Changing the Past

I've recently finished the latest book by S. M. Stirling (best known for alternate history SF), a time-travel adventure, TO TURN THE TIDE, first volume in a new series. Partially inspired by L. Sprague DeCamp’s vintage novel LEST DARKNESS FALL (but Stirling's book is better), TO TURN THE TIDE transports a Harvard professor of history and four graduate students to central Europe in 165 A.D., era of the Roman Empire under Marcus Aurelius. They know they've made a one-way trip, since the time machine is stationary instead of a vehicle like the one in H. G. Wells's classic, so they decide to use the literal ton of supplies sent with them as planned by the inventor of the machine (who accidentally fails to come along as he'd meant to). They set out to change history for the better, beginning with simple improvements, e.g, sterile medical procedures and wheelebarrows, and building on their early successes. In this first installment of the series, their innovations consist of “Type A” changes, things the inhabitants of that era and locale can implement with available tools and materials once they’re given the concepts. “Type B” developments, those that require inventing the tools to make the tools to construct the new things, will come later.

In fiction, altering the past in an attempt to improve the future produces a wide range of effects. At one extreme, we have Ray Bradbury's story of a tiny, accidental change with disastrous results, when a visitor to the age of dinosaurs crushes a butterfly, thereby generating a future worse than the one he originally came from (yet unrealistically similar, but, then, it's a short story with no real pretense of scientific rigor). At the other extreme, some of Heinlein's fiction, notably THE DOOR INTO SUMMER, postulates that any alteration you make in the past isn't a real change at all. You're just doing whatever you did in the first place but weren't aware of in hindsight until after you went back and did it. (Is your head spinning yet?) Likewise, in one of the Harry Potter books, the actions of Harry and Hermione when using the time turner simply cause things to happen just as they had all along, previously unknown to the characters. In Diana Gabaldon's "Outlander" series, Claire (the traveler from the 20th century to the mid-18th) and Jamie strive to prevent the 1745 Jacobite rising and Bonnie Prince Charlie's invasion of Scotland. Although not completely powerless, they find their major goals unattainable. After the war unfolds on schedule, culminating in the catastrophic battle of Culloden despite their strenuous efforts to influence the course of events, they realize they can make only minor changes. It's as if the flow of time resists any significant alterations.

Time travel seems to work similarly in Connie Willis's series about mid-21st-century historians from Oxford. The transporting device can't send them anywhere close to a major historical event. If they deliberately or inadvertently aim for a critical nexus point, the traveler is simply bounced to a different nearby location. Thus the timeline corrects itself, smoothing out any ripples the characters create. Or so they believe -- this postulate is tested in the two-volume World War II epic BLACKOUT / ALL CLEAR, in which the historians fear they may have triggered disastrous changes in the original history.

The major theoretical issue with trying to improve the future -- one's own present -- by altering the past is what happens if you succeed. You would have had no reason to go into the past in the first place, and therefore you couldn't have peformed the actions that result / resulted / will or would result in achieving your goal. Many time-travel authors simply ignore this paradox. Some stories work on the premise that the travelers exist in a sort of bubble, in which only they remember both the original timeline and the new one, while everybody else is oblivious that anything has changed. The most logical solution is the outcome Stirling implies: The paradox makes it impossible to reshape one's own original history. Instead, the chrononaut's actions generate a new timeline branching off from the point of intervention. The protagonist of TO TURN THE TIDE can never find out whether that's what happens in the history he and his friends are creating, but the question is moot anyway. In the future they left, every person and thing they knew and loved has almost certainly been wiped out in a nuclear holocaust. Their hope is to spawn a new future without that apocalyptic destruction, even though they'll never know whether they've succeeded.

Although the "branching timelines" model makes the most rigorous sense, I do enjoy stories in which the protagonist achieves positive change by tweaking the past and returns home to enjoy the fruits of his or her efforts.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Creative Fakelore for Fun and Enlightenment

The January-February 2022 issue of SKEPTICAL INQUIRER includes an article by statistical ecologist Charles G. M. Paxton, narrating his experiment of creating an imaginary water monster to masquerade as an authentic legend. He was inspired by an account of an eighteenth-century ghost in London that turned out to be a hoax promulgated in the 1970s. Paxton wondered whether his lake monster could gain similar credence. One intriguing thing about this experiement, to me, is that not only did his invented sightings get retold as genuine by multiple sources, new reports of alleged historical sightings sprang up, independent of any effort on his part.

He decided to create, not a generic sea serpent like Nessie in Loch Ness, but a "monstrous aquatic humanoid." He located it in two freshwater lakes in England's Lake District that, as far as he knew, had no existing tradition of monster lore. Paxton named this creature Eachy and devised a false etymology for the word. He also invented a nonexistent book to cite as a source. After he had an article about Eachy uploaded to Wikipedia, references to the monster began to spread. Although the Wikipedia article on Eachy no longer exists, the Cryptid Wiki has a straightforward page on him or it as a real piece of folklore:

Eachy

The Cryptid Wiki piece mentions the earliest reported appearance of Eachy having occurred in 1873, an imaginary "fact" taken directly from Paxton's material. Moreover, in 2007 the monster sneaked into an actual nonfiction book, a cryptozoology guide by Ronan Coghlan. By January of 2008, Eachy T-shirts were being sold on the internet by someone unconnected to Paxton. At the time the Wikipedia Eachy page was deleted in 2019, it held the status of second-longest surviving hoax on that site.

What do we learn from this story? Paxton proposes that "the tale of the Eachy tells us the dangers of how Wikipedia can be subject to manipulation." As he mentions, however, in more recent years Wikipedia has tightened its standards and introduced more safeguards. On a broader scale, the Eachy hoax demonstrates the danger of how easily recorded history can be distorted or even fabricated from nothing, then accepted as fact. An important caution I'd note, as Paxton also alludes to, is the hazard of uncritically believing what appear to be multiple sources when in truth they're bouncing the same "facts" around in a self-referential echo chamber, repeating what they've picked up from previous sources in endless circularity. That phenomenon can be seen in a field I'm somewhat familiar with, scholarship on Bram Stoker's DRACULA. For instance, after an early biography suggested that Stoker might have died from complications of syphilis, numerous authors since then (in both nonfiction and novels) have accepted without question the truth of the assumption, "Bram Stoker had syphilis, which influenced the writing of DRACULA." The tale of Eachy also reinforces the obvious warning not to believe everything you read on the internet or even in books.

It's fascinating to me that a legend can be invented, disseminated, and perceived as authentic so quickly. Some authorities believe the story of Sawney Bean, the alleged patriarch of a sixteenth-century Scottish cannibal family, first reported in the NEWGATE CALENDAR centuries after the supposed events and repeated as fact in numerous publications since, was just such a fictional legend. And Sawney Bean's tale became deeply rooted in the public imagination long before the internet. In our contemporary electronic age, the chilling scenario in Orwell's NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR comes to mind. If history is whatever is written, what happens when history becomes so easy to rewrite? That's one good reason why, even if it ever became possible to digitize and make available on the web every book in existence, we should still hang onto the physical books. Ink on paper can't be altered at whim like bytes in an electronic file.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration Part 13 - Historical Verisimilude

Theme-Plot-Character-Worldbuilding Integration 

Part 13

Historical Verisimilitude

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

Previous parts in this advanced series are indexed at:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/index-to-theme-plot-character.html

When writing science fiction romance, you are telling a story that develops differently from the stories the reader has seen unfolding among their real life acquaintances.

The difference is caused by one element.  The mistake many beginning writers make is the same mistake many beginning scientists make: varying more than one variable at a time.

Art is a selective recreation of reality, not reality itself.  In reality itself, many things vary at once, and nothing stays the same for long.

Science is an art form, and as such is SELECTIVE in focus.

Humans do this selective narrowing of focus in art and in architecture, mechanics, agriculture, everything we do, because our minds can't handle too many variables at once.  Even multitasking is done by cycling the selective focus rapidly between processes.

So we do this kind of narrowing in both story-reading and story-writing.

The writer "establishes" or nails down each variable at a time, usually on page 1, or at least in chapter 1, until only one thing is left to change under the impact of conflict-resolution processes.

For example, in writing a Historical -- the "setting" is nailed down as one of the first variables.  -- it is THE PAST.  How far past, what year, what era, are indicated by the details mentioned as the conflict is established.

In films, the automobiles (or carriages) by year-model or style will tell the viewer where and when this story is happening.

The writer decides WHEN and WHERE to set the story according to the THEME, and what the writer has to say about that theme.

We've discussed theme from many angles.  Here is one of the series featuring theme:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/index-to-theme-worldbuilding.html

The theme is very often the solution or resolution of the conflict which generates the plot.

Once you have the theme, you can find the point in history where your theme is the resolution of a social or cultural conflict larger than the Characters you are writing about.

From that point, you have a clear path into the Plot, which is the series of events triggered by the actions or decisions of the Main Character.

If you're using real history, you already have your world built for you, but if you're doing science fiction or fantasy, or Paranormal Romance, you have to take the real world that was, and vary ONE ELEMENT to generate your alternate history.

For a very long series, you can pinpoint a different variable for each volume, so you can point out a long list of ways your pre-history varies from your reader's -- and thus how your alternate universe would lead to a different present the your reader lives in.

The trick to getting readers to suspend disbelief and go with you into your alternate-past is verisimilitude.

Even those who live in a mono-cultural world are aware of cultural norms, and the older readers are aware of how norms change, while younger readers see changed norms as "reality" and the world their elders live in as "fantasy."

One of the inescapable realities these days is the increasing speed with which our culture is changing.

One change ignored by many Historical Romance writers  has to do with the implications of the embedded sexism of just 50 or 60 years ago.  Such a few decades seems like ancient history to the modern Romance reader, but to some of the older people the reader works with, 50 years ago is the present.

We see that on the political stage as older people running for office casually, without thinking about it, put their hands on other people.  We see it in offices where older people in decision making positions simply assume the privileges of those who preceded them.

Current young people assume (as the young always have) that their cultural values and behaviors are correct and morally superior to those of older (say, 70-somethings) people.

THEME: my culture is superior to yours, or to all cultures.

THEME: Modern = Better

THEME: Women who let men get away with it are contemptible

THEME: Women who refuse to let men get away with it are contemptible

Think about that.  Which era in human history -- or future history -- would you choose to showcase each of those themes.

PLOT: A woman fights cultural norms and wins her freedom (Joan of Arc)

PLOT: A woman understands her place in a man's world, and prevails anyway, without confrontation

PLOT: A woman raises daughters to champion the cause of women (owning property, voting, holding a job with equal pay, not-having children).

PLOT: A woman refuses to obey men and dies a martyr

CHARACTER: A man learns his home is his woman's castle

CHARACTER: A man learns women make better bosses in the workplace

CHARACTER: A man proves women are not capable of a man's work

CHARACTER: A woman refuses to let a man get away with excluding her

All of these conflict lines raise the cultural questions related to THEME.

If you choose a setting of the 1960's going all the way back to Roman Empire Times, you have to deal with the realities of how woman raised in that culture reacted to being told "women can't do that."  And contrary to modern Romance novels, women back then who made an overt issue of the "man's world exclusion principle," didn't succeed.

When women gained the right to vote in the USA, their husbands assumed the right to tell them how to vote.  (honestly!)

How many actually did that might be calculated from the election results records.  Most did, I suspect.

Why?  Why would a woman not exercise independent judgement?

One answer would be that women are human, and had been raised in the same culture as the men.

Depicting that reality with your point of view Character's inner dialogue is as difficult today as depicting the inner dialogue of an Alien from outer space.

A respectable character with self-respect, a character the reader wants to identify with, will not knuckle under.

How could you explain the emotional reaction of a woman with all the requisite scientific credentials to apply for a particular job getting the following letter in response to her application?

This is a real letter sent to a real woman who was well qualified for the job she had applied for, and who was living far away at the time and couldn't go in for an interview.  If she had, she would have been treated politely, as politely as this letter is phrased.  At that time, this letter was POLITE, and proper, and not in any way discriminatory or offensive or illegal.

If that image is hard to see, here is a transcript of part of it.

------quote of old letter--------

While we very much appreciate your interest, I fear I see no way in which we can pursue with you very directly, at this stage, the possibility of your filling one of the positions advertised. Those positions actually are designed to prepare me for service in our regional editorial offices; we have found through experience that the nature of the duties and of the demands placed upon our regional editors is such that we cannot ask young ladies to undertake them.

We do have from time to time (and we have at this time) openings on the editorial staff of our research journals . The duties here are different from those on the staff of Chemical and Engineering News in that the work is almost entirely concerned with editing the contributions of other scientists, rather than gathering information and doing the writing oneself.

We should be glad to consider you for one of the latter positions, if you feel this kind of work would have strong interest for you, Even here, however, we could not consider placing you on our staff without having first explored the matter with you quite extensively through personal interviews here, Unfortunately, the distance between us--or more appropriately, the high cost of bridging that distance—makes it impractical to consider bringing interviewees. I fear that unless you find a way to travel and can then approach us from we shall not be in a very realistic position to discuss employment possibilities with you,

--------end quote of old letter --------

Your job as a Romance writer is to create a Character who would not be disturbed or offended by that letter, and would not see it as a symptom of something wrong with the world that she has to fix.  Make the reader understand the inner world of that woman, walk a mile in her moccasins, and be comfortable in a world where gender is destiny.  If you can do that, you are a science fiction writer.  An Alien Romance would be no challenge to your skills.

Build your historical world, your theme, and your character's inner self-image so that, presented with this rejection letter, she believes that only men can do that work, and goes looking for other kinds of work.

Not, "I can do it but you won't let me," which is a child's response, but "I might be able to do it but I'd be miserable at it."  And she takes herself off to do something she will be good at, and happy doing.

This would be a female character who has no chip on her shoulder and is fully mature.  Her story is about how she triumphs by following a different path than she had expected to.

Or if you're playing with alternate universes, you can use two versions of this same woman, and show how, if she'd gotten the job, the whole world would be changed one way (say, she'd spark the invention of Artificial Intelligence), while if she didn't get the job, the world would be changed in another way (say, she raises a son who turns into the Bill Gates of that world).

THEME: the significance of a woman's life is measured only by the achievements of her son

Build a world where that truth is joyfully embraced by all women, who do not see that part of their world as in need of change.  Those women are busy instigating some other change.  What is that other change?


Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Beliefs, Facts, and Action

Sometimes it doesn't matter whether one has accurate beliefs about facts as long as one's beliefs have a correct or useful effect in practice. In one STAR TREK novel in which the crew brings aid to a planet suffering from an epidemic, they advise the local healers of the importance of cleanliness. One of them says something like, "Yes, we know dirt attracts disease demons." Later Spock gives her a medication with the statement that disease demons can't abide it. Whether the healers believed in disease demons or germs, what mattered was the treatment being applied. The British Navy realized lime juice prevented scurvy long before vitamins were discovered. Likewise, cooks knew food would spoil if not stored in the proper conditions, even though they knew nothing about bacteria. During medieval epidemics, the spread of disease was controlled by quarantine when doctors still thought illness came from unbalanced humors or malign astrological influences. The heroine of Henry James's short novel DAISY MILLER dies of malaria, which the story attributes to the miasma emanating from the swamps near Rome. Although people then didn't know malaria was spread by mosquitoes, they knew hanging around swamps and other sources of stagnant water often led to catching the disease. Of course, as a literary symbol of ancient, corrupt Europe destroying a young, naive American girl, a swamp works better than a mosquito.

Before astronomers accepted the Copernican model of the planets revolving around the sun, they believed Earth was the center around which the planets (including the sun and moon) and the sphere of the fixed stars revolved. People still managed to navigate by the stars, and astronomers and astrologers could use the incorrect model to predict the movements of heavenly bodies. The triumph of the Copernican model, however, allowed more elegant predictions and opened the way for the revelation that the planets and stars obeyed the same Newtonian gravitational laws as objects on Earth. Contrary to popular belief, by the way, the Earth-centered universe theory didn't mean people thought Earth and the human race were special in a good way. Unlike the heavenly bodies outside the sphere of the moon, Earth was flawed, the lowest point in the cosmos, where the dregs of creation ended up. The moon was imperfect, too; it changed on a monthly schedule, and it displayed visible spots. The planets, sun, and stars were thought to be composed of different, perfect material. The main shock of the Copernican revolution wasn't that we lost our place at the center. It was that the heavens were as changeable as Earth and the objects on it, made of the same kind of matter. Speaking of Newton, the classical laws of physics worked fine in practice for centuries, despite the fact that theories of relativity and quantum mechanics eventually revealed the inadequacies of classical physics on the macro and micro levels.

Often, of course, erroneous beliefs about facts do make a practical difference. Long before Mendel and the later discovery of DNA, farmers knew how to breed animals and plants for desirable traits. However, they also believed in prenatal impressions—that the experiences of pregnant mothers left their marks on the offspring. According to the book of Genesis, Jacob induced his father-in-law's flocks to produce spotted offspring by placing spotted twigs in front of the breeding animals. Columbus was mistaken about the size of the Earth. If he hadn't bumped into a previously unknown land mass by sheer luck, his expedition would probably have been lost long before getting near Asia. When medical science discovered the risks of excessive cholesterol in the bloodstream, authorities assumed dietary cholesterol should be restricted. People unnecessarily reduced their intake of innocent, nutritious eggs, until new studies identified trans fats as the main dietary villain. Pediatricians used to recommend that babies sleep on their stomachs or, later, face up in an inclined rather than flat position, for fear they might spit up and choke. Better understanding of the physiology of sudden infant death has led to a complete reversal, so that babies now sleep on their backs. Ideology drives policy on matters such as punitive incarceration of drug offenders versus treating addiction as a medical problem or what kind of formal sex education (if any) adolescents should be offered in schools—issues in which mistaken beliefs about real-world effects can result in undesired actual outcomes.

What factual beliefs might our present-day culture hold that will be disproved in the future, maybe with real-life consequences? What universally held assumptions of ours might future generations or visiting extraterrestrials consider as absurdly wrongheaded as we consider the heliocentric cosmos or the "humors" theory of disease?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Cosmic Times and Distances

This video compresses the total history of the universe and Earth into a single monologue of less than twenty minutes:

History of the Entire World

The summary is heavily weighted toward human history, of course. If the timing of events were in proper proportion, the existence of life on this planet would take up only a tiny interval at the end, and humanity probably wouldn't even be mentioned on that scale. It's quite entertaining if you can tolerate its being peppered with repetitions of two words that used to be classified as "unprintable." My first thought, after watching the podcast, was how infinitesimally short, on a cosmic scale, the history of our civilization is.

Here's a visualization of planetary sizes and distances compared to the Sun if the radius of the solar system equaled the length of a football field:

NASA Solar System Scale

The Sun would be about the diameter of a dime. The four inner planets—Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars—are the size of grains of sand, and Earth sits on the two-yard line. Even Jupiter has a diameter equal to only the thickness (not the diameter) of a quarter. By the time we get to Pluto, we're on the 79-yard line. It boggles the mind to consider how much of our solar system consists of empty space. Imagine how empty actual interstellar space is!

In one of his late writings, Mark Twain compares the time span of life on Earth to the Eiffel Tower. On that scale, human history would correspond to the layer of paint on the very top. Twain says something like, "Maybe it's obvious that the whole tower was built for the sake of that little skin of paint on the top, but I have my doubts."

As a believer in a Creator, I do believe that the universe was made for humanity. BUT—it was made for all the other creatures in existence, too. C. S. Lewis writes somewhere that each of us can truthfully say the entire world was made for us, as long as we remember that every other being can truthfully make the same claim. "All is done for each." As he puts it in the "great dance" scene of his novel PERELANDRA, "There seems no center because it is all center." Which harmonizes with the astronomical observation that no matter where we stand in our expanding universe, space seems to be moving away from us uniformly in all directions, because no matter what our position, from our viewpoint we're at the center.

In that respect, we'll probably have something fundamentally in common with any other intelligent entities we may meet.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

YA Genre Fiction

Michael Cart, author of YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE: FROM ROMANCE TO REALISM, had an article on this past Sunday's editorial page of the Baltimore SUN proclaiming that YA literature is an American invention. The essay summarizes the highlights of the history of twentieth-century fiction for teens and the emergence of novels written specifically for them as a distinct marketing category:

YA Literature

Since this author is clearly an expert in the field, and the Amazon blurb for his book's third edition mentions that it covers horror, SF, and dystopian novels, it strikes me as particularly puzzling and annoying that he dismisses all fiction for teenagers before the late 1960s with remarks such as these:

Quoting S. E. Hinton, author of the classic THE OUTSIDERS: "The world is changing, yet the authors of books for teenagers are still 15 years behind the times. In the fiction they write, romance is still the most popular theme with a horse and the girl who loved it coming in a close second."

And Cart's own summary of the pre-1960s literary landscape: "Before these two novels [THE OUTSIDERS and Robert Lipsyte's THE CONTENDER], literature for 12 to 18 year olds was about as realistic as a Norman Rockwell painting — almost universally set in small-town, white America and featuring teenagers whose biggest problem was finding a date for the senior prom." Cart praises novels such as THE OUTSIDERS, THE CONTENDER, and those that followed them as "hard-hitting, truth-telling fiction" that "embraced real world considerations like abortion and homosexuality." Not that there's anything wrong with that. Doubtless nobody denies that novels reflecting life as experienced by their target audience and grappling with contemporary problems are a Good Thing. But not all children and teenagers want to read about characters like themselves who face problems similar to the ones they have to cope with every day, nor should they be obligated to. (See the topic of "escape," discussed here recently.)

Can Cart possibly be unaware of the early "juveniles" by Andre Norton and Robert Heinlein, in which young adults venture out into the world (in their cases, the universe), take on jobs of real importance, and accomplish meaningful contributions to their societies? Does he think for some reason that these books don't count in the history of teen literature? This ignoring or dismissal of an entire genre reminds me of an article I once saw lamenting the death of the short story. So, for that author, the short story was dying or dead? He or she had never read ANALOG, ASIMOV'S, THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, CEMETERY DANCE, or WEIRD TALES (to name a few genre magazines flourishing at that time, before online publications)? Had never suspected the existence of the many original short-fiction anthologies published annually in fantasy, horror, and SF? That mourner of the short story's death looked for thriving markets in the wrong places. Likewise, judging from that one editorial article, Michael Cart is looking for pre-1960s YA fiction more "realistic" than "a Norman Rockwell painting" (not that there's always necessarily anything "unrealistic" about that, either; some of us DID live in lily-white suburbs in the 1950s and 60s) in the wrong place.

For a more comprehensive viewpoint: Speculative fiction scholar Farah Mendlesohn has published two books about the history of fantasy and SF for children and adolescents, THE INTER-GALACTIC PLAYGROUND and CHILDREN'S FANTASY LITERATURE: AN INTRODUCTION. Both are great reads, lively and informative. Although THE INTER-GALACTIC PLAYGROUND unfortunately has no reasonably priced edition (by my frugal standards; I read a library copy some time ago), the book on fantasy is affordable and well worth delving into.

On a completely different subject, have you been watching the PBS series NOVA WONDERS on Wednesdays? They've covered topics such as the microbiome inside us, AI, creating life, and the search for extraterrestrial life. Check it out if you can.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration Part 18, Creating A Galactic History

Theme-Worldbuilding Integration

Part 18

Creating A Galactic History

by

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts in the Theme-Worldbuilding Integration series are here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/04/index-to-theme-worldbuilding.html

The posts with Integration in the title are not "elementary" writing lessons, but exploration of how a fiction writer processes real-world observations into gripping fiction that takes the reader OUT of the "real" world and into a much more real Reality.

Or put another way, fiction is the alphabet of the left hand, the building block of non-verbalizable "words" -- constructs that integrate parts of the brain to create an orchestrated, deep-textured reality.

With a vast and deep background in reading well constructed fiction, a young person can observe the real world they must "go out and conquer" with an understanding that leads to successful choices and actions.

Fiction is not an add-on, or a waste of time.  And by "fiction" I also mean today's videogaming media.

The process of becoming an adult includes the vital process of "Integrating" all the parts, pieces, isolated experiences, and pre-configured academic "courses."  By the teens, we should all have created a model of the universe in our minds and begin  testing our model against "reality."

The process of adjusting the imaginary model and changing "reality" to suit us, and re-adjusting our model, and re-changing our reality (picking a college major, getting a job, founding a company, getting married, burying our parents, marrying-off our children), over and over again will lead to a successful life very smoothly if the first "model of reality" we build in our minds (from fiction) is solid.

When, in mid-life, one must utterly discard the earliest model of reality, and start from scratch, one does lose the capital investment of life-years and emotional-depth.

Getting divorced can be that kind of trauma -- or discovering Aliens From Outer Space Are Among Us produces a similar reassessment.

Actually, watching a teen child you have raised discover the difference between sex and love is likewise harrowing.

So, the key for a writer to creating novels (or series of novels) about the nuanced differences between sex, love, friendship, Romance and Reality, is a solid grasp of "what is really going on" in our actual real world.

To understand what I mean by "What is really going on," do read Gini Koch's ALIEN series -- real romance starting without a clue, ending up with an in-depth grasp of the Galactic Situation (for all the good that grasp does!).

So, as a writer, open your mind as Gini Koch's Kitty-Kat does to the idea that maybe you don't yet know what is "really" going on.

What does it mean, "going on..."  ???

When do things start "going on" -- and when exactly is "now" and what does "now" mean?  How big is now?  What is TIME anyway?

"Time Is XXXX" is a THEME.

Pick some value for XXXX -- each value you pick will create a Theme.  Now create a world, a galaxy, or a universe (parallel or divergent, or splinter of time, or pocket of time) from that Theme.

Our reality is a "world" -- but we see and know of our world only what can fit into our earliest imaginings, our earliest model of reality gleaned from our earliest readings, then modified and modified.

For the most part, most humans just modify their first model, trying to avoid obvious conflicts with what they currently observe.  But humans are oddly (maybe among all the species of sentients in the plethora of galaxies, oddly) tolerant of contradictions.

We hold these truths to be self-evident --- therefore, we don't have to test these truths to see if they all belong in the same universe.

We, as a species, have very little merit in survival traits -- no shell, poor eyesight, no pelt against the cold, slow running speed, etc. etc. -- but survive and dominate this planet because we are adaptable.  Sharks and cockroaches survive by other traits, which annoys us.

Mentally and emotionally, we adapt to, absorb, and ignore all contradictions.  We ignore impediments to our beliefs and barge on ahead toward our goals, regardless of collateral damage.

Let the collaterals damaged by our barging through just adapt to the mess we leave behind.  "Go For It!" is our watchword.

Take that human attitude out into a galaxy full of space-faring civilizations, and what do you think might happen?

What COULD happen on this planet before Space Travel becomes possible that would change that "barge on through" attitude -- the "adapt the world to our mental model, not our model to the world" attitude -- so we arrive on the Galactic Scene with a different sort of civilization than we have today?

What would it take to change humanity?

What part of humanity needs changing to change the "barge" trait?

Our bodies are not tough, and most of us are not very smart.  What else is there to a human being besides our primate bodies?

So many primate species have gone extinct.  Are we next because our bodies are all humans are?

Or is there such a thing as the Soul?  Is there a non-material component to the human being?  (or maybe only some of us have souls?)

Is the patent reality of the Soul Mate, and thus the reality of the Soul, what is really going on?

Part of every romance genre reader's model of reality includes the Soul Mate as a fact, though finding such an exact mate is not guaranteed if you only have this one little Earth to search.

Does the existence of a Soul imply or necessitate the postulate of the reality of a Creator of the Universe, God?

The answer to that question is one of the ingredients in your World Building.  In some fictional realities, the answer is no.  In other novel series, the answer is yes.  In the really great fictional series that mirror our actual reality, the answer is either "Maybe" or possibly "Sometimes."

What exactly is a Soul?

I know a huge variety of theories used by and relied upon by many ancient civilizations, but the one I find most intriguing is the concept that the "Soul" enters our material "reality" via the dimension of Time.

The Soul does this -- but does that mean it is inserted into Reality by the Creator of that Reality?  Or just that the Soul chooses -- like an Olympic swimmer diving into a pool to race down his lane, hit a barrier, turn and race back?

What is the Soul really doing?  Does every person have a Soul?

Answers to those questions are THEMES.

Now, as has been noted previously in these blogs, the way to create verisimilitude (the matching of your fictional World to your particular readership's notions of their reality) is to study the vast array of academic pursuits most of your readers have not (yet) absorbed.

History, Religion, the history of religion, sociology, archaeology, -- any sort of 'ology.  Just learn, study, absorb.

Then ask yourself Gini Koch's persistent question -- "Wait a minute!  What is Really Going On Here?"  What things seems to be may not be what they really are.

Then ask yourself whether the difference between appearances (the Earth is flat) and reality (the Earth is an oblate spheroid), matters.  Does it matter in general or just to your particular Characters.

Here is an article about how NASA tracking our space probes is not finding them where their math says they should be -- but just a bit off from that location.  Something is wrong with our theories or our math (what is really going on?  Does it matter?)

http://www.sciencealert.com/juno-isn-t-where-it-s-supposed-to-be-and-this-isn-t-the-first-time-it-s-happened-flyby-anomaly

"A difference which makes no difference is no difference?"

Or is it?

What is really going on with human souls and civilization?

Back in the 1930's a brilliant and diligent effort produced what we call today an info-graphic.  It was called a Histomap, was hung in classrooms and sold in book stores for decades.

There is a high-rez version big enough to read all the words (on a big desktop screen) you should read carefully to understand Human Heritage.
http://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/histomap-big.html

There is a printing over 6 ft long (to hang on a wall) for sale on Amazon
https://smile.amazon.com/Map-Poster-Histomap-73-24/dp/B01M1HKMXH/

Since then, archaeologists have determined different dates for some of the Events pegged to this time-scale, but stand back and absorb the impact of the PATTERN of rise and fall of influence of various civilizations throughout human history on Earth.

Now consider WHY that pattern is there and why it seems to repeat -- OK, raggedly, approximately, only vaguely -- but repeat and repeat with no obvious indication that some sort of "progress" is being made by humanity.

Do civilizations become world influences because of intrinsic moral merit?  Or is it just being better warriors?  Or is it economics?  Or adaptability?

Why do they "fall" or disappear or retreat from being influential.  After all, today we have a country called Greece, one called Italy which has a Rome inside it, we have a country called China -- and one tiny spec called Israel.

But Russia and the USA are called the superpowers of our day.

At the same time, our "Western" civilization is hated, resented, and targeted by a younger civilization based on a religion founded around 600 AD, which "rose" and "fell" and is rising again.

What is the connection between Souls, Soul Mates and Civilizations?  Or World Superpowers?

Will a Galactic Civilization created by humans of that day repeat this pattern?

If not, will it have any pattern at all?

Will there be a new pattern for the Galaxy?

Do the Aliens previously or currently (whatever definition of TIME you choose for your worldbuilding -- remembering that by theoretical physics there is no such thing as simultaneity -- have a pattern of rising/fall of Galactic Civilizations, and will the impact of Humans on their scene change their pattern?

If so, how will be change that direction or pulsing of History?  What part of us will shift something basic in them? (I'll bet on Love, Romance, Bonding of Soul Mates).

We discussed sexuality and "What is Life" in perspective of the newer map of all the stars we know about -- the image Laniakea shows the tiny red dot that is our entire Galaxy, not even visible -- because it is so small.  Each of the tiny pixel size dots on that image represents a Galaxy (many larger than ours, and we now know most have black holes at the center).
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/08/alien-sexuality-part-two-what-is-life.html

Study that Histomap graphic, think long and hard about how that infographic reveals the flow of Souls in and out of incarnation, pairing or failing to pair with mates (think Helen of Troy), and consider what it all means in terms of the Finger of God nudging countries, cultures, civilizations.

Note that, contemporary with the timeline in this Histomap, historical summaries of thousands of years of human pre-history/history (technically we call it "history" only after the fall of the Roman Empire, about 1,000 AD) -- in the 1980's scholars considered the hard evidence they had placed the time of Abraham (Patriarch of Judaism) at 2100 BCE and the First Temple in Jerusalem (i.e. King Solomon of the Bible) at 953 BCE.

Note this Histomap does not show Israel.  Its influence was huge, as I've noted in various blog entries here, but its geographic area was too tiny and the population total too tiny, to register on a Histomap of this scale.  But that tiny population -- taken out in the trackless desert to get the Ten Commandments and build a Tent of Meeting with the Divine -- founded a new Culture.

See Edward T. Hall, The Silent Language, for an easy to understand explanation of what "culture" really is.

The Kings of Israel did not go out and conquer Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Macedonia etc etc -- they conquered the tiny slice of land given to the Jews, and no more.  There were never many Jews - compared to the rest of the world around them.  They traded with far-off places (the blue dye they used, and the spices used in the Temple tell that story), but they weren't known for exports.

One thing they did export was their Culture.  Not so much export as maybe "leak" around the edges.  And it made many larger nations their enemies, and got them destroyed.

Earth as a whole may be such a microscopic thread in the vast billion-year scale of Galactic History.

If Earth humans have Souls, and our culture(s) may become our only export of note.

Each of the civilizations on that Histomap had a distinct Culture -- today many neopagan communities are reviving worship of these potent forces those civilizations called gods (plural).  Egypt had a monotheistic Sun worshiping religion, but the whole of Egypt was never strictly monotheistic.

What is a Soul?  Is it just a natural phenomenon?  Or does its reality require postulating a supernatural force to Create it?

Answer those questions with a simple, one sentence answer, and you have a Galactic Size Theme.

What do Souls have to do with the rise and fall of Civilizations?

Now, suppose a Soul is contagious -- like a disease you can catch -- and the Galactic Aliens we first encounter do not have Souls.

What if Humans -- and our incessant Love -- infect some Aliens with Souls that proceed to propagate among various Alien species and Star Spanning civilizations.

What if the nice, stable, galaxy Earth first discovers out there becomes as unstable as Earth's history -- setting off a rise/fall/rise repeating pattern just like Earth's pre-history?

What do you suppose their attitude toward humans might become?

What if our Souls "leak" out from wherever we settle to live and infect their civilizations, the way Israel's culture leaked?

Then postulate the Aliens generating something akin to "Christianity" (I don't mean the august Personage -- but the phenomenon of the spark of truth hitting dry kindling and setting off a cultural conflagration).  There were and are never many Jews -- but there are billions and billions of Christians and Muslims.  Suppose that happens to a Galactic Culture - or alliance of Cultures that have been stable for billions of years, and suddenly grow-and-shrink as our Histomap shows?

Pick the THEME you will use -- an answer to any one of these questions will do the trick -- then build your galactic world with high contrast between Earth and the Aliens.

Contrast is what makes an amorphous mess into a Work Of Art.

Contrast generates Conflict and Conflict is the Essence of Story.

The Story is not happening before the two contrasting elements first meet, and the story is over at the point where the contrast melds into bland oneness.  Romance ends at the sound of Wedding Bells, which toll for the beginning of Life.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Depiction Part 21 - Depicting Alien History

Depiction Part 21
Depicting Alien History
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous entries in the Depiction Series can be found listed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

The best way to depict Alien (non-human) anything is to use a pattern that has appeared in human history -- and preferably reappeared cyclically.

Long, broad, historical trends are very hard to see by studying history.

It is hard to trace the connections among events occurring centuries apart in different parts of the world, and different parts of culture.

Here is an example from the History of Government that is easy to use, easy for your reader to comprehend, and potentially easy to write.

There is a theory (lauded in science fiction circles) that all species of non-human peoples will have forms of government derived from their sexuality.

So study Earth's biology, and pattern your Aliens on one of our species reproductive proclivities.  Then figure what sort of governments (through the arc of thousands of years of history) that your Aliens have invented and used -- and to what effect.

Use a pattern you can find in human history (and pre-history) based on human biology.

Well, you probably don't want to muddy your picture with all of human biology, so focus on one aspect.

In Part 19 of this series on Depicting ...
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/11/depiction-part-19-depicting-married.html

...we discussed testosterone and its role in the insane, incessant, furious, and unreasonable addiction to Winning.  The surge of testosterone caused by defeating and humiliating a foe is actually addictive -- addictive in the sense that with each successive win, it takes a bigger win next time to get the same euphoric effect.

Testosterone is a drug that produces a high that is absolutely addictive.

It has an obverse.  Losing a battle produces a lack of testosterone and consequent listless misery, knuckling under, surrender, and lack of desire to fight.

Being married with children tames human males, lowering and evening out the testosterone spikes (or so current research indicates -- maybe that's not true, but for the purposes of fictional worldbuilding, it is a good model).

Apparently, according to a set of studies (that I find poorly designed and not aimed at the real problem),
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/08/health/sex-olympics-athletic-performance/index.html
just "having sex" doesn't affect a human's determination to win, though these 4 studies (all on men) don't measure addiction to the "high" of being a winner. They were after athletic performance, (speed, strength, endurance) not the addiction effect of winning which all the participants would have in full force.

Remember, we are looking to design an Alien that your human readers can comprehend without effort.

When looking for a model, a pattern, to use for your fictional aliens, you don't need to find the real scientific truth of a matter, but rather what the major portion of your target audience believes is the truth of the matter.  Your objective is to sell them entertainment, not teach them science.

In the process of luring your readers into your fictional universe, you may awaken a thirst for actual science education.

That is what Robert A. Heinlein did so very well, and many other writers followed suit.  But one generation's scientific truth is the next generation's superstitious nonsense, so just start with what your readers think is true, and extrapolate something unthinkable from that.  It is the mental process of extrapolation that is entertaining -- not the content of the facts.

Sketch Of Human History

So looking at human history as various forms of government conducting wars, winning and losing, and the subsequent behaviors of the winning and losing cultures, make yourself a chart or graph that depicts the swing from absolute Totalitarianism to Anarchy and back again.

Go back to, say, the world depicted in Clan of the Cave Bear

 -- alone and having to make everything you need to survive all by yourself from scratch, the concept "wealth" takes on a primal meaning.

We discussed what an Alien Romance Novel Writer can learn from Clan of the Cave Bear in Part 17 of this series on Depiction.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/08/depiction-part-17-depicting-first.html

Work up the "Tribal Structure" ladder, just as you see today in "failed states" where "militia" take over.  Look at how Libya has fallen apart.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Crisis_(2011_present)

For our fictional purposes, Wikipedia is a superior source because it represents what most of your readers think is true. You can "set the record straight" in your novel, but you must start with what they think is true to suspend disbelief.

There was a dictatorship, strong-man style (kill the opposition and plow the bodies under in unmarked graves), and now there are militias, and a rising power of better organized but very vicious jihadists forcing their standards on other people at penalty of death.

Same sort of thing happened decades ago in the Balkans.  It happens exactly like that wherever you have a "failed state."  Humans organize behind a strong protector who will fight other humans and bring home food.

So go back to Biblical Times, and Egypt and Babylon -- there arose governments based on the divine right of Kings.  Pharoah was considered a living god.

So operational government "authority" was legitimized by a supernatural mantle.

Through the Middle Ages The Church essentially Ruled, with the first born sons inheriting land and station, and the extra and spare sons going into the Church where the real wealth and power resided.

Kings fought and grabbed Rule.  All the places that have left us records had governments run by a King or Emperor (Queen etc).  The secret to longevity as a Country was centralization of power.

By divine right, Kings owned all the land, and basically owned the very people -- sometimes people owned other people (slaves).  There was a hierarchy that governed, and the only way to change anything was to overthrow the ones in Power.

The Kings who were better at winning wars got control of larger territories, and usually the bigger ones survived and prospered better.  Think of the Roman Empire. Of course it fell apart eventually.

The same kind of agglutination went on in China -- today's China is an amalgam of many old Empires which were composed of an amalgam of Kingdoms.

An Emperor is a King of Kings -- who graciously lets the Kings he conquers stay in power and run their little Kingdoms and pay taxes to the Empire.

In the enormous Roman Empire, we saw the application of the ideas we first found among the Ancient Greeks (which may have arisen previously, but we don't have a record of that) -- the very word Democracy is Hellenistic.

So comes democracy, and the half-assed overthrow of Kings creating the Constitutional Monarchy model -- then the USA and France shook off even that semblance of Monarch and handed the reins of government to ordinary citizens.

Then came decades of fighting over "who" has the "right" to vote. (well, we're still fighting over that).

Meanwhile, the Natural Aristocrats among humans, being mortally offended by the Rule of the RiffRaff, have systematically and patiently (and oh, so aristocratically refined and politely) worked to re-structure the Republic/Democracy model back into Rule From The Throne By Your Betters.

So in the 20th Century we saw the rise of Socialism, Communism, Stalin-ism, Progressivism and other isms all focused on the arduous task of centralizing control of every facet of life.  Kings of old had the power of life and death, directly, by the fact of holding the throne.  Today's Kings hold the power of life and death by controlling the resources the peasants need to keep breathing, electricity, air conditioning, refrigeration, medical care, medicine (controlling what you may or may not have access to according to whether they deem it effective), transportation, import/export permissions, regulations on water, on building reservoirs, on transporting crude oil, on banking, on social networking, and no doubt soon (as Robert A. Heinlein predicted) a tax on breathable air.

All of these regulations come from the Executive Branch, and all the local Laws must conform to Law created at one central building in Washington D.C. or in New York at the U.N.  -- gathered and centralized decision making is efficient, but requires a "one size fits all" solution to every problem.

With all the decision making centralized, decision makers are then in a position to sell (for campaign contributions or other convoluted methods of payment) exceptions to the various rules, regulations and laws.  Exemptions have become the new coin of the realm, just as the Kings of old handed out Favors, and the Popes handed out Indulgences.  So a handful of people who know best get to pick the winners. (keep your eye on the testosterone addiction effect.)

End Sketch of Human History

This is just a thumbnail sketch of human historical epochs.  For your purposes, you may take the same historical (and pre-historical) records of Earth and arrange them into a different narrative.

Your Alien History will have that same shape, but entirely different content.  It may also have a different "period" -- a different length of the sine wave of the back and forth between individual independence and self-sufficiency and absolute monarchy.

Now remember all the philosophical works you've read on War and Human Nature -- how we are just Great Apes and our international wars are just like tribes of Apes fighting.  How humans establish a pecking order just like most animals that live in groups.  This model of human history assumes we are just animals, no Soul or God involved, and any god references are just superstitious balderdash.

Ask yourself is War a product of human sexuality?  Is war the inevitable outcome of testosterone addiction?

Do your aliens have a sexual hormone that they become addicted to, and how does that hormone come to flood their systems?

How do your aliens behave under the influence of that hormone?  How does that hormone driven behavior contribute to their individual and species survival?

Then derive a kind of governmental structure that mirrors human structures (pecking order to warfare included), but is rooted in their addiction to their hormone.

Here, again from Wikipedia, is a list of the areas of life that Government must centralize to regain Kingship and absolute sovereignty over the RiffRaff, so nobody can survive without permission.  It is quite a comprehensive list, and if you cover all these areas within the narrative of your story, you will generate impenetrable expository lumps.  Determine how your aliens handle all these areas, but Depict in Show Don't Tell only the ones thematically germane to your specific story.

------quote from Wikipedia-----
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Chase

Free Enterprise into 'X'[edit]
On pages 95 and 96 of The Road We Are Traveling, under the heading of "Free Enterprise into 'X'",[12] Chase listed 18 characteristics of political economy that he had observed among[13] Russia, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain between 1913[14] and 1942. Chase labeled this phenomenon "... something called 'X'".[12] Characteristics include the following:

A strong, centralized government.
An executive arm growing at the expense of the legislative and judicial arms.
The control of banking, credit and security exchanges by the government.
The underwriting of employment by the government, either through armaments or public works.
The underwriting of social security by the government – old-age pensions, mothers' pensions, unemployment insurance, and the like.
The underwriting of food, housing, and medical care, by the government.
The use of deficit spending to finance these underwritings.
The abandonment of gold in favor of managed currencies.
The control of foreign trade by the government.
The control of natural resources.
The control of energy sources.
The control of transportation.
The control of agricultural production.
The control of labor organizations.
The enlistment of young men and women in youth corps devoted to health, discipline,community service and ideologies consistent with those of the authorities.
Heavy taxation, with special emphasis on the estates and incomes of the rich.
Control of industry without ownership.
State control of communications and propaganda.

-------------end quote from Wikipedia--------------

Stuart Chase, the fellow who compiled that comprehensive list of areas of human endeavor, is the originator of the concept called, in American Politics, The New Deal, and was Advisor to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In the 1960s, Chase lent his support to the Johnson administration's Great Society policies.

Some of the centralized government functions on that list will translate easily to your Aliens -- natural resources, energy sources, agriculture (provided they eat plants or animals), maybe trade and transportation.

Robert A. Heinlein's (1907-1988 -- contemporary of Stuart Chase) teleporting "doors" would serve to undermine centralized government functions as traumatically as the internet has been undermining the governments so stable during the 20th century.  You know how ISIS (among others) has been using the Internet to convince young, testosterone driven, males that black is white and up is down, murder is holy.  So transportation and communication have both been used.  What other government function might a human-generated technological innovation undermine among your Aliens?

What historical figure among your Aliens contributed such foundational philosophical works on the form and function of government?  Give that Alien a name and a nickname, and title some works of his/hers/its that you can quote.  What technology do your Alien rebels discover, invent, or buy from humans, that lets them overthrow that centralized control?

Never tell your readers about that secret hormone -- show them the results, and the consequences when human testosterone clashes with alien hormones.

The only thing I can see that your readers would find relevant, but is not on Stuart Chase's list, is centralized government control of reproduction -- and that, too, has been done in science fiction.  Still, with today's advances in gene editing, there is much more story potential.

What if your Alien Rebels found a well preserved corpse of their species as it used to be before a centralized government forcibly mandated alteration of their genome?  What would happen, for example, to humanity if we altered the gene(s) responsible for testosterone addiction?  Suppose the alteration didn't work quite as expected, and three or four generations later we have humans who are ultra-sensitive and even more prone to testosterone addiction (which addiction causes the win at all costs, and win and win again and again syndrome).

All our most popular movies, one action scene after another mass destruction scene, all superhero win-win-win oh-do-it-again-because-it-feels-so-good formula movies sell all over the world.  You don't need to do a good translation of the sparse dialogue because the story isn't about what the characters say or think, but just about destroying and winning.

What do your aliens do instead?  What are their most popular films about - historically and "now" as well as the way "now" distorts their history via film and other arts?

Depict their culture with quotes of their famous philosophers and one-liners from their most well known movies.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

"Tactical Laxatives"

Karl Marx wrote, "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."

Therefore, a science fiction writer, or a humorist, or epic fantasy movie-maker may well be inspired by history. My beach-read this week is war-studies-historian Philip Sidnell's "Midnight Ninja & Tactical Laxatives" ISBN 978-1848-843318, which is a well-sorted collection of fact-based narratives of dark doings and dirty deeds to debilitate, demoralize and otherwise incapacitate enemie.

Napoleon Bonaparte said, "An army marches on its stomach." (A reference to the importance of logistics and provisions.) However, as Sidnell's book points out, an army neither marches nor fights effectively when it is suffering from indigestion, food poisoning, alcohol poisoning, or diarrhoea... with the notable exception of Alexander the Great who did not let a little think like dysentery stop him from marching 150 miles in three days and nights to relieve Maracanda (a garrison).

Apparently, Alexander the Great died in bed aged thirty-three. Historians speculate that the cause of death may have been an accidental overdose of pain-killers.

Tactics to slow down the enemy included allowing the ravenous enemy to "capture" and consume cattle (raw) in woodless wastelands;  buzz-inducing honey; mandragora-spiked booze to invaders eager to celebrate an unexpected route of their foes with the liquid spoils of war; and hellebore-tainted water to the thirsty beseiged.

What worked for the ancient Persians, Romans, Greeks, and Macedonians can and does work for Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and perhaps for you????

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

Ireland Tour, June 2016

Last week we returned from a 10-day package tour of Ireland with Belfast-born folk singer Seamus Kennedy. Remarkably, through our entire trip the weather stayed partly cloudy to sunny, in the 60s during the day and sometimes the low 70s, with no measurable rainfall. I gather this hardly ever happens.

At Blarney Castle, being terrified of heights, I didn't climb the tower to the famous stone. However, the grounds offer plenty of other attractions, such as the lower part of the ruined castle, a cave from which escape tunnels once extended, and outdoor features such as the Poison Garden, showcasing toxic plants. One of my favorite sites was the National Irish Heritage Park, a display of re-created houses, stone circles, etc. from the Mesolithic period to the Viking era. Another fascinating re-creation is the Dunbrody Famine Ship at the Irish Emigration Experience museum. We also saw an exhibition on the Titanic.

We visited Powerscourt Estate in County Wicklow, originally a 13th-century castle, but extensively renovated in the 18th and 19th centuries. The present-day grounds display features typical of the latter period such as an artificial lake, classical statuary, several gardens, and a stone tower called the Pepperpot Tower. The Japanese garden at Powerscourt includes a stone grotto, artificial, of course, but so festooned with moss, ferns, and vines that it looks "real." It's like a cool, green cave—delightfully Gothic. I decided I wanted one, except that there wouldn't be room in our back yard. Here's a picture:

Japanese Garden at Powerscourt

We also saw Avondale, the estate of renowned Irish statesman Charles Parnell, and the Michael Collins Center, devoted to the hero of the war of independence, who was killed during the subsequent civil war in 1922.

The main focus of the tour, however, was the 1916 Easter Rising. We started our trip in Dublin and toured the GPO (General Post Office, used as the headquarters of the rising), Kilmainham Gaol (where rebel leaders were imprisoned and executed), and Glasnevin Cemetery, where many Irish patriots are buried. I used to wonder why the organizers of the Rising chose the post office for their headquarters, but when we saw the building, the reason became obvious, quite apart from its status as the communications center of Dublin. It's built like a fortress! The walls are so thick that even when the interior was devastated by bombardment of the roof, the walls stood intact. Kilmainham Gaol is a grim, soul-stirring experience. The oldest part of the structure really is like a dungeon, with bare stone cells about the size of walk-in closets designed for one man but often holding four or more.

The executions of the rebel leaders backfired on the English authorities; while many Dubliners were neutral or opposed to the rebellion while it was going on, the harsh retribution turned public opinion against the English and made martyrs of the leaders of the Rising. If they had simply been imprisoned for a few years, the Rising might have gone down in history as one more failed rebellion. Instead, it became a catalyst for the war of independence that led to the partitioning of the country. James Connolly, wounded in the fighting, was already dying and had to be strapped to a chair to face the firing squad. Joseph Plunkett, a young poet who rallied to the cause despite suffering from pneumonia at the time, was allowed to marry his fiancee, Grace Gifford, in the prison chapel a few hours before his execution. They were later permitted ten minutes together in his cell, with a guard in the doorway holding a stopwatch.

Here's a recording of Seamus Kennedy singing about this event. Unfortunately, no videos from the tour have been uploaded on YouTube yet, so this clip comes from one of his albums:

Grace

Interesting fact for spec-fic readers about Joseph Plunkett: He was related to the classic early 20th-century fantasy author Lord Dunsany (Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany).

Other fun facts:

Because of the Gulf Stream, parts of Ireland support palm trees.

During most of our stay, the national soup of the day was vegetable. Seriously—on each of our four trips to the British Isles, we found that the soup of the day tended to be the same in almost all restaurants. Previously, tomato basil was prevalent. A note about Irish vegetable soup—always pureed, where I'd expected broth with hearty chunks of potatoes and other fresh veggies. Still good, though. We had excellent meals everywhere, including the pub lunches.

As in England, in Ireland traffic drives on the left. Busy city streets often have helpful warnings painted on the pavement to tell you which way to look before stepping off the curb.

Hotel beds don't have top sheets, blankets, and bedspreads. Every bed was covered with an all-in-one comforter. Okay, that must make changing the bed and washing the linens easier. But I detest that arrangement, because the sleeper has no control over the level of warmth. If the room is chilly, one has to choose between shivering and roasting.

Otherwise, all the hotels were very nice, although we were taken aback to discover one of them had no elevator.

In summer it stays light until after 10 p.m., a surreal experience for us visitors from lower latitudes. It's hard to remember to get enough sleep when bedtime looks like early evening.

Coming from a place where a structure built two centuries ago is "old," I'm awe-struck by the depth of history in a country such as Ireland, where 100 years ago is practically yesterday. The guide at the Michael Collins Center was a distant relative of his and narrated several personal anecdotes handed down in the family. The only comparable example of a "live" past in the USA used to be the Civil War, and one would hope that's been put to rest (except that we still have controversies over display of the Confederate flag). The execution site in the courtyard of Kilmainham Gaol has become a public shrine, a change that presumably occurred within the memory of older people still living. To a foreigner like me who thinks of the rebel ballads as romantically tragic songs of the distant past, that's mind-boggling.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

The Prehistory of Artificial Intelligence

A brief historical survey of automata:

Frolicsome Engines

Machines that imitate voluntary movements, operated by hydraulics, go back at least to the first century. Later, similar mechanisms were also operated by clockwork and by cylinders with pinholes. Pinned cylinders, of course, led in a direct line to punch cards used in automatic looms and eventually to computer punch cards. Charles Babbage, in the 1830s, modeled the operations of his Analytical and Difference Engines on automatic looms.

As the article describes, many of those early automata performed frivolous activities such as soaking unwary visitors with water, not to mention the famous artificial defecating duck mentioned in the title. On a more serious level, medieval automata enacted religious motifs such as mechanized tableaux of Paradise and Hell. In the eighteenth century, pinned cylinders allowed mechanical figures to play musical instruments and produce speech.

Contemporary observers were intrigued by automata on the grounds that perhaps they "genuinely modeled the workings of nature." Automata foregrounded the philosophical theories of the time about "animate versus inanimate matter, willful versus constrained motion, mindless versus intelligent labor." In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, living processes were interpreted in terms of clockwork. Nowadays, we often think of the brain as an organic computer. Our concepts of how life and thought work are heavily influenced by our technology.

Of course, the animated machines of past centuries don't display "intelligence" in any sense we recognize. Yet at the time they inspired speculation about the nature of voluntary versus involuntary action. How much independent action does an artificial device have to be capable of before it transcends the status of a toy to become a robot or an AI? When our older granddaughter was a preschooler, we gave her a talking doll that probably had more brain power than our first computer.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Kudos, history and ethics

Margaret L Carter's blog got me thinking...

How different would history be --or would it?-- if kudos for some discovery or victory went to someone else?

It wasn't Gallileo but an Englishman, Herriott who first mapped the moon with the help of a telescope.

http://news.aol.com/article/old-moon-map-corrects-history/307394

Suppose it was Admiral Lord De Saumarez who was responsible for the English fleet's great naval victories at Cadiz and on the Nile, rather than the high-profile maverick, Horatio Nelson?

What if the foresight and preparedness of Admiral Themistocles was more decisive in repelling Xerxes' invasion of Greece that were the delays and losses sustained at Thermopylae thanks to King Leonidas and his Spartans?

To pick up from Margaret's point, does it matter who built the railroad?

I suppose we've all been in situations where an upstart repeated someone else's idea but spoke more loudly, and got the credit for it. There was even a Fed-Ex advertisement on that theme!

Then, there's the tradition that it is usually the victor of any war who writes the history, prosecutes the perpetrators of war crimes, and makes the movies.

Does it matter in the long term?

How about the difference between historical injustice, and fiction?

Should a made-up character give one of the most famous political speeches in a nation's history, for instance?

Would this be acceptable if the made-up character was portrayed as the real historical character's double, standing in? Or a time traveler? Or a shape-shifting alien?

Suppose the alternate history's speech-giver was another real historical figure? (But not the person that history tells us gave the speech.)

Where does playing with history become offensive and irresponsible?
When should the facts get in the way of a good story?

Is it acceptable to "rip" alternative history from the headlines of one of the more colorful supermarket tabloids? (I assume that some of their news is made up!)

So many questions with which to wrestle!

Rowena Cherry

By the way, Knight's Fork is a featured review at UpTheStairCase.org
http://www.upthestaircase.org/cherry.htm