First Contact: Venus

Author Commentary

Templum Veneris Chapter 5

First contact.

I'm more than a little fascinated by the idea both historically, (back when it was fairly common to encounter completely unknown nations of humans) and what would happen if aliens did land and introduce themselves.

I talked about it a little bit back in the Saturnius Mons commentary, but it's time to revisit the question, 'What does one say to an alien?'

But first a quick side note for the super-geeks out there. The music that Captain Colton is listening to when Viekko appears comes from my absolute favorite symphony. (Yes, I have a favorite symphony. I'm cultured a shit, biatch.) Unsurprisingly its the Planets Suite by Gustav Holst. It is the second movement, Venus, The Bringer of Peace.

Anyway, this time, the meeting between the Human Recconection Project and the people of Venus is more straightforward. The meeting is prearranged in a way, so it's more like a first meeting. Think of a Tinder date between civilizations. I wanted to create this awkward, tense moment where nobody is completely sure of the other's intentions. One side has come out in their finest military dress, and the other brought Viekko which is the equivalent of showing up with a pair of torn jeans.

As we are about to see, Cytherea uses the military for pretty much every problem for the same reason that a guy with a hammer treats every problem like a nail. Early in the outlining process, I came upon this idea of a sci-fi Sparta. It would be a new society that is completely obsessed with military strength and physical prowess. The details of how one structure a society that way are going to unfold in the next several chapters and is where I deviate from historical Sparta.

In researching the idea of a sci-fi Sparta, I came upon this image:

 Apparently, the dude who made helmets for the movie 300 was also a Star Wars fan and managed to paint one of the Spartan helms like Boba Fett's helmet.

I printed off this image, tacked it to a corkboard near my computer, and used that as the basic idea of everything that came after.

So I'll leave you with that image as well.