Power Of Myth-It's All In The Story

Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers make some interesting points in the fifth chapter of The Power of Myth.  The first one is that all the myths about a hero's journey, including the three major religions of the Western world, say that there can be no reward without sacrifice.  The main reward that readers look for, although most readers don't realize it, is that the main character loses a great deal, enough to send him through some sort of journey, and learns that what he lost was so much more than what he (or she) gained in the end.  The person accused of murder finds a true friend they never knew they had in their partner or someone finds their true love after a hard journey.  Often a person learns to forgive themselves or to love themselves or how to let go of the past and move on to a happy future after a hard mental journey.  Many readers don't realize that the real journey the main character is on in any good book that has stood the trials of time is a mental one leading to the climax, whether it's standing up to the villain or kissing their beloved or feeling welcome in their family or friends again after a long time away.  In Moby Dick Captain Ahab couldn't let go of his past obsession and it killed him.  In Emma she realized that love in a marriage was better than a wealthy husband and she let her friend marry the poorer man Emma had been avoiding the whole book.  Even movies show this reality of stories when you look at Star Wars and the first Avengers movie.  They had to move on from their insecurities and past experiences in order to conquer the evil threatening what they knew.  They talk some about the two types of heroes: the one that purposely sets out on a "quest" like most of the heros in mythology and the one more common in real life, the one who doesn't chose to be a hero but it happens.  Their example of the second type was the soldier that got drafted.  He/she didn't chose to go to war but their number came up and they had no choice.  They still become a hero but they didn't chose to set out on a quest.  In fact, many characters don't realize they are on a quest, like the main character in the movie The Game who thinks he is on a safe Hollywood treasure hunt while really having switch places with a mob hunt, or they drag their feet the entire time, wondering "why me, why me?" and complaining until they decide to do something about their predicament. All those people are heroes in the end that go through and internal journey while moving through the plot, they just started out differently.
    Another thing Campbell comments on is that the villain in a story depends on the perspective of the reader.  Some villains are evil because they want to be or because they were hurt and believe the hero deserves to be hurt.  However, most real people who are seen as villains see themselves as heroes.  Terrorists are furthering what is right and those who get hurt are standing in the way of "progress" or are hurting "the cause".  From the point of view of most villains, they are morally correct and therefore not doing anything "wrong".  It's how so many "evil" characters can continue doing hurting people for years.  They're god is protecting them or they are creating a better future.  Can you imagine watching the some of your favorite movies from the villain's point of view?  In that story, the hero in the regular version is the antagonist in the villain's version.  It is definitely something to keep in mind while you create your characters.
   Campbell also talked about the story of Icarus and Daedalus and the wax wings.  He compares Icarus's urge to fly too high to the modern idea of getting really excited about a new adventure or idea.  How many times have you had an awesome idea you really wanted to tell everyone about before you sat down to start it?  I often tell people about my great idea, only to sit down and not have it turn out at all like I'd hoped and told everyone about.  The choice then is to decide whether it's worth continuing on to strive for days, months, years on the idea or give it up.  Often the initial enthusiasm means that details can be overlooked and science imperfect.  He also mentions that science is proving what myths have told us about.  How many times have you heard about a scientific discovery and assumed it's merely urban legend?
   Something else Campbell talks about which I have often realized.  Our past has made each of us who we are.  Often people can't accept their past, they hide parts of it or refuse to speak of things or even large parts of their lives because of shame or pain.  However, our individual pasts, the friends we made and things we did, are at least as important to our development as the temperaments we are each born with.  That is one reason why twins are never carbon copies of each other's personalities.  One twin was closer to one friend than another, one twin had a teacher that the other twin didn't.  A lot of stories deal with people finally dealing with their past shame or pain and once they do deal with it, once they accept what happened to them and that they are exactly what they should be, only then can they live full lives in the light instead of hiding partially in the shadows.
 

What Runs Your Fictional Ship?

Now that we know how your fictional ship moves through space it’s time to talk about another form of energy. All ships these days, not counting the pleasure ships run by sails, are run by computers (as are all cars, most businesses, even many houses today). How do computers run? They use electricity. That said it would be a good idea to have an electrical plant on your ship. Electricity is created by coiled wires moving through an electrical current and creating an alternating current. However, energy is needed to create the movement of the coils. Nowadays that energy is created by a number of ways such as fossil fuels, windmills, water turbines, and nuclear energy. Although any of those forms could be adapted to work on your ship, they have their problems. Fossil fuels may be difficult to keep on hand and they create waste as well as generally need human aid to monitor or clean up after. Although windmills could possibly be used to harness the movement of space around the ship or the air moving within the ship for ventilation, it would be difficult to make a possible design for harnessing the space around the ship, and what happens when the ship stops for port calls or exploration, or a strong enough design from ventilation to run all the computers on ship. The same goes for water turbines, although steam power may work if properly designed. The steam could move the turbines and go through a system to be recycled so that same water could be recycled and steamed again. Every so often more water would need to be added as no system is perfect, but that system could work for a while or be the backup energy. Just keep in mind the boiler would take time to heat or be constantly on to a lesser degree if it were a backup. Next come nuclear energy which at this time I don’t believe it would make a good electrical plant. As the propulsion power of the ship it could also be harnessed as an electrical power source but to have the containment needed and care needed to protect a crew from nuclear radiation along with a propulsion source could be too much for a future ship once you take into account the other rooms needed on a ship.
That leaves at least two other viable forms of electricity creation to think about: solar power and geothermal energy. Solar power seems pretty cool for space and may be an effective backup energy but you have to remember these ships go pretty fast and try to stay away from stars as they tend to have possibly inhabited planets around them. The likelihood of solar panels on the hull of a ship being able to sustain enough power to run an entire space ship without major glitches or blackouts seems slim. The power creator I would use is geothermal energy. Instead of taking the heat energy from the layers internal of a planet, use the energy already given off to move the ship and create enough electricity to power a space ship.
Here is a site explaining the energy creators I spoke of and how they are made today. Take your pick as to what energy source you want to use but be sure you have some sort of backup, even if it is just a few hours worth of battery power for major systems. (That may work best for things like maintenance or a secondary back up but may not last long during a space battle.)

Ship Propulsion Part 2

Warp drive, likely the most famous theory for space travel out there, thanks to the Star Trek phenomenon, is currently impossible as the theory states that a bubble is made in space-time around a ship. The bubble is then moved through space and the ship inside it doesn’t move. Although there are theories as to how such a movement is possible and even thought to have occurred already, the power needed to move a ship is massive and far down the road in scientific discoveries. If you plan to use this source of propulsion, it would be helpful to have another form of propulsion on ship as well. While warp engines are useful for long distances they would be useless for moving a ship into a specific orbit or moving short distances. Also, Star Trek has a number of other technologies you may want to think about adding that keep the ship from crashing into planets and stars while traveling at such high speeds.
Another way to travel through space is wormholes. There was at least one species, in a Voyager episode, that traveled by a matrix of wormholes through space. Hyperspace is a theory of traveling through another dimension with different rules to travel faster than light. In the Andromeda series it was depicted as a series of tunnels in space that a ship popped in and out of by activating a special engine. The same basic principle is used in the series Babylon 5 for distance travel. With the right protection from space for passengers, those theories may be the most feasible for humans.
These are just a few present possibilities for movement through space that I found. Another possibility has to do with tachyons and a theory I don’t have the faintest about has to do with quantum vacuum energy or “zero-point energy” on which I found no simple explanation. Remember that as many ideas as there are, there is no way to know how or even if such travel through space will happen for humans. The best we may ever get is to cryo-sleep for years before actually reaching another planet and exploring or colonizing it. This is your book so decide which theory you like best or make up your own. (We never know what alien technology we may be influenced by or some day use…)

Ship Propulsion: Which to Use? Part 1

The next thing to think about, and possibly the most basic thing needed on a space ship is the propellant. Modern marine ships use a fuel to move their mechanical propeller or paddle wheels. Space crafts use a chemical reaction to push against space and send them in the direction they want to go. The current method is a chemical reaction but gravity assist is used while out in space to speed a ship on its way around planets. Nuclear engines were tried on aircraft during the Cold War but were deemed too dangerous for the crew as there was no way to safely have the crew near that much nuclear radiation for any period of time. NASA is currently working on developing a fusion engine. Such an engine would cut space travel in half and since the main fuel would be hydrogen, the ship could refuel merely by dropping into an upper planetary atmosphere somewhere (or sending a small cargo ship into a lower atmosphere if purer hydrogen was needed). However, current theories say it would still take two years to go to Jupiter and back from Earth.
Solar sails are similar to wind sailing. The thin sheets of metal with a lot of surface area aim towards a light source, like a star, and photons and solar winds propel the ship where the sails are aimed. A problem with these are that the sails can be influenced by gravity fields of passing planets so they need to be monitored and probably adjusted whenever a planet. Moon, or another star is nearby. However. That effect can be used to an advantage for slingshot maneuvers, or gravity assist.
Another possibility that is scientifically possible from current science but still years from usable is antimatter. Antimatter is what powered many ships in the Star Trek series but it would be very difficult to create enough antimatter to move a ship by present technologies. However, scientists believe that areas in space may have huge clusters of natural antimatter so you could always have them stopping at times to refuel. Another problem with antimatter may be that it could be similar to oil in that it takes thousands of years to regenerate. Once a supply is gone, it’s gone. However, little is known about natural antimatter at the moment so use it how you want in your stories.

Replicator or Not?

Something we should probably stop and think about before deciding what is in the ship is if your ship has what in Star Trek is called a replicator. In essence it creates things out of seemingly nothing. The technology behind the action shown on screen is that matter, usually waste or stored material is kept somewhere whether in a random shape of minerals or in pure energy form. When someone wants something they go to the replicator, input their desire, and matter is sent to that replicator to be changed into whatever the person asked for. On TV stuff seems to show up out of nowhere with no explanation of how it got there, although in the Enterprise series the engineer nearly tells school kids that bodily waste is broken down to be made into new food and materials. Here is an article on how such material may be in its early stages already. To use this technology you will likely need to decide the ration limit each person gets (does it exceed the daily replenishment amount?) and how much raw material is brought for emergencies such as broken parts or new crew members. Are your replicators strong enough to repair battle damage? How long does it take to replicate massive things? If you don’t want to store much or the ship only stays out a few days a trip it may be possible to not keep stores of extra materials. Personal waste can recreate the food needed and the broken parts can replace themselves by being put in the replicator and the material replaced. What if things get lost in space, either by needing to jettison cargo holds for faster flight or by holes in the ship from a battle. What will your crew do then? How will they get more spare material?
Keep in mind that though replicators are an awesome explanation in stories, they may be expensive to obtain or hard to maintain. If you decide not to have a replicator, or whatever you call it, you will need the cargo space for food, spare parts, and emergency supplies.

Name Your Ship

Now that you know the basic look of your ship, you may want to name it. That may seem simple but don’t just pick a name that sounds cool. Names have meaning or are meant to imply something. Although a parent may pick a favorite name or a relative’s name for their child, a ship’s owner has likely saved up for a long time to buy their dream ship. Serenity, from Firefly is a good example. Mel dreamed of being his own boss and sticking it to a government that he didn’t agree to so his ship was named after a battle that reflected those thoughts. If your ship is part of a fleet and not owned by any one person, such as all of the main Star Trek ships, the name needs to be more generic. Many US Navy ships today are named after battles, people rewarded for heroism, and cities.
Something else to decide is what the name of the class your ship is from. Even commercial companies won’t build a different ship for each customer without a substantial extra fee and even then they would likely continue making that class, maybe with a few differences on the hull or switching rooms around inside. That being the case, your ship is likely one of many and has a class name. Here is a Wikipedia page saying how some countries name their classes.
Another thing to mention at this stage is usage. Although you probably already know if your ship is designed for exploration, colonization, conquering worlds, rummaging asteroids for debris or minerals, or commanding the fleet, it’s good to have a clear picture of what your ship is designed for. If you need ideas, here is a list of general ship types and specific classes.

5 Steps from Animal to Sentient

The Formation of the Camp
Unifying the Camp
The Formation of the Nuclear Family
From Equal Labor to Female Suppression
From Mentally Capable of Thought to a “Civilized Culture”.

Character's childhood

Here’s a thought on character background: what was their childhood like? A childhood is often what an adult is based on. It’s when most of us learned right from wrong, how to share, why the sun comes up each day, and how lovable we are. Though your character may “overcome their childhood,” it will still affect them. If their mother wished they were like a cousin or older sister, they may now know they are worthy of love (how’d that happen?) but they may need to remind themselves of that often. A guy that got picked on as a scrawny kid may work out daily as an adult or have a dislike for those that look strong and perfect. He may even hesitate to go for a girl he loves but feels he can’t compare with “her league” so he watches from afar and settles for another. If they were well loved they may be very loving, if they were neglected, it could be the opposite. However, if you want a girl who grew up on the streets (literally) of Brooklyn all her life, it may not be a good idea to have her sweet and naive. If you have a large secret or shame in your character’s background, that can affect how honest, proud, or suspicious they are. Events or secrets can often bond people or drive them apart. An engaged couple that accidentally killed someone they knew may find it easier (eventually) to break up rather than see each other and be reminded. Accidental sex partners (drinking or just bad in bed) may never want to see each other again. Then again, some people cling to secrets others long to forget causing rifts. People leave towns for big cities hoping to be forgotten if there was a big scandal surrounding them or their family. An aborted child or one given up for adoption can cause problems in the future…The ways childhoods or secrets can effect a character are endless, as well as what they learned from each scenario. While one character may become introverted from being molested, another may become a prostitute or slut in order to feel in control of who hurts her. The possibilities are endless so have fun meeting your characters and making them as close to real as you can.