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Reloaded
I stumbled across a neat idea a while back while swapping email with a friend. Somehow the concept of saved computer games came up. That segued to training programs on a computer and being able to retake them. Combining the two together, add in a hint of virtual reality, and all of a sudden I had a wonderful twist to add to a new Vitalis book I was thinking about. A way of training people who are in a deep hibernation sleep to preserve their bodies while they travel through space.
The first thing is, my newest Vitalis book actually starts before the original Vitalis book did. A group of wealthy and influential people are fed up with how the Terran Coalition of Systems is handling the extent of human civilization. So fed up that they’re willing to start over and try again. Armed with massive wealth and resources, they group together to build multiple colonization ships and hire the best talent they can get to serve as crew and colonists. In the year 2175 they depart, each ship heading for remote reaches of space where they can establish a foothold and try to live life free of the TCS rule.
For the Aphrodite things get very interesting. A new system is discovered after more than thirty years of traveling through deep space. A system that was hidden to the longest reaching telescopes by a massive black hole. Now that they’ve found it, it shows more promise than any of the systems being explored. Enough to warrant a thirty six year dip into the black hole’s gravity well so that they can approach it with only a few weeks taken out of their lives. Seventy one years after the Aphrodite launched, it has arrived at a possible new colony.
All that remains is to launch an expeditionary force to investigate the plant life surrounding a lake on the planet. Take a few samples, verify the planet is stable and hospitable, and then return. Nothing to it.
What they could never expect was what humanity isn’t the first visitor to this planet. The life on the planet was not set to naturally evolve for several million more years, but the interference of a fallen asteroid sped things up. An asteroid not so different from the ones that have landed on other planets through the universe and prompted terrestrial and genetic upheaval. The same kind of asteroid that turned Vitalis into the planet it is today.
But for all the expeditionary force must overcome, adapt, and endure, the planet needs to do the same. Compromise is possible if two parties can reach an agreement and an understanding. Just as annihilation is possible when one side convinces the other they’re willing to compromise.
With all that said, Vitalis: Reloaded is finished! Not just finished, but finished, submitted and available. Check the links below to find your favorite vendor and snatch it up. I’m trying to get a print version available to, but Amazon is being difficult regarding the cover creation for it.
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