Unscheduled scheduled break
Hi all!
Me and my wife were supposed to be in the UK this weekend, but alas, plans change.
Brief sidenote: I am not here to tell you what to do and this blog is not about travel advice, but do not ever, ever, ever ever under any circumstances book a trip using Travellink. Just sayin’.
So I didn’t really have a topic thought out for this week, so I’m free-wheeling it.
I’m going to give you a quick break-down of why I wrote a particular piece of one of the early chapters the way I did.
Below is an excerpt of a spaceship piloted by one of the novel’s main characters Beckett approaching the space station Orbital Habitat One:
A voice crackled through the static:
“Contact one-eight-eight, radar acquisition, you are approaching OHO interdiction envelope, contact OHO approach at two-three-four-four decimal nine, Fox-Fox-Papa seven-eight.” The ship speaking was invisible to Fatima’s systems but Beckett knew with certainty that it was out there and that it was not alone. OHO had been declared a neutral party and its independence was guaranteed by the Flotilla for Peace.
[…]
“OHO Approach, Juliet-Fox one-eight-eight approaching at one-one zero, twenty-eight thousand meters out. Request parameters.” He leaned back and observed the numbers steadily ticking down on his guidance computer.
“Juliet-Fox one-eight-eight LIDAR contact.” the crisp, smooth voice of traffic control replied, “Reduce and maintain two point seven by one thousand.”
“Maintain two point seven by one thousand, Juliet-Fox one-eight-eight.” Beckett began applying breaking thrusters straight away.
I’m aware the above might seem a bit dry (unless you’re like me and you live for this kind of technical jargon) but I wanted to point out what the intent of it is: One thing I was very keen on was to early establish what kind of world this is and what the tech level is. Obviously one way to do this is simply by introducing different types of tech into the story and not introducing other types of tech (introduce a fusion power reactor but don’t introduce a warp drive, for example). But the above is another: By micking the kind of dialogue a real-life pilot might have with traffic control I hoped to establish that space travel in this world is mundane, but not easy. It doesn’t require the intricate and drawn out preperations and attention to every conceivable detail that real-life space travel does, but neither does it allow for anyone to just jump into a spaceship and go.
Anyway, apologies for a slightly ranty and poorly planned post - I was planning on not doing one this week since I’d be travelling.
Have a good week everyone and thanks for reading!
/Pontus