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Background notes

“Star Warrior” is a science fiction worldbuilding project and story begun in December 2006. By then I had lost much interest in the real-world spaceflight program which had previously been my focus for a decade or so, and was moving onto science fiction which stimulated my imagination much more.

Two human characters from some previous stories were initially carried over into this world, but my focus increasingly turned to the aliens and their culture; I was bored with humans-only stories (and humans!) and found aliens much more appealing as they could be whatever I wanted them to be. I wanted to create my own aliens and their culture – the most ferocious warriors in our Galaxy! – incorporating everything that I think is “cool.” I began writing it (a different version of the “Awakening” Mars mission scene) on 3 December 2006.

The alien culture and story (the “Escape” scene) was initially inspired by a BBC documentary on the Moche which I saw on Thursday 16 February 2007. I also have a lot of accumulated images in my head from various movies and books that resonated with my imagination – mentioned in the links further down the page – and I wanted to somehow combine these into my own fantasy. An example is an image of an alien warrior lying in stasis in a tomb for centuries.

The main characters (the alien, Lord Sohaar, and the Russian cosmonaut, Sergei) are in part a reaction to how these types tend to usually get presented in many books, movies and computer/video games:

So both groups get the opposite treatment in this story! Though in recent years – 2010s – Russia under Putin (who has turned into an autocrat) has become more hostile to the West once again, and I am disillusioned with some aspects of the country (see 23/7/2016 Journal entry), so perhaps my main human character will reflect this.

I am also not particularly enamoured of humanity in general, so an alien invasion/takeover might not be a bad event in my view. There are some who feel that attempts to contact alien civilizations through efforts such as SETI are a bad idea (see “Shouting at the cosmos,” Lifeboat Foundation), but my feeling is that humanity is already destroying itself though overpopulation, environmental devastation, etc., so a potential alien invasion would make little difference – maybe a “hostile takeover” with Earth “under new management” would be an improvement! Humanity as a species – and the modern civilization I live in, especially – is arrogant and needs to be humbled (for our own good); hubris will otherwise lead to a painful fall, perhaps even a collapse of civilization.

I prefer a story with only one or two main characters rather than a whole horde, so this is reflected here; I am also not good at depicting lots of characters! The story is more focused and personal. A curious note is that both alien and Russian characters are solitary/bachelor males, the type of character I seem to prefer to create – the fact that I am a single celibate female would probably be a reason! Both characters have elements of my personality, and are in some sense avatars.

Quite a lot of the story is blatant wish fulfilment – for example, the advanced medical nanotechnology my aliens developed means they can repair almost any ailment without invasive surgery (having endured two major surgeries in 2008-2009, this is a particularly relevant technology wish for me!).

The story is mostly science fiction, but with some fantasy elements. “Hard science fiction” is too limiting for my taste (and its adherents can be rather fanatical and intolerant), and I prefer to believe that there may be more to our reality than what current physics and science generally reveals. I also do not have the educational and scientific background to write about the topic convincingly!

The story is still evolving – and perhaps will never be finished, and may still change – but I hope I can maintain interest in it and the characters as I have put a lot of effort into developing it. I also simply like the alien world and it is a place to escape to in my daydreams.

A very early draft extract from my 19/2/2007 Journal entry:

“So, Lord Sipan, my brother,” said Lord Chepen to the bound figure kneeling before him, surrounded by four of the Royal Guard, “you tried to overthrow me and you have been defeated. As much as it pains me, I must punish you for your treason.”

The warrior, adorned in black armor and robes, painfully raised his masked face to glare at his younger and only brother, green eyes incandescent with hate. “I … am … not defeated,” he gasped, barely able to speak from a broken jaw after weeks of the systematic ritual tortures that were inflicted upon warrior-captives. His gaze focused on the raised platform behind his golden-armored brother – the ritual sacrificial altar, its black carven obsidian surface stained and streaked from the innumerable killings performed on its surface. Lord Chepen would execute his brother himself, as tradition demanded; assisted by the High Priest and Priestess. “You … did not slay all my forces …”

“They will be hunted down and destroyed, on whatever worlds they have fled to,” replied Lord Chepen coldly. “Guards, release his bonds.” One of the silent blue-armored Guards reached down and undid the thin carbon nanotube ropes that wrapped around his wrists and neck; the immensely strong composite ropes had cut through his armor deep into his skin and dark blood dripped onto the stone beneath him. Sipan collapsed forward, almost unable to move. The captive Lord had initially been forced to walk to the pyramid – watched by the residents of the city gathered around – then begin climbing its thousands of steps, despite the broken bones in his feet. When his strength gave out the Guards had merely continued dragging him upwards, face down; his arms, pulled at an impossible angle behind him and over his head, had dislocated from his shoulders. Throughout all this, he had not uttered a sound.

The group stood on the tallest flat-topped pyramid in the city of Charnath, which spread out in every direction, its buildings – temples, pyramids, residential areas – illuminated in the dull glow of the planet’s red giant sun that dominated the blue-black sky. Parts of the city were in ruins from the savage years-long civil war between the two brothers and their respective forces.

Lord Sipan managed to struggle to his knees, though he was unable to use his arms to lever himself. “Do … what you will. But I will … not bow to you,” he snarled, thinking, My escape plan must work – I have no more chances … Monarch, are you up there? He telepathically called to his starship, the Monarch of Night, via the transmitter embedded in his brain, of which his captors were unaware.

Blood, torture and human sacrifice, yay! Sometimes I am just in the mood to read or write about such things (pity my characters!). It is an escape from the limitations and boredom of the real space program, which I get so frustrated with. I don’t think I have enough in me to write a novel, though – I am always fantasizing but these are scenes rather than whole stories. One name is from the Lord of Sipan; I just choose names I like the sound of. Other influences include Sith Lord, Charn, Cthulhu Mythos, Event Horizon, Great Old One, Pyramids of Mars, Sutekh, Sardaukar, Sauron, and Stargate (film). I don’t know if “my” aliens are humanoid aliens or alien aliens (if that makes sense), or perhaps an ancient civilization who left Earth long before recorded history. They are a mixture of high technology (spacefaring) and barbaric rituals.

Themes and issues

The aliens and their society are in some way my reaction against things I dislike in the society I live in, where constant change is regarded as a Good Thing, the Economy is God, employment is uncertain and people are thus expected to be “flexible.” I have the sort of personality that prefers stability and things to remain the same – traits of Asperger’s Syndrome – so I find the rapidly-altering modern world confusing and distressing. I am certainly not anti-technology – I hope that things such as nanotechnology become real – it is more the chaos and uncertainty of modern society that I dislike.

I also intensely dislike the capitalist economy with its obsession with buying and selling things, and much prefer a socialist-style society where everyone in it is looked after. Thus for the alien culture, I effectively took much of what I dislike about the society I live in and removed it! For example, there is no money system amongst my aliens.

If there is one word I would use to summarize their society, it is “still” (I would describe human society as “noisy”). Some would regard it negatively as stagnant, but that is not always a bad thing. I would rather like to live there (or visit at least), seeing it as a respite from the dysfunctional insanity of modern industrial human society.

In my dreary real life I am a powerless nobody who is often not taken seriously (a 5′3″ordinary-looking female) – and who has no means of retaliating against humiliation and insults – and I get very frustrated at this, so the story is perhaps an extreme reaction to this frustration! Imagine having as a friend an alien with world-destroying powers – awesome!

Our society has devolved into one where the banal is glorified and sincerity is sneered at. There is an excess of emotion, jaded irony, self-indulgence and hedonism. The popular culture which dominates society is debased, crude and just plain stupid. Modern culture has become infantile.

The warrior culture is currently “politically-incorrect” and made fun of; as noted in this article about the 2007 Beowulf film:

Although they are all over our film, television and PC screens, we’re not comfortable with warrior heroes, with supernatural battles between good and evil. We believe – quite rightly – that conflicts cannot always be settled with violence. We snigger at guys with swords and six-packs, and look for fascist or homoerotic overtones. Only adolescent boys (the prime market for the Beowulf film and electronic game) show any signs of taking the genre seriously, and even then there’s a certain irony at work.

The author of Beowulf took his hero and his world utterly seriously. There’s a code of conduct here – part Christian, part pagan – about valour, loyalty and glory after death, a code that stirs and moves us still, even as it also appears foreign and occasionally appalling, like the ethics of Tony Soprano. But if we enter into the seriousness of this world, we will be rewarded.

Thus my aliens (and Lord Sohaar in particular) are in a way my version of the ultimate male Warrior, carried to an extreme – my thoughts on this from my “Fictional Aliens” page:

The prospect of romantic involvement with aliens is a topic explored in some science fiction, and other media such as video games (Mass Effect being one), not to mention certain sections of the Internet involved with fanfiction. The aliens in question tend to be (conveniently) more-or-less humanoid in appearance so romantic involvement is not such an outlandish idea as it might initially seem. In science-fiction-themed romance novels, the aliens are basically human with some exotic elements such as oddly-colored eyes (e.g. red or yellow). At the most they might be anthropomorphic – humanoid with animal features (such as “cat-people”; the Na’vi from Avatar being an example of this). The more “alien” aliens can be found in straight science fiction and games – some are described in the previous section.

A simple theory for why alien romances are a popular theme is the appeal of the exotic. One reviewer of The White Masai (an autobiography of a German woman who runs off to Africa and marries a Masai warrior) says:

What women will do for love, when the object of their desires is a warrior with beautiful hair. To the other reviewers who don’t understand why Corinne would ditch everything to live primitively in the Kenyan bush, her actions (comparable to Sarah Lloyd’s) appear to be based on an atavistic desire by modern women to find traditionally masculine men, with beautiful chiseled bodies, tremendous pride, weapons (swords, kris, spears) worn at the waist … as found among Masai, Samburu, Sikh and other men in the developing world.

Anthropologist April Gorry (who studied women who entered affairs with men in Belize) did a marvelous job in her doctoral thesis noting that modern women love competent, strong men, rather than the drones and eunuchs found in the Western workplace. That BMW cannot substitute for the ease with which men in traditional societies display mastery of their environment, from climbing a coconut tree and anchoring a boat to guiding female trekkers up Himalayan peaks. Corinne Hoffman’s tale is only the most extreme variation of a phenomenon involving perhaps 25,000 women per year.

The “Predator” alien previously mentioned, for example, has quite a few female fans (and fantasies …) despite not being conventionally handsome! He is a sort of idealization of the ultra-masculine male hunter, which a lot of women still instinctively find appealing (though they might be too embarrassed or “politically correct” to admit to it!). Although alien rather than from another “exotic” human culture, he does validate the reviewer’s observation.

Men have their fantasy aliens too – these can mostly (and sarcastically) be summed up in two words: female aliens with boobs. Neytiri in Avatar is an example of such “fan service” – James Cameron bluntly stated in a Playboy interview: “Right from the beginning I said, ‘She’s got to have tits,’ even though that makes no sense because her race, the Na’vi, aren’t placental mammals.” The lengthy forum threads devoted to her shows that JC achieved his aim here!

In reality, romances with aliens are probably unlikely! Aliens might not be physically compatible, might not have the same sexuality as humans (they could have a mating season, for example, and be uninterested outside of this) and both humans and aliens might find each other unappealing (humans, for example, are quite sweaty and stinky compared to many other mammals!). I could imagine some sort of platonic friendship if the two species could communicate, but nothing more than that – though one could possibly admire an attractive alien in the way we admire aesthetically appealing animals. I therefore tend to get irritated at the fevered imaginings of fangirls, such as in this Mass Effect forum thread devoted to a Turian character, Garrus. (Situations like this are not likely to happen, sorry! And there’s a lot more explicit on that site.)

All that being said, I do find annoying the idea of science fiction and aliens always being a metaphor for “The Human Condition,” “What It Is To Be Human” (to quote two overused phrases), or current issues. Sometimes an alien is just an alien! I want to read about aliens and spaceships and exotic worlds and technologies – to be transported far away from the mundane reality in which I grudgingly reside – and that is the whole purpose of science fiction for me.

A common theme of sci-fi novels that I tend to find irritating is the “humans rebelling against their alien overlords” theme, where the human race has been subjugated by aliens and rebels against them to gain “freedom.” Never mind that the aliens might be doing a better job of governing a society than dysfunctional and irrational humans themselves could. Humans just seem to rebel from sheer contrariness. A quote on the same subject regarding a novel called Jaran (which I haven’t yet read) from a mailing list page:

Was there some motivation given for the rebellion of Tess’ brother against the Chappali? I cannot remember any. For me that’s one of the gaps in the story somebody else mentioned which have to be filled out by the reader. The Chappali are described as alien, but in fact benevolent rulers, introducing new helpful tools and technologies. They certainly disdain the humans. But if there is encroachment or arbitrariness it is at least not mentioned in the text. So, it appears as if Tess’ brother instigates a rebellion for freedom only. Not freedom from slavery but freedom from dominion which IMO is not the same. I don’t want to devaluate freedom and self-respect. But do you think a rebellion is justified simply because a group/species is ruled by an alien group whose dominion is in general benevolent and which adheres to a set of rules?

Another irritation is the “change for change’s sake” theme – rebelling against the standing social order – as this now-deleted Amazon.com book review for Promise of the Wolves grumbles:

It’s really getting old, stories like this that are built upon the following premise:

Boring plot line, especially since our society today is so saturated with this depraved philosophy. Honestly, I long for a book that has the OPPOSITE plot-line. A society of a modern-day relativistic feel-gooders where one person discovers an ancient way … a way of order, of tradition, and formality. Now that’s a way of living quite foreign to 21st century man and would make for an interesting read.

I have become irritated with the rebellion/change themes to the point where I mostly refuse to read any novels that feature them (which omits quite a lot, including most young-adult novels, which are particular offenders in this regard). When you can’t find stories you like – and I have almost stopped reading science fiction in general – it’s time to write your own.

(The story is also possibly a much more elaborate version of this one-paragraph tale, “The Men From Outer Space,” that I wrote when I was 8 :-D)

Influences

I have borrowed many elements I liked from various movies, books and cultures, mixed them together and formed my own version. If I didn’t have the Internet as a resource I doubt I would be able to write such a story! Below are listed some influences, with links to external sites (mainly Wikipedia).

10 years on

This year (December 2016) will mark 10 years since I began this worldbuilding project. (Where has the time gone?!) The story has changed a little since I began it, but I have not done much more work on it this year as it has felt a bit stale and I have needed a break. I feel mentally tired and unable to concentrate upon it.

I still like the setting and characters, but I want to change and refresh things somehow. Perhaps remove the human elements and concentrate on the alien world and characters; pare down and simplify the story a bit? Perhaps introduce some fantasy elements. I have been a bit at a loss as to where to go next. I don’t want to abandon it like I have earlier projects (such as the previous International Space Station stories and characters from 2000-2003) as I have put so much work into it.

At first I had vague fantasies of turning it into a novel, but realistically, that won’t happen. I have stalled on the story for years and could not face the daunting task of trying to have it published even if I did finish it. Perhaps I don’t want to finish it. Trying to get a novel published is nearly impossible (viciously competitive) and I hate the commercial focus of it all. My world is very personal and means a lot to me – but not to others – and I could not cope with the harsh feedback that comes with getting a story edited. It is more of a place to go to in daydreams.

Worldbuilders

Some imaginary worlds of others, and websites on how to worldbuild. I enjoy reading about other people’s worlds and fantasies. The term for such imaginary world creation is a paracosm. (A more negative designation is maladaptive daydreaming, which could describe what I do, but I enjoy it and refuse to see it as a “disorder.”)

10 Sep 2016