Pack your toothbrush, we're going to space...

The universe is an incredible place.  The sheer vastness and mystery of it has inspired wonder, dread and exploration since the first human eyes looked up at the stars.  New images from NASA’s Webb Telescope allow us to peer through time and space, displaying the vibrance of swirling galaxies and glittering nebulas whose light is only now reaching us from billions of years ago.  It should come as no surprise that so much of the science fiction genre stems from the outlandish and alien frontiers that lie waiting to be discovered by both intergalactic travelers and those of us that read about them in our favorite stories.  If there’s other intelligent life out there, what would it look like?  Would it look like us?  Act like us?  Would that be a good thing?  These are some of the key questions that my novel, Prodigal Seed: Indigo 03, seeks to explore.

Initially set in the not-too-distant future of 2090, technology has improved, geopolitics have continued to shift, but humanity as a whole has largely stayed the same.  Amidst the squabbles of their time, the only thing everyone seems to agree on is that earth is in dire need of resources.  So much so that the United Nations have begun an initiative to build the world’s first fleet of interstellar spacecraft.  With each of the five main ships a city unto itself, eligible crewmembers from every nation would be given the chance to colonize new habitable planets and harvest them for valuable materials.  It would mean a fresh start and a bright new age of economic growth.  At least, that’s the lie being fed to the public.  In reality, a very different scenario secretly unites the governments of the world—extinction.  A comet of lunar proportions is hurtling towards earth, leaving only a few years for the powerful and elite to escape aboard the newly constructed ark ships.  But with the assured destruction of our home, where else could we possibly go?  How could we realistically get there without faster-than-light travel?  Let’s take a closer look at Indigo 03 and see where science meets fiction.

Part of the reason we’ve always been stranded on this gorgeous blue rock is because we’re lacking in the most valuable resource of all—time.  The average human lifespan has improved quite a bit over the last few decades, but even the most spry of us can only last about 60-80 years before our warranties start to expire.  Couple that with the fact that “space” is just as the name implies.  Everything is incredibly far apart.  Galaxies, solar systems and the planets they contain are light-years away, making conventional forms of travel impossible.  Even if we could build a rocket capable of flying as much as 3% the speed of light (which is theoretically possible with constant acceleration in the frictionless void of space), it would take over 33 years to travel just one light-year.  That’s not including a round trip.  As for any habitable earth-like substitutes, new planets are being discovered all the time, however, when it comes to finding a suitable planet in the “Goldilocks Zone” (not too hot, not too cold, perfect distance from its sun with water present), we’re talking about a potential range of 5 to 500 light-years away.  In other words, you probably won’t arrive anywhere worthwhile until long after you’ve started decomposing.  Fortunately for the characters in Indigo 03, humanity has found a solution in cryogenic stasis.  

Now, you’re probably thinking, “‘Cyrogenic stasis?’  Isn’t that when you put people to sleep in a freezer?”  Well…yeah, basically.  True, it’s a fairly common trope in science fiction, especially for space travel, but if you consider the actual science behind it, the idea comes with an obvious and somewhat morbid caveat.  It doesn’t actually preserve people for long periods of time.  It just kills them.  Despite what Hollywood might have us believe, we can’t all be Matt Damon from Interstellar and simply wake up from a hermetically sealed pod after chilling for a few decades.  We aren’t merely slabs of sentient beef hanging in a meat locker.  In reality, the sub-freezing temperatures would cause the water in our cells to crystalize and expand, rupturing our brain and other organs on a cellular level.  This is why scientists haven’t already been able to place people in suspended animation in this way.  So, how is it done in Indigo 03?  The devil is in the details.

Technically speaking, the trick is to freeze without crystallizing the water in our cells.  To a degree, this is already possible through the use of something called “cryoprotectant fluid”.  It’s a substance that protects biological cells from freezing damage in the same way arctic/antarctic fish and amphibians are able to resist sub-zero temperatures.  This kind of modern technology already allows us to safely “freeze” blood cells and human eggs by trapping their moisture in a more glassy, mucus-like phase instead of creating rigid crystals.  Extend this concept to another 50+ years of scientific development and BOOM!  Viable space travel.  Granted, Matt Damon could argue that this was how he successfully defrosted in Interstellar, but either way, I get it.  Sometimes you’ve got to suspend belief and take some creative liberties.  After all, that’s what fiction is.  You have to push the limits of possible and impossible to tickle the imagination.  I mean, how else would we get to watch Matthew McConaughey survive falling into a black hole?  Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, but still, I find it a bit more satisfying when the impossible manages to stay just barely within reach.  It makes a universe more tangible.  More believable.  That’s the universe of Prodigal Seed.  

So, now that I’ve given you a peek at how the remnants of earth escape its destruction, the real burning question is, where are they headed?  What kind of a planet is Virinova and what secrets does it hold for humanity?  To find out, click the cover below for the sample chapters of Indigo 03.