Starting a new universe
In January 2005, we vacationed in Maui. In Lahaina, there is a mall called Whaler’s Village. It has a small museum - the Whalers Village Museum - which provides a pretty bleak overview of a whaler’s life.
I’ve taken notes from that trip and a couple of others. I was struck by how easily we could change a whaling ship to a space ship, a native to a lost colony, etc.
I’m going to tie in a separate story arc, that of generational ships cast out as living research outposts.
I’ll call out some obvious influences on this new universe:
- Time for the Stars, Robert Heinlein - Generational Ships
- Citizen of the Galaxy, Robert Heinlein - Free Trader - clans, matriarchal culture
- Alliance-Union universe, C. J. Cherryh - merchanter families, economic warfare
- Foreigner universe, C. J. Cherryh - stranded FTL ship
- Antares Dawn, Michael McCollum - Disrupted gates and divergent cultural development (Note it looks like I missed Antares Victory being published and I have some further reading to do.)
- The Lost Fleet, Jack Campbell (really John G. Hemry) - Jump gates (Note this work postdates my notes but will predate any real writing)
I’ll try to dig up other influences as I come across them.
And I have to mention that one of the biggest hurdles I have, it is attached to my notebook with a yellow sticky note, is how do I differentiate my story from Cherryh’s Foreigner. (Note I’ve got this same problem with another plot outline, which is in my head, and Wen Spencer’s stranded alien race in the Ukiah Oregon series.)
My story may end up not looking at all like Foreigner, but clearly my notes are directly concerned with it.
It will be fun resolving that and tying my notes to this expose.
