Created Wednesday 13 October 2021
How could I have waited so long to talk about the main character?
It all sucks out there. Everything is harder in space and there's a whole lot of nowhere to go. Teensy tiny dots of good in a vast expanse of nope. Not good. But there is a lot in the vastness of naught. Like helium. More helium than cheese in your favorite cliché. That vastness is vast for two reasons: it keeps frigging growing, damn---much worse than crabgrass; and the great mass that really is out there is squeezed into little chunks. Sure, "little" is a relative term when we're talking Jupiters and black holes, and----once you make your first jump on foot---it's kinda O.K. if it takes a red dwarf's mass to punch a wormhole---as long as you plan things out long term to ensure you have enough red-dwarf-or-greater-mass systems for future use (um, like a trip home after a worthwhile trip).
So the search is always on for ever-longer jumps
Or another way around,
And there is an ethics of war (and sometimes of commerce) not to burn all massive jump points (known locations within the current jump space with enough mass left in them for subsequent jumps) even in the most desperate of times. And yes, there becomes (in the plot) a point at which a group of humans has to decide to use up the last few massive jump'oints to avoid defeat---or to surrender. And they choose to use the jumpoints. Did they win? Did they avoid the defeat they paid so dearly for? We don't know. Jumps are way faster than light, so we'll know in about 150,000 years. Ain't nothing coming or going there at light speed or less.
And yeah, I think maybe we get nearly to the galaxy's core before we meet aliens?
Hm, no. It's not that far out. But do make it pretty far.
Anyway, a persistent theme is the harshness of space.
You have nothing out there except what you bring. And remember, bringing anything costs a red dwarf's mass to bring anything at all.
So, the fact that the rich have their own space ships is crtasy and weird.
And very human. These are those trying to become the next Columbus. He (yeah, so far it's all "he"ss, girls) will find very little out there (unless we start mining the belt) and I predict more represents our last dear hail Mary to get us out of our current human predicament before we haveto stop being adolescents as a species.
Tell them.