Toward the topic: "Spaceports"

Author's Commentary: "Lost on Port Cullen"

For some reason, spaceports called out to me this week. I still haven’t gotten organized enough with social media to put up a proper poll to ask the audience, but I’m confident that by next month, I’ll be taking on a topic suggested by the audience, which should be fun.

I got lost on this spaceport, and I definitely enjoyed my time there. This week, I’ll be releasing the first story talk on my Mechanics channel discussing “The First Man” and I’ll see how the first few days go, but I think “Port Cullen” is a strong candidate for episode two.

This story follows a quest plot, and I’d say it’s bit of an unconventional one. I’m not sure why “Spaceports” called out to me this week, but it seemed like there was a big gap in the map of the Battery, which seems to come into clearer focus for me with each story set there. There are definitely four major areas, and I knew there needed to be a travel hub where people could transfer between ships to the major worlds of the four territories. Interstellar space is the proper place for that hub, no doubt, and Port Cullen seemed like a good name for it. I thought a good way into this place would be to explore the political tension that would inevitably exist for a neutral port in the center of a diverse and conflicted set of colonies. I figured I’d explore it through the people least positioned to understand their plight and change it. Enter the historian. I started with an image of a boy with a black eye, and the quest was on.

Next week, we’ll be diving into some space habitats—a cylinder group in the Garvin 8 system called Exos. The story’s still developing, but will be here by Thursday. Hope to see you then!

Thanks for reading!

Rowe