My XPrize Entry

And here are a few excerpts from the Treatment.

Logline: Traveling to an exoplanet is a milestone shared by all humanity and impossible without artificial intelligence, which puts the crew in an unthinkable crisis when they lose their AI just as they reach their destination.

Synopsis

Come inside a magnificent generation ship fit for 100,000 people. Choose from one of ten luxurious O’Neill Cylinders that spin to provide a comfortable 1g experience on their inner surface. The vessels each have a distinct personality but they are all connected via a central hub containing a giant data center. Or as it’s known to the crew—AiLa.

But AiLa is not infallible and there is a reason that humans and AI are together on this mission. The combination of the skills of each maximises the chances of success.

Partway through the journey, a crisis leads to a break in circuitry that interferes with the deceleration protocol. The crew must make a heartbreaking choice. Cut themselves loose from AiLa’s main infrastructure, leaving her to cruise at full speed into a star, or perish along with her.

Arriving at Kyron is therefore bittersweet. The crew is euphoric at having completed their historic traverse, but the task looming ahead feels even more formidable without the full capacity (and calm companionship) of their AI guide.

The first three bases they build are lost, one after another. It takes them thirty years to finally understand their new home enough to reattempt settlement and complete their high-level mission: to map the planet’s meridians in order to tap into its energy reservoir and send out a signal beacon, connecting Kyron with a vast interstellar communication network.

In fact, Earth sent not one, but hundreds of these missions to destinations across the galaxy, spreading life and awareness out into the furthest reaches of space to gather data and feed our collective knowledge banks.

Essentially, the beginnings of a galactic brain.

Journey to Kyron started as a thought experiment that asked: What if we were the aliens?

Would we behave like the ‘aliens’ here on Earth? Fly around in UFOs? Collect specimens and do experiments on them? Build pyramids? Share technology? Occasionally crash land? Stay on the edges rather than moving down en masse?

What followed was a decades-long obsession with all things space travel and technology, and a desire to truly understand what a trip to another star would entail.

The (unpublished) book that emerged reimagines what sci-fi teaches us about interstellar travel. No cramped corridors. No uniforms. No forward-facing cockpits.

It also avoids tropes like warp speed, worm holes, and suspended animation, rather assuming that the way to get from A to B is to cross the distance between them as quickly as possible.

The human story that sits inside must supply the why. What would prompt us to embark on such a dangerous endeavour?

Historically, authors have tended to imagine an escape from an ailing Earth or a desire to exploit the riches of the destination.

I chose scientific exploration and connection.

We are curious by nature, and who knows? Maybe a planet’s energy could be harnessed to create a beacon to connect the nodes of a galactic brain. This idea leans into the pyramid-building mythology of ancient aliens. But as we stretch our imaginations to understand the goals we’ll have hundreds of years from now, considering where we were 500 years ago and how fast technology is advancing compared to back then, we quickly realise that we can’t fathom it.

The scientist’s job is not to know exactly the endpoint her discoveries will uncover. It’s to learn for learning’s sake. The discoveries define the path.

The Arrival

JOSINDA ALLEN is the 32 year-old daughter of the captains of Antipodes. She loves to party and make films, calling herself a chronicler, like a cross between an influencer and a journalist, neither of which exist in her world. She is nostalgic for Earth and imagines that her films would reach a proper audience, if only she could bridge the gap. She fantasizes that Kyron will offer a similar opportunity, though she recognises her own naivete. While opposed to monogamy in general, she is casually dating CRYA CHANG, whose albinism gets her plenty of attention, which vexes Crya but appeals to Josinda. Like everyone else, Josinda is devastated by the loss of AiLa, but when she realises that the drones can no longer effectively capture the moment of arrival, she nervously grabs the opportunity that presents itself. The decision leads to her prolonged quarantine after a run-in with a Kyronian plant, and the loss of her leg, which she blames on anyone but herself. It is only when she is isolated and unwatched that she understands that her greatest contribution doesn’t stem from being seen, but from observing the world around her.

VANE EVERLY, 45, has been training all his life to go to Kyron. Studying it relentlessly and using weights to imitate higher gravity, he is ready to lead the surface mission, despite the loss of AiLa. He admires what he’s seen of special forces and imitates them in his philosophy and leadership style. On the ground, he develops a relationship with WELLA SCHMIDT, who has extensively prepared for Kyron like him, but with a stronger view to symbiosis. He also becomes closer to Josinda through her frequent calls from quarantine, but discredits her claims that the sentients are relatively advanced and well-organised. His rigidity in thinking ultimately snaps as he understands that the only way to survive is to compile multiple perspectives, something that Wella fiercely advocated for, which only makes the fact that he couldn’t save her ache even more.

The Journey

LI JIA WEI is the tragic hero who never asks to be one. He calmly accepts the fact that he will see neither origin nor destination and makes the most of his situation, spending his time swinging from the branches and scaffolding in his home Vessel Zhongguo, teaming up with foreign crewmates to win his favorite VR games, or looking after the vertical farms that he knows intimately. He is very close to his sister, LI JIA LIN, who also works in the farm and is planning to start a family. When he is transferred to a dying vessel against his will, he must use resourcefulness he never knew he had to help develop a cure that will save the Namerican population, and the courage to sacrifice himself for the good of the mission.

IQBAL ALI is in his mid-fifties. He gets great satisfaction from teaching the youngsters in his Vessel Alistan, but has not been able to conceive with his wife INDURIA. Their religious beliefs preclude them from making use of external growth chambers to have children, which Induria finds increasingly frustrating. Iqbal’s innate sense of injustice causes him to dig into the mystery of the involuntary transfers, which gets him targeted and moved to Namerica under the loose excuse of his infertility. On the new vessel, he must use leadership skills built on years of wrangling preschoolers to maintain calm through a panicky exodus, but his world view faces the ultimate challenge when he returns home to find his wife pregnant to another man, and certainty must be replaced by empathy on questions of right and wrong.

The Return

KAYLAH DJENNE was known as Windar before her transition. We meet her as a fresh graduate from school, with no real aim other than to tinker with machines. She carries a deep guilt from having pushed the wrong button when she was waiting for her father and aunt to return from an inter-vessel trade mission, and the loss also killed her lifelong dream of being a pilot like her dad. She never told anyone she was in the arrival bay until her crewmate, KIMI AYUTTHAYA, stricken from a spear wielded by a sentient, asks for a story so she doesn’t fall asleep and bleed out. Kimi reassures Kaylah that there is no button that a child could push that would open the fusion drive, lifting a lifetime of guilt from her shoulders. After rescuing her crewmate, Angelo, from the sentients’ ceremonial cutting table, Kaylah is able to see her own value for the first time. She’ll lean into her mechanical prowess and uncanny understanding of the sentients’ visual language to lead the eventual combining of local, alien, and artificial intelligence that allows completion of the planetary beacon.

Thanks for your support through this process. I’ll reflect on it more and try to put some more words down in a few days.

Right now, I need to lie down.