Once again I’m talking with artist and researcher C. M. “Memo” Kosemen on the subject of war and the future…and many other things including:

Drone warfare (also Robot Wars)

Mexican drug cartels

False Flag Operations

Kurdish insurgency in eastern Turkey

Globalization: those who run it, those who want it, those who don’t, and those who don’t get the choice.

A Bulgarian book that’s wildly popular! (link not available)

Jamaica’s success promulgating Jamaican culture internationally

Yogurt! (Invented by Bulgarians! No it was Turks! No it was Mongols!) And don’t get me started on feta.

The wild popularity of Turkish soap operas in (cough) former Ottoman vassals. (also, seriously watch Magnificent Century. It has beards like you would not believe)

Once again, see more of C.M.K at his youtube channel and deviantart page.

North American Nations

Why is the map so different? Don’t people call the US, Mexico, and Canada “nations” all the time? What the up?

An email conversation I had with Daryl Gregory of Miami University of Ohio and, more recently, a fun conversation going on at Indigenous History have gotten me thinking again about the World’s Other Side and the way science fiction (in this case alternate history) can help us to think about real world problems. In this case, the fact that so many people don’t know the difference between  a state, a country, a nation or ethnic group, and a race.

The USA is not a nation, and at time of contact (and with a few exceptions) the indigenous nations were not states. If they they had been, we might get something like the picture above. The black borders represent national boundaries. The color of the territory indicates a bloc held together by ties ethnic, linguistic, racial, religious, or economic (or in most cases, some combination of all of the above). Note therefore that it shouldn’t really be “East Algia,” but “the East Algian countries.”

Of course the borders aren’t as neat as they appear on a map. Some are guarded more heavily than others, and there may be enclaves of ethnic Cadoans in Lacota (in fact that whole territory in southern Lacota is a bunch of ethnic Cadoans and Numiscans who are too poor and busy fighting each other to make a bid for independence, but that’s another story).

I made this map based on a series of real research projects into the way the geography of North America impacts the people who live (and lived) there, including indigenous languages and accents of English, and present day communication , trade , religion, and ancestry. You can see a similar attempt split the US up into nations based on cultural/geographic differences between modern Americans has some interesting correspondences to my results (the differences are mostly in the west coast and result from westward expansion settlers). The other maps all correspond with each other as well (except for religion), which might tell us some interesting things about North American geography.

The future of war…is peace

Tyrannosaur Queen mentions a future controlled by the “Econ-peace,” and makes a parallel between the abolition of slavery and of war. If we listen to people like Steven Pinker, the world may indeed end up that way. Why? Because:

Stronger international economic ties increase the cost of war to the point where it’s in nobody’s interest.

Spreading education and literacy make populations more aware of the alternatives to war.

International media saturation makes it harder to get away with atrocity.

Democratization…might do something good too

All lead to a future where the invasion of one country by another doesn’t make any sense.

In this conversation with renowned artist and researcher C. M. “Memo” Kosemen, we talk about the future of war, the reasons we fight wars, and the technology that we might use to fight work in the future.

One possibility is theatrical war, where rather than actual soldiers killing each other, war is waged by remote-controlled drones shooting each other down. Memo asks us to imagine something like a little robot bird that flies into the engines of the big drones. Bruce Stirling has written about something similar.

What kind of drones? Well you got lots of fancy things come out of DARPA. Like Big Dog! Creepy!

Memo talks about a “gravy train” of peace-time military funding. Do we really need all those aircraft carriers? They didn’t do so well in Millennium Challenge 2002, after all.

Then there’s war-time weapons development. Look at the Manhattan project or mine-resistant personnel carriers (I think he’s talking about the MRAP).

War as a means of conspicuous consumption. Look how much tax-money our government can waste on drones for you to shoot down. Live on TV!

We may not have seen the invasion of once country by another in Europe in a generation, but what about the rest of the world? What about places that “aren’t worth it for the global powers to look into”? Civil wars in places like Syria, where nasty situations force people to be nasty. Or simply places with nothing much to lose no police systems where the only way to get justice is “the old way.”

The War Nerd talked about Egypt and how they use the Roman Testudo Formation.

Terrorism/anti-globalists might become a greater threat as the means of destruction become cheaper, putting WMDs in the hands of tribalists.

Someone might out a competitive alternative to global society, and we get a situation like NATO versus Warsaw Pact.  But even the Cold War never actually went hot. Perhaps that was chance, and the next time we won’t be so lucky, or perhaps cooler, more rational heads will prevail, just like they did in the 1950s-80s.

Tune in next week for more!

And get more Memolishious goodness at his youtube channel and deviantart page.

Lake Vostok was sealed under Antarctic glaciers as early as 25 million years ago and remained entirely untouched until February of 2012, when a team of Russian scientists drilled past its surface. The water taken from the lake has not yet been analyzed, but it’s only a matter of time until we get that analysis, plus sediment samples, robot probes, and manned expeditions.

What will they find?

Antarctica was a very different place 25-14 million years ago, with cool, damp southern-beech forests similar to southern South America and New Zealand. Moss, diatoms have been found in fossil beds in the Dry Valleys region, descendants of which might have survived in lake Vostok.

Or not. With no light to drive photosynthesis, there would need to be some other source of energy. That might be chemosynthesis driven by bacteria digesting the rock under the lake, or even better from the minerals released by hot springs, as in hydrothermal ecosystems in the ocean. Because it’s more fun that way, let’s assume we have the base of the food chain is mats of chemosynthetic bacteria.

Cypridoidean ostracod fossils have been discovered in Miocene lake sediments in Antarctia, making them a shoe-in for Vostok species. Despite their puny wikipedia page, ostracods are very cool crustaceans, which swim around in bivalved shells, like a shrimp shoved into a clam. Giant versions of these usually planktonic creatures might be Vostok’s answer to the giant, spiky, awesome amphipods of Lake Baikal.

Marine species might be a stretch since Vostok water is fresh, but I think 25 million years and a poor fossil record give us enough wiggle room to permit descendants of Hoploparia lobsters and Atarctidromia crabs. See also echinoids, bivalves, bryozoans.

Fish are probable too, although my Google-foo has been unable to find a particular kind.

So some ideas for Vostokian lifeforms are:

Chemosynthetic bacteria, perhaps living in concert with Antarctic lichens or mosses.Or, you could have sessile ostracods using the bacteria the way Riftia worms do.

Other ostracods! Big one, little ones, grazers, predators. Perhaps huddling together for warmth in big, mobile colonies.

The same could work for fishes. Imagine large fishes with smaller ones living commensurally around them, surrounded in turn by smaller fishes or ostracods and so on. Call them “infinitems”

Plus of course all the “normal” forms of deep-sea fishes, including giant mouths and luminescent lures.

And giant glowing bryozoans? Say yes!

UPDATE!

As of February, there HAS been sampling of the water of a subglacial lake (lake Whillans) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013EO060004/abstract although the only report I could find of the result was this http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/scin.5591830511/abstract. And Vostok should have been sampled a year ago…I smell a cover up by the world-ruling reptilian conspiracy!

However, there are definitely microbes down there. Including autotrophs and a microbial ecosystem “capable of performing nitrogen fixation, nitrogen cycling, carbon fixation and nutrient recycling” according to http://www.mdpi.com/2079-7737/2/2/629 The article also mentions. “Psychrophiles and thermophiles [which] indicate a cold lake with possible hydrothermal activity” sampled from the ice above Lake Vostok.

So I’m feeling pretty good about my ostracods.

UPDATE 2

MSidKelly suggested copepods and yes! In fact, they are already in Antarctic lakes (the ones not currently under glaciers at least—didn’t know the continent had any of those…) . Here’s hoping they look as scary as this one.

Geeze, I’m going to have to make a whole new page for this stuff.

What is the best way to translate this sentence:

“Watashi wa genki desu shi. Eto, konshu wa imouto ni atte, Miyajima e ikimashita.”

If you want to learn Japanese, perhaps the most useful way would be to translate the sentence word-for-word, where each element is given its nearest equivalent in English.

Obnoxiously Literal: I subject proceed-attention is because. Um, this-week subject little-sister with meet-and, Miyajima to went.

But for anyone other than a student of Japanese, that sentence will so difficult to understand it isn’t worth reading. Collapsing the meaning of idioms like proceed-attention and rearranging the words gives us:

Normal: I am well because, um, this week I met my little sister and we went to Miyajima.

But does “genki“ really mean “well”? Why not “I am good”? Does the choice between “I am well” and “I am good” communicate as much about the speaker’s education and level of formality as it does in English? Of course not. A Japanese person would communicate that information in other ways. I chose “well” because the pronoun “watashi” and the “mashita” at the end of “ikimashita” indicate basic formality, like how a teacher would speak to a student (what a coincidence!).

Most people would agree that my translation above is workable, but is it fun? Does it sound like natural speech? Will its inclusion of an unknown place (Miyajima) confuse the reader? Tolkien might suggest “translating” the name of the place.

Tolkienian: I am well because this week I met my little sister and we went to Shrine Island.

But then the sentence could have been uttered by anyone? What makes it Japanese? A particularly Japanophilic anime fan-subber might want to leave words untranslated if they wanted the reader to learn some new vocabulary, especially vocabulary that has no single-word equivalent in English.

Anime: I am genki because, eto, this week I met my imouto and we went to Miyajima.

Which translation is best?

I suggest that your choice depends on your purpose. If you’re translating for someone interested in information (i.e. nonfiction), you should go with the Normal translation. However, if you’re writing fiction (and especially if the “original language” is not real) you might want to slide your scale toward Tolkienian or Anime. The obvious way to choose between the two is to use the first for fantasy and the second for science-fiction, but I get annoyed with sci-fi books that expect me to learn dozens of useless alien words in order to understand certain characters. I do, however, like to learn languages, so if the character in the book is speaking a real, potentially useful language, then I do like to see some words in that language sprinkled through the text.

So, listen to this snippit from my class with my Japanese teacher. First I chopped out most of the ums and ahs and the places where I fumbled the language too badly. Then I translated it starting with Tolkeinian and moving through Normal to Anime at the end. Can you see where one style ends and the next begins? Which works best for you?

I am well because, um, this week I met my little sister and we went to Shrinyle.

Me: Where is “Trinyle”?

Shrinyle is, um, there’s a pretty red contheon in the sea near Widyle.

Me: Is it?

Do you not know of it?

Me: I do not.

Really? Well…

Me: Oh! That famous…

Uh huh.

Me: Um, that “partle” poking out of the water.

The portal built in the water?

Me: Portal. Sorry.

Yeah. Miyajima is famous. And there are deer there.

Me: Deer? Um, the animals?

Right, right.

Me: Um…did you feed them?

Well you know, right now, because the deer are too fat and there are a lot of them, feeding them is forbidden. You know, there used to be stores where you could buy deer food? Before they sold feed, for about 100 yen everyone could give it out, but now it’s forbidden. That’s because…in Miyajima they have Miyajima maps out, just, maps that anyone can use? So, I was looking at one. A deer came up and ate the map.

Me: There isn’t any animal feed, so it was hungry.

Right. Probably. Also because they aren’t scared of humans, it just clip-clopped up to me and took it.

Me: So people don’t lose the game, um, we have to hunt them.

But ano, the deer on Miyajima are the kami‘s…tsukai they’re called. It’s the noun of tsukau. To use.

Me: That is a very interesting word. The kami use the deer. Interesting. Ano, aside from deer, can there be other tsukai?

Well. Foxes and snakes. White snakes are very good.

Me: I have been to that jinja.

A sou desu ka?

Me: The one in the middle of Lake Biwa.

Me: Un, in Kansai. Then, foxes are the most famous, ka na~. But people, ah, can’t.

People, yeah. Un. There aren’t any.

Me: Too bad.

The old…nanka, now there are foxes and deer, so everyone takes care of them…but the old shinwa? The stories about the kami? They have children of humans and kami. Like in the Greek stories.

Me: What do you call them? “Demigods?” “Half-kami?”

Just “kami” I think. Those people connected the world of the kami to the world of humans. So, you can’t hunt the deer on Miyajima.

You can form partnerships with other creative people (hi Kalin!) and they will involve their fans in your mutual project.

Pay it forward. Do favors and help those in need, not necessarily because you expect them to pay you back, but to create the kind of atmosphere in which everyone helps everyone else. Kalin mentions http://scifi.bg/ as his good partner.

Make yourself so useful to your partner that their own self-interest will motivate them to cooperate with you

However, be careful offering unsolicited help, since doing so might make the recipient feel like they need help, which might make them angry.

Media partners will really only help you if you’re already somebody, so if you’re just starting out, don’t look to established news outlets for help.

You can, however, leverage fame from communities  that already recognize you as important, using them to convince other people that you are worth paying attention to. I mention the speculative evolution forum. Also, the Speculative Dinosaur Project!

Also why large forums can sometimes be mean

Your platform is your fan-base, of which the bigger the better. Figure out who they are, perhaps at conventions. Shout out to Simon Roy and his bearded, manly fans!

So remember, no man is an island. Writing might be “the most fun you can have by yourself,” but successful writers are successful because they have friends and partners who help them get their message out.

Why? What’s the difference between a book that grabs you and a book that doesn’t? Let’s call that difference a Hook.

A Hook will be different things for different people, of course. Personally, I will continue reading a book if there’s a promise of learning something new and interesting about the world. I read through Fragment mostly because I wanted to know what kind of monster was going to eat the next character. My wife, on the other hand, wouldn’t continue (or probably even pick up) Fragment, but she enjoys books about how people solve personal problems. The books of the Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, for example, are sweet and well written, but would be improved by some more monsters eating people.

So my own personal psychoses aside, what hooks work on people? Here’s a list of emotional reactions that some people find enjoyable.

Fear—what horrible thing will happen next?

Suspense—how will they get out of this one?

Fighting—watch the blood fly! Biff Bam Pow!

Wonder—look at the size of that mountain!

Discovery—what kind of aliens live on THIS planet?

Romance—will they or won’t they?

Anger—oh I hope that character gets their comeuppance

Humor—And the horse says, “look, a talking dog!”

Human interaction—And she said…

Education—now let’s pause the action for a moment to describe EXACTLY how a nuclear warhead works.

Mystery—he killed that guy HOW?

Wish-fulfillment—let’s read more about how someone just like me gets revenge on all the people who wronged him.

Contentment—and then a cat came and curled up next to the baby. Aww.

Notice how closely this list maps onto the genres you see in a bookstore? Sci-fi, Romance, Literature? That isn’t a coincidence. What genre you like is what Hook you respond to. The guilty pleasure that will pull you through a story that has no other redeeming qualities.

Now, as a writer, how do you make sure your reader finishes your book? Obviously, put in a Hook or two. But you have to be careful to:

Choose a Hook that you find interesting and exiting yourself (this is why I will never write a teen vampire romance.)

Make promises—let people know from the first line whether they can expect a book that will appeal to them

Keep your promises—keep track of reader expectations and, if possible, top them.

Get bigger—whatever your hook is, make sure it becomes more powerful as the story progresses. You had small monsters eating people at the beginning? Make the monsters bigger. The main character had a delightful luncheon with the elegant Mr. Bakersworth? Make the next meal a formal dinner.

Be balanced—All joking aside, a book that appeals to only one kind of person isn’t as good as it could be. It takes skill and experience to juggle several Hooks at once, but it’s worth it because you’re catching that many more readers. Plus monsters eating people is all well and good, but what if the monsters also get into epic battles, have tragic personal problems, and are hilarious? That’s what you’re striving for.

…

Yes, I was talking about Lois McMaster Bujold.

Did I miss any Hooks? Let me know in the comments!

Or come and talk about it with me in person!

Go to conventions and writing workshops, and even contests to meet people.

The more specialized a social network is, the better. Some good ones are:

Goodreads

Deviantart

Consider the motivation of the other people on a forum or network.

Be succinct. Small is beautiful. In other words, don’t post something every day. Post once a week (although that post might be rather large).

Keep updates regular to remind people what you’re working on. But just posting updates is boring.