I need a revolution.

I've already decided that it will have to involve a net of "bussard sives", hydrogen-gathering satellites for energy. But so far I'm having trouble giving my rebels a reason to rebel...

Who are they rebelling against?

The planet government, as distinct from the other fifty or so colonies. Other than that, I've only gotten the first chapter done, and that only introduced the main character"fish out of water" that just moved to the planet.

Thank you.

As one professor once claimed, every revolution starts because of hunger. At the most basic level, if there are people who can not afford even the most basic human needs, there are your revolutionaries. Sooner or later, once the first bakeries have been looted, political demands enter into the mix.

You could have groups of slum dwellers who have to work on the local space port, surrouneded by toxic gases, finally fed up with their lot. The planetary government hits back at a demonstration a little hard, a stray bullet hits an innocent child...things go from there.

Bussard sives? (Do you mean 'sieves'? That's the word for the thing that you use to strain sand.) How would those work? To get proper hydrogen out of the interplanetary/interstellar medium you need to be going pretty damn fast.

I was wondering whether or not that was right, thank you. As for the rest, this story is very soft scifi, I got the idea from Heinlein's Bussard ramjet, a spacecraft that uses electromagnetic sails to fuel itself with floating gasses, mostly hydrogen. It may have a problem in being phlebotinum, but this is far future, so most of my readers have said they're fine with it.

Makes sense, thanks for the input.

I don't know. Energy from interstellar hydrogen is a fairly hard-sci-fi topic; using that at all, but collecting it in such a soft-sci-fi way as orbiting satellites, would strain my suspension of disbelief. I personally would find some other thing for the satellites to be. Solar power, maybe.

Curse you, annebeeche, you preemptive plagiarist.

Anyway... why exactly is the satellite network (of any kind) relevant here? You haven't really provided us with much information about the nature of this colony - while the general suggestions given are good, if you want specifics you'll need to give us specifics.

I'll think about it, thank you for that. It wasn't cemented into the canon yet.

As mentioned above, not much is actually set in stone as of now. I'm mostly just looking for reasons for revolt involving a power source.

The government is restricting access to the power source from the colonies, in order to keep them dependent on the motherland. The Earth government officials (I'm not sure if they've united into a one world system, but I'm going to assume they have) are more or less ruling like pirates, taking everything the colonies produce and giving them the bare minimum needed to survive, and if the colonial governments step out of line, BAM, the Earth decides to deprive them of the basic necessities to sustain life, and massive casualties happen as a result.

edited 15th Nov '11 12:26:54 AM by tropetown

Now I'm confused - is this revolt supposed to be against Earth or the local colonial government? I thought it was the latter.

If it's the latter, just replace all instances of "Earth" with "local government", and "colonies" with "downtrodden group (which is where the revolutionaries will come from)" and you'll have your revolution.

edited 15th Nov '11 12:29:53 AM by tropetown

Allocation of power is based on a kind of "fixed allocation" system: old industries (say, hyperdrive manufacturers) with a lot of clout 50 years ago locked in agreements that they would receive, say, 50 kilowatts from 8 am to 6 pm in perpetuity. Changing allocations is governed by an Obstructive Bureaucracy of local boards, economic planning commissions, industry associations, etc, with almost every attempt to change power allocation within the system dying at some point on the long road to changing it.

In the time since this system has been set up, meanwhile, some old industries (hyperdrive manufacturers) have declined, selling their excess power allocations through shady gray market contracts at inflated prices, and new industries (say, xenogenetic splicers) have arisen, chafing at their inability to get access to power.

The new elite challenges the old elite in the political realm — but are initially obstructed and defeated. As the old guard proves resistant to change, some of the erstwhile reformers become radicals, then revolutionaries.

Although I don't think power allocation would be quite enough. I think you'd want generalized ossification and dysfunction throughout the government, not just with the power system, although the power system could have an emblematic role.

edited 15th Nov '11 1:30:11 AM by Maklodes

I like that, the plot is highly eugenics influenced, so I like the splicing idea. I'll assume you don't mind me stealing that?

Sure, go ahead if you find it useful.