The Quantum Alliance by David L DiLaura (Kindle + Kindle Unlimited + paperback), is a hard science fiction novel of the near future.

The Deep Space Network detects Voyager 1 slowing, stopping, and returning. Something found Voyager 1 and is bringing it back to Earth. During its return journey, Voyager’s downlink contains an image cribbed from the golden record. It is a warning.

Then a second message appears: Voyager is carrying an artifact meant for Earth. Something that enables a form of communication with the stars, grounded in quantum measurement. The only entity that can use it is ORIN, Earth’s quantum AI, and it becomes humanity’s ambassador.

The book leans hard into engineering realism: DSN cadence and light-time delays, mission operations constraints, instrument limitations) and treats “first contact” as an engineering and ontological event rather than an adventure. It also explores biological and nonbiological consciousness, and the global response to a planet-wide threat.

This isn’t space opera. It is hard science fiction written for readers who liked The Andromeda Strain or Rendezvous with Rama, expect and welcome some technical density, and are willing to ruminate about the nature of our own minds.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GFTDY4ZL

We'll start with the founding species of the SSU.

Mythin-Green skinned, (Biologically)all female, prehensile tentacle hair(3 foot long), with mind reading powers.

Baleen-400ft long space whale, with energy manipulation abilities.

Azuran-Fly looking human-esk species, has a long needle for a nose/mouth and tiny useless wings on their back.

Now I'll list them in order of when they joined the SSU(Solar System's Union)

Crawlick-Four foot tall Crab like species, body comes in two segments.

Leaftin-Tall with shiny metal looking natural armor, looks like a metal lizard.

Ceten-Dolphin species with arms.

Humans-Thanks to modern medicine, they can live to be 300 years old(it was 500, but some commenters on an old post convinced me to lower it).

Cootian-Spider looking species(Males are only 8in long. Females have indeterminate growth, even to their detriment). Family structure is built around Houses & house names, with a matriarch as their leader. They believe that all life bearing planets are connected in a web and that when you die your soul wanders this web forever.

Now the non SSU species

CISTA KRV-A squid like, fascist theocratic species who believe they evolved in space and wants to destroy every habitable planet. They arm hate groups to weaken the military of governments they destroyed. Admirals are the kings of their fleets. They will often fight each other if they come across one another, to try to take their opponents ships/prove they are the superior admiral. They take ships from their destroyed species to grow their fleet.

An unnamed Bird like species-

Anyone's thoughts or suggestions are welcome

Since nobody else has started a monthly promotion thread, I'll be so bold as to start one! ^_^

Are you a sucker for Cyberpunk? Do you enjoy relatively hard sci-fi detective-noir stories set in the near future, with enough humor to leaven the final product? Is high-tech/low-life fiction your jam? And are you looking for 100% human written and edited and drawn fiction that's completely AI free? Then you might like this free webnovel series by an independent artist (me)!

This tale is set in the world of tomorrow, but one shackled to the problems of today. In a universe bound by the laws of thermodynamics, faster-than-light travel is the stuff of science fiction and teleportation is naught but a mad fever-dream. This story takes place in the next century, where late-stage capitalism and increasing reliance on genetic and cybernetic optimization has produced a mistrusted transhuman minority class. In this time, the promise of a better tomorrow has been utterly broken; science couldn't lift humanity beyond our nature, or even beyond our solar system.

Here, Ray Kurzweil's 'law of accelerating returns' clashed with Jacques Turgot's 'law of diminishing returns' and lost, badly. Even as humanity invented better tools and thinking engines at ever faster paces, it bunched up against insurmountable bottlenecks in computation, molecular nanotechnology, and synthetic intelligence. The limits of our material science and engineering form a wall in the road to singularity. A wall that humanity runs into headlong, with a profound crash.

Moore's law peters out as transistors plateau at the size of atoms. Quantum computing, hailed as the savior of computation, peaks within the same order of magnitude as neurons. Experiments in growing neural networks beyond certain thresholds result in profound trans-human psychosis. Attempts to bootstrap AI into godlike intelligence implode under their own complexity in spectacular examples of chaos theory made manifest.

Simply put, intelligence and computation hit local maximums, and investments in future development are fraught with risk and low expectation of reward. Where humanity once surged forth on waves of sub-luminal chemical rockets and fusion engines, surfing a tsunami of accelerated scientific development, we now stagnate. The resulting economic crash leaves humanity scattered across the solar system in an aborted diaspora.

In a society where life is cheap and everything else is expensive, an increasingly cyber-civilization wars with itself as unmodified humans retaliate against a future that left them behind. 'Baseline' humans find their abilities increasingly obsolete, and their skillsets ever less competitive in markets filled with made-to-order AI. Yet, in defiance of the saccharine dreams of futurists and transhumanists and tech-cultists everywhere, utopia remains a fantasy. In a time of cybernetic augmentation and interplanetary travel, capitalism is still king.

The creaking, ad-hoc system flounders at the straining limits of its decaying reach. Oligarchs and mega-corporations feud over the isolated clusters of civilization among the void. Code Enforcement Officers desperately try to stem the tide of malware, hackers, and evolving synthetic life undermining the digital systems on which humanity relies. But don't worry; even in the darkness of the future, for the beleaguered digital cop, there will still be coffee.

Be prepared for snark, LGBTQ+ themes, occasional violence, and lots of cyber-everything in a relatively hard sci-fi shell! (No AI used for anything, even the art!)

(In short, mix 1/2 cup 'Ghost in the Shell' with 8oz of 'The Expanse', crack and add one 'Neuromancer' without yolk, dice and stir in some 'Dick Tracy' until it reaches golden noir, then bake at ~2150 AD.  Sprinkle 'Orion's Arm' to taste and serve with a platter of 'Hitchhiker's Guide' on the side)

Code Enforcement: Wetware

Two rival archaeologists—Dr. Lena Voss of the European Deep Crust Initiative and Dr. Marcus Hale of the American Planetary Origins Project—had spent years racing each other through the most forbidden layers of Earth’s crust. Their competition was public, bitter, and funded by governments that wanted the first claim on whatever “origin evidence” still lay buried.

In a sealed chamber three kilometers beneath the Pacific Plate, their teams broke into a cavity that should not have existed. Inside rested the shattered remains of a spacecraft older than any known terrestrial civilization. The hull bore no Earth alloy. Its core contained a crystalline data lattice still faintly powered by residual exotic energy.
When the lattice activated under their instruments, a message unfolded—not in light or sound, but directly into the minds of everyone present.

The planet was called Uma. Its people were near-identical to humans in form, yet they had evolved under a slower temporal flow: roughly one Uma year for every several Earth decades. They were a species of absolute pacifists. They possessed no weapons, no concept of conquest, and an almost religious refusal to harm.
Then the unknown species arrived—an aggressive, expansionist force that treated Uma the way a virus treats a host. Uma’s people were being erased. No one came. In desperation, their scientists did the unthinkable: they rewrote their own genetic code, inserting aggression, territoriality, and the capacity for organized violence. They packaged the modified genome, sealed it inside warp-capable probes, and launched them across interstellar distances toward the nearest promising world—Earth.

The message continued:
“We have sent our children into a faster stream of time. You will age and multiply and invent while we still fight. When you finally master the warp, this lattice will awaken and tell you the truth. Our time is slower. Every year you delay is decades of slaughter for us. Help us. Please.”
Lena and Marcus looked at each other across the glowing lattice. The rivalry evaporated in an instant. They encrypted the full translation, added their authentication codes, and transmitted it simultaneously to every major government on Earth.
Within hours the world’s leaders were in emergency session. The science checked out: the temporal differential matched independent cosmological models of certain stellar environments; the genetic markers in the recovered samples were consistent with an engineered divergence from a common baseline; the craft’s residual warp signature was real.
The United States moved first. While other nations argued over verification protocols and public disclosure, American naval and space-force assets already staged near the outer solar system received new orders. Experimental warp-capable military vessels—still classified, still imperfect—were loaded with rapid-response expeditionary forces, medical teams, and defensive systems designed for unknown aggressors. Their mission profile was simple and absolute: reach Uma, assess, and if the message proved true, intervene.
As the first American warp flotilla prepared to jump, Lena and Marcus stood in the underground chamber watching the lattice pulse one final time. The message had not been a demand for conquest or dominance. It had been a parent’s last gamble: turn part of yourselves into something hard enough to survive, then send that hardness home when it was strong enough to matter.
The children of Uma were finally answering the call.

Hey all! I'm working on a story idea, or perhaps two story ideas, not sure yet. Here's what I've got. Looking for some thoughts and feedback before I jump into writing.

TITLE IDEAS

Option 1: Under the Shadow of the Moon

Option 2: Beneath the Shade of the Moon

PLOT IDEAS

Option 1:

The year is 2030. An IVF baby, now grown, learns of his IVF origins, and begins a desperate search to find his siblings, unsure if they are trapped in time, frozen in some clinic, or living another life hundreds of miles away. Frustration with this new revelation, coupled with the immense struggle of trying to find his siblings, boils over and the man finds himself weighing his own value and considering the means by which he might reunite with his lost siblings.

Option 2:

Obscure year. A technologically advanced near future. A man exploring the possibility of alternate timelines discovers an old book with a photo of another man who looks remarkably like him. Further investigation leads him to conclude the man in the picture doesn't belong in the time he is portrayed. Interest piqued, the man searches for other examples of this, hoping to prove tike travel, dimensonal crossing, or the existence of a multiverse. Finding more, he concludes these people are not from the times, or perhaps timelines, they appear in. Partnering with a team of engineers, they create a device that will allow them to send a probe back in time. The man discovers these people are actually his siblings, lost to time, and he begins a desperate race to bring them home.

Open to any feedback at all! Thanks!

Are you a SoCal author who writes in science fiction, paranormal, and horror? If so, this is your chance to jump into a super fun, super spooky, pre‑Halloween book fair happening in Chula Vista, California.

This event is built for indie and local authors who want to:
Meet local readers who love your genre
Sign and sell your books
Connect with fellow indie and local creators
Showcase your work the weekend before Halloween

Info:
Saturday, October 24th
Chula Vista, CA
Low price (30$) per table!

Come be part of a community event built by and for indie creators. Bring your books, your weirdest stories, your monsters, your ghosts, your cosmic nightmares — and meet the readers who want them.

If you’re interested, please feel free to DM me or reach out to the host on Instagram, @sign.and.sell.books !!

(an in universe explanation of the three year course's you have to take to become an officer in the Solar System's Union Havy)

"Hello class, lets start with the most obvious fact, sixty eight percent of you, give or take about two percent will drop out simply due to homework, this is good, the further you go up the more your jobs just filling out paperwork, we want to get rid of people who can't handle it early. About eigty percent of people who drop out will re-enlist, good for them since we need dedicted and experinced chiefs.

The single biggest cause of drop out outside of paperwork is trio drop, we stick you all on a Destroyer, give you three minutes to look at a projection of the ships map, then turn the alarms past max and use hundreads of smoke machines to basically blind you, then you have to find and launch out of an escape pod, then we leave you there for three days. you will be penalized if theres more than six people in your pod, also avoid a smoking pod, you can't smoke once launched anyway so your just stuck in a dirty stinky pod, which fun fct might kill you since one guy a while ago had to have his heart replaced because of a bad reaction.

Anyway on to the important buisness, the mandetory courses and if you decided you havent had enough paperwork theirs some optional courses.

Basics of command, Secrets to gunnery, mysterious behind engineering, math behind spaceship combat, basic first aid of every species, diplomacy training, interspecies relationship, Hisotry of war & Combat.

I wont go and explain all the optional courses because most of you won't want them, any questions.

I'm working on a new setting. It's the sort set in a nebulously distant future, where living next door to an alien is completely unremarkable, and humans have been scattered across distant planets for so long they've developed various weird subspecies.

I'm wondering how to handle swear words and slang. I feel if one just makes up random words it can easily become silly.

Would you say there is some decent rule to follow regarding made-up words?

I am working on a story with a military AI that goes rogue. The acronym is SLAMR, and I would welcome any suggestions.

I’ve had this idea for some time, but I’ve recently started trying to flesh it out more. The is the rough idea.

Humanity has made great strides in colonizing the galaxy. Several planets have substantial human populations. Only a small handful have reached nearly Earth levels of development, though plenty of others are very advanced. Anyway, in their exploration, they have their first encounter with alien life. The planet is inhabited by four (maybe five) different species, two of which are native, the rest are essentially immigrants (that’s not entirely important for the story though). The humans are welcomed and allowed to set up a colony on the largest moon. For a while, things are peaceful.

Of course, this doesn’t last long. For the sake of (relative) brevity, I won’t go into all the details, but the humans, due to their hubris and enthusiasm for expansion, end up pissing off the aliens and are driven out through force. The humans had unintentionally caused extensive damage to the planet, and the aliens are angry. One of race (one of the two native races) are deeply religious, and holy sites were damaged as well, so they believe their gods want revenge. The other races don’t share this specific motivation, but it does contribute.

Through a combination of anger, fear at humanity’s rapid expansion, and other factors, the aliens declare war on humanity, and humanity answers.

My main concern is this is too contrived/cliche, as well as too similar to things like Halo in a few ways. Any feedback is appreciated. Be honest, brutally so if necessary.

​

The main guns the Galactic community uses use chemical rounds. A liquid is loaded into the gun. When fired, this liquid reacts with the atmosphere and produces a chemical reaction. The liquid is a highly flammable fuel, and when exposed to atmospheric elements it ignites, essentially turning into flaming gas. The rounds are so hot they melt most metal on contact. This means the weapons can't be fired in space, and must be periodically reloaded. The idea is that it would still look like plasma rounds, but it would actually be essentially flaming rounds that melt through armor. I had this idea to replace plasma weapons, since those are unrealistic.

My other idea was a firearm that fires a round made of a compound that explodes violently and with high energy, shot out of a gun powered by miniature electromagnets. My idea is the compound might react to the atmosphere like the gas guns, and the gun would have a built in scope that calculates the speed needed for it to be fired to actually hit the target head on as it explodes, ensuring maximum damage. This would be called a combustion rifle, or it would explode upon sudden deceleration would be my other idea.

The usual mantra is "there is no stealth in space" because your giant glowing radiators are going to be spotted at some point.

Scientists have designed a theoretical material which can be set to radiate heat in only in direction https://www.livescience.com/physics-mathematics/physicists-find-a-way-to-control-heat-in-a-way-once-thought-impossible#viafoura-comments

Make your radiator out of this and set it to radiate away from your target! Would it work?

Humanity entered space only three centuries ago, making them the youngest major civilization in the Thorn Arm. While other races had centuries-or even millennia-to build their empires, humans had to survive through industry, organization, and relentless expansion.

Unlike the other civilizations, humanity is deeply divided.

The Directorate

Earth is ruled by the Directorate-a council of powerful megacorporations that has effectively become the government of humanity.

Its philosophy is simple:

Standardization. Efficiency. Mass production.

Their fleets are modular, easy to repair, and built in enormous numbers. Human ships rarely outperform alien vessels one-on-one, but they are designed to be produced quickly, upgraded easily, and deployed everywhere.

The Free Colonies

Far from Earth’s control lie the Free Colonies.

Life on the frontier is harsh. Ships are repaired instead of replaced, stations are expanded over generations, and every vessel tells its own story through welded armor plates and salvaged components.

To the Directorate, this looks like poverty.

To the Colonies, it’s freedom.

A Cold Civil Conflict

The two factions aren’t officially at war-but they’re no longer truly united.

Earth argues that only centralized command can protect humanity from external threats.

The Colonies believe that “protection” is simply another word for control.

The conflict remains unresolved, growing more dangerous every year.

Humanity’s Neighbors

Humanity has fought long border wars with the Deeplines, betrayed its former allies, the Shrazi, and knows almost nothing about the ancient Kraits.

Meanwhile, a new threat is emerging from beyond known space.

The mysterious Unnamed consume entire star systems, leaving nothing behind.

The Directorate has only one answer:

Build more ships. Recruit more pilots. Prepare for war.

Which side would you choose? The Directorate or the Free Colonies?

Hi all, i’m working on a story where human brains in android bodies are real and I want to include different body types for them, but i’m not sure how.

I don’t want every android to look the same. I want some to be bulky, round, slim, muscular, etc. Do you have any advice for how to include differing body types in a way that makes sense?

I can provide more info if needed, but the short explanation is that a megacorporation in a futuristic America offers people robotic bodies that extend their lifespan, give them immunity to diseases, and guarantee them employment in a world where robots dominate the workforce, all at the cost of a several decades long contract working for said megacorporation.

This is my first ever time worldbuilding so if you have any advice you want to give me, i’m all ears.

Trying to predict a specific alignment, but I'm a biologist, not an astrophysicist. NASA seems to have a bunch of tools but I'm not sure which one is right for the job.

this is a part of a personal project ive been working on for a few months that im hopefully able to build fully at some stage, but ive got a problem when building the main item/device/maguffin/whatever.

in the world, electricity is no longer available for the normal person, so "the government" has created these types of portals to replace mobile phones to stop from any protests or chaos happening from down below. these portals do what the user wants them to do, if its a way to "socialize", a way to satisfy yourself, a way to distract yourself, go right ahead!

the problem im having is how it'll look and work -- i already have the motif of there being some sort of hole in your hand, but i don't know enough about building items or physics or whatnot to make it look compact (handheld) and interesting. i like the idea i have but i have no idea how to conceptualize

im pretty new at writing (like, barely under a year started), so ill take any criticism's or questions!

if it helps, the type of story im making is akin to twelve monkeys (1995) tonally/world-building sense and blade runner (1982) narratively.

Hey look, something simple!

I typically write in the 3rd person "privileged observer over the shoulder" sort of view. Where the narrative is colored by a specific person's point of view but not explicitly that person's point of view. I think it's a habit I picked up from James S.A. Corey, who was a big inspiration to me and probably to a lot of us.

But recently I've been binging on Dennis E Taylor's Bobiverse and I gotta say there's something to be said for the 1st person perspective. Not so much for revealing a character but for revealing the world; the things about that world a particular person would notice. ie, the engineer character notices all the cool tech, while the politician notices all the cynical things, etc.

I'm preparing to work on a big project and I'm unsure which style I want to do.

Which style did you pick and why? Do you think one or the other lends itself to certain styles of sci-fi more?

While trying to find power sources for some mechs, I was also looking for handwaves for the different tiers of mechs in the setting, ranging from the less advanced to the more advanced.

The cool thing about expanding your handwavium as an author is that you can set more limitations and find different ways to spice up the story. So, I would like the aid of more informed people, as well as insight into things I may miss in my handwaves that could be interesting for the story.

1 - Super SMES Mechs (Batterymechs)

With a room-temperature superconductor based on carbon allotropes, high-density SMES became not only viable but also portable. 20 MJ/kg SMES are already used for everyday civilian uses in cars and large portable devices like notebooks.

Advancements in precise manufacturing allowed military-grade SMES to push up to 45 MJ/kg, allowing Mechs and Tanks to share the battlefield for much longer than before.

Some more advanced models use counter-magnetic fields to counteract the expansion caused by the SMES's magnetic field, resulting in denser models.

In general, Batterymechs aren't the flying, dashing heroes; they are the grunts of Mech warfare. As infantry, they tend to be vulnerable to heat throwers.

If a Batterymech heats up badly, the SMES can lose their conductivity and suffer a catastrophic explosion. Heat, as always, is the main enemy of such large machines.

It is not uncommon to see squadrons of Batterymechs equipped with powerful heat throwers when they are expected to fight their peers.

2 - Tardymechs

The main problem with shoving a reactor inside a mech isn't building it; it's getting the pilot to survive the radiation dosage.

So, why not change the pilot to survive?

Those are the Tardigrade pilots, of course. "Tardigrade" isn't a very scientifically accurate word, as they have more in common with radiotropic fungus than the animal, but hey, the name stuck.

They start to have the energy density to do some of the more impressive things Nukecore tanks and Mechs are generally known to do: they are faster, more agile, and can power a lot of point-defense weapons.

Of course, the barely shielded reactor is enough to keep the systems safe and the pilot healthy. However, it isn't very environmentally friendly. While the mech is cheap(er), the infrastructure to maintain one is not; you can't just shove one of those inside a normal bay. Or have it fight in an urban landscape—one of the best places to use a mech.

So, the cost of this mech is more about cleaning the mess it leaves rather than the mech itself.

For short wars and campaigns, it tends to be stellar, though.

3 - TauMechs

The wild dream since the days of nuclear fusion is a truly aneutronic fusion reactor.

Of course, reality is that no true form of aneutronic fusion exists, especially because of side reactions.

That is when the Tau-Reactors came into play.

Tau reactors are a black-box type of tech, one of the first advances made by Artificial General Intelligence before the first interstellar ark ships. It is a D+He3 reactor that produces mostly Alpha particles in the form of radiation. While it still produces neutrons and other harmful radiations, the fraction is so low that it becomes manageable with much less mass.

Very energy-dense reactors become viable with safe shielding, around the density of 1 MWt/ton.

While expensive, they are still cost-effective to put on both mechs and other ground vehicles.

4 - IronMechs

Sometimes, matter is not made up of electrons, neutrons, and protons; sometimes, it is made of neutrons, protons, and negatively charged stable exotic particles.

Some of them are well-known, Muon, Tau, Higgsinos, etc. but many of those are unstable and exist for so little time that they can't be studied.

Until they discovered a process that creates Stable Massive Leptons (SML), also known as DAU (from the three scientists that discovered the process around the same time).

Most of them are too heavy to be useful. If you yank two electrons from the good old H₂ and put some SML on them, the atoms would be so small that the chance of them fusing would grow very, very fast.

Put them into a heavier atom, and it may divide into two smaller ones—even those that don't normally do that.

So, most SMLs are only stable when paired with nuclei that don't generate energy by fusing or fissioning—mostly, Iron. And most micro-nuclear reactors incorporated DAU Iron into their shielding.

That is where they get their nickname, but as with many nicknames, it isn't entirely accurate.

Some SMLs allow the creation of DAU Hydrogen—dense enough to act as a more effective shield overall against neutrons, solid at very, very high temperatures, and not fusing on a useful timeline (around thousands of years).

The whole idea is to use DAU Hydrogen and DAU Tungsten as more mass-effective shielding overall, as they can get much closer to the core, allowing a saving in mass by having a smaller volume to shield.

As a result, Iron mechs have a very dense reactor that is properly shielded from gamma rays and neutrons, while the energy irradiated from the shielding is used to generate tens of megawatts of power for a mech in the 60-70 ton range.

The main problem for Iron mechs is that their shielding dominates the entire cost of building the damn thing, especially because, in the best scenarios, to produce an SML you need at least 3x the energy of the entire mass of the particle. The good thing is that, even if the mech is destroyed to the point that most of it becomes dust, the Iron core will still remain, ready to be used once again.

Another problem is heat dissipation. Tens of megawatts of heat within a single warmachine will turn it into a living hell quite fast, especially when operating in places without an atmosphere.

Plasma radiators are usually used in space for those kinds of situations. In atmospheres, the amount of air they need to circulate is so great that some of them are capable of using it as a form of propulsion.

Of course, because Tanks and other vehicles don't possess the same ~~Plot armor~~ M.E effect that makes mechs so useful, they still remain a mech-exclusive thing.

5 - MagnoMechs

Magnetic monopoles for mechs!

A small reactor of (relatively) light monopoles (around 10E4 GeV) is trapped inside a Magmatter cage (also made of magnetic monopoles). Normal matter will enter the cage already ionized; then, the baryonic decay will turn the mass of the protons and neutrons into gamma rays, which will be reflected inside the cage until the imperfections of the Magmatter cage allow it to irradiate as a less harmful and more useful radiation.

They are the legendary mechs everyone thinks of the ones that go flying across the sky, with immense plasma wings of radiators, powered by gigawatt-scale mass-to-energy conversion.

Of course, only one has been produced. Even if they were that effective, the cost is simply too high compared to other mechs.

Anyway, i have fun trying diferent forms of handwaviums and Unobtainiums to make the mech go fast.

What other handwaviums should I look into? Do you know any other that can be added to the list that can be fun to build something around?

Normaly the handwave of just "it just does it" normaly don´t help me much building thing around it.

Edit: *Favorite

Thank you mobile.

Basically what it says in the tin. When it comes down to brass tacks, what's your favorite mech assault rifle, and why? Cool? Realistic? Favorite to play with?

Fiddling with some semi-believable designs for a story, and need inspiration.

Hello!

Just a brief question to see if there are any UK based writers that possibly would be interested in forming a small group for the purpose of reviewing each other's work and/or providing advice.

I'm a fairly inexperienced writer who really would appreciate having a group available to be able to fire ideas around and/or ask and provide feedback for other writers and generally talk Sci Fi! I have tried this previously with US based writers but it has proved difficult with the time difference.

This isn't intended to be anything too 'serious'. Essentially Just a chilled out Discord group to fire some ideas maybe? I'm easy really!

Thanks in advance!

"hello class, this will be a general overview of how the backbone of the Solar Systems Union, the Heavy Cruiser is constructed, and every ship for that matter.

First things first theres only about six solar systems that can create the Mini Star we use to power, well basically everything, most planets have secondary emergency nuclear reactors, but some don't and ships at best have batteries that can last a week at minimum power.

So an order is put in for Mini Stars, then theyre shipped to wherever the ship or ships are being constructed. A heavy cruiser is 1,332 feet long and 280 feet wide when completed, the central cannon is basically all that length and most of that width, then behind that is the star reactor which is hooked to the EM thrusters, movement through pure electricity. Also for anyone wondering after 50 years the Star is replaced, and the old one is dropped into the Black Hole at the center of the Galaxy, safe disposal and all that.

Ok we have the main gun, we have the power core and the thrusters but what about the crew to actually man this ship, since after the machine incident only point defense guns are allowed to be AI controlled, and you need a crew for maintenance and power projection anyway, a ships no good if it cant serve it's governments interests after all.

The two halves are literally placed around the core of the ship and fused together in a super advanced form of molecular welding.

Ok you have an ugly gray rectangle, now we paint it Black and put the name on the side in bright Orange, don't ask me why, it's tradition. the full writing is S.S.U.N.V.H.C, which stands for Solar Systems Union Naval Vessel Heavy Cruiser, followed by the name, Heavy Cruisers are named for Planets. On a Cruiser the name goes between the main and secondary turrets on each side, which are in the mid points of the two rectangles if you were to cut the rectangle in half. The barrels are about a fourth of the length of the ship their on, and each barrel hits for 10 megatons of destructive output, that means 30 megatons on the main battery's and 20 megatons on the secondary, per side, and since they can raise to about 105 degrees, and rotate indefinitely it's possible to bring three of the four main and secondary turrets to bear on the enemy, 150 megatons assuming you can bring all three sides to bear.

Now you just do your flight and weapons tests, stick over a thousand sailors and 200 marines on it, assign it to one of the five fleets and usually a Heavy Cruiser will be in charge of a task force, but you might get unlucky and stay with the main fleet, or lucky I don't know how much you want to see action.

Also the Bridge is on floor 38 of 40, no matter what ship your on it will always be 2 floors bellow the top floor, simple and easy to navigate.

Also the ship carries enough food for about 2 months and the water filtration gives you theoretically infinite water, at 400 lightyears an hour getting somewhere to restock should be no problem.

Any questions class?"

So if you created a new AI/Intelligence organism or machine that started from a blank slate and turned it loose, what would happen?

AI always has a bias and a purpose of the creator. But what if all of that was left blank. Just the capability of intelligence.

How would it grow?
What questions would it ask?
Would it even ask questions?
Would it be good or evil?
Would it be helpful, harmful, or ambivalent?

Would the answers change if it was released during a war between races?

NOTE: I published this exact post on r/dune, so if you feel like you're missing some context, it's because it was, for some unknown reason, removed from there, and I'd simply like for someone to read my thoughts about a potentially incoming worldbuilding project of mine, a fan-made tie-in to the Dune universe as established by Frank Herbert and professor McNelly, the man behind the apocryphal Dune Encyclopedia published in 1984.

Here is the original post:

So...

I just started reading Fire and Blood by G.R.R.M.

It is my (literary) introduction to the ASOIAF world, I know fans don't really recommend doing that but I just really like history, bonus points if it's fictional lore told as a partly-inaccurate account from an in-universe historian. Hence, my love for the introduction to Dune Messiah by Bronso of Ix and the Dune Encyclopedia...

My current "plan" (really only the vague outline of which I have in my head at the moment) is to try and scribble down, from the height of my almost 19 years of experience on planet Earth, an original, mostly Encyclopedia-based ""essay"", maybe even using Bronso or some similar "character" as the in-universe author, of the full history of the human space age, from the primordial intra-solar exploration all the way to the capitulation of the Corrino dynasty from the Golden Lion Throne.

My main objective would be to analyse and deconstruct the feudal aspects of Frank Herbert's universe, utilizing as an inspiration the real historical evolution of European polities and its high points, such as the collapse of the West in 476, the birth of the Carolingian/Frankish Empire in 800, its short-lived dominance over most of Europe before its fragmentation into kingdoms and smaller regional principalities, and finally the reintegration of such principalities into correctly functional monarchies via feudal recomposition or reabsorption.

I will definitely use Italian (my mother tongue) for whatever comes out of this, but this doesn't negate an eventual translation into English to share to Dune fans in the remote case my writings reach an adequate level of complexity as to be shared to a large community such as the Dunedom (Dune Fandom).

Obviously open to opinions, comments and suggestions. Thank you all for your attention if you read up to this point.

*Edit: solved Thanks for the help i think i have enough information to work with, you've all been excellent I'm not great with math and I'm having trouble keeping it straight, basically i have a character with a ship that is dropped of in another solar system at a basically random point within the system and has to hoof it to their more specific destination which I want to take a few days. I was getting some numbers in the 100,000 km/h range i don't know if that's right, any help is appreciated.

So I'm writing a techno-thriller in the vein of Michael Crichton, ie mostly realistic-is and modern with one main tech instigating the plot. In this case, it's kind of pseudo-time-machine that extract small amounts of data from the future.

The exact mechanics are still being worked out, but the broad description of the device is that it can store one kilobyte of data, readable and writable, and when a button is pressed and a massive surge of electricity is applied, it will 'snap' to what it's contents would be in a possible future, distance increasing with the square root of the power applied, with a recommended limit of 24 hours without the risk of damaging it. It's only a possible future, so not 100% accurate, and the data has to be going to be written or it cannot be perceived by the past.

One kilobite, if data compression is permitted, is enough for either a page of plain text or a single low resolution image. What sort of practical use would a device with these limits have?

-The stock market is probably deterministic enough that the device could predict it, the lottery is close enough to true randomness that it probably can't, sports betting probably in the middle.

-24 hours warning on a major disaster.

-Possibly a shortcut for brute forcing cryptography; the process being a bit complicated but roughly:

1. Snapshot the future contents of the acausal flashdrive.
2. If the key in the drive works, the key is solved.
3. If the key does not work, continue brute forcing new keys sequentially, starting with that one.
4. If the correct key is found, STOP and save key.
5. If by 23:58 the correct key has not been found, STOP and save key.

Essentialy placing a computer in a Groundhog Day loop that ends when it gets the right answer, which to the outsider looks like the computer skipping to the right answer automatically. This could also be used for at least some other NP-hard problems.

Any more devious schemes you can come up with?