Collaborative fiction ~ Sci Fi ~ "Infestation"

[Secular Sanity]

Ah, well, C C, it was inevitable. 

Just show me the movie already.

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Accordingly, reading, a prime example cited by Postman, exacts intense intellectual involvement, at once interactive and dialectical; whereas television only requires passive involvement.

---

The Golgari Swarm is the embodiment of life and death. The teeming masses of the Swarm believe that life and death are both natural and equally essential too. To them, life and death are natural elements of a cycle with no intermediary break. Growth is power that comes slowly, but it is also ruthless and inevitable, and this makes growth a key virtue of the Swarm's power.Their necromantic magic has made the Golgari the largest Ravnican guild. Much like a swarm of insects, the Golgari often seem to behave more like a single organism than as a group of individuals. The whole Swarm is driven by a primal instinct to survive and reproduce.

The Golgari Swarm's consists of many sub-factions, each with its own agenda. Their revered parun is the legendary necromancer Svogthir, the "god-zombie".

I was hoping to add a dash of salty realism to kill off your sluggish, albeit, harmless sadistic side.

There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom.

Nobody has yet attempted to implement this thought experiment, although it has been noted that some types of biological enzymes and enzyme complexes (especially ribosomes) function chemically in a way close to Feynman's vision.

And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

I was starting to worry that you were plotting to kill off my soon to be main character, Celeste. 

Feynman’s second challenge involved the possibility of scaling down letters small enough so as to be able to fit the entire Encyclopædia Britannica on the head of a pin, by writing the information from a book page on a surface 1/25,000 smaller in linear scale. In 1985, Tom Newman, a Stanford graduate student, successfully reduced the first paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities by 1/25,000, and collected the second Feynman prize.

My code (a reversed inversion):

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

I was hoping to kill off your dragon lady, (Lai Choi San) with her last words taken from "A Tale of Two Cities". There's always a war between the haves and have nots, which I borrowed from your recent topic.

Are we especially unfortunate to die, if our near-descendants could be immortal?

"It was said that no woman had ever been so calm at the guillotine.

She’s sees others dying by the guillotine before it’s out of use and a beautiful city eventually rising out of the chaos. She’s sees all of her mistakes slowly fading away with time."

Like water, time flows and washes all things clean.

You're a good dancer, Madam C C.  

[C C]

I don't consider it a failure, and I believe CC should be writing for Asimov's Sci fi publication.

When I was into The Walking Dead a couple of years ago, I joined a small forum that was to discuss the show and they had different threads like this, with various story arcs. (The arcs were to be spins based on The Walking Dead.) The challenge was that one or two people ended up ''steering'' the story, and several decent contributions got overlooked. Another thing I recall happening, was that it became not so fun, like it was just supposed to be a fun collaborative group story. Some took it way too seriously. It's not anyone's fault, but it's just the way threads like this go, sometimes. Eventually, many of us stopped contributing, and the story fizzled out because the main story writers didn't like being the only ones. lol Forums, funny and fickle, sometimes.

I like the ideas presented here, so far.

A thread like this should probably be posted in the "Games, Sports & Hobbies" sub-forum next time just to blatantly make it clear that it is sloppy fun. The strict rule possibility I suggested earlier of each contributor only donating one passage per each cycle (day, whatever) to maintain a single narrative wouldn't work either. Since there would still be occasional instances of more than one person writing different possibilities for the same installment, and one of them posting sooner than the others and thereby nullifying the effort the latter spent on it. I.e., conflict arising.

---

I don't consider it a failure, and I believe CC should be writing for Asimov's Sci fi publication.

When I was into The Walking Dead a couple of years ago, I joined a small forum that was to discuss the show and they had different threads like this, with various story arcs. (The arcs were to be spins based on The Walking Dead.) The challenge was that one or two people ended up ''steering'' the story, and several decent contributions got overlooked. Another thing I recall happening, was that it became not so fun, like it was just supposed to be a fun collaborative group story. Some took it way too seriously. It's not anyone's fault, but it's just the way threads like this go, sometimes. Eventually, many of us stopped contributing, and the story fizzled out because the main story writers didn't like being the only ones. lol Forums, funny and fickle, sometimes.

I like the ideas presented here, so far.

If there was a like button, i'd  click it....

Speaking of "like button", that hits the nail on the head. Scivillage originally had a Reputation Points feature to it like other boards, and SS brought up back then how that had to the potential to trigger internal strife or obsessive focus on scoring points, or something along that line... as at other places. This is starting to have a vibrating ring of similarity to such. Maybe nice intentions behind it -- group recreation and all that -- but the applicable cliché about the ingredient in the pavement of the road to...

[Leigha]

Agree with all of that ^^ CC

TWD forum had different story arc threads, so that helped with keeping different plots going, but it still ended up a little disjointed, because it all had to swing back to the main plot. I had developed a newfound respect for film writers, after participating on that forum. lol

I was being serious about Asimov's, CC. You should give it a go. They, like many online pubs, are hard to get into, but your story arc here is something that they'd really enjoy, and would fit well with their audience. (I had submitted a poem last year, but it was rejected.) It's like less than 1% of all submissions, get accepted, I believe is the stat.

Anywho, just my pennies worth.

[C C]

. . . I was hoping to kill off your dragon lady, (Lai Choi San) with her last words taken from "A Tale of Two Cities". There's always a war between the haves and have nots, which I borrowed from your recent topic.

Are we especially unfortunate to die, if our near-descendants could be immortal?

"It was said that no woman had ever been so calm at the guillotine.

She’s sees others dying by the guillotine before it’s out of use and a beautiful city eventually rising out of the chaos. She’s sees all of her mistakes slowly fading away with time."

Like water, time flows and washes all things clean.

You're a good dancer, Madam C C.  

Your prospecting is impeccable. I stopped with Anna May Wong (almost didn't the change the "W" to "L", but got to feeling it would otherwise appear to be endorsing the Asian stereotyping she hated).

---

. . . I was being serious about Asimov's, CC. You should give it a go. They, like many online pubs, are hard to get into, but your story arc here is something that they'd really enjoy, and would fit well with their audience.

I vaguely remember some old, lingering, critical reviews from the late 1970s(?) about how it would never last because of the magazine's title parasitizing off a particular author's name and fame. As popular as Asimov was at the time, it was expected that such would fade after his death. What is it -- 27 years later and he's still a franchise, maybe even going the Elvis route of being more popular after demise than while alive.

(I had submitted a poem last year, but it was rejected.) It's like less than 1% of all submissions, get accepted, I believe is the stat.)

Keep knocking on the door till it opens. Every author/poet that got published did so by persisting and adjusting to any constructive criticism from the editors that rejected them. (But do the #### even personally do that anymore? Probably not, some automated process likely handles it nowadays.) Are there still fanzines? Even contributing or getting accepted by one of those could gradually build-up public notice that could trickle up to higher-level recognition.

Asimov first got published in second-rate pulp magazines of his era before John Campbell gradually molded him into that early class of hard science fiction writers, accepting his work at ASF.

[C C]

There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom.

Nobody has yet attempted to implement this thought experiment, although it has been noted that some types of biological enzymes and enzyme complexes (especially ribosomes) function chemically in a way close to Feynman's vision.

And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

I was starting to worry that you were plotting to kill off my soon to be main character, Celeste. 

I left her name unmentioned for that very reason. I still wasn't wholly sure what was going on -- were we outputting alternative versions of the initial starting conditions (many worlds branching off) or addressing different time periods of the same story, or what? Anyway, the Jarad/Matsya scenario was going to get boring if it wasn't spiced-up with some sideline drama converging upon them from elsewhere.

Feynman’s second challenge involved the possibility of scaling down letters small enough so as to be able to fit the entire Encyclopædia Britannica on the head of a pin, by writing the information from a book page on a surface 1/25,000 smaller in linear scale. In 1985, Tom Newman, a Stanford graduate student, successfully reduced the first paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities by 1/25,000, and collected the second Feynman prize.

I read a transcript of Feynman's lecture over 15 years ago, and prior to that didn't realize the idea had been academically introduced in 1959. Didn't know about Damon Knight's story marginally touching upon the atom manipulation for construction purposes (1964, the same year as Simulacron-3 on the simulated reality front).

The earliest "general" public awareness instance I had before encountered might have been from circa 1967 or 1968. Somewhere online I came across a faded "science newsletter" from the '60s that was distributed to students in classrooms back then. The site had made snapshots of the pages. One article fictionally explored mimicking life's ability to construct substances at the micro-directional level via inventing artificial cell-like workers. Neither "molecular machines" nor "nano-" wasn't used yet, but it was startling to see the concept circulating around in that decade, in an elementary school publication of all things.

[Leigha]

. . . I was hoping to kill off your dragon lady, (Lai Choi San) with her last words taken from "A Tale of Two Cities". There's always a war between the haves and have nots, which I borrowed from your recent topic.

Are we especially unfortunate to die, if our near-descendants could be immortal?

"It was said that no woman had ever been so calm at the guillotine.

She’s sees others dying by the guillotine before it’s out of use and a beautiful city eventually rising out of the chaos. She’s sees all of her mistakes slowly fading away with time."

Like water, time flows and washes all things clean.

You're a good dancer, Madam C C.  

Your prospecting is impeccable. I stopped with Anna May Wong (almost didn't the change the "W" to "L", but got to feeling it would otherwise appear to be endorsing the Asian stereotyping she hated).

---

. . . I was being serious about Asimov's, CC. You should give it a go. They, like many online pubs, are hard to get into, but your story arc here is something that they'd really enjoy, and would fit well with their audience.

I vaguely remember some old, lingering, critical reviews from the late 1970s(?) about how it would never last because of the magazine's title parasitizing off a particular author's name and fame. As popular as Asimov was at the time, it was expected that such would fade after his death. What is it -- 27 years later and he's still a franchise, maybe even going the Elvis route of being more popular after demise than while alive.

(I had submitted a poem last year, but it was rejected.) It's like less than 1% of all submissions, get accepted, I believe is the stat.)

Keep knocking on the door till it opens. Every author/poet that got published did so by persisting and adjusting to any constructive criticism from the editors that rejected them. (But do the #### even personally do that anymore? Probably not, some automated process likely handles it nowadays.) Are there still fanzines? Even contributing or getting accepted by one of those could gradually build-up public notice that could trickle up to higher-level recognition.

Asimov first got published in second-rate pulp magazines of his era before John Campbell gradually molded him into that early class of hard science fiction writers, accepting his work at ASF.

There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom.

Nobody has yet attempted to implement this thought experiment, although it has been noted that some types of biological enzymes and enzyme complexes (especially ribosomes) function chemically in a way close to Feynman's vision.

And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

I was starting to worry that you were plotting to kill off my soon to be main character, Celeste. 

I left her name unmentioned for that very reason. I still wasn't wholly sure what was going on -- were we outputting alternative versions of the initial starting conditions (many worlds branching off) or addressing different time periods of the same story, or what? Anyway, the Jarad/Matsya scenario was going to get boring if it wasn't spiced-up with some sideline drama converging upon them from elsewhere.

Feynman’s second challenge involved the possibility of scaling down letters small enough so as to be able to fit the entire Encyclopædia Britannica on the head of a pin, by writing the information from a book page on a surface 1/25,000 smaller in linear scale. In 1985, Tom Newman, a Stanford graduate student, successfully reduced the first paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities by 1/25,000, and collected the second Feynman prize.

I read a transcript of Feynman's lecture over 15 years ago, and prior to that didn't realize the idea had been academically introduced in 1959. Didn't know about Damon Knight's story marginally touching upon the atom manipulation for construction purposes (1964, the same year as Simulacron-3 on the simulated reality front).

The earliest "general" public awareness instance I had before encountered might have been from circa 1967 or 1968. Somewhere online I came across a faded "science newsletter" from the '60s that was distributed to students in classrooms back then. The site had made snapshots of the pages. One article fictionally explored mimicking life's ability to construct substances at the micro-directional level via inventing artificial cell-like workers. Neither "molecular machines" nor "nano-" wasn't used yet, but it was startling to see the concept circulating around in that decade, in an elementary school publication of all things.

Yes, Asimov's has an interesting history. I didn't know all that much about it, until last year, when I decided to send my sci-fi poem out to a few pubs, and looked for the most popular/well circulated ones. I also submitted it to The New Yorker (which is nearly impossible to be accepted there) and a few others. I received mainly the standard rejection letters via email, but there were two pubs who said that they liked my poetry (I had sent a few others in addition to the sci fi one) and they commented on certain phrases or themes. I've heard that in the literary world, that can be a compliment, even if your piece isn't being accepted for publication. lol I also submitted a short story to Glimmer Train, but I've read that they operate like a business, and aren't interested in new writers. I don't know, they seem legit. They've helped a lot of new writers get started.

George RR Martin and JK Rowling were both rejected many times over, before someone finally gave their work a chance. They have inspiring backstories.

[Zinjanthropos]

I call bullshit whenever I see hee hee.

Yeah ... well....collaborative writing is never easy.. keyword: collaborative.
Colluding with strangers
Russians even  

---

It's bit like a painting of a man, a women and a dog going for walk, with the man being painted by the woman and the woman being painted by the man, with the dog being painted by both... every thing is fine until they paint the dog...then total chaos....

Well .... what is it then? Chaos or a beautiful thing? You’re saying both? How convenient. 

You started a thread that got out of control, happens a lot in a forum, but don’t make it seem like you conducted some fantastic psychological experiment to stimulate our creative juices just to cover up the failure. Just an observation, I’m not a mind reader nor lab rat.

Hee hee.

Why do you think it was a failure?

Amazing isn’t it. Tell people they’ve failed and they work harder than ever to not fail. Question is..... did the thought of someone calling the collaboration a failure succeed in stimulating even greater creativity?

Hee hee

[Seattle]

Yes, Asimov's has an interesting history. I didn't know all that much about it, until last year, when I decided to send my sci-fi poem out to a few pubs, and looked for the most popular/well circulated ones. I also submitted it to The New Yorker (which is nearly impossible to be accepted there) and a few others. I received mainly the standard rejection letters via email, but there were two pubs who said that they liked my poetry (I had sent a few others in addition to the sci fi one) and they commented on certain phrases or themes. I've heard that in the literary world, that can be a compliment, even if your piece isn't being accepted for publication. lol I also submitted a short story to Glimmer Train, but I've read that they operate like a business, and aren't interested in new writers. I don't know, they seem legit. They've helped a lot of new writers get started.

George RR Martin and JK Rowling were both rejected many times over, before someone finally gave their work a chance. They have inspiring backstories.

Keep submitting them. I'm sure you'll get published.

Maybe you need a "hook". Just add Tee Hee at the end of each poem or short story as your "thing". He He is taken but Tee Hee is available. Hee Haw was available until the TV show picked it up.

[Zinjanthropos]

Tee hee
Who he?
He who
He he
He he?
Haw haw
Ho hoe
Who ho?
He ho
Ha ha
He who
Hee hee
Who ha
Ha who?
He who
Hoo hoo
He who
Ha ha
Hee haw
Who haw?
He haw
Hee hee

[Secular Sanity]

Tee hee

Who he?
He who
He he
He he?
Haw haw
Ho hoe
Who ho?
He ho
Ha ha
He who
Hee hee
Who ha
Ha who?
He who
Hoo hoo
He who
Ha ha
Hee haw
Who haw?
He haw
Hee hee

Old men and ham radios 

You need to filter your SNR, Zinman.