Rise of the Empire

AUTHOR'S FAIR WARNING!

Although everything looks and sounds like a science fiction along the lines of Star Trek or Star Wars and it is definitely in that genre, it is only fair to say that Rise of the Empire is Star Wars ... on steroids and Viagra. Rise of the Empire is ADULT entertainment while Star Trek is definitely kiddie candy not far beyond Saturday morning cartoons in content. Rise of the Empire is gritty, not just for the violence, but for the language, sex and adult situations as well. In fact there is at least one scene in Rise of the Empire's Pilot episode which would likely not pass the censors and it is only the beginning. So, let the potential fan beware, this ain't no ordinary Sci-Fi, this is Rise of the Empire (of a Million Suns) ... Please, Enjoy!

Miscellania

The Wild Earth is one of THREE projects that Ye Yuan and I (Prof. Brian K. Robinson) are currently developing. The Wild Earth as a science fantasy does fit into our future timeline although we placed it far enough into the future that it can evolve its outcome relatively safely. The Wild Earth story begins in roughly the year 5500 A.D. The next project we had originally planned to release first is our remake of The Tomorrow People, a 70's show about a new generation of people being born with psionic capabilities. Unfortunately our preliminary development accidentally came so close to what was done in the movie "Push" (highly recommended by the way) that we shelfed it for now.

The next series that we plan to release if all goes well with The Wild Earth will be called "Rise of the Empire." This will be a 100% Sci-Fi (OK, there will be more than just lasers and warp drive) and begins in the year 2100 A.D. with the discovery of the "Faster-Than-Light" technology that will allow mankind to send ships to the stars. "Rise" should cover at least 100 years, I am wondering how to do it since our characters will grow old and die off during the "Rise of the Empire." This series will be dedicated to a very gritty realistic future far closer to Battlestar Galactica 2003 than to Star Trek and its gleaming Queen Elizabeth 2 dining rooms and corridors and aliens consisting of humans with a glob of rubber stuck on their noses and ears.

Rise of the Empire will depict mankind's exploration of star systems, his own geopolitical problems as extensions of what is going on right now and make stunning scientific/astronomical discoveries, but always there will be NSOL - No Sign of Life, not even a freakin' amino acid molecule, until Episode 1 - A New Universe, in which an object is discovered by amateur astronomers on Earth passing the orbit of Jupiter and it changes course against what gravity would allow it to do. Upon further review and close flyby by an asteroid mining ship it will be confirmed as artificial in origin and the science ship will be sent to make contact, we hope, with the occupants of an impenetrable (by any known technology or energy) 17 mile in diameter nearly black and 100% perfect sphere...

NEW! (added 11/30/09)

Return to "The Wild Earth" The Currently working series under development.

The Goal of Rise of the Empire

Of course our primary mission is to entertain the audience but we have set some specific parameters of our story writing and presentation objectives in order to accomplish this task. They are:

• Bizarre: We want to put unusual beings and creatures great and small into the story with the understanding that it may well be impossible to actually invent something new (everything has already been done, over and over)
• New treatment of old ideas: Since everything has already been done, we would like to think that we can do "same old, same old," in a new and unique way.
• Extremes: This concerns the censors and sex, language, "adult situations" and violence. Basically everything and anything is on the table, nothing is taboo in The Wild Earth because Ye and I are sick of living in Victorian England ... she's dead already, may the western civilization please begin to acknowledge this and move on now?
• Philosophical Message: Many stories have that ultimate goal or message that the writer wishes to convey to the audience. For example, in the movie "Knowing" (excellent and highly recommended) the writer wants to say that despite what ultimately happens 1) There is hope and man will survive and 2) The E.T.'s have been watching and do care indicating that to a vastly superior and more advanced civilization we are worth saving. The Wild Earth also has its grand philosophical messages and subtle ones strewn throughout the series.

Premise and Background

Rise of the Empire begins close to a century after mankind's discovery of Faster-Than-Light transportation technology. In that century, we have colonized and terraformed over one hundred planets with nearly one thousand more in the process of terraformation: conversion from hostile environments to "shirt-sleeve" environments (no need to wear any form of protective gear in order to live on them.)

There are currently 121 SWGS (Space Warp Generator Station) or "Jump Stations." These are immense space stations located at the "gravitic heliopause" of the star, the distance necessary for an object to be able to orbit the star at a speed of 1.5 miles/second. There is no such thing as a gravitic heliopause but the distance was chosen to keep the star's intense gravity well from having largescale effects on the space warp generators which are difficult to overcome. In the Solar system, SWGS 1 orbits the sun at a distance of 7.2 billion miles or roughly twice the distance from the sun of Pluto's orbit. SWGS 1 will take 1000 years to complete one orbit of the sun. The SWGS'es possess large banks of huge fusion reactors which power the warp generators. These fold space and create stable artificial wormholes through which conventional space craft can safely pass. SWGS 1 was retrofitted in a project by the Interstellar Exploration and Research Agency (the evolution of what used to be NASA) called ISERA (Iss-air-uh) or "Stellex" that lasted 10 years. The new and improved SWGS 1 has a maximum safe "Reach" of 1,000,000 metric-ton/light-years or 1,000,000MTLY. This means that SWGS 1 can create a wormhole throughwhich one ton can enter it and exit it 1,000,000 light-years away or 1,000,000 tons can enter it and exit it one light-year away. One tenth of this weight can travel ten times as far, so to put the power of the SWG in perspective, it can instantaneously "throw" the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Nimitz a distance of 10 light-years. SWGS 1 requires a rebound time of approximately one hour before it can throw another ship and the retrofit included the "Inbound Hole" capability. Early Jump Stations could only open a one-way "Outbound Hole" and could only send ships to destinations near other stars. New SWGS'es can now open one-way worm holes at distant star systems through which ships can return to the Jump Station.

The Deep Space Exploration and Telemetry Project or DSET ("Dee-set") has deployed small instrument package satellites across the Milky Way Galaxy as well as the Magellanic Clouds (two closest neighboring galaxies) and are currently retrieving sufficient data to create detailed stellar maps, spectral analyses, and a planetary body prospectus for these regions. In other words, within the next century, Stellex'es DSET project will have mapped and cataloged every star in the three galaxies (approx. one trillion stars.)

Mankind has already made first contact at the time the saga begins with three different intelligent alien lifeforms:

1. The Firstborn: Their actual name is unpronounceable to humans because they do not have a language based on sound at all. Their language consists of shifting bioluminescent patterns displayed on their faces. They tell us this is how we should refer to them because it is a reminder that they are the first intelligent lifeform to evolve on Earth. They arose in the oceans of Earth, and are an aquatic lifeform, basically a small whale sized molluscoid (sort of shell-less sea snail) approximately 400 million years ago. They say after a "long time" their entire race departed in colossal star ships and they have been off exploring the far corners of the Universe ever since. They explain that this mission has been completed ... implying that they have completed their exploration of the entire Universe. Their T-shirts (if they could wear such things would read: "Been everywhere, done everything."
2. The Edzhin: A race who appears to be anatomically identical to humans except that they apparently have absolutely no body hair, not even eye lashes. They have a dull graphite gray colored though somewhat shiny skin but are otherwise perfectly normal looking and proportioned humans. They wear one piece spandex-like body socks with one hole for their face. upon close inspection it can be seen that there is some kind of strange membrane or barrier over their faces as well. They breath and speak normally, but never eat or drink around humans furthering the belief that the barrier is there to prevent the taking of even a single cell sample for genetic analysis. The scientific community rejects the notion of parallel evolution and insists that there is exactly one way in which these aliens could appear to be so similar to us: because they are, meaning that our two races are related from a common ancestor. The Edzhin completely avoid the discussion and will not even acknowledge questions concerning the matter. Insistence will result in their quiet and polite conclusion of the meeting and they will leave with a promise to take up the discussion of the "matter at hand" at a later time. The Edzhin have starships that can generate their own stable worm holes and successfully pass through them, while generating them. Quite a trick since Stellex has been working on it for almost a century with no success, not even a glimmer of hope. Their starships are obviously gigantic warships miles in length and millions of tons in mass meaning their average starship has Space Warp generators far more powerful than our largest and most powerful SWGS and they haul themselves through their own worm hole to boot. These battleships bristle with weapon ports of obvious great destructive potential. Our first contact was a science ship sent to a star system when we only had "Outbound Hole" capabilities. They were intercepted by a routine patrol by the Edzhin of this system, a Hlaikavu-D class dreadnought over 2 miles in length and even the casual pedestrian could tell that all of the barbs sticking out of it were cannon barrels. The Edzhin insist they maintain their "Interstellar Navy" for self defense, peace keeping, and humanitarian service. Most of the human upper echelon scoff at these claims. Where were they during the 20th and 21st centuries as we all but wiped ourselves out? And "self defense" from whom ... or more accurately and horrifyingly ... from what?
3. The Rutilicans: So the Firstborn appear to be millions of years more advanced, the Edzhin, although certainly somehow related to Earth humans appear to be hundreds if not thousands of years more advanced. The Rutilicans, natives of the seventh planet of the star Rutilicus, Beta Herculis I of the binary star system, a G-type (yellow like the sun) giant 20 times the diameter of the sun (in our sky at the same distance as our sun, Rutilicus would appear larger than a basketball held at arms length and it goes without saying that the surface of Earth would be cooked worse than the surface of Mercury.) The Rutilicans are emerging from their stone age to the earliest rudimentary iron age beginning to work with metals and make crude instruments with them. They are therefore, thousands of years behind us.
4. Falconda (and related worlds) and "The Sentinels": It is known that life in some form exists on the planet Falconda (ISERA #145271, barely visible through the largest Earth based instruments, this is a red dwarf star likely never cataloged prior to the ISERA stellar mapping project of the early 2100's.) However, there is an alien presence on Falconda spoken of elusively by the Edzhin as "A Sentinel" ... singular. The Edzhin are not a forthcoming bunch about any subject that they don't bring up themselves (classic massive understatement ... they will ignore persistent questions about anything they do not wish to discuss. Being superior by thousands of years and offering mankind amazing help and technologies, we can't afford to tick them off either, so we have to accept the fact that the Edzhin tolerate us like the irritating stepchild) It is known however, that whatever it is, it is very alien and so awesomely powerful that the normally stoic Edzhin, who would casually mention something like "Oh. By the way. The sun is about to go supernova and kill us all" get very uneasy talking about it and will not cross it under any circumstance, preferring to die right now than mess with it. According to them, there is a Sentinel guarding every planet with "primitive life" on it and it keeps any technologically advanced intruder away. When asked about Rutilicus 7 they explain: "It left." The Edzhin mention "every planet" implying that there are more, possibly many more though we have only found Falconda.

It is now the year 2192 A.D. and Rise of the Empire's first major novel or pilot episode begins with the complete carpet nuking of the entire surface of a planet that is, in the process of the attack, converted from a beautiful somewhat Earth-like world to a ball of glowing lava buried under a solid poisonous brown atmosphere. Kolibri Merista, Beta Arae 4, is a "rimworld" over 400 light years from Earth and in the medium to late stages of the terraformation process and in many ways resembling Mars at the time of the attack, with an atmosphere too thin for exposure without a pressure suit and too cold to support liquid water. Long range probes record the arrival through a worm hole of a fleet of thousands of alien spacecraft who proceed directly to the planet apparently undetected by the Stellex patrol ship in the system and there to defend the planet and at least send word if it were attacked. They neither defended the planet nor sent word of the attack. However, the same probes record that an Edzhin Hlaikavu class dreadnought was also slinking about at the edges of the system and it proceeds to intercept the alien fleet although with conventional engines and its position at the time of the aliens arrival, they cannot reach them before the devastation of the colony, but they do reach them before they can get clear of the star's gravity well, a comfort that the aliens have to get a reasonable distance from a star as well, and the Edzhin battleship engages the alien fleet raining hellfire and destruction from its weapon ports that leaves the ISERA administration and the congress in petrified awe of what one ship could do: "according to a detailed analysis of the recording, 276 xenocrobe (unknown or strange lifeform, fancy word for unidentified alien creature) spacecraft were vaporized or damaged and left with zero functionality." This begins the saga as we try to find out who is decimating our rim worlds and why the Edzhin are more than curious about it and more than reluctant to help ...

Tidbits

Scene from Rise of the Empire Series (added 03/09/10)

Marine lieutenant addressing platoon in various degrees of underwear/towels in a dark gray grid metal room with tables and chairs of the same material:

"Sensors have detected a fusion reactor signature of approximately 4.7 terawatt capacity on the surface of Minolaplace Tigret (min-ola-ploss tee-grett). I'm sending you to investigate. Get in, get a look, get out. Understood?"

The sergeant: "And if it's guarded?"

The lieutenant: "Get in, get a look, get out."

A marine: "And if the bugs don't like us gettin' close to their 4.7 terawatt nest and decide to take us on about it?"

The lieutenant after a long icy glare: "Don't let them keep you from gettin' your look at it, clear?"

Marine smiling: "Clear as my MABO sight, lieutenant." (MABO - Magetically Accelerated Ballistic Ordnance, a very large high RPM projectile weapon whose "bullets" travel at hypersonic velocity)

The lieutenant: "Start your prep. Orbital jump in four hours." Turns and leaves returning the "aye's" and salutes over his shoulder with a final single all encompassing salute. A marine swings the hatch shut. Another marine: "Hot DAMN! Finally! Get to cook some of these mother fuckers!"

"Cut that shit!" (the sergeant fiercely) "Everyone on their goddamn P's and Q's! Those bugs are gonna see our sorry asses comin'!"

The same marine who celebrated the opportunity to fight: "What are you trying to say sarge?"

The sergeant, pensive, "Nothing in particular, except ..."

The corporal who had been taking everything in quietly: "Except that this is a suicide mission."

The marine: "What?! Nah ... they wouldn't throw us out the side of the ship straight into a bug base ..." (voice trails off as everyone glares at him with eyes saying "Of course they would, you idiot")

After a moment of silence, the sergeant: "What in the fuck is everyone sittin' around for?! The lieutenant said to prep and we drop in four hours!" Mad scramble to grab clothes, boots, and assorted paraphernalia...

External view of the ship as a blinding streak passing the planet on a tangential trajectory, a few almost imperceptible glints of light like glitter appear traveling like a cloud from a point in the ship's path toward the planet. As our view zooms in we see they are metallic eggs that begin to glow bright red then orange and are engulfed in flames as they enter the planet's atmosphere. At ground level we are in a clearing next to a stand of "grass" though each blade is several feet across and easily three stories tall. A streaking meteor leaving a dark smoky trail shoots toward the clearing and explodes about 50 feet above the ground. Pieces crash down all around as a large robotic entity lands in the clearing and crouches to a three-point stance to absorb the impact and slowly rises to stand upright again, fully two stories tall as another lands the same way across the clearing then strides over as two more converge on the clearing through the grass forest.

The sergeant: "Alright, it looks like we're about two clicks south of the radiation signature-"

The marine who celbrated the opportunity to fight: "Um ... sarge?"

The sergeant begins to unpack a gigantic and evil looking device from his huge backpack with the huge robotic arms of his cybernetic exoskeleton that he is inside of and continues to speak: "Bravo Team? ... Location? ... Excellent. Proceed. Charlie Team? ... Location? ... Excellent. Proceed."

Inside his cybernetic exoskeleton, the marine sees a blip approaching from the grass forest behind the sergeant, selects it with his eyes and a calm female voice speaks: "Motion detected. Mass, 12,403 kilograms. Vector: 81 kilometers per hour, constant bearing, decreasing range. Construction: biological organism ..."

The marine: "Um ... sarge?" (this time a little louder)

The sergeant still flipping switches and attaching items to the device: "Alright, Bravo and Charlie are converging on the target from the North and from the East-"

The marine sees the blip rapidly closing on the edge of the clearing behind the sergeant and now howls: Sarge!" as a bright green object that looks like an oblong angel fish with stubby front legs and long froglike back legs about the length and height of a greyhound bus and about 18 inches wide. It leaps at the back of the sergeant and the front half of the body rotates level with the ground looking like a gigantic spade or shovel, that opens laterally revealing that it is a colossal mouth with a single now horizontal row of six inch long shark-like teeth. While still airborne and flying at the sergeant's back he suddenly fixes the last adjustment to his device swings it to point at the "Giant Spadehead" and a loud "shewmp-boom!" accompanies a blinding flash that flips the creature in midair to face away from him and land with a thud on the ground missing the entire head. He is staring out his front ...

More tidbits to come ...