My Thoughts (the quick rundown)
Convenient Escapes from Reality
A tribute to the One and Only 1st Ed. D&D
A clever site devoted to D&D
A useful site for researching and links to RPGs
Various artist galleries
So here's the idea behind my novel. In the future man will have outgrown his world. In a desperate attempt to find new fuel systems and resources a second expedition to the moon takes place on July 21, 2057 by the NDRC (New Democratic Republic of China). While there they find what had been missed 85 years ago, an isotope of plutonium capable of stable fission (or fusion). This quickly leads to the Second Space Race between 2057 and 2062 where several joint excursions to the moon have established mining colonies across the face of the desolate satellite. The UN having no experience with outer space establishes the DEEP agency or Department of Extraterrestrial Enforcement and Planning on December 3, 2062 to oversee the facilities on the moon. The US, not one to back away, quickly sends an AI-based mining rig to Mars to search for other valuable minerals. And within two years the first magnesium and iron is found miles beneath the surface. Now to transport these materials, be they radioactive or not, large vessels known as space freighters ship the goods trans-atmospherically meaning from the moon to earth and back again. They use the new fusion propulsion systems which greatly lowers world fuel usage. These ships are normally manually piloted. But an AI prototype was developed to make the Marsian transit, seeing that it would take at least a year to travel, no human could withstand the trip there not to mention getting back too. When the AI-controlled ship neared Mars in 2064 a system malfunction caused it to crash into Olympus Mons MX-230i base totaling the facility and wasting $670 trillion worth of equipment. Of course the US was in uproar as people refused any more space ventures so quietly and discreetly the US backed out of the Second Space Race. However in their stead the European Union's "StarBase" facility was established by AI on Mars. They urged the DEEP to create a way to get a man or men to Mars, who could survive the painfully long trip there and back. On March 20, 2065 the SPACEman(Surgical Procedure for Anatomical and Cerebral Endurance) was created. Using nanotechnology scientists could rework a human to need more sleep, eat less, breathe less, and work more efficiently. The first human to become a Spaceman was Edward Hunseleman of Germany. The procedure took 6 days and cost the UN $400 billion. But the outcome was reported the greatest success of man, the "New Man". Within two months a team of four Spacemen was created and they piloted the first completely successful trip to Mars in the AstroGlaz, a multi-trillion dollar shuttle transport vessel. At the return of their expedition in 2068 the world all-over celebrated with an international Space Day. Now the only thing stopping this venture from becoming routine was the cost. This was quickly overcome by a world-wide trust fund of over $935.4 quadrillion US dollars. It was only four years before three faction colonies had been established on Mars: Ares 1 by the US;Red MXL 67 by the EU; and STAR 45 by the Asian Security Union. Spacemen were bieng processed everyday and ships were getting faster every trip. A way of life came to be known as astro-trippin' by the Spacemen who crossed the ocean of stars for work. The world was at peace and the future looked bright. But of course trouble was bound to emerge as it did on November 5, 2073 when a group of Spacemen decided to test out their new enhanced strength on each other in the Wild West-like environment of Mars. The DEEP quickly began training and processing officers and "negotiators" to handle the situations that began surfacing all over the un-pioneered red planet. At first the conflicts seemed to end but in secret an underground cult-like gang developed and soon flourished among the miners. The "negotiators" returned for training in espionage and weapons and were sentback to work their magic. The world never knew of the strife on Mars because any active member in the Mars underground was either killed or arrested and never left the planet. Any "clean" miners could never see their families again for government fear of a leak of what happened. Slowly the big businesses lost money to the voyages and taxes. When 2075 rolled around there was only one faction left on Mars, that of Ares 1. Deep under the Marsian surface an experiment was in progress. Mentally unstable scientists of the DEEP program began experimenting further on the Spacemen to see just how far they could push the limits of human ability. The US got word of this and rather than risk exposure pulled the last permanent facility off the planet in the same year. Now only DEEP remained on the planet and my story is of a "negotiator" name Caelis Donagan who uncovers the twisted plot of the scientists and the motives behind their Frankenstien-like experimenting. That covers the jist of it.
