Holidays - Turkey Day

I'm writing this on Thanksgiving. It's a holiday we enjoy in the States every November, to commemorate the Pilgrim's survival of their first year in the new world. And, as usual, I wonder if any of my various universes would have a similar holiday.

Let's concentrate on Thanksgiving; it is an autumn holiday with lots of food and reflection on all the things we are thankful we have. Before the Pilgrims, a lot of cultures had a harvest feast. The hard work of raising crops was done, and (some) people could now 'coast' through the winter until spring, when it was time to plant and hope for a good crop. But keeping a bountiful crop stored all winter was hard; mice and mold and who knew what else could claim a good portion of it, so feasting might continue well into the winter, until most of the food had become a layer of fat on the people, which would help them survive those last few weeks until they could get their hands on fresh food again.

Mac (MacOnFireball.blogspot.com) definitely does have a Thanksgiving, because the Fleet follows the majority of the Earth traditions, but whether it is called Thanksgiving, Harvest Day or something else, I haven't decided.

In my Atlan universe, a 'god' (alien) brought 3 infants to live on a remote island, and stayed with them until they could take care of themselves. This island did not have seasons, so there would have not been any harvest time to celebrate. Later, after the home island was destroyed, and a few Atlans were scattered about the planet to establish tribes, each tribe might have a day of celebration. Some might celebrate the day they made landfall, or others - who now experience seasons - might celebrate a successful harvest.

In my Tunad universe, I think they might have 2 holidays that resemble Thanksgiving. Their colony is established in early spring, and they celebrate the anniversary of that day. They would also celebrate the first fall harvest, which proved they could raise food on a planet that was much colder than their home world. But the Tunads were very careful choosing holidays as they set up their calendar. They did not hang on to any holidays from their home planet, as they have set out to escape from that culture. Still, they recognize that holidays are important, a way to say, 'Our hard work has paid off,' and 'See how far we've gotten.'

Hope you had a great Turkey Day.

Goldilocks Twins

A few days ago, I ran across an article about Keplar-62-e and Keplar-62-f, two planets slightly larger than Earth that are circling the same star (Kepler-62) and are both in the 'Goldilocks Zone'. The Goldilocks Zone is a band of space orbiting stars where the temperature allows a planet to have liquid water, and thus, it is assumed the planet could possibly support life as we know it.

Can you imagine what it would be like, to have another habitable planet in your solar system? In the case of 62e and 62f, their orbits are so close (closer than Earth and Mars) that one would be a little warm, the other rather nippy. It is speculated that the warmer one might feel like Hawaii or possibly DC in May, while the cooler one would be more like Alaska. I think we could probably find people willing to colonize both of those possibilities.

I have a story universe that deals with this possibility. I'm pretty sure other authors have postulated the possibility of 2 habitable planets in one planetary system, although I cannot name any off the top of my head. In my version, the inner planet is warm and fairly dry, kind of like eastern Colorado, and has an intelligent dominant specie. The cooler planet is more humid, with lush flora, maybe like Montana, and has no dominant intelligent specie.

The people of Planet 1 have no interest in space travel, and visitors from other planets are greeted coolly. There is no general interest in most of the merchandize offered by other planets. Occasionally an individual tribal chief might be intrigued by some trinket or another, and can be cajoled into exchanging a slave or two for that trinket.

But most of the civilized planets do not condone slavery. Accepting slaves is seen as a rescue, the former slaves are retrained and assisted to readjust to a new kind of life. And eventually, those former slaves gather together and colonize the cooler planet.

If I understand the Keplar numbering system correctly, there are 4 other planets in the Goldilocks twin system, discovered before these 'habitable' planets. Sibling planets of the twins, but assumed barren. Of course, there's always the possibility of life as we don't know it.

Trudy's Universes, Part 4

I’m going to try and wrap up this list this time. We’re getting into Universes that I don’t seem to visit very often.

O is for Orange Witch. Another fantasy universe. The protagonist is a newly-graduated witch who likes to wear orange. I dreamed up this universe more than 3 decades ago, and haven’t done much with it since.

S is for Spooks. This is where I keep any paranormal projects I might be working on. For me, paranormal includes ghosts, witches, vampires, werewolves, zombies and the like. I don’t write horror, so there isn’t much in this universe. And if I start a project here, and it really grabs hold of me, that project tends to emerge and form its own universe.

T is for Tunad. Tunad is a planet that is secretly colonized by females from a sister planet, Danut. The society of Danut is male-centered, and the females are slaves. Some female individuals are taken off-world by enlightened aliens, taught to think for themselves, and to make use of their skills, and eventually, a number of these are deposited on Tunad to form their own colony. I haven’t written in this universe much, but I love playing with the background; the colonists, the layout of the colony…

W&V is for Wolfie & Vamps. Okay, I’ve already listed one universe centered around a werewolf and vampire team, but actually, this werewolf & vampire universe has been around longer than that other one. This team is female, and their history goes a lot further back in history.

X is for X-Files. Loved the TV show, didn’t find the books to have the same impact. I have a couple projects started here, but I’m just not sure I can do justice to this particular genre.

There you go, my universes. I didn’t used to have this many. Some of these are probably on the path to fading out of existence. There’s always the possibility I will add new ones. But that’s my list right now, early in 2013.