Tales of the Vuduri: Year Two

By Michael Brachman

Tales of the Vuduri is a daily blog, now well over 730 entries total, examining the amazing, brave new world of the 35th century and the people that live there. The first volume, Tales of the Vuduri: Year One, explored only a tiny portion of the background and future history leading up to the Rome’s Revolution trilogy. Tales of the Vuduri: Year Two follows on the heels of this successful first compilation with 366 all-new essays about our 21st century hero, Rei Bierak and his beautiful 35th century Vuduri wife, Rome. Everything about this volume is more: more physics, more chemistry, more genetics, more cutting-edge science and more amusing images. Included in this collection are posts regarding solar power, domes, Type 1 diabetes, alternate versions, early micro-processors and many more random thoughts. Also included are previews of the upcoming novel The Milk Run, the secret story of the Deucadons and a detailed description of the narrative structure behind Part 2 of Rome’s Revolution. There is even an in-depth analysis of why sandwiches taste so good! Like Tales of the Vuduri: Year One, these essays should be amusing, hopefully thought-provoking and give you genuine insights into the fascinating world of Rome’s Revolution so come along to the 35th century and be amazed at what you find there.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Brachman
• Release date: Jan 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310581656

Michael Brachman

Michael Brachman has a Ph.D. in Sensory Science with a minor in Computer Science. Rome's Revolution is his first science fiction series, depicting the enduring love between a man from the 21st century and a woman from the 35th century. Between the two of them, they fend off various threats to mankind. The science behind the science fiction is meticulously researched. It is so realistic, you will believe that these stories are true, they just haven't happened yet.The first book is called Rome's Revolution.The sequel is called The Ark Lords.The final book in the series is entitled Rome's Evolution.All three books are available in paperback and for all e-book readers.

Book preview

Introduction

When I started writing my Tales of the Vuduri blog in December of 2012, I really wasn’t sure where I was going with it all. I knew that there was a lot of material logged that served as background for the Rome’s Revolution series and the blog seemed like a convenient place to present some of that material. As I really got into it, I was shocked to find out how much material there really was and the pile was growing, not shrinking. First with The Ark Lords and then even more as I got ready to release the final book of the trilogy called Rome’s Evolution.

So, I dove into Year Two and this book is the result. I’ve learned a lot more about the 35th century by writing the posts. It has helped me work out some plot issues, character development and world-building concepts in general. I also completed a new novel called The Milk Run this past year and the blog has allowed me to present some of the novel ideas incorporated in that book which should be out in early in 2015. Later next year, I will be releasing The Vuduri Companion which will be a series of short stories and novelettes which didn’t really fit anywhere else. It will even include the original versions of VIRUS 5 and Rome’s Revolution written in 1973. That should be good for a laugh or two. I am also planning on recording Rome’s Revolution as an audio book. I hope to have that done by the end of the year. It’s a daunting task but somebody’s got to do it!

In case you missed it with the book Tales of the Vuduri: Year One, what I do is write seven blog articles on Saturdays or Sundays and then post them one at a time over the course of the next week. Sometimes, if I know I am going to be away the following weekend, I’ll write 14 articles. That’s a lot to pump out at one time! Now that we’ve come to the end of Year Two, I’ve taken all those articles and bound them together in this volume for your reading pleasure.

My strategy over the last year has changed a bit from that first year. Once I had gotten past posting all the secrets and research and untold tales I wanted to put forward, I decided to pick up the original version of Rome’s Revolution entitled VIRUS 5 and follow it somewhat faithfully. Each page is chock full of reminders of things I had forgotten to post. I wanted to explain why I did this, why I made the characters say that. It was a lot of fun revisiting those memories.

When writing articles for the blog, many times these ideas launched me on a tangent, sometimes a week or two at a time but I always returned to the story. I don’t know if this is good news or bad news but using this as a guide, I can tell you that I am now only halfway through the second part of VIRUS 5. Simple extrapolation tells us there will be a Tales of the Vuduri, Years Three and Four. Then there’s The Ark Lords and Rome’s Evolution to consider. I may never be done!

As with the previous volume, this collection of articles covers little-known facts, previously unrevealed secrets, backstories, environmental design, improvements in my 35th century technology and so on. And like the previous volume, I’ve included musings and even more occasional ramblings.

It is not necessary that you have read the Rome’s Revolution series or even Tales of the Vuduri: Year One but it couldn’t hurt. There are many, many references within the articles to events and characters that inhabit those books. But there are also some amazing new scientific facts and amusing articles that transcend the original trilogy. There’s been a lot happening in the world of science over the last year that has a bearing on the series and the projected world of the 35th century and I try to incorporate those discoveries as I go.

Here is a partial list of what you’ll find in these entries:

More on the flora and fauna of Deucado and Helome

A discourse on the nature and cure of Type 1 Diabetes

A complete study on methods of exploiting solar energy available today

More backstories

The nature of Heaven and the hyper-verse

The original short story Last of the Cavaliers which became the historical section folded into The Ark Lords

Hot fusion versus cold fusion

How I was foiled by The Simpsons Movie and Stephen King’s Under the Dome

The untold story of the arrival of the Deucadons at Tau Ceti

An actual picture of MINIMCOM before he became a starship

The design of the split narrative for Part 2 of Rome’s Revolution

First looks at the inhabitants, geography, geology and astro-geophysics behind The Milk Run including:

The design of the forest on Hades

The Ice-Saberoo

Junior’s medium haul configuration and redesigned cockpit

Sh’ev, a member of the race of plant people called the K’val

Starship OMCOM

Life Force Theory: the grand unification of all things scary

The secret history of Hades leading up to Aason’s visit

More alternate and deleted scenes

More apparent contradictions resolved

In-depth analysis for why the plot had to go the way it did

More on legal time travel

Some new scientific discoveries that have a bearing on the whole Rome’s Revolution series

Even more amusing images

And not last and not least, why sandwiches taste so good!

Hopefully, I have improved as a blogger since last year’s volume. I’ve worked harder at finding more images to illustrate the point of many of the articles. As before, you will find occasional hypertext links which work great on the Internet but not so much in books. Where the sole purpose of a link was to take you somewhere else, I added an underline to the link. As with Tales of the Vuduri: Year One, the rest of the entries are exactly as they appeared on Goodreads although I did fix typos when I found them.

So dive in and enjoy. You don’t need to read the articles in order although the general flow would follow that of Rome’s Revolution. At the rate I am going, there will definitely be a Tales of the Vuduri: Year Three so you’d better get started! And as always, I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Entry 2-001: December 27, 2013

Happy New Year

Wait, what? It's only December 27th. What's going on here? Well, yesterday's post was my 366th article about Rome's Revolution which means I have posted a full year's worth (including a gratuitous leap day) of blog entries. Every day for the past year!

I started on December 23, 2012 and posted every single day except for three times. I am going to bind this whole first year into an e-pub called Tales of the Vuduri: Year One and sell it for free on Amazon, B&N, iTunes and Smashwords. Bruce is working on the cover as we e-speak.

In the beginning, I sat down at my desk and wrote a fresh post every day from scratch. That was a lot of work. Then I got into the habit of writing seven entries at a time (usually on a Sunday) and then posting one each day until the following weekend. That was much easier. If I knew I was going to be out of town, I could set up the publication engine to post on a certain date and time automatically. This was great but I wasn't getting much traffic so I started posting the link to the blog articles on Facebook and Twitter. That seems to have gotten my daily visits up to around 30 - 40 a day. That's over 12,000 page views! Some of my more popular articles get 60 or 70 page views the first day.

I've been compiling the articles for the book. I'm about 1/3 done and I am up 35,000 words. If my projections are correction, that means I've written more than 100,000 words, bigger than two of my three Rome's Revolution novels!

My biggest hit ever was my first post entitled How to speak Vuduri which is sitting at 109 page views. My two most clever titles were Tails of the Vuduri and Ah, Capella. I found that posting little pictures, sometimes relevant, sometimes amusing (like the one above) boosts page views as well.

Here's the amazing thing. While many of the articles are random, mostly I have been following the original long-form of Rome's Revolution for inspiration and I am only up to Chapter 8! So if I can keep it up, this thing might go on for years! Thanks for all your support and I hope you have enjoyed it so far.

Mike

Entry 2-002: December 28, 2013

Deucado

In the world of Rome's Revolution, Deucado, the little world that could serves as the home and centerpiece of much of the action in the Vuduri universe. Now, for the first time, you can see a full map of Deucado with all its features flattened:

The most important thing to notice are the huge holes punched into the surface of the planet by countless asteroid and meteor strikes over the millennia.

Lake Eprehem is annotated and this is where Ibbra City and New Ark City were founded. To the east, on the little isthmus between the Great Northern Bay and the Great Southern Bay lies Vuduri City. The western continent is called Asquarti. The eastern hemisphere is considered two separate continents connected by a larger isthmus. The northern continent is called Toraode and the southern continent is called Sul.

As mentioned in a previous post, there were a group of Vuduri who did not agree with the plan to allow the Overmind to take over. This group was called the Suduri and they eventually left Earth. They were the first humans to land on Deucado (ignoring the fact that the Deucadons had been there for over 400 years) and they settled in the lower continent of Sul. Aason Bierak led an expedition there and discovered evidence of their colony. However, the Suduri had long since fled to places unknown. I think you may find out where they went in the final novel of the series entitled The Final Journey but I have no idea when that will be.

Entry 2-003: December 29, 2013

Why Rei was picked

In the original, long-form version of Rome's Revolution, the book opened with the prologue about Silas Hiram and the first chapter was about how the Vuduri captured the Ark II and towed it back to Dara. However, since the whole book had to be sped up, that opening scene had to be excised. Briefly, I tried to patch it into the chapter on how OMCOM reprogrammed himself, but eventually I had to throw in the towel and now it is gone altogether.

It will come back in the upcoming compendium entitled The Vuduri Companion but that's not the point of this post. I have been asked the question several times as to why the Vuduri even bothered to save the Ark and why they picked Rei to thaw out. The ostensible reason was that the Overmind of Tabit was built for research and the content and purpose of the Ark II stimulated its curiosity. That's bunk, of course. The Vuduri are just not curious, ever.

Within the story, I had the Vuduri try to grab to sarcophagus next to Rei's and they could not get it to budge. So they moved to Rei's sarcophagus and when it, too, was stuck, they investigated further and found the latching mechanism.

If you allow that they captured the Ark then you would have to allow that they would grab a sarcophagus. But in the story, once they thawed Rei out, it almost seems like the Vuduri lost interest or worse resented Rei's presence.

This is all so contradictory. So what is the real story? The real story is the story. If they had not rescued the Ark and had not thawed out Rei, there would be no Rome and no Rome's Revolution and no Aason and no Deucado and no peace with the Stareaters and no defeat of The Ark Lords and no Rome's Evolution.

Sometimes you have to take dramatic license if you want drama. Or humor. Or action. Or adventure. Or romance and so on.

Entry 2-004: December 30, 2013

The Shell War

Although it is mentioned several times throughout the Rome's Revolution series, the shell of protection using the livetar clones and the shell of detection using the star-probes is continually expanding. The star-probes and livetars are both built as variants of the VIRUS units so they are capable of self-replication. As time wears on, these shells expand radially.

What is the purpose of these shells? Originally, it was to protect against the Stareaters but they turned out to be friendly and intelligent and all you had to do is put out a gravitic beacon and they would not eat you.

Another thing these shells were for was to protect the inner planets from meteors and asteroids from striking the inhabited world. At the end of Rome's Revolution, MINIMCOM states that he is going out to check on how the livetars were doing digesting the planet-killer asteroid originally planned for wiping out the mandasurte.

The third and unstated purpose for the shell was to protect against invasion by the Cecetiras. However, Lawlidon and his secret war with the Cecetiras was excised from the modern version of the book.

Regardless, over time, the shells keep expanding. Eventually, they intersect with similar shells produced by other sentient races. How do those alien cultures react? For some, it is welcome and the Galactic Union comes out of it. Others are less receptive. In fact, in one case, a war, called The Shell War, breaks out and that will be chronicled in the novel Vuduri Knight which will be out next year.

Entry 2-005: December 31, 2013

Thorium-235

In Rome's Revolution, you will find many references to an isotope of thorium. In this particular case, it is thorium-235 which has a half-life of 7340 years, the same as thorium-229. The reality is: my version of this isotope does not exist. The real isotope has a half-life of only 7.6 minutes but my version lasts a lot longer.

Why thorium, anyway? Well, I needed an isotope that could continue to produce power for at least a thousand years. The Arks were powered by thorium-235 and the electronics that modulated The Grey Drive as well as the on-board computers were powered by a nuclear reactor.

When the colonists arrived at their new home world, the power rods that reanimated the frozen people contained thorium as well.

The power rods were also used for activating vehicles and so forth. The Deucadons used the power rods to create their artificial sun, deep within the caves of Deucado, before they tapped in the magma pool and switch to geothermal.

The theoretical isotope of thorium was also used to provide the explosive power behind the mini-nukes. Now that the book trailer is out for The Ark Lords, you can get a better idea of how powerful they were.

Entry 2-006: January 1, 2014

The Game Plan for 2014

Happy New Year to all from the 35th century and the world of Rome's Revolution.

Here is my game plan for 2014:

1. Finishing compiling the first 365 posts from this blog, Tales of the Vuduri and release it as an e-book on Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Kobo and Smashwords. Bruce already has a preliminary version of the cover done and it is fantastic. It should be done and out in the next few weeks.

2. Bear down and start cranking out The Milk Run. It's about half done and the remainder has all been outlined. No reason why I shouldn't be able to get it done in a few months.

3. Continue to post these articles. Tales of the Vuduri has been a lot of fun for me and keeps the creative juices flowing and has actually helped me in the development of the The Milk Run, believe it or not.

4. Release the book trailer for Rome's Evolution. Bruce has an animatic version of it done and it is mind-blowing. The book trailer for The Ark Lords is pretty awesome but this new one is going to blow it away.

5. After the release of The Milk Run, finish up The Vuduri Companion. I have all the material compiled. This is really just an edit job.

6. Start laying out the ground work for The Vuduri Knight starring Aason's son, Rory and his pet starship, Trei. This book concerns The Shell War which I mentioned two days ago.

7. Get Rome's Revolution made into an audio book. I have a studio who is interested. I am waiting on the voice audition tape. If it sounds good, I'm going to try and get financing via a crowd-sourcing site.

8. I have Rome's Revolution in the hands of a genuine Hollywood producer. The trick is getting him to find the time to read it and render his judgment or pass it along.

9. Beyond that, there is the redo of the first Rome's Revolution book trailer. Plotting out The Last Journey, attending another PhilCon. Plus other stuff I haven't even thought of.

Sound like enough for one year? Thanks for sticking with this.

Again, a Happy and Healthy New Year to all.

Entry 2-007: January 2, 2014

The Power Rods

The mission planners for the Arks designed the ship to be powered by thorium 235. The sarcophagi used to hold the frozen colonists were also powered by twin power rods containing thorium 235 as well:

The power rods were hollow cylinders built from a lead/tin alloy and contained a substantial amount of thorium 235. On the one side was a slit which would allow neutrons to escape. They were inserted into a cylindrical cavity and rotated so that the slit was sealed by a lead/tin extrusion within the well. On the other side of the rod was a thin sheet of lead-impregnated, neutron-blocking glass.

If the Ark landed normally, all you had to do would be to rotate each rod 180 degrees so that the slits faced inwards. The thorium would be exposed and neutrons would fly out. This would allow enough radiation to escape to generate heat which would be captured by thermocouples, converted into electricity and the sarcophagus would power up.

But what if the Ark crash-landed? That's where the thin sheet of lead glass comes in. If the Ark crashed, the glass would shatter and allow enough radiation to heat up the thermocouples and the occupant could be resuscitated without requiring any intervention by another crew member.

One of the scenes excised from the original long form of Rome's Revolution was the initial reanimation of Rei Bierak. However, in Part 2, I did retain the scene within The Cathedral where each of the frozen crew members of the Ark II was reawakened. It was there that Rei instructed the Ibbrassati on how to rotate the rods to activate the thaw.

We also got to see the power rods in use for inflating the vehicles which were collapsed in the cargo section. And finally, we learned from the Deucadons that many centuries earlier, they powered their first artificial sun using the power rods taken from the Ark III's sarcophagi.

Entry 2-008: January 3, 2014

The Sarcophagus

The Ark program, the frozen colonists and the sarcophagi they were carried in represents the bedrock of Rome's Revolution. In numerous previous posts I mentioned that the Ark was not much more than a flying tin can and all the money was sunk into the design of the sarcophagus itself. The idea being the ship was going to get damaged, this is just an actuarial hazard of being in space, but by sending the frozen colonists in armored sarcophagi, most would survive.

Here is a horrible image which is supposed to be a hint as to what it looked like:

This symbolic representation represents the two main elements of the chamber. The top part is just a very high-tech coffin with pumps for the cryo-hibernation fluid, oxygen generators, heater/blower combination and a control panel. The lower section contains the power rods, the electronics, storage chambers for clothing and a few day's worth of rations.

At the very bottom were superconducting magnets which allowed the sarcophagus to be clamped on the fairly cheap shelving to pack the bodies in.

Here is how it was supposed to work:

1. The command crew is reanimated

2. The Ark lands

3. Somebody turns the power rods 180 degrees so that the nuclear reaction begins

4. The mechanism is activated, the cryo-hibernation fluid is melted and pumped away

5. The auto-defibrillator restarts the colonist's heart

6. The heater/blower warms them up

7. They arise

8. They hop out, pull out a drawer, get dressed

9. They drink some water, eat some rations and move on to the next colonist so that everyone is reanimated.

Sounds simple, huh? Turns out, sometimes it goes smooth, sometimes it doesn't.

Entry 2-009: January 4, 2014

Death Count

When we first meet Rome and Rei in Rome's Revolution, neither of them seem like killers, let alone murderers. However circumstances sometimes force you into actions that lead to the death of people or entities. For example, in Part 1 of Rome's Revolution, Rome and Rei unleash the VIRUS units and cause the death of a Stareater. At the time, they did not know that they were intelligent and noble creatures but Balathunazar died, nonetheless.

In Part 3 of Rome's Revolution, Rei and Rome are trapped under Kilauea with Estar issuing the order to terminate them. Rei was under the influence of a post-hypnotic suggestion from OMCOM but that was not going to stop him from saving Rome's life. Rei grabbed a plasma pistol from one of the guards and shot him in the stomach. I'm pretty sure he died. Also, Rei sheared off the arm of another guard and unless he got medical attention really fast, I'm pretty sure he died as well.

For her part, Rome wrestled with Estar until the ceiling caved in, slicing off part of Estar's skull and her brains, or something similar, spilled out onto the floor. I'm pretty sure she died as well. In the next section, Rome stood by passively as Rei unleashed the weaponized VIRUS units which ultimately destroyed MASAL, taking Kilauea with him. Whoever was still in that complex most likely died as well.

In The Ark Lords, Rome flashed Hanry Ta Jihn's M9 Beretta, aiming it at Captain Keller. She didn't kill him but I still wonder to this day how she had good enough aim to hit the ersatz virus vessel and not Keller.

Finally, in Rome's Evolution, when Steele threatened to kill Rei, Rome smashed him in the back of the head with a rock. I know Rome to some degree and I'm pretty sure she didn't care if she killed Steele or not. She used all of her might and if he died, he died. When they fought the final battle on the ethereal plane, Rome did not directly kill Reema. That was left up to Sussen. But by Rome's actions, Bonnie Mullen came into possession of the Beretta and that was the end of Sussen.

So I do not have an exact death count for you but Rome and Rei directly or indirectly had a hand in the death of a multitude of entities and people. They suffered no guilt about it. In every instance, they were acting in self-defense. If you love someone, what other choice do you have?

Entry 2-010: January 5, 2014

The Auto-defibrillator

In a previous post, we discussed the sarcophagus that stored the frozen colonists in Rome's Revolution. In Step 5 of the resuscitation process, an auto-defibrillator was used to restart the heart of the person being thawed. This is not much different from the auto-defibrillators found in supermarkets and airports today.

Those devices have sensing circuitry to tell if the victim's heart is already beating so you don't try and shock a heart that doesn't need shocking. However, in the original long-form version of Rome's Revolution, this sensing circuitry had failed and Rei got a shock even though his heart was beating normally. Reference was made to this event in the current version of Rome's Revolution using a single sentence:

Looking past the cylinder, Rei saw his sarcophagus sitting in the far corner of the room. That plus the tender spot on his chest where the auto-defibrillator had burned him confirmed this was no dream.

In the original long-form, the awakening was described in much greater detail and much more viscerally:

The cardiac sensors glued to Rei’s torso, degraded from centuries of disuse, could not detect the slow but steady beat of his revived heart. Lacking feedback, the unsuspecting microprocessor integrated into the chamber continued on its pre-programmed sequence. The high-pitched resonance of step-up coils charging echoed off the coffin’s walls. Rei’s torpid, semi-frozen brain failed to comprehend the significance of the sound. As soon as it was fully charged, the automatic defibrillator fired off a 300-joule jolt of electricity in a misguided attempt to resuscitate him for a second time.

Searing pain shot all through Rei’s chest. Fortunately, as a young and healthy male, his heart was able to fend off the external attack and maintain a normal sinus rhythm. Rei tried to scream but could not as there was no air in his lungs to exhale. With a superhuman effort, he reached up and clawed off one of the leads before the defibrillator could discharge for a third and possibly fatal time.

Like a fireplace bellows, the motion of Rei’s arm stimulated his lungs. He drew in a great raspy breath, sucking wetly on the air surrounding him. The flow of air hurt going in so he held the breath for a long time, savoring its feel in his lungs before finally letting go. He drew in another breath and this time it was not nearly as painful.

I'll put the whole excised chapter in the upcoming The Vuduri Companion sometime later this year.

Entry 2-011: January 6, 2014

Aging and the Vuduri

I have always thought it odd that the Vuduri did not conquer aging. The fact is, the 24th chromosome imbued them with a bewildering set of improvements to the human condition including a vastly improved immune system but it did not retard the aging process. We see this time and time again in all the novels of the Rome's Revolution series but never will it be so clear as when The Vuduri Companion is published later this year.

29 years after the events of The Milk Run, a 75-year-old Rome is confronted by an incarnation of OMCOM who has returned from the universe between dimensions. OMCOM is glad to catch up with her again but his livetar is dismayed to see her showing signs of aging. When he quizzes her about this, Rome replies simply that The Vuduri believe that every tree must give way to the seedling. She added, They believe that death is a part of life so each generation much yield to the next. But why? Why not extend life? As OMCOM pointed out, surely it was within the Vuduri's technological prowess to do so.

I suppose it comes down to the Vuduri's view on life and the value of any human being. Since the Overmind pretty much runs things, any particular human is of lesser value than in our age where each individual is free to contribute to the betterment of society. It is pragmatic to assume that younger people have more vitality to contribute to an endeavor when compared to older people. The Overmind must prefer this situation.

I do not agree. I think that during each phase of life a person has something to contribute which they could not have done earlier and would not be able to do later. But the Vuduri do not think the way I do. They are their own culture and believe that youth is not wasted on the young. I think someday (maybe this year), Rome will go about changing this perception and Vuduri society.

Entry 2-012: January 7, 2014

Aason’s Birthday

Aason Bierak is Rome and Rei's son and he is born in Part 2 of Rome's Revolution. But when was he actually born? By that I mean the date.

Let's start with the year. We know that Rei is first thawed in the year 3455 AD. He and Rome attack and kill the Stareater, Balathunazar and then leave for their year-long journey to Deucado. Along the way, Rome gets pregnant and Aason is born right after the war between the Essessoni and the Vuduri is stopped before it starts.

So we can determine that Aason was born in the year 3456 AD. But when?

In the earlier long-form of Rome's Revolution, when Rei and Rome first arrive on Earth, Rei notices it is fairly warm so he asks Rome what season and she replies winter. She says the effects of global warming introduced by the Essessoni are still having an effect.

Winter runs from December 21st of one year to March 21st of the next but if Aason is born in December, it would be the wrong year so we know he was most likely born in January or February.

The way I figured out the exact date was because I know that Aason is just about 5 years older than Lupe and she was born in the year 3460 AD, in September. So to get him as close as possible to that age separation, I put his birthday in early January. January 7th, 3456 AD has a nice ring to it so that's the date I'm sticking to.

Since today is the day, I just want to say Happy Birthday to Aason Bierak, boy wonder.

Entry 2-013: January 8, 2014

The cryo-hibernation fluid

In a previous post, we discussed the action items the sarcophagus had to perform to reanimate a frozen person. However, I never really went into detail regarding the cryo-hybernation fluid itself. The fluid was introduced very early in the long-form version of Rome's Revolution but excised during the compaction of the first three books into an omnibus.

At first glance, the fluid reminds one of the green slime made popular on Nickelodeon:

However, the liquid is a little less viscous and has about the same density as anti-freeze. The liquid has a dual purpose. When it is first pumped in, its sole purpose it to put the sedated would-be colonist into a state of extreme hypothermia. The fluid starts at 25 degrees Celsius and this is low enough to cause the body to enter stasis with the heart, lungs and circulatory system shutting down. At that point, the cryogenic coolers kick in and the occupant is taken all the way down to zero degrees Celsius. They are completely frozen.

This is not fatal, as demonstrated by the common wood frog because the subjects are completely dehydrated prior to being frozen. The state of dehydration prevents the intracellular fluid from expanding too much and rupturing the cell walls.

However, it is upon reanimation that the special properties of this fluid come to the fore. It contains a heavy dose of co-trimoxazole which is designed to penetrate the skin and rehydrate the body as well as act as an antibiotic to counteract any infections which have been festering over the centuries. Believe it or not, another component of the fluid was derived from Urushiol which is the oil exuded by poison ivy. As we have all experienced, it is particularly effective in penetrating the skin and getting to the underlying layers. The final element was that the fluid was hyper-oxygenated so that life-giving oxygen could be delivered to all the tissues before the heart started beating again.

Early research into the cryo-hibernation process revealed that re-hydrating the body was of paramount importance during the resuscitation cycle. Here is the original resurrection scene where Rei had to deal with the melting of the fluid:

Barely conscious, Rei Bierak lay motionless within his cryo-hibernation chamber. Pumps vibrated quietly as they drained the thick rehydration fluid from his hermetically sealed sarcophagus. Rei did not feel the gloppy green liquid as it oozed from his ears and nose. He felt nothing but abysmal cold. Eyes shut, he could do nothing but wait until his body warmed sufficiently to move.

Entry 2-014: January 9, 2014

The mind-deaf and the hearing deaf

I have a Ph.D. in Sensory Science (specifically auditory physiology) with a minor in Computer Science from Syracuse University. During my time there, as I was studying for my doctorate, I had many opportunities to interact with deaf people and study the deaf community at large. When I designed the Vuduri society for Rome's Revolution, once I came up with the idea of mind-connected people and the balance of the mandasurte, the mind-deaf, I had to draw upon that experience to build an alternate society to contrast against the Vuduri.

The hearing deaf, especially in the United States, are a complex community and have many unique characteristics. I make no judgment. I'm just a scifi writer so I used my experience to mimic things that I learned about a group of people who have a different way of perceiving the world than the main-stream.

First and foremost, while deaf people are aware of the fact that they are deaf, they have found numerous ways of overcoming that sensory deficit to the point where it isn't a deficit at all. As a whole, they are just as happy as the hearing people so I made the mandasurte a happy group as well. The hearing deaf have their own language (sign language) and so I made sure the mandasurte had their own language as well.

Also, while this is certainly no rule, hearing deaf people sometimes gather in communities or groups, just like any other group. Thus I had the mandasurte gather in enclaves where they could luxuriate in the comfort of others like them.

As in our world, our scientists have worked tirelessly to research and come up with inventions to allow the hearing deaf to hear. So too, with the Vuduri, I had them invent the Espansor Bands so that mandasurte could experience communication the same as the Vuduri with an artificial device.

All in all, I tried to make the mandasurte parallel the hearing deaf to give a feel of authenticity to a society apart. At the same time, I wanted to show that such a people are not to be pitied but rather admired because they have taken what nature has given them and built a complete and satisfactory society around themselves.

Entry 2-015: January 10, 2014

Burial habits of the Vuduri

When we first meet the Vuduri in Rome's Revolution, we are introduced to how they handle death almost immediately. After all, the only reason they have quarters for Rei is because a crewman died. When asked how they treat their dead, Rome replied simply that their bodies were recycled. Not buried. Not cremated. Just recycled. Shades of Soylent Green!

This makes sense when you look at it from the Vuduri perspective. People are interchangeable, barely distinguishable and therefore their deaths have nearly no significance. Rome was different. Even before she showed her inner personality to Rei, we noted that she was holding on to the Espansor Bands as a remembrance to keep her father's memory alive. Very un-Vuduri-like.

Rei's people, known as the Essessoni, brought with them their belief in God, Heaven, Hell, the soul and so forth. When it came to people dying, their first choice was to bury the dead and they forced that choice among the denizens of Deucado.

The Deucadons, survivors of the Ark III crash, lived underground so they could not bury their dead but rather created extensive catacombs in their underworld and placed the departed there. The mandasurte too, buried their dead so this became the universal method of remembrance on Deucado.

However, the Rome's Revolution universe takes place in the 35th century. It's hard to imagine that in this future world, there isn't some progress in determining if there truly is an immortal soul and a life after death. This is the central theme of The Milk Run and will show one possible place where the soul might go. Think of it as a unified theory of God.

And once it is established that when you die, you aren't really dead, could a two-way street be opened there? You'll have to wait until the final chapter in the Rome and Rei saga tentatively called The Final Journey which I hope to have completed by the end of the year.

Entry 2-016: January 11, 2014

Sleek and Wow

In Rome's Revolution, the colonists from the 21st century don't leave until 2067 AD. You would assume that some new colloquial expressions would seep into English between now and then. Adding new colloquial expressions is nothing new in science fiction. Anybody who is a fan of Joss Whedan's Firefly knows they speak a mix of English and Mandarin and they often describe cool things as shiny.

When I was growing up, things were neat, cool, slick, hot and so forth. Regardless of the word, the sentiment was to use an ordinary word to express something being special or great.

So it was that I introduced the word sleek into Rei Bierak's vocabulary. It had to be a word which meant something to us today but could also be easily understood that it had evolved into a colloquialism in the future.

The Vuduri, on the other hand, don't even speak under normal circumstances. The fact that Rome grew up in a mixed home allowed her to develop her language skills but learning English was completely foreign to her. OMCOM fed her the transliteration of our language as she was acquiring it until she conquered the new language. However, she only mastered formal English at first. Later, having spent so much time with Rei, she picked up on how to speak more informally, sprinkling her speech with contractions. At first she thought this was sufficient but after listening to Rei, she realized there was more to speech than just vocabulary.

Her big breakthrough was with the word wow. Her first attempt at using the word came when OMCOM computed the distance a star-probe could cover in a single jump. It turned out to be 120 light years. Rome couldn't help it. She said wow to express her wonderment but the word sounded funny coming out of her lips.

Of course we know as she became more comfortable with English, the word wow became a natural part of her speech. In fact, by the time she and Rei left Tabit to begin their year-long journey to Deucado, it was already rolling off her tongue. The very fact that she learned to experience wonderment and used a word to express it is a big wow unto itself.

Go Rome!

Entry 2-017: January 12, 2014

Burial at sea

In the middle of Part 3 of Rome's Revolution, Rome and Rei are interrogated regarding the supposed disposition of Aason's body. Their cover story was that he was stillborn. However, this was one part of The Lie that they didn't review. When Oronus questioned Rome as to what they did with the body, she quickly stated that Rei build a Ceoxei (a type of coffin) and they gave Aason a burial at sea meaning they ejected the coffin into space. When Rei was questioned, he quickly stated that they recycled the body because that's what the Vuduri do.

Oronus did catch the lie but did not really spend any time thinking about it. Rome's fate had already been sealed and this inconsistency had no bearing on the outcome. Secretly, Estar and the Onsiras were tapped into the proceedings. After she captured Rome and Rei, she was determined to find the truth. She injected Rei with a serum which would force him to enter MASAL's version of the Overmind. The spirits within confronted Rei about this inconsistency, trying to prove that either he or Rome was lying.

However, the answer Rei gave reconciled the two versions and confounded Estar because she could not challenge the story. Rei told Estar that he had drugged Rome and suffocated the living baby at birth and tossed its body in the recycling vat before Rome awakened. Thus the story he told Oronus was true.

He then went on to say that as far as Rome knew, the baby was stillborn. He did, indeed, make a Ceoxei but he did not let Rome look into the little coffin he had prepared. Thus Rome's remembrance of the events were true, as well, from her perspective.

Rei's reasons behind all of this are unspeakably horrible but since Aason wasn't really dead, everything he said was all a lie, anyway. I supposed you could say that Rome and Rei had the last laugh because in the end, that lie led to Estar's death and vaporizing MASAL beneath Kilauea.

Entry 2-018: January 13, 2014

Rome reborn

In the original long-form version of Rome's Revolution, Rome and Rei did not use the bands nor sleep together until Chapter 9. In the current version, they do so at the end of Chapter 2. Regardless of what chapter it happened, the next morning/day, Rome is awakened by something falling off of her desk because of a moon-quake.

There are several nuances to this scene designed to give it the proper flavor but they are not emphasized. For example, when Rome woke up, she spoke English to Rei which had already become natural for her. Second, as soon as she realized she had been cut off (Cesdiud) from the Overmind, she had a panic attack and showed strong emotion. The Vuduri are not supposed to express emotion so already we knew