For the last decade I’ve been wanting to write a novel that takes place in the stars that make up Orion’s Belt. It started because I used to look for the constellation at night as a way to enjoy nostalgic memories and wonder if there were people there staring at some constellation I might be standing in, looking my direction with nostalgic feelings, too. I never knew what kind of story I wanted to tell though, so last spring I finally decided to try writing a football story set there.

I wanted the setting to matter, so the concept is this: planets don’t have a constant communication stream. Interplanetary communication bridges are way too expensive to be offered as a year round service. But these people all love football, and football is so incredibly profitable, that during football season it is feasible for companies to open channels for broadcast, and piggyback on them to send civilian network traffic planet to planet. This is sort of like how we piggybacked on satellite communication to send text messages in the 90s.

With this concept at its core, a human story could develop between characters on different planets while football news and games serve as the big story and establish the pacing. Then, as the season draws to a close, the super bowl and inevitable shutoff of communication serves as a suitable ending.

Of course, I had to start writing the opening broadcast as a sort of RedZone show. Heres what I wrote before walking away from the concept and leaving it to gather dust with all my other brain dumps.

Season 349 of Your Interplanetary Football League Kicks Off Tonight!

Welcome back, football fans! From Mintaka 1, I’m your host Albin Auric and this is your opening broadcast of Belt Weekly Sports for the 349th season of Interplanetary Football. We welcome back our listeners from the Alnilum, Alnitak, and Rigel systems – it’s great to have you with us for another season of football. From all of us across the Belt who wait each offseason to reconnect with fellow fans in our sister systems via this temporary broadcast window, we are grateful to hear and be heard with you once again.

The offseason was surely full of unexpected twists and turns for each organization, and while we wait to hear the news from our neighbor stars, we have this update to report: the Mintaka Miners have announced their starting quarterback after a fierce preseason battle for the position. Veteran QB Nil Gabis has been benched in favor of the second year talent, Dwery Crask. Miners fans were eager to see Crask start toward the end of last season, and the former 1st round draft choice will get his chance on the road opening night against Rigel 5’s Rockhoppers. Will that famous Rock Rush defense prove too much for the young QB in his debut? We’ll find out tonight!

Another key matchup this weekend: The Alnitak 3 Voyagers play the Alnitak 2 Stellae. These tidally locked planets have a fierce rivalry, and after a 4th quarter missed holding call stole victory from the Stellae and awarded home field advantage for this season’s first matchup to the Voyagers, you can be certain that Coach Fr!p3#_Bv and the Stellae will be out for revenge. Not that we expect it to change the outcome much; with the loss of both their star running backs to seed shift at the end of last season, the Stellae will have to rely on their less than…stellar…passing game to stand a chance at victory.

REWORK THIS TO BE A SCRIPT OF THE BROADCAST

My final note there was that this could work better as a script than a novel. I’ve gone back and forth about it. I wrote a number of plays in college and could probably put together something decent, but it doesn’t align with the vision I had for the setting. That’s partly why this never went anywhere. Regardless, I hope that snippet was interesting and if I’m lucky I might get the creative juice to flesh this out more.