Fiction : Schism : Generation Ships

[drew]

Folks,

Been pretty busy of late and not had much time to work on Mutabilis, however, did have a spot of free time and decided to take a slight detour and finish my other short Oolite Story - Schism.

This was inspired by the sight of Draco's OXP for Generation ships lumbering through space and I thought I might peek under the hull of one of them.

It's something of a different type of story, much less action and more cerebral. Here's my take on what be going on in those massive ships after 30 generations in space...

Enjoy!

Schism

Feedback as always.

Cheers,

Drew.

[Draco_Caeles]

Drew... thank you. I'm honoured that my work inspired you to such writing.

This is the first time I've been on the Oolite site since... oh, not long after I uploaded the GenShip and TransHab station OXPs. I received the notification that there was a new message, and this is what I found. I'm speechless, really. Drew... thank you.

For those who might be interested, I can add this. I've begun a degree course in Computer Games Software Development, and finished my 1st year in May. Part of the course involves 3D modelling... and as the brief was wide open, I looked back through some projects for inspiration. And my eyes strayed to a half-forgotten directory on my PC containing the GenShip OXP, and I knew what I was going to model.

And here is the outcome. I'd be lying if I said that this is how I originally envisioned the GenShips when I was building the OXP, but I think it's fair to say that these are the Mk IIs, at least. The models, which were created and rendered in 3DS Max 8, are based directly upon the old Wings3D models

So, here it is. And Drew, I hope you like her now you see her in something approaching her true glory.

http://www.draco.toucansurf.com/Images/ ... _16x12.jpg

And, once again, Drew... thank you for your most wonderful story.

[Captain Hesperus]

Drew, as ever your talent stuns me.
A fantastic and terribly dark tale that chilled me right at the end. A fabulous job!

Captain Hesperus

[Cmdr Wyvern]

Drew, as ever your talent stuns me.
A fantastic and terribly dark tale that chilled me right at the end. A fabulous job!

Captain Hesperus

This Lizard dittos that Cat.

If ever one wondered where some of the odd beliefs in the Ooniverse came from...

[TGHC]

Excellent, a dark sombre tale with a sociological realism.

Truly awesome.

[Jack_H]

Hey Drew,

as i said on the ebbs, thought it was good, though the constant renaming of things with apostrophes got repetitive near the end.

Unfortunately, the ending was evident to me the instant the girl told her senior she would talk to the cardinal alone. Too cliche, in my opinion. what would ahve been real cool is if she did tell everyone and completely changed their way of life. that would ahve been different.

[drew]

Thanks for the feedback folks!

I have to admit to being a bit nervous about this one as it's quite different to what I've posted before, but it seems to have hit a spot. Good to hear people enjoyed it.

Difficult not to be inspired by those Generation ships Draco, particular if you hit the external views and watch it slowly drift past outside your Cobra - I thought they were spectacular.

Point taken on the apostrophe'd words. I was trying to find a way to 'age' words that would be still be needed and understood after 800 years, long after their original spelling might have been lost. Once you've started, you've got to keep going...

As for the cliched ending... I rather like cliche's.

I did think about writing it the other way around, but it wouldn't have been a short story then as to do justice to complete breakdown of the 'onboard religion' and overthrow of the structure would be a complete book. I thought it was more poignant this way.... perhaps there is another generation ship out there ...

It was also quite tricky trying to get the characters to speak in a natural, but oddly different style from the familiar.

I hope you all discerned the Kobayashi Maru and Gregory Malenchenko sci-fi and space flight history references...

Wiki entry here

Cheers,

Drew.

[Cmdr Wyvern]

I'll admit that the Cobra pilot's name didn't ring any bells, but the name of the ship was instantly recognizable.

If anyone missed it, go rent 'the wrath of Khan'.

[Griff]

Hi Drew
Sorry man, don't mean to derail your thread, just wanted to mention how cool that genship looks in Draco_Caeles screen shot! awesome stuff! by the way DC, Ahrumans upped the model vertex & polygon face limits so you might be able to resurect that custom cargo pod project you were working on ages ago, plus there's shader & materials goodness available too, c'mon glsl shader writing, you know you want to!

[Jack_H]

Hey Drew,

Sorry if my reply came off negative. It WAS a good piece. I did enjoy it and you certainly made an atmosphere and kept it.

I think all your 'evolved' words would have worked just fine without the apostrophes AnnLynsis or whatever. Its just that everyone has started doing it all over the place for peoples names and place names and it gets a little tiresome, but i guess im getting a little cynical about it.

[drew]

Thanks Jack, no problem! Glad you enjoyed it.

I only tried to use the apostrophes where letters were potentially missing.

Eg. Ann-Eley-Sis used hyphens to try to emphasis Miriam's confusion over the strange new word, where as V'Sel used apostrophes (Obviously should have been Vessel)

So there was method to the madness!

Cheers,

Drew.

[Uncle Reno]

Nice story Drew, a good read.

[*cat]

A good story!
But PLEASE correct that "holiest of holes" in the first paragraph!

[TGHC]

a freudian slip?

[drew]

A good story!
But PLEASE correct that "holiest of holes" in the first paragraph!

That seems to be a bug in adobe acrobat for some reason... It's ok in my document and if you zoom in you can see the 'missing' 'i'!

Cheers,

Drew.