Evolve or Die

The new journal project I started last week is starting to take on the nebulous outlines of a shape. Here are the most recent images I came up with:

I have also put these on a Behance portfolio. The project is intitled Evolve or Die,  and it is my plan to follow these journal entries on their routs to actual full articles. It's going to take a lot of elbow grease, but I'm pretty darn excited.

A Sense of Wonder

The other day, I was showing my developmental writing students the 1000 journals project website. You can find the project website here: http://www.1000journals.com/. An interesting thing happened while we were looking at the journals. My developmental students were interested. Not only were they interested; they were actively planning the kind of artist's journals they were going to make. Now for those of you reading this journal who aren't in teaching, you need to know that it's hard to get any English class entheusiastic about doing a writing project on their own, much less a group of developmental writers who are typically very burnt out on school. And in the nearly six years I have been teaching developmental writing, I have never had students excited about undertaking a project without even an extra credit incentive. Yesterday was the kind of day teachers all over the world dream about: lightning struck in my class.

So I did what most teachers do in that situation: I went home, cracked a beer, and started trying to figure out how I could "bottle" the experience for future classes. The experience led me to ask a lot of questions about teaching and learning, most pointedly why school seems to provoke a sense of profound apathy in so many people.  My hunch is that the key to learning is something entirely untestable and nearly edited out of our schools: joy. We've managed to expurgate joy right out of school and often out of the process of teaching entirely. So my students have gotten me inspired to do my own writer's journal. Hopefully, by modelling this sense of joy in the process of writing, I will be able to show my students that there is another way, that school can be something more than just a "prison for kids" (verbatum from one of my former students). Incidentally, the image you are seeing is from my writer's journal.

Eidolon: Chapter 2, part 2

The data pad's readings were all over the place. All of the data Shiori had collected from the sensor array was wiped clean. None of it made any sense. It didn't make any sense: the pad's power source was entirely separate. Yes, it did use the ship's wireless network, but it wasn't exactly like they were vulnerable to hackers out here.

Shoriko pressed the comm button and selected Subramani. There was a moment of static and that whispering noise grew louder before the chief engineer responded to the page.

“Sir. Can you read me, Sir?,” Shoriko asked, hating how shrieky she sounded.

“Yes, Tanazaki,” Subramani's voice crackled over the comm.

Tanazaki breathed a sigh of relief. “We're experiencing power fluctuations down in telemetry. The emergency lights have gone out.”

“Then use your torch,” snapped Subramani, “Why are you interrupting me for this, Tanazaki.”

Tanazaki smiled and took a deep breath, “I just thought you should know, sir. Are you seeing the same thing in the engine room?”

There was an odd silence, “I...of course not. Don't be paranoid. That sort of thing doesn't happen.”

“Right. I don't know what I was thinking. I guess the quiet is just getting to me.” Tanazaki stopped mid sentence. Subramani had hung up.

**Idris Wilson wanted to cry. Or maybe to smash a computer terminal with a wrench. At this point, he could really take either option. Since receiving his orders and eliminating any obvious malfunctions, the power aboard ship had fluctuated three times. Granted, it was only for a few seconds, but those were the few seconds that kept undoing every bit of progress the technician had made in the past half hour on this ice cold bridge.

“What did you say, sir?” Idris asked, pulling himself out from underneath the console. “Sir?”

O'Bannion stood with his back to Idris, “Hmm?”

“Sir. You were talking.”

“Just... thinking aloud I guess,”

“Yeah, I was doing a lot of that just now myself.”

“I think you mean swearing, Idris.”

“That, too.” Idris paused, looking at his hands, “Sir, you got any thoughts about what's causing those readings yet?”

The commander shrugged, “Subramani's praobably right. We've been travelling between the stars for three hundred years now. Even the best AI starts getting glitchy after a while. Ahura's no exception. S'why we have a maintenance rotation in the first place.” O'Bannion's voice was carefully neutral. Which was not like him, Idris thought. If anything, O'Bannion was a little too pally. An American fault if ever there was one. This silence just didn't feel right. And where did this sudden reversal of position come from?

“And if Subramani's not right? Then what do you suspect could be going on? C'mon a physics wiz like you has got to have some interesting ideas.”

“There are... a lot of interesting ideas. Just not enough data to reach any kind of conclusion yet.”

“C'mon, Ian. I'm working on a scan of the nu-frame logic board. It's boring as hell, and I'm getting twitchy. Shoot me some wild cockamamie BS hypotheses. I need the distraction.”

O'Bannion looked over his shoulder, “Idris, for the love of mercy. I don't have anything yet. It could be 3k background radiation, or blackbody radiation, or we could have passed near a micro-black hole. Who the hell knows?”
“I was pretty sure we've never run into any of that stuff before,” Idris said.

“No,” O'Bannion replied tersely, “No we haven't. Like that means shit. How many ships did we loose in the early days before the communications relays were mastered? Hundreds. And before that? How many seed colonies were sent out? Thousands. In the thousand years humanity has been colonizing alien solar systems, we could have run into just about anything. We simply have no way of knowing.”

Eidolon: Chapter 2, part 1

Physician's  Log 04:00 11/01/2413 Dr. Arpita Chandra, chief physician

Serious electrical fluctuations causing disruptions to several major systems— at least we weren't pulled from stasis because of some stupid programming glitch this time. Subramani has no idea what caused these fluctuations yet or if we still have to worry about them returning. Perfect.

Initial scans of the stasis unit indicate that no one else has been resurrected prematurely, and no individuals have been recorded as deceased. The fluctuations did, however, effect several of the stasis units, so I'm going to have to go down there and run diagnostics to make sure stasis was not disrupted and if it was to administer the necessary doses of phlebotonom. 1,000 diagnostics, to be precise. It's going to take 48 hours at least to get done properly. And with only three engineers to spare, we're all going to be working non stop to get everything fixed. Note: get extra stim packs from storage as well as intravenous saline. We could see a few crew members collapse from exhaustion before this is all through.

***Chandra swore colorfully and in three languages before stooping down to pick the data pad off of the stasis deck. The sound echoed through an unlit stasis unit roughly one quarter the size of a football stadium. She hadn't been able to feel her fingers for the past five minutes. These stupid new ultra thin micro fiber gloves were supposed to keep her hands warm and dry while feeling no different than one's own natural skin. The bit about feeling like you weren't wearing gloves was dead on the money. The insulated part, not so much.
    Those bloody stupid echoes whispering all over the place— they made the place sound like a haunted house. Doctor Chandra looked around. Only the immediate area was illuminated, and the individual stasis pods cast long shadows across the cheap gray metal floors. It was the same sort of material that covered the recreated ancient subway vents back in Chicago, the sort Arpita's poodle, Muffin, refused to walk over. God, she loved that dog. She would much rather be snuggling up with the dog on her couch, watching vids and eating pork rinds than freezing her tits of in an isolated corner of a colony ship on the way to the Galatea system with only lousy combat rations and that nasty watermelon flavored electrolyte gel to eat.
    The doctor snorted, muttering, “See the universe. Experience adventure. Hah. I should have listened to mother and gone into plastic surgery. Taken up mountain climbing for the adventure,”  and plugged in the data pad into the data port. Damn. Not another one. Arpita's mission here in Green stasis unit was quickly turning all pear shaped. This was the eighth stasis pod she had worked on so far whose occupant's neurochemistry was seriously skewed. Androstadienone, adrenaline, corticotropin-releasing factor, and adrenocorticotropic hormone levels were all seriously elevated. And in every case, the anomalous readings began at 01:00 hours. Precisely when the first power fluctuation was recorded. If Arpita didn't know better, she would say the colonists were all having the mother of all nightmares. But that was impossible. The colonists were all in chemically induced comas-- a key part of the stasis process. In order to have a fear response like this, they would have had to leave the coma state and enter REM sleep. Thiopental levels were completely normal, however. None of the colonists were, therefore, even physically capable of REM sleep.
    “What could have happened to scare you all so badly,” the doctor whispered, looking into the comatose face of the settler. Like all settlers, he was young, only twenty five, and in peak physical condition. A veritable cypher, Arpita thought. There are no answers here. Possible unforeseen drug interactions rotated vainly through the physician's mind. What in the world could have caused this, and, more important, could it happen again? Unsettling questions. Arpita finished administering corrective hormones and unplugged her data pad. “One down. Nine hundred and ninety two to go.”


    ***Tanazaki Shiori brushed a limp shock of black hair out of her eyes, crawled further down the maintenance tube connecting to the aft sensor array, and tried very hard not to think about how claustrophobic she was. Bitter irony that. At five feet and ninety five pounds, Shiori was always the one who got sent into such situations. It didn't help that she was also the most multi certified tech on this rotation. Breathing deeply and steadily, Shiori focused on  what were for her soothing images: specs and diagrams.
    The telemetry sensors on a Nebula class colony ship were notoriously tetchey— it didn't take much to take them off line a collision with a small piece of debris, for instance. A series of power fluctuations would definitely mess things up royally. But that was the price you paid for this level of accuracy.
    Prying the maintenance tube door open, Tanazaki pulled herself into the cramped confines of the aft telemetry sensor array and looked at the sealed panels with a judicious eye. Given the nature of Wilson's earlier diagnostic, the technician ran down the odds and chose five different sub-processors that could have been responsible for the abnormal readings. Tanazaki honed in on the nearest potentially defective sub-processor and started inspecting the sensitive computer for glitches.
    A faint hissing whisper flitted past the back of Tanazaki's head. Frowning, she checked the communications device to make sure it wasn't on, and she wasn't picking up a call from someone's pants pocket or something. No. That wasn't it. The device was off. Tanazaki dismissed the sound as the product of an over active imagination and continued the painstaking system diagnostic.
    It was funny, though. The Ahura Mazda was light years away from home, and to just maybe have run into a real space anomaly. Shiori remembered as a child listening to her father tell stories from Greek mythology about gods, and dryads, and satyrs—how they would make nature dance to their whims, bring lightning from a clear sky, drown the earth and raise up a new generation from dragon's teeth. He was a physicist, Shiori's father, and whenever he finished a story, Shiori, frightened by the thought of drowning or some such, would ask him if something like that could happen now. And he would laugh a deep, warm laugh, pinch her on the nose, and reassure her.
    “No, Shioriko. This cannot happen and never could. We live in a universe governed by rules and laws built right into the fabric.”
    It was a comforting thought. And the main reason for Shoriko's decision to double major in physics and electrical engineering. She took comfort in a universe that could, essentially, be predicted. Where monsters and chaos were creatures of nightmares only.
    And now this happens.

    The unidentified sound started again. It really did sound like people whispering. The hairs on the back of Shiori's neck began prickling. Ghosts in the machine. Too creepy. It was probably just some sort of weird auditory hallucination caused by the stupid drugs. Dr. Chandra would know more. The emergency lights flickered as did the back lighting on the data pad, briefly leaving Shiori in total dark. Tanazaki let out a tiny squeak of a scream. When the lights came back up, Tanazaki blushed.
    “Perfect. Nothing like squealing like a little girl in a haunted house to lift the self esteem. Pull yourself together. At least Wilson didn't see this.” She looked back down at the data pad, “No. No! Come on.”

Eidolon: Chapter 1

Physician's Log 02:34 11/01/2413 Dr. Arpita Chandra, chief physician

At 01:15 hours, the B maintenance crew was awoken from stasis-- six months before our next waking cycle was to begin. The normal revival protocols were significantly shortened; consequently, we are all experiencing severe symptoms of stasis sickness. I have administered the recommended doses of applied phlebootonom and have passed out electrolyte rations and stim packs which have quelled the headaches and severe nausea enough for us to get on with our work. God, I hate hard reboots. This had better not be another false alarm.

The five members of the B emergency maintenance crew sat on the bridge of the colony ship the Ahura Mazda beneath an open observation hatch , looking out on an undifferentiated field of stars. It was 03:00 hours, and all five men and women were suffering from varying degrees of stasis sickness. Puffs of breath clouded the air, and crew members huddled beneath silver emergency thermal blankets wearing their heaviest clothes. The temperature on the bridge was still adjusting to the premature reawakening of her crew.

All of the crew sat surrounding the central information console, which was shaped like king Arthur's round table, information displays open in front of each individual. According to the astronomical sensors, the Ahura Mazda had run into a space anomaly of some sort which caused power throughout the ship to fluctuate wildly for a period of five minutes.

Trying to push away the memory of falling out of a stasis pod and dry heaving on the ice cold deck of crew unit B, Subramani reviewed the data. It seemed like the wildest sort of gibberish to him, utterly improbable information. “My gut tells me that this is a programming glitch that we're dealing with and not a genuine space anomaly,” he grumbled. Then again, O'Bannion was the astrophysicist here and much better equipped to deciphers abstruse readings. Subramani looked up to measure the commander's facial expression. Carefully neutral but not dismissive. So it was possible that they were truly dealing with something new. One thousand years of inter stellar travel, and no one had ever come across anything truly exotic. Not that this meant much of anything. Physical limits meant that once a colony ship was sent out, it never returned, and communication was decades in traveling home.

“We can't eliminate the possibility that we have a real situation here off hand. I think that it would be wisest to proceed accordingly and assess any possible threats to the ship's integrity,” O'Bannion said.

Doctor Arpita looked around the bridge of the HMS Ahura Mazda trying to blink away the stasis halos and focus on the words of her commanding officer. It was, thus far, a loosing battle. Commander O'Bannon and Chief Engineer Subramani were hashing out a plan of action between the two of them using excessively loud alpha male tones. There was some divergence of opinion regarding the correct protocol to follow when a subspace anomaly was detected. It was a consolation that Wilson, Koeman, and Tanazaki were all looking as ill and distracted as Arpita felt. Tanazaki looked particularly ill; at ninety five pounds, the drugs necessary for a rapid transition to consciousness would have an exceptionally harsh effect. Chandra would have to force Tanazaki to down some more electrolytes before too long.

While listening to the men talk, it occurred to Arpita that if the experts in psychologically friendly ship design had ever experienced a hard stasis reboot in deep space after a three year sleep, they would have chosen a more muted, less “cheerful” color palate. Seriously, who liked white and shades of yellow? Hideous. And what kind of idiot chose a yellow color scheme for a vessel named the Ahura Mazda. Did her majesty's designers have no sense of aesthetics?

“Subramani, I feel that it would be best if I took one of your support staff and ran a full diagnostic on the stasis units,” Dr. Chandra, butting into another of the Engineer's long winded monologues.

“I can't authorize that, Arpita.” O'Bannon said, the middle aged commander said waiving his hand dismissively, “The stasis units all have individual backup generators. It's hard to imagine anything putting them off line long enough for any loss of life.”

“Agreed,” Subramani said, “although we could spare Dr. Chandra to run such a diagnostic.”

Arpita wanted to say, I'm sitting right here, you pompous toad but thought better of it. In twenty years Rohit Subramani had not changed one iota. He was every bit as arrogant and self involved as he was at thirty seven. As he was likely at the age of seventeen. But he did not receive a commission as chief engineer on a colonization mission for his winning personality.

“I think that's fair. But keep checking in with the rest of the team. You know how quickly someone can crash under these conditions. Also, work as quickly as possible. We could still use your help running general systems diagnostics”

“Of course,” Arpita nodded, her short, curly hair bobbing briefly, “I'll keep you posted on my progress.” Because I was planning on dawdling in 20 degree temperatures.”If that is all, I will be off. You know where to contact me if you have any questions.” Arpita gathered her diagnostic pad and walked stiffly to the elevator.

Wilson watched the older woman walk away, trying to avoid looking at the deadly void outside the porthole and said, “I could do a quick diagnostic on the astronomical array. Make sure we're not dealing with any obvious malfunction that could have caused these readings. It should take a half an hour at the outside.”

O'Bannion pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to ride a particularly nasty wave of nausea. This was his third hard reboot and the hardest thus far. He wondered if the effect could be as a result of the space anomaly. Probably not, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched through that observation porthole, watched by something cold and unfriendly. Paranoia, he reminded himself, is sometimes a side effect of applied phlebotonom. Not even an unusual one, at that.

“That sounds like a good idea, Idris. You have fifteen minutes. Go.” Idris swore under his breath and moved with as much haste as he could muster over to the astronomical consoles at the starboard of the command deck. A clatter of a maintenance panel hitting the metal deck disrupted the silence. “The rest of you, follow the protocols I'm sending to your work stations right now. We need haste, people. But don't sacrifice accuracy for speed. I'd like to get back into stasis and stop burning ship resources ASAP.”

Seth O'Bannion watched his crew disperse in a flurry of activity and tried not to see the absence that lingered in the corner of his visual field. Paranoia. Just paranoia.