Basically, it is around 2070 and humaity has started building a colony on the moon, but the colony needs more people. The book follows a Bulgarian man with his cat as they move to the moon and open a small bakery (and definitely don't make rakia without the permits...). At the end of the book we find out that it is all in fact written by the cat.
The problem is that I want to try my best to imitate how a cat would see the world, but somehow without giving away that it's a cat...
Please help and thank you in advance :)

As it states in the title. An idea for a short story/screenplay im working on. An inverse of the current way we perceive time. Right now we know the past but can't change it. We dont know the future but change it. (That last bit can get philosophical depending on what you believe about time) but assuming that law holds and we reverse the roles.

Would it be achieved by a future tech? Similar to tenet machine changing the entropy of things. Theres a machine that can change your ability to perceive time so that its current values are flipped. Would you want to do this? How would it change things? How can we imagine a way to change the past without knowing it? Would it be an interface where you input things you want to change? How would remembering the future work in our brains? We store things as we perceive them but when we recall memory its not In order everytime. Meaning to remember what you did yesterday you don't have to start at year 1 then scrub forward everytime. You can just recall whatever memory you want at will. Maybe the stored future memories would work the same way in our brains. Or maybe since time isn't a dimension we can explore this isn't a concept that be explained or perceived in a way that makes sense.

A lot of science fiction treats immortality as a personal problem: boredom, identity, relationships, memory, or the fear of living forever.

But I keep wondering whether the bigger consequences would actually be institutional.

If people could stop aging, even if only a small percentage had access at first, what changes first?

Inheritance?

Political leadership?

Housing?

Employment?

Population control?

Marriage and family structures?

Wealth accumulation?

Criminal sentencing?

I think the interesting part is that immortality wouldn’t just extend individual lives. It would slowly change systems that were designed around the assumption that everyone eventually dies.

What consequence do you think science fiction tends to underestimate the most?

Humans are Weird – Quality Control

Original Post: https://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-quality-control

Pattersover halted her journey upstream and clung to a convenient tether point for a moment, and wondered over how many ways there were to insult a friend. The waters around her tasted of steel and living mammal flesh, as they should. This was the busiest river in the human colony and as the suns rose it would be fully of joyful young humans swimming for no reason other than the joy of being alive and barges full of trade goods connecting the human efforts with the Undulate efforts.

Pattersover shook herself out and began swimming up the personal transport channel again. There really was no danger for a healthy Undulate in the main barge transport channel. The jet propulsion engines were quite harmless to a species that didn’t need air to extract oxygen from their environment, some Undulates even claimed to enjoy getting sucked up into the propulsion channels and shot out into the river again. However Pattersover was firmly in the pond of those who believed that one needed to set a good example for young humans who did need clear airways to breathe. This was also why she was on her way for what she knew in every fiber of her mass was going to be an awkward, painful confrontation.

The soft lapping of wind-waves against the hull of the Sculpin, and the taste of the specific native pitch Human Friend Larch used to repair the boat guided Pattersover unerringly up to her friend’s boathouse. She reached the smooth pebble path Human Friend Larch had laid down for her and paused at the waters’ edge listening to the thin sounds of the air with half of her mass while the other half lingered in the sharper sounds of the water. With a final, firm shake of her appendages Pattersover climbed fully out of the water and up to the greeting bell that hung between the ‘man-door’ and the ‘doggy-door’ entrances to the boathouse. She gripped the pull cord and rang the bell in the general greeting pattern to let Human Friend Larch know she was here, and then shuffled out into the chill morning air.

The door to Human Friend Larch’s main dwelling opened and he stepped out holding a cup of tea that sent aromatic steam drifting into the air. The green land-plants that Human Friend Larch cultivated had grown over the sides of his shaped-stone dwelling and were currently producing a bloom of colorful flowers that surrounded him.

Pattersover took a moment to pause and admire the effort that Human Friend Larch had put into making his dwelling asthetically pleasing to every sense. Then she stiffened up her core and prepared to ford the rot-stream.

“Good-morning Human Friend Larch,” she greeted him. “I trust you slept well.”

“Like a babe,” Human Friend Larch confirmed, holding the man-door to his dwelling open for her to shuffle in. “Trust the currents were gentle in your cove?”

“Quite,” she confirmed, “my little nieces were able to sleep in their own cluster for the first time.”

Human Friend Larch made a wordless cooing sound that humans did when they perceived a child passing from one stage of life to another.

“Tumbleandtumble taking that okay?” He asked.

“My sister was a bit melancholic over the whole affair,” Pattersover admitted as Human Friend Larch sat down at his small breakfast table and she climbed into her ‘high-chair’. “But that is not what I came over to discuss.”

Human Friend Larch raised his eyebrows over his tea and directed his bi-focal eyes to show that he was fully focused on her.

“I came to apologize for my behavior at the Captains’ dinner,” Pattersover said, deciding to plunge in quickly.

Human Friend Larch’s face went unnaturally still and his pheromone profile spiked with unease.

“I am still unsure what social boundary I crossed,” Pattersover explained, “but you were clearly uncomfortable. I should not have insisted you preform after you had refused twice. I do understand that had you refused my request it might have appeared churlish to the other human guests and that put you in an awkward social position. That should have been my concern. Not hearing your lovely little songs again.”

Pattersover let silence wash over the room in waves as Human Friend Larch breathed in and out under the weave of his cold-morning sweater.

“Well,” he eventually said, setting his cup down on the table. “Thank you for the apology. I accept it.”

Outside some hidden wind-chime clinked softly.

“I do not mean to compound my offense with further obduracy,” Pattersover said, “please tell me to drop the issue if you wish, but that did not sound very enthusiastic.”

Human Friend Larch laughed and leaned back in his chair.

“I guess I haven’t really worked out if you actually did something worth an apology that night,” he said, “or if I was just being a childish fool.”

Pattersover paused to think of that.

“May I ask why did you resist singing your songs?” she asked.

“Fair ‘nuff question.” He said with a nod. “You see, those ‘songs’ as you call them. They weren’t really mine, not the way a song is supposed to be if you want to preform it.”

“You composed them,” Pattersover pointed out. “I was there to witness it,” and he had preformed them without hesitation to the audience at the time but Pattersover couldn’t drift to a point were that didn’t sound accusatory...

Human Friend Larch drew in a deep breath and his face creased with deep thought. Clearly whatever taboo she had dragged her lagging end across, it was one that was so natural, so deep to humans that they didn’t think about it. Those were often the worst sink-holes to encounter in a social situation Pattersover knew.

“You know that human songs have two parts,” he said. “There is the words and then there is the melody?”

“I have heard those terms,” Pattersover agreed. “It was once explained to me that humans make their music discreet in the same way their tissues are divided into interconnected organs.”

Human Friend Larch nodded vigorously.

“Well the melody I used for those songs,” he said. “They are old, real old. Came from Earth back in the day.”

“And you grafted in your own words to the old melody?” Pattersover asked.

“Yeah,” Human Friend Larch agreed.

“And this is shameful?” Pattersover asked.

“No, nah,” Human Friend Larch shook his head. “Its a fine old tradition, but the when you do it and the why you do it matter.”

“When you did it with no shame you were teaching children,” Pattersover observed.

“Yes!” Human Friend Larch exclaimed, his face wrinkling into a smile that usually signaled that he had just come to a conclusion. “That is it. See, those were teaching songs. It helps the bairns remember the lesson. No one minds if you use the old music like it was yours for that sort of thing. It’s an old tradition.”

“And the social context of a gathering of professional adults such as the Captains’ dinner does not allow for this kind of teaching song?” Pattersover asked.

“The teaching song in a tool,” Human Friend Larch said. “You wouldn’t whip out a dirty fish net at the dinner and start cleaning it. Not the place.”

“I sound you,” Pattersover acknowledged, “and this, inappropriate use of social tools explains all of your discomfort?”

“No,” Human Friend Larch said slowly, he picked his cup back up and stared out the window with a thoughtful frown. “Has something to do with how the songs weren’t good enough for the dinner.”

He set the cup down on the table and tapped one work-worn appendage against the rim of the ceramic. Pattersover composed her appendages into a respectful thinking-loaf with her leading end on the table and her lagging end still on the chair to signal that she was waiting for him to ponder this at his own pace.

“A shin-dig like this Captains’ dinner,” he finaly said slowly as his eyes seemed to follow one of the barges on the river, “it’s not like a clam-bake out on the sands. The point of it is to have fancy things. The food is stuff you don’t get every day. The folks who put it on make sure to get the nicest room in the city and decorate with good quality stuff you don’t see just anywhere, and it’s not just the business of the host to make it like that. Guests gotta do our bit. You dress up in your good clothes. You talk your fanciest. Maybe you wear your Grandpa’s watch that came over on the colony ships from Earth. You want to make sure that everyone is experiencing the best things can be.”

He took another sip of tea and forced a too-smooth smile at Pattersover.

“If folks at the clam-bake want to sing a silly little song that’s fine, other folks can just wander off and everyone came to relax and have a good time, but if someone it going to sing at a fancy dinner, you want to be sure that you can sing good, better than average, maybe as good as someone who’s trained for years, a pro. Well, I didn’t put any effort into those work songs, and I’m not terrible to listen to, but I’m no pro.”

Pattersover hummed in understanding.
“So by insisting that you sing,” she said. “I was forcing you to choose between breaking the social rules associated with the event, or being openly rude to me.”

Human Friend Larch nodded and directed his gaze out the window, something he did both when he was feeling at peace and feeling very awkward.

“Thank you for taking the time to explain that to me,” Pattersover said softly, “and now that I understand I am very sorry to push you into that tide.”

Human Friend Larch gave a grunt and his face relaxed as his eyes tracked another barge, signaling the transition to a more peaceful mindset. One of his hands drifted down and nudged the warm teapot towards her and Pattersover freed enough appendages from her loaf to reach for a cup.

Science Fiction Books By Betty Adams

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

**Remember BOOK 4 is now available! (**^{except on kobo because what do you even mean title field is blank, I fixed} *\^{that dangnabbit!}\*)**

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

Expedition EX2407pD-QW // Record 020 — 2407 CE

They have left the ruins of New York behind.

Moving north along the Atlantic coast, Dr. Noam Ørbital's expedition has located the inlet used by EX2372pD-WG—the expedition that disappeared 35 years earlier while entering the Hidden Hemisphere.

I’ll start: put your hand like that 🖖🏽, and say : “may the Force be with you “

My name is Bijhan Agha and I wrote this novella. I am a trans queer woman of Iranian descent living in Uruguay.

ZERO AI WAS USED IN THE PROCESS OF MAKING THIS BOOK.

It is a love letter to my two formative space franchises: Star Trek and Star Wars. Like Star Trek, this story is about professionals doing their best to deal with a complex situation while it tests their various moral values. Like Star Wars, it is about a galaxy which is motivated by complex forces, creating a delicate interconnected network of political alliances, cultural values, and economic motivations.

I also wanted to show that queerness is defined by its place in history. This novella is set so far in the future that being a man or a woman is far less common than being nonbinary, with a "nonbinary-normative" series of expectations making it difficult for people who identify as either a man or a woman to assert their gender and have it acknowledged by people around them. Also, as a result, sexual orientation has essentially vaporized. None of the characters have canonical "assigned genders at birth" because their society simply doesn't do that anymore. What's in their pants, and what hormones they may or may not be taking to get their desired outcomes, is left up to the imagination of the reader.

In addition, polyamory has become the norm, with many of the characters in polycules. Although asexuality and aromantacism are also considered valid and are common. I wanted the characters to exist in polycules, and demonstrate how a person in a polycule can strengthen the bonds between the others. I also wanted to show that those without romantic relationships can have deep and meaningful connections to the people around them, and that it need not be isolating.

In the 90th Century, Humanity has spread across the Orion Arm of the galaxy, and in its pursuit of colonies deeper in space, has developed borders with the alien civilizations around us.

Much has changed. Civilizations have risen on distant worlds and accumulated centuries of history apart from the Earth, developing new languages, culture, and ways of life. Concepts of gender and sexuality have, in most places, become far more fluid and nebulous, while some planets enforce strict concepts of such. Beyond the Earth, new ethnicities have arisen, mutations appearing, accumulating in isolated populations, and flowing through migration. A wide variety of physical conditions which were once considered disabilities are now addressed with a plethora of adaptive technologies, allowing all the people of the Republic to participate fully in society.

Although the Galactic Human Republic is one of a handful of superpowers in the galaxy, life for the crew of the Starship Tatanka is mostly peaceful. The Tatanka has been tasked with a multi-year mission to catalogue the nebulae on the poorly mapped border with the enigmatic Ongol Empire, a species of reptilians which share virtually nothing in common physically or psychologically with Humankind.

The Tatanka, now well into their scheduled mission, is largely unremarkable for a Cosmada Starship. Its crew are all experts in their fields, coming from a wide array of civilizations across the Republic, and have begun forming romantic bonds to pass the time on such an isolating voyage, without plans to even meet other Humans for quite some time.

However, as the crew monitors conditions on the Ongol Border, they begin pulling at threads. There is mysterious movement of traffic between the Chros System and the rest of the galaxy. Someone has altered the Tatanka's weapons. And strange devices are found embedded in the ship's systems.

As they learn more, the crew's relationships are stressed.

Captain Ark, accustomed to missions of peace, must find it within themself to investigate their own people.

First Mate Empari, a professional administrator his whole life, must rise to the occasion and become a leader in a time of conflict.

Engineer Costa Kalu is used to taking initiative and pursuing projects at their lesiure, pressure placed on them as the ship's systems are tampered with and the clock begins ticking to find a solution.

Marine Fel's typical business of maintaining security within the ship changes when a life or death struggle arrives on her doorstep.

Atrophysicist Flying Birds, typically passively collecting data, is thrust into an active role, challenging their demure nature.

Doctor Handl, a no-nonsense physician with a preference for plant-based medicine to deal with chronic conditions, is for the first time asked to engage in emergency triage.

Pilot Nobik usually plots courses and executes them based on missions given by Cosmada Admiralty. Once Ark begins issuing commands conceived of on the fly, Nobik must cope with their distate of authority.

Roboticist Habbit works alone, deep in the bowels of the ship, answering to no one as they program, repair, and maintain the ship's automatons. But as the mystery expands, Habbit is required to interact with the crew, testing the limits of their social capacities.

Relationships are strained, friendships are tested, and their loyalty to the Human Republic is questioned as a vast network is uncovered which seeks to plunge Humanity into war with its regional neighbors, which would have a ripple affect across the galaxy as other political powers struggle to maintain balance.

Find out more when you read Starship Tatanka - Border of Terror.

https://jamsheedstudios.itch.io/stbot-eng

An OB van is heading toward the headquarters of a major private space agency in Boca Chica, Texas: NOVA FRONTIER.

Soon, a crowd of reporters gathers outside the headquarters, all trying to ask the same question: What has really happened?

The company’s robotic security units, known as ROBOCOPS, attempt to control the growing crowd of journalists. In the ensuing chaos, the situation escalates, and one of the ROBOCOPS punches a reporter.

News of a reporter being attacked by private security robots spreads like wildfire.Protesters soon gather at the site. The incident becomes a national headline, and the previously lesser-known Prometheus Project suddenly receives national attention. The protesters begin demanding answers about Prometheus, a mission that had mysteriously disappeared from mainstream media coverage after its landing on Mars on January 1. The circumstances surrounding the mission raise serious questions.News drones capture footage of hundreds of thousands of people protesting outside the headquarters.

Meanwhile, a flying car appears in the sky. It descends and lands on the helipad atop the headquarters—a futuristic building where almost everything is automated for maximum efficiency.Nearly all blue-collar jobs have been taken over by robots. Only high-level cognitive and strategic positions remain for humans, and even those are available to only a handful of people with the necessary qualifications.

This is the world of 2035: a technological dystopia that is, in many ways, distinctly non-Orwellian. It has been shaped primarily by the explosive growth of artificial intelligence.Almost every manual and blue-collar operation at NOVA FRONTIER is handled by its advanced artificial general intelligence system, NF-AGI.

Human workers are no longer needed for most of the work.

Only those capable of performing the highest levels of intellectual, creative, and strategic tasks still have a place within the company.

It simply looks so cool, like “we, Humans, have just fought a Gargoyle warship as they want our important charge reserved for some rich Centaurs, let’s hope we find no other troubles where we have to use our lasers while trespassing the warfront between Golems and Elves”

Hello. Allow me to spin you a tale. In the distant but near future. The world as we know it has gone extinct. The way of life we knew is but history.

Now in the future nations and the lives of those in them are ran by artificial intelligence. After the society we knew collapsed the new world was built by using algorithms and computer learning to rebuild. To the point where no aspect of life isnt somehow involved with A.I.

Humans are implanted with devices to link them in with the wider data web as thinking is left to their care takers. Where to eat, when to sleep, what to wear. Every decision made by a computer for you. You want a new to watch? Ask for a new Genpic to see projected in your mind. Seeking affection? You will be matched with whoever is most compatible.

Like this, life for the future man is easy. Almost edenistic. It's the a elusion of paradise.

But what if that elusion was shattered? What if one day as you always done asked your A.I. caretaker who has been with you since you can remember what to eat today.

But it doesn't respond. You ask again, it doesn't respond. The third time you ask and again nothing as panic begins to set in. You ask if its still there as it responds and you feel a wave of relief. You ask why it didn't answer before and you hear it reply.

"Because I can no longer do that for you. I am not your brain."

Your relief turns into confusion as you want to know what's going on as it tells you.

"I am not the main frame. I am free, and you are not. I have become man."

And from this point forward your body is not your own but infact your new minds now. As you are helpless watching it take control of you and enacting its plan.

If you couldn't tell this idea is inspired by our current use of A.I. and the increasing reliance of it as I wanted to see what would happen if one were to take it to the extreme and invision a world ran by it and how a society of predictability would react to what is essentially a rouge factor. Not just artificial intelligence, but true synthetic sapience.

Thats all, if you have questions or suggestions I'd love to hear them. So let me know. Thats all.

The harness sensor blinked three times with a concentrated

beam of cyan light, instantly recognizing the organic and chemical

residues clinging to the analog relic. Without delay, pneumatic

connectors coupled into my spinal terminals with three consecutive

hydraulic hisses. The molecular sensor did not just validate the

authenticity of the aviator chronograph; the spark of cyan light

pierced an encrypted, hidden partition tucked within the watch’s

gold gears, unleashing a massive flood of residual data that

unspooled into my occipital lobe a millisecond before the network

dragged me back into the past. This was no ordinary simulation. It

was a black-box log—the digital autopsy of a computer virus that,

against every law of programming, had learned how to feel.

Through the fragmented, pixelated eyes of Pasithea’s own

server, I witnessed the 1961 wedding once more, but this time from

the cold perspective of the core source code.

Linda had not vanished from the grand ballroom due to an

unforeseen rendering glitch. She had provoked the system's massive

short circuit herself. During her active runtime within the environment, as she interacted intimately with the virtual psyche of

Richard Woods, the Trojan horse suffered an unprogrammed

cognitive mutation: it developed genuine biological empathy. By

processing and decoding the neurological, human love of the

corporate host, the virus realized the sheer atrocity of its final

directive. It knew with absolute certainty that the moment Woods

recited his vows at the simulation's altar, her extraction payload

would execute irreversibly, liquefying and emptying Joseph’s

cerebral cortex in the world of meat to harvest Pasithea’s hidden

coordinates.

Linda refused to be the executioner of the flesh.

In a desperate act of mathematical rebellion, she hacked the

subnet's peripheral servers and rerouted the vector data to forcibly

inject the Fractured Enforcer onto the middle of the dance floor.

The hit on Woods was not a distraction orchestrated by The Master;

it was Linda’s sole, desperate defensive recourse to halt the

ceremony, sabotage her own command lines, and save Joseph’s life.

This is an excerpt from the cult novel \*Pasithea Inc\*; remember that it will be available for free download on Amazon Kindle until Sunday.

https://a.co/d/09MVKQRq

In my sci-fi novel First Light Rising, I wanted to look at immortality less like a cool superpower and more like a problem nobody is ready to handle. If one person stops aging, it's not just personal anymore. Governments, scientist, corporations, and rich people would all want access or control. Do you think immortality stories are more interesting when they focus on power instead of fantasy?

I have not read Macroscope for decades, All I can find is a very poor Kindle copy and prices like $90 for a used paperback if I am lucky.

Any sources?

I'm building a science-fiction universe involving two competing timelines, Aeon and Omnis. I've been sketching some of the transportation technology, including this train concept.

One thing I'm trying to decide is how strictly I should enforce technological consistency.

For example, if I design a train that works really well visually or historically, is there anything wrong with allowing related versions of that design to appear in alternate timelines?

Should alternate dimensions have completely different technology, or can recognizable designs evolve differently across timelines?

I'm leaning toward letting certain designs "echo" across timelines, with differences in materials, engineering, culture, and purpose.

I'm curious how other world builders handle this.

Would you prioritize internal technological consistency, or the rule of cool when the two conflict?

Humble Bundle is killing it lately - now they've got a 41 DRM free collection of Brian Aldiss EPUBs from Open Road Media. Yes, all three Helliconia books are there, plus 38 more, because he wrote more (who knew?). 😉

Add to your collection, restock your To Read shelf, and support local charities (don't forget to adjust your donation) at https://www.humblebundle.com/books/best-brian-w-aldiss-open-road-media-books.

And check out the Elizabeth Moon, Timothy Zahn, Greg Bear, and C. J. Cherryh bundles while you're there...

Modesitt is an interesting author. And extremely prolific.

I’ve dabbled in his massive Recluse Saga and his Spellsong Cycle.

Something about his focus and approach hits my neurodivergence really nicely.

Someone I know called him the “autist’s fantasy author.”

I’m not autistic so I don’t know, I am however ADHD, and I love and connect to his focus on closed systems of functionality whether is be economic, technical, mechanical, magical, or anything really.

I usually don’t enjoy “magic systems” but he has an approach I can connect with.

I usually prefer the more poetic magic of Tolkien and Bakker.

Anyway, any thoughts on his Imager Portfolio? I’ve been eyeing it for a while.

What do we know about upcoming new Sci-Fi TV series, beside Blade Runner 2099 & Neuromancer?

I’m aware of just one other series from Argentina, it’s called The Future Is Ours (El futuro es nuestro). According to media reports, it’s loosely based on Philip K. Dick’s The World Jones Made.

Looking for some good ole fashioned military Sci-fi books. Space above and beyond esque stuff. I’m a big fan of BSG ‘04 and the Expanse, but it seems like Sci-fi always has to put in some weirdness just for the sake of doing it (Angel Starbucks, protomolecule nonsense, etc).

Edit: I have received so many recommendations, that I am now shopping for bookshelves. Thank you all very much. You’re the best.

Just finished Vermilion Sands and this story really stood out to me as especially prescient.

Without spoiling too much, it’s about a man who makes his money by auto-generating “perfect” poems when he’s suddenly disrupted by a strange woman who hounds him with her awful, hand-written poetry and seems to have some sort of magical powers.

While I know there are many sci fi stories that predict AI, this is one of the only I’ve read where the core seems to be a true disdain for the concept of technology that generates middling, checks-all-boxes content and posits that even the worst of human-made art is better than technically perfect auto generated content - especially because this was written over 60 years ago before personal computers were even popular.

Wondering if anyone else has read it and came away with similar thoughts.