Okay look, I'm not writing hard sci-fi, clearly. I'm actually writing more of a fantasy tale in a sci-fi setting. I don't need pure physics. I need something that looks like it passes for physics at a casual glance that most people won't question hard enough to pull them out of the story.

I am still including a lot of sci-fi elements, which is why I'm here. But much like Star Wars, my story only has to kind of make sense. So, I basically decided my universe only consists of a single galaxy. Mostly because I don't want to dive into what else is out there. It's just the void.

Here's the thing, I decided to make my one galaxy a static galaxy that doesn't rotate for one very important reason. This galaxy has a galactic scar of sorts, a giant tear in it where all planets and stars have been erased from existence due to a past calamity. It's important to my story. And if the galaxy rotates, it fills in that void.

Tear me apart if you have to, but it's a story, and it has more fantasy elements in it than sci-fi, so it's my story, I do what I want. (In Cartman's voice) The planets still orbit their stara, but the stars don't orbit, I dunno how that works, sue me. If you're willing to entertain this idea, what would be at the center of this galaxy, it not a super massive black hole?

TL;DR, I am creating an island universe with a single galaxy that doesn't rotate. What's at the center of that galaxy?

*Edit As most of you have pointed out, a rotating galaxy isn't really an issue because it takes so long to rotate that it would take an incredibly long time for that hole to fill in, especially if it's a large one. I was worried because the events that created it happens so long in the past, but apparently millions of years isn't long enough to fill it in. I was picturing it being more like billions of years in the past but that's also incredibly unnecessary. In our timelines, millions or tens of millions might as well be billions.

So, I have a semi-hard sci fi Cyberpunk setting I'm working on titled the Second Guilded Age. My idea is that basically all the biggest corps have their own special super soldiers utilizing their specialties as companies. One of my favorites thus far are Stimm Berserkers, utilized by a pharma corp known as Ambrosia pharmaceuticals, who's whole schtick is improving humanity through the use of chemicals.

They're taken from prisoners, preferably those with ideal traits for muscle building. First, they're given a bunch of Cybernetics, including:

• Bones sheathed in biocompatible metallic alloy, including joints, while the bones are lengthened to the point of making the subject 8 ft tall with equivalent length arms, along with widening of the clavicles and pelvis

• Artificial Tendons made of graphene-polymer made to replace the original ones and prevent tearing

• Nano machines to strengthen and supplement the neuromuscular Junctions

• Artificial Heart with a continuous flow design, along with filters on the inside of the blood vessels to lessen blood pressure

• prefrontal Cortex removed and replaced with a synthetic replacement designed solely for enhanced motor control and aggression, while the Cortex has an implant placed in it that disabled strength inhibitions and both of them would off-load the neurological burden of strength

• artificial kidneys and liver to deal with all the drugs in the body and to filter the biological waste in the body

• Fascia strengthened by liquid bio metal alloy and further strengthened by the rest of the process

After all that, they're put into a chamber that causes constant muscular microtears that are instantly healed as they’re constantly given a healing serum that eliminates the need for recovery.

Pumped full of the best PED’s Ambrosia has to offer: 250 mg of many different PED types, with 28 mg of Dimethyltrienolone (a steroid too dangerous to use IRL, but these guys can use it because of their cybernetics) and the rest being filled out by Long Acting Growth Hormone, Peptides for all forms of strength and healing/recovery, Myostatin inhibitors that entirely disable Myostatin production, and a circulating list of SARMs (the latter 3 are more advanced than modern equivalents in order to compare their effects and see which ones are ready to go to market.

They're equipped with suits that provide them with the means to keep them going. Namely, liquid nitrogen to keep their body heat down, an extra supply of oxygen, and a reserve of nutrient slurry to keep up with their absurd calorie needs. They're also given the SPAS 25 (basically a huge automatic shotgun that can double as a club, like the Ripper Guns used by Ogyrns in Warhammer 40k.

Before an engagement (namely to deal with anyone interfering with their supply lines and such), they're given an Aggression Mix: Amphetamines, Clenbluterol, synthetic adrenaline, and IGF-1 DES are among the mixture injected into the body before being sent in.

By the end of the process, they're hulking monsters only capable of killing, doing so until they die in the line of fire (whether from being killed or all the shit that's going on within them finally gives out.)

So, what do you think? Any suggestions, criticisms, etc from all this? It's by far my favorite concept of a super soldier so far in the setting.

I feel like FTL would help make it possible since having instant communication and travel that can cut down interstellar or even galactic distances to, at most, days would be vital (assuming no causality issues). If the world`s superpowers were to colonize habitable worlds or terraform eligible ones, they would probably want to have control over those worlds. Why exactly would this might not be the case?

The scenario is: there's an Earth-like planet at our technology level and are trying to expand into space more like us EXCEPT they have X, Y, and/or Z within spitting distance of their planet, all of which give them an advantage and would get them to the fully space-faring stage of civilization X amount of years earlier than the "average" civilization.

So basically, Interstellar except Jupiter is still pretty far, and I was thinking of something closer. Just think of a really unfair spawn in a game, like right next to the rocket launcher. What's the celestial body equivalent of that?

But not a conveniently close wormhole. This mostly just translates to this thing having some material that could be used for making stuff or propulsion or both.

Would it be:

-a certain type of sun?

-asteroid belt nearby? (seems too dangerous)

-our moon being made of something else? having multiple moons?

-being a habitable moon around a gas giant like Pandora?

Whenever I set off to write a novel, I generate multiple ideas. This time, two ideas have risen to the top. One involves an inter-system crime mystery, while the other involves more farflung space travel. No need to embellish yet. But I have fallen in so much love with both of these ideas, I have decided to write both of them (at least for a time). One day on one novel, the next day on the other. Which of course is ridiculous, but that's what I'm going to attempt. Maybe one of them will start to "beat out" the other, but we will shall see. Oh, and both are designed to have sequels with reoccurring characters. I'm sure you've encountered something like this before, and I'm just curious how you handled it.

I will continue to post my short science fiction both on reddit and on substack.

Have you ever heard Toru Takemitsu? He was a Japanese composer. I sometimes listen to his music while writing, like right now.

Japan has a really interesting take on science fiction. Sure, it can be cheesy as hell: giant robots with swords fighting kaiju. But there’s another kind, a more haunting, philosophical kind. The one that keeps me awake, writing.

A lot of Western science fiction asks what a new technology, a visitation from aliens, or some unexpected event would do to humanity. But in some of the most interesting Japanese science fiction, the question is different: what kind of worlds make humanity even possible, and what kind, do not?

I’m not talking about something as simple as extinction, the multiplication of the individual dead. I’m talking about something harder to define: What makes a human being human?

In much of Western fiction, the person is the individual. The protagonist. A self-contained thing, bouncing through the world.

But in some Japanese works, the self feels more like a process than an object. Something that happens, rather than something that simply exists. Something shaped by the people around it, by the systems it belongs to, the things it can remember and those that are forgotten. There’s a weight to the whole, both visible and invisible, pressing itself into the individual. Excruciatingly molding every possible aspect of who they might become.

In the West, the boundary of the individual often seems to be the skin. In these other worlds, that boundary moves back and forth, like a tug-of-war.

Pull too far in one direction and you’re stranded, alone. Pull too far in the other and you come apart, your pieces claimed by others, until there’s nothing left that you can call your own.

Part of your existence can become hostage to something greater than yourself. But if you allow this kidnapping, this violation, if you let your skin stretch beyond the body, then you can become so much else, in so many different ways.

Suddenly, there’s room.

Room to fit so much more within the self.

But you must be careful about the shape and nature of whatever gets beneath this new skin. Otherwise, it might burst. Something foreign can cut a wound from the inside, leaving the self to bleed out, or infection to come and take hold.

…

Science fiction.

Science applied to fiction.

But sometimes, what works on paper can work in the real too.

We have no witches. No werewolf has ever hunted anyone in the dark, no dragon has ever crossed the sky. Nobody has died from magic…just from superstition.

But we do have rocket ships. We have walked on other worlds, and created machines that sometimes do as though they might think. People have been killed by robots and lasers, cities have been bombed from the edge of space.

So much of today could have been yesterday’s science fiction. So much of it actually was.

We have invented dreams. And because we have watched some of them cross the boundary into reality, they now carry a different weight in our minds. Something no other kind of fiction has.

A promise, more often a warning, of things to come.

…

Did I tell you about Toru Takemitsu?

He’s dead.

He’s been dead for thirty years.

Tonight, I’m listening to a piece of music he never composed. But I didn't know that the first time I heard it.

And somehow, knowing that now doesn't change what I hear.

Every time I listen to it again, I can believe that something is still alive. Not the man himself, not the flesh that once filled the frame of his body. Something else: a ghost made to haunt him in death, so that he may never rest.

Maybe that’s what happens when the things we create escape us. They find new bodies, new meanings, new ways of existing. If the things that make us who we are can escape us, enter others, change, and keep developing beyond their original boundaries… Then what kind of worlds make the human in us still possible?

How far away does the skin begin to break?

That’s the kind of music that keeps me awake.

The creak of ghostly teeth, eating the dead.

How did you guys get over sucking at world building ?

This is something that popped into my head as I was worldbuilding my own sci-fi setting....

(Skip the next 3 paragraphs, those are setting the tone and worldbuilding for the story)

So the catalyst for human spacefaring in particular that happens in the setting is, essentially, that a hostile, alien species arrived and took over the Earth, an event that came to be known as Armageddon due to a full third of humanity dying from it. The rest were spacelifted out to other planets deemed 'habitable enough' for human living by other alien species, pretty much as an effort by the galactic equivalent of the UN.

So essentially we have a situation where humanity's cradle, and original homeworld is lost to hostile aliens who bend every part of it for their own needs. I have several ideas of what this could do to the collective human psyche.

I will spare the details on what exactly humanity went through in the couple centuries since, but to summarize; initial period of chaos and disorder with megacorps, dictatorships and exile governments vying for power, followed up by progressive consolidation of humans into ever-larger state entities as the in-group expanded, with planetary World Governments eventually giving way to loose alliances of planets, until ultimately, you had actual stellar human empires stretching across various (now properly terraformed & seeded for Earth-style biodiversity) planets and dozens of systems inbetween. All before it came down to two major contenders for the ultimate dominion of the human race: The Confederative Republic of Humanity (CRH), an 8-planet, state-capitalist, technocratic government based on the old EU and PRC, and the United States of Humanity (USH), a 5-planet, republican capitalist government with much of its constitution, government structure and fundamental mythos based off of Old Earth's United States of America. Suffice to say that eventually, these two also combined into one singular Commonwealth of Humanity (With the former CRH dominating in this arrangement), an initially tense unification that holds strong due to massive foreign threats, including that from the aliens who took Earth in the first place.

Anyhow, what I'm interested in is how future spacefaring people might look back on aesthetics and architectural styles that dominated in the 20th/21st centuries. Nowadays we have all sorts of people who look back with fondness not just on the 80s, 70s, 60s, etc, but a widespread interest in medieval, renaissance, victorian, gothic, etc aesthetics, often mashed up and/or not entirely realistic to how they'd have actually looked like in those periods....

The initial years of humanity post-apocalypse, I envision to have many similarities aesthetically and societally to dystopian cyberpunk genres, with many of the same trappings being captured in the real lives of people; stuck powerless working as cogs in ultracapitalist machines, with a bleak outlook and little recourse to escape such a lifestyle.

Now I'm thinking that the sheer misery of this, combined with humanity's psyche and memories of the loss of their cradle planet, could lead to real cultural shifts later on where the aesthetics of the 20th and 21st centuries get lifted up, glorifed and immortalized in popular culture, even if it were stereotypical depictions of such. Replacing the bleak visuals of before, you could have people obsessed with the fashion and architecture of the 20th/21st centuries, which they might view as brighter, more cheerful, and suave in some way. Much like the craze around classical greek, roman and medieval gothic architecture we have in some places (Famously, the current POTUS loves Greek-style neoclassical...).

This could be seen in cyberware as well, where instead of prominently showing off the metallic, techno visuals of their installed cybernetics, popular culture might instead encourage more minimalistic depictions, and/or to hide them under completely natural aesthetics.

I suppose everything I'm describing essentially sounds like a backlash in the world against stereotypical cyberpunk, with a seeming return to the way it was pre-Armageddon, with powerful states that have the monopoly of force laying down concrete legal codes, rights, responsibilities, citizenship, state provision of utilities, healthcare, education, welfare, etc... And I suppose that'd indeed be the case!

What is the case in your settings, if you've thought about it? How do future sci-fi people look back on their ancestors, if at all, and are there people who are a bit obsessive or plain weird about old stuff like we have right now irl?

Hello everyone
For the past couple years, I’ve been developing a sci-fi setting. It is a mix of horror and Sci fi. Think of if tench crusade,warhammer 40k, the Witcher, and warframe had a baby. I have taken inspiration from all of these, but I am struggling how I can make my world different from all of them.
Any advice?

I recently heard about the book, "Tender Is the Flesh" by Agustina Bazterrica (still haven't read it), and I began to wonder what it would take for a society to truly survive on humans bred for meat.

Well, animals that are bred for meat usually reach maturity faster, but humans mature slowly. So, even if this society could successfully breed humans to mature earlier, it still wouldn't be worth it because it would still take too long before they could... you know, eat, and you would need to feed them too.

So, it would be more profitable to breed humans to give birth earlier and to bigger babies, and then you get both meat and milk (yes, disgusting).

There also will be a lot more cases of diseases caused by cannibalism, some of which are fatal, and, humans are not made to eat only meat. Those that will survive only on cannibalism will lose a lot of weight, because the body burns a lot more energy on digestion, which is why people on a carnivorous diet lose weight.

This community will very quickly have to turn to other food sources, and will not be able to survive on eating only humans.

But, if you're still interested in writing a similar book about cannibalism, a little fact to know is that according to records of cannibals, human flesh has a sweet taste similar to that of pork.

I want to add that in no part of this post am I promoting eating humans, this is just something I thought about during a long trip I had. Do with this information what you will :)

My book is set on Earth, present-day but with retro-futuristic technology. Think of the animatronics in The Electric State. Much of the book revolves around a fast-food restaurant manned entirely by such animatronics. Much of the story is lower stakes, slice of life style. It leads up to a third act climax that is action-packed though, but it is here that I'm stuck and thought I'd ask for feedback.

In this climax, the restaurant is attacked at night by a bunch of humans from the nearby town. Their goal is to destroy all animatronics. I aim for this third act seige to function similarly to the seige in the 1990s pic Small Soldiers, where waves of toys attack the house and are destroyed. In Small Soldiers, the good Gorgonite toys eventually put aside their programming in orcse to defend the house and the people in it.

My problem is, I don't know how to keep the seige going long enough to give it a "seige" feel, nor do I know to realistically have the animatronics win,- because: the animatronics are vastly outnumbered, they have no guns and must rely on stuff that can be realistically found in a fast-food restaurant, and the restaurant itself is meant to resemble a normal fast-food restaurant rather than some futuristic fortress thing.

The humans can't exactly use guns against these animatronics, which is one of the few advantages the animatronics have - bullets would ricochet off them.

But this doesn't change the fact there are multiple humans closing in on this restaurant wielding hammers & axes that definitely could dratroy the animatronics.

Does a seige just not work here? If I gave the animatronicsTerminator-level of strength that are experts at killing, that would ruin the theme of cozy animatronics having to defend themselves. Part of the appeal to me of trying to do a Small Soldiers-style seige is in Small Soldiers, the people used common household items to defend themselves. Is such a scene possible in a restaurant with committed human attackers, or did it only work in Small Town due to the attackers being toys?

I was inspired by the climax of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and I want to write something similar for my own book. But, instead of two ships fighting in a whirlpool, they're fighting in the accretion disc of a black hole (this isn't the only difference, but if I were to list off every single one, then we'd be here all day. Rest assured that I'm writing an original story, and Pirates of the Caribbean was just inspiration).

Unfortunately, I'm not good at writing action scenes. My expertise lies mainly in dialogue (especially wity banter). Does anyone have ideas as to how I can make it so that people don't fall asleep?

Edit: It has been brought to my attention that using a black hole as the centerpiece is highly impractical, even by sci-fi standards (more or less). At first, I suggested a gravastar in its stead, but then someone suggested a gas giant's storm. So, to be succinct, I'm switching to that.

I read the first two chapters of Children of Time, and then I read the first two chapters of my current novel draft (also scifi, but vastly different), and I have to say, I couldn’t help it, I enjoyed mine a lot better. In direct comparison it felt more enjoyable, had better flow, and more engaging characters, the little humor landed better.

Is that hubris?

Perhaps it is.

I usually read and hear in the writing space how much everyone hates their own writing, and how they feel inferior compared to other writers.

And now I realized that for me that my novel feels the opposite. I'm so fond of it that my brain says it's better written than an award winning bestselling novel by a seasoned experienced successful author.

What do I do now? Step back until I feel way more critical about my writing and myself? Do I need to get a bunch of beta readers now that metaphorically punch me in the face until I'm dissatisfied about my writing again? If I'm blind to my flaws I can't self edit my draft.

So, to sum it up, I'm kinda anxious and worried now. I'm well aware that I can’t actually be better. I read less, I have never ever published anything, I do this in my limited spare time. So why do I genuinely enjoy it?

It might be a fluke, I'm continuing reading Children of Time, and perhaps it depends on my mood.

The wind over the rolling coastal hills carried the sweet, sharp scent of hazelnuts, figs and salt, sweeping past quiet gardens along the slope. On a wooden porch overlooking the mist, two figures sat in the quiet dusk, a traveler, who had spent years observing the silent machinery of the world, and his companion.

Between them lay the remnants of an evening meal: fresh grey mullet sourced from the docks, vegetables picked straight from the garden, and a bowl of hearty soup that warmed the cool autumn air. Resting under the table, a small terrier stirred in his sleep, guarding his favorite pillow with an unspoken, instinctual vigilance.
“Look at him,” the traveler said, nodding toward the dog. “Even in his sleep, he’s running code he didn't write. Protecting resources he didn't choose to care about.”

His companion smiled, wrapping her hands around her warm mug. “And what about us?”
“We spent three billion years doing the exact same thing,” he said softly, leaning back.
He looked out toward the dark horizon, where the sea merged with the sky, thinking of the grand, silent script that had built them.

He thought of the ancient molecular systems from which life emerged, mindless, self replicating strands of code. He thought of their single-celled ancestors, locked in endless microscopic wars for millennia. An endless evolutionary arms race, until two of them ceased fighting, merged, and created the mitochondria, delegating energy production to invent complex life. He thought of the endless trade-offs written into the fabric of life, hardwired into our biology: the tiny mouse, living fast and dying young, putting every drop of energy into immediate reproduction because the harsh realities of the unforgiving wild meant tomorrow was never guaranteed.

Every creature was a vehicle. A vessel constructed by microscopic strands of code, selfish, blind, and relentless, seeking only to pass the baton forward through time. To outrun the pathogens mutating at its heels, life had invented sexual reproduction, shuffling the genetic deck every generation just to keep the locks one step ahead of the keys. It was the eternal Red Queen’s race: running as fast as possible just to stay in the exact same place.

“It sounds exhausting,” she said quietly, watching the sea. “3 billion years of running, on a treadmill that never stops.”
“It is,” he agreed. “Only If you let the code dictate the game. The mouse runs because it has to. The corporate world builds bigger treadmills because everyone agrees to measure value by speed, scale, and accumulation. If everyone around you is running faster, standing still feels like falling behind.”
“So how do you stop?”
The traveler took a slow breath, feeling the cool air fill his lungs, the warmth of the tea in his hand, and the solid weight of the porch beneath his feet.

“You realize that you are the first vehicle in the history of the world that can look at its own programming and choose to refuse it,” he said. “You don't need to keep running to outrun the paradox. You don't need to win a game you never asked to join. You step off the track. You change the rules.”

He looked at her, at the quiet life they had built, away from the noise, away from the rat race, surrounded by growing plants, lush green hills, good food, and shared memories.

“You decide that winning isn't about how many genetic copies you leave behind, it’s not about how much wealth and resources you’ve accumulated, how many people you’ve impressed and how far you run on someone else’s board,” he said, a faint smile touching his lips. “Perhaps winning isn't a race at all. Perhaps it’s sitting right here, under the tree, watching the madness pass by, holding the person you love, and realizing that you don’t have to run another step.”

—A Word:

Most sci-fi settings feature alien bugs because they’re just such a fun concept. Xenomorphs, Zerg, Flood, Tyranids, and countless others. Today, I want to try my hand at creating my own space bugs and exploring what makes them unique.

—Origin

The Kravore are a species of naturally evolved, intelligent arthropod-like beings that originated in an environment defined by relentless competition. Although highly intelligent, they lack sapience as most other civilizations understand it. They do not contemplate their existence, preserve traditions for their own sake, or assign intrinsic value to their original forms. Instead, they use their intelligence to pursue a singular objective: becoming stronger, more efficient, and better adapted to survive.

Throughout their existence, the Kravore have continuously augmented themselves, integrating increasingly sophisticated biological and technological adaptations into their bodies. Over countless generations, this relentless process of self-improvement has transformed them into beings almost unrecognizable from their ancestors. To the Kravore, there is no inherent value in preserving an original form, biological trait, or existing structure when it can be replaced by something superior. Anything that does not contribute to their survival or continued development is expendable.

The Kravore view galaxies as vast reservoirs of resources that must be consumed, harvested, and exploited before their rivals can claim them. Other civilizations are therefore not merely potential enemies but competitors in an endless struggle over the resources necessary for continued existence. This worldview makes the Kravore relentlessly expansionist and hostile toward countless other species, particularly those occupying territories or exploiting resources they consider valuable.

—Main Differences

-Techno-Organic Physiology:

The Kravore are fundamentally techno-organic beings. Rather than treating technology as something separate from their bodies, they incorporate technological systems directly into their biological structures. Their bodies function as integrated combinations of living tissue, engineered organs, and technological components, with little distinction between the biological and the artificial.

Even their communication systems are internalized. The Kravore possess specialized biological structures capable of generating and receiving unique radio frequencies, allowing them to communicate across distances without relying on conventional external equipment. Their technological capabilities are therefore not simply tools they possess, but intrinsic components of their anatomy.

-Web-Mind:

Despite their insect-like appearance and collective behavior, the Kravore do not operate through a single, unified hive mind. Instead, they possess what could be described as a Web-Mind: a distributed network of smaller, interconnected collective intelligences.

Individual Kravore retain their own intelligence, but lower-ranking units are coordinated by more advanced and influential organisms. These higher-ranking individuals form localized centers of command, directing subordinate units while remaining connected to other command structures. The result is a vast network of overlapping, semi-independent collective intelligences rather than one consciousness governing the entire species.

This structure allows the Kravore to operate on multiple levels simultaneously. Individual groups can act independently, adapt to local circumstances, and continue functioning even when their connections to the wider network are disrupted. Destroying one command center may cripple a local force, but it does not necessarily incapacitate the larger population.

-Ancient Survivors:

The Kravore are among the oldest surviving species in the galaxy. Across their immense history, they have encountered civilizations vastly more advanced and powerful than themselves. Numerous high-tier civilizations have attempted to exterminate them, yet the Kravore have repeatedly survived against overwhelming odds.

Their continued existence is not necessarily the result of superior military strength. Rather, it reflects their extraordinary capacity to adapt, reorganize, and endure. When confronted by an enemy they cannot defeat, the Kravore may abandon entire territories, sacrifice vast populations, alter their biological composition, or retreat into environments their opponents cannot effectively reach.

For the Kravore, survival takes precedence over conquest, pride, and even the preservation of their own kind in its current form. They do not need to win every war; they only need to ensure that some part of their species survives to fight another day.

-Intraspecific Hostility

Despite their collective intelligence, the Kravore are far from a unified species. Different Kravore factions are intensely hostile toward one another, frequently engaging in wars of extermination over territory, resources, and evolutionary advantages.

Their conflicts resemble the territorial and competitive struggles observed between different ant colonies. Individual factions regard one another as rivals whose resources, adaptations, and territory would be better utilized under their own control. Cooperation is possible when external threats demand it, but such alliances are generally pragmatic and temporary.

Consequently, the Kravore are simultaneously one of the galaxy’s most persistent collective threats and one of their own greatest enemies. Their decentralized intelligence and relentless competition make them exceptionally difficult to eradicate, but those same qualities prevent them from achieving lasting unity.

—Sub-Factions:

-The Over-Brood:

-The Virulent Blight:

-The Apex Fleet:

A work in progress about a field of medicine to unscramble my ADHD riddled brain

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-5g47dfTOThVUV9oNIU-GCLJCjnZc3gO7saafpM_48w/edit?usp=drivesdk

I’m building a far future setting where several rival human civilizations have heavily colonized and engineered the Solar System. Terra is divided among the major powers, Mars is a terraformed industrial world, Luna is heavily engineered, and large orbital habitats and megastructures are common. My dilemma is scale.
I originally intended the entire story to remain inside Sol, but I’d really like a few naturally habitable worlds with near Earth gravity, breathable atmospheres and genuinely alien ecosystems.
I’m considering having humanity discover several ancient wormhole gates in Sol. Each leads to one separate star system, while those systems only connect back to Sol, making Sol the hub of the network.
Would this strengthen the setting by creating new frontiers and colonial conflicts, or weaken it by making the Solar System less important?
And if major powers originated on Terra, would it make more sense for them to keep their historic capitals there or eventually relocate to newly colonized worlds?

Hey everyone,
I am currently working on a debut novel tentatively titled "Cosmic Park" and am looking for 2-3 beta readers that I can swap work and feedback with as the project develops. It is currently sitting at 5 chapters or 13,999 words.

Feedback I am looking for is primarily emotional in nature. I want to know how the story makes you feel and whether you connect with my protagonist. I'd also like helpful suggestions on scene composition and descriptive language since I am a first time writer.

Premise:

What if the Milky Way Galaxy was a national park for higher dimensional beings? What would maintenance at the park look like? Join Seth, a wildlife biologist, as he stumbles through missions as a cosmic maintenance technician and gradually works through his past traumas. The story is told with nonlinear progression so not everything is always as it seems.

Short Excerpt from Chapter 1:
The light grew closer as the walls closed in, a veritable peristalsis of blue driving panicked shuffling through a thinner opening until finally the quickly encroaching tomb gave way to a wide barren landscape. Blue walls wriggled toward one another, completely sealing the crevice and quickly climbing the outer walls of the plateau. Scanning the environment yielded nothing extraordinary. A dirty brown sky glowing with hot reddish sulfurous clouds overlooking a rolling landscape of equally dirty brown turf. And green. Green! Green wrapping around the wiggling blue cliff.

“Oh s**t. I’m being hunted by primary colors!”

Seth, your time on B4-5937X has exceeded expected parameters. Would you like a reminder of your assigned task?

“I’m a little busy at the moment! Could you—I don’t know—evac me? Decohere me? Pick me up?!”

Scans confirm the coherence vehicle is idling and operational. If your task is complete, please proceed to the vehicle and return.

“Oh s**t!”

You appear to be distressed at the moment. I will allow you time to return to your emotional baseline and then reinitiate communication.

Here is the GDoc Link: Cosmic Park Draft Chapters

I’m working on a mostly(not completely as I’m sure some liberties will undoubtedly have to be made to make certain things work) hard sci fi universe and was wanting to use starfighters, i know there are many reasons why they wouldn’t work out realistically with them being decimated by capital ship laser weaponry which move at the speed of light so they can’t dodge it and the newtonian style of flying means no ww2 dogfights, any ideas on how i could incorporate them into a more realistic universe, any information would be of use, whether it’s the design of the ships, what roles they’ll fill in combat, what weapons and defenses they’d have, whatever you can think of I’ll take it, thank you for reading this and i hope you have a great rest of your day

I'm struggling to write an accurate method of time travel into the past that abides by our current understanding of science accurately. As I am not a (astro)physicist, I don't really have the background for it. I do understand the fundamental principles of current theoretical methods (string, wormholes via Kip Thorne, kerr blackholes, etc) but without that physics background its kinda hard to formulate a believable "bridge" b/w reality and fiction.

What I mean by "bridge" is for example: Assume wormholes exist, in order for them to be feasible, exotic matter is required. But besides saying that, I'm not really sure how to make an in-world exotic matter discovery, naming, composition, etc sound believable. Does anyone have any reference material, other related works, somewhere to start research etc that I could take a look at? Thanks a bunch!

EDIT: It seems I wasn't clear enough, yes I know that time travel is not possible, I am not literally looking for "the answer", I simply was looking for a way to make it sound more accurate. For example, BttF series just says flux capacitor and thats pretty much it, whereas something like Primer or Steins Gate allows more suspension of disbelief due to how they explain the in-world time travel machine and mechanics

Okay, so I'm mainly a hard scifi writer, but I've had this idea that frankly, I just can't shake, I love it so much. But it's very much not hard scifi. It's really just space magic. BUT....I thought maybe you all might have some ideas as to how such a thing may be possible in a mostly hard setting. So, basically, the idea is this:

Imagine a high-tech suit of armor, something akin to the Mjolnir suits from Halo. Scifi soldier kit, basically. Only you don't put it on conventionally. The whole thing can be "summoned" from effectively thin air onto the user's body. The same thing could be done with the weapons, tools, and gear the soldier would normally carry.

I know, I know.... it's absolutely space magic and nowhere close to a realistic technology. The two ideas I have are something akin to Star Trek's "transporter buffer" or maybe some kind of "transdimensional pocket" the gear can be stored in? IDK.

Clearly, though, this does not fit in a setting where everything else is a realistic projection into the future of modern technology. Aside from this, the only really advanced thing I want to include in this setting is room-temperature superconductors. That's the general level of technology we're talking about here.

I'm 99% sure that I'm going to have to just drop this idea for this particular setting and that's okay. But hey, maybe there's a small chance one of you here will think of a way to make it work, who knows?

~3800 Words. Scifi Memoir. Thank you for your time to look at my work.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1chHLT-hhrzYqWYhPYFbdlz79iJKouUJPYwQtnVPnE4s/edit?usp=sharing

Uhhhhhhhhh
why does physics gotta be
so limiting. Like my story is about post scarcity, extremely advanced
interplanetary post human nations. Yet they are all pretty ideologically fanatical, nationalistic, and xenophobic (towards other human nations.) and they care having conflicts with each other and it's also romantic story however behind the scenes a very powerful accelerationist cult is manipulating these nations to create the perfect conditions to birth a super intelligent ai God.
They have megastructures everywhere and have a Topopolis, shell worlds, bishop rings, orbital rings, harvest gases from gas giants and have partial shell world around Saturn, and built a Dyson swarm. Like I feel like they should have the ability to slightly manipulate gravity.
Like there higher dimensions, interdimensional beings, the universe is sitting inside a black hole along side a mirror universe and a Xeelee level ancient extraterrestrial civilization that fled our universe a long time ago and their technology is just scattered across the galaxy.

I’m wanting to give them Gravity Generators (so they some how have the tech to manipulate gravity somehow but limited gravity fields.), because it gives me more freedom with space ship designs, be sleek and not having roaring nor acceleration gravity mess for warships and easier story setting. How should it work for a limited gravity field for the human decks and quarters side of a space ship?

The Battle of Heldq is one of the most important battles of the Myr civil war that saved their empire from a quick humiliating defeat and gave them a fighting chance against the Rever Corporation and the Avan-Dis.

The start of this conflict is like most this sector has seen in that there is something the rever Corp wants and something in the way of them having it. In this case the Myr (purple humanoid aliens with short goat like horns, scaly skin, bowed legs, and a jaw that splits for them to eat. Also wielders of telekinetic powers) empire known as the Guequendier or, as the Corp refers to the as, The Collective had a decent sized empire in the solar system with actually very well advanced tech on par or even in some areas surpassing the corporation. But their planets were perfect for hab worlds, their people rever science was eager to get on a dissection table, and rever tech really wanted to hallow out their moons for resources. But with them United the Rever corporation would never get anything its branches wanted. Instead of something stupid like ‘NeGotIatIng tRaDe’ or ‘jOiNinG tHe ColLecTiVe’ they decided that they will go back to earth’s playbook for getting rid of foreign governments and so would locate and get in contact with a religious extremist group known as the Avan-Dis whom had a rather sizeable presence on several words in the Collective. They promised them rule and resources if they would rise up against the current regime.

This promise and litteral tons of weapons of war latter the Myr Civil War would begin with the express backing of the Rever Corporation. This caught the Collective completely off gaurd as due to Rever Corporation compromising their sources they had not been aware just how armed the Avan-Dis were becoming or that they would even work with the Corp. worse yet the corruption spread high and that corruption nearly did in the Collective as well false reports would make it all the way to the Wenrak (the Myr word that is equivalent to Admril or General) that the Avan-Dis who had made a foothold on the moon of Heldq, the moon right above the capital world, had been making a bomb large enough to blow huge chunks of the moon off possibly making a extinction level event for the inhabitants of the world. The Wenrak at this huge news decided that they needed help and so would leave his 2nd in command in charge and go to call upon an ancient pact. His second in command Hek-Wenrak Geldo would take charge and mustered the majority of the collectives forces to go stop the Avan-Dis plot.

Planet fall and the fight were suprisingly easy. The Avan-Dis had not had many members who could fly military star ships so the fleet ij the atmosphere of the planet was barely a speed bump and planet fall was made with relatively few casualties. Strong hold after strong hold would fall back to collective hands as fhey searched high and low for the bomb. Turns out their was no bomb and some would piece that together as they watched helplessly from the surface as a massive rever corporation fleet tore into the atmosphere taking the now understaffed and underprepared starships above as easy kills causing the majority to fall in battle or flee away injured.

It only got worse once the hopped up cybers and chimeras (cybers are humans or other aliens of the rever corp decked out in cybernetic augmentation. Chimeras are that but also gene splicing in many strange animal and alien genes to make themselves ‘perfect’ beings) started raining from th sky along with battalions upon battalions of Avan-Dis soliders. Those same fortress’s they just cleared because their only refuge as Rever broadside artillery glassed any area outside of said fortresses. But the Collectives forces held for days. But days turned to week turned to a month and things were dire. Geldo died fighting and giving time for his men to fall back so command was fractured food was low and water non existent, plus soliders now feared the dark as wel the Rever Corporation Special forces specialized in two things and two things only. War crimes and terror tactics and boy that had taken a toll on Myr morale seeing friends skined alive or hung up and bled to draw Collective forces out. But the collective held.

Two months, two months they held that planet even though by this point over 50% of the soliders deployed here were dead. That last 50 was fighting tooth and nail to survive. That’s when they heard it, they all heard it, from every transmission of both friend and foe they heard what started as the tune of the Collectives Anthym. Tbe Corp and Avan-Dis though this a bit of the enemy posting moral and trying to demoralize Avan-Dis fighters and the Collective thought their enemy tired to taunt them. But all listened as a voice spoke, “Settle now brave fighters I have come…” that was the last words many of the bridge crews of rever Corporation ships heard that day as strange ships seemingly appeared right next to them camouflage dropping and weapons systems unloading into the overconfident Corp ships.

In those two months Wenrak Falker had ventured to the edge of the solar system and activated a beacon he recived many years ago from a strange alien race known as the Vask. They were brutish reptilian alien nomads whom the Wenrak had beat having out their leader in a drinking contest (The drink of choice to a Myr had been like a human drinking water) and well so impressed was the leader that he gave to the Wenrak a communicator and he promised that if he ever needed aid, anything at all, he could contact him and he would arrive. Though when the Wenrak made the trip it was more a shot ij the dark. He had won that wager half a century back and he had no clue if the Vask still lived or if they would even show up. But he had to try. So call into the void he did and to his shock he received a near immediate awnser. More still 3 days after explaining to them the situation did the Wenrack gock as a Vask fleet, bigger and more kitted with weapons than his own, appeared.

The next month would be spent transporting back towards Heldq and upon realizing the situation, forming a plan. That plan would be this ambush and it was devestating as the Rever Corporation did not have any sort of shielding up to allow for transport ships to come and go between fhe ship and the surface freely so the weapons ripped many smaller vessels to shred before they could even know what was happening. As hope would fill his soliders the most famous line of the battle was given as this line rang out across the world “Today you do not die sons and daughters of the Collective! No today we write our names into the pages of history in the blood of the traitors and the corporate dogs!”. This rallying cry kicked off the greatest counter offensive in history as the remaining Collective forces poured from their defenses and charged into the confused and frieghtened enemy trying to call for evacuation that wasn’t coming . As meanwhile in upper atmosphere it was a complete route with the rever Corporation loosing a third of its entire fleet that day as they all chose to scatter as well the Rever Corp doesn’t do a great job inspiring loyalty in its mostly criminal staff that make up the Special forces. What was going to bra decisive defeat and the end of the Collective turned into their greatest victory as well to this day the rever Corps fleet has still been recovering as well as the special forces as over 2 million soliders were abandoned on the planet as their ships either were destroyed or fled in the combat.

That’s the battle of Heldq and the Myr Civil War! I hope that you enjoy!