Nueguan Journal

The Treasure of the Ramada Los Alamos

2012-01-05T09:24:00.000-08:00

A rough sketch for sure, but I need to notate why this video is important to the story. The Ramada Los Alamos is the largest storehouse/armory of valuables in the Empty Earth 2528. It is a intricate as a Swiss watch, and loaded with booby traps. All Nueguan Sisters have been trained in how to enter and disarm it, but none of them knew this; it was simply one of the many visual puzzles they solved every time they entered the Grotto of the Pregnant Virgin. Ariana doesn't realize what it is until the middle of the chapter for two reasons: the Ramada is covered with a translucent shroud and she has only learned to solve the puzzle from an eagle's-eye-view.

Ramada Los Alamos Rough Sketch

The chapter "The Treasure of the Ramada Los Alamos" is the great turning point in the first part of the Nueguan storyline. In it, Ariana regains her role as a Sister, and becomes the Queen-Apparent of New Spain. King Carlos has wickedly convinced Ariana to try to open the Ramada Los Alamos, the greatest treasure house and armory of the Empty Earth 2528 A.D. Given an elite team of the best and brightest of the King's Guard, they cut open the Shroud that covers the entire complex, releasing unknown and certainly fatal synthetic diseases that the Sky Wanderers use to protect their property. Most of the Guard die of the Laughing Sickness as they run wildly around the complex, unaware that the Carbo Crete is shifting, changing shape to deal with them the closer they get to the treasures of gold, silver, platinum and rare earths, one for each class of treasure.

And now, to the development of the Ramada as a series of videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Phd2gj3LxI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3kfl6n14D8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ5or_3STks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dST5P2IXlLA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLl9h8dU0L8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU69z32gSns

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzyTtOTrlE0

And here is the final design; only minor modifications needed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Bzw_mEaho

And a 'howto'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ru0zjwWIoE

And the key:

The last link in the 'Treasure of the Ramada Los Alamos' chapter. This is the Sky Wanderer Token, retrieved by a Spanish pilgrim more than one hundred years before Ariana's adventure, so it is safe. King Carlos tells her there is a legend that this Token is all that is needed to unlock the Treasure, but his father forbade under pain of death anyone to attempt to open the Ramada again. It is covered in a Shroud that can be cut with 21st century tools, but the one time that was attempted, a Sky Wanderer disease was let loose upon the populace of New Spain, and thousands died. Mothers delivered stillborn children for a year after that disaster. The secret is in the bad punctuation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5cZ81kHvf0

The Galiuro Wilderness

2011-07-03T19:59:00.000-07:00

The Galiuro chapter is the last one before the climactic battle scene at the Healer's Temple in Tiala, Nuegua. In this chapter, only Dianire and Alope are left of the Warrior's Guild; the combined numerical superiority of the King's Guard and the Apache Police has wittled the Nueguans down.

The Galiuro is a real wilderness area in Arizona, and the Nueguans deposit their failed projects there. Mostly it is filled with wild Cactus Mothers. I've used the concept of the 'nuke hive' that we beekeepers use: a wild Mother and her termite colony. After 300 years of discards the Galiuro is too dangerous to be traversed. Only Dianire crosses it, because she is forced to. What she sees are generations of wild Mothers, most of which are in the last stages of decay and death.

What Dianire needs to do is to find a functioning Cactus Mother that will recognize her body chemistry, so that she can create safe passage back to Nuegua for her and Alope. This is not so easy, because most the CMs are dead or dying, and many of not of her Guild. What she also discovers is that all the living ones have networked themselves together, something that never happened in Nuegua, where the three Guilds jealously guard their Cactus Mother secrets.

She would failed in her search had not Yassah, the renegade Grasper, found them first. It turns out the the Graspers can travel freely across the Galiuro, and he and his mate take Dianire and Alope back to Nuegua.

Here are the present collection of Wild Cactus Mother animations:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfAJeUYAv3M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWygD3-6XQo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfBxxZ0L_DU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe4ZmAzHBJU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvTOR8Jqels

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prpJ1inmIVg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFzbVwHiAmQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TkadcgrntM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvCg3VAJ5tc

Desert Frigate

2011-05-24T08:23:00.000-07:00

Desert Frigate in the Nuegua Storyline

This is the chapter that is ground zero for the whole saga; the goal here is to create the backstories for the relationships between nations and families that will cascade and grow through the subsequent chapters. The only characters we do not meet or even mention are the Nueguans; this is intended, because the Empty Earth can generate many stories without them

The core plot is simple: Seamus Espinoza and his son concoct a plan to extort gold from Dona Maria's pilgrimage stop, in return for 'protection'.   This simple plan of extortion, however, goes entirely wrong, resulting in the expulsion of Western Bandits from New Spain. As a result, also, Carlos forms an alliance with Apacheria through Finds-Water, who is accompanied by his apprentice Hunts-The-Ruins. (This is especially important for the chapter 'Business in New Alcazar' as the reader will clearly understand that Carlos is lying to Ariana).

List of Characters:
Spaniards
Don Benedetto Sepulveda, Captain, King's Guard, and first cousin to:
Don Carlos Sepulveda, Prince of Santa Fe, and heir to the throne of New Spain
Don Maria Sepulveda, Mistress of Casa Sepulveda, and sister to the present and ailing King Genaro.

Western Bandits (aka Gringos)
Seamus Espinoza, Leader
Joshua Espinoza, son of Seamus
Carl Reineke, right-hand man to Seamus

Mestizo (aka Indio)
Serena Gomez, handmaid to Dona Maria
Pedro Gomez, father of Serena, head of the servants in Casa Sepulveda

Apache
Finds-Water, First among the Seven Traders of Apacheria
Hunts-the-Ruins, his apprentice

Plot Outline in Detail

In this chapter, the outcast status of the Western Bandits is decided by the future King Carlos II, which is implemented in the forbidding the use of Gringo (English) in public, by penalty of death. Here also, we learn why the Western Bandits must live in the shadow of the Sky Wanderer's poisoned cities, because there is no where else for them to go.

Because the War between New Spain and Nuegua is a tale that has been told countless times with countless variations by the time the monks of New Carlsbad transcribe it, many of the storylines coincide in terms of their date, though in actual fact these dates are approximate.

A good example is 'Desert Frigate' and 'Mothering Day'. In 'Desert Frigate' we first meet Don Benedetto Sepulveda, a young noble and corporal in the King's Guard, and Don Carlos Sepulveda, his first cousin and heir to the throne of New Spain.

Don Carlos is a very energetic, charismatic personality, constantly at odds with his traditionalist father. So much so that King Genaro sends him to rebuild the Sepulveda estate in Soccorro, which is run-down from lack of male leadership, Don Benedetto's father having just died and Dona Maria in charge.

Don Carlos, dreamer and historian, is fascinated by the Spanish Empire of the sixteenth century, and shares his plan to build a new kind of adobe using the riggings of a Spanish frigate. The chapter details the intricacies of the new compound he is constructing, and the tensions that arise between him and Dona Maria.

Don Benedetto proves to be the peace keeper here, as he is fascinated by this new design that will add strength and flexibility to traditional adobe, using only jute ropes and devious Spanish knots.   So begins the close friendship between the two men.

That's the character development part; the plot moves forward when the Western Bandits attempt to raid Hacienda Sepulveda. In this earlier time, they really are bandits; the outcome of this conflict will be that the Western Bandits will be expelled from New Spain by royal edict, the very first one King Carlos declares--and the use of Gringo (English) in a public place is punishable by death.
(The latter part of the edict is purposefully over the top; no one really expects it to be followed. This is very Spanish, if one reads Cervantes, you will find all kinds of this hyperbole.)

Dona Maria has long wanted to create a place of pilgrimage here on the edge of New Spain, as outside this there is only a wilderness poisoned by the Sky Wanderers, who have left the ancient cities rife with artificial diseases. She builds a Grotto of the Blessed Virgin, with a side shrine for the Blue Nun, Maria of Agreda, a very popular Spanish miracle-worker.   (This is important, because it creates a mindset for the Spaniards to accept Rintiala).

A quick view of the Desert Frigate

This chapter is crucial in introducing and sketching out the friendship between Don Benedetto Sepulveda--Rintiala's future husband--and Don Carlos Sepulveda, soon to be King Carlos the Second and Rintiala's nemesis.

Casa Sepulveda, located in Socorro, is considered the last bastion of civilization in New Spain, because after that, the Empty Earth looms. To the east are the Comanche, who refuse to negotiate with King Carlos the First, to the south (roughly, they never really agree with conventional boundaries) are the Western Bandits, unrepentant Gringos, and to the west is Apacheria, a well-organized and prosperous nation, but not yet a full ally of New Spain.

Carlos is determined to protect Casa Sepulveda, as Dona Maria, widowed wife of Genaro Sepulveda is the woman in charge. Don Benedetto, twenty-four at the time (the year 2527 A.D.) has been away in Santa Fe training as a Captain in the King's Guard, and along with Carlos, has just arrived for Genaro's funeral.

At first, Carlos pleads with Dona Maria to relocate in Santa Fe, but she won't hear of it. Casa Sepulveda is an important stop for pilgrims in ultra-religious New Spain, and Dona Maria has a cadre of priests, deacons, nuns, and laity are her command.

Carlos' solution is two-pronged: first, leave a garrison of King's Guards behind after he leaves, led by Benedetto, and secondly to create a new kind of fortress, based on a combination of traditional adobe and his research into rigging of Spanish frigates in the 17th century. It is a fine balance, because any technological innovation is frowned upon, being considered a throwback to the atheistic Gringos.

His architect's mind comes to the fore when he creates a new kind of adobe structure (this really exists, and it called Super Adobe). In his design, ordinary adobe (straw/clay/manure mix) is wrapped in jute sacks, and those sacks tied together using the riggings of a Spanish frigate. Plaster is applied at the very end of the process, so the adobe looks entirely traditional, which is crucial for acceptance in New Spain 2527 A.D.   This adobe is more flexible, less resistant to earthquakes, and more difficult to tunnel through. The latter idea is important, because the Western Bandits both attack Casa Sepulveda in force on horseback at the front gates, and attempt to burrow through the adobe in the servant's quarters. (This two-pronged approach will be used successfully against the Spaniards in 'No Mercy In The Catherdral'. )

In this chapter however, the invading bandits cannot easily burrow in the first direction they try, and so are led into a cul-de-sac designed by Carlos. A mere flick of a lever in the NorthWest watchtower, and they are trapped.

The frontal assault meets the same kind of cunning when the first wave of Western Bandits finds themselves trapped in the main courtyard. When they try to escaple, a false front on the main gate crashes down, revealing a balcony of wrought iron, lined with the sniper's notches. When they try to spread out, and take the walls, the entire perimeter of the courtyard collaspses, killing many of the Western Bandits, and leaving only a remnant in a small island near the central fountain.   Only Seamus Espinoza is still outside and unharmed at the end of this, because he always leads from behind.

Carlos and Benedetto are all for executing all of the Western Bandits, but Dona Maria won't allow it. While Carlos and Benedetto have been fighting their daring battle, Maria has contacted and brought in the Apache Police, led by Finds-Water.   I'm looking forward to the details of this, but suffice to say the Indio have different loyalties than do the Spaniards. Before the climactic battle, Maria's fourteen-year-old maid servant Serena has been dispatched to walk through the enemy lines, presumably to help her aging and sick mother, but actually to contact Finds-Water. The Apache Police have been waiting for the Western Bandits to mass, and they arrive much faster than horses can take them, because they are driving methane-powered trucks, which they hide from Spanish sight.    There is a tense moment when two unnamed scouts consider raping and murdering her, but Seamus arrives on his tour of the front line, and lets her through. 'We're bandits, not monsters,' he says, scolding his men. Again the echo of this will reverberate throught 'No Mercy In The Cathedral'.

Mothering Day

2011-05-23T19:53:00.000-07:00

An origin story inside an origin story. Well, we've got to start somewhere, so how about the first day our protagonists/antagonists meet?

Mothering Day Outline and Character Profiles

The Big Picture:

This chapter should occur very early in the story; perhaps the first, although I believe an introduction to the Empty Earth of 2528 would be best accomplished if we met the Spaniards first.

The whole chapter is a three-string braid, in terms of its character interactions. The selection process of the Mothering occurs simultaneously for all our three main protagonists. Nueguan society is communal in the extreme, from an Old Human's perspective.

The Nueguan life-cycle can be illustrated by showing the various girls and comparing them to the First and Oldest Sisters.

Character Profiles.

Rintiala of Clan Tiala, Candidate to the Healer's Guild.

Physically an angelically beautiful young woman, already mature at twelve, the Nueguan norm.

Poised, self-confident (to a fault), and very serious. Her impression on an Old Human would be that of a young nun. She is five-foot ten, and weighs about one hundred twenty at this time; later she will add fifteen pounds of muscle when we meet her again at age nineteen.

Dianire of Clan Redourine, Candidate to the Builder's Guild. Physically gangly and awkward, boyishly cute by Old Human standards, but decidedly homely by the more exacting Nueguan standards.

Stringy and muscular, six feet tall and one hundred ten pounds.

Berylia of Clan Demetra, Candidate to the Healer's Guild. Her look is the very definition of sultry and voluptuous; Berylia is darker in skin tone and hair than either the Tialans or Redourines. She is five foot five and one hundred twenty pounds.

Alathea of Clan Tiala, First Sister of the Healer's Guild and Guild President (First among Firsts).

An older, tougher version of her daughter. Age thirty-five, which would place her in her middle twenties by Old Human standards.

Oldest Sister, First Sister of the Healer's Guild and Overseer of the selection Process. Nearly two hundred years old, and no longer able to get around because most of time is now spent in the Grotto of the Pregnant Virgin. (I've made a few drawings of her, that I'll dig up.)

Additional background characters are:

Ariana, biological sister of Rintiala

Tianara and Alope, biological sisters of Dianire Redourine.

Clan Mother Redourine

Clan Mother Demetra.

Note: No males are allowed on the Healing Temple precincts on Mothering Day.

The principles behind the action sequences:

Each candidate manifests their strongest wish/desire/dream during the Mothering, and each dream during its unfolding is integrated into the dreams of the other two protagonists.

The tension and conflict occur right from the outset; Berylia is a Demetran, a Gardener, and she represents the best of her Clan. Demetrans outnumber Tialans and Redourines by a factor of ten-to-one.

The problem is that she is much older than the other candidates—fifteen compared to Rintiala's twelve and Dianire's thirteen—and sexually experienced. Normally, Nueguan girls are Mothered immediately after their first menstrual period.

The fact that Berylia is sexually experienced is not a problem for the Mothering; but it is the norm for Nueguan girls to begin their sexual experiences after the Mothering. The Mothering experience unleashes the full power of the Nueguan physique; without it, a Nueguan girl—however superior she may be to an Old Human—cannot control her own fertility or her immune system. This is a fail-safe in the Cactus Mother technology and not an accident.

I don't want to force too many of my ideas upon you at the point, but here is the gist of their dreams and their conflicts:

Alathea, First Healer, normally would preside over the Mothering, but since her own eldest daughter is about to be Mothered, she steps aside to allow Oldest Sister the honour. Both Clan Demetra and Clan Redourine are in awe; Oldest Sister rarely ventures out of the Grotto of the Pregnant Virgin, the organic virtual reality upon which all Nueguan Cactus Mother dreaming is based.

Rintiala begins with the first string (plait?) of the three-braid, and her dream is of a vastly expanded Healing Temple, where the Cactus Mothers are entwined inside and outside of the structure, a truly living building. Dianire creates the second string, strengthening Rintiala's dream. All the Guilds watch in amazement as she recreates one of the genetically-engineered termites that form the basis of all Nueguan technology, giving it gills so that it can work underwater, removing the silt from the San Carlos Reservoir, and allowing the water necessary for Rintiala's dream to flow.

It is important to illustrate that no one in any Guild has ever had to the power to re-fashion a termite in this way.

Berylia's string starts off innocently enough; she weaves new vines laden with exotic fruits in and out of the Cactus Mothers until the beauty and the scent of the flowers is overwhelming to the other two candidates.

A general reader will not know that we Old Humans can only dream in the two senses of vision and hearing, while a Nueguan dreams in at least five: sight, sound, smell/taste, touch and movement. I'll let you work out how to show the difference.

But her dream begins to choke the Cactus Mother vines, and her flowers have poisonous thorns that seek out the termites of Dianire, and kill them. Dianire fights back, creating new types of soldier termites that snip off the flowers of Berylia. As good as Dianire is, Berylia's strategy is superior; her vines have infiltrated the two other girls' dreams.

It is Rintiala who brings order out of chaos, but at a terrible price. In order to stop the fight, she slams down all three dreams by removing the safeguards that keep a dream from feeding back to the dreamer's body. This power--which she did not know she possessed--sends all the horrible dreams and body messages to Oldest Sister, who absorbs it all, and dies.

At the end, Rintiala is accepted into the Guild of Healers, and her dream of a new Temple is accepted, provided that she passes through the stages of Novice, Second Sister, and First Sister, like any other Healer.

Dianire, because she tried to save what was best of the dreams, is conditionally accepted into the Guild of Builders, but her tendency towards violent solutions will be monitored closely by her teachers.

At the end of the chapter, First Sister Alathea speaks for all the Guilds: “Berylia of Clan Demetra, Guild of Gardeners (this is an intentional slight on Alathea's part), we Healers cannot discern your intentions, but we can in detail ascertain their effects. There is malice buried deeply in you, tied to your misuse of sex. Either you have been abused, or your Clan has allowed your darker nature to develop until it is out of control. It is the decision of the Mothering Council--made up of Healers, Builders, and Gardeners--that you be denied entrance into any of the three Guilds.”

Berylia breaks down in tears, and her Clan Demetran representative shouts out in rage. “You Healers have created a system of testing that shuts out our best and brightest, and only allows Healers to have privilege. This is an injustice to all Clan Demetrans, and we will take action against you.”

Dianire, always ready for a fight, counters. “I am not a Healer, and yet I passed the same test. Perhaps you Gardeners cannot tell the difference between a shovel and a jeweller's blade.”

And here are some very rough sketches of the hairdos of the Healer Guild:

Nuegua Chapter: First Sister

2010-12-31T11:22:00.000-08:00

This chapter recounts Rintiala's testing as First Sister, and the complications that ensue what should have been a happy and breezy day, given her abilities.

Here is an animatic of the Guardians of the Grotto of the Pregnant Virgin, the first level (Alpha sleep state, or hypnagogic reverie) that a Sister encounters.

The first test is strictly to see if the Sister is prepared for the complexities of the Grotto. It entails word-problems, riddles if you like, one spoken into each ear simultaneously. This kind of analysis is beyond we present-day humans; I like the idea of plunging the reader into Nueguan sensibilities. If a Sister is aging, or emotionally unstable, this is a far as she will go. She will awaken in the Cactus Mother.

Here is a story-board of this scene:

Here is an animatic of Rintiala's emergence

Companion Berylia

2010-11-21T11:37:00.000-08:00

Yup, she's EVIL! This is Companion Berylia, the Femme Fatale of the Nueguan storyline. Originally from Clan Demetra (the Gardeners) she applied to the Healer's Guild, but was rejected because of her darker emotions. Unfazed, she returned to her Clan and began to grow the Enticers, a Mother Fruit that combined with the sexual fluids of her bloodline, would permanently addict any normal (Apache) male she and her sisters and daughters had sex with. She is 25 in 2528, and has already born four children. Physically, she represents the elite of Clan Demetra: for example, her body shows no outward signs of childbearing and nursing. The wig comes from an old 3ds model (which I quadded) and the mesh/armature is from Kator Legaz. You can download the model from http://www.geekopolis.ca/blender/clan...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-8fFarphFg

Journey Into the Uncanny Valley

2010-09-20T13:42:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this blog will be to integrate all the work I have done with Blender and Makehuman (I started with 2.37 and .9 respectively, when I began this project) with the facial emotion research of Dr. Paul Ekman. The goal will be to go step-by-step through the process of analyzing the 'Uncanny Valley' problem in animating human faces, and create open-source solutions for these two amazing software applications.

From Sky Wolf to Amarok

2010-05-04T08:30:00.000-07:00

On doing some serious research into Innuit wolf legends, I discovered the central myth of Amarok. He is a spirit-wolf (creature from a spiritual dimension assuming a wolf shape) that has decidedly non-wolf behaviour: he hunts alone, and is drawn to interaction with humans. So, my genetically-engineered Sky Wolf fits easily into the greater Innuit myth.

Second, what is Ellie's connection to Amarok (Sky Wolf). The answer lies in the reason that she is mute. Ellie is an early experiment in gene therapy, enhancing human abilities by tying in Neanderthal genes. This explains her super-human strength, and agility and co-ordination, and also why she can hear but not speak. (I'm not running with hearing loss now, because I don't have to). Ellie's gene therapy has mis-fired: she has only one copy of the FOXP2 gene (the one necessary for human speach), and as such cannot make normal human speech sounds, nor the subtle changes in lip position that accompany human speech.

Here's an animation of Ellie practicing her Taekwondo Full Roundhouse kick:

Thus enters Sagan Corp's Archeo Ecology project. They have purchased useless land near the mouth of the Coppermine River from the Canadian government twenty years earlier, and built a secure research facility deep in Canadian shield bedrock. From here, they are planning to adapt ancient Arctic lifeforms to the new, warmer climate. The one they promote the most strongly is the Wooly Mammoth. But they claim--if pressed--to be developing a domesticated Dire Wolf to herd the Mammoths, and protect the perimeter of Mammoth territory.

Here's a flyover of the facility.

Such is not the case of course. Sagan Corp's real intention is to defend the Artic using a super-soldier: a combination of Arctic wolf and Neanderthal genes. Thus Sky Wolf is born, and Ellie was an early experiment in that direction.

Ellie's home is on the outskirts of Qurluktuk, and the westernmost boundary of Nunavut, nearly touching the Northwest Territories border.

She has grown up as a pampered child, allowed to enter Sagan Corp's holdings.

The only problems to be solved now are logistical. If Sky Wolf's home isn't very far from Qurluktuk, why is his escape such a big deal? Why call in Dwayne?

Character Goal Opposition
Ellie Decide on College or Travel Parents want College
Befriend Sky Wolf Elude / Trick Dwayne
Challenge SAGAN Corp Tricked by Gabby

Sky Wolf Elude SAGAN Corp Dwayne, Neil
Discover Allies / Soul Mate SAGAN , Inuit

Dwayne Pay for Daughter's College Fails SAGAN Corp
Discover truth about Sky Wolf Battle Neil, Gabby

Gabby Control Ellie Ellie allies /w Dwayne
Use Ellie as Bait

Neil Control Dwayne Ellie allies /w Dwayne
Use Ellie as Bait

Setting Up Action Sequences: Ellie's Tantrum

What does Ellie leave her father's shop to go out and see? She heads east into the Sagan Corp Mammoth Preserve, stopping her Ski-Doo on a hilltop to watch the Mammoth Herd feed near the shore of the Artic Ocean. It is early April, and late afternoon. Ellie does this because she wants to see her ten-year old adopted Mammoth, Lucy. Coppermine Inuit children are encouraged to adopt a baby Mammoth, both by SAGAN Corp, and their own elders. Ellie's teenage years have been tumultous, and she yearns for an earlier, simpler time. Lucy is her security blanket, a reminder of her childhood.

Storm clouds are blowing in, carrying a great deal of snow. A polar bear crosses the ice floes ahead of her, intent on carrying off Lucy, but the Mammoth form a ring around their young female, and their bellowing brings the Dire Wolfs, domesticated to serve as protectors to the Mammoth herd. They battle it out with the polar bear. Ellie drives her snowmobile down the slope toward the melee, intent on getting a closer look, when her machine slips and tumbles on the mushy snow. Down she slides, faster and faster, right into the middle of the battle. At the very last, she regains control of her machine and swerves to the right, away from the beach and the polar bear. But it is too late. The Dire Wolves, doing what they were bred to do, herd the Mammoths away from the beach and danger, leaving Ellie to face a hungry, frustrated polar bear. She tries to drive back up the slope, but the weather has made the snow treacherous, and her machine falls backward, it's rear sleds landing on her legs, pinning her down in the deep, wet snow. The polar approaches, cautiously at first, then gallops toward this new meal. Ellie closes her eyes and begins her death prayer when she hears a 'whump', and opens her eyes to see the polar bear somesaulting through the air, away from her and towards the beach. She closes her eyes again, believing that this is only her wishful imagination. When she opens them again, Sky Wolf is peering over her Snowmobile, looking at her calmly and quietly.

Timeline: What is the Precipitating Incident that begins the story?

This precipitating incident occurs in the Armory, which is the first place Dwayne will visit when he is brought on-board by Neil, nominally a SAGAN Corp speciman handler, but actually a Black-Ops type like Dwayne himself. (Neil must be extra careful to appear a bit inept outside his narrow specialization, that is why he has a tricked-out Land Rover 6 filled with the latest gadgets, and why he breaks the diff lock, supposedly by accident). Neil's pitch to his superiors is that all is not lost: this is only the first batch of Sky Wolves, and he can maneuver Dwayne into a position where he is forced to track and then fight Sky Wolf, which would be a good resolution to the incident, that of testing Sky Wolf's fighting capabilities.

For this to work---for SAGAN Corp to mis-perceive the People's pacifism, the incident in the Armory needs to have a lot of collateral damage, including innocent civilians.

To sum up: the Sky Wolf Peoples refuse to become weapons for SAGAN Corp. They thwart that intention by an act of self-sacrifice, using their new-found psychic powers to vaporize themselves, and at the same time, passing their combined powers to their youngest member, who at this point of the story is known simply as Sky Wolf. Oldest Female--the most psychically gifted of them all--foresees that he has a different destiny from their own. They intend him to escape in one of their environment suits, using their self-immolation as a distraction. Sky Wolf could have escaped in any direction, even into the Arctic Ocean--but his decision to help Ellie changes the course of the action.

Sky Wolf: Design and Animation

2010-04-30T06:54:00.000-07:00

Here are the first drawings and 3d models of Sky Wolf. I'm working on integrating the Neanderthal face to the Wolf features.

This is the first sketch of Sky Wolf's face:

http://www.geekopolis.ca/sky_wolf/images/skyWolfFrontal1.jpg

Here's another quick sketch, which illustrates the problems with combining a Neanderthal nose (twice the size of modern nose) with a wolf snout:

http://www.geekopolis.ca/sky_wolf/images/skyWolfFrontal2.jpg

And here is the first Blender model of Sky Wolf. Note the enlarged feet, the elongated Metatarsals, and especially the doubled Femurs. Think of them as hip reinforcements.

http://www.geekopolis.ca/sky_wolf/images/skyWolfTemplate1.jpg

The big challenge is to integrate a Neanderthal face with a Wolf face, and to make it heroic, not monstrous.

New Story: Sky Wolf

2009-09-29T06:44:00.000-07:00

I wanted to use a few ideas from the Nuegua chapter "Ghost Sickness" concerning the Super Dogs.

Aside from the predictable enhanced reasoning capabilities a reader would expect, the real leap forward is in their larnyx. The Super Dogs --bred as corporate war machines--can subtly alter the harmonics of their howls to communicate with other Super Dogs miles away. Ordinary humans can't hear it, but our Ellie can. The latest development is the Mongrel, a wolf-man hybrid that can withstand extreme cold temperatures, because of its wolf physiology (yellow fat), but has human hands, and binocular, albert color-blind vision. Mongrel speaks to his handlers in AmSlan He breaks out of confinement in Northern Alberta, and escapes into the Yukon. He is of course hunted by corporate soldiers, who must remain incognito, so they head north as caribou hunters. This sets the season for the story.

Ellie is pureblood Inuit. Because of a childhood sickness, she is mute, although she can make sounds. Her hearing is superior to most humans, and she is of a very high order of intelligence, especially with regard to mechanics. She is highly proficient in AmSlan, and a marksman. She is sixteen at the time of the story, and her goals are to learn to fly a helicopter, and to go to Maui to learn to surf. She intends to be the first Inuit wahini.

And here is the Japanese teen model, Saaya Irie, who is my template for Ellie:

http://www.geekopolis.ca/sky_wolf/images/saaya_car_wash.jpg

Dwayne is the corporate hunter assigned to bring down Mongrel. He is recently divorced, and is rebuilding his life at the time of this assignment. Through one of teams' abilities to use AmSlan, he connects with Ellie.
The crucial sequence is Ellie's connection to Mongrel, and Dwayne's blossoming friendship with Ellie, a replacement for the teenage daughter that he has failed. Ellie is out hunting caribou, unknowingly in Mongrel's territory, and slips her snowmobile. Mongrel comes upon her, and she begs him in AmSlan to help her. He signs back, and reluctantly brings her back to his lair. Mongrel tells Ellie his story, ending with: "They made me a monster, to hunt and kill people." Ellie vehemently argues against this, with: "No! They made you for me." Mongrel becomes very attached and protective towards Ellie. The only reason she can leave him is because he understands that the other Innu will come hunting for her, and then the White police. But ultimately, Dwayne--the handler who treated him the worst--will come.

What is the core theme of the story, apart from the exciting hunt? The Super Dogs are the new biological weapon of the Corporation A, which has not yet revealed their existence. Super Dogs have been created as industrial spies and provocateurs. At this date EMF pulse weapons are standard issue for Corporation B, and the Super Dogs can slip right by them. Mongrel is the next development: a Super Dog with hands, and sometimes upright posture--though still backward-pointing knees--who has had enhancements to his right parietal lobe that allows him to sense electrical and electronic equipment. I'm going to use my class Parapsychology experiments to flesh this part out.

Dwayne goes in, knowing Mongrels' physical abilities, but it not told of his quasi-psychic senses, because Dwayne is being used by Corporation A as a test subject in an experiment with Mongrel.

Sin Angels Version Two: Angels or Zombies?

2009-08-01T07:06:00.001-07:00

After discussing the basic plot and worldview of Sin Angels, it occurred to me that the 'optimization explosion' caused by Perfect Man and Perfect Woman would be much more interesting if it had an inherent flaw: it optimizes all human flesh (previously programmed to human DNA), whether living or dead. Living produces Angels--the perfection of the human form. Dead produces Zombies--the nano-beings labouring in vain to create a living creature, and using all their problem-solving skills amiss. What they create is a creature that can live for no more than 48 hours, and requires fresh human flesh to rebuild necrotic tissues. So...rather than just a gnawing hunger, there is a purpose to it. And they need to drink copius amounts of water to keep the process going. The nano-beings are designed to maintain life in a nearly dead body. When our Serena kills the two johns, their bodies are fresh. They are in coma, and are nano-repaired in the morgue. Since the nano-beings were there so quickly, the johns still have functioning eyes and brains. They get up and walk out of the morgue, looking for fresh human flesh. They are awake at night, and in coma/rebuild during the day.

Now, onto the details of the Optimization: Serena Nicotine is losing her second set of teeth, and her jaw is being re-aligned. Rowena, our Native policewoman, is convinced that this is a result of a severe beating by the two johns. The medical report--prepared after she escapes--says this not so; these appear to be natural changes. Also, her larnyx is being rebuilt, along with the nerve bundles in her spinal cord. This would require that the skeleton is being rebuilt. I intend to make all this rebuilding extremely conscious and painful. (This is one of the argument between Perfect Man and Perfect Woman. One wishes to push Serena under, and have her awaken completed. The other wins the argument that it is better for Serena to be fully conscious during her ordeal, so as to develop the necessary super-conscious intellect she will need.) This is fun also, because Serena can only communicate by crude sign language. Rowena concludes that Serena may be a deaf mute, and uses AmSlan to communicate. (Rowena has been an FAS worker before she became a policewoman). Serena masters AmSlan in a single hour, and this leads Brian to wonder is she isn't just faking all this trauma, which of course infuriates Rowena.

It is Brian who is trying to put all the odd puzzle pieces together. When we meet him, he is anxious to be promoted to Detective, but it looks like Rowena is on the fast track, not him.

Serena's change in larnyx gives her a voice that is unrecognizable to her mother, when at last Mary Nicotine--a devout and sober Catholic--arrives from the reserve to free her daughter. The larynx is now an organic maser (microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation). She can use various consonant and vowel combinations as physical tools and weapons. For example kayKAY is a punch, capable of knocking a man over.

Here's the story in structure:

Act One: Encounter On The Stroll

act 1 scene 1: the silent 5th wheel
act 1 scene 2: breakdown at the station
act 1 scene 3: the morgue is a busy place

Act Two: Recognition At The Fringe

act 2 scene 1: this is not my daughter
act 2 scene 2: this is not my girlfriend
act 2 scene 3: the escape

Act Three: The Plague On Broadway

act 3 scene 1: perfect man, perfect woman
act 3 scene 2: policewoman's dilemna
act 3 scene 3: contagion

The setting: the first Friday night of the Saskatoon Fringe Festival, July 2010
All three acts occur in a 12-hour period:

Serena is rescued at 1o p.m.
Serena is captured at 5 a.m.
Serena is released at 10 a.m.

Characters:

Serena Nicotine, the Optimized One
Rowena Eagle Feather, the Native Policewoman
Brian Hastings, the White Policeman
KayKay, a Native child prostitute
Bob, a john
Ned, a john
Emergency room doctor
Jimmy Starling, a Native wannabe pimp
Perfect Man, a trans-dimensional
Perfect Woman, a trans-dimensional

Solving the Zombie Problem

2008-12-30T17:12:00.000-08:00

Since Zombie movies are so incredibly popular, and done nearly to death, it seems to me high time for me to try to create a believable source for them. So far, I've thought that 'Fido' did the best job: some sort of organism borne on a comet, that made it to Earth, and then proceeded to propogate. I like the idea of something bioengineered that is running an optimization routine. It would be a macrovirus / nanomachine that is going through human flesh looking for something, all the way back to charred remains and skeletons. I'd like to combine it with the 'Strangers' from 'Dark City'. These virii/ machines are hunting for some winning genetic combination, and the best way to do that is for any human organism to try to infect and ingest another until the combination/permutation occurs: a superior life form, based on human DNA.
It doesn't seem that far-fetched, since already the move toward purely carbon-based nanomachines has already occurred. If these mechorganisms (a NEOLOGISM if ever there was one) could spin or secrete fullerenes fueled by rotting flesh, they'd have all the resources they'd need to reanimate corpses.
So that should solve the locomotion, fuel supplies and motivations for a Zombie.

To make the point more clearly, my idea is not intended to *resurrect* the
dead, instead I want my mechorganisms to *mine* them. Or utilize them, like a very intelligent and resourceful hermit crab.

I have in mind 'the walking dead' covered with spider-silk (fullerenes,
actually) that have interpenetrated the corpse, and are utilizing its flesh,
not re-animating it.

My idea would be that for some reason, the mechorganisms sampled human flesh
first (perhaps a cell or two on space debris), decided it was acceptable and
then invaded our planet.

The zombie form would only be a preliminary, but...think of the horrific
possibilities! If a entire nuclear family was infected, the mechaorganisms
might decide to isolate the bloodline, and create a single moving beast out of
Mom, Dad, and the kids. Crawling with silvery spider shapes at the very edge
of visual acuity.

That image alone is completely *original* folks. Yes, it's a bit of
'Thing','Assemblers of Infinity', and the 'Mist', but still...it's two moves
to the left, and that in artist's terms is originality.

Building Our Heroine: Rintiala from Watercolor Sketches to 3d Animation

2008-01-13T06:49:00.000-08:00

This is the first time I've written a computer graphics tutorial, and I'm going to take the perspective of an accomplished visual artist starting from traditional media--in this case watercolors and pencils--and move into the daunting realm of 3d graphics.

Most of the necessary illustrations can be viewed at:

http://www.nuegua.ca/images/characters/index.html

Okay, it's almost a year later, but I've stayed on it. I now have a working knowledge of armature rigging and weight painting. There's lots to learn yet, but it seems that the most practical way to use Blender to animate a character is to: (1) create the mesh first, (2) build the armature and add it to the mesh as a modifier; (3) run the animation, and add shape keys to correct mesh deformations.

With a mesh as complex, and subtle, as a MakeHuman, the shape keys are the real trick here.

So, I'm going to start with this first animation of Rintiala in her Dreaming Body of Water Woman.

You'll notice that the rig doesn't have any fingers (phalanges) or toes (tarsals) yet. I'm primarily interested in the mesh deformation problems. Since I haven't set any constraints on
leg and arm motion yet, I can discover just how bad it be with simple weight painting.

You can download the .blend file from:

http://www.geekopolis.ca/blender/rintiala1.blend

So, let's see what a quick set-up animation looks like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP48td6qhgg

The first thing I learned: don't paint a single vertex more than necessary.

Next problem: Shape Keying (Morph Targeting).

And here's the solution. I had to separate out the top and bottom Dentures, so that create the Preston Blair/Gary C. Martin visemes would be doable.

Okay, it's February 15 2010, and everything has changed, except the nature and goals of my heroine. Makehuman is now on Alpha 4 of Version 1.0 and fully rigged, and shape keyed. So we're going to start from there.

Make sure to download a nightly build from http://www.makehuman.org and
then you'll be able to see what you'll need for your creation. For example, I'm using Blender 2.49b hair, but the Makehuman mesh makes more sense for medium-to-low resolution models.

Ghost Sickness Synopsis

2006-12-11T11:34:00.000-08:00

I was working on animating a model of the CarboCrete roadway in "Ghost Sickness" when I solved my "when does all hell break loose?" problem.

So, here's a new synopsis. It features a POV from all the four main characters--Rintiala, Hunts-the-Ruins,Alathea, Finds-Water--beginning and ending with Rintiala.

Scene 1: Agua Linda to Ultimate Boutique. The setting foot into Agua Linda Park. Here the first challenge besets the team. An overzealous sniper knicks Alathea, and Carl Heineke, nominally a Western Bandit, comes out to parley. He will accompany Rintiala and Hunts-the-Ruins into Paradise Valley, but Alathea and Finds-Water must stay in Agua Linda.
All of the team's weapons and supplies are carried on his mule (a jenny), leaving Alathea and Finds-Water defenseless. As R and HTR make their way to the first major intersection, where the Ultimate Boutique is located, the first calamity occurs. Tilly, the boutique's AI, unwittingly unleashes the Black Bear sickness upon the three, and Rintiala must chose between HTR and Carl as to who must live and who must die. She of course choses HTR, and the events that lead to armed conflict between Apache Police and Western Bandits are set in motion.

Far off in the distance, keeping their promise, are the Apache Police. They have been told not to take action until high noon. That is the agreement between them and the Western Bandits.

Note to self: Keep exposition to a minimum here. All the reader needs to know is who are the most important protagonists --Rintiala and Hunts-the-Ruins--and what their goals are.

Transition 1: Ultimate Boutique to Sanctuary. So much happens in the first scene, that this travelling sequence is the best time for exposition. Info-dumps are perfectly acceptable here, as Tilly explains Paradise Valley to Rintiala, while Rintiala attempts to hide her true identity from Tilly. The reader should know that a time-bomb is ticking in the form of the AI Cy. He will certainly recognize the Nueguan and the Apache as enemies, and act accordingly.

Scene 2: All Hell Breaks Loose. Here, as Tilly goes to 'ring the bell' at the entrance of the Sanctuary, all the hidden technology of Paradise Valley defends itself. The great desert flower statues turn out to be weapons, giving hundreds of Cy copies the weapons and whereabouts of Rintiala and Hunts-the-Ruins. The carboCrete arches itself like an angered cat, hurling both Rintiala and Hunt-the-Ruins into the immaculate desert gardens in front of the Sanctuary. This proves to be their salvation, as Rintiala's blood alerts the Landesten AI to her presence. A way is open underground to a dungeon where she must face the test of the Water Woman alone.

Transition 2: Rintiala Alone. Here we see our herione prove her worth. She must reason out the problem that the Water Woman has set before her. The ball of snakes is not a physical thing such as Rintiala dreamed, but a transformation of Rintiala herself. The power of Remaking is given her after she nearly dies of the attack of the nanobiological weapons of the Water Woman.
This transition ends when Sean Landesten appears, offering her a way out of the dungeon she has found herself in.

Scene 3: Alathea and Finds-Water Attempt a Rescue. Rintiala and Hunts-the-Ruins are only 1500 metres away from the elders when Tilly's mistake kills Carl. A fusillade, now intended to kill, rains down from the towering edifices that weave through Paradise Valley. Alathea takes the battle to them, half-carrying the seventy-year-old Finds-Water. This sequence should be non-stop action, with only minimal description of backstory and architecture. Alathea is successfull in retrieving her weapons, but Finds-Water is seriously wounded, and she must adminster the strongest remedy to him on the battlefield that she has. She inserts the Little Doctor termites into his wound, and they stop the bleeding and tie it up. He goes comatose and she has to fight dozens of snipers on the rooftops while carrying him. This will cement in the mind of the reader the superiority of the Nueguans.
Her rescue is not successful, as she arrives only to see the carboCrete writhing after it has thrown Rintiala and Hunts-the-Ruins from itself.

Transition 3: Meeting with the Father of All. The Landesten AI, having retrieved both Rintiala and Hunts-the-Ruins, explains the situation to them. As long as they remain within the Sanctuary, he can protect them, but once outside its precincts, they will be prey for the Cy AIs, and the Western Bandits. Landesten's communication networks indicate that there are nearly two hundred Cys now, and at least one hundred Western Bandits converging on the outskirts of Paradist Valley. The Apache Police are starting to move, but it will be noon before they can arrive at the wester boundary of the Sanctuary, to protect the team.

Scence 4: The Showdown. Landesten equips Rintiala and Hunts-the-Ruins with Sky Wanderer armor and weapons, but he cannot aid them otherwise. Worse, the Cy automatons are paying no attention to the Western Bandits, as they have intelligently surmised that whoever can enter and leave the Sanctuary at will, and yet is not a true Sky Wanderer, is much more of a threat than a few primitive Old Humans. Seamus Espinoza, leader of the Western Bandits, calls for a parley with Rintiala and Hunts-the-Ruins. All seams to be going well until frivolous Tilly runs into the middle of the parley to get Rintiala, and a Western Bandit sniper recognizes the cause of Carl's death. Weapons are fired, including Nueguan arrows as Alathea fights to protect her daughter. Finds-Water, resuscitated, holds up the Apache Traders medallion, and risking being shot, wades through the melee to make an offer to the Western Bandits. They accept, and Tilly convinces Cy to back down. The Remaking has altered Rintiala, and now she appears to him as a Sky Wanderer.

Transition 4: The Promenade Reopens. The team is re-united in the Sanctuary at Sean Landesten's behest. Although he is asked many questions, his only answer to open up the Promenade, and allow the team access to all of Paradise Valley's technology. He hints that the return of the Sky Wanderers will be much sooner than anyone expected.

Ghost Sickness Version Two

2006-12-09T09:25:00.000-08:00

I'm rewriting all my Nuegua pieces, except for "No Mercy in the Cathedral", which is already complete.

To prevent info dump, I'm going to rewrite the first chapter of the Nuegua books , "Ghost Sickness". All the elements are there for building a complete world, but the sense of urgency was not. Therefore the plot got bogged down in the middle. I went back to a present-day street map of Paradise Valley Arizona for my solution. The team of Finds-Water, Hunts-The-Ruins,Alathea and Rintiala have just come from Pima Highway and are facing west, staring at the fetish (a combination of biohazard signs and vulture skulls). As soon as they set foot in Aqua Linda park, the Sky Wanderer technology and the local ecology is alerted to intruders. The team's goal is to travel down East McDonald Drive (approximately one and a half miles straight run. The Sanctuary at Camelback Mountain is line-of-sight to the team. I'm going to stress how easy it looks: flat desert highway, no visible obstacles. All that remains of Paradise Valley's inhabitants are the chandelier-like buildings of the Sky Wanderers and their indestructible roadway called carbocrete.
Arrayed against them, and well hidden in the safe spots are the Western Bandits, coyotes, bioengineered wolves, and worse automatons who normally are the maintainers of the Sanctuary.

What is the main goal of this guantlet? Rintiala has had a dream (inside a Cactus Mother, so that Alathea can verify it) of a glowing sapphire ball that will open up all the Sky Wanderer buildings and deactivate their defenses.

Just how dangerous are these buildings. All one has to do is to direct one's gaze into a ground-level window, and the automatons will sense intelligent life. Coyotes are free to roam the streets. The wolves, created by the Sky Wanderers , will catch and kill any interlopers that manage to get by the automatons.

Even worse, earlier attempts to open even small outlying buildings have unleased virulent plagues that decimated the Western Bandit population in the area. Rintiala plans to enter the Sanctuary itself.

Further complications: Paradise Valley is a highly contested area. The Phoenix Apache, wishing to take their place in the nation of Apacheria, need to drive the Western Bandits out of the greater Phoenix area, and to remove the dangers of the Sanctuary. To do this, they have entered into an agreement with the Healing Sisters of Tiala, altering the political structure of the area. The Tialans, have never ventured out of the confines of Nuegua. Finds-Water and Hunts-The-Ruins are taking a calculated risk that the resulting wealth flowing out of the Sky Wanderers cities will position them at the top of Apacheria. Both have their reasons for doing so.

Alathea, knowing that Tialans are declining in influence within Apacheria as the Demetrans grow vastly more numerous has decided that the direct approach of a joint venture is necessary. Demetrans are having many, many children from the Apache Traders and as a result the purist Tialans may become a mere curiosity in a few more generations.

For Rintiala, the youngest of them, the goal is simple. To find and control this talisman will ensure her promotion to First Sister.

2006-09-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

What makes me a better instructor?

Simply put, a desire to look towards the future without fear. In that respect, I'm willing to embrace new points of view and new methods of teaching in order to draw out of students those abilities they might not even know they have.

What makes my method of instruction better?

I use the Web live in the classroom, but more than that, I think Web: interactive, always updating, dynamic. I believe there is a place for lecturing in Introductory Psychology, but one must always remember that today's students are used to immediate contact with the information, and much of it is visual. This year, I intend to lead St. Peter's into the wireless age, by encouraging my students to bring their laptops to class, and using a wireless router, have them access my website during class.

What do I do in my class to facilitate learning?

Primarily, I want to develop useful skills in my students: the ability to think critically, to write well, to pay attention to details of human behavior they probably didn't think were very important. To integrate these, I have them do a movie review of a film with a psychological issues. Part of that review is a verbatim, a reverse engineering, if you will, of a scene, with a focus not only on dialog, but how that dialog (complete with body language) looks and sounds to a psychologist.

This year, also, I'm using 3d graphics designed by myself to walk students visually through the brain. Rather than show a video, I use the design program (Blender for Windows) itself to zoom in and pan around the brain.

Finally, my students do all their reading work in small teams. Teamwork, not competition is the great goal and gift that St. Peter's College can impart.

How would you apply what you teach to real life?

My students begin with a movie review, then learn to read the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, finally writing a thouroughly-researched fifteen-page paper on the particular disorder they have studied in the movie. This takes a full eight months to teach. At the end, they have an example of their best written work to put in their resumes and to hand to their prospective employers.

How does my teaching style relate to Benedictine Mentorship.

That's easy! I'm a Benedictine monk. I believe that what we teach at St. Peter's is the cure for much of the ills of our world: social harmony integrated with individual excellence.

Sin Angels Version One

2006-03-05T12:11:00.000-08:00

I've got an idea to write a short --and I do mean short--story about extraterrestrial/extradimensional Gardens, called Perfect Man and Perfect Woman, whose Plan is to improve humanity through the use of disease vectors, principly sexually transmitted diseases. I want to potray them as well-intentioned, but at the beginning, completely out of touch with the personal and social havoc they created.
The story would be set very early in their attempts. Because female child prostitution is such a hot topic in Saskatoon--with its intensely racist overtones--my protagonists would be two newly minted police officers who work the vice squad. We first meet them in the precinct lobby when a wild, out-of-control young Metis girl is brought in kicking and screaming "I can't get high! I can't get high!"
Once she is subdued, they attempt to determine her identity. She claims to be Nicole Lalonde, from Prince Albert, who has been listed as a missing person for three months. Her name turns up the RCMP database, but there seems to be no match between the Amazon confronting them, and the shy, obese girl with bad teeth that the database claims is Nicole.
My theme in this story is 'forced perfection'. What would it be like to have a body and brain forced upon you, against your will? To be removed from everything and everyone you knew and loved/hated for the sake of a greater good that you didn't ask to be part of? Finally, I'd like to work with a concept I've used in the Nuegua stories: a proactive immune system, that alters the bodies and minds of anyone who comes in direct physical contact with it.
Since this story can't go over 2,000 words it needs to be written with no more than three scenes:
Two precinct and one Stroll (20th street near St. Paul's Hospital).

All Shook Up, Version Two

2006-02-28T05:41:00.000-08:00

In this version, Marie Renaud jumps to a parallel Earth, just in time to rescue Elvis from dying of a heart attack on the toilet. She nearly dies in the attempt. Both Marie and Elvis are saved by Erin. Marie is the only operative who has learned how to time jump, and she jumps back to Alpha Earth in the year 1977. Erin returns to find subtle changes in the world he left.
The last scene occurs in 1981. Elvis is performing at a festival with Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. Erin's mother is allowed backstage to meet Elvis. Elvis apologizes to Erin's mother, saying he doesn't usually mix with young girls on the road, but in this case, he'll make an exception. Marie introduces herself to Erin's mother.

Angels in the Basement

2005-10-09T19:22:00.000-07:00

Angels in the Basement is the second chapter in Nuegua: Book Two.
It describes the virtual tour of Nueguan created by Alathea and Pink for Sean's education. (The Nueguans are all computer simulations). In it we learn what is planned for the first sixteen generations up until and including the birth of Rintiala and Dianire. Their combined birth creates a chaotic jumping-off point, from which linear predictions become either highly speculative or impossible.

It begins in the kitchen of a typical Clan Demetran Sister, surrounded by her dozen children. Sean meets them as the grandfather they have never met.

The story is a descent from Demetra Guild of Nourishers to the Redourine Guild of Builders and finally to Healers Guild of Tiala, where we first encounter the Bright and Dark Queen enhancements to the original Nueguan strain.

As the story progresses we go from a traditional rural Mexican home to the Ray openpit mine in Arizona, and finally into the Healer's Temple near the San Carlos reservoir. Finally we descend to the secret hidden in the Birthing Mothers, namely Rintiala, Dianire, and a third not named. The original plan of Sean, Alathea, and Pink was to bread a Silver Queen who would combine the best of the Bright and Dark Queens, emerging in generation 24. Unfortunately, with the destruction of the Healer's Temple at the end of Book One, this breeding scheme is destroyed. What happens instead is that the conception Queen Ariana the Beautiful, the ruler of New Spain, and the offspring of Rintiala and Benedetto, jumpstarts the Silver Queen transformation of Ariana several generations too early, from the Nueguan perspective.

That her rise to power coincides with the return of the Sky Wanderers can either be seen as merely fortuituous, or as the followers of St. Dona Rina believe, the hand of God.

Monks and Shamans

2005-09-08T20:40:00.000-07:00

I'm going to use this blog to create teaching journals for my Monastic Psychology class that runs from September 9 to October 14 2005. I'm teaching novices, candidates and juniors.
The first topic begins with the question: "Who were the first monks?" The answer is: "The shamans who created the cave paintings in Lascaux France and Altmira Spain, over 16,000 years ago."

The word shaman comes from the Siberian Tinglit language. It means "one who travels between the worlds", namely the physical Earth that we presently inhabit and the Spirit World from which we came to and to which we will return (most of us) at death. The very definition hints at the Christian monastic's understanding of "in the world, but not of it."

Just as a monk has duties that tie him to Earth, so does the shaman. What differentiates the two can be clearly seen in the Rule of Benedict: coenobitic community. Shamans traditionally have only one or two disciples, much like the early Fathers of the Desert, but Benedict came to realize that for most men and women to grow spiritually, they would need a larger community environment to do so.

What is common to the Christian monk and the Altamiran shaman of the New Stone Age? The quest for transcendance; that is, to discover the power of the Spirit World in the sufferings and struggles of the here and now. For the male shaman, the hunt was the most sacred and paradoxically practical event in life. Christian monks can be seen as a hunting party, hunting for God.

Sugar House and Buckytubes

2005-05-16T15:31:00.000-07:00

This blog will follow the development of a graphical presentation I'm making for Sustainability 2105. We monks had a meeting where we were asked to imagine the St. Peter's complex one hundred years from now. Taking the 1905 plan to build in an north-south axis along the banks of Wolverine Creek--a natural wind tunnel for the prevailing nor'wester--I created the first of the Sugar Houses.
What is a Sugar House? The simplest explanation is that in the 21st century we will learn to build houses the way Nature grows trees. The long technical explanation begins with understanding the nature and potential of buckytubes.
In short, a Sugar House would be powered by three sources: sun (geothermal heating tubes); wind (turbines); and wind shear (sucrose piezoelectric power). It turns out that common table sugar is an excellent piezoelectric material; that is, a material that generates electric current when it is subjected to intense pressure. Probably, the buckytubes would allow the roof to be photosynthetic as well as wind-powered.

To see what these would look like, click on Sustainability 2105.

Marilyn Monroe in the Afterlife

2005-04-29T12:04:00.000-07:00

Feel free to click on:

http://www.stpetersabbey.ca/critical_mass/sister_aphrodita.html

Some background:

The story "Sister Aphrodita" came to me after watching the 1996 film "Norma Jean and Marilyn", then doing some background research on my own, and discovering how bogus it was. So I thought, what would it be like to be Marilyn Monroe--knocked off by a combination of Sam Giancana and the Kennedy boys--to wake up in the 'wrong' afterlife?
By 'wrong' I mean for a Hollywood star to find herself in the Hawaiian afterworld of Kanehunamoku, under the rule of Huna masters. Why you ask? Because of the true story of Marilyn co-designing a new house on Maui with none other than Frank Lloyd Wright himself, and then dieing before construction began.
This of course is a common afterlife theme: seeing the things you began in this life completed in the next. In this world, a Huna master has recreated the north-west tip of Maui in an attempt to help a Hawaiian girl--Leilani--and Marilyn combined.
Leilani died at age 26 in 1888, during the height of the leprosy plague that scourged Hawaii. In my story, leprosy is even more horrible in a spiritual body than it was in the physical. Leilani cycles endlessly between the beginning of her infection at age 12 and her death at age 26, unable to bear the pain of it and jumping off Cliff Rock near Slaughterhouse Beach ( a real beach, by the way) on the recreation of Maui.
The Huna Master -- Blue Dolphin King(BDK)--sizes up Marilyn's potential and decides she is the solution to Leilani's problem. ("Strong in mana she is"). He is temperamental and gruff, a Hawaiian Yoda, who likes to appear as a Nai'a, or blue spinner dolphin.
Marilyn, in true Luke Skywalker fashion, doesn't believe a word of it. She can't be convinced she's dead for quite some time, or rather, she believes that something has happened, but the afterlife explanation is bogus.
Leilani begins to train her according to BDK's wishes, not really holding much hope for Marilyn saving her from her cycle of suffering. But Marilyn's a natural, and starts to get the hang of using her powers. Along the way, she meets and confronts three of the most important men in her life: Joe DiMaggio, who represents the first challenge of accepting her new state of life; Arthur Miller, who represents the fruition of her creative powers, and Jack Kennedy, who is the slave of Giancana( who actually quite enjoys the sea-monster form he takes in the afterlife), and who is forced to tempt Marilyn to her doom.
Marilyn rises above it all in triumph, using her new creative powers to transfer bodies with Leilani, and fully experience the horrors of death by leprosy in the Spirit World.
She awakens to find Leilani healthy and whole, attended by BDK, who now takes the form of a handsome young Hawaiian warrior (who of course professes his love for Leilani). And off they go to the true Paradise Islands, leaving Marilyn behind after BDK has given her a new name.
Why? She's renegotiated her contract. The last scene has her up on Cliff Rock accompanied by Jimi Hendrix, fishing for lost souls for who meant well. The story ends when they reel in Jim Morrison, who was starting to really dig being swallowed and regurgitated by sea monsters.
Morrison takes a moment to recognize the new, much more athletic Marilyn, and asks if he should call her Norma Jean or Marilyn. "Neither," she says. "I've got a title now. Call me Sister Aphrodita."

Chaos Theory and Feminist Theology

2005-02-11T07:35:00.000-08:00

I'd like to start this web blog by talking about the main theme of much of the science fiction that I write, which is the interface/confluence of chaos theory and feminist theology. In my story "The Summer People", parts of which you will be able to see next week (February 14 2005)at:

http://blake.prohosting.com/duji/nuegua/index.html

I explore the possibility of an emerging technology--in this case, organic virtual reality--from a feminist and spiritual perspective. The New Genetic Woman Project, or Nuegua for short, has taken over a failed bioengineering project, failed specifically because its visionary leader claims to have discovered the gene for psychic ability. This of course gets him kicked out of the 'old boy's club' of Science.

This visionary Sean Landsten, (think of Sean Connery in "The Rock" 1996), finds himself out of work at age 62, an age when most retire. But he has fallen in love with Alathea Radford, an 37-year-old entrepeneur who believes that his Recursive Instructional Nexus technology, or RIN, for short, is the missing ingredient in her ecology reclamation project.

Her project is called the Cactus Mother. It is a bioengineered motile: part prickly pear cactus, part hermit crab. Mobile at birth, after two years it finds a suitable spot and puts down roots, becoming a massive structure that is home to a colony of ten million Phillipine termites. This combination is ideally suited for reclaiming desert land, and converting it to garden, one grain of sand at a time.

Alathea's problem is that she cannot control the growth process, as she must do it in biological rather than human/social time. She needs an interface to a human operator, and that is just what Sean has created.

The Recursive Instructional Nexus interfaces the Cactus Mothers to a human female through an artifically-created structure known as the earlid. (Later on, this is part of every Nueguan female's genetic heritage). With it, upon entering a state known as lucid dreaming, whatever the subject dreams is interpreted as a command by the termites. Dream of a wall, they build it.

There are of course numerous problems in attempting to manifest dream content physically. In attempting to solve them, Sean stumbles upon an alteration in the neural circuitry of some of his female subjects that makes them prescient and clairvoyant. Unfortunately, their performance is based on
chaotic nodes of stability rather than mechanical reproducibility, and his insistence on the validity of his findings costs him his career in the scientific establishment.

So much for chaos theory and technology. Where does feminist theology fit in? Alathea helps him to create the first Grotto of the Pregnant Virgin, software written for DNA-based computing that both extends and sets limits to the manifestation of dream content. Think of a relational database management system with a compassionate AI.

The result: several centuries later, after our present society is nearly extinguished through barbarism, in the Superstition Mountains of northern Arizona, in the Christmas Mine area along the Gila river, Nueguan culture flourishes. By this time, their origins are shrouded in myth and religion. Science has been replaced by theology; a theology founded on technology.