The Idea Mill #25

The articles have piled up once more, and it's time to visit the old Idea Mill again. There are a lot of new followers of Entertaining Stories, and for you these are intended to inspire your imagination. Maybe you'll see something to include in your next speculative story, maybe it will inspire a whole series. Again for the new folks, there is a category in the sidebar if you'd like to check any previous posts.

Our first article involves monkeys and evolution once again. We had one where the theory was that a species of baboon had trained a species of wolf to help them in foraging.

This time capuchin monkeys are banging rocks together. Probably not huge news in itself. They use the rocks like tools to get minerals or food. The interesting part is the monkeys create concoidal flakes from the process of striking the rocks together. Archaeologists are questioning some of their evidence of early humans, because monkeys are creating something that had been attributed as being solely human activity. You can read the article here.

That's interesting, and calls into question the source of some early flaking activity, but this is a speculative fiction blog. It isn't a huge leap of the imagination to have one monkey start using the sharp flakes he creates. Before too long, monkeys enter the stone age. Sounds like a good basis for a lost world type story to me. Imagine exploring a place where arboreal monkeys rain down spears tipped with flint heads upon you.

Maybe it doesn't fuel an entire story. Maybe scientists spend the summer documenting this unusual activity only to encounter something worse. Maybe they find other signs of early human activity, like using the flint to make fires. It might make a great story similar to a mashup of Watership Downs and Lord of the Flies, where the monkeys make teams and fight for dominance.

The second article involves a sunken German submarine from World War One. This thing is on the bottom of the ocean, just off the coast of Scotland. There really isn't too much remarkable, but it's pretty interesting. The interesting part is that some of the crew survived. The captain said they lost the ship when they were attacked by a sea monster. Read about the discovery here.

Now I'm reasonably sure the guy is full of crap, but why not make it part of a story? You could take it as is, or make the statement into the catalyst for an adventure to look for evidence of a sea monster. Heck, it's close enough to Scotland to make the Loch Ness Monster part of your story.

Finally, this article was sent to Lisa Burton, my assistant, by Planetary Defense Command. The Commander is friends with Lisa on Facebook, and he thought we would like this article. It's about a dedicated train line to carry the dead, and their mourners, to the cemetery. (And back, you know, for the mourners at least.) It seems that London, like most old world cities, was running out of places to inter the dead. The line was met with some resistance, because horse drawn hearses were the preferred method of the day.

They acquired a massive amount of land outside the city, but it was too far for funeral processions and horses to deal with. Thus, the train line. The article is full of good period specific information about storing and shipping the bodies too. Even the photographs are wonderful. It would make a good setting in your Victorian crime novel. Characters who work along the project would also be very interesting. I can see detectives from Scotland Yard riding along to catch a Jack-the-Ripper type character. Maybe your character is one of the caterers who work at the cemetery to feed the mourners. It seems like the perfect setting for a ghost story too. Ghost trains, haunted stations, modern apartments built in the old buildings that still have ghosts in them. Maybe a grave robber ring. There are so many possibilities.

It's a great article without any fiction. It includes the Nazi bombing that put it under, and how automobile hearses replaced it. Thank you Commander for this great article. Do yourself a favor and read it here.

This is the place where I outline a corny story that includes all the elements. Submarines and sea monsters I can weave into a lost world with stone age monkeys. German subs and sea monsters, can work into the haunted railroad with sailors trying to escape by stealing the train. I just don't see how I can get stone age monkeys and a haunted railroad into the same story. Maybe I can borrow the London zoo, but I'm not feeling it. I'm running up the white flag on this one.

Tell me in the comments if you can figure out how to do it.

What kind of stories would you use these elements in. Maybe you like your advanced primates on another planet, or your funeral train is a spaceship to bring space pioneers back to Earth for burial. Let me hear it folks.

The Idea Mill #13

These posts come to me when they come to me. Sometimes it takes a couple of months, sometimes it's a couple of weeks.

For those who are new, these articles are pushed to me on my RSS reader and Zite magazine. I signed up for content that interests me, and share the good stuff here. Feel free to take away story elements or anything else that suits you.

The first one today is about a mini origami robot that folds itself. It also walks, swims, digs, carries small loads, climbs and if needed, dissolves completely in a solvent. This one even comes with videos. Read more about it here.

These kind of articles give plausibility to some pretty outlandish gagetry in our science fiction. Perhaps someone scattered papers that pass for garbage in a parking lot. At sunrise on Sunday morning, they activate and invade the museum. Gemstones, gold nuggets, small valuable items could be stolen this way. They dump the loot down a manhole and dissolve in the rain.

The next article is about an abandoned section of New York. It's called North Brother Island. What is it about New York islands? A previous Idea Mill post had an article about Hart Island. Hart Island is particularly creepy, so I used it for part of The Playground. (Which I need to start editing.)

North Brother Island holds an abandoned quarantine hospital. It's where Typhoid Mary spent her last days. To me, this is all about setting. The buildings are crumbling and overgrown with weeds. The walls are mossy and moldy. Check it out here, but it's the photos that speak to me.

Maybe you need a setting for your dystopian novel. Maybe you want a haunted location for your horror story. I'm sure this island will measure up with a bit of research. If nothing else, it makes for a good secret lair.

Finally, we have a bit of theory about evolution. In Eastern Africa the Ethopian wolves and gelada monkeys appear to be feeding side by side. These things don't look much like the wolves I'm familiar with, and the gelada monkeys look like baboons to me.

This may not seem like much at first glance. Both animals are omnivorous. Wolves being more carnivorous and monkeys being more herbivorous. These things only recently started getting along. Wolves used to grab baby monkeys and run. What changed?

The theory is this could be a view into how man first domesticated dogs. Take one highly intelligent primate, add one highly intelligent canine, who's also an incredible opportunist and I can see it happening. Read the article here.

What kind of raids could the monkeys pull off using wolves to help them? Maybe it starts with food. Maybe it progresses to the problem of over harvesting bush meat. It could even progress as far as attacking humans themselves. The folks who kidnapped all those young girls seem like a good target.

I share these articles in an attempt to inspire you. Take what you will and leave the rest. Now it's time for my corny story. This is part of the shtick on the idea mill posts.

Terrorists are hiding out on North Brother Island. It's a good location for their plan, and is centrally located. The terrorists are high tech and plan to steal a biological weapon by using hundreds of tiny origami robots.

Something has them spooked. Perhaps it's the ghosts of patients who died in quarantine. There have certainly been many creepy circumstances on the island. The rustling and noises belong to animals.

Before the authorities can catch up with the terrorists, the monkeys direct their newly domesticated wolves to attack. When the authorities arrive all the tiny robots have washed away in the rain. Only the rustling in the branches and weeds remain.

Okay, that's corny enough. It's speculative so I moved the animals to New York. Maybe they are feral pets or escaped zoo specimens.

Did any of these articles give you an idea. Either a plot or a story element, I'd like to hear it in the comments.