She switches to the backstroke after ten laps. Ten more and she rolls over again; breaststroke. She has waterproof headphones and an audiobook going.
"He's just messing with me because I once kept poking holes into the physics of a book he was telling me about."
Sahde pokes his tongue out at Ohan then grins at Pelape. "I think for realistic but still fun sci-fi alternate universes I'd go with either some specific point of departure in physics or something like alternate history, depending. And even alternate history doesn't have to be alternate Amentan history, we could go with an alternate history for the formation of the galaxy or something, although I'm not sure if that'd be meaningfully different than just travelling to another planet."
"I think once your story is indistinguishable from one that takes place in another galaxy you don't get to call it 'alternate history'."
"Yeah, thought so. Well, an alternate history on Amenta could still be interesting, like one where the castes ended up being different or Oahk didn't crumble somehow. That's a coherent alternate universe premise, right?"
"People do the Oahk one all the time. Mostly in the Oahksphere but you get the odd depressive Anitami or Voan."
"Could be an Oahk one where things don't turn out terribly and they actually figure out how to do stuff well and even handle the red transition well enough because they are a tyrannical power in control of the whole world by then?"
"That's the tenor of the Oahksphere ones, I think, but I haven't read many through."
"Well now I want to make it work but in a different way that would not offend Anitami sensibilities."
"I'm trying to encourage you if and only if true facts about how difficult this would be are encouraging. And, yes, if you don't expect to make more than twenty-five percent of what you make with your day job, tops."
"I suppose if we all get married it doesn't make much of a difference if it's published under my name, does it..."
"While it's really hot that you're offering to commit fraud for me I think it's better not. Also I don't seriously think I would be a very good science fiction writer."
"Well, whatever 'being a grey' may mean in our outlying butts, I still have not tried any of it at all as a hobby and probably would need to work very hard to get anywhere near 'good'."