richardderus: THE HARPS OF VENUS 2010 NaNovel

Synopsis: The Harps of Venus
In May 1961, President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev are separately informed that there is a 100% likelihood of a major asteroid striking Earth in 2029, resulting in a mass extinction. The men, whose Space Co-operation Pact of 1962 requires both parties to share any and all space-related data and technology, set in motion Mankind's greatest-ever space endeavor: A full colony on the Moon by 1974, jointly planned and developed by the former enemies.

Plots are foiled, technology is raced into development, money is poured into "the Ark Project," the Moon base's code name. The untrusting militaries of each country are, from the top down, forced into what seems a traitorous cooperation, and the resulting mutinous chaos forces a unique joint civil war...fough against each others' rebels.

But the real reason, the secret of the Ark, is only known to a very few: The Moon is the stepping stone to a new home...Venus...and the generations long process of terraforming our planetary twin can only take place at a huge social cost.

The elimination of female humans.

I've read speculative fiction where males could be eliminated and women could still have babies, but I don't think I've ever read a story where women were eliminated and the continuation of the human species was viable.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with, Richard. (Actually, up to the part about eliminating women, I thought the idea was amazing! And I was jealous. ;)

Oh, but the elimination of women in a Moon or space colony is *essential* to the surivial of the species! I'm going to have a female cosmonaut go into low earth orbit unknowingly pregnant; find out she's carrying, and hide it; then come back to Earth and deliver a dead monster.

*BAM* no more women in space! So...what to do? And, rather than leave such a horrible ban in place, why not send sterile women into space? Breast cancer, cervical cancer...the systems are too delicate.

But what about sending women *through* space to the Moon colony there?

Ah. That's where the *real* drama is! I think everyone can agree with me that, if men and women CAN have sex, they WILL have sex, and the eventual result of this is birth of children. Since this colony is intended (secretly) to be the hidey-hole preventing humanity from extinction via asteroid, makes sense to pack some women along or, well, what's the point? **BUT** how does one prevent the unauthorized and inevitable presentation of the colony with babies not planned for, provided for, after Earth isn't sending more food or supplies and we must make do on what tiny little bits the colony can make itself? It would be a huge disaster if uncontrolled birth consumed all the resources meant to sustain the colonists for hundreds of years, perhaps thousands.

And I am completely confident, absolutely certain, unshakably convinced that, given the chance to reproduce (have sex, in other words), men at least will move all obstacles to make it happen. I strongly suspect the women would be there right beside 'em, helping, too.

*ALL* women, no men? Not workable, since the female reproductive system is the delicate problem that it is, and also needs gravity to work at all; 15% Earth normal, it will be discovered, won't do the job of orienting the sperm and causing the egg to descend the Fallopian tube.

So all men? How they gonna, well, get the species-continuing job done?

I thunk up a way.

I have a lot of faith in your thinker... but ~
I await convincing.

Convincing? I'm not proposing someone draw up blueprints! Just get enough oomph for readers to suspend disbelief.

I suspend disbelief all the time.
No problem. But men living with no women... that will take some suspending..
I remain, as ever willing to try. I loved what you wrote last year, but can't remember the ending??

But men living with no women...

I'll take an asteroid to the face any day.

>6 mckait: Because I didn't finish it yet!

>7 Ape: Tell that to a pterosaur.

I can see where you are going with it. A group of men and suddenly no ladyfolk? It happens to men in prison all the time, right?

>9 Ape: Sort of similar, but that's...well, that's more or less accidental. I'm talking about an event 70 years in the future from its detection, so plans can be made and solutions for anticipated problems designed. But, as we all know, the best planned lays of...oh wait, no...the best laid men...dear me!...the best laid plans of mice and men gang bang...hell, you know the quote.

Terra forming Venus rather than Mars is going to present major problems physically. You aren't going to get many sf fans willing to suspend belief that much. You'd do better to set up artificial habitats.

I just can't see it working.. women with no men.. yes...
but men.. all alone with no one to temper the testosterone ?
I mean, even gay men have testosterone poisoning to some degree...

oh... and I wish you would... finish last years that is..

>12 ronincats: Quite possibly true, Roni, but...this is key...no one knew what was under Venus's clouds in 1961, when the story starts. It *looks* like our Earth, sorta, only really cloudy, so who was to say (then) that it wasn't mostly water vapor in them hot clouds? And in actual factual, the Soviets sent probes to Venus in that era while we were sending probes to Mars. Given the *extreme* threat that both countries' scientists were guaranteeing the decision-makers was real, a decision would have to be made to use all available resources on one target. And you know what bureaucratic decisions are like...once made, they take on the force of the laws of physics.

And like every terraforming project in fiction, the idea would be to make it happen over a long time-span. In the meantime, the Ark Colony is dug in under the Moon's surface, but only able to sustain a limited population over the very long time-scale of terraforming Venus. Even if, in the end, that proves possible! It could fail...it would certainly run into huge obstacles.

But the DRAMA!! *drools over high-stakes storytelling*

>13 mckait: ...and there is another source of conflict and drama! W00t! The complexities mount, so do the amazing possibilities.