Use your characters to work through your problems


‘I know, I know,’ Dash Gallant sighed, running a muscular hand through his perfectly coiffured hair. ‘The truth is, I just haven’t had the time.’
‘Time?’ Doctor Hadrian laughed. ‘Captain, with the Temporal Reflux Engine on this ship, you’ve got more time than you think.’
‘That’s not what I mean and you know it. The Mhal-Evol’Unt hyperborder has been breached, saboteurs have infiltrated the fleet and Fumblebot is still missing.’ He grimaced manfully. ‘With all that going on, how am I supposed to find time to update my spacelog?’
Doctor Hadrian thought for a moment. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if you were to accelerate to five times lightspeed and slingshot around...’
‘Wait.’ Dash silenced him with a wave of his hand. ‘I’ve got it. For the time being, I can republish old spacelog entries. Just for a week or so.’
‘A spaceweek.’
‘Yes, a spaceweek. That’s what I meant. Rerunning old material will keep things ticking over until I’m less busy.’ He turned to the plexi-viewport and smiled. ‘Well done, Dash old friend,’ he whispered to his reflection. ‘You’ve done it again.’

8 comments:

  1. Don't tell me WBW has turned into a slog!

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  2. Nice dodge there, Dash.

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  3. Clever, Dash, clever. I loved this one!

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  4. How about this one: "Leave your readers hanging for weeks with no explanation so that some will neither confirm nor deny that they Googled you to find out if you actually died?"

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  5. A spaceweek is different from a week. The further you are from Earth, the less accurate any measurement of time relative to it will be. (These are basic casualties of the light barrier and the theory of relativity.) A spaceweek, calculated from an internal frame of reference, is therefore a very useful construct.

    "Spacelogs", of course, are no different from "logs", besides the fact that they're in space, and their whole purpose is to announce to people that their author, too, is in space. (Compare "weblog", or "blog")

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