From: Bray, Lee [Bray@petinf.co.uk] Sent: Monday, March 08, 1999 3:10 AM To: 'blue_planet@mpgn.com' Subject: RE: [BLUE PLANET] -Writer's Guide > Jupiter." - Space Travel: A Writer's Guide to the Science of Interplanetary > and Interstellar Travel This sounds like a useful book. Where did you find it? Who's it by, etc? Later, Eva I have just purchased what seems to be another book in this series "A Writer's Guide to Creating a Science Fiction Universe" by George Ochoa and Jeffrey Osier, which may also be of interest to list members Cheers Lee -----Original Message----- From: c718678@showme.missouri.edu [SMTP:c718678@showme.missouri.edu] Sent: 05 March 1999 23:18 To: blue_planet@mpgn.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] -Writer's Guide On Fri, 5 Mar 1999, Robert P. Stefko wrote: @@@(* > *)@@@ *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Tun Kai Poh [t_poh@hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, March 08, 1999 1:53 AM To: blue_planet@mpgn.com Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - John Bishop? I'm writing a CTN report which mentions the GEO Colonial Administration, and I was wondering: Has John Bishop recovered from the bomb attack mentioned in Undercurrents 3, or is he still on life support? Kai Poh, Malaysian Lagomorph ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Tun Kai Poh [t_poh@hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, March 08, 1999 4:56 AM To: blue_planet@mpgn.com Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - Story: Desperation and Futility The following is a continuation from the events of my previous stories. Enjoy! Kai Poh, Malaysian Lagomorph * * * Desperation and Futility by Tun Kai Poh The emergency meeting is being held in a high-tech "war room" located in the bowels of the Volkhaus in Kingston. The most important Hanover executives on Poseidon are all here by secure telepresence uplink. Gertrude Baum stands alone in the dark, surrounded by their holographic avatars. A crowd of ghosts, she thinks to herself. Gertrude speaks to them, wearing a mask of courage and speaking with a calm voice which belies the terror that swims beneath the surface like a shark. "Gentlemen, ladies, we have the situation under control." "Under control? You call this 'under control?'" The images have been ordered into a grid and placed upon the main holographic clipboard for all to see. The Westcape war. Soldiers wearing HSS uniforms, firing on unarmed native prospectors. Hanover personnel constructing mining facilities in Hell's Basin. Bullet-riddled bodies of native men and boys, some as young as 12, lying in a mass grave. HSS VTOLs flying overhead, their wing pods heavy with air-to-surface missiles. Image after image, clearly showing the slaughter that has occupied Hanover's forces on the southern island. In a way, the pictures are almost beautiful. The artful composition and contrast in the images catch Gertrude's eye. It reminds her of some of the footage from the New Balkans conflicts, nearly a decade ago. Whoever took these pictures deserves a Pulitzer, she thinks to herself. Then she forces herself to bring her attention back to business. Werner is speaking again. "This series of images is just a sampling of four files containing about two hundred individual full-color pictures and holographs. We found it on a CommCore native activist bulletin board. Those Stone Bridge people, you know the ones. Our CommCore trackers broke into their system and found that the files had been uploaded from the local system in Dyfedd. The Dyfedd network administrators say that the files were dumped into the system by an anonymous user." Bernard Obermann, HSS commander in charge of Westcape operations, speaks up. "Outrageous. Did the trackers suppress?" "They crashed the Stone Bridge system, but the files have already been sent to a dozen other activist groups, and all major news networks. CTN/net is already doing a story on it. It's going to be a disaster." Gertrude crosses her arms, poker-faced. "I can handle it." "This is the work of professionals. There are date authentication stamps on the images." "I said I can handle it." "You said this wouldn't happen! You said you could manage a total media blackout for six months!" "No, I said six weeks, and that expired a long time ago. Someone told us that it was just a 'small problem' of a few native fanatics. Someone promised us that his people would pacify the rebels in a matter of days. And someone promised us that the HSS would keep outsiders from getting anywhere near the mining operations in Hell's Basin. It seems to me that Herr Obermann is the one who made the false promises." The blame has been reassigned. Obermann sputters with rage, but before he can say anything, Gertrude shifts gears, changing the topic. "But now is not the time for this! We can decide whom to blame later! Right now, we must work together to resolve the situation." She sweeps her arm towards a holographic icon, and a prerecorded presentation begins playing. She never thought she'd really need it, but she'd had it prepared anyway, months ago. Just in case. "Right now, my team of damage control experts is putting out initial statements assuring the world that the images are forgeries, clever computer constructs using existing media footage." The presentation shows her handsome young PR assistants in front of the sensory recorders in the UBM studios. Scrolling text footnotes explain that they are reading a variety of statements, which can be edited together on the fly with computers to create press releases to fit any situation. "At the same time, my online team is flooding CommCore with image files marked 'Westcape Massacres,' which contain pictures closely resembling the originals, but which are actually doctored from New Balkans and Sierra Nueva images." A document outlining the plan appears on the main display. "If we can saturate CommCore to the point where 90% of the images are ours, anyone who wants to look up the Westcape massacres will have a good chance of finding the fakes first and giving up, maybe even dismissing the whole thing as a hoax." A few of the executives nod approvingly. Even Werner is starting to look relieved. "The key is to discredit, discredit, discredit. We'll make use of the fact that the files were posted anonymously. Another thing in our favor is our territorial rights and our sovereignty. I've checked with Legal and they assured me that they can reinterpret an obscure Blight-era law to keep GEO inspection teams out of Hell's Basin for up to a month. Finally, I'll give a press conference from the Volkhaus to issue an official statement denying the authenticity of the images and warning the GEO from trespassing in Westcape. "All of this gives us time to implement any one of several rapid pacification plans or, in a worst-case scenario, to achieve a negotiated settlement with the rebels. In the meantime, I can put together UBM News investigative reports to blast the images as fakes, which we can 'prove' by taking selected samples from CommCore." The presentation ends. She waits silently, a faint smile flickering on her face. Applause. The ghosts love it. She's sold them on it. The next thirty minutes go by quickly. Werner discusses the details with her. She fine-tunes the plan to perfection. The executives watch the first of the Hanover press releases just as it goes out onto CommCore. By the end of the meeting, Gertrude's PR team is already on the counterattack. The holographic avatars vanish, one by one, until she is alone once more. She laughs grimly. It's the worst PR crisis of her career and she's managed to take charge right away. But it doesn't matter. Even if it all goes down in flames, even if heads have to roll, even if they make her a scapegoat, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, because by then, she'll be dead. * * * The first thing she did after she received the death threat was to call Security. It did no good at all. They couldn't find a breach anywhere in the condominium complex, and there was no trace of an IA chip that could have been inserted in her viewscreen. The enemy had come in the night like phantoms. They could have been in the room when she came in. She should be dead by now. Fair play. That's why she's still alive. She has extensive files on The Children Of The Widow. They believe in some twisted sense of honor, and they believe in fair play. They always give their targets a warning, a chance to run, to flee Poseidon. But she knows she can't do that, not now. Werner will never let her leave the system while she has the Westcape crisis on her hands. And there are so many other problems. She has to oversee the UBM broadcast of Asuka Schneider's concert in Haven. She has to stay in Kingston to prepare the local PR staff for the Schneider appearance in Kingston, later this month. And then there are the anti-Hanover protests that have begun ever since that stupid shooting of the native musician in Hazards Casino. Hanover Industries needs her steadfast presence to reassure the people that they have it under control. Of course, they don't. She can use her smoke and mirrors to make it seem otherwise, but the HSS has been so depleted recently by the Westcape war that there's no way Hanover can stop some native fanatic from, say, suicide-bombing Asuka Schneider's concert. Okay, maybe the HSS can stop the first one, and maybe even the second one. But they can't stop everything the natives have to throw at them. Resources are stretched to the limit. Hanover's careful plans are coming apart at the seams. She knows that the HSS can't protect her. Nobody on this planet or any other can save her. She's already dead; she just hasn't stopped moving yet. But desperation is a powerful thing. She's clutched at straws she didn't know existed. * * * The second thing she did was to put Plan A into play. A secure uplink call, bounced through several satellites to throw off a trace, to her pawn in Haven. It was a slim chance, but maybe she could get her hands on that one secret the Children would want bad enough to give her back her life. It is the most dangerous secret she knows of, and she knows of many secrets. It's been waiting out there, underwater, waiting for years. She could have sent her pawn to find it at any time, but it was too dangerous. Once the secret is recovered from those waters, it will get out, sooner or later. And then kingdoms will fall. The balance of power on Poseidon will shift forever. She might even be out of a job. Millions of people will be out of a job. Millions of people will have to leave Poseidon. It is a secret that will rewrite history. No longer will textbooks speak of the Athena Project as that great shining experiment that put humanity's footsteps upon a world of promise. Once this version of the truth comes out, everything will change. She is willing, now, to change the world. She will move Heaven and Earth, if that's what it takes. Not for lust, not for power, not for fame, but for the simplest, most basic emotion of all. She's afraid. She doesn't want to die. * * * It's been three days since she arrived in the town of Kingston. Outside the armored walls of the Volkhaus, musicians from all over the colony world play their songs, and thousands of people dance and drink and get stoned and laugh and screw and live and die. They mean nothing to her. If killing them all would save her, she would order the airstrike without a second thought. If she could sign over the rights to the planet to the natives, she would. Three days of waiting for death to come from behind, whispering ecoterrorist rhetoric into her ear. Three days since she called her pawn. No answer. She should never have trusted the bitch in the first place. She's put other pawns onto the trail of the hidden secret she seeks, but they'd never find it. They're not good enough. Only one other person on the planet is good enough, and she can't be made to work for the Incorporate. She enters the control room and jacks into the Volkhaus maincomp. Time to review the pictures more closely. As each image flashes through the neural jack and into her visual cortex, she stores it in the DNA memory banks of her cranial computer implant. Suddenly, she stops the download abruptly. Backs up two frames. There. Her son, Adolf Baum. On duty in Hell's Basin. Those bastards, they must have edited his message for content. When she received the message from him, the one that said that he was still in the academy, she sighed with relief. If he graduated, he'd be in harm's way, because an HSS uniform is as good as a bull's eye to a native ecoterrorist. Those bastards, she thinks. They're taking kids out of the academy to fight the Westcape war. We're more desperate than I thought. Then, because of that one image, she studies the shot closely. The composition. The close-up on the name badge. She goes on to the next shot, then the next. She sees what she's missed all along. She accesses her cranial memory banks and starts linking pieces of data which she's stored over the years, facts and secrets that might come to be of use. She connects the most remote and obscure of facts, puts them into the pattern she thought she'd seen a long time ago. A while ago, she was forced to put take a piece out of the pattern. She puts her new discovery into place. It fits perfectly. Her heart beats faster. She thinks, the best tracker on the planet. And now I have her where I want her. I can do this. The next thing she does is to put Plan B into play. (copyright 1999, Tun Kai Poh) ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Heivilin, Jim [banzai@missouri.edu] Sent: Monday, March 08, 1999 10:02 AM To: 'blue_planet@mpgn.com' Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - Bova's Books (was: Writer's Guide) > -----Original Message----- > From: Sean Goodroad [mailto:slugman@itis.com] > Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] -Writer's Guide > > Any bookstore should have it... > it's by Ben Bova and Anthony R. Lewis (it's also edited by Bova) > it's a writer's digest book and the ISBN is (lemme tear the > tag off...) > ISBN 0-89879-747-0 > and the MSRP is $16.99 (paperback) > > Sean Ben Bova did a few other books which (from what I understand from friends who have them) are very well written and useful for creating/writing science fiction (adventures/stories/worlds/etc.). Searching at Amazon.com reveals the name of the series is the "Science Fiction Writing Series". And it seems that Bova is not the only author in the series; Aliens and Alien Societies (Science Fiction Writing Series) ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Stanley Schmidt, et al / Hardcover / Published 1996 Our Price: $12.59 ~ You Save: $5.40 (30%) Space Travel (Science Fiction Writing Series) ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Ben Bova, et al / Paperback / Published 1997 Our Price: $13.59 ~ You Save: $3.40 (20%) Time Travel (Science Fiction Writing Series) ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Paul J. Nahin / Paperback / Published 1997 Our Price: $13.59 ~ You Save: $3.40 (20%) World-Building (Science Fiction Writing Series) ~ Usually ships in 24 hours Stephen L. Gillett, Ben Bova / Hardcover / Published 1996 Our Price: $11.89 ~ You Save: $5.10 (30%) Jim H. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: fleschneab13@uwwvax.uww.edu Sent: Monday, March 08, 1999 10:48 AM To: blue_planet@mpgn.com Subject: RE: [BLUE PLANET] - Bova's Books (was: Writer's Guide) Another good sci-fi writing book I have is "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" by Orson Scott Card. I've had it for a while, and I think it does a great job at not only explaining how to go about writing this stuff, but also how to deal with space travel, magic, and some of the stylistic differences between Sci-fi/fantasy and other types of writing. It really helped me understand what I can and can't do in my stories and explained some of the tricks I can use in my writing. Planewalker *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: BIOHZD@aol.com Sent: Monday, March 08, 1999 1:07 PM To: blue_planet@mpgn.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - John Bishop? Hey Kai, Bishop has certainly recovered by now - his new eye, liver, left hand, muscle and skin grafts have taken well ; ). Jeff Barber Biohazard Games *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Robert P. Stefko [rpsst16+@pitt.edu] Sent: Monday, March 08, 1999 5:38 PM To: blue_planet@mpgn.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] -Writer's Guide >I have just purchased what seems to be another book in this series "A Writer's Guide to Creating a Science Fiction Universe" by George Ochoa and Jeffrey Osier, which may also be of interest to list members< Actually, that book was written much earlier (1993) than the current series, which includes "World-Building," "Aliens and Alien Societies," "Space Travel," and "Time Travel." They're all good books, with much useful information for sci-fi writers and gamers. *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Tun Kai Poh [t_poh@hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, March 08, 1999 8:47 PM To: blue_planet@mpgn.com Cc: ccbanzai@showme.missouri.edu Subject: Colonial Times - Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Westcape Pictures Shock World DYFEDD: GEO officials and native activists alike are expressing their outrage following the discovery of a series of image files in Dyfedd depicting what appear to be massacres and environmental abuses by Hanover security forces on the southern island of Westcape. Technicians working in the floating city discovered the files this morning, placed into the local data network by an anonymous data dump at a public access terminal. The files show scenes of destruction in several native settlements, including a picture of the bodies of young men who appear to have been shot in the back of the head, execution-style. There are also images of Hanover troops engaged in combat against native warriors, and pictures of a massive half-finished mining facility, which does not appear to meet HCNR environmental requirements. From his hospital bed, GEO Colonial Administrator John Bishop issued a brief statement strongly condemning Hanover Industries. He also announced that several special multidisciplinary monitoring teams, comprising members of the GEO Marshall Service, GEO Patrol, Native Patrol, GEO Peacekeepers, and GEO ERT Service, would be assembled immediately to investigate the situation in Westcape. Native activists across Poseidon are uniting in their protests against Hanover Industries, and rallies are being organized in several colonial towns, including Haven, Kingston and Atlantis. Earthbound human rights group Amnesty Interstellar announced plans to recruit colonial investigators as independent monitors to send to Westcape. Hanover officials were quick to respond. Speaking at a hastily announced press conference in the Volkhaus arcology in Kingston, spokesperson Gertrude Baum released a statement insisting that the images were "clever forgeries by parties opposed to Hanover Industries' rightful and wholly legal claim to the development of Westcape." She went on to say that any attempt by the proposed monitor groups to enter Hanover mining territory will be considered as trespassing by the Incorporate's security forces. - Kai Poh, CTN/net Schneider Fans Await Superstar's Arrival HAVEN: After numerous delays due to security concerns, Bavarian pop superstar Asuka Schneider will be arriving in Haven tomorrow for the start of her first concert tour of Poseidon. Long lines of colonial fans, mostly young men and women, are camped outside the gates of the Haven Coliseum, and more are coming by the hour. Authorities fear that the crowds of fans may soon exceed those which have swamped Kingston's Zion Music Festival. After the Haven concert, Schneider will spend a week resting before she travels to Kingston to perform at the finale of the Zion Music Festival. Future stops for her tour include Lebensraum and Santa Elena. Virtually all seats for her shows are already sold out, and scalpers are charging exorbitant prices for tickets. Schneider has spent the last month on Prosperity Station, recovering from IHMS and undergoing minor biomod treatment to regrow her famous mane of hair, which had to be shaved off when she entered IHMS hibernation for her journey from Earth. So far, she has declined to see reporters, and Hanover Security Service officers are providing maximum security for the superstar 30 hours a day. Kai Poh, CTN/net ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From: Tun Kai Poh [t_poh@hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, March 08, 1999 8:47 PM To: blue_planet@mpgn.com Cc: ccbanzai@showme.missouri.edu Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - Colonial Times - Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Westcape Pictures Shock World DYFEDD: GEO officials and native activists alike are expressing their outrage following the discovery of a series of image files in Dyfedd depicting what appear to be massacres and environmental abuses by Hanover security forces on the southern island of Westcape. Technicians working in the floating city discovered the files this morning, placed into the local data network by an anonymous data dump at a public access terminal. The files show scenes of destruction in several native settlements, including a picture of the bodies of young men who appear to have been shot in the back of the head, execution-style. There are also images of Hanover troops engaged in combat against native warriors, and pictures of a massive half-finished mining facility, which does not appear to meet HCNR environmental requirements. From his hospital bed, GEO Colonial Administrator John Bishop issued a brief statement strongly condemning Hanover Industries. He also announced that several special multidisciplinary monitoring teams, comprising members of the GEO Marshall Service, GEO Patrol, Native Patrol, GEO Peacekeepers, and GEO ERT Service, would be assembled immediately to investigate the situation in Westcape. Native activists across Poseidon are uniting in their protests against Hanover Industries, and rallies are being organized in several colonial towns, including Haven, Kingston and Atlantis. Earthbound human rights group Amnesty Interstellar announced plans to recruit colonial investigators as independent monitors to send to Westcape. Hanover officials were quick to respond. Speaking at a hastily announced press conference in the Volkhaus arcology in Kingston, spokesperson Gertrude Baum released a statement insisting that the images were "clever forgeries by parties opposed to Hanover Industries' rightful and wholly legal claim to the development of Westcape." She went on to say that any attempt by the proposed monitor groups to enter Hanover mining territory will be considered as trespassing by the Incorporate's security forces. - Kai Poh, CTN/net Schneider Fans Await Superstar's Arrival HAVEN: After numerous delays due to security concerns, Bavarian pop superstar Asuka Schneider will be arriving in Haven tomorrow for the start of her first concert tour of Poseidon. Long lines of colonial fans, mostly young men and women, are camped outside the gates of the Haven Coliseum, and more are coming by the hour. Authorities fear that the crowds of fans may soon exceed those which have swamped Kingston's Zion Music Festival. After the Haven concert, Schneider will spend a week resting before she travels to Kingston to perform at the finale of the Zion Music Festival. Future stops for her tour include Lebensraum and Santa Elena. Virtually all seats for her shows are already sold out, and scalpers are charging exorbitant prices for tickets. Schneider has spent the last month on Prosperity Station, recovering from IHMS and undergoing minor biomod treatment to regrow her famous mane of hair, which had to be shaved off when she entered IHMS hibernation for her journey from Earth. So far, she has declined to see reporters, and Hanover Security Service officers are providing maximum security for the superstar 30 hours a day. Kai Poh, CTN/net ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Tun Kai Poh [t_poh@hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, March 08, 1999 8:44 PM To: blue_planet@mpgn.com Subject: Re: [BLUE PLANET] - John Bishop? >Hey Kai, > >Bishop has certainly recovered by now - his new eye, liver, left hand, muscle >and skin grafts have taken well ; ). That's good. I want to put out a Colonial Times article which mentions that Bishop, from his hospital bed*, condemns Incorporate abuses of power (as usual) and forms a GEO task force to look into it (read: excuse for a player character party to get together). That's why I asked. Kai * Since the Bishop bombing took place in September 2199 and I don't want to go outside of 2199, I'm setting the Zion Music Festival just a couple of months later, when he's still recovering from the transplants. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message. From: Tun Kai Poh [t_poh@hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, March 08, 1999 9:22 PM To: blue_planet@mpgn.com Subject: [BLUE PLANET] - Story - I Met The Price! Writer's note: This story takes place about a month before the start of the Zion Music Festival. I've always wanted to include Bataku in one of my stories but I didn't want to get him wrong, so he just gets a cameo appearance here. * * * I Met The Price! as told to Tun Kai Poh "Hi, my name is Robin, I'm a sixth-generation Poseidon native, I'm twelve years old, I live on Baffin Island, and this is what I did for my summer vacation: I helped my tribe to fight the jackbooted thugs of the Despoiler GenDiver Incorporate State by acting as a lookout, I set a low-flying blimp on fire with a torch which was a lot of fun, I got in touch with this CommCore magazine with the uplink dish that my gunrunner friend Misha got us, and I met Poseidon's Price. Of course I was quite interested in writing for Crashing! Kids Magazine. They said I could write whatever I wanted, so I'm going to concentrate on telling you readers about the time I met the Price. "Most of you readers are from Earth, so what is the Price, you ask? To explain, I have to start at the beginning. It starts with the Tale of the Storm Widow. It's a story every native mother has told her children since the Calamity of Atlantis, when the volcano killed all those colonists. It's a true story about The Storm Widow, Maya Mahsuri. "Maya Mahsuri had a husband and some children, and they lived on a faraway island in the north during the time of Abandonment when Earth abandoned our colony. Then a terrible storm hit the island while the husband was away at sea and he was lost forever - except he comes back, but much later - so Maya Mahsuri searched and couldn't find him, and mourned him. She climbed a mountain and told the planet, that is, she told Poseidon, that it could take her beloved away, but in exchange it would allow her and her children to live in peace on the island. If she ever took anything away from Poseidon, she would also have to give up her flesh and blood. That was the price of Poseidon. But it's different from Poseidon's Price, capital P. That comes later. "So the Storm Widow has a lot of adventures and raises her kids to colonize the New Hawaii islands, except for a couple of kids who die, and now she's old and grey and Recontact happens. The Despoilers come to visit her island and guess who's leading them to her? It's that no-good husband, who survived and went to live somewhere else in the islands and he's now a sell-out. He tells her that the Despoilers are going to take everything, and she says, no, they have to pay Poseidon's Price which is blood. See, she had to survive with blood and sweat and her children had to grow up in a dangerous world. But these Despoilers think their technology is going to be a nice easy short cut so that they can get all the benefits with none of the price. And they're going to stink up our environment in the process. That's why Maya Mahsuri said no to her own husband. And so our war began. "And that's why my big sister Virginia kills GenDiver soldiers with thermite bombs that Misha supplies us. You people on Earth should write your government representatives and tell them to lobby the GEO to force all the Incorporates to leave us alone because otherwise the GEO is useless and should get out of our way. Anyway, sorry if I'm preaching politics but it's my home and way of life that's threatened. "Poseidon's Price is a great neo-folk music group founded by Jeanette Maya Mahsuri Harwati-Colton (whew!) who is a descendant of the original Storm Widow. Her mother was one of the first patriots to stand up against the Despoilers but MacLeod Enforcement and the GEO captured her and put her and her daughter Jeanette in jail. Jeanette escaped but the mother died, and that's why she hates the GEO and Incorporates so much. She wandered around the Archipelago until she met Blind Man Malcolm, the reggae musician. He taught her all about music and she became one of his greatest students. Eventually Jeanette got some of Blind Man Malcolm's other students to leave him and go with her to found the band, Poseidon's Price. Abel Ransom, a guitarist who was in love with Jeanette, and Jessica Demarco Vasquez, an old trumpet player who knew a lot about old Earth folk music, joined Jeanette. Jeanette's specialty, by the way, was programming electronic players. "They named themselves Poseidon's Price because of the Storm Widow story. They wanted to use their songs to spread the message of Maya Mahsuri, to get the natives to stop selling out and fight the Despoilers. Eventually Jessica quit which was too bad because Jeanette really looked up to her. A guy from Blue Water Circle called Paul Ong quit his cell because they didn't appreciate music, and joined the band as a drummer. "So the band went all around causing riots with their songs and they got into trouble with the law. Finally an insurgent group called Native Pride offered to help the Price if they agreed to join. Jeanette said sure, but can you change your group's name to something more cool? That was how The Children Of The Widow was born. The band became more famous because now its music was connected to a native insurgent group. And the insurgents became more famous because now they had their own theme songs and everything. And that's the story of the Price. Jeanette told it to me herself, because this summer, Poseidon's Price came to Baffin Island. "It was so awesome. The warriors even came in from all the training and raiding they do, and a bunch of our allies which I can't mention for secrecy's sake helped by watching the skies for any GenDiver raids since so many of our valuable people were going to be gathered in one place. Virginia helped me make a water hemp T-shirt that said WELCOME POSEIDON'S PRICE. "Our tribal leader, Bataku the Orca, who is a really famous and really powerful warrior, he was there in the water, watching from a distance the whole time. His dolphin advisers stayed closer to shore and advised us in building the stage for the band to perform on. The most important one, Prophet, is really strange sometimes, but he gave a lot of good advice about construction. I don't know where he gets his ideas, but they worked. "They tell me other natives elsewhere look up to Bataku and his warpod as legendary, but let me tell you, even Bataku and his warriors looked up to Jeanette. They formed up an honor guard in two rows for her boat when she arrived. She arrived on a stealth hydrofoil provided by another ally I can't tell you about, and the band was with her, and a bunch of roadies, too. Roadies are skinny smelly guys who follow the band around and help out carrying stuff and setting up the stage but after concerts they always get high on water sake and pharium and the next morning they sleep until noon. There were two girls who looked like groupies, which is fans who follow the band and get drunk too, but they don't do any real work. Those two always hung out around Jeanette but they never got drunk or anything, not like the other groupies. They were always looking at everything around them. And there was never more than one of them asleep at any one time. I think they were secretly bodyguards to protect Jeanette. That would be my dream job, except I wouldn't be able to goof off at any time. "Jeanette is a small woman with brown skin which is not as dark as mine and brown hair in braids which are longer than mine and paler too. She's got these amazing glow-in-the-dark tattoos which react to loud noises by changing their shape and color. There are four tattoos on each arm and two on each of her shoulders and four more across her back. When she was on stage singing and dancing while the band played, her arms and shoulders were flashing like they were on fire, the tattoos changing colors all the time. She is always laughing and joking and talking and telling stories. She knows all sorts of stuff about Earth culture and old Earth songs, because of all the people she's hung out with. "It was really busy that week. People coming and going, fires and feasting and singing. There were baked reef worms and fried skinbellies and grilled trident fish and roasted fork leaf yams. It was one long party with the best music on the planet. The dolphins were leaping all the time and showing off. At one point Jeanette and Abel jumped into the water to swim with the dolphins and everyone stopped what they were doing just to watch. Jeanette is a good swimmer but Abel isn't. Abel's father was native but his mother was a GEO scientist who came to Poseidon shortly after Recontact. Although he's only half-native, we consider him one of us because he is Jeanette's boyfriend, and anything that's okay with her is okay with us. He's very dark because he's got a lot of African blood but his ancestors came from the United States. He is more serious than Jeanette, but still kind of friendly. "The songs were all the old favorites, mostly, like 'Crusade On Kauai,' 'Prospector's Song' and 'Storm Widow's Vow' which is the most recent song. She programmed them all into an electronic sound board herself, before the show, but many parts of the songs had to be played by the band members too. The crowds cheered when she sang the bit about drawing the 'burning line in water' and killing anyone who crosses it. I like that part myself. Bataku and his warpod were always just outside the light of the fires, listening out in the water. They never interrupted with a single sound. "I got to meet Jeanette and the Price in person on the second night, after the band recorded a song specially meant for a person whose name I can't say for security reasons except that she's really mean and fat and lies all the time on CommCore. Virginia took me backstage past all the drunk roadies, and we went into the hut which was being used as a dressing room. I finally got to see how beautiful Jeanette was, and how tough Paul Ong was. Paul Ong is a big muscular guy who was carrying Jeanette's groupie bodyguards over his head when Virginia and I arrived. Right away I knew I wanted to be as big and strong as Paul when I grow up. But I also want to be as smart as Jeanette. "Jeanette never seems to get tired, and she was talking for hours about everything while we were there, mostly speaking in English and Bahasa. I don't understand Bahasa so I only understood half her jokes, and the bilingual puns I didn't get at all. There were a lot of other fans who were there too, but she was very nice to everyone, even the annoying ones. There was a fan who had followed her all the way from where she'd been before which I can't tell, and he had this homemade T-shirt which said OTAKU NO BATAKU which he thought meant 'Fan of Bataku.' She corrected him and said it meant 'Bataku For The Fans' so he should change it to BATAKU NO OTAKU or Bataku might get mad since he can understand some Japanese. "She told lots of stories. She seemed to miss Jessica DeMarco Vasquez a lot because she (Jeanette) told a lot of sad stories about her (Jessica). I didn't like those stories much, so I won't mention them here. "My favorite story is the one she told about the night she and Abel fell in love. She says they were travelling with Blind Man Malcolm and they stopped to play in a strip club in Second Try. After the show, most of Malcolm's band, who were men, wanted to stay in the club to watch the famous dancer Ravishing Roxy, but Jessica tricked Abel into following Jeanette to the beach. The two walked until they were out of Barker's Gorge and at the beach facing the open sea. Jeanette asked Abel if he wanted to swim, so he followed her into the waves. But it was a rough sea that night, and he almost drowned. She actually had to save him because he's not an aquaform. "While they were underwater, many strange ray-like creatures swam up and around them. People call them Poseidon aborigines, and some people think they're intelligent too. We see them sometimes around here, they're not so rare, and they're even friendly sometimes. Both Jeanette and Abel saw them but only for a moment. Later when they came back to shore they were excited about it, and Jeanette said that it was a sign that her dreams would come true. Abel asked her what her dreams were. She told him her dreams were to get rid of all the Despoilers who were polluting Poseidon, and to find a man who loved her. Then he told her that he loved her. The next thing they knew they were making love in the sand, and they've been together ever since. That was the best story Jeanette told me when she was on Baffin Island. "The band had to leave eventually. The food and drink was all finished, and they had played all the songs many times over. We offered them some weapons and supplies, but Abel and Jeanette said 'Keep them, you need them more than we do.' Bataku actually came in close, which he never does, and allowed Jeanette to touch his head. She spoke to him in Interspec and even rubbed his tongue! I never saw anyone stick their hand into Bataku's mouth and keep it. He liked her a lot. "They left, all of them, although Paul Ong accidentally forgot his drums so my father says I can have one of them, and the others were distributed among the other kids. They're going somewhere else where they can play their music and do missions for The Children Of The Widow. But I will never forget the time I met Jeanette and the Price." (copyright 1999, Tun Kai Poh) ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@mpgn.com with the line 'unsubscribe blue_planet' as the body of the message.