Solarpunk Collective

An excerpt from today's writing. Last night, the guard returned to my cell. In fact, there were three of them. All masked and dressed in those rotting, moldy robes. One replaced the great clam shell, one searched my room and the other placed a stack of papers on my desk. Two of them left, and one remained. It indicated that I should sit, and then it stood behind me, clicking and chattering. I looked at the papers. It was my writing. But it wasn’t what I had written. The great clam shell spoke in its flat, empty voice. “There is confusion in your narrative.” The carved ivory device was translating the clicks and clacks of the guard. The breathy, percussive sounds that issued from beneath the mask were speech of a kind I had never heard before. But such details barely registered at the time. I just sat at the desk and stared at the story, feeling the walls pressing tighter around me. Never had I been so aware of the suffocating reality of my imprisonment. My text had been conver...

This is a sample chapter from a project I'm working on. It is the first two chapters of a fantasy story. I hope to get some feedback and ideas about what works and what doesn't.  They say that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. I don't know if that is true, but as I find myself running out of choices and approaching a time when there may be no more left to make, I am filled with the urge to go back and examine those I made on my journey to this point. The most sensible way I can think to do that is by starting at the beginning of my story and working forwards. I will attempt to truthfully document my perspective on the events of my time, and their tragic culmination. Who are you, oh reader of my story? Will you understand the world I lived in, or the people and places that existed there? Many are now gone, and in the future, there may not even be a memory of their existence. Now is a time of collapse. And that is something that spreads. Small failu...

I got the call on my beeper just after lunch. Not much of a lunch, just an old unlabeled tin that turned out to be beans and vegan sausages, cooked on our solar stove on the roof of the squat. Downstairs I waited in line to use the community deck, anxiously tapping my foot and looking at the old patched LCD of the beeper, waiting to see if a second call would signal that the run had been cancelled. It hadn’t. When I finally got to sit down at the ancient computer and check my mail, the coded message was clear. I had barely enough time to put together a team and run the five blocks to the target. There was Otter, our physical pen expert. A tall, lanky dark-skinned bloke, he got his name from his unusually extensive body hair. That and the fact that he was the only one of us who could swim. Jewel considered herself to be a ‘leet hacker and at least had a discerning eye. She usually acted as appraiser for our runs, helping us decide what was worth taking and what should be left ...

"Our aim should not be to secure a somewhat thicker slice of bread today, even if this would make us happy; we must not forget what our real aim is. Our main duty is to consider the needs of others. If we become alive to this duty, there will be no unjustly treated people in our midst, and we, in turn, shall not be treated unjustly. Our day-to-day motto should be: "Your problems are also my problems." We must extend our friendship and strengthen our solidarity." Anna Walentynowicz A few months ago, I started working on an idea for a Solarpunk Role Playing Game. At the time, I felt it was possible to leave the setting completely open, so that GMs could design their own worlds. It can be hard work though to create a compelling universe for people to visit, and having some backstory, shared elements and persistent elements which wouldn't change from game to game would be something that would appeal to hosts and players alike. Since then, I've ...

ONE Contrary to popular imagination, velomobiles are not silent. Rushing air whistled over the enclosed cockpit. Autumn leaves crunched under the tires and Cassiopeia’s own breathing echoed in the cramped space of the vehicle as she labored over the pedals. Trees rushed by either side as she drove deeper and deeper in to the Great Midland Forest. Cassie hit a downhill stretch and took a breather. She watched the speedometer slowly tick up to 60kph. If she turned on the power assist now and added her own effort to the pedals, it was possible to get it up to a hundred. But it was terrifying to travel so fast in such a fragile shell, so she just sat back and enjoyed the short rest the slope afforded her. Eventually the road turned in to a narrow, grassy track, and then to a barely traveled, weed choked path. The last kilometer to the outpost she had to use the power assist and raise the suspension. As the little composite shelled vehicle trundled over the mounds of weedy grass, ...