How impractical. There was close to half a billion people walking around on the Earth when Rome and Rei returned. The Overmind knew full well it could not save all of them. But it decided it was better to save some and keep the Vuduri way of life intact rather than save all of them.
The Overmind chose dogmatism over pragmatism. Personally, I would have made an exception.
Entry 2-046: February 10, 2014
Why did the Stareaters eat stars?
This isn't really a plot hole but many people do not understand why the Stareaters ate stars in the first place. When the original, long-form version of Rome's Revolution came out, this was, in fact, the climax and there was no explanation whatsoever. However, when I wrote the original VIRUS 5: Book 3: Earth, it was only then that I learned that a) the Stareaters were intelligent and b) they were noble creatures with a dedicated, selfless mission.
“What?” you ask. You did not know why the Stareaters ate stars? Nope. I had mentioned this before but when I first wrote the book, I just thought it was a cool idea. When I "found out" it was even neater. Here is Hardinharsaway's explanation as to why they ate stars:
“IT IS OUR DUTY TO HALT THE EXPANSION OF THE UNIVERSE,” continued the Stareater in a slightly diminished tone. “WE ARE ATTEMPTING TO ACHIEVE A COSMIC STEADY STATE. ONE OF THE WAYS WE DO THIS IS BY DETERMINING WHICH STARS WILL EXPLODE AND WE INGEST THEM BEFORE THAT HAPPENS. NOW THAT YOU HAVE PROVIDED ME A WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF YOUR LANGUAGE, I CAN EXPLAIN USING YOUR TERMINOLOGY. THERE IS A FORCE THAT YOUR SPECIES CALLS DARK ENERGY THAT AMPLIFIES THE ENERGY RELEASED BY NOVAE AND ACCELERATES EXPANSION OF THE GALAXY. THIS IS WHAT WE TRY AND PREVENT. WE MUST BE ESPECIALLY VIGILANT SHOULD A STAR GO SUPERNOVA BUT THAT IS NOT AN ISSUE HERE.”
Makes for a decent explanation but is it true?
You can click here to read a layman's explanation but the fact is, I did not make this up. Dark energy is a constant, it does not diminish with distance and as a side effect, the universe must expand at a constant rate. But because the universe is always getting bigger, it looks like acceleration. Where will it stop? When will it stop? Nobody knows. But Hardinharsaway and his brothers wanted to make sure that day was as far off into the future as possible.
96% of the known universe is made up of dark matter or dark energy. It is strange stuff and until somebody can grab a handful, it seems like great material for the main theme of a science fiction story.
Entry 2-047: February 11, 2014
Why were the Vuduri worried that Rei carried a disease?
Once again, this isn't really a plot hole but why exactly did the Vuduri quarantine Rei when he was first reanimated at Skyler Base? This seems like a stupid question at first. Of course you would quarantine a creature or person from another planet or time until you could make sure they were not carrying any noxious diseases. But later we learned that a) Rei was launched into space before The Great Dying and b) Rei had already been put into quarantine before he was dehydrated and frozen. He would not have been placed aboard the Ark II if he carried any disease whatsoever. The mission planners wanted the greatest chance of success for the new colony and sending sick people reduced that likelihood.
Did the Vuduri know this? Possibly. Probably not. They probably didn't care. But OMCOM certainly knew. He would go along with the Vuduri orders because that was his job.
But still, we're missing the point here. As we learned in Rome's Evolution, all the Vuduri were descended from people who survived the Great Dying and were genetically immune to that disease. Further, one of the benefits of the 24th chromosome was an increased immunity against any disease and rapid healing.
So why fear any disease that Rei carried when there was no chance it would affect the Vuduri? The answer is simple. The scene where Rei is awakened and isolated is much more dramatic that one where he wasn't. I loved the idea of Rei first seeing Rome on the other side of the glass. It is very poignant and lets the story flow in a natural pace and sets up counterpoint when Rei and Rome must split up (they think forever) when Rome must fly the Algol home.
Bottom line: dramatic license!
Entry 2-048: February 12, 2014
Why do the Vuduri have apartments?
Now I'm on a roll, asking serious questions about the construction of Rome's Revolution. So here's another one: why did the Vuduri bother building apartments on Skyler Base at all?
We know that they need to sleep, although in the original, long-form version of Rome's Revolution, they didn't actually sleep. (See Rome was too weird) So, ok, give them a bed or cot or something. It doesn't have to be a dormitory. They could have a room with a bed and a door. But why did they need a workstation? A sitting area? Private bathrooms?
The workstations I can let slide because all the Vuduri is work, eat and sleep and it wouldn't be practical for them all to cram into the stellar observatory. Despite that fact that they had their bloco and stilo, there were times when a full blown computer and monitor were required.
I also already discussed why Rome had two chairs in her apartment so we can let that one slide as well.
Private bathrooms? Probably not necessary. Just convenient.
The only thing I can't explain is the sofa. I had to keep it in there from the original VIRUS 5 written in 1973 because that was supposed to be the first time Rei met Rome. But in the modern version, I moved their meeting up to the first chapter.
So was keeping the sofa just nostalgic? No. The answer is very simple. You, the reader, have to be able to relate to the people of the future to some degree in order to measure whether they are better or worse than us or both. And an apartment that had just a bed and a bathroom seemed kind of dopey to me so I went with something we can all relate to.
In other words, dramatic license strikes again!
Entry 2-049: February 13, 2014
Lips faster than the speed of light
In Rome's Revolution, the first inkling that the stars were being consumed was when the team at Skyler Base sent a space tug out to chase down the light waves from Winfall's disappearance. Originally, the time it took for the Stareater to swallow a star was clocked at 13 minutes. But is it really possible that it happens that fast? Does that require that the Stareater's "lips" travel faster than the speed of light?
Let's use the Sun as an example. The Sun is 864,327 miles in diameter. The Stareater has to be many, many times larger to swallow a star whole. In fact, OMCOM actually measured the diameter and came up with 1.5 light minutes across. This equates to a diameter of 16,765,415 miles.
The Stareater was been designed to have "lips" which articulate and open then close around a star. It has to open up wide enough for the star to slide in. Figure 1/4 of its own diameter or 5 million miles. The circumference of a circle is Pi times the diameter so that makes the opening nearly 16 million miles wide.
For the action to be completed in 13 minutes, the "lips" would have to be closing at rate of about 48 million miles per hour. That's pretty fast!
The speed of light is 670 million miles per hour so the lips close not even one tenth the speed of light. In reality, each lip only has to travel half the distance so it is about 1/20th the speed of light. Still fast! And the dimming of the star only takes place once the lips occlude the disk of the star.
Let's go back to the diameter of the Sun: 864,327 miles. To match up with the Vuduri measurements, each lip would have to travel 1.3 million miles in 13 minutes or about 5 million miles per hour which isn't even one hundredth the speed of light.
So, in conclusion, no, the Stareater doesn't have to swallow a star with lips that travel at the speed of light. In fact, their speed is downright leisurely!
Entry 2-050: February 14, 2014
35th Century Valentine’s Day
Before the opening of Rome's Revolution, Rei Bierak and 542 other would-be colonists are frozen and sent to the stars aboard the Ark II with the hope of getting to Tau Cet
i and finding a habitable planet to welcome them.
Of course, we know they got knocked off course and ended up at Tabit 14 centuries later where they were rescued by the Vuduri. At first, the Vuduri were very suspicious of the people they called the Essessoni because of their brutal past. But over time, each group learned about the good within the others and on Deucado, they forged a new society which was a blend of the old culture and the new.
So did the colonists bring our holidays with them? After all, the calendars on every world would be different. The answer is a qualified yes.
Some holidays don't have to fall on a certain date (Mother's Day, President's Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day) while others are supposed to. For example, even though the technical name for July 4th is Independence Day, most people just call it July 4th.
But within each holiday is a reason and those reasons remain valid regardless of what solar system you currently reside in. So, today is February 14, Valentine's Day. Will the Vuduri learn to adopt this holiday? After all, when we first met them, they claimed the whole concept of love did not even apply to them.
The good news is yes. Rei loves Rome and Rome loves Rei and Rei made sure that the concept, not the date, permeated Vuduri society and eventually got the entire Galactic Union to celebrate it. So Happy Valentine's Day from the 35th century and know that you are loved by admirers both known and of the secret type.
Entry 2-051: February 15, 2014
Culture Shock
In the original, long-form version of Rome's Revolution, I presented the story in a "you are there" format so that you learned about the Vuduri at the same pace as our hero, Rei Bierak. However, since I had to compress the story down and boost up the action, some of the discoveries had to come faster or using plot devices.
Regardless, the tag-line back then and the tag-line now is the same: Rome's Revolution is a love story and a culture clash. As Rei learned about the Vuduri culture, he found that everything he knew or thought he knew about the universe was wrong or at least no longer applied.
Take the average American (me): what is our life about? There is friends, family, making a living, recreation and so on. Start with love. The Vuduri do not believe in it. They have no friends. Most Vuduri children (not Rome, of course) are separated from their parents after birth and are raised in a group not a family. The Vuduri do not read, enjoy art or sports. They have no need for recreation. In fact, in one famous scene, Rome tells Rei flat out that the Vuduri do not have fun.
What about jobs? Of course we all work to make a living. The Vuduri do not even have money. Everything they need is provided to them, free of charge. So they work because they are told to work, not because they want to work or get any creative satisfaction out of work. They are measured and evaluated from birth and placed in an occupation that is best suited to their physical skills. They have no say in the matter.
All the trivial things we talk about today, the weather, sports, the Internet: the Vuduri don't care about any of them. The Internet is in their heads. They don't have sports. The weather is irrelevant to them. Seems kind of boring to me.
Well all of this is going to change. Coming up next is The Milk Run starring Aason Bierak. His life is far different from ours but in many ways more relatable. He enjoys competition. He loves his family. He does what he wants because he enjoys it, not because he has to. He is going to start out on an adventure of a lifetime to save his sister. He speaks and feels like we do. His life will be the model for the 36th century and beyond. It is a melding of the Vuduri way of life with the Essessoni approach.
I can't wait to read it but I have to write it first!
Entry 2-052: February 16, 2014
Emotion
I have been working on Rome's Revolution since 1973. I've spent so much time and energy on describing the world of the 35th century that I felt the need to share it with the reader. However, the reader doesn't care. They'll take my word for it. What they want is emotion, tension, problems, not just solutions.
Our hero, Rei Bierak, never seems to be burdened much with intractable problems. Even though I have explained numerous times how his brain was modified when the Espansor Bands malfunctioned, it doesn't really help with ratcheting up the tension or the drama. In fact, it mutes it.
Take Rei's first issue: he wakes up in a foreign world, among strange people and the first thing he does is find the incomparable Rome to make his life easier. The next issue is that of the Stareaters. No problem, just invoke H. G. Wells and use a War of the Worlds approach and consume them.
When he gets to Deucado, Rome is in such distress that he takes her to the the Vuduri compound and miraculously isn't killed. In fact, Rome is rescued and while Rei is separated from her for a good portion of Part 2, you, the reader, never had any doubt that they would get back together.
The final portion, Part 3, where Rei and Rome return to Earth, hopefully proves to you that I "get it" and reading should be about the moment, not a blow by blow description of people moving from one scene to another. I'll be saving that for the screenplay. In the upcoming novel The Milk Run, it's going to be about experiences from an emotional perspective, screw the technology. The protagonist, Aason Bierak, is going to suffer more than his fair share of travails because that's what makes a story gripping. The technology? Been there, done that.
From here on in, it's going to be all about the emotion.
Entry 2-053: February 17, 2014
The missing probes
Right after the space tug observes the disappearance of Winfall, Rei and OMCOM have a conversation about previous attempts at researching the phenomenon. Since the plot of Rome's Revolution revolves around the Stareaters, you would think that this would get a bit more attention. Here is the actual conversation and you can see it is very short:
“What about probes? Rome told me you sent some probes out, right?” Rei asked.
“Yes. Probes were sent to the star systems involved, but they never returned.” OMCOM answered.
“Well, there must be some distance you can send them where you can still retrieve them and beyond that then you can’t, right?”
“Yes.”
“So what’s that distance?”
“No one has measured it.”
“Why not?” Rei asked.
“To make the effort remotely efficient in terms of time, you would have to build many, many probes and send them out simultaneously at varying distances.”
“So why not do that?” To Rei, it felt like he had come up against a brick wall.
“Up until now, the Overmind had not felt that it was worth the cost or effort.”
“What do you mean cost?” Rei exclaimed. “I would think that the origin of some crazy hypervelocity cloud, powerful enough to blot out the Sun would be worth any amount of money to find out.”
“I understand your reference, but the Vuduri do not use money. I meant in terms of the use of resources to build that many sophisticated probes.”
“So build cheap ones. Build a lot of them,” Rei snorted.
Of course, this led to the star-probes which, in turn, led to the VIRUS units which gives the whole rest of the series its context. But why didn't the Overmind do as Rei suggested? The Vuduri have unlimited, free energy so the "cost" that OMCOM refers to is irrelevant.
The answer to this question is very simple. I wanted to make it seem ominous that probes were sent out and none ever returned. And I had to have an excuse to send out the crew to Tabit otherwise we wouldn't have a story. So, dramatic license strikes again!
Entry 2-054: February 18, 2014
Lens-less cameras, revisited
As a cornerstone of Rome's Revolution, I have mentioned the star-probes acting as a lens-less camera on more than one occasion. In our real world, there are several instances of less-less cameras already in use today.
Bell Labs introduced a lens-less camera that can not only resolve an image but c
an actually render it in color. However, the camera is not real-time and only uses a single pixel element scanning the static image to be rendered time and time again using different filters. This type of camera would not be very useful in "seeing" a Stareater in action.
The lens-less camera invented at Duke is closer to that of the star-probes. According to the article:
The imaging system developed by graduate student John Hunt and colleagues at Duke University in North Carolina has no lens and instead combines a meta-material mask or aperture and complicated mathematics to generate an image of a scene.
This is the method I invoked for OMCOM. The star-probes formed along a concave geometry and used a small collection tube to guarantee that the photons they captured were only seen along the desired vector. The rest was pure mathematics and as a super-computer with not much else to do, OMCOM was completely up to the task of rendering the images in perfect focus in real time.
Here is a picture of a concave arrangement of star-probes creating a virtual focal point on light waves: