Having perused the first three episodes of the new “Obi-Wan Kenobi” show, I honestly think it’s awful. It’s bereft of a good understanding of the Obi-Wan character, bereft of a good understanding of Star Wars lore, and is in tension or even contradiction to many … Continue readingThe “Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi” I Would Have Made
You might have heard of the Aral Sea and its “ships of the desert”. Where there once was seafloor, now there’s only dust; where there once was thriving fish and birds, now there’s only toxic clouds. All the casualty of diversion for agriculture, a plague … Continue readingThe Inland Seas in my Sci-Fi Setting
Fundamentally there are three schools of thought for spacecraft that enter and exit planetary atmospheres (spacecraft that stay in space have their own design considerations, and in any case can get much wilder): capsules, spaceplanes, and lifting bodies. Anybody who’s even passingly familiar with spaceflight … Continue readingCatching a Lift
Lately I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what’s almost a blank page in my universe: what the first spaceflights, which in my alternate timeline take place in the 1940s, were like. The first moon landing takes place in 1949, but in the interests … Continue readingWorldbuilding the First Moon Landing
I’d like to spare a few words on the Rule of Two from the Star Wars universe, and exactly how it works. A thousand years before the Skywalker Saga, all the Sith killed each other, leaving only one survivor: Darth Bane, who crafted a new … Continue readingThe Souls of the Sith
In my alternate-history science-fiction space opera setting, it’s well-established that first contact with alien intelligence was made by Ilmatar of Thalassa on, well, Thalassa (a planet of Proxima Centauri) around the year 2060. What’s not so well-established is that the Thalassans aren’t the closest alien … Continue readingAfter Thalassa: Squid Brains of Enceladus?
Well, I know I laid out so many ambitious plans in my previous post, “Ready to Write Something Different”, but when the time came to actually try out all that stuff it just made me feel sick, overwrought, overworked, and inadequate: it was not enjoyable, … Continue readingReady for Writing Something Not So Different
I don’t belabor the point, but the truth is 20th and 21st century of my alternate-history science-fiction space-opera universe is in large measure a family saga of the Reinhardts, heirs of the inventor of the microchip and his fortune. Recently I’ve been brainstorming a new … Continue readingReady for Rapunzel
Over Easter, the holiday of the world’s renewal, the bright sunny season we’re fast approaching has stimulated me to contemplate what a spacefaring civilization that huddled in very close proximity to the sun (or some other star) might be like. It’s also struck me that … Continue readingVampires of the Oort Cloud?
I just realized I haven’t yet told all of you about my ultimate plans for Earth in the far future of my space opera setting! In my post “Taking my Space Opera Setting into the Extremely Far Future”, I left them ambiguous, but now I’ve … Continue readingThe Lastborn of Mother Earth