I've decided to believe that it is because I'm not a regular on this that no-one guessed me, as that is far more reassuring than the alternatives.
There probably are very good 1,000 word hard sci-fi story about a terraforming disaster, of the top of my head a Three Laws robot and Terraforming has potential, but it would be very different and certainly less fun.
TBC has definitely nicked stylistic elements of me it is true.#2: Definitely not me. Makes me think TBC for some reason.
I absolutely wanted to play with the dark and stormy night trope and I'm glad that came across. With more words you could do more, but as I hinted at in my 'guess' I think a solid joke piece is worthy on it's own terms. You can use humour to make points, push forward a plot and do all sort of things. But sometimes just writing something that is funny is enough.Author #2
This piece is exactly 1000 words (I checked, because it seemed more.) Excellent use of time and space allowed to get in the story. Not much of a story, but what can one do in 1000 words? Given the constraints and limit, it uses both humor and theme, to get across the notion of our topic at hand. That said, it very much uses a similar conceit from the first piece. Something has been lost in space (why didn’t anyone else think of that? Hmm.)
I very much like the descending order of reports, especially the rote “night is dark and stormy” motif. This is a writer that wants to move beyond that (and perhaps make fun of it.) Yet with the limited time allowed, there is little one can do other than that. It’s a joke, a bit of humor. A solid piece, to be sure. Solid, but may be improved by moving beyond the joke.
My guess is @Peter Ebbesen
It was very much not hard sci-fi, the 'gratuitous' quantum modelling was a tip of the hat to that. On the destruction, well if the planet was small enough (say Mercury sized) and the comets big enough then... it probably doesn't work either, but it wasn't that sort of story. I was aiming for the Star Trek end of the sci-fi spectrum, where you are using sci-fi elements to tell a story (or make a joke in this case), as opposed to the Clarke/Asimov end.So my belated commentary on entry #2:
This reads like terraforming meets bad management practices.
It works, at that, though I have my doubt anyone would be THIS repeatedly numb to the real requirements of the job. But who knows? And in any case the story wouldn't work if they 'only' dropped every comet at the exact same spot and broke the planet that way... which would be the kind of mess-up that is slightly believable.
I do, of course, wonder if a couple dozen comets can really destroy a planet. I doubt it. Earth, at least, has 10 orders of magnitude more mass than Halley's comet or Temple 1.
And the use of 'quantum modelling' sounds completely gratuitous. But well.
Overall it works as soft-core sci-fi. I don't believe it could ever really work in a complex organization setting up the terraforming of a whole planet, but as a light-hearted criticism of corporate culture, it does work.
There probably are very good 1,000 word hard sci-fi story about a terraforming disaster, of the top of my head a Three Laws robot and Terraforming has potential, but it would be very different and certainly less fun.
The Britishness clearly shone through. Also, glad you liked it.My guesses (don't have time for analysis, so going purely what my guts tell me)
2 Wyvern
Also, I quite like all the entries
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