Toba! Toba! Toba!

I'm still not feeling up to creating anything. I don't mean non-creative; there are still ideas coming. I meant I lack heart to follow any of them up.

Still working on ideas for the Paris book. That series is not selling at all (and I am in despair about all my efforts to get the covers revamped. Everyone I hired ended up having...issues.) So something SF would be good.

Fantasy doesn't normally do it for me, but the game I've been playing recently has some nice future-tribal stuff with a variety of decently deep cultures.

But I am so tired of post-apocalypse. I found myself asking; "What about a pre-apocalypse?" Well, I have no idea what that might be, but pre (known) civilization civilizations isn't completely overdone.

That's Ignatius Donelly, if you don't recognize him. Which immediately leads to the though of what might have actually went down if...the crew of the Dark Star (well, not them, but something a lot like them) are tasked to go to Earth to keep humanity from extinction. So, basically:

And way back, early enough so this could be believably our own past, with all evidence of whatever civilizations the aliens nurtured mostly lost. Although my first thought was not quite long enough ago; that would be during the "nuclear winter" and (today controversial) genetic bottleneck following the Toba eruption.

No, that's Toba.

There is a prior genetic bottleneck pointed at by mitochondrial DNA at something like 1.2 MYA. A bit earlier, still essentially genetically modern humans, still in the Age of Mammals -- but even at 75 KYA you've got smilodon and giant sloth to play with. (The Terror Bird, alas, died out around 1.8 MYA.)

But in any case I'd be writing fantasy. Aliens, psychic powers (call them psionics if you like, I call it another scientifical name for "magic.") And besides...even though we have archaeology from 75 KYA, it would be fun to use it. There are known stone tools, cave paintings, even musical instruments.

Because the essential idea was that the humans react in various and fractious ways to the aliens' efforts. Some of them rejecting the new ways, some embracing, some stealing the best ideas and running off to form their own civilizations. So lots of divergent peoples with their own cultures and languages who can be interacting in all the good fantasy-novel ways with each other.

And it occurred to me that the aliens might not be terribly practiced at this either. So they are fractured, with strongly different opinions and ways of interacting with the humans.

And then there's the idea of technological dead ends, whether the alien tech is naturally that way or whether they are afraid the human species may become a competitor if they learn too much. All in all causing us to go rather more bronze age combined with a hefty dose of magic quartz crystals.

Except for that one ornery group of humans who decided to take up metallurgy...and it won't be long before that results in a little war.

And with us close to genetic bottleneck, it is entirely possible for an entire culture and all their cities to number in the tens of thousands, tops. And for there to be characters who are the last of their peoples.

Which peoples might not even be the main genetic body of modern humans. The Neanderthals are still around then. All in all, every element you need for a good action-fantasy book.