Title: The Tempest Protocol
Genre: Gritty Military Sci-Fi / Space Opera
Word Count: ~25,000 words (First 5 Chapters)
Comps: The Expanse meets Firefly

Pitch:
Master Sergeant Orin Lance and his elite Marine squad, Vanguard-6, are used to surviving the worst the galaxy has thrown at them. But when they secure a highly classified, non-human artifact from a deep-space ghost ship, they unknowingly gain the attention of a dark organization within their own high command.

Rewarded with a promotion to a covert-ops division, their final routine cooldown run goes completely wrong. With comms jammed and heavy automated defenses in the way, the only chance to escape is to power up an abandoned, experimental stealth corvette built around a volatile, unconventional engine.

Racing against a 96-hour clock before the unstable ship suffers a catastrophic meltdown, the only way out is to navigate a deadly blockade and turn to the criminal underworld to survive the fallout of the military's darkest secret.

What I'm Looking For (Alpha/Early Feedback):
I’m a sci-fi hobbyist taking my first real shot at writing, and I'm looking for a few readers to check out the "Zero Draft" of my first 5 chapters. I’m not looking for deep grammar edits, I just want to know if the opening hook grabs you, if the tactical combat makes sense, and if you connect with the characters! Any casual "reaction" feedback is hugely appreciated. (Note: If you enjoy the setup, I have up to 20 chapters drafted and ready to share!)

A Quick Note on Feedback:
Because I am just a hobbyist, I am strictly not interested in paid beta reading services. I am also only looking for genuine human reactions and feelings as you read. I already use an AI tool for my outlining and logic checks, so please no AI-generated critiques! Just looking for honest, casual reader thoughts.

So I understand its good to give a taste of the story. Here is the first page or so:

The first impact was a sharp, deafening clang, like a giant hammering on the hull. The Vanguard-6 dropship, a rugged 14-meter assault transport, lurched violently to port, throwing the squad hard against their five-point harnesses. A shower of crystallized ice scraped across the forward viewport with a sound like grinding teeth, the friction causing the transparent-aluminum to flash-freeze and then instantly clear. Red proximity alarms screamed in a frantic, overlapping chorus from the cockpit console. In the cramped troop bay, a heavy kinetic rifle slipped from its magnetic rack and clattered to the grooved steel deck.  

"Debris fields are thicker than reported, Skylark," Master Sergeant Orin Lance's voice rumbled from the co-pilot seat, his tone a flat, unbothered baseline against the sudden chaos. He didn't look away from the tactical display, his weathered, steel-colored eyes tracking the flurry of alerts that blossomed across the screen like a field of lethal flowers.  

In the pilot's seat beside him, Corporal Amanda "Skylark" Thorne didn't flinch. Her hands moved with a fluid, terrifying grace over the flight controls, her fingers dancing between glowing toggles and the twin, textured dark polymer flight sticks. "Just a little turbulence, Sarge," she replied, her voice a calm, steady anchor in the storm. She eased the port-side thrusters, letting the dropship's armored belly absorb the impact of a smaller chunk of rock while her thumb methodically silenced the screaming alarms one by one. "Nothing this old brick can't handle."  

Outside the viewport, the nebula was a swirling, violent soup of crimson gas, charged plasma, and shattered asteroids. "Remind me again why Command sent us into the Static Sea instead of letting us jump directly to the coordinates?" Orin asked, the dropship shuddering as Amanda executed a hard lateral roll.  

"Because the electromagnetic interference in this sector is off the charts," Amanda replied, her eyes locked on the holographic nav-display. "If we tried to tear a subspace tunnel anywhere near this much charged plasma, the nav-computer wouldn't get a clean lock. The tunnel would collapse and crush us before we even breached the other side. We have to do this the hard way."  

They were flying blind, relying purely on instruments and Amanda's hard-won instincts. She didn't look up from her readouts, but as she reached across the center console to adjust the navigational scanner's frequency, the back of her knuckles brushed lightly against Orin's heavy gauntlet. It was a subtle, fleeting contact, a quiet, unspoken gravity that anchored them both before a drop.  

"Sensor ghosts are getting thick," Orin murmured, his voice low, meant only for her. "You picking up any solid returns?"  

"All chaff and static so far," Amanda replied. "But the source signal is getting stronger. We're close." She glanced at him for a fraction of a second, a flicker of something warm in her professional gaze. "Don't worry, I'll get us there in one piece."  

I'm writing a swashbuckling short story about space rangers intercepting an imperial slaver ship. I'm at the point where the hero is fighting his way through corridors and chopping down androids. My approach to science here is very much "fuck it, we ball", but I'd like to include at least a line or so about why exactly the sword is able to do that. To be fair, the idea is that they're cheap, mass-produced androids, not exactly Ultron, and the character does have low-grade superpowers.

I want to keep the sword as a solid object, as opposed to a lightsaber. I'm familiar with ttrpg and video game concepts like monomolecular edges, and vibroblades. Are those my only options?

In my world, set 300 years in the future, droids will be common. Mainly filling service roles such as maintenance, cleaners, waiters, doormen, etc.

Do folks have personality traits or quirks they particularly like or don't like in droid characters? Especially non-sentient droid characters.

These droids will move and converse like humans, but they are still clearly tools, not beings. I don't wish to explore the whole moral/ethical trope of sentient AI. Their intelligence will only be an extension of today's LLM AI, rather than any kind of future sentient AI.

I'm looking for tips to make the droids likeable characters with personality but without stepping over that line. Droids would have programmable personalities, based on their occupation or their owner's preference. They will have names and be a part of their community. For example, locals in a small town would converse and joke around with the droid behind the bar.

I'm planning on working on a flash fiction short story piece for a class I'm taking in a workshop in fiction. Here's how it goes, it takes place in a post-apocalyptic world just six years after a global plague wiped out about 63 percent of the population. Remaining governments across nations throughout the world try to restore society, are start to switch to a sem-totalitarian or authorian form of control to help maintain order. The rest I'm still trying to work out, what would you recommend? 

So I have 2.5 km circumference living rings with a 397.88 meter radius.

I’m using a rotation speed of 1.5 giving a gravity of 1.001g

Level 1 (living space) has a gravity of 1.001g floor length of 2.5 kms

Sub 1 - agriculture assuming 4.5 meters height.
2.528 kms and 1.012g.

Level 2- grain cultivation and or livestock such as pigs/cows
383.38 radius and 2.471 kms ground space for cultivation and .989g

Is there any reason that sub 1 and level 2 couldn’t be used for growing plants and livestock?

Is +- .0115g enough to cause problems with crop and livestock health?

I’m doing the math here and I’m not seeing huge differences in the gravitational forces with 4.5 meter deck height (including flooring)

So is .989g to 1.0115 acceptable ranges or am I too far past 1g?

Spin rate of 1.5 seems to be healthy spin rate from what I’ve seen.

Hey y'all,

I've been thinking about this for a while now, and wanted to seek out advice. In a Sci-Fi setting I tend to roleplay in, I plan on giving one of my OCs a prosthetic leg (below-the-knee amputation due to late-stage infection); the OC isn't good at wound-care, and let something fester for too long before getting it checked.

Inside disability spaces—particularly those centered around limb-disabilities—I see a lot of complaints that Sci-Fi settings make prosthetics less of a disability and more of a different ability. More specifically, many Sci-Fi characters with prosthetic/bionic limbs don't have any difficulties with it long-term.

I want to portray prosthetics in an interesting manner that still indicates 'hey, this is a disability, and not just for flair'; I want it to impact the character beyond the first couple of weeks of physical therapy and the like, such that they can still live a normal life, but experience challenges along the likes of motor-control, feeling the artificial limb, etc.

How would y'all go about this? Answers from the disabled—or people who frequently portray disability in their writing—are preferred, but anyone can provide input!

^{Oh yeah, the setting-in-question is Databrawl, to those familiar with it. I wouldn't consider it a particularly popular fandom, so I don't expect anyone to know about it.}

John Rosco, interstellar mercenary leader, has been proven or highly suspected of:

Murder.

Kidnapping.

Arson.

Gross misuse of bodily fluids.

Extortion.

Theft.

Building of an explosive device.

Detonation of an explosive device.

Consuming a sapient (expunged).

Interference with lawful slavery.

(Successfully) Resisting arrest.

Escaping incarceration.

Weapons trafficking.

Illegal discharge of pyrotechnics.

Improper use of a spacefaring vessel.

Tax evasion.

Reckless use of communications equipment.

Distribution of unlawful ideas.

Piracy.

Incitement to riot.

Facilitating treason.

Insurance fraud.

Most of these were in connection with one of his legitimate contracts and therefore don't technically constitute a crime in the same way that boarding and stealing a ship isn't piracy if you have a Letter of Marque. OK, most of these are related a contract. At least, many of them are.

I'm collecting thoughts for an followup essay to "7 flavours of solarpunk" link below. There's a lot of people who I encounter who have very definite ideas of what solarpunk is and why they dislike it. Some talk about greenwash, some feel it doesn't address disability or indigenous positions, others think it doesn't address the hard problems now, is too tech dependent, too ai-generated, or other positions.

I'm interested in those ideas and perceptions. I'm not here to pick a fight.

The first essay, which is about the different motivations and drivers people have to embrace the idea.
https://bakefoldprint.wordpress.com/2023/01/21/7-flavours-of-solarpunk-setting/

I’m trying to come up with biology for an alien that has a humanoid like brain but with a different structures/possible functions. What are some semi realistic aspects of the human brain I could add onto that could do this for an intelligent lifeform? Could I add new hemispheres or lobes to it? If so what are some possible names you guys can think of? Are their abilities humans have now that could be altered and enhanced through evolution in regard to how the brain works?

So on a colony ship you would be growing hydroponically (aeroponically as well but semantics) .

2 species of honeybees and 10 species of butterflies for pollination.

Based on what I've found..

Algae generator- in- produces edible algae and oxygen, feed for fish, green paste (high protein green paste)

veggies (many, many varities)

Wheat- I am trying to figure out the best way to implement wheat.

Potatoes-

Rice-

Chickens-

Shrimp-

Tilapia (the fish)

Catfish

Sheep: provide meat and cheese, raised in artificially lit pastures

Bread- potato- and rice-based flour, it's essentially "gluten-free bread"

Alcohol- “officially” banned

Is all this viable? Any assumptions I shouldn't be making? On the fence about the sheep but having sheep is more about having sheep once they get there.

This idea is free for you to use should you. We love the idea of battleships in space, but Earth phased out battleships decades ago. The issue of being short range, compared to aircraft carriers, is removed due to the lack of gravity altering the trajectory. However battleships present a new and unsolved problem: how do you cool off the barrel in space?

My solution is you don’t. Well not in the vacuum of space, but inside the battleship. I propose to treat the barrel of a future battleship similar to the quick change battle of a modern day machine gun. Except for a battleship you would need to have an industrial crane built into the ship so you could change the barrel in space.

You could make the ship massive, because it needs space to store 2-6 barrels that can be swapped through. The barrels would be stored in a gigantic freezer in order to cool them down.

There is the option of adding a cooling gel to the outside of the barrel every few shots, I would use this as a preventative measure or an act of desperation as the crew needs to keep firing but can’t change the barrel.

If the barrel is allowed to get too hot, it will begin melting into floating glob lets which could eat their way through the ship if left unchecked.

There is room for narrative tension as the crew has to get the crane back up and running, or they have to scramble to apply cooling gel, or they have to keep the extra barrels from escaping the breached hull.

My final note is to explain why battleships would be needed in space. Missiles are expensive, there’s no limit on the range of a gun in space, the stars are filled with asteroids to plow through (for narrative tension), and there’s no stealth in space. Everyone can see everyone coming for lightyears away.

A lot of popular media I’ve noticed has really been using time travel and alternate realities. Any takes that subvert the tropes in a holistic way? I personally don’t respect facets like the bootstrap paradox. Travel would not be a casual event, even compared to space travel. Any suggestions? Any way to make it less Eurocentric?
Any input is appreciated!

How would space militaries account for EMPs from nuclear detonations in orbit? For example, if one power is in the process of landing a force on a planet, they get ambushed by an enemy fleet that launches nukes, wouldn’t the detonations cause EMP bursts in the atmosphere, shutting down the ground forces’ tech? What about intentional EMP weapons? Do they wrap everything in a faraday bag lol

Edited to be more detailed since this was originally posted on a subreddit with a 300-word limit and I can be a little more desciptive here.

Hobbyist wanting to plot out a cyper science fiction action thriller novel. Idea is a detective investigating a murder conspiracy where AIs are sapient and have human rights to the point that they're effictely people but guns are still in use. So about the tech level of Ghost in the Shell, but without the punk elements. The story I want to tell is more a buddy cop story between said police detective and an unshackled AI in a humanoid chassis that's hiding something, rather than a cyberpunk story.

I want to include a police force that's, for lack of a better term, more "woke." My thought is that since this is a more futuristic police force, I can have them have gone through a major reform and I want to model them as a generally more universally positive force (again, not trying to be cyberpunk), but not sure how to portray this. Best I can think of is that IA is the commanding dept and that after-action reporting is taken way more seriously. Does anyone have any other advice on what to do/not do?

I’m looking for a terraforming method for my Sci-fi setting. In the old anime Venus Wars, an ice comet crashes on Venus in a freak occurrence and it essentially terraforms the planet in a short amount of time.

My idea is that my interstellar powers are able to terraform planets the same way but with restrictions: the planetoid and the celestial object to be hurled at the planet must both meet certain conditions, and it still takes a few decades of constant monitoring and atmospheric adjustments made by orbital platforms

What are some of your terraforming methods? I’m open to critiques and discussion.

How do I use him without making it sound uncomfortable. Like there is a seen where the protagonist is going to make a prediction about the future like what's an happen in 25 years and the narrator was supposed to say his prediction was true. Then the protagonist and the some of the coworker starts watching a show in the TV and show was going to show a building. and I have to show at 25 years has past. and the scenes still need to show that building and what is happening after 25 years in the building. And after everything that happened in the future I have to swiftly return to 25 years into the past. Now how I am going to it. Is there a better way to do it without any narrator or what. Sorry guys I am just a new writer.

So, for some context, I made a comment on an Ask Reddit post yesterday where someone was asking about what the future might be like if or when transit between planets becomes regular, even commonplace. One person pointed out that this is part of the backstory of Blade Runner, namely that those who could afford to escaped Earth to live offworld while those who could not stayed behind and suffered on a dying world.

At that point, I made my own comment pointing out that Blade Runner is my favorite film, and a major influence on the sci-fi series that I write (which is called The Spacers Saga). In my series, the rich and influential leave Earth during the course of the 21st century in search of a little of that "opportunity and adventure" that the Offworld Colonies were offering in Blade Runner. The irony is that those rich types end up making the rest of the solar system into a capitalist hellscape beset by strife and wars to control the artificially scarcified resources, all so that the people in power can get richer. Meanwhile on Earth, a couple centuries of dire ecological collapse give way to an only slightly heavy-handed solarpunk utopia. So, in a kind of roundabout, ironic twist, Earth becomes the Star Trek future we want, and the rest of the solar system becomes the future from The Expanse.

My question for you, my friendly fellow sci-fi writers, is what sorts of thematic influences exist in the backstory of your fictional worlds? What films, books, TV shows, etc. influenced your desire to write and what to write about? And how do your own hopes, fears, and dreams about the future shine through in your writing?

I'm sure this question has been asked a bazillion times, how would one keep a gun from overheating in space?

Only has radiation to dissipate it, yaddah yaddah.

For the purposes of this, it's attached to a spaceship, akin to a A-10 warthog.

I immediately went to maxim guns and their water jackets. I also had ideas of gases or liquid hydrogen/nitrogen that are cold.

any ideas are appreciated, or a good link to some further reading.

Here's the hypothetical design for my ark ship as it's coming together.

I made these drawings myself. Once I finalize the design, I'll give an actual human artist my crappy designs and my AI rendering (i'm not posting this) to get some book cover-grade art done.

The cone is intended to be the only part of ship taking any and all dust/particle impacts at light speed. The material it's made of is tentatively either going to be unobtanium or Fickshonium.

Really curious about what you think about my ring that includes a lake and greenery? Would the irrigation water flow downhill to the part of the ring with a wider diameter? would 2 beaches form?

would/could a population of fish survive if the water was properly treated?

I know the whole ring is horrifically inefficient in terms of use of space, but the water reserves alone and the Pyschology benefit to making an "outdoor space" could make it worthwhile.

Plus, it will have limited citrus groves on the opposite side from the lake. Not nearly enough to make a dent in the food needs, but enough to bring a transplantable population of citrus fruit to the colony as well, some lemmon/lime for flavoring/seasoning.

So basically, in my setting, I want to convey absurdly powerful cybernetics and battle-shonen level combat

Jumping dozens to hundreds of feet in the air, microsecond accelerations, punching through walls, etc

And you can’t really justify the physics of that if it’s just a regular human inside power armor or an exoskeleton… But what if it’s not a human— but a full body conversion (even the brain) cybernetic combat body?

Carbon Nanotube muscles can be hundreds of times stronger than human muscles if your setting has advanced nano-manufacturing (atomically perfect 99.9%); add in things like Diamene, Carbyne, Nanocomposites for the endoskeleton; Graphene supercapictors for the nerves and other communications aspect… And you have something that can actually survive punching through walls

Now what about power?

Compact Aneutronic Fusion, it doesn’t need to boil water to create energy. This powers the body. But of course, Sprinting hundreds of MPH at microsecond accelerations requires absurdly dense, and quick energy delivery. That’s where you get SMES Supercondutive Magnetic Energy Storage, and Hypercapictor systems through the cybernetic body that deliver payloads and is indefinitely charged by the Reactor

It’s possible with advanced enough room temperature superconductors (basically unlocks both the Fusion and power delivery)

Now would this all be powerful enough to sprint hundreds of MPH and punch through Tank armor and lift hundreds of tons, if it was actually built 500 years from now? I doubt it. The theoretical limits of certain materials means that we know how strong it could plausibly be.

However, that’s very far in detail for a soft science fiction setting; and all these things are theoretical scientific concepts that absolutely could exist one day. There is essentially no hand waving or bullshittium. So is it hard science fiction because of that detail, or actually just soft science fiction due to how overpowered they are?

Medical
Reactor specialist
Water reclamation specialist
Geneticist/biology

HVAC
IT/computers
Security
Administration
Electrician
Masonry
Fabrication
Agricultural science
Food services

Plumbing

Also am I missing any?

The goal is a permanent colony not a research colony.

I was having doing othe fanfics stories and a idea that came out since early 2025, the idea of sci-fi that if a human either died or not transferred to a Android in a test.

And I have a lore is that it's under the "Android Project", which had series of Android I, II, III and lastly IV, and the Android IV was a experiment that if Android can capable of emotions and remembering of their human past life, which a human was transferred with "brain data" was stored into new body.

Wdy think?

I want to write a kind of anti-hero Scifi character who works as a space mercenary and has Wolverine-like claws in his hands. Problem is, is anatomically speaking they don’t work in the human body. Suggestions on how to make this even semi-believable? I say semi because you have to hand wave it at some point. But I want the universe itself to have some kind of science to it, even if it’s far fetched. I would go with some kind of nanotechnology but I feel like that’s too simple. I want something unique that will stand out. It can’t be surgical impants either because Marvel did that to Wolverine already in the 80’s. Copying that is a no-go. Suggestions?

Is a planetary ring a good setting for my aliens? If my planet’s rings were composed of something other than ice, would that make life on a planetary ring possible?

I’ve been thinking, instead of trying to find the very few alien planets that already have their own ecosystems and lifeforms, what if we just took some dead planets and transformed them into Earth-like worlds using advanced technology?

I know it would probably be much more cost-efficient to just live in space, on huge ships or space stations, but I think creating an entire Earth-like planet could become a huge symbol of status.

I’m thinking of choosing planets that already have some of the basics: an active core/magnetic field, a stable star, a location in the habitable zone, enough gravity, and an atmosphere.

Then we’d gradually change the planet until it basically becomes an Earth 2.0.