The Space Hero's Guide to Glory: How to Get Off Your Podunk Planet and Master the Final Frontier

by Phil Hornshaw, Nick Hurwitch

Overview

Think every space hero was born with an army of laser-firing minions?

Think it's easy to maintain a healthy rivalry with your archnemesis?

Think again!

Intergalactic News Flash: Even a rookie like yourself can become the next great Space Hero. But there's more to it than seducing alien babes or swapping one-liners with our first mate. How will you combat the evils of helmet hair? Can you win a no-win scenario? If you want to survive the 'Verse, you've got a lot to learn, Cadet.

The Space Hero's Guide to Glory is a step-by-step illustrated guide that will take you from home world half-wit to interstellar idol. Filled with lessons gleaned from your legendary predecessors—including Han Solo, Captain Kirk, and Kara Thrace—you'll learn the difference between laser and phaser, how to assemble a crew of brilliant misfits, and the basic piloting skills to avoid warping your starship straight into a black hole.

So suit up and get reading, Cadet. Space needs its next Space Hero!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781492603009
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	02/03/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	8 MB

Read an Excerpt

The Space Hero's Guide to Glory

How to Get Off Your Podunk Planet & Master the Final Frontier

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By Nick Hurwitch, Phil Hornshaw

Sourcebooks, Inc.

Copyright © 2015 Nick Hurwitch and Phil Hornshaw
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4926-0300-9

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CHAPTER 1

THE HERO YOU'LL BECOME

The first step to becoming a Space Hero — beyond getting into Space and not immediately falling into a black hole or having a control panel explode in your face — is to distinguish yourself from the legions of technicians, marines, scientists, pilots, navigators, xenobiologists, regular biologists, doctors, engineers, astronomers, botanists, janitors, cooks, bartenders, pirates, monks, religious zealots, and colonists floating around out there with you.

But much of what is required can't be taught. You'll need guts, gumption, and force of will. You'll need the passion to take on seemingly impossible tasks and the style to make those tasks look easier than ignoring a protocol droid. You'll need more lives than a twice-cloned cat and a one-liner in your pocket for every vile situation — from encountering disgusting new alien species to discovering the recently mutilated corpses of crewmates.

There are a number of great Space folk out there. But to be a true Space Hero, you need to be more than an interesting person who merely happens to be in Space. You need to become an interesting protagonist who merely happens to be in Space.

Here's a brief list of qualities the Spacefleet Operational Service (SOS) has identified that you need to possess, obtain, or at the very least emulate. All are important if you wish to become a Space Hero — and some are necessary just to become a useful Space janitor. Consider this your baseline before even thinking of venturing into the void.

1. The ability to stare into the yawning jaws of death and calmly pick the remains of your friends from its teeth. Space is dangerous. You need to accept that and, in time, be unfazed by it. After all, you'll be dealing with the horrors of radiation sickness, Space madness, vacuum exposure, and muscle atrophy every day for the rest of your magnificent life. It's unbecoming of a Space Hero to fall to pieces every time an engineer needlessly gets his head lopped off by a dangerous piece of machinery during a routine meteor shower. Who cares if he was a galaxy-class masseuse or the last of his species or whatever. Show some composure.

2. A vast working knowledge of Science. Your mother and father and Guardian Robot Television were right: school was not just about sexing up the Prom Pansexual Monarch, but about learning. Whether you are the next Space Hero or one of thousands of functionaries who will do the bidding of the next Space Hero, you'll need to possess a functional heap of gray matter. You can only skate by on your wits and your devilish good looks for so long. Unfortunately, there's more to the life of a Space Hero than making important decisions, outsmarting enemies, and drinking the finest Space scotch. Like years of school. Hope you like Science.

The kinds of people who live and work in Space spend years training for it. They are in peak physical and mental condition. They possess intimate knowledge of the many complex systems required to stay alive in vacuous, unforgiving infinity. And they're capable of carrying out orders, regardless of how insanely complex or so-crazy-they-just-might-work those orders may be. You may be asked to attempt a Malcolm Reynolds diet (dumping your valuable cargo of smuggled goods for an extra boost of getaway speed) or perform an Adama maneuver (hurtling toward a planet and warping out of harm's way just before crashing into the surface).

With any luck, you may be the one to give such an order. If you think you can stand in the shoes of the greatest of Space captains in Space history without knowing about relativity, xenobiology, matter-antimatter fuels, and the psychology of Klingon command structures, you're sorely mistaken. You'll get through that and more in your Monday morning briefing alone.

You might not be a prodigy. You likely won't start at the top. But it's never too late fill your gray matter with Space matters.

3. The willingness to sacrifice yourself for the good of your captain (and others). Space is a community. We all work together for the benefit of our fellow Space(wo)-man. Of course, some Space(wo)men are more important than others. There may come a time when you'll be asked to make the ultimate sacrifice for the good of those who bear a greater importance to the mission at hand or are more adored by the public. Even if you are a Space Hero, you, too, might one day ride your captain's chair into the nuclear center of a blue dwarf, like many a captain before you.

Much more than likely, someone will be needed to stick a thumb in a hull breach or be the sacrificial bargaining chip that sates a hungry alien race during diplomatic negotiations. Living in Space is fraught with risk, and the needs of the many outweigh the needs of you.

4. Rugged good looks. Even in a utopian Space society, the sad fact is that the ugly people are deckhands, and the beautiful people are sent on first-contact missions. It may not be fair, but as it turns out, most aliens prefer a heaving bust and throbbing pants bulge. Sometimes on the same person. If you're a handsome specimen, people will presume you're smart, assume you're telling the truth, and take for granted the fact that your beauty may be allowing you to swindle them, even as they shake your firm, well-manicured hand. But even if your face has more craters than a rogue asteroid named Bill Adama, make your imperfections count for something. Consider how much more badass Luke Skywalker became after getting his face jacked by an ice-cave-dwelling wampa (alliances with primitive teddy bear warriors notwithstanding).

THE MANY PATHS TO SPACE HEROISM

Part of the point of becoming a Space Hero is to be known by all: admired by men and women, adored by various alien love-slaves, and glorified by children and forest creatures. What's the point of dying heroically if everyone (anyone) forgets about you afterward? You must strive to be not only memorable, but unique (unless you clone yourself).

So even though your deepest and most primal desire is to be just like Kirk or Kara or Han, you must strive to be your own hero. The tools are already within you: the traits innate, genetic, or born from your (soon-to-be) tragic backstory (which we'll explore in Chapter 2).

Despite the requirement to be singular, there are Spaceman archetypes: categories into which you'll find yourself stuffed like a long-sleeved swindler in a Nar Shaddaa prison cell after an evening of high-stakes mah-jongg gone south. If one of the following heroes appeals to you, there's a chance you'll be able to make a push toward your preference. Or, if you already see yourself reflected in his or her stark and stunning features, prepare yourself. That could be your face on the cover of the twenty-eighth edition of this book.

The Space Monkey Hero

Examples: Neil Armstrong, whatever that Space monkey's name was, Ender Wiggin, Ellen Ripley, Laika the Space dog, Dirk Parsec

A Space Hero secret: if you are the first to do something, you automatically get to be lauded as a hero. You'll be a pioneer of Space discovery! Even — perhaps especially — if the thing you've done hadn't been done before because of the seeming likelihood of death and perceived degree of stupidity required. The first monkey shot into Space in 1948 died horrifically and against his will. But he was thusly rewarded with the title of Hero in the Great Beyond.

Should you do something as first and as stupid as: launch yourself out of a torpedo tube because your ship is out of ammunition (Valentina Rahimovic); have intercourse with a betentacled alien life form (Hugh Huffer); set foot on a previously unexplored celestial body (Neil Armstrong); or discover the Pant-Tightness-to-Character Importance Ratio (Captain James T. Kirk), you too could back your way into hero-dom, regardless of what you accomplish henceforth.

While this might seem like your easiest path to Space fame, an increase in fame-seeking opportunists like yourself and a decrease in things that have never been done before mean that the chances of becoming a Space Monkey Hero are dwindling. Additionally, if you die, you may be reviled as an idiot instead of heralded as a pioneer, or end up with a small statue or a postage stamp as the only evidence of your greatness. But if you don't die, it's possible no one will care. There's really no way of knowing before you try.

The War Hero

Examples: Commander Shepard, Benjamin Sisko, Malcolm Reynolds, Ender Wiggin, Leia Organa, William Adama, Dirk Parsec

This one requires patience, dedication, and a large dose of galactic intervention. You can be the greatest soldier in the 'Verse, train diligently, climb the ranks, strike fear into the hearts or comparable ventricle sacks of alien scum from here to the Crab Nebula ... but if there's no war, you won't even make the Hero-meter shiver.

If this is your path, make sure there's a war on. Or make sure to provoke a war into being on.

But tread as lightly as your artificial gravity systems will allow. There are no shortcuts to becoming a hero of war. You'll have to save your fellow soldiers, brazenly sacrifice yourself for the greater good while also surviving said sacrifice, and wear a really heavy Space suit at all times, even while sleeping or pooping or both. You will sweat your glands out and then be forced to drink that sweat to stay alive.

You'll also have to be mildly insubordinate and covertly opportunist. The difference between a soldier with commendations and a fabled war hero is typically a combination of daring and stupidity, but the reward is often a command and a captain's chair. If heroism is what you're after, you'll have to steal it outright or earn it through sheer force of harebrained will. No one ever blew up a Death Star using a targeting computer, after all.

The Bastard Antihero

Examples: Han Solo, Malcolm Reynolds, Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, Dirk Parsec

If you were the type of kid who sat in the back of class flinging spitballs, sizing up the teacher's bust or nondescript bulge, and keeping mostly to yourself, you might be a bastard. But if you were also the type of kid to step in and throw the first punch when the nerd was getting picked on ... you might be a bastard antihero.

You have a chip on your shoulder and a gun on your hip. You hold your love of "the little guy" behind an icy, selfish exterior. Personal failures (and a tragic past) have made you disenchanted in your relationships with establishments, governments, groups, and society at large. A past betrayal has turned your heart to stone and made you reluctant to get too close to anyone but a trusted one or two.

You live by your own moral code, which is not so much a code, but a loosely packaged collection of "feelings" revolving around self-preservation that express themselves as needed. And just when this description is getting too touchy-feely, you also like to shoot those fools who get in your way — first, often, and occasionally while they're surrendering to you. You enjoy gunning down your enemies almost as much as delivering a catchy one-liner as a preamble, much to the delight of your ragtag troop of loyal followers.

Just don't forget to stress the "hero" part as well as the "bastard" part — sure, you might lie, cheat, and steal, but you do so for the good of your team and with often-honorable intentions. As long as you don't become a sociopath and generally shoot only the folks who deserve it, you'll be right at home here. Plus, you get to do illegal crap with no (some) moral ambiguity. Sticking it to the Man is your whole shtick!

The Hero of Destiny

Examples: Luke Skywalker, Anthony "Buck" Rogers, Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, Dirk Parsec

As though you need a reminder, there is nothing remarkable about you. Before saving the galaxy from certain doom, no one could have guessed that a character as anonymous and poorly dressed as yourself could amount to anything more than one day inheriting your aunt and uncle's moisture farm and taking a SexBot for a spouse.

Yet you have something they cannot see. No, not midichlorians — destiny! That's right. There may be more than one powerful force flapping around under your weird desert dress. And if there is, you belong to the most exclusive club of heroes, whose members' nondescript personalities only serve to bolster their meteoric rise to interstellar stardom. The more dramatic the arc, the more impressive the hero.

It won't always be easy for you. Little about your monotonous farmhand life could possibly prepare you for the twists and turns that lie ahead. You may discover that you're adopted or the last of a dying breed of Space monk or are sexually attracted to your twin sibling. But it is no matter: destiny has the helm! You need only ride where she takes you. And should destiny ever stick a galactic-sized Space fork in your path, you need only ask yourself: What would Dirk Parsec do?

The Roguish Leader Hero

Examples: James T. Kirk, Jean-Luc Picard, Leia Organa, Kathryn Janeway, John Crichton, Dirk Parsec

An upbringing in the Star Navy Academy or the rough equivalent for your colony or species, an incredible tactical sense, a renegade attitude, and an unwillingness to leave any comrade behind — that's what it takes to be the kind of roguish leader that inspires your troops to throw themselves willingly into the jaws of death for your amusement.

This is something of a late-development hero role; you'll need to prove yourself a leader and then lead people, and then not get them all killed on your first mission. But if you can manage some incredible tactical brinkmanship and shed a tear for any crewmates who don't make it back, you may find that you're a roguish leader.

The key here is to be an unrelenting do-gooder. You want the people working with you to love the fact that you're willing to do anything for them and your enemies to be annoyed with your supersappy, no-man-left-behind attitude. And then you hit them with the roguish part of your heroism by firing proton torpedoes up their asses just when they think you're too weak to sacrifice the lovable robot member of your bridge crew. Extra points if you manage to save the robot's head or memory banks for an emotional Space burial.

CHAPTER 2

YOUR TRAGIC ORIGIN STORY

If you're lucky, you're already an orphan. Preferably, you watched your parents die at the hand of your nemesis, or you were whisked away after being born to drug addicts in a maximum-security prison colony. If you know your parents — or worse, actually get along with them — you have some catching up to do on your tragic origin story.

The well-adjusted son or daughter of pioneering Space colonists? Bor-ing! The well-educated spawn of academy professors, raised and cared for as much by them as their enthusiastic students? Pass. The child of rich diplomats who traveled the galaxy and experienced all its exotic delights? Come on, people!

The only circumstances under which a coddled youth makes an acceptable foundation for heroism involve that youth being cut short with equal and opposite tragedy. You must use the burning corpses of your caregivers as fuel! Not literally ... unless, of course, it is necessary for you to survive long enough to exact your revenge.

No sorrow in your spit-polished adolescence? There is still hope for you. You can probably come up with a reasonable facsimile of unfathomable tragedy, even if your immediate family remains less than crispy.

In any case, you surely have something you can spin into a tragedy. A tragically misplaced poodle. A tragically scuffed pair of dress shoes. A tragically inept round of school-yard fighting in which you had your ass tragically handed to you. Anything will work. You just have to believe it. And more importantly, the people you tell it to have to believe it.

A KNOWLEDGEABLE AND INSIGHTFUL MENTOR

Nobody becomes a Space Hero on his or her own. If you go it alone, you face a fate worse than death: no one mourning you after you die. And because no one showed you the ropes, you also face, you know, the death part. What you need is a mentor.

A mentor can be anyone — but is probably that hermit who lives on the outskirts of town. Provided he's not just homeless or insane, that hermit is the vehicle of your destiny. The other vehicle of your destiny. One that will guide your behavior, push you toward the unthinkable, and motivate you to see your destiny through after he or she inevitably perishes.

Yes, your mentor will die. And, yes, the experience is likely to be a great deal more painful and meaningful than the death of your parents or legal guardians. Why are you still thinking about them, anyway? Pull yourself together! They've been dead for several hours.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Space Hero's Guide to Glory by Nick Hurwitch, Phil Hornshaw. Copyright © 2015 Nick Hurwitch and Phil Hornshaw. Excerpted by permission of Sourcebooks, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

THE SPACE HERO HALL OF GLORY AND GIFT CATALOG,
CAPTAIN'S LOG,
EPISODE I: A NEW HERO,
Chapter 1: The Hero You'll Become,
Chapter 2: Your Tragic Origin Story,
EPISODE II: THE FINAL FRONTIER,
Chapter 3: Space: A Primer,
Chapter 4: Space Resources and Other Space Shit,
EPISODE III: THE UNDISCOVERED CAPTAIN,
Chapter 5: What Space Career Is Right for You?,
Chapter 6: Clothes Make the Spaceman,
Chapter 7: Achieving Hairmortality,
EPISODE IV: A FIGHTING CHANCE TO LEAD,
Chapter 8: Choosing the Spaceship in Which You Will Likely Die,
Chapter 9: Sidekicks and Ragtag Crews,
Chapter 10: Captaining and Leading,
EPISODE V: SCIENCE STRIKES BACK,
Chapter 11: Warp Drives and Space Fuels,
Chapter 12: Gravity, Black Holes, Supernovas, and Wormholes,
EPISODE VI: THE SEARCH FOR LIFE,
Chapter 13: Space Diplomacy and First-Contact Protocols,
Chapter 14: Aliens, Alienation, and Alien Nations,
Chapter 15: When Space Diplomacy Fails,
EPISODE VII: THE REVENGE OF YOUR FISTS,
Chapter 16: Enemies and Nemeses,
Chapter 17: Archnemeses,
Chapter 18: Always Shoot First: A Beginner's Guide to Combat,
Chapter 19: Red Alert: Advanced Starship Combat Tactics,
EPISODE VIII: RETURN OF THE HERO,
Chapter 20: The End ... and the Beginning?,
FINAL TRANSMISSION,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,
ABOUT THE AUTHORS,