Fiction Story Ideas

I thought I would share some of the things that bang around in my fevered imagination.

I haven't written stories on any of these yet. You are welcome to use the ideas, but please let me know so I don't use them too!

The World Builders
SF Story Idea
26 June 2007

A story that is broken into very short scenes set at the time when building spabitats [must change that word, find a better one (I have since coined genoid and like it better)] has just been opened up to privatization. The story is centered around a company that builds worlds.
Among characters is

• Top salesman who likes to focus on religious groups
• A world designer [female, based on the women who have worked with us on our house].
  

[Back-story] The USA is waning in prestige and power when we begin space colonies. A fortuitous close pass of an asteroid provides the first spabitat. The US is revitalized when they catch the idea and run with it that we have manifest destiny to conquer the solar system. The US does actually work space like an empire in a race against the EU and East Asia (which unites). The US has the upper hand though, and the race is not head to head fighting, but a race [although a subtle undercutting of each empirical power is a good undercurrent].

• Also at the setting time the first armed cargo escorts are hired. The story will center around one person who is related to someone in the world building company. I think the soldiers will be called Vacuums since Marines is short for Marine Infantry and these soldiers will be infantry for the vacuum of space. I don't like the name, "spacers."
• Pirates have started stealing cargo off unmanned cargo vessels. The story can also interweave the story of a pirate ship.
• The government has been providing Homesteader Worlds for some time at a very low cost.
• These are still available, but they are just hollowed out asteroids, sealed with soil, atmosphere and mirrors. They have no external factories or farms and are easily amalgamated or conglomerated [what is the difference?].
• Also follow the story of a homesteader family.
  

There are three types of Warships: Battleships, Frigates or Cutters.

• The distinction between battleships and frigates is not based on ability, but on cost. The frigates are smaller and cheaper so they are more plentiful.
• Battleships look for other battleships to fight. They are also symbols of an empire's power.
• Frigates look to fight other frigates, perform convoy escort, perform patrols, do inspections and so on. Frigates are far more useful than battleships.
• Cutters are not capable of long-range missions, simply because they don't have the capacity [or maybe engine type].
  

Of course developments in engines, weapons, armor sensors and the like make a wide variety of classes. When an older class becomes obsolete it may be given a different role.

[How prolific are warships? If the empires don't interact much, what is their point and if pirates are just now becoming a threat then would there really be a history of a navy? Maybe the development of the Vacuums will be echoed in the development of frigates.]

· 19 Jul 07
o "The Man Who Sent His Brain To Space" – a man has his brain replaced by a computer in order to exchange ethnographic data with an alien culture.
o He's a Xenoanthropolgist and he just lost his wife. He announces that he volunteered for the project to his family at Thanksgiving and he returns, changed, for Christmas.
o He wants to erase the memory of his wife.
o He is too much like the "real" man for the family to tolerate.
o Human brains and memories can be read, but only by taking apart (and destroying) the brain. Artificial brains are more efficient and have more capacity. They run the body more effectively and are not susceptible to strokes or other forms of brain damage. Human brains are too analog for transmission. You need a digital brain. The aliens and we can exchange brains (the software of the alien mind can be put into a human brain and vise-versa).
o There is no practical FTL travel, but information can be sent by Quantum Communication.

6 Oct 07 Horror detective story
Man just lost his job (he was a corp drone) and his wife so he starts a consulting firm to investigate spreadsheets and databases. His young female cousin is a college student who needs a roommate and a job. She convinces him to hire her as a secretary, but he can only pay her on a per case basis. She always tries to drum up business and gets him involved in supernatural cases until he gets a rep for those sorts. Eventually he teas up with a Muslim woman who a a Green Beret and loves guns. He also gets with Benji from "Alone." He gets a PI licence when he starts the consulting service.

• First story is "The Thing in the Barn"

What do you think?