docfuture

[docfuture]

Princess, Chapter 3, Revised

Flicker's day fails to improve. Edited and slightly expanded from the original serial version. https://riderius.dreamwidth.org/2023/11/16/princess03.html

#fallofdocfuture #flicker #princess

[docfuture]

Sharing this because it's the single most informative post on how to write dialogue I have ever seen.

[docfuture]

Princess, Chapter 2, revised

Lightly revised from the original. I cleaned up the physics background a bit, and smoothed out some minor inconsistencies. Enjoy!

#fallofdocfuture #fallmisc #flicker #Princess

[docfuture]

Back and Forth

It has been a while, but I thought I'd give you all an update. I am no longer active on twitter, and have moved most of my social media presence to Bluesky as https://bsky.app/profile/riderius.bsky.social I am planning to move the primary place I post my stories, new and edited, to Dreamwidth, at https://riderius.dreamwidth.org/ Edit: (There appears to be an account on tumblr with my dreamwidth, bluesky, and old twitter account handle. That is not me.) I intend to leave all the original versions up, and post links here whenever I post something new. Today, I kicked things off with a lightly revised Chapter 1 of Princess. DW does not require an account to read, and has no ads. Comments can be posted anonymously, but leave your handle or name if you want me to recognize you from here. You can also start an account there, if you like, their FAQ is here. Thank you all for your patience and kind comments over the years, and I hope you enjoy what I have planned, as I transfer, revise, and hopefully finally finish several stories I left hanging 8-) Princess, Chapter 1

#fallofdocfuture #fallmisc

[docfuture]

Where does Journeyman calibrate his curse detectors?  Here. Here is where (though from a safe distance - he doesn’t want to saturate them.) This is Kay the Builder speaking of her house, the Disaster House. I have been following this saga for more than a decade. If anything she is understating 8-)

Love it when horror is like what if your house hated you personally

[docfuture]

Does Black Swan share any code or continuity with Vizier, Flicker's stock trading AI?

Why, yes. Yes, she does. 8-) One of Doc's purposes in allowing Flicker to use that aggressive an AI persona was to field test certain details that really needed someone very fast who could say "Hey, wait a minute, that's not quite what I wanted." Flicker helps Doc a lot with safety tests where speed is handy.

#fallmisc #maker's ark #fallofdocfuture

[docfuture]

This is a cool idea, and I can certainly see Doc Future helping him out and pointing him at things. 2nd Rate: “Why do you want me to do it? You’d do better.” Doc: “I don’t have unlimited time. And ‘Second smartest person in the world’ will still do *way* better than everyone else is managing now.” “Okay, I’ll see what I can manage.” “You’ll do fine. And I have a better name for you. Welcome to the team, Good Enough Guy.”

Character concept: 2nd Rate

A character with a superpower/curse/etc (in a world where these are common) to always be the second best of anything he does. The curse was supposed to torture him by always pitting him against some specific Best At The Thing rival, doomed to lose every single time.

But instead of sticking to one particular field this guy went "lmao sweet", figured out he can be the world's second best composer, second best screenwriter, second best stage director, second-best costume designer, list goes on, and just singlehandedly create one of the most iconic and best-hitting epic rock operas of all time - and the whole story is about squid aliens with giant titties.

Everything he sets out to do is Awful Taste But Great Execution, being technically masterful enough to be impressive, and thematically weird enough that any potential rivals or competitors have to compete for scraps in his shadow. People already forgot why he's called 2nd Rate.

#Sometimes second best is more than good enough.

[docfuture]

I would like to know Everything and Anything that you would be willing to share about Learning is About To Occur, please

Is he patterned after one or more of his crew? He's a biogestalt, AIUI, which means he ostensibly *should* be a modified uploaded lizard with a flesh-instance he can periodically re-synch with(unless I am misunderstanding)

(Some spoilers for The Maker's Ark)

    A fair question, and one I will probably go into more detail about in a longer post 8-). But a few things. The Learning is About to Occur is not a biogestalt--he is an AI, but one who was created and raised in a specific way, as a person, among other AIs and biogestalts (his mentor was an old battleship AI everyone calls the 'Old Lady'), specifically to avoid a set of potential problems that the Grs'thnk were concerned about.

    They wanted AIs that understood people and could be understood (to some extent) by them, had emotion-equivalent responses that matched to people-understandable ones, and generally *liked* people.

    The Grs'thnk did not want remorseless robot death machines. They have those kind of movies too, and know what kinds of failure modes those have 8-)

    So, strictly speaking, his ship could probably function with a much smaller crew, and more robots and automation, but does not, because that is not what the Grs'thnk people, government and navy wanted.

    Now, Learning has gotten a bit ahead of the curve of where the Grs'thnk expect AIs to be, and I've hinted in the stories that it is taking them some time to catch up. (The Grs'thnk have a lot of small-c conservatives because many more of them live to be quite old.) The Grs'thnk Ambassador and fleet commander are well aware of this, and it is one of the reasons they specifically wanted Learning.

    He is smart, well-socialized, and charming. He gets along well with his biogestalt team (each ship AI has one), his captain, crew, and most other people he encounters.

    And he flirts with the ship AI of the Primly Certain because they both enjoy it. But he does it openly and with evident good humor, because if a ship AI is going a bit beyond what was expected, flirting with another ship is a lot less scary way to reveal that than to just start making ominous prophetic warnings 8-).

    I am glad you like the character--he is a lot of fun to write. 8-)

#FallofDocFuture #FallMisc #MakersArk

[docfuture]

Partners

     [A new vignette from not long before Princess, as I try to get back into writing.  My Stories page is still up but needs to be updated.  Since there is no table of contents it is no longer easy to find the most recent chapters of Maker's Ark (currently here) or either the start or latest chapter of Princess (here and here), for which I apologize.      There are also severe issues with the new post editor (it is not fit for purpose for posting fiction chapters formatted elsewhere), so I am using the ‘legacy’ editor, after accidentally discovering it wasn’t already on, as it appeared to be. If and when that stops working I will likely no longer be able to post stories here, so if you like my stuff and communicate with anyone at tumblr, let them know that.]

       Journeyman remembers.       A sunny day on an arid plain, smiling at the small group looking past him to the distant building, and the fire.       "...no brighter than the sun," he says, "but--"       Light blooms bright behind him, throwing new shadows as the watchers flinch and squint against the new blaze.       "There we go.  You don't want to look directly at the Sun, either."       "Whoa," says one of the onlookers.  "This is supposed to help?"       "Already has.  That's my partner.  Any biological and chemical problems at the former installation are now gone."       He waves a hand theatrically.       "As is the building, so they won't return.  Nor will the sloppy safety practices and ignored regulations that allowed it to fester.  And no radioactivity has been added, before you ask.  I'm sure there will be arguments about what just happened for years--but they won't be here anymore."       "We've been complaining about that place for years," says a woman.  "No one listened."       "Doc's Database did.  Those complaints are on record.  This will be handy when the owners of a former reasonably foreseeable public hazard try to make a fuss.  You helped."       Another smile.  "And you can help again, any of you on social media.  You can post the no doubt quite spectacular photos from your handcomps and camera phones, and inform everyone that what you witnessed was not, in fact, a nuclear explosion, but a problem departing for good."       A chuckle, and several of them lift phones to join the ones already recording.       There is no warning.  One moment there is nothing. The next...       Flicker is beside him.       A don't-call-her-goddess in indigo blue with silver tracery and a green visor, floating inches above the ground from treading lightly at speed before she lowers her feet to stand as humans do.  Sparks fly from the tracery as the ghosts of plasma wreathing her hands dissipate, leaving the scent of lightning and hot lava, mixed with the tang of vaporized metal.       Her face is calm but not quite impassive.       Journeyman faces her and opens his hand, and they touch fingertips.       "Done," she says.  "Shock soon.  Nothing much."       The warning keeps the group from excessive startlement as the rumbling boom from the shockwave arrives, sound catching up after far faster things have paused.  The glow has already faded, and he doesn't need to look to know the shape of the cloud.       He turns back to the group with another smile.  "Well, I'm afraid the show is over except for some 'after' pictures, so our work here is done.  Take care, folks."       He sweeps off his hat and bows.  Flicker nods slightly, and there is a chorus of thanks.       "Home?" he asks.  The tension was clear when she first appeared.       His magic has been almost superfluous today, his help little enough. Designated human--smiling, talking, making reassuring noises, spreading much needed calm, crafting a comprehensible mental framework for witnesses of the aftermath of marvels performed too fast to see.       "Home," she replies.       A twitch of his hand and he is between places, space twisting as he visualizes a pattern, then untwisting elsewhere.       His ears pop.  Doc's HQ.  The duty room.       He stretches his arm back and opens his hand again.  He feels the partner touch repeated, then she moves, and rests her hands lightly on his shoulders, as she leans her cheek against the back of his head.  He feels an unsteady breath.       Her hands could brush aside steel like tissue, compress coal to diamond, hurl stones to tear the sky asunder, and extend to nearby objects the beyond-normal physics that enabled her body to survive her speed.  It was a profound gesture of trust, and slow-developed comfort, that let her touch with anything but fingertips, for reasons both physical and psychological.       "Bastards," she whispers, not meaning the crowd.  A longer breath.  It is not just onlookers that needed calm, once she slowed down and emotions made themselves known at human speeds.       "Management?" he asks.       "Board of directors.  They knew.  But not provably, unless they try to sue, so they won't."       "Ah.  Want me to adjust the patrol parameters?"       "Already did.  Thanks."       "I hear New Zealand is pretty this time of year, but the way things are going, we'd get mobbed by keas. And they're protected."       A breath of a laugh.  "Heh.  Yeah."       "Anything else I can do?"       "You're doing it already.  Partner..."  A pause. "Database says we should be done for the day, and I should eat.  Food sounds very abstract to me right now, though.  Any suggestions?"       She was both very human and very far from human, and the parts co-existed not always smoothly.  He thought for a moment.       "Chifa?  Peru?  That stir fry over rice you liked last--"       "Yes!  Where?"       He sent a set of GPS coordinates from his phone.       Ten minutes, and they were looking down a Peruvian mountainside from under a portable canopy, the sun low in the western sky.  Eating lomo saltado, as he told her about the takeout server who joked that the 'hungry magician' brought good luck (as well as a generous tip.)       Flicker laughed, her good humor restored.       There were so many things they needed to talk about, eventually.  Boundaries, plans, the dangerously overloaded and ambiguous word 'partner'.       He smiled as Flicker shifted suddenly to talking about something she had 'meant to tell him', technical details of physics behind a new wrinkle in her constant quest to reduce the impact of shockwaves when she needed to move something in a hurry. He could follow along, barely--she knew which areas he understood already and elaborated as needed, her eyes alight.       Partners.       The rest could be dealt with... later.

#FallofDocFuture #FallMisc

[docfuture]

Resolution

For 2023: Write.

#fallofdocfuture #fallmisc

[docfuture]

"When are we starting the raid? The Gardener is leading, right?" Eirik Silvertongue held up a hand. "The Seer's Madness is upon her, and she burns with the fires of creation. We wait." "But..." Skardi blocked the doorway with his axe. "Kay the Builder got hit by it too. You ever seen a berserk?" he said. "This is just as intense as that. And it can turn into berserk if you are a stubborn fool and push. We fucking wait."

Every time. Every. Darned. Time.

#The Gardener #FallMisc

[docfuture]

Preparations

      Since it is possible this may end up as my only significant social media account, I thought I'd put up a bit of an update.

     I have never really used Tumblr in a conventional interactive way (though I do appreciate the likes and reblogs), but more as a place to put my writing.  Mostly that has been serialized superhero speculative fiction--the Doc Future universe--set originally in an alternate near future, now an alternate past. Fall and Call take place in 2013/2014 and Princess in 2012. I also post background bits, commentary, and a few short stories and novelettes (and Princess, currently a novella trying to become a novel.)

      In addition to the table of contents pages for Fall and Call, I normally include a 'Next' link at the bottom of every chapter page and a 'Previous' link at the top to make navigation easier, and I have yet to add TOCs for Maker's Ark and Princess because neither is finished.

      My Stories page is still up but needs to be updated. I have not tested how much Tumblr's editor has changed since I stopped posting regularly, and I was already using a workaround for tab-delineated paragraphs, so editing older stuff can be an issue 8-)

      Many readers believe Fall is a stronger story when starting with the first chapter rather than the prologue, I have come to agree, and the revised version will be restructured to reflect that, so starting with 'Phone Tag' is recommended for new readers.  The issues with Fall caused by learning structure and pacing as I went along and not originally intending to turn it into a novel will remain until I do put out a revised version, either online or as an ebook, but I hope readers can still find the current version enjoyable.

      Since there is no table of contents it is no longer easy to find the most recent chapters of Maker's Ark (currently here) or either the start or latest chapter of Princess (here and here), for which I apologize. I have always been better at creative work than maintenance of something that grew to be quite a bit bigger than I expected 8-)

      Some bits of continuity are going to change, so if there is a conflict, go with what is written later if this matters to you.  I have been working on revising some of the earlier chapters of Princess which were causing problems later, and those will probably be the first writing I post when I resume.

      In the meantime, enjoy what is to your taste, and you can always check back in timeline here for what you missed.  Also a note on format: I starting writing Fall with the intent that the online version be easily read on a full size computer or laptop screen. I understand that many now prefer to read on a phone, tablet, or e-reader, but this is the format I create for. I don't personally use a phone for reading because of eyesight issues, but I hope my writing is still enjoyable for those who do.

      I don't yet have a schedule for when I will resume posting, and I don't want to disappoint anyone so I plan to just put things up when they are ready 8-) Edit: Link to latest Maker’s Ark chapter fixed - thanks to the reader that pointed that out 8-)

Take care, all.

#FallofDocFuture #FallMisc

[docfuture]

Doc Future Visual

I’ve been quiet, but have not forgotten about the series and intend to continue Princess and Maker’s Ark. In the meantime, I got an unexpected Christmas present. When I first wrote Fall, the was something I very much wished I still had access to, which was the City of Heroes character and costume designer. Unfortunately, they had shut down for good a number of years prior.  But... secrets were saved, arcane rituals were performed, and there now access to it is possible again.

For those unfamilar, you can read the first novel “The Fall of Doc Future” here, and a link to most of my other related work, incuding the sequel, Skybreaker’s Call, and most of the still incomplete 3rd novel, “The Maker’s Ark” here. Doc Future:

#FallofDocFuture #FallMisc

[docfuture]

In "Speed" from Fall, Doc tells Stella that Flicker's 'estimated' max speed in Speedtest was 0.9999946C and that she was still accelerating at loop 50. In Princess ch.9, Flicker KNOWS that she got up to 0.99999994C and that she didn't finish. He also doesn't mention that an outside attack was what caused her to lose control of her entropy-dumping which caused the disaster. Is this a retcon and/or Doc shading the truth for someone he only just met and/or did Flicker conceal facts from Speedtest?

*****

Mostly retcon - "Speed" is the single oldest thing I wrote that ended up in Fall, and I had barely started writing. I wasn't thinking about continuity at all (it was just a disconnected vignette at that point). I tried to stick close to the spirit of it, but there are a few things that will need to be revised because I was needlessly detailed before I had worked out the physics.

The temperature Doc quotes (4 billion K) would be too low as well, because the Hagedorn temperature (where nucleonic matter breaks down into a quark/gluon plasma, and that Flicker mentions in Princess) is above 1 trillon K, though that can be finessed as a surface temperature; Flicker was concentrating her massive excess entropy in a small region inside her body in order to up her radiation rate of neutrinos, which were the only thing that could get out of ther body with sufficent efficiency while she held herself together 8-) Now Doc has just met Stella, but he knows Flicker has talked to her at least a little about the aftereffects of Speedtest, as is shown in Princess. She knows a lot more than she is saying and acting surprised at things she has already guessed at, because having Doc talk to her about technical details is something that is psychologically useful at that point.

#fallofdocfuture #fallmisc

[docfuture]

In chapter 16 of "The Maker's Ark", Doc and Stella are going 70 km/s in a forced low orbit around Earth. The story has them accelerating at 10g (1g gravity + 9g from a rocket), but the acceleration required for circular motion of a given radius goes as v*2, so 100g of total acceleration would be needed.

Yes, well spotted. I caught that a couple of chapters later, I think? But never went back to adjust it because it didn't affect the plot. They will be going at a speed compatible with 10 g when I take care of that eventually. I did get the calculation right for Princess chapter 9 (the scaling is with v^2 and gamma^2 for relativistic speeds).

#FallofDocFuture FallMisc MakersArk

[docfuture]

Slowly Surfacing

     Back at writing but it is going slowly. Computer situation is still a bit rickety, and I’ve been having issues with rabid perfectionism and proper sequencing, but I wanted to thank all the people who have contacted me with support or just wondered if I was ever going to continue.

Thank you!

Have an excerpt from the next chapter of Princess, out Soon (hopefully within the next 2 weeks.)  Other stories page link here.

     *****

     Take the memories as they come, don't try to force them, even if they aren't in order.  Then build on what's easy.  Your models of human memory were skewed by the Database--and Doc is not a good example to try to emulate.       Stella's advice.  Flicker was trying to follow it. But it would be so much easier if human memories came with timestamps.       *****       A few weeks ago, not long after Stella had given that advice.       Flicker was On Call.  A section of her time when others could call for assistance, knowing she was ready.  That didn't happen often; most interventions she did were her own, reacting to Database alerts.       But a few were different.       A request for assistance came in, from the western Pacific--inside the typhoon that was pounding the Philippines.       From the Volunteer.       Speed up.       The Volunteer rarely called her--or anyone else--for help.  It wasn't that he was unwilling; it was just that there wasn't usually much she could contribute if he was already there.  She checked that her land path was clear, cued a context dump to her visor, and went out the doorway at 50 kilometers per second, leaving the force fields to refill the gap that never held a physical door when she was on call.       Thunder and lightning behind her as she cut diagonally southwest across the plains, heading for desert and as much emptiness as possible for her trailing shockwaves at 10% of c.       New Mexico, Arizona, California, then ocean, and it was safe to speed up to 0.2 c.  She considered the summary the Database had provided.       The Volunteer wanted help moving a ship to a safer place from the typhoon.  But he was way better than she was at moving big things without breaking them, so it wasn't clear what he needed.  His call had been very terse.  His com was limited; Doc had prioritized robustness over everything else when building it.  She'd find out soon...

     430 milliseconds later, she slowed down off Mindanao amid violent waves and wind gusts.  The Volunteer was stabilizing a container ship that clearly in trouble.  Flicker glided closer in order to be heard over the wind.       "What do you need?" she yelled.       A slight smile from the Volunteer.  "Shrink wrap!" he yelled back.       Flicker's quick and dirty solution to many a problem.  But...       "Shrink wrap what?"       "The ship.  Crew's off, and I can move it so it won't ground and break up, but I can't stop the wind from taking anything unsecured.  A hazard.  Wrap will also slow leaks."       The hazard was obvious enough--several container stacks had collapsed and stuff was everywhere on deck.       "Okay, but I didn't bring enough for a whole ship!"       A broad smile.  Rare from him these days.  "Check the blue container with the crumpled corner."  He added a container code.       Flicker ran up the side of the ship and glided through the mess.  She found a blue container with the right code near the stern.  She ripped open the end panel to find... rolls of shrink wrap.  A whole forty foot container full of them.  That was enough.       Back to the Volunteer with the first roll.       "You'll have to lift the ship before I can wrap around the keel!"       "I know. Ready?"       "Ready!"       The Volunteer dived into the water next to the ship.  Flicker thought a little bit about his power while she waited.       The Volunteer was strong, but he wasn't just strong.  He could send his strength out through extended objects and lift them non-destructively in ways that filled riggers with awe and engineers with grudging respect even as they had to qualify impossibilities with 'except for the Volunteer.'       He lifted cars, buses, trucks, locomotives, military vehicles, planes, and even some sturdy buildings.  And ships--everything from the converted Liberty ship he'd used to fly refugees across oceans during World War II to the half of the Edmund Fitzgerald with the survivors on it.       Someone had written a song about that one.       The wind howled, the waves seethed and frothed, and the ship slowly lifted until it was free of the water, with the bottom center of the keel balanced on the Volunteer's shoulders, his arms extended along it fore and aft.  Flicker got to work.       Round and round she went, trailing wrap already shrinking from the heat of rapid unrolling.  The rain and seawater were sufficent for cooling and fumes were nothing in this wind.  Flicker allowed generous overlap whenever she started a new roll, and heat from rapid motion meant a wave of her hand was far faster than a heat gun.  Soon the ship was fully cocooned except for the single spot on the bottom held by the Volunteer.       A final check--she still had a number of spare rolls, and she'd braced some containers and rounded off a few sharp corners.  Nothing significant had shifted.  Back down to the Volunteer.       "Done!" she said, and watched him relax slightly.  He'd been braced against the torque from the wrapping, but now he could concentrate on moving the ship.       "Thank you!" he said, and squinted into the distance, already judging the best path for flying the ship to its safer haven.       "Need anything else?" she asked.       "Not now," he said.  "Just keep an eye on the rest of the world.  I'm going to be busy here"--a look towards the shore--"for a while."       "Okay, I will.  Good luck!"       A smile and "Thanks again!" and he was off, slowly gathering speed with something that would probably spawn legends of a flying ghost ship if anyone else saw it aloft.  Flicker watched for a little while, making sure nothing came loose, then headed home.       That "keep an eye on the rest of the world" stirred a complex mix of emotions.  She thought about it for the rest of her shift.  The Volunteer had been inspiring other heroes for over three-quarters of a century, and he was good at it.  When her shift ended, she discussed priorities and degrees of off-duty with the Database for a while before setting a different set of interrupt thresholds for the rest of her day and night.       She slept better that night, knowing the Database was keeping an eye--her personalized eye--on the world, and would wake her as needed.     *****    

#FallofDocFuture #FallMisc

[docfuture]

You ever going to finish maker's ark?

I intend to, after I finally finish Princess. But the last year has been rough for a lot of people, I draw inspiration from many sources, and I had no desire to turn the world of Fall into a dystopia.