Goodreads asked Robert G. Williscroft:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Robert G. Williscroft My most current book, "The Iapetus Federation," is still being written. It is a direct continuation of the story in "The Starchild Compact." The idea for this novel came to me while I was examining NASA photos of the Cassini-Huygens September 10, 2007, flyby of Saturn's moon Iapetus. I was struck by the equatorial ridge, which is twenty km high and as wide. I also was struck by what appeared to be regular hexagonal sections on the surface paralleling the equator, and that some of these sections appear to have collapsed. I researched Iapetus further, discovering that its density (1.09 gm/cm3) is way too low for a solid moon consisting of rock. Street wisdom is that it consists mostly of ice, but Iapetus appears to be rocky, very rocky. "Could it be hollow?" I thought. "What if it were a derelict starship?"

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