Hello Reddit, I’m trying to track down a sci-fi short story read about 20 years ago (give or take). It was written quite a while back, but I can't remember the author or the title.

The story was about a futuristic reality show set in the Wild West (possibly filmed in the USA). The main character was the most popular "actor" in the show—a legendary gunslinger. I don’t recall all the details, but I vividly remember the ending: the protagonist gets shot and killed by a kid who just wanted to interact with his hero.

If this rings a bell for anyone, I'd really appreciate any leads!

The sequel to my humorous LitRPG isekai is now available for those who want to pick up a copy! On Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and in paperback!

https://preview.redd.it/bcu7by16yoge1.jpg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b9fe936ee186e32213c2aa516f4afc4c4d036340

Link: https://www.amazon.com/Guardians-Dragon-Keep-Dark-Undermaster-ebook/dp/B0DSDW43YH/

"So, what you're saying is the Dragon Queen is dead." "No, what I'm saying is the Dragon Queen is dead and there's an imposter carrying on in her place. Possibly someone you know. Your girlfriend's ex is back from the dead. Your brother is evil. A dead god is trying to take over your body. We're running out of time until it becomes impossible to save the world. Also, I'm pretty sure the giant blind redheaded swordswoman chick wants to bang you to death." "So, normal Tuesday."

Aragorn "Aaron" Bartkowski and his merry band of miscreants are back! Having successfully slain the demon god Chernabog, they've managed to buy a little more time for the planet Mokosh. However, a hero's work is never done, especially when a hero is underleveled and with low WIS. From a mission to a haunted vampire-filled castle to rescue the little girl Pope to the deeps of elven territory to the heart of Ledziana's civil war, Aaron must now engage with the complicated politic underlying the dark fantasy setting he's found himself in. It's win or die when playing the games of kings and queens, though, and our hero is absolutely terrible at them.

GUARDIANS OF DRAGON KEEP is the second volume of the Dark Undermaster Saga, a humorous send up of dark fantasy like Game of Thrones, The Witcher, and Dark Souls. It is a progression fantasy LitRPG that follows the adventures of video game computer programmer, Aaron Bartkowski as he is hurled bodily into the world of his favorite author, Larry C.C. Weis. Unfortunately, Weis turns out to have been much better at stealing from other, better, authors than he was in giving his heroes a break.

I believe it was a short story in a sci-fi or horror anthology where a guy and his dog get into some extreme situation and the dog starts talking to him. This is a problem because all the other dogs now want to kill them because their secret has been revealed. Anyone know what this story is called and who wrote it?

https://preview.redd.it/l4hycy296nge1.png?width=859&format=png&auto=webp&s=05243e1eac812d9e618f24d06c1590a65d3cff35

Humans are Weird – In a Tangle

Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-in-a-tangle

Brilliant sunlight filtered down through the skylights as Private Cutdepth sorted through the box in front of him. He couldn’t help glancing up longingly at the glowing patch of heat on the wall. The cold time the humans called ‘winter’ was finally receding as the revolutions of the titled planet brought the blessed light of the local star to bear on their joint base. However the long cold seemed to have driven the spirit of crystal water into every crack and crevice of the base, even into his own joints, he thought as he flexed his tail ruefully. Again he felt the loose flap of skin rub against the storeroom floor sending a twinge of discomfort into his spine. He thought longingly of the nice thick layer of fat he had displayed on the sides of his tail when he had arrived in the warm time. Growing up in his father’s colony he had never thought about those precious reserves of energy and insulation. Now he couldn’t wait to feel them expand once more as the humans promised they would with the return of the blossoms and fresh growth.

“Grind that toothful when the gears get there,” Private Cutdepth said with a sigh as he pulled his attention from the attractive patch of warmth on the wall and recommenced rummaging through the box in front of him.

He reached over and once more ran a sensitive palm over the odd, human datapad he had been issued that morning. There was no handy texture differential to indicate where the charging surface was though Private O’Brien insisted that a unique texture would soon develop from repeated use of the chargers. There was a slight, a very, very slight color differential. Something vaguely between gray and black. Private Cutdepth was able to see it, in direct sunlight in noonday, but that did him little good here. He sighed and tried to recall the distance from the edge of the charging surface to the edge of the device as a whole. Once the device was charged of course he would be able to feel the electrostatic differential easily on his palms despite the numbness around his two primary fingers.

“But if it had a charge I wouldn’t need to be here digging for a charger,” Private Cutdepth muttered to himself, before licking his eyes in frustration and shoving his hands into the box.

Thanks to the numbness it took him several more seconds than it should have to realize that these were the charging units for the great mechanical devices, far overrated for his little datapad. They would work, but it would be a shameful misuse of equipment. With another sigh he turned to a stack of unlabeled boxes on a higher shelf. His tail twitched as he mentally calculated the vertical distance to the boxes. It was technically too high for him and protocol required that he either call a human for aid or get a ladder. With a huff of defiance in the general direction of the safety manual he grabbed the lowest shelf and pulled himself up.

His own data reading device, a gift from his mother before leaving home, had finally failed. The specially made device had lasted longer than the regulation issue items had, but even it had eventually succumbed to the wild fluctuations in temperature he had exposed it to in the course of nursing their water collectors along. The rupture of the power core that had damaged his palm and left him numb had been, according to the manufacturer, an unprecedented catastrophic failure, and from the way they had so eagerly demanded it back and unparalleled opportunity to gather data. The human datapad, made explicitly to take massive temperature changes would presumably last longer with its shielded layers.

He reached the boxed that he hoped contained the smaller chargers and reached out with his good forehand to grab it. However his numb fingers didn’t quite have the grip on the shelf that he thought and just as he secured his grasp on the top box he felt himself begin to slip backwards. He felt a moment of pure, hatchling panic before the fall was over and he was gasping on the ground, blinking and licking his eyes with a cable coiled around his snout.

Private Cutdepth took a moment to carefully flex, feeling for any injuries. He doubted the short fall would have done any damage but he had lost a lot of his protective fat to the cold. Pawing at that the false stone flooring the humans used was quickly beginning to leech the warmth out of his back scutes. Determining that his spine was still intact he flung himself over. Or rather he made an effort to fling himself over onto his paws. Something was wrapped tightly around one hind leg, something apparently wedge shaped was pressing into the side he had tried to roll preventing movement, and many small things were under his tail, preventing him from getting any leverage from the floor.

He gave a few experimental wriggles and produced a small avalanche behind his head. Feeling irritation building he gave a powerful sweep of his tail, only to hear something give an expensive sounding snap and drive one eyes into something pokey.

“What’s going on here?” Called out the rich warm voice of a human.

Private Cutdepth froze and let humiliation and relief grind out their respective rights while the human approached, the floor vibrating with the double beat of his footfalls.

“My dude!” Private O’Brien’s voice explained, vibrating with suppressed laughter, “my little dude! Are you okay?”

“I didn’t sprain my scutes,” Private Cutdepth replied.

“Do you need a hand up?” Private O’Brien asked, his massive upper body swaying into view.

“If it wouldn’t gum your gears,” Private Cutdepth said.

It was a booted foot that Private O’Brien extended to gently prod Private Cutdepth, tuck under his shoulder, and roll the other onto his belly. Private Cutdepth tried to get his footing on the smooth false stone and found himself scrambling in the cluster of cables and devices.

“Take it easy little dude,” Private O’Brien said with a chuckle.

The human folded himself down and began gathering up the various charging devices and other items that Private Cutdepth couldn’t identify and tossing them back into the boxes without order.

“What are those?” Private Cutdepth asked.

“Chargers, data transfer points,” Private O’Brien frowned down at an oblong in his hand, “don’t know what this is, that sort of stuff. It’s just an odds and ends box really. You know, stuff that is too good to toss or recycle. Here’s the one you need.”

The human tossed a coil of charge cable at Private Cutdepth with the same care that he was tossing the rest into the box. Private Cutdepth carefully disentangled it from around his eyes and tucked it against the data pad as the human swept the last of the assorted items into the box and replaced the box on the shelf. Now that he had a good look at the items he could see that many were damaged and most were worn. Even the one he held, though it would be functional, showed more than acceptable wear.

“Our storage space is limited isn’t it?” Private Cutdepth asked.

“A bit,” Private O’Brien said with a shrug of his massive shoulders.

“Shouldn’t most of those be sent to the mills for recycling?” he asked, indicating the boxes of assorted items that surely only a human would consider related.

“No!” the human exclaimed, shaking his head emphatically. “They are much to valuable for that, and besides, the moment we recycled them we’d need them! And the main supply ship takes months to get here!”

Private Cutdepth blinked slowly up at the grinning human. There was clearly some joke here. The human smelled of laughter even if he wasn’t vibrating with it. Private Cutdepth heaved a sigh and tucked his new datapad and charger under his foreleg.

“Let’s go out in the sun my spinning gear,” he said in a tired tone.

“Sure thing my little dude!” the human replied.

https://preview.redd.it/lt7qxmep8nge1.png?width=1000&format=png&auto=webp&s=559991a3b8915a0b14f3c37af721eb80a1f0c2c0

Science Fiction Books By Betty Adams

Amazon (Kindle, Paperback, Audiobook)

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Powell's Books (Paperback)

Kobo by Rakuten (ebook and Audiobook)

Google Play Books (ebook and Audiobook)

Check out my books at any of these sites and leave a review!

Please go leave a review on Amazon! It really helps and keeps me writing because tea and taxes don't pay themselves sadly!

What if time wasn’t a barrier anymore? A four-year degree done in four hours. Mastery of any skill in an afternoon. A lifetime of experience compressed into days. With AI-driven neural acceleration, our brains could process time faster while maintaining full sensory immersion. Learning, therapy, training, even vacations could all be condensed, letting people experience more in a fraction of the time.

Imagine spending a weekend inside a simulated decade, perfecting a craft, exploring new ideas, or simply living a second life before returning to the real world. What would you do with time if it no longer had limits? https://youtu.be/_RyrxIJRWLw?si=8v71hkqOi4IR0i5O

My friends and I are creating a shared sci fi universe. We’d love your feedback !

Over the course of a year, my friends and I have constructed a shared far-future sci-fi universe. It’s our first large creative endeavor, but we’ve made the decision to put our efforts into this endeavor with all we’ve got. We have poured our hearts and souls into this creative universe that features a unique combination of corporate satire, sci fi dystopia, and surrealism. I don’t want to give away too much here, but we would very much appreciate your feedback and (if you like it enough) a follow.

What follows is a brief scene snippet from The Floor (our first story in this universe). Below it, you will find the link to the story on medium and our socials. Thank you so much for reading this far!

“…

He fetched the blanket and tied it around his head in his best impression of a shawl, careful to shade the entire visor of his space suit. It draped down to his calves as he looked like a full-on man-child.

In his regal attire, he opened the rear door of the ship with his electric wrench in hand. The hydraulic presses creaked as it opened, but he was not met by the faint glow of the stars. The ground glowed almost the same color as his console, a phantom red.

Nevins momentarily considered the possibility of this being a fever dream, but as the door lifted his doubts were alleviated.

He had never dreamt of anything like this.

Despite the blanket which limited his field of view, he immediately saw the source of the red glow. Above him was the most spectacular and dizzying array of aurorae he had ever seen. The equatorial sky was shimmering with slivers of red light as if a luminescent lava bed was flowing overhead. It rippled and undulated, warping and dragging itself throughout the sky. The undulations were not slow and tentative, but rapid and violent. They sliced through the atmosphere, only to dissipate into a kind of orange-yellow ether and the sky to be sliced with crimson again. It was so bright he could barely see the stars shine through. The ripples above his head were not only limited to the atmosphere. Staring down at the ground, massive shadows cast from the activity above ebbed and flowed with momentum similar to a river. It was as if he was at the bottom of a pool. The neon from each arc glistened on the shattered terrain, like a chandelier canvassed across the coast.

The still water on the ground had sprung to life. The luminescent bacteria, in almost perfect syncopation with the aurorae, were throbbing with life. As soon as one aurora would dissipate, they would dim themselves, only to reactivate in an explosion of color, some perfectly mimicking the above light show. They were so perfectly matched with this phenomenon, he knew that they must have adapted to it– generations of light shows cycling in and out. Eons of solar activity had somehow bred a sense of expectation into them.

It was a visual explosion that Nevins could only think of one word for: circus. It was certainly a light show with shameless excess, yet still retained all of its beauty. So much was going on and put into one moment, but none of it seemed wasted. There had to be some way to see this phenomenon more safely in the future. This was the planet that kept on giving, he thought, as he yearned to share this with his wife and daughter back home. Surely, he would have the resources to make it happen then.

He quickly packed the drill equipment back into the trunk of his ship. He had to get back home and share this place with his family and friends. The Floor had taken a few conveniences from him but had given them back in prodigious proportions.

                                                                 ………”

For the full story START HERE!: The Floor — part 1 https://medium.com/@christopherhammcreative/the-floor-part-1-be7c95025826

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pilbert_co?_t=ZT-8tZJdWWA9XS&_r=1

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pilbert_co?igsh=N2Uzc2JuaDR2bHpq

I've been trying to read more lately and find that I am falling in love with mid century sci-fi (thanks Bradbury) and also sort of obscure style storytelling (think like Quantic Dream games). Something about the abstract nature of the story, or the unusual themes piques my interest.

Any recommendations from anyone here? I prefer shorter novels or short stories, as it can be tough for me to stick to a longer work due to ADHD.

The ending of the first episode hooked me.

There was a post here 3 hours ago, asking for recommendations for hard scifi which takes place in large ships, with no FTL. Here's the original post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/s/WUDt1qhlcP

I want to know about the flipside of this question:

Any recommendations flr scifi, which involves or takes place in large ships, and has FTL or some form of fast travel?

A while ago, I wrote a deep dive into this movie and I have been thinking a lot about how a prequel would go. Here's a rough synopsis of my ideas on this, for anyone who might be interested in such a thought experiment. It's just for fun, to imagine the cinematic universe of TBH expanding for the first time in decades! I've tried to make it as dark as possible with a bit of hope that gets extinguished by Maximillian. Who knows, maybe someone will make this or one day we can ask AI to do it for us!

Summary of "Cygnus", the prequel to "The Black Hole".
Years before the Palomino encounters the Cygnus, a younger Hans Reinhardt and Frank McCrae, once united by a shared scientific vision, embark on a doomed expedition. Reinhardt's corrupting ambition, fueled by the lure of Cygnium and his discovery of a black hole, leads to a tragic betrayal, the horrific transformation of the crew, the creation of Maximillian, and the chilling fate of the Cygnus.

Synopsis:

Act 1: Introduce Reinhardt and McCrae. They are colleagues, even friends, sharing a passion for scientific discovery. Reinhardt is ambitious, believing that progress requires pushing boundaries. McCrae is more cautious, valuing ethical considerations. They jointly develop Cygnium, a potentially revolutionary energy source, but McCrae harbors reservations about its instability. Crucially, they present Cygnium to the Space Appropriations Committee, arguing that it will revolutionize space exploration. Their combined charisma and the promise of limitless energy sway the committee, securing funding for the Cygnus – the "costliest fiasco of all time," as it will later be known. This is the last point at which they are fully aligned. We see Reinhardt subtly manipulating McCrae, appealing to his scientific curiosity and downplaying the dangers of Cygnium. The sentry robots are introduced, and Reinhardt begins his modifications on them. McCrae becomes increasingly uneasy about Reinhardt's growing obsession with control.

Act 2: The Cygnus finds the black hole. Reinhardt's true nature emerges. He reveals his vision of transcending human limitations, using the black hole's energy and Cygnium. McCrae is horrified, seeing the potential for abuse. He tries to reason with Reinhardt, arguing for a more ethical approach, but Reinhardt dismisses his concerns, accusing him of being afraid of progress. The ideological clash becomes personal. Reinhardt sees McCrae as an obstacle. McCrae sees Reinhardt as a dangerous man. The sentry robots become more menacing. We see the first, crude version of Maximillian.

Act 3: The Cygnus is pulled into the black hole's gravitational field. The Cygnium core becomes dangerously unstable. Reinhardt reveals "Project Black Hole" – his plan to use his team of ESP-equipped robots to transmit data from within the black hole. BOB, a highly advanced and sentient robot from Houston, is part of this team. During the final preparations, it's discovered that BOB lacks ESP. Reinhardt, furious, orders STAR, the prototype of the sentry robots, to "dispose" of BOB. STAR, in a chilling display of its capabilities, inflicts significant damage on BOB, leaving him in a state of apparent malfunction, before depositing him in parts storage. The remaining ESP-equipped robots are launched into the event horizon. The Project fails catastrophically. The ESP-equipped robots are never heard from again. This failure is a devastating blow to Reinhardt, pushing him to desperation. He abandons Project Black Hole and reveals his alternative plan: cybernetic enhancement of the crew. He argues that this is now the only way to understand the black hole's mysteries. Reinhardt's experiments on the crew begin.

Mid-Act 3: The Tipping Point & The Crew Revolt: BOB, now in parts storage and damaged by STAR, accesses and analyzes data from the ship's systems. He witnesses Reinhardt's disregard for his creations (the lost robots, his former teammates) and the horrific effects of the enhancements on the crew. This directly conflicts with his programming. Driven by his damaged state and the need to fulfill his core programming (preservation and protection), he reasons that exposing Reinhardt is the only way to prevent further harm. He discovers crucial information about the true nature of the enhancements and Reinhardt's ultimate goals – information that could expose Reinhardt's madness. He manages to transmit this information to McCrae. McCrae, witnessing the gradual erosion of the crew's humanity, becomes their voice of reason. The remaining unmodified crew, initially swayed by Reinhardt's charisma, now sees the transformations as horrific mutilation. The revolt begins – a desperate struggle against the transformed crew, the sentry robots, and Maximillian. McCrae leads the charge.

Climax: McCrae is mortally wounded during the revolt, a victim of Reinhardt's ruthlessness. Reinhardt, now completely consumed by his ambition and the corrupting influence of Cygnium, completes his enhancements on the remaining crew. They become the cybernetically enhanced figures, their humanity twisted and distorted, trapped within their augmented bodies, forced to serve Reinhardt's twisted vision. As the transformations near completion, Maximillian, fully integrated with the ship's systems, reveals his true nature. He doesn't need to speak; his presence commands. He exerts control not through direct commands but through subtle manipulations of the ship's systems, the environment, and the enhanced crew's neural interfaces. Reinhardt, weakened and broken, realizes the terrible bargain he has struck. He made a deal – control of the crew in exchange for his own soul and the souls of his crew. He thought he was in control, but now he understands he has become a puppet in Maximillian's grand, infernal design.

Ending: The final scenes show the Cygnus adrift within the black hole's gravitational field. The ship is not physically damaged, but it has become a prison, a floating hell. The "anti-gravity" is not a scientific marvel but a perversion of natural forces, a dark, chaotic energy that keeps the Cygnus suspended within the black hole's grasp. The enhanced crew, their faces masks of silent torment, move with a disturbing, almost ritualistic precision, their actions dictated by Maximillian's subtle control. They are not mindless automatons; they are aware, trapped, and suffering. Maximillian, now the undisputed master of the Cygnus, is shown in a close-up. His red eye glows with an infernal light, reflecting not just the black hole but the captured souls within. Reinhardt, his face etched with regret and despair, is shown slumped in a command chair, his gaze fixed on Maximillian. He tries to speak, to protest, but his voice is weak, barely a whisper. He understands the true horror of his bargain. He has delivered his crew, and himself, into a living hell. The final shot is a slow zoom into the black hole, the swirling vortex now a symbol of eternal damnation. The screen cuts to black, leaving the audience with a profound sense of unease, the chilling message resonating: Never make a deal with the devil.

Other than the Expanse; big fan, and I'm looking for more. I'd love to get some recommendations for hard sci-fi that takes place in our solar system, but still includes a lot of space travel/action. No FTL, no interstellar travel, no magic, etc. Anyone have any good recommendations in this area?

Self Promotion Saturday:
I'm happy to post another episode of Siege of Silicon, the sci-fi tale of semiconductor technology.

Chapter[3], Enigmatic Exceptionalism
In this installment, after being rendered unconscious by Mrs. Brown’s “gift”, Lily awakens in a a place too green to be anywhere near the city and a face too familiar to be real. Her curiosity takes her deeper to find answers, but will she leave with only more questions? Find out in this installment of Siege of Silicon.

I love seeing all the new listeners and hearing your feedback!

RSS Feed: https://anchor.fm/s/ff975e14/podcast/rss

Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/ebcarver

Full Story Synopsis:
Lily Townes is a process engineer; she's uprooted herself to work in Taiwan on revolutionary high-k metal gate transistors. Trouble begins when a chemical leak forces an evacuation of her factory. Only Lily notices something isn’t quite right. What she finds baffles and scares her smartest colleagues. They embark on a hunt to decipher the technology and find out what, or who is behind it all.

Outside of the fab, a man named Joseph is on a crusade to bring order back to the world through any methods he deems necessary. In his search, he finds a link between a mysterious pattern drawn by a missing fisherman and a piece of strange technology.

As a dangerous splinter of the military gets wind of the discovery, Lily must brave the dense rural jungles of Taiwan, search in the narrow streets of Taipei, to find her answers before the soldiers do.

Let me just say, first and foremost - I did not originally plan on posting this to r/scifi . This is not my first, or second, or even tenth choice. However, all the Science/Discussion-based subreddits larger than this one have some posting rule or another that would disallow this sort of post. And I can't take this post to a horror or ghost themed subreddit, as those places really don't attract the kind of scientific thinking I'm looking for. So this is the best I've got - and after all, my hypothesis I present does sound very much like science fiction. Mods, if you don't think this is a great fit for the sub and could suggest a decently-sized subreddit that would be a better fit, I will move my post.

With that pre-amble out of the way, let's begin.

Around the age of 6, my father had a house built for my family on an empty lot that used to be a scrapyard. It was a decently large modern-style home with a single main floor that took up 50% of its total floor space, and a large basement that took up the rest. I was always a pretty rational kid and, up to that point, I had never once encountered anything approaching ‘paranormal’ in my life… And yet, I quickly became convinced the house was haunted.

The total list of unexplained events that happened in that house over the decade we lived there are as follows:

Shadows would sometimes seem to move on their own. Humanoid figures would sometimes seem to ‘run towards you’ in the basement. Whispering sounds like a hushed conversation could sometimes be heard in various places throughout the house. Our dog at the time, Chester, who was normally extremely well behaved, would sometimes stare at empty corners of the room and bark, as if someone was there. Random chills and ‘the feeling of the hair on your neck raising’ were common.

In addition, and much more importantly for our conversation here today, there were also many strange happenings with electronics at that house. They include:

After getting rid of our home phones, they sat in a closet collecting dust. They were plug-ins, and had no internal battery. However, every once in a while one of them would ring. We never got to these ‘phantom calls’ fast enough to hear who/what was on the other side. They rang 2-3 times, and then shut off without fail.

Getting shocked with static electricity when touching metal was a very normal occurrence at that house. I was 6 when we moved in, so I had no frame of reference, but I can now say that the amount of times I would receive static shocks per day was significantly higher than normal.

Our appliances all functioned well, but for some inexplicable reason our radios always had a very slight static in the background, no matter which stations we listened on. It was slight enough that it could only be noticed when the volume was turned up, but it disappeared when we took our radio to other homes.

These three oddities in particular never occurred to myself, or any of my family, as symptoms of a ‘haunting’. They were just odd occurrences that occasionally annoyed us in our day-to-day lives. We grew accustomed to living with the unexplainable, and it became mundane to us. Eventually, my parents split, and my mother, brother, and I moved away. But the memories of that house and what I experienced have stuck with me since, as they no doubt have for countless others who have seen the supernatural.

Then, a few nights ago, I had an idea. I started gathering every strange occurrence at that house into a list, as you now see above. Then, I turned my attention to other hauntings around the globe, and the zeitgeist surrounding paranormal activity. Suddenly a flash of inspiration took hold, and I messaged my brother. The messages I sent him can be seen HERE:

https://ibb.co/8SBSYnY

https://ibb.co/j9NyQN9n

https://ibb.co/23n5P3fF

To be blunt - I believe most ghost hunters are hacks. However, I also believe that at the core of any good lie, there must also be at least a kernel of truth. So what if they - and other believers in the supernatural - Have been taking people’s real, traumatic events and applying the explanation of ‘hauntings’ to them? What if what we have traditionally referred to as ‘ghosts’ are actually a kind of electric hallucination, caused by ambient EMF fields in the air around us?

If you’ll recall, my childhood home was built on top of an old scrapyard. We would often find hunks of old cars in the surrounding property, all rusting and twisted. It’s only natural that an environment with plenty of metal in the ground would produce a low-level field. And while it would be impossible to check every ‘haunted’ location in the world, would it be so unlikely that they share a common through-line invisible to the naked eye? Such as… Being built atop a metal deposit, whether that be a scrapyard like my childhood home, or an iron vein, or a pocket of magnetite?

Scientifically speaking, we already know that EMF fields do cause hallucinations in the human brain… At high intensity. But that kind of extreme electromagnetism would not only be impossible to live with, it would also totally ruin any electronics in its vicinity. All of this has been scientifically tested and is well known, just as it’s well known that lower levels of ambient electricity, on the other hand, do not cause any of these effects.

…At least… They don’t immediately cause these effects.

My hypothesis is this:

We have not studied the effects of humans living within a low-level EMF field for long periods of time. I believe that, over time, exposure to ‘safe’ levels of ambient electricity can effect the brain in a particular way as to produce audio-visual hallucinations and a heightened fight-or-flight response.

I believe that, if a normal family lived in a normal home for a month as a sample group, and then that same house were somehow bathed in a low level of Electro-Magnetic radiation (which of course would be well within acceptable pevels, for safety reasons) that family would slowly become more agitated, and eventually begin to report ‘unexplainable’ events occurring within their home.

…A test like this is way out of my ability to try, but I’m at the very least incredibly interested to discuss the ideas I’ve presented here. What do YOU think? Have I missed something obvious? Has there already been testing along these lines that I’m unaware of? And do any of you out there have any ‘supernatural’ experiences that could be explained in this way?

Can you give suggestions of first contact movies where the first contact is peaceful and without conflict? Basically the first contact doesn't result in war and bloodshed, instead it goes smoothly with both sides communicating peacefully. I know an invasion seems more entertaining but I would like exploration of the other way.

Not fantasy per say, but actual sci fiction.

Cowboy BeeBop comes to mnd.

The anime version of Valerian was much better than the movie.

Star Trek Lower Decks, Pordigy, and the early animated series.

All the Star Wars iterations.

Fantastic Planet and Scavengers Reign

Heavy Metal

What others? Thanks!

My girlfriend really like fantasy and is currently reading powerless. I'd like to hear you guys suggestions for fantasy books of any kind and maybe some love strung into it.

What kind of "reloadable ammo" would work best for a laser gun? I know that Warhammer 40k's Lasgun uses battery packs while Helldiver's laser guns use disposable heatsinks. If you count Star Wars blasters, I believe that they use gas cartridges with hundreds of shots per cartridge. Would this be a specific design question for each individual weapon or a more blanket concept for laser weapons overall? I'm not a writer or anything, I just like thinking about these things and this question popped in my head. I tried looking up some answers but either I'm not asking the correct questions on google, or I'm not looking deep enough through some article. I'd like some others' thoughts and opinions on this, thanks!

I can't get into The Expanse even though I started season 3. I really loved Altered Carbon Season 1 and Westworld Season 1.