Bentley, are the sheep ready to come over?” Julia radioed over to her friend in Installation 1, referencing the investors and tourists to see the experiment.
“Yeah Julia, they’re heading off in a tram right now.”
Bentley laughed into his radio. Julia confirmed they were ready to receive them and started walking down the cold hallway towards the tram station. She was nervous of course and the cold fluorescent lighting and grey walls didn’t do much to soothe her, but she was confident in the Heliogel and confident in her ability to operate the machinery with a brain scan. Julia walked down through a few corridors to the ground floor and finally used a small hand pad to open the large bay doors to the tram station. A black tram materialized out of the darkness and slowly stooped on the track next to the platform. Julia stood atop a flight of stairs and gazed at the people milling out of the tram. There were about fifty of them that she could easily separate into three groups by looking at their faces. One group of men and women in business attire stood away from the others and wore no smiles; those would be the investors. The tourists were all people that obviously had a lot of money and milled around aimlessly with dumb, excited looks. The group of people that would keep her sane, that she felt like she could actually talk to, were fellow international scientists like her that were genuinely curious to see the outcome of the experiment.
“Everybody please follow me, My name is Dr. Summers and I’ll be your guide into The Hole, our creatively named experiment site, and also the main conductor of the experiment using advanced brain scan technology.” She nervously lead the group through a few halls and down a few flights of stairs in order to get to the basement level used to descend into The Hole. The basement level had large windows in the exterior wall so that you could gaze across the entire pit and see the ring of 1A around it. Walkways like the one her and the group were in front of extended from the other 3 cardinal directions out to the central elevator leading into The Hole. They passed a rack of emergency climbing suits and tools and she rambled on about the basement, the suits, and all the safety precautions. As a speech filler and to appease the tourists she also explained how polar night was coming, a period of six month darkness that occurred in the south pole due to Earth’s tilt.
“Do you all really deal with half a year of night down here?” an old tourist in a coat and a baseball hat spoke up from the crowd.
“Yeah it can get pretty depressing sometimes, and today happens to be the sunset, but we tough it out. It’s just another part of the job after a while and six months of night means six months of day too.”
Julia was only slightly annoyed that were more questions about night and day then a dark node experiment. Julia walked over to the left and re-briefed her friend, Sarah, on the details of their trip into The Hole and gave her a few tips for using the brain scan technology to pilot the elevator for the group. Sarah nodded, seemingly confident, and Julia opened the door leading outside. The group donned light jackets once they stepped outside due to the dome over 1A keeping it livable, but near constantly cold. It was eery walking over this enormous dark pit, with the dome riddled with hexagons above and the setting on the arctic expanse. Julia and the group reached the elevator and after radioing Sarah they were ready, began their descent into The Hole.
- By Ashton
The Grey Jack Frost
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Chapter 2
In the year 2063, much had changed about the world. We thought that new planes or ships would be the modes of transportation that would rocket us into the future of fast travel but several innovations in hydropower and engineering has led us to trans-continental hydro-dependent bullet trains or TCH trains. TCH trains run on an extremely cost efficient, energy efficient tracks that run just over the ocean's surface. Large hydro-energy factories run on either side of the track. Imagine a long string with a bead attached to it and 2 large flywheels attached to either end. If you turn one flywheel on and the other on reverse the bead will move to the flywheel pulling it extremely fast. That's the basis of the TCH trains both hydro-energy factories work together to move the train extremely fast by pulling and pushing. The base consists of 7 installations surrounding The Hole, a few miles from the South Pole. You could travel between the installations in trams running in above ground tunnels, there were multiple trams and the tunnels run like highways so as to allow transport back and forth frequently. TCH trains run from coastal installations to major cities like New York City, London, Sydney, Barcelona in Spain, and Nagasaki in Japan as well as trains to Russia and Africa. The TCH trains connect the whole world these days and the ones running here to Antartica transport scientists and investors to the installations to see all the work being done here.
Today, March 13 2063, a large group of investors, world renowned scientists not working on the project, and rich tourists were visiting the international base to see the first Dark Node capturing test in The Hole. Julia was in building 1A, an offshoot of Installation 1, the building surrounded The Hole where she did most her work. Compared to the real Installations it was rather small. It formed a ring around The Hole, being about a half mile in diameter and in some places 3 stories tall as well as a basement. Four large sturdy walkways connect across The Hole leading to a very large utility passenger elevator.
Like most the large equipment at the base the elevator was powered by neurotechnology, also an innovation that took place in the last 10 years. All the staff at the base has brain scans in the computer database, letting them access different levels of security. Being stationed at 1A Julia's brain scan had access to the elevator but she really abhorred using her head like that to operate anything at the base. She done it with the elevator a few times before. You sit in a chair next to a small console with a chair back that goes right up against your head and upper neck. With the chair Julia could access the elevator with her brain scan. Because it's an actual scan of her brain while she's using it she has all of the same perception and even some senses. While using it she can "feel" if there's a structure flaw or knot in the rope and "see" through cameras in the elevator and along the elevator shaft. If you use it since it's a perfect copy of your own brain you're using all the same "neural equipment" your brain has so it gives an extremely eery feeling while you're using it; like you know logically that you're an elevator right now but every instinct is telling you you're a human because you can see and feel. Julia had read about experiments with this technology where people had been operating machines with their own brain scans and not realizing that they weren't currently strictly "human." Every console chair where you could operate something with a brain scan were covered in warnings not to use something like that for more than 24 hours. It had never happened before but it was theorized that using it for too long or being interrupted after using it for a long time could result in going... Too far. It wasn't very clear but Julia believed a separation of consciousness was possible where your original self would live on in your body but a separate consciousness, a separate... You... Would be trapped forever in whatever machine you were operating. It had never happened before and Julia was often made fun of for her beliefs but something about that Idea of being trapped, of their being more than one "you" bothered her to the core.
The elevator shaft is constantly shooting out supports to the sides of The Hole and the chances of it going down or being damaged is extremely small, however advanced climbing tools, equipment, and even bulky climbing suits are located at the top and bottom of The Hole. A low dome covers The Hole and 1A protecting from as much excess radiation as possible for the experiment. It also keeps the winds out and the temperature up so it's only slightly chilly; Julia felt it was still too cold and was the major reason why she would get so homesick.
- By Ashton
Today, March 13 2063, a large group of investors, world renowned scientists not working on the project, and rich tourists were visiting the international base to see the first Dark Node capturing test in The Hole. Julia was in building 1A, an offshoot of Installation 1, the building surrounded The Hole where she did most her work. Compared to the real Installations it was rather small. It formed a ring around The Hole, being about a half mile in diameter and in some places 3 stories tall as well as a basement. Four large sturdy walkways connect across The Hole leading to a very large utility passenger elevator.
Like most the large equipment at the base the elevator was powered by neurotechnology, also an innovation that took place in the last 10 years. All the staff at the base has brain scans in the computer database, letting them access different levels of security. Being stationed at 1A Julia's brain scan had access to the elevator but she really abhorred using her head like that to operate anything at the base. She done it with the elevator a few times before. You sit in a chair next to a small console with a chair back that goes right up against your head and upper neck. With the chair Julia could access the elevator with her brain scan. Because it's an actual scan of her brain while she's using it she has all of the same perception and even some senses. While using it she can "feel" if there's a structure flaw or knot in the rope and "see" through cameras in the elevator and along the elevator shaft. If you use it since it's a perfect copy of your own brain you're using all the same "neural equipment" your brain has so it gives an extremely eery feeling while you're using it; like you know logically that you're an elevator right now but every instinct is telling you you're a human because you can see and feel. Julia had read about experiments with this technology where people had been operating machines with their own brain scans and not realizing that they weren't currently strictly "human." Every console chair where you could operate something with a brain scan were covered in warnings not to use something like that for more than 24 hours. It had never happened before but it was theorized that using it for too long or being interrupted after using it for a long time could result in going... Too far. It wasn't very clear but Julia believed a separation of consciousness was possible where your original self would live on in your body but a separate consciousness, a separate... You... Would be trapped forever in whatever machine you were operating. It had never happened before and Julia was often made fun of for her beliefs but something about that Idea of being trapped, of their being more than one "you" bothered her to the core.
The elevator shaft is constantly shooting out supports to the sides of The Hole and the chances of it going down or being damaged is extremely small, however advanced climbing tools, equipment, and even bulky climbing suits are located at the top and bottom of The Hole. A low dome covers The Hole and 1A protecting from as much excess radiation as possible for the experiment. It also keeps the winds out and the temperature up so it's only slightly chilly; Julia felt it was still too cold and was the major reason why she would get so homesick.
- By Ashton
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Science fiction horror story
Here's the introduction to a science fiction horror story I'm gonna write in a few chapters. I haven't titled it yet but I probably will when it's finished.
She'd found it. The Dark Node. In a remote research facility in Antartica her, Julia Summers, and her team had been searching for a notorious type of Dark Matter particle called a Dark Node. A Dark Node is significantly easier to detect and capture due to its size and ability to withstand the low levels of radiation that are present almost everywhere in the universe. Luckily, Dark Nodes are hypothesized to solve even more problems in physics then regular Dark Matter.
It was Julia's own brilliant invention that allowed them to capture the Dark Node, a chemically created substance she called "Heliogel." Heliogel was really just a lucky accident but Julia DID discover it so she tended to brag about it to her fellow co-workers quite often. She was searching for a substance that could send extremely low frequency audio throughout itself, blocked as much radiation as possible, and that was also self-structuring. The self-structuring properties she instilled in it would be capable of creating its own matrix in a large room that would attract and hold Dark Nodes. She was searching for any chemical combination or solution that would have these qualities and after a few months of research she stumbled on the Heliogel. The substance had everything she needed and despite knowing its formula and ingredients, she knew she had only barely scratched the surface of what it really was but after 3 years of searching for Dark Nodes the team's funding was running low and there was no time for further research into Heliogel.
Radiation is so ever-present, especially on Earth that cosmic rays are constantly bombarding everything and even humans give off some radiation. They were already in Antartica which was one of the most secluded places on Earth from human contact and machines that would cause disturbances. Capturing Dark Nodes required such extreme isolation that an enormous... "Hole" for a lack of a better word, was dug into the ice and rock. At the bottom of the miles long hole was one of the coldest, deadest, quietest, most inhospitable places on Earth. It was at the bottom of the bottom of the world that the secrets of the universe would be unlocked.
There's the end of the introduction, I'll write more next Sunday. Bye.
- By Ashton
She'd found it. The Dark Node. In a remote research facility in Antartica her, Julia Summers, and her team had been searching for a notorious type of Dark Matter particle called a Dark Node. A Dark Node is significantly easier to detect and capture due to its size and ability to withstand the low levels of radiation that are present almost everywhere in the universe. Luckily, Dark Nodes are hypothesized to solve even more problems in physics then regular Dark Matter.
It was Julia's own brilliant invention that allowed them to capture the Dark Node, a chemically created substance she called "Heliogel." Heliogel was really just a lucky accident but Julia DID discover it so she tended to brag about it to her fellow co-workers quite often. She was searching for a substance that could send extremely low frequency audio throughout itself, blocked as much radiation as possible, and that was also self-structuring. The self-structuring properties she instilled in it would be capable of creating its own matrix in a large room that would attract and hold Dark Nodes. She was searching for any chemical combination or solution that would have these qualities and after a few months of research she stumbled on the Heliogel. The substance had everything she needed and despite knowing its formula and ingredients, she knew she had only barely scratched the surface of what it really was but after 3 years of searching for Dark Nodes the team's funding was running low and there was no time for further research into Heliogel.
Radiation is so ever-present, especially on Earth that cosmic rays are constantly bombarding everything and even humans give off some radiation. They were already in Antartica which was one of the most secluded places on Earth from human contact and machines that would cause disturbances. Capturing Dark Nodes required such extreme isolation that an enormous... "Hole" for a lack of a better word, was dug into the ice and rock. At the bottom of the miles long hole was one of the coldest, deadest, quietest, most inhospitable places on Earth. It was at the bottom of the bottom of the world that the secrets of the universe would be unlocked.
There's the end of the introduction, I'll write more next Sunday. Bye.
- By Ashton
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Favorite series
Hello. Today I’m talking about some of my favorite non-David Eddings series.
The first series is called His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. His Dark Materials is a very strange, very interesting series. It’s a mix between fantasy and science fiction. It’s a trilogy starring a girl named Lyra who ends up being involved in an enormous conflict between an infinite number of worlds and even Heaven itself. The infinite worlds and growing conflict makes for an exciting trilogy, weaving themes about loss, war, and growing up.
The second series is called The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver. This series I started reading when i was 9 or 10 and I actually never finished reading it. It still stands as one of my favorite series so I might finish it. The series takes place in a mostly forested or icy area similar to Alaska and it’s inhabited by a people similar to some Native American cultures. It’s definitely an action series about a boy named Torak and his companion, a wolf named Wolf. Together they have to deal with evil people and ancient darkness, including the demon-possessed bear that killed Torak’s father.
The last series is called The enemy by Charlie Higson. The Enemy is a 7 book series I am currently reading. I’ve read The Enemy, The Dead, The Fear, The Fallen, and I just finished The Sacrifice. It’s an amazing series because it’s about a virus that started to turn everyone in the world older than 16 into zombie-like, brainless cannibals. The series follows separate gangs of kids in London, fighting to survive against an enemy they have only one advantage over, their wit. They quickly discover that other kids, desperate for resources or power in a world with no adults can be just as deadly an enemy as the disease, but the plague is evolving, the adults are getting smarter.
There were 3 of my favorite series. Bye.
- By Ashton
The first series is called His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. His Dark Materials is a very strange, very interesting series. It’s a mix between fantasy and science fiction. It’s a trilogy starring a girl named Lyra who ends up being involved in an enormous conflict between an infinite number of worlds and even Heaven itself. The infinite worlds and growing conflict makes for an exciting trilogy, weaving themes about loss, war, and growing up.
The second series is called The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver. This series I started reading when i was 9 or 10 and I actually never finished reading it. It still stands as one of my favorite series so I might finish it. The series takes place in a mostly forested or icy area similar to Alaska and it’s inhabited by a people similar to some Native American cultures. It’s definitely an action series about a boy named Torak and his companion, a wolf named Wolf. Together they have to deal with evil people and ancient darkness, including the demon-possessed bear that killed Torak’s father.
The last series is called The enemy by Charlie Higson. The Enemy is a 7 book series I am currently reading. I’ve read The Enemy, The Dead, The Fear, The Fallen, and I just finished The Sacrifice. It’s an amazing series because it’s about a virus that started to turn everyone in the world older than 16 into zombie-like, brainless cannibals. The series follows separate gangs of kids in London, fighting to survive against an enemy they have only one advantage over, their wit. They quickly discover that other kids, desperate for resources or power in a world with no adults can be just as deadly an enemy as the disease, but the plague is evolving, the adults are getting smarter.
There were 3 of my favorite series. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, November 8, 2015
4 favorite iOS games
Hello. Today I'm writing about some more mobile games on iOS.
The first game is called Vector. Vector is a very fun 2D platformer. It's not a normal platformer in that you don't fight enemies or bosses, instead you use parkour to travel to the end of the level as quickly as possible to avoid being captured by The Hunter that's following you. You can also do special tricks and collect bonuses in the levels in order to get a higher score and unlock new levels. There is a story, but it is very simplistic and the story is not one of the game's main selling points. The graphics are nice and stylized but amazing.
The next game is titled Shadow Fight 2. This game was made by the same developers as Vector and has the same art style. Shadow Fight 2 is a ninja fighting game whee you have a lot of different armor, weapons, ranged weapons, and magic to use against your opponent. The fighting system is the best I've seen on iOS before and it gives you a lot of different options as to how you want to fight and the fights are fun yet challenging.
Next is a game named Blood Gate - Age of Alchemy. This is an RPG type game where you fight monsters by matching 3 or more corresponding element orbs in a grid similar to a bejeweled game. There's a pretty good story that's much better than the previous 2 games' and the graphics are really amazing. The game is very fun with tons of weapons and items and it's definitely a game you could keep playing for a long time.
The last game is called Mazecraft. Mazecraft is a charming pixel game where you can build mazes and fill it with challenges like traps and monsters. Other players can play and rate your maze and you can go and play other people's mazes in order to level up and gain access to more content. The game is a very cool concept and the pixel art is nice, however is feels like it is lacking some content. That being said the game is free so there's nothing to lose by trying it out.
There were 4 new mobile games. Bye.
- By Ashton
The first game is called Vector. Vector is a very fun 2D platformer. It's not a normal platformer in that you don't fight enemies or bosses, instead you use parkour to travel to the end of the level as quickly as possible to avoid being captured by The Hunter that's following you. You can also do special tricks and collect bonuses in the levels in order to get a higher score and unlock new levels. There is a story, but it is very simplistic and the story is not one of the game's main selling points. The graphics are nice and stylized but amazing.
The next game is titled Shadow Fight 2. This game was made by the same developers as Vector and has the same art style. Shadow Fight 2 is a ninja fighting game whee you have a lot of different armor, weapons, ranged weapons, and magic to use against your opponent. The fighting system is the best I've seen on iOS before and it gives you a lot of different options as to how you want to fight and the fights are fun yet challenging.
Next is a game named Blood Gate - Age of Alchemy. This is an RPG type game where you fight monsters by matching 3 or more corresponding element orbs in a grid similar to a bejeweled game. There's a pretty good story that's much better than the previous 2 games' and the graphics are really amazing. The game is very fun with tons of weapons and items and it's definitely a game you could keep playing for a long time.
The last game is called Mazecraft. Mazecraft is a charming pixel game where you can build mazes and fill it with challenges like traps and monsters. Other players can play and rate your maze and you can go and play other people's mazes in order to level up and gain access to more content. The game is a very cool concept and the pixel art is nice, however is feels like it is lacking some content. That being said the game is free so there's nothing to lose by trying it out.
There were 4 new mobile games. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, November 1, 2015
The Martian
Hello. Today I'm writing about a movie I saw recently called The Martian.
Last Friday I saw the new movie The Martian with my girlfriend, Jillian. I was pretty excited to see the movie because it was directed by Ridley Scott, who also directed Alien and Prometheus, 2 of my favorite movies. The movie also got a very good rating on IMDB with an 8.2 out of 10. The Martian is a realistic science fiction movie about an astronaut named Mark Wattney that is accidentally left on Mars alone. The movie takes a journey about Mark trying to survive in a completely inhospitable environment with limited supplies and NASA desperately trying to find a way to bring him home alive.
The movie opens in the near future with the crew of Ares 3 collecting samples on Mars. Conflict quickly ensues when an enormous sandstorm starts heading their way with winds much higher than they anticipated. The crew collectively decide to head back to the rocket before it's too late except for Mark, who being the most reluctant to give up on the mission is the farthest back in the group heading towards the ship. During the storm Mark is hit by a satellite dish and thrown into the storm, too far away for the group to rescue and completely out of site. When the crew reaches the rocket they find out that Mark's suit is sending no life signs to the ship and they presume him dead and leave just before the rocket would have been tipped over.
Mark wakes up on Mars and makes it back to the habitat station and pulls the satellite antenna out of his abdomen that severed his life sign signaler on his suit. There he acknowledges in a video log that since he has no way of contacting NASA he has to grow food to last him 3 years until the next mission to Mars is launched. Mark learns that he can grow potatoes using rocket fuel to manufacture water and his and his crews mates feces as fertilizer. Eventually he finds the old Pathfinder probe and uses its camera to finally get in contact with NASA. NASA broadcasts across the world that Mark Wattney is alive on Mars and the entire world unites to try and bring him home. After there's a disastrous explosion that destroys Mark's potato crop and numerous failed attempts to give him more rations by NASA, a slightly crazy scientist on Earth finds a way to save Mark. The scientist proposes a plan to send the rocket carrying the crew around Earth and on back to Mars to rescue Mark. The plan is deemed to dangerous by the head of NASA but an employee secretly sends the plan to the crew onboard the rocket and the crew collectively makes the decision to disobey NASA and go back to Mars and save Mark. Mark travels for days across Mars to reach a small rocket capsule capable of barely getting him out of Mars' atmosphere and from there is an extremely intense climax involving the crew of Ares 3 and Mark trying desperately to attach to Mark's capsule and bring him safely to Earth. After a near failure 1 year later Mark is teaching a class of Astronauts on survival in space, laughing and joking about his experiences on Mars.
So there was The Martian, a very good science movie I highly recommend. Bye.
- By Ashton
Last Friday I saw the new movie The Martian with my girlfriend, Jillian. I was pretty excited to see the movie because it was directed by Ridley Scott, who also directed Alien and Prometheus, 2 of my favorite movies. The movie also got a very good rating on IMDB with an 8.2 out of 10. The Martian is a realistic science fiction movie about an astronaut named Mark Wattney that is accidentally left on Mars alone. The movie takes a journey about Mark trying to survive in a completely inhospitable environment with limited supplies and NASA desperately trying to find a way to bring him home alive.
The movie opens in the near future with the crew of Ares 3 collecting samples on Mars. Conflict quickly ensues when an enormous sandstorm starts heading their way with winds much higher than they anticipated. The crew collectively decide to head back to the rocket before it's too late except for Mark, who being the most reluctant to give up on the mission is the farthest back in the group heading towards the ship. During the storm Mark is hit by a satellite dish and thrown into the storm, too far away for the group to rescue and completely out of site. When the crew reaches the rocket they find out that Mark's suit is sending no life signs to the ship and they presume him dead and leave just before the rocket would have been tipped over.
Mark wakes up on Mars and makes it back to the habitat station and pulls the satellite antenna out of his abdomen that severed his life sign signaler on his suit. There he acknowledges in a video log that since he has no way of contacting NASA he has to grow food to last him 3 years until the next mission to Mars is launched. Mark learns that he can grow potatoes using rocket fuel to manufacture water and his and his crews mates feces as fertilizer. Eventually he finds the old Pathfinder probe and uses its camera to finally get in contact with NASA. NASA broadcasts across the world that Mark Wattney is alive on Mars and the entire world unites to try and bring him home. After there's a disastrous explosion that destroys Mark's potato crop and numerous failed attempts to give him more rations by NASA, a slightly crazy scientist on Earth finds a way to save Mark. The scientist proposes a plan to send the rocket carrying the crew around Earth and on back to Mars to rescue Mark. The plan is deemed to dangerous by the head of NASA but an employee secretly sends the plan to the crew onboard the rocket and the crew collectively makes the decision to disobey NASA and go back to Mars and save Mark. Mark travels for days across Mars to reach a small rocket capsule capable of barely getting him out of Mars' atmosphere and from there is an extremely intense climax involving the crew of Ares 3 and Mark trying desperately to attach to Mark's capsule and bring him safely to Earth. After a near failure 1 year later Mark is teaching a class of Astronauts on survival in space, laughing and joking about his experiences on Mars.
So there was The Martian, a very good science movie I highly recommend. Bye.
- By Ashton
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