So if you were to take:
– 1 part Apollo Program history books
– 1 part Asimov novels
– 1 part Mass Effect Andromeda
– 1 part real life
– 1 part HFY overdose
and mix until chunky, you would get my next (first?) original novel. Midori Baker is a direct descendant of Harumi Ryder, thematically speaking: I saw the potential in MEA for a sequel, one where the Pathfinder and the Milky Way gang with their new Angaran allies explore Andromeda and find the war with the Kett and the Jardaan and, presumably, stop it.
And then I was like “that’s way too much work that BioWare and EA won’t help you on. Write your own story with this idea!” So I will.
Midori is an explorer in the future, a future where Earth exploded in nuclear war and a tiny fraction of survivors (already on a last-ditch desperate doomed escape mission through space) were rescued by aliens (still working on their name) and given a new home. I think this has been done before, but I haven’t read any of the books that have done it because if I do now then I’ll end up copying them, even subconsciously. But humanity’s future with their new neighbours is not dark, and in the last hundred years humans have proved themselves useful and helpful – and have established an exploration corps in joint operation with the aliens, called the Signals, and Midori’s wanted nothing more than to join them since she was 5 years old and first saw a spaceship launch. And now, at last, she can, and as the chief of her own crew.
On her team are Johanna Gonzales, the pilot/engineer; Amir Zhdanov, the security; B-Sharp and Lolie, two alien scientists going by their human nicknames for our benefit; and Kang Myung-Jin, a brilliant young roboticist, and his tour de force, KIM, an AI/robot field assistant to Midori. Midori finds herself strangely drawn to the AI, finding it – him – to be beautifully innocent and fascinating, and is blindsided by Myung-Jin’s ensuing jealousy. Yet all these things are minor in the face of her discoveries – Earth is far from barren, and humanity ekes out a living there still, and it is squarely in the path of a confrontation between two galactic megapowers. And yet… the feelings one person has for another are as important as the whole universe, aren’t they?
This picture of Midori is not necessarily meant to be accurate, but more of an emotional guide – she would definitely wear bright colours and black leather, girly dresses and stockings and kick-ass leather boots, streak her hair and chew bubblegum – but I haven’t yet determined the resources or fashions of the society she lives in. And she definitely wouldn’t wear this when working! It’s a visual way for me to remember she’s optimistic and determined. I think what would be available to her would probably be a lot more utilitarian, but on the other hand… a li’l cyberpunk aesthetic could have grown up over a hundred years, no? (Just don’t ask me what’s going on in the background. Colours! I don’t know.) It was somewhat inspired by this song by BAND-MAID, though Midori’s a lot more positive in her own personality. (Gonna use a lot of BAND-MAID to write this story though!)
The MAIN point of the story for me is going to be the romance between Midori and KIM. But I also think there’s something to be said for exploring what it would be like to go back to Earth as a human from outer space – even if I think it would be depressing. Perhaps explore some deconstruction of colonialism. Definitely there will a theme of pacifism, because this world has too much violence in it already. “Write the world you want to see”, someone probably said somewhere at some point, and so I will.
After I finish more fanfics lol.