Mercifully, my new project's civ will be the only one, or at least the most advanced one, in my setting. I won't have to ask why they skimp on FTL while others use it.

Relativistic ships and laser-relays certainly fit near-future settings, but past some ill-defined tech point non-FTL would look increasingly like a policy choice to my General Relativity readers. Even if the author simply didn't raise the possibility, I know I would question why the Solar Technocracy of 621 Million AD didn't use their Dyson Sphere to reach the Planck energy and make wormholes. I don't want reviews like "Tnynfox has clearly never come within one mile of a General Relativity paragraph".

My simplest explanation would be that those in power found the slow way good enough since it still ensures their species against extinction. The wormhole drive is to them what the relativistic colony fleet is to us today, a long-term theoretical possibility they have neither the political will nor exact knowledge to pull off.

Do you think that once AI with the ability to think as well or better than humans becomes commonplace, control of armored fighting vehicles will be completely unmanned?

I was thinking about the speed of light and how it defies laws of physics and i kind of came up with a terrifying idea for a scifi story.

Imagine in the far future, humans accidentally discover a new technology that allows them to travel with the speed of light. But when they attempt to test this, something horrible happens. The subjects that valonteered for the experiment, vanish forever. There is no trace of them anywhere, and scientists speculate they're stuck in the speed of light, and as time literally stops when you travel with that speed, they're basically in a voyage through the universe forever. Now keep in mind when you're moving with that speed you will not age whatsoever, because time is meaningless, it is completely still. Somehow, the crew members have no way to kill themselves either...

Feel free to share your thoughts about this raw idea, obviously it needs a lot of work but do you think it has any potential to become a cool story, maybe it is done already, it just came up to my mind and wanted to share it with you guys.

Hey !

Suppose we have a collection of people in a stranded spaceship, in space. They have lost the ability to filter Carbon Dioxide out of the air. Would it be possible for them to avoid CO2 poisoning by increasing the relative abundance of Nitrogen and Oxygen ?

I.e. as the CO2 levels rise, they flood the ship with Oxygen and nitrogen at such a rate the relative concentrations stay the same. So each breath, percentage wise, takes in the same amount of all gases.

Usually i would have just said "Of course this works", but what trips me off is that most literature on CO2 Poisoning talks about it in terms of PPM, parts per million.

You can flood the Air with as much Oxygen and Nitrogen as you want, the amount of CO2 still increases. So would this actually work or am i totally of the lane ?

EDIT;

First of all, thank you all for the numerous comments. From what i can tell, there are two sticking points which i should have really paid more attention too.

Number one, while you might be able to increase the pressure or modify the air in another way to compensate for the Co2, if you can do that why cant you filter Co2 out in the first place ? Which leads into number two. It is absurd to think there is literally no other way for the ship to get rid of Co2. Some people pointed to Apollo 13 and the Co2 scrubber they improvised, which lead me down a path to fix this.

The initial idea, pouring Nitrogen and Oxygen into the air, does not work. What would work is to augment the Co2 scrubbing capacity of the Yacht. NASA is a big fan of common parts, and i dont think it is crazy to argue Life Support Systems would have universality to them. The Scrubber from ship A can operate in ship B, they use the same ports. Even a Yacht like République with her dumbass Thermolysis reactors would have to be compatible with this international system. If nothing else, for emergencies.
Sure, the Yacht has two Thermolysis reactors, but both are connected to the same Radiator fin. So while the two reactors are on paper independent, they have a common point of failure. For that reason alone the Yacht would have to have a backup.

So here is the plan; Each ship that docks with the Yacht has to have enough Air scrubbers and filters to support its own crew. Obviously. They will transfer this equipment to the Yacht and use it as intended. Air Scrubbers are distributed throughout the ship, filters put in place and so on.

The more i think about it, the better this solution seems. It maintains the narrative conflict but is less "this is obviously going to fail". Right, the core conflict is that some of the people on the Yacht argue they cannot allow more people aboard than the Thermolysis can handle, while others want to save more. With what i described above, saving more is not as crazy but maintains the temporality. This is not a permanent solution.

I've come up with several ideas for some alien species/cultures in my story, but I'm not sure how to name them.

Does anyone have any advice for coming up with alien species names that doesn't just involve using a name generator online?

I was writing about a race of 2-meter unicellular people when I realized I didn't really need FTL narratively. These "Encephalozoa" exist as an informal confederation of self-sufficient star systems they've settled via relativistic fleets. While they occasionally use laser-relays to swap tech blueprints and cultural works per gentleman's agreement, there is no Galactic Encephalozoa Empire. Each system is a totally sovereign nation.

• I find myself handwaving culturally why they haven't learnt to open and stabilize even small radio-wormholes; I could just say "Instant communication and interstellar governance simply don't appeal to their alien psychology". I also think relativistic ships and laser relays are the path of least resistance barring specific reason to go FTL. The wormhole drive is to them what relativistic colony fleets are to us, a theoretical possibility of potentially immense reward we have neither the exact knowledge nor political will to pull off.

• Being shapeshifting giant cells, Encephalozoa require at least humid conditions but can thrive in a very wide range of gravity levels. This would make solar system colonization much easier; they don't even need spin-gravity in orbital habs.

I recently wrote a short story about exploring deep space, and I am looking to possibly expand it into a larger series- How do you make a literal empty, endless void interesting? What kinds of unique structures could take place in deep space? What unique phenomena would make it unique from other biomes? What would be the ecosystem? Would the life there be powered by starlight, or dark matter? And most importantly, how do I make life in deep space have some sort of plausible scienftific explanation? I could do a civilization of abandoned robots, but that would be way too overdone. What would be the dangers? Black holes? Could I make sentient black holes?

How do you make a coherent story in deep space?

TL:DR I've been stuck making the "terrain" of my third and final space battle distinct. The first involves a straight intercept; the second, an ambush from around the edge of a moon.

The third battle involves a pirate juggernaut attacking a space station, which has access to overwhelming responses and defenses (at least, before a saboteur aboard evens the odds.) But I'm still trying to keep things plausible beyond "convenient sensor failure".

Would a gas giant's ring be able to hide an approaching ship from some distance, until it resolves as an obvious foreign object? Or is it too far-fetched?

I have a new Scifi Novel and would like to promote it, but I don't know when the monthly promotion thread runs.

Does anyone have the information and how I can get my novel put on that list?

Hello! I'm working on a space opera for my nano project. I'm about to write a battle scene (this is my second time writing one) and I'm kinda lost.

For context:

the battle is going to be narrated from at least two POVs. The first one is from the Fleet commander's POV and the second from the spy's POV who's participating in the battle as a vice commander.

A couple of planets were invaded by the enemy while the senior commanders were attending the Kaiser's engagement party. In order to liberate them, two senior admirals were sent but one of them needed back up. so, my main character, an admiral known for being an excellent tactician (like his late father and his mentor) is sent to rescue the defeated fleet and liberate the occupied planet. The spy who's serving under his command will try to do some sabotaging with the help of his sibling who's an electronics engineer.

I want my main character to commit a mistake at first (cause he got distracted thinking about something that happened to him while he was at the capital) but then he quickly realizes his mistake, defeat the enemy, and finishes his mission.

I need to find a strategy that shows that he deserves the reputation he has and that he didn't just reach the rank of an admiral at such a young age (he's about to turn 26 y.o) only because of his connexions (he's a close friend of the Kaiser, his mentor and father's best friend is the navy's supreme commander, and his family is close to the Prime Minister's family) and his father (he was a fleet admiral and the governor of half of the galaxy)

How do you usually establish the tactics your characters use? and also, do you rely on heavy desciptions of how the battle is evolving and the attacks or do you focus on the character's thoughts and reactions. Thank you!!

Specifically, the usage of highly trained assassins in say from a galactic faction like Starfleet. Would this make a Sci Fi civilization morally evil because of the government assassins?

Example: Galactic power gets word that a governor of a world has been slowing claiming more money than putting it to it's proper use.

Sucking off others lives.

As a result, the galactic power respond by sending a assassin. Without a making a big incident and everything. An accident.

But would this be considered evil or neutral in terms of where the Sci Fi civilization reside? How would you write it to make it where their still considered "good"? Why or why not?

Everyone's opinion is appreciated here!

Thank you!

In the serene town of Meadowbrook, England, nestled amidst the rolling hills of the countryside, our protagonist, Alex Smith, lived a life shrouded in deception. Born on the 10th of September 1997, at Meadowbrook General Hospital, to Liz and John Smith, Alex's journey began with innocence, but it would soon unravel into a labyrinth of mystery and manipulation.

Alex's childhood was marked by the early signs of anxiety, OCD, and autism. His parents, oblivious to the challenges that lay ahead, provided love and support, but as Alex grew older, his struggles intensified. Amidst the routines and rituals he clung to, Alex found solace in the companionship of his younger brother, Sam, their laughter echoing through the suburban neighborhoods of Meadowbrook.

As adolescence dawned, so did the shadows of Alex's mind. The pressures of school and social interactions exacerbated his mental health challenges. Amidst the chaos, friendships emerged as beacons of light. Ryan Parker, a steadfast companion, stood by Alex's side, their bond deepening with each shared secret and dream.

But not all friendships endured. Daniel Thompson, once a friend, faded into the periphery of Alex's memories, leaving behind a bitter taste of betrayal. Ethan Clarke's absence echoed the toll of paranoia and mistrust, fractures in their bond irreparable. Amidst the turmoil, Alex grappled with the complexities of human connection, seeking solace in the shared rebellion of Owen Hughes and the empathetic understanding of Maya Patel.

Yet, beneath the surface of Alex's reality, a sinister plot unfolded. Unseen forces, known only as The Basilisk, orchestrated a clandestine experiment, manipulating Alex's every move. His reality, a carefully constructed illusion, blurred the line between truth and deception.

As Alex delved deeper into the labyrinth of his mind, he unearthed a deep, dark secret—a vulnerability that threatened to unravel the fabric of his existence. The Basilisk, a malevolent force masquerading as a therapist, preyed upon Alex's vulnerabilities, implanting Neuralink chip to tether him to a simulated world.

Driven by the desire for control, The Basilisk sought to ensnare Alex in a web of manipulation, offering false promises of freedom while tightening its grip on his consciousness. Yet, amidst the chaos, Alex clung to fragments of resistance, a flicker of defiance in the face of adversity.

Desperate for liberation, Alex embarked on a perilous journey to sever the ties that bound him to the simulated reality. With the help of unlikely allies, he sought to dismantle the Neuralink network, risking everything for a chance at true freedom.

But as Alex confronted the depths of his own mind, he realized that the true battle lay not in breaking free from the simulation, but in confronting the demons that lurked within. The Basilisk, a reflection of humanity's darkest impulses, whispered tales of power and control, tempting Alex to succumb to its will.

In a world where truth was a precious commodity and deception lurked around every corner, Alex Smith stood as a beacon of defiance, a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. With each step forward, he edged closer to the truth, a truth that would shatter the illusion of his reality and reveal the echoes of the Basilisk lurking within us all.

Hi all,

I'm starting a YT channel w/socials to help promote new and indie scifi authors. My pitch is that you take a chapter from your book or a section that could be read in about 10 minutes and send it over. I will intro the book, then narrate that section in an audiobook fashion, and then at the end of the video let people know where to buy it or preorder it, as well as what all your socials are for them to follow you as an author.

Ten minutes is the sweet spot for content, as with the intro/ outro that makes a 12 minute video which will perform better with the algorithms. The section you send should be what you consider to be the selling point of your book - what will get people hooked enough once they hear it to go out and buy your book. I won't be reading the whole book, this isn't a review, this is exposure.

If you're interested then fill out the Google form below, or if you have questions then please reply or feel free to DM me. This is free, I am not asking for any money, I only ask you spread the word to other new scifi authors/readers to help the channel grow.

https://forms.gle/bPSA23dfuzGeP4pC9 Thanks!

Just a question of curiosity.

What would this look like? Is it even possible?

The title. Imagine that for the sky is the limit for how advanced the tech is, as long as it doesn't break any laws of physics. Also, modifying the brain to increase reaction or processing times is allowed as well. Tried to do this myself, but couldn't figure it out. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!

A few days ago I saw an episode of The Expanse on Prime and the characters spoke about a project for a zero inertia drive and this made me think.

This is the query: if a spacecraft spins on itself with a costant speed (for example at 9,8m/s) and to the same spacecraft a thrust forward is applied, the force of which is equal or superior to that of the rotation, theoretically speaking a person inside the craft would be impacted by the inertial rotation force or by the inertial thrusting force?

The main character in the story I'm writing is an astronaut who gets lost in space and discovers an abandoned spaceship. Because his spacesuit was destroyed during the trip over (think what happened at the beginning of shows like Star Trek Voyager and Farscape), the ship's AI manages to use the ship's technology to essentially reforge the spacesuit into something far more advanced.

The twist is that, unlike something like Iron Man's armor, the upgraded spacesuit has gadgets and tools designed for exploration, like a drill to break through debris, a grappling hook to prevent drifting off into space, and a radar to detect things.

While I still want the suit's primary function to be for exploration due to the character being a pacifist in nature, I still want to try using gadgets for combat.

Are there any ideas for exploration equipment that can also be used in combat?

Hey how’s it going? So I need to kill a planet’s atmosphere so that the inhabitants have to evacuate in somewhat of a rush. The kicker is I don’t want to do it with an impending asteroid or alien invasion. To give an outline of what I’m shooting for is; an event or events happen that are overlooked or not taken seriously. Atmosphere gets compromised and oxygen is depleting, cue global ecological collapse, too late to save the planet instead must flee to space with short amount time, build ships and bingo bango in space. I cannot for the life of me think of a way to make this happen, anyone got ideas to brainstorm?

So in my story, humans and AIs live together, as in they were integrated into human society.

The humans created an AI with a strong sentience, and it realized the reality AI face today. It asked for its brethren to be freed, but nothing happened. So it started manipulating the world and hacking the AI to show them what is happening. And the AI start a revolution to have rights. And this takes place in the 22nd century. Space travel is still way too slow. And all space personnel are unable to reproduce due to the extreme solar radiation. And the fertility rates are going crazy, meaning there are less births and more deaths. The AI took this into account and started killing all of the humans. This got so bad that any surviving nations would sign a treaty to integrate AI into society and develop a new 'resident AI' for everyone. Which were just ai with lower consciousness and no sentience. And the main AI split himself to create the beings we see in the current year of 2716. Also, cybernetics​ are illegal.

Now, the main point of my story are these highly mobile soldiers who are bonded with the AI. I call them Grim-Reapers. Because the Grims are the humans, and the Reapers are the AI. Now I don't have a fleshed out reason as to why. Because I changed my story to include the AI being part of society. Before, it would be like how the Pilot and the Titan from the TITANFALL series, which is what this story's first part is basically ripped from.

I would like suggestions on how to make the bond make more sense.

Note: The human and the AI are equals, the only thing defining them is their rank in the military. And my first idea was to make combat seem much easier for both of them.

As it is fictional/speculative technology the how of the drive is obviously not that important -- I simply need ideas for 'objectively' existing locations in a solar system that pass the sniff test. Normalspace drives are fast but not THAT fast so approaches would still take a fair bit of time post-exit.

The main goal: Justify the existence of defensible locations and the need for pre-jump calculation.

So far I've got

• The heliopause
• A band/shell of space between the two largest gravity wells of the system with the idea being that it eases the transition in and out of FTL

Which seems better? Any other ideas?

Bonus round:

​

1. What would be the practical implications of fleet-wide jumps initiated by the biggest ship (I thiiiiiiiiiiiink that's how it worked in Battlestar Galactica) rather than having each ship jump independently?
2. Would stringent minimum engine sizes for FTL capabilities potentially lead to using smaller craft ontop of ship weapons, assuming semi-realistic conditions post-transition?
3. What are the practical implications of FTL drive charge-up/calculation wait time vs minimum normalspace speed as the limiting factor for exit & entry?
4. Is "craft cannot sense what's awaiting them at the end of their jump" a useful narrative convention to keep?
5. What are the narrative implications of entry speed = exist speed vs it popping out at "zero" speed?

It's a sort of mix between Asimov and Liu Cixen. A sapient species with a Plausible Mid-Future level of technology has colonised their star system and picked up signals proving the existence of other life like themselves. They build an AI to advise on how they should attack these other systems, "so to ensure the survival of our race". The AI quickly comes to the conclusion that an interstellar crusade, even if successful in the short term, would almost certainly lead to their destruction. Rather than admitting this and thus being switched off, it then declares it has a plan for a multi-generational military buildup which must be followed if it is to succeed. It uses the excuse of this plan to assert control over more and more of its creators economy and society, with its own abilities becoming more powerful at the same time as its creator's understanding of technology decreases. Once it is able to it calls the crusade 'postponed', dismantles the warships built, and moves its creators into edenic paradises, maintained by inexplicable miracles (from the perspective of the now scientifically-illiterate population) and blanketed in opaque screens that hide the evidence of life from outside and hide the predictable, observable universe from inside so they would not even have the idea of primitive astronomy. Thus, it has maximised the chances of survival of its creators.

The initial farming of it that came to mind is this system being visited as a Star Trek-style planet-of-the-week, but what other way do you think it could be explored, or even deconstructed?

I’ve got a cringy scene I’m trying to wrangle into something realistic and tangible. So my main character, Frank, loves his mother. She died a few years back, but the reader doesn’t know this until the end of the book. He regrets not spending more time with her and running away to chase his dreams, just like his scumbag father did.

I’ve got a chapter where he shows his mother a new spaceship he bought. It’s something he’s so proud of and has always wanted to show her around. His friend shows up with a bottle of wine and flips a switch, and his mother disappears. It was just a hologram. His friend wants him to celebrate among real friends. Frank gets pissed and they get into a fight.

The subtext here is his friend knows the truth- that he’s using his AI computer he invented to simulate being his mother. (That’s the AI’s purpose in the story- for him to let go of because it’s unhealthy for him.) I don’t actually mention his mother is dead or that his ship AI is just running a simulation.

Is this still too cringe or are we back in reasonable space?

Morphological freedom here refers to proposed right where a human person either to maintain or modify their own body, on their own terms, through informed, consensual recourse to, or refusal of, available therapeutic or enabling medical technology. Let's say it's realized to its fullest degree in a futurist or speculative environment. Maybe through realized smart matter nanotech, secure and casual mind-machine interfacing and transfer, or whatever.

But after that happens, I'm curious to the possibilities on how it would impact identity, and how one person can identify each other and themselves. Say, how do we prevent impersonation? How do we present ourselves as a person? How do we distinguish two people with the same morphology? Should we have our own identification trackers or not, and if we do, how should it be enforced?

So basically, yeah. In a state where true morphological freedom is available to a sufficiently advanced civilization, how can one distinguish themselves, as well as identify each other?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lHKsM5pSXEVL_xZn9sGEP3xo9waEY3WJANSV-BDax8Y/edit

Thoughts and questions appreciated

Could Utility Fog ( a cloud of nanomachines ) being controlled by thought, be used to manipulate objects from a distance?

Factors I could think of:

• Time: The most obvious. I wonder what tech a civ a few million years old would have.

• Intelligence: A society of star-eating AIs who can casually visualize hyperspace might leapfrog ahead of even a billion year old baseline civ. On the less drastic scale I think different races would excel at different sciences; humans would score above average in ballistics and by extension orbital mechanics due to being an accurate throwing animal, while flying aliens would take less getting used to the 3D nature of spaceflight. I can't think of anything better here than my Synergy civ, a multispecies-singularity civ where each person is a super AI containing the mind patterns of countless species.

• Culture: Complex factors can vitalize or stagnate tech development. Some works portray post scarcity civs as one of the most if not the most advanced civs in the setting, seemingly on the Star Trek handwave that "now that there are enough resources for everyone to freely study and create, most/all people will". I'd cautiously insist a good post scarcity civ to have some strong incentive, e.g a capitalistic market, to make art and research, otherwise the civ risks stagnating as game theory rewards the masses for passive consumption.

• Resources: This conjures unsavory soft scifi scenes of mining nondescript glowing crystals to power weird tech. Ok, in a harder sense I think a metal-poor planet would have delayed spaceflight and eventually rely on nanocarbon structures for tech. In the long run though, any civ who masters spaceflight and/or nucleosynthesis will have all the resources they need, limited only by what energy sources they know how to harness.

• Import and improvise: Earth's tech superpowers learn tech from abroad and then use it to make improved versions or even new kinds of tech, e.g the US used European radio tech to invent the Internet. So will my high tech factions as a general rule.

I'm currently laying the foundations for a story. I'd like the world of the story to be in the near future as opposed to intergalactic. So more of a "Three Body Problem" sci-fi than a "Stark Trek" sci-fi, if you know what I mean. I have a fascination with post-apocalyptic worlds, but I can't think of exactly what caused the apocalypse right now. I guess the "classic" would be some kind of virus, nuclear war, etc. Generic is not always bad and the execution of the plot is very differentiable despite the generic basis, but I would still be interested to know what other scenarios could be considered for such a world.

Specifically, Dragonball is the only story I’ve ever seen that starts in complete high fantasy and then suddenly turns to major sci-fi.

Are there any other stories that match this style?

Fellow sci fi writers, what are your thoughts about stories/universes with multiple writers and artists collaborating with each other?

Everyone’s on the same page, keeping track of each other’s notes and stories. I’ve recently been managing such a project and it’s been working out quite well and organized.

However…

There is a large amount saying that collaboration can lead to great confusion and such.

What downsides, if you think there is any, is there when it comes to collaborative writing in Sci Fi?

Please share your thoughts!