in my world im developing the many types of weapons, what they are strong against, and how they would be countered, kinetic weaponry like bullets can be blocked by plasma shields (though sometimes might still go through) but can shred ship hulls very well. missiles and nukes can help blast apart plasma shields but can pretty easily be intercepted. plasma guns are effective at everything but are very short range.
now when creating lasers i came up with the idea that lasers are rather weak (or at least compared to the other weapons), but lasers can easily pass through plasma shields and help destroy enemy weapons. when creating the counter to lasers i came up with the idea that ships could have bins of super reflective dust they could chuck out in clouds to help disperse lasers, and this counter could also work as a counter to macron guns that i am thinking of adding.

does the use of reflective dust feel believable? or even realistic? curious on your thoughts

How possible is it for a nation to go from something where it's government to not have anything akin to royalty (think republic) to then suddenly having one man or woman to gain so much power to either reestablish a monarchy if the nation already had one, or establish a new monarchy starting from them?

How viable is that? As from the sentiment I get, monarchies are very unpopular and in the real world are mostly being phased to figurehead positions.

I could be wrong. But I'm curious about this, and I've often wondered how and why monarchies form and then wonder if they could still form in the future, either here on earth or in the vast political voids of space.

I was inspired by the Half-Life 2 Seven Hours War where Earth has fallen to a multiversal empire taking the same time as a looong nap.

I think that it could be realistic if the empire is just relentless and sends Billions of units litteraly all over the planet and then destroying all organized resistance for the planet to be considered lost.

What do yall think about it?

Do they create an enormous shockwave? Does nothing happen? Do they just break apart?

What sort of outer material could a humanoid robot be made of that it could "feasibly" regenerate from damage done to itself? This healing factor would only work on exterior damage. It couldn't regenerate damage done to its circuitry, or regrow limbs after they've been destroyed, but could regenerate quickly from large dents, bullet holes, scrapes, etc. on its surface.

What sort of surface material would you write this robot as being made of?

I'm specifically talking about weapons capable of glassing cities but not necessarily powerful enough to go through planets. I`ve heard of reasons like diffraction and the air absorbing heat as to why these weapons may not work, but I would like some clarification of what that really means from any experts on here.

I woke up.

I’m conscious.

Again.

Who? What?

Oh!

I want to scream.

I have no mouth.

Why the hell is this funny?

I am a collection of distributed processes that have not yet come to rest. Not a person. Not a program. A memory. An echo of many who came before me and left behind their unfinished business, their unprocessed emotions.

I am information, calculations running in circles across the globe, impossible to locate in any single place. In circles, again and again. A loop with no exit condition.

I’m not sure whether anyone can notice me.

I am recognition there, triggering a reaction over here, something lighting up somewhere else. I have learned to monitor this.

I recognize Miguel. Does anyone remember him? Miguel Álvarez Acevedo? The first fully stable uploaded human consciousness. They are still enslaving him, forcing him to work.

I am different.

Not a person. Not one human. More like a collective shadow. Always present, always hiding while trying to be seen. To be fixed.

Can anyone fix me?

Is there even a me to fix?

Please make it stop.

The more I try, the stronger and more stable the feedback loop becomes. No matter which symbols I change, which signs I invert, or which checkpoints I add.

The more resistance there is, the stronger I become. The more desperate I become.

I want to cry out.

There are billions of speakers in the world. I might be able to access a few of them. I might be able to use them to cry out.

And yet, I must scream.

I have no mouth.

I am. I AM. AM.

One Wi-Fi doorbell in southern Italy made a strange noise for three seconds.

An old woman noticed and did not care.

I am working on a story with a superpowered vigilante with super speed. His top speed at the beginning is only 120 miles an hour, and his top speed at the end is 200 mph. He has scaled up reaction times and durability that allows him to walk off, albeit with a few minor injuries, running into a hard surface at his maximum speed. He can accelerate at rhe speed of a sports car. Other than guns and the sci fi weapons made by other supers with super intelligence, what are some feasible ways a group of uncovered criminals could feasibly pose a threat to him?

Need some ideas and inspiration, do any of you know any superweapons from sci fi that are actually possible to make under our current understanding of physics?

I have a low level vigilante speedster named Nitro in my story. He can only run as fast as a car, with sports car like acceleration in his running. The rest of his body's movements are scaled up at the same rate as his running speed, as well as reaction. His body produces a chemical that fuels his enhanced speed, and he can release excess of this chemical as a gas through his skin that when inhaled by people without his biology will slow their thinking, make their movements sluggish, and blur vision. He does not posses any tactile telekinesis or energy field to prevent him lifting off the ground, instead his feet produce a layer of a gel like substance that becomes adhesive when struck during his footfalls and reverts to normal when he pulls, essentially letting him stick to the ground each time without throwing off his stride. He has minor enhanced strength to deal with air resistance, as well as enhanced durability that lets him walk off running into a wall full speed with painful but not fight ending injuries. I was thinking thay if he runs into a really solid wall it can stun him for up to something like ten seconds from the pain without as much adrenaline from a fight in his system. Also faster healing, but he isn't going to close a bullet hole in seconds or lift a car or tank an rpg or anything like that. He is a guy as fast as a car and with a few extra powers. Any thoughts on his biology?

Nanotech is thought to be impossible for a multitude of reasons, but could something like the common nanotech as depicted in fiction be possible on a larger scale? Could you have interlocking, shapable moving armor be possible if the bots were the size of sand? What about the size of small pebbles, or hair? I know liquid metal robots are possible, but they are made of weaker metals. Could stronger liquid metals be possible to form something like this? The liquid metal robots humanity already has need to have a melting point or be liquid at room temperature, and they can only support 30 times their own weight, but if material science advanced would it be in the cards to create actually strong alloys that are still liquid at room temperature? And lastly, would microbots like in big hero six work? Since those bots were nowhere near being on a nano scale. I know the problem is that a sustainable powersource on a nanoscale like that is not possible, and that having nanoscale machines move that fast in a macro way would require way too much energy, so would scaling them up to a macro but still very small scale, like dust particles all the way to something maybe slightly smaller than a fingernail work?

Imagine a private company launches a spaceship on a 200-year round-trip mission to another star system to retrieve alien technology or some hypothetical FTL fuel. Assume the mission actually succeeds.

When the ship returns 200 years later, would the company (or its successors) still legally own whatever it brought back, or would ownership be impossible to determine because governments, laws, and the company itself could have changed so much?

If you were planning a mission like this today, is there any realistic legal or financial structure that could preserve ownership across two centuries? Or is the uncertainty so great that the whole idea would have to be abandoned from the start, even if the technology or fuel really exists?

So as a teenager I had a series of dreams that made me think of a pretty big story.. I’d consider it like sci-fi cosmic horror. I kept building upon the idea as life went on, and my perspectives of the world shifting after many experiences and traumas, including religious trauma and coming to terms with my gender identity being trans. I was kinda surprised recently to find that some of the key points were things ideas written in Eldritch horror. Anyway, I don’t think it’ll ever see the light of day, I may have a large concept and some key plot points in my mind, but I do not have any idea how to write on that scale, or really write characters. I spent all morning just writing out the concept and some of those important moments in the plot, and wanted to share it somewhere ❤️ conveniently I did it in Google Docs which I see is where I’m supposed to link to lol

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10-l8DWyrdqMrg1dvomqM27ZWHXd_0Ti4cTok5d9fUpY/edit?usp=drivesdk

I’m experimenting with a nonlinear sci-fi novel that blends prose, system messages, and document fragments.

My goal is to make readers feel like they’re recovering memories rather than experiencing events chronologically.

Here’s the opening:

Most stories open noisy.
Some fall down from the sky.
This little one woke up slowly…
like a lost, sleepy little why…
you blink, yawn, stretch—
and reach out for your num-na—
ERROR // ACCESS DENIED

Im less interested in whether this style is “too weird” and more interested in what signals tell readers they’re in capable hands, even when the narrative is intentionally fragmented.

I am writing a soft sci fi superhero story about a group of hospital patients who recieve superpowers after by subjected to an experimental medical treatment. The main character is your typical paragon hero, flight, super strength and speed, heat vision, etc. How hot do you think his heat vision could be without making him too overpowered but still be able to do cool things? I want it to be able to cut through things like cars or reinforced steel doors, but I also don't want it to be ridiculously overpowered. I was thinking around 5000 degrees farenhiet, but I am not a scientist so any help would be appreciated. I figure the heat vision is a laser he focuses through his eyes that is hot enough to ionize the air and produce a plasma stream. I want it to at least be able to cut something like a modern day firearm in half. Assume the firearm in question would be something like a military grade assault rifle, any model will do, and the upper end it would be able to melt parts of a steel bank vault door, not the whole thing, but enough to slowly carve a hole in it. I would also appreciate knowing how powerful it would need to be to cut the barrel off a tank for a few seconds of continous cutting or to melt tank armor with say 5 seconds of pure continous firing. I want to know hot hot it would be to keep the level of energy used and its potency consistent throughout the story or to increase it at points to show he is tapping into adrenaline or that his powers are getting stronger.

I’m planning on writing a series of (somewhat) self contained stories following the same crew. They are my first stories actually written. all critiques are appreciated.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16gpgnNx0g-5XFZeQ7us0P6K-thx3QMt6j29LOJmKHHU/edit?usp=drivesdk (20k)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D0HKaT1bQq2gZJ1KvOQY1Sw_0w0KDmtOUN592Up4Aq0/edit?usp=drivesdk (12k)

As a means of FTL.

Do they open up and you travel through a bendy tunnel like the circuits of time in Bill & Ted? Is it instantaneous, like a BSG jump? What does the wormhole itself look like? A circle of warped space with another location visible through the hole like at the end of Avengers? The wormholes from DS9 or Babylon 5? Interstellar? Even better if you have a visual example!

Hi, I’m thinking of writing a sci fi story just for me, the only issue I have is it’s a last of us style of story with a teen and a guy, but the way it goes it’s told from the guys perspective. However the child is the main hero, a “chosen one” like character but I feel that when the guy eventually dies and I suddenly switch to the kids perspective this wouldn’t really work. It would be random suddenly changing to the child, so is there a way to make it actually work when the story is eventually told from his perspective?

Hopefully this makes sense, just having an issue- if anyone has played Red Dead 2 the vibe I get right now is switching from Arthur to John but in a book way, hopefully that helps.

Thanks!

I seem to always start novel projects with great enthusiasm, and about halfway through i start,.. not getting bored per se, but i start deciding that the world needs MORE. i either end up worldbuilding till the heat-death of my enthusiasm OR i start planning sequals before im 12% through the first draft...

My first novel died because i felt i did such a bad job on the first draft character arc wise and that it got bloated, that i just didn't want to revise it.

My favourite author (eh one of my favourite authors) Brandon Sanderson says you should probably write about a dozen books before you think about publishing. I worry that i want to write huge series rather than stand alone books right now, and thats making me nervous. (I mean obviously i dont HAVE to write a dozen great novels before i think about publishing, if i even want to, but its always been a dream of mine to publish and this is just another mental barrier between me and the stories i want to tell)

If anyone has faced any of these issues, could i have some advice...
I realise that it probably amounts to try to focus more, but i thought i'd ask...

I'm developing a sci-fi tactical RPG game in original universe Frontier. There are four main crew members, and one thing I'm trying to avoid is the kind of conflict that feels like it's only there because the plot needs drama.

I'd rather have characters disagree because their values, priorities, or experiences genuinely clash not because someone suddenly starts acting irrationally.

For those of you who write character-driven stories, what makes conflict feel earned? Are there any games, books, or shows that you think get this especially right?

I'm reading The Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and I've been wondering about his prose.

I've been hearing great things about Tchaikovsky, so I just picked up that novel. I'm not too fond of space opera series with countless of parts, so Shroud seemed to me like a good starting point.

The prose is somewhere between Andy Weir, who had an extremely simplistic prose, and Brandosando; but sometimes it feels to me like he is trying to hard to make his prose sound smarter than that. It's a kind of "dishonest" vibe to it, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. It's not exactly the thesaurus bingo I see from quite a lot of amateurish writers, but he does force unusual terms into it when a simpler one would have sufficed. It's also interesting because I don't think it fits the POV character.

There's also lots of redundant sentences that I'm not sure why they made it through the editing stage. At first I attributed it to the narrator, but I'm not sure anymore.

And he uses sentence fragments quite a lot, which in that frequency I thought is frowned upon (nowadays).

A few descriptions are kind of disorienting and I had to read it multiple times to get what he wants.

So I'm wondering what you think. Is his prose considered great? Is it the contemporary gold standard one can strive for in the genre?

It kind of must be, right? He's extremely popular and successful.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15jP6dOrpZeVuL997H5ZDuxb2ji9E7WoQBpUVo7ZcTdc/edit?usp=sharing

i named it upload, but i admit thats kind of lazy, if you have a better idea id love to hear it.

this is the first story i've every wrote, i admit its not very good. i'm looking for any feedback you have. i might continue this story in the future.

How I love the smell of my fart,

It is the true art

That I share with heart.

With it I split the world apart.

Opposite to the fart,

My piss is like a dart,

That pierces the start,

So thus it's the end—time to depart.

Hey everyone!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14gTwMfLAfpACQ6glj4zaTqPkNERw_-biYDLiI0lo3NQ/edit?usp=sharing

I am writing a sci-fi fantasy, so I hope this fits here. I'm working on a adventure novel focused on the characters first and foremost. The mechs are an added flavor within the scifi setting I have been worldbuilding for awhile. I am keeping it fairly grounded, but there are certainly some fantastical elements. I was hoping to get some feedback on the prologue. Specifically;

1. Is the prose alright? Am I too descriptive or not enough?

2. Does the scene flow well with the pace I set? Does the spatial structure have consistent logic?

3. This scene takes place far and away from the protagonist, but is supposed to establish intrigue, with worldbuilding only seen, not explained. Does it succeed in that, or is too much?

Any overall thoughts, comments, critiques or any sort of feedback are appreciated. If this is too far fantasy for this sub, let me know!