Creativity Palette

The setting is future earth. Blasts of gamma rays have begun striking the earth’s surface randomly. When they do, everything living in their path dies. Unable to ascertain where these are coming from, or more importantly, when and where they’ll strike next, the governments build hardened shelters and move everyone into them. The heroine is a young adult woman. She’s a loner and a bit aloof. She journeys with a family outside the bunkers. The heroine is a bit of a law-breaker, a smuggler of sorts willing to take people or things outside the approved government travel zones and times. Society has become very locked down in response to the threat of the gamma rays. The family has to travel somewhere for some reason, TBD.

If you can’t tell yet, the gamma rays are a stand in for terrorism. The story is about how government oversteps its bounds to protect citizens in response to a threat and we lose privacy and freedom in the name of security.

At some point in the story, they nearly are hit by a blast. The son of the family, a young adult man almost the age of the heroine (and who obviously has a crush on her) helps save his sister and everyone else by throwing them into a cave but is hit by the blast. This act of selfless heroism brings our heroine out of her shell and helps her realize the value of sacrifices to help others.

Basically the story goes that her vehicle crashes and they are picked up by the government near NORAD. By chance they learn about a project called Zeus which is a complex satellite system. At first they suspect it creates the blasts, but they learn it actually tracks and predicts them. The government doesn’t let people back out, even though they could vacate areas with enough warning, because they feel it would be too risky. That, and the government is used to the total control it has now over where people are, what they’re doing. It seems beneficial: more of the earth’s surface has returned to nature, crime and terrorism are down, and people are united in fear of the rays. The government confiscates any devices she or the family has and lets them go. The little girl in the family though has a pendant from her brother that recorded the conversations in NORAD which can be used to overthrow the government’s secret.

Story idea set in a fantasy world. Humanoid race of magic-users creates a large, strong race (troll or ogre like perhaps) for some purpose in ancient times. The created race becomes a problem and are banished. A new militaristic race tries to control the humans. The protagonist decides to seek help from the banished ones. To get to their distant new home, she/he must enlist help from a sylvan race who has access to great winged creatures who can fly quickly over great distances. These elf-like creatures remove themselves from the daily struggles of the other races, considering themselves above it all. The theme of this is that different black and white views of the world don’t work, it’s something in the middle. The militaristic race tries to hard to control all, the sylvan race represents isolationism, and the human race has to suck it up and ask for forgiveness from their creation as they realize they can’t always play god with others.

A female character is blessed/cursed with the uncontrollable ability to perceive time differently than those around her. At times, she slows down relative to the world around her. Everyone else seems to blur past her, and she seems frozen in time to others. And at yet other times, she speeds up. To others, she seemingly disappears as she moves too fast for them to see, and to her everyone freezes in place. Sometimes these last for seconds, sometimes centuries (if it’s her time frame sped up, centuries would mean she has an extended lifespan as well?).

The central theme of the story would be trying to control life, which is in essence out of our control. Also, the passing of time and the inevitability of death and losing those you love. The overall tone would be very bittersweet, but need to mix in some humor and romance. Once she realizes what her abilities are she shuns love, though some lovers insist upon trying and leave her sweet messages in parting when she freezes in place.

Not sure how to end it. I’m thinking perhaps she finally gains control of it, and decides to either rush through the remainder of her life, or wait it out to watch humanity’s story unfold.

Just upgraded to WordPress 2.3.2 and making sure everything is good after the upgrade.

This one was a long time being born. My creativity fell out from under me during the middle but I forced myself to pick it back up and finish it. It needs serious editing, but here it is. It’s a light hearted story about a chance encounter between two thieves set in a medieval town and what ensues after their encounter. I wanted to write something that reminded me of all the fun fantasy worlds I’ve enjoyed reading about.

Two Thieves in the Night

This story idea is about a futuristic P.I. or police detective. A prominent AI scientist has been murdered. The killer is actually his latest attempt at an AI. The computer/robot was trying to prove it had achieved sentience, but the deceased didn’t believe it, thought it was still just the sum of its parts, nothing greater. The machine decided the only way to prevent being shutdown like its predecessors was to prove to the world that it was capable of a very human action, murder.

Something swung by and sucked away all my creativity for the last few months. I didn’t write, work on a GURPS adventure, or anything. Basically I worked, ate, slept, read, and watched TV. Exciting. I’d sit down to do something creative, and just have zilch. I made myself write on my current story a couple of times and tonight I worked on my latest adventure. I think by forcing myself I’m kickstarting my creativity. It’s weird to not feel that urge pushing you on like it used to…I start to fear it’s gone! But I think it’s just taken a break. Perhaps changed a little, diminished. But not gone, not yet. I just need to immerse myself in good fantasy or sci-fi a bit more to get it going again

This story idea focuses on a young man (teenager? young adult?) who discovers that he has nascent psychic powers. Perhaps he begins overhearing other’s thoughts and at first thinks they are things people actually said leading to embarrassing situations. He’s a loner, an outsider, and this only exacerbates the problem.

He discovers a ring of psychics that communicate with each other. At first he’s intrigued, excited to find others like himself. But as he gets to know them better he discovers they use their powers to manipulate others. To control popular opinion. They appear to work for some secret government organization, and prey upon the weak minded enhancing notions of fear in our terrorism-crazed times (perhaps the story can be a bit of a statement about that in general). He rejects this and is shut out by the other collected minds.

Another gets in touch with him during this. The protagonist is wary now and reluctant to establish contact with this new psychic. He learns though that he is representing a group of weaker psychics who have been shunned by the circle. The boy realizes he must make a difference and together with this outcast group they must overthrow the main circle. Lots of potential for interesting dreamscape type settings in people’s minds, as well as even travel to hunt down the other psychics in person.

The idea is that two thieves in a fantasy setting are breaking into the house of a noble well-guarded by wards, spells, and such. A very typical fantasy setting. One is a fairly expert thief with a full set of tricks up her sleeve. The other is a novice, ambitious, but unskilled. They get caught and she manages to take the blame somehow (does she step up for it, does he stick her with it?). Feeling guilty about it (and perhaps somewhat attracted to her), he confesses at her trial but to no avail. In the end he uses a disguise to trick the guards and free her. He admits that while she has far more skill than he (something he’s loathe to admit at first, especially to a girl), he’s glad he had skills enough to free her.

The setting is a traditional fantasy setting: magic, elves, medieval level technology/culture, etc. The protagonists are siblings: an older sister and a younger brother, teens to young adults. The brother discovers he has an incredibly powerful raw talent for magic. The drow (is that term trademarked by Dungeons & Dragons?) or dark elves have made many offensives in the area where the characters live and taken many lives and land. The brother is unsure what to do and turns to his older sister who is a veteran of a previous battle with the elves (ok, so she’d have to be a few years older). He is a bit naive, trusting, innocent. She is hardened, cynical, tough. She brings him into the woods to a secretive teacher of the arcane arts. While something about the mentor doesn’t sit right with the boy he decides to trust him. The way the teacher harnesses power seems unsubtle, crude, forceful, but powerful. In short order the boy begins to harness great power.

The back story is that the teacher is a dark elf and is working with the sister. They are promising her great power when they take over the area, and safety for her and her family. She is so tired of the battle and bloodshed she believes they’ll keep their promises. They say only they need her brother as a weapon and he’ll be unharmed, and in addition he’ll learn great skill over his power.

Their plan is to trick the boy into thinking he can cast a great spell to defend his town. In reality they teach him how to summon great energy but not release it. Thus, he becomes a sort of ticking time magic bomb once he’s summoned the energy (to defend his town from a faux attack). The elves then warn the villagers they will only help the boy release the energy harmlessly if they lay down their weapons. The boy realizes the betrayal, and the sister tries to explain.
Once this is done, they imprison all the villagers and stop the boy’s power by killing him.  The boy in his last breath forgives the sister. Realizing her own betrayal at the hands of the elves, she rushes forward to comfort his last moments. Unbeknowst to her she also has great magical power and heals him. Together they turn back the drow and protect their town.

The basic message is one about power and trust, betrayal and love.