1. Subject24

    Subject24 Member

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    In need of alternatives

    Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by Subject24, May 11, 2018.

    So I have this sci-fi Fanfiction thats rough draft is nearly completed. And I have one stand out problem with one area of the story. The story involves a space captian character that gets depressed. The captians friends try hundreds of different ways to cheer him up but can't. Eventually, they come across an add for a Planet in some area of the galaxy that might be able to solve their captains problem.

    The Resort planet "Dali Rama" is a planet populated entirely by Monks. The monks are a brand of humanoids, called monkey'ans, and are all genetically completely identical to each other. The planet is the galaxies #1 therapeutic outlet.
    The entire planet is made up of Retreats, temples, and therapeutic institutions. That is where the planet gets all its revenue and power.

    The problem I have is that the far future civilization of professional healers/spiritual guides, are using the same therapy options that are open to us today in 2018. The story is set in 2556 or something like that

    Dali Rama guest activities include:
    meditation, guided meditation, acupuncture herbal remedies, herbal baths hot spa baths, deep tissue massage, aromatherapy, life/spiritual coaching, Hypnotherapy, spiritual study, yoga, Psychotherapy

    But all these are methods used today. The civilization runs the galaxies largest theraputic institution in the years of galactic space travel. What does a therapy look like then?

    The out of date therapy methods kindve messing up the look of my plot progression, and I'd really a change... Help please?

    To help give you some idea of what this is supposed to look like, this is a fanfiction of an Animation called Space Dandy. If your familiar with it, then you know that every aspect of the show is about as crazy colorful and wild as the opening credits. I'm thinking that my therapy programs should hold that same theme. So I need some Crazy unique colorful therapy ideas for their visit to this resort world.
     
  2. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    As long as the emotions that need treatment are the same, I'd imagine that the therapy would be similar. Hasn't acupuncture been around for millennia? What would a few more centuries matter? Ditto for massages.
     
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  3. Shenanigator

    Shenanigator Has the Vocabulary of a Well-Educated Sailor. Contributor

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    I agree with Homer. While those treatments are still in use, they're not "modern". Timeless would be more the word I'd use.

    Also, I would add music therapy. The idea of pounding a drum, or dancing, or chanting rhythmically, or playing a musical instrument is also timeless.

    If I were to try to come up with something that was not based on anything timeless, I'd invent some sort of laser therapy or hologram-type something or other, or some sort of spinning color therapy or something...But honestly, they're probably already in existence and are far more likely to end up sounding "dated" than the timeless things mentioned above. Kind of like The House of the Future at Disneyland (which was sadly demolished a few years ago because it was so dated) or The Jetsons.
     
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  4. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

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    Physio-spiritual (my Gohd, that's lame - I can't recall the word!) connections may have actually been possible in paleo-history. Shaman healers would connect through co-meditation and control a patients heart, glands etc. Possibly even mental disease.

    The Egyptians may possibly have been preceded (in the last baktun) by a culture that built sonic halls for focusing healing energy. Some assert that these are the chambers within the Pyramids. As the baktun cycle waned, the Pyramids were created as a 'lens' to concentrate the diminished energy. This energy was generated by magnetic waves from the transition of night to day, ionizing water under the Pyramid regions. The dielectric differential between inner and outer stone acted like battery-antenna, precisely tuned by the fabled metallic cap.
    Our ancient predecessors were extremely technically advanced. They just used different media - Earth and Sun and Moon.
    Astonishing reality may have it over fiction, but life is the fantasy. Let the paleohistoric circle come around, and you have any fantastic setting you need...
     
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  5. Shenanigator

    Shenanigator Has the Vocabulary of a Well-Educated Sailor. Contributor

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    Your post made me think of another one. Reiki healing ("laying on of the hands" as it's called in some places in the South in the US).
     
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  6. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

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    My aunt practices it as an ordained minister. I don't know what order her faith is, but she has a shaman master... and the crystals and lots of words I don't understand... and how I do wish I did understand (cue deep sigh).
     
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  7. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Possibly working with 'happiness hormones.' We know they exist. Possibly a new age can come up with more ways to either create them or release them. (Heavy exercise isn't possible for a sick or disabled person, for example ...yet they are probably the people most in need of the well-being hormones that exercise can create.)

    How much science is involved here? If the practitioners in this place believe only in the natural world and reject science, you're probably not going to have moved on much from today. In fact, you probably will have moved backwards. BUT, if they are influenced by ongoing research into well-being, then all sorts of new things can happen.

    You can take other kinds of hormone pills, even today. So why not develop happy hormone pills?

    https://www.freeletics.com/en/knowledge/happiness-hormones-training-makes-happy/
     
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  8. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

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    ...and generate endolphins! I figured out a way to do this, but you need a near extinction class disaster (my silly secret until I can post for critique).
     
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  9. Subject24

    Subject24 Member

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    I'm just thinking the story would be alittle bit closer to the setting if some of the therapies used in the far future actually resembled therapies that would exist then.
    But your right, the same methods could be just as effective then as they are now. Human physiology hasn't changed at least, idk about the aliens of the story.. I was thinking about doing futuristic variations of methods used today. We have basic acupuncture now, with metal needles. Maybe in this time period they have neon glow needles made of some sort of special metal and infused with some sort of futuristic biotic or medicine.


    Musical therapy, sounds nice. A bunch of alien monks with special bells, chimes, and tuning forks sounds like it would fit right in.

    I considered the hologram idea, virtual reality-ish therapy, I just never went about putting in the fanfic.

    I do really like he idea of the spinning color wheel tho.. Possibly used by the hologram technology? That could be really cool, and possibly even work as a near fix for the characters depression.
    Thank you for the post!



    That is a great idea! And that sounds exactly like something that would come out of a space age.
    I think hormone pills would fit in perfectly with the herbal remedies department, which I already had a paragraph or two about layed out. Defiantly will look to rework some detour about highly developed hormone pills trying to work their magic on the main char..
     
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  10. Subject24

    Subject24 Member

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    I was considering some of the Alien monk practicioners having metaphysical healing powers. Doing some sort of straight on energy work with my main, buuut I'm pretty sure the effect would be alittle to supernatural, mystical for a planet based out of scif-fi technology. Though I hadn't heard of the Egyptians using magnetic fields from the sun and the moon. Sounds interesting heheh
     
  11. Shenanigator

    Shenanigator Has the Vocabulary of a Well-Educated Sailor. Contributor

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    Regarding the happy hormones, as research you might read about Vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin". Vitamin D is technically a hormone, not a vitamin, and people deficient in it, as determined by blood test, often tend to have depression.

    You could probably design your "happy hormone" based around Vitamin D...sort of a hyper version of it, if that makes sense.
     
  12. Solar

    Solar Banned Contributor

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    Endocannabinoids :)
     
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  13. GB reader

    GB reader Contributor Contributor

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    Think about what people will not have in that future. And use that as some therapy.

    Say your captain has spent most his life inside a starship or in totally closed cities.

    On this planet you might have total wilderness, spending 4 days under open sky and a beautiful milky way at night's. Growing your own crops, baking your own bread.

    Animals, already today you have dogs that cheer people up in ward situations. Think about specially breed types of animals that could be used.

    Maybe not for a space captain but maybe we can have zero-g therapy or a moon to the planet where there is very low gravity. That allows you to physical training that is not possible elsewhere.
     
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  14. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Or maybe supportive 21st century therapy failed long ago and therapists now berate and insult their patients for whining. Probably not what you're looking for, but that would be fun to write.
     
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  15. Subject24

    Subject24 Member

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    That would be totally out of character for the Monkeyans, who are the designers of this theraputic institution. They are made out to be like a happy race of service enthused midgits.
    Like the oompla loompas from "Charlie and the chocolate factory", or the minions from "despicable me"

    The Monkeyans are supposed to be bent on giving their customers the best experience possible.


    Aha!
    I actually do have a portion in the story about the main characters sampling some very powerful Alien herbal remedy(in the herbal remedy department) named noticeably similar to the common name for cannabis.
     
  16. Subject24

    Subject24 Member

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    They have a space ship, they can get Zero gravity any time they want!!

    They came to this planet for fixing the problem they couldn't fix on their own
     
  17. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

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    Some kind of 'tanning bed' with a rainbow of colors that reverses the emotions it is tuned for?

    I don't know know if it was from talking to my son about minecraft, or a 70s movie, but this triggered a memory of small host creatures in their 'Great Botanical Hall', a massive underground rainforest/jungle that generated it's own atmosphere, produced medicinal hybrids, generated power, produced living genetic 'stem' material that would accelerate evolution rather than produce GMO etc etc. The hall was orders of magnitude larger than the creatures, and alien in origin (21st century human colony failure). Derelict, it sat, a lifeless hole in the world, for milenia, until the creatures discovered it. They knew by instinct what to turn it into, besides their home. Wish I could remember...
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2018
  18. Subject24

    Subject24 Member

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    What are the rainbow colors for? Lol Do those help the reverse the emotions or are they just futuristic?
     
  19. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    In our day, antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication and anti-ADD medication, and so on, tend to be fairly hit and miss. You start on a given dose of a given prescription, you wait a few weeks to see how it works, you may tweak the dosage or change drugs, what used to work may stop working, etc.

    The end result of all of these tends to be about brain chemicals, dopamine and serotonin--I think. I could imagine some way to test the response of a given brain to a given input, quickly, to avoid the trial and error. Or possibly the equivalent of an insulin pump, something that watches levels of various chemicals and adjusts.
     
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  20. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

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    Sorry, didn't realize I was still in above post. Half of this is in the one above.
    I am the walking (limping) result of those benefits. As a child I remember the zombie and manic effects of those experiments. As an adult, I suffered in ignorance until I then became the beneficiary of their much improved research, a little late, but relieved nonetheless. Absent actually reading your MS, I am already cheering for your captain and Monk(ey)s. I call tell you a lot about that journey, if you need insight. CF is right, it's all about balance, and the balance is as dynamic as any individual.
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2018
  21. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Im
    totally filing that idea for a future book.
     
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  22. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

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    The bed is sensory isolation therapy, the colors have the same effect as harmonics in lower and upper sounds beyond hearing range. The combination generates moods and endorphins from sympathetic harmonics of beta, theta, alpha, and (delta?) brain waves. A classic example is making the subject believe his eyes are closed, waking dream states, and inducing fetal behavioral states (feelings of security in the womb).
    Obscure documentaries and movies from the late 20th are bloody brilliant material.
     
  23. Subject24

    Subject24 Member

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    I wonder then why it would need to be a tanning bed? If changing color is the only stimulus going on, why not just have a visor on that does that?.. Sounds like more virtual reality
     
  24. Shenanigator

    Shenanigator Has the Vocabulary of a Well-Educated Sailor. Contributor

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    Could be a visor, but I'm getting the vibe that the colors have some sort of magnetic field or warming property or something healing that surrounds the patient other than just the visual aspect? Or as an alternative idea, something that like a hyperberic chamber with colors that permeate the skin.

    ETA: Also, so as not to create another post, question: Is it a comedy or more serious piece? If it's not a comedy, you may want to consider changing the word "monkey'ans" (sp) to something else. "Monkey" is one of those classic comedy writing trigger words and registers as inherently funny, which may not be your intent. David Letterman and his writers made great use of this.
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2018
  25. Subject24

    Subject24 Member

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    But why would the chamber have to have colors? It couldn't just be regular heated light?
    _______________

    Space Dandy is a comedy. That's why I named them silly. A civilization of monks called Monkeyans. Hehe I thought it was pretty clever :p
     
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