Rewrites and Edits
On reviewer wrote that it looked like I’d written the book in an afternoon. That was a disappointing review. In fact I researched many of the small points in the book to make a factual and realistic background. My editor advised me to drop almost an entire chapter as the character build up wasn’t used later in the book and therefore just added content. That content was exploring the space laws yet I followed her advice, dropped most of the content and rewrote the chapter. And rewrote, and rewrote, and rewrote. I didn’t agree with all her suggestions, such as the one to change one of the characters as it was too much of an overused “trope” because that was exactly what I wanted that character to be. Then the use of slang – should I have explanatory notes ? Rewrite. Or a glossary ? Rewrite. Or an appendix with notes explaining parts within the story or try to make it self explanatory. Rewrite The tempo of this part is too slow. The tempo of this part is too fast, you will lose the reader. This part jumps with no connection. Rewrite. Below are some notes made while coming up with the story. Unfortunately, I don’t have the sketches and maps and diagrams I made for myself while working out how it would all fit together. Nor do I have all the hand written notes and musings and calculations about orbits, reproduction systems, defense strategies…etc etc. I will remember to keep my notes in digital form next time. Yet, for example, here is one issue: how does a species survive for centuries in space? Lobsters are one of the few species that can successfully survive with their metabolism slowed through cryonics, hence the lobster like nature of the aliens and their spaceship capsules. They also need to be protected from cosmic radiation over the centuries – how best to do this? And so on.
Notes
Xlathas telling the exodus story
Xlthas was the leader of the alien ship. He or it, claimed that he wasn’t originally, yet it has become his fate as they were unable to successfully revive the commander, Lalaxalas. Only half of the original 24 mission had survived. Xlthas said that was enough to rebuild their species as they had 60,000 fertilized eggs in storage. The eggs were of as diverse a variety of DNA of their home planet’s population as could be made to ensure the viability of recreating their life on another planet. Even if they lost 90% of the eggs, there would still be enough diversity to start again.
The information had come out in bits and pieces as Llongas tried to decipher and build an understanding of the alien’s language. After deducting the sounds, the clicks and whistle sounds, somewhat echoing the vocalizations of the Bantu in Africa, significance, he had thought that it was similar to English as a subject-verb-object language, yet it appeared to structurally shift depending on emphasis or whether a question was being asked. With pictures, pointing and patience, Llongas elucidated the story of the Crythas home exodus.
Their planet orbited the star we know as Gacrux, a red giant 88 light years away. The orbit was elliptical causing long summers and very deep winters. Life on the planet was naturally adapted to the long winters in various ways. Xlthas said they called their planet Xanthan and themselves Xanthananians. His own name translated as “little one of Xanthan”. His three parents agreed to name him this when they were informed that their child was selected for the exodus. He was a tri-child. Duo-children were most common, and uno-children were the fewest, in the ratio of roughly 3 for duos, 2 for tris and 1 for unos. Only a few centuries before the exodus the society was split with unos looked down upon and tris regarded as superior. Views changed as the evidence became clear that having all types was simply a result of biological survival mechanisms. The prejudices lingered though, even up to the time of the exodus. Xanthans survived the winter through hibernation. This fortunately made them biologically disposed to methods to slow down their metabolism for long term hibernation for space travel. The normal hibernation period of about three Earth years had to be lengthened to hundreds and possibly thousands of years. Moreover, suspended animation was different from hibernation. They estimated they had the equivalent of about two Earth centuries before their planet would be destroyed by their sun as it expanded in the early stages of its evolution into a giant red star.
A plan was formed for a limited number of Xanthanians to be sent by space ship to star systems where they believed there would be potentially habitable planets. Each ship was to be loaded with seeds, embryos and gene banks to recreate an ecosystem for the interstellar refugees, and to rebuild their species. Space telescope systems were developed to try to find suitable planets, space ships capable of interstellar travel were built in orbit around the planet, and suspended animation tests were run on the planet. Xlthas said by the time his ship was ready, they had only managed to find a few planets that had signs of biological life confirming they were able to support life. The government had decided to send each ship as soon as it was ready, whatever the state of progress on other parts of the parts of the plan. There wasn’t enough time to find out whether the suspended animation would work for long enough, and the same for other parts such as the interstellar drives. Xlthas said his was the 5th ship to depart and the target was to get at least twice that number away before the planet was burned by the star’s expansion. Xlthas said the others had gone to more distant locations simply because the angle of rotation of the Earth’s solar system meant they hadn’t identified it as a candidate target until they had developed better telescope systems.