Oh, hell (frozen over)

I had this half idea for a story. It involves the relative ease of retrieving data from printed or carved materials vs electronic media, plus finding an alien civilization with funerary customs similar to a human one (but not our current human one). Also a very unusual type of cemetery (perhaps Necropolis is a better description), along with every type of tomb imaginable (of sorts).

What I don't have is an actual story.

Ok. The humans find the cemetery (Necropolis??) and explore it. They can easily see several things painted and carved, but they can't understand much of it. They argue about what it is, and even whether the freeze-dried aliens in vacuum-filled pods are really dead. They find maintenance systems in operation, a working fusion reactor, and lovingly tended plants and even a few live animals, and they question whether the whole thing's been abandoned or not. They even find a second Necropolis (cemetery?), and then a third. Comparisons yield some insights.

Now, I'd find all this utterly fascinating, but I need a story. Something has to happen.

A common plot device in such settings is to accidentally activate a self-destruct, or a booby trap, or something, and then the protagonists have to fend for their lives. I think this wastes the setting for a cheap action sequence. Ditto for a human in the party trying to steal artifacts.

H. Beam Piper wrote a story, "The Omnilingual" which was all about an archeological team exploring a building in Mars (let it go). There's a brief detour when a live bird is found, but then the story ends with an academically dramatic discovery. Authors could get away with such things back then. I don't think there'd be a market for that now. It's been spoiled by Indiana Jones and Stargate.

Oh, hell.

Oh, the Necropolis is found at the L2 point formed by two stars barely a light year apart. The second and third are nearby. It gets very cold in interstellar space.

And, no, I won't have any aliens arriving there. Live aliens will eventually learn to talk to us, and then we can simply ask them what the hell this all is. That's too easy.

Also, I do know what they find, down to the last detail. I think it's unfair when an author imagines a radically different place, and then doesn't tell the reader what it is. One can let it remain a mystery until the end, or wait to disclose the truth in a sequel, but one must know and show it.

I think I came up with something, sort of.

It would wind up with a theme on the ethics of grave-robbing. That's one thing everyone deplores, but also essentially what archeologists do. King Tut, as far as I know, is back in his tomb. But many of the artifacts are in the Egyptian museum in Cairo. Most mummies are also in museums, as are any artifacts found with them.

So suppose you could reproduce any items found in a tomb, and possessed the means to carry non-destructive or minimally destructive tests on the original items. Would it then be unethical to permanently remove them from a tomb?

Now I got it.

What I said before, but also with a reasoned attack on religion as a wasteful activity (and how!).

It's funny because I wasn't heading there, but the inherent logic of the setting inexorably pointed that way.

Now all I need are characters, two levels of technology, some rationalization for making non-communicative machines (sacrilege?), and a straitjacket to restrain me from putting a priest onboard as part of the crew. Not that I don't want to, but that was the cherry on top of one of Clarke's lesser stories, with a somewhat similar theme to it.

One question: given a capacity for self-repair, a supply of spare parts, a supply of raw materials, and a fuel source, would you believe a group of machines could operate uninterrupted for thousands of years?

I've got half a name for the lead character: Caroline.

I'm not sure what she does, but in her free time she likes to study history. She has no training in archeology, save what she's picked up from her historical studies (you pick up quite a bit, but not much detail). Her advantage is the knowledge of how amateur archeologists have messed things up. Caroline's determined not to screw up that particular way. She'll take lots of pictures, measurements, sensor readings, etc., touch little and move nothing.

Before she feels too superior to other amateurs, though, she should realize that, unlike them, she's not dealing with buried ruins. Faced with such, her curiosity might not be so easily restrained.

Of course she'll make a fantastic, accurate discovery, and literally do much better than she should be capable of.

She will come to regret it, but she doesn't know it yet. Poor Caroline...

Would you believe a very advanced civilization, one with intelligent robots, interstellar space travel, engineering on a massive scale, etc. could possibly be also very religious? Does it depend on the religion?

On other things, how does the job title "tissue engineer" sound? Do you have any idea what it means? Would you be curious to find out what such a person does?

I have it all nearly plotted now. I merely need to resolve two questions:

1) Assuming propulsion with a hydrogen fusion drive, could one estimate the age of a vessel by measuring the residual radiation in the thrusters?

2) If the main character is a transgender woman, does that make it a transgender story?

Quote: Nareed

Would you believe a very advanced civilization...could possibly be also very religious?

Yes.
>> Does it depend on the religion?
NO, not at all.
What was it Aztec or Inca? Pretty advanced civilization. conquests, construction, taxation, food distribution. Human Sacrifice on a massive schedule because the priests said it was an honor and necessary to keep the Gods from destroying all mankind.

At a guess, how many people have lived and died all over the world since say 3,000 BCE until today?