Unprogress Report
Argh! Disregard last post. I have to throw away twenty pages or so and rethink the scene.
The question is whether I should have my posthuman from Texas named Menelaus "Meany" Montrose sliding down the cable of the space elevator from geosynchronous orbit when his wedding night with the mysterious but alluring post-posthuman Space Princess also known as Star Maiden Rania is interrupt by a subterranean paramilitary attack be shot by a sniper using a surface-to-orbit directed energy weapon at the behest of Vardanov, biomodified giant and the treacherous master of assassins, or should Ximen "Blackie" Del Azarchel, supergenius (who, at this point in the story has also survived the dangerous brain-augmentation sequence to give himself an I.Q. of 500 or 600) also known as the Master of the World, merely invite Meany Montrose to the base of the elevator (where the attack is about to take place)to duel him with their rocket-pistols, according to the 23rd Century Spanish tradition, but before Montrose ignites the explosives hidden in the carbon nanotube fibers of the tower base–or should I have the being known as the Iron Ghost, the computer imprint of Blackie Del Azarchel’s warped super-brain, once insane and cured by Montrose (who thinks the machine is still his friend)betray the flesh and blood version of Blackie, or be working with him, in order secretly to launch (or prevent the secret launch) of the superstarship Hermetic to the Diamond Star at V886 Centauri, the dwarf star whose entire core is a multi-trillion caret diamond of degenerate matter, which is the key to destroying the corrupt world-empire of the Hermeticist crew, survivors from a previous century–or on the other hand would the Iron Ghost be collaborating with the gas-giant sized vehicle approaching from the star Ain (Epsilon Tauri)in the Hyades Cluster, sent by the inhuman machine-civilization that swarm through the Hyades stars, and, with their vast, slow, remorseless calculations, will arrive in 60000 A.D.– or would the machine ghost be planning to force-evolve a replacement race for mankind designed to oppose the Hyades?
I have to assume the machine intelligence is smart enough to deduce an inkling of the Space Princess’s real plan, which is not to go to V886 Centauri but to the distant globular cluster at M3, but does that mean it is not smart enough to deduce the presence of the Van Neumann machine Menelaus unwisely set into motion dissembling the nickle-iron core of the planet Earth, replacing the entire mass of Earth’s core with a sophont-matter self-aware machine known as Pellucid? And what about the asteroid of Antimatter the Hermeticists brought back with them from the depths of space, a countreterrene body too dangerous to orbit anywhere within the inner system, but whose coordinate locations are now lost to them? And is the Princess really in love with Menelaus, or does she only love his superintelligent but insane alternate version living inside his nervous system, the biosoftware entity known as Mr. Hyde (who was created based on the half-un-decoded mathematical hieroglyphs of the million-year-old alien object called The Monument)?
When should I have the power-armor-wearing Knights Hospitaller (also known as the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem) awake from their cryonic slumber beneath Mount Kyffhäuser in Thuringia?
It it is to sigh. People who write whodunnits and technothrillers and bodice rippers and magical-realism pirate stories and stories about samurai vampires battling ninja werewolves simply don’t have to think through questions like this.
Fortunately, Gary Gygax has a table in the back of one of his Dungeon Master’s guides where you can construct characters, story arcs, plot twists and thematic elements just from random die rolls, and this is what all professional writers use to resolve conundrums in their writing styles. Here is a sample:
On 2D10:
1-2 Catastrophic failure! Spend last two episodes having Shinji Ikari the EVA pilot worry about his relationship with his Dad. Use experimental writing style (Roll on James Joyce sub-chart).
2-5 Failure! Instead of resolving plot, make tub-thumping speech on a political or religious topic of your choice (roll d2: 1 go to Heinlein subtable, write on sexual deviance or militarism; 2 go to Pullman subtable, denounce religion). If you don’t feel like writing a screed, just have Captain Kirk die by falling off a bridge.
6-9 Fansave Error! Have the space princess turn out to be the sister of the space farmboy and the daughter of the Dark Lord. Expect fans to explain why she was kissing him in previous scene: you need explain nothing. Erase any robot memories, or set the scene in a parallel universe created by Romulan time-travelers. Fans will clean it up for you.
10-18 Workmanlike Ending! The Gray Lensman blows it up. Does not matter what it is, a space station, a small world, the planet Eeich, the Ploor Solar System, the entire Chloro Galaxy, the previous version of the universe. It blows up. Roll 1d10 on subchart for weapon used: 1-2 Death Star, 3-4 Red Matter, 5-6 Dirigible Planet, 7-8 Negasphere or Antimatter, 9 Sun-Beam, 10 Faster-than-light planet from Nth Space.
19 Unexpected Ending! Dark Lord turns out to be your hero’s long lost Father and he severs a limb! Roll on hit location chart for limb lost. (Note, hit location ‘head’ does not count. You cannot have your hero walking around with no head (unless this is Futurama or Sleepy Hollow). If you roll “cuts off head” hit location, have your hero realize that he killed his father and married his mother, and put out his own eyes.)
20 Almost Totally Satisfying Ending! Starving wretch bites your hero’s finger off, clutching the Ring of Power but slips while dancing the jig of joy and falls into a volcano! (For SF, substitute Neutron Star for Volcano).
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
