Inspiration (676 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.09 on 25 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Hornet (View user info) at 2008-07-11 14:36:20 EDT
There is a plan in place to capture and manipulate dark energy. It is believed that dark energy will ultimately destroy the universe. It is believed that the collection and containment of this dark energy, this quintessence which fills the spaces between the stars, could retard the expansion of the universe. It is believed that dark energy is accelerating the expansion of our universe, pushing everything away from everything else, beyond the cosmic horizon. It is believed that we must hinder dark energy or the worlds inhabited by humanity will become isolated outposts forever cut off from each other as they fall into infinity and succumb to heat death one by one.
I am a Lineman aboard the Naval Science Vessel Inspiration. I am one of two hundred Linemen, among a crew of three thousand, who maintain the nitrogen lines aboard the Inspiration. It is taxing and often harrowing work, as these lines run throughout the Inspiration, even into the well, but it is rewarding work.
The ship's name has a duality essential to our mission into deep space. We seek inspiration to slow or halt the pending death of the universe, and our ship will gather and essentially inhale dark energy which we will contain and compress and analyze. The NSV-GJ Inspiration travels between the stars on a gravity-jet, using electromagnetic fields to concentrate gravitational waves into curlers which are surfed by the vessel at near-light speed; and we can move beyond the speed of light when a curler is warped into a tube and snapped in the direction we choose to travel. The ship will also use the gravity manipulation core, commonly known as the well, to collect dark energy.
Ours is the sixty-sixth G-Jet commissioned by the Navy. The first thirty-nine NVS-GJs were experimental craft which disintegrated or collapsed when the gravity-jets failed, or were inadvertently farsnapped into infinity. Many ships have been lost since then on missions identical to ours, classified as lost because they may still be in the far reaches carrying out their missions but unable to communicate with the League of Terran Systems. There is a point at which attempts at communication become pointless across great distances.
I am a loyal sailor. My family has been Navy since the time of sailing ships and Sea Wars on Home Earth. I would never do anything to jeopardize the attainment of our goals and I would never disobey an order from a superior.
Yet of late, I have been experiencing the strangest dreams. In my dreams I hear a call for help, for salvation, from an intellect so great it can see its own demise at the hands of human beings. This intellect tells me it is only doing what it was born to do. For this intellect, expansion is life. I believe this intellect is the dark energy we seek. Once a powerful and focused mind, now it is but a dreamy remnant of a time when life radically different from humanity existed in the hearts of galaxies. This intellect once wielded great power, now it is like an old and infirm man. It knows what is coming and is powerless to stop it, but it begs for help, calling out to me, and as it has informed me, calling out to others as well.
Have you ever noticed the similarity between the sounds emanating from galactic bodies, planets, planetary rings, and stars, and the night life of a thousand worlds, the small wild things that sing and call to each other at dusk, frogs and crickets and tursies and welterhorns? There is a common music in the universe, a common voice, and they make a common song. Mathematics and harmonics combined. This is the voice I hear.
Now I must decide what to do; stay loyal to my calling and my kind, or come to the aid of what may only be a figment of my imagination. The intellect told me that the expansion it is experiencing is natural and finite and will not result in the death of the universe but will actually aid in a rebirth and revitalization. This contradicts almost a thousand years of scientific thought.
Do I ignore the dreams, the plea for help, and work toward the extinction of dark energy? Do I begin to seek out the few others among the multitudes on board the Inspiration dreaming the dreams I dream and work with them to somehow circumvent our ultimate goal, survival?
I must decide, and I must decide soon. We have reached an area of open space, a vast sea of dark energy. We will soon begin collecting and analyzing that energy. Perhaps destroying it and ensuring our salvation, perhaps killing a life form older than the worlds we came from.
Is it real, or is it all in my mind?
Do I act to save, or destroy?
I must decide.
User Reviews
Submitted by simple_catalyst (user info) at 2008-07-22 23:30:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2008-07-22 01:36:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
People are always ready to jump on the next junk science bandwagon, aren't they? MTBE in our gasoline, global warming was all our fault, now we have to stop dark matter from expanding the universe. Did they bring that up in Kyoto?
The main character didn't strike me as being in a position to make much of a difference one way or another.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-07-16 04:53:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
This read like you hadn't fully realised the world you're writing about in your own mind.
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2008-07-14 06:18:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
I found this really rather boring.
Submitted by Littlebint (user info) at 2008-07-14 04:18:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked this, yet something in the back of my mind is screaming at me that this sounds very familiar. Dont add a love interest they normally ruin stories like this, and definately no child either
Submitted by bjrog2 (user info) at 2008-07-14 01:52:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Expand on this, greatly. I need a decent space story to read
Submitted by HadToBeDone (user info) at 2008-07-14 00:45:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-07-13 19:03:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Ltap (user info) at 2008-07-11 18:52:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Decent, but slides firmly into the category of "bad" science fiction - the vagueness and dreaminess reminiscent of Roger Zelazny without his beautifully fleshed-out characters and richness of text.
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If you wish to name-drop, use a good writer. Zelazny is shit. Try Heinlein or Asimov.
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Speaking of name dropping, holy Christ. Asimov was decent at best.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-07-13 19:03:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Ltap (user info) at 2008-07-11 18:52:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Decent, but slides firmly into the category of "bad" science fiction - the vagueness and dreaminess reminiscent of Roger Zelazny without his beautifully fleshed-out characters and richness of text.
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If you wish to name-drop, use a good writer. Zelazny is shit. Try Heinlein or Asimov.
Submitted by messmind (user info) at 2008-07-12 11:54:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You're that fella who keeps writing decent shit, aren't you?
Carry on, soldier.
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2008-07-12 07:24:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Don't listen to Squiddy - where the fuck would a love interest come into this?
This was alright.
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2008-07-12 06:26:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h02jCrcPFJg
Hurty made it on to British TV!
Submitted by iambetteratit (user info) at 2008-07-11 19:35:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
too long, have a -2
Submitted by Ltap (user info) at 2008-07-11 18:52:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Decent, but slides firmly into the category of "bad" science fiction - the vagueness and dreaminess reminiscent of Roger Zelazny without his beautifully fleshed-out characters and richness of text.
Submitted by SgtHartman (user info) at 2008-07-11 16:23:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
*slaps the vein on his left arm*
Im such a fucking junkie for science fiction.
Submitted by GangsterSquid (user info) at 2008-07-11 16:16:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Don't listen to Shlongy.
His idea of 'writing' is scribbling "Shlongy RULZ" on bathroom walls.
Submitted by Yozz (user info) at 2008-07-11 16:09:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Dug it.
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2008-07-11 15:53:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
If you ever decide to take a "writing tip" from the fucking retard below, that's about the right time in life to shoot yourself in the head - repeatedly, if possible.
Submitted by GangsterSquid (user info) at 2008-07-11 15:39:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good premise and setting. I dig this type of writing.
I'd like to see more than just the narrator involved, however. Add a love interest or a child or something.
Still, very good.
Submitted by august_sobriquet (user info) at 2008-07-11 15:28:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
cool.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-07-11 15:16:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2008-07-11 15:11:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I find myself hoping that "BobSandwich" is a short lived alter.
By the by... aren't we still debating the existence of Dark Matter? And the question being: is the math wrong, or is there another variable in the equation? It's all very speculative.
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Negative on the dark matter dear. It has been proven to exist.
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2008-07-11 15:11:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I find myself hoping that "BobSandwich" is a short lived alter.
By the by... aren't we still debating the existence of Dark Matter? And the question being: is the math wrong, or is there another variable in the equation? It's all very speculative.
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2008-07-11 14:53:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by BobSandwich (user info) at 2008-07-11 14:49:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I'm staying neutral on this one, of course the points don't matter but you might have worked hard on this so I don't want to shit in you post toasties. You are awarded a zero from me and next time try to keep this brainy shit off the board, it is friday and we need more stories on poops, farts, boobs, and things of the such.
Submitted by comicbookguy (user info) at 2008-07-11 14:46:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 big words
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-07-11 14:44:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"There is a common music in the universe, a common voice, and they make a common song."
Fucking awesome line. I was initially put-off by the not immediately being able to tell if you were truly talking about the science of dark energy, or if it was fiction, but once past that it was all sweet.