Thanks. That would be a true homage to Gerald K. O'Neill.
Bob Clark
I'd known about the 'O'neill Cylinder' of course; but only in image, not in name - nice to put a name to such a lovly image, thank you!
FWIW
High Heaven isn't - and can't be - a cylinder; it is a series of giant rings on a central rotating shaft - the classic image of a space station but scaled up to vast proportions.
Lunar Haven and
Nouvelle Paris have
not been positively described however, and would be
ideal candidates to be Cylinders. Particularly
New Paris - as the self-styled cultural center of the Outer Terrestrial Worlds; a Cylinder's rolling greens and open skies would provide the perfect backdrop for Kylie's adventures in that artistic but rather self-important Habitat. Thanks!
Just to let you all know; I'm not sure why it hooked me so solidly but Dgatsoulis's assistance in understanding Venus's conditions helped me sketch out a fully-realized novella-sized mystery and I'm deeply involved in writing it at the moment.
Here's the thing: I've tried to make Kylie Wilson's universe as realistic as possible and in that frame; walking on the surface of Venus would be utterly impossible without 'Star Trek'-style magical technology, something I've resisted. I came up with a few options but they were unsatisfying. The first was some kind of energy shield - I rejected THAT out of hand. I absolutely refuse to have shields of
any kind in my universe; especially in this context. But how to create a mechanical means of surviving the surface of Venus - an environment so impossibly hostile the mind can scarcely imagine it?
The second option was to treat Venus as a sort of mini gas giant - the surface is inaccessible; any Human activity takes place in dirigible factories far up in the atmosphere - still horribly deadly; but
just surviveable enough. That's probably the more realistic option if we're choosing between unlikely scenarios but...well, it was unsatisfying. One of the core parts of Kylies personality is that she hates going into unnatural, dangerous environments. "Unnatural" to her is anything that isn't the closely-regulated, comfortable and safe environment of
High Heaven. She had enough difficulty going to
Earth; which she regarded as dirty, chaotic, dangerous and unpredictable. With lots of mosquitos - a terrifying alien predator she has an unreasoning fear of; at least until actually goes there and realizes the things are at least a thousand times smaller than she expected. (It's quite a funny series of scenes in
Midnight Rose.) Can you imagine what she will be feeling going to
Venus, the most hostile place in the Solar System? She is also extraordinarily gregarious. Growing up in a Habitat cheek-to-jowl with hundreds of thousands of other people; the very
concept of being alone frightens her. For that reason, I realized instantly after reading the excellent posts on this thread I
needed to place her in the most terrifying situation possible: lost and alone, with a failing life-support system, on the featureless surface of Venus itself. It almost sounds cruel; considering how much loving attention I've given to her in the past five years - and believe me, I
do love her; she is by far the most detailed and human character I've ever created. But I need a situation that will take her so far out of herself; drive her so deeply into panic and terror she forgets her deeply-ingrained professionalism and acts purely on instinct. And in
her case; 'instinct' includes insane violence and rage; unleashing an animal in her psyche so powerful she will do
anything at all to survive.
I created the climax of the novella first - the day after we talked about Venus. I originally intended it as one of two scenarios to offer you for review; to let you decide which is the more scientifically realistic and enjoyable from a reader's perspective. But I scrapped that idea; and am going with this one alone. I'm not happy about creating a magic technology that will help Humans survive Venus but I remembered that I
already have a magic technology; one that forms the very core of the Wilson Arc: Synthis. Synthis (Synthetic Human Tissue) is an unexplained, incredibly useful - and dangerous - material; I've written about it in other excerpts I've offered here.
So if I'm willing to use Synthis; I don't see a problem with using the Field - the technology that allows Humans to survive Venus. It's not a shield - I'm not willing to go that far. I
hate shields - or at least their implications in Kylie's world. It's a "Just enough" magic technology that allows the story to take place.
And - I must admit to a certain satisfaction - for the "Bad Guy" to get whacked in a particularly gruesome and horrifying way. (Hey believe me - he had it coming. In spades. Heh heh heh.) Given that Kylie - for all her force and potential for violence - never lets her animal desires get in the way of her professional duty and has never killed an opponent (though she
has beaten the daylights out of a few...dozen); I decided that
this was the time to let the Bad Guy get his just desserts in truly hideous fashion.
So instead of determining the accurate science and deriving the story from that - which I have tried to do up until now - I'm going the opposite way: writing the story and trying to find the science that will support it.
Cheers!
) in the stories. Post Collapse Earth is simpler, less divided, less crushed than our modern world. The pace of progress has slowed somewhat; the insane need for 'better, faster' has mellowed a bit. With the IODC overseeing all off-world development (its monopoly becomes an important point in future stories) corporate interest is strong, but rampant capitalism tightly controlled.
