While it’s always nice to see an idea take a left turn when another writer gets it, someone might find these links interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau_Bo%C3%B6tis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau_Bo%C3%B6tis_Ab
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_lock
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_resonance

…and, although it was an afterthought when I came to the title box:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He

But do what you want, if you want.

Nice, but I won’t ruin it for ya
:)

S.J.

I appreciate the thought, but I may not return to it unless someone else sequels it. I like the Exquisite Corpse aspect of this site and don’t much like doing my own sequels. After all, I can write my own longer pieces on my own (and should be when I’m not dried up or stalling :) ).
Of course that’s an invitation to everybody and not a request to anyone: if this piece dies on the vine, it wasn’t fit to survive. (I also like the pseudo-Darwinian nature of this site.)

I appreciate the thought, but I may not return to it unless someone else sequels it. I like the Exquisite Corpse aspect of this site and don’t much like doing my own sequels. After all, I can write my own longer pieces on my own (and should be when I’m not dried up or stalling :) ).
Of course that’s an invitation to everybody and not a request to anyone: if this piece dies on the vine, it wasn’t fit to survive. (I also like the pseudo-Darwinian nature of this site.)

Aghhh – a double post. Dear Powers-That-Be: please give us the ability to edit or delete our own comments!

:)

And our mistakes that end up becoming drafts because we can’t delete them!! :)

Howie – I feel for ya!!!

This one was.. well.. kind of confusing for me.. (course, it could also be the late time and the drinks… Who knows..)

I think it was the ‘right there on the edge’ comment that got me.. but I found the possible cannibalism thought strangely funny… (and I might want to get myself evaluated for that..) Nice job on it other than the last part. :)

The thought with the photo was that a tidal-locked planet (or a planet in something like a 1:1 orbital resonance) would have a single, eternal sunset visible at a certain longitude. (I think, someone correct me if I’m wrong, that a slightly greater than 1:1 resonance would produce very lonnng sunsets, but the sun would eventually dip below the horizon).
(cont.)

(cont.)
T. Bootis A actually has a tidal-locked planet orbiting very close to it: an extremely hot, dark gas giant (and obviously uninhabitable). But it probably also has another unobserved planet farther out.
After looking at the picture & thinking about painfully long sunsets, a likely planet was chosen with Celestia (a linux planetarium program), looking for a star with a similar color to the one in the picture (TBA is F-class, whitish-yellow in color).
Where the tale might go next? I don’t know.

Oh – “right there on the edge.” Tau Bootis’ gas giant (Tau Bootis Ab), closer to her mother than Mercury is to the sun, would be visible (from a farther-out world) in transit (crossing the star’s face) or as a small “bead” on the star’s edge before passing behind for several hours. Looking for her without goggles would be a bad idea, of course.