Exolegacy, page 24
In a move that mirrored both Als’ and Gin’s, Xikse was elected as representative to a new cooperative government on Tiras and opened all aspects of technology and culture to both manisae and Humanity. Relief was publicly evident on both planets among scholars and intellectuals, if not politicians. Since the exposure of history to the entirety of their race, cultural rejuvenation has accelerated on Tiras.
Back on Earth, Hildegard Chawla retired from politics in a public statement that widely went unnoticed. The nets had not much calmed down from the initial shock of the Manisae history and the existence of a much wider galactic state. Ehrenfeld was named as her replacement as Sekretär of the Außenministerium. There were a few outlying conspiracy theorists hinting at a ‘Hernandez Dynasty’ within the Staatenbund, but given all of the other issues, they soon moved on to more grand and outlandish ideas.
All three siblings still occasionally dream through their parents’ eyes, but the memories trend toward reruns more than revelations. Each of them were changed fundamentally by their parents’ memories. Ehrenfeld learned the true source of his father’s distant emotions, and found that he was not meant to be his father. Gin experienced her parent’s love from both of their memories of her, and found her self-worth through it. Als was able to come to terms with the grief of the loss of his mother through his father’s eyes, but also felt the depth of love that a husband can have for a wife. He learned to stop wandering and to open his heart to another. Rez didn’t need much convincing.
Glossary
Exoarchaeology - The study of ancient cultures on a planet other than Earth.
Biosuperconductor - A substance that transmits data at computational speeds with a biological foundation, not a metallic or mineral.
Biocrystallography - The study of crystalline structures grown from biological substrates
Ecopoiesis - The process of transforming one planet to fit and support the biological needs of life that did not originate on it. Related to terraforming, but not beholden to the standards of Earth-originated life.
Emprint - The process of recording memories and emotions into a storage medium such as a Sentite or Legatite crystal archive lattice.
Sentite - The trademarked name for the memory crystals as developed from the materials gifted to Humanity by the Manisae. A Sentite license allows the holder to develop and create Sentite crystals from the proprietary substrate.
Legatite - An artificially re-engineered form of Sentite based more closely on the crystalline structure of noachite. Denser and more capable than Sentite for emprinting.
Mahua - Traditional national spirit of India, brought to HB by the original developer-settlers. Served as the standard liquor in most HB bars. Though the most authentic mahua is found at Desmond’s Hole at Isro Station. Cloudy-white in appearance usually diluted down for consumption.
noachite - An endemic mineral found originally at Noachis Terra, Mars, and cataloged in January 2031 by Mindat after a sample was returned from the fourth Tenacity mission.
Ecopoiesis engine (Ago) - one of a series of engines placed at key points around Tiras to aid in the restarting of the planet’s atmosphere. They partially drill down through the crust and direct a penetrating radiation beam toward the cold core of the planet to gradually heat it (gamma radiation?). The beams are oriented at slight angles so that as the core liquefies, it begins to turn; creating the friction needed to rebuild the magnetosphere. The process also creates excess ozone and other greenhouse gases that are directed upward to build out the atmosphere. Because of this exhaust, and depending on prevailing winds, the area around each engine can be hazardous for both human and manisae respiratory systems, requiring filtered rebreathers.
Ejd’nau - The ceremony where a chosen dat or gen is transformed into an ejd, the secondary life stage of the Manisae.
Ota’nau - The ceremony where a chosen ejd is elevated to the ranks of the Arkeota and receives the knowledge of the Manisae history.
Author’s Note
I started this novel at the end of 2020 as a challenge with my father to write two novels in parallel (but unrelated) revolving around the vague prompt of “memory”. He proceeded to sink his teeth in and bang out twenty-thousand words in the first month. I wrote a first chapter and connected it with a short story I had written earlier that year as a proof of concept. Then I sank into my usual winter depression and was distracted by life; being a father of two girls and surviving as an immigrant in Transilvania. Since then, my father has written three novels in the same series, plus two other novellas… he has more free time than me.
Still, I plugged away at the story, occasionally changing the names of characters to better suit the world I was building and adding details to beef up the lore, but I had only planned the plot out so far, and I knew that there would be a part where one of the characters would need to do a speech. I also figured that it would be the one who is most temperamentally close to myself, and neither of us are good at public speaking. So back to the background of my muddled brain it went for a few months.
I don’t know how other authors do it, but I am mentally incapable of writing two stories in parallel. My mind is fixated on the one that I’ve started and won’t focus on anything else until it has been resolved, even if I can’t focus on the story in-hand either. Eventually though, I buckled down and with the encouragement of my wife (who claims I’m a good writer, but obviously has ulterior motives), I wrote the rest of the story.
It was a bit of a mess at first, so I read it forward and backward, in my head and aloud (not backward though). I read it to my wife as well, which I don’t recommend since the flow will break every time you find a typo or awkward sentence—which was often. She picked it apart with me, and ultimately helped me polish it up for beta readers.
First, I sent it to my mother and father—yes, I know, but hear me out. My father is an experienced author and has never coddled me with his feedback. He’s an engineer and understands the concepts that I attempt to use (usually more than I do). My mother doesn’t read science fiction. She usually doesn’t get the concepts at all, but that means that she asks the questions that I would never think to ask, and she helped me firm up the background and foundation of the story that it wouldn’t fall apart in a light rain. So if you’re thinking of writing a somewhat technical but emotionally charged story, I would highly suggest that you send it for advice to similar readers, though they don’t have to be your parents.
Out of all of the other people that said that they wanted to help polish the book as beta readers, the only two that really came through are our good friends Dave and Elena. As screenwriters and directors, they had completely different skillsets to bring to the brainstorming table. They were thorough and critical, exuberant at the good parts and challenging of the weak ones. Riffing with them through all of the “what abouts” strengthened the story more than anyone else could have, and the book that you’ve just read owes a lot to their advice.
Outbound
Enjoy this preface from “Outbound”, book one of the Merimnae Saga by William Altmann:
Space exploration had come a long way since the hundredth anniversary of Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon. Up to that year the goals had been ambitious, certainly, but not marked as real existential stretch goals for humanity.
Several nations, and teams of nations, had established colonies. The first ones were naturally on the Moon but they did not grow beyond being scientific research stations for many, many years. It was convenient to get there and back, but once there what could be done? The low gravity was an issue, at least from the view of the medical community. Being close to one’s home government was a blessing, but it could also be a curse. True independence was hard to find. And then there were the risks of other governments making claims where claims had already been laid down. It was not so different from the California Gold Rush, another hundred years in the past.
Mars was better. Colonies there were multi-generational. Industries grew up and thrived, even in their home market. The gravity meant that one could get about almost normally. Now that terraforming had begun, there was talk about walking out under the two moons with only a breather.
Titan and Europa were for those who did not want to be disturbed. They were more like Siberia: hard to get there with everything you wanted, and hard to get back to Earth. Fortunately, by the time ships and technologies had progressed for colonizing there, countries were not sending their convicts and political opponents to remote settlements. It was in that way different from Siberia, and Australia and even Antarctica. There was not much gravity, but medicine had discovered ways to counteract the degradation of bone, muscle and organ associated with low gravity living. And there was a lot of money to be made there: mining, power generation, basic manufacturing. It was a lot easier to send materials inbound than outbound and the water, helium and precious metals were very useful on a tired and worn Earth.
None of these settlements became independent of Earth. Each was an international community and there didn’t seem to be any reason to fight for more freedom.
These last fifty years some people had begun looking to the stars. Part of it was the old exploration bug. No different than Columbus, some wanted to see what was really out there. Part of it was to find a place for long-term survival of the species, away from asteroid impacts or solar storms. Part of it was engineers who just wanted to see if people could get there and back with their inventions.
The first missions were robotic. Ships were sent out one-way. Systems were perfected for maintaining thrust for months or years, and for maintaining communication while at the same time maneuvering past debris or other unexpected obstacles. It really was a thrill – across all the colonies of Sol System – when the probe ship Ryokō-sha III detected a new planet five times the distance of Pluto from Sol! It was big enough to have to avoid, else the trajectory of the mission would be affected.
Speeds continued to increase, especially since the robots did not care about high-G forces. The engineers realized, though, that no one propulsion system would be enough for an entire mission. If humanity wanted to go out there, survive, arrive, and even possibly return, a lot would have to come together.
There has never been a lack of volunteers. Even the first Mars journeys had people lined up to sign their names. Traveling to another star, though, was a lifetime commitment. So, the doctors and biologists got to work.
Fifty countries signed the Deep Space Exploration Treaty which brought in the capital to develop a ship to the stars. This smoothed the way for the bureaucrats and gave the researchers and developers long-term stability. Unfortunately, the treaty also stipulated that a ship be launched by 2119 C.E.
Follow along with the crew of the Magellan and their journey of discovery and trials in the Merimnae Saga, currently available on Amazon.
Andr Moș, Exolegacy
