Category Archives: science fiction

World Under Glass

biosphere 2

© Sascha Darlington

The history of Biosphere 2, supposedly the world’s first self-contained biosphere, was always surrounded by scandal. The first mission couldn’t scrub the CO2 out of the air and illicitly vented it. The second ended with a horrific battle in upper-management. Biosphere 2 entered the 21st century under the guidance of Columbia University, using it for climate change research. The project had been sold to new owners, owners with the correct vision, ethics, and science. Now they declared that after five years of exquisitely correct execution, they had created permanently self-sustaining environments.

Tourism at the Oracle, Arizona site was booming as the Luna and Ares domes were being prepared to be removed and taken by wide-load flatbeds to the Virgin Galactic launch site near Mammoth. Then they were to be mounted on massive Helena V rocket boosters. The Moon’s first colony dome will arrive within days, with its human and animal population arriving the following year. The Mars colony dome will become fully operational five years later.

I’ve always been fascinated by the Biosphere 2 project, and was disappointed by the continued failures and scandals that followed it in the 1990s. It looks like the technology has improved drastically since then, but I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to create a 100% self-contained sustainable artificial biosphere. If we could and if that environment could produce everything it needed to support a population with no external inputs for an indefinite future, then colonizing the Moon and Mars would only be the beginning of a new era of human space exploration.

I wrote this story for the Sunday Photo Fiction – February 12th 2017 challenge. The goal is to use the photo prompt above to create a flash fiction story of no more than 200 words. Mine comes in at a mere 166.

To read more stories based on this prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

The Mystery of the Fifteen Scrolls

scroll

The Temple scroll is the thinnest of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Discovered in 1956, it contains God’s instructions on how to run the Temple. Credit: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

“This exciting excavation is the closest we’ve come to discovering new Dead Sea scrolls in 60 years. Until now, it was accepted that Dead Sea scrolls were found only in 11 caves at Qumran, but now there is no doubt that this is the 12th cave,” said Dr. Oren Gutfeld, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology and director of the excavation.

“This is one of the most exciting archaeological discoveries, and the most important in the last 60 years, in the caves of Qumran.”

-Dov Smith, February 8, 2017
“Hebrew University archaeologists find 12th Dead Sea Scrolls cave”
Arutz Sheva

Martin Fields wasn’t at the press conference, but he did read this and other news reports about the remarkable discovery.

Actually, he wasn’t all that impressed, but Isis was.

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Why Should You Write Superversive Fiction?

super boy

© iStock

About the time I started my latest stint at writing fictional short stories, I discovered something called Superversive Fiction and particularly Superversive Science Fiction.

According to Russell Newquist, here’s generally what we can expect from Superversive Fiction:

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On Tuesday the Time Traveler Saw Red

easter uprising

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising, the rebellion for Irish independence that changed the course of Ireland’s history when it began on Easter Monday, 1916. – From Irish Central News

I’m back. It’s a place that’s not exactly a place, and a time that’s not exactly a time. I have an idea what this all means, but I could be dead wrong.

This is where I left them, the passengers and crew of the ill-fated Flight G-AGLX originating from the U.K., and most recently departed from Negombo RAF Station, Colombo bound for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and then to Perth, Australia.

History records that everyone was lost when the converted Avro 691 Lancastrian One bomber went down over the Indian Ocean on Monday, March 23, 1946 sometime between 6 and 6:30 p.m.

What history will never know is that five crew members and four passengers didn’t die in the crash. I brought them here, wherever here is. My name is Martin Fields and I’m a time traveler.

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On Monday the Time Traveler Took Off

avro

Found at Avro 691 Lancastrian Wikiwand

Martin Fields knew time travel was dangerous, but not necessarily annoying. Their take off from the Negombo RAF Station, Colombo had been delayed two hours because of some problem with the Avro 691 Lancastrian One’s radio equipment. Finally, they’d gotten the problem worked out and the five crew, five passenger converted bomber was in the air again.

They were all going to die.

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On Sunday the Time Traveler Stayed Home

allaway 1976

Edward C. Allaway (c.), alleged killer of seven people at California State University two days earlier, is led into Orange County courthouse July 14, 1976. (TMS/Ap)

Martin Fields, time traveler in training, was finally given his first solo assignment.

Normally on Sundays, he stayed in his apartment, forgot about showering, dressed in his most grubby clothes, and tried out a new recipe for dinner.

Martin loved to cook and he loved to try out new foods. He was in his “Middle-Eastern food” stage now. But this Sunday, he figured the stove and the oven would go neglected. He had a solo time travel assignment, and Isis wouldn’t be around to bug him.

Of course, she wouldn’t be around to save his ass either, and this was a potentially dangerous mission. Interestingly enough, he wouldn’t be going anywhere at all…geographically. He would however, be going backward in time nearly 41 years in his own apartment. Of course it wasn’t his back then. He hadn’t even been born yet and the apartment building was brand new.

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On Saturday the Time Traveler Went Hungry

Stalin is an asshole. I couldn’t believe it when Isis told me about this. It never came up in my High School World History class.

It’s March 1933 on a farm, or what’s left of one, in the Ukraine. Her parents, her baby brother are dead. They starved.

That sadistic bastard Josef Stalin wanted to convert large areas of land into collective farms, but he reasoned to do that, he’d have to kill off all of the existing farms run by the peasants. Not only did he destroy existing crops, but he slaughtered all the livestock, any stores of already harvested food, and even seeds kept in sheds for later planting.

Isis said that in 1932 and 33, up to 10 million people in the USSR would starve to death.

I’ve been here for just three days and I haven’t eaten a thing, but the hunger I feel is nothing compared to the suffering this eleven year old girl is going through.

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On Friday the Time Traveler Slept Late

time travel

© Virtual Museum of Canada

Martin’s eyes snapped open the second his alarm clock announced itself with nerve-jarring buzzing.

“Yah! What time is it? Oh shit, I’m late for…”

Then he remembered that he didn’t have to be at the office by 8 a.m. today or ever again. He didn’t work in publishing anymore. He was a time traveler in training.

“But then why…?”

Martin Fields hadn’t had to “punch a clock” in months. Why did he set his alarm?

“In case you were wondering Martin, I set your alarm.”

Martin hastily rubbed his eyes and sat up in bed. “What are you doing here, Isis? Don’t I get a day off?”

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On Thursday the Time Traveler Walked Out

driving drunk

Image: nbc15.com

“I quit. I don’t care about the money. I don’t care about anything. You’re going to get me killed.”

Martin Fields removed the Temporal Jump Suit and threw each piece on the floor of his bedroom rather than packing it in its customized carrying case.

“That idiot in Las Vegas almost shot me.”

Isis stood passively listening to Martin as he started removing his clothing, which was appropriate in New Mexico of 1879 but would look like a foolish costume in the present day.

“That idiot was John Henry Holliday, also known as Doc Holliday, and perhaps he would have been less inclined to threaten you if you hadn’t been staring at his common-law wife’s nose.”

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On Wednesday the Time Traveler Got Wet

ocean

“Damn!” It was the only word Martin Fields could get out before falling into the Pacific Ocean near the equator, north of what would one day be called Papua New Guinea, and thousands of years before he was born.

As his head resurfaced above the equatorial waters, he heard her say, “Try again, Martin.”

Before Martin could try anything, he could feel changes in the circuits of his Temporal Jump Suit and he was on dry land again. More specifically it was the vast Australian Outback. His virtual display told him he had only moved geographically. Chronologically, he was still walking the Earth several centuries before the birth of Christ.

“What the hell!” He instantly went from treading water to collapsing in hot, dry dust. It clung to his still soaked suit, though fortunately, the mysterious technology that allowed it to travel through time was immune.

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