Arisia Recap #1: Story Contest
Jan. 18th, 2011 01:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tehutiArisia '11 is over. I've been home for several hours, still experiencing that odd sensation of expecting fabulous con friends dressed in their best outfits or costumes to wander randomly through the living room and being disappointed when it keeps not happening.
This year will get a nice long post of it's own, but first I want to share something I wrote this weekend. Josh Simpson was the Artist Guest of Honor this year. He is a glassblowing artists, and makes some of the most amazing glass Planets you'll ever see. For those of you unfamiliar with his work, go google him and come back. This year, Arisia did a writing contest based on one of his Planets. Top three entries won a Planet. I knew the contest was going to happen, but I didn't expect to enter it until I got to the Art Show and saw the inspirational planet. An idea immediately leapt to mind, so I went up to Green Room and spent the next hour or so writing it down. I submitted it online as instructed (which was an adventure in an of itself), but sadly did not win a prize.
But a good thing came out of it. I wrote a nice little piece of fanfic, around 1000 words, in about an hour. With the hope of using this brief outburst as a springboard to more, I'm going to post it here to remind myself to do this much more often than I do. Writing for school is important, but so is the creative stuff (nonfiction and fiction alike) that I also enjoy.
So, my friends, until I can write a true wrap-up post in the morning, please enjoy my very first ever piece of fan fiction:
Slartibartfast had never been so busy. Which, of course, explained why he was doing nothing, waiting for the Bistromath to figure out which when to go.
Magrathea was enjoying an unprecedented building boom, and Slartibartfast’s skill was in demand again. But some jobs were beyond his skill. Some jobs were beyond even the legendary Phartiphukborlz, the great fjord-maker himself.
The HitchiLeaks controversy five years ago kicked it off. Although you could argue it was the Vogons fault, too. They did destroy Earth Mark I after all.
The robotic guests continued to argue with the robot waiters over the proper tax rate on their bill. They were fighting over which jurisdiction to use, where the meal began on Betelgeuse Five, or the ultimate destination.
Slartibartfast sighed. This one might take a while.
Deep Thought, the second greatest computer ever made, had designed Earth to calculate the question of Life, the Universe and Everything. It was a thing of beauty, and worked flawlessly. Until the Vogons destroyed it for a hyperspatial express route, a mere five minutes before it was set to finish its ten million year program. It was a perfectly lovely express route, but quite a few people were cross about it, two mice in particular. Frankie and Benjy, two of the only four survivors of the Great Demolition, were actually hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings disguised as mice. As representatives of the people that originally commissioned the two computers, they couldn’t go back without an answer. And the other two survivors, a pair of unremarkable humans, disappeared, so dissecting them to see if the answer was buried in their brains was not an option.
Frankie and Benjy did what any hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional being would do. They made one up. And it was a great answer. Philosophical, poetic, believable and a good song lyric. “How many roads must a man walk down?” worked on every level. The two mice became galactic celebrities overnight. Every late night talk show on every civilized world wanted them. Sentient beings across the Universe talked about the Great Question, and debated the meaning of the Great Answer. New religions rose, old philosophies were abandoned. It was a golden age of peace, knowledge and understanding.
Then HitckiLeaks blew the whole thing up. How they found out that the Great Question was a hoax, no one knew. But the news spread like a wildly spreading thing, and the mice were ruined. The new religious leaders and best-selling philosophers had to do something. Losing their followers, and the accompanying power, money and loose beings wouldn’t do. If the mice could build a planet-sized biological computer to analyze the Great Question, then surely anyone could do it? And they were all trying.
Slartibartfast glanced up at the bistro table again. The robot customers were now arguing over how to split the bill. It wouldn’t be much longer.
Magrathea was booming again, overwhelmed with orders for planetary computers. Granted, most of them were much smaller than Earth, or Earth Mark II, but this order, the one that brought Slartibartfast back to the scene of his greatest triumph as a designer, was special.
The customer was very specific. It wasn’t enough for this planet to compute the Great Question. It also had to be beautiful. No simple fjords would suffice, or predictable azure blue oceans. It had to have delicate multi-colored mineral formations, blue and yellow striped sentient clouds, and landforms covered in massive red vegetation. It was an order unlike anything Magrathea had ever taken. It called for an expert.
The wine bottles on the ship’s helm started blinking. The Bistromath had arrived. Slartibartfast uncorked the view screen, revealing a small, unregarded yellow star floating in the backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of an unremarkable galaxy. The starship was in orbit around an utterly insignificant blue-green dot that would, in a few short years, be destroyed by the Vogons, touching off the sequence of events that brought Slartibartfast here.
He smiled. The Universe was a funny place. From when he came, the beautiful, award-winning fjords of Norway were gone. Time travel was no problem for a ship powered with bistromatics. It was simply a matter of which appetizer to order with the proper bottle of wine, and you were when you wanted to be.
Time to visit his beloved fjords later. Business first. With the twist of a corkscrew, the Bistromath entered the atmosphere of Earth Mark I, making a beeline for a small town in the western part of the region known as New England. Slartibartfast snorted. It was just like humans to call something “New England” that didn’t even vaguely resemble Old England.
He reached for the restaurant’s phone, and dialed. A human answered.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Mr. Simpson. This is…well, my name really doesn’t matter, so I’m not going to tell you. I’m from Magrathea, and we need you again.”
This year will get a nice long post of it's own, but first I want to share something I wrote this weekend. Josh Simpson was the Artist Guest of Honor this year. He is a glassblowing artists, and makes some of the most amazing glass Planets you'll ever see. For those of you unfamiliar with his work, go google him and come back. This year, Arisia did a writing contest based on one of his Planets. Top three entries won a Planet. I knew the contest was going to happen, but I didn't expect to enter it until I got to the Art Show and saw the inspirational planet. An idea immediately leapt to mind, so I went up to Green Room and spent the next hour or so writing it down. I submitted it online as instructed (which was an adventure in an of itself), but sadly did not win a prize.
But a good thing came out of it. I wrote a nice little piece of fanfic, around 1000 words, in about an hour. With the hope of using this brief outburst as a springboard to more, I'm going to post it here to remind myself to do this much more often than I do. Writing for school is important, but so is the creative stuff (nonfiction and fiction alike) that I also enjoy.
So, my friends, until I can write a true wrap-up post in the morning, please enjoy my very first ever piece of fan fiction:
Slartibartfast had never been so busy. Which, of course, explained why he was doing nothing, waiting for the Bistromath to figure out which when to go.
Magrathea was enjoying an unprecedented building boom, and Slartibartfast’s skill was in demand again. But some jobs were beyond his skill. Some jobs were beyond even the legendary Phartiphukborlz, the great fjord-maker himself.
The HitchiLeaks controversy five years ago kicked it off. Although you could argue it was the Vogons fault, too. They did destroy Earth Mark I after all.
The robotic guests continued to argue with the robot waiters over the proper tax rate on their bill. They were fighting over which jurisdiction to use, where the meal began on Betelgeuse Five, or the ultimate destination.
Slartibartfast sighed. This one might take a while.
Deep Thought, the second greatest computer ever made, had designed Earth to calculate the question of Life, the Universe and Everything. It was a thing of beauty, and worked flawlessly. Until the Vogons destroyed it for a hyperspatial express route, a mere five minutes before it was set to finish its ten million year program. It was a perfectly lovely express route, but quite a few people were cross about it, two mice in particular. Frankie and Benjy, two of the only four survivors of the Great Demolition, were actually hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings disguised as mice. As representatives of the people that originally commissioned the two computers, they couldn’t go back without an answer. And the other two survivors, a pair of unremarkable humans, disappeared, so dissecting them to see if the answer was buried in their brains was not an option.
Frankie and Benjy did what any hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional being would do. They made one up. And it was a great answer. Philosophical, poetic, believable and a good song lyric. “How many roads must a man walk down?” worked on every level. The two mice became galactic celebrities overnight. Every late night talk show on every civilized world wanted them. Sentient beings across the Universe talked about the Great Question, and debated the meaning of the Great Answer. New religions rose, old philosophies were abandoned. It was a golden age of peace, knowledge and understanding.
Then HitckiLeaks blew the whole thing up. How they found out that the Great Question was a hoax, no one knew. But the news spread like a wildly spreading thing, and the mice were ruined. The new religious leaders and best-selling philosophers had to do something. Losing their followers, and the accompanying power, money and loose beings wouldn’t do. If the mice could build a planet-sized biological computer to analyze the Great Question, then surely anyone could do it? And they were all trying.
Slartibartfast glanced up at the bistro table again. The robot customers were now arguing over how to split the bill. It wouldn’t be much longer.
Magrathea was booming again, overwhelmed with orders for planetary computers. Granted, most of them were much smaller than Earth, or Earth Mark II, but this order, the one that brought Slartibartfast back to the scene of his greatest triumph as a designer, was special.
The customer was very specific. It wasn’t enough for this planet to compute the Great Question. It also had to be beautiful. No simple fjords would suffice, or predictable azure blue oceans. It had to have delicate multi-colored mineral formations, blue and yellow striped sentient clouds, and landforms covered in massive red vegetation. It was an order unlike anything Magrathea had ever taken. It called for an expert.
The wine bottles on the ship’s helm started blinking. The Bistromath had arrived. Slartibartfast uncorked the view screen, revealing a small, unregarded yellow star floating in the backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of an unremarkable galaxy. The starship was in orbit around an utterly insignificant blue-green dot that would, in a few short years, be destroyed by the Vogons, touching off the sequence of events that brought Slartibartfast here.
He smiled. The Universe was a funny place. From when he came, the beautiful, award-winning fjords of Norway were gone. Time travel was no problem for a ship powered with bistromatics. It was simply a matter of which appetizer to order with the proper bottle of wine, and you were when you wanted to be.
Time to visit his beloved fjords later. Business first. With the twist of a corkscrew, the Bistromath entered the atmosphere of Earth Mark I, making a beeline for a small town in the western part of the region known as New England. Slartibartfast snorted. It was just like humans to call something “New England” that didn’t even vaguely resemble Old England.
He reached for the restaurant’s phone, and dialed. A human answered.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Mr. Simpson. This is…well, my name really doesn’t matter, so I’m not going to tell you. I’m from Magrathea, and we need you again.”
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Date: 2011-01-18 10:44 am (UTC)Who knows...Maybe some geeks will come wandering into your living room, and maybe they will be dressed in their finery ;). *Wishes she could drive!*