Antarctic Geology
Only recently have we begun to understand how weird that continent’s geology truly is. While the continent presents a frozen face, down deep it’s a warm, wet marshland. There are hundreds of subglacial lakes, often with rivers flowing between them, some as large as the Thames. There are waterfalls that flow up. There are active volcanoes, some with lava flowing under miles of ice. Just this past year (early 2014) scientists discovered Antarctica has a trench that dwarfs our Grand Canyon. In all of that strange and otherworldly landscape, what might yet be undiscovered?
Hacking the Brain
In my novel, Cutter Elwes has discovered a novel way of altering human intelligence to his own end. Is that possible? If anything, it’s likely conservative. The computer hackers of the eighties and nineties are becoming the biohackers of the new millennia. Even now researchers are studying viruses and bacteria that use chemical signals to control emotions and human thought. With the exponential rate of our ability to manipulate DNA — faster, cheaper, and with more control — anything will soon be possible.
DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office
DARPA has already been working at the cutting edges of robotics, prosthetics, and artificial intelligence. But in 2014, this new office was specifically born to go all in on biotechnology, to “explore the increasingly dynamic intersection of biology and the physical sciences.” Stay tuned!
In this novel, different researchers espoused various pathways around or through this sixth extinction. I’ve attended debates, read extensively, and pored through articles on the multiple sides of this complicated issue, but I thought I’d talk a little about the origin of some of these
Conservation/Preservation
This encompasses those environmentalists who seek to save species or bolster environments to support the endangered. This camp also includes those who seek to revive the extinct. In some circles, this is viewed as “old-school environmentalism.”
Synthetic Biologists
Right or wrong, this is where the young, excited scientists seek to use genetic manipulation and the creation of synthetic life to reengineer the world. While there certainly is a measure of hubris and danger down this path, it also shows great promise.
New Ecologists
I came upon a fascinating interview of ecologist Craig Thomas in New Scientist, where he espouses a new philosophical way of looking at extinction: basically as an opportunity. That a great extinction could lead to new and exciting life-forms, new pathways for evolution, even creating a New Eden. It’s a fascinating alternate way of looking at this Sixth Extinction.
Dark Mountain
It would be hard to do this movement justice in a small paragraph. So I encourage you to check out their website (http://dark-mountain.net), where you can read Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto by Dougald Hine and Paul Kingsnorth. Again it’s a radical new way of viewing this great Sixth Extinction.
In the character of Cutter Elwes, I tried to create a person who espoused a bastardized version of the last three philosophies, while pitting him against Kendall Hess, who advocates for the first two. And in fact that very philosophical war is being waged in the scientific community right now.
And it wouldn’t be a Sigma novel without a little (or a lot) of
Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle
Charles Darwin did visit the Fuegian natives in the Tierra del Fuego region of South America. The people were skilled sailors, and it’s not beyond the realm of possibilities that they had crude maps of their voyages in their possession. One other true detail is that Darwin did in fact not publish his famous treatise until twenty years after that fateful voyage. Which begs the historical question: Why?
Maps, Maps, and More Maps
Within these pages, you’ll find examples of ancient maps that depict what seemingly appears to be the continent of Antarctica — but without ice. While these are real maps, centuries old, the debates about them continue today. But what we do know is that ancient people have been navigating the world’s oceans for much longer than originally suspected. The nautical timeline for humankind keeps getting pushed farther and farther back into history. And with the destruction of the famous Library of Alexandria — that vast storehouse for all ancient knowledge — who knows what great truths vanished in those flames?
Germans in Antarctica
All of the historical details about the Nazi exploration and interest in Antarctica is based on facts, including the cryptic statements by Admiral Karl Dönitz during the Nuremberg trials and his oddly light prison sentence.
Americans in Antarctica
Operation Highjump, led by Admiral Byrd, was a real operation involving over 5,000 men. Yet it still remains shrouded in mystery. Byrd’s snow cruiser is also an actual vehicle and was shipped to that continent, only to eventually vanish into history (or under the ice). And yes, the U.S. government did test atomic bombs down there.
British in Antarctica
The British Antarctic Survey has been going strong down on the southernmost continent almost longer than any other country, changing its name in the process as described in this book. And the Haley VI station is an active British research post (unless it slid into the sea like it did in the pages of this book). It does indeed look like a centipede wearing giant skis.
Most of the “tech” of this book was already covered in the Science section, but there are a couple of additional gadgets worth mentioning.
Captive Air Amphibious Transport (CAAT)
While these vehicles are still in the prototype stage, they have built scaled-down versions of this vehicle that are fully operational. In fact, I chose to base the smaller CAATs featured in this book upon those prototypes (and I had to greatly refrain myself from not calling those mini-CAATs… “Kittens”).
Sonic Weapons
Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs) are employed across the world by police and military forces and operate basically as described in the book.
The more portable directed stick radiators (DSRs) are a patented design by American Technology Corporation. As far as I know they’re not being actively produced, but they function pretty much as described in the story, including the ability to broadcast speech or to be used as a directional microphone for eavesdropping.
So if you’re going into a dark cavern under Antarctica you might want to buy stock in that company.
Just a couple of words about
Tepui
These strange otherworldly plateaus stretch through Guyana, Venezuela, and Brazil. Many have never been walked by man, and the strange, isolated ecosystems up there are pristine and untouched. The mythologies described in this book are also accurate, as are those strange sinkholes, caverns, and tunnels. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle set his novel The Lost World atop one of these tepui, so I figured surely that’s where Cutter Elwes would set up shop, far from prying eyes.
Mountain Warfare Training Center