Rescue Mission 718554

by Manuel Kronenberg und Sophia Rossmann

Supervisor: Dr. Ursula Münster

"Rescue Mission 718554" is the title of an Eco-SciFi story which describes the adventure of an envoy from earth who is stranded on a foreign planet with a space shuttle. At first, the envoy has no memory of where it came from and where it was heading. So it explores the capital city of the planet, Ecotopia, where animals and humans live side by side as equals. Ecotopia has established a sustainable way of life that is based on respect for the planet and has an attitude that builds on the idea of sufficiency. Gradually, the envoy remembers why it came, that its home planet suffers from serious environmental issues, and that it must find a solution that involves the Ecotopians. But the plans are delicate and it has to convince his new acquaintances.

The story is based on several different sources of inspiration. One influence is definitely the reading course session on Eco-SciFi where we came into contact with terraforming (cf. Murphy 2017). Furthermore, we questioned the human-animal-relationship and engaged into the topic of anti-anthropocentrism and Haraways works such as "The Companion Species Manifesto" (2003). We also examined existing studies on environment pollution and climate change. We tried to use not only what we have learned in our time at the RCC but also our own field of study: sociology and philosophy. We looked at concepts like Post-Humanism (cf. Ferrando 2014; Braidotti 2006) and also incorporated a critical view on capitalism and the neoliberal economic system. In addition, we intertwined current headlines from newspapers in the story which are not marked a such to give the story a more profound base. We also took inspiration from books that discuss the process of writing short stories as well as books that also include Rescue Mission 718554: An Eco-SciFi-Story by Sophia Rossmann and Manuel Kronenberg short stories on ecological topics (cf. Vandermeer 2013; Brown & Imarisha 2015; Wagner & Wieland 2017; Lukes 2009). Other sources of inspiration were talks, for example talks from Kim Stanley Robinson on Utopia. It was important for us to not just write a fictional story that has no connection to theoretical concepts or events that are happening. Instead, we wanted to start from a solid base of acquired knowledge from which we could take ourselves into the world of creative writing.

On the Working Process
Writing a creative fictional story was something we both had not done in years. Probably middle school was the last time we had to come up with a story following a similar style. But not only the genre was a challenge for us but also the way we worked together on it. Instead of individually writing each part we met various times to engage into a collaborative work process which was built on an intense brainstorming phase. We constantly exchanged ideas on how the story could proceed. It was a very fruitful experience for us both.

Gender
Who is this human being traveling through space who crashes on a far away planet? It was very important to us to not answer that question for the reader. We intentionally did not assign a gender to our protagonist. Everyone should be allowed to follow their own imagination while reading our story.