Post #181 August 19, 2019

“Monument is Coming!”

In a few months, I begin a major novel of science fiction called Monument.  It won’t be finished until mid-2020, at the earliest.  It’s a bit of departure from what I have been doing.  Here’s an excerpt from my Chapter and Scene Notes for Chapter 1….

Chapter 1

Helios Station

In Parker Orbit around the Sun

June 1, 3155 CE

Onboard a research and monitoring station called Helios (orbiting the Sun in ‘Parker’ orbit), two astronomers Aditi Surat (female) and Carlos Tromelin (male) are manning the late shift when they notice strange effects occurring in the Sun’s photosphere. The Sun’s measured total output has dropped below baseline values, triggering warning flags and alarms aboard the station.

 

After some discussion with UNISPACE centers on Mercury and Earth, Helios is commanded to send several unmanned probes into the Sun, through its outer atmosphere and into its convective zone, to take measurements and determine the cause.  The Sundiver probes are launched and the data they send back indicates that, for reasons not fully understood, the Sun’s fusion process has become less efficient and the Sun’s energy output is dropping—fast.  Previous attempts to increase solar output through the ill-advised use of nanobot ‘doping’ of the Sun may be causing this (known as the SunBoost Project).  Years before, in an effort to increase solar output to provide greater energy for human settlements around Mars and Jupiter, swarms of nanobots were dropped into the sun, to assist in the fusion process.  UNISPACE now believes this process has gone haywire and the bots are having the opposite effect: destroying hydrogen nuclei that the Sun needs to continue fusion.

 

The Sun now seems to be on an accelerated aging track.  Something must be done and UNISPACE declares a Class 1 Emergency. 

 

Chaos City, Europa

June 3155 to May 3156

 

Over the next year, an emergency contingency plan is worked out through the Concordance (an alliance of most human worlds and settlements across the solar system): the plan is to use either Saturn or Neptune to siphon off material and stream the material across space to Jupiter.  If enough material can be deposited onto Jupiter, the Concordance believes Jupiter can be ‘ignited’ to begin fusion and become a second sun.  It’s a controversial plan with unknown and perhaps unknowable effects and controversial as thousands of settlements in and around Jupiter space will have to relocate. 

 

Heading up the project will be architect Pieter Delano, a famous and visionary developer of worlds across the solar system.  Delano views the Sol Secundas (Second Sun) Project as his grandest effort to date, a legacy project that will leave a lasting name for future generations to revere and admire.  Delano admires architects of the past, from the pyramid builders of ancient Egypt to his own illustrious ancestor Philippe Dugay, creator of the terreta concept, which enabled widespread settlement of the solar system in the 23^rd century. 

 

But as plans are being developed and scoopships assembled around Saturn to begin the Project, Delano receives disconcerting news from a Concordance station in high Jupiter orbit, in fact on Europa.  The news: Jupiter is in trouble too.  It’s shrinking, losing mass somehow.

 

Astronomical observations and atmospheric probes confirm a suspicion: there seems to be a sink or a wormhole at the core of the planet.  Somehow, it’s losing mass into this sink.  How did this sink develop?  Historical research on Jupiter’s past details multiple episodes of this cyclic loss of mass occurring in recent centuries.  It all seemed to start around the year 2249 CE. 

 

This makes Delano highly suspicious.  The year 2249 CE is burned into his memory.  It was the year that his ancestor Philippe Dugay began a project to unravel Jupiter completely and use the material to build a new Ring for the Concordance, a new band of terretas and settlements between Jupiter and Saturn.  Delano is suspicious that his ancestor Dugay is fiddling with Jupiter even as he is trying to ‘bulk’ the planet up to ignite it as a second sun.

 

The problem is clearly in the past.  Delano seeks approval from the Concordance’s Time Guard to travel back to that time (year 2249), confront his ancestor and make him stop fiddling with Jupiter.  Time Guard ultimately agrees, with the proviso that another time jumper accompany Dugay, an experienced chrononaut named Evelyn Kasongo.  Delano and the Time Guard agree on details and parameters of the mission.  They must succeed or else the world of 3155 CE will die, when the Sun goes dark, which may come in a generation or less.

 

Determined to succeed and both annoyed and angry at his rambunctious ancestor Philippe Dugay, Delano and Kasongo board the jumpship Gemini and travel the local worldline back to 2249 CE.

 

Intrigued?  I am and I’m looking forward to writing this one.  I’ll be providing more details on this project and updates on how it’s going as the start date (sometime in November 2019) approaches.

The next post to The Word Shed comes on August 26.  See you then.

Phil B.