Entry 1-096: March 31, 2013
Vuduri Government
Since they are all mind-connected, the Vuduri do not really need a government as such. They do not have a very formal penal system. Crazy people and criminals are simply Cesdiud (cast out) and no longer part of the whole.
There are a few exceptions, especially when the Vuduri and mandasurte interact. You will recall that in Rome's Revolution, Rome committed a crime by allowing PPT transducers to be integrated with memron units.
Because of the horrendous toll the Robot War took on mankind, this exact procedure was banned. It was a capital crime, punishable by death. So when Rome returned to Earth, she was arrested immediately. Rei was able to convince them to have a trial. We discovered there were Vuduri individuals trained to listen to facts called Juoz (judges). Rei was not able to get Rome absolved of the crime but he was able to get her sentence commuted to exile.
On Skyler Base, Commander Ursay ran things and later, in The Ark Lords, you can see he can exercise that title and force underlings (in this case Grus) to follow his commands even if they go against the Overmind. No one ever considered how such a thing was possible but after all, the books are called Rome's Revolution for a reason.
Entry 1-097: April 1, 2013
Vuduri Entertainment
As a people, the Vuduri are deadly dull. They do not enjoy music, art, dance or athletic competition. So what do they do for entertainment?
Nothing, really. They get up, they eat, they go to work, they come home, they exercise and they go to bed. That is their life. The Overmind is always in their head and it has a way of discouraging independent or even creative thinking.
There is one exception, though. The Vuduri believe in physical exercise. There are certain jobs that demand physical strength and dexterity. The Vuduri start out very young trying to ascertain their strengths and weaknesses through certain athletic endeavors.
One such activity, competition really, is called the dadar-fo. It is a three-legged trestle, similar to a see-saw but with three arms balanced about a cone-shaped pivot point. Each arm ends in a flat metal plate and the match starts when four children step upon the flat metal plates at each end.
The idea is to knock the other children off the device and end up with your "team" occupying all three plates. It teaches teamwork, strength and agility. There is a rubberized mat underneath to soften the blow when you get knocked off. Sometimes the competition gets a little violent, especially as the children get older.
There are no prizes. The winners feel no outward sense of accomplishment but you wouldn't know it if you ever watched one of the matches. Maybe there is hope for the Vuduri after all.
Entry 1-098: April 2, 2013
Rei's Disorientation
In Rome's Revolution, when Rei was first awakened by the Vuduri, he was extremely disoriented. It seems natural. After all he was frozen for 14 centuries. That's a long time. But is it? Especially from Rei's point of view?
Remember, he fell in love with Rome within 24 hours of his awakening. But from his perspective, he had just seen Sally Reynolds, the former love of his life, six weeks earlier. At that time he claimed he would never love again.
When you go back and do the math, things changed fundamentally for Rei even though his subjective time was not very long. The day after he said goodbye to his parents and Sally, he flew to Houston and spent 30 days in quarantine to make sure he was not harboring any diseases or noxious germs. He then spent two weeks enduring the grueling dehydration protocol prior to being placed in cryo-hibernation.
The fact that 14 centuries passed would mean nothing to him. The reality was, he was in his world, he spent six weeks in isolation and then he was thrust in the 35th century world of the Vuduri. He had to come to grips not with the unfathomable passage of time but with the radical change in human nature.
You want him to feel like the passage of time is enormous but the reality is, it was just a number. What was enormous was how much the world and Rei's view of the universe had to change.
Entry 1-099: April 3, 2013
Stars (1): Cast of Stellar Characters
There are many stars mentioned in Rome's Revolution. Among them are Sol (the Sun), Alpha Centauri A (Rogal Canduro), Pi3 Orionis (Tabit), Tau Ceti, 86 G. Eridani, Chara (also known as Asteron), Nu2 Lupi and Alnilam.
Others were mentioned more or less in passing. These included Winfall (Lambda Aurigae), the four-star cluster of Capella and three made-up stars: Mirdel, Vachedi and Amiro.
My next post will be about the mathematics required to compute distances and travel times. Even the layout of the constellations as seen from Earth on January 24, 2067 and from New Earth in 2137 had to be predicted.
The only major inhabited star system left unexplored is Nu2 Lupi. We will get our chance to learn about it in the next novel, The Milk Run. There you will learn that there are not one but two habitable worlds. One is very warm. The other is on the cool side. This star was the destination of Ark IV and you will find out what became of them. And, as promised, you will finally find out what OMCOM has been doing out there all these years. How are the two related? I guess you'll have to read the book!
Entry 1-100: April 4, 2013
Stars (2): Star Drives
The problem with writing science fiction about travel between stars is that they are so damned far apart. With today's technology, it would take thousands of years to reach Alpha Centauri, the nearest star. So I had to invent a series of star drives to shorten the amount of time. I don't know about you but a novel about people sitting in chairs for two centuries doesn't sound all that interesting.
Obviously, in Rome's Revolution, the first star drive was the Grey Drive. It was proposed to have a top end of 5% of the speed of light which is virtually impossible. However, it does make computing the travel time fairly easy. You just multiply the distance between stars by 20 and that is the amount of time it takes to traverse that distance. For example, Tau Ceti is 12 light-years away from Earth. So the voyage of the Ark II was supposed to take 240 years.
The Stareaters were postulated to travel about ½c so you just divide the number of light years by two and that is the travel time.
The next star drive was that used by the Vuduri using PPT tunnels. The lowest end was 15c and the faster ships were capable of 100c. That meant that the time to travel between Earth and Tabit would be 26.18 divided by 100 which equals .2618 years or 95 days. That's how long it took the Algol to get there from Earth. Just a little over three months.
MINIMCOM was able to figure out how to force-project continuous PPT tunnels giving him a top end of nearly 1000c. That means the trip from Tau Ceti to Earth would be 4.4 days. In reality, the first time he made the trip, he was carrying Rei and Rome's flying house and it took him 8 days. Still impressive.
Finally, in The Ark Lords, we are introduced to the first generation null-fold drive which has a top end of 15,000c. This allows MINIMCOM to make the trip between Deucado and Helome (Alpha Centauri) in just about 8 hours.
In the final book of the series, called The Milk Run, we will see the next generation null-fold drive capable of 30,000c. It is so fast, it literally takes starships out of our universe. Where do they go? You'll have to wait to find out.
Entry 1-101: April 5, 2013
My blog is 100!
Wow. Time flies when you are writing about the 35th century. Yesterday was my 100th post on this blog and I haven't even scratched the surface!
I have been working on the world of the Vuduri since 1973... that's 40 years. So I guess it is only natural that I have a lot of backstories and information t
hat doesn't make it into the books. For every element in the story that can be fact-checked, I spend 5 minutes or 5 hours researching. Whatever it takes.
For social or historical situations, sometimes, I have to write a 7, 11 or 15-page short story, just to create a one sentence comment in a scene. Like the Deucadons. They have been on the little world for 500 years. But how did they get there? It was a fairly lengthy and detailed story, just so one of the characters could say we only started with the clothes on our back.
This has been fun. Don't worry, I'll keep going. Thanks for reading and maybe someday someone will post a comment.
Mike
Entry 1-102: April 6, 2013
Stars (3): The Constellations in 2067