Story 2 became Stories 2 and 3

"Ascension" is Story 3 in the "Changing Tides" series. It follows "Changing Tides" and "The Stars Hold Beauty."

Originally, "Ascension" was going to be Story 2, and "The Stars Hold Beauty" wasn't even a spark in my head.

But in chapter 1 of "Ascension," when Rikki talks with her father while watching the storm, and again in chapter 5, when she rides a motorcycle to get away from the thieves, I establish that Terry taught Rikki to drive a motorcycle very well. And each time I reread or edited those scenes, the concept of Terry teaching Rikki to drive a motorcycle kept niggling the back of my brain. Something kept telling me, There's a story there.

I resisted it for a month, partially because I knew nothing about motorcycles and I didn't want to spend time researching them.

But I finally realized it would be worth it to write a separate story which actually showed Terry teaching Rikki to drive a motorcycle. Placing this story immediately before "Ascension" in the series order would give the relevant scenes in "Ascension" symmetry, and greater meaning.

Also, I had basically finished "Ascension." Before publishing, I always set a finished story aside for a while and do something else, then come back to read it with fresh eyes. Writing the earlier story was the perfect thing to do while "Ascension" sat percolating on the shelf.

So I gave in. I began writing "The Stars Hold Beauty" with only a vague notion of what the story would be. I figured I would start with a father and daughter trying to attain a goal, but held back by poverty, and let the circumstances of that situation dictate the story. It became the new Story 2, and I pushed "Ascension" back to the third slot.

From the beginning, I knew exactly what the final scene of "The Stars Hold Beauty" would be, and that original idea is indeed the story's actual final scene. Then, I just needed a story to get us to that final scene.

I had an image in my head of Terry and a 13-year-old Rikki belonging to a community of biker dudes (not a gang, necessarily, just a community), always hanging around some kind of garage / motorcycle clubhouse. These biker dudes were the complete stereotype: lots of denim with badges, and long beards which hadn't seen scissors in a decade. Every day, Rikki and Terry were there, and there were always biker dudes out front, laughing, riding around on roaring motorcycles, or tinkering with their bikes, and having fun. Everyone knew everyone. All the biker dudes thought very highly of Terry, and they loved Rikki and thought of themselves as her uncles. Everything was hunky dory on the surface...but not actually hunky dory beneath the surface. What was wrong beneath the surface? Beats me. It was just an image.

And it had to be in the desert. I theorize that I felt it had to be in the desert because it was such a contrast to the water environment of the TV show. Plus, motorcycles just look so much more awesome when they're kicking up dust to catch the sunlight, amirite?

So I started there. If you read "The Stars Hold Beauty," you saw that my original image of the biker dude clubhouse morphed into something only vaguely similar.

And yes, I bit the bullet and researched how to drive a motorcycle (something which had always been a mystery to me). Then I researched how to pop a wheelie on a motorcycle, and was astonished to find it much more difficult than I thought. This knowledge enhanced my prose both in "The Stars Hold Beauty" and in "Ascension," and changed the way I wrote and choreographed Rikki's motorcycle action sequence at the junkyard. Also, it hopefully made it look like I knew what I was talking about. (Writing about unfamiliar subjects is always a danger, because you never know what knowledge you needed but missed.)

One interesting thing I learned is that Harley-Davidson hasn't made a kick-start motorcycle since 1986, so Thelma was vintage even when the TV show aired. I tried to discern Thelma's specific model, but I couldn't figure it out.

So this is why I published "The Stars Hold Beauty" and "Ascension" almost simultaneously. One inspired the other; I wrote them in reverse order; and I achieved their final versions at almost the same time.

The Water Police

From my little humble abode deep in the heart of Texas, I researched Queensland Water Police to the best of my ability while simultaneously trying not to tumble down too many rabbit holes. And by trying not to tumble down too many rabbit holes, I mean I actually didn't research to the best of my ability, because that would have taken too long. In truth, I researched just enough to allow my prose to maybe sound respectable.

I also tried to adjust my research to take into account the passage of time, since all I could find was current (2026) information, yet this story takes place when the TV show aired, which was 2007. And by tried to adjust my research, I mean I winged it a little. Perhaps a lot. In fact, I may have just pulled a few things out of my ass.

If I got anything wrong about the Queensland Water Police – the size and speed of their boats, the size of their boat crews, their boat naming nomenclature, their dialogue when communicating – my apologies. Just pretend this story takes place in an alternate universe in which everything I wrote is realistic. That's probably easier for all concerned.

To the Queensland Water Police, in case you ever read this: Good on ya, mate. Keep doin' what you're doin'. I'm just writing a story about some crimefighting mermaids. As one does.

Rikki's jump off the cliff

I meticulously researched the physics concerning Rikki's jump off the cliff.

Regarding impact speed: Driving off a cliff at high speed is not the same as simply stepping off a cliff and letting gravity do its thing. The extra horizontal speed matters. It combines with the vertical speed caused by gravity, and that total speed is the speed the driver is going when they hit whatever is below. It's basically a diagonal speed. (It's not as simple as merely adding the horizontal and vertical speeds, nor is it an average. The formula is more complex than that.)

Given the height of the cliff (75 feet) and the speed Rikki was going (100 MPH / 161 KPH), she hit the water 316 feet from the cliff, at 110 MPH / 177 KPH. If you want further details, I will provide all the numbers and the formulae upon request.

In reality, air resistance would affect these numbers a smidgen. But in my story, I describe the cliff as gently sloping upward to the edge, and that slight upward slope adds a smidgen of distance. As far as I'm concerned, the upward slope and any air resistance mostly cancel each other out, and any remaining difference is negligible, so I ignore all that.

No one could possibly survive hitting the water at 110 MPH / 177 KPH, so please don't try it yourself. Only the most experienced cliff jumpers can handle an impact at half that speed, so it's not even close.

Water doesn't compress, it can only be moved out of the way. It doesn't act as a cushion, shrinking itself to catch you kindly like an air bag would, because it can't shrink. Water's soft embrace is an illusion which only exists at low speed, because only at low speed can you push it out of the way comfortably.

Even cliff jumpers come to a complete stop less than a second after entering the water, because the water just can't be moved out of the way fast enough (and that stop is what's dangerous).

Another way to phrase the concept of moving water out of the way is to say that you displace water as you move into it, and through it.

If you're traveling through water horizontally, the water you displace simply occupies the space you just left, and it's all equal pressure, so no big deal.

But if you're going down, the water you displace must go up, into the space you just left. This is why you raise the water level when you enter the water, such as in a bath tub; you're displacing water upward as you go down. That concept is true whether you enter a bath tub or the ocean; it's just far more noticeable in a bath tub. Pushing water upward is a fight against gravity and pressure, and when you enter a body of water at high speed, you've lost that fight in the time it takes you to blink.

Water pressure builds the further you descend. The water around you is literally heavier the deeper you go, making it harder and harder to push out of the way, because again, if you're going down, up is the only place that water can be displaced to, and water doesn't like being pushed upward when several thousand gallons are already occupying that space. It gets really cranky about it. When you've got several tons of water above you, the amount of water your downward momentum can push upward is precisely jack all. That's why cliff jumpers come to such a fast stop, at about 15 to 20 feet below the surface; the water above them pushes back, and it's a lot stronger. Water's heavy, and it laughs at your downward momentum trying to nudge it upward. It laughs mightily, and says, "Buddy, you're not going anywhere."

You can go deeper into the water, of course. Slowly. Pushing water out of the way gets harder the faster you go. When I say you come to a sudden stop because water pushes back, I'm talking about descending into the water at high speed.

There's no specific speed at which death becomes certain upon hitting water; death simply becomes increasingly likely the faster you're going. At some point along the speed scale, safety depends upon hitting the water feet first with your body straight, because anything else would kill you.

But let me drop this little factoid on you: the cliff jumping world record is 58.8 meters set by Laso Schaller in 2015. He hit the water at 76.4 MPH / 123 KPH. Cliff jumpers don't strike me as the timid type; if someone could beat that, they would. It's 2026 as I write this, eleven years later, and no one's done it yet. Therefore, I think it's safe to say this speed is pretty close to the water-entering speed limit. And it was accomplished by a professional, not an untrained sixteen-year-old careening off a motorcycle in a near panic.

Rikki hit the water one-and-a-half times faster than this record. She absolutely would have died instantly. Kudos to her for reaching the speed to clear all those rocks, but that was only Part 1 of her danger. She didn't take into account Part 2, which is that that same speed would suddenly become a liability once she passed the first hurdle.

I don't blame Rikki for not knowing this. Most people don't know it, or at least, they're fuzzy on the details. I didn't know most of this until I researched it. (And knowing Rikki, she probably didn't study too hard in science class, anyway. Bless her.)

As an author, I didn't want Rikki to die. But neither did I want to alter my action sequence, nor change any of its numbers (make the cliff shorter and the rocks extend not as far out, for example). So I had to contrive a way for Rikki to live to swim another day.

I thought about having Rikki boil the water below her, bubbling it so that it softens her impact. Turns out, the idea of aerating water to soften an impact is a myth.

If you're traveling at high speed, water stops you suddenly, and air doesn't stop you at all. Therefore, you'd think mixing them would give you a nice middle ground where you stop slowly. Nope. Any particular drop of water which is suspended above air has no push-back against your momentum, so it might as well be all air. And even if it wasn't a myth, its effect would be negligible; it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference at the speed Rikki was traveling.

Have you ever seen someone catch an egg, or something equally delicate, by lowering their hands as they catch it so it doesn't come to a sudden stop? I tried that with Rikki. In an early draft, I had Cleo see Rikki come over the cliff, and – acting on pure mermaid instinct (because they're one with the water, and all that) – Cleo used her power to create a depression in the sea beneath Rikki, lowering the water level as Rikki entered the water, just like a person lowering their hands while catching an egg. But I found it really improbable that Cleo could have such impeccable reaction time and precision at 110 MPH, and the depression would have to be very, very, very deep to slow-catch Rikki in any meaningful way, probably deeper than was possible that close to shore. I did not like this idea at all.

Ultimately, I decided that if Rikki hit the water in merform, that could be my Get-Out-Of-Plot-Jail Free card, because then the rules are whatever I need them to be. When science doesn't work, use magic!

It's lucky Rikki ran through that final puddle and splashed herself when she did, exactly ten seconds ahead of time.

Or was that really mere luck? Was some mysterious force watching out for Rikki?!

The moon pool will never tell. She keeps her secrets, that one.

See, Ms. Chatham? Science and magic can mix...when they want to. They're friends, at least.

'Til next time.