TA Lucas

Have you ever stopped to just wonder at the world we live in?  In the past few years, my job has afforded me the opporunity to travel–places like California, New York, and Georgia to name a few.  I’ve got to visit the ocean, and stand upon mountains, and it has me to thinking–how much of what is around us do we actually miss?

A few years ago I created a list of things that I wanted to do.  I don’t want to call it  a bucket list…that sounds a bit morbid and sad, but it’s my list of things todo!  This list is not grand, by any means, but it serves to remind me of what I’ve already been blessed with, and helps me to be aware of my sorroundings.  If you haven’t done so, I would encourage you to create one.  Yes, I mean physically sit down and write a list.  A mental list will not do…It will often be forgotten.  I keep mine on a flash drive that I carry in my pockets.  Here are some of the things that are on my list.

• Be debt free
• Write a science fiction book
• Write AI software
• Teach in a University
• Visit all 50 states
• Go scuba diving

One of the best all time games is Age of Empires II with the conquerors expansion. I hadn’t played it for a few years, but I have been getting into it again.

I’m not sure what it is about the game, but it’s one of my favorites. I’ve tried other similar games: Empire Earth, Age of Mythology, Rise of Nations, even Age of Empires III doesn’t compare with the AOE II experience.

I think our biggest obstacle to a galactic or universal civilization is distance. Even in science fiction, most writers don’t really comprehend the distances between stars. For example, the closest star to our sun, Proxima Centauri, is about 4 light years away—thats 4,246,603,200,000 miles (4.2 trillion). At 25,000 mph, speed of current technology, it would take us 20,000 years to get there. That’s the closest thing to us…take a look at atlasoftheuniverse.com to get an idea of the distances in our galaxy and universe..

In thinking about time—years, months, and days are all based off of the workings of our solar system. There have been various methods of measurement…pounds, grams, inches, centimeters, the hand, etc… but our measurement of time is pretty standard around the world—that’s because the sun, moon, and earth are common to all the inhabitants of earth and our days, months, and year are built from them. But someone on a different planet orbiting the sun, or on a planet in an entirely different star system wouldn’t measure time the same way. Mars takes 687 earth days to complete its cycle, so an earth year to someone on Mars would mean very little. A Venerian year is only 225 earth days, but a day on Venus lasts 243. How would you like a day that’s longer than a year?

RabiKi.com is really starting to develop. It’s been a slow start, but the aspects of the site that help us world-build are falling into place.

We now have a style manual–which is a document that helps a group of writers stay on the same page…it covers topics like capitalization, punctuation, paragraphs, and units of measure. So one writer doesn’t use pounds, while another uses grams…etc.

I’m currently working on a tech manual–its pretty much a glossary of technical ideas. I’ve not added much to it yet.

Also a good friend of mine, Enn from allforart.com, allowed us to use his writing tips on our website. Pretty good stuff. Check them out, and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a good author.

RabiKi.com is a snapshot of the future…it’s the year of 3572 and humanity has evacuated Earth for life on Mars. Hopefully we can we can get it right this time…as we reach further to the stars. What do you think life will be like in a few thousand years…come and add your ideas to our collaborative works…

One of my main projects right now is creating a science fiction World Building site.

…Well since you asked, World Building (wiki article) is creating a plant, creature, city, planet, universe, etc. with words, pictures, or story-telling. As you can probably tell, I like science fiction–I love to watch movies, read books, and as of late…write sci-fi.

The word RabiKi is a combination of two ancient Sumerian words that mean old earth. The concept was birthed during my years in college, when my friend Jason and I would go hours into the night playing our favorite game, Age of Empires II–nothing quite like taking a cannon galleon and totally decimating an enemy’s shore line, before slipping off to sleep. One night we talked about how cool it would be to create our own game, and tossed around ideas for a while, but never went much further.

A few years ago, in a mad search to find something to fill my science fiction craving, I came across a fantasy world-building site that really caught my interest. The Fargoth World building Project, a fantasy world building site, provided an outlet for my creativity.

So….both a passion for science fiction, and a desire to create a collaborative futuristic world, inspired rabiki.com–a science fiction world building experience.

Rabiki.com is set a couple thousand years in the future. The earth’s natural resources have been depleted, and the planet has basically become a dump–literally, and it’s inhabitants have moved humanity to Mars. Well…except for the criminals and the poor, but that’s another story.

Well here’s my first official post on my new site ta-lucas.com.  On the site you’ll find many of my interest…..so take a look around, and drop some comments if you like.   CYA!