Knock Knock: an interactive sci fi serial (Part 2)

PETERMBALL Works in Progress

Part two of my sci-fi serial where readers get to choose what happens next. When we encountered the three-person team manning Remote Research Station Denki back in part 1, they were surprised by a mysterious knock on the door…and no details appearing on any scans. Readers go to vote on how they responded, and I’ve included the results below!

Two readers had very specific suggestions (one bloodthirsty, one polite), but overwhelmingly, the response was opening the door and letting the visitor in.

With that, it’s time to kick off part two.

KNOCK KNOCK (A Serial With Reader Interaction)

Part 2: Boarding Procedures

Tse raised the first tentative hand, stealing a glance at the airlock door as she did so. “Not sure how long that’ll hold,” she said. “Whatever’s out there might not be hostile, but we know a breach will mess us up.”

Finn squared their jaw, masking the gut-rending surge of fear beneath a veneer of command stoicism. “Luce?”

“No way in hell,” Lucy said.

Finn expelled a long breath, fingers clawing at the armrest of their chair. No majority meant the decision fell to them, and the guilty voice inside their skull smugly reminded them they were in charge—it always should have been their call. Finn screwed their eyes shut, blocking out Lucy’s pleading look and Tse’s wary anticipation. Denki’s hull could withstand meteor impacts at velocities up to 55 meters per second, and the design had survived worse in testing. Tse’s fears had merit, but the shell was sturdy – if their visitor could break in, they had bigger worries than decompression.

“I vote we open,” Finn said. “Cautiously. Luce, get ready to pressurize the airlock and break the seal. Tse, break out the boarding kit, just in case they’re hostile.”

Finn’s orders elicited curt, efficient nods, but nobody moved to comply. They were all braced for the next knock, waiting for the echoing boom against the hull, and its absence felt more terrifying than its presence might have been.

“Maybe they heard us,” Tse joked.

They exchanged a long, nervous look in the aftermath, then silently turned and went to work. It was easier to ignore the creeping whisper that Tse’s joke might have been genuine consideration when they were in motion.

The navy didn’t equip remote research stations for major trouble. Their boarding kit comprised three telescoping pikes and gel-packed shotguns designed to take the fight out of boarders without puncturing the hull. Theoretically, enough to hold off a raiding party, on the off chance a pirate crew found themselves this far out and desperate. Ill-suited to a more focused raid, where protocol demanded the crew surrender or blow the station, depending on the odds of surviving the assault.

Tse slung a shotgun over one shoulder, underhanded a pike to Finn. They caught it one-handed and took a position by the airlock, telescoping the weapon to its full two-meter length, sharp-blade pointed toward the door. Standard precaution against boarding; in theory, it didn’t take many pikes to hold a narrow bulkhead or airlock, but in practice Finn felt like they were trying to stop a hurricane with a toothpick.

BOOM… BOOM! The station shook, and Finn dropped into a wide stance, giving themselves stability for the fight ahead. Tse fell into place behind, covering the doorway with the gun. Lucy’s fingers danced across the console. “Still nothing on the sensors, but we’re ready to open on your mark, Cap.”

“Do it,” Finn said. “Let’s meet out visitor face-to-face.”

The hiss of pressurization freed Lucy up to join Finn at the door. She extended a second pike and fell into the same wide stance, training taking over despite the nerves and uncertainty. Finn sucked down a deep breath and steadied their breathing, but couldn’t hide the wince as the magnetic seals released. The airlock slid open, two halves parting for the central seam. Air hissed out as the two chambers matched pressure, and the down-lights in the airlock cast a bright sheen against the black, chitinous shoulders of their intruder.

Any thought that it might be human evaporated in that instant. The intruder was large—easily two feet taller than Tse, the tallest of their team—and wore an encounter suit unlike anything Finn had encountered in fifteen years as a spacer. The black lacquered armor gleamed and shimmered in the light, and it lacked the sleek, body-suit design humanity had spent two centuries refining, moving away from the overstuffed marshmallow suits used during their first forays into space. The visitor hadn’t moved since the seal broke, one arm raised to knock once more, even without the door.

Instinct told Finn to lash out, test the pike blade against the thick armor plating. Get some confirmation self-defense was possible, that they weren’t engaging in a futile effort. Training kept him from making the wrong move. “I’m Captain Dagda Finn of the SolGov research station Denki. We mean you no harm, but we’ll defend ourselves if you take hostile action. Please identify yourself and lay down your weapons.”

The intruder lowered a bulky arm, but offered no verbal response. The ponderous weight of its helmet adjusted, fixing upon the pikes and the nervous humans behind them. Finn swallowed their fear and held their ground, prayed neither Tse nor Lucy would break. “We mean you no harm,” Finn repeated, keeping their voice steady and even. “We ask you to identify yourself, or leave our station in peace.”

The intruder inched forward with ponderous inevitability, its vast bulk floating atop the floor rather than taking a step. Finn tensed, lizard-brain flooding their system with adrenaline as it screamed warning that anything that flowed with no apparent means of locomotion was unnatural to a degree worthy of terror. The rational part of them seized upon the far more terrifying revelation: anything that could manipulate gravity and levitate like that, particularly on the personal scale, operated at a level of technology far more advanced than humanity’s efforts.

Adrenaline coursed through Finn’s body, bringing with it the aluminum taste of fear. Lucy’s hand terminal chirped, and she risked a glance at the details. “No life signs in the suit, or and they’re not broadcasting information. Internal sensors can’t get a lock on the chemical composition of their encounter suit—”

“DESIST.”

The word reverberated through the station, delivered in a resonant baritone that filled the room like a physical force. Lucy swallowed and adjusted her grip on the pike, steeling herself against the order. Finn envied her resolve, felt nothing more than an urge to turn and run.

As if there was anywhere to go, beyond the cramped quarters and living area the researchers occupied during downtime.

Finn swallowed their fear, focused on the job. “Desist what? The scan?”

“DESIST.”

Tse rose to her full height, the shotgun tucked against her shoulder. “Three words make a sentence, asshole. Subject, verb, object. If you don’t give us—”

“DESIST!”

The word rolled out like a battering ram, knocking Tse to the floor. The shotgun skittered beneath the console, and Tse’s head smacked the floor hard enough to rattle teeth. Lucy tensed up, ready to lunge, and the intruder’s blunt head twisted to fix her with a bug-like eye. Tse moaned softly, stunned and unable to rise.

“Permission to engage, Cap?” Lucy hissed the question between clenched teeth, the words threaded with anger.

“Negative,” Finn said. “See to Tse.”

“Sir?”

Finn stared at the black glass orb of the intruder’s eye and held their pike at arms length. One thumb to the trigger and the weapon contracted to a neat baton, easily stowed at the belt. “My gut tells me we aren’t going to crack that armor with pig-stickers and riot rounds, and anything that can knock Tse over with a shout can do worse to the station itself. Tend to our injured while I negotiate.”

For a moment, Finn worried Lucy wouldn’t obey. The small woman’s fingers clenched tight on the pike, the blade point dancing like a hummingbird as her own flight or fight instincts waged a war inside her. She risked a glance at Tse’s crumbled form, and the shotgun half-hidden beneath the console, and reached a decision. The pike telescoped into its compact form and Lucy nodded her acknowledgment of the order.

Finn returned their full attention to the intruder and raised both hands. “Weapons away. Scans halted. We’ve complied with your request to desist. You obviously have a command of our language, so I’d ask again: identify yourself. We’re a science team on a research mission, and—”

“DESIST.”

“Desist what?”

The intruder floated a few inches closer, came to a halt two inches short of Finn’s position. The alien had didn’t look down, and up close Finn could make out the dents and chips in the armor. Damage from fast-moving micro-debris, the result of long-term exposure to the fragments hurtling through the void at high velocity. Whoever their intruder was, it had endured one hell of a beating and come through no worse for wear. Finn doubted any weapon they had aboard was going to a damn thing against armor that strong. Hell, they doubted blowing the station was going to put a dent in an opponent who wore an encounter suit with armor plating most station engineers would envy.

For a few empty seconds, Finn allowed themselves to sink into the importance of the moment: odds were, their intruder wasn’t entirely human; odds were, they’d made first contact between humanity and whatever species was locked away inside that suit. Odds were, they were making history, assuming they didn’t fuck it up and get Denki station torn apart by pissing this damn thing off.

Finn sucked down a long breath to steady their nerves. “Luce, how’s Tse doing?”

“Beat up, but still breathing,” Tse answered, her voice weaker than Finn would have liked.

“Probable concussion,” Lucy added. “Hit her head pretty good, cap.”

“Can you get her to med bay?”

“Negative.” Tse clambered to her feet, taking each movement slow. She limped over to stand beside Finn, arching her neck to stare up at the insect-faced helmet. “I ain’t turning my back on our friend here, not until we got more intel to work with.”

Finn caught Tse’s eye, acknowledged the tall woman’s resolve with a nod. “Alright. Let’s try this another way—no scans, no weapons, just some good old-fashioned research work. Tse, you give us some space, ‘cause this is going to get stupid. Luce, can you hand me a hand-terminal? We’ll try another scan and see if that’s enough to provoke another’s defensive response.”

The clatter of movement behind them alerted Finn that Lucy had other ideas. They half-turned, caught sight of her dropping into a defensive crouch by the main console, Tse’s discarded shotgun trained on the intruder. Her finger rested against the trigger, ready to open fire.

“I’m afraid I can’t comply, cap.”

Finn swore. That was the problem with fight-or-flight in space: too few damn places to run to…

You can vote for what happens next using the form below.

The vote will stay open until Midnight, July 13

Action, Reaction, Jackie Chan, & Gunpowder Milkshake

PETERMBALL Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

I often start workshops on story structure with the warning, “after this, you’ll never be able to go to the movies with non-writers again.” Lots of folks think I’m joking, but it’s essentially true: the three-act structure is the source code for an awful lot of TV and movies, and understanding its core beats means you can map out the bulk of a plot from a handful of details. 

For me, this resulted in a different kind of enjoyment, more focused on teasing out the how-and-why of creative choices and where things go wrong, but there are plenty of folks who don’t enjoy that. Like, for example, my beloved spouse, who was so irritated by my response to the first three episodes of Star Trek: Next Gen that we’ve basically agreed to watch nothing Trek-related together for the sake of our marriage. They love the TV show unconditionally, and I…um…let’s say “sit there marveling at just how far TV storytelling has come in the decades since.”

So, consider this a warning: the rest of this post is very much me meditating on a particular thing films and TV shows do, and once you know it, it’s impossible to unknow it. It’ll change the way you watch films and TV, affect some of your favourite action flicks, and potentially irritate people who watch things with you,

Still with me? Cool, then let’s talk about choreographing action. 

Back in June, we watched Gunpowder Milkshake for the first time. My beloved had been eager to see it at the movies, and we missed it because of the pandemic, so it became a birthday treat for them and, frankly, we both loved it. The colour schemes; the glorious B-Movie violence; the slow parade of every bad-ass female actor you’ve ever wanted to do more action movies; hyper-violent fairy princesses with guns; Carla Gugino with a battle axe! I’ve seen plenty of reviews which are down on the film, but it’s occupying a very specific niche for a very specific audience, and my beloved and I are of that audience.

Except, once again, the creator’s curse reared its ugly head in the heart of all those fight scenes, because I kept getting distracted by the creative choices made by the stunt team. For a film that was hailed as a female John Wick, it misses the one fundamental thing that made John Wick’s action so compelling.

In John Wick, the stunt crew kept action and reaction in the same frame, a technique that’s used in of Hong Kong cinema and one reason their action sequences are so interesting (also the reason Hong Kong action stars tend to lose something when they debut in US produced films with US-trained stunt teams). John Wick is famously a film pulled together by a stunt crew, focusing on the stuff they’re often not allowed to do on screen.

In Gunpowder Milkshake, the choice is made to split action and reaction in the more traditional American approach to stunts; they’re good, but stylistically different, and for the bulk of the film, whenever Karen Gillen’s Sam throws a punch, they’ll cut to another camera angel to showcase the reaction to the blow.  I’ve linked a video to Every Frame A Paintings video essay on Jackie Chan films, which touches upon the issue. 

The video essay is a fascinating piece that explains so much of why Chan films work, but unlike the bulk of the things I first learned from the Every Frame A Painting series, I’d already picked up the use of this trick via a deep dive into Pro Wrestling storytelling. Long-time producer for the WWF, JJ Dillon, once did an interview about the things he disliked about the current product, and the thing he mentioned was the decision to cut away at the moment of impact.

If you’d like to see what he’s talking about, consider this clip of John Cena’s debut match in the WWE. The action starts about two minutes in.

The entire sequence is about six minutes of showtime, of which two are wrestling, and about 80% of the moves hit in that two minutes see a quick cut to another camera angle. This is one of my favourite WWE matches ever, because it does an awful lot in those two minutes, but once you see that particular editing trick, it sticks with you. 

In fact, it uses almost as many cuts as this twenty-minute match from the wrestling company the first really captured my heart, Ring of Honor, which created a more compelling and believable match with a lower budget through the simple expedient of setting up the hard camera and pointing it at the ring.

Because the camera switches aren’t selling the seriousness of each move, the wrestlers have to convey how hard they’re hit, how much it hurts, and how they’re reacting with their own bodies and facial expression. There are camera switches deployed, but it’s done judiciously and to add detail, not as a default flourish.

Of course, there’s a flip side to this: because the camera switches aren’t doing some of the work, the wrestlers who aren’t as good tend to struggle, and the wrestlers have hit a little harder (in wrestling parlance, working stiff or snug) because you can’t rely on the camera covering your mistakes. In an industry that’s already taking a huge toll on the performers’ bodies, it’s a little more wear and tear, and it’s not forgiving to newcomers. 

But wrestling and film action rely upon chains of logic—the slow accumulation of action and reaction that escalates and leads to decisive moments that change the direction of the story, and ultimately lead to a climactic moment. And while there are ways to bridge that gap (see my prior writing about writing lessons from wrestling), you have to a) nail it, and b) your delivery using those bridges will feel a little hollow when lined up against someone who both nails it and strings the chain of action/reaction together in a more believable way. 

The intriguing thing about this particular technique is just how much it changes your viewing experience and understanding of where thigs go wrong. While it’s immediately obvious in action films, I watched the much-derided Max Payne film after learning about it for the first time, and it’s astonishing how much momentum that film loses by splitting action/reaction shots during its big mid-point reveal. 

On the plus side, I actually enjoy Max Payne because of that, but such is the creator’s curse. Once you learn how things are done, you’re constantly looking for ways they’re used…and how you (unhampered by budgets and production constraints) could improve things by doing it a different way and getting a stronger effect. 

Looking to level up your writing and publishing? When you’re ready, here are some ways I can help:

Patronage: Want to ask me questions directly and be part of a great writing community? Join the GenrePunk Ninja Patreon!

Books I’ve Written: I’ve got a few books on writing and the writing business, including the collection of some of my best writing advice: You Don’t Want To Be Published and Other Things Nobody Tells You When You First Start Writing.

Books I Publish: When I’m not working on my GenrePunk Ninja Projects I’m the editor and publisher behind Brain Jar Press. We’ve published several books and chapbooks about writing, drawing on advice and presentations given by some of the best speculative fiction writers in Australia and beyond.

On Transformation and Estelle Butler

PETERMBALL GenrePunk Ninja

Warning: long quote incoming, but an excerpt worth reading:

In June 1947, a baby girl named Octavia Estelle Butler was born in Pasadena, California. 

Known in her early years as simply “Estelle,” she was raised by a single, widowed mother who worked domestic jobs to make ends meet. Painfully shy and introverted from a young age, Estelle became an easy target for bullying at school, which led her to believe she was “ugly and stupid, clumsy, socially hopeless.” Her shyness combined with mild dyslexia made schoolwork difficult.

 In response, Estelle turned inward to her own imagination and outward to the Pasadena Central Library, where she would spend countless hours reading fairy tales and horse stories, and later, the fantasy and science-fiction novels that would eventually inspire her to become a writer. 

Despite the odds stacked against her, this young woman would eventually become one of the most successful and influential science-fiction writers of her generation, winning multiple Hugo and Nebula awards (the genre’s highest honors) and in 1995 becoming the first sci-fi writer to receive a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. 

But Estelle wasn’t always so successful. Her teachers at Garfield Elementary School evaluated her earliest writing harshly, with comments like “Hyperbolic” and “You’re not even trying” scribbled in the margins.2 An elementary school teacher once asked, “Why include the science fiction touch? I think the story would be more universal if you kept to the human, earthly touch.” The teacher reported to her mother that “She has the understanding, but doesn’t apply it. She needs to learn self-discipline.” 

When she was twelve years old, Estelle watched the 1954 film Devil Girl From Mars, a sensationalist B movie that was so terrible it convinced Estelle that she could write something better. She recalls, “Until I began writing my own stories, I never found quite what I was looking for . . . In desperation, I made up my own.” 

As the possibility of becoming a professional writer slowly dawned on her, Estelle began her transformation into “Octavia,” whom she thought of as her powerful, assertive alter ego. Octavia took on a series of temporary or part-time jobs after graduating from high school: clerical, factory, warehouse, laundry, and food preparation gigs—anything that wasn’t too mentally taxing, and that allowed her to maintain her routine of waking before dawn each morning to write. 

The emerging Octavia made three rules for herself: Don’t leave your home without a notebook, paper scraps, something to write with. Don’t walk into the world without your eyes and ears focused and open. Don’t make excuses about what you don’t have or what you would do if you did, use that energy to “find a way, make a way.”

Forte, Tiago. Building a Second Brain (pp. 145-147). 

Noting it here because I’ve now learned more about Octavia Butler’s life and process from a three-page except in a book on taking notes than I ever have in twenty-something years as a science fiction fan, and I’m not sure if that says something about me or about the SF field in general.