wiseheart | Eclectic entry... this and that...

Okay, I'm back for the moment, although only temporarily. The next weeks promise to be totally crazy again. Especially choir-wise.

On March 5, we've been invited by the local administration to sing on the opening feast of this year's teachers' workshop for the 11th district of Budapest. That wouldn't be that bad, as we're singing three folklore pieces we supposedly know already. Whether we really know them well enough is another pair of boots entirely. Two of them sucked spectaculary on our latest concert in November, and we haven't done much about them since, because we're preparing ourselves for the international choir festival in BAd Ischl, Austria, in early May.

On March 8, we're about to give a short independent concern - in the National Gallery, which is situated in the Royal Palace district. o_O We're all shitting our pants about that one. A spectacular failure on a location like that would be the blamage of the century. We're supposed to sing 9 or 10 pieces, most of them the "supposedly known" category, but we've seen how well that's worked before - NOT!

Also, as I said, there's the Bad Ischl festival in two months' time. There we have to bring 6 pieces, 5 of which are brand new, beautiful but insanely complicated. So we have additional rehearsals every other day, and are busily panicking. We've just put together the Mendelssohn psalm, and that's the easiest of all. At least we have much pleasure with that one.

The two Hungarian folk songs, all sung in four or six voices, respectively, are really hard to learn. The rhythm is very unusual, and the piano parts are practically independent melodies, so they don't help a bit. My personal problem is that the contralto part, too, is in a height that would be more suited for mezzosopranos than contraltos; it's killing my throat and my vocal cords.

And then there is a German folkloristic piece which I haven't even seen yet, and an Ave Maria by Head, which is ethereally beautiful, but very, very complicated. Gosh, I really don't know how we're going to manage all this in two months. After all, we all have full-time jobs in that school, too. Plus, due to the insane weather, half the people are always ill - and always another percentage, which doesn't make it exactly easy.

And, as if I hadn't enough unfinished fanfic pieces, I've been strongly inspired to write original sci-fi lately. The "Windswept" universe is bothering me to be created every time I ride the bus, as that's the only time when my mind isn't occupied with something else.

Really - what sense would it have to write original sci-fi? No-one'd be reading it anyway. Only a handful of people are interested in my sci-fi fanfics, as I tend to write complex plots, and people just get bored with the twist. Honestly, who would waste their times in original sci-fi, where not even the familiar charcters would attract them?

In the meantime, an ungodly amount of highly interesting DVDs are waiting for being finally watched, and I just can't find the time. :(

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And, as if I hadn't enough unfinished fanfic pieces, I've been strongly inspired to write original sci-fi lately. The "Windswept" universe is bothering me to be created every time I ride the bus, as that's the only time when my mind isn't occupied with something else.

Ohhhh, sounds interesting. I would definitely be interested to read some original SF by you. If it is not written in Hungarian, that is. :)

Really - what sense would it have to write original sci-fi? No-one'd be reading it anyway.

*Raises hand timidly* I would? I'm not so much into Voyager fanfic, these days, but something new and original could really hook me on. :)

No, it's in English - what's there of it. See outline below.

Note: This universe is based on the artwork of Louis Royo. The names are likely to be changed, as this is all very temporary at this moment.

THE PREMISE

The planet Windswept is in the state of post-apocalyptic horror. The southern continent is a dry, hostile desert with sheer, sand-coloured cliffs, where the ingenious people of this world still live in a honeycomb of caves. The greater part is an immense ocean, inhabited by nightmarish creatures that have received a sudden evolutionary burst due to the nuclear war that took place almost a century or so earlier. The northern continent is the smaller of the existing one, but it has been almost completely destroyed in the war.

The dwellers of the desert are a race of winged humanoid creatures, a strange mix between humans and bats, but with a dry, sandy skin. They are called the Furies, and they can interbreed with humans. A different offshot of them have huge, horizontal spikes instead of wings, lives under the desert sand and is called the Burrowers. Human/Fury hybrids have become a small but important percentage of the population, as they are more innovative in their thinking than pure-blooded Furies, although physically weaker and less resistant to the harsh sunlight and the radiation.

The primary species of the ocean seems to be the Kraken: a race of tentacled sea monsters big enough to be mistaken for small islands. While the scream of the Furies can shatter glass, the Kraken are said to have strange mental powers, which is how they can rule over the other sea creatures.

TBC below

Once there was a large human colony on Windswept; the impressive ruins of their great cities can still be seen on the northern continent. The humans have come to Windswept centuries earlier on a huge spaceship that contained not only advanced technology but also thousands of embryos in cryogenic units. They were looking for a new world to colonize, and the Furies – at that time the only sentient species of the planet – who had so adapted to a life in the desert during the warming period of their world that they had no use fort he colder northern continent let them settle there.

The humans built cities and searched the ocean for resources. Unfortunately, they were divided from the beginning. One group, the Technocrats, wanted to turn their entire colony into a high-tech lab, to develop never-before-seen technologies, with an emphasis on cybernetics and weapons. They experimented with the blending of man and machine, as they believed that cyborgs were the next logical step in the human evolution.

The other group, the Earth-children, wanted to settle on biomechanics. They didn’t want simple bionics, but to *grow* actual, live technology, including organic, sentient buildings and starships. As the resources were limited, a bitter fight began between those two groups, and in the end, under still somewhat undefined circumstances, the conflict ended in a terrible war, involving nuclear bombs on one side and biological warfare on the other one.

Today, there are only a handful of humans living still on Windswept, like rats among the ruins of the cities on the northern continent. But even there, they are not safe. The sea creatures leave the water to hunt them, and slavers from the original ship – that gave the planet its current name – are visiting the planet regularly to capture them.

Because the original colony ship, the Windswept, is still out there, looming somewhere in orbit, manned by cyborgs and controlled by an AI that had somehow gained self-awareness. It’s badly battered, but still functioning well enough to sustain a large population. Thousands of human slaves are kept on the lower decks to do the more mundane tasks, as the cyborgs aren’t numerous enough to maintain such a huge vessel on their own. Due to a cruel joke or their creator, or because of their construction hasn’t been fully finished before the war (the true reason isn’t known), all cyborgs are male, with functional male organs and the needs that go with those. Many human slave girls are separated from the rest to serve the needs of their cyborg masters.

TBC below

But there are other humans out there, too. The descendants of the Technocrats who were able to flee the planet in time have settled on Thule, one of Windswept’s four moons, exporting the pyramidal architecture of their colony to this much more modest place. They no longer have the means to build huge warships, but they often raid the ship Windswept for supplies, technology… and to break free as many slaves as they can cramp into their small, fast and deadly combat ships. They need to refresh their gene pool as often as they can, as they’re not a numerous people.

The other, larger group still free, the descendants of the Earth-children, are always in space. They live aboard their huge, organic ship, the Leviathan, that can house at least twenty thousand people – not that they’d come near to that number. They have managed to salvage the hibernation technology of the old Windswept, and extracted the still cryogenically frozen embryos, only a third of which had been used to populate the colony centuries earlier. From time to time, they add new individuals to their population from those storage units, to keep the gene pool healthy. They, too, often raid the Windswept, but their main goal is the freeing of the slaves. Some of them have a thin trace of Fury blood in their veins, but it’s usually not visible.

The two groups have agreed in a truce, as long as the cyborgs of the ship Windswept still are a serious threat for both. They also both intend to gain back the northern continent of the planet, but for that, they’d have to eradicate the Kraken from the ocean, which is a questionable task, both ethically and from the point of it being physically possible or not. There are no real guarantees that they’d be able to coexist in a peaceful manner, should any of those common threats be removed.

That's basically it. There is a short character list, too, but it's all in a very rough state yet.

Sounds fascinating. Just how the human populations will interact with the Furies (and why they can i9nterbreed with them at all, which seems to point to a human background of the furies, as well), is still a puzzle to me. Also, why do tzey need to eradicate the Kraken to live on the continent again? Also, since the Kraken are now intelligent, how would that not ne genocide? Sounds like there is much potential to develop a great story in that world. I would love to read more of that, should you decide to write it. It is a fresh concept, and it sounds really powerful. :)

Thanks. :)
I'd be happy to discuss the possibilities with you - it always helps me to get new ideas. This whole concept is still way too vague to start the actual writing right now.

To answer your questions:

1) The Earth-children have helped the interbreeding with the Furies via genetic manipulation, because they thought it would help them adapt better to the alien biotop of the planet.

2) With the Kraken, it's rather an either them or us question. Ocean life has just begun to spread onto the southern continent, where the humans used to live (or still live in small numbers), so there would be a bitter fight for territory. Some of the Earth-children are for making contact with ocean-bound life, but the Kraken are not very cooperative, either. They are intelligent, yes, but in a fairly rudimentary manner.

3) Yes, eradicatin the Kraken would be genocide. In my personal opinion, the humans would better abandon the planet, pick up their toys and find a better place. Unfortunately, neither group is willing to do just that. Plus, that would render the planet-dwellers to Kraken food, so...

Eclectic entry... this and that...

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Winswept outline, Part 1

Winswept outline, Part 2

Winswept outline, Part 3

Re: Winswept outline, Part 3

Re: Winswept outline, Part 3