Ever since college, I've had a long term goal of becoming a fiction author.  The problem is that while I can crank out words fast, their quality is oh so poor. I'm just not cut out for serious writing.  I can be mildly amusing in a pinch but drama, eck.

During my senior year of college, I actually started on the first part of the "back story" of the main set of stories I've had in my head.  My wonderful aunt agreed to edit them. And so I handed in the first few chapters and any illusions I may have had as to the quality of my writing were shattered by my aunt's gentle explanation that my writing needed work. Having looked at what I wrote since, she was way too kind.

The game we made, Galactic Civilizations, takes place in this universe. But only in the most superficial way. I hope in a sequel to be able to do more. Depends on a lot of factors though such as will some future publisher try to own the rights to any characters and such created.

I did put some of the back story in the history of Galactic Civilizations article. But it just scratches the surface.

I have two other story concepts in my tiny brain bouncing around. In brief here they are:

The Alternative Timeline

Main character and partner in the 23rd century must follow an unknown number of terrorists back in time starting in the year 1775 in North America to fix (as much as possible) the damage they did.  The characters go back fully armed with whatever they can carry but have no way to return. However, there are some perks: 1) They age only very slowly (like half a year per decade) and 2) As time passes, they gain in super natural powers due to the nature of the time field (Which is what was the incentive for the terrorists to go back in the first place). Super natural powers being mainly increased strength, increasing levels of invulnerability, very fast reflexes, etc. 

So the series follows the main character and partner through their adventures but deal a lot with trying to go into depth on what life was like during the various periods.  For instance, a modern American would not do well in 1775.  Underwear? Forget it.  You're going to be wearing wool, if you're lucky and it's not going to be soft. The food would make us sick due to microscopic organisms, and we would be physically uncomfortable most of the time.  How long can you go without a shower before you are breaking out in a rash? Could you go 3 months? And so on. 

The stories are an almost guided tour of what different eras in history were like to live in. I got the idea after reading a non-fiction account of what life in 10th century England was actually like. I'd be dead in a week.

He who would inherit the earth

In this story, we're in the late 21st century.  Earth has discovered that it's not alone. It was attacked by an alien force. The only reason humans weren't wiped out was because they had underestimated the pace of human technology. Basically, World War II saved the human race due to the massive technological leaps that were made during it and shortly after (atomic power and weapons, computers, the internet, rockets, space travel, etc.).  But from a captured alien office we learn that they will be back. But because of the distance between Earth and the invading alien world, it will take 100 years for the next force to get here.

The leaders of Earth recognize there's no way to fight off a huge invasion force. A small force nearly took out all of Earth's military forces combined. The next time there will be no stopping them.  Unless... The humans figure out that while they aren't currently smart enough to solve the problem, they resort to genetic engineering to bring into the world humans are who much much smarter, stronger, faster, etc. to try to solve the problem.  Each country is left to its own ideas on what they should do.  Some countries make incredibly intelligent humans (IQs that are off the charts).  Some focus on making humans who are much stronger, tougher, and can be cloned enmass to act as foot soldiers.  The story really revolves around what the North Americans do for it has long term consequences.  The NAs genetically engineered humans aren't as intelligent as some country's are.  Nor are they as strong as the other alliance of country's group.  But they are smarter and stronger than most humans but more importantly, they are still human. That is, they can still reproduce with normal humans whereas the other genetically engineered humans can only reproduce with others of their own species.

The story revolves around a main character starting in childhood. Their goal is to come up with some way to defeat the aliens when they arrive.  But at the same time, the government, which is portrayed as being pretty competent, is also thinking of the aftermath. The Americans take the optimistic view that mankind will win out and the real concern is what will happen after the aliens are defeated. Are we creating a race of beings who will turn on them? Whereas the other projects believe that the aliens are the immediate concern and if we survive we can deal with comes after that later.

A lot of the story focuses on the different cultural differences between the North Americans, Europeans, and Asians.  North Americans, in the story, tend to be far more optimistic, perhaps a bit naive. They've never seen true devastation or suffering like the Europeans or Asians.  The Europeans tend to be a bit impatient with the American "It can't possibly happen to us" attitude.

But what makes things really interesting is seeing how the super kids in America get along with other kids. They're like nerds but with almost super human athletic abilities.

But the aliens do indeed come and one wonders what the super humans have come up with and who will ultimately inherit the Earth. The aliens, humans, or metahumans.