Hi all,

This is the first time I am stumbling upon this sub-reddit and didnt even know that this sub-genre exists until a couple minutes ago, but I feel like "The Last Particle" a story I am currently writing and developing fits quite well in it.

I am going through great efforts in my research and try to understand the changes humanity on a social level and on an individual level would experience with a sudden change of the natural laws induced by an emerging system.

The goal is to bridge a gap between myths and wonders and the current civilization which does not believe in any of them, but they could have easily been historical facts.

Please let me know what you think about the work, and if you like it feel free to leave a review or comment on RoyalRoad, same goes for if you dont like it :)

"The Last Particle" by Dr.Insano

Thank you in advance

I kinda don't want to go through the weekly reading thing. I'd rather just buy the books later. But since there have been so many chapters released already, I'm wondering if she has said when they'll will finish?

Sorry if this is not the kind of question to be posted here

What are the best works of science fiction about how a space-based civilizations would create a government sponsored organization to handle salvaging and shipbreaking?

So I know that the more popular works of science fiction like Firefly, Star Wars, and Planetes feature salvaging and shipbreaking being done by private entities. But given how dangerous said salvage is to space travel and civilizations, wouldn't it make sense for a space-based civilization to create a government-sponsored entity designed to handle?

Why is space salvage so dangerous? Well for starters, in regard to derelict ships, it is probably not a good idea to leave derelict ships lying around because a hostile party may seek to exploit it. Here are the following scenarios where they may do so:

1. If its a warship that is largely intact then they may seek to make it fully operational and use it against their enemies (Foundation 2021).
2. Even if it isn't a warship, if the ship is equipped with an FTL drive that is fully operational than the hostile party may seek to use it to launch a devastating kamikaze strike that could destroy a planet.
3. And even it can't be made fully operational they could still salvage the nuclear or antimatter fuel to build a bomb.

And in Planetes, Earth suffers from an overaccumulation of space debris in orbit (better known as Kessler Syndrome), and this results in a civilian spaceflight being destroyed by a screw that was drifting in space at a high velocity. Not to mention the one time they have to deal with an >!orbital space mine, !<which in the wrong hands could have been used for less savory purposes.

Bottomline, given the dangers space debris poses to civilization and space travel it seems only reasonable that instead of leaving this matter to a private entity it should be handled by a public entity. Now the methods they will use varies depending on the level of technology they possess but I’m guessing it would be inefficient to just dump all of the debris and derelicts on another planet. A more effective way to do this is to set up the proper dismantling and smelting facilities either on a planet or in orbit to reuse and recycle all of the space junk they have collected. Or in some cases they just might use a laser broom to vaporize the debris.

Again it will vary from scenario to scenario.

Sources:

https://youtu.be/a2z44FW9dEQ?feature=shared

https://youtu.be/rSXBjhOtAmI?feature=shared

Space Derelicts & Trash Worlds (youtube.com)

Kessler Syndrome and the space debris problem | Spacee

Welcome to the Monday request and recommendation thread. Are you looking something to scratch an itch? Post a comment stating your request! Did you just read something that really hit the spot, "rational" or otherwise? Post a comment recommending it! Note that you are welcome (and encouraged) to post recommendations directly to the subreddit, so long as you think they more or less fit the criteria on the sidebar or your understanding of this community, but this thread is much more loose about whether or not things "belong". Still, if you're looking for beginner recommendations, perhaps take a look at the wiki?

If you see someone making a top level post asking for recommendation, kindly direct them to the existence of these threads.

Previous automated recommendation threads
Other recommendation threads

The protagonist can't be an anti-hero. They have to commit immoral acts for selfish reasons. The book has to center around them pursuing power

Welcome to the Saturday Munchkinry and Problem Solving Thread! This thread is designed to be a place for us to abuse fictional powers and to solve fictional puzzles. Feel free to bounce ideas off each other and to let out your inner evil mastermind!

Guidelines:

• Ideally any power to be munchkined should have consistent and clearly defined rules. It may be original or may be from an already realised story.
• The power to be munchkined can not be something "broken" like omniscience or absolute control over every living human.
• Reverse Munchkin scenarios: we find ways to beat someone or something powerful.
• We solve problems posed by other users. Use all your intelligence and creativity, and expect other users to do the same.

Note: All top level comments must be problems to solve and/or powers to munchkin/reverse munchkin.

Good Luck and Have Fun!

I came up with this one after watching some of Isaac Arthur's videos. So what I'm looking for are the best works of science fiction that show what interstellar trade between different alien species will look like, based on the following:

• According to Isaac Arthur it seems likely that trade between different species will be focused on the following goods: feed and fertilizer, raw materials (Ex: minerals, gases, and ice), luxury goods (Ex: furniture, dresses, jewelry, designer clothing etc.), and goods that have artistic/entertainment value (Ex: Comics, literature, tv, movies, paintings, statues, toys, board games, video games, etc). The buying and selling of any technology and scientific information might be allowed but it will all depend on what regulations interstellar species have on giving way this sort of stuff. For example, given the destructive power of the Alcubierre drive I don't think this is the sort of thing one can just sell or give away to another alien race [1,3].
• Interstellar trade ports are most likely going to look like O'Neill cylinders, like the ones Isaac Arthur describes in his video Multi-Species Civilization & Co-Alien Habitats. Space stations designed to accommodate different species biological needs. They will most likely be used for neutral meeting zones where two or more parties meetup to hammer out trade deals/agreements and they will also have warehouses for storing trade goods before said goods are shipped off to their final destination. And they can also serve as stopping points for space freighters to resupply, refuel, and repairs [2].
• Speaking of space freighters I'm guessing that that the space ships hauling this stuff will be pretty large since most goods will be shipped in bulk. The size will crew vary depending on the cargo and the composition of the crew will either be automated, organic, or both [4]. As far as ownership goes, the freighter will most likely be owned by a corporation that is either privately controlled or state controlled depending on the alien's economy. The reason why is because assuming the ship is powered by nuclear fusion, or has an Alcubierre Drive, or both then interstellar governments are going to regulate who can own such potential WMDs. Of course they might be willing to lease these freighters, provided the "Captain" can cover the cost of refuels and repairs, and in the case of organic crews, supplies of fuel and medicine. And of course, all crew members will have undergo background checks to ensure that they are not a security risk.

Sources:

1. https://youtu.be/ZPFKzDi2YFI?feature=shared&t=1026
2. Multi-Species Civilizations & Co-Alien Habitats (youtube.com)
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBBWJ_c8piM
4. Space Freighters, Cargos & Crews (youtube.com)

Welcome to the Friday Open Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.

So do you want to talk about how your life has been going? Non-rational and/or non-fictional stuff you've been reading? The recent album from your favourite German pop singer? The politics of Southern India? Different ways to plot meteorological data? The cost of living in Portugal? Corner cases for siteswap notation? All these things and more could (possibly) be found in the comments below!

Please note that this thread has been merged with the Monday General Rationality Thread.

Essentially I only want to view the "one-off" stories and posts on this subreddit and not the story updates that are far more common. I apologise if I have missed a filtering option somewhere, but I cannot seem to find one.

TL;DR: I developed and launched Readeon, a Chrome/Firefox extension designed to enhance the reading experience on Patreon, making it similar to popular reading sites. For more details, visit the Readeon site. I'm also working on an author-focused extension for Patreon to address key challenges, such as tier-specific post scheduling. You can find more information about this by clicking on this link. THE EXTENSION IS FREE AND OPEN-SOURCE!

Viewing JCB on Patreon while using Readeon 

You ever seen JCB look so beautiful in Patreon? No?

Well, I certainly have! For the past 2.5 months, I've been working on a Patreon based reading extension staring at my screen day after day, hoping the code would magically write itself—and somehow, this is what came of it.

Believe me, seeing the end result almost made the trauma of my past Patreon experiences vanish. ALMOST.

Now, jokes aside, as you all know, reading on Patreon after experiencing an actual reading website is like moving from a luxury penthouse to a leaky tent under a bridge.

Everything about reading on Patreon sucks: there's no post navigation, no reader preferences settings, no full screen views, no way to save last read posts, and the list goes on and on.

Simply put, Patreon was not designed with readers in mind. But despite that, thousands of readers continue to support the stories and authors they love on that damn site. 

So, as a developer and reader myself, I have developed a Chrome/Firefox extension called Readeon, which completely transforms the look of the Patreon website to be similar to an actual reading website. 

How does it do it? Well, the chrome/firefox extension summary blurb, says it pretty well:

Readeon improves the Patreon reading experience through these features: 

• Download posts in EPUB, PDF, TXT, DOC, or DOCX
• Reading preferences settings (change font size/style, add background coloring, etc.)
• Improved navigation between posts (through a table of contents like look)
• Full screen view for posts 
• Make edit suggestions in posts
• Saving last read posts
• And more…

Here's a video demonstrating the mentioned features:

Readeon Promotional Video

You can download Readeon by clicking on this link.

I am also currently working on an author-based Patreon extension to solve key issues like post scheduling between tiers. You can get more details by clicking here.

Cheers!

I like stories where the MC likes to Munchkin their powers. For some reason, I find most of the time I find a story with an MC who does this, he behaves like a reckless murder hobo with no goal beyond "I want to be the very best, like no one ever was!", and no concern for safety. Usually no personality beyond Ambition (MAYBE you will also get Paranoid or Snarky if you are lucky).

Has anyone else noticed stories that focusing on Munchkinning tend to skimp on character motivation? Frustrated by how often the character we are told are smart bee line for the most reckless course? We always seem to get characters Doing It For the Adventures in Munchkinning stories...rarely Slice of Life or Forced into Danger and Adventure characters.

Super Supportive appears to be an exception, but as far as I can find the only one.

Has anyone else noticed this pattern? Anyone know of Slice of Life or Surviving a Disaster stories with smart Munchkinning MCs?

Welcome to the Monday request and recommendation thread. Are you looking something to scratch an itch? Post a comment stating your request! Did you just read something that really hit the spot, "rational" or otherwise? Post a comment recommending it! Note that you are welcome (and encouraged) to post recommendations directly to the subreddit, so long as you think they more or less fit the criteria on the sidebar or your understanding of this community, but this thread is much more loose about whether or not things "belong". Still, if you're looking for beginner recommendations, perhaps take a look at the wiki?

If you see someone making a top level post asking for recommendation, kindly direct them to the existence of these threads.

Previous automated recommendation threads
Other recommendation threads

Welcome to the Saturday Munchkinry and Problem Solving Thread! This thread is designed to be a place for us to abuse fictional powers and to solve fictional puzzles. Feel free to bounce ideas off each other and to let out your inner evil mastermind!

Guidelines:

• Ideally any power to be munchkined should have consistent and clearly defined rules. It may be original or may be from an already realised story.
• The power to be munchkined can not be something "broken" like omniscience or absolute control over every living human.
• Reverse Munchkin scenarios: we find ways to beat someone or something powerful.
• We solve problems posed by other users. Use all your intelligence and creativity, and expect other users to do the same.

Note: All top level comments must be problems to solve and/or powers to munchkin/reverse munchkin.

Good Luck and Have Fun!

Since I didn't notice anyone posting about it, most of worth the candle has been jabbed by the >!Vorpal Blade!< (stubbed) as it's being released on Kindle Unlimited.

At least we get a new chapter Ω1

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/25137/worth-the-candle/chapter/1855044/chapter-1

Welcome to the Friday Open Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.

So do you want to talk about how your life has been going? Non-rational and/or non-fictional stuff you've been reading? The recent album from your favourite German pop singer? The politics of Southern India? Different ways to plot meteorological data? The cost of living in Portugal? Corner cases for siteswap notation? All these things and more could (possibly) be found in the comments below!

Please note that this thread has been merged with the Monday General Rationality Thread.

Welcome to the Monday request and recommendation thread. Are you looking something to scratch an itch? Post a comment stating your request! Did you just read something that really hit the spot, "rational" or otherwise? Post a comment recommending it! Note that you are welcome (and encouraged) to post recommendations directly to the subreddit, so long as you think they more or less fit the criteria on the sidebar or your understanding of this community, but this thread is much more loose about whether or not things "belong". Still, if you're looking for beginner recommendations, perhaps take a look at the wiki?

If you see someone making a top level post asking for recommendation, kindly direct them to the existence of these threads.

Previous automated recommendation threads
Other recommendation threads

Welcome to the Saturday Munchkinry and Problem Solving Thread! This thread is designed to be a place for us to abuse fictional powers and to solve fictional puzzles. Feel free to bounce ideas off each other and to let out your inner evil mastermind!

Guidelines:

• Ideally any power to be munchkined should have consistent and clearly defined rules. It may be original or may be from an already realised story.
• The power to be munchkined can not be something "broken" like omniscience or absolute control over every living human.
• Reverse Munchkin scenarios: we find ways to beat someone or something powerful.
• We solve problems posed by other users. Use all your intelligence and creativity, and expect other users to do the same.

Note: All top level comments must be problems to solve and/or powers to munchkin/reverse munchkin.

Good Luck and Have Fun!