Logan Selmes
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2023
- Messages
- 66
Note: There's not much flashy action or dialogue here, mostly description of setting and some worldbuilding. Also, this isn't the first chapter in the story so there is info not explicitly explained within this text.
I'm already developing this idea into proper character-centered narrative. Mostly with stuff which follows what is shown here, especially direct interaction with other characters. The only words spoken by any character in this excerpt are in the form of internal monologue. Trust me, Ivo does actually talk to other people!
I mainly want to see what people here think about how convincing (or not) they find this setting, writing style, character, etc. Whatever comes to your mind. I want to know if this inspires interest to read more. Thanks in advance for your feedback, both negative and positive.
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Offshoremen
Ivo Jardim’s voice joined the clamor of cheers blasting into the public radio channel. Even while he yelled he turned down the audio feed before it could fully beat his eardrums into pulp. Ivo and dozens of other employees in pressure suits drifted untethered around the extravehicular area employees had for the last six years called the ‘front porch’ of the company’s near-surface orbiter, the SSHI Surf Pebble. They gathered outside the porch’s large airlock cylinder which cycled almost constantly to bear foot traffic in and out of the rotating habitat.
The occasion was the long awaited First-Pitch Day, the first operations test of Varuna Stonesling, Siafa-Suma Heavy Industry’s newest and most ambitious project. From the distance and mobile vantage point of the Surf Pebble, Ivo and his colleagues enjoyed a full panoramic view of the Kuiper Belt asteroid once called ‘20000 Varuna’, 334 kilometers in radius. Stonesling’s position was as far from the Sun as any incentive for long-term human habitation still existed. The scale of their isolation still chilled Ivo despite several consecutive years spent on and near its familiar surface.
The object was indeed a stone and now had become a sling. Whoever in SSHI got naming rights during project planning noticed that it looked roughly like an ellipsoidal projectile suitable for David to whip into Goliath’s forehead. After years of planning and six years of nonstop onsite work by Ivo and several hundred others, Varuna Stonesling had become an exotic whirlygig of immense potential economic importance to Siafa-Suma and its many customers.
Ivo had simplified the project's description in his messages to folks back home. Stonesling’s edge, the horizontal edge if a cosmic giant were to skip it across vast waters, bristled with a ring of space elevator cables reaching directly upwards. The cables were installed hundreds of kilometers apart and anchored from the surface up to crewed control towers at their tips.
Local mining yields in the Kuiper belt would be pushed to Stonesling for sorting and loading. Mesh-wrapped material loads thousands of tons each would then climb up the the cables in microgravity to pair with cargo cages under the control towers. Then at the right moment of Stonesling’s spin, the cage would release to fling the cargo sunward for pickup by orbital tug crews waiting anywhere between Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Earth itself. Constant operation would provide slow but steady stream of materials dropping from on high into the the depths of the civilized world.
All of the essential construction was done. Varuna Stonesling’s surface glittered with the lights of surface structures. Loading and sorting docks, surface vehicle bays, subterranean rest and lounge complexes without spin gravity but with good enough food and entertainment to entice tired employees not currently on schedule for extended leave time on the Surf Pebble. Even the elevators themselves held an alien beauty. Nothing similar to this place existed anywhere else, nor could it, rather like especially striking houses on Earth integrated directly into waterfalls and hills and valleys.
Varuna Stonesling rotated like the hub of a wagon wheel, except that in place of wheel spokes were the space elevators. Recordings failed to capture the sense of awe it inspired in Ivo and most others so heavily involved in its creation.
It was precisely the type of unorthodox concept which overtly hostile great powers gawked haughtily at, namely the People’s Central Republic and the United Democratic Council. The neutrals of the Confederal Arab States didn’t even pass public judgment for the press, but watched curiously and quietly. Even most of Siafa-Suma’s fellow Kontors, companies loosely linked inside the decentralized commercial and defense network called Hansa Bloc, held investment money far away from anything related to ‘that shareholder-devourer boondoggle at the edge of space and time’, in the words of a risk analyst popular in Hansa circles.
Earlier in the year surface crews had already blasted a test load of several thousand tons right out of Stonesling’s surface. Now the jumbled growing crowd around the latticed scaffolding of the Surf Pebble’s porch watched with nervous energy as Test Load 01 climbed up Cable 17 at a cautious pace. The chatter on radio frequencies reverently dropped to near zero but for regular communication between the Control Module 17 crew and other teams.
Successful test operation today meant less troubleshooting, less repairs, less contractual technicalities, and therefore the chance to finally go home as early as possible. Home, or the first place civilized enough that locals sold goods and services really worth buying, even at a premium. The bastion of relative comfort, and even a limited taste of luxury, would be Enceladus. Still quite far from here, but close enough to dream about. The next set of offshoremen would arrive soon to replace almost all currently present employees as soon as they were suitably trained on the infrastructure. A good First Pitch today also would mean hefty bonuses from top to bottom. Engineers, tradesmen, and even the contracted Aquino-Gosse security team would reap the rewards.
Ivo wondered if any amount of money could seal the emotional breaches he had pried open with years of separation from the family. Or if any amount of free time finally spent freely at home with her, with the kids, could do the same. Throughout most of his contract period Ivo had imagined some future idyllic era for himself. Time enough to ‘make up for lost years’. But years passed as Ivo sent and received messages delayed by the five billion kilometers which separated West Africa and the outermost pocket of humanity he belonged to. As the once-teenage Nolan and Imogene became adults in the last few years, he feared that they already thought of him as little more than a kind yet remote life advisor who had long ago shared his DNA and surname with them.
Haven’t you been through this exact thought process hundreds… thousands of times? Ivo asked himself. And haven’t you asked that question enough times? Are you getting any new information or insight out of torturing yourself? Have you ever? No? Then shut up, brain. Please shut up.
I'm already developing this idea into proper character-centered narrative. Mostly with stuff which follows what is shown here, especially direct interaction with other characters. The only words spoken by any character in this excerpt are in the form of internal monologue. Trust me, Ivo does actually talk to other people!
I mainly want to see what people here think about how convincing (or not) they find this setting, writing style, character, etc. Whatever comes to your mind. I want to know if this inspires interest to read more. Thanks in advance for your feedback, both negative and positive.
---
Offshoremen
Ivo Jardim’s voice joined the clamor of cheers blasting into the public radio channel. Even while he yelled he turned down the audio feed before it could fully beat his eardrums into pulp. Ivo and dozens of other employees in pressure suits drifted untethered around the extravehicular area employees had for the last six years called the ‘front porch’ of the company’s near-surface orbiter, the SSHI Surf Pebble. They gathered outside the porch’s large airlock cylinder which cycled almost constantly to bear foot traffic in and out of the rotating habitat.
The occasion was the long awaited First-Pitch Day, the first operations test of Varuna Stonesling, Siafa-Suma Heavy Industry’s newest and most ambitious project. From the distance and mobile vantage point of the Surf Pebble, Ivo and his colleagues enjoyed a full panoramic view of the Kuiper Belt asteroid once called ‘20000 Varuna’, 334 kilometers in radius. Stonesling’s position was as far from the Sun as any incentive for long-term human habitation still existed. The scale of their isolation still chilled Ivo despite several consecutive years spent on and near its familiar surface.
The object was indeed a stone and now had become a sling. Whoever in SSHI got naming rights during project planning noticed that it looked roughly like an ellipsoidal projectile suitable for David to whip into Goliath’s forehead. After years of planning and six years of nonstop onsite work by Ivo and several hundred others, Varuna Stonesling had become an exotic whirlygig of immense potential economic importance to Siafa-Suma and its many customers.
Ivo had simplified the project's description in his messages to folks back home. Stonesling’s edge, the horizontal edge if a cosmic giant were to skip it across vast waters, bristled with a ring of space elevator cables reaching directly upwards. The cables were installed hundreds of kilometers apart and anchored from the surface up to crewed control towers at their tips.
Local mining yields in the Kuiper belt would be pushed to Stonesling for sorting and loading. Mesh-wrapped material loads thousands of tons each would then climb up the the cables in microgravity to pair with cargo cages under the control towers. Then at the right moment of Stonesling’s spin, the cage would release to fling the cargo sunward for pickup by orbital tug crews waiting anywhere between Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Earth itself. Constant operation would provide slow but steady stream of materials dropping from on high into the the depths of the civilized world.
All of the essential construction was done. Varuna Stonesling’s surface glittered with the lights of surface structures. Loading and sorting docks, surface vehicle bays, subterranean rest and lounge complexes without spin gravity but with good enough food and entertainment to entice tired employees not currently on schedule for extended leave time on the Surf Pebble. Even the elevators themselves held an alien beauty. Nothing similar to this place existed anywhere else, nor could it, rather like especially striking houses on Earth integrated directly into waterfalls and hills and valleys.
Varuna Stonesling rotated like the hub of a wagon wheel, except that in place of wheel spokes were the space elevators. Recordings failed to capture the sense of awe it inspired in Ivo and most others so heavily involved in its creation.
It was precisely the type of unorthodox concept which overtly hostile great powers gawked haughtily at, namely the People’s Central Republic and the United Democratic Council. The neutrals of the Confederal Arab States didn’t even pass public judgment for the press, but watched curiously and quietly. Even most of Siafa-Suma’s fellow Kontors, companies loosely linked inside the decentralized commercial and defense network called Hansa Bloc, held investment money far away from anything related to ‘that shareholder-devourer boondoggle at the edge of space and time’, in the words of a risk analyst popular in Hansa circles.
Earlier in the year surface crews had already blasted a test load of several thousand tons right out of Stonesling’s surface. Now the jumbled growing crowd around the latticed scaffolding of the Surf Pebble’s porch watched with nervous energy as Test Load 01 climbed up Cable 17 at a cautious pace. The chatter on radio frequencies reverently dropped to near zero but for regular communication between the Control Module 17 crew and other teams.
Successful test operation today meant less troubleshooting, less repairs, less contractual technicalities, and therefore the chance to finally go home as early as possible. Home, or the first place civilized enough that locals sold goods and services really worth buying, even at a premium. The bastion of relative comfort, and even a limited taste of luxury, would be Enceladus. Still quite far from here, but close enough to dream about. The next set of offshoremen would arrive soon to replace almost all currently present employees as soon as they were suitably trained on the infrastructure. A good First Pitch today also would mean hefty bonuses from top to bottom. Engineers, tradesmen, and even the contracted Aquino-Gosse security team would reap the rewards.
Ivo wondered if any amount of money could seal the emotional breaches he had pried open with years of separation from the family. Or if any amount of free time finally spent freely at home with her, with the kids, could do the same. Throughout most of his contract period Ivo had imagined some future idyllic era for himself. Time enough to ‘make up for lost years’. But years passed as Ivo sent and received messages delayed by the five billion kilometers which separated West Africa and the outermost pocket of humanity he belonged to. As the once-teenage Nolan and Imogene became adults in the last few years, he feared that they already thought of him as little more than a kind yet remote life advisor who had long ago shared his DNA and surname with them.
Haven’t you been through this exact thought process hundreds… thousands of times? Ivo asked himself. And haven’t you asked that question enough times? Are you getting any new information or insight out of torturing yourself? Have you ever? No? Then shut up, brain. Please shut up.
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