Welcome
Thank you for reading and welcome to the first Post on my Substack: Adventures in Space Trucking!
My name is Michael and I’m a writer, an artist, and a business coach. I believe that artist should be able to do what they love and find ways to get paid. Fiction and Content are a natural match, so this Substack is my proof-of-concept.
The History of Space Trucking
Let’s go all the way back to 2001. I had an idea to build a computer game called Space Truckin’. This was a reference to the ancient Deep Purple song by the same name, but taken literally. I was influenced by role playing games like Traveller and Star Frontiers back in the late 70’s and 80’s plus the computer game Elite and its many derivatives.
The idea of Space Truckin' was a game where you flew around to different planets buying and selling things to make money. There are quite a few games, especially now, where you can actually do that, but I had some ambitious ideas to take it online at a time where that was a pretty new idea.
I never made it very far developing that idea. I had some partners for a while, but that fell through. We all had very different visions of what the game should be. I now believe there’s a fundamental problem with the game concept, as well: It’s just a little boring. Over the years I would think about the idea or run across my old notes. I’ve never forgotten about it entirely, but there’s always been other things going on in my life.
The trope of the Space Trucker is one that we’ve seen but I don’t believe it’s ever fully taken off. But maybe I’m completely wrong because Han Solo is very close, and Firefly gets it right on the nose.
Even back to my teenage years with paper and pencil on the desk and my nose stuck in the Traveller rule books, I would engineer star ships using the basic rules in that game, balancing out power and components, drawing floorplans, and calculating the costs.
I’ve always been enchanted with the fantasy of crossing the stars in a spaceship, combined with the myth of the trucker living free on the open road.
In 2021, I revisited my old idea and started working on it in earnest. I wrote a draft of a high-level design document for a computer RPG game based on the concept, and that’s where I started developing the ideas for the characters that have become the core of my Space Trucking world in its current form. That’s also when I came up with its current name “Adventures in Space Trucking.”
Building in Public
Let’s talk about what I want to do with this Substack.
I’ve always been fascinated by writers, and I’ve always wanted to be one. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to create worlds and characters and stories. And for as long as I can remember, my efforts have always fallen a little short.
This is my public commitment to changing that, now. I’m going to create a world full of people and ideas and adventures and I’m going to share that work as I go along. I’ll share early drafts, unfinished scenes, brainstorming lists and I’ll discuss my ideas as they come up.
Why, Though?
The easiest answer is because I think it’s interesting. I write the content that I would read.
I think there are a lot of people who want to write, and they want to know how other people do it. There are certain questions that always come up for writers: how do you come up with ideas? What’s your writing process? How do you build a world?
I think the same people with all those questions also love to read and are some of the biggest fans of the authors they follow.
There’s a big idea going around that the ideal niche for a content creator is, simply, themselves.
It’s almost a paradox: however common my idea is, nobody else can implement it just like me. As long as I’m authentic, I’m automatically unique. At the same time, however weird I am, my aesthetic and interests, my values and priorities, there are others out there with those same likes and interests.
My ideal reader is just like me, in some way, and that’s what makes me interesting to them.
And if that’s not enough, by showing you my whole process, by sharing my thoughts and methods, and by displaying my mistakes and uncertainty, you know that this is being written by a Human Being and not some machine that can only pretend to have a point-of-view.
I’m not anti- Artificial Intelligence. In fact, I think it’s raising the bar on creativity, demanding more of authorship. I think AI can be a tremendous value for humanity. But let us not kid ourselves.
“AI writing is crap!” we all cry with indignation. But I’m not so sure. It’s not the quality of the writing that will make the difference, it’s that people want to hear stories told by real people about real human experiences.
Then we build a community
I don’t want to just talk at you, I want to get to know you. I want us to get to know each other. I’m not just a writer, although that’s the passion that calls the loudest to me, I’m also passionate about building new ways for creative people build personal brands and support each other.
Substack provides plenty of tools for authors to build a community. You can start conversations in Chat, you can send me email directly, and everyone who follows me is welcome to get to know each other.
And if you’re already inspired and that all sounds really cool, you can get started right away and build your own Substack. It’s free and they make it easy to get started.
The Space Trucking Road Map
One more thing before I wrap up this big first post.
I’m a writer. But Adventures in Space Trucking is more to me than just some stories. It’s a whole Trope waiting to be developed. It’s a collection of ideas and fantasies that I’ve entertained my whole life. My intention is to write a series of novels which will be the foundation of the world.
I’m also a philosopher. I plan to write Lucky Jack’s “Space Trucker Handbook” a guide full of more than advice for a made-up job, but advice for being a Human Being in a world that’s too big to ever fully understand.
And I’m also a gamer. This whole idea started as an idea for a game, and I hope that it will, yet, become a game. In addition to prose fiction, I’m also writing supplemental rules to play Adventures in Space Trucking as a tabletop RPG using the Basic Roleplaying Gaming Engine.
There’s even more: I have notes and aspirations to write Space Trucker mods for the Bethesda game Starfield. I would also love to develop Adventures in Space Trucking as a standalone casual mobile game and I’ve spent a considerable amount of time thinking about how that could work.
Finally, how about merch? I plan to set up a store for LOST: the Loyal Order of Space Truckers. Imagine the thrill of running into other fans in the wild.
I know I’m looking forward to meeting you!
I love this. There's something about space truckin' that gets me - I spent thousands of hours once upon a time in EVE just moving things from one place to another in my deep space transport or freighter, even though it was economically stupid to do. I just enjoyed it.
I'm running a Traveller game now, and for some unfathomable reason the part of the game that appeals to me the most is the trade.
I'm a sucker for a good spreadsheet.
Spreadsheets in space? That's just icing on the cake.
I'm looking forward to seeing more!
The board game Galaxy Trucker was published in 2007. You were ahead of your time.