Two souls, lost kids, pretending they were renegades riding the trains with the soldiers traveling from their homes to volunteer with the opposite side. Sometimes they glimpsed trains going back home, with soldiers traveling from over there to fight on their side. It was fine, mostly. The soldiers laughed and called the kids brave ones and shared their tinned fish or the fresh-baked bread from home that wouldn't last, anyway, so why shouldn't they all share it together. It felt like a party, a little, like a celebration even though they'd all read the newspaper reports of the deaths and they'd seen the photographs of piles of corpses. It was a war worth fighting, after all, for the most basic of reasons, and none of these soldiers would die, not one, they would all come back covered in glory. The program promised that.


Inspiration: "Renegades" song
Story potential: High potential
Notes: I ... really like the idea that this is the build-up to some kind of cyborg volunteer program, and the kids get swept in too. (Young teenagers, boy and girl, brother and sister? No love interest.)

The clouds they came a-rushing in, she remembered that much. But no rain. That was the uncanny thing about them. All week, for a full week, storm clouds rushed past overhead, above the city. It was so dark that people took to carrying lanterns with them as they went about their days and all the houses burned candles all day long, but there was no rain and there was no storms. The market farmers complained that their crops were being ruined because there was no sun, but they only complained a little, quietly, as was their right. They never suggested that the wizards were in the wrong. There was a sudden bounty of baby potatoes and pickled green tomatoes and squash flowers sold because the farmers knew they'd never grow into squash, not with the light as it was. The worst of it was, she thought in retrospect, that none of them knew how long there would be no sunlight. The prime minister did, presumably, and the mages had a plan, she supposed, but nobody told the common people. The prices of lamp oil and charcoal and candles all tripled in that week, as people started thinking of how they would live inf the dark lasted beyond a week. Maybe it would last a month, maybe longer. Everyone was willing to sacrifice since everyone knew enough about the enemy and its nature that they didn't want to end up there, but everybody still hurt.


Inspiration: The weather. All storm clouds, no rain.
Story potential: High.
Notes: I do like this perspective on the whole war magic thing. Kind of an England during the Blitz, but different.

Angel eggs can only hatch in the ruins of a civilization so destroyed that bare handfuls of survivors remain, waging constant war between the groups. That is when an angel can be born, because that is when an angel can feed and grow and learn and protect and do all the things an angel is supposed to do. Places like the DMZ, Somalia, and Croatia. You wonder why we don't see angels every day in an established, industrial society? Well, you might. It's not something to wish for, at least not if they are young angels. Mature angels that have shepherded a society back from the brink of collapse might travel to the cities, though as I understand it the differing quality of people's desires may drive them right back--or turn them bad, if they stick around too long. Not always, but sometimes. That's right, I'm blaming consumer culture for fallen angels. A hatched angel is an amazing sight, all downy wings and glistening skin and ravenous hunger for the needs of others and the glory when they satisfy their belief. The angels of the Mayan people after the collapse must have been a wonder to behold. Now, sometimes, an egg will hatch two angels. A double-yolk.


Inspiration: "Before High Heaven" - Daniel Merriam
Story potential: Medium
Notes: I don't think the tone is right here. Anyway. Could be an interesting story, I suppose, but does not immediately speak to me.

He signed on with the exo-army as soon as he was eligible, just to get out of his house and get a legit funding source when welfs came sniffing around. The realbody recruiter looked tired when he left, but every warm body to plug into the expansion mattered, and so he got a smile and a handshake and a signature authenticated with a retinal scan and a signature and a DNA blood capture--all of which could be faked, maybe, but why go to those lengths to bother? Not to mention that the fate of those who faked it was spread around wide and loud--but without any distinguishing details, to keep martyrs from trying it on. He hacked himself a captainship before he left the recruiting office, figuring that with cheat codes and swiped XP, he could get himself a nice cushy berth with good rank. It got him a cruise on a fast military boat to the new post, but the realbody Sergeant took one look at him, asked a couple of polite, getting-to-know-you questions, and before he knew it he was shipped back to training in the brig.


Inspiration: Googled "ranking," landed on some cheat code site.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: If the military future is digital, there WOULD be cheat codes! And I like the idea of the protag kinda bouncing around using them, getting caught, getting shipped, switching it out, etc. Then, of course, Something Bad happens, and he must Man Up. In his own way.

Space born, space made, and space served, she was, but space babies were expensive to keep in space. She'd been born in a lab, of genetics optimized for muscle and less bone loss, for quick reaction times and sharp eyes and no nausea and a high G-resistance that still tolerated no G just fine. She might have made a pretty good swimmer, if she'd been earth born, but instead she was tracked to pilot from the time she was old enough to walk and start playing with the shiny toys--the peripheral awareness devices, as the kindergarten called them. And she was a good pilot, and she loved her job, and she hated the enemy just every bit as much as she ought to, but no more than that, and she had a sterling record during the war. Her psych eval was clean after the peace treaty, too. Not for her one of the orbiting space stations of old space born who couldn't deal with the peace, who had to be kept way from the rest for the safety--


Inspiration: dsgood's comment referencing "space born," googled out to the 10th, came up with this image: http://www.inprnt.com/gallery/eilidh/spaceborn/.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: And so she manages to keep a job in space after the war until she ends up downsized to earth. And then--

The red dress with the white underskirt would be just perfect for making her grand arrival before the battle, Butterlyn decided absent-mindedly as she twirled into a dive that took her above the slashing swords of the ninja assassin. The skirt would swirl around her legs and make them look so long that ll the other warrior-princesses would be quite jealous when their bards and the paintings showed it. Though--she frowned as she ducked the desperate slash of the last ninja--there hadn't been quite so many warrior princesses at the last meeting. True, some might be busy with battles or love triangles, but well over half had been missing. There had been nothing on the gossipwire about--


Inspiration: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sachihira/7308912704/
Story Potential: Medium.
Notes: Oh, this could be something, sort of an anime parody mixed with serious, but I don't think it's my sort of thing to write (barring somebody offering me money to do so). And what is it with all the doll photos on Flickr, anyway? It's a bit weird.

The fight was going to happen, she was sure of it. She'd thought her little brother was still young enough to avoid triggering the instincts, but no, as soon as he walked into another male's territory his crest had puffed up a little bit and he'd started swaggering a bit more than was wise. If it had been only a visit, he wouldn't have, but part of him knew that he was living *here* now. If their father had stayed, it would have been okay. Blood relatives were one of the few exceptions to the fight rule. But now they were in the house of a non-blood-relative, and her brother was going to fight her boyfriend and one of them might die. There was always that chance. She didn't think it would happen this time, because her boyfriend soothed her and said no, of course, he'd just teach the cubling a lesson...and then he would get a whiff of her brother and his eyes would get wild and his teeth would sharpen. She'd done what she could. She'd already called the fight paramedics and there was a young woman who was sleeping in the guest bedroom now.


Inspiration: The boy cats are being territorial.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: A society of highly intelligent, territorial males--but not played for their oooh-sexy value. Instead, it's a thing to be worked around. A difficulty.

Nothing like the smell of napalm in the morning, he thought, quoting some old sage from the bushfire era on Earth. 'Course, out in vacuum the only thing you smelled was your own piss and sweat--and vomit, sometimes, when it was particularly bad. He'd heard stories how only the real hard-cases survived the first few wars because no bright spark had thought to put in a way to vacuum out the vomit, so men would choke on it and die if they were the sensitive type, or they'd go to trying to get their helmet off, which sometimes was okay and sometimes would pop your eyeballs inside out.


Inspiration: LJ writer's prompt
Story Potential: Low.
Notes: This isn't a story idea, but it's a nice bit of character/setting.

"The Robots Marching Off to War" is a great title for something. Not sure what yet. Inspiration: A NYT.com article about the new battle robots.

War isn't a game. War is a game of communication. Alien first contact isn't war, it's communication. Communication isn't a game. Communication is a war. War is a game. First contact is war. War is communication. Communication isn't war. Advance, retreat, charge, take prisoners, take no prisoners. Wear costumes from a dozen different alien races. It's a game, and the only score is the one of the opposing team, and if they win, we win.

Inspiration: Adventures in Publishing interview with Kij Johnson mentioning communication, the sound of fighting from the TV downstairs, thinking of games.
Story Potential: High?
Notes: This is bad, but the idea/mixed execution has some potential.