It turns out the ambitious botg.com did indeed collapse, and things are looking suspicious there. You can find out more about it here. For good measure Professor X's Cracked has abruptly stopped. Justin Posey's Beyond the Map's Edge is doing fine, but his behaviour is apparently similar to the ferociously controversial Forrest Fenn hunt.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Marg bar Khamenei means death to Khamenei. In the past one would hear Marg bar Amrika (not sure of the last vowel). Sarbawz means soldier. "Pahlavi will return" is " Pahlavi bar migardeh". "Long live the king" is "Javid Shah". The h letter is aspirated, like the consonant, for example Tehran. If I have my facts right, javun means young (and boy), so javun e means (s/he) is young. By the way, notice how Persians speaking English get their genders mixed up. Bozorg means big, great. So pedar bozorg is grandfather.
 
 
 

A government vessel, like Star Trek. A shifting set of people being transported, not unlike The Love Boat. Colourful stuff, including intelligence people tensely doing stuff in their area. A diplomat. Materials could also be transported, like Futurama. Part of Canadian history is a bush pilot delivering medical material to a far-off settlement. The science stuff, people, satellites, and probes. There will be far-off settlements that need to be refreshed with people, supplies, and machines. Robots will have a presence somehow.
 
 
 
 

There is talk of sending people to Mars. This whole space thing actually doesn't really interest me. Making a settlement on Mars would be seriously challenging. Mars is far out there. Consider how things would be added to the settlement one delivery at a time to build things up and keep things up to date. What would be sent, and in what order would they be sent? This visit would be exciting for the settlers.
 
 
 
 

This would be about people talking to people in rooms, in a spaceship. There's nothing wrong with that, but in time both the passengers and the audience would get cabin fever. Time to go to a planet. Go to space New Orleans. A jellyfish party. A diplomatic visit. A casino, where there was a shady character. Somebody missed getting back on the ship, for slippery reasons.
 
 
 
 

Star Wars is about fighting. It's in the name. But we're going in a different direction. There is a documentary film about the making of Star Wars called "Empire of Dreams". What comes to mind when you think of that title?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Big Brother is a strategic reality show. There have been versions in, e.g., Australia. People are locked together in a house for a sustained period of time, with not a lot to do except talk.

It occurred to me that there could be a physical connection between, e.g. a BB show in Australia and a BB show in the U.K. This is impossible, surreal, with players going through doors and down tunnels even though the shows are in different countries. One or two players at a time are allowed to visit, not the whole house (of people), as an earned treat. It's all about gossip there.
 
 

What happens with Alouette, function and plot wise? It's taking a bunch of people for a long distance through empty, dark space. There will be a bit of a cruise ship element, with a need to keep people stimulated on their journey. There will certainly be scientists and engineers looking for life on distant planets. There will be a diplomat. There will not be war, good luck trying to spot a gun, although you can catch whispers of shadow stuff / cold war.
 
 

The way it works in this universe is you do not see suspiciously humanoid, English-speaking aliens. There are humans, but they have different cultures, like the world here.

Alouette is huge, long. It hangs about planets but does not land. Long story short it does the wormhole thing, but still has to travel more traditionally within a solar system. Extra things can be bolted on to the space ship, we'll call them pods for now. So you could have a fairly big, self-contained pod from the planet Shabadoo that is attached to the Alouette. Some influence from the old show The Starlost there. It is important that the pod is 10cc certified. The latest version. If it isn't, we're going to have a problem.

Here's where the Big Brother suggestion becomes relevant. The Shabadoo people are in their self-contained pod, but you can also meet some in an Alouette cafeteria. The different pods add some colour. Did you know that section D has a decent pool? One pod has a lot of plants. There are kids, families, among the Shabadoo people. One pod has a Hong Kong chef, together with his robot Hong Kong chef partner. The E pod had better not have contraband. The Ibidee people have their own way of doing things. A murder mystery on the M pod. A diplomat. A couple of espionage people, intensely focused on the Federal Republic of Diblo. A domesticated alien pet.

People are only part of it. Cargo too. Secondary spacecraft.
 
 
 

An exclusive part of a spaceship where the richy rich people are. Money, elite, bordering on conspiracy theory power brokers. This could be part of Alouette, another ship, or, quite likely, just part of conversation gossip. This mysterious exclusive area is something for the imagination to feed on. They actually have this on some cruise ships. It's not really exciting, more personal service.

Planets are more relevant for the Big Brother thing. People on the moon Oxi IV are a small, isolated group, trying to make it work indoors in a little station in an inhospitable environment far from civilisation. Having people visit, and leave, would be an event.

The captain sure has a lot to worry about, a lot of responsibility with things that could go wrong. Is pod D 10cc certified? The latest version?

There is an episode where they get through a fairly tense challenge. The captain is often under stress with all his responsibility, but tries not to show it. But they get through it and all is good at the end of the episode. Then the word "audit" is heard. This sends a chill down the captain's spine. Kind of funny.

Since people are not all coming from or going to the same place, people come and people go with Alouette. Romance is not irrelevant.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Do you know what Parkinson's law is? The amount of time taken to do a project grows to the amount of time allotted for it.

Alouette goes on a long voyage into the depths of the galaxy. A group of scientests/engineers are working on a program to find life on a distant planet. In spite of all the time allowed for this, the scientists are scrambling at the last minute to finish and perfect the project. Kind of funny. Of course the captain has been assured that everything will be ready to go on time. People will identify with this. The project wasn't quite ready because of this, that factor, don't forget testing.
 
 
 

I'm trying to avoid any reference to violence, everything from war to fistfights. A topic for another day. Anyway

Imagine a country that chooses not to make trouble because the other side might cause chaos within the country. Drones popping out from transported boxes, spies, assassins, computer hacking, firebugs, information warfare, economic obstacles, separatists or something along those lines, people conned into doing sabotage, more drones popping out, and more hacking, in a world with robots. Not long-distance missile bombardment, but threats disturbingly within the country, mysteriously activated from outside at the flick of a switch.

(China planned to use installed solar panels for something like this. See "China's Sinister Solar Panels and the Plan to Black Out the World!")
 
 
 
 

Everyone knows what that means, just from the one word. Another long-distance ship, the Bonaventure, disappeared. Unlike the Titanic, it hits closer to home, more recent, and there is no explanation for why it disappeared.