Blue

This
is the blue I am obsessed with. Often, I just call it "Copper (II) Sulphate Blue" (CSB) because that's the blue (approximately) it exhibits. I don't know why I am obsessed with it, but it happened suddenly during my primary school years.

It's like asking why some girls love pink. I can't give you an exact answer. This blue has troubled me over the years which I failed to understand the reason I fall for this.

What I do know is that, I love Neptune the most when I was four, fascinated but unable to quench my own thirst about what lies beneath Neptune since space exploration those days (till now) hardly made it to Neptune.

Then I developed a strong taste for the Pleiades Cluster (above). I don't know. I've heard these stars had significant effects on New Age people. I am allegedly naming myself a New Age person. If you want to ask me how to define New Age, it's hard to tell, because we feel it coming, like the surge of an invisible tsunami overwhelming your spirtual sense, heightening your spatial sense and emotional level.

OK, back to topic. You want to know why I posted this?

I want a marble, jewel or crystal with that blue. Maybe an orb or irregular crystal, I just want to take it! The urge of that is unbearable! Can somebody please buy me that?

Please...

L41187

"How long?" she asked.

"72 hours, maybe less," he replied.

"Can we survive that hit?" she asked again, eyes locking at his.

He flipped through a few pages of a thick book of nonsense about some evil antagonists taking over the world. He inhaled.

"Mr President, can we survive that hit?" she repeated.

He looked at her, observing her sad eyes. He shook his head. "No. No, we can't. Nobody can."

"You do realise we our doing live telecast, so I have to ask you this and it will not go uncensored: what is your best hope?" she reached her microphone closer to his lips.

He thought.

A meteor seven hundred metres at its widest point, lozenge-shaped, had been zipping past Jupiter and heading straight for Earth. Its speed was boosted by Jupiter's huge gravity well. And now, it had reached top speed of eight times the speed of sound. Hypersonic.

A month ago, nobody reported seeing any incoming celestial danger. There was one huge Trojan asteroid as big as five kilometres minding its own business. It was labelled and categorized properly as L41187. Then something happened to that asteroid. Something slammed on it and chipped a piece of from it.

And that piece headed towards Earth.

When it was discovered, the people realised it was too late. Nuclear missiles were fired, but turned off at the very last minute. The missiles were too slow for the chip. By the time the missles intercepted the chip, the chip would have entered Mars orbit. Scientists feared of contamination of the virgin Mars.

But now nobody could devise a better plan.

"My best hope," he began, "is praying. I urge everyone on this blue planet to stay calm. We can do nothing but bring ourselves closer to God. Wash away our sins. Help each other. All the useless wars we had, we must stop. We must forgive."

"You strike us as a very religious person, Mr President," she said. "Do you believe God will save us?"

"Do you?" he asked back.

She startled. "I believe that this is our punishment for all our sinful and silly acts. We deserve it."

"Look at the countries at war. Will they think like you do?" he questioned. "It's just a filthy rock reported three weeks ago and now every nation is fighting over each other for food and water and shelter. Where is the love? Nuclear warfare is on the verge of erupting. I am glad my nation stays out of the war. Look at that country," he pointed at the computer screen. "Tell me if there's anyone left on that area."

She went silent.

*

25 hours left.

"Is it ready?" he asked.

"Yes, Mr President," General Sully replied. He opened a huge metal door.

"How many?" They both entered. A blue glow washed over them.

"Easily 400. But till now we have got only a hundred and seventy-three. Some are on the way and some died."

"Died?" he raised an eyebrow.

"Shot down by rebels and wars," General answered.

"Alright, my condol-"

"There's one more thing, Mr President," General began.

"Yes?"

"Two hundred containment units went faulty. We have no experts to repair them, let alone time. The ones who are already inside were toasted."

"Is there a place for me?" he asked.

"Certainly, Mr President," General Sully answered.

"Then stop worrying about those. Get me into my unit and I will see you later."

"Regarding on the L41187, does it exist?" General asked.

"Yes, what makes you think it doesn't?"

"Then why I need to activate code L41187 for the missile launch? It coincides badly with the asteroid's name. There was a failed Jupiter exploratory mission whereby the craft Copernicus' Flight went faulty and can never reestablish contact. The last transmission sent in was two light seconds away from Jupiter, that is, close to L41187. Coincidence, isn't it?"

"You think too much, General. L41187 asteroid was named long before the activation code came to my hands. The code restructured to be similar to the asteriod name because it is easier to recognise the target-lock of the missiles. We don't want any wrong missiles firing, don't we? As for that poor chap lost in Jupiter, it remained lost."

General Sully nodded.

"How many countries are beyond hope?"

"Around ninety-four, Mr President. They will be doomed by the time the chip slam in."

"Good, get me onboard."

"Do I have a unit for myself as well, Mr President?"

"Did you sign up?"

"No, but there seems to be some empty units over there," General replied.

"Wait till you are left with 30 minutes. If the casket remains empty, you are allowed to come onboard."

"Yes, sir."

General Sully sealed the door of the unit, leaving the President in it. The casket was a top-secret military unit for cryogenics and life support. It can inter-switch roles. Radiation, heat and any known toxic or physical damage are nothing to that caskets.

General walked out of the chamber and took an elevator to the President's office. He noticed the book the President always read. The book about an antagonist take over the world. He took it and opened it up.

His nostils flared and eyes went red.

"... R and D caskets. They must be done within five years. Deploy and prepare Copernicus for orbit interference on L41187... Reprogramme coordinates of missiles... Destroy Copernicus after chipping using mass drivers..."

So, it was the President orchestrating the doomsday...

He read on, and he felt limp:

"Self-note: real event takes place 24 hours earlier than own speech."

And he saw a glancing white light in the skies.

A Biased Review on BLUE REMEMBERED EARTH

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"It is necessary to speak of beginnings..."

That particular phrase opens up on the first page far (not that far) before the Prologue section. And Alastair (or Al) closed the book with a good twinning phrase: "We spoke of beginnings, at the start of this. It is well now to speak of endings."

One of Al's bookfan mentioned that this is the only book which Al uses three words as a title: Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap, Century Rain, Pushing Ice and many more. And another good (bad) news: it's a trilogy (of a sort).

There are a lot of trilogies out there swarming the bookstores, like The Hunger Games, or something as epic and classic as The Lord of the Rings. Al has his own trilogy in store: Revelation Space. But this time, it's different, I can tell that. The upcoming two more sequels are not really a direct sequel, but rather, lay in a much larger major plot line, or story arc. So don't expect continuous flow of reading. You can read the second book without the other three. It's semi-independent.

Blue Remembered Earth is a masterpiece of his works. I have all of his works. I read all of them, each with distinctive flavour, and this Blue Remembered Earth is the only book that made me want to cry. It has a happy sad ending, or sad happy ending, whichever you want it to be. But definitely not the sad kind in romance film, or which everyone dies in the end. It's a sadness of both nostalgic and awe that we are still babies in the universe.

The title itself struck me in my heart. "Blue remembered Earth". A pale blue dot in a vast cosmos. What have we, as humans, done to preserve it? Pollutions and wars. Business and industries. Where is the blue? Where's Earth?

Geoffrey and Sunday Akinya are the two main characters of the story, dotted by various interesting people like their cousin Hector and Lucas, as well as the Panspermian Initiative and the whale-woman. Set in the 2161 year, we can still find traces of our local tech, although economics have pushed as far out as to the Kuiper Belt. So, there would be no ridiculuous incomprehensible tech like teleport and time travel. You would feel comfy at home.

If you are too pushy on plots, this book could pose a danger to your mind because there are tonnes of new ideas "fizzing off every page". These new ideas do not relate properly to the storyline but actually serve as a base for the future two books, convincing readers that something like robotic organisms is not impossible. Some of the new ideas (spoilers!) include, well, robotic Darwinian evolution, dwarfing organisms and extreme bioenginnering of human bodies.

Geoffrey and Sunday (siblings) are from Africa whereby it has bloomed to be a major economic force in the world, and they are the descendents of the powerful matriarch Eunice Akinya (their grandmother). When their grandmother died, she left clues for her family to pick up. Oh, and mind you, the first clue you stumble upon, Geoffrey was right.

The search does not end on Earth of Trans-lunar space, it goes beyond till the Kuiper Belt. The adventure doesn't end. The sightseeing doesn't end. Every time the characters go to a new place, you have to relax and breathe in the sea of words and description, particularly the underwater city of Tiamaat.

There are so many worlds: the savannah of Africa, the blue waters of Tiamaat, the grey-white of Moon, the arid red desert of Mars. The colours are so blinding that you would stay awestruck for few seconds.

Besides, Al made us ponder on issues like: is it our imperative to spread life across the universe? is a world free of crime good for society?

Speaking of free of crime, Al created a Mechanism for this book, an All-seeing God that would annihilate any possible crime in the entire solar system, except the Descrutinized Zone on the Moon where Sunday lives.

It's a book of wonder, no doubt. Wonder as in wonderful, or thoughtful. It meant both. Get the book now and start soaking yourself in a brand new way of story telling by Alastair Reynolds!

Visit his website here: www.alastairreynolds.com. You can even email him or blog-comment him. Further information can be found on his website.

Oh you want to know why I made this for Al?

Because I only love Al's story-telling and friendliness to readers!

How To Kill A Planet

Now you have learnt how to kill a star after I posted the blogpost. So this time around, I am going to teach you how to kill a planet.

PLEASE DON'T TRY AT HOME.

1. Whamming
Some of you might think whamming a planet-sized asteroid, or simply a planet the size of Mars to the surface of the Earth might crush the Earth into jagged pieces. Well, newsflash, it won't. It will only send heat shockwave around the Earth and back, peeling of its outer crust, leaving a smaller size Earth.

True, I tell you.

Let's upgrade the size of the whamming object into the size of a Jupiter. Terrestrial planet. I mean, a rocky planet of Jupiter size. Well, I would say Earth can be annihilated if the collision is perfect. Otherwise, the immense pressure beneath the Jupiter-sized Earth will be released like a bomb, killing itself before colliding.

2. Burning
Let's induce a solar flare from our Sun by pumping it with gravitational energy. A whip of flames can be produced and strike towards Earth if the calculation is correct. A solar flamethrower (yeah, this can be found in my novel. XD) is created.

First it strikes our atmosphere, removing it like stripping your blanket away by your mum. Then it boils the ocean into vapour and scorch the Earth into cinders.

The Earth stays.

OK, Earth is strong. Gotta admit that. But to really remove and destroy Earth, you have to keep burning the same direction till it reduces to ashes. Literally. But in order to do that, you must have almost the energy of the Sun can produce in about a million years.

Yeah, talk about energy efficiency. This method is OUT.

3. Sucking
Yup, when talk about sucking in space, it always go down with the term 'blackhole', a region of tightly warped space that even light cannot escape. We can persuade a proper blackhole into the crust or mantle of Earth. Yes, proper blackhole, not mini-blackholes because they evaporated into Hawking radiation.

The blackhole will consume the Earth's matter and slowly ingest it. It wouldn't take long before the heat surrounding the blackholes accretion disk to melt down the crust and turn it into hot plasma.

4. Shining
Ignite a gamma-ray burst from a nearby massive star. You can do that by inducing a premature supernova. The gamma-ray burst can be directed to the Earth.

Gamma-ray burst is a jet of light of high energies and radiation. The burst can blast away the atmosphere in seconds and boil away ocean in a blink of an eye. By just minutes, the heat can travel to the night side of the Earth and incinerate everything.

But the Earth is tough to be destroyed. You need a continuous burst of gamma-ray till the Earth is reduced to ashes. That would take some decades, or even centuries if the intensity of the gamma-ray burst reduces.

5. Cancelling
This is obviously rare. In order to wink the Earth out of existence, you need a large sphere of antimatter of almost the size of Earth. Antimatter is somewhat the opposite of matter. Its electrons are called positrons as they are positively charged and its protons are antiprotons, which are negatively charged.

The collision between matter and antimatter would cause each other to annihilate, leaving a bright light of energy that shines through the galaxy. Don't understand? What you get by adding +1 and -1? You get zero. That's it. The atom poof and gone into energy.

How large that energy is going to be? E=mc^2. If the mass is gone, you get E=c^2. Now you get it.

But antimatter of such size is unimaginable, and impossible to survive in physical space for long period as they will be annihilated every second by ordinary matter.

6. Stretching
OK, maybe one blackhole isn't enough playing. Why not try two instead? By placing two blackholes at opposite sides of Earth, the Earth can be shred into pieces. Term? Spaghettification.

Nothing much to say here. You know how it ends.

7. Strange... just strange
Normal protons are made up of 3 quarks, and so do the neutrons. They consist of up quarks and down quarks bind together by something called gluon (glue + on). Now, there is one hypothetical particle, called a strangelet, or a strange particle. This particle is strange because it doesn't have up quarks or down quarks, but other strange quarks like charm quarks. Ah, in simpler terms, it is not usual and normal.

This strangelet is very metastable and reactive. Once it touches another atom, it transfer its 'strangeness' to the victim. Which means, any atom reacts with strangelet will become strangelet itself.

So, throw a tiny strangelet to the surface of the Earth. In no time, the entire Earth is transformed into strange matter of gooey surfaces.





Now that's how you kill a planet.