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| Star Wars: Galactic Encounters; It was just a movie... until the Rebels came to Earth | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 23 2010, 03:18 AM (1,274 Views) | |
| BaikonurJedi | Feb 23 2010, 03:18 AM Post #1 |
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The Space Cadet
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As the avatar says, I'm a space cadet. My school library happens to have a lot of science books from the late 1970s for some reason, and during Midterm Week, I spent a lot of time reading them between cram sessions to relieve some stress. And as I was reading, flashes of a story formed in my head, the story that I'm going to share here. Updates may not be very frequent, as I've got school and several other fan-fics on other sites. This story remains, as before, a bit of fantastic escapism for when I can find the time. In September of this year, the Space Shuttles are due to retire, and for many people, it can't happen soon enough. But I have always believed that despite its flaws, the shuttle is fundamentally cool. Now, at the end of the shuttle era, it can be hard to recognize that coolness in all of the shouting and criticism. Perhaps the best way to find it again is to strip everything down and look at the basics- a reuseable spaceplane, crewed by diverse groups of men and women from various backgrounds, that takes off like a rocket and lands like an airplane. This story endeavo(u)rs to capture the views that greeted the the begining of the shuttle era- high tech, inspiring, and really, really, cool. You may find that these little glimpses into an alternate history don't always match up exactly with Star Wars continuity, but there's a reason for that- Imagine, if you will, that it's 1978 and you're home sick. You're 12 years old and bored out of your skull. How on Earth are you going to occupy yourself until Mom gets home? You decide to write a story and glance at your prized collection of model spaceships, both real and fictional. Randomly, you grab your two favorites- the X-Wing fighter that blew your mind last year when you first saw Star Wars in the theater (And the other five times, too.), and the Space Shuttle Orbiter that you keep following all the construction work for that's going to be so awesome when it finally flies. One word flashes through your brain- CROSSOVER! Edited by BaikonurJedi, Feb 23 2010, 06:34 PM.
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| lifeisacabaret | Feb 23 2010, 07:00 PM Post #2 |
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Sane man's sane man
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Oooh. It sounds interesting. I'm sure I'll be hooked. |
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| Moon_Spider | Feb 23 2010, 09:29 PM Post #3 |
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The Author
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sounds cool!!! |
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| DPsA | Feb 23 2010, 10:02 PM Post #4 |
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One and Only Mod
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Cool! Can't wait to read it! |
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| BaikonurJedi | Feb 24 2010, 01:43 AM Post #5 |
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The Space Cadet
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I've written the first part out longhand, but it needs a lot of editing, so I think I'll wait until the weekend to post it. In the meantime, some video to give the "flavor" of what's to come: Trailer for the 1984 IMAX film The Dream is Alive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4pFXTVIhAQ&feature=related Launch and landing from an earlier IMAX film, Hail Columbia! (Which I own on DVD 'cause I'm nerdy like that): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2cKiYULGsc "Countdown" by the Canadian band Rush: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnD2VUo16PQ Edited by BaikonurJedi, Feb 24 2010, 02:31 AM.
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| BaikonurJedi | Feb 27 2010, 02:31 AM Post #6 |
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The Space Cadet
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First Contact, Part 1 "We are on a journey to keep an appointment with whatever we are." -Gene Roddenberry August 16, 1973 The blaster bolts were whizzing, and Davin Sinal knew he was running out of time. It should have been a brilliant strategic coup, he should have infiltrated the manufacturing plant on Raxus Prime and escaped with the prototype vehicle without a hitch. Losing the experimental fighter with its advanced hyperdrive so soon after the Death Star's destruction should have added insult to injury for the Galactic Empire, in addition to providing the Rebellion's engineers with a look at that special hyperdrive. That was how it should have been. But somehow, Sinal's mission had been compromised, and he had been ambushed within the plant's hangar by a small detachment of black-armored stealth troopers. The idea of a mole in the Rebellion frightened Sinal even more than the fact that only a few lucky shots of his own blaster had gotten him onboard the experimental TIE fighter and that he had barely made it beyond the plant's defensive perimeter and into the polluted skies of the "garbage dump" world. Nobody who came to Raxus Prime had any particular desire to stay, but even orbital velocity hadn't seemed fast enough for Sinal, not with those turbolasers tracking his craft's every move. Even here in high orbit, he knew he had only a little time to breathe, as interceptors were being scrambled at that very moment, and the prototype had no weapons, never having been intended for combat, only test flights. Dark shapes could be seen rising through the mucky atmosphere of the planet below, one of the few worlds in the Galaxy that was not more beautiful when seen from space. Scenery! I'm about to die and I'm thinking about the scenery! Sinal thought, cursing silently. He had only one advantage over the TIEs rising to capture him, and a very small window of time in which to use it. He had to jump to hyperspace, to escape to some distant corner of the Galaxy. But he had no time to plan a destination. For all he knew, he might come out right over Coruscant itself. Wouldn't that be grand, outrunning stormtroopers only to pop out into realspace right outside the Emperor's window? Blazing beams of bright green energy shot towards Sinal's spaceship as he punched in the commands for a random jump with sweating, shaky hands. The small spacecraft shook as some shots made contact. "Defensive shielding at 85 percent... 77 percent... 64..." He read off a gauge, entering the final command string. This was it, no idea where he was going, but anywhere had to be better than here- He pushed the last button. The stars turned into streaks of parallel light through Sinal's viewport as he entered hyperspace, the whole Universe around him appearing as a strange blue tunnel of streaking light. By the time the pursing TIEs had fired their next shots, he was already trillions of miles away, at the edges of the Raxus System. Sinal was free. A sudden jump like that took a lot of power, but the computer indicated he could spend at least half an hour in hyperspace before power levels got too low. But until he re-entered realspace, he'd have no idea of knowing where he was, or how far he'd really gone. The Raxus System was in the Outer Rim, near the Galaxy's edge, and the whole area wasn't extensively explored or charted. Just as he was starting to relax, the warning light flashed, indicating that it was time to re-enter realspace. The streaking stars returned, and Davin Sinal emerged from hyperspace in a dense cloud of comets. The frozen mini-worlds filled his viewport, the hearts of unformed comets that would grow a tail if pushed towards a sun. He was on the edge of a planetary system. The system's star might be that particularly bright yellow one to his right, although it was really only a small bit brighter than most of the other stars he could see. He checked the ship's computer to find out exactly where this was. Somewhere deep in the Unknown Regions, two-thirds of the way from the galactic core out along a spiral arm. A system on no charts. And he didn't have the fuel for another jump. The only option was to head for the habitable zone at sub-light speed and hope they had some fuel to spare. Galactic mapmaking had been interrupted by the current Civil War, and it was perfectly possible he'd find a world already visited by the Rebellion and full of sympathizers. Or full of Imperials. There was really no way of knowing at this distance. Sinal turned on the TIE's sensors, hoping to pick up some communications chatter that could tell him more about where he was, but they couldn't seem to detect anything beyond primitive artificial radio waves. Perhaps they hadn't converted fully to holography yet, Sinal thought, as he passed a large yellow gas giant with a marvelous set of rings. The planet's moons looked mineral-rich and possibly conducive to some hardy form of life, so he reasoned that he'd probably run into a spaceship soon, or even a major installation. The ship passed an asteroid, small and lonely, and then a larger planet, tinged rusty red by iron in its soil. Reasonably habitable, it seemed to have an atmosphere. His sensors could detect nothing on the surface, but there were several satellites in orbit. Was there an underground civilization on this red planet, one that had built hidden cities to escape the radiation present on the surface? Although he scanned as deeply as possible, the only radio signals Sinal could detect came from the next planet over, only a few light-minutes away. Even if there were no signs of habitation in the asteroids or on the red world, Sinal was sure he'd find great engineering works in orbit around the planet itself. They must have ignored the worlds of their own system for colonization in favor of greener pastures a short hyperjump away. A species that developed hyperdrive that early was lucky indeed, now if only their engines were compatible... The third planet in this uncharted system was a deep blue, dappled with white clouds. It looked much like Naboo from this point, about 70% ocean, with the rest good land. A kind world for a human like Sinal. The planet had one moon of average size, gray and dusty. The computer showed it to be dry except for some ice deposits in polar craters, and devoid of atmosphere. Unfriendly, but being so close to their homeworld, the residents of the blue world would surely have colonized it... Sinal was shocked by the results, revealing a truth he hadn't even dared to consider. There were only a few small camplike sites on the moon, recently placed but currently uninhabited, scientific stations established on brief sortie missions. The were only a few crewed spacecraft in orbit around the planet itself, in low orbits, terribly small, and with no more than six lifeforms inside, total. As impossible as it seemed, Davin Sinal was looking at a pre-hyperdrive civilization, one most probably unaware of the events occurring in the larger Galaxy. They probably knew nothing of the Empire... or the Rebellion. He might cause a panic, he was no anthropologist or diplomat. The best thing to do would be to land secretly, interact with as few locals as possible, find his fuel, leave, and let the Rebel higher-ups handle Official First Contact. He chose a coastal area near the world's largest ocean by chance, and prepared for planetfall... Edited by BaikonurJedi, Mar 4 2010, 02:04 AM.
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| DPsA | Mar 1 2010, 01:37 AM Post #7 |
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One and Only Mod
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Ooh, now I'm hooked. I'm trying to figure out where he chose to land though, because there's a great chance he chose to land in Cape Canaveral. |
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| BaikonurJedi | Mar 1 2010, 01:39 AM Post #8 |
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The Space Cadet
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Well, Cape Canaveral is on the Atlantic, which isn't the largest ocean in the world... that's all I'm saying so far. |
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| DPsA | Mar 1 2010, 01:51 AM Post #9 |
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One and Only Mod
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Aha, now I get it. I won't say anything either. |
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| BaikonurJedi | Mar 3 2010, 02:50 AM Post #10 |
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The Space Cadet
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First Contact, Part 2 Dawn was breaking over the Atlantic and Alan Bean was sitting down for lunch. Not really "down", he reflected, as there was no real up or down on Skylab. Everything inside of the space station that wasn't tied down floated, even Bean and the other two astronauts he shared it with. It was quiet up here, except for the constant hum of the air purification systems with their vague, probably imaginary whiff of persistent coolness. They were alone, but none of them felt lonely, except sometimes at night. There was something magical about this comfortable little house high above the earth. A room, a bed, a kitchen, and a window to look out on the Universe. The engineers on the ground called the station a kludge and a junkyard mission because it had been created out of a hollowed-out upper stage from a Saturn V rocket intended for moon flights and various other spare Apollo hardware. Such modifications were small wonders in their own right. Necessity was the mother of invention, and Skylab had been born out of a great necessity. They had never thought it would end up like this. But Apollo was over, the planned additional moon missions had been cancelled, and just the fact that NASA had repurposed the hardware so efficiently was admirable. Certainly, Bean and his crewmates were doing useful scientific work, and simply understanding what happened to people who spent months in space was essential if they ever wanted to travel to Mars. But with the current "realignment in priorities", it really was anybody's guess when that would be. The past decade had been hard on the nation, hard on the world, hard on everybody, and the government had decided it was more important to send men to the jungles of Southeast Asia than the sands of the moon. And if Alan Bean happened to dislike that state of affairs, it was perfectly understandable, because he was one of the 12 people who had walked on those sands. Whenever he looked at the moon, he could pick out the dark comma of Oceanus Procellarum, the Ocean of Storms, like half of some gigantic lost ying-yang sign, the place where he had landed with Apollo 12. It still seemed so close when he closed his eyes, the midnight-black sky, the stark gray plains, the dust falling in unearthly arcs because of the bouncing lunar gravity. And yet, at the same time, it seemed further away than ever. What would happen next? Oh, he'd give anything to know that. They all would. That spaceplane concept was next, if- a very large if- it got approved, but even if it did, it would still be at least half a decade away. But there would be time to think about all of that later. Skylab was a good place for thoughts, somehow dreamlike even when one looked at the exposed machinery. For now, it was time for lunch, and Earthwatching. The bean counters hadn't wanted to give the station a window at all, which was near insanity given the beauty of the view that now greeted Bean over the west coast of the United States. The lights of major cities formed a mini-constellation against the dark Earth, with Los Angeles and the surrounding tangle of freeways looking like a spider reaching out lopsided, uneven legs encrusted with blazing diamonds. There was a flash of light over the area below, a meteor streaking through the atmosphere. A very big one, Bean guessed, judging from the brightness. It still felt strange to see meteors when he looked down instead of up. All his life, meteors had been something you laid out on your back to see in the middle of the night, snuggled in a sleeping bag. All the same, it's a shooting star. Make a wish. A wish? What was he, six? Still, he had only one wish at the moment, and he knew it clear enough. Just the same familiar image of the moon's surface behind his closed eyes. "Again." He whispered. "I wish we could keep going. I wish we could keep exploring. |
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