Bouncing ideas!

[Drew]

I have been trying to write and brainstorm on this current story and it is going nowhere.

I am just asking for some input. What is good? What is bad? What would you do in this situation? I just want to bounce some ideas off of you and the people around me are just not cynical enough! Your loved ones will tell you that everything is perfect and they can't wait to read it!

So here it is in brief summation:

Thousands of years ago, the first humans lived on Earth. They thrived for many years and obtained technology similar to our modern-day technology.b A great storm passed over (think Atlantis) that forced them out in a mass exodus. Since then, they have been returning, slowly trickling themselves back into society and trying to gain a foothold for their final return.

Private researcher (the guy that the police and the PIs go to for info digging) Ethan Wells crashes his car. Afterwards, he begins having hallucinations (though he believes them to be real) of a man urging him to investigate the crash leading him through a chain of coinsidences and finally bringing him around to the final answer-he is an alien designed to awaken the countless sleeper agents spread throughout.

Meh, needs some work!

Any comments/encouragements/flames?

Thanks in advance!

--Drew

[TheEarCollector]

Well Drew, you seem to have a pretty good idea of where you are going with this (do you know how you want to end it? If you don't, no biggie).

I don't have any suggestions as to what to put the character through, BUT:

Start writing, just go with it, you might end up pumping out some stuff you wouldn't have throught of if you just sat there and thought. It has helped me on several occasions.

[Ward]

well, he is a digger for information right? maybe you should work out what sources he can consult in the course of the tale that would further the storyline, ie. he has vague ideas and memories of his 'true self' that lead to a certain line of inquiry; a strange archaeological article he remembers reading leads him to track down its author, an odd police informer hints that not all is what it seems. maybe, just thinking about the sorts of things this guy can regularly do can give you enough to let you know how he will react to the strange realization of his origins (or suspected realization, surely he must think he's going a little mad right?).

and like the ear collector says sometimes you just have to write, pick one scene you can handle without knowign all the details of the plot and generate it: all the little nuances of character and incedental details that fall into place can lead you in new, unthought of, directions. sometimes you just need to start a few pebbles rolling before that avalanche kicks in.

[Expendable]

I'm not sure I understand - is this researcher an extraterrestial alien or is he one of these ancient technologists whose been 'programmed' to access memories encoded in a special doubled strand of dna, passed through his line from the time of the destruction?

I can see the potential for personal conflict as this guy wrestles with his new identity. What he should do as a citizen of this country and as a member of this 'other' race. Others like him have to be aware he's waking up, possibly distant cousins as well as close relatives with some if not all the same memories.

Of course, the question becomes what would these agents do once they're awaken? If alien, they might have access to great technology but why implant agents in such a subtle way? If one of these ancient technologists, how much of their technology will have survived? And if its not overwealmingly superior to what we have now, what would be the point?

Isn't it possible that after several thousand years a good half of the population (if not more) might be carrying the genetic material of these anicent technologists? If these awakened people expect to take over, might they not find that some of their own are already in positions of power and not inclined to meekly hand it over? Unwilling to betray the humans they've befriended and lead?

your story has a lot of potential but I'm not sure we understand what it is you're looking for from us.

[Drew]

I'm not sure I understand - is this researcher an extraterrestial alien or is he one of these ancient technologists whose been 'programmed' to access memories encoded in a special doubled strand of dna, passed through his line from the time of the destruction?

I can see the potential for personal conflict as this guy wrestles with his new identity. What he should do as a citizen of this country and as a member of this 'other' race. Others like him have to be aware he's waking up, possibly distant cousins as well as close relatives with some if not all the same memories.

Of course, the question becomes what would these agents do once they're awaken? If alien, they might have access to great technology but why implant agents in such a subtle way? If one of these ancient technologists, how much of their technology will have survived? And if its not overwealmingly superior to what we have now, what would be the point?

Isn't it possible that after several thousand years a good half of the population (if not more) might be carrying the genetic material of these anicent technologists? If these awakened people expect to take over, might they not find that some of their own are already in positions of power and not inclined to meekly hand it over? Unwilling to betray the humans they've befriended and lead?

your story has a lot of potential but I'm not sure we understand what it is you're looking for from us.

I'll try to clear this up a bit.

I sort of misworded myself. The aliens have been coming back for centuries in the form of UFOs, abductions, etc. not exactly trying to fit themselves in. They have been watching and researching us to see how we have evolved and form plans for their return.

The "hero" is not fully alien. He is half and half meaning that he has his own mind and he has a second mind inside of him, an implanted alien persona. The aliens have made this method by breeding with the humans. His mother was impregnated by an alien and then murdered after giving birth to our main character. His father was also supposedly murdered though I am thinking about addressing this as well.

The subtle invasion? Here is how I am thinking of it... The aliens have been embedding sleeper agents and slowly activating them. When activating, they don't just go nuts and start firing, their mind is taken over by the alien portion. They look and sounds the same, but they have new motives. These aliens are putting themselves in key places in society (judges, policemen, and so on).

The conflict first comes in when the hero crashes his car and accidentally jars his mind, awakening his sleeper side. He then sees his sleeper side as a hallucination, but remains in control of his human mind.

Make any sense at all?

I am just trying to decide if this is a good idea and something I should run with. I am sat down and forced out a few scenes, but I have a few very different drafts going right now.

[JRMurdock]

Be wary of writting a novel based on Atlantis. You're delving into a topic that a good number of people know a lot about. Unless you're super-versed in Atlantian theory, I'd say steer clear or beef up your knowledge.

That being said, you've got an interesting premise. Perhaps you can do research yourself and include that researching into your work.

[Expendable]

I agree with Maus99, try to avoid Atlantis unless you're prepared to start reading Plato.

Some of my stories have had implanted personalities - is this implant impersonal, an artificial creation designed to drive the normal personality into doing its bidding or does it take over? Or does it come from a real being, one with its own personality and memories?

[Drew]

I was just using Atlantis as a familiar concept of a great storm. I am not planning to so much as include the word, but I plan to do some research on it anyhow just to get a clearer idea of such a great storm.

About the half-alien, half-human, this is a working concept and something that I would like to get some help with.

The way I am thinking in my rough outline now is that the alien (and this would really debunk my alien/human mating idea, not that that is a bad thing) has implanted an artificial reality into the human's brain. This artificial being has the knowledge of the alien race, and has the ability to take control of the human's brain upon activation. It is like an incredibly persuasive AI to be honest.

Please keep the ideas coming guys! And don't take it any easier on me, Expendable. You are getting my mind flowing. Perhaps a little thinking during class tonight and I can begin to let the words flow this evening.

[TheEarCollector]

Well if we are just going for ideas...

When I was little I hypothesized that humans were in fact the science fair experiments of an alien child gone wrong. They couldn't keep us there because we enjoyed breaking stuff too much and you can't just go around introducing new elements into your environment like that, so they plopped us down on this planet.
The reason for UFO sightings is that their scientists return to probe us, examining our evolutionary changes and observing our behavior. The only question then is why they choose to abduct only rednecks and members of low social classes, thus giving their research a skew and making their records slightly inaccurate.

[Expendable]

Or maybe the UFOs are from our future where global warming and pollution has caught up with us. We're mutating from our own trash and a profound lack of an ozone layer. The only choice then to save humanity is to go back in time and collect various biological samples with which to rebuild the failing ecosystem and inject fresh material into the gene pool.

So they collect tissue samples and other um... materials.

And they pick rednecks and other isolated people because they're hopefully furthest away from the sources of pollution. Or hoping that nobody will believe them.

[KatG]

What has aliens that put sleeper alien minds into human bodies have to do with pre-history high-tech humans exiting from the planet? Not that I'm sure that they exited from the planet, exactly. The backstory as you've worked it out is less than clear. Perhaps this is the problem? And what exactly do the aliens want to do with all these sleeper agents?

[Drew]

What has aliens that put sleeper alien minds into human bodies have to do with pre-history high-tech humans exiting from the planet? Not that I'm sure that they exited from the planet, exactly. The backstory as you've worked it out is less than clear. Perhaps this is the problem? And what exactly do the aliens want to do with all these sleeper agents?

The way that I am seeing it right now is that the aliens left all those years ago from the storm (what about this idea? too cliche?) and lived on their new planet until about fifty years from the present. They have watched us for years and wanted to reintegrate themselves into our world and with their fellow humans. But as they watched us, they saw us tearing our world apart, fighting wars, and in order to save ourselves, they have taken to slipping themselves into positions of power to invisibly stop our self deterioration.

Geez, the more I talk about this, the more it sounds like a huge cliche!

[Jay232]

Drew, I don't think you're idea is too cliche, I think that it is the work of a very imaginitive mind. I like the idea, I would definitly pick it up to read. On that, I like the other's ideas of coming up with details of his investigation and the aliens being from the future to help the earth in which we currently destroy. One question, how much background are you putting on your 'hero'? e.g a look into a past investigation before the crash so the reader can catch on to his tactics, or maybe he is in the midst of an investigation when the crash happens, say on his way to an interview or to check out a really good lead? As for how the story ends, I don't want to push you towards ending ideas because I believe that the ending is REALLY important and should be written and planned greatly. Maybe towards the end after he discovers his 'other half' that's inside of him, he could try to fight it? Or maybe the alien race isn't out to help by their return, but out to harm (that's too cliche, but could work) I mean, they are planting these half alien/half humans all over the planet, right? maybe this 'hero' can try to contact his alien 'family' and talk to them of their intentions for the return??? Just some ideas- maybe it will trigger a different geneous idea.
*J*

[Expendable]

There's also the technology question - the aliens are about as advanced as we are? We can't travel between stars except by the long slow method. With what we know now, it would take us at least 40 years just to reach our nearest neighbor, Alpha Centauri, only 4.22 lightyears away.

So what if your aliens are fleeing an ecological disaster on their planet? Makes much more sense that way. They might have been prepared to travel for generations living inside a nickle-iron asteroid that's been converted into their ship just to get to our planet and the hope for a new life. They might have even figured out how to put most of their people in cryogenic suspension so to bring more without using up too much resources. Even then, they probably couldn't bring very many - several hundred to a few thousand maybe. Plus whatever they could bring as frozen ova and sperm or whatever they use.

Only they didn't expect us to be here....

[Palenval]

Ok, just a few points that I think you should work on.

1) Don't call them humans and aliens. Calling them both is simply confusing since decades of Science Fiction has ingrained into our mind the idea of aliens not being human. Come up with a new name for them(like the Ancients or something, and for the sake of discussion with other, refer to them as something simple where it is obvious that they are human, just no longer native to Earth).

2) The tech level of the Ancient Humans is too low to really be able to send themselves into space in any form of an exodus if they fled from a disaster in the past. I say too low because we ourselves wouldn't be able to flee from said disaster given our current tech level or probably anything within atleast 50 years. If anything, I would say that the Ancient Humans had a vastly superior desire and development for space making them better equipped for a mass exodus to space than we could be.

3) Another question that you might need to answer is about the remnants of the civilization. I know that is kind of the first thing to come to my mind when I think of an ancient civilization that disappeared. Either there will need to be some strange archeological finds that might hint to the ancient civilization, but are inconclusive or the disaster would have had to have been so great, that I don't think there is any known equivalent(more thorough destruction than that which destroyed the island of Thera near greece).

Also, if artifacts remain of the ancient civilization, then you can use them to help guide the main character to achieving the goal(s) you set for him.