慕容青草的博客
哲學園地
戴榕菁
在進行了兩年多debugging現代物理學的工程之後，我打算暫停在那方麵的探索，稍事歇息，過一陣再重開旗鼓。剛有這個念頭就產生了一個想要再寫一部長篇科幻小說的欲望，但馬上就被自己否定了，因為我知道一部長篇小說意味著至少幾個月的全天候的作業。上一部長篇英文科幻小說《The Red Hat》【[1]】花了我從2017年9月底到2018年5月中的整整7個半月的時間。其實，在《The Red Hat》之後我也寫了一些短篇或超短篇的小說，其中比較成形的是《New Aliens》（見附錄），但事後發現寫短片科幻有一些問題，最主要的是為了節省篇幅不容易把自己想要表達的主題刻畫清楚，而且寫完之後總有一種意猶未盡的感覺，總想著要再寫續，從而影響了之後的正常生活情緒。所以，目前我既不能再寫長篇的也不打算寫短篇的。
但與此同時，因為模糊地有了一些思路，讓我又有一種技癢難耐的感覺，所以這裏幹脆就先把已有的思路做一記錄，等以後有機會了再去寫相關的小說，短篇也罷長篇也罷到時再說了。
科幻小說《母星的戰船》梗概之構想
序幕
場景一. 地球人的戰爭
銀河係太陽係地球紀元的1904年底中國東北某郊外，一排身著灰色軍裝留著大胡子的俄國士兵舉槍瞄準前麵地上跪著的被蒙上眼睛的人，槍聲一響那些留著長辮子的作為日軍奸細的滿清平民應聲倒下。
畫麵轉到同一天在中國山東的某漁村，一位留著仁丹胡身著黃色軍裝的日本軍曹高高舉起他的武士刀，然後刀光一閃，一顆留著長辮子作為俄奸的滿清男士的頭顱血淋淋地滾到了地上。
場景二. Y星戰船啟程
銀河係太陽係地球紀元的1904年底，距離地球X光年的Y星的一處空曠的場地上一艘三層樓高的銀灰色的飛船前麵站著一排身著銀灰色緊身連體服的Y星戰士靜聽著他們的聯邦首腦為這些即將啟程前往遙遠星球---地球的士兵們的送行致辭：嘰裏咕嚕咕嚕嘰裏，咕嚕咕嚕嘰裏嘰裏。。。
翻譯成中文就是：
【。。。你們將要前去的太陽係距離我們Y星有X光年的距離，因此我們之間隻有通過蟲洞技術保持聯絡。雖然我們的蟲洞技術在過去幾十年裏取得了快速發展，但是蟲洞通訊仍然存在著時間上的滯後與一定的瓶頸問題，因此一旦到達地球，你們將擁有很大的自主性，而無法事事得到Y星的批準，但是我相信你們會嚴格遵守Y星給你們製定的各項原則和紀律。你們這次隊伍中有男有女，因此你們在那裏將要生育和撫養你們自己的後代。但是，由於你們這支隊伍的初始成員隻有幾十人，所以在未經Y星批準的前提下，你們必須嚴格執行不得直接向地球大眾公開你們的身份而是要通過控製他們的首腦操弄他們的政治經濟來掌控地球的命令。更重要的是，你們絕不允許與地球人發生雜交。任何違背這項命令的人，一經發現必須立即返回Y星，如有抗命，必將給予最嚴厲的懲處。不過我相信作為Y星培養出來的最優秀的星際遠征軍人不論在什麽地方，在任何時候都會始終忠於Y星，心懸家鄉父老。。。你們將是地球的主人和太陽係的主人！】
聯邦首腦的話剛停，下麵的遠征軍人們就一陣咕嚕嚕嘰裏裏地宣誓永遠效忠母星。然後就開始登船。
。。。。。。
銀河係太陽係地球紀元大約兩年後，Y星的母船到達了地球的衛星月球，在那裏那支幾十人的遠征軍中絕大多數換乘較小的後來被地球人稱為飛碟的適用於在大氣中飛行的碟狀飛行器飛向那原始落後的藍星---地球。隻有很少數的Y星遠征軍留在母船上，當他們目送自己的大部隊駛向地球後就按照預定的計劃將母船駛往太陽係外圍的柯伊伯帶（Kuiper belt），在那裏將母船偽裝後躲在了無數個小行星中，作為與前往地球的主力的聯絡站。
第一章. 背叛
第一節 來自地球的奇怪能量
時間：銀河係太陽係地球紀元近兩個世紀後；場景：Y星聯邦總部所在都市
在Y星遠征軍當初出發的空地上，那艘當初出發的飛船緩緩降落。從上麵走下在柯伊伯帶留守在飛船上的幾個Y星軍人及他們的後代。Y星聯邦新首腦正在太空船泊地不遠處的豪華樓中等待著他們。
大約兩年前，Y星然遭受到了一種奇怪能量的攻擊。經分析該能量正是來自他們派出遠征軍的太陽係。經過與遠征軍母船的留守人員的查證，知道遠征軍曾出現嚴重違反Y星製定的紀律的現象，且不服母船留守人員的管教，隨後便發現了來自地球對Y星進行攻擊的能量。所以，Y星總部特將遠征軍母船召回，以便對背叛母星的遠征軍共同采取懲治行動。
第二節 在地球紮根的Y星遠征軍
時間：銀河係太陽係地球紀元近兩個世紀後；場景：地球
經過了近兩個世紀的運作布局，當初的Y星遠征軍早已在地球生根發芽。他們不但掌握了地球人各種主要的語言和相關文化，更是在網絡時代到來之後，徹底掌控了整個地球的網絡運作，他們可以進入地球人的任何一個伺服器和包括手機在內的任何一部終端智能機器，他們有能力修改有關地球人的經濟和政治命運的任何數據，他們甚至成功地主導了人類日用電腦以及AI的硬件和軟件的製作規範以及相關的供應文化，使得用戶個體不擁有任何軟硬件，一切都要向供應商租賃並每月繳納租金，而且所有數據都存於被地球人稱之為雲端的公共存儲區，這樣便非常有利於極少數的Y星人控製整個地球的一切。與此同時，他們早已掌握了操控地球任何一個國家的政府和政治組織的技巧，不論哪個國家出現什麽政權更替或出現什麽新的有實力的政治組織，他們都能在短時間內予以掌控。
他們甚至能夠按照自己的意願來引導或誤導地球人科技的發展從而實現對地球人科技發展進度的全方位的操控。他們不能讓地球的科技超越自己，但又必須讓地球的科技達到一定的水準，以便在需要的時候讓地球人的科技為他們的太空戰服務。他們也掌握了操控人類世界尤其是發達國家的文化走向的技巧，並成功地破除了地球人內心深處對於外來人種的排斥與恐懼感。可以說，除了向地球公民們公開他們自己的真實身份之外，他們已經儼然把自己當作了地球的主人。
唯一令他們遺憾的一件事情是他們在地球環境中的自身繁殖率極低，於是他們貿然違禁地開發了與地球人雜交的技術，結果非常成功。但是與地球人雜交的成功和他們對於地球政治經濟的成功掌控讓他們如同當年開發美洲大陸的歐洲殖民者一樣開始朝思暮想地要擺脫Y星而鬧獨立。
但他們也知道單憑他們遠征軍的小部隊和地球人的實力是難以與科技高度發達的Y星對抗的。不過在他們正煞費苦心地思索著如何才能擺脫Y星的時候，他們發現了一個Y星人之前沒有注意到的潛在資源------地球人的意念力。雖然和地球上的基督徒一樣，Y星人也信仰創造了宇宙萬物的上帝，但是他們發現上帝賦予Y星人的意念力與賦予地球人的意念力並不完全相同，當Y星人和地球人發生雜交之後，居然出現了一種特殊的遠程意念力，這種意念力甚至可用來對Y進行一定程度的攻擊。
第二章. 母星的戰船
第一節．出征
當Y星聯邦總部確認了當年的遠征軍在地球紮根之後背叛母星的罪行之後，很快便決定對地球進行第二次遠征，而這次不但征討的對象是自己的叛徒，而且不再打算以隱蔽的身份到達地球，而是做好了與自己的叛軍在地球上大打一場的準備。
過去的近兩百年裏，Y星的穿越蟲洞技術又得到了長足的進步，現在他們可以在短短的幾周內到達地球的上空。
於是在一場悲壯的誓師大會之後，數十架體積上兩倍於運送第一批遠征軍的飛船的戰船艦隊浩浩蕩蕩地離開了Y星殺奔銀河係的太陽係的地球而來。
第二節． 天空中出現的母星的戰船艦隊
已經地球化的Y星人其實早就注意到了他們留在柯伊伯帶的母船的消失，因而預料到了即將到來的母星的征討。他們花了兩年多的時間進行了充分的準備，而且和他們所直接掌控的地球人的政客與軍隊都打好了招呼。因此當母星的大規模的艦隊出現在地球的各個部分的上空時，他們並沒有非常意外。
第三章．Y星人的戰爭
銀河係太陽係地球紀元21世紀某一天，Y星人之間在地球的大戰終於拉開的序幕，頓時間整個地球電光閃閃，海水沸騰，高山崩裂，人哭狗嚎，比當年日俄戰爭中喪生的滿清人士多出數億倍的地球人為Y星人的戰爭獻了祭。
。。。。。。
結束語
以上便是關於科幻小說《母星的戰船》之梗概的原始構想思路。既然是科幻，就希望讀者們不要有任何超出科幻娛樂的聯想，同時也歡迎任何對此類題材感興趣的朋友來實際完成這一構想，將它寫成完整的小說，我這裏除了保留我自己仍可以按照這裏的思路繼續完成該小說的權利之外，不設定任何版權要求。任何對此感興趣的人都可使用這裏的思路來創作一部相關的小說。
附錄
Rongqing Dai
Prelude
Over the past century, we have been impressed by the hostile aliens in all kinds of fiction movies; they will occupy our planet, enslave our people, and even eat our flesh. But in the real future, the aliens that would attack Earth could very possibly be part of our own……
The Mission of Mining 1
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, “Boom.” Right at the end of the countdown, the blazing flames erupted out of the bottom of the carrier rockets, the colossal body of spaceship Mining 1 steadily ascended into the crisp blue skies, and the audience in the launch site T burst into a loud acclamation. In the meantime, this footage instantly went to all corners of the world.
The mission of the spacecraft Mining 1 was to drag a 300 million ton asteroid, named as XX, into an orbit between Earth and the Moon. Five years ago, an amateur astronomer came across XX. Since then, several members of the International Space Club (ISC) have launched asteroid probes to explore its mineral composition and found that 90% of its mass is rare earth ores urgently needed on Earth. To avoid wars between its member nations for the rare earth minerals of XX, after months of bargaining, ISC made a decision about a year ago that it would send a spacecraft to drag XX into an orbit between Earth and the Moon, so that a mining team of the ISC could easily land on XX later on to conduct regular mining activity for the need of its members according to the agreed quotas.
After a year’s preparation, it finally came to the preselected optimal launch day for the northern hemisphere in 2090. To most viewers in front of the TV screens all over the world, what kind of deals had been struck among the ISC members were not their concern at all; what made them excited at the moment was the prospect that, for the first time, humans could drag an asteroid back into low-earth orbit for the purpose of mining. Major media networks all announced that they would follow the entire story to the end; hence, undoubtedly, this would be one of the hottest topics on dinner tables and social media in the coming months around the world.
The Flying Saucer of the New Martians
Early in the morning of the launch day of Mining 1, a bald eagle was hovering in the skies above a private space base at 500 kilometers away from the launch site T, curiously looking over the gigantic saucer shape craft on the open tarmac. It was the New Aliens, a flying saucer in the color of light blue with a diameter of 100 meters and a height about ten stories. Trucks and luggage carts were busy running between the saucer and the cargo section of the terminal building of the base, loading containers of goods and customer luggage onto the saucer.
The terminal building was at a few hundred meters from the saucer, no boarding bridges extending out of it like in commercial airports. A line of golden lettering “EARTH STATION OF MARTIAN RESIDENTS” was erected on top of the overhang of the terminal’s main gate facing the tarmac.
From the outside, the terminal appeared to be a four-story building, but inside the building there was a seven-story underground castle. This place was originally an abandoned missile silo, and was later built by a real estate developer into a so-called doomsday bunker castle that could withstand a nuclear war. In the middle of the third decade of the 21st century, Donald Marsque, the AI tycoon who led the first generation Earth immigrants to Mars, purchased this bunker as well as the surrounding 100 square miles of desert, and then turned it into a base to accommodate the flying saucers travelling between Mars and Earth.
Over the course of a couple of generations, the elite migrants recruited by Donald Marsque from Earth and their descendants had turned their settlements on Mars into the most advanced tech hubs in the solar system, and the distance between them and Earth had become their best security barrier against the infiltration of earthlings. On the surface, with all that they deliberately showed to the earthlings, they seemed to have kept pace with the development of the Earth civilization, but covertly they had long left the Earth’s people behind in fields such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence. Accordingly, with the help of the regular visiting engineers from Mars, the underground castle of this Earth Station of Martian Residents had already become one of the most advanced high-tech hubs on Earth.
On this special day when the people across the whole Earth were excitedly celebrating the launch of Mining 1 to catch XX, the flying saucer New Aliens would also complete its last mission of bringing new migrants from Earth to Mars. This was not a sheer coincidence, but intentionally prescheduled. About an hour before Mining 1 was launched, the crew members of the New Aliens and hundreds of passengers began to step out of the terminal building. Some boarded the shuttle bus waiting at the gate of the terminal, and some others rather sauntered together towards the behemoth that was higher than the terminal building.
In the meantime, four men in their early thirties stood in front of a large TV display in the King’s Room at the bottom of the bunker, watching the real time broadcasting of the launch of Mining1. A lanky one of the four was nervously checking his mobile phone from time to time.
As it entered the countdown, a stout man with a thick beard on his face asked, “Is everything fine, Steve?”
“Everything is perfect, Bill,” the lanky man replied.
All four men then began to laugh loudly, with a hint of weirdness in the laughter.
After seeing Mining 1 left the ground, Bill asked, “Elliot, is there anything that we need to worry about before we leave here?”
“The first thing I did this morning was to double check if everything is fine and I don’t see any problem,” the man named Elliot replied.
“Sounds good!… Now we can leave this planet as well.” Bill then said to his bodyguard Jeff, “tell them, we are coming now.”
“Sure,” Jeff responded, and then walked aside to communicate to Bill’s squad of bodyguards on the ground.
Strictly speaking, all these four men were not earthlings although they did carry the genes of earthlings and thus look like earthlings. They were third generation Martians, and all born on Mars. The man named Bill was the grandson of Donald Marsque, the founder and the current king of the Martian kingdom. Both Steve and Elliot were Bill’s personal assistants, and also the best AI masters and top hackers in the Martian kingdom. A few months ago, they came to Earth with two very special missions. The first one was to bring back more new migrants from Earth. Contrary to the previous open selections of new migrants to Mars according to strict intellectual and physical requirements, this time they quietly reached out to the closest loved ones of those who were already Martian residents, and persuaded them to go to Mars. Although they claimed openly that this special invitation was based on humanity consideration, among Bill and those three men, they privately called these potential new migrants as the “last Earth migrants to Mars.” Their second mission would sound much sneakier: hacking into the operating system of Mining 1 to see if they could do something with it…
A few minutes later, Bill and his three men came to the ground, and then the convoy of Bill and his men, including his squad of bodyguards that was waiting on the ground, left the terminal for the flying saucer. When they arrived in front of the New Aliens, the senior management staff of the Earth station had lined up before the boarding stairs to see them off. Bill glanced at the line and wanted to say something, but then changed his mind. He went straight onto the saucer, without shaking hands with those people, including the station director. Steve, who was behind Bill, could not bear to see the station director embarrassed in front of his subordinates, so he walked to shake hands and have some words with him.
“You know how to contact me, right?” Steve asked.
“Of course,” the station director replied with gratitude.
“The most important thing for you is to guard the underground castle carefully. Don’t let spies from outside get into it.”
“Of course,” the director replied.
“I have changed the password to get into the underground, but you can contact me to ask for it if you need to enter it in emergency.”
“I will,” the director replied.
……
Soon after Bill and his entourage all boarded, the flying saucer rose silently and then quickly disappeared into the blue sky…
The End of a Civilization
One and a half months later, Mining 1 finally reached the XX asteroid. For several days in a row, all crew members and passengers on the New Alien were as excited as the billions of earthlings on Earth, watching the astronauts of Mining 1 put a special net onto the entire XX asteroid, and attach it to Mining 1, and then steer Mining 1 towards the direction of Earth and the Moon, in order to settle it onto the designated orbit between Earth and the Moon.
During those days, Bill spent most time watching the broadcast of the event in his King’s cabin with Steve, Elliot and Jeff. When seeing Mining 1 set off its journey of going back, Bill asked Steve, who was nervously checking his mobile phone, “Is everything fine?”
“Everything is perfect,” Steve replied. Then all four men laughed out loud as they did in the bunker of the Earth Station of Martian Residents, and the laughter still sounded weird. . .
……
Another month passed quickly. One day when Bill was about to go to sleep according to the scheduled normal rules on the flying saucer, he heard a knock at the door.
“Yes?” he answered.
“Steve and Elliot want to see you,” Jeff replied outside the door.
Advertisements
REPORT THIS AD
“Send them in,” Bill said, and then added, “You come too.”
“It changed direction and accelerating towards Earth,” Steve and Elliot said in unison as they entered the room.
“Mining 1?”
“Yes,” Steve replied.
“Isn’t it supposed to be tomorrow?”
“There was a minor error in our estimation because we missed an acceleration process that occurred while Mining 1 dragging XX,” Elliot replied.
“When did it start?” Bill asked.
“It should be half an hour ago, but we did not notice it,” Elliot said.
“Excellent,” Bill uttered, his voice filled with excitement.
He rushed to turn on the satellite TV, and a male news anchor from an earth channel appeared on the screen, who was almost screaming, “What the heck is going on here? How could Mining 1 suddenly change its direction and speed up towards us? Is it an alien attack on Earth?”
Bill switched to another channel and saw a discolored anchorwoman speaking in the same frightened tone, “Mining 1 and that 300 million ton asteroid are approaching Earth at a speed of 80,000 miles per hour. It will enter the Earth’s atmosphere in another 30 minutes. Our communication with its crew has been completely blocked mysteriously. At this moment, the leaders of the major powers of the world are holding emergency defense conferences to discuss countermeasures. So far, no country seems to be confident of stopping this sudden attack.”
“So exciting,” Jeff exclaimed.
“Can they stop it?” Bill looked at Steve.
“Not a chance.” Steve replied, “according to our calculations, even if there is a severe combustion when entering the atmosphere, XX will still carry at least 100 million tons of mass at a speed of 60,000 miles per hour. No missile can stop it. ”
“Even not by laser?”
“Neither.” Elliot cut in and explained, “XX is of course traveling much slower than light, but much faster than the search speed of their laser transmitter radar. And even if it is hit by a laser beam, it can’t be destroyed before it hits the ground. What’s more, the shockwave it would produce once entering the atmosphere could destroy all defense facilities on the ground.”
“Wonderful,” Bill said.
“There is one thing…” Steve was about to say something, but stopped.
“What is it?” Bill looked into his eyes.
“I…I received a text from the director of our Earth station asking for the password to enter the bunker,” Steve said.
“What do you guys think?” Bill stared at those three men, but Steve lowered his head, Jeff turned his eyes to Elliot, and Elliot looked back at Bill without saying anything.
“Do you think they would have more chance in the bunker?” Bill asked Elliot.
“It’s supposed to increase their chance of survival if the impact spot is very far.” Elliot explained, “But unfortunately, it seems the impact spot of XX will not be very far from our Earth station.”
“How far?”
“It’s hard to say right now, but will be less than a thousand miles,” Elliot replied. “Besides, even if they could survive the hit when hiding in the bunker, it’s hard for them to survive the aftermath of the hit.”
Bill hesitated for a couple seconds and then said to Steve, “Give him the password and wish him a good luck. That’s it, say nothing else.”
“Sure, I will do it now.” Steve turned to send a message back to the station director.
Bill then uttered to Elliot and Jeff, “at least we give them a chance.”
At that moment, the intercom phone rang. Bill pushed the button and there came the voice of the captain of the saucer, “there is a commotion throughout the whole vehicle, because passengers are all watching the news from Earth reporting that XX is rushing towards Earth at a speed of 80,000 miles per hour. Many women have begun to cry.”
After exchanging glances with the other guys, Bill asked dryly, “What is the situation observed by our own radio telescope on this craft?”
“Our own telescope also confirmed that XX is sprinting towards Earth at high speed,” the captain replied.
“I see,” Bill said, and commanded, “Please broadcast to ask everyone to stay calm and not to panic. In addition, send guards to each deck to maintain order, ten guards on each deck. Tell them not to leave their posts until receiving further orders.”
“Yes. Please consider it as done.”
“Wait.” Bill stopped the captain as he was about to hang up, and then asked, “If XX hits Earth, will it affect this saucer?”
“It should not. We are now 15 million miles from Earth. At most, we may be disturbed by some electromagnetic waves.”
“Okay, you may go now.”
“Yes.”
After hanging up the call, Bill asked, “Anything new?”
“Several spacecraft orbiting to patrol around Earth have tried to go after XX, but none of them can catch up,” Steve replied.
……
Half an hour later, all the channels from Earth went black. Bill hooked up the video to their own radio telescope that was used to watch Earth, and then saw dazzling glow of red light flashing over Earth. . .
After several seconds of silence, he remarked lightly, “a civilization of a few million years is over.”
“Will the king feel sad?” Elliot asked.
“That’s what he wants,” Bill replied. “Now the entire solar system belongs to our kingdom.”
“When are we going back to Earth again?” Jeff asked.
“A few years or a few decades later,” Bill replied. “The dust and radioactivity caused by the impact will not go away soon. Besides, the Earth needs to recover itself. When its natural ecology returns to the state of tens of thousands of years ago, we can move the entire Martian kingdom to Earth; after all, there are more resources than our planet.”
……
Four decades later, thousands of Martian residents in a fleet of flying saucers led by their newly crowned king, Marsque III, arrived in Earth. They landed in a vast green prairie in the northern hemisphere, where used to be one of the most prosperous urban area on the planet, and now there is no trace of the lost last civilization.
Postlude
Hopefully human civilization will not end in this way…
【[1]】 戴榕菁 （2023）《The Red Hat》的寫作：一次意想不到的重要訓練
當然，《母星的戰船》也可以有一個高杆的寫法，那就是將本文中的第一章第二節，尤其是那一節的前兩段，也就是【經過了近兩個世紀的運作布局，。。。。他們已經儼然把自己當作了地球的主人。】這部分擴充為詳細的故事。。。那樣的寫作不但會引人入勝，讓讀者產生一種逼真的感覺，而且會表現得富有哲理。。。。