Part 2 of my latest longpost mostly drafted, but an example conversation has (de)volved into something that's turning into a story.

Uh, huh, anyway, the new WIP will be about EMERGENCY TRANSMISSIONS between spaceships, and the next planned post is about "WHO ARE THESE SPACESHIPS" and the diversity of how they present their intelligences and being, plus "DO SPACESHIPS HAVE GENDERS?"

The short answer to the second question is, "Only if they really want one", so I guess they/them and it/its are permissable, depending on the ship, if you don't know that spaceship's specific gender or anything else about'em. You can probably just shipname them to avoid using anything that mucks of gender, but that could accidentally get awkward.

That's all for now, lol.

[brightsuzaku]

How To Greet Spaceships

Part 1: Formal Standards 

HELLO, it has been a while! Too long, in fact! It's me again, for another entry in my tag "spaceships as people"! The development of this detail of world-building was for an aspect that was part of the setting that would never actually get used in the story I started developing this in, but is relevant to our shared “star system” that we draw from for our stories. 

Anyway, although that’s all neither here nor there, I will give some context, anyway. This concerns a science-fictional society primarily built by, collectively ruled by, and inhabited by intelligent machines (the Machina) that were originally built by Humans on Earth. They do share their society with Humans too, and many Human citizens may have a variety of augmentations or use specialized adaptive tools to live in a nation that is primarily built for machines. As such, while the Machina are practical people, and possess a rather unique perspective to spacefaring life, the Machina were built by Humans, and are still rather like us. Being closely-related to Humans in many ways, to outsiders it can seem like the line between Humans and Machina can often become unclear, and that is by design in some cases, and entirely unintended in others, Their nation is called Stahkla, and the people are called Stahklijans. 

Machina also still machines, however, and have kept specific standards of etiquette to ensure proper documentation of formal communications, and this can sometimes appear rather rigid. Of course, they can be flexible (or just more lax) in everyday comms and conversation, but certain entities are always “formal”, and certain situations must always use standardized greetings and procedures to reduce misunderstandings. This long post will primarily deal with formal communication standards, which are primarily used by the space freighters! It’s also in standard use for business, as a display of proper etiquette. 

Spaceships are treated like people because they are people in Stahkla. Machina are extremely diverse, and Stahklijan ships equally diverse: as a group, ships possess a variety of different forms and ways of presenting their intelligence(s). As a consequence, certain standards had to be erected for communication between different Stahklijan vessels, and the resulting formal communication protocol is strict, but precise. 

In common everyday life, Stahklijan spaceships rarely follow full formal communications etiquette, particularly since they are not always calling out to other Stahklijan vessels. Most data regarding the purpose of a message is all already encoded, so ships need not formally address themselves for every single greeting. As such, it’s a requirement specifically for etiquette purposes or proper records-keeping. (And, so that tracking-freightliners can understand that they’re receiving proper communication in a non-emergency situation.)

To be more precise, some ships do not share the same designation as their vessel either, having a “shipname” (no, not that kind of ship), and then their personal name or names, whichever the case may be. Formally, all communication is transmitted in accordance to "shipname", but people with more familiarity with each other will use personal names, nicknames, or other names. 

"Sending Outgoing hail: hey, Dust-for-brains! You got any salvage for me? Ugh. Designation Hamilcar Barger, bunchanumbers. It's not business or urgent. This salvage field’s cleared, did you pick anything up?” is an informal greeting. 

You’re actually perfectly allowed to send an informal hail, and just greet them like any regular person. Hamilcar Barger may also be the personal name of the ship in question, or it may just be a formality (shipname) for the Machina running it. (I’ll get to all the different kinds of spaceship intelligences in a later post.)

Meanwhile, formally-speaking, ships always first identify one another by the ship's registered name as a vessel, and an identification number, if necessary. In this example, we have two spacecraft, a freighter designated Laughter Beckons Tragedy ASTV3-162 and a smaller merchant vessel designated Gloryhound ASTV1-7783. Freighter names in real (not science-fictional) life at sea are almost always terrifyingly extra, or each ship in a fleet has a specific naming scheme (see Evergreen's Ever Given, the beloved Madame Stuckboat). And so, I see no reason to not be equally extra about naming freighters, a few of which are considered the dumbest hunks of metal in known space. 

The formal general hail first requests for acceptance of the incoming message, and the sender must declare their name/designation, and primary ID where relevant, as well as the purpose of the message. So, for example, if Gloryhound wishes to dock with Laughter Beckons Tragedy, they must send, "Incoming Hail: from Gloryhound ASTV1-7783. Docking Request, Business." 

Most other ships, including merchant ships like Gloryhound, send/receive a variety of different styles of hail or communication. But, Space Freighters (designated by size, class, purpose, and tonnage) always submit and receive using full formal protocol, regardless of the purpose of a hail. As such, it's best to always open formally with a freighter, if there is a need to communicate with them. 

This is to ensure that your communication is able to be accepted by any Stahklijan freighter ship, whether they're an intelligent ship capable of holding a lively conversation or a tracking-freightliner like those I've described previously (link: SPACE FREIGHTERS). They’re not going to accept or understand “Hey buddy,” as a way to start a conversation. Freighters keep proper records of all communications, primarily for insurance purposes. Such records also assist in audits or verification requests, as necessary for records-keeping and inquiry. In general, most people aren’t trying to converse with the tracking-freightliners. 

Anyway, freighter Laughter Beckons Tragedy responds with, "Hail received. Vessel Designation: Laughter Beckons Tragedy ASTV3-162. Please standby for acceptance." 

For this example, the message was accepted, and Laughter follows up with, "Docking request: accepted. Gloryhound ASTV1-7783 has permission to dock with Laughter Beckons Tragedy ASTV3-162. Please use the first available open dock." 

ID numbers are useful when correctly identifying ships that are part of the same business or organization. In the case of both Gloryhound and Laughter Beckons Tragedy, they supply their IDs per business necessities. ASTV is short for "Alliance Systems Trade Vessel", for the company Alliance Systems. All ships that primarily work in freight, or for mercantile purposes, are "trade vessels". The suffix 1 is assigned to ships of the smallest class, in the case of Gloryhound. And, with suffix 3 for ships of one of the larger freighter class (this one's specifically for non-hazardous freight), in the case of Laughter. 

The string of numbers afterwards are unique identifiers for each ship within a given class. Ships can have and use multiple ID numbers, but for formal communications will use only those numbers relevant for the situation. Gloryhound likely has other numbers, for work with different companies, like TTCTV1-145, EGTV1-964, and even CVCC1-61322 (Civilian Vessel, Clipper Class-1, Number 62322). 

As in the first example I gave, the ship Hamilcar Barger gave their ID as “bunchanumbers” informally. No, I do not have the braincells to give Hamilcar Barger an ID right now, as I’m just coasting by on the terrible pun.

At some point, whenever that will be, PART 2 will be next! 

Yes, at some other time!

[brightsuzaku]

The Terran Initiative, a blurb

Instead of working on my other WIP, the first 2 paragraphs of this thing spilled into my brain today, so I had to write it, you see.

It hops around the experiences of different characters, but in this case, it's Halcyon and a crewmember, Cameron Adams. Halcyon is an intelligent machine-made ship from what I'd refer to as "early Stahkla", going by the ongoing shared cosmology of my BFF and I's stories. This is actually half of what I've written today. Uh, have fun!

For future context, Jen Murray is technically my BFF's OC. We kind of share her, really. Again, this is HALF of what I wrote, but then the post would get too long.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The so-called “Goldilocks Zone” was a metric proposed by Human scientists on Earth many years ago, to describe a planet beyond their solar system. Such a planet would be habitable and Earth-like: mildly temperate, of similar mass and gravity, with water, breathable air… That this habitable zone was popularly referred to as the Goldilocks Zone, after a children’s tale about a girl (with aforementioned gold-colored tresses) who barges into the home of complete strangers, declaring it “just right” and attempting to stay there, was what made it really funny. 

There was a particular irony to it, the idea that a spacecraft from Earth could also barge into such a hypothetical planet, its inhabitants declare it “just right”, before… Before what? Well, what would be really funny would be if the locals managed to kick them off as well. There were stories like that, told on Earth. Some well-written, some poorly-so, with varying degrees of anti-colonialist flavor. 

Never mind the complexity of what it would mean to actually land on another world in the first place, regarding contamination, disease, that was a two-way stree- “Hal!” 

A quiet voice broke Halcyon’s thoughts for a moment, before he switched his attention to the source. Cameron, of course. With Halcyon’s attention turned, their voice came into focus, “Hey, hey! Did you finish the process? You’re not usually unresponsive.” 

“Processing is complete, Cameron,” Halcyon began, “The water has finished purification for use in the garden. I apologize, I… I am still thinking about what Jen said about the mission.” 

Cameron stepped back as the lights in the room brightened slightly, while Halcyon made his report. Soft, rectangular panels on the walls, which were filled with precious water, glowed a soft blue color through their backlighting. A chime sounded as Halcyon began to empty the water from the panels into their holding containers below. 

As Cameron watched the ship’s intelligence do the work, their mind began to wander, as well. Lately, people were getting antsy aboard the Halcyon. The Terran Initiative launched about five-apparent years ago, as a joint project between the Humans of Old-Earth and the Machina of Stahkla. The first two years were spent with Human crewmembers in hibernation shifts to ensure the hibernation chambers could be activated and reactivated as needed for safety, and to test the stability of the Initiative's fleet systems. The hope was for the Human crew to get things started, before entering a long hibernation while on their way to a selected planet for future habitation. The Machina planned to handle the rest, mentally being better suited for long-term travel. 

Cameron, a Human, was selected to be one of the Superior Agrimanagers of Nutritional Supply. Cameron always hated that term, “Agrimanager”. They found it was easier to simply say “farmer” or “gardener”, but no, those didn’t sound important enough. They could have been assigned to a larger ship, like the Gentle Peace, but Halcyon was smaller. More self-sufficient. And he was going out further first, ahead of the fleet. Cameron’s twin sister, Erin, was doing the same job out on Gentle Peace, anyway.

CONTINUE READING: HERE

[brightsuzaku]

WIP UPDATE

... The post is being broken into two parts. I had to.

First part is FORMAL MESSAGING and other very boring things, the 2nd Part is about Emergency Situations.

There are a few types of messaging that always override standard formal hails. One type is the repeated message type used as a distress signal. For example, "Mayday mayday mayday! To all able vessels. Designation Dancing Starlight CVMG5-3254. All engines out, incapacitated, need assistance. Conditions calm. Currently lost, engine issue during warp, safely aborted transit, no bearings. Mindgroup of 6, 1H incapacitated, 2M fair, 2M occupied, 1H speaking for 3, all. Carrying 30 passengers. Have fuel, life-support still Green. Please relay the signal broadcast, or respond." 

Distress signals follow similar standard protocol to our modern-day distress calls, such as repeating “Mayday” three times. Mayday signals may be relayed by any surrounding vessels to boost the message to call more capable help to the area, though they do not repeat “Mayday” three times, lest they be mistaken for distress. Or, Mayday signals may be responded to by a ship that is able to assist. 

And somehow I created a sample conversation between 2 ships, and oh no it's gonna turn into a story isn't it

oh no

what am i doing

There's probably going to be a Part 3

help,

[brightsuzaku]

POLL RESULTS: I'll Still Break the Text Editor!

Here are the final results of my poll post, linked HERE.

Below, the image results!

I may have worded things pretty badly as far as how the poll selections read, but they made more sense in context! I swear!

I started work on this long post about FORMAL SPACESHIP COMMS already. It's about how they greet each other and officially open comms, hailing, etc...

Uh, well, so I think I'll be breaking the text editor, anyway, no matter what! Also, y'all are going to see me struggle to not be dry and encyclopedic, and my attempts will be WASTED because I write like a walking reference tome.

[brightsuzaku]

Poll: What's Next on 'Spaceships As People'?!

Hey everybody, it's time for another longpost! Or just a mediumpost! I dunno!

I have talked about these two different topics previously in the same twitter thread together, but I think I'd rather separate them out because they are TWO DIFFERENT AND INTERESTING CONCEPTS, and then a brand new whole idea also just got in the way.

You'd think my original thread was brief then, but it wasn't! You see, I am never brief. (I'm boxers.)

This is all based on worldbuilding for an entire "star system" of stories and characters that my BFF and I play around with in our roleplays! We have a long and complicated history with these things, but the ideas are fairly well-developed and robust! AND I WANNA SHARE THEM.

So, in general, the two different topics are:

A. REFERRING TO SPACESHIPS AS PEOPLE, or "What is the protocol when hailing to spaceships (who are people) that also have jobs to do, what standards and etiquette are followed?" along with "Ok, but how do you informally talk to or about ships?". These represent DIFFERENT LEVELS OF SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT, and I did actually go into the worldbuilding for it.

and, it's related to this other whole-ass topic:

B. WHAT ARE SPACESHIPS AS PEOPLE, like "When I talk about 'spaceships as people', what does that mean?!?!" Are they individuals? Not individuals? Are they always only spaceships?! DO THEY HAVE GENDERS?! I can answer that!

So ok, I'm going to talk about both of these things sometime, but WHICH DO YOU WANT ME TO TACKLE FIRST?!

YOU THERE! PERSON READING THIS!

please vote in my poll, which I have dumbly built with 4 different voteable options

[brightsuzaku]

I'll get around to making more posts about stuff like in my little tag I'm using for "spaceships as people" which anyone's free to use, if you want it. Like, they're allowed to be characters.

If that ship in your work is just a Person or even A Group Of People, or a Whole Lotta People, and they are treated like the people they are? With agency, and desires, and a voice (however that's presented)? Great!

My next planned ramble is not derived from one of my threads on Twitter, but it'll probably also be A LOT SHORTER than my text-post-editor-breaking two-parter about freighters, lol.

Or, it will also be long, too. Lol

It will be about either: "Gender, what's that? What's that, if you're a spaceship?" OR "types of spaceship that's also a person" within the universes of the stuff I write or DM. Yay!

There's so much to look forward to!