DeathDay: What Alien Invaders Must Do

An alien invading army must be able to do three things: move, shoot, and multiply. Multiply? Yes, as in 'be fruitful and'. An alien invading army that cannot do that might as well stay home. And that is the problem I found with the alien invaders of William C. Dietz's DeathDay.

DeathDay, published in 2001, and its sequel EarthRise, is a mashup between an alien invasion novel and a solemn tract on the overwhelming importance of racial political correctness. As you may have guessed, that bit didn't work for me.

The alien race, the Saurons, come in three color coded types, and for the purpose of educating us, the ruling type is black! and the menial caste is white! But the important thing about the Saurons is the way they reproduce--- and the fact they don't seem to be able to multiply.

With the Saurons, their reproductive phase begins when a nymph begins growing within their body. When the nymph is big enough, it emerges, killing its parent. But this doesn't matter because the nymph is identical and carries on.

This reproductive phase happens to the whole race at once. When that happens, they high-tail it to a planet, invade, and use slave labor to construct chambers for the change to happen in.

Now, there is an important mathematical bit here: there is only one nymph per Sauron. And 3% of Saurons are early changers and they, and their nymphs, won't survive. So that alone means that each new generation is 3% smaller than the last.

And then there is the factor of Saurons that die of other causes. Since their military force is overwhelming, they don't have battle deaths to worry about. But then they gather survivors to put them to slave labor, giving the angry slaves and other rebels plenty of cause and opportunity to kill a few Saurons. And there are natural causes and accidents as well.

So what we have here is a species that is incapable of population growth at any time, no matter how favorable the circumstances. A species, moreover (I love the word 'moreover', I had a blog named that once) that is locked into population shrinkage for all eternity.

The question becomes, why are there any Saurons left? How could they evolve from the slime when their biology means that the first little band of Saurons to evolve would have shrunk and become extinct long before they had time to develop the wheel, much less space travel. This species is non-viable. It cannot do what the author has it doing.

I fully understand how author William C. Dietz made this mistake. Population growth of any kind is a strong taboo in modern-day progressive circles, to the point that some even call for deliberate human extinction.

How could these aliens be fixed? I might have the aliens not be evolved creatures, but created ones. Now, don't get all bent out of shape over 'created', some alien genetics lab trying to create some perfect warrior race as a weapon will do just as well as Almighty God. In this scenario, the creators can make as many Saurons as they like in a lab for an original base population, and can teach them to use any technology they need to use to fulfill their purpose.

As for the population shrinkage thing: we might give Saurons the ability their creators had to build new Saurons in the lab. But that might change the nature of the race to give them that ability.

What I would do is introduce a concept of twinning. A certain percentage of Saurons would produce two nymphs. That means a certain number of living Saurons would have twins. Perhaps there would be a certain food supplement to adjust the twinning level to the amount desired: to keep the population the same when the living space on their spaceships was full-up, and to increase when they had extra living space--- perhaps from adding new ships to their fleet.

The lesson of DeathDay--- other than to avoid getting all preachy with your race relations politics--- is to think your alien societies through. Make sure you are not creating a non-viable, doomed race such as the Saurons when a little thought can make them realistic.

Worldbuilding Blogfest: History of the Frederikaners

History of the Frederikaners
from 'Shepherd'

The seed colonists of the planet Niesse are a distinct nationality/ethnicity known as the Frederikaners. The main group of Frederikaners live outside the Terran Empire, and are under the authority of an alien species known as the Gray, and live on a continent on one of the Five Worlds that is owned by the Gray. This is their history.

 The Gray

They are humanoids with bulging foreheads, large eyes, and tiny noses and mouths. Their skin is a greenish-gray color and they are hairless. They are the creatures known to Terran folklore as the Gray aliens, the ones who commit alien abductions. And some of what is said about them is true.\par The Gray are what is called 'true aliens', as opposed to human aliens who are biologically humans but of non-Terran origin who can interbreed with humans. Like other true aliens, the Gray seem mentally alien to humans and it's difficult to understand and judge them.

The colony of humans they started is one example. Humans would regard the notion of collecting human beings and putting them in an isolated habitat on another world as a form of cruelty. The Gray consider that they are preserving interesting living artifacts in a sort of museum. They consider that since they took the original human stock from a world which had not yet developed interstellar travel, the humans were merely a form of clever animal with no more rights than any other animal not to be put into preserves and zoos.

The First Collection

 The first group of humans collected by the Gray to form their human colony was collected at least ten years prior to 1871, when the Second Collection--- the first successful Collection--- was made. The First Collection was composed of a group of random individuals of all racial and linguistic backgrounds, collected both from cities and from agricultural areas. It had about 15% more males than females as human social customs on Terra during that era made it less likely for women other than streetwalkers to be roaming the streets. The First Collection failed to form a viable colony due to strife.

The Second Collection

The Grays somehow got rid of the survivors of the First Collection and began on the Second, which they determined was to be a more homogeneous group. They decided on a preferred type of human--- agricultural workers that were speakers of Germanic languages such as English, German or Danish. and who were of the Nordic physical type. This collection began in 1871. The Second Collection did not pick up individuals, but small groups, mostly groups of sisters and brothers who were young enough to be adaptable. They were collected in North America among groups of mostly-immigrant farmers and ranchers, many from an American town called Fredericksburg. A notable member of this group was a professor of linguistics from a university who had created a simple international language based on Anglo-Saxon and Germanic root words. This language, Aermannske, became the basis of the Frederikaner dialect, and in addition was revived on Terra much later and became used on a number of Terran colonies with significant Germanic-ethnic populations. The Second Collection, perhaps because they were people of a pioneering spirit, made a successful colony.

The Third, Fourth and Fifth Collections

These Collections were made of small groups of the desired type, both from North America and from the European homelands. The Third Collection was to bring in people with craft skills--- blacksmiths and stonemasons, potters, weavers and the like. The Fourth Collection featured people with cultural skills--- musicians and makers of musical instruments, painters, wood-carvers, and tailors and seamstresses who were familiar with the national costume of the various European regions which were the home of those in the Collections. The Fifth Collection included a number of university professors with specialties related to Germanic history, languages, mythology and folklore, as well as Catholic and Lutheran theology professors and pastors.

The Last Collection

The Fifth Collection was complete by 1900, but the Grays continued to travel to Terra and observe humans. During the time of the Holocaust, their observation posts were near to Jewish villages in Poland which were overrun by Nazis. The Gray were sympathetic and spirited many of these rural Polish Jews out of harms way. Many of these were of the desired Nordic physical type, and they all spoke a Germanic language, Yiddish. So it is not too surprising that many of the rescued found their way to the Gray colony of humans, who by then were known as the Frederikaners. The people of the Last Collection, having experienced a few extra decades of the goings-on back on Terra, were considered rather sophisticated and clever.

 Post Collection History

The Frederikaners and their farming enterprises did very well in the years following the collection. They may not have been happy on the restrictions placed on them by the Gray but the learned to live within the restrictions. Because of the trauma of being kidnapped by the Gray at a time when humans didn't even know alien beings existed, the Frederikaners became suspicious of 'outlanders'--- anyone from outside the Frederikaner community, whether Terran or alien.\par From time to time, when troublemakers, misfits, rebels or criminals arose, the individuals involved were removed from the colony by the Gray. The only new Terrans were emissaries of the Pope, to report secretly on the state of the faith among the Frederikaners, so that the Pope would be able to appoint the appropriate Frederikaner-born priest to be the group's bishop. (So the Frederikaners knew nothing of Hiroshima or of the European Union, but knew about John Paul II and Mother Teresa of Calcutta.)

The population growth among the Frederikaners reached a peak just as the Terran Empire began a phase of rapid expansion, and colonists for the new worlds were a highly valuable commodity. The Gray offered a company called Grovanli Iterations a contract for a group of colonists--- all volunteers--- and Grovanli gladly paid the rather exorbitant price to get access to some of the unique Frederikaners as seed colonists for the world Niesse.

Wow, this post is long!!! If you would like to read some of the more concise entries on this blogfest, the list is at Sharon Bayliss' blog.  It's also a day late due to the early arrival yesterday of the septic tank guy who got my indoor plumbing functional again. Functional indoor toilets are cool.

Link Caritas:
TonyBreedenBooks.com: Worldbuilding: A Look at the History and Politics of Øtherworld  First, I must express my admiration for Tony's stamina in using the Ø, it is a lot of work putting in strange letters. The world seems to be a relatively near-future world. With mutants. Mutants are cool. Not as cool as functional indoor toilets, but cool. Note: I could not figure out how to link to the individual post on the blog, so just linked to the blog itself.

Icefall Studio: Worldbuilding Blogfest #2: History & Politics    Layla Lawlor blogged this without having internet at home, so her blog-stamina is greatly to be praised. Karamanda is a city in the mountains in which everyone has wings.

Worldbuilding Blogfest: Geography of Niesse

Geography and Climate of Niesse

Niesse is a world in the Terran Empire, from a WIP with the working title 'Shepherd'.

The planet Niesse is located on the Wieman Expanse, a relatively new slipstream trail with a start-point at the Star Colony Olmayo. Niesse is in the third stage of terraforming and is under control of Grovanli Iterations, an ellessee new to the enterprise of terraforming.

The view on the planet Niesse, regardless of where one chooses to land, is bleak, as is common in a terraformed world at this stage. It looks like a bleak endless sand desert--- rocky in some spots--- with no visible living things.
The presence of human technology is most easily seen in the presence of man-made towers--- the larger ones, called Regulators, regulate the atmosphere and cause the scheduled rains, and the smaller ones, called Shooters, which shoot out spores of multiple varieties of the malarit plant, a genetically engineered terraforming plant used mainly to build up a soil, and also, in time, to provide feed for the earliest life forms to be released on the world.

The sand-like material on the ground has the technical name of 'dust'--- meaning that it lacks the organic material that it would need to qualify for the term 'soil'. As the terraforming process goes on, generations of malarit plants go through their life cycles and die, and contribute that needed organic material. The seed colonists of Niesse--- along with the small number of animals they tend--- also make their contribution to the organic material needs through their excretions.

There are two human settlements on Niesse that qualify for the term 'cities', at least in a relative way. They are Amandus and Bennet, and both are headquarters for bands of terraformers and tower monkeys (the men who set up and maintain the Regulators and Shooters). In addition there are the fixed towns, such as Herford, the one nearest to the home of our main characters, and Bjarka, which is the home of the planet's only educational institute, the seminary in which priests of the various religions are trained. It is also the seat of the planet's Christian bishop.

Most of the seed colonists do not live in fixed towns, but in wandering villages located near a fixed town. The wandering village Horn is home to the main characters of the story. It is near the fixed town of Herford, as is the wandering village of Senda, which also plays a part in the story.

Because the oceans of the planet Niesse have not been fully installed, much less stocked with an ecosystem, all of the cities, villages and towns now in existance are on hilly or mountainous ground. This is to prevent the annoyance of settling valuable seed colonists someplace that will end up under water, drowning them and causing the expense of replacing them.

The seed colonists were all obtained from an old human colony on one of the Five Worlds, a lush agricultural community. They all agreed to be sent to a new world in order to obtain land. But when they arrived from their green and growing world to the harsh reality of Niesse, it was a shock. Depression, misery and apathy were common reactions. But as time goes on some of the seed colonists are recovering their ambition, and are determined to make something of their new world, if they are allowed to.

This was Part 1 of Sharon Bayliss' Worldbuilding Blogfest. In Part 2, which covers the topic 'history', we will learn the history of the seed colonists of Niesse, and a little about the aliens who formerly owned them.

Part of the fun of blogfests is visiting other blogs. Here are two that I have visited and enjoyed so far.

Writing the Other: Worldbuilding Blogfest: Geography and Climate By S. B. Stewart-Laing from Glasgow, Scotland, who writes historic fantasy.  

Rebekah Loper, Writer: Worldbuilding Blogfest Day 1: The World of Catalyst  By Rebekah Loper, a self-described 'cat wrangler and urban farmer', possibly from Oklahoma, and has a husband who re-draws her maps.

Worldbuilding Blogfest starts Monday!!!

Sharon Bayliss is hosting a Worldbuilding Blogfest which starts this Monday. There are post suggestions for each day of the blogfest.

I've found such events are a chance to visit other blogs and to be visited by them, so I am participating. Hope you will consider doing so as well.

Here is the Blogfest list:

Population Dystopia in Fiction

Especially in science fiction, from time to time we see fictional characters coping with a population dystopia--- a demographic trend which causes widespread problems for the human race--- or for any other race you happen to be writing about.

Population dystopias come in two major types: the population bomb of overly high population growth and a demographic winter of falling birthrates, an aging population, and population shrinkage.

In near-future fiction, using either of these themes is sure to provoke extreme emotional reaction in people who have strong opinions on either of these demographic theories. In stories set in the far future or in fantasy world settings, you can hope that these reactions will be toned down.

The Population Bomb: I remember reading a copy of 'The Population Bomb' by Paul Ehrlich. His chilling prediction that high population growth would lead to famine in America and Europe by the end of the 1970s would have been even more compelling had I not been reading it in the late 1980s.

Harry Harrison's Make Room, Make Room is a science fictional treatment of the population bomb theme with the usual overcrowding/food shortage theme. This book was make into the movie Soylent Green, which added commercialized cannibalism into the mix. I still remember Charlton Heston running around screaming about soylent green being made of people. In the book, of course, it was made of soy--- or perhaps soy and lentils, or some hybrid of the soybean and the lentil.

Orson Scott Card's book Ender's Game (a Hugo and Nebula award winner) has the population bomb as a minor theme. In Ender's world, governments forbid families to have more than two children. Excess children from non-complying families are not permitted in the schools (which all seem to be government schools). Ender's parents gave up their non-complying religious faiths--- Catholic and Mormon--- in order to get an education, but when the government asked them to have a third child because their first two were almost-but-not-quite what the government needed in a future military leader, they feel quite awkward about it.

Demographic Winter: This theme is not as widely used, though it can be found in a number of fantasy series featuring elves. The elven race is quite frequently seen as experiencing a demographic winter of falling birth rates.

For example, in Mercedes Lackey's elves-and-race-cars series, the elves are seen as cherishing and protecting abused children, often kidnapping such children from their violently abusive parents. The motive is given that elves cherish children because they have so few of their own. The common demographic winter concern of masses of elderly people needing care and few young people to give it is not shown--- the elves may all be over one hundred, but they seem like young people or at worst, middle aged. But it is obvious that the elves' adoption of abused children is a custom that would provide them with a substitute labor force to help them care for elderly elves when it got to the point there were not enough young elves for the job.

If you have read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood you may have thought it a simple work of new-feminist polemic or of anti-Christianist bigotry. And those are indeed the reasons why the work is taught in schools as literature. But the book also contains a demographic winter theme.  The absurd walking stereotypes of a liberal's view of 'fundamentalists' (evangelical Christians) are experiencing a demographic winter caused by widespread infertility. The feminist heroine, as an enemy of the Gilead state who is a woman of proven fertility, is placed in a home as a 'handmaid'--- a household servant who is expected to bear a child to the household's master. I must applaud Miss Atwood for taking the trouble to create an actual motivation like this for her absurd Christian caricatures. A lesser writer wouldn't have troubled to think of a reason for them to do this evil other than 'that's how evil those Christians are'.  While I personally think Miss Atwood might have taken the trouble to actually meet and talk to a conservative Christian in person before writing this book in order to ground the Gilead characters in some faint semblance of reality, she did at least do enough of her homework in world building and in creating her main character to enable me to find the book not only readable but re-readable, in spite of the bigotry in it directed at my own faith.

Have you ever thought of using a population dystopia theme in your fiction? Was it a major theme of the work, or only a side issue? Did you make it close to the population concerns people have about the real world, or did you try to make it quite fictional and distinct from people's view of real-world population issues?

Linguistic Aspects of Worldbuilding

In fantasy and science fiction, some degree of world-building is essential. In fact, if you start out without doing some world-building type planning, you may end up writing a world that is a clone of Narnia, Valdemar, Middle-Earth or Darkover without intending to.

A centrally important aspect of world-building is language. You don't have to do what J. R. R. Tolkien did and construct languages for your fantasy world. But your novel will have characters and places, and those characters and places will have names. You want those names to add to
the realism of your fictional world and not distract from it.

Most of us choose an existing language as a model. Celtic languages and older forms of English are particularly popular. If your fantasy is set in what is essentially the past, this can be a good approach.

But if you want your world to be a little different, you might choose to make your names/words a little different from your source. You might replace letters with somewhat-similar sounds--- such as replacing 'd' with 't' or 'th' or shifting vowel sounds.

If you are using Celtic, one method is to write the words/names as they are pronounced, not as they are traditionally spelled. Irish names particularly are often spelled strangely, and respelling them is helpful to the reader as well as making it seem like a slightly different Celtic language, unlike the real ones of our world.

Sometimes words and name elements from different cultures are combined, as if  the language is that of a composite culture. If your world is not based on any Earth culture, picking two unrelated and uncommon languages and combining elements to create appropriate words/names can be a good strategy.

If you are writing a future world in science fiction, you must make sure character names don't contradict elements of your culture. If writing a world in which Christianity and related religions have long ago died out and been forgotten, don't give your characters Biblical names. (Use a good name book to detect name origins.)

Place names, on the other hand, usually are old and little influenced by the current cultural trends. Sometimes they are from other cultures--- as the many names of US cities which are derived from Indian words. Often the language has changed so much since a place was named that to the inhabitants it might as well have been named in a foreign language.

If you have hopes that your fantasy novel will continue to be read many years from now, avoid giving your characters new-and-faddish names. Such names often age quickly. Names like Mildred and Ethel were once wildly popular, but now most people think of them as the names of people's elderly aunts. While names like John and Mary are eternal classics, and even now no one will blink at a fantasy-world warrior named John.

Outlining Collective Characters/Fantasy-SF Races

Chantho, alien chick, Doctor Who

In NORMAL fiction, you usually only need to outline the individual characters. You don't need to write yourself an essay on what the human race is, or a reminder that black people tend to have dark skin.

In fantasy or science fiction, however, you may have to deal with creating collective characters--- groups with common characteristics. Like elves, Vulcans, Timelords, hobbits, Buggers/Formics, hertasi and other fantasy/SF races.

You might also have a collective character that is a faction within a race/species/culture. Like the Death Eaters in Harry Potter.

What you do is you work up the collective character as if it were a single character. In the place where you'd put physical appearance, you put down the distinctive characteristics--- an insectoid race with a hive mind, a humanoid race with pointed ears..... For things like values, ambitions, story goal, you answer for the collective character as a group--- any individually important members of the group you will outline as an individual character, anyway.

If you are using the Snowflake Method, the steps that deal with characters are Step 3: Define Your Characters, Step 5: Write Character Sketches, and Step 7: Create Your Character Bible.

What I did--- since I have Asperger Syndrome and my brain is weird--- I wrote a free-form sort of Step 5 (for both collective and individual characters) and then went back to do Step 3, which has 7 sub-steps and is so more formal/organized. In time I will do Step 7 to expand on the important characters/races.

On organizing the result: I have a big binder which has sections for the worldbuilding--- one tab for 'Erileth' (name of my planet) and one for each of the five regions--- and sections for the 8 initial snowflake steps for the individual novel. For the collective characters/races, I will have to make 2 copies of my print-outs, one for the worldbuilding section and one for the individual novel's section.

Today I worked on the race known as the Gray Seekers. They all have gray skin, black hair and silver eyes.They all wear nearly identical white coveralls, are engaged in scientific research, and have the highest level of technology--- or magic--- of any race on Erileth.

Tomorrow I'm probably going to move on to the Sahchiro, who have dark brown skin, green hair in various shades, and golden eyes. They wear very short, colorful tunics and no underpants. They are warriors who live in high mountains. Their name for themselves means Eaters-of-Men, and their name for other people can be translated 'meat-that-walks'.

So--- what do YOU do to create and outline your fantasy or sci-fi races/cultures?