The Rules
Added here is a bit of a back-and-forth between Tim and me about what our rules would be from the start. And as typical between us, we started out with rules and great intentions and then ended up doing whatever the Hell we wanted to.
Okay Tim, here we go. As we discussed at the con, let’s keep the tech to what we have now plus no more than 20–50 years with no new physics breakthroughs. We should maybe have a list of 10 to 20 weapons that we can choose from. Perhaps we allow each author to develop 1 device/weapon/tool themselves for originality if they desire. But the rule on that weapon is that it can’t be new physics just new engineering.
I’ll start up on an introduction chapter to introduce the Red and Blue teams and the story behind the engagement which Ringo and I already brainstormed. The general premise is that the Red Team is holding the base. They took a team of scientists there to test a new type of energy source. Let’s say it is a quantum vacuum energy collector, but they moved the experiments to the Moon because small—very, very small—tests on Earth went really wrong and blew up multiple city blocks with a microchip-sized experiment. So these guys were being altruistic and cautious.
Big note from hindsight here: We didn’t use any of that stuff from the above paragraph. Tim actually came up with a much better idea called the Mimic. You’ll see as you read through.
But, the Blue Team fears they are building a WMD to wipe out an entire continent or more. And even if it is just a new energy source it would destabilize the market and change the balance of power on Earth. So, neither team is good or bad. They are just Red and Blue. There should be heroes on both sides as well as baddies. Also, I think we should allow it to be permissible to set off the device as a doomsday alternative to keep it out of the enemy hands. This, of course, is a last-ditch effort that would kill everybody Red and Blue.
Okay, everyone feel free to chime in on this and/or start writing. Let’s get the dialog open and the writing started.
The writing then started and it took us nearly four years to get to the end of this book. And it looks a lot different from the proposed evolution in the paragraphs above. But that’s okay, I like how it turned out. I hope you will as well!