“Preparing for The
Farpool: Marauders of Seome”
Sometime after the completion of Tales of the Quantum Corps, with the
publication of Johnny Winger and the
Battle at Caloris Basin, I’ll be starting on the sequel to The Farpool. It’s called The Farpool: Marauders of Seome.
Here’s a sneak peek at what it’s about:
The
Farpool: Marauders of Seome
The Ponkti send mercenaries and
agents through the Farpool and wind up in mid-20th century
Earth. They don’t have quite the same
precise control of Farpool operation as the Omtorish…so they wind up initially
in a different time period…in the middle of a great war…in the middle of the
Atlantic Ocean. They witness a U-boat
attack on a convoy off America’s East Coast.
This intrigues them. Ponkti are always intrigued by conflict and
combat…they are an aggressive kel and they believe the combatants have
technology that will help them dominate Seome.
To learn more, they hook up with the Nazis. The Ponkti have stolen Omtorish technology
(the Em’took procedure and the
lifeship and lifesuit) and have modified themselves to operate as amphibious
beings. The Ponkti are very interested
in German U-boat technology and especially their torpedoes. For their part, the Nazis are interested in
what the Ponkti can to do to help them defeat Allied sonar and successfully
assault Allied convoys.
NOTE: The Umans abandoned Kinlok Island in The Farpool, pulling out the 1st
Time Displacement Battery and leaving Seome and the Sigma Albeth system. The star-sun has already suffered multiple
starball hits and won’t last too much longer.
The Seomish know this. The ruined
Time Twister was re-located to an island called Lik’shpont, in the Omt’orkel
Sea, and re-built as a sort of wavemaker machine, re-built enough to re-open
and stabilize the Farpool. The Farpool
is vital to the future survival of the Seomish race.
1. The
story opens with some fisherman off the coast of North Carolina witnessing a
curious bank of very large, bright waterspout funnels appearing on the
horizon. The sea becomes rough and their
boat capsizes. Then they see strange
small craft cruising just below the surface and they report to the Coast Guard
that midget U-boats are around. They don’t know it but a Ponkti team of
lifeships has just come to Earth’s Atlantic Ocean through the Farpool. They have a critical mission.
2. German
U- boats have been attacking an American convoy off the coast. The Ponkti observe what happens and are
intrigued with the underwater technology of the Germans. They observe the U-boats and follow them
during the attack, then follow one as it returns to a U-boat pen at Bremen, on
the German North Sea coast. The Ponkti resolve to find a way of meeting with
the operators of these strange metal craft.
Several Ponkti, wearing lifesuits, walk up out of the water at a U-boat
pen and accost technicians working on a U-boat in harbor. Shots are fired, but the lifesuits are
armored and the Ponkti are able to render the Tailless unconscious with
blinders and sound suppressors (that give off deafening sound bursts that can
render an enemy unconscious). One man,
staff officer (from Berlin) Werner Kleist, is nearby. He is more intrigued than afraid. When one of the Ponkti (the Germans call them
‘Froschmann’…‘Frogmen’) gives Kleist
an echopod, Kleist eventually understands what it is for, that these are
intelligent beings and that they want to talk, to communicate, through the
translator. This process takes some hours, but eventually a meeting is
organized around the waters of the U-boat pen.
3. This first meeting occurs at a Nazi
Kriegsmarine base in Bremen, Germany…staff aide under Adm. Doenitz meets with
Ponkti representatives (using an echopod translation device provided by the Ponkti)
in a bunker near the U-boat piers. It’s
January 1943. The aide is Fregattenkapitan Werner von Kleist, of
the German Navy OKM (Naval General Staff).
4. The
Ponkti ask many questions…about the conflict, about the U-boat, tactics,
torpedoes. Kleist and the Germans are
having trouble dealing with new Allied developments in sonar and U- boat
tracking. The convoys are getting
through.
5. The
Ponkti sense an opportunity and offer to help, using genetically modified
seamothers (they describe how they can bring newborn calves through the Farpool
in special pods attached to the lifeship and accelerate their growth in Earth’s
waters) to attack Allied convoys, while U- boats pick off stragglers. The seamothers should be impervious to Allied
air attack, since they assault from underwater.
Plus they can breed and grow fast, under Ponkti control. To the Allies,
the seamothers will look like whales.
But they will be fully under Ponkti control. But the Germans are skeptical (sensing an
Allied ruse) and need to see the Ponkti techniques and ideas demonstrated
before they commit to anything.
6. The
Ponkti agree to this and the Germans provide information on a convoy going to
the UK. The Germans send several U-boats
out from St. Nazaire, France to observe and help. But the Ponkti don’t need help. They arrange for another team to bring two
nearly mature seamothers through the Farpool and these animals are commanded to
attack the convoy. Every ship is sunk
and the U-boats have nothing to do. The
Germans are both impressed and convinced.
They sign agreements with the Ponkti.
7. The
Germans now agree to provide torpedo technology (and complete torpedoes) to the
Ponkti, who are interested in anything they can use to defeat Omt’or. They also agree to provide plans and schematics
for how to build a U-boat. The Ponkti
want to construct a fleet to dominate Seome.
8. Back
on Seome, an Omtorish research mission at the wavemaker island (Lik’shpont…a
newly relocated wavemaker after Kinlok is abandoned by the Umans) is doing
maintenance work on the device that keeps the Farpool open and operating. They have witnessed the Ponkti teams coming
and going through the Farpool. This is
reported to the Metah of Omt’or. The Metah (Mokleeoh loh) convenes the
Mek’too and it is decided to form a special operations team (that will include
Chase Meyer, still modified by em’took)
to go through the Farpool after the Ponkti (if they can figure where and when
the Ponkti went…they determine this from settings in the wavemaker). The Omtorish special ops team must prevent
the Ponkti from doing or damaging anything that would prevent Seomish
emigration to Earth’s seas when Sigma Albeth finally starts to go dark, which
won’t be too long. Already plans are
underway to begin this emigration and the Metah
Mokleeoh loh wants Omt’or to lead this effort.
9. The
Ponkti have also stolen Omtorish technology (itself taken from the Uman Time
Displacement Battery) on how to create destructive whirlpools on demand. These could be used to scatter convoys and
destroyer screens and make them easier to defeat.
10. But
the Omtorish know that the Ponkti have used the Farpool and they now send their
own special ops team through the Farpool to counter what the Ponkti are
doing…the Omtorish know that Sigma Albeth B can’t last much longer and the
Ponkti are ruining the seas of Earth as a likely home for full Seomish exodus
if their sun goes dark…or supernova.
11. Somehow,
the Omtorish team must discredit and defeat the Ponkti in the eyes of the
Nazis, so they won’t gain new technology and won’t ruin Earth for future
generations of potential Seomish immigrants.
The Ponkti know about Sigma Albeth’s problems too (though not in the
detail the Omtorish do) but they want to control all of Seome and become
masters of all the kels before any exodus.
12. The
Omtorish have developed a means of thought-bonding with the seamothers to keep
them docile and not assaulting Allied convoys, or interfering with sonar. After some initial setbacks, this technique
seems to work. The Omtorish are able to
bring the seamother herd under control and limit the fast breeding the Ponkti
can do. Allied convoys start to get
through. U-boats are again being sunk at a record rate.
13. The
Nazis are furious at the Ponkti and now accuse them of treachery. The compact between them begins to
unravel. The Ponkti know the Omtorish
have a team on Earth and they have to engage the Omtorish if they have any hope
of regaining influence with the Nazis and protecting their technological gains.
14. The
Omtorish rig the Farpool so that the Ponkti team can’t return, without special
equipment. Their lifeships are sabotaged
by Omtorish agents. The Ponkti are now
trapped on mid-twentieth century Earth.
15. To
regain the initiative and try to get back through the Farpool with their new
technology, the Ponkti decide they must engage the Omtorish in a climactic
battle. Both sides use their own
seamothers and other weapons and gear to prevail. The battle occurs off the Outer Banks of
North Carolina. There is a great hurricane
also churning out at sea and U-boats are prowling the coast, picking off
freighters and smaller craft.
16. The
Omtorish prevail in this climactic battle and all but one of the Ponkti team
and their seamothers are killed. Their
carcasses wash up on the beaches after the hurricane passes, mixed in with
debris from sunken American ships and some dead human bodies. Local residents know a great storm has passed
and a great battle has occurred off shore…they believe the U-boats have been
driven off. They believe the battle was
between U-boats and US Navy picket ships and aircraft. Some of the bodies are puzzling though, not
resembling anything the locals have ever seen from the sea before. They do not understand that the real battle
was underwater, between the Omtorish and the Ponkti.
17. As
they puzzle over the carcasses and debris, locals witness another series of
curious waterspouts appearing on the horizon, larger, brighter and taller than
ever seen before, seeming to extend well up into the clouds.
18. They
don’t know this but the spouts are the small fleet of Omtorish lifeships
leaving Earth, entering the Farpool for transit back to Seome, six thousand
light years distant.
The Farpool: Marauders of Seome
will take place on Seome (in the same time frame as The Farpool) and on Earth in the mid-twentieth century. It involves kel members from Omt’or and
Ponk’et as well as Nazis. What a
combination.
One
issue yet to be resolved is whether to bring Angie Gilliam, Chase Meyer’s girl
friend from Scotland Beach, back into the story. Their relationship is a big part of what
drives The Farpool, so I’ll have to
manipulate the outline and the time frames to make this happen. I think the story would benefit from having
these two teenagers go at it all over again.
The
next post to The Word Shed will come
on September 19.
See
you then.
Phil
B.
