Hello, dreamers.

It’s a new year, and I have a new work-in-progress, which means the return of my weekly “WIP Wednesday” posts. It feels good to have a new novel project, and I’m eager to share it with you. So, this week’s WIP Wednesday will serve as an introduction to my exciting new project.

Neptune 1

Set in 2114, Neptune 1 follows the crew of the DSRV Challenger during the first of humanity’s Neptune missions: an audacious program to send humans to habitable exoplanets. After a robotic probe detects liquid water on a moon orbiting Alpha Centauri’s lone gas giant, the Challenger is dispatched to search for signs of life, in hopes of studying an alien marine biosphere.

The story revolves around Karen Hernandez: an American woman of Mexican descent, who becomes the first marine biologist in space. Karen is unlike any novel protagonist I’ve created: far from my usual hyper-capable MCs, while Karen is experienced in her field and passionate, she’s very insecure. Much of her insecurity stems from the nature of her position on the Neptune 1 mission: as ESA has no real idea of whether or not life exists on the moon, she worries her inclusion on the crew is mostly a gimmick, and feels out of place among the astronomers, planetary scientists, and engineers that largely make up the crew. However, through the story she will ultimately become the most important member of the crew, and take her first steps toward becoming a career astronaut and one of humanity’s greatest early explorers of interstellar space.

Karen is joined by a diverse group of supporting characters, most of whom are fellow members of a multiethnic international crew:

Indrani Chawla

The Indian mission commander of Neptune 1, by this point Indrani Chawla is among the few members of the Earth Space Administration with interstellar experience. A planetary scientist by trade, Chawla was a member of the Pathfinder 8 mission, and was among the first humans to set foot on an exoplanet. The planet in question was Proxima Centauri 2 (known today as Proxima b): the lone habitable planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to Earth. While her experience makes her something of a living legend to the rest of the crew, Chawla views her mission to Proxima as anticlimactic: the planet turned out to be completely devoid of life, X-ray emissions from its parent star having stripped away most of its atmosphere, leaving it sterile.

Chawla is a natural leader: self-assured but genial, almost maternal toward her crew, with a quick wit. She has the utmost confidence in her crew, each of whom she personally picked or approved, and though she refuses to accept impossibility, she never hesitates to defer to her officers’ experience. Over the course of the story, Chawla becomes a mentor to Karen, ultimately leading her transformation from an insecure marine biologist to a capable astronaut and leader.

Anita Powell

The only member of Chawla’s command crew who’s not officially an astronaut (she’s classified as a mission specialist), Dr. Anita Powell is the scientific operations officers of Neptune 1: the individual responsible for directing all scientific research aboard Challenger. A middle-aged African American woman, Powell is a physicist by trade, chosen by Chawla as the commander believes a physicist would be best-suited to weaving all the diverse scientific fields on board the ship together.

Though not as daring as the trained astronauts aboard the ship, Powell is brilliant and a quick thinker. Her extensive experience in science and engineering often make her the crewmember who sees solutions others miss due to their limited perspectives. Though not the bold leader Chawla is, Powell is nonetheless an excellent administrator, and her tendency to eschew formality helps her to connect personally with her team.

Fazil Westerwelle

A German astronomer of Turkish descent, Dr. Fazil Westerwelle is an astronomer specializing in the study of gas giants. Though long-winded and sometimes dull, Fazil is genial, kind, and endlessly optimistic. In addition to serving as one of the crew’s foremost experts on the planet their moon is orbiting, Fazil becomes one of Karen’s closest friends.

Domingos Cordeiro

A Brazilian astronomer, Lt. Domingos Cordeiro is an experienced ESA astronaut, serving as the chief astronomer of the Neptune 1 mission. Unlike the rest of the ship’s astronomers, who are aboard to study the planet and its moon, Dom is focused on shipboard operations: as with all astronomy officers assigned to ESA spacecraft, he’s responsible for analyzing celestial bodies encountered by the ship, as well as the ship’s navigation.

Dom is less enthusiastic than most of his crewmates, and often presented as nervous, pessimistic, and far more risk-averse than the rest of the crew’s trained astronauts. This, however, is borne not of cowardice but rather a keen understanding of just how many ways things can go wrong in space.

Andrea Karembu

A Kenyan engineer, Lt. Andrea Karembu is the Challenger‘s operations officer, placing her in charge of the ship’s systems as well as communication. Brilliant and enthusiastic, Karembu frequently works closely with Powell to devise solutions to engineering problems that crop up over the course of the story. As the officer responsible for everything from fuselage maintenance to the ship’s engines and fusion reactor, she’s one of the most important members of the crew.

Werner Helling

A German astronaut, Lt. Werner Helling is the youngest member of the command crew. Helling is the ship’s flight controller, responsible for attitude control during maneuvers. A typical pilot, Helling is bold and self-assured, eager to thrust himself into danger and push the envelope.

Natalya Grinkova

A Russian medical doctor, Natalya Grinkova is the ship’s chief medical specialist, running the infirmary and monitoring the crew’s physical health. A joyless, serious woman, Grinkova is nonetheless passionate about protecting the crew; her seriousness stems from her keen understanding of the immense responsibility that presents.

Laura Mangeneh

An Iranian American psychologist, Dr. Laura Mangeneh is responsible for the mental health of the crew. Given the high-stress nature of long-duration space travel, that makes her one of the most important people aboard the Challenger. Though driven and intense, Mangeneh is capable of incredible kindness, and endlessly patient.

There are many more minor characters who’ve cropped up, playing bit roles here and there as the story has unfolded. It’s been quite a journey already, and I’m only about halfway through the story so far. Next week, I’ll dive into the settings I’ve created for this story, and the vast amount of research that’s gone into it.

This story has been a welcome surprise for me, and was one of the few bright spots near the end of an otherwise rough year. This is the first time I’ve begun a new year with a novel project in progress. And more importantly, this is the first time since Pioneers I’ve felt really, really good about a story. I’ve done an incredible amount of research for this. I’d say the only thing I’ve written more heavily-researched and carefully built than Neptune 1 was Pioneers, and in the end, the only reason this story has involved less dense research is because much of the worldbuilding groundwork was laid with Pioneers.

I still have a long way to go, and I can’t wait to share this journey with you. Next week on WIP Wednesday, I’ll be diving in (so to speak) to the settings of Neptune 1, and talking more about my research and worldbuilding processes. For now, keep reading, and dare to dream. – MK