Great Gap - A Pinch Space Story

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Pinch Space:
Think Space Opera without spaceships. “How could this be?” they ask in wonderment. Well, I’ve been toying with concepts in long distance, instantaneous matter transference. If you read any of my Pinch Space ideas back in the day you’re already getting the gist of it. Basically, through sifi smoke and mirrors, people can now transfer themselves from a KNOWN point A to a point B that is explored through observation. This means that the vastnesses of space and time are reduced to next-to-nothing once A and B have been fully explored.

“How is this fun? Where are the pirates and zombies and robot tanks and stuff?” you’re asking.

“Ah ha! I’ve already thought ahead and considered those finer points of story craft. A is known, B must be explored in successive, costly and dangerous waves. So, while we’re no longer talking about naval battles in space with laser wielding swashbucklers chopping up the solar sails, there’s still plenty of room for conflict and tension.

Discovery:
Explanatory exploration begins with exoplanet discovery and observation. Once we know planets are there, the most we can gain from this is: Science can then use constants and observations to predict that a planet with being at x,y,z coordinates thousands of lightyears away.
 * The exact orbital mechanics of the planet
 * Foreknowledge of an atmosphere, but no details
 * Predictive understanding of the planet's suitability for habitation or terraforming

Exploration:
The first limitation of this travel is that we can’t see the topography of an exoplanet. Consequently, we must go there to gain this information. Pinching space requires a yoked pilot to pass from A to B. Yoked pilots exist outside experienced space-time while they require a crap ton of gear and power to maintain this timeless existence that allows the projection. The procedure for gaining this information varies, but the idea remains essentially the same. Send a hardened explanatory survey crew to the new target to gather detailed surface information. Later they will transit back to their origin. Limitations on this process are abundant:
 * Pinching space requires huge amounts of energy and the more mass moved the more energy is required.
 * Origin locations have huge support and generation networks, but that infrastructure does not exist on the far exoplanet.
 * Additional complications such as the exoplanet’s suitability for habitation create additional challenges for exploration which delay or sometimes destroy the return trip to origin. When this happens the target planet’s exploration becomes stalled and may stop.
 * While the exploration mission is underway anything that changes the topography of the origin will impact the exploration crew’s return. Political unrest and competition for resources can damage or invalidate exploration.

Development:
Once a pinch site is known by an exploration team and that team is able to communicate that information back to its origin then the work of colonization can begin. Access to this information is critical to the development of an exoplanet. Why pay for the hard work of exploration if your state can slip a few colonists into a development team and develop a new site elsewhere on the new exoplanet?

Critical Flaws:
The fun part. Each of the new exoplanets represents room for expansion. Regardless of the suitability of the new planet, once the connection is established, a new exoplanet has value and anything that is inherently valuable will be fought over.
 * Sneaky path: as mentioned before the idea of waiting for another state or industrial agency to complete the more difficult, risky and expensive parts of connection process is one way of establishing a foothold on an exoplanet. Sneaking an agent into the colonial crew of an expanding power to scout a nearby pinch site would become a new kind of industrial espionage.
 * Military force: competing national entities seize resources on a target planet and then fight for ownership. Enmity from Earth and elsewhere can fuel these conflicts. It’s also noteworthy that the bigness of power and the concentrations of wealth necessary to pinch space-time would make big, long-lasting tyrants.
 * Islanding: What happens to people who pinch off where no one else is looking or wants to go? The biology of islanded communities becomes a plot in this pinched space.
 * Exo-counter: Imagine pinching into a thriving nest of aliens who all think you’d be a tasty addition to dinner. Not only are your heroes going to need to keep their drumsticks from the dinner table, they’ll need to keep their pinch technology a secret from the sug people of Zanka Zanzool.

Plot Outline
Okay, I've broken this bad boy into three scene chapters where the POV shifts between authors. The idea is that we're all writing from the same perspective, with our own authorial voices (first-person or third-person past, you decide). Right now the plot outline *IS VERY ROUGH*! Basically, I'm trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together without having the picture on the box to work with.

All Riiiiiight... I've been pondering story arcs. Here's how I see it: we have one overall story arc for season one that covers six shortish "episodes" of 30,000 to 40,000 words each. Here, the three POV characters go from individuals who aren't sure they trust much less like each other to a team who can take on all comers.The story arc in book one is a reflection in miniature of the overall story arc. It is a small-scale test of each characters inner growth challenge.

For Salome, the challenge is to go from feeling that there is no hope for success for people like her to a recognition that she and her little "family" have a chance.

For Skyler, the challenge is to go from self-interest to loyalty and maybe even a sense of honor.

For Ramadi, the challenge is to go from despair to a renewed sense of purpose.

Book One
I'm going to sketch in a brief outline of the story arc for book one and what it needs to accomplish. The actual actions and events will be expanded in the individual chapter outlines below.

For Salome, the challenge in book 1 is to go from resignation to hope. She starts out feeling that there is no hope and no way out for people like her at the bottom of the social barrel. She can't even help the people on her own level because most of them don't even seem to want to be helped. By the end of the story, she realizes there may actually be a way up in the way out.

For Skyler, the challenge is to go from self-interest to loyalty and maybe even a sense of honor. He's grown up clawing his way every step toward the life of beauty and luxury that he imagines will validate his existence. Maybe, though, there is been something else he wanted all along that was more important than wealth and luxury.

For Ramadi, the challenge is to go from despair to a renewed sense of purpose. Whatever happened to him that landed him on a broken down ship with Capt. Mix, it is left him without a sense of purpose – an empty, meaningless life stretches before him with no and insight. He comes to realize that there may be order and purpose out there for him after all.The climax of book one has to challenge all three of them, and the solution to their problem has to require them to make a mini-step toward their ultimate challenge at the end of the season.

So for Salome--Skyler has gotten himself in trouble. Is it worth risking herself and her crew to get him out of it when she's not sure she even likes---much less trusts---him?

For Skyler--He's gotten himself and his sidekick in trouble. He can get them out of it if he betrays Salome and the rest of the gang. Will he sell them out or take a much bigger risk of playing for time and hoping they'll come for him?

For Ramadi-- that sleazy lowlife Skyler has gotten himself into a pickle through his semi-legal dealings, and he deserves what ever is coming to him. Will he let the semi-criminal get what he deserves, or will he call on his strategic and tactical training to fly in and save the day?

Plot

given: Salome Jones receives a spaceship from an unknown relative for unknown reasons.

Given: they will be intercepted by a pirate.

Logical conclusion: the two events are related.

Logical inferences:
 * 1) something about the ship or contained in the ship is valuable enough for someone to go to great lengths to get it.
 * 2) Capt. mix had a pressing reason to want to keep whatever it is out of the hands of person or persons unknown.
 * 3) Salome and company don't know what or why, which leaves them without a bargaining chip when the pirate catches them.
 * 4) If Capt. mix wanted to keep the ship away from someone, then someone must want the ship. Therefore, they would first attempt to buy the ship from Salome. Failing that, they would hire the pirate to take the ship from them

Chapter One, Scene one
open on Salome Jones holding forth at her favorite watering hole, having recently broken the hand of the abusive supervisor who had been molesting the other women on the dock. In comes a messenger drone to tell her that she has inherited a spaceship from a previously unknown relative. A handsome stranger (Skyler ricin) arrives to tell her he could make her a fortune if she keeps the ship and partners up with him

Chapter One, Scene two
having just made a valuable connection that might save his body parts from a crime lord to whom he owes money, Skyler goes to meet up with his sidekick. He gets mysteriously kidnapped

Chapter One, Scene three
the FB captained by former XO Ramadi B tell you, arrives at Ganges shore station to rendezvous with her new owner. It becomes clear that the ship is a traveling rack and the crew is universally incompetent.

Chapter Two, Scene one
Skyler regains consciousness and finds himself in the murderous clutches of the crime lord. He talks himself out of dismemberment and actually convinces the crime lord to loan him money for a new venture. All he has to do is convince Salome to go along.

Chapter Two, Scene two
Salome wakes the next morning and decides to go take a look at her new ship. Not that she has any plans to keep it. How ridiculous. No, she just wants to know what it is she's going to be selling.

Chapter Two, Scene three
Ramadi meets the new owner for the first time and is horrified. She arrives with a cat and to inexplicable young men who, judging by their size, may be bodyguards. That's the only use Ramadi can think of for them.

Chapter Three, Scene one
Salome returns to the bar, discouraged by the site of the ship. It's not that she had any idea of keeping it. She really didn't. But… But it just seems like someone like her can never catch a real break in life. Meanwhile, the woman she rescued from the supervisors clutches is still being bullied, but, she tells Salome defensively, at least somebody (meaning her supervisor) likes her.That's the last straw for Salome. She's not going to be one of those people who lies down to be walked on. Making an impulsive decision, she gets up, walks over to Skyler who is sitting at a table drinking as if he had no idea Salome was even in the bar, sits down and says, what's this deal you are talking about?

Chapter Three, Scene two
next thing Ramadi knows, a mechanical has arrived at the airlock announcing that she is the new engineer. Shortly thereafter, a talking rabbit turns up, announces that he's the new supercargo and start stomping around demanding to know where everything is. Just as Ramadi is about to contact the new owner and screen bloody murder, Salome herself arrives with one cat, two hairy boys, and all her worldly possessions. She announces she's taking over the ship and has their first trip already planned.

Chapter Three, Scene three
three days later, the FB is fueled, fixed and ready to pinch out. The new crew is a disaster. The so-called business partner is very sketchy. His rabbit partner seems competent but abrasive. The engineer is just weird. They are all completely disorganized and undisciplined. The only bright spot is that the owner/Capt. seems to have no interest in interfering in the daily operation of the ship. They pinch out.

Chapter Four, Scene one
they emerge from the destination system a few hours travel to their destination at near light speed. To their shock and astonishment, they are attacked out of nowhere by a pirate vessel that takes out there sub light drives.

Mwassaa tries to pinch out again, but her linchpin has been disabled by the Pirates linchpin-disabling beam. Deaden space, the pirate captain tells them to surrender their ship and cargo without a fight and no one will be harmed. Salome consults Ramadi and Skyler. Ramadi is convinced Skyler is behind this. Skyler isn't, but he suspects who is. Her some reason, Willie has sold him out.

They both agreed that there is no way the pirate is going to leave them alive. The strange thing is why the Pirates didn't just hit the drives or pierce the whole. That would have killed everyone on board and made the whole thing easier. It's weird. For some reason, it's the ship they want. Normally, that would make no sense. A ship is hard to transport and almost impossible to sell.Mwassaa has been talking to the other pilot. How can he go along with this? How can he get away with it? The. He has a pirated linchpin. He can do whatever he wants. The Guild has no control over him.Mwassaa reports back to the engineer and back to. There must be a way they can bypass the linchpin so that Wausau can pinch out. They get to work. It's going to take a while. Salome and Skyler are going to have to play for time.

Chapter Four, Scene two
holding off the Pirates while engineer and back who jerryrigged a bypass for Mwassaa's linchpin. But where to go? They can't jump directly back where they came from. Obviously, Willie will be waiting there. Mwassaa is desperately combing the shipped data files for somewhere, anywhere they can go to hide out.

Chapter Four, Scene three
POV: SR, Author: Victor

Skylar Rysen
Crappy Uncle Captain Atemu Mix

Mwassaa Musyoka (Guild Pilot Tyro-2)
Salome's Cat

Salome's Beefy Boy Toys

Character Template

Dread Pirate Roberts

New ship's Engineer

New Crew Member #2

New Crew Member #3

First Officer Vikramaditya Vitela

Maintaineer Baku

Locations
NB Fantastic Blindness