Choosing a word.
Jun. 22nd, 2007 09:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsSadly, this is about one of those stories I will probably never post, but it does have an interesting point to it. I wanted to write a story about potheads in the Journal Entries universe. Who are they and what are they like, that sort of thing, and the bizarre lengths some AIs will go to try and rescue the one or two they think they might have a chance of reaching. I had a nice day yesterday, cranking out almost 4,000 words in one afternoon, and not much cut-worthy or wasted. That's a good feeling.
There are a few human colony worlds that are good for this sort of thing. We've already seen one with Ren, Ren, Ren and a few Kadei & Eshi stories, the world of Covenant. The other is Discovery, seen in the Vengeance Angel series as well as Fragile Dreams, which is a much nicer, almost superterran place.
One of the things I realized is that, given almost unlimited access to food, cheap shelter, and relatively innocuous intoxicants, a lot of people would simply snort or smoke themselves into what the AIs would consider your halting state: without initiatory intervention a lot of people would simply die, or fade away to nothingness. They would also tend to do so terribly, tragically alone. There's no cultural experience, no sharing of one's discoveries or techniques. Rarely, two might get together to share the experience of one's music and environent, but as we're seeing now in the era of the iPod, even those experiences are atomized to individuals.
I wanted a word like "dude," or "man," something they would call each other, the stoner subculture equivalent of "sir," which is really what those words are.
I wanted a word they'd pick because it sounded cool, perhaps even rebellious, certainly famous. I wanted a word that communicated clearly in its choice their isolated and solitary existences. And they're on Discovery, a world where every musician of any stripe wants to visit to learn and practice and maybe build an initial audience. The best place to learn music, and the hardest audience: they've heard it all before.
The obvious word is "solo." There's always Han Solo, and "behind enemy lines" supersoldiers are sometimes called solos (cf. R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk module, "Solo of Fortune"). It has all the messages I want.
This led to a problem: What do I call the protagonists "best friend," at least as he considers himself? "Backup."
And Dan, the hero of our story, has an asshole for his "backup":
Now I just need to figure out two things: what my protagonist has that would make the AIs consider him worth going the extra effort to salvage him, and why the local AI (who's persona is also of a total stoner) would choose such a strange approach.
There are a few human colony worlds that are good for this sort of thing. We've already seen one with Ren, Ren, Ren and a few Kadei & Eshi stories, the world of Covenant. The other is Discovery, seen in the Vengeance Angel series as well as Fragile Dreams, which is a much nicer, almost superterran place.
One of the things I realized is that, given almost unlimited access to food, cheap shelter, and relatively innocuous intoxicants, a lot of people would simply snort or smoke themselves into what the AIs would consider your halting state: without initiatory intervention a lot of people would simply die, or fade away to nothingness. They would also tend to do so terribly, tragically alone. There's no cultural experience, no sharing of one's discoveries or techniques. Rarely, two might get together to share the experience of one's music and environent, but as we're seeing now in the era of the iPod, even those experiences are atomized to individuals.
I wanted a word like "dude," or "man," something they would call each other, the stoner subculture equivalent of "sir," which is really what those words are.
I wanted a word they'd pick because it sounded cool, perhaps even rebellious, certainly famous. I wanted a word that communicated clearly in its choice their isolated and solitary existences. And they're on Discovery, a world where every musician of any stripe wants to visit to learn and practice and maybe build an initial audience. The best place to learn music, and the hardest audience: they've heard it all before.
The obvious word is "solo." There's always Han Solo, and "behind enemy lines" supersoldiers are sometimes called solos (cf. R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk module, "Solo of Fortune"). It has all the messages I want.
This led to a problem: What do I call the protagonists "best friend," at least as he considers himself? "Backup."
And Dan, the hero of our story, has an asshole for his "backup":
"She's a companion robot. Someone mailed her to me."
Zethus said, "I'm sure someone did."
"No, really, solo, someone did. Isais is trying to figure out who right now."
"That AI's stupider than I am at the end of a three day binge. You sure about the robot thing?"
"As sure as Isais is."
"Guess I gotta take his word for it." Zethus watched her watching him. "You banged her yet?"
"What?" Dan said.
"She's a companion bot. That's what they do. You did, didn't you, you nasty dog."
"No, solo, it's not like that. Someone sent her to me. I think it's a joke or something. But I didn't want her here."
"Miao?" Meia had turned to look at Dan, her eyes full and wet with that insufferable sadness exclusive to hurt kittens.
Now I just need to figure out two things: what my protagonist has that would make the AIs consider him worth going the extra effort to salvage him, and why the local AI (who's persona is also of a total stoner) would choose such a strange approach.
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how about this?
Date: 2007-06-22 04:43 pm (UTC)Shortened from Arabic (Habib or Habibi), though it's just as unlikely they would know where is came from anymore than most stoners know where dude came from.
Just a thought.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 05:15 pm (UTC)'Solo' feels more like a formal form of 'sir' that a pothead would invoke in the face of an obvious authority figure that they wish to show rebellion. Like calling the police 'pigs'.
For a 'dude' word, that can be both demeaning, and friendly at the same time, and refer to close friends, or 'just this guy I hang out with', you might try 'roadie'. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 05:27 pm (UTC)possible hook... You've described pendorian culture as "seducing" other cultures into joining them. You might try something similar here, although it looks like you're already on that road...
If the various drugs your main character is on have some nice sensory-enhancing properties (a nice pot buzz) you could have the AI/android start tossing your stoner some really interesting visuals/music/art whatever. Maybe he's got some real potential there. Let her tease him, frustrate him until the "yes, that's neat, but damnit, it needs to be a little better" takes over. In that kind of advanced culture, somebody making new content is about the only non-tech or service-intensive line of work available.
It's one of those base rules that drugs can never really give you something you don't already have inside you, they can just suppress or amplify. Maybe the stoner AI is trying to tease out what his talent is. Maybe it noticed a talent for music just off of the random idle tunes the character hums while he's lit. Could be anything, but it would seem like a very Pendorian thing to invest a lot of effort into waking somebody up to their full potential, because the value of a near-immortal master-class artist is priceless.
hopefully some of that made sense.