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Working on getting these to Publishable Standard.
Taking down for now.
Thanks to all my readers. News should be coming soon, although we know how life goes.
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This story is 27 words long.
Comments
An impressive work.
It's hard to find completely unique stories. You've managed one here; this society has gendered castes, embedded in what seems to be an otherwise (possibly) egalitarian system. Maybe sort of benevolent fascism, though we can't really tell with the hints we've gotten, nor can we tell what led to the institutionalized misogyny.
Also really nice to see a society that appears to have solved scarcity problems, apparently able to keep all its citizens in reasonable comfort, though the sexism is disconcerting.
You also forced me to go check up on the few virtues of tobacco, which are limited to the mild stimulant effect of nicotine, and some minor antidepressant effects of other chemicals in tobacco. It's hard to imagine that you could get the bad stuff out of tobacco and leave anything useful behind. I'd assumed at first that ‘smoke’ was marijuana, which would be a much better candidate for the effects described.
In any case, this is engaging and well written, thanks.
(possibly) Egalitarian Systems - Sci Fi and the Distant Future
This story is set thousands of years in the future, possibly tens of thousands. It's to the point where actual numbers are irrelevant except to a few nerds and researchers. I don't know it myself. It's really not important. It is post-scarcity. And that's allowed them to do and achieve a lot. It was Des, in a previous part, who said something like, "We may never have a breakthrough as big as the jump drive again." And that's completely true. It's essentially what established the true post-scarcity environment. They've had virtually free energy for thousands of years as well. Humanity has no concerns other than aliens popping out of nowhere (don't worry, there's no aliens in this story.)
You might have noticed there's no advanced tech to the point it's bordering really mind-bending stuff, at least as far as sci-fi as a genre goes. That's very deliberate. This isn't a story about tech, in any shape or form. Allison Zero is about people, and societies. It's what I feel good sci-fi is. It's what I believe all good fiction is about, when it comes down to it: People.
As for the tobacco, that is essentially made up by me. It's the thousands of years in the future thing again. They've been developing it long enough, and "playing" with its growth, crossbreeding it, its chemical makeup, genetics (whatever you want yourself. How they do it doesn't matter. It is what it is.) that they can do what they want with it. If you're bald there's no special tobacco that will let you re-grow your hair after you smoke it. It serves a specific function within society (which is part of Allison's story.) And as we've seen so far there are tobaccos that are mild stimulants, there's one that's calming, there's one that affects/intensifies taste. The brown ones that "unleashed" who Allison is is The Big Daddy. I haven't decided the boundaries of that one except they pack the force of a sledgehammer and are probably the only truly dangerous things we've seen in the story so far. Outside of the fact that Robert works as a handler moving stuff around, and there'll always be industrial accidents, including deaths, so that's a physical danger that's implied, especially with reference to his skin being stained. And it's pretty much why male citizens only work three or four days a week. They're some of the few who are exposed to true danger. Society has decided you can't expose someone to the chance of being paralysed and expect them to work five days a week, or more, and not have and enjoy their time off.
And thanks for the comment. I know there's a lot "hidden away" in this world, and it's asking a little of any reader to go with me. It is part of the story, though. Not in the sense of the hiding being a device of storytelling, rather it is a functional part of this society, and very much core to what makes it what it is. I'm not being flippant with it or trying to use it as a crutch. So to see someone engaged with it, and accepting that, is extremely encouraging to me. Thank you <3
This story continues to intrigue
So many hidden layers to the organization of this society, and now you’ve given us another piece of the puzzle — a sense of scale. The habitat is huge, and heavily populated. A post scarcity environment, and yet there is scarcity (for example, hot water for showering), which suggests that the scarcity is a social construct. Hmmmmm . . . .
Highly imaginative, with characters that pop. I’m really enjoying it, and think this is a story that will also be fun as a binge-read when it’s complete.
— Emma
The true blessing of...
Thanks, Emma. It is a true blessing to have highly engaged readers. :)
I realised early on in writing this it'd "work" much better being published as a completed novel. I don't mind about the inefficiency, however. I'm enjoying writing it and publishing it the way I am now. I think it'll stand to the story in the long run that my working with it is more enjoyable this way — including getting comments like yours and taryntula's— over any potential upside there'd be in maintaining readers with a weekly release of an already completed story. Or by simply releasing an entire novel in one fell swoop. It's part of the beauty of a site like this, for authors at least.