Untitled Mythoi Project

Creation Myth

2004-11-01T01:38:00.000-05:00

The best [colonization] proposals I see are the ones that have a good binding metaphor. The metaphor provides a good story that can help to pull an early Colony together and… can help a fledgling Colony through the possibly tough early years.
–Senator R. Buckley, Joint Colonization Committee, Terran Government, Early Colonial Era

The Starship Ymir was built and designed by the Star Colonization Corporation on behalf of the ReNorse Consortium. One of several early colonial groups, the ReNorse Consortium chartered a region of space they labeled Ginnungagap.

StarCol was well know for its solid engineering work, and many of its early colonization ships survived well after their original use. For those interested, many of StarCol’s ship designs and several of the original ships can be viewed at the Museum of Humanity’s StarCol Expanse.

Ymir has particular interest because it did not survive far beyond its initial voyage to Ginnungagap. The rights to its design were also bought on an exclusivity contract by ReNorse and so were held only in a secure sector of StarCol’s vaults that was apparently lost at some point in StarCol’s takeover by the Terran Transportation Corporation.

What little survives of the Ymir design has been construed from the mythology and historical texts of the colony from the Ginnungagap dating to before the first Ragnarok event. Due to the very nature of the records most historians are skeptical as to the validity of any claims that may be distilled from them. For more on this longstanding debate you could turn to the Library of Humanity’s extensive collection of articles on the Validity and Susceptibility to Tampering of Mind Vaults.

Ymir was apparently one of the more complex and expensive designs built by StarCol. ReNorse Consortium’s Financial Records are publicly available and the financiers of ReNorse did indeed build a large amount of financial support for the group. StarCol’s own Financial Records in cross-examination show that several other groups may have also funneled money into Ymir’s development although whom and why appears to have been hidden and then subsequently lost.

Much of the ReNorse money went into the early development of the Mind Vault system and Ymir dropped StarCol’s more common cryostasis system for an early generation Mind Vault system. A Mind Vault system and Gene Bank took up much less space than the typical cryostasis system, but Ymir was most of the size of one of the cryo-ships. The remaining space was devoted to several other systems, most of which remain largely a mystery. Whatever they were, and the mythological and historical documents hint at some incredibly interesting systems, they enabled an unusually fast spread through the Ginnungagap’s primary solar system, and some sources believe they may even help to explain why the Ymir did not survive long after colonization. For those interested, several possible theories as to the bulk of Ymir’s equipment can be found in discussions of the keyword Audhumla, which was found in several places within StarCol’s records.

-Description of the Starship Ymir, Records of the Library of Humanity, Offline Copy
(Note: Several links have been broken due to temporal discord; if this continues to be a problem please seek a qualified local librarian.)

Working to close the circle...

2004-10-25T22:59:00.000-04:00

So I've come right back to one of the first ideas I had when I purchased Mythoi.com... I think that I'm still trying to flush out pre-writing jitters and last minute self-doubt. It is in such territory as plenty have stepped into it before, but I'm hoping that I could reasonably impart my own touches into it to make it suitably different.

I was back to looking at Mayan Mythology (partly because of what little I've read of the upcoming game Imperator), but I decided to start somewhat simpler and "closer to home" and deal with a Norse background, which was my original pick. Obviously there is already quite a bit of Norse mythology-based works out there (in comparison to Mayan/Incan/Aztec), including the book on my desk at work The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul, so I'm hoping that I won't step on any toes or be too derivative.

I think, however, that I can do something largely different. The current plan is not to do an alternate earth story, but instead to do a "post-modern" reinvention... portraying a society emulating the one of the past or using the one of the past as a metaphor for its organization. The best example I've read of this is John C. Wright's Golden Trancendence trilogy, which I'm going to have difficulty not comparing my own work disfavorably against.

Far be it for me to give too much away just yet, with 5 days until I actually start floating electrons in the direction of a story, but I will leave you with a fairly large hint as to where I'm planning to go with it... In my first post I asked:

What would the gods of today look like? What would the gods of tomorrow look like?

Well, I do have some ideas on this, and the one I settled on very heavily invokes WorldMaker's Law^[1]:

WorldMaker's Law: Any sufficiently complex system is indistinguishable from intelligent.

[1] I honestly cannot recall if this was self-attributed in some "law making fun" where we were emulating Clarke's Law, or if I actually did post it in some relatively brief point of intellectual fury and someone later attributed it to me. Either way its origins in connection with my handle have been lost to the oceans of time...

Circling closer...

2004-10-25T01:53:00.000-04:00

The Nov. 1 start date just keeps drawing nearer and I've gotten some good feedback so far on my commitment to try to win NaNoWriMo this year. My dad had apparently been thinking just recently about how long it had been since I had sat down to really write any major fictional work.

I'm still left with some trepidation as to what sort of storyline I might find to occupy myself for 50k words. Some other story ideas have flittered through my head... My dad mentioned that it might be interesting to write something apocryphal about post-Election riots, but although the concept could be intriquing I'm afraid of a potential backlash from writing anything fictional too political (partly because of the wanderings I've been doing in the political blog-scene).

I was reading a neat discussion of the similarities between Jesus, Gandhi and King and had an interesting concept about an alternate earth America in which Martin Luther King's death had helped to aggitate the black community into becoming much more politically active, leading many more blacks into public service and higher offices (such as the Vice Presidency and Presidency) and ultimately resulting in many of King's writings and speeches being held as sacred works. But, similar to the other idea I'm afraid of a potential backlash... I'm not sure I could do such a novel justice, and I think that I would have a hard time getting people to read it as I'm just some random white guy. The other big reason is because it would take a lot of research to do such a novel justice, and I'm still not certain how much research I would be willing to put into November's novel.

That actually, is one of the biggest things I'm asking myself in debating possible novel topics: How much research am I willing to put into this? My most recent story (Meta-War) has almost no research at all and is very much a seat-of-the-pants thing written during coffee breaks at work to clear my head. It has much that is contradictory to earlier stories I've written partly because I thought it was time I contradicted some of it and clean up some loose ends by explosion. For a novel on the other hand, I would expect that most would expect something much less contradictory and more self-consistent. What sort of planning should I be doing now instead of sleeping? What sort of research should I be doing? Is it once again time to live in a library?

Thankfully, having a laptop should help immensely with this no matter how in depth I plan to get insofar as research and planning. I think that once I start to put keyed letter to white space on screen that more of an idea will crystalize on where to go with it and this time as I write instead of trying to just hope I remember that awesome plot twist I had in my mind (and then forgetting it, as I've done in a couple of particularly notable places) that I will do a better job of taking notes and mapping where I am. Thus, Labyrinth may be one of my greatest writing tools if I can get myself to sit down and use it, even to just to map out what I've already written.

Anyway, the search for the right story continues... I think that I've got a good bunch of little ideas and themes that I'd like to explore and I'm just waiting for that magical gestalt I get from time to time where everything flashes together into some large coherent whole. Maybe it'll come during this sleep that I've procrastinated too long tonight...

Woohoo!

2004-10-21T21:31:00.000-04:00

Just got notification of my laptop shipping and it looks like it should arrive next week meaning I should have much less of an excuse to not be writing in November (other than normal procrastination tools like Unreal Tournament and Minesweeper).

A potential starting place...

2004-10-21T20:19:00.000-04:00

Last night just before bed I remembered a story idea I had been thinking about a few years ago as a potential for a Myst-style game, or perhaps an IF game. (Not that I have the resources for the first, and the latter is even harder than trying to write an entire novel; it's like trying to write three novels and a travelogue.) I started to think about it a bit more and I thought that it could make a good starting place for a novel and would fit into the Mythoi theme I was looking for...

My biggest problem with it is that it starts with an amnesiac main character. I know its somewhat a cliche, but feel that some of the rest of the story/universe helps to make the amnesia something a bit more unusual. But it is a starting place and a good way to build up exposition somewhat slower than my typical "just throw it all out there" style. I guess the real reason that I'm afraid to start that way is that I don't think I could do the form as much justice as, say, Zelazny in the first Amber book or John C. Wright in his Golden Trancendence trilogy.

So, I'd love to know if anyone has any thoughts? Should I just bite the bullet and try this potential story, or should I keep brainstorming? Do you think it is too much of a cliche in the fiction world? Too much of a mechanical story-telling device?

The title I was thinking last night, drowsily, that might work for this particular narrative might be The Foreboding Past, but then thought that might be too tacky. But, for right now, with no better title on hand I'll refer to the amnesiac idea as Mythoi: The Foreboding Past.

Origins of a novel attempt...

2004-10-20T21:26:00.000-04:00

I decided to go ahead and throw my hat into the NaNoWriMo ring... I know that I can do a few k words on the same story, the question becomes: can I create a story that will hold my own writing interest for 50k words?

First of all... I've decided to build this at Blogger instead of directly on my own website because I wanted to try Blogger a bit more and also perhaps there are a few small Blogger side effects I might take advantage of.

So, the next question before I start writing November 1 is: What am I going to write about?

I own this domain Mythoi.com and have had several ideas of what to do with it, but haven't done anything concrete yet. A 50k novel might serve as a hell of a cornerstone for a webpage... So, with that name in mind I expect I'll have to do something grand and mythic. I'd love to hear some brainstorming/feedback before I start. What sort of thing would make a great "modern Myth" as it were? I'm not much of a Fantasy guy so I'll probably be setting it somewhere between Present Day and Far Future. What would the gods of today look like? What would the gods of tomorrow look like?

Eventually I'll need to settle on a title and starting place. Titles usually give me a good place to start, so I'll brainstorm a few and see if any stick by November 1... Titles may also serve useful for Chapters/Sections.

Gods Don't Cry
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Immortality
Valhalla on the Rocks With a Slice of Lemon
The Diety Diet: How to Lose Weight While Immortal
And You Thought You Were Sane?
Never Again Shall Man Walk the Earth
Theomachy
Starship Gods
Bow Down and Worship Me, Scum!
The Eternal Never
Eternity Means No Dessert

Anyone else have any ideas?