Temporarily Shutting Down the Blog

Welcome beloved readers. Thanks for being here.

With much gratitude to my regular readers I must say that I will be shutting down the Gavaskar Field Blog for short time. Those of you who have been following this blog know that recently I took on a full time job. At the same time I am trying to finish the final book in the Max Gavaskar series, The Mother of the Galaxy.

The book is written but still needs editing and some work. Writing is for me an emotional and taxing thing. I suffer with my characters.

I don’t have the energy to do all three things. The completion of my sci fi series is key and I need the income of a regular job. That puts this blog into the nice but optional category. I really enjoy telling tales from the Harappan Universe. I love sharing about Max Gavaskar. Writing about her in my blog keeps her alive for me. I will miss her greatly when the series is finished.

With all this in mind I will quit writing the blog while I complete The Mother of the Galaxy. When this book is finished and ready for print I will return. There are several back stories I want to share but not until the last book is out. I don’t want to give away too much. There are a couple of big surprises in the last book. So I’ll leave you with a tease for the upcoming book and a promise to return as soon as I can.

Coming Soon: The Mother of the Galaxy

Max Gavaskar’s story ends in the Mother of the Galaxy, an emotional, wild ride as Max is once again being hunted by the SID, this time by one of their sharpest weapons. Max’s insight from Kusha has opened the door for the first Galactic War. Max knows she is the one person who can do something to prevent the mass slaughter that galactic war will bring. See how Max evades capture and how she changes everything for the Milky Way one more time.

Never mix red wine with Oodo, but cider is fine.

Earth Year 2014

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Plant Evolution on Planet Harappa

Welcome pure readers. Thanks for being here.

Yesterday we discussed the most basic form of life on planet Harappa, the algae in the oceans. Today we move up a step into the plant kingdom.

Like Earth and most other planets the plant kingdom developed before animal life. The surface of of Harappa was covered with plant life. They loved the place, even the hot zones near the equator.

Grasses, shrubs, trees and flowers all existed on Harappa. There were two large forest areas in the river valley we settled in, the Great River Valley. We replaced sections of these forests with trees from Earth and they did very well. We were not concerned with preserving the ecosystems on Harappa. We were most concerned with survival and that entailed replacing some of the ecological niches with plants more suitable for human support.

Now days we have a bit more respect for native ecosystems. The human race would be criticized for wrecking planet Harappa and the life contained there. The legal philosophy that this is based on is the notion that there is no determining what this life might evolve to. It might evolve the being that will move life towards the next step in evolution.

Back then we didn’t consider Fordian legal concepts, we only considered what we needed. We needed food, building materials and something familiar to our genetic memories. Harappa was ours to do with what we needed and we needed something from Earth.

Tomorrow we’ll take a step up the evolutionary chain.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Philip the Bard's Harappan blog: Life on Planet Harappa

Welcome proud readers. Thanks for being here.

This week, we’ll take a look at Harappan botany and biology.

Harappa was a planet full of life. It wasn’t all the kind of life we knew from Earth. Most of Harappa had a harsh environment. Too hot for humans. We only settled two small river valleys near the south pole. Then there was the Dark Times. every eighteen years the Blue Moon passed between planet Harappa and its sun blocking light from the world for almost two weeks. Most of the surface freezes and what life lives must either hibernate or go underground. So there are several impediments to complex life, yet some complex life did exist.

Lets start from the bottom and work our way up the evolutionary chain.

The most common life on planet Harappa was/is the algae in the world’s oceans. It was the algae that produced the oxygen that we breathed. It also became one of the best food sources on the planet. Every Harappa I know still eats the stuff, despite all of us occasionally complaining about the smelly goo. It is grown in indoor tanks on planet Kusha and we still eat the stuff, though I have never heard anyone tout its culinary delights. We eat it because it is nutritious and because it is something from home.

The algae was also used in building materials and other fabrication projects. We don’t use it for those kinds of uses here on Kusha since it is fairly hard to produce in captivity. What we make here on Kusha is used for cereal and energy bars. While it may be a tad swampy smelling and not have a great deal of flavor it is indeed quite nutritious. I don’t know any Earthers or Lavans who eat the stuff. In fact most Harappans call it “stuff’ or “goo”, not exactly endearing terms but we still eat the stuff.

Tomorrow: We work our way up the evolutionary chain.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Bubba the Science Fan's Friday Blog: Our Neolithic Ancestors

Welcome wonderful readers. Thanks for being here.

Typically I use my friday science blog to discuss something in the cosmic realm. The latest proof for the Big Bang or the latest new planetary discovery. But, today I’m going in another direction.

I love many realms of science and I also love history. At one time as a lad I wanted to grow up to be an archeologist. Then I got nervous about mummies’ curses. Give me a break, I was nine.

I have a theory about the Neolithic Era and new evidence has come to light that confirms my theory a little.

I believe that our Neolithic ancestors were a lot busier than we give them credit for. They didn’t write so we don’t have a written history for them. Much of what they did is lost to us. I believe they were traveling much more than many think. I do not think they had any advanced technology that we do not have. I do think they were quite clever and able to accomplish great things that some want to credit to magic or superpowers. Naw, just clever hard working people working together in groups.

Recently Graham Hancock has written about a new find of a large megalithic structure in the jungles of Indonesia. I know Hancock has many critics but some of his theories make sense. For example his theory about the rising ocean levels. He and I think that many of our Great Flood stories come from the ocean rising at the end of the last ice age. I think we will find more and more ancient cities buries off the coasts around the world. I think we will find more and more evidence that our ancient ancestors were traveling, trading and meeting each other much more than we currently think.

This new discovery along with Gobekli Tepe is the beginning of what I think will be many new discoveries that will eventually open the door to a better understanding ot Neolithic humans.

Never mix red wine with Oodo, but cider is fine.

Earth Year 2014

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Surviving on Planet Harappa

Welcome majestic readers. Thanks for being here.

Planet Harappa is dying. Those of us who grew up there are spending a lot of time recalling our days there. This week I’ll spend some time discussing the botany and biology of the world I was born on.

When Marcus Johnson and his original followers first arrived on Harappa the world was already occupied by a fairly diverse ecosystem. Not nearly as diverse as Kusha or Earth but there was an active biological process going on.

Plant life was fully evolved. Tree, bushes, flowers, grasses and such. The Harappan sun is a yellow sun like Earth’s so the plant life there was very Earth-like.

The animal life was just beginning its trip up the evolutionary chain. The Harappan climate was just settling down after a long period of intense change. Then there was the problem of the Dark Times. Every eighteen years the Blue Moon would block out the sun for almost two weeks freezing most of the surface of Harappa.

What animal life that did evolve there had evolved to go dormant or underground during the Dark Times. That made the evolutionary process a challenge. There weren’t many complex life forms on the surface.

Next week: Who lived on the land? Who lived in the sea?

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480

Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Finding Planet Harappa

Welcome great readers. Thanks for being here.

The death watch of planet Harappa continues. It is only a matter of months before my homeworld crumbles apart and falls into its sun.

My childhood footprints will disappear, the home I grew up in will become stardust. The places I roamed as a child will be no more.

Thinking about this got me a little melancholy. I’m going to miss the world when Harappa is gone. I haven’t lived there for almost ninety years but it is still my homeworld. It is still where I grew up, I have memories there.

So, I thought I should spend some time mentioning things from planet Harappa.

Today, lets look at how the world was when we humans first got there. When Marcus Johnson firs discovered Harappa from planet Earth there were questions about how comfortable the world would be. He certainly knew that the planet was warmer than Earth and that the orbit of the planet had an unexplainable wobble that was troubling.

We now know that the wobble was caused by the Blue Moon. When the Harvest Day Blast freed the Blue Moon from its gravitational dance with Harappa, Harappa started its death spiral towards its sun.

When Johnson and his two thousand followers landed they found a world that was inhabited by a variety of plants and animals, none of which had evolved to the point of establishing a culture beyond hunting packs. Today we might think about not settling on a planet like Harappa was because we follow the Fordian restrictions about settling new worlds. We don’t go there if there is any complex life. The definition of complex life is a complicated affair and outlined in detail on the EG (the Encyclopedia Galactica).

As it was we couldn’t go anywhere else. The Arc of the New Millennium, the ship that took humans from Earth to Harappa was a one shot affair. It was not able to start another flight.

We stayed, we worked, we grew. We found one small valley that was comfortable enough and settled there. We built towns and cities and made babies, lots of babies.

Tomorrow: Flora and Fauna of planet Harappa.

Never mix red wine and Oodo.

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 88

Earth Year 2480