The Rings of Earth

These days, we can occasionally see satellites - including the ISS - as they pass overhead, providing they're still in sunlight and the sun has set where we are. And seeing conditions are right.

It's occurred to me that it won't be too long before sightings like that become more frequent. Not from the "space junk" that's been in the news lately, but by more and larger structures in orbit. Given time, I don't see why there wouldn't be so many that they form visually-continuous sheets around Earth - sort of like the rings of Saturn, except made of habitats and automated satellites.

With structures like that, the Roche limits wouldn't apply - unless they were extremely large - but I think that habitats, at least, would be placed below, or between, the radiation belts. (See "The Van Allen Belt," Ask an Astrophysicist, Imagine, NASA; "The Radiation Belts," "The Exploration of the Earth's Magnetosphere," NASA; "Radiation Belts" and "The Earth's Magnetosphere," Windows to the Universe, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research)

And, since the function of some satellites require that that they be in non-equatorial orbits, there would probably be gaps maintained in the equitorial 'rings' of satellites, to allow other satellites to pass through.

Eventually, my guess is that someone will get the idea of physically linking most or all satellites at some altitudes, to make moving between them easier - and possibly making it easier to keep them from drifting out of position. I'm not sure what orbital mechanics would say about that.

So, given time, Earth may have rings: artificial ones.

Now that would be a tourist attraction.

"THE RINGS OF THE EARTH , 3DS Max Animation"

Roy Prol, via T0R0YD, YouTube (October 8, 2009)
video, 3:33

"How would the Earth look like if it had a ring system like Saturn? --- 3ds Max animation."

More:

"What If Earth Had Rings?"
Universe Today (November 20, 2009)

"While we're on the subject of Saturn…. I came across this video, and it poses — and answers — the interesting question, what would Earth look like if it had rings like Saturn? This animation was done by Roy Prol, and it shows not only how the rings would look from space, but also the view Earthlings would have of the rings...."

---

A tip of the hat to IDreamHappily, on Twitter, for the heads-up on this video (IDreamHappily linked to another appearance of it, on wimp.com.)

Names: Castle Dampthorn, Regsellend, and the Indo-Europeans

Around the start of July, 2007, I got together with my oldest daughter and brainstormed about a fantasy setting I'd been putting together. We came up with what I think is a (barely) plausible dramatic situation that could be spun out as several stories.

I collected our notes, a map I'd drawn and some other material, put the lot in a manila folder (two of them, actually, just to confuse myself), and let the set of ideas lay fallow. I'd labeled the folder "Castle Dampthorn."

The only public evidence of that setting were two images I created, "I Come in Peace" (below) and "Kenningward." The latter was a technical study: I'd intended to make more use of the final result, but the more I look at it, the more it reminds me of a late-20th-century American convention center. Not the visual impression I wanted for tales of bravery and wonder.



Within the last month or so, partly as a result of watching some of the movies Disney Channel's been showing ("Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge" (2001), for one), I started remembering Castle Dampthorn - and noticed some vague, emotion-laden, half-formed notions bobbing to the conscious surface of my mind.

"Halloweentown II"?! Where's my artistic pride?!

I am pretty sure that none of the Halloweentown movies is going to outshine works such as Macbeth or Fall of the House of Usher in any literary or dramatic sense. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy them - or notice potential in their elements.

I have no intention of re-creating the "Halloweentown" stories - or Macbeth.

On the other hand, I won't be above telling a story that involves an unexpectedly simple (short, anyway) solution - or foretellings that aren't quite what they seem.

Remember Macbeth's optimism, hearing that he wouldn't be conquered until Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane; and that 'no man of woman born' would harm him? (Act 5, Scene 3, 4, and particularly 8, where Macduff tells Macbeth that he "was from his mother's womb Untimely ripp'd." Macbeth was having a really bad day.)

Names of Fantasy Lands: Gibberish, or Something Else?

It'd be possible to use nonsense sounds for the names of people, places, and things in a fantasy story - or science fiction/speculative fiction. No problem, except that you're not making use of associations that readers might have with real words and names.

And, there's a danger of getting names that sound a bit too familiar. Not that anybody'd tell a tale of Princess Oolala of the lost realm of Yagattabekiddin.

Or, an author could use existing, but little-known place names (Captain Antilles, for example, in the original Star Wars movie.) It's been done - successfully, at least from a commercial point of view, in the Star Wars universe.

Or, a storyteller could cobble together names from an older form of the language he or she uses.

That's one of the approaches I'll be taking with the Castle Dampthorn stories.

Old English, Welsh, and Gaelic are fine sources for words and names - but I think that particular vein has been almost mined out. Not that I'll reject any nugget I find lying around, of course.

Words From a Really Ancient Language

My idea, at this point, is to go back a bit. Quite a bit, actually.

Around the 19th century, people studying the European languages found that they had quite a lot in common. And, that European languages had a great deal in common with languages spoken across a wide swath of land, all the way to India.

By the 20th century, quite a few pieces of the puzzle had been found and put together - to the point where it was possible to reverse-engineer the 'original' Indo-European language. Or dialects thereof.

Odds are pretty good that the people who spoke Indo-European lived north of the Black Sea, between the Volga and the Balkans. More or less. That was around five thousand years ago now.

Times change, people move, and dialects shift until they're different languages.

Unlike professor J. R. R. Tolkien, I'm no philologist.

My Indo-European Roots are Showing

On the other hand, an appendix of one of the dictionaries I have includes a sort of glossary of Indo-European roots. I pulled a few out for this post:

ag-

To drive (>Latin agere, to do, act, drive, conduct, lead)

agro-

Field (derivative of ag-, to drive) (>Germanic arkaz > Old English æcer)

alek-

To ward off, protect (>Greek alkë, strength >> English Alexander)

alu-

In words related to sorcery, magic, possession, and intoxication (>Greek aluein, to be distraught >> English hallucinate ) (suffixed form *alu-t- in Germanic *aluth- in Old English (e)alu, ale >> English ale)

gher-

To grasp, enclose, with derivatives meaning "enclosure" (>Germanic *gurdjan)

lendh-

Loin

Open land, heath, prairie (>Germanic *landam > Old English, English, Middle Dutch land)

math-

Worm (>Germanic *mathon > probably in Middle English mathek, worm, grub)

reg-

To move in a straight line, with derivatives meaning "to direct in a straight line, lead, rule" (>Latin rex, king >Old Norse riki, realm >Sanskrit -räjä, räjan, king ('rajah') >Germanic rehatz >Old English riht, right, just, correct, straight >English realm, rectilinear, regent, regime, region ... )

Moist (>>English rain)

To dye (>Sanskrit räga, red)

regwos-

Darkness (>Greek Erebus)

saus-

Dry (>Old English sëar (withered))

sel-

Human settlement (>Italian sala >> English saloon)

Of good mood, to favor (>Old English gesaëlig, happy)

To take, grasp (>Old English sellan, to sell, betray)

To jump (>Latin salïre >> English salacious, sally, salient, assail ...

wei-

To turn, twist, with derivatives referring to suppleness or binding (>Germanic suffixed form *wï-ra-, in > Old English wïr, wire)

To go after something (>Germanic *waith-, pursuit)

To wither (>> wizen)

Vice, fault, guilt

Vital force, perhaps related to wiros (>Latin vis, force)

wiros

Man, perhaps related to wei- (>Germanic *weraz, in > Old English wer, man >> Old English weorold, world)

(Source: Appendix, Indo-European Roots, "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language" Houghton Mifflin Company (1969-1978))

People who have made a serious study of the development of languages found regularities in the way words are formed, and how the sounds of words are passed along from one language to another.

I'm not going to try to follow those rules systematically. And I'm not going to be too fussy about how I cobble elements of the Indo-European language together. Love to, but who has that kind of time?

So, I pulled a few elements out, and came up with these two words:

• gherlendhwiros or Gerlendwiros (to grasp/enclosure-prairie-man)
• regsellendh or Regsellend (to move in a straight line/rule-settlement-land

I particularly like Regesllend. It could be the name of a place.

Or, not.

Timing is Everything

A question that comes up now and then, in discussions of more-or-less related topics like flying saucers, SETI, and the golden age of science fiction, is: "Where is everybody?"

Aliens by the Bushel

Science fiction of the first part of the 20th century often had people - not humans, indigenous people - living on Venus, Mars, Jupiter (cut them some slack, Jupiter might have had a solid surface), Saturn: even Mercury, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto were occasionally peopled with more-or-less plausible alien races.

Many of whom looked an awful lot like us: longish torso; hind legs almost half the total heel-to-head's-crown length, lined up with the torso; feet with a well-defined heel; two forelegs coming off well-defined shoulders, head at the end of a short neck.

Sure, some of them had bat-wings, funny-looking eyes, and weird complexions: but some makeup, an overcoat and an oversize hat, and they could walk around New York City without attracting all that much attention. Okay: maybe San Francisco or Los Angeles.

Aliens? Ain't No Aliens Here

At the other end of the spectrum there's Asimov's (original) 'robot' and 'Foundation' universe, where there weren't any aliens at all. Later writers came up with a variation on that, since we don't seem to like the idea that we're the only ones here.

But, that could be the way it is. That exotic-but-familiar universe of earlier sci-fi may be just wishful thinking. We could be the only people who have ever been living in this solar system, this arm of the Milky Way galaxy, or anywhere in the universe.

Considering that we're not selling souvenirs to, and performing colorful native dances for, tourists from the more well-to-do worlds of the Galactic Empire; or slaving away in the lint-mines of Evil Overlord Squig's Unified Worlds; there is a distinct possibility that we're it.

On the other hand, there may be people who are a whole lot smarter than we are, and who don't bother to travel: physically and openly.

As a character in Walt Kelley's Pogo said, whether it's just us, or we're at the low end of the intelligence scale: it's a sobering thought.

We Meet the Aliens: And They're Us

An intriguing variation of the 'crowded universe' scenario would be a setting some tens or hundreds of thousands of years ahead. Humanity set up shop on Mars, built orbital habitats, found its way to the stars, decided it was worthwhile to terraform Venus, and by the time of the story's 'now' there are aliens out there: exotic, strange-looking people - who are as human as you and I, but whose ancestors haven't been near Earth for quite some time.

Then, there's the possibility that we've already been to the stars. People who were essentially like us were around during the last major glaciation; the sea level was a lot lower then, exposing a great deal of the continental shelf.

Earth Was Not Always As It is Now

Think about it: Many major cities are on or very near the coast. Civilizations - the ones that we know of - grew for the most part along major river valleys. During the last major glacial period, major rivers still ran down to the sea - but the shore wasn't where it is now.

Gone Without a Trace

Somebody pointed out that a civilization equivalent to the one that bankrolled the Columbus expedition could have existed during the inter-glacial period before the one we're in - and left no obvious traces of its existence.

You can go further than that. There's been speculation that the last ice age ended fast, with continental glaciers melting and sliding into the ocean on a scale of weeks or months. If that happened, a thriving civilization's cities would have been flooded and sunk beneath hundreds of feet of water - with only a few survivors, who were near enough to boats and savvy enough to get out to relatively calm water while the getting was good.

Even if the seas rose slowly, it wouldn't have been good for any civilization. Think the worst-case global warming scenario, and multiply it by a few factors.

Atlantis? Sure: Makes a Good Story

No, I don't think there was something like our stories of Atlantis. No fantasy-cities, wizards, and all the rest. Still, it would make a good story.

I do think, though, that we don't know all there is to know about what we call 'prehistory' - the period before the civilizations we're aware of started keeping records outside their memories. There's a detail or two about the Sphinx in Egypt, for example - but it's getting late, and I need my sleep.

Predicting the Future: a Look at a Will Be that Was

My settings, for the most part, will be somewhere in 'The Future.' To do a plausible job of describing - and showing - these settings, I'll need to do a little research. That's nothing unusual. Telling a story that's set in an unfamiliar time and place means that the author needs to either learn about the setting: or make up details and hope that no reader spots it.

Since 'The Future' for the early 21st century isn't here yet, I have to make up the details - but want to make them plausible. One way to do that is to look at past predictions, and learn from their work.

About eight decades back, people - some of them - seemed quite sure what The Future would look like.

A PATHETONE WEEKLY newsreel from the 1930s:

"1930s Futuristic Fashion Predictions"

lamaladietropicale, YouTube (March 11, 2009)
video, 1:37

People in The Future didn't wear clothing with quite that sort of style, but many women in western countries do wear pants now, we have portable radios and telephones: and quite a few of us wear our cell phones, beepers, and other communications equipment on our belts.

That was Then, This is Now

Here's something that people may be viewing around the year 2085:

"Futuristic Japanese Cars"

diagonaluk, YouTube (December 18, 2008)
video, 1:27

Some of the vehicles look practical - although I'm a bit dubious about the mini-car with two micro-cars inside - and something like them might be in common use not too long from now. Some of the designs might even be the 2085 equivalent of the Volkswagon bug.

Since my stories will be part text and part graphics, I need to design a plausible 'future world.' And, I want to avoid making these fictional futures look too much like either knockoffs of contemporary visions of the future, or 2009 fashions with futuristic flourishes.

Related posts:

• "Tokyo Motor Show, 2007: Cars of the Future"
  Apathetic Lemming of the North (June 26, 2009)
• "Clothing of the Future: 2000 as seen in the 1930s"
  Apathetic Lemming of the North (June 26, 2009)
• "Getting Details Right: The Vast, Huge, and Very Large City Of The Future"
  (June 25, 2009)
• "Getting Details Right: Cityscapes"
  (June 25, 2009)

Digital Housekeeping

I've added tracking code (don't worry: I'm not collecting data on individuals) and advertising to this blog. It's a bit of a chore, but part of the process.

About the tracking code: I use WebSTAT and Google Analytics to keep track of how many browsers view each blog post, how long the page is displayed, and other non-personal information. I'm neither equipped, nor interested, in tracking individual visitors. On the other hand, I do need to know what sort of traffic my blogs and websites experience.

About the advertising: Being independently wealthy, or have an obliging brother like Vincent Van Gogh's, might be nice. But since I'm not in either position, I have to make money somehow. Providing advertising space has a pretty good effort-to-income ratio.

A blog by my alter ego, Narcissus-X, expresses the views of someone who is more conventionally 'artistic.' Judging from the latest post, "Narcissus-X Broods on Anguish and Art," I think Narcissus-X may be losing it.

But I'm getting off-topic.