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Hi all! Tantalus is a currently-ongoing story of mine with 14 Chapters up so far and more than a hundred reviews by awesome readers who seem to be finding it interesting!   It is a science fiction story with M/M romantic elements and some nice and furry  alien creatures with telepathy thrown in for good measure.  I would like to open this topic in case anybody has any questions regarding the story, and to post a few little-known facts that followers of Tantalus might find enjoyable.

 

Story link:

https://www.gayauthors.org/story/albertnothlit/tantalus

 

Ask away!

 

-Albert Nothlit

 

 

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 Fun fact number one:

 

 For the taxonomical description of the aliens called Furballs, I came up with the nameVanadiis lyraxis tantalosi  for a couple of reasons.  First, the system for taxonomical classification of Linnaeus that we currently use is intended for creatures of a single planet only, and so I imagined that in the future it would be necessary to add a final category to the usual litany of kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species.  the final category would be the planet of origin, which in this case is Tantalus. The name also honors a researcher from the planet Cora, a brilliant xenobiologist named Martha Lyrax.  She was a pioneer of the study of indigenous lifeforms on  Tantalus and she was a senior member of the first scientific delegation to land on the surface. Although not normally shown on the public record, Dr. Lyrax  had a small measure of psionic latency.  She was deeply moved at having found a species that hinted at intelligence and self-awareness, and she was a fierce advocate of the movement to reduce the Planetary Government's scale of involvement in what should have been a civilian endeavor:  Researching Tantalus. Unfortunately, her interest in the Furballs soon turned into an obsession, which led to her death just a couple of years after discovery of the new alien species. The automated monitoring system inside her base of operations has a recording of Dr. Lyrax  procuring an exosuit late one night. She left for a destination unknown and turned off the transponder inside the suit after one minute and thirty-six seconds. She was never heard from again.

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 Fun fact number one:

 

 For the taxonomical description of the aliens called Furballs, I came up with the name Vanadiis lyraxis tantalosi  for a couple of reasons.  First, the system for taxonomical classification of Linnaeus that we currently use is intended for creatures of a single planet only, and so I imagined that in the future it would be necessary to add a final category to the usual litany of kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species.  the final category would be the planet of origin, which in this case is Tantalus. The name also honors a researcher from the planet Cora, a brilliant xenobiologist named Martha Lyrax.  She was a pioneer of the study of indigenous lifeforms on  Tantalus and she was a senior member of the first scientific delegation to land on the surface. Although not normally shown on the public record, Dr. Lyrax  had a small measure of psionic latency.  She was deeply moved at having found a species that hinted at intelligence and self-awareness, and she was a fierce advocate of the movement to reduce the Planetary Government's scale of involvement in what should have been a civilian endeavor:  Researching Tantalus. Unfortunately, her interest in the Furballs soon turned into an obsession, which led to her death just a couple of years after discovery of the new alien species. The automated monitoring system inside her base of operations has a recording of Dr. Lyrax  procuring an exosuit late one night. She left for a destination unknown and turned off the transponder inside the suit after one minute and thirty-six seconds. She was never heard from again.

 

As with your previous series, and your one shot story, you seem to spend some time building up your universe in advance of writing the story. No wonder there are so many nuances found in the chapters.

 

In case you've not noticed, I'm a fan.

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 Fun fact number two:

 

 Tantalus is a moon located in a very peculiar star system.  Argos, the gas giant which it orbits, is the fifth planet from its sun. Tantalus is not tidally locked to Argos, and it orbits the gas giant at a very considerable distance. The combination of these two factors made life possible in the narrow habitable zone of the system's star, code-named AX-3b.  The star is on its way to becoming a red giant, and cosmologists estimate that its solar system is at least three times as old as Sol,  the home system of the human race. This fact is clearly evident in the four planets which orbit the star.  Of those, the three closest to the sun have lost their atmosphere due to the expanding solar disk as the system's star ages, its inner Hydrogen percentage now dwarfed by that of its Helium isotopes.  The fourth planet was initially considered to be habitable, but the first drone explorations of the planet named Sisyphus  revealed that geological instabilities inside the planet's core had been continuously exacerbated by its proximity to Argos and its enormous gravitational pull. Through a process that lasted several millions of years, Argos essentially tore Sisyphus  apart,  fracturing its crust to the point where the energy differential between the planet's core and its surface was several orders of magnitude less than what was needed to maintain habitable temperatures in the few pockets of undisturbed terrain.  Sisyphus is now a blackened hulk of roiling lava that slowly cools, never to heat up again. Its atmosphere is forever shrouded in clouds of ash, and its surface temperature is just 80 K.  it has been speculated that life may still survive in the border zones between lava surges and the frozen surface, but this fact has not yet been tested since entry into the planet is considered extremely hazardous.

 

Link to Tantalus:

https://www.gayauthors.org/story/albertnothlit/tantalus

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm happy that the story will continue at a later date, since the situation at the end is anything but secure

for our boys and the furballs. There is a question I have that doesn't relate to the dramatic elements of

the story, and is really unimportant but nags at me anyway: What color are the furballs? I have the idea

that they are green, brown, or gray, but tell me what you picture them as being. I know it's a silly matter

but I am curious, and it won't go away.

 

Yes, I do know that I have an odd mind.

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