conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a plot for a book about Earth, Thalassans, Mirissa entitled The Songs of Distant Earth.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Songs of Distant Earth: The novel is set in the early 3800s and takes place almost entirely on the faraway oceanic planet of Thalassa.\nThalassa has a small human population sent there by way of an embryonic seed pod, one of many sent out from Earth in an attempt to continue the human race before the Earth was destroyed.\nThe story begins with an introduction to the native Thalassans – the marine biologist Brant, his partner Mirissa and her brother Kumar.\nThey are typical examples of the Thalassan culture; quiet, stable and free from religion and supernatural influence.\nTheir peaceful existence comes to an end with the arrival of the Magellan, an interstellar spaceship from Earth containing one million colonists who have been put into cryonic suspension.\nIn a series of descriptive passages, the events leading up to the race to save the human species are explained.\nScientists in the 1960s discover that the neutrino emissions from the Sun – a result of the nuclear reactions that fuel the star – are far diminished from expected levels.\nAt a secret session of the International Astronomical Union it is confirmed that the problem is not with the scientific equipment: the Sun is calculated to become a nova around the year AD 3600.\nOver a period of centuries humanity develops advanced technologies to send out seeding ships containing human and other mammalian embryos (and later on, simply stored DNA sequences), along with robot parents, to planets that are considered habitable.\nOne such ship is sent to the far off ocean world of Thalassa and successfully establishes a small human colony in the year 3109.\nSending live humans is ruled out due to the immense amount of fuel that a rocket-propelled spacecraft would have to carry to first accelerate to the speeds required to travel such great distances within an acceptable time, and then decelerate upon approaching the destination.\nThis limitation is overcome however with the development of the Quantum Drive less than a hundred years before the Sun is set to become a nova.\nThis scientific break-through allows the construction of a fleet of manned interstellar vehicles, including the Starship Magellan.\nThe Magellan escapes the Earth three years before the Sun explodes, an event that is witnessed by the Magellan\'s crew.\nIn the intervening years the colony on Thalassa loses contact with Earth due to the destruction of its communication abilities by a volcanic eruption 400 years after its founding.\nThe giant radio dish is never repaired due to an ingrained tendency to procrastinate, a trait common among the Thalassans.\nThe Thalassans are therefore unaware of later developments on Earth, including manned interstellar travel.\nThe Earth assumes the destruction of the colony as well.\nTwo hundred and fifty years after the end of Earth the Magellan arrives at Thalassa, the midpoint of a 550-year voyage to colonise the distant ice planet Sagan 2.\nPrimarily the objective is to replenish the ship\'s mammoth ice shield that had prevented micrometeors from damaging it during its interstellar journey.\nThalassa is the obvious choice for this operation, as 95% of the planet\'s surface is covered by water.\nHowever, it soon becomes apparent that the human colony is still present and flourishing.\nAboard are several crew members, awakened by the ship to undertake the mission, and 900,000 sleeping passengers.\nAmong the crew is Loren Lorenson, a young engineer, and Moses Kaldor, an eminent and wise counsellor.\nThe arrival of the visitors from Earth is a monumental event for the easygoing Thalassans, who never expected to see or hear from any other human beings.\nTo the crew of the Magellan it is a welcome surprise to meet the natives and sample the pleasures of a beautiful and hospitable planet.\nA tale of love and tragedy starts to develop as Loren and Mirissa quickly fall in love, a situation that demonstrates the different level of social mores between the two cultures.\nThe Thalassans appear free from monogamy and sexual possessiveness, a situation that the lonely and troubled crew quickly find out.\nDue to this and other aspects of the Thalassans\' way of life, and the duration of the stay on the planet to repair the ship\'s ice shield, the crew quickly becomes disenchanted with the original objective of the mission, leading to a threat of mutiny.\nA more gentle and parental relationship also develops between Mirissa and Moses, a man deeply affected by the destruction of Earth and the loss of his wife.\nMoses soon provides Mirissa an insight into the culture and ways of Earth lost to the Thalassans, including the concepts of war and religion, concepts alien to the gentle Thalassans.\nDuring the course of the stay, and due to the construction of a massive plant for freezing the huge ice blocks for the shield, the Terrans and the Thalassans become aware of the existence of a potentially intelligent sea creature living in the depths of the Thalassan oceans.\nThe "scorps" are similar to the sea scorpions of Earth, only much larger.\nIt soon becomes evident that the scorps are responsible for the theft of metals and wire from several Thalassan underwater projects, including a fish trapping tool being developed by Brant.\nThe intelligence of these creatures is questioned by most, but Moses believes they may have the potential for developing into a future intelligent species.\nSeveral unforeseen events occur that shatter the dream of idyllic life of Thalassa, and also remind the crew and the Thalassans that the visitors must soon continue their prime mission, and leave the Thalassans to their destiny.\nThe story concludes with an air of tragedy and hope, as the relationship between Brant and Mirissa and Loren concludes; the transient nature and ultimate futility of their love revealed.\nMirissa chooses to conceive a child to Loren, but a change in scheduling of the mission brought about by the threat of mutiny by the crew means he will never see his son.\nBrant accepts the child as his own.\nThe dissatisfied elements of the crew are left on Thalassa while the rest of the crew leave on the last leg of their journey.\nThe final pages see Loren witnessing the life of Mirissa and his child after awakening on Sagan 2, three hundred years after their deaths.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first four paragraphs for this book.. End with the sentence ' But this solution, he was certain, was simple, attractive—and absolutely right.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Songs of Distant Earth
  He started to read, and fifty light-years from the ruins of Earth, the fog rolled once more down Baker Street.
  His mind strayed to the deadly plaything in his safe. He was captain: it would be easy to arrange an accident...
  He put the fantasy aside; he could never do it, of course. In any event, he had already made up his mind and was certain that there would be universal agreement.
  Someone had once said that for every problem there is a solution that is simple, attractive—and wrong. But this solution, he was certain, was simple, attractive—and absolutely right.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.. Start with the sentence 'The huge greenish-white disc gleamed coldly beneath the floodlights; soon it would be far colder as it moved out into the few-degrees-above-absolute zero of the galactic night'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The huge greenish-white disc gleamed coldly beneath the floodlights; soon it would be far colder as it moved out into the few-degrees-above-absolute zero of the galactic night. There it would be warmed only by the background light of the stars, the radiation leakage from the ship—and the occasional rare burst of energy from impacting dust.
  The camera drifted slowly across the artificial iceberg, to the accompaniment of Moses Kaldor's unmistakable voice.
  Kaldor smiled wistfully and did not answer for a moment as he let his eyes linger on the familiar view from the library window. He had been happy here, tracing the history of Thalassa and learning much that might be of priceless value when the new colony was started on Sagan Two.
  Now was a time of transition, of farewells—of partings as deep as death. Yet for all the tears that were shed—on Thalassa as well as the ship—there was also a feeling of relief. Though things would never be quite the same again, life could now return to normal. The visitors were like guests who had slightly overstayed their welcome; it was time to go.
  Even President Farradine now accepted this and had abandoned his dream of an interstellar Olympics. He had ample consolation; the freezing units at Mangrove Bay were being transferred to North Island, and the first skating rink on Thalassa would be ready in time for the Games. Whether any competitors would also be ready was another question, but many young Lassans were spending hours staring incredulously at some of the great performers of the past.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.. Start with the sentence 'The first suggestion that vacuum energies might be used for propulsion appears to have been made by Shinichi Seike in 1969'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The first suggestion that vacuum energies might be used for propulsion appears to have been made by Shinichi Seike in 1969. ("Quantum electric space vehicle"; 8th Symposium on Space Technology and Science, Tokyo)
  But perhaps not. I am extremely grateful to Dr. Alan Bond for his detailed mathematical analysis of the shielding necessary for the mission described in this novel and for pointing out that a blunt cone is the most advantageous shape. It may well turn out that the factor limiting high-velocity interstellar flight will not be energy but ablation of the shield mass by dust grains, and evaporation by protons.
  The first experiments in this direction, involving pay-loads lowered into the atmosphere on hundred-kilometer-long "tethers" from the space shuttle, will be commencing around the time this novel is published.
  My apologies to Jim Ballard and J.T. Frazer for stealing the title of their own two very different volumes for my final chapter.
  My special gratitude to the Diyawadane Nilame and his staff at the Temple of the Tooth, Kandy, for kindly inviting me into the Relic Chamber during a time of troubles.