Skip to content

Worlds Apart Bonus Content

- - SPOILER WARNING - -

If you have not read Worlds Apart and like your surprises and twists unspoiled, turn back now. Visit this spoiler-free page about the novel.

Orion Spaceship Reference Render

orion-render

As I began to write about the Orion spaceship, I found it a little "slippery" inside my imagination. I could see parts of it clearly but not the whole, all at once. So I headed over the brilliant Tinkercad website and designed the above reference render. The colors used in the render only serve to differentiate the various sections and don't relate to the Orion's exterior paint job which is white. May I give you a tour?

Closest to the blue graph paper is the MagPlas Booster. The 3 red thruster nozzles are resting on the graph paper as if to blast off, however the Orion was built in space and designed for interplanetary travel only, it could never escape a gravity well. The dark gray Booster section contains the booster, booster fuel and Aija's engineering workshop with a microgravity capable 3D printer. This section is also where James faced his fear of empty space and made an EVA to patch the leaking fuel tank.

Above the booster section is the many decks of pill-shaped Pods. The colored Pods are the passenger Pods and the colors correspond to the colors on the inside that orient the passengers. In the render, the top set of Pods (Deck 1) isn't colored, but should be. James's and Nate's cabins were in Pod Blue 2, which is the topmost blue Pod. The Pods's shape evolved a bit from the pill-shape to more of a flat bottom to accommodate the thrusters need for the emergency landing. Beneath the Pods, barely visible, is the Gallery, the central "hallway" or "corridor" that connects everything.

The large orange ring is the Gravity Deck. The boxes on the ring are the two gravity rooms: the Fitness Room and the Gravity Lounge. James and Nate board the Orion through a flextube connected to floor of the Gravity Lounge and they proceed through the Transit which is the tube that connects the gravity rooms to the central hub that exits into the Gallery. I wanted to write how along the ring were electromag generators that created a field around Orion that protected it from harmful radiation and cosmic rays, but couldn't find a good place to add that detail.

At the top of the reference render is the Prow. This bell-shaped section contains 3 decks. The bottom and largest deck is the food services deck with both smartglass dining rooms and Chef Leo's kitchen. The mid-deck hosts the Captain's suite and the Command/Control/Navigation room. And the top deck is the Observation Deck with its domed windows. The final scene in the novel takes place here.

Thanks for joining me in taking a closer look at the Orion!

Novel-related AI Artwork

K-8 Self-Portrait

K-8 self portrait, painting

Not only musically talented, K-8's time in the bubble gave her the opportunity to develop her artistic ability across a wide range of mediums. Using oils on canvas, K-8 skillfully captured her inner life with a mix of sadness and hopefulness.


Ballroom Doors

doors to ballroom

Before Jetta meets the famous Eva Brooks, she waits outside the ballroom turned command HQ. These are the beautifully carved doors of the Blazon Grand Congo's top floor ballroom.


Eva Brooks in Concert

eva brooks concert (alt)

Eva Brooks has just announced the opening of the fabricator in Kinshasa. Fireworks light the night and the concert kicks off. In less than a half hour, Zahid will take his revenge.

Medieval Coventry

medieval coventry

During his time aboard spacestation Horizon, James experienced flight inside Nigel Coombs’s Flight Experience. During the on-boarding tutorial, he flew around a 3D pencil sketch created by Nigel's wife, Barbara.


The Zing

zing, concept art

After Vi gets nowhere with the lawyer, she feels like giving up and goes to the Zing which is a park built over a former parking lot. With the rise of self-driving Autos, transportation became a service. In the same way, people no longer have cabinets to "park" their DVDs, in 2063 parking lots are no longer needed to park cars. What to do with all that space? Make a park!