Monday, January 29, 2007

Documentary Inspiration

Written by Kodi Wolf at 4:37 AM

So, I've been watching all these documentaries on the Discovery Channel about the technology of the future, as well as current cutting edge technology, and they've really gotten me thinking about some of my stories.

For The Trine (working title), it's helped me figure out the hovercar technology I want to use in the story without having to resort to fantastical anti-gravity tech, which felt really wrong to me for that story (I think it works great in P.O.W.). By using permanent magnets (which means no maintenance and no power usage) buried in the streets, with low enough magnetic fields that they wouldn't affect pacemakers, etc., vehicles with shielded electrically-powered repulsor magnets could be used to make the cars hover, with rotating magnets working for propulsion (or turbines would be cool, too). They'd probably still need retractable wheels for travelling on surfaces that didn't have the embedded magnets, but it would still be effective. It also fits right in with the backstory of an earthquake demolishing L.A. because the new tech would be added in during the rebuilding.

For New Gaia, it's got me wanting to completely rewrite the entire technical side of the story to introduce "green" tech: wind power, water power, solar power, hydrogen fuel cells, etc. It's what I would have put in the story if I'd known about it from the beginning. Of course, there's a ton of other stuff I need to fix with that story, but most of it is technical; the relationship/emotional stuff is pretty much exactly how I want it.

Anyway, here's another Mambo tip for myself:

• To create an in-site link, start from 'content/' and leave off the base URL.