[h1]Starship Liberty[/h1] [h2]The shuttles[/h2] In the great windows of the rotating decks the crew of the ship could see the planet before them. A great – if small – ball of blue, with thin brush strokes of land speckled across great oceans and from the great blue sapphire seas trails of ancient mountains. Here and there the sea dropped lower, and from orbit around the unknown world it was known that in those darker waters the crust dropped deep into dark, strange trenches and abysses. Capping the world was ice, thick and brilliant in the purity of its white. Curious, enraptured, and awed by the foreign earth world those who were interested in going down to it listened to the radio as the survey crews voted to deploy to the world their drones. As the swarm of silver robots left the engineering deck and fell down to the planet the clock was ticking until they had the information they needed to confirm their visit to the world below. The interstellar, warp cruise had come on its newest destination in orbit around a foreign star; but all was foreign and strange to the life on board the Starship Liberty. Seated in one of the shuttles bound to head to the foreign world, Marcus sat strapped into his seat. The weightlessness of engineering as familiar as it had been. He felt the hair on his head rise and hold itself up right in the void of gravity. Next to him sat Sal, she held the restraints that held her in, her wild hair for once in a rare while held back by a cap. The shuttle was filling and finding their places the men, women, and aliens that had been collected by them waited for launch. All that was needed was a final piece of data by a drone. In so-far, the planet's profile turned up healthy for humans with an atmosphere rich with oxygen was an algeanated sea. “Ah! Rā-Kålêm! I thought you had not made plans?” a man on the shuttle said, as a wirey avian looking alien came in, gingerly pushing off from the wall and navigating the most gentle of care through the middle of the shuttle. While he was covered shoulder to feet with what looked like feathers, and they fell from his exposed arms like the sleeve's on a monk's jacket his face was far from being like a bird, leathery and sagging, his cheeks and face dropping in exaggerated hanging jowls like the beard of a turkey. “I had not made plans, that does not mean I would not be coming.” the creature said to his friend. There was a seat next to him, so he sat down. “Well that is nice to hear. So, what are you expecting as we get down there?” his friend said. “That too I do not intend to interest.” Rā-Kålêm stated succinctly. “Well, what reason do you have to go down there, the planet?” his friend asked him. Despite the directness of the question it was not meant as insult. Marcus could see that much from the conversation as he watched it and listened in. He looked over and noticed that Sal likewise was paying attention. “I thought you agreed that reason is the greatest thing to posses, so what is acting without reason?” “Reason for doing utilitarian things, I was speaking of it as it applies to such acts as constructing a space ship, or performing inventory, or any of the creative or mechanical pursuits one takes. Less so for anything or everything someone can or could do. It is not that I have no reason to go down to this planet, nor that I had any plans. But that now being here, I have the inspiration and the want to go down. While I have no reason, I also have no reason to leave if I want to. To act in any event, is to act on a passion. Passion is the rationality of action, and thus the reason that an individual does the thing, or is with the other.” “But there are things done with reason. You do not simply do whichever. I don't walk on ceilings because I will it.” “No you don't, because that is limited by the universal rules. Though by perspective someone might say we walk the ceiling of Liberty, though it acts as a floor. What are you trying to get at?” Rā-Kålêm asked. “I suppose what I am trying to say, is that to do a thing, to act on what you want to do – I suppose. That requires some thought, a plan.” “It does, but in so far as to the next step.” “But what if you are prevented?” asked the man. “Then I might suppose that really, I can not go do the thing. That in the end it doesn't matter, and I can try something else. Where as I suppose had I made so much effort to go to the thing, or do the act, and had invested so much in it; I would find myself in some frustration had I found that after all I would not be able to go, or do.” The shuttle had filled and there was a dull thud and the sound of the catch sealing. There was a moment of tension as the shuttle began to rumble. It hummed and rumbled, raising in intensity as a tiger ready to bounce. The walls of the shuttle had windows, small and narrow but Marcus could look between the the two conversing subjects to the window outside and watch as the shuttle bay's walls began to move. With a sudden jolt the craft was ejected, and the slow crawl of the pipes and plates rocketed from view and outside and beyond there was a small armada of space craft leaving the Liberty. Contrasted against it, in the warm glow of an alien sun the many small ships were dwarfed against the immensity and girth of the Starship Liberty. “Suppose though I had set up strong plans ahead of time,” Rā-Kålêm continued, unperturbed by the launching of their shuttle, “I had decided that specific things would happen at specific times and there would be specific things about these times, places, and objects. That I would have made the most scientific, well engineered plan for a day, an event, or a goal.” “This sounds like a good thing.” the man said. “Is it really though, is what I'm proposing. Do you make plans to breath? For your heart to breath? How about when and how you will digest your meal?” “No, I suppose not.” “You see, this is ultimately what it comes down to. That while the rational ability to do a thing is good, that doing things to improve the quality of life is too, that recognizing there are things outside of one's control and should be left to be carried out organically is the best of all options. Take for instance our voyage down below.” Rā-Kålêm finally acknowledging that they had left the Liberty. “There need not really ever be a plan to go there, and that just that we could. The option is there to take on passionate free will. There need not be any crunching of numbers or in depth statistical analysis. We have no accounts to keep on it. Had something as casual as this been done in the formality of an institutional will to bring something of it, then we would worry about what it is we should bring, how we are to control certain factors. The better organic way to live in situations such as these is to simply go do it, and build on top of it as it comes.” “You speak of not needing to make calculations. This sounds to me as if no decision should be educated. If taken that way, it sounds to me that- that no matter where it is you're going or what you're doing. You should ignore any implication.” “No, I don't think so. A few moments ago I talked about not walking on ceilings. Because the theoretical option to do something is present doesn't mean it is possible, or should be done. If it makes you happy, I guess I concede some rational thought and planning is needed. But this simply evolves as an outcome of spontaneous inspiration. A case where you say to yourself: there is a thing I can do, and I will need or not need this. So, you go and do it. Self preservation will require some knowledge or intuition on something you're to do ahead of time, so at the very least you can be basically prepared. Beyond this, I would contend that any additional planning is unnecessary, as it can trap you in a predefined cell.” “Let me get this straight. What you're saying is that to have too strict a plan is bad, that doing things as they come to you, knowing what you need to know about it, is a good thing?” Marcus asked, interjecting himself into the conversation. Such a notion of life was familiar to him, “In the end, take what you will and do with it as you want?” Rā-Kålêm bowed his hand and smiled the best way he could, “That is the... 'gist', as you will.” “Suppose someone is writing a story. How much license do you believe they should take in setting up strict controls?” the other man asked, looking between Rā-Kålêm and Marcus searching for an answer. “I suppose only as much as someone would consider needed to do the thing.” laughed Rā-Kålêm, “What is it you are thinking?” “I'm only trying to broaden the scope, see how far it goes.” “Well then, what does a story entail?” Rā-Kålêm inquired. “Well, a character, a goal, or antagonist, a beginning, a middle, and an end.” the man said. “But, does it really need either?” Rā-Kålêm asked, “could a story not be written with a character and a chain of circumstances?” “Well, this is the way I know about it.” the man said, rather sheepishly. “You might, but it doesn't mean it's the only structure. We might call all of life a story, it has its characters but none with clearly defined roles within your proposed simple structure. Life itself is not yet complete, and what is it humans have? Syndicated movies? Television novels? When broadcast in your systems, are they ever complete?” “Sometimes they are.” “Well regardless, are there those that are still called stories when there is no advertised or prepared end? Or the end is not yet broadcast?” “I mean sure, yes. It happens.” “Then I would call them stories without end, or yet without end. So we do not need to worry about end. And if we do not worry about end then we do not need to worry about direction. We can worry about direction, how it might concern our characters. Yet I have also heard of societies which will concern themselves with purely location, I am sure you humans have that too at times. Here the characters as individuals are merely something like passers by, correct?” “Yes.” “Then a story might be written on the notion of a single location. The story of one planet, a star, or even a Starship. Its characters – its actors – are merely circumstances aboard it. So would this negate the need of characters, in the sense of individuals?” “I suppose so.” “And what of histories, anthologies of groups whether – I'm going to use your terms – anthropological or xenopological? Can a species be a character? A nation?” “I suppose in some sense they may. Though there are some that act more or less collective or individual.” “Yet they act in groups, by group nature, and thus serve as a collective character. Especially if they are enough to be written of, to write of themselves, or of others?” “If we suppose that only society can write of society, or that the only focus on stories are those in society?” “Yet it seems for what I've watched or read that is what the subject is. The character is little more than subject. Even non-social subjects take on the form of character in some way. A planet or a star becomes like a god, deified to have a defined identity behind bland molecular structure.” “So then, how do we approach this as a plan?” “Do we need a plan? Do we need tightly ascribed roles, attitudes, or conditions to approach specific things, subjects? Elements?” “I suppose, perhaps. If writing a history, research must be done. Evidence found and interpreted. This would be like making a plan and a structure for the thing to be written. Much in the same when writing a fantasy. You decide on the subject, the world, and what is in it. Then you need to know where you go.” “Yes, that sounds right. But what do you feel about spending too much time on that?” “I take it that maybe the effort isn't well placed.” “Yes, that sounds right. Might it burn up the inspiration for the story before it is written?” “It may as well, I say.” “Then you may as well write it, and not worry too much about the rest. Give yourself the bones, and interpret those.”