It’s Happening
December 18, 2023
Wait … what’s happening?
It’s being written.
The sci-fi political thriller space opera in my head is actually being written
What’s Last Contact?
Last contact is a late 23rd – early 24th century science fiction political thriller that I’ve had in my head since 2004. It’s mutated a lot over the years, and I’ve tried to get it out through various means over time; nothing felt quite right. I didn’t have the thing that was going to make it work.
The characters I originally wrote are still the center of the story. I wrote a timeline from 2004 through various important and scientific events that would need to take place for us to get to the 23rd century in my head. Most of that original timeline… is still accurate…
Many people in my life knew about this universe in my head, but not all.
So what happened? Well… I had a moment the thing that makes the story unique is how current events impact the future. I’m leaning into that.
The Site’s Structure
Last Contact
There’s going to be three real sections to this site. The story itself, “Last Contact” will compose a set of post categories. Those categories will fill up posts with chapters of what is effectively the book. However, as things happen in real life… those chapters and the stories within them may change
The Compendium
There’s going to be a section of pages called the compendium where I will keep pages of significant locations, people events and additional information that may be helpful, such as descriptions of the alien races… oh yeah…. There are aliens.
World Events
This section of posts will also have categories on the sidebar. It will speak to various things that have happened in real life that have been important to the story, as well as the author and the more in-depth context and emotions they’re in. Think of this section as the window into my emotions and why some events are directly talked about in the narrative or even change the narrative.
Josie’s Ramblings
This is the area for all the other stuff I want to talk about — usually technology, my life as a transgender woman or random site news like this…
About Josie
Josie, your guide on this crazy journey, is an elder millennial transgender woman. She grew up, and still resides, in the Chicago metro area in the United States.
When she was younger… she pretended she was a man to try to make things easy… it didn’t actually make anything easier.
She has spent some time as a committed Democrat and time as a committed Republican. Today, she calls herself a left-leaning independent. Mainly because the two-party system is broken as hell.
Wait, how does she have time to do this? Doesn’t she have a job? Well, yeah, she’s a technical program manager for a large cloud services technology company. She’s formerly a data center repair technician and a manager of those technicians. She’s a little less technical these days, writing policy and engineering requirements, but… there’s still a core of tech in her soul.
How did she get into writing?
Well, when she was younger, she had to express herself both privately and emotionally. She started writing a journal at a young age. Most of her writings then, looking back, weren’t wonderful. She didn’t, and still doesn’t, read very much, so she relies heavily on things like spelling and grammar checking tool. She strongly believes it’s the heart and message that matters in the writing, and now how technically well something is written.
How did she get into sci-fi?
As a child, she was always enamored with science. It was her favorite subject in school and always caught her imagination. She went to a private school for a while that let you sit in an “area” of the classroom, and she always settled herself right in the science area. Astronomy and technology were always of very specific interest to her. Shortly after that, she was introduced to Star Wars… and that was it… the deal was sealed. However, over time, her favorite sci-fi series has become “The Saga of the Seven Suns” with “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” coming in a very close second. Later in life, she got into Star Trek too. Don’t worry, she’s not one of those fools that thinks Star Wars is good, and Star Trek is trash (or vice versa)
How did she get a 23rd century universe stuck in her head?
Well… this started in 2004. She was in college and wrote a romance, coming of age, short story about a couple of people in college. (No, one of the characters wasn’t her, I promise) Most of the romance is gone, but those two characters still exist. An early piece of feedback she received was, “that school sounds more like a prison than a school.”
…
That sealed that particular deal, the “school” became a prison on Tethys (one of the moons of Saturn) and it all spiraled out of control from there. She wrote a timeline. She wrote a detailed first half of a book that occurred mostly in the prison (don’t worry, that’s not here anymore) and she’s “started over” six times now…
But this will be the one. I promise, and so does she.