*Sneak Peek* RadioActive *working title*

[Former Member]

 Just something I started writing on my tablet after listening to "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons.  The inspiration from that song went four ways and this seemed to get the most out of it.  I know where I want it to go, but I don't know how to proceed exactly.  I'm not very good at sci-fi, but this seemed like a good start, so let me know what you think of my small snippet!  Bear in mind that this was written on a tablet and therefore is probably missing more punctuation than is acceptable to me, lol.  But I would love to hear your thoughts, no matter what they are.  I really have been wanted to write a story with a main concept is "us vs. them" so here's attempt 1!

 

Prologue

 

 

          The year was 2126 CE when a nuclear explosion sent half of the planet known as Earth into galactic orbit.  A gaping hole was left in the middle of one of the oceans that went so deep, the planet’s core was exposed, leaving it to quickly cool in the noxious, poisonous air that had become the atmosphere.  The dust that the explosion kicked up blocked out the already dying sun and the blast alone killed off two-thirds of the native population of native humanoids, the humans.  The radiation was killing even more every day.

            At first we didn’t want to interfere.  Something about the Fates and the plans they had for the pitiful, primitive species who, unimaginatively, called themselves humans.  But our High Council eventually voted to save their miserable lives.  After all, they were our creation.  Our DNA had created the species that had destroyed the beautiful planet we had given them to inhabit.    Greed and envy and an obsession with an almighty, all-seeing being dubbed ‘God’ had led to the extinction of millions of unique plants and animals that we had painstakingly engineered for them to enjoy.  They had invaded Earth like an infestation.  Everything was gone in the blink of an eye.  But since they were, in a way, our children, we were ultimately deemed responsible.  We spirited away the remained billion or so humans left and took them to our own planet where we hoped they would thrive and live with their creators peacefully.

            We had never been so wrong.

            Those first years were tumultuous.  We all knew they would be.  Our culture was so vastly different from the one they had settled into.  We, who prided ourselves on knowledge and the advancement of our race and the preservation of our planet, were so alien to them, who prided themselves on personal advancement and the accumulation of vast quantities of money.  Money was not a foreign concept to us, but the need for it that the humans displayed certainly was.  We had very little need for it.  Everything we needed was provided for by the High Council; clothes, food, shelter, electricity.  Anything else we wanted we had to work for and earn money in order to purchase.  We offered them the same opportunity to earn our currency by working alongside us, and tough some took part and enjoyed life with us, most did not.  The majority wanted more money, but without taking the effort to earn it.  For the first time since the Splintering, crime in our cities became a serious problem.

            It was hard for them to adjust.  They couldn’t understand why we, who looked so much like them, could be so radically different.  Evolution hadn’t changed much in us, physically.  Anatomically, us and the humans were essentially the same.  Mentally, we were far superior.  When human scientists had first started hypothesizing where evolution would take them, they envisioned bulging eyes and massive heads to accommodate a growing cranial cavity in conjunction with increased brain function.  For us, instead of our brains growing larger, they became compacted and denser and were able to use the existing space our skulls had provided more efficiently.  Our brain function was so advanced that we had great telepathic and telekinetic abilities, thought use of the former in everyday life was strictly prohibited.  And by some small miracle of fate, we were blessed – or perhaps cursed – with a greatly increased lifespan and a tremendously slow aging process.  From the time we were born to the time we reached about the age of thirty, we aged rapidly, normally per se.  From then on, our aging process was dramatically slow.  On average, we lived to be about fifteen hundred years old.

            We should have known that our ‘immortality’ would spur the greed in them.  After all, the secret to our long lives was in our blood.  It wasn’t long before they had turned against us and were killing us for our blood to prolong their own comparatively short lives.

            I had just finished my formal education and sealed my marriage with my life partner when the researchers that had been observing Earth returned with the remaining humans.  My husband and I were of the many with hope who welcomed our new brethren with open arms.  Most of them looked at Eyrael and me with disgust, homosexuality another thing they were loath to accept.  Our own people had long ago come to accept those who preferred the same sex as a form of population control.  Homosexual couples were more than accepted, they were welcomed.  In fact, homosexual couples were one of the only ways heterosexual couples could bypass the Only Child Law which was passed to prevent our planet from being overrun in the same manner Earth had been.  By receiving the blessing of a homosexual couple, a heterosexual couple could have another child on behalf of the couple who could not have their own child naturally.  Whether the homosexual couple wanted to be a part of the resulting child’s life was another matter, a personal matter between the two couples.  The humans couldn’t seem to grasp the concept of harmony.  The thought still is upsetting.

            Within fifty years, our capital city was facing crime rates that far exceeded anything that had occurred during the Splintering.  Our people were being cruelly murdered in the streets and the humans took advantage of the chaos and managed to break into the Building of the High Council and murder everyone before declaring themselves the new masters of our planet and essentially enslaving those of us left.  They celebrated their takeover by resetting our calendar to what they called After Liberation.  We bitterly called it After Infestation.

            Most of the scientists, including my husband, were the first to be carted off to prison camps to be harvested for their blood.  The humans were giving those of that remained a warning: disobey and suffer the same fate.  They hadn’t learned anything from their past wars.  I haven’t seen my Eyrael since the humans raided his lab.  I don’t even know if he’s still alive.  I doubt I will ever know the truth.

            Now we are all but an endangered species, held captives by those we created and set loose on the world.  Our own world.  22 AL was when I was taken to the largest blood farm in the capital and thrown into this cell.  They tell me that the only reason I’m still alive is to suit their needs for our blood, but I know I’m more valuable than that.  As a historian, I have the ability, the training, and the memory to record what has happened.  I’m also one of the only historians they kept alive after the purge of 15 AL when they killed all of the theorists and scholars and historians so they would be sure we didn’t revolt and so their own bloody part in the fall of our civilization could only be remembered as a tale of liberty instead of what it truly was: a massacre.  As such, I am also one of the last of my race that was learned in our own history, before the creation of the humans, before the Splintering, before the Unification.  They won’t admit it, but they need me.  Alive.  I only wish I wasn’t.  All I can do is hope the end will come soon.  But with more than thirteen hundred years left of an average life left, it is only a passing dream that I will find eternal peace in death anytime soon.

~~~~~ first entry, Jyn, Historian, 28 AL, English

 

Let me know what you think!

[JMH]

You have a good stepping stone for a good series.  I would make sure you have a good feel for the mythology of the world you are creating.  If this is going to be your first chapter you might want to think on the what, how, and why of the science aspect right out of the gate because whatever you say in the beginning you don't want to contradict, or even worse, find yourself trapped, by later.... but you've read some of my stuff so you know I'm big on world creation.  One issue would be the Only Child Law, If I understood what you wrote a couple can have only one child unless it comes from a gay couple.  If that is the case than you would be dealing with a culture suffering significant population decline.  A good modern example of that happening is Japan.  If you need help with that I can't offer you the same level of support as a beta reader could but if you would like some advice on some points I offer my help.

 

 

Take care,

    JMH

[Former Member]

Thanks for your input!  As for the Only Child Law, I'm kind of taking a page out of China's book and adding a few things.  Getting a gay couple's permission is one of the only legal ways.  If a couple does have more than one child, they have to pay a pretty big fine, but that's about all.  If they want one bad enough, they normally pay.  Because of this and the Splinter Colony, which doesn't have such laws, the population is pretty much stable.

 

I do have most of the lore worked out, though as of right now, it's slow going.  As I have never written sci-fi before, I'm really having a hard time with coming up with the technology of a 2126 and beyond world, not to mention the fact that this advanced race has been more advanced than humans ever were for quite a long time before the start of the story anyway.  I'm sure everything will come to me and I really appreciate your offer!

[Thorn Wilde]

This is a really great start! I really ache for this species, their kindness and the suffering they get in return. I'd love to learn more about this world!

[Former Member]

Ha, thanks!  I've put it on the back burner for a bit.  It's definitely been a slow start.  I'm not entirely sure how I want to write it and then everything I've tried just comes out hopelessly juvenile sounding.  Not at all how I want Jyn to sound like.  I'll iron it out a little more.

[Sasha Distan]

kept me hooked. i like this very much. the concept is excellent though i found it kind of hard to distinguish his voice at first. really good, keep writing

[Former Member]

Thanks! I'm trying to but it's hard. And an absence of voice was what in was looking for so far. We'll see how it all goes!

[lathe_biosas]

Interesting... thanks for sharing, Myiege. I wondered as I read, how could things have gotten so bad? Telepathy and telekinesis would be powerful advantages over human communications and weapons. But I thought, maybe there was a moral high ground being held by the progenitors, in which case, it could make for an interesting ethical dilemma (i.e.when should a pacifist start fighting back)?

[Former Member]

Something like that.  I am still working out the details, but there are serious ethical problems on both sides that will be addressed.  Unfortunately, I think this will be a long time before I can actually start posting.  Some many things need to fall in place and I have a feeling the workload is going to be nothing short of epic!  Here's to hoping the story will be as epic as the time I put into it!

[knotme]

I'm with lathe_biosas. The protagonists may be pacifists, but unless their intel was really bad, they knew the risk when they rescued the humans. Or maybe they assumed that, surrounded by goodness and fairness, we selfish war-like humans would come around. That's again bad intel. Hhmm… This could be sorted out in several ways.

 

I'm only human. I would be dissatisfield to see the host protagonists yield to the new humans and wait for them to sort this out. The native Hawaiians tried something like that. No, the current protagonists need to control the action. Some humans will help them. The others, well, too bad.

 

This could be really fun. I could in principle beta read, if you don't go too fast. I've never done it here though, and don't appreciate the logistical hurdles GA might impose.