A Grimdark Alternative Ending for the 1994 Stargate

The following discussion contains spoilers for the 1994 science-fiction film Stargate, although given how the movie is 24 years old I don't know why that's important.

In the film, Ra plans to send an American nuclear warhead back to Earth, enhanced with the type of materials his advanced technology uses (in Stargate SG-1 it's called naquadah). He states this will enhance the warhead's power 100 times and claims that he created human civilization and now he will end it.

Hold it right there. Assuming that the military sent a W78 nuclear warhead through the Stargate with O'Neill, that's 350 kilotons. A nuke enhanced with naquadah to 100x its force would be around 35 megatons. That's around a third more than the 1960s-era B41 nuclear weapon. Mount St. Helens' eruption was 25 megatons of explosive power, while Mount Pinatubo was around 70 megatons. So Ra sends the nuke back through the Stargate and it detonates in the decommissioned nuclear silo that was the base of operations for the mission. Assuming he can remotely detonate it through the gateway, he's basically just caused a volcanic eruption in the U.S. Rocky Mountains, and that assumes the mountain on top of the explosion cannot contain it. After all, underground nuclear tests generally don't disturb the surface that much.

Mount Pinatubo caused a worldwide temperature drop of one degree, and that was with smoke, gas, and other crap continuously pumping into the atmosphere from the bowels of the Earth and spreading all over the world rather than a one-time big bang and, depending on what's around it, a big radioactive forest fire. Assuming the equivalent of Mount Pinatubo, Ra has just caused--maybe--a repeat of the Year Without a Summer in 1994. That would suck if it causes drought and famine in marginal areas, but it would not destroy modern civilization.

That said, there's a more grimdark possibility here. If there's a major nuclear detonation in the US, it could potentially lead to a confrontation with Russia, although I doubt President Clinton would have ordered a nuclear strike not knowing what happened. Assuming the US panicked and launched on Russia and the Russians fired back, you could have a civilization-ending nuclear exchange depending on what missiles are fired, where they detonate, etc. Bonus points if there's a nuclear winter to cause famine and ecological collapse in otherwise unaffected areas.

Ra (or some other opportunistic Goa'uld who notices) could wait a few years or decades for civilization to collapse, show up and pull his "I'm a god" trick on the debased, uneducated descendants of the exchange survivors, and assume control over Earth. I'm now imagining the Earth's surviving libraries as the equivalents of the fresco Sha'uri showed Dr. Jackson that depicted Ra bringing Earthlings to Abydos and the rebellion that ended his rule on Earth thousands of years ago.

Of course, Ra in the movie doesn't actually seem powerful to pull that off, even if post-nuclear civilization is reduced to medieval levels. He's got a couple fighter jets, one spaceship, and a few guards with armor resembling that of Egypt's gods. The basis of his rule is deception, not raw strength. He might not be able successfully take control of Earth, although one of the TV series' Goa'uld with their planetary empires, navies, etc. would.

That said, I could easily imagine him taking control over part of it. Maybe he keeps Dr. Jackson alive using the sarcophagus long enough to see him returning to Egypt and re-establishing himself as god there once more.

How's that for a Downer Ending?

E-Reader Publishing: Three Months In (UPDATED 12/29)

This post was originally published on 12/25, but due to a sudden problem, I felt the need to go back and revise. Read it and you'll see why.

On September 3, I self-published my story "Melon Heads" on Amazon.com for the Kindle, thus beginning my experiment in self-publishing for e-readers. September 20 saw the second coming of my previously-published story "I am the Wendigo" and November 16 saw my Lovecraftian tale "The Beast of the Bosporus." My most recent self-published story, "Illegal Alien," debuted on Amazon December 11. At some point I created a formal Amazon author page as well.

At first, I enrolled all of them in the Kindle Direct Publishing Select program, which allows members of Amazon Prime to borrow my stories for free (I still get paid through a fund set up for this purpose) and allows me to release my stories for free on certain promotional days. However, being part of KDP Select is conditional on not having the stories available online anywhere else.

KDP Select proved to be a mixed bag. The promotional days allowed me to move large numbers of copies free, which I had hoped would generate more reviews and build buzz, leading to more sales later. The increased number of reviews I expected did not come through (most reviewers are people I already know), although there's no way of knowing the long-term effects of having dozens if not hundreds of readers having seen my content for free. Maybe I'm creating a fan base that will pay off in the future when I have real books available. After all, I did once get some traffic to this blog from a Google search for "Illegal Alien Matthew W. Quinn." The number of free copies moved on the first promotional day tends to be significantly higher than the number moved on later days, and I recall only actual borrow.

So I bought some Facebook advertising for the short stories, remembering how successful it had been in attracting readers to my blog in the summer of 2011. This provided to be a major bust--I'd spent upwards of $70 on advertising, but gleaned few if any sales. This not only applied to my ads for "Melon Heads" and "Wendigo" that received relatively few views and clicks, but even my ads for "The Beast of the Bosporus" that received over 100,000 views and over 100 clicks. Paying $45 for a much nicer cover for "Illegal Alien" didn't generate much sales either. So far, "Illegal Alien" has made 1/4 of the sales "Melon Heads" made in its first month, although since it was published mid-month, I won't be able to make an accurate comparison even after four weeks pass.

This meant more drastic measures were needed. I turned off the KDP Select auto-renew for all four stories. The other stories were either still in their first term or I'd allowed them to renew for another term, but "Wendigo" would no longer be Kindle-exclusive come December 21. This would be especially useful because an ad I'd purchased for my Facebook fan page increased my fan count from 80 to close to 1,400 (as of 12/29), most of whom apparently are from Turkey or other Middle Eastern countries. As far as I know, people from these countries cannot buy from Amazon (except through tricky means like getting a UK e-mail address to access Amazon.co.uk). People from India can access the same Amazon as Americans, but that would exclude Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc.

On Christmas Eve, I made the leap to Smashwords, putting up "Wendigo." Soon afterward, I "greased the wheel" a little bit by paying $5.00 to "promote" the post announcing the story was now on Smashwords. The number of "likes" I've gotten from my Middle Eastern fans indicated the move was much appreciated. Within 24 hours, I'd sold ten copies of "Wendigo" in two batches of five. I figured Smashwords' sale of stories in multiple file formats (to allow people using different e-readers or not using e-readers at all) and not being limited by country had paid dividends.

Then when checking my Smashwords Dashboard, I noticed my royalties had been cut in half. I queried Smashwords and looked at the Excel spreadsheet and found that five of the ten sales had been refunded due to "fraudulent payment method." I wrote Smashwords and learned that thieves use Smashwords to either test out stolen cards or "max out" said cards. My remaining five sales were refunded as well for the same reason.

(Smashwords limits purchases to five at a time to minimize the impact of fraud--some poor author "sold" 1,000 copies to a fraudster and then had his purchases refunded.)

Rather than earning $7.85 in a day, I'd earned zero--and my royalties remained zero as of 12/29. I'm not going to complain too much, since it's just one short story and I've only been a Smashwords member for a week or so. Some discussion on LinkedIn indicates that "premium status" (which ensures one's writing is marketed on other sites) on Smashwords is where the real money comes from, and that's still pending. Before I pass judgement on Smashwords as a whole, I'll wait to see what happens with that. I might even buy a Facebook ad for "Wendigo," since it's much, MUCH less limited than Amazon KDP and that might have been a reason behind the first Facebook ad campaign's failure.

My strategy for the moment is to publish the three remaining stories on Smashwords as soon as their KDP Select periods end, which will be in February and March. Any future stories I self-publish will be on KDP Select for one term (to allow for one or two promotional days) and then placed on Smashwords. Maybe I'll post my stories on lulu.com as well.

The Afrikanerverse According to Korsgaard: Another Guest Post

First, let me thank Quinn for letting me give my view of his fantastic AH world, and his story "Coil Gun" (which appears in Pressure Suite: Digital Science Fiction #3) With that said, lets dive in to some of the changes I have made, or would have made, to the overall world:

-A lot of the changes made are just simple border changes, based on a mixture of both geopolitics and aesthetics. Examples include the northern border of the Turkistani Republic, which still avoids the dreaded Kazakh border cliché, the borders of nations like Tibet and Persia, as well as almost every nation in Africa.

-I also got rid of a few small nations that would undoubtedly be altered or just never exist due to butterflies. The Balkans have now coalesced into a number of loose nations based around Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania.

-There are a number of larger nations or super states, as I would think the idea of a powerful, expansionist and zealously Calvinist Afrikaner Empire spanning three continents would make a number of nations put racial identity behind self-preservation.

As for individual changes, I’ll go over by continent:

-In Europe, I remember you mentioned Sweden regained control of Finland in TTL Crimean War. This, along with control of Norway, would allow the nation to stay unified, as opposed to OTL where Sweden and Norway split ways in the 1910s, and conceivably, could have joined or absorbed Denmark, though I left it alone here. Aside from that, the big changes came to the Balkans, where Hungary retained control of the Hungarian portions of eastern Romania, and most of OTL Yugoslavia formed into TTL Serbia and Croatia.

-In North America, I gave Alaska back to the USA, likely taken from Russia in TTL WWII against the Soviets. I’d also advise you to consider the fate of Canada – without the Ontario core, the 1800s Canada will revolve around a French-Catholic Quebec and Acadia, resulting in a far different, if even united nation, if not still owned by Britain. The USA will very likely take a good chunk of the Prairie provinces just due to simple settlement patterns, or demanding it from Great Britain – if they can demand an independent Ireland and get it, why not some land back home?

-In Central America and the Caribbean, one of the ever re-occurring Central American federations succeeded in staying together, if only to keep a further wounded Mexico at bay. Aside from that, I just gave Haiti to the USA, and allowed the European powers to retain control of their island colonies – much like North Africa, with much of the OTL colonies under Afrikaner rule, Europe will cling to and settle what it still has.

-South America, I just has some of the wars of the 1800s result in a far more united Southern Cone. Looks better butterfly wise, since most of the OTL borders result from fairly recent changes, but it could go either way.

-Oceania, the only change I made was giving New Zealand to Australia. Given the need to strengthen the Aussies as a counterweight to the Afrikaners I see that as a smart move by the British.

-Aside from Africa, Asia saw the most change. Cambodia was divided between Thailand (which would likely still be named Siam here) and Vietnam. Given that China is divided for close to a century, I gave Mongolia, which in your TL, broke off from China anyway, the rest of Mongolian majority Outer Mongolia, and gave East Turkistan to the Turkistanis. Tibet has its OTL borders, and Japan still controls a rump Manchuria. Aside from that, just some border adjustments in the Middle-East.

-Africa has seen the biggest changes. Given that half the planet is cut off from colonization, you can bet France would spare no expense to see Algeria truly integrated into the nation, as Italy has with a portion of Libya and Tunisia. While it may seem odd, the British maintained control over West Africa, so I feel it isn’t too big of a stretch. Egypt and Ethiopia have both seen some border adjustments. West Africa has seen some solid changes, as I solidified the four nations of your map’s West Africa into two, one centered around the old Ghana/Mali/Songhai core, and one around the Kanem-Bornu areas of Lake Chad. Much like Morroco or Egypt, I could see the Europeans propping them up as a buffer against the Afrikaners, if one of the native rulers didn’t pull a Meji.

As a whole though, well done on crafting a world that captured my thoughts and ideas! I hope to see a few more stories from this universe, am curious to see if any of my ideas make it in, and in the event I ever get one of my own stories finished, please feel free to dissect it just as much – my Communist Confederacy idea seems to have struck a chord with you, so I’d love to hear some thoughts on that one someday! Until then, keep up the good work!