ALIEN: Manticore
Blackwinter-witch
MemberPraetorianApril 04, 2017UPDATE: September 05 2017***************
ALIEN: Manticore is now past the 110,000 word mark. :D
That's why I've been so scarce around here, busy-busy-busy with writing and housekeeping, Life's usual hurdles, etc..
There's also short-stories coming soon-ish. They're being worked on, but have to be adjusted as the Main story progresses to eliminate continuity errors and such other annoyances.
One short-story ties-in to a work found here having to do with Walter's fate on 'Paradise'.
The other gives my views on the origin of The Alien, which I am titling ALIEN: Origins and it's far more deserving of that title than Alan Dean Foster's Covenant prequel.
A third short-story is loosely-related to the ALIENverse, but will be available for reading also.
END UPDATE*******************
I'll be posting little excerpts and teasers here, entertaining questions (though some I may not be able to answer) and I hope you guys enjoy this little window into my perspective on the ALIENverse. :) This is all partially-edited material, so it's going to be rough and have flaws.
This little bit calls-back to something Ridley Scott wanted for ALIEN, the 'flying mouse drones'. I love the idea, and as a nod of Respect and Appreciation to R. Scott, here they are in their scene.
" The ship tended itself, and it’s hibernating crew conscientiously. It constantly monitored everything aboard and outside, surveilling the cosmos via it’s sensor arrays and their sophisticated instruments. It watched, listened, and in some ways it ‘smelled’ ‘touched’ and ‘tasted’ the universe around it.
In the engine section and elsewhere throughout the vessel, the hundreds of tiny drones that swarmed and flitted about only in the absence of the crew had once again emerged, performing their tasks tirelessly. They were semi-autonomous mouse-sized extensions of the mainframe intelligence, it’s roving eyes, ears and hands, ever-vigilant over their country of darkened, cold, minimal-gravity, nitrogen-filled corridors, rooms and chambers.
As the ship came into range of comm relays, it established contact, checked for messages and other items of information the crew had stated preferences for. It collected what there was to be had, flagged items for each member of the crew and continued it’s vigil and voyage.
Sometime later, a signal impinged on antennae sensitive enough to pick up the extremely weak radio-frequency emission, one in the sub-milliwatt range, and conforming to no known comms protocol. It ran, there was a break of precisely twelve seconds, then the signal repeated again.
The computer recorded it, worked out a fix on the emission-point, and flagged it for the Captain’s attention.
Weeks later, it detected a new signal, from the same emission-point as the earlier one. This one was stronger and clearer: A standard-format distress beacon and Emergency Location Beacon.
The artificial intelligence double-checked the emission-point, re-analyzed the earlier, now silent, beacon and compared it to the Interstellar Trade and Commerce Commission standard beacon it had detected. It examined the distances involved to the nearest comm relay, worked out how many years the EM signal would take to reach it at the light-speed limits of radio transmissions.
Manticore did not possess the ITCC-mandated overrides that would force it to go to the distress beacon. The laws on Shadowfall dictated that responding to a distress beacon was strictly ‘Captain’s Discretion’.
In accordance with that, the computer began restoring the ship to Human Habitation standards, altering course to the star system that the emissions were coming from and bringing the Captain out of hypersleep."
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Well, best I can offer is a PDF version right now, it's a long ways from Publishing-ready. I know what you mean, there's just something about a Book.
Would the PDF be okay?
TY for the compliment!! :D
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OH. Well, when it's all done, yeah, I can put up a link to a download place and you can print it off NP. :D I have a 4shared account, Mega, etc...
Oh, the above excerpt, that's from page 24. ;)
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Thank-you and you're welcome!! Glad you liked it!! More excerpts will come, it's a bit of a trick deciding what to reveal and what not to. ;)
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we've all seen Nostromo's bridge, and while Manticore is built-up from a similar ship, a slightly later model, when it's owner and Captain was having work done, he went with a more appropriate bridge for a crew who would be spending a lot more awake-time aboard and working and such.
My Thanks to Ron Cobb (posthumously) for the wonderful concept art he did!!
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Thank-you VERY much!!! Glad you enjoyed the read!
If you're inspired, go for it.
Also, always remember: If you don't like what you write/how it 'works'...you can ALWAYS fix it in editing.
Editing is your friend, remembering that keeps the discouragement gremlins away. :) I love it because we Humans usually have great hindsight and Edits allow us to USE that to best advantage. :)
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Thank-you!! I really appreciate the compliments!! I agree with you about this forum, totally, but I guess you knew that about me already? :)
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Thank-You!! Glad you enjoyed reading it and like my perspective on the ALIENverse!! This isn't the actual 'Start' of the story, it's from Page 24.
I wanted to have a similar scene as we get in the beginning of ALIEN, both because it has a great 'feel' and as a proper 'nod' to the film that started it all, but had plans for a different Story-start, so I worked it in during an in-story flight. :)
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Thanks! :) When I first heard about this old idea of R. Scott's, I loved it on the spot. It's interesting, logical, and is demonstrative of technology in the universe. 'Maintenance mice' I guess you could call them :)
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Thank-you!! Glad you did! I write in this universe because I love the 'feel' of it, it's grittiness and lack of space-opera qualities. (Space Opera is great, but it's like pizza compared to the medium-rare 'steak' that is the ALIENverse).
That all said, part of why I write in this universe is to remind people of the 'feel', introduce newcomers to such, and those of us who love it get a trip back into it. I write for myself, but I enjoy sharing my works with those who share the same perspective as many of us long-time fans do.
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Here's an excerpt from ALIEN: Manticore; Paradise. It's a work-on-hold, as to go any further than the landing of the Science Expedition's shuttle, I need to see COVENANT to stay on-track with Canon.
ALIEN: Manticore; Paradise is the follow-up/sequel to ALIEN: Manticore where Manticore heads out, following the course of the Juggernaut commandeered by David and Shaw at the end of PROMETHEUS.
Appendum: This was posted in ALIEN STORIES and I realized it also belongs here.
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PROLOGUE
Manticore had travelled out from Shadowfall, now clear of the more problematic celestial dynamics that the system was famous for and ready to engage it’s hyperdrive for the long voyage ahead.
Captain Sinjihnn Du’Maur was the only crewmember of the vessel still awake, the rest had entered hypersleep earlier along with the passengers who formed the science team they were bringing along. The ship was running entirely on it’s own auto-systems overseen by the ship‘s Virtual Intelligence, making him superfluous at the present time as he would be for the long trip ahead of them. He enjoyed this time, it gave him time to think, to review preparations one last time, spot overlooked details,
He and his friend, Jean McDormand had spent a few weeks finding qualified people who Vetted out as being able to keep their mouths shut and had no issues with participating in an unlicensed interstellar expedition setting out for a world extremely far away from the colonized systems.
The secrecy had been paramount, as he wanted to keep all the details under wraps and spare himself and his crew having to deal with some ego-driven Corporate rivals. There was also the concern of how insanely dangerous what they were heading out to find could possibly be, and how irresponsible corporations could be in evaluating ‘acceptable risk’. Thus, he and Jean had played things very close to the chest, employed a plausible cover story, and kept up a level of obfuscation in their communications second-to-none. It had been a significant pain, but success or failure always relied on details, often the small ones. Such was also the reasoning behind the significant investment in upgrading and advancing Manticore’s armament and combat capabilities.
The stars beckoned, and once again his ship would be sailing amongst them while he slept the sleep of the near-dead along with the people most important to him. The bridge was quiet, only a few indicators showed signs of machine-life, and he could hear the faint sound of air through the ventilation grilles in the ceiling above him. He took a moment to consider the enormity of what they were setting out to do; Challenge The Gods.
He felt no fear, no trepidation. He looked forward to it, to making sure the species that Dr. Elizabeth Shaw had named ‘Engineers’ knew they had Humanity’s eye on them, and knew of their aggressive nature. He wanted to make it very clear to them that Humanity was not some helpless planet-bound bunch of primitive peoples any longer, but stood on the same level as their creators, able to challenge them, and able to defeat them should they raise a hand against Humanity.
As he finished that thought, Manticore engaged it’s hyperdrive, and as it accelerated to, then beyond the speed of light, the star field ahead compressed, blue-shifted--appearing as a trillion pinpoints of painfully bright blue light for an instant--before expanding to appear normal again save for the slight but definite motion of some stars in the edges of the field of view. A glow began as the forward edge of the hyperdrive field encountered the interstellar medium at Faster-than-light speed, exciting the sparse hydrogen atoms to higher quantum states, shrouding the vessel in a corona of dim Cerenkov phantom-light.
With the engagement of the hyperdrive, the Captain casually patted a nearby console in a purely anthropomorphic gesture and made his way out, on his way to join the rest of his crew in the coldly peaceful embrace of hypersleep.
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You're very welcome and Thank-You in-kind!! Very glad you enjoyed it, tells me that I'm on the right track in keeping to the right 'feel' and 'atmosphere'. :)
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Thank-you!!:D
I know exactly what you mean by the tricky nature of the 'feel' of this universe! The trick that works for me is I get the 'rough-raw' out and down. It's just the 'roughly-shaped-block-of-marble' at that point, and barely readable, then I use a lot of editting to refine, shape, tailor, tune and sculpt things until they have the proper 'feel'.
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1st Drafts are always a mess, mine as I said are barely readable!! :D NO one ever sees my First Drafts. :) The trick is to remember you don't need to make it Perfect first-try, there's always editting to fall back on, and it's great as we always come up with ideas later, and editting allows us to re-work things, clean-up and include them. :)
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It doesn't 'silly' at all! I enjoy being creative also, I cannot imagine what or who I'd be without it!
One of the fun things about writing, is unlike a movie, WE get to pick the endings and such. :)
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