Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]


Add Reply
  • Pages:
  • 1
Earthbound
Topic Started: Sep 21 2008, 07:24 AM (666 Views)
***eboy192
Member Avatar
[Insert witty catchphrase here]
[ *  *  *  *  *  * ]
I'm back with a new story! I've been bogged down in creative writing class :-/ but I have put forth a prologue to a story I hope to continue. Without further adieu, Earthbound.

Prologue – The Beginning and the End.
World Times - June 23, 2093
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Truth Behind Earthbound Incident
The Complete Story
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


My name is John Cartwright. I have been a journalist at the World Times since it opened in 2064, and through all its ups and downs. I have covered all sorts of tragedy, triumph, all the way to the opening article in the first issue of the paper. Point of this announcement: I have seen a lot in my life. Why do I bring this up? Because yesterday, I saw something that by far trumps anything else I’ve seen in my entire life, and that’s not easy to say.

Flash back 40 years. A renegade group of young scientists working for Spacetech, Inc lay out the designs for a wormhole generator in response to the discovery of the first Earth-like planet we have found in our solar system. Discovered first by Jacob Fleet, a 40 year old astrophysicist from Paris, Texas, FHP001, (or Earth 2, as dubbed by the creative minds at NASA), is 99.583% of the size of earth, with almost identical atmospheric makeup. There is no reported local life bar vegetation, so it seems perfect to inhabit, right? One problem; it is around 6 light years away. That’s roughly 35 trillion miles, give or take a few billion. That would take a long time to get to, way longer than any human lifespan. Solution? Enter Spacetech, Inc. They have designed a fully-functional WPD, (wormhole production device), which can be used to send a ship holding 8 lucky souls to any planet in a matter of seconds. They also equipped the ship with the supplies to create another, so once they land they can get home. Now comes the weird part – basically, for each year the members of the crew age once through the wormhole, earthlings age approximately two minutes. So essentially, we will know almost instantaneously whether it was a success or not, because it takes two minutes on earth for them to theoretically get all the way there and shoot back.

Now fast forward to last year.

The WPD is complete, and the ship, ironically named Earthbound is up and running. The crew has been selected and prepped, and they are in the ship and ready to go into space. The countdown begins at 1 minute. 30 seconds. 10 seconds. The world’s collective hair stands on end as it is televised to literally every nation – 3, 2, 1…

The thrusters power up, and the circular generator is spinning at over 5,000 rotations per second. The ship dives straight into the heart of the circle, and nothing comes out the other side. Everyone sighs with relief as the ads start playing after the grueling wait.

I was sitting in a press box, 1 mile away, watching through a long-range zoom digital video camera. ‘Now for the longest 2 minutes of our life…’ I thought to myself, as we waited for the return ship. If something went wrong, it was supposed to send back a drone, kept in the cargo bay of the ship in case of emergency with a built in WPD. If everything went as planned, they should come back with the whole ship, to tell their story, one year older.

One minute left.

30 seconds left.

Ten seconds left.

---

1 second lef--- Suddenly the ship appeared out of nowhere, and a huge crash followed as the airspace previously unoccupied was taken up by the ship’s 3,000 ton composite mass. I zoomed in, like others around me, to see what happened. The boarding ramps rolled up to the doors, but they didn’t open. I panned over to the cockpit – no one. Something was very wrong. I felt a lurch in the bottom of my stomach as the thought of Aliens came to my mind. Suddenly we were rushed out of the area and closer in to the ship, so it was in plain view. Security teams had blasted the doors open and were searching the ship. No exterior damage from what I saw, but there was no one inside. As the press ramp was driven over to a side door, beads of sweat slid down my face in anticipation. As the door was opened, three guards showed us in.

There was no-one in there. Not a soul bar the guards and us. We walked first to the control room, a large square space that looked like something out of an old sci-fi movie. Technicians were working to try and recover the memories of the computers, but alas, they were finding nothing. I walked along with the group until about 2 minutes in when I noticed a bathroom, and, needing to “do my business”, slipped in. I was about to walk out when I looked up at the drop-tile ceiling and saw a quickly scrawled note. I pulled it down and read – in messy green ink it read: “Just in case.” Intrigued, I took a stool and stepped up to the tile it was stuck to, and pushed up. It was oddly heavy for a drop tile, so I slid it over and popped my head through the metal frame. Above the file were lots of Blu-Ray discs, each labeled with a name. Being my curious self, I took them and didn’t tell anyone until I got safely home. Once home, I put one into my computer; they were E-Journals, written on the computers before the memory wipe. That was one year ago. Since then, the events have been proclaimed as “indecipherable”, and though many have attempted to realize the events that preceded that fateful ending to an epic voyage, no one has succeeded. Until now…

Now you see why I wrote this article; to announce to the world that I have the story behind the Earthbound’s misfortunes, triumphs, and adventures. I have attached the Journals I deemed necessary to tell the story – further than that I will leave to the Smithsonian. I don’t want glory or praise – I just wanted to be the one to bring the story to the public. So now I invite you to learn what really happened on the Earthbound.
-John Cartwright

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
girl anachronism
Member Avatar
Try to remember
[ *  *  *  *  *  * ]
eboy192
Sep 21 2008, 07:24 AM
Discovered first by Jacob Fleet, a 40 year old astrophysicist from Paris, Texas, FHP001,
Paris, Texas wouldn't happen to have anything to do with Paris, Tennessee would it? That of course being a certain tiny hometown of a certain person?!?!

That put aside, I like it, but being brutally honest, it felt rushed, like you had the story in your mind and then wrote it down, forgetting to explain certain things to the audience. It's like when you type too fast and skip over a small but important word in a sentence.

I want to see more of it, that might be what I am missing. I really do like the concept and idea, as well as the perspective. I just need more.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
***eboy192
Member Avatar
[Insert witty catchphrase here]
[ *  *  *  *  *  * ]
girl anachronism
Sep 21 2008, 10:19 AM
eboy192
Sep 21 2008, 07:24 AM
Discovered first by Jacob Fleet, a 40 year old astrophysicist from Paris, Texas, FHP001,
Paris, Texas wouldn't happen to have anything to do with Paris, Tennessee would it? That of course being a certain tiny hometown of a certain person?!?!

That put aside, I like it, but being brutally honest, it felt rushed, like you had the story in your mind and then wrote it down, forgetting to explain certain things to the audience. It's like when you type too fast and skip over a small but important word in a sentence.

I want to see more of it, that might be what I am missing. I really do like the concept and idea, as well as the perspective. I just need more.
yeah this is just the prologue...the actual story is in the form of journal entries of members of the crew =P Its supposed to just give a brief synopsis of what happened from people on earth's POV.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
girl anachronism
Member Avatar
Try to remember
[ *  *  *  *  *  * ]
got ya. like the martian chronicles right?

you know i am just picking on you
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
** Death's servant
Member Avatar
Reflection
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Alright, let me start by saying, that was amazing. I have one point that comes to mind

"in response to the discovery of the first Earth-like planet we have found in our solar system"


I think you meant galaxy, or something like that, cause the solar system is the system of planets arounf our son. finding an earthlike planet in it would be impossible because a), it would have to share a near exact orbit to ours making it pretty noticeable (what with all the gravitational stuff and the fact that it would be hard not to notice, and b), it would have likely collided with earth or something by now.

But I realy like the story.

I want to see more.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
+Linden
Member Avatar
awesomesauce
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
You do a lot of sci-fi.

I think the rushed feeling adds to it... like he had to the cover letter/prologue before something happened to him. hmm.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
***eboy192
Member Avatar
[Insert witty catchphrase here]
[ *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Linden Branch
Sep 24 2008, 07:42 PM
You do a lot of sci-fi.
hahah yes it is a consistent pattern in my writing
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
D. Black
Member Avatar
I'm not breathing, I must be in heaven
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Very interesting idea...I detect a hint of Arthur C. Clarke. I'll be anticipating seeing more.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
***eboy192
Member Avatar
[Insert witty catchphrase here]
[ *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Chapter 1
Date: June 1st, 2092
Author: Zak Reed
Subject: First one on board!

Today started like any other day for me, wake up at seven, brush my teeth, read the paper, have a bowl of oatmeal, check my mail, receive a letter from Spacetech, Inc., run on the treadmi - wait a minute. Receive a letter from Spacetech Inc?! I hadn’t worked for them in years! I opened it up slowly, my hands slightly trembling with anticipation; they had some new secret project they apparently had been working on for some time. The letter read:
“Dear Zak Reed,
You are cordially invited to take a preliminary tour of the ship Earthbound, and a full explanation of our impending mission. Since you are receiving this, you have been selected as the Chief Space Intel Officer for the voyage, and you will need to report to our headquarters as soon as possible. We have a packet of classified information which will be given to you upon your arrival. Please leave A.S.A.P., as we would like to get everyone up to speed as soon as possible.
Buzz Murdock
C.E.O, Spacetech, Inc.”

So apparently, because I had worked with them on some space missions before to Mercury and Mars, and even that one rover to Pluto, they had deemed me “worthy”. This was a huge opportunity for me, and I definitely needed the cash, so I, obviously, left in a hurry. It seemed there was little traffic on the way there, and after I input the coordinates on my car-puter, it drove me there in exactly 57 minutes! If only we could get to Mars in 57 minutes…the best software I designed for deep space travel only got you there in nine weeks.
When I got to the headquarters, I realized I was the first person of the 8 to show up, and felt awkward walking the huge foyer to get to the specified room. After finally locating room 218-B (because saying ‘the one with the red DO NOT ENTER sign wouldn’t have sufficed), I walked through and immediately stopped and gasped. Inside the door there was a large hangar, with steel rafters supporting a giant dome. That wasn’t the part that was impressive though, because after your eyes leave the ceiling, you lay them upon a massive hunk of metal, probably about 200 meters in length, with a circumference I eyeballed to be about 60 meters. Suddenly I was barraged by a team of men in white coats, and we walked together to the ship, which on the side, in industrial size-and-shape font read “earthbound”. I was then greeted by Buzz Murdock himself, who was a surprisingly young and fit man to be running such an old and famous company. Usually these are run by the old, grumpy men who yell at everything that comes their way, from assistants to muffins.
He gave me a synopsis of what we were planning to do – send a team of 8 people to the first planet similar to earth that was found in a nearby galaxy using never-before-seen technologies to get us there in a year. I was intrigued, but was even more so when he asked if I’d like to see the inside of the ship.
Once inside, I felt like I could live here forever. It had everything I could have dreamed for. Labs wherever you needed them, clean white tile floors and walls, good food (ish), clean white tile floors and walls, (I love white tiles. Can you tell?) And a bed that was filled with the new Memory Foam 3.0, the stuff that could remember your ideal sleeping temperature and mimics it. The ironic part is, once I got to the ship, they told me I was to stay here until the voyage commenced, for quarantine purposes. Apparently some chemicals they had used weren’t exactly authorized, and so only the people on the ship were allowed to be exposed to them.
Now I come to this moment, as I write this journal – I am not the journal writing type, but I have nothing else to do and no one to call; and the only thing to do is have a one-sided conversation with a computer module screen, so here we are! I am really excited for this trip, but the next month before launch is going to be the most boring month of my life.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
***eboy192
Member Avatar
[Insert witty catchphrase here]
[ *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Chapter 2
Date: June 7th, 2092
Author: Miara Gonzaga
Subject: Not sure how to use this…

I don’t come from a very rich family, so I don’t use computer modules that much… but I decided to try it out, considering the only other person on the ship besides Papa was that Zak guy…
He is kind of weird, very smart, and a bit odd... but I can’t really say I’m normal…
When Papa first told me we’d been picked by the company he worked for to go on this trip, I was really excited…imagine being a girl from a family headed nowhere, then on your 18th birthday you get told you get to go into space.
Now I’m kind of scared…
Papa said that Spacetech needed a chef on board to run the virtual kitchen, and that he was the most experienced person they had…they were going to leave me behind, but he wouldn’t let them…he said it was both of us or none, and they somehow changed their minds and said I’d be good for…publicity?...I’m not sure, but they decided to let me go too.
So we went home, put all our stuff in the suitcases, and rode the bus back to the ‘lab’, where they took us into a huge room with a metal spaceship like the ones I used to read when I was a kid, while I was still in school.
They said this would be an opportunity for me to get another education, from one of the scientists on-board. I’d like that…especially after getting so frustrated I quit after having to re-take eighth grade.
When we walked on the ship, I was amazed at the white tiles on the floor and walls; nothing at our apartment was ever this clean…I could see my bright red eyes in the reflection of the tile; Papa said they were my best feature…I hope so…
We were shown to where we would stay; even for the cook’s quarters, it was bigger than our apartment; the fake hardwood flooring and walls gave the impression of a log cabin in the mountains, but the only window was to the kitchen, and the only door was to a large bathroom, with the apparently standard white-and-white tile mix.
So my job is going to be to help cook for the other 6 people besides me and Papa…that shouldn’t be too hard, but I already feel stupid with just one other person on board who is smarter than me…I really hope those lessons will help.
Anyways, its dinnertime for the one member of the ship, so I have to go…Papa is calling me on this new palmtop thing…it looked a bit like my old iPod, but that was so out of date it won’t even fit in the HSP drive in this computer module.
So…um…goodnight? It’s weird saying bye to no-one…


Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
+Linden
Member Avatar
awesomesauce
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
You do like white tiles. XD If you'd mention white tiles in every chapter, that'd be humorous.

My ipod's probably bigger than Miara's. :goof:
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
girl anachronism
Member Avatar
Try to remember
[ *  *  *  *  *  * ]
i like....continue please...i eagerly await the next installment....... and i really like the white tiles thing. that could be really fun...
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
***eboy192
Member Avatar
[Insert witty catchphrase here]
[ *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Chapter 3
Date: June 8th, 2092
Author: Nolan Weber
Subject: She’s up and running smoothly.

As chief designer of Earthbound, I was an easy choice to be brought on to the ship! It was a complete given. I mean, I was the lead technician of the scientists hired by Spacetech to design the ship and travel device! Of course they’d want me…especially with my two degrees from Harvard…now I’m gonna see this baby in action!

Not that I’m too pleased about the people on the ship thus far…there is Zak Reed, a tall, pretty muscular guy with black hair and perfect vision; looks like an actor, not a scientist! But he seems nice enough, even if a bit humble about his origins (getting you to Mars in nine weeks), and he did work for Spacetech Inc a few times a while ago. The people I have a problem with are the “state-assigned cooks”.

They take up two of the spots for two people who could use this trip for scientific research! Maybe if just one was coming…then we’d have seven intelligent minds on this ship…but no. His daughter had to come too. Well, apparently Zak is signed up to teach her while we’re on the ship; maybe I’ll stop by and give him a few pointers. It’s not as though we can’t cook for ourselves, even if half of us have the combined cooking experience of a walrus!

When I walked onto the beautiful ship for the first time in real life, it was different from all of the virtual renderings and walkthroughs…the tiles were shinier, the halls more real, and the food was…actually there! I immediately went to my quarters and looked in the mirror; a few white hairs were starting to pop up in my otherwise long brown hair. So many people had said ponytails on guys would never come back into style, but I’m slowly proving them wrong.

I had an interesting time meeting some of the people on the roster; Zak Reed said a quick hello then went to admire the white tiles… to each his own, I suppose. Miara Gonzaga seemed shy enough for a few people; maybe it’s my presence? It seemed like she and Zak had already become acquaintances. Her father, Mike Gonzaga, was a bit more up-front, telling me how excited he was to be chosen, and how grateful he was to me for designing the ship. I blushed slightly, and eeked out a smile, telling him how glad I was to have him on the ship…after that awkward conversation was finished, I went back to my room and read over the roster:

1. Commanding Officer – Wilford Gray, 52, Male
2. Executive Officer – Grant Dale, 38, Male
3. Chief Space Intel Officer – Zak Reed, 21, Male
4. Chief Design Officer – Nolan Weber, 37, Male
5. Chief IT Resource – Valarie Garrett, 25, Female
6. Assistant IT Resource – Hilary Kim, 23, Female
7. Nourishment Management – Mike Gonzaga, 48, Male
8. Nourishment Management – Miara Gonzaga, 18, Female

There were a few names I recognized, but I had no idea who the IT resources were. I guess I’ll have to meet them when they get here. As for Captain Gray, I have known him for a while – he oversaw our team as we designed the ship; I have a lot of respect for him, but Grant Dale, not so much…

Let’s just put it this way…my ex-wife? Yeah, she’s married again – to him. But that’s another story for another day. For now, it’s dinner time… I wonder if it’ll be good?

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
+Linden
Member Avatar
awesomesauce
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
White tile!! XD

A little high on his horse, ain't he? :P Can't wait for him to be knocked off.

Can't wait for the next entry.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
** Death's servant
Member Avatar
Reflection
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
I like it.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · Your Stories · Next Topic »
Add Reply
  • Pages:
  • 1



Skin orginally created by Tariq | Converted by Lewis of the ZetaBoard Theme Zone