Mining LJ for ideas

[stillsostrange]

My neck withstood shoulder stand and plow pose this morning, so I think I can safely climb in a bit. But now it's time to talk about vague ideas in hope of sparking something solid.

A while ago, matociquala gave me a sandbox challenge: no Lovecraft, no romance, no transformations, set on Yap. I decided that to make it a real sandbox, it should be SF. (Okay, so a real challenge would be litfic or something, but no.) I set the idea aside and went on with life. But last week it started to bubble.

First it decided that we couldn't use Yap, because matociquala has the planet Yap in Undertow, and probably doesn't want me writing weird-ass fanfic in her nice universe. So I decided to make the planet Ulithi. A nice little ocean planet full of archipelagos and atolls. Then a few characters started to trickle in. Vern the cop (sorry, magicnoire) and her (ex?) partner (played by Natalie Mendoza and a young Gary Busey, respectively). Morgan Freeman and his jaunty pirate earrings are wandering around looking for a name.

Having cops running around, I realized that the plot should be modeled on 80s cop/action movies. Hence the recent Miami Vice marathon. Speed boat chases! Smugglers! Shoot outs in kelp beds! Pet alligators!

And then the real trouble hit--a title. It even stole a title away from the Fishsexstravaganza, which in fairness wasn't putting out at all. So now I have an unbook called Salvage. And from that title I know it's a book about vigilantism and revenge, about rescue and redemption, and of course about hauling things out of the sea.

So now I need a few other things before I can start to grow a plot: a shiny SFnal idea, a thematic question or argument, and aliens.

I'm half-tempted to swipe some sentient kelp and mysterious kelp girls from a lesser-known Herbert book, but I'll see if I can't think of something else first.

Anyone have any clever ideas?

Comments

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

It's okay. ilona_andrews has already stated her intent to steal my name for future use. Everyone else might as well get a piece of the action too.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Not *clever* ideas as such, but... I'm interested in what grows on intruding irritants -- coral reefs and pearls. I'm thinking, given the title, that it could be interesting to see what grows on intrusions that are originally extraterrestrial, not just extra-oceanic. Maybe the original one was an accident, and now they're not supposed to keep contaminating the local environment, but people do because there is a market for the result. Maybe some of the people who have come to love the place best can only afford to stay if they take part in this trade. Maybe the undersea habitat is changing, and something that lived there is going to have to change its habits to survive...

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Oh, you just gave me a lovely image to use. Cookies for you!

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Yay cookies! :)

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

I read an article that I can't get out of my head, so I'm giving it to you.

There are groups of whale hunters in both Alaska and Russia that have permission to hunt a certain number of whales per year. It is a tradition going back to the beginning of their history and a major food source for them. The Grey Whales they hunt aren't endangered anymore, in fact the numbers are very healthy.

But over the last few years, a growing percentage of the whales they take are inedible. The meat and blubber of the whales just reeks and is really foul. The whale hunters have taken to calling them "stinky whales".

The theory is that because of global warming, the ocean currents are shifting the whales food source away from their migration path or just killing it off altogether. So the whales have been forced to eat other things and it is throwing them into ketosis. Because the pods numbers have increased, the food they are meant to eat gets even more scarce and the number of whales that stink keeps increasing.

There are so many ways you could twist that on an ocean planet. Introduced creatures, native food sources, the vigilantes being blamed, extinction, deliberate actions to bring down governments or ruin industry-- tons of things.

And if you use it, then I can get it out of my head and pretend it was never meant for me. :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_eljefe_/]

No no no, the kelp isn't sentient.

But it does release the particular soup of chemicals that allows the oceans to think. What's really cool is that they/it have learned to manipulate the environment to even out the seasons. It didn't like getting stupid in the winter.