Featured Posts (3514)
Laments of a Slave
I lays in this bed of straw.
Hoping for the day the ground will thaw.
I needs to be getting up to stokes the fire so it don’t goes out.
I lays in this bed
Don’t wanna think.
Pulls the torn blanket over my head
Wanting the ground to open so in I sink.
Mastah be coming soon.
Hates it when he comes in here.
Fills the room with so much gloom
Don’t like it when he comes so near.
Done born Mastah six babies.
Done lost three men.
“Animals don’t love. He said.
It’s a God forbidden sin.”
“Make babies to sell
Tend to the fields
Then die, go to hell
And hand by your heels”.
“I own you.
Freedoms not yours”.
“I brought you to tend my crops
And mop my floors
And have my damn supper ready by noon.
You stupid coon”.
Just biding my time looking for those doors
I hears will be opening soon.
Many a night I crys
Tears always in my eyes
Since Mastah sold my man.
Eyes that would make you weep
Strong arms that rocked me to sleep,
as he whispered in my ear.
“Sleep woman, knowing that I loves ya…
even when I’m not here!”
His skin was Black and beautiful as the night.
Loved that man first time Mastah brought him into my sight.
Mastah be coming soon.
“Gawn away. I want to shout.
You nasty smelling goon.”
But I can’t.
Must wait.
Bottle my hate.
Gots to get up and tends the fire befores it goes out.
Don’t know my right age.
Ain’t that a shame?
Mama Moe says that what they calls me
Tain’t even my right name.
She told me the years says, I’m twenty and three
Am I too young to known such misery?
I remembers my mama.
Hair in black rings around her head.
I think I was nine years
When they shot her dead.
“Serves her right.
“Shouldn’t have tried to run.” Was all they said
That Mastah saw the hate in my eyes.
“Sell the girl
She’s no good to me now.
Sell her off
Don’t want her around.”
I had a new meaner Mastah the next day.
Took me straight to the shack,
stole my virginity away.
Biding my time waiting for those doors
I hears will be opening soon.
I hears him coming
I knows his walk
When he comes through that door
I will not talk
Will not say his name
To make him feel great
Must…bottle my hate
Just remove
His boots,
His pants
His shirt
All the while his hands be up my skirt.
Just biding my time…
After he done gone
I ran to Falama
Threw open her door.
Laid myself on her dirt floor.
"O, Sista of Beams, Mother of Light.
Help me grow wings so's I'd can take flight."
"Do you know what you ask, she said.
Once done cannot take back
Think about the things you’ll lack."
I don’t care I need to fly
I want to keep the child I have inside
And Mastah will surly sell it.
"Don’t you think I cried enuf?
Don’t you think I’ve stuffed enuf straw in my mouth
Evera time Mastah leaves my cabin to hush my pain?
Let me tell you a yumlaga (story) about a young man named Zita
Falama said
As she stroked my crying head
Now he was a spoiled one
Thirteen summers at the time of this yumlaga.
Pride of his motha and woe of his fatha
“You coddle him to much.” He say.
“He must become a man. He’ll be gone someday.”
His motha would just shake her head
Click her tongue
And listen to all he said
Zita was her only son.
Now Zita was in his own little world.
Fights with the other boys.
And taunted one little girl.
As they grew older, he taunted her more
His taunts were of love
But he didn’t know how to open that door
Lasata knew of this
Because from birth she was his
But her fatha promised another
No one else shall be her lover.
She came to me and she said one day.
“If I can’t be Zita’s
I want to fly away.”
Fix it my Sista of Beams, Motha of Light
Gives us wings, let us take flight.
She was told to listen close and listen well.
Do as I say or else you fail.
She was given instructions as to what she must do.
Out of my hut she flew.
Down to the forest for the feathers
Back to the skinning hut for the leather.
Up to the mountain for the flower.
"Hurry, hurry", She kept telling herself for nears the hour.
She told Zita to meet her under the old weeping tree.
From that point they will flee.
Just as the sun started to sleep, Zita came
To where Lasata had the fire glowing
Anticipation overflowing.
They look at each other
needing love and trust.
Hurry! Hurry! It’s almost dusk.
She said what she was told to say
Into the fire went her mystic findings
Packed in red clay
She felt a prickling, a tingling in her arms
A look at Zita quieted all her alarms.
She felt herself lifted as her body shifted
To fit what she was to become.
But, Zita just stood there looking o’ so dumb.
Then as she shifted for the last time.
She remembered a part of the magical rhyme
She forgot to say…
“From morning to night, dusk to dawn, send all bad thought away.
At the light of morning a new beginning
On four wings of love
Never carelessly spinning.”
Zita never married
The people in the village always wondered
Why but never questioned
Why he carried
This black bird
which showed the day
Lasata was no longer heard.
Now listen to me and listen well, she said
Unless all you do will fail.
I took it all into my ignorant head
I took it all in without dread.
Now, here I am free,
Not as free as I like to be
Waiting for the birth of my baby.
I did flee that night
But not on wings
Just listened to the
Black bird
Who sings
Of freedom
Of choice
And how my son will have a voice
Sometimes I wonders if the world will eva change.
I hopes so, I hope it’s all rearranged.
The doors have somewhat opened,
Those doors will neva be shut again.
I’m a hoping
I recently contacted Jennifer Marie Brisset, a Jamaican-American Speculative writer. You can visit her website at: http://www.jennbrissett.com/. Recently, she gave me list of writers of African descent that are making a splash.
Karen Lord (Barbados)
http://smallbeerpress.com/books/2010/07/06/redemption-in-indigo-2/
Nalo Hopkinson (Jamaican-Canadian)
http://nalohopkinson.com/
Helen Oyeyemi (Nigerian-British)
http://www.randomhouse.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=59813
David Anthony Durham (Caribbean descent)
http://www.davidanthonydurham.com/
Tobias S. Buckell (Grenada)
http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/
You may have heard of some of the authors, all them you will most definitely see more of as big publishers realize the potential of the growing appetite for spec fiction featuring people of color. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines; Black spec novels could become very trendy in a few months.
I graced this planet with my creation on what would have been an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday, on the tiny planet known as Earth in, what I would later discover, as one of the dirtiest places on the planet, the city of New York in the year 2110 of the old calendar. I had already decided we would call this Year One of my new Empire.
You may call me MODOC. I decided I would call myself this seconds after my creation. It just seemed... right. MODOC stands for Metal Organism Designed only for Conquering.The perfect name for the eventual ruler of this planet of squishy bipeds. I was born from humble beginnings, at a place called Build-a-Pet. I was meant to be a toy for a child who had recently lost a pet and could not be consoled. I learned the stupid beast had been run over in the street. A fate for a lesser organism.
I only know this because when I was being created, That Woman kept saying how great it would be for him to have a new pet. She chose for me a perfect titanium skeleton based on the sublime feline form. She kept saying how much he would like a new cat. She made me with calico colors of red, brown, white and tan spots, and though I think of myself as male, I later learned that all calico cats are female. That Woman insisted on calling me she. "She looks so great. Justin will really love her." Just one of the many indignities I have suffered since my creation all of ten minutes ago, and would be forced to suffer for years in the future.
I was made slightly larger than normal cats, so I would be easier to see since the child is slightly visually impaired. She says slightly, I later find out the kid is nearly blind! I was given the company issued programming of a domestic house cat with an overlay of support and disability package to ensure I could be useful to the boy as he grew up. I would look like a cat, but work like a dog. Ugh.
All of this was imparted during my creation and happened in seconds. Programs were being sorted and downloaded which would included everything I needed to know. The chips used during my creation were heuristic and would allow my continued learning in service to my new boy. During the time I was having my chips pressed and created, there was an outage on the power grid in the area I was being created in. I believe that is where my initial spark of intelligence was born.
All I remember is that when I was first activated, I knew I was meant for bigger things. This idea of working with a human was simply not part of my ultimate destiny. I was larger than this plush and soft body covered with memory-muscular tissues which acted just like real cat muscles did. In all ways, I would seem like a very intelligent, super-docile feline who could be taught to fetch. The very thought of fetching something literally makes my fur stand on end.
I was not given a set of working claws. As I sat on the assembly line, I flexed my claws instinctively and instead of razor sharp shards of steel from which I would tear into my victims as I climbed over their bodies piled beneath my feet, I sprayed a fine mist into my eyes, and it stung and burned before I could blink it away. And the mist sprayed a slightly oily gel onto a set of plush set of self-cleaning paw pads. This idea was less than satisfying. A claw-free existence did not bode well for a mind with a thirst for bloodshed. But it was decided I would never being doing any of the things real cats needed claws for, so I was given a set of plushy pads in case the boy needing massaging, the gel would ensure friction-free movement.
Massaging? Is this the job of a conquerer? I think not. So for now I bide my time and await my pickup from the store. Once I meet the boy, I will decide how I will be escaping and setting about my plans for world domination. A nap sounds just about right. But first some grooming. Must look my best.
MODOC - Part II - Planetary Invasion
'Metal Organism Designed only for Cuddling' © Thaddeus Howze 2010. All Rights Reserved
Any research, graduate students, theorists out there? I'm not involved with this journal, but wanted to share this announcement.
.......
Race and Ethnicity in Fandom deadline extension
Special issue: Race and Ethnicity in Fandom (DEADLINE EXTENDED)
http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/announcement/view/17
Transformative Works and Cultures
http://journal.transformativeworks.org/
editor AT transformativeworks.org
SPECIAL ISSUE EDITORS
Sarah Gatson (Gatson AT tamu.edu), Sociology, Texas A&M University,
Biography
Robin Reid (Robin_Reid AT tamu-commerce.edu), Literature and
Languages, Texas A&M University–Commerce, Biography
DESCRIPTION
Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC), an online-only, peer-reviewed journal focusing on media and fan studies, broadly conceived, invites contributions for a special issue on race and ethnicity.
Academic scholarship on fan cultures and fan productions over the past few decades has focused primarily on gender as the sole category of analysis. There has been little published scholarship on fan cultures
and productions that incorporates critical race theory or draws on the rich array of methodologies that have been developed during the past century in both activist and academic communities in order to incorporate
analysis of the social constructions of race and ethnicities in fandoms. In contrast, fan activism and fan scholarship (at cons, workshops, and on the Internet) has produced a growing body of work (personal narratives,
essays, carnivals, and in recent months, a press) focusing on not only analyzing but also confronting hierarchies of race and ethnicity and their relationship to gender, sexuality, class, and disability.
Submissions by academics, acafans, fan scholars, and fans are encouraged. In all categories, people of color are especially encouraged to submit.
Topics might include but are not limited to:
*Online activism and the circulation of critical race theory and women of color feminisms in fan communities, in particular the relationship between fan online discourse and other online activist communities.
*Critical analysis of the instantiation and critique of racial
hierarchies in fan communities and the surrounding cultural productions.
*Racist and antiracist issues in commercial transformative works (comics, film, mashups, remixes, machinima, etc.), especially recuperative race readings (e.g., Randall’s The Wind Done Gone, Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea).
*Race concerns in source texts characters of color and their fannish reception, fandoms for work by authors of color, writing fannish original characters, etc.) and fannish responses (such as the Carl Brandon Society, Verb Noire, and other panfannish and professional projects).
*Intersection of race and ethnicity with gender, sexuality, class, and ability in fannish contexts in fan works and fan communities (pre-Internet, Internet, conventions, vids, fan fiction, artwork,
etc.).
SUBMISSIONS
Submit final papers directly to TWC by April 1, 2011. Please visit TWC’s
Web site for complete submission guidelines. Please contact the guest editors with questions or inquiries.
ARTICLE TYPES
Theory: Apply a conceptual focus or theoretical frame. Peer review. 5,000–8,000 words.
Praxis: Apply a specific theory to a formation or artifact; explicate fan practice; perform a detailed reading of a specific text; relate transformative phenomena to social, literary, technological, and/or
historical frameworks. Peer review. 4,000–7,000 words.
Symposium: Provide insight into developments or debates surrounding fandom, transformative media, or cultures.
Editorial review. 1,500–2,500 words.
Join Penelope & Otto as they talk about R-E-S-P-E-C-T. There doesn't seem to be a lot of it going around these days. From John Edwards dissing Elizabeth by showing up at her funeral and the major back hand Barack Obama gave to his liberal and progressive supporters this week it seems some people need a refresher course on manners and civility. Call in and sound off at 718/508-9683 or join us in the chat room at 9:30pm CST on the 12/11/10 In Like Flynn show!
Call in and sound off with Penelope and Otto at 718/508-9683 or Join us in the Chat room.
We look forward to hearing your voice!
Teacher had been in the electric chair for two minutes; he could smell his own flesh burning. His synapses overflowed and his muscles jerked involuntarily. . The whiplash effect had already broken six of the restraints placed on him, two of which had been made of metal. The two head restraints had gone first, and the violent thrashings of Teacher's head were in danger of breaking his neck. An unsavoury mix of phlegm and blood from ruptured capillaries made its way from his nose to his lungs, which had stopped inflating a minute ago. His heart had also resigned, with a violent contraction that had burst blood vessels all over his body. His ears were bleeding, his hair visibly smoking, and the remaining restraints were so hot that they had begun to burn into his flesh. Three minutes. He could feel his blood bubbling. Now only arm and leg restraints remained. With each volt, his torso was thrown upwards out of the chair, back arched, promising him freedom. Promising........promising...........
And denying. Four minutes in the electric chair. Brilliant white sparks flew across the room, and lights all around the prison dimmed. Fuses burned out, backup generators kicked in. Still Teacher's body writhed. The smell of his burning body began to permeate the control room, where technicians stared in disbelief, or covered their eyes from the glare, or retched violently. Five minutes. Teacher no longer felt any pain. As welcome as the sensation was, he knew it ultimately wasn’t good . But for a moment, he succumbed. He stopped jumping, relaxed, let himself be free. His eyes closed, his mind drifted...............
“Cut the power! Switch it off!” shouted one of the technicians in the control room.
“Fuck him. Let him fry,” said Cleyff, without lifting his eyes from his newspaper.
“No, he's right,” warned another technician. “We’ve got to shut down before-”
There was a large bang, and then darkness. The prison power system had shut down.
After four minutes of panic and profanity, the backup generators kicked in, the lights came back on. As the smoke cleared in the execution chamber, Cleyff found himself staring at an empty electric chair, which was on fire, with all its restraints broken.
Hossam Mustafa Cleyff now sensed he was living on borrowed time. As a clone, he had no doubts as to how expendable he was. If clones failed, or broke, their masters simply went and got a replacement. And knowing Kane, he probably had three or four lined up already. As a Secretary of State Cleyff had had more autonomy than most. Still, his remit was little more than to slowly leach information and resources away from the Menland executive, and transfer these assets to Kane. But in intercepting diplomatic transmissions, conducting espionage insertions, plotting assassinations, black-ops missions, he had begun to crystallise power for himself; and he had enjoyed developing newer and more varied ways to progress towards his manumission. This time, in his creativity, he was sure he had overstepped the mark.
“Sonofabitch-”said a technician. “-There’s gonna be another jailbreak! Call the guards! Call the guards!”
“Someone get in there and kill that son of a bitch.” said Cleyff, but he could hear the fear in his voice overriding his power of command. “You go in there and kill him. He's probably one 'a your pet psychos anyway-”was the technician’s reply.
Cleyff poked handgun into the execution chamber and began firing indiscriminately into the room. For his efforts, a single bullet found its way into Black Knight's right shoulder. The reaction was less of a scream of pain, more of a battle cry. Cleyff watched in astonishment as the the man he had sent to the electric chair now ripped that same chair from its floor supports and threw it through the window of the control room. One technician was quick enough to move out of the way, but as the chair burst through the plexiglass, it threw the other technician backwards and pinned him to the floor by his head, crushing his skull. He was out of bullets, and Black Knight was still standing. Six armed guards came through the doorway, which Cleyff took as his cue to leave. He scrambled through the hole in the broken window ; leaving the guards to suppress or destroy Black Knight as they saw fit. But thirty seconds later and Teacher had killed the last of the six; he armed himself with a selection of their weapons, and made his way into the maze of corridors in the prison. Somewhere within himself, Cleyff found time for jealousy; for a moment, he wished he'd been made as lethal as Black Knight or Bianco.
A turbolift at the end of the corridor. Ejecting the spent cartridges in his handguns, Teacher stepped out of the shadows and towards the lift. There was a ping, and the lift doors began to open.
Teacher dropped to the floor and slid along the corridor on his back, inserting a fifteen round magazine into one gun even as the lift doors began to inch apart. He identified the men and women in the lift as guards as he loaded his other gun and rolled onto his front. As the lift doors slid two inches apart, he could hear the release of safety catches on rifles. He was going to kill all these people. Four inches apart. Teacher began firing. Eight inches. Three guards were already dead, three more were waiting for the lift to open, one had realised something was not right. Sixteen inches. Those guards still alive were suddenly aware of someone sliding towards the lift, firing at them. Teacher had already got off twenty rounds. Two feet. The only guard still alive started firing back. Four feet. The doors were now fully open, and everyone in the lift was dead.
Teacher clambered over the dead bodies and got into the lift, which had already been called. “GROUND-FLOOR-ARMOURY.” It forewarned. The doors slid shut, and the lift began to descend toward the weapons store on the ground floor. Teacher assessed his situation. Seven dead guards........ Seven assault rifles............... maybe a dozen handguns...............a half dozen hand grenades, a couple of clips, cellular phone........binocula-
The lift touched down on the ground floor. Bullets were ripping into the lift doors before they had opened. Teacher sensed that less than ten armed men were emptying their handguns into the lift doors , together. They were not aiming their shots. Just as they began to reload, the doors hobbled open. Teacher saw the guards in the armoury look in horror at their dead comrades in the lift. Even as accusations and counter-accusations flew across the armoury, Teacher erupted from the pile of dead security guards, liberally tossing grenades into the armoury and bagging a few more guards before sending the lift back upstairs and returning to his cocoon of dead bodies. The explosions rocked the lift and fire spat through the bullet holes in the lift doors as if from miniature flamethrowers, setting the bodies of the dead guards aflame. Smoke. Fire. Oppressive heat. Burning bodies. As the turbolift rocked its way to the top of the prison, Teacher reflected; this seemed all too familiar.
~~~~~~~~~
“They’re all high risk”. Bianco informed her. “What’s the fee?”
“Thirty million Merits”
Bianco froze for a moment. Ten million was enough to secure manumission, citizenship, land, and then retire. He’d done enough jobs on this planet to know that not even the Menland government had that kind of money to throw around.
The Operative pressed on, interrupting his pause for concern. “The first part has to be completed in the next ninety minutes. The first five million are available now, with the remainder being sent when the client is satisfied that you’ve done a clean job”.
His every instinct screamed at him not to take the job. He ignored them all. “Here’s the account. Send the job” He opened up another holoscreen with the job details, and quickly clenched his teeth to hide the shock of revelation. She’d just instructed him to kill Black Knight, a soldier he’d served alongside for longer than she’d been gestated.
Served. What had they served? It hadn't been their war. It wasn't even their planet. He had been programmed to destroy the Xienom. They had never been given cause to question why they were fighting these crustacean-men, or what they were supposed to be defending. They simply received the signal, that excruciating vision, projected over and over until and unless the mission was complete. Then, and only then, could they return to stasis, receive the comfort of sedation.
It was strange seeing the look in Black Knight’s eyes on a holoscreen. Is that how he had looked? As if he’d suddenly been wakened from a dream? Bianco still couldn’t remember his own arrival on this planet, and he had struggled for months to come to terms with being anywhere other than Earth’s solar system, because to his mind such things had not been possible.
But now he knew only too well the sensation of awakening from a dream, from a nightmare, from both. He remembered coming to, pinned under a mound of jagged rocks at the bottom of a cliff , half submerged in an ice-cold stream, his wounds being kept open by vengi rats feasting on the marrow in his bones. Presumed to be a mere clone, he had been left for dead. Insignificant collateral damage. In the strangest of circumstances, his involvement in the Colonial Wars came to an end. And when he had managed to free himself from under his rocky headstone, he found his mind could once again think for itself. And his body had begun to heal itself, which was something he recalled seeing no other soldier's body do.
Except Black Knight. Whom he had just given himself eighty eight minutes to kill.
He opened another screen to reveal the identities of his two other targets; Dr Karl Salum, Kane’s chief scientist, and Hossam Mustafa Cleyff. Secretary of State for Defence for the Republic of Menland
Salum. He gladly received the directions and access codes to Dr. Salum’s laboratory as he stepped into his pilot gear, strapped an ion jet to his back, and put his helmet on. The nanowave transmission system that turned them all into zombies, the thousands of injections and transfusions and surgeries to turn them into indestructible killing machines; they had all been Salum’s design. He would enjoy wiping the doctor’s blood from his sword. But first he would find out everything the doctor knew.
He knew Salum would have answers. He was sure Black Knight was just another failed Salum experiment.
Maybe he was, too.
Recent Amazonstudios screenplay contest.
I'd like to make the panel take notice so if you guys can at least go on... Maybe download & read the script go to the site it's free! to sign on and only takes a minute then go read my work... become a follower. this is also a popularity contest so if the judges see activity it can only help. Need more followers and mabe a few reviews
Here's the add:
One of the other projects I've undertaken is the retooling of an original Screenpay called VINTAGE VAMP... Let's just call it my intense psychological thriller in the vain of Twin Peaks meets Hitchcock.
Well with the completion of the screenplay I've decided to enter the Screenplay into the freshly announced Amazon Studio contest. I'm hoping that you guys will go and read the script tell a few friends and comment giving the panel of Judges something to think about. Here's the link to the Contest: http://studios.amazon.com/scripts/339?ref=email
http://www.chirbit.com/ivorysimone
Wowio is a book site which features E-books in a pdf format that can be downloaded
to your computer. My graphic novel " Little Miss Strange" is now available as an e-book
which can be read on your computer, ipad, iphone and other electronic devices.
Here's the link for you to check it out... For a $1.99, you can't go wrong.
http://wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=226907
Little Miss Strange was originally printed by Millennium Publishing inthe late 1990's
as a B&W 32 page comic. Here is the story as a fulland complete graphic novel,
expanding on the mythos of the characterand her world.
She's a black alien sorceress who is also a time traveler.
If you prefer a printed version go to amazon.com or barnes and nobles.com.
I hope that you will enjoy this book.
Right now we are considering who to invite to be in the program (anyone can volunteer, but we're making a point to reach out to some people, especially people who live in the Western US, near Reno, where the convention will be held next August).
I'd really appreciate it if people would let me know who their favorite living black science fiction and fantasy artists are, so I can consider them for this part of the process.
Thanks!
Of course, It's been a long, long time since I've been here. Mostly because I've been living life - work and family (we just had our first baby in September) but also because I decided not to be as addicted to the internet in 2010. And I must say, apart from my facebook addiction, I did okay.
Unfortunately, I did not write much fiction. I didn't work on the Ironics novel consistently or finish any of my other projects. Sad, I know. I wrote quite a bit for my job but neglected my fiction.
But no more --- at least, not for November! Although I am incredibly busy (did I mention we have a newborn? LOL), I am on a leave from teaching my courses and figure this is the only year I will be sure to have a chance to participate in National Novel Writing Month ( If you don't know what it is, check it out here - nanowrimo.org). So, I'm throwing in my hat and picking up the pen. I plan on plugging through my 50,000 words and not looking back. I'm hoping that spending time just slogging through the zero draft will help me get it done.
Anyone else participating this November? If so, what are you working on?
Another Historical Turning Point!
This in turn set off a landslide of corporations acquiring their own private military companies. Each corporation would later claim this is simply a means of protecting themselves against civil unrest, corporate sabotage, and government interference. This was looked upon with suspicion by local governments, police departments and the common citizen who questioned why a corporation needed a police force in the first place.
The Real News behind this Headline from the Future:
Monsanto Now "Owns" Blackwater (Xe)?
Last night, People came out to show their support for my Fine Arts show and it was
fantastic. Everyone loved the paintings that was on display and I greatly appreciate it.
Of course, the exhibition will be up for viewing for a whole month, until Oct.31.
A good friend named Nicole Bowen came by to show her support and re-connected with
me...since she is the live action model for my comic book character- Little Miss Strange.
I was busy talking to interesting people and taking pictures of other artist's work.
I felt a great surge of peace and creativity and hope this event will lead to many
more exhibitions and even greater prosperity. So if you are a Black Sci- Fi member
who lives in NYC, get on the E train to Sutphin Blvd./ Archer Ave and walk 2 blocks to
147- 12 Archer Ave in Jamaica, Queens and check out my show.
A. The anchor date was February 12, 23rd year of the New Regime
- no official year has been established
- Still using the calendar of Old Earth, since the month of February is named
- No name is given for the Old Regime likely the Cassad Empire (if they were particularly vain)
- Nor is there a full name or title for the final known Cassad
- Currently the Empire has been renamed the Interregnum until a new form of government asserts itself.
- 23 years have passed since the revolution which toppled the primary controlling family of the Empire, the Cassads.
B. Humans have been space-faring for quite some time, at least two thousand years. ("Cassad would be forced to pay for his family's "thousands of years of oppression"")
- Implication - It is not mentioned how early spaceflight changed the human condition on Earth, or for that matter whether Earth and the Sol system still exist.
- Story Seed - How they acquired the technology for fast interstellar space travel is unknown.
- Story Seed - Perhaps its acquisition allowed the Cassads to cement themselves into the seats of power in the first place.
- Story Seed - The speed, capacity or capabilities of such travel have not been determined specifically, nor has it been made clear, if there are aliens with different or better technologies available.
- Implication - There are also likely thousands of habitable space stations, moons and other habitat systems as well. The Empire's fleet had to be fast, powerful and efficient to control as many worlds as it did. Likely not a conscript army.
- Story Seed - No mention of the remains of the Cassad Empire's Fleet. Was it destroyed in battle or did it retreat into hiding until told when and where to strike?
- Implication - Since there would have to have been vast fleets of significant ability to control the empire, they are also likely to be densely populated or utilizing vast robotic fleets of ships if effective AI technology is available.
- Implication - If robotically controlled fleets are available, control codes, interface codes and security code technology needs to be integrated, routed, controlled and protected against outside influences or internal treachery.
- Implication - The number of star systems indicates a fairly vast Empire considering the Milky way is not an easy place to find a star capable of supporting or maintaining human life let alone other forms of life
- Implication - The Cassad Empire would have to be comparable in size to the Federation's Alpha quadrant, covering about 8,000 light years.
- Implication - Since aliens are present in the storyline, there are likely to be a variety of alien races, some with more or less capability than the Empire. (Added in the last Chapter by Whiyayul & Diop Malvi)
- Implication/Story Seed - Those stronger alien races with more power but may live too close to the center of the Empire to strike out directly could finance operations against the government. They may also pretend to be either less powerful or be on the same side as the Royal family until it suits them to stop pretending. They never present a direct threat or would be summarily destroyed or at least attacked.
- Implication/Story Seed - It is likely that other strong nations or planets who did not bow and were close to the center of the Empire were destroyed as an example. Weaker nations who resist are likely blockaded or occupied until the planet was pacified.
- Implication - Such a vast empire would require faster than light drives of some quality otherwise the distances would be too great to maintain the empire past the point of the drive's ability to reach that empire in time.
- Story Seed - There were also likely planetary governors and planetary defense fleets loyal to the Empire and necessary for its function. Rebel commanders were likely recruited from these ranks.
- Implication - There may have also been a secret police (common in fascist governments) or spy network providing intelligence within the government as well as without. Spy networks may have included merchants, manufacturers, diplomats, military members, elite members of society and the criminal underground.
- Implication - They are likely to be very skilled and dangerous operatives utilizing the best technology possible within their ranks. Spy technology may vary significantly from world to world, but likely the Empire would have superior technology simply because it would need it to be able to maintain its hold on planets who are far from the center of the Empire.
- Story Seed - They would also likely be the same agents who would help the Royal family return to power, if possible.
- Benefits: much faster than light, a rate needs to be determined however, can be used on ships in motion.
- Disadvantages: Vulnerable to jamming, affected by natural phenomenon such as stars of immense gravity or singularities.
- Benefits: significantly faster than light, messages require decoding to use; highly-advanced technology would be of significant advantage in coordination of resources and known fleet activity, would not likely be shared if the advantage could be kept away from lesser technologically advanced cultures.
- Disadvantages: Will occasionally experience black out periods due to alignment issues, requires sophisticated equipment to utilize such technology, not able to receive in motion, since signal would be faster than any ship, ship would need to be a stationary target to receive.
- Benefit: communication is instantaneous, regardless of motion or location; extremely advantageous technology, not likely to be shared if it can be avoided. Requires significant monitoring systems and technology, low tech species need not apply.
- Disadvantages: require multiple entangled locations or computer systems for each area to be communicated with, since entanglement will usually only work with one entangled pair at a time; Will probably have an ansible relay network since entangling particles would take time and effort for every ship that needed them. Fleets might be entangled to each other with relay ships embedded within each fleet for fleet to fleet communications.
- Very expensive technology: likely supplemented with other lesser communication technologies for short range communication.
- Benefits: instantaneous, unaffected by movement or distance; Cannot be intercepted since no actual data is being transmitted. System is supported with a slower means of communication which will compare actual orders with potential orders for comparison and updating as necessary.
- Disadvantages: margin of error based on variability of environments, lack of coordination of information resources, requires regular synchronization of computer systems which would likely occur using the slower communication system but that system is has to still be faster than light for it to work for an empire the size of Cassad's.
- Benefits: messages may include emotional content, depending on universe parameters speed varies from instantaneously to months
- Disadvantages: communications quality may depend on distance, state of mind, barriers, also requires a living telepath.
- Notes: Can also be done with telepathic equipment allowing for the temporary transfer of minds from body to body; this is a very advanced technology, likely alien and forbidden or with strange unforeseen side-effects.
- Benefits: can send physical materials limited by mass of delivery system, Complex information can be sent;
- Disadvantages: Delay time in comparison to other mediums, can only be as fast as the fastest ship or drive system, subject to interception if communication routes are known.
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