Henry Vogel gets painfully serious about the challenges of raising teenagers in the Internet age. Where is the line between responsible parenthood and trying too hard to protect your children from the dangers and temptations of the world? Join the discussion...
Kersley Fitzgerald continues her discussion of point-of-view and the sacred duties of the science fiction writer, leading into an interesting eye's-on exercise. How many POV errors can you find in this single scene? Join the discussion...
Bruce Bethke gives it a pass this week, being trapped in the clammy clutches of OTOGU. However, the April "Folk Tales of the Final Frontier" challenge wraps up with the longest "And the winner is..." we've ever produced, so there's no shortage of stuff to read. Beating out stiff competition, newcomer Anton Gully takes the win with his delightful entry, "Assault and Buttery." Or, if you just feel like commenting, you can join the discussion...
Ultimate Geek Fu broaches an almost heretical idea: sometimes the movie is better than the book. How many movies can you name that were improvements over the books they were based on? Join the discussion...
Splattering Guts for Fun & Profit is still paddling around in the Bronze Age, discussing the positive attributes of empires and trying to discover gunpowder. Was Ben-Hur merely anti-Roman propaganda? Join the discussion...
Also, Kersley Fitz stumbles onto the terrible truth about publishing (read at your own risk!), the inmates discuss the view from their respective places in the asylum, we bid a sad farewell to legendary artist Frank Frazetta, and just when you thought it was safe to go outside, the entire Earth is menaced by a zombie satellite. All this and more, this week in, The Friday Challenge!
Gentle Nudge: "The Land Before ZIP Codes"
Just a gentle reminder that the deadline for the current Greater Challenge, "The Land Before ZIP Codes", is Friday, May 21.
Short Attention Span Theater
This week's Lesser Challenge is "Short Attention Span Theater". As of the deadline, we have received the following entries. (If we've missed anybody, please let us know and we'll fix it ASAP.)
M, "Better Off Ed"
M, "Stink-Eye Nellie"
Ben-El, "Better Off Wed"
Ben-El, "Hawt Cuisine"
Avery, "Unequivocal"
Miko, "My Favorite Venusian"
Even if you haven't submitted an entry this week—even if you never submit an entry in any week—you're invited to read, comment on, and vote for your favorites. Don't be shy about leaving comments on the writers' sites, too. Writers thrive on knowing that someone out there is reading their words.
The winner will be announced on Sunday. And now, on to this week's Friday Challenge...
Invasion of the Ring-Stealing, Satellite-Snatching Mechanical Zombies From Outer Space
This week's Friday Challenge is, as they say, ripped from the headlines. Specifically, these headlines:
Problem Detected with Voyager 2 Spacecraft at Edge of Solar SystemOkay, that in itself is no cause for alarm. Frankly, it's amazing the old bird is still working at all. But then, if you look at the next headline:
"NASA has commanded the famed Voyager 2 probe to send only information on its health and status after spotting a puzzling change in the spacecraft's pattern of communication from the edge of the solar system.
"The 33-year-old Voyager 2 spacecraft, which is currently 8.6 billion miles (13.8 billion km) from Earth, is apparently still in good health, according to the latest engineering data received on May 1. But Voyager 2's flight data system, which formats information before beaming it back to Earth, has experienced a hiccup that altered the pattern in which it sends updates home.
"Because of that pattern change, mission managers can no longer decode the science data beamed to Earth from Voyager 2..."
Jupiter has lost one of its iconic red stripes and scientists are baffled as to whyAnd then there's this:
"The largest planet in our solar system is usually dominated by two dark bands in its atmosphere, with one in the northern hemisphere and one in the southern hemisphere.
"However, the most recent images taken by amateur astronomers have revealed the lower stripe known as the Southern Equatorial Belt has disappeared leaving the southern half of the planet looking unusually bare.
"The band was present in at the end of last year before Jupiter ducked behind the Sun on its orbit. However, when it emerged three months later the belt had disappeared..."
'Zombie' satellite runs amok in Earth's orbitAnd finally:
An attempt to shut down the electronics payload of the out-of-control communications satellite Galaxy 15 has failed, leaving the satellite - which ceased responding to ground commands last month - still in its uncontrolled "zombiesat" drift toward orbits occupied by other spacecraft, the satellite's fleet operator Intelsat said Tuesday.Galaxy 15 is closing in on the geostationary orbital slot occupied by another C-band satellite, the AMC-11 spacecraft operated by SES World Skies, and with its stuck-on communications payload will be in a position to cause potentially severe interference with the SES satellite during a two-week period starting around May 23, according to Intelsat and SES estimates.
The unsuccessful attempt to shut down the so-called "zombiesat" – a satellite industry term for failed satellites in orbit - occurred on Monday.
Aliens 'hijack' Nasa's Voyager 2 spacecraft, claims expertWhy has all of this happened in just the last few days? What do these strange phenomenon have in common? Does this portend good or evil for the planet-bound people of the Earth? Are extraterrestrials trying to give us the secrets of the universe or do they just want our women? Folks, it's time to put on your National Enquirer thinking caps and explain all of this because inquiring minds want to know!
Hartwig Hausdorf, a German academic, believes that the reason Voyager 2, an unmanned probe that has been in space since 1977, is sending strange messages that are confusing scientists, is because it has been taken over by extraterrestrial life.Since its launch, Voyager 2 has been sending streams of data back to Earth for study by scientists, but on April 22, 2010, that stream of information suddenly changed.
Nasa claimed that a software problem with the flight data system was the cause but Mr Hausdorf believes it could be the work of aliens.This is because all other parts of the spacecraft appear to be functioning fine.
He told the German newspaper Bild: "It seems almost as if someone has reprogrammed or hijacked the probe – thus perhaps we do not yet know the whole truth.”
Your challenge is to write the first few paragraphs of a tabloid news story "explaining" how all of this ties together. Feel free to invent experts to quote or even attribute fake quotes to real people. If you don't want to delve into tabloid journalism, take whatever approach you prefer -- crackpot blog post, flash fiction, a story from a staid, traditional newspaper running something they can't believe is true, or whatever tickles your fancy -- while still giving a single explanation for all of these events. Your editor has ordered you to have the story ready no later than midnight, May 20.
As always, we are playing by the loosely enforced official rules of the Friday Challenge and playing for whatever is behind Door #3. In a moment of staggeringly poor planning on our part we've made the deadline of this also the crack of dawn on Friday, May 21, so we'll be multitasking like crazy next weekend.
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