Plant: Drosera capensis (Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?) Not all of Earth’s monsters were myths, and not all of them remained on Earth when they had the opportunity to escape. Of all of the great menaces from humanity’s distant past, a few managed to leave the solar system and find new lairs, where they hid and dreamed of greater days. Others found welcome among similar…
Category: Backstories & Fragments
Backstories: "Rotor" (2022)
Plant: Nepenthes “Rebecca Soper” (Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?) With enough dedication, almost anything can become a source of energy. Gather enough dead flies and pile them up, and the options increase, depending upon the gatherer’s needs and resistance to revulsion. When that pile of dead flies encompasses the known universe, the only question is how much energy a project needs and how long it…
Backstories: "Saga of the Gold Moai" (2022)
(Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?) For every subculture, there’s that one seemingly unattainable artifact that sums up the hopes and dreams of so many of its members. For computer buffs, it’s a piece of Charles Babbage’s original Difference Engine prototype, complete with Lady Ada Lovelace’s holotype programming guide. For chess fanatics, it’s the original Morphy Watch. For comics people, it’s the hope of finding a…
Backstories: "Auger" (2022)
Plant: Nepenthes albomarginata (Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?) As with so many stories of successful and famed sports, the great Arowana Trailblazer didn’t start out as entertainment. As originally designed, the Siouxsi Bessemer sampling drills were designed as automated surveying and mining probes for asteroids and other potentially hazardous environments. Dropped from high-altitude platforms or launched via parabolic slings, the tips of each drill generated,…
Backstories: "Kirby Dots" (2022)
Plant: Nepenthes veitchii (Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?) (With severe apologies to Mojo Nixon) A prayer across the universes, from Asgard to Apokolips: “Jack Kirby is everywhereJack Kirby is everythingJack Kirby is everybodyJack Kirby is still the kingMan o manWhat I want you to seeIs that the big K’sInside of you and me.” Want to get caught up on the St. Remedius story so far?…
Backstories: "Repeater" (2022)
Plant: Cephalotus follicularis “Elizabeth” (Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?) Considering that a classic trope in science fiction was the ironic ending, it’s just as ironic that those using science fiction tropes never saw the ironic ending until it hit them in the face, such as the “Messages From Earth” DVD left on Mars that required a viewing format that was already completely obsolete upon its…
Backstories: "Ironwood" (2022)
Plant: Nepenthes bicalcarata (Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?) At what point is an organism classified as a plant or as a mineral? The flora of the super-Earth world Jessamine pushes the absolute edge of the definition of either. With just short of twice the surface gravity of Earth, Jessamine’s indigenous multicellular life forms already had enough of an issue with impending collapse, and then one…
Backstories: "If the Sontarans Don't Find You Handsome, They Should At Least Find You Handy" (2022)
Plant: Nepenthes “Bill Bailey” (Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?) In the fall of 1989, much was made of the cancellation by the BBC of the classic science fiction television show Doctor Who. Buffeted by both governmental budget cuts aggravated by the rejection of an increase in British television license fees and an understanding that the show appeared cheesy and dated compared to theatrical and television…
Backstories: “Biovocation” (2021)
Plant: Pinguicula gigantea (Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?) The Trota system is already full of wonder and danger: its primaries are two very small red dwarf stars locked in an orbit of less than 1 AU, and tidal stresses on each other trigger intense ultraviolet flares that blast the rest of the system. Even with, or because of, that cosmic contact juggling act, the six…
Backstories: "Tomb of White Plume Peaks" (2021)
Plant: Nepenthes “Miranda” (Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?) (This backstory is dedicated to Saladin Ahmed.) Throughout the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, the development and expansion of popular acceptance of role-playing games of all sorts was paralleled by a similar expansion in live-action role-playing games (LARPs). Ironically, the expansion of augmented reality applications created a whole subgenre of LARPs in which everything was as real, considering…