Photos From Europa is a short story I wrote in March 2023, as a standalone story that takes place in the far future. Nolan Gates is a young translator working for the Martian Bureau of Interplanetary Affairs, as the sole employee in its Translation Division. Talented and knowledgeable about his own work, but also rarely ever given any assignments, he spends most of his days idly reading and studying in his office, only infrequently being given the chance to use his skills. One day, however, he finally gets an assignment to translate some information brought in by one refugee from the distant moon of Europa, about something neither he nor his client can fully understand.
Photos From Europa can be read here.
The above image was drawn by Torigoe Takumi, whose online portfolio can be found here, though some of its contents may not be safe for work.
Given that I had spent quite some time working on fantasy stories, particularly for A Better Place and another story that will soon be published, Photos From Europa was an interesting change of pace as a work of science fiction. While I have previously worked on the genre before, this work required a fair bit of research on my part on various astronomical topics, including information on the various moons of Jupiter and Saturn (such as data about tectonics, weather, orbits, etc.), the first flowers grown in space, and similar subjects. I wouldn't call it hard science fiction, due to some scientific liberties taken for the sake of storytelling (such as how Europa has a tidally locked orbit and lacks storms in real life), but I certainly enjoyed researching Europa and Titan to decide where Ivy should hail from. And given how there's still extensive research that is to be done about the Solar System and its innumerable celestial bodies, who says things couldn't have changed between now and when this story takes place?
While the image above was a large inspiration for this work, the main impetus came about from a nightmare I had, featuring a grown man attempting to save his daughter from a torrential downpour, only for him to get swept away in the end. The use of instant photographs for the story's plot came about due to my own interest in the medium, particularly after a friend of mine found an Instax photograph I had carelessly dropped on the floor the last time I saw him (specifically this one, featuring a mural from an Italian bakery known as Ventimiglia).
The term "carregau" was taken from the Welsh language's term for "stone." Furthermore, the decision for Ivy to have various zinnias as a gift from the carregau was inspired by how zinnias were among the first flowers to be grown in space.
The original draft for this story was considerably longer, featuring a subplot of Nolan learning he was to be made redundant in the bureau, alongside a scene of him trying and failing to navigate a phone system to reach his head of human resources, as inspired by my own workplace and having to contact insurance companies for various overrides. Ultimately, this subplot added far too little substance to the story, alongside distracting far too much from Ivy's own backstory, so all of it was scrapped.
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