Return of the Astrolance

A Scenario for a Novel

Synopsis
“Return of The Astrolance” (a novel) © 2024 by Vernon Miles Kerr

Working Scenario ________________________________
From “A History of Irth’s Twenty-First Senturee” Excerpted from “The Monsters-Inlet Written Sheets:”
“This Senturee (Consisting of100 orbits of Planet (then called ‘Irth’) began with the destruction of a pair of exceptionally tall twin buildings in a Nieu Yourk Sity in the country of A-meer-eeka. The attack was ironically a by- product of religious strife that had been going on in a different part of Planet for more than ten past-senturees. The Twenty-First Senturee ended on its last day (almost precisely) with the impact of a large asteroid called Ar-ma- get-don.
“By that time the entire planetary society had developed into a planet-wide authoritarian dictatorship — except for one group of resisters who hid in artificial caves in order to avoid persecution by the authoritarian majority.” (Translation from the ancient “Ing-Lish” by Yun-in-kao.) _______________________________
NOVEL’S VENUE:
A beautiful pastoral land between rivers, which looks up at a snow-capped mountain range. opposite the mountain
range is a vast, seemingly unending, un-utilized prairie. There is a perfect year-round 70o climate at valley level. In the mountains, mild summers are followed by snowy winters. The snow in the mountains assures year-round fresh clean water for all uses, agricultural, industrial and domestic. There is another, similar inhabited-valley beyond the mountain range.
PEOPLE:
Apparent History –
The protagonist people’s neighbors, who occupy the valley beyond the mountain range, are stand-offish. They are only formally friendly when the two tribes meet at the mountain passes in summer, to do ritual harvesting and sharing of pine nuts. Other than that, there is little interaction between the two valleys. During these festivals, when they speak to each other, you see much squinting and head shaking due to the divergence of their spoken language over the centuries. Fortunately they have a mutually-understandable sign language which usually helps to solve lapses in understanding.
Note: Compare this “apparent” history with the real history which is ultimately revealed through archeology. (see below) The revelation of the true history is a total disruption to the planet. It is the turning-point of the entire novel’s plot.
Physically — Both tribes are human-like, very human like but with longer, leaner proportions and almond-shaped

eyes, a tiny bit larger than human eyes. Complexion is golden tan. There is no body hair, but like humans, the crown of their heads is covered with straight, dark brown hair which is coiffed to reveal the individual’s social status. There seems to be a male body-type and a female one, but their profiles are so close it is difficult to decide which gender a person has. No matter, because these people have relegated child conception and gestation to the laboratory.
Technology — Although they maintain the old traditions, such as the pine nut harvest festival, these are not primitive people. The protagonists have a mastery of science near to our own modern-day world. They have developed space travel and have explored the other planets of their solar system without finding life. They have always had a mythology about their origins, which has been passed down as an orally sung tradition, with melody and rhyme, since “beyond memory.” Although the people of the neighboring valley are not luddites, they are suspicious and reluctant to delve too far into anything that might disagree with their mythology and their religion. They consider such “delving” as tampering, peeking behind the curtain. They are happy to believe, without trying to find “proof.”
Religion and Mythology — Both tribes believe that the people came from “Planet.” Planet is the mother of all living people. At some moment — also beyond memory —the people and all their companion domestic animals were born from Planet, in one moment. The people were

born with the knowledge of how to take care of their animals, and the knowledge of how to grow food from seeds. When Planet-mother gave birth to them, there were no other people nor any other animals on Planet, except birds and sea creatures. But the people feared the sea. Their two valleys were far from any ocean. Even frequent over-flights by the protagonist tribe’s aircraft did not assuage their fear of the monsters that might be lurking in ocean depths. Occasionally, during these flights, gigantic monsters had been seen rising to the surface spewing fire with white smoke.
According to myth, the birds, on the other hand, welcomed the people to Planet. They provided companionship, and set the example for how to care for young. The people don’t worship the birds but they worship Mother Planet for providing the birds.
The Quest for Knowledge — The protagonist people have unsuccessfully sought to find the womb of Planet (through archeology, in order to validate their mythology)
Sexual Reproduction — They do not practice “eugenics,” but rather select sperm and egg which are randomly harvested from the general population. This gives the community a sense of proprietorship in every child born. These children are raised in a home environment, by trained and certified volunteers. The volunteers are sworn to stay together as pseudo-parents

until their youngest ward reaches the age of majority, which is sixteen.
Education — At the age of majority a child either enters a trade school or advanced schooling equivalent to our universities. Until sixteen, children are taught in small groups led by a grandfatherly or grandmotherly teacher who uses something that seems like the socratic method. Childish questions are usually answered by targeted adult questions that encourage the student to develop hypotheses, which often results in a satisfactory answer.
However, when the teacher handles doctrinal questions of religion or mythology, he or she is likely to provide a brief lecture. Even the scientifically-oriented protagonist tribe does not leave the belief system up to speculation or socratic thinking.
Work Cadres —There is no war, so there is no army. Instead, there are work cadres. All infrastructure is produced by quickly assembled work cadres, not by paid labor. All farming including harvesting is produced by work cadres. A sixteen year-old may volunteer for any work cadre and receive experience in whatever skills the project’s mission-statement requires. If it is a highway, the young person my learn to operate land-leveling or paving machinery, or learn ditch-digging. It depends upon aptitude and interest. Cadre participation is not mandatory. It does not need to be. There are sufficient volunteers, young and old to require a culling process to

eliminate excess applications. Even some people undergoing advanced university-type education still volunteer for work cadres during school holidays and summer hiatuses.
The Turning Point — The archaeological quest to find the Womb of Planet finally pays off, but not in the way expected. Instead of evidence of an organic opening in Planet, the archeologists have discovered a buried wall of large, apparently fabricated stone blocks, each the size of a small cottage. This wall was not discovered until a curiously shaped mound of packed earth, as tall as a ten- story building, and curiously symmetrical, was excavated. After the tons of earth were removed, the block wall remained. The long arduous process of removing the blocks finally revealed a vast underground tunnel system, with strange, still-functioning lighting and ventilation technology. Tunnels seemed to fan out in all directions. Some opened onto huge rooms. The rooms were devoid of people, but there were items of clothing, obviously domestic appliances and bundles of plastic-like paper with strange writing. Some bundles were strewn about as if dropped haphazardly at some long-ago moment. Other large rooms had shelves with stacks upon stacks of these bundles. Apparently these were libraries.
Upon discovery, the archaeology board decided to keep the tunnel network secret until it was scientifically analyzed. Of course there was much early speculation

among the scientists:

1. Was this, the womb of Planet?
   Were the inhabitants of the tunnels the people’s ancestors?
2. If so, why did they so carefully hide their origins. Were they ashamed of their own history, desiring to forever bury that shame?
3. How did they come to live beneath the earth? Were they taking shelter from some surface catastrophe?
4. How long did the inhabitants live in the tunnels? Centuries? Many centuries?
   As subterranean exploration proceeded the true scope of the tunnel system was learned. It was large enough to house tens of thousands. The agriculture rooms were many and each was the size of a large family farm. The lighting and irrigation systems were still in place and workable, although the fields had been stripped of crops and not replanted before the inhabitants abandoned the tunnel system.
   Apparently, whatever catastrophe had driven them underground, eventually dissipated and allowed them to return to Planet’s surface.
   Answers from the Sea — The frightening sea, ultimately provided answers. An over-flight which had strayed off the customary air-departure lanes revealed an inlet of some curious shallow water which covered what looked like

submerged buildings, walls and even roads. The people went about creating previously-undeveloped under-water vehicles. Exploration of the shallow inlet began.
Those sea monsters turned out to be friendly, intelligent and highly curious about the people and their machines. The previous legend about smoke belching monsters was a mistake. The “monsters” turned out to be a friendly and curious gigantic species with nostrils located on the top of their heads, the smoke was a mere plume of water as they surfaced to take a breath. The people began collecting artifacts from the sunken city.
When the sea monsters noticed the people’s interest in artifacts, they disappeared, returning later, bringing more artifacts from unexplored regions in their mouths, dropping them within reach of the vehicles.
One of these artifacts turned out to be the key to deciphering the ancient text found in the tunnel system, a type of “Rosetta Stone.” Several years later, the entire mystery of the people’s origins was solved.
In the REAL HISTORY of the ancient world, their astronomers discovered a great asteroid on a course that would impact Planet within a few years. The size was large enough to portend a great extinction event —not only from the impact— but from the expected ages-long imposed perpetual winter.

One group of the people proposed retreating deep into Planet, creating an environment that would sustain 20,000 people for the expected duration of the perpetual winter.
The other group thought that the answer was in fleeing Planet in a long, sleek, needle-like craft, named “The Astrolance.” It too, was equipped to house 20,000 people — with a difference: as designed, The Astrolance was capable of near light-speed. The needle was not a “generation ship,” it did not need to be. Because of time- dilation at near-light-speed, a great elliptical path was planned that would bring the spacefarers back to Planet within a single generation of shipboard-time while ten- thousand years of planetary time would have been consumed.
According to the translations, The Astrolance never returned. Not in ten thousand years, nor in twenty thousand years. Its demise was a complete mystery to the early people of Planet who had, by then, successfully and finally emerged from the tunnels.
The answer was finally calculated by our modern-day scientists of Planet. That elliptical path, out and back, looked to have gone dangerously close to a known black- hole. An open question remained: Was The Astrolance sucked in past the event horizon and destroyed or had it merely been flung out into inter-galactic space (maybe with its on-board time drastically dilated by gravitation as well.) Life on Planet continued. The story of The Astrolance was lost in antiquity.

Philosophical Differences — Further translation work revealed that the underground proponents and the space flight proponents disagreed on more than the technological answer to avoiding the extinction event. They disagreed on how people should be governed. The passengers of [ were the leaders of a fascistic, materialistic upper-class of wealthy people who had increased their wealth by monopolistic practices and by using the non-wealthy population as virtual serfs. They ruled with the help of a class of priests who enforced a state religion. Enforcement was brought about by pogroms and inquisitions, where non-believers were sent to heaven by killing them.
Those who went underground not only wanted to practice a more egalitarian form of government, and a nature- oriented from of spiritualism, they also wanted to escape these pogroms. Too many of their number had already been executed by the priest class.
As time went on, more was revealed about the society of the spacefarers. The common people, the serfs, were not really aware of how they were being controlled. Control was achieved by a type of “stealth” _____
Materialism was encouraged. Social status went to the most wealthy of serfdom. Material goods were signs of high status. The serfs were kept psychologically occupied with a myriad of consumer products, entertainment devices. Sex became a sport, a type of entertainment.

Children were being turned out of the homes to raise each other, so that the parents could enjoy more entertainment and satisfy their lust for status among their peers. They were being coddled to death.
THE ULTIMATE DISRUPTION
For years after the opening of the caves and the assimilation of the people’s real history as having evolved from earlier primate species for millions of years on a pre- extinction-event Planet. The protagonist’s word for soil was “earth.” Now they learned that the pre-asteroid people called the entirety of Planet, including the oceans, “Earth.” The old protagonist mythology was still sung in the places of religion. It was still cherished as their art and their culture. But they had to reconcile their minds with reality as well. They were doing a good job with that reconciliation too, until Planet’s astronomers detected the doppler effect of an object approaching about two light- years away and going at near light speed. It was “The Return of the Astrolance,” back from looping out into inter- galactic space and returning along its skewed elliptical path.
Planet was in a panic. From what they learned about the ancient conditions of economic-feudalism and its resulting contentious society, they wanted nothing to do with the seafarers. By now The Astrolance had probably begun deceleration, in order to drop into an Earth orbit. That would mean 20,000 ancient passengers would want to

shuttle down to Planet and make themselves at home. Almost all agreed that could not be allowed to happen. But how to stop them? Planet knew no war. Science had created no weapon systems. Everyone agreed, no weapon systems would be created. Instead Planet’s scientists began modifying some of the anti-gravity technology used in their space vehicle propulsion systems to create repulsion beams which could be used to keep The Astrolance’s shuttles in orbit with the sister ship. The technology worked and this gave Planet’s society some time to decide how to handle the unwanted intrusion by these primitive, possibly disease-carrying intruders. Of course the worst disease the Astrolance carried was the early-humans’ archaic authoritarian form of government. No one wanted such a tribe anywhere near them. All evidence predicted that they would begin developing weapons and start empire-building, forcing out the People, or turning them into slaves.
But the people of Planet were peaceful and could not imagine engaging in a fire-fight to fend off the invaders. These “humans” were, after all, the People’s real ancestors. Someone suggested, maybe they could allow them on Planet by putting them under a zoo-like dome and allowing the populace to go gawk at them and their primitive warring society? Ultimately, the protagonist’s hearts could not imagine disrespecting their own ancestors in this way. What could be done?
The Astrolance finally arrived in Planet-orbit 22,000 years, nearly to the day, after leaving old Earth. The repulsion

beams did their job. No shuttles broke the bond with their ship. Special linguists who had learned the old Earthly common language, “English,” began conversations with the Captain of The Astrolance, who was pleading to be allowed to come to the surface. The Astrolance no longer had sufficient battery power to propel itself into a high orbit. Her orbit was decaying. She was doomed to an eventual re-entry burn up. The Captain is quoted as saying, “You must allow us to shuttle down, think of the humanity!” Yes, the protagonists were indeed thinking of the humanity, but not thinking kindly. What did Planet decide? While they vacillated, did The Astrolance’s orbit continue decaying, taking her down into a fiery destruction, along with 20,000 men, women and children? Or did someone on Planet come up with a way to save the humans? Do you, the readers of this synopsis have ideas? If so, share them. Anyone who does will be mentioned in the novel’s Gratitude Page.