Planet Be

I think of my story every day. I post rarely. I'm thinking of joining a new social media hashtag to prompt me to write more often about Planet B(e).

Here's what I said as a form of “application” to be accepted into this hashtag community:

I'm considering participating. Strictly speaking the story I'm developing is not time travel. But also it is. I am employing “frozen life in stasis tube traveling across the universe” conceit to achieve what other stories do with starships or time travel. The motivation of my story is to describe 3 versions of the Earth societies that we know: now, a worse future, & a better future. Is it time travel?

Below are the upcoming prompts for the hashtag #TimeTravelAuthors August 2025. I will interlace my answers in this post.

1. Tell us about your time-travel story (optional: end with “out of time”) 3. Deleted sentence or scene

5. Jobs/work in your story

Starling is a frustrated artist & writer. Starling streams daily as a form of intimacy with xir lover who lives an ocean & a continent away. The relationship among the nations of Planet A make travel & migration difficult. Starling & xir lover live in repressive regimes that differ in their inhumanity. Starling is trapped in a nation that promotes the following cruelties: economic inequality, anti-science, harsh treatment of immigrants, globally bullying militarism, racial superiority & colonization. Starling's lover is trapped in a nation whose cruelties suppress individuality, sexuality, gender expression, and intellectual freedom. Despite opposing the regime's totalitarianism Starling's lover works in the government as it's one of few options for trying to improve societal conditions. Xe serves as a low level engineer in the vast ministry dedicated to survival in the face of existential climate change. Starling's nation, the largest threat to A's survival as a livable planet, takes an evolving official position: climate change is (1) a hoax by ambitious scientists, (2) naturally occurring all the time beyond the influence of mere mortals (2b) only the supreme being can effect it, (3) an inevitable (3b) excuse for isolationism & (unfortunately) fuck the rest of the planet. [The inclusion or exclusion of “unfortunately” represents the opinion range of the nation's 2 dominant political parties.] For decades Starling's nation was able to gleefully accelerate the worldwide path to climate catastrophe while denying it was happening in part because it suffered very little. Another reason is the fact that a 2 party political system invites the adoption of diametric views—if one party is in favor of saving the planet the other becomes pro-planetary destruction. But, Rob, you said that the 2 parties only differed in their level of regret expressed? Yes, because of the final and foremost reason that global environmental destruction was encouraged and ignored, simple venal GREED.

By the randomness of geography, ecology, and meteorology, the devastating effects of the changing climate were first felt by those nations that least contributed to the problem. Thus Starling's lover worked tirelessly to solve the issue that Starling's own government continued to accelerate.

Starling's lover dies in climate catastrophe. Why am I not giving characters names?! It's a genuine problem that I have. I don't want to assign gender & I don't want to invent alien languages. Something for me to think about. Writing this way is awkward & most likely makes characters less personable. At that point Starling reveals that all xir streams were primarily covert communications to xir secret lover living in a sexually repressive culture. Starling feels that xe has little to continue living for. Starling's channel comes to the attention of à scientist in Starling's nation's space agency. Another opportunity for choosing names to increase comprehension & engagement. I'm using Planets A, B, C, and not naming nations & characters in a (misguided?!) attempt to keep it mysterious & generalized. For centuries readers see parallels between fiction & reality despite foreign or alien characteristics & settings. I may be missing out on intriguing world building by my desire to keep things vague. Anyway the character I only so far call Scientist might have had a professional relationship with Starling's lover & after xir death learn of the connection to Starling. Scientist becomes sympathetic for, fond of, parasocial to Starling who incidentally isn't named Starling at this point, another problem with my naming!. Scientist eventually arranged for Starling to go into the space pod. could give that project a name! That at least is a good opportunity without affecting the mysteries of planets, nations, & characters. In some sense see: what's that alien cartoon I think by Nathan that was made into a Apple animation. The show I think is boring — a good warning — but I love the panel cartoons. I have been thinking that keeping it vague allows readers to imagine anything. It's a big component of the story that's still being considered.

On Planet B the main character Earthling is linguist. Maybe? Kinda has to be to be the one who connects with Starling's writings & videos. Also perhaps a writer & artist like Starling. An activist, a politician?

7. Do they time travel many times? Once? Something else?

The stasis tube carrying Starling travels one very long time from A to B. The transmission of the records that make up the bulk of the story travels from B to C, our Earth.

9. Saturday excerpt (optional word: line) 11. Cold/freezing in your story 13. Wednesday POST-SIZED snippet (optional word: sky) 15. Injustices in your story? 17. How athletic are your characters? 19. Nicknames in your story 21. Any time police/parties restricting time travel? 23. Saturday excerpt (optional word: line) 25. Writing advice you liked 27. Wednesday POST-SIZED snippet (optional word: sky) 29. Is anyone late? 31. Author's choice/promo All time-travel authors and published works, WIPs, etc. welcome! To join, just answer the prompts on odd days, using the hashtag.