The Cleansing – Chapter 1

Posted on by Opher

This is the sequel to Judgement – Judgement: Amazon.co.uk: Forsythe, Ron: 9798267858489: Books -I do like writing Sci-fi that is grounded in social context and relevant to life today. I’m an idealist, a dreamer and a critic.

Chapter 1 – The Separation

‘Ron Forsythe, I duly pronounce you ‘Protector of the Planet’.

‘What the fuck??? You gotta be kidding!!’

A ball of blue oceans girdled with cotton wool, clouds in spiralling masses, continents in darker tones, forests of green and deserts of brown; the polar regions stark caps of white reflecting light into the heavens. The thin atmosphere a fragile luminous band that glows in outline against an endless inky blackness speckled with flecks of white sparkling crystal. A delicate biosphere an oasis, suspended in the infinite reaches of a heartless eternity; the intricate chemistry of life sustained only by this narrow band of air and water.

On the dark side of the planet clusters of lights mark the cities, each with diverging tendrils of light, zig-zagging  here and there, indicating  the presence of transport corridors – the most obvious signs of intelligent life.

The intelligent beings that created these cities and thoroughfares, thinking themselves so big, swelled with self-importance, feel themselves to be immune to the vagaries of the cosmos. These tiny beings teem across the surface of the planet like a bacterial infection on the skin of a peach; yet they reach for the stars and sing to the moon. They believe all knowledge and mystery will be theirs for the asking. They tempt the fates and play dice with Armageddon. They are a danger to themselves and every organism that breathes the air of Earth. They know not what they do.

The reality was that life was fragile. It could be snuffed out in an instant. These beings were complacent. They just did not realise how fragile it was. Not just the thinness of that blue line but above it – the ominous presence of the giant H-craft Quorma.

Commander Chameakegra sat in her central position on the bridge of the H-craft Neff, her crest and scutes flowing with blue waves of pleasure. Everything was right with the universe. Ostensibly she was relaxed, surveying the planet Hydra looming through the viewport below them. The Judgement was over and she had been fully vindicated. Once again her assessment had been spot on and her unorthodox methods had proved effective. Much to her satisfaction and to Beheggakegri’s chagrin, and many others in the top echelons at UFOR (the United Federation of Races) the Judge had not only backed her assessment but also agreed with her solution.

On the surface of her coloured integument Commander Chameakegra’s disposition appeared serene. Inside was a different tale. All around her the crew were bustling, gathering evidence. Chameakegra was the eye of the silent hurricane around which everything rotated. Her job was not over yet. Ever since the judgement she had been preparing, working out how to carry out her instructions.

There were many other issues for her to address, battles to be fought. Chameakegra was aware that Beheggakegri and many other elements of UFOR would be more than happy for her ‘crazy’ idea to fail. In their opinion the exercise was complex and unnecessary. It was far simpler to eradicate a suspect race rather than take a risk that they might contaminate the Federation. Chameakegra took a very different view. For her the Hydran culture had immense positive attributes that could greatly enhance the Federation. The risk was worthwhile. She was immensely pleased that Judge Booghramakegra had agreed with her. Now was the test. She had to put her plan into operation and ensure it succeeded. A different vedog of mertles.

They had to invade, take over without bloodshed and set about overhauling the governance and infrastructure of the Hydrans – nothing too hard to handle but none-the-less requiring detailed planning. Then there was the tiny issue of what to do with the Hydrans selected for excision. For Beheggakegri that was simple; they could be removed and painlessly disposed of just as would be the case with any extermination.

Chameakegra felt differently. She was not content with winning the judgement and reprieve for the Hydrans, her thoughts were taking her further down the bojirt hole of wonder. Perhaps these malevolent Hydrans weren’t lost causes? Perhaps, like the rest of the population, they too could be rehabilitated? Weren’t the Federation meant to be compassionate? Shouldn’t they set a higher moral tone than simply going for what was safe and convenient? Beheggakegri did not appear to agree.

For the moment an uneasy truce existed. Chameakegra had been instructed to separate the Hydrans into three distinct categories – Saved, Reprogrammed and Exterminated – hard enough to know where to draw the boundaries. She had to go along with that for now but there was plenty plasma to flow through those tubes. There was plenty of time to mess with those boundaries and outcomes. Further experiments on Hydran psychology might well provide better solutions. Best to keep her laser shielded for now.

Right now Chameakegra alternated between brooding and fuming, taking care to keep her emotions under control so that her crest and scutes flowed with the orange hues of command. The last thing she wanted was for the crew to sense her anger. No hint of white was to be visible on those scales. Chameakegra was resolute. She was aware that Beheggakegri, and probably the majority of the UFOR committee, viewed this whole exercise as a great act of folly. Normally the business would be done and cleansed; the Hydrans would have been quickly and painlessly removed and the biosphere of Hydra left to heal and plug the gap left. In a million years or so evolution might well have produced a superior, more stable intelligence to take the place of these psychotic apes. Nature would restore. In the big scheme of things the Hydrans would be no great loss.

Chameakegra had come to see the established process as a cold, calculated bureaucratic exercise lacking in compassion and totally inflexible. In her mind there had to be a better way. If the Federation was to live up to the values it claimed to uphold there had to be a superior doctrine to this harsh judgement and terrible heartless euthanasia. But, for now, she was a lone voice.

Chameakegra prepared herself for the battles to come. For now she had to be content with the victory she had won. The comulators were programmed and staff assigned to the task they had been presented with. The novelty caused equal amounts of perplexity, amusement and interest. The assessment team had been set to go home; now they were reassigned. A number had been rotated but the core had opted to stay. That indicated a pleasing high morale.

The Hydrans were safe for a while. There was to be no absolute cleansing. The judgement was clear on that. They had a stay of execution and an opportunity to prove themselves worthy.

Normally, following a judgement, her role would be over. Not this time. She had created her own problems. Now she was tasked with solving them. Not that she was unhappy with that. It was what she had wanted. She relished the opportunity. This was something different. It presented numerous intricate assessments that required all the resources of the Neff.

The Hydran culture might, for the time being, be secure due to her efforts but there were repercussions. Elements of Hydran society were to be identified and extracted. Chameakegra had been tasked with dealing with this unusual situation. That felt appropriate, after all, this had been her idea and the Neff, set up as an observation/assessment laboratory was ideally suited for the task. That did not make the problems easy to solve. It was quite one thing to come up with a good sounding solution during the judgement. It was quite another to put it into practice.

She sat on the bridge of the Neff feeling contented. Chameakegra loved solving problems. Inside her head the neural pathways were glowing with electricity. She had turned the mighty resources of the Neff into a different, more detailed, processor of data. They were no longer assessing the worth of a whole culture, now they were doing something that had never been done before – judging the individuals, the whole population. Hydrans were being categorised and placed in various groups according to their nature. It required a more intimate knowledge of their lives.

Instead of one judgement there were to be eight billion judgements. Fortunately, under the guidance of skilled staff, coupled with the immense amount of data available from Hydra’s own media, the comulating skills of Neff’s automated intelligence was able to perform the task.

Judgement – New Sci-fi novel

Posted on by Opher

Judgement eBook : Forsythe, Ron: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

The Judgement is coming.
They have arrived—beings from beyond the stars, emissaries of a vast Federation that spans the galaxy. Their mission is not conquest, but assessment. Humanity stands trial.
Will we be welcomed into the Federation as equals… or condemned to extinction?
Our record is damning: centuries of war, cruelty, racism, and hate. Yet there is another side—love, harmony, creativity, and the fragile spark of compassion that refuses to die.
The Judge is on her way. She will weigh our worth. She will decide our fate.
The future of the human race hangs in the balance.

Judgement is coming!!

Posted on by Opher

Yes! I’ve just completed the first rewrite of my new Sci-fi novel Judgement.

The aliens are coming and they are about to assess whether we are worthy or not!

77,200 words over 155 pages. They are hovering above us and studying what we are doing. They are recording what they see – the wars, the violence, the inequality, corruption and cruelty. They see the tribalism of nations and divisions in religion. They are assessing how we are treating each other and life on this planet of ours. Are we good custodians? They are weighing the bad stuff with the good. They like our creativity but does it make up for all the nasty stuff? The Judge is arriving soon. The judgement will begin.

I’m starting the editing process now. I may be a while! Talk among yourselves.

If the aliens actually came!!

Posted on by Opher

Just imagine if a delegation of super-intelligent aliens actually came to study Earth. What would they make of us??

We are supposed to be highly intelligent!

How have we organised the planet?

Is it organised intelligently?

We have a bunch of tribal apes. Instead of working together and intelligently running things we divide, fight and hate.

There’s more than enough to go round so that all of us can live in luxury.

We have the technology to create an harmonious place where nature and us can flourish.

Is that what we’ve chosen to do?

Like hell it is!!

We’ve divided ourselves up into warring factions!

We look for any excuse to hate – race, colour, language, creed, religion, sexual orientation, hair colour, preferences. It doesn’t take much.

We arbitrarily divided the continents up into tribal units we call countries. There’s no logic to this. It just gives us things to fight over.

We invent multitudes of religions for gods we never see and create doctrines and elaborate rituals, dress codes, feeding restrictions and behaviours, strictly adhered to, according to writings written by unknown people who spoke to these gods in wildernesses, caves and mountain tops well away from other people. Yet we hold every word to be true and firmly believe that ‘our’ god is the only one that is real. We are prepared to kiill in his name and often do. We actually torture, stone and burn people who don’t believe the same as us! Highly intelligent!

We spend our resources on weapons and starve people, under-resource education and healthcare.

We build up sophisticated cities and then periodically bomb them to smithereens.

We develop a system built on greed where a tiny minority have more than they could ever use in a million life-times while billions live in squalor, extreme poverty, starve a die.

We plunder the earth for resources so that that minority can prosper.

We dump dangerous chemicals in the air, in the water and in the soil so that not a square inch of the planet is unpolluted – including ourselves and every plant and animal. We do that because it is cheaper than doing things properly. We do it so we can make more money. All that money goes into the pockets of people who really don’t need it.

We have caused such pollution that it is changing the weather, climate and could lead to our own extinction.

Talking of extinction – there are a number of ways we could become extinct – viruses, asteroids, nuclear war – we already know about them. But do we take measures, put in enough money? No we’d rather fight and make more elaborate weapons. We’d rather create mosques, cathedrals and temples. We hope it will never happen or put our faith in invisible gods or belligerent politicians.

We are all mentally ill in that we are addicted to all manner of things from heroin, crystal meth, alcohol to collecting bird eggs, records and stamps. Gambling and superstition are pervasive.

The majority of us spend most of our lives working away to make money for that minority who already have way too much.

We allow conmen, in the form of religious leaders and politicians, to abuse us, stupefy us and take away our ability to think rationally.

We believe lies. We believe conspiracies. We believe everything in the media or that our leaders tell us – even if we can see it’s a pile of bollocks.

We all have biological processes of excretion and reproduction but for some reason we think these biological things are obscene. We are embarrassed and disgusted by our own biology! We make sex into a weapon to use against people! We develop perversions and abuse.

We have divided humans into two groups based on gender. The women, despite superior intelligence, are deemed weaker and so are easily abused, subjugated and made into second-class citizens. We turn them into sex slaves, create social pressure to make them dress up in silly costumes – from burqas to stiletto heels, make them paint their faces and exhibit their bodies and then castigate them for painting their faces and exhibiting their bodies. We make them possessions and restrict their lives. We get them so anxious over their appearance and sexuality that they don’t know if they are coming or going.

We have enormous psychological flaws. So many of us are psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, bipolar, or suffering from anxiety, social anxiety, schizophrenia and paranoia. None of us are normal.

We love violence and pain. Most of our films and art is about murder and pain. We worship greed, violence and pain. Pain is king. We love inflicting pain on others. We love torturing animals. We have bull rings, bear pits, cock fighting and a long history of hunting for pleasure. If it moves kill it, shoot it, spray it and burn it – preferably in a way where we can watch it slowly die in agony.

We also love death. Well we love death in everything else and are terrified and obsessed with our own death!

As a species we are screwed up!!

So what would those really intelligent aliens make of us?

Do you think they’d see us as intelligent?

You know – I reckon that a species that invents religion and loves pain and war can’t ever be really considered intelligent!

They’d probably eradicate us as vermin!!

Neanderthal – A Sci-fi Classic

Posted on by Opher

What if the Neanderthals never died out?

What if they are incredibly more intelligent than us?

What if we find and disturb them?

Excerpt – Neanderthal 

Chapter 1

The sun broke through the London gloom bringing a burst of warmth. The brightness lit up the fancy brickwork façade on the old main block of the Queen Mary Imperial College, one of the many jewels of London University. On campus students were sprawled on the grass talking. Some were reluctantly strolling along the paths towards the many modern buildings that housed their lectures. It was one of those hot summer days in which nobody had any desire to be inside, indeed, nobody had any desire to do anything, except to loll about in the sun and talk.

But inside the Blizard Hall the Perrin lecture theatre was packed. It seated four hundred, but there was standing room only. They had come to hear Roger Comstock give one of his renowned talks on human evolution. He was the main man and could always be relied on to provide an interesting, lively exposition, with a few quirky controversial ideas thrown in for good measure. It made him extremely popular and well worth forsaking the pleasures of the languid summer heat.

Roger was coming to the end of his lecture.

‘And then there is the mystery of the Neanderthal man,’ Roger shrugged. ‘I feel very close to the Neanderthal,’ he explained with a broad smile. ‘Probably because, as a European, I always carry a bit of Neanderthal around with me. Up to 4% of our genome is made up of Neanderthal genes. They live on in us.’

There was a murmur of asides with some titters of laughter.

‘At one time we coexisted with the Neanderthal. We even bred with them. But then that isn’t so very unusual,’ he cocked his head and chuckled, ‘I’m sure we are all aware of some people who would try to breed with any species they could get their hands on.’

A louder chortle went round the lecture theatre.

‘Now I know some of you purists out there will be a bit sceptical here. Were Neanderthals really a separate species of humans? Surely if they were, by definition, they could not successfully interbreed. Well that is certainly open to debate. Perhaps we should technically regard them as a subspecies? It is a moot point. The truth of the matter is that these people were a distinct second group of humans with genetically different genomes and we did somehow manage to successfully interbreed with them.’

‘Just imagine what it would be like if we shared this planet with other species of man – human beings of a different kind with many characteristics that were not the same. Intelligent people like us but yet dissimilar. How would that affect our psychology?’

He allowed his audience to dwell on that for a moment or two.

‘Perhaps their thought patterns would be very divergent to ours. They might have novel ideas and views on life.’

‘Just think what an impact that might have on the way we behave if we weren’t the only intelligent beings on this planet.’

‘We’d probably wipe them out!’ One bold student called out.

‘hmmf – We probably did,’ Roger replied, peering into the dim vicinity from where the voice had come. He chuckled again. ‘We probably did.’

Turning back to address the auditorium. ‘At one point in our evolution, back in Africa, we did share the planet with other species of humans. There were at least four species of early man who coexisted on that continent. Would it affect our religious outlook? Our view of ourselves? Our social aims? Or our politics? I ask you, would we be different people if we shared this planet with other species of intelligent human beings? Perhaps humans who were more intelligent than ourselves? Would we see ourselves another way if we did not regard ourselves as the pinnacle of evolution?’

Roger paused and looked down at the floor as if in contemplation before looking back up at his audience.

‘When they dug up those early fossils in the Neander Valley near Dusseldorf, there was a lot of controversy. To start with there was this huge brain capacity. Neanderthals had considerably bigger brains than us. Their capacity was up to 1,600 cm3 as compared to our modest 1,200 to 1,450 cm3. We certainly couldn’t be having that now could we? It might well indicate that they were a good deal brighter than we were.’

There was another murmur.

‘Of course, brain size doesn’t necessarily equate with intelligence, does it? The sperm whale has a brain that is greatly bigger than humans, as does the elephant. Does that mean they are more intelligent?’

‘Neither of them have to work for a living,’ the same wag called out.

‘No, that is certainly true,’ Roger said smiling broadly, looking round towards the direction of the voice. ‘They don’t have to work. But they do get hunted and killed and none of them have yet developed any technology.’

‘Is developing hydrogen bombs a sign of intelligence?’ the discorporate voice called out.

Roger searched the indistinct shadowy faces for the source of this dialogue. He quite liked getting a response from his audience but liked to put a face to it.

‘Probably not,’ he agreed. ‘But what is certainly true is that human beings do not like their supremacy challenged. There has been much energy expended in attempting to prove that while Neanderthal brains might well be bigger they certainly weren’t smarter. The cynics have churned out paper after paper discussing the relative size of the optical regions and motor regions. According to these research papers, our friends the Neanderthal were brilliant at seeing and controlling their bodies but lacked the cerebral folds to challenge us when it comes to maths or science. They’d be good at body popping though.’

He pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘I’ll leave it to you to check out what you think on that subject and come to your own conclusions.’

‘But I digress,’ Roger said, looking round at them. ‘Getting back to that mystery. Neanderthals prospered in Europe. They had migrated out of Africa at a much earlier stage to us and colonised a wide area. They had developed a rich culture and technology. Their use of fire, tools and cave painting was at least as advanced as ours. But around 40,000 years ago they suddenly all died out. Why was that?’

Neanderthal: Amazon.co.uk: Forsythe, Ron: 9798393554262: Books

Conexion – Sci-fi -Paperback/Kindle – Conexion is a drug!

Posted on by Opher

Conexion is a drug that takes you back through DNA to the memories of your ancestors.

The world is run by a shady group of trillionaires.

Then there are the aliens. Who are they?

Excerpt – Conexion 

Down below, in what used to be the city of New York, before Terra became one complete urban conurbation, there is a meeting room that is simply called the Hub. It is like no other. The room is technically and physically secure. It has advanced hardware that would make it impossible for any form of bugging or recording device to operate – neither could anybody gain access to that room without being fully processed, nor bring any explosive, chemical or biological device into the place.

The Hub was the most secure place on the planet. It was the centre from which the Consortium coordinated its business interests.

It was said that if anyone in the Consortium sneezed the whole system’s economy took a dive.

The site for the Hub was carefully chosen. It was close to the United Nations Government building. That was no coincidence. The Consortium, who regularly met in the Hub, had direct contact with the government and needed to exert influence.

The Consortium was made up of twenty selected members. It was the most select group anywhere in the whole system. To be considered for inclusion one had to firstly be one of the wealthiest individuals in the whole system and secondly to have been vetted to the nth degree. The Consortium did not officially exist and that was the way they intended to keep it.

In line with this policy there were clandestine entry points. Jump tubes, that were completely unregistered, took people in to the secure vestibule. The members of the Consortium were always incognito. They were addressed as numbers and wore costumes with electronic facial masks that maintained their anonymity. Even the meeting room was arranged to maintain this secrecy. Each place around the table was an isolated cubicle so that members could see one another but there was no personal contact.

The inner core were simply called Numbers 1,2 and 3. They set the agendas and ran the meetings.

Everyone was seated when Number 1 entered, flanked on both sides by Numbers 2 and 3. Numbers 2 and 3 seated themselves leaving Number 1 standing. He looked around at the gathered individuals. In their Consortium costume it was impossible to tell if they were male, female, old or young or any other details. Only the inner core knew exactly who constituted the Consortium, though there was much speculation in the minds of the other members that was unlikely to have been too wide of the mark.

‘Right,’ the tall slender figure of Number 1 announced in the stentorious tones of a real aristocrat from long ago, which indeed he was. Number 1, whose real name was Darius, could trace his family right back to beyond the crusades. ‘I call this meeting to order.’ After a suitable pause he sat himself down.

‘This particular meeting is more of a briefing update,’ Number 1 informed them. That was no surprise, most of them were. The inner core of Numbers 1, 2 and 3 tended to meet separately and develop most of the important policy decisions. ‘I wish to keep you informed and receive preliminary feedback. We have three items on the agenda. Item one, as you can see is this fellow Jesus De Monde.’ Number 1 looked around at them. ‘He started out as a minor sideshow on Titan but we have noted that he has attracted quite a following and is beginning to become more universal.’

‘What does he stand for?’ One of the members asked in a bemused manner. All faces turned to stare. If one was in the Consortium one was expected to be au fait with all developments. Everyone should be up on Jesus De Monde.

Number 1 did not seem too unfazed by the interruption. ‘This Jesus character is seeking rapprochement between the various political and religious groups that are presently at odds with the federation. He is seeking a unified front and a non-violent stance to achieve equal rights for the extra-planetary citizens,’ Number 1 summarised. ‘He believes that everyone should be treated equally,’ he added with a twinkle in his eye and raise of eyebrows that indicated how absurd that was.

‘That could impact on a number of our operations,’ someone observed. ‘We are making a lot of money out of supplying those groups with arms.’

‘And supplying the security forces too,’ someone else observed.

‘Precisely,’ Number 1 agreed. ‘Which is why I have asked the government to closely monitor the situation. I have instructed them to get the BIA on the case.’

‘Why don’t we just take him out?’ someone else asked. ‘Surely that can’t be too hard?’

Number 1 fixed him with a frozen look. ‘Because there may be opportunities for us to profit here,’ he explained with a pained expression on his mask of a face. ‘He has a lot of followers. We have opportunities for merchandising. Indeed, I have allotted Number 17 with the franchise for exploiting that market.’

‘I will supply everyone with detailed profit sheets in due course,’ Number 17 reported.

‘For now,’ Number 1 resumed, ‘we do not regard Jesus as a major threat to our other operations. Our investigations indicate that he is unlikely to gain any close unification of those groups. They hate each other as much as they do the federation,’ he remarked with a whimsical smile. ‘We cannot see them ever working together. Neither can we see them adopting a non-violent stance any time soon. That means that the government will not be addressing the disparity between pay and condition between the extra-planetaries and planetaries any time soon. For now it appears that our interests are secure. Number 20 will shortly supply you with details of the profits from our various enterprises and I think you will find everything is very satisfactory. That is why I have requested that the government merely monitors the annoying individual but refrains from taking action.’

There were general nods of agreement.

‘If we are not careful this Jesus character will create too much peace,’ Number 17 observed in a surly defensive manner having taken umbrage at the attitude that had been picked up from the group. ‘Peace is not good for business.’

‘Quite,’ Number 1 agreed in a manner that put the matter to bed. ‘Now item 2. The Nationalist bombing campaign. Over to you I believe Number 2.’

Conexion: Amazon.co.uk: Forsythe, Ron: 9781729561782: Books

Conexion – A Sci-Fi classic (Conexion is a drug)

Posted on by Opher

I wrote this novel by combining three big ideas – where did humans come from, meetings with aliens and a drug that could take us back through time, through memories stored in our DNA. It made for a fascinating tale. All very unexpected.

This is the start:

Conexion Paperback/kindle – Chapter 1 – As it was

James Hendrix, better known as Jimi to everyone who knew him, noted the first indication at precisely 2.37 and 37 seconds on May 30th 2249.

It was a date that was to go down in history as one of the most auspicious events ever recorded, even though at the time Jimi thought little of it and paid it scant attention. 

That was not surprising. Warnings went off routinely as every lump of rock or piece of space junk that was heading anywhere near an inhabited planet was flagged up. Most were of little consequence and would simply burn up in the atmosphere but a few were big enough to cause concern and had to be dealt with. That’s why the agency had been set up.

 Jimi assigned the latest intruder a signature code – JHUMA91074 – then he left it to its automatic tracking system and went back to playing Solum with the station’s computer.

JH were his initials, UMA stood for Ursa Major, the segment of space from which the object was first recorded coming in. It was quite an unusual one as could be seen from the low number of recorded warnings, 91074 indicated the number of objects that had originated from that sector.

Once assigned, the computer continued to plot the trajectory and that was normally where the whole matter ended. Most of the debris was considered of no risk and was merely monitored, never to be heard of again. People like Jimi performed the mundane task of acknowledging the warning just as a fail-safe. The Public did not like the idea of there not being a human touch somewhere along the line. They felt that humans should make the decisions even though it had been well proven that computers were far better at it.

There wasn’t a great deal of excitement to be had in Jimi’s work. Being an astrophysicist had sounded great when he’d opted for the training but wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Jimi worked for the AEWC – the Asteroid Early Warning Centre – in its favour, it paid well and at least got one up into vacuum even if that’s as far as it went. For the most part his work consisted of spending long tedious hours on his own every night, pointlessly acknowledging things of no significance that the computer had already done, and vainly hoping for an event of significance to finally take place so that there was at least something to get excited over. The sad fact was that even if a major event did occur then all Jimi had to do was ensure that the computer had passed the information on to his superiors, which it routinely did anyway – so even that wasn’t exactly thrilling.

It was not a pleasant thing to realise that one was in effect redundant and surplus to requirements, so Jimi tried not to think about it too much, which was why he spent most of his time playing games with the computer. Even that enterprise was futile – about as pointless as checking space junk. He knew the computer could beat him hands down every time if it had not been programmed to limit its capabilities in order to give him a fighting chance. Still, it whiled the hours away.

Jimi had not paid too much attention to this particular intrusion other than to note that the object was far too far away at this point in time to be of any importance, so he did not have to register it into his consciousness or grant it a moment’s speculation as to what it might be. A minor niggle did reach the surface of his thoughts; if it was far away and yet had registered it had to be big. But hey, space was full of lumps of rock and the majority of them were of absolutely no significance. Space was big. As long as they did not cross routes or threaten planets they could be disregarded.

It goes to show, doesn’t it? There’s no limit to how wrong a person might be!

Conexion: Amazon.co.uk: Forsythe, Ron: 9781729561782: Books

My Alien Design for my Sci-Fi novel ‘The Pornography Wars’

Posted on by Opher

My Alien Design for my Sci-Fi novel ‘The Pornography Wars’

It is incredibly hard to create an alien that isn’t completely daft or merely a humanoid adaptation of human being.

This is where my biological knowledge comes in handy. I knew all the basic faults with a human body and set about correcting them:

  1. A brain housed in a vulnerable head, stuck out on a very fragile neck that is easily broken. I moved the brain inside the body where it was better protected and there was no neck to break.
  2. A single windpipe that was in with the digestive tract and easily blocked so humans can be choked or strangled. I created a number of respiratory tubes and separated them from the digestive tract.
  3. A single heart supply brain and body. I created two.
  4. A heavy bony skeleton prone to fractures. My aliens had springy cartilaginous skeletons, strong but flexible.
  5. An excretory system that opened in the reproductive system creating risk of contamination. I separated them.
  6. A limited number of senses. I based my aliens on the number seven and equipped them with seven optics on stalks so that they could see all around them at the same time. Likewise with ears.
  7. A superior blood pigment to carry oxygen based around copper molecules that made them blue.
  8. Because of their need to be extremely sexual I made them hermaphrodite (both male and female) and gave them seven penises and vaginas, a complex cloaca with many folds, membranes and palps and a very intense sexual congress.

That was the basis of my aliens.

Reawakening – A Sci-fi novel – an epic journey through space, aliens, wonder and life.

Posted on by Opher

Reawakening

 

This is the sequel to God’s Bolt.

Helen Southcote, the sole survivor of a stricken Earth, is alone on the Space Station.

This is the tale of her journey through space and time towards Tau Sagittarii, 122 light years away  …

This is also the story of the aliens who live in the system around Tau Sagittarii and their reaction to the destruction of Earth.

After dealing with the rigours of isolation, mental illness and hopelessness there is the hope of awakening.

Then there are the questions about the purpose of life, altruism and the nature of consciousness all in the course of an epic adventure.

Extract

Author’s Note

While this is a sequel it is intended to stand on its own as a story.

The novel is concerned with an alien civilisation based in the region of Tau Sagittarii. It takes 122 years for radio signals to reach Tau Sagittarii from earth even though they travel at the speed of light.

In order not to create confusion all dates used are earth time.

Chapter 1 – Awakening

Year 0 Day 1 – 2325

I opened my eyes to discover I was in my own room. It gave me such a shock that I quickly closed them again. That could not possibly be right, could it? I mean, I had to be dreaming.

I lay there with my heart thumping trying to gather the courage to open my eyes again.

That room no longer existed. It was my room from 2159 when I was fourteen. I’d recognised it straight away. It even smelt right. It felt right. The bed felt right. All those things that I’d totally forgotten, that were lost in the depths of time but which were flooding back to me down the distant corridors of history through some ninety two years. It had given me such a shock.

This time I opened my eyes slowly and deliberately, braced for what I was about to see.

It was still there. It was definitely my room down to the smallest detail. There were even the scratches on the paintwork by the door where Woody, my beautiful collie dog, used to scratch to be let out.

I couldn’t have been more shocked if I’d bumped into a tyrannosaurus. I’d seen one of those in the reconstruction zoo, subtly called Jurassic Park after some film that had been made centuries before I was born.

I allowed my eyes to roam around taking it all in and rediscovering all those tiny details that I had long forgotten. They were all resurfacing as I looked – those strange lights that I’d taken a liking too, the garish colours of the walls. What had I been thinking? Orange and green. How could I ever have thought that was cool? The patterned carpet that made your eyes go funny. There was definitely something weird that happens to adolescent minds. They go very strange. But how did my parents allow me to do it? They really did indulge me, didn’t they? – Much more than I’d appreciated at the time.

I looked over to the large mural of Carl Sagan that dominated the wall opposite. My hero Carl held pride of place. Around him were my favourite Zook and Zygobeat bands of the day. I remember I had quite a crush on Zed from Isobar. He had the coolest hair and sweetest face. I adored him. Well looking at him now he just looked like a simpering little kid, barely out of nappies. My Dad used to be very disdainful of Isobar. ‘Computer slush for slushy minds’ he used to say, much to my fury. I used to retaliate calling his music ‘archaic noise for the demented’. He used to laugh – which only made it worse.

I edged myself up in bed. I felt so weak.

I looked around for Woody, my dog, but he wasn’t there. He usually lay curled up asleep at the side of my bed. I half expected my Mum to call up from downstairs to tell me to get up; it was time to catch the scud to school, or my Dad to start chiding. What was going on? I expected to hear my brother Rich mumbling and grumbling from his stinking pit across the landing that resembled a rubbish tip, only smellier. He hated getting up while it was still daylight. I thought about my older brother Joe who was away at Uni.

Everything was so right and that’s what made it so wrong. This could not possibly be happening. This room did not exist. Not only was it a throwback to my room from some ninety odd years ago, that had seen so many transformations as I’d grown up and then left home – this being just one incarnation among the many – an incarnation that was buried under layers of decorative archaeology by the time I last visited home. It was also a room that had been completely destroyed when God’s Bolt, that damn fucking asteroid, had wiped out the Earth all those years ago.

So how was I here?

I eased myself up in bed and sat propped up against the wall. My heart had slowed down but my mind was still racing.

I noticed my hands. You get used to seeing your own hands. They are not very attractive as you get old. All those brown splodges of liver spots, and your knuckles all swollen and lumpy, your skin all crinkled and leathery, like some dry, wrinkly tissue paper that you could never get smooth and soft again no matter how much lotion you use. But these were not like that. They were a young woman’s hands. Not the hands of the slip of a girl I was when I had this room, the hands of a mature young woman. I recognised them too, even though I had not seen them for some eighty years or more.

I got out of bed, walked across the room, or should I say tottered, I felt so weak I thought I was going to collapse at any moment, having to rest a hand on the bed in order to keep my balance, and opened my wardrobe to look in the mirror. My hair was a straggly mess but the body and face that peered back at me was that of the twenty year old Helen Southcote that used to be.

‘Eunice,’ I called, ogling this body I had not laid eyes on for over eighty years, ‘what have you done?’

Available in both paperback and kindle from Amazon.

In the UK:

Buy the book – click here

In the USA:

Buy the book – click here

In India:

Buy the book – click here

In Canada:

Buy the book – click here

In Germany:

Buy the book – click here

In Australia

Buy the book – click here

Or from your local Amazon Store.

Reawakening – A Sci-fi novel. A lone survivor travels through space to an alien world.

Posted on by Opher

Reawakening

 Loudhailer UK January 29, 2017

This is the sequel to God’s Bolt.

Helen Southcote, the sole survivor of a stricken Earth, is alone on the Space Station.

This is the tale of her journey through space and time towards Tau Sagittarii, 122 light years away  …

This is also the story of the aliens who live in the system around Tau Sagittarii and their reaction to the destruction of Earth.

After dealing with the rigours of isolation, mental illness and hopelessness there is the hope of awakening.

Then there are the questions about the purpose of life, altruism and the nature of consciousness all in the course of an epic adventure.

Extract

Author’s Note

While this is a sequel it is intended to stand on its own as a story.

The novel is concerned with an alien civilisation based in the region of Tau Sagittarii. It takes 122 years for radio signals to reach Tau Sagittarii from earth even though they travel at the speed of light.

In order not to create confusion all dates used are earth time.

Chapter 1 – Awakening

Year 0 Day 1 – 2325

I opened my eyes to discover I was in my own room. It gave me such a shock that I quickly closed them again. That could not possibly be right, could it? I mean, I had to be dreaming.

I lay there with my heart thumping trying to gather the courage to open my eyes again.

That room no longer existed. It was my room from 2159 when I was fourteen. I’d recognised it straight away. It even smelt right. It felt right. The bed felt right. All those things that I’d totally forgotten, that were lost in the depths of time but which were flooding back to me down the distant corridors of history through some ninety two years. It had given me such a shock.

This time I opened my eyes slowly and deliberately, braced for what I was about to see.

It was still there. It was definitely my room down to the smallest detail. There were even the scratches on the paintwork by the door where Woody, my beautiful collie dog, used to scratch to be let out.

I couldn’t have been more shocked if I’d bumped into a tyrannosaurus. I’d seen one of those in the reconstruction zoo, subtly called Jurassic Park after some film that had been made centuries before I was born.

I allowed my eyes to roam around taking it all in and rediscovering all those tiny details that I had long forgotten. They were all resurfacing as I looked – those strange lights that I’d taken a liking too, the garish colours of the walls. What had I been thinking? Orange and green. How could I ever have thought that was cool? The patterned carpet that made your eyes go funny. There was definitely something weird that happens to adolescent minds. They go very strange. But how did my parents allow me to do it? They really did indulge me, didn’t they? – Much more than I’d appreciated at the time.

I looked over to the large mural of Carl Sagan that dominated the wall opposite. My hero Carl held pride of place. Around him were my favourite Zook and Zygobeat bands of the day. I remember I had quite a crush on Zed from Isobar. He had the coolest hair and sweetest face. I adored him. Well looking at him now he just looked like a simpering little kid, barely out of nappies. My Dad used to be very disdainful of Isobar. ‘Computer slush for slushy minds’ he used to say, much to my fury. I used to retaliate calling his music ‘archaic noise for the demented’. He used to laugh – which only made it worse.

I edged myself up in bed. I felt so weak.

I looked around for Woody, my dog, but he wasn’t there. He usually lay curled up asleep at the side of my bed. I half expected my Mum to call up from downstairs to tell me to get up; it was time to catch the scud to school, or my Dad to start chiding. What was going on? I expected to hear my brother Rich mumbling and grumbling from his stinking pit across the landing that resembled a rubbish tip, only smellier. He hated getting up while it was still daylight. I thought about my older brother Joe who was away at Uni.

Everything was so right and that’s what made it so wrong. This could not possibly be happening. This room did not exist. Not only was it a throwback to my room from some ninety odd years ago, that had seen so many transformations as I’d grown up and then left home – this being just one incarnation among the many – an incarnation that was buried under layers of decorative archaeology by the time I last visited home. It was also a room that had been completely destroyed when God’s Bolt, that damn fucking asteroid, had wiped out the Earth all those years ago.

So how was I here?

I eased myself up in bed and sat propped up against the wall. My heart had slowed down but my mind was still racing.

I noticed my hands. You get used to seeing your own hands. They are not very attractive as you get old. All those brown splodges of liver spots, and your knuckles all swollen and lumpy, your skin all crinkled and leathery, like some dry, wrinkly tissue paper that you could never get smooth and soft again no matter how much lotion you use. But these were not like that. They were a young woman’s hands. Not the hands of the slip of a girl I was when I had this room, the hands of a mature young woman. I recognised them too, even though I had not seen them for some eighty years or more.

I got out of bed, walked across the room, or should I say tottered, I felt so weak I thought I was going to collapse at any moment, having to rest a hand on the bed in order to keep my balance, and opened my wardrobe to look in the mirror. My hair was a straggly mess but the body and face that peered back at me was that of the twenty year old Helen Southcote that used to be.

‘Eunice,’ I called, ogling this body I had not laid eyes on for over eighty years, ‘what have you done?’

Available in both paperback and kindle from Amazon.

In the UK:

Buy the book – click here

In the USA:

Buy the book – click here

In India:

Buy the book – click here

In Canada:

Buy the book – click here

In Germany:

Buy the book – click here

In Australia

Buy the book – click here

Or from your local Amazon Store.