Skip to main content

story identification - Generational Spaceship Designed to Explode at Destination


I'm looking for what I think was a short story, the style reminded me of Kim Stanley Robinson, but I couldn't find a match under his works. I think this was a fairly short story, that I read sometime in the last few years, say 2016 onward.


The Story revolves around a boy living in a Generational Spaceship approaching its destination. The boy is from a poor family, the majority of the Ship's wealth is owned by families that control the water supply, which is decreasing.


The ship is reaching its destination and the population preparing to disembark. The main character is also fretting about why all the water is controlled by a small number of rich people, and where the rest of the water seems to have gone.


The twist ending is that the water is still on the ship, it's been transferred from general availability into breeding vats to create vast amounts of simple plant life that is going to be used to seed the destination planet. The population of the Generational Ship are also going to be fodder for this seeding and the landing craft is designed to crash/explode and the whole ship crash into the planet to spread the seeds as far as possible across the planet.


The main character figures this out and discovers a hidden safepod buried at the centre of the vat tanks where he and his girlfriend hide to survive the crash landing. I believe "DARWIN" was the password to access the pod, and there was a clue on a statue in the town centre that he solved to figure it out.



Answer



"The Dirt On Our Shoes" by Neal Shusterman may be the one as per Short story about a generation ship designed to seed a planet with bacteria and kill the humans on board



It follows Tanner, an orphan on a space capsule that was designed by the builders to deliver its contents onto Primordius. His parents have died and he farms his plot of land by himself, but with the water shortage, he barely is able to get enough to drink, let alone wash. Because of his status, he isn't welcome in most places. When he figures out the builder's plan, it's nearly too late for everyone. He manages to save Morena, another orphan after her grandfather died. Everyone who trusted the builders got a horrible surprise - but Tanner and Morena were able to wash and hopefully live.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

tolkiens legendarium - Difference between elves and dwarves blacksmithing in the Lord of the Rings

Both the elves and the dwarves were famous for their metal work in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but what is the difference between what they made, and which one had the better skill of making amours and swords? Answer James Christopher's answer sums up the second part of your question well, but as to the difference in what they made, a little more detail is needed. Once the Elves learned to forge with steel, the shape of the sword changed, now being able to take on the form of a great broadsword or a light and agile curved sword. Additionally, they took great pride in decorating their swords. As we see in the Lord of the Rings , some swords like Sting had magical properties such as glowing blue when orcs are near. As far as the use of Mithril, lotr.wikia has two contradictory passages: Thus, Elven blades became renowned as great weapons, capable of performing deeds beyond the skill of their handlers and were even more glorious when the use of Mithril was allowed to the Elves. ...

game of thrones - Is Syrio Forel dead?

In the episode 'The Pointy End' (Season 1 Episode 8) when Arya runs from the Lannister guards you hear the sound of a sword being dropped (around 4:56): [embedded content] After that neither Syrio or Ser Meryn Trant is never mentioned or seen in the show again, except when Arya mentions to the Hound that Ser Meryn Trant killed Syrio. Is there any mention in the books that Syrio actually dies?