Part A: Creative Work
Smooth sand dunes sailed in the distance on waves of powder and dust. Matte green particles were flying in small spirals. The nature seemed pristine against a stunning golden backdrop ornated with sapphires. It felt alien, yet the smell in the breeze felt familiar. The scene slowly transformed from a dryland to an underwater world. I was submerged meters down in a liquid substance denser than water, or perhaps thicker than the water as I had known it. I was swimming with neon sea creatures. Suddenly, I was thousands of feet above the air flying in a cubicle like structure and almost reaching for the balls of fires floating in space. Then I saw a familiar face, a girl with long wavy hair flying beside me, whispering, “Orion needs us to be saved. It is our only home.”
My bloodshot eyes opened after hours of dreaming in a small pod that barely fit my 180 cm frame. A red rim formed around my brownish hazel eyes. An aftermath of the string of bizarre dreams I had in my pod. I could hear soft voices outside my pod. Not loud enough to interpret what they meant. Being inside a pod itself felt like a hallucination.
“You awake Batu?” A gentle voice spoke to me while the pod lid lifted. “I understand you must be feeling very tired, you had a long trip here from Earth. You are now on Orion.”
“I can’t seem to remember anything about myself, but I was having these wonderful dreams in my pod,” I said. My voice displaying concern and anguish yet soft enough to signal that I was not threatened by her presence. In fact, her voice was comforting.
“You were among the chosen ones to be on Orion to help advance the human race here. Earth was plagued with by a deadly man-made disease. We rescued you. You are special and we need you here. What you were seeing inside the pod are your memories to remind you of who you are.”
“My memories of my life here?”
“Technically, yes.”
I watched her leave the room after uttering these words to me. Illusion and reality seemed to be blended. I could not discern them. Why was I in the pod and why were my memories being played to me?
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I was given instructions on how to live on the new planet. I was looking at an instruction manual of dos and don’ts in my hands. Orion was technologically advanced. We were required to breathe through a helmet and grow food inside special dunes on genetically engineered soil. Humans here were doing what they are best at doing; manipulating their environment to suit their needs. Trackers were implanted on all the newcomers form Earth. They said that it was for our safety. The government of this planet were known as the “Elites” the first settlers of Orion who were constantly trying to make this planet a better place. I was given a job as a guard for the labs that monitored any incoming otherworldly threats on Orion.
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A morning of intense Orion rain led me to change my usual walking route and I ended up lost. My malfunctioning tracker caused me to slip downhill and right in front of a tunnel. Even though the tunnel sang a melancholy tune, the adventurous spirit inside me led me venture into the darkness. The deep darkness welcomed me, as I walked down the long stretch of pebbles and mud.
A strange smell of chemicals registered in my breathing pod. It is strange how smell works here, we can’t directly breathe the Orion air, but the smell gets picked up by our breathing pods and interpreted which then informs us of the smell around us. As I went further down, the tunnel branched off into many paths. I picked one and continued down.
I saw a brightly lit room with a pod, just like the one I woke up in in a corner. There was a woman in the pod. She looked familiar, but I struggled to recall who she was to me. There was this strange sensation that I must have known her in another dimension, in some other time or place. Was she from Earth? I watched closely. Two scientists were watching her closely.
“How is she holding up in the virtual world?” said the scientist to his assistant.
“She is stable, unscathed, she smiled many times, meaning she could see vivid images and she felt as if she was there. Her senses registered electric impulses and endorphins rose exactly as predicted during trigger times. We have a full report of her hormonal responses to each component of the memories given to her. She will eventually start believing these memories are actual and a part of her identity,” said the assistant.
“When she wakes up, we need her to believe that she is one of us,” the scientist said firmly, with a hint of anxiety lingering in his voice.
“Yes, but we need to be careful, she is intelligent, if she sees through the illusions that we are giving her, it will bring deadly consequences. We need to ensure she is fully immersed in her new identity.”
“Yes, she has no memories of her life on Earth, we have properly implanted the control device in her right brain hemisphere to ensure no rebellion takes place,” the assistant said sternly.
The woman in the pod soon woke up confused in the same way I did. I could see a reflection of myself in her.
My heart clenched. Breathe paused. The conversation I just heard was echoing in my mind when I realized what happened to me. They had given me a reality of their liking suited to their needs. I was no more than a robot with a beating human heart. I was given false memories of a life I never lived. Each person was being given false memories to manipulate the story to fit their own narrative. The ability to distinguish between reality and delusion was taken away from me. The chip implanted deep inside my brain was altering my thought processes, altering my memories and my perception of reality. I was not in control of myself. Was this all a part of Orion’s ongoing mission to create a group of humans who only followed instructions? Standing there in unspeakable shock. My mind throbbed; at war with itself.
But why not create robots instead? They needed human qualities too such as empathy, and emotional intelligence which would be impossible to gain from robots. They needed human tissue for experiments that would enhance the lives of the ‘Elites’. They needed human cells, which would be nearly impossible to replicate given the limited resources on Orion. The Elites held a sacrosanct position, too respected and too important. I could see through their ploy, suddenly everything started making sense.
Through the wave of emotions rushing through my heart, I saw a group of people coming for me. I knew they understood that I found out their secret. I knew they were coming to wipe my slate clean. Reset me. Erase my memories. But I knew what I had to do to hide a part of my memory so that it becomes my story one day.
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a. Poem/story analysis (analyzing work from that journal): 10-12 sentences
I am an avid reader of science fiction stories. While researching for a website or literary journal where my story would fit best, I came across the “Daily Science Fiction” website. They feature stories by different topics under the science fiction and fantasy category. Their topics include aliens, biotech, future societies, other worlds, space travel, clones, among many others. Since my story is predominantly about an alien world, I decided to analyze two other stories from ‘other worlds’ to explain why my story would be a perfect fit under this category.
a) Stingerbee by by R. C. Bartholomew is a story about surviving on the moon. The topics are a lot like my story. Although the plot is entirely different from mine, it has similar topics on terraforming the moon and taking in a sort of pill daily to stop their bodies from deforming under the new atmosphere. It talks about dangers of living on a different planet galactic body. b) We Who Have Returned from the Dead by Teri J Babcock is another story that talks about interaction with an alien species and about humans surviving on another planet. I found this story interesting as the aliens were studying the human brain and human activity here. Manipulating the human brain to alter thought processes is a topic found in my story.
Judging from these two published stories I can say that my story would certainly be a good fit given that I have followed the genre conventions very well. The tone of the two stories above is comparable to mine as well. I have spent time in world building and giving vivid descriptions of the environment around me. The two stories I decided to read, also spent a lot of time world building, used a lot of sci-fi space related terminologies just like mine.
b. Publishing information and justification (why does your piece fit?): 3-5 sentences
Daily Science Fiction has a clear submission guideline on what they accept and what they don’t. My word limit is within the 1500-word limit as stated in the guideline. I have made good use of genre conventions that would fit in their ‘other worlds’ category for publication. They also do not accept reprints of stories published elsewhere on the internet. Judging from the submission guideline I believe that my story would be a good fit for their website.
Part B: Reflection
Please answer the following questions. Each answer should be 3-5 sentences with specific examples.
1. What is your topic? What is your theme? How have you represented it with word choice, image, metaphor or plot?
Some of my topics include interplanetary travel, a post-apocalyptic world, bionic bodies, colonization of another planet, new leadership in an alien world, thought process manipulation and many others.
My theme is similar to my story from creative project 2. I can say that this story is a continuation of my story from creative project 2. Almost like another chapter in a book. However, for this portion of my story my theme can be described as, “humans have a natural survival instinct and are able to manipulate their environment in ways that safeguards them from threats. No matter which planet we are on, if the leadership is on the wrong hands, societal problems will persist. A good leadership and taking care of our planet is much better than taking refuge in a new planet ruled by leaders with bad intentions. Moreover, robots cannot replace humans for the many qualities ingrained in the human brain that can’t be artificially generated such as emotional intelligence.”
I tried very hard to match word to theme. In my story I wrote, ““Yes, she has no memories of her life on Earth, we have properly implanted the control device in her right brain hemisphere to ensure no rebellion takes place.”” This line is indicating that a group of robot-like humans were being created t just follow orders.
In another place I wrote, “But why not create robots instead? They needed human qualities too such as empathy, emotional intelligence which would be impossible to gain from robots.” This line conveys the part of my theme which talks about the human qualities that are nearly impossible to replicate artificially.
2. What significant feedback did you get from your group and how did you apply that feedback?
My main feedback from my group was to break my story apart into smaller parts and to not make the ending so abrupt. I tried to break apart the big chunks of paragraphs into smaller ones as much as possible to make it easier to read. I also checked the story for any places that could be jarring for the reader and tried to bring in smooth transitions from one idea to another. I used asterisks to indicate a gap in time as suggested by professor Shannon.
3. Take a look at the list of skills below. Choose three (3), define them, and state how you’ve applied the skill. Use specific examples.
Show-don’t-tell - I used a lot of dialogue in my story to convey my plot, action, and theme. I used conversations where applicable to show my reader how my story was unfolding instead of just stating them in plain words. For example, I wrote, ““When she wakes up, we need her to believe that she is one of us,” the scientist said firmly, with a hint of anxiety lingering in his voice.
“Yes, but we need to be careful, she is intelligent, if she sees through the illusions that we are giving her, it will bring deadly consequences. We need to ensure she is fully immersed in her new identity.””
In the example above, I have used dialogue to convey my message. It is more engaging to go through the emotions of the people involved in the dialogue rather than reading a plain paragraph.
Metaphor: I used some metaphors in my story. In my story I wrote, “Even though the tunnel sang a melancholy tune, the adventurous spirit inside me led me venture into the darkness.” Tunnels can’t sing, but in this case, I used the verb sing and applied to tunnel even though it is not literally possible, making it a metaphor.
Baker’s 4 rules: I started my story right in the action by world building and using vivid imageries of what the narrator is going through. I started with, “Smooth sand dunes sailed in the distance on waves of powder and dust. Matte green particles were flying in small spirals. The nature seemed pristine against a stunning golden backdrop ornated with sapphires.” Here, I used descriptive words to catch the reader’s attention and tried to be lyrical when explaining the scenario. Lyricism refers to writing being poetic and beautiful.