Angels and Apes

I haven't blogged for quite some time now, primary because my wife is hugely pregnant, and secondly because writing a scifi story is like catching fish with oily hands. Whenever you finally get one thing straight something else turns on you.
I've come to realize that that's what this blog is mostly about. To straighten my path out, and giving me a broader perspective on what the Frag I'm doing!

I started out with a regular story (an old story I wrote a years ago)- it was a bit messy, and maybe a little more lightheaded than I usually like, but entertaining in it's own right. Now I want the universe the story takes place in to be whole and believeable in it's own right.
So I started collecting everything I knew and could find about space, evolution and life and threw that into the boiling pot. But the more I got into the science part, the wierder the fiktion part became. I had to find out more about means of travel, communication, aliens, future humanity, settlements, living in an ancient universe, and most important: Which solutions I wanted to use in the story! Questions like: Is there a thing like an alien civilization at all? And if so, is it in the story? And are there more than one?  (I decided to go "Yes" on those ones, by the way...)

I like Star Trek, but to me those aliens are rarely truely alien. And that's because Star Trek always are about human interactions, and never aliens. I want the alien to be truely alien and overwhelming. To keep the mysteries mysterious. And the more I thought about it, the harder it got. Because how do you describe something as strange as the unknown and unseen and on top of that make it interact with us, with humans? And wanting it to do so?
To quote Sir Arthur C. Clarke: 

If one considers the millions of years of pre-history, and the rapid technological advancement occurring now, if you apply that to a hypothetical alien race, one can figure the probabilities of how advanced the explorers will find them. The conclusion is that we will find apes or angels, but not men.

I love science - I do. And I find inspiration in it every single day. It has made me see how miraculous our planet must be, just by being here. Where ever you go - There's nowhere like here. It's unique. But there are other places as just wonderfull as this small planet. There has to be. At least that what science and mathematics has tought me.
So I have to walk a very fine line - and I may not succeed at all - of what I think I know there can be and of how my story wants to be presented. Science on one side and space opera on the other.

Crew doodles

I'm working on the looks and traits of the crew on the space freighter - both in writing and in doodles, and I just thought I want to share some of the doodles... I haven't decided on any specific looks on the cast, though I like the short haired, bright looking female character though. She would fit in quite neat with the somewhat daft captain. Her name is McKenzie (just McKenzie) and she'll be the ships navigator. I think I got the captain somewhat worked out (he's the guy below, having a quiet drink). He's named Rob Roos, and he is not a people person. He doesn't like space either, but since you don't run into a lot of people out there, it's where he prefers to be. His motto would be "L'enfer, c'est les autres" if he could speak other languages than Terran Standard... Untill he learns, it's "Get the f*** lost, you mindless tosser!"

I always find it hard to settle for a final set of characters, so this time I've decided just to go with whoever I feel will work, and if it turns out they don't, then just get rid of them. Very holistic...

Battleship - Corvette Class



My newest ship - the HMS Hood - the famed battleship is now SketcheUp'ed, and I'm rather pleased with it.

I like the wrench shape of it, like a tool designed for a function an not to look good.

I want to make a battleship - a cruiser or dreadnaught class ship - based on the shape of an axe or a cleaver, but that might be a bit of a challenge to get that one exactly right...

Here's the corvette again:

Freighter: Lightcutter Class

Still looks too much like my computer cabinet, but I kinda like it.

This is the Lightcutter Class Freighter, equipped with standard ion engines (Hauser ltd.), and a single, minor jump engine (Shang Zhou Engine Corp.) Quite comfortable for a smaller crew.

Freighter - Hauler Class

I'm currently working on the design of the cargo freighter, belonging to my main protagonists - but I still haven't worked it out yet. This one is somewhat in the right direction, but it does looks like something you've seen before. And I think it's a bit too big. I still like it, and that's why I decided to post it here. 

The ship I need got to have a little more personality, but nothing like the Millenium Falcon (where do Han put the cargo on that ship???) and a bit more together than Serenity (it does look like they mashed 5 ships together into one)...

And thanks to Google SketchUp...

Sistema Solare: Trooper

I'm currently on holiday, so I won't be able to update the blog until sometime after the 31st of juli.

Anyway - here's a little doodle from my project Sistema Solare:

Soldier equipped with standart equipment for a private of "The Royal Expeditionary Force"- this particular soldier is stationed on the planet "Hideo".

The design is ancient, but I kinda like it.

Trust me, good man. Would I lie to you?

I just found this, rather old drawing I made ten or twelve years ago. I sometimes find old illustrations like this and I hope that I don't sound too full of myself, when I say that I'm surprised, that it was me who did it. I really am. I shall refrain from analysing my own work - that would be wrong on so many levels - but I must admit I rather like the uneasy feeling and untrustworthiness the insectoid alien radiates. I really don't like him...

What story exactly is behind the tableau I cannot remember, but it is part of a looong, ongoing story line, that hopefully soon is going online in the form of a sci-fi webcomic with the working title "Sistema Solare". But that still needs a lot of work, before it's ready. It needs a better name for a start...