Original Work Christopher's Writing Thread

It's cold and wet. But no snow where we are (grin). Expensive, though.

Chris

 

Their Darkest Hour
“No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own...across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.”
-HG Wells
When alien starships from a hostile interstellar power arrive in orbit, Britain is one of their first targets. Swiftly, the aliens take control of Britain’s cities and force the remainder of the British military to go on the run. With the government destroyed, the population must choose between fighting and collaborating with the alien overlords. This is truly Britain’s darkest hour.
Caught up in these events are a handful of ordinary people, struggling to survive. The Prime Minister, forced into hiding, and an unscrupulous politician looking to find fame and power by serving the aliens. Soldiers fighting an insurgency and senior officers trying desperately to find the key to driving the aliens away from Earth; police officers faced with a choice between collaboration or watching the aliens brutalise the civilian population. And ordinary citizens, trying to survive a world turned upside down.
But resistance seems futile and the aliens appear unstoppable – and the entire population is caught in the middle. As the alien grip tightens, the last best hope for freedom lies with those who will never surrender...and are prepared to pay any price for the liberation of Earth.
Download a Free Sample, then buy from Amazon here!

 

Necropolis (The Royal Sorceress III) is up now. If you liked, please review <grin>

Up Now–Necropolis (The Royal Sorceress III) | The Chrishanger

Chris

 

New book

New Novel–First Strike! | The Chrishanger
Chris

 

Oh, forget it.

 

What?

 

Chris, you are a truly talented writer. If you ever decided to crowd funding publish a book i would definitely invest!

 

Not sure how that would work. But I could try ( grin)

Chris

 

I was just going to ask a question about your future plans... and said forget it, unfortunately, I have a cognitive dissonance... caused by the phase shift between your many Universes, and memory loss of what 'universe' I was waiting for... which causes me to be somewhere else when the phase transition occurs... and I missed it.

BTW, the current universe, a learning experience, is the most enjoyable, simply because it is the most human, and the most probable...
Don't take it personal, we still love ya!

 

Your ship finally came in....and you were at the bus station?

 

Yup... I have a life other than sitting on a keyboard waiting ... I told you the 'secret in the rocks' was real, Einstein proved it in 1945. Now I spend my extra time trying to bring forth sci fi, not that I'll succeed, but I have had some successes... nobody knows, because 'The Authorities' ban their acceptance in the MSM... remember, certain knowledge is dangerous to power. I don't want to stink up Chris's thread, however, his scifi, has some keen insights into the Energy Reality we see underneath the surface illusion of particles.
I'll put it in terms you might consider... I have shown that the frame dragging of General Relativity generates a 'gravity wind', and that this throws the conclusions of the Michelson-Morley experiment into doubt due to their false assumption of a 'luminiferous' aether, while simultaneously validating the mechanism of GR, the 'Imponderable Aether', an often forgotten requirement of GR to function, which also provides a media for the vacuum potential to BE. Then, we caused a time dilation effect by proving that the Hafele-Keating experiments may have had a flaw in their reasoning, that gravity and magnetism may not be as disconnected as we think. This time bubble was localized, and proved that the Dark Aether is the source of gravity, magnetism, inertia, entropy, the strong and weak, and that the separate forces are merely first, second and third order harmonic effects of the 'invisible' dark energy force, the 'secret in the rocks', also called; The Imponderable Aether, or what the ancients called; The Force of Darkness...

 

A Learning Experience II - New Book: A Learning Experience II–Hard Lessons! | The Chrishanger

Enjoy!

Chris

 

Oh, and up for purchase (at a special price, for a short while) now

http://chrishanger.net/Published/SIMseries/work%20experience%20index.html

Chris

 

Up Now!

Up Now–The Mind’s Eye | The Chrishanger

 

Hello Chris,

After re-reading your 'Schooled in Magic' series again, I got to thinking about Emily's banks and how it would work. I don't know if you've already had ideas for the bank yet, but you mentioned 12 books in the series. So, I thought I might share my thoughts with you in case it might spark some inspiration if you haven't thought of specifics.

You've already laid several insinuations of Yodel being involved in a few of her more far-reaching plans. With his name being brought up often in the second-year of Emily's schooling, and several mentions of trunks, pocket dimensions, and their restrictions, I had a few ideas about how a bank could work. Even with the credit system.

One of the common themes of our society is modular design. The more portable and adaptable something is, the wider it is adopted. Emily has hinted at this a few times in the series. First with her accounting and reading, then later with the ideas for how to get a weapon to the Necromancers without it being misused. The same is true for banks and currency.

The main obstacle that Emily must overcome if she truly wishes to revolutionize banking is to remove the current banks' clients. These are the wealthy in any kingdom, ones that have more influx capital that they don't notice deposit and withdrawal fees. As they have the majority of coin, the traditional bank would need to be quite large to hold the money. However, personal storage chests for each account most likely are the solution for the banks of this world.

This can't be Emily's innovation because it's too simple and can't scale. Plus, she'd run out of room with standard chests just on the wealthy clients before she's even able to offer service to the commoners. Multiple times in the series, it's hinted that people haven't looked into pocket dimensions past the standard storage chests. Which is why people don't sleep in them. I think a more elegant solution which would provide greater options later on would be storing pocket dimensions within pocket dimensions.

A modern bank has thousands of accounts, yet they have maybe a few hundred safety deposit boxes. This is because credit allows for portability. However, as shown throughout the series, change is scary and hard. Emily needs a way to bring the familiar to the people along with ease-of-use. So, she'll still need some form of physical storage for people to tangibly hold. So a large room, similar to a bank's vaults safety deposit boxes, where people can walk in and sit while their box is brought to them to open in private would comfort many people.

The safety deposit box should also be a drawer that can be slid out. The door in the vault room that houses the drawer would contain each person's numerical code with a lock. This would act as an initial deterrent. The key could be tied to a pass phrase and a person's karmic signature. This would allow commoners to also open their personal box. There would also be a second lock on the door that would be opened by a bank's employee.

After the door is opened and the employee steps out of the room, the client could use their key again to open the drawer. This would lead to their drawer's pocket dimension access, but not immediately. The drawer would contain a charm that would provide a relative coordinate, unique to where it is at the time. Since people find it easier to access a pocket dimension tied to a coordinate if they know it, this would help prevent access. It would also tag a pass phrase that the client would set.

Inside the drawer are 5 boxes: general storage, jewelry, copper, silver, gold. Anything can go into general storage, and the client would need to physically add and remove them. This would act like a standard trunk. The same for jewelry, except that only those items can be added. The three boxes for currency are a bit different, other than only that those coins can be added to the boxes.

One thing that kept bugging me about people in a magical society lugging around coin pouches is that it doesn't make sense. Why not have a slim box in your pocket that you open and pull out a few coins that are stored somewhere else? While it's in your pocket, it's near-weightless, and you'd be safe from a cut-purse. Plus, it could be warded. These three boxes in a client's drawer provide for this, and more.

Back to the relative coordinates and pass phrase I mentioned earlier--each box in the drawer has a pocket dimension tied to the relative coordinates and pass phrase, client id, along with the individual box's id. The pass phrase and coordinates are only called when the box is opened within 5 feet of the drawer or when a personal mini-box is opened. This would make it more secure against hacking.

The mini-box would be rather thin, similar to what you'd use to hold business cards or cigarettes. Just big enough to contain several pieces of currency when opened.

This is my idea for remote banking. Since it would be a nightmare to try and explain credit to people, lead to more questions than answers for Emily, and be hard to calculate based on various coinage weights, why not have the the coin boxes in the drawer tally the weight of what's residing in it? This could be asked for when a client is curious and displayed on the inner-side of the coin box when it's opened as well as for the mini-box they carry around. Then, when the client is out and about, they just open the box up, ask how much weight or pieces they have of copper, silver, or gold and it's displayed. Then they ask for a few pieces or that weight and give it to the seller. Then, whatever change they have, they toss into the mini-box and it goes to the respective boxes in their drawer.

I think that with the above concepts, Emily would be able to easily track and automatically remove fees for each client without having to deal with much hassle. In addition, it'd be easier to monitor and apply interest, collect loan repayments without physical confrontation, etc.

Now, as for the vault itself, I think that should reside in a pocket dimension as well that remains open so long as the vault door is ajar. This would allow for a more modular bank that could fit inside a small building, as well as be more secure against break-ins. There would need to be a few fail-safes of course, but could also lead to a bank that could be accessed from locations world-wide but be tied to a nexus point and have access extremely strong wards at a later time.

This is where I think Yodel would come in, tying all of this together when she pitches her idea. Similar to how Emily used her friend's father to develop and market physical goods. Yodel seems like just the type to enjoy a challenge and one of the reasons he hinted at "being of more use to her" for why he wanted to move to her kingdom.

Those are my ideas, maybe they'll be of use to you. I really have enjoyed this series.

 

Interesting idea, but a few small flaws. It was a dimension within a dimension that nearly got the young lady kicked out of school. (Can not form a diminsion within another, but like the trunks, a finished dimension could be brought into another dimension (the school) it could be problematic to be able to group that many dimensions together.
The minibox as I read it would also open upon the same trunk used as storage? I don't think that would be possible, as each trunk is it's own dimension. (Just my thoughts, take it as you will)

 

You're right, Kellory. There would be a few challenges with it all. Emily found that Whitehall closely monitors and blocks creation of new pocket dimensions because the creation of them inside another could cause instability. Especially near a nexus point. However, she enters Red Rose and Whitehall, which contain pocket dimensions, with her trunk as well as do many other students. Even modified wardrobes make an appearance. So, this implies that many finished and anchored items with dimensions tied to them are able to pass through and reside within pocket dimensions.

It's mentioned in the series that it's possible to create a variety of complex pocket dimensions that are hardly used because they contain coordinates to access them. Knowing them makes them vulnerable, even though they are convenient and can be accessed from anywhere. Chris hasn't explicitly written the parameters for how coordinates are set, but one would take it to imply by the number of variations of a spell that they are more than GPS locations.

Also, since Whitehall has its own portal chamber inside the castle, which is inside the pocket dimension, it can be inferred that one can access and move items within a pocket dimension to the outside. This wouldn't be the same as teleportation, which Chris has said in a forum comment would require vast quantities of magic to teleport an object without the person being teleported as well.

There's flaws, but its how I saw something like this being the most feasible within the constraints that Chris has discussed in his books so far. He'd need to change them to fit his vision for the world and his writing style, and I thought I'd toss it out there since I didn't know if he was going to have the 6th book be a continuation of Emily's third year and finish off her remaining months after the couple she spent in Mountaintop or jump into the summer between terms. If it was the later, that'd imply she'd be hosting the Magician's Annual Faire and showing off her innovations, which seemed to me to be a nice way to also introduce a bank ( ) to a captive audience of the world's wealthy and powerful without time for rumors to spread past her own words and reasonings as she introduces the concept.

 

No, just logical rules to existing material....(playing by the writer's rules)

 

It might be difficult to make it work permanently, but it's a cool idea.

Chris