A story about Pluto

[AE35Unit]

Basically I came up with this idea for a mission to Pluto.
A ship is sent, crew in stasis perhaps, and when partway through the mission a strange signal or something is received, and its discovered the source is Pluto! On Pluto they find an abandoned station of sorts, and its been there for millenia, waiting, kind of a monitoring station, keeping an eye on the space around it. The ship (I would name it the Tombaugh after Pluto's discoverer) is detected and a signal sent out to the creators of this station saying someones here kind of thing.
Trying to rack my brain for a decent title that doesnt give too much away!

Pluto X - 1 by Larry Shone

 

[Ursa major]

"Who Pays the Ferryman?" - which hints at Charon, Pluto's moon - has been used before, but the work I'm thinking of wasn't SFF.

 

[J-WO]

"Beyond Acheron" (It was one of the rivers that surrounded Pluto's underworld, I think.)

 

[The Judge]

Have you written the whole thing already, AE35? If not, it might be the ideal name will occur to you half-way through, when a plot twist unexpectedly hits you, so don't start panicking yet! In the meantime, Pluto-X as a working title is fine. If you wanted something a trifle snappier on your site, an ordinary title like Voyage to Pluto will do what it says on the tin.

Ursa's and J-WO's ideas are clever, but to me they have the downside that classical allusions aren't as readily understood as they used to be, so you'd need to explain them at some point and/or bring in a ferryman/the name Acheron** in the writing to make sense of it.

By the way, I had a quick look at your opening chapter. I know you're not asking for a critique, but I think you need to check your punctuation, particularly commas and apostrophes.


** originally the name I gave to my Prologue, so I have a soft spot for it!

 

[AE35Unit]

Thanks guys,one of the names I came up with was Tartarus,a name for the underworld for which Pluto is guardian. Guradian of Tartarus, hmm that sounds like fantasy…

 

[Nik]

'Guardian of Tartarus' sounds good to me !

(As does 'Voyage to Tartarus' etc ;-)

Uh, don't forget that conditions on Pluto change significantly along its rather elliptical orbit. You'll need to match the time-line to the tale.

IMHO, uncomplicated 'stasis' would have profound repercussions on society. Perhaps a better approach is derived from tetrodotoxins, better known as puffer-fish poison and zombie brew, plus alpha-wave stimulation...

Don't forget to have your astronauts pay homage to AC Clarke's 'The Sentinel' & '2001' and make appropriate jokes about monoliths etc...

 

[AE35Unit]

'Guardian of Tartarus' sounds good to me !

(As does 'Voyage to Tartarus' etc ;-)

Uh, don't forget that conditions on Pluto change significantly along its rather elliptical orbit. You'll need to match the time-line to the tale.

IMHO, uncomplicated 'stasis' would have profound repercussions on society. Perhaps a better approach is derived from tetrodotoxins, better known as puffer-fish poison and zombie brew, plus alpha-wave stimulation...

Don't forget to have your astronauts pay homage to AC Clarke's 'The Sentinel' & '2001' and make appropriate jokes about monoliths etc...

Ah well the idea of this story has an interesting genesis. You see I recently watched a documentary about a current mission to Pluto (due to arrive in 2015),and the commentator mentioned that because of its strange orbit, if we miss this opportunity we won't get another shot for 250 years. So my story is set 250 years from 2015! Also the current mission, and this is the really cool bit,is carrying the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, who died at the time the mission was launched in 2006!

 

[Ursa major]

They're carrying the remains of the dead?


It seems my suggestion was more appropriate than I thought.

 

[AE35Unit]

They're carrying the remains of the dead?


It seems my suggestion was more appropriate than I thought.

Well the current mission is yea. I'm lo0king forward to 2015-just hope the mission is a success. If not we have to wait till 2265....

 

[Nik]

SPACE.com -- Strange Spots on Pluto May be Tar and Frost

When scientists got an unprecedented up-close view of Pluto from the Hubble telescope recently, they found mysterious bright and dark spots mottling the dwarf planet's surface. Now researchers think they have a better guess at what's causing those weird spots.