abracanabra | Writing Log: Tree of Light

"Tree of Light" Writing Log
Tree of Life? Now I'm even unhappy with the *working* title.

2,468 / 80,000
(3.1%)

Words: 703
Total words: 2,468
Overused word: umbilicus
Gratuitous decorative detail: a creased, bluish-grey uniform with sailor's knot embroidery at the cuffs
Type of scene: Escaping before the military catch him and realize the Horrible Thing he did.
Challenge(s): I last wrote on this on April 28th, and that was only a hundred words or so--the last time with significant writing was April 21st. That's a long time.
Which techno-gargoyle is it anyways?The remote rings he wore shone as he keyed in the sequence to bring up the ticket information. He took the ticket from Leander and held it up next to his goggles. A red light blinked to life on the rim of the goggles and flashed across the ticket's barcode.
Notes: I'm seeing this as a novel, now, but I don't know how long or how it'll flesh out or...or...yikes. Must focus on more practical concerns. 1. What size would a generation ship be? I need a big, "slow" spaceship that travels for months to get from port to port. How many passengers and crew? I said 500, but now I think it should be larger. It's probably repurposed from an original colony ship. 2. Must research ranks on naval ships or on airbases, figure out future rank structure in civilian operation.
Other writingy stuff:
*

penthius freewriting - a little sci-fi conspiracy theory involving assassinating the Pope.
* Registered for CONvergence, processed as writing expense. Still nervous about this, but I tell myself that I'll know some people, that being in a large crowd won't kill me, that I have no reason to run away screaming to hide under my bed....
* Posted writing log.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You should pick up a copy of GURPS Space and possibly Ultra Tech. The Space book is basically a scenario and genre planner that would be very, very useful for fantasy writers. Several physicists, published authors, biologists of various stripes, etc participated in the playtest (and yours truly from a "keep it story focused, not science focused" angle). The concept of generation ships is discussed, and many other types.

There's another book out there called, um...Revelation Space, perhaps? That had a virtual generation ship, which was interesting.

Anyway, I'd think that for a true generation/colony ship, you'd up the crew by 100x...fifty thousand souls, in a ship probably made by hollowing out an asteroid or something. Over a long-term occupation, you'd want all that mass for cosmic ray protection, esp if you're using some non-physics based drive to accelerate up to a significant fraction of light-speed. you'd want the population reasonably large, in order to ensure that any accidents don't reduce your crew below the survivability threshold, and also for genetic diversity.

Alternately, the core of the ship could contain the genetic divesity, with a cargo of cryogenically frozen embryos. In that case, crew could legitimately be in the thousands.

As an FYI, the crew of a modern attack submarine which can stay at sea for 90 days (limited by food, not power or oxygen) is about 120 souls, costs a billion dollars, is about 100m long, 10m across, and masses about 7,000,000 kg (7000 metric tons).

So, if we treat the ship as a big block, it's about 10,000 cubic meters, giving it a density of 0.7 tons per cubic meter (less than water, which is why it needs the ballast tanks). That's also about 80 cubic meters per person, so a crew of 50,000 active people might require 4 million cubic meters, or (assuming the same dimensions as the sub) it would be about fifty meters wide and two kilometers long. It doesn't need to be so streamlined, though...it could easily be more squat, say a cylinder with only a 3:1 aspect ratio, giving 110m diameter and 330m long...but now you may want to consider spinning it for gravity, which means you're really dealing with only the INNER part of it, maybe in a couple layers/floors.

Can you tell I took a class on space colonies in college?

Anyway, I know there are a ton of resources out there on generation ships, etc. I believe "Rendevous with Rama" was about a generation ship, possibly a sentient one (?).

Given the huge expense of a colony ship, likely in the gazillions of dollars (trillions would not be out of whack), the only people who can afford one will be governments or megacorporations. Probably a government. This list http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2007/full_list/index.html of the fortune global 500 in 2007 has WalMart as the highest revenue (but relatively crappy profitability at only 3-4%) corporation on the planet, at just over 350 billion dollars. An aircraft carrier, with an air wing, crew of 6000 or so, no airtight systems like a starship, costs about ten billion dollars, for reference. The space shuttle, with a max crew of seven, cost about four billion...for reference.

Anyway, if you're talking government, you're probably going to want to crew with military...space navy tends to be the model. Either that, or a purely corporate hierarchy. Even so, when a mistake can kill everyone aboard, the need for strict rank structures for those who run the ship becomes obvious. Space is terribly unforgiving.

US Naval rank structure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy

Social structure on such a ship may be interesting, with crew and "passengers" not allowed to mix, for example. Or, if they are, certain crimes that endanger the entire ship would be punished rather harshly. One might imagine that if weapons existed that could puncture the hull, they'd naturally be banned.

Checking the Wiki here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_ship it would appear minimum crew for genetic diversity is only 160. Huh.

Interesting. I'm not actually using it as a generation ship--the idea I'm going for is that it's now run by, basically, a discount travel corporation. So I was proceeding from the basis of really old ships => slower ships from an earlier time, but capable of hauling large numbers of persons => probably originally used as colony ships. And so => large.

Less professional than military, but having a lot of wash-outs.

And yeah, I've already established the whole no projectile weapons thing.

On the flip side, if you're dealling with a hollowed out asteroid, potentially the walls could be METERS of granite or basalt like rock, in which case guns and even small military weapons would be "fine."

A large-ish asteroid, with more room than a typical ship, could have a very "neighborhood" feel to it, with a "mechanical area" that had crtical systems, kept very separate from the living areas, which could resemble apartment life or even a cruise ship, for that matter.

I'm liking the asteroid idea. Has potential for a high creepy factor, which would be a plus.

But really, yes, thanks for the references. I suspect that tomorrow afternoon (at a minimum) will be spent doing research.

...probably diagrams will be involved at some point....

Writing Log: Tree of Light

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