Our rules have been updated and given their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it, follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
Incorporeal (1634 words)
benit59
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hi,
I've been itching to tell a story for quite sometime, but have had a hard time starting in a meaningful way. It is a broad sci-fi story arc with several themes involving existentialism and evolution. This is a beginning excerpt that I am working on. Comments and suggestions are all welcome. Thank you. ( I apologize for formatting ahead of time.)
Jack knew that he was dreaming, which is always an odd sensation. Usually one wakes up when they realize that they are dreaming, but this time he did not.
He was reclined in a familiar pasture. It might have been his father’s farm on his home world. The soft blades of grass underneath him were feathery and supportive as he lingered under a warm yellow sun. A delicate breeze whispered across his skin as he pondered the idea that he was not really here.
It didn’t seem to matter. This was good enough and whatever was real or not was just a passing concern. White billowy clouds glided overhead in the deep blue sky offering hints of shapes that seemed to change as Jack assigned familiar animals or objects to their design. This truly was a dream and it was one of the best he could remember.
Remembering was an odd engagement. It was an effort he rather not attempt, but it seemed like something important was just beyond his grasp. He felt like there was something undone or something slightly amiss. Had he forgotten something? It seemed he had forgotten everything, but that wasn’t quite true either. A cloud took the shape of his father, and another --- his brother. One looked like Aria, with flowing hair and a wide, elated grin. The expression wasn’t so much a memory as much as a desire. It would be nice to see her he thought and not just as a cloud.
“Jack?”
The voice he heard utter his name was familiar, soft, and distinctly feminine. He turned his head to see where it came from but this only distorted the serene setting he was enjoying so much. The clouds became fuzzy and the light of the warm sun became hazy and cool. He cursed slightly at himself for disrupting such a wonderful
dream, but the source of the voice awakened a part of him that had to know its origin.
“Can you hear me?”
The voice was insistent in its tone, and Jack could almost make out its source. The grass and sky seemed to fade away and his dream darkened around him except for a pale shroud of light that seemed to illuminate the source of his new curiosity.
“Yes, I can hear you.” Jack replied. He reached out his hand as if to touch the glowing apparition that seemed so far out of reach. He realized that he had no hand to reach with. He had no arms, legs or body to speak of either. He simply was and that was seemingly good enough.
“Good,” said the ethereal voice. “We have been trying to communicate with you for some time now. This has been a difficult process for both of us.”
“What has been so difficult about it?”
“We did not know with any certainty that your consciousness had been preserved in the aftermath of your death.”
“I’m sorry…my what?” Jack replied slightly dumbfounded.
The sultry voice of the glowing apparition stifled a sigh, “Jack, now is the time to remember. Search your thoughts and remember the last moments before.”
The world around them swirled violently with color and light as Jack’s last memories flooded the landscape. He heard the wailing of the alarms as he embraced Aria one last time. He saw her flowing brown hair as it draped over her form fitted grey flight suit and could smell the sweet perfume she wore. He felt her hand slip from his as he closed the airlock door and sped to his cockpit to disembark from the giant Republic capitol ship. The hangar doors opened and the vastness of space swallowed him and his ship. The flashing lights of combat filled the darkness through the cockpit view shield, and his ship veered masterfully between exploding vessels and wreckage that flew haphazardly through the warzone.
He heard the screeching wail of tungsten slugs as they tore through his ship’s hull at near-light speed. The magnetically propelled cannon rounds had shredded his stabilizing engines and he spun violently through space towards the barren planet below. He felt the heat of the thin upper atmosphere as he continued to plummet in a dizzying free fall. He regained some control of the ship and fired the engines one last time in a futile attempt to right the ships descent. Then he felt the horrible impact. His ship laid crippled and torn on the uninhabitable planet. His broken body was still strapped to his seat. Unable to move, he stared out the cockpit window but could only see the poisonous, orange-red fog that made up the planet’s atmosphere.
Then he felt his last breath leave his body.
Jack screamed from the very bottom of his soul. The sound seemed to pierce the fabric of the universe and everything blinked out of existence and was replaced only by darkness and the faint light that still spoke soothingly to him.
“I’m sorry, Jack. You are safe for now. You had to remember for a moment to understand what must now happen.”
“Am I really dead?” Jack’s panic was subsiding quickly--- almost against his will it seemed. “This isn’t what I…I never knew what to expect.”
“Your ship was tracked as it entered our atmosphere and its landing coordinates approximated within a half-kilometer. We launched a recovery mission immediately to scour the wreckage for useful military intelligence and resources. I was made aware of your condition and it was at that moment that the decision was made for you to be captured and made available for research. We made every attempt to salvage your body, but it was to no avail. We instead opted to preserve your brain as best as possible. It is quite fascinating that the most evolved and important part of your being is so hopelessly anchored by your primitive organic design.”
“Thanks, I guess?” Jack replied.
“It wasn’t meant to be a compliment really.” The voice quipped.
“I meant for saving my life…or some part of it I guess. There is a lot I still don’t understand. Like… where am I?” Jack asked.
The apparition laughed heartily. “That is an excellent question, but you mean it in the wrong fashion. You are in your own mind. You have no body so your senses turn inward and your experiences are what you make of them. In a more real sense of the question --- you, and I mean your brain, is suspended in an oxygen enriched, semi-gelatinous fluid surrounded by an electrically charged membrane that constantly monitors your synaptic activity.”
The voice paused for a second for a reaction and when it got none it continued anyway.
“Much of your organic hardware is flawed. It is hopelessly dependent on the implied biological functions of your, now absent, corporeal existence.”
“How do you mean?” This at least spurned a reaction from Jack’s conscious mind.
“The most primitive parts are designed solely for biological function – the incessant pumping of oxygenated fluids through your vascular system, and the grotesque process of converting organic sustenance into energy and waste.”
“Ah.”
“In the absence of these processes, that portion of your brain malfunctioned in a sense creating a systemic failure. The cognitive and processing portions of your brain were compromised while this other portion was in disarray. It became necessary to appease your lower functions artificially. We simply fed it a looping analog signal.”
“You short circuited my brain?”
“That is a primitive and mostly inaccurate verbiage, but I detect your cognitive understanding of the phrase holds analogous. So, yes, we did exactly that. The effect was almost immediate and quite unexpected for us.”
“Unexpected? In what way?”
“We honestly had no idea why your brain did or did not work. It was and still remains mostly a mystery to us. It is a seemingly chaotic organ with unknown potential. It was crafted quite masterfully and still lies beyond our total understanding. When we initiated the signal and pacified the stem portion of your brain, complete and normal function was restored to the other portions. Well, as normal as ever I suppose.”
“What is ‘suppose’ supposed to mean?” Jack paused for a second to try to figure out if his question even made sense.
“We are feeding your brain a chemical cocktail of sorts.” The voice said. “I cut it off momentarily so that you could remember the events leading up to your death, hence the overwhelming panic you experienced. It seems the other thing your body did was supply a never ending stream of chemicals to your brain. The chemical receptors can’t go for more than a few seconds without stimulus before the whole system begins to break down. Unfortunately our mixture is imperfect and compensates by overdoing the dopamine levels a bit. The result is a sedation effect that unfortunately impairs your ability to fully comprehend and analyze everything I am telling you. It is crippling your mental acuity, and worse yet, it is not a permanent solution. Your mental state is slowly collapsing.”
Sedated or not, Jack figured out what that meant immediately. “So I am going to go crazy?”
“No, it would probably be much worse than what I sense you perceive as ‘crazy’. You would lose all sense of being and drift into what could only be described as a living hell in your own mind. The very worst aspects of your nature and being would permeate every thought, and you would agonize forever in uncontrollable nightmares.”
“Yeah, that is pretty awful,” Jack deadpanned.
The voice sensed the sarcasm and responded in kind, “Don’t worry, we would euthanize you before that happens.”
The comment missed the mark again unfortunately, and the disembodied narrator continued to relay the situation.
“We knew this was an eventuality and designed a new place for you to reside.”
This concept Jack could grasp, “You’re going to move my brain somewhere else?”
“No,” said the voice. “We are going to move you into a new brain."
---TBC---
I've been itching to tell a story for quite sometime, but have had a hard time starting in a meaningful way. It is a broad sci-fi story arc with several themes involving existentialism and evolution. This is a beginning excerpt that I am working on. Comments and suggestions are all welcome. Thank you. ( I apologize for formatting ahead of time.)
Jack knew that he was dreaming, which is always an odd sensation. Usually one wakes up when they realize that they are dreaming, but this time he did not.
He was reclined in a familiar pasture. It might have been his father’s farm on his home world. The soft blades of grass underneath him were feathery and supportive as he lingered under a warm yellow sun. A delicate breeze whispered across his skin as he pondered the idea that he was not really here.
It didn’t seem to matter. This was good enough and whatever was real or not was just a passing concern. White billowy clouds glided overhead in the deep blue sky offering hints of shapes that seemed to change as Jack assigned familiar animals or objects to their design. This truly was a dream and it was one of the best he could remember.
Remembering was an odd engagement. It was an effort he rather not attempt, but it seemed like something important was just beyond his grasp. He felt like there was something undone or something slightly amiss. Had he forgotten something? It seemed he had forgotten everything, but that wasn’t quite true either. A cloud took the shape of his father, and another --- his brother. One looked like Aria, with flowing hair and a wide, elated grin. The expression wasn’t so much a memory as much as a desire. It would be nice to see her he thought and not just as a cloud.
“Jack?”
The voice he heard utter his name was familiar, soft, and distinctly feminine. He turned his head to see where it came from but this only distorted the serene setting he was enjoying so much. The clouds became fuzzy and the light of the warm sun became hazy and cool. He cursed slightly at himself for disrupting such a wonderful
dream, but the source of the voice awakened a part of him that had to know its origin.
“Can you hear me?”
The voice was insistent in its tone, and Jack could almost make out its source. The grass and sky seemed to fade away and his dream darkened around him except for a pale shroud of light that seemed to illuminate the source of his new curiosity.
“Yes, I can hear you.” Jack replied. He reached out his hand as if to touch the glowing apparition that seemed so far out of reach. He realized that he had no hand to reach with. He had no arms, legs or body to speak of either. He simply was and that was seemingly good enough.
“Good,” said the ethereal voice. “We have been trying to communicate with you for some time now. This has been a difficult process for both of us.”
“What has been so difficult about it?”
“We did not know with any certainty that your consciousness had been preserved in the aftermath of your death.”
“I’m sorry…my what?” Jack replied slightly dumbfounded.
The sultry voice of the glowing apparition stifled a sigh, “Jack, now is the time to remember. Search your thoughts and remember the last moments before.”
The world around them swirled violently with color and light as Jack’s last memories flooded the landscape. He heard the wailing of the alarms as he embraced Aria one last time. He saw her flowing brown hair as it draped over her form fitted grey flight suit and could smell the sweet perfume she wore. He felt her hand slip from his as he closed the airlock door and sped to his cockpit to disembark from the giant Republic capitol ship. The hangar doors opened and the vastness of space swallowed him and his ship. The flashing lights of combat filled the darkness through the cockpit view shield, and his ship veered masterfully between exploding vessels and wreckage that flew haphazardly through the warzone.
He heard the screeching wail of tungsten slugs as they tore through his ship’s hull at near-light speed. The magnetically propelled cannon rounds had shredded his stabilizing engines and he spun violently through space towards the barren planet below. He felt the heat of the thin upper atmosphere as he continued to plummet in a dizzying free fall. He regained some control of the ship and fired the engines one last time in a futile attempt to right the ships descent. Then he felt the horrible impact. His ship laid crippled and torn on the uninhabitable planet. His broken body was still strapped to his seat. Unable to move, he stared out the cockpit window but could only see the poisonous, orange-red fog that made up the planet’s atmosphere.
Then he felt his last breath leave his body.
Jack screamed from the very bottom of his soul. The sound seemed to pierce the fabric of the universe and everything blinked out of existence and was replaced only by darkness and the faint light that still spoke soothingly to him.
“I’m sorry, Jack. You are safe for now. You had to remember for a moment to understand what must now happen.”
“Am I really dead?” Jack’s panic was subsiding quickly--- almost against his will it seemed. “This isn’t what I…I never knew what to expect.”
“Your ship was tracked as it entered our atmosphere and its landing coordinates approximated within a half-kilometer. We launched a recovery mission immediately to scour the wreckage for useful military intelligence and resources. I was made aware of your condition and it was at that moment that the decision was made for you to be captured and made available for research. We made every attempt to salvage your body, but it was to no avail. We instead opted to preserve your brain as best as possible. It is quite fascinating that the most evolved and important part of your being is so hopelessly anchored by your primitive organic design.”
“Thanks, I guess?” Jack replied.
“It wasn’t meant to be a compliment really.” The voice quipped.
“I meant for saving my life…or some part of it I guess. There is a lot I still don’t understand. Like… where am I?” Jack asked.
The apparition laughed heartily. “That is an excellent question, but you mean it in the wrong fashion. You are in your own mind. You have no body so your senses turn inward and your experiences are what you make of them. In a more real sense of the question --- you, and I mean your brain, is suspended in an oxygen enriched, semi-gelatinous fluid surrounded by an electrically charged membrane that constantly monitors your synaptic activity.”
The voice paused for a second for a reaction and when it got none it continued anyway.
“Much of your organic hardware is flawed. It is hopelessly dependent on the implied biological functions of your, now absent, corporeal existence.”
“How do you mean?” This at least spurned a reaction from Jack’s conscious mind.
“The most primitive parts are designed solely for biological function – the incessant pumping of oxygenated fluids through your vascular system, and the grotesque process of converting organic sustenance into energy and waste.”
“Ah.”
“In the absence of these processes, that portion of your brain malfunctioned in a sense creating a systemic failure. The cognitive and processing portions of your brain were compromised while this other portion was in disarray. It became necessary to appease your lower functions artificially. We simply fed it a looping analog signal.”
“You short circuited my brain?”
“That is a primitive and mostly inaccurate verbiage, but I detect your cognitive understanding of the phrase holds analogous. So, yes, we did exactly that. The effect was almost immediate and quite unexpected for us.”
“Unexpected? In what way?”
“We honestly had no idea why your brain did or did not work. It was and still remains mostly a mystery to us. It is a seemingly chaotic organ with unknown potential. It was crafted quite masterfully and still lies beyond our total understanding. When we initiated the signal and pacified the stem portion of your brain, complete and normal function was restored to the other portions. Well, as normal as ever I suppose.”
“What is ‘suppose’ supposed to mean?” Jack paused for a second to try to figure out if his question even made sense.
“We are feeding your brain a chemical cocktail of sorts.” The voice said. “I cut it off momentarily so that you could remember the events leading up to your death, hence the overwhelming panic you experienced. It seems the other thing your body did was supply a never ending stream of chemicals to your brain. The chemical receptors can’t go for more than a few seconds without stimulus before the whole system begins to break down. Unfortunately our mixture is imperfect and compensates by overdoing the dopamine levels a bit. The result is a sedation effect that unfortunately impairs your ability to fully comprehend and analyze everything I am telling you. It is crippling your mental acuity, and worse yet, it is not a permanent solution. Your mental state is slowly collapsing.”
Sedated or not, Jack figured out what that meant immediately. “So I am going to go crazy?”
“No, it would probably be much worse than what I sense you perceive as ‘crazy’. You would lose all sense of being and drift into what could only be described as a living hell in your own mind. The very worst aspects of your nature and being would permeate every thought, and you would agonize forever in uncontrollable nightmares.”
“Yeah, that is pretty awful,” Jack deadpanned.
The voice sensed the sarcasm and responded in kind, “Don’t worry, we would euthanize you before that happens.”
The comment missed the mark again unfortunately, and the disembodied narrator continued to relay the situation.
“We knew this was an eventuality and designed a new place for you to reside.”
This concept Jack could grasp, “You’re going to move my brain somewhere else?”
“No,” said the voice. “We are going to move you into a new brain."
---TBC---
0
Posts
That's just a quick pass, and there are still problems as far as repetition, and I can't yet speak to whether this opening scene is telling us anything we need to know. If this is the beginning of the story, you should know that opening to a character dreaming and/or waking up is very cliched and can annoy the reader right out of the gate. Which doesn't mean never do it, only be very careful that it's actually the best way to begin your story.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
For example:
I might approach this particular set of dialogue more like:
"Your organic hardware is fundamentally flawed. It depends on biological weaknesses in order to function, and you are now without those weaknesses."
"Meaning what?"
"There are entire subsets of your biological processes devoted to biological function - oxygenated fluids pumping through an inferior vascular system, the inefficient conversion of organic sustenance into energy, creating waste."
"Inferior...?"
"Once these processes ceased to function, the portion of your brain dependent on them malfunctioned - systemic failure. The cognitive and processing centers in your brain were immediately compromised while the organic tissues failed. It became necessary to appease your lower functions artificially."
"And how exactly do you do that?"
"A looping analog signal was sufficient."
"Looping anal- are you trying to tell me you short-circuited my brain?"
"Primitive and mostly-inaccurate verbiage. Your cognitive understanding of the phrase holds analogous, though. The effect was immediate, and quite unexpected.
"You surged my brain with- whatever, and 'you're' the one surprised?"
Language is like a martial art; if you have a strong foundation, feel free to improvise.