PJ’s Blog

The Alien world is, to humans, truly alien.

A large rocky moon, twice the size of Earth, orbiting a gas giant, on a relatively close orbit, close enough for the tidal forces and the magnetic field of the giant to generate a lost of thermal energy in the moon’s core, and the molten iron core of the moon generates incredible amounts of electro-magnetic energy, which the Aliens harness to power their technology.

The chemistry itself is different, and although the Aliens seem to be Carbon-based, that’s pretty much where the similarities end. The atmosphere, made of various gases unbreathable to humans, is also almost opaque to what humans consider visible light (colors and compositions to be properly calculated once I figure out a believable biochemistry for the Aliens). The Aliens live mostly underground, where they cultivate the organisms that they use as food sources.

The surface of the planet is wet, water is kept liquid by the thermal energy of the planet. A lush jungle-like ecosystem covers large parts of the land, and some Aliens live above ground, with no apparent shelters. This jungle is not made of plants nor fungi, just of organisms that are unlike anything on Earth. Likewise, the Aliens themselves are neither humanoid, not reptilioid, not insectoid nor molluskoid. They have no feature that could be paralleled to anything of Earth origin.

As the aliens do not seem to have a language, the planet has no name, their species has no name, none of the features and organisms have a name. This is of course highly unsettling for the arriving humans (not to mention very annoying for the writer, who tends to like having names to describe the things that are in his world….).

The closest analogy in the human experience of the Alien World is a world-scale termite mound, with networks of tunnels, and a seemingly auto-organizing society. The apparent lack of communication between the Aliens seem to point to an insect-like pheromone communication system where individuals are bound to a task by pre-programmed messages.

One possible place for this alien World is the Star Lalande 21186, an old red dwarf star 8-light years away, roughly in the north polar direction… (Lalande 21185 on Wikipwedia…)

Earth is the seat of the Solar government, despite it’s inconvenient position at the center of the system, very far from the Jovian and Saturnian system, where most of the Solar population lives, but the position comes in handy when Jupiter and Saturn are on opposite sides of the Sun.

Earth population is around 20 billion, living mostly in cities, and most people are considered as “middle class”. All regions have roughly the same level of development, with some people very poor, and some very rich. Culture is still somewhat regionalized, but the Media corporations present the same content in all parts of the world.

The information age, started in the 20th century, still continues after many centuries. Sounds and images from all around the planet are broadcast, 24/7, to a population that thrives on information, on always learning more, knowing more, even if it’s pointless and trivial information.

A number of cities exist in orbital stations, but these are not very popular as permanent residences but as exotic vacation spots. The moon on the other hand is a thriving colony, with a population of close to one billion, mostly in the polar metropolises of Aldrin and Collins, on the North and South poles, respectively.

Relations with the other Solar colonies are very limited, Except through the United Worlds and through limited commerce. The inconvenience of space travel and of communication delays make any attempt at more extensive contact futile.

Mars is also a thriving colony, with a population close to 4 billion. It is the most ancient Human colony outside of the Terran system, and the Martians take great pride in their history.

The bulk of the Solar population resides on the moons of the outer planets, where more than 100 billion people reside. Gas mining is the main economic activity, providing, once refined, radioactive hydrogen to power the nuclear fusion reactor of the whole Solar system. Energy is cheaper than the old fossil fuels, but still not unlimited, considering the population of around 130 billion people of the Solar System.

I’m planning the flow of my story as a contrast between 27th century Earth, when the first aliens land on earth, and the 30th century expedition that is leaving the Alien World and heading back to Earth. The story ends with the arrival of the expedition on 30th century Earth. So, what I need is:

-27th century Earth, a media-dominated world, where information overload is the norm.
-27th century Alien world, where even the concept of communication is foreign. The group of earth Colonists, calling themselves the Stowaways, establish an outpost on the alien world, and try to open some relation with the Alien species.
-30th century Alien world, the “present” of the story, told through the journals of one of the members of the Earth expedition. Humans have thrived in the three centuries of presence on the Alien World, and their communication attempts have succeeded to some extent.
-30th century Earth, hardly changed in three century. Still overloaded, corrupt, and chaotic. Fashions and technologies have evolved, but the world has not budged…

Terrans are contacted by an alien civilization, nothing like anyone had ever imagined, not a war-like race, not wise overlords, just alien, and so alien that communication is not only difficult, it is just impossible. In fact even the concept of communication seems to be impossible for the alien race to comprehend…

After the excitement and the media frenzy, the aliens just fade from attention, and only a small group of people stay interested. At one point the aliens leave and humans mount an expedition to follow them. They get into the aliens’ ship, and tag along in the voyage, and finally, after a long time, end up on a planet of those aliens, and the humans settle there. They slowly learn and teach a way to communicate with the aliens, learning many things about themselves in the process…

Generations pass before actual communication is possible, and before the Stowaways change enough to be able to comprehend the aliens and how they think. The descendants from the Stowaways mount an expedition back to Earth, and they arrive, after years of traveling back, to a Earth that is now almost as alien to them than the original Aliens were to them centuries ago…

I’m gonna be building around a rather simple premise: in the relatively distant future, somewhere close to the year 3000, a group of scholars from a distant planet plan an expedition to the Old Earth, that their people left several generations ago to follow an alien spaceship than landed on the moon in the 27th century.

The story is told from the standpoint of one of the scholars, a historian or linguist, most likely, and he recounts the history of the 3rd millenium, how the much anticipated Technological Singularity never happenned, and that the speed of light is still something that humanity has to deal with in interplanetary and interstellar travel. The Solar system is colonized by humanity, but impracticalities in travel and communication means that humanity is not a coherent, unified world, but a chaotic mess, much like earth was a chaotic mess before anyone left the planet…

The world that those scholars inhabit is a nameless planet in a not-so-distant system, 10 or 15 light years from the Sol system, but the centuries of isolation and contacts with the aliens have changed humans in the way they see themselves and the universe. They are confronted, after the years of travel back to earth, with the chasm of difference between them and the Solars, as they name the humanity that stayed behind…

It’s an amazing coincidence that I just started filling my notebook with ideas for a setting to a story I’m putting together. This World Building Month thing is just perfect!