What happened next.
Earth Prime is a short story collection by Janet Edwards set in the aftermath of Earth Flight. Various characters share their point of view as they prepare for their mission to explore the ruins of an alien civilisation.
The flagship story, The End, and the New Beginning, began as an intended short story posted on Janet Edwards' author site, but gradually crept out to novella length. Includes a bonus story, Year End 2788, which takes place within the narrative of Earth Girl.
Stories in this Collection Inculde:
1) The End, and the New Beginning – Jarra Tell Morrath
2) I Will Be Right Here Waiting – Fian Eklund
3) Twenty Seconds in Ark – Dalmora Rostha
4) Full Circle – Lecturer Dannel Playdon
5) Raw Material – Krath Karman
6) Balance of Power – Amalie Roche
7) The Real Jerez Rivera – Jerez Rivera
8) Year End 2788 – Lecturer Dannel Playdon
Part Two is expected to follow in 2021.
(Note: Due to the recent release date, this page is spoiler-heavy. Nonetheless, it's advisable not to proceed unless you've finished the Earth Girl trilogy.)
Tropes:
- Call-Back:
- Way back in Earth Girl, Jarra warned the rest of the class not to wear jewellery under their impact suits, as that can result in injuries when the suit material triggers. The narrative notes that she found this out the hard way years earlier, when she forgot to take a ring off, resulting in her finger being amputated. She only has 90% functionality in the regrown finger, and a Running Gag has Jarra being urged to have it reregrown by every medical professional she meets. Jarra's Clone Angst issolved when Isette scans her after she’s injured and again brings up the 90% functionality. Jarra reasons that Isette has no reason to lie to her, meaning she is still the original Jarra.
- Raw Material and Balance of Power are sequels to Krath and Amalie's stories in the Earth 2788 collection. Krath is faced with his father's lack of maturity while Amalie learns that vengeance is sweet.
- Clone Angst: In The End, and the New Beginning, Jarra has obvious trauma stemming from the events of Earth Flight, in particular the time she spent in a regrowth tank. Specifically, she's half-convinced that she's really a clone of the original Jarra, and unable to settle it either way because the people she'd ask either wouldn't know for sure or would just tell her she's the real Jarra either way. She finally realises she is the original Jarra when she notices that her little finger is still damaged from an incident years ago: the same effect would have been almost impossible to duplicate in a clone, if anyone even thought of it.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Krath's dad runs a channel, Truth Against Oppression, where he broadcasts every stupid conspiracy theory he comes across. He acts as if he has thousands of viewers and that Military Security are trying to shut him down. Aunt Galina tells Krath he's living in a fantasy and can't deal with real life.
- Continuity Nod:
- Jarra's pinkie only having 90% function and her consistent refusal to have it regrown becomes important in The End, and the New Beginning, when Jarra realises she still only has 90% function, meaning she can't have been quietly replaced with a clone.
- The End, and the New Beginning introduces Runners, a nasty part of Portal Future history that was alluded to early in Earth Girl. The chaos following the Exodus resulted in humanity switching to a lower-tech version of portals that had to be dialled manually. This was slower, so couples expecting a baby would hire a "runner" to get their baby to Earth quickly in the event that it turned out to be Handicapped. All well and good. However, some Runners offered an extra service: swapping their Handicapped baby for a Norm baby born on Earth, with the excuse that Handicapped parents would be unsuitable to raise a Norm child anyway. Presumably the Norm parents are told the baby they're adopting was given up willingly rather than kidnapped.
- Following on from that, The End, and the New Beginning alludes to events in ''Earth and Water'': Jarra becomes Next Of Kin to a dead woman who turns out to be a Handicapped mother, murdered by a Runner while defending her baby. The anger from this fuels the decision that spurs the events of Earth Girl.
- That slower, manually-dialled portal? That's what Tad is trying to develop in Scavenger Alliance. He'd be horrified to learn that his work enables Runners to exist.
- Speaking of Tad, Jarra mentions her clan's family tree, which she's seen when she visited Beta sector. It seems the Tell clan are descended from the Wallam-Crane dynasty, indicating that Tad and Blaze are her direct ancestors.
- In The End, and the New Beginning, Lecturer Playdon shows the class images of the stained-glass windows depicting the Wallam-Crane family that Blaze and Tad were looking at in Scavenger Blood, and discusses the achievements of Tad's famous ancestors.
- Ramon, Drago's flight team member from Drago Tell Dramis 2781, appears in The End, and the New Beginning.
- Disappeared Dad: In Raw Material, Krath goes home to find that his father has upped sticks and left the planet without a word. The pair used to move suddenly throughout Krath's childhood, and his nightmare was that one day he'd wake up to find his father has left without him. His Aunt Galina tells him it's because his father is a fantasist who doesn't want to face the fact that Krath has grown past him.
- Due to the Dead: Whoever is the first person to touch human remains found in the course of archaeological work, becomes that person's Next Of Kin, and is responsible for organising a suitable memorial for them. While amateur and student archaeologists are kept away from areas where this is likely, Jarra became a Next Of Kin in some kind of mishap the previous summer. In The End, and the New Beginning, she finds a suitable memorial for the dead woman, and takes the opportunity to explain how this event resulted in the events of Earth Girl.
- Eating the Eye Candy:
- Jarra is confused that Ramon is so embarrassed at seeing her in her skintight (special underwear used with impact suits), because it covers all the required areas. Fian points out that Jarra has... filled out a little since she bought the skintight, which is now a little more stretched. Jarra demands to know why he didn't tell her sooner, to which her badly behaved Deltan cheerfully admits that he was enjoying the view.
- In Full Circle, Playdon and Jerez are discussing a Relationship Upgrade. Physical boundaries are likely to be a problem, so they use Jerez's staircase to indicate how far Playdon is comfortable going at various relationship stages. Jerez is shocked - shocked - by the step Playdon chooses, noting that Fian must be a bad influence on him, because Playdon made sure to factor in the skimpy robe she once wore to answer a vid call.
- Entitled to Have You: Amalie's story, Balance of Power, deals with the ex who made her life hell before she went to Earth. She rushed into agreeing to marry him, but changed her mind when she realised what he was really like, resolving to attend university instead. He reacted by spreading rumours that he dumped her for stealing and turned the whole town against her. He also interfered with her education grants to mess with her travelling to Earth to start her course. Amalie is clear that his wanting to marry her had more to do with his inheritance than any feelings for her and that he viewed her as a possession. Krath notes that he probably would have reacted the same way had she turned down his proposal.
- Freudian Excuse: The End, and the New Beginning sheds new light on Jarra's state of mind in the beginning of Earth Girl. Over the summer, she'd accidentally become Next Of Kin to a dead woman, who turned out to be a Handicapped woman who was murdered for her non-Handicapped baby. The day these results came back was the day Jarra had to submit her University application, and the resulting anger spurred the decision that led to the events of Earth Girl.
- The Lost Lenore: Deconstructed. Playdon's friends think he's doing this when he visits his dead wife Caydee's grave in The End, and the New Beginning, but in Full Circle he explains to Jerez that he was in fact saying goodbye with the intention of moving on for good (with Jerez, if she's interested). He goes on to say that neither Caydee nor their relationship were as good as he chose to remember them; he couldn't give Caydee the affection she needed and would walk out of fights rather than discuss things, and she was manipulative. For example, switching their team roles while he was in the equivalent of a medical coma and trying to make him switch teams away from his friends. He admits that the grief he's carried for the four years since her death was mostly guilt, because he'd started talking about divorce when she suddenly died.
- Mood Whiplash: The End, and the New Beginning wanders between event planning as the academic year draws to a close, stress over the impending expedition to Fortuna and what they might find out about Chimera, technical issues as Jarra and Fian learn to climb skyscrapers, paranoid as Jarra suffers an identity crisis wondering if she's been replaced with a clone, action scenes as an attack is launched on Jarra by the Isolationist Party, and emotional as Jarra tells the class, and various others, how she came to apply to University Asgard in the first place.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Krath and Amalie's stories revolve around revelations like this.
- Krath is confronted with his Conspiracy Theorist father's immaturity and the fact that he's now a more mature and responsible person than his father will ever be. In fact his father has literally run away rather than face this himself, preferring to live in his fantasy world.
- Amalie gets to put her Dark and Troubled Past to rest. She once dumped the son of a Founding Family, and he responded by turning the whole town against her. Now that Amalie's involved in the Alien Contact Program, the good publicity she's generating could make her home planet the capital of Epsilon Sector and it becomes vitally important that her ex retract his earlier accusations and apologise in public. He does, and even manages to expose himself for the jerk he is, allowing Amalie to regain her confidence.
