Last Letters Home

[dreamwalker]

I was wondering if any of you guys would be interested in contributing to a science fiction art book i'm releasing next year.

The book would be best described as a modern version of the Terran Trade Authority Hand Book.
The main content of the book will contain art work, sci-fi scences, and janes style technical drawings of space ships. But admist of all the glossy art work is a narrative that trys to explain how and why mankind learns how to fight after thousands of years of peace.

One of the main, and I hope, touching features of the writing side of the book will be the 'last letters home': letters writen by service men and women to loved ones, the last letters writen, some knowing, most not.
The way I want to do this is by giving quotes, eg, "i'm sorry for calling you a coward, brother" and it would be your job to continue and make up the rest of the letter after reading a brief guide to the future history and back ground.

Right now, i'd like to hear your thoughts on my ideas, interest, and guidance (as I really need it!) on how to take this forward, publishing, PR as I would liek this to be a collaboration, with my part in it being Producer/Art Director.

Thanks

 

[j d worthington]

Hmmmm. This one I'm going to have to give serious thought about. While it would almost certainly be difficult to pull off, if done well, it has the potential to be very, very powerful. I'd like to hear some other ideas on this, as well; if it looks like it may actually develop into a work-in-progress, I'd love to contribute; though for my part, it would have to be a letter (or letters), as with art I'm no good at all, at all....

 

[dreamwalker]

I've got many ideas, currently, i'm attempting to produce a coherent description of the project along with a future history that doesn't read like an old mans stiff dream.
Anything in particular you wanna pick my brains on?

 

[j d worthington]

You say you want this to be a future history sort of thing. Are we dealing with a major series of fronts in a war? Alien civilizations, colonists/rebellions? How long has the war been going on? Do you want things that reflect actual letters of this sort from historical wars? Or entirely fictional but in the tone of such letters? These are some of the questions I have. You also mentioned giving the writers a line or so, some indication of where you wanted a particular letter to go, if I understood you correctly. Is this accurate, or did you just want to give a general sort of feel, and let them freewheel it to achieve that impression? There are a lot of different routes to take here, each with considerable possibilities, I think. And I know I haven't even anywhere near scratched the surface of what can be done with this....

 

[dreamwalker]

You say you want this to be a future history sort of thing. Are we dealing with a major series of fronts in a war? Alien civilizations, colonists/rebellions? How long has the war been going on? ....

One war, between 2 factions of mankind, 60,000 years from now. The book would cover the duration of the war 170 years.
As I have it now, these factions wage war to attempt to secure the future growth and prosperity (territory and resources) polarised by religion, governance, culture and genetic heritage, they could be as different from each other as chimps are from gorillas.
Right now, I’m currently chewing on the idea of a underclass that has been covertly manipulating mankind for thousands of years to produce this polarisation and this war (possibly to prepare it for a human-alien war)
----
All thats background and probably wouldn't feature too heavily, there will be art work for several key events, with everything following the chronology -cold war, war, protacted war, no war but continued hostilies.

Do you want things that reflect actual letters of this sort from historical wars? Or entirely fictional but in the tone of such letters? ....

Yes and no, i think given the general background, you could possibly answer that question yourself. My advice in most cases is to ignore the war overview, and make it personal, the idea of the letters is to
juxtapose the sharp, technical illustrations and military facelessness; honouring difference facets of a future war in this format.

These are some of the questions I have. You also mentioned giving the writers a line or so, some indication of where you wanted a particular letter to go, if I understood you correctly. Is this accurate, or did you just want to give a general sort of feel, and let them freewheel it to achieve that impression? There are a lot of different routes to take here, each with considerable possibilities, I think. And I know I haven't even anywhere near scratched the surface of what can be done with this....

Initially, I thing producing the line, with the writer improvising was the plan, however, theres a timeline, it may be necessary to add a background into it to makesure everything flows. There will be some specific events, IE descrptions of pods, flight, combat and key battles that i'd probably have to write personnally.

I think I'll write these lines, with the background already stored, you'd chose it like an online raffle

 

[j d worthington]

A war that's been ongoing for that period is going to have some serious drawbacks, though. Any space-faring society, especially one that has established different factions, is likely to have nuclear capabilities, and if a war drags on for very long, those will be brought into play. At which time you end up, eventually, with a scorched-earth policy if no one surrenders. That's something that's going to have to be explained reasonably -- why one side or the other (or both) didn't finally simply go for a planet-crusher -- last I heard, over 50 years ago we had plans for about 5 different models of an actual doomsday weapon that had been worked out on paper ... I would imagine that's been expanded in the interim. Surely these people would, as well. War being as costly as it is in resources, lives, etc., there's going to have to be an awfully compelling reason not to resort to such measures.

When you say "underclass", I assume you mean "apparently", rather than real, yes? But alien classes (or beings) doing this sort of manipulation is difficult to make feasible as well, though it may help explain why the war continues for so long -- the actual manipulators manage to play this like an extended chess game; due to some component of an alien psychology, endgames "spoil the fun" or defeat their ultimate purpose, so they manipulate events to prevent such drastic measures as those I mention above. However, recall Leiber's "Spiders and Snakes" from The Big Time and the Changewar stories -- it's a difficult tightrope to walk, to say the least.

And is the planning of this to be a concerted effort, or something where you lay out the scenario and others do the actual stories; that is, is this a true collaboration of different people sparking the ideas and creation of the universe you're depicting here, or is there going to be (in visual media terms, I suppose) a "Bible" the writers are going to have to adhere to? There are, of course, some advantages to either, but having a Bible for a written collection can often hamstring your writers' creativity, whereas actual collaboration on the creation of the background helps to keep everyone on the same page while allowing considerable leeway in approach to individual tales.

As for the letters: yes, I'd figured that much; you would be more interested in the troopers' view than the generals; it would tend to humanize things more. What I meant was: I've read several books of correspondence from soldiers in different wars, much of which could be adapted to this sort of thing. I was wondering if you were planning on taking actual letters of that type, or something that fit that sort of general pattern but were entirely fictional, created entirely by the writers working from the brief ideas given them. That was what my original question was about.

If you're structuring this yourself, then it would be very helpful (even necessary, I'd say) for the writers to have at least copies of the final sketches to work from, because such letters will realistically have to deal with the soldiers' experiences, which in turn will largely depend on the type of materiel and transport, etc., they're dealing with, and its possible flaws and strengths, how it affects the situations they find themselves in, and their emotional responses to those situations. Look at the decline in morale when the U.S. had the fiasco with the Hummers not too long ago; and that's a relatively mild example. This sort of thing will color what they write home tremendously, either with a sense of hope, patriotism, resignation, fear, bitterness... all sorts of emotions.

Do you have any timeline for the development of this in mind (not story timeline, but timeline for actual creation of the project)? There are a lot of things to be considered, and it would be as well to iron out as many bugs as possible before things get to the actual writing stage....

 

[dreamwalker]

A war that's been ongoing for that period is going to have some serious drawbacks, though. Any space-faring society, especially one that has established different factions, is likely to have nuclear capabilities, and if a war drags on for very long, those will be brought into play. At which time you end up, eventually, with a scorched-earth policy if no one surrenders. That's something that's going to have to be explained reasonably -- why one side or the other (or both) didn't finally simply go for a planet-crusher -- last I heard, over 50 years ago we had plans for about 5 different models of an actual doomsday weapon that had been worked out on paper ... I would imagine that's been expanded in the interim. Surely these people would, as well. War being as costly as it is in resources, lives, etc., there's going to have to be an awfully compelling reason not to resort to such measures.

Thats a fair point however, consider this.
When your fighting for territory and resources, would planet crushing and star destroying be approciate? Or would you rather fight to deny your enemy the ablity to gain, or use these resources - ambushing convoys, destroying outposts and logistic centers in deep space. It's the idea of not blowing up the castles, but changing the flags. As you very well know, this type of war can last for an extremely long time, coupled with relativistic effects, who knows, maybe 170 years is to short. I think what your refering to Mutually Assured Destruction, which only makes sence when you require the Total
Annihilation of your enemy, you have any more ideas on this?

When you say "underclass", I assume you mean "apparently", rather than real, yes? But alien classes (or beings) doing this sort of manipulation is difficult to make feasible as well, though it may help explain why the war continues for so long -- the actual manipulators manage to play this like an extended chess game; due to some component of an alien psychology, endgames "spoil the fun" or defeat their ultimate purpose, so they manipulate events to prevent such drastic measures as those I mention above. However, recall Leiber's "Spiders and Snakes" from The Big Time and the Changewar stories -- it's a difficult tightrope to walk, to say the least.

Maybe underclass was the wrong word. I'm refering more to a Hari Seldon like foundation, manipulating politics and religion in order to guide humanity down a path that be or may not be to it's benifit. Eitherway, it's far from important in terms of what i'd like to accomplish from this.

And is the planning of this to be a concerted effort, or something where you lay out the scenario and others do the actual stories; that is, is this a true collaboration of different people sparking the ideas and creation of the universe you're depicting here, or is there going to be (in visual media terms, I suppose) a "Bible" the writers are going to have to adhere to? There are, of course, some advantages to either, but having a Bible for a written collection can often hamstring your writers' creativity, whereas actual collaboration on the creation of the background helps to keep everyone on the same page while allowing considerable leeway in approach to individual tales.

My appologies if i've seem to come accross the wrong way, but I would relaly like this to be more a collaboration of ideas, with all forms of contributions feeding each other and hopefully producing something greater than my future history currently describes.

As for the letters: yes, I'd figured that much; you would be more interested in the troopers' view than the generals; it would tend to humanize things more. What I meant was: I've read several books of correspondence from soldiers in different wars, much of which could be adapted to this sort of thing. I was wondering if you were planning on taking actual letters of that type, or something that fit that sort of general pattern but were entirely fictional, created entirely by the writers working from the brief ideas given them. That was what my original question was about.

I think i'd have to have a look at some of these examples to find out exactly the type of writing used. I'm relativily flexible on this instance because i'm incoraging different styles of writing here as part of the process. So unless theres a fundamental difference in the type of content in either, then i'd leave it to th writers best judgement

If you're structuring this yourself, then it would be very helpful (even necessary, I'd say) for the writers to have at least copies of the final sketches to work from, because such letters will realistically have to deal with the soldiers' experiences, which in turn will largely depend on the type of materiel and transport, etc., they're dealing with, and its possible flaws and strengths, how it affects the situations they find themselves in, and their emotional responses to those situations. Look at the decline in morale when the U.S. had the fiasco with the Hummers not too long ago; and that's a relatively mild example. This sort of thing will color what they write home tremendously, either with a sense of hope, patriotism, resignation, fear, bitterness... all sorts of emotions.

This 2-3 week period is a brain storming session, i'm also attepting to gather more participants for this project.

Do you have any timeline for the development of this in mind (not story timeline, but timeline for actual creation of the project)? There are a lot of things to be considered, and it would be as well to iron out as many bugs as possible before things get to the actual writing stage....

I've set a provisional deadline for finalised structure and narrative, writen content, for december 1st, with all artworking well underway for completion in 12 months. Tomorrow, i'll be uploading a forum with all the details of this project, alot of which we've just descussed!

Thanks your your response worthington, besides the points on military stratergy, your points were well on the mark!

 

[j d worthington]

Thats a fair point however, consider this.
When your fighting for territory and resources, would planet crushing and star destroying be approciate? Or would you rather fight to deny your enemy the ablity to gain, or use these resources - ambushing convoys, destroying outposts and logistic centers in deep space. It's the idea of not blowing up the castles, but changing the flags. As you very well know, this type of war can last for an extremely long time, coupled with relativistic effects, who knows, maybe 170 years is to short. I think what your refering to Mutually Assured Destruction, which only makes sence when you require the Total
Annihilation of your enemy, you have any more ideas on this?

Yes, in historical terms, such wars have indeed taken considerable time. However, territory was limited, in these instances, as well. In space, that's not likely to be quite so much an issue, and I would imagine all sides would also be trying to expand in other directions -- perhaps these periods could be among those when there are (for lack of a better term) small skirmishes but without open warfare between the opposing factions. As for the 170 years and relativity -- if you'll pardon the pun, that's relative to what time scale we're using: if it's earth-based, then there's the problem that the letters home aren't going to reach home until long after the recipients would be dust (assuming we haven't a serious longevity/immortality formula here). If it's sidereal time, then we're talking what? thousands of years in terrestrial terms? At very least several centuries. What are the gains that would allow a planet-based government to sustain the costs, let alone the support of the planets' inhabitants, of such a prolonged affair?

Some other points to consider: Is this a future which includes terraforming, or are they restricted to close analogues of Earth? That could be a way to increase the pressure for Lebensraum and territorial disputes. And, no, I think what I was intending was the fact that subjugation remains a goal only so long; eventually costs (of all kinds, as mentioned: lives, materiel, financial, natural resources, etc.) mount to the point where a "final solution" almost becomes inevitable. Unless there is some sign of ending such a war by treaty/subjugation before that point, it's unlikely that it could be sustained the way say, the 30 or 100 year wars were in our history. I'm not saying this isn't possible, but that there are going to have to be some very sound reasons that pressures of losses and unrest from the populace would not eventually push them into that sort of tactic, however much they wish to avoid it. This, I think, is where the problem lies: finding such an overriding reason (or set of reasons) that would allow any government to stay in power long enough to continue such a military involvement, post Napoleonic-era realities. Off-hand, I can't think of any that would stand up, really; but I'm working on it; I assume others might have better ideas on this topic.

This is not said to discourage, by the way; just to brainstorm. I think, as I said, this has tremendous potential for being a unique and very powerful project, and would like to be a part of it, if possible. I just think that this is the weak spot in the web so far, and (at least for now) is what needs the most thought for a solution. (That's just my 2c; others may feel differently.)

 

[Susan Boulton]

I think i'd have to have a look at some of these examples to find out exactly the type of writing used. I'm relativily flexible on this instance because i'm incoraging different styles of writing here as part of the process. So unless theres a fundamental difference in the type of content in either, then i'd leave it to th writers best judgement

Just a point, the writing will be different. Each character will be an individual. What they write, how they write it and even what they write will depend on so many things. Age, sex, class, pervious employment, upbringing, political opinions, religion, etc etc.

I am at present reading a number of letters from soliders/nurses/doctors and civilians during WW1 and the differences are amazing in many respects.

To be honest you will need to create a large cast of characters with individual traits. Not an easy task. You can't go for "cookie cutter" types it will not work in my opinon. The idea of a writer's bible" for the history/social set up would be one way to go. Create it, give it to your writers andlet them create characters within that frame work. That might be the only way you will get this to work. Don't envy you one bit.

Oh, one point, both the 30 years war and the 100 years war were not bouts of solid warfare. They were a mixture of major battles, raids, occupation of enemy land and spaces of peace. it is only after did they earn the terms now used to decribe that period in history. Some historians are now lookng at the whole 20th century as one "war" with outbreaks of peace.

 

[j d worthington]

True. Neither of those was continuous, but neither could have gone on as long as they did with the weapons of destruction we've since developed. As far as the latter point: I've heard this, but I can't help but wonder if it has more to do with our current perspective on war rather than the facts. After all, throughout most of history there was a war going on somewhere. Perhaps we're just getting a little bit weary of the whole business, and seeing any time where war is frequent as a prolonged war with intermittent lulls. Or maybe Moorcock was more literal than figurative when he had Lobkowitz say "The War, my friends, is endless. The best we can hope for are brief moments of peace in the midst of the conflict. We must learn to appreciate these lulls when they occur."

 

[jenna]

sounds like a really interesting idea to me. i'd definitely like to attempt it.

 

[dreamwalker]

Yes, in historical terms, such wars have indeed taken considerable time. However, territory was limited, in these instances, as well. In space, that's not likely to be quite so much an issue, and I would imagine all sides would also be trying to expand in other directions -- perhaps these periods could be among those when there are (for lack of a better term) small skirmishes but without open warfare between the opposing factions. As for the 170 years and relativity -- if you'll pardon the pun, that's relative to what time scale we're using: if it's earth-based, then there's the problem that the letters home aren't going to reach home until long after the recipients would be dust (assuming we haven't a serious longevity/immortality formula here). If it's sidereal time, then we're talking what? thousands of years in terrestrial terms? At very least several centuries. What are the gains that would allow a planet-based government to sustain the costs, let alone the support of the planets' inhabitants, of such a prolonged affair?

Where talking of hundreads of long established systems and planets that belong to both factions, even though this seems vast, each system is incredibly valuble in it's rare ablity to sustain human life, but beyond that, the fuel, (there black gold) these civilisations would run on would be even rarer, far more valuble and concentrated (
spatial phenomena?). This is where my ablity to fuse science fiction with fact faulters and i suppose where imagination must take over.
(as long as we're not talking about spice then anything would go)
As a final point on this, I have no intentions on inventing some kind of instantaneous travel, "it would take seventeen years to travel longest length of the domains of man at the greatest speed man could travel".
http://www.deviantart.com/view/19885574/
Theres a map I did last year with some description of the factions.

Some other points to consider: Is this a future which includes terraforming, or are they restricted to close analogues of Earth? That could be a way to increase the pressure for Lebensraum and territorial disputes. And, no, I think what I was intending was the fact that subjugation remains a goal only so long; eventually costs (of all kinds, as mentioned: lives, materiel, financial, natural resources, etc.) mount to the point where a "final solution" almost becomes inevitable. Unless there is some sign of ending such a war by treaty/subjugation before that point, it's unlikely that it could be sustained the way say, the 30 or 100 year wars were in our history. I'm not saying this isn't possible, but that there are going to have to be some very sound reasons that pressures of losses and unrest from the populace would not eventually push them into that sort of tactic, however much they wish to avoid it. This, I think, is where the problem lies: finding such an overriding reason (or set of reasons) that would allow any government to stay in power long enough to continue such a military involvement, post Napoleonic-era realities. Off-hand, I can't think of any that would stand up, really; but I'm working on it; I assume others might have better ideas on this topic.

Imagine 2 types of government (hence the polerisation), one run by a soveriegn government and managed by elected officials. The other, and electected president, but with corporations and commerical pressures actually dictiating the events of the populas.
Infact, one of the waring forces would be considered as a security force, inniatially contracted until a decade into the war when the corporations eventually change conscription policies or buys shares in the security force essencially making it government owned. An apathetic populas insulated by properganda and poor journalism would mean that the only relible messure of how the war would be going would be from the service men and women in the war...
Another point, 60,000 years is by far a long enough period of time for ideals such as the value of human life, rights of the individual as opposed to the whole etc, to have dissapeared, reversed or evovled. My guess is that after 40 thousand or so years of peace, the value of human life would be a ideal practised, without any real understanding of it's meaning... Does anyone have any ideas on this?
Anyway, I want the war to be seen as a long process of re-discovery, of how humans would learn what exactly they are, with there motivations layed bare and naked as a reminder before following more trying times.

 

[flynx]

On planet busters. In interstellar terms there is no need for an actual bomb as such, just sufficient power and good maths. Send a largish meteorite from star to star and when it arrives it will be travelling at an appreciable fraction of light and be effectively unstoppable. Last ditch Mutual Destruction. Hence cold wars. Escalation only occurs when one side has a perceived upper hand. (Germany by surprise, Rome by tactics etc).

The ideals of human rights etc transforming over thousands of years assumes that the tide of humanity has superb communication. A society will only evolve insofar as it can affect itself and, I believe, will always tend towards placidity but containing its own method of destruction so as to keep it dynamic.

So this will almost always mean, given that any star-empire will be spread across hundreds of light years, a continuous fall and rise in pockets with a very general rise towards increased leisure. Taking the size of this 'society' I think it unlikely (barring very local changes) that 40,000 years will change it by any appreciable degree.

So what we are left with (as is usually the case) are that those that write the history are limited to those that can write. Those that will be heard. In effect the ruling classes of whatever sort they may be.

Which, fortunately, is a good background against which to set 'letters home' from the dogfaces.

Count me in.

Flynx

 

[dustinzgirl]

It sounds very interesting, but how--in letter form--are you planning on describing the society? Nobody really describes thier society, it would have to be very subtle.

 

[dreamwalker]

It sounds very interesting, but how--in letter form--are you planning on describing the society? Nobody really describes thier society, it would have to be very subtle.

I don't think there'd be any direct comments on society within letters writen from home. However, i'd hope there to be a striking difference between the mentalities of the service men of different factions and times, which would somehow reflect the culture, attitudes and development of the respective cultures -


I'll be setting up a forum very shortly and contacting you all via email about whats happening, when etc.

Thanks for your interest and support!

 

[flynx]

It sounds very interesting, but how--in letter form--are you planning on describing the society? Nobody really describes thier society, it would have to be very subtle.

Here is where we come to 'show don't tell'.

One soldier may say to their sweetheart "Don't use the old mare for transporting the grain to market' another may say 'Use the antigrav forklift instead of the fusion tractor'.

There are an immense number of cues and/or clues in everyday communications between everyday people about their particular society, even groups within societies:

I tolde yoe muther not to hav beansprowts.

I have informed your mother to take great care over her diet.

 

[GeekGirl]

Oh, that sounds like a blast! i'd be interested in trying my habd at a letter.