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Pye-Rate
Starship Navigator
Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 598
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 Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 8:49 pm Post subject: Potentially Dangerous Asteroids |
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_____________ Potentially Dangerous Asteroids
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Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)
Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17637
Location: North Carolina
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| Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2016 7:42 pm Post subject: |
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Okay, so that's the Science. Now, let's add the Fiction!
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The article begins like this:
| Quote: | | NASA released the new map of "potentially hazardous asteroids" on Aug. 2 in a post to its online Planetary Photojournal overseen by the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The map shows the orbital paths of more than 1,400 asteroids known creep too close to Earth for comfort. None of the asteroids mapped pose an impact threat to Earth within the next 100 years, agency officials said. |
When I saw the map above, the first thing that occurred to me was, "Oh my God, look at those weapons that aliens could direct against us!"
Weapons?
Yep. Here"s the story I'd write with this idea.
In the year 2037 NASA announces that an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth. (Nothing new yet, right?) They remind the public that ten spacecraft have been under construction for several years — a fleet which has been specifically designed to deal with threats like this.
These are mammoth machines with powerful engines and a unique design. Their purpose is to rendezvous with large asteroids and exert a powerful thrust that will cause the asteroids to miss Earth.
So, the first of the completed ships head out to deal with the approaching asteroid, but when the spacecraft maneuvers in close, the crew is shocked to discover that the huge rock has been fitted with alien devices. The devices are thrusters, and it appears they've been programmed to set the asteroid on a collision course with Earth!
Mankind soon discovers that several alien ships are moving around the solar system and attaching these thrusters to asteroids so they will eventually collide with our planet. As a weapon of conquest, the asteroids very effective. Multiple impacts by relatively large asteroids would create a nuclear winter, causing the demise of humanity. But eventually the Earth would recover — with none of the lingering radiation that a barrage of nukes would cause.
The story, therefore, is about mankind's desperate struggle to complete and launch the asteroid-deflecting spacecraft so they can intercept the approaching asteroids which have already been directed towards Earth.
And meanwhile these spacecraft and their crews must also serve as warships, Earth's only defense against the alien vessels, which must be destroyed so they won't send more asteroids hurtling towards our planet.
What do you think of the idea, folks? Please give me some feedback. And submit your own ideas about a story that involves killer asteroids. The skies the limit, people! Think big!! 
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Last edited by Bud Brewster on Sat May 05, 2018 1:51 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Robert (Butch) Day
Galactic Ambassador
Joined: 19 Sep 2014
Posts: 1377
Location: Arlington, WA USA
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| Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 4:44 am Post subject: |
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Yep.
Either a natural catastrophe as in Lucifer's Hammer or by an invasion as in Footfall.
Both by Larry Niven and Dr. Jerry Pournelle.
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