Aug. 31, 2016

Science catching up to my novel

It's been a long time since the last blog. No excuses, just didn't do it. Now with "Forgiven" completed and readers getting a view of the ongoing story, there are a couple of things I'd like to write about.
I tried hard in "Forgiven" to base what I wrote on current day science, taking the liberty to add a few creative touches here and there and doing some extrapolations as to what might come.
It is no coincidence that I chose the Alpha Centauri triple-star system as the home world of the aliens who finally make contact with Earth. Given my thesis that the human species is partly a product of the colonization of earth by extraterrestrials, and given the time frame, I needed to chose a close by star system that might have planets. And I chose Proxima Centauri as the location of the home planet of the aliens because the fact that the star is a brown dwarf, it would be harder to locate a planet there than it would be around other stars.
The proximity of the star and planet to Earth was also important to my story. I wanted the colonization of Earth to happen on the early side of technological development of the planet because at that time they would have not solved the problem of how to travel at, or faster than, the speed of light. In fact, with current technology on this planet, scientist estimate traveling at one-tenth the speed of light is possible, just what I had my aliens traveling during their initial colonial mission.
The recent reports (the week of Aug. 21) that a planet was discovered orbiting Proxima Centauri was very exciting. In that story, it was estimate that it would take 58 years for us to reach that planet. That's the same amount of time I said it had taken my aliens to reach Earth on their first colonial mission.
Ten thousand years later, during the time "Forgiven" is set, the aliens, I call them Progenians in "Forgiven," have discovered how to beat the light speed barrier. In my book I call the mechanism they use a "slingpoint." I will be explaining more of that in the next book, but it again will be based on current-day science and where recent discoveries regarding light, gravity, and magnetism might take us.
It was fun to see real science support some of the suppositions I made in "Forgiven." I hope my readers have shared the enjoyment.