Aphelion

Dammit, I was SURE I'd fixed that "light years" thing. And it occurs to me that the nature of their jump drive may have done strange things to the relationship between time, distance, and velocity in their (shipboard) language, so "light years" might be a measure both of distance and time. (Autorationalizer 2.0.1 (Beta version))

Re: the strangely easy interbreeding of humanoid species in the Star Trek universe, there was that ST:TNG episode where an archaeological dig found evidence that Klingons, Vulcans/Romulans, humans, and probably other similar-looking species had all been seeded across the galaxy by an older race. Hence despite genetic drift and mutation, they remained ALMOST compatible (within the gene-manipulation knowledge of the time to deal with fatal incompatibilities).

"Success or distress and loss. What was their real intent? I’m not sure I will ever know." means pretty much what it says. The captain, noting that the expedition had been provisioned by a firm notorious for cost-cutting and poor quality, suspected that they were MEANT to fail, and perish (neatly disposing of all manner of undesirables). That their home was erased from existence shortly after their departure was presumably NOT planned, but it meant that there was no one left who could even lie about whether the expedition was mean to succeed. The style, I think, is meant to evoke the old naval epics (Hornblower, and the like), deliberately somewhat overblown and pompous. If the deck was on fire, by George, there WOULD be a boy standing on it, and rightly so!

RM

The author sent this to the aphelion-shorts e-mail address as he is having trouble logging in here:

"Since I can't seem to get on line .

Light years was meant as Time factor not distance. Since 6 trillion miles a year approx is chump change. In the Buddhist stories there is one about someone that went with the celestial beings and in the time it took for an afternoon tea, he came back to this reality 50 years later. Talk about time dilation. That is more like it.

I did attempt to keep it nautical, and historical too.

Let me add I very rarely ever watched Star Dreck or any TV. I read most of the time. Space Opera is ok for a bit.

Additionally and on another vein, this was in a way, a prose version of Intelligent Design a poem you all published a few months ago.

No one likes a bad review but I do have to go over what the good critic had to offer.

I wonder if he picked up on the intelligent design aspect? maybe yes?

RT"

It did take some time to get accustomed to the style.  I'm assuming it was a transcript of a verbal log - that would explain the sometimes rambling sentences (e.g. in Bill's comments above).

One more technical problem though.  The galaxy was wiped out by a tide of energy travelling at the speed of light.  Assuming their home galaxy was similar in size to ours, it would take 50,000 years for the whole galaxy to be destroyed, plenty of time for a galaxy-spanning civilisation with FTL drive to get out of the way!

Yeah, but if the origin point was in their home system, and nobody had time to sent out a warning on their quantum-entanglement instantaneous communications system ... It's like a tsunami or a forest fire. If you're in a fast enough vehicle with a clear road ahead, you can outrun it ... if you start early enough and you weren't sleeping on the beach or on the edge of the area on fire.

And anyway, if there was a disruption in space-time, who says the effects would propagate only at the speed of light?

RM

Quite a story! It held my interest somewhat, but I couldn't get into the story. I had to push myself to keep reading. To much info dump throughout.

A diary or log type story can show action. Unfortunately, this one didn’t----it just ran on and on.

... who is apparently still unable to login and post things directly...

"ALL,
I want to thank you for you comments and criticisms regarding my first story. You were gentle. At months end I will print out the critiques and see about readjusting here and there.
The one comment regarding the story being too technical in scope and dry, well I guess I was writing for myself too. I sort of like the technical aspect of things and supposed that it would be fitting for others. And I do tend to ramble. The story was sort of a peek into the mind of an average space captain, with a less then stellar crew, sent on a mission that he questioned on many levels. And if any of you are like me, my monkey mind drifts here and there while working on a number of tasks.

I hope I have other stories you will like a bit better in the future. In order to correct all the literary wrongs herein, I am going to commit Italian Ritual Suicide by jumping out the basement window.

Love and punches,

Rick Tornello

'Not Insane and Not Responsible' (fst)"