Keeping control of a fleet of Earth colonists proves to be a bit of a struggle in this week’s Futures tale. Written by Brian Trent, The archive personality protocol tackles the big questions of space exploration. Here, Brian explains what it was that took him on this journey. As ever, it is best to the read the story first.

Writing The archive personality protocol

Human expansion into the galaxy will cast our species onto a Galapagos of the stars. Cruising at sub-light speeds, each ship will become a standalone island among an expanding archipelago. In fact, fragmentation is not only inevitable, but perhaps advisable, as no one knows what kind of socio-cultural system will best ensure long-term survival.

I wrote The archive personality protocol as an exploration of this idea while watching a meteor shower above my hometown. Lying out on a picnic table, gazing up at the streaks of light, I thought of how a mobile humanity would probably dissolve into competing systems of social, political and cultural theory. Like a whispering game passing through centuries of travel, what exactly would emerge at the other end of the journey? Maybe the diverse alien societies we like to imagine will, on a long enough timeline, be ourselves.

And of course, the notion also allowed for a playful skewering of foible and folly, from the basic interpersonal unit of Cynthia and Liza to the sprawling battle royal of the seedship fleet.

A very different life awaits the protagonist in this week’s Futures. In Transference, Jennifer Campbell-Hicks explores the difficulties posed by moving from your old body to a new one. When she’s not wrestling with such problems, you can find her in her original body writing for her blog. She has kindly volunteered to venture onto Future Conditional to explain the inspiration behind her new tale. As ever, this post contains spoilers, so please read the story first.

Writing Transference

One thing I’ve learned about writers: we love challenges. They stretch the brain muscles and help boost productivity. Transference came about from a challenge in a writers’ group to produce a flash-length story over one weekend, based on one of several prompts. The prompt I used: Someone made a bad decision, and someone else is paying the price.

The week of that particular challenge, I had dogs on the brain. My family’s 10-year-old boxer mix had been diagnosed with lymphoma. (Sadly, he died one week later.) I wanted to write about a dog, but in a humorous way. So I added into the mix a joke that my children like about how ‘dog’ is ‘god’ spelled backward, and I had the basis for a story.

Those in the writers’ group who read the story split about evenly in their reactions. Half thought the piece was hilarious. The other half thought it was terrifying. I have a sneaking suspicion that those who thought I had written a horror story are, for the most part, cat-lovers, not dog-lovers. For the record, I am both.

So, you want to submit a story to Nature Futures?

OK. Take a seat. This won’t take long. Don’t worry about the alien, he always does that when he sees strangers, it doesn’t stain. I’m afraid I can’t offer you any refreshments — the service droid blew a fuse last week and the spare part is stuck on a shuttle somewhere between here and Titan. But, as I say, this won’t take long.

If you’re sure you wish to send a story to the orbiting station that is the Futures submissions hub, it’s probably easiest if I upload the instructions via the mind link. Ah. Unusual. OK. Well, in that case I will have to spell out the protocols the old-fashioned way.

The very first rule is, I’m afraid, prepare to be disappointed. This is not a bad thing, but as for any science-fiction outlet, Futures can publish only a limited selection of the stories we receive, so rejection is part of the process (and it is honestly no more fun to issue a rejection than it is to receive one).

The second rule is that contributions to Futures are welcome from absolutely anyone, irrespective of whether they are writing their first story, or are professional or published authors. There are, of course, some basic requirements, so here are some frequently asked questions:

What kind of story is Futures looking for?

Futures is a venue for very short stories or ‘vignettes’ of between 850 and 950 words. The subject is typically near-future, hard SF, although this can be interpreted liberally. In short, what Futures is looking for is originality. To this end it is advisable to read as many previous Futures as you can, as stories that repeat themes already dealt with extensively are less likely to be considered than those that do something new and different. Futures does not consider reprints of stories previously published elsewhere.

How should I format my Futures story?

Please write it in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx). Include a title and your name and contact details at the top. At the end, please attach an autobiographical squib of no more than around 30 words.

How do I submit to Futures?

Please submit stories as a Microsoft Word attachment by e-mailing futures AT nature.com. Paper submissions will not be considered. Please note that this is a submission inbox and as such you will not receive an acknowledgement of receipt. We will, however, respond to you once your story has been read.

What happens next?

We aim to read all submissions within 40 days of receipt and we will then let you know what is happening. Sometimes, unexpected events such as solar flares and alien incursions through temporal portals will delay our response. Please be assured that if there is a delay, we will respond to you about your submission one way or another. Given the number of submissions we receive, it is impossible for us to provide detailed feedback on rejected stories, and authors should be consoled that stories are likely to be rejected for reasons of space, taste and the whims of the editor rather than literary quality. Appeals on decisions to reject, or rewrites of previously rejected stories will, regretfully, be accorded a very low priority.

What happens if my story is accepted?

If your story is accepted you will be sent a licence form to sign. Your story will then be edited and artwork will be commissioned. You will be sent proofs in due course, which you will be expected to return promptly. And, of course, you will receive a (non-negotiable) fee of £85 or US$130.

It really is as simple as that. If you want to access previous Futures stories easily, you could do worse than upload the e-anthologies Futures 1 and Futures 2 to your preferred reading device. Other than that, I’m afraid you’ll have to see yourself out as I need to finish plotting the coordinates for the next story’s release. Yes, the door does stick sometimes, just give it a gentle shove with your shoulder — oh, and mind the wormhole on the way out.

Ananyo Bhattacharya this week brings Futures a disturbing tale of strange goings on at the stock exchange in his story The buyout. As well as being a former editor at Nature, Ananyo has appeared in Futures before, with his story about the bizarre world of expectancy theory, which also appeared in the Futures 2 e-book anthology. Now community editor at The Economist, you can find out what Ananyo’s up to by following him on Twitter. He kindly stopped tweeting long enough to explain what inspired his latest story — as ever this contains spoilers, so please read the story first.

Writing The buyout

I think it was the crowdfunding site Kickstarter that originally inspired the story two or three years ago. We were supposedly still in the midst of a cataclysmic global recession triggered by the greed and myopia of the world’s bankers. Yet in Britain the economy and house prices were recovering, both fuelled by a consumer credit boom. What was pushing people to borrow rather than save in tough times? Who would suffer the consequences and who would ultimately profit?

The plot outline of The buyout began to coalesce in my mind around then, but it would not be until January or February 2014 that I would write a first draft. I proudly presented it to my historian wife, a playwright, a seasoned editor and a published science-fiction writer. It was quite clear that no one could make head nor tail of it. Why would anyone want to float themselves on the stock market when the consequences were so appalling, they asked? The consequences of not participating in rampant consumerism had to be worse than mere status anxiety, they said, and there needed to something more urgent driving the central character than a severe case of affluenza. They were right. I redrafted the piece a few months later, resulting (more or less) in the story that is published in Futures this week.

Bread is at the heart of this week’s Futures tale. Written by Beth Cato, Bread of life transports us into a difficult future where the human race (or what’s left of it) exists largely on crumbs. This is Beth’s third story for Futures — she has also given us the Canopy of skulls and has undertaken Post-apocalyptic conversations with a sidewalk. You can catch up with what Beth’s been up to at her website, where you will also find details of her novel, The Clockwork Dagger, and an exceptional selection of baking recipes. Beth kindly offered to reveal what inspired her latest story — as ever, it’s best to read the story first …

Writing Bread of life

I’m part of a supportive site for neo-pro writers called Codex. A recent writing challenge on the site asked us to consider story prompts on Friday evening and turn in a story by Sunday night. The result had to be under 750 words, and was subject to voting among other anonymous participants.

On this particular week, my prompt of choice was a Markov chain, a computerized jumble of text. As I skimmed through, one word stood out several times: ‘bread’.

This would make anyone who knows me smile and nod. See, every Wednesday at BethCato.com, I post an illustrated recipe in a feature called Bready or Not. I’m known for my evilly decadent cookies and other carbohydrate-laden recipes.

My brain churned through different ways to write a story about bread, and I thought of the actual meaning of the stuff. People enjoy my blog because love of bread and sweets is universal. How could I frame that within science fiction?

I wrote up Bread of life within the weekend. When I submitted it to the contest, I added a note, “I bet some of you will guess who I am by the subject of this story.”

Sure enough, within days a few folks did indeed guess my identity. It makes me laugh. Beth Cato = bread. That’s a word association with which I can happily live.

This month’s Futures story in Nature Physics comes from J. Kyle Turner, who highlights some of the less-explored issues with time travel in his story Better late. Kyle kindly offered to take time out from his teaching duties to explain how this story came about — as ever, this post contains spoilers, so it’s best to read the story first.

Writing Better late

Sometime last year — August, I think, or maybe September — an acquaintance of mine was part of a month-long writing challenge wherein the participants had to produce 60,000 words of original fiction over the course of the month. It didn’t matter what form the words took. Freewrites were just as valid as, say, chapters of a novel. The only real rule was the grueling pace of the thing, and as I’d been disappointed with my writing progress at the time, I happily accepted his invitation.

Fast forward to the fifteenth of that month. I was sitting in the corner of my school’s library, exhausted, blank notebook in front of me, and I was looking around the room for anything, anything that I could write about. I’d have settled for an odd-coloured shoelace, or maybe a word or two of someone else’s conversation, but as fate would have it, I caught sight of a poster that listed the days and times that the library was open. Only, instead of the words ‘Library’ and ‘Times’, the poster had been printed with the header ‘Time Library’.

Suddenly I had a building to write about, which did for an opening paragraph. But I needed a character, and I needed one soon, and so I thought, “Why not toss a bitter employee into the mix?” By then the throttle had really opened up, and the only things I needed to figure out were a) why my main character was so bitter about his work and b) what might cause him to come to terms with that conflict. Once I had the answer to both those questions, I had the first draft of Better late.

Futures this week sees the welcome return to its pages of Jacey Bedford with her post-apocalyptic story Mort’s laws. Jacey previously graced the pages of Futures with her story The loneliness of the long-distance panda, which also appears in the Futures 2 e-book. In the intervening time, Jacey has published her first novel, Empire of Dust, and has been readying the sequel, which is due in August. You can catch up with her activities at her website and if you’re attending Eastercon you’ll be able to catch her there in person. In the midst all this activity, Jacey has very kindly agreed to explain what inspired her to write Mort’s laws. As ever, this next bit contains spoilers, so read the story before going any further.

Writing Mort’s laws

In my head there’s a metaphorical bucket where disconnected ideas get dumped. Sometimes they jiggle around together and eventually some of them will rub up against each other and strike sparks. Gradually a story starts to emerge. Four separate ideas combined in the writing of Mort’s laws.

ONE
For many years I’ve skulked on various usenet groups for writers and every so often some troll asks the off-topic question: how do atheists know what’s right and what’s wrong if they don’t have the Bible to guide them? Yeah, I know, ridiculous, right? But ridiculous or not the idea went into the bucket. How many of us could actually quote the ten commandments from memory? If I try really hard I might get five or six. Let’s see … mumble mumble kill … mumble mumble bear false witness … errr … Of course, the one I’m not going to forget in a hurry is the one about coveting my neighbour’s ass. Yes, very relevant to everyday living.

TWO
Swimming around in the bucket already was the Marxist idea that religion is less about spirituality and more about social control. Maybe Marx had a point. Put up with all that life throws at you now because you’ll be rewarded in Heaven after you’re dead seems to be a common theme. The Sermon on the Mount is pretty much all about the rewards coming in the next life as long as you don’t make too much of a fuss about the lack of rewards in this one. It’s not just Christianity, of course, there are similarly themed passages in many holy writings from the Qur’an and the Bhagavad Gita to the Book of Mormon.

THREE
The late lamented Dave Brady from the a cappella folk group Swan Arcade used to say: “I’m not into God, but He wrote some good songs.” I can empathize with that. I’ve never participated in religion of any kind, but my age and my northern British upbringing make me culturally Christian even though I’ve been a declared atheist since the age of twelve. After seven years of hymns in morning assembly at school, I can still sing my way through Songs of Praise. I celebrate my version of Christmas, which is all about family, food, gifts, a honking great decorated tree, Dr Who on TV, and the turning of the year. And yes, I know all the words to the common carols by heart.

FOUR
I heard (or maybe read somewhere) about two soldiers in Wellington’s army arguing over the possession of a Bible, valuable not for its printed content, but because there were lots of pages fine enough to make good toilet paper. I figured after 40 years of fighting that paper for anything might be in short supply.

As a writer I’ve always been morbidly fascinated by post-apocalyptic scenarios, so in my story if I strip away whatever underpins our society and mix up all of the above ideas with a good old ‘what if?’ and an irreverent dollop of belief, not in religion, but in society and our basic humanity, here’s what I end up with …

What if a long war of attrition (against invading aliens) has almost destroyed the human race and the feral survivors are too young to remember what life was like before. How do they go about rebuilding? Maybe, just maybe, there’s one grizzled old atheistic veteran who still carries the imperfect remnants of his cultural Christianity. Ten basic rules to live by make a good starting point.

Sitting in a local hostelry the other week, I got talking to a strange man. He was dressed in a dark suit that had seen better days and that had better fit a previous owner. Creased and stained and smelling very slightly of camphor, the man himself was little better. But we exchanged pleasantries, as you do, made mention of the weather and accidentally found common ground over a recent article run by the BBC that mentioned in passing the viability of dragons.

My drinking partner, it turned out, was something of an authority on these lizards of legend and he insisted that there was more to the creatures than just a few fantasy tales involving knights in shining armour. To prove his case, he produced a scrap of paper (which I later recognized to be a betting slip that had lost him a fair amount of money) on which he scrawled a convoluted set of instructions. He grabbed my arm and said: “Take this to the British Library and follow the path.” He tightened his grip. “But tell no one of the route, that must remain a secret. Oh, and don’t back the favourite in the 2.30 at Haydock Park tomorrow.”

Intrigued I agreed to his demands, and he pressed the crumpled paper into my palm, necked my drink and walked out of the pub. I could do nothing but follow his instructions, and so it was I found myself ensconced in the darker recesses of the British Library the following day, following his instructions, which led me to a handwritten text hidden inside an old book. Although I am sworn to secrecy over the exact location of this text, I can tell you what it said.

Written in typical shorthand, it appeared to be an original page from Samuel Pepys’ diary. The paper had clearly been ripped from another book and at some point had been screwed up and probably thrown away, as it was very creased and somewhat stained. The text was relatively short and, to my surprise, I found that my hand was shaking as I copied it down. Having translated it from the shorthand, this is what I saw:

“September 2, 1666. Unbelievable. If mine eyes had not seen this for myself, I would give no credence to the account I am about to commit to page, but it is the truth of the matter and I cannot write a lie. The night was hot, and I had been abroad unusually late. I found myself not far from the river when I became aware of a commotion emerging from a nearby baker’s shop. There I encountered the shopkeeper who was arguing with his assistant over the ashes in the oven. In front of them lay what looked to be a large egg of lustrous hue. I enquired of them as to the source of their disagreement and as one they pointed to the egg. They had, it seems, uncovered the same from the back of their oven, too hot to handle. I was about to investigate further when the egg gave off a loud retort and cracked from end to end. Smoke and steam hissed from the gap. Needless to say, all three of our mismatched party stepped back and could only watch in amazement as a young winged lizard emerged from within the confines of its birthing home. That, I concede, was strange enough, but what happened next will forever haunt me. The creature turned to regard us with disdain as we stood frozen in the doorway; it sucked in a huge breath and then exhaled a stream of fire. Startled, we ran into the street and the baker was past the crossroads before I had chance to converse with him further. I resolved to repair to my house to rouse my companions and to investigate this strange beast. As I began my journey home, I noticed that the unfortunate baker’s home had caught alight, and as I left Pudding Lane I was filled with a terrible sense of foreboding. As time now shows, I was right to so worry. The conflagration that I later watched from Tower Hill had begun beneath my very nose. I resolved there and then to make no mention of what I had seen for fear that my friends would suspect foul play or an overactive imagination. Indeed, I am not even sure that I should leave this account in a place where it might be seen. I must give more thought to how I might account for the strange events this night.”

And there the note ends. Pepys’ diary is notorious for the relatively scant mention it makes of the events in 1666 that destroyed a huge swathe of London and for his initial dismissal of the conflagration as unimportant. And there lying in front of me was the likely reason why.

Of course, I must investigate this further, but events have again taken a turn for the strange. This week, an article has appeared in Nature’s News & Views section noting that the human race is sleepwalking its way towards disaster: evidence confirming the long-term existence of dragons has emerged. The article, co-authored by Andrew Hamilton, Edward Waters and Robert May (former science adviser to the UK government), reveals that humanity is creating the perfect conditions for a resurgence in dragons and issues a call to action that we would be foolish to ignore. My brief encounter with unpublished Pepys, suggests that the influence of dragons in our history runs much deeper than might have been thought. It is certainly a reason to reflect — and perhaps to exercise a degree of caution if you find yourself near a large, fancy egg any time soon …