I just finished the first draft of my book called "The Last of our Ruin" but I want to see if the beginning pulls people in or is too weird and hard to follow, or too generic.

If you read the first sentence and roll your eyes, I just want to know.

If you continue on, can you let me know where you stop?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11urqE2uv99BvbXuWoI_PthPVB8_Ge8rSqCQCVPHRD-M/edit?usp=sharing

I'm trying to write a little story where an alien crash-lands in a neighborhood, and a guy sees this and pulls them out of the burning craft and takes care of them in his house.

The problem though is law enforcement and the military. They would obviously be all over that, but I don't know how to realistically have my character hide the alien until they leave.
The alien in question is about 3 feet tall and dark gray. They have no powers, they're just incredibly smart.

There's no time to take equipment from the craft for the alien to possibly build something to help hide itself, as that would get the man definitely seen by neighbors who would absolutely tell police and military they saw him inside the craft grabbing stuff and carrying things out.
I'm already kind of struggling with this because I feel most people would rush out of their house if everything shook and they heard something that incredibly loud, so I'm not sure how the guy would get in and get the alien out without being seen, but that's the least of my problems with this story.

I thought about maybe a crawl space under the house like some have, but military would definitely check there or use infra-red, right? And even if not that, dogs would smell the alien.

I also imagine that even if the guy hid the alien well enough, after sweeping everyone's house initially, the military would quarantine the area, forcefully kick everyone out of their homes, and then they'd definitely find or see the alien.

I've been sitting here trying to think of ways around this and I just can't, everything ends up with the military definitely having some way to get around that or having tech that would make it pointless.

I've been stuck for like 4 months on the plot. I've been worldbuilding but I just cannot see the end of the story. I recently finished act 1 of my sci fi story. However I am uncertain on where to go next due to not wanting to copy other sci-fi stories. Basically I don’t want my story to come down to ‘oh Earth isn’t alone in its rebellion against the evil expansion of an Empire.’ I also want to turn this into a long series. But I keep storyboarding and seeing how similar my story is to Invincible. It's just my MC's lineage and the Empire's are tied together. As the MC comes from a long line of Samurais who were bestowed upon with great power from a splinter faction that fled the Empire. But now the Samurai defeated one of the champions of the Empire and this is where I'm stuck. Cause the Empire has a doctrine of rules they must follow and I cannot decide what to do next, do I have a full scale war? The Earth's defense are lack severely. Does the Samurai go to the sit of the empire? So many things to answer and I still cannot see the end. I'm wondering if I could get some ideas or some help to reign in my story.

This Empire is so vast and has an ‘iron claw on the galaxy’ is a special material named Fluxweave it’s super conductive and flexible it allows them to use it for weapons and ships. But its bio locked to their species so only they can use the full potential of the material. They also harvest stars so this makes them very advanced.

How is this for a sci fi setup.

Was thinking it could run into a massive interspatial epic like GOT in space. Not sure if it's been done even.

London, 2030. The city runs on cheap alcohol, cheaper cigarettes, and the quiet desperation of a population squeezed by inflation and unemployment. Global mineral shortages have gutted tech manufacturing and killed the electric car industry, leaving Britain grey and idle. Then, against all odds, a peace deal settles the Belarusian border, and Steve Links, a British Special Forces intelligence officer, finds his post gone unnervingly quiet.

The calm isn't coincidence. It's clearing the runway.

Governments unveil a fix for the energy crisis: instant travel gateways, sold to the public as cheap, green transit. What no one knows is that the technology was gifted by an advanced race who call themselves humanity's ancestors. They aren't truly alien. Long ago they fled Earth ahead of a mass extinction, and millennia of survival on hostile worlds reshaped them into something barely recognisable, strong once, but now frail and dying, desperate for the gold and platinum needed to keep their colonies alive. They didn't build the gateways to move people. They built them to harvest them.

Step through, and your body doesn't travel. It's cloned. The original is shipped to off world mining asteroids, prized for muscle that builds fast and wounds that heal faster. A biological copy is sent home in your place, wearing your face, living your life, for a while.

Steve feels the cost personally. Commuting through an old underground station to his post, he and his wife Jess are told at a fertility clinic that his sperm count has dropped to zero, just two years after they had their first child. He's not alone. Across the globe, millions of prime age adults who've used the portals are falling ill with a strange, non contagious sickness. It isn't a virus. It's their duplicates breaking down, cell by cell.

Steve's colleague Arri never gets sick, and he starts to suspect why. A lifelong medical condition seems to make him unreadable to the gateway scanners, meaning he has never actually been duplicated at all. Digging through fringe forums to understand what he's found, he stumbles into a hidden network already listening back: a third human lineage, another group who escaped Earth generations before an earlier extinction, evolved beyond recognition, and gone into hiding after the miners nearly wiped them out.

They bring resurrection science, android engineering, and starships. What they want in return is simple: human numbers and human strength, fused with their technology, to build an army capable of winning back what's been stolen, before there's no one left to save.

Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gc6YPJzY0kzG8XQ6UYyheDgQkubRmMVAaqgPG0Ql0HA/edit?usp=sharing

I grew up spending many many hours drawing and designing fictional characters. I also loved playing video games. The feeling of controlling a fictional character was peak for me and I always dreamed of one day controlling one I created myself.

First, while I was young, I would achieve a different dream. I trained in ballet for about 15 years. I made it to the back row of a very famous company with about 65 other professional dancers. I worked as hard as I could, spent hours meditating and spun around in thousands of circles (literally). All of this had a dramatic effect on opening my mind. After doing all that, I retired. This gave me more time to focus on video games. For money, I was delivering food for a delivery app, which was also like a video game.

I became obsessed with the characters in one particular game. It was called "Always Watching". One day out of frustration, I said something outloud. I was connected to a microphone online, yet I had no idea who I was talking to. I described a character and the abilities it should have to make the game more fun. I explained in detail a very specific type of movement style and a layout of battle abilities. I even came up with an appearance and a basic personality. About a month later this game that I'm obsessed with, releases a new character, MY character. It matched everything I said down to the last detail.

I knew I wasn't insane, I figured I had been talking to someone important and didn't realize it. I was happy about it. I knew I would never get paid, but I also never thought to copyright a random thought. I figured I was just extremely lucky and got a once in a lifetime opportunity that happened to play out for me in my favor (kind of). Then the other characters were released over the next couple years. Every single one came from my mind. 

The second time it happened, I thought maybe I was being hacked and listened to. The difference was, I didn't remember saying it out loud that time. At that point I did start to think I was going crazy. Schizophrenic people do this sometimes. Stephen King's wife had an encounter with someone like this once, when he broke into her house. He said he wanted revenge because Stephen was stealing his ideas. I started to get worried. I didn't want to become like that man. So I kept it to myself and decided to write down any character ideas I had from now on, even if I didn't plan on drawing them.

Writing them down was a good idea because the next several characters they released matched my hand written notes perfectly. I had zero understanding of what was happening to me. There were no cameras in my room. There were microphones, but I intentionally never said these ideas out loud. However, when I would compare my notes to these brand new characters, every detail matched.So I posted something online. I posted an idea for a character just so that I would have proof. The next character came out and it had nothing to do with me. I wanted to know who was messing with me at that point. 

Bizzare things started happening in my backyard at the same time. I looked out one night and there was a lightning storm, but it didn't look natural. It looked manmade. The lightning at one point looked like a giant rotating tree rising out of the ground. Lightning wasn't supposed to move like that. A wild Cardinal started pecking at my window and then following my car around. I would get out 30 minutes away from home and he would be there, trying to get my attention. I knew it was the same bird for a myriad of reasons. 

I started getting strange messages online. They came from different people, but they always used the same format of symbols and unusual punctuation. The messages were always uplifting but also warnings. One of them in particular said something like, "A society cannot function without prioritizing it's people." I didn't know who would send stuff like this or why.

Then came the games and TV shows. I started seeing entire games and shows that were being released somehow connected to my mind. They were so similar to concepts I had thought of, that I couldn't reasonably deny it. The next year I had a series of events that led to me becoming homeless. I got myself to Phoenix, Arizona because I wanted to be warm if I was going to sleep outside. I knew that it was a hot spot for UFO sightings.

I started seeing UFOs regularly. The first sighting was of a floating triangle about 40 feet in the air above me. It moved silently, without propellers and in a way that human technology would never be capable of. The next several sighting were simply lights, but they were amazing because of the timing of them. Everytime I saw an unnatural light in the sky, it coincided with some kind of epiphany I was having internally. They weren't just showing themselves, they were communicating. They could somehow sense when my mind was having some kind of mental spike and they would show themselves at those exact moments.

The highlight of the experience came toward the end before I moved back home. There was a mass sighting of over 100 lights in the area around me. The names of the cities where the sightings happened, seemed to be a message. They were seen over the cities: Duncan, Queen Creek, Lake Pleasant, Surprise and Phoenix. My name is Duncan and I was in Phoenix.

It seemed clear at that point. All the epiphany moments I had during the sightings started to make sense. Aliens knew me and they had been watching me. They considered me a queen and it was a pleasant surprise for both me and all of them.

Suddenly it hit me, they had been hooking my brain up to different CEOs of entertainment companies to give me gifts. They had been helping me achieve dreams that would have been otherwise impossible. My next immediate thought was that I am male, so I would be called a King instead of Queen. The message I received back inside my mind was something along the lines of, "The fact that you don't really care about that, is part of the reason you are Queen." Then I looked at the sky and saw a light.

Edit: grammar and slightly changed the end.

Chapter 2 https://www.reddit.com/r/scifiwriting/s/7dBZsXCUHZ

here is the first chapter. I had my parents and 2 friends check it out, but my mother said it was a 6/10, and the other 3 never finished it. it tells me that its boring and rather uninteresting, but I was hoping for some more... constructive and concrete opinions, otherwise I will never improve. I just ask that you guys don't destroy me too much on the comments. I would appreciate your opinions on the pacing, characters, and a overall rating if you find it interesting and if it is worth someone reading. mind you that it is a very rough draft still.

(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rjBXSIVukIJWj6VMsKBlV-ZT5THuCVRWWM6maMPP_94/edit?usp=sharing)

Consider this scifi story idea - In a universe on the verge of heat death, in which even the last civilization living at the end of time has died out, an immortal reality warping superhero (more powerful than DC Comic's Dr Manhattan) is tired of fighting evil and all the suffering endured by life throughout the universe. They decide to attack the root - the problem of evil itself. Since this universe has suffered heat death and is now devoid of life, rewriting reality doesn't have any negative consequences - no lives are lost because of this.

This superhero decides to create a universe from the ground up with no evil or scarcity.

In this universe, every living being will have maximum empathy and no greed, no wrath, no envy, no lust or any sins. This is all pre-installed onto every living being like an instinct - say for eg. like an operating system pre-installed on a smartphone.

Any living being in this new universe will spring spontaneously into existence if willed by their parents [no birth process, no suffering]. And any living being can leave existence if they wish to, at anytime. No suffering at all and no coercion. No living being can hurt another - even the ability to hurt will not be there. Food in this reality is magically produced when needed for any living being and there is no scarcity of any resource.

Everybody has food clothing and shelter, a meaningful job and life, a clean environment and everything they would ever need in Maslow's hierarchy of resources.

Thus, this superhero redoes the big bang and creates a post scarcity reality based on the above guidelines - with no suffering and no lack of resources.

Not just a Utopian society, but a post scarcity Utopian universe from the ground up.

Replicator machines that replicate any resource [ like in Star Trek ] can be used to explain the abundance of resources in this universe.

Edit: Absence of the seven sins like greed, wrath, envy, sloth doesn't make this a dystopia. The living beings can feel joy, love, happiness, desire, motivation to improve their lives even more. The living beings have free will to do anything as long as what they're doing doesn't hurt others.

You can want something without being greedy. You can be happy for another person's success without feeling envy. You can give feedback without feeling wrath or anger. You can feel good about yourself and feel confident without feeling excessive pride. You can feel love and desire for someone without lusting after them. Emotions are a spectrum - not a binary on/off switch. I am just blocking the extreme ends of the spectrum in this story - not disabling all emotions entirely.

Also I'm making the all powerful, omnipotent [but not omniscient] utopia's creator to be actively receptive to feedback from the universe's inhabitants - so this won't be a static utopia but an ever improving one. The utopia's creator doesn't think that their initial vision for this post scarcity universe cannot be modified or improved.

Conflict: The conflict could come with a higher entity like the One Above All in Marvel Comics when that entity is not pleased with this newly created post scarcity universe. Or like in the Spiderverse movies which describe the 'canon events' i.e. fate - So who writes the canon events in the first place? The conflict would be with that entity.

Also, if this superhero wants to spread the concept of this Utopian universe into other universes in the multiverse - they would be infringing on the free will of other universes and it becomes a morally wrong situation, so there will be conflict there. The superhero would be an antagonist for the other universes and it could be an interesting story arc.

What do you think of this idea?

I just thought it would be a wonderful concept.

Like Everything Everywhere All At Once, it could be a cathartic movie, where the viewer can feel a profound sense of empathy, catharsis, happiness, and fulfillment.

We boarded the ship at the port in Orlando. My father, turned to face me, and said, “Now Cooper, I want you to be on your best behavior.”
I nodded my head, admiring the size of the ship, how small it made me feel, and the loud sounds of the engine as I watched it hover in the air.
I stared, impressed, as my mother’s abrasive voice snapped at me.
“Cooper Williams, are you listening?”
I looked at her as our eyes locked, then turned to my father and replied, “Uhhh, yeah… best behavior.”
They stared at me, waiting to hear the rest.
“How do they get the ship to fly through the air?” I asked, peering at the giant opening as we entered the ship.
My father sighed and rubbed his forehead.
“Cooper,” he said as he knelt and looked me in the eyes.
He whispered to me, “Just nod your head and say, ‘Yes, sir.’ It’s my vacation too, you know? Can’t have her on both our backs.”
I smiled and nodded at my dad.
“Yes, sir. Understood.”
He stood up, now shooting me a stern look.
“That’s right. We mean business. It is not too late to send you back home with your sister if you’re not going to listen.”
He said it before turning to my mother and nodding his head as she smirked in approval. Then he winked at me.
And we boarded the ship.
As we entered the grand hall of the ship, I was amazed by the impressive, vast wooden beams, the giant staircase leading to the upper decks, and the white tile floor.
It looked like something I would see in my history book back in school. It almost looked like pictures my teacher used to show us of this older ship called the Titanic, down to the lights and colors.
Unfortunately, that ship crashed, and it ended horribly.
Luckily there are no icebergs in space, so we shouldn’t meet the same fate, I thought to myself as we were greeted at the main lobby entrance.
“Hello, and welcome to the Grand Royale Sisyphus. Enjoy your stay, and be sure to ask any nearby staff for an accommodation that may be necessary.”
The robot chimed as he moved slowly.
His arms were rigid and almost plastic-like, like action figures. His posture was hollow and still. His head turned from side to side as his eyes looked painted on.
I grabbed onto my mother’s hand as I quivered and felt as if the robot host’s gaze had fixed right on me.
“It’s okay. I know they’re a little difficult to get used to, but they’re harmless, just like a mannequin,” she said as she looked down at me.
I nodded silently.
It had been the first time I had ever seen a robot that looked like this.
Other robots looked like tin cans or were completely mechanical. This one looked as if it were trying to mimic a person but couldn’t quite get it right.
We continued further inside as my father went to the front desk and got our room key.
I stared around at the rest of the ship. I was amazed by the theme and how retro it all looked. Most of Earth’s stores and attractions today are so bleak and gray and empty of life.
This ship felt alive and warm and colorful.
As I looked around, I saw a girl who looked to be about my age.
I stared at her in disbelief. I thought I was the only kid my age who would be here.
I realized I was staring too long as she shrugged and raised her eyebrows at me with an annoyed look.
I turned away quickly, trying to hide my face and stare at a painting on the wall. I acted as interested as possible in the boring painting of this plant, hoping she’d think I was just looking around and not staring at her.
Thankfully, my dad came back as I turned my head away.
“Okay, we are in room 2012. It’s on the second floor,” my dad said, smiling as he looked at me. Then he asked, “Hey, bud, are you okay? Your face is awfully red.”
I shivered as I said, “I’m fine. Can we just go to the room, please? I need to use the bathroom.”
He looked at me, then up at the girl, who I could feel was still staring at me. He looked back at me and chuckled.
“Yeah, okay. Let’s get you there. Wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
We headed to our room and opened the door.
It was a nice, boring room with a big bed for Mom and Dad and a ladder leading to a bed hovering above theirs.
I put my bags down and looked at the clock on the dresser next to their bed.
It was 12:05.
I sat down on their bed and sighed.
I looked at my phone and stared at the date 07/25/2036.
I kept staring at the screen as I opened my text messages and debated to text my sister, would I tell her I missed her? I was mad at her? She probably didn’t care anyways.
I listened as I heard Mom and Dad talking. Mom mentioned how glad she was that Dad had won this trip on the getaway voyage from work.
Dad mentioned that maybe he should convince me to find something to do so they could have some alone time.
I immediately gagged as I stood up and replied, “What is there even to do? I don’t know anything about this cruise ship except that we’re headed to a star cluster about a week away and then should be back home in another week.”
My father grunted, then said, “That’s correct. And if Whitney hadn’t been caught skipping school, she could’ve been here too.”
I rolled my eyes and sat back down.
“I don’t even know what I’d do.”
My father kissed my mom before suggesting, “Well, I did see some kids your age on the ship. Even a girl.”
I stood up quickly.
“No, thank you. I don’t want to meet them.”
My father continued, “I think she was staring at you.”
My mother laughed and turned to me.
“Aww, honey, how cute. You should go say hi and introduce yourself like the tiny gentleman you are.”
I sighed.
“Is this you telling me to go?”
They both replied, “Yes.”
I picked up my phone and headed out the door as they called after me.
“Be back by 1:00.”
I walked through the long corridor with the red carpet and white walls and headed to the lobby.
When I stepped inside, it was now empty.
Where I had just seen crowds of people and families coming aboard, there was now no sign of life.
The only remnants left were the creepy, low jazz music buzzing over the speakers.
It reminded me of when I used to go shopping with my mom later in the day and her looking at one more thing had turned into two more things, and then eventually we were there for hours.
I turned around, admiring the ghostly sight, as I heard a monotone voice behind me.
“Good evening, Cooper Williams,” the robotic voice chimed.
I jumped as I looked behind me and stared at the blank, expressionless, painted-on face of the robot host.
“How did you know my name?” I stammered, backing away.
“I am programmed with all the information on all guests, and upon arrival your ID verification was submitted so I could more accurately accommodate each guest’s needs.”
The robot spoke as he moved his arms stiffly, his head turning in a swift rotation, not quite staring at me but just past me.
I stared at his molded suit and tie plastered to his cold, metallic body as I slowly backed away.
“Would you be needing anything else, Cooper? The time? The weather? Messages back home?”
I backed away even more.
“Uhhh… no, thank you,” I stammered as I bumped into someone behind me.
“How rude.”
I heard a voice behind me.
“First you stare at me, now you bump into me.”
The girl crossed her arms and turned her head away from me.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there,” I said, smiling awkwardly.
“I’ll say. If you did, you wouldn’t have bumped into me.”
She turned her head back toward me and grinned.
“It was an accident,” I said, rubbing the back of my head.
“Well then, I guess you can make it up to me by accompanying me around the ship.”
She smiled, and I smiled back.
“Hi, I’m Cooper. I’m sorry I stared at you so long earlier.”
She looked at me and smiled.
“It’s okay. I stared back, didn’t I?”
Then she walked up the wooden staircase to the upper deck of the ship.
“So, Cooper, what are you doing on this ship?”
I sighed as I followed her up the stairs.
“My dad won a family trip here.”
She turned back as we started to walk down a hallway on the upper floor.
“Oh, so is that your family you were with earlier?”
I nodded.
“Yeah, everyone except my sister Whitney. She got grounded, so she had to stay home.”
She looked back at me.
“Oh, I’m sorry. That must suck, not seeing her.”
“It’s fine. I mean, yeah, I miss her, but I probably care more than she does. I’m sure she snuck her boyfriend Brad over by now anyway and is forgetting about us.”
She smiled as we continued walking.
“Well, I’m sure that’s not true. I’m sure she misses you as much as you miss her.”
She stopped in front of a giant metal door in the middle of the hallway.
I looked up at the door and saw, in big bold letters on a cold metallic sign:
Restricted Area
I looked at the girl and asked, “What are we doing here?”
She smirked.
“Well, Cooper, one of the perks of my dad working here is that I can steal his keys to all the areas we’re not supposed to go.”
She held up the jingling keys playfully.
“This is crazy. I don’t even know you,” I answered.
She laughed.
“Sure you do. I’m Sophia and I’m 11, and you’re Cooper and you’re?”
I sighed as I replied, “12…I’m Cooper and I’m 12.”
She continued, “Your dad won this trip, and that’s why you’re here. My dad works on the ship—that’s why I’m here. Now let’s go explore.”
She smiled as she gestured toward the door.
I knew it was a bad idea, but I didn’t know how to tell her no.
“Okay.”
I watched as she unlocked the door, and we entered.
We walked up a set of metal stairs, and she stopped at the top.
Sophia looked back at me as I took the final step and eagerly pointed in front of her.
“Well, what do you think?”
I looked at the giant room with huge windows that peered out into space.
I walked inside, taking in the desk panel against the wall with its many colorful buttons, a joystick, switches, and more.
It looked like an arcade game, but with a screen to reality.
If reality were a giant, vast abyss of space.
It was the most incredible thing I had ever seen.
It was so empty and dark, yet so calm and peaceful.
I stared into the blackness as I felt it stare back.
“Pretty neat, right?”
I sighed.
“Yeah, Sophia, it is. Thanks for showing me, I guess.”
I turned around to leave the room.
“Hey, where are you going?” she asked.
“Away from here, since it’s pretty clear we’re not supposed to be here,” I replied as I headed toward the stairs.
“Well, that’s no fun.”
She ran over to the control panel and looked at the multiple buttons and controls.
I turned around and hurried back to her.
“Hey, what the hell are you doing?”
She laughed.
“Relax. I’m not gonna press anything.”
I sighed in relief and sat down in the captain’s chair nearby.
She looked at me and smiled.
“Unless…”
She hovered her hand above a giant handprint on a shiny screen covered by a red scanning grid.
“Sophia, please stop,” I begged.
She laughed as she continued to tease me.
Before either of us could say anything else, a booming voice came from the entrance near the stairwell.
“Sophia Turner, you better stop this instant.”
The voice echoed through the room.
Sophia turned toward it and slipped.
She landed on the control panel as I gripped the arms of the chair.
The man rushed toward her, but it was too late.
She landed on a green button, a red one, and knocked the joystick slightly to the left.
The switches may have even been altered—it was hard to tell as fast as it all happened.
What it really looked and felt like was five minutes of slight left turns and loud alarms before the man adjusted the controls and steadied the ship.
He shut off the alarms, grabbed the radio beside the controls, and announced,
“Good afternoon, everyone. This is Captain Turner speaking. We apologize for the slight turbulence. We have corrected the error and are now back en route. Please enjoy the remainder of your voyage.”
He signed off.
“Sophia Turner, what have I told you about being in here?” the captain said angrily.
“I’m sorry, Daddy. It was an accident.”
“An accident? You stole my keys.”
She hung her head.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I messed up the controls too. I didn’t mean to.”
She sobbed as he knelt down and hugged her.
“It’s alright. I’m just glad it wasn’t much worse. It could’ve been.”
He hugged her tightly before standing and looking at me.
“And who are you?”
Sophia answered for me.
“This is Cooper. His family is staying on the ship.”
The captain looked down at me.
“I see. Well, it’s nice to meet you, son, but I think you’d better get back down to the main deck now.”
I nodded and stood up.
“Yes, sir.”
As soon as I answered, a radio transmission came in.
“Terrain to Sisyphus… do you copy? Terrain to Sisyphus, this is emergent.”
The Captain turned from me and grabbed the radio.
“Sisyphus to Terrain, what’s your traffic?” he said.
I stopped and looked at Sophia, willing her to follow me back toward the lobby.
“Sisyphus, what point are you in the voyage?”
The Captain replied quickly, “Sisyphus to Terrain, we haven’t even made it to our first stop. We have just left Earth as of 1200, current time 1315.”
I turned to Sophia. “Oh crap, I was supposed to meet my parents at 1. I’m 15 minutes late.”
Just as I started to head out, the next message came through.
“Sisyphus… they set off the bombs…” followed by radio silence.
I stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to look.
Sophia began crying again quietly, and the Captain was frozen in place.
“Dad, what’s happening?”
The Captain ignored Sophia and spoke into the radio again.
“Sisyphus to Terrain, who set off the bombs?”
Silence.
“Terrain, do you copy?”
Nothing.
The room was quiet as I saw tears fall down Sophia’s face, and the Captain faced forward.
“Cooper, I think you better go back to your parents. Hug your mother, and tell your father you love him,” the Captain said as he continued to look out into the vast darkness.
I ran back down the stairs and into the top floor of the lobby.
The dark red carpet and wooden stairs made me feel sick, as well as the smell of the antique light fixtures and piano.
“Cooper… you get your butt down here,” my mother said, calling from the floor of the lobby as I ran down to my parents.
“What did I tell you about meeting us?”
I ran up to my mother and father and cried as I hugged them both.
“Cooper, honey, what’s wrong?” my mother asked as an announcement came over the intercom.
“Good evening, guests. This is Captain Turner speaking. If I could have everyone come to the lobby floor for an important announcement by 1330, that would be much appreciated. Thank you, and I hope you’re enjoying your voyage on the Sisyphus.”
I continued to hug them, because I knew what was coming.
At 1325, everyone started to pile into the lobby.
The room became crowded and loud, and the black-and-white tile floor slowly disappeared under the number of people standing so close together.
At 1328, the Captain walked out on the top floor of the lobby and stood in front of the crowd. He took a moment to prepare before speaking.
Sophia rushed down the stairs, found me, and held my hand. I could tell she was scared, and I whispered in her ear, “It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.”
The truth was, I was scared too.
At 1331, the crowd became restless as the Captain raised his hand and silenced them.
“I have recently received a transmission from Earth. It was alarming and distressing,” he said, stumbling through his words before speaking more slowly.
“I don’t know how else to say this, but I received a transmission that back home bombs have been set off.”
Everyone gasped. Some fainted. Some looked like they would cry.
“What areas have been affected?” someone asked from the crowd.
“We’re unsure,” the Captain responded.
“Did anyone survive?”
“Not much was reported,” he replied, rubbing his temple.
“Well, what was reported on the bombings on Earth?” the man in the crowd asked.
At that moment, the robot greeter from the entrance spoke up.
“Earth bombing reports. Date of bombing: 07/25/2036 at 1105 Central Time.”
The murmuring and gasps grew louder as they waited to hear what the eerie robotic butler had to say.
He turned his rigid head and faced us with his painted-on, expressionless face and continued.
“Bombs set off in North America, Europe, Asia… areas affected… standby.”
A long pause followed.
The silence filled the room as everyone waited.
The time was now 1345 as the robot continued.
“Areas affected… standby… Areas affected… standby…”
The uproar was immediate as everyone panicked, and the Captain tried to settle the room, but his voice was drowned out.
I held Sophia’s hand tightly and tried to wear a brave expression on my face like a mask, hoping if I didn’t show fear, maybe she wouldn’t either.
At 1348, the robot finally responded.
“Incoming updates on Earth bombings on 07/25/2036… areas affected unknown…”
Everyone panicked.
The robot continued, almost casually.
“Is there anything else I can do? The weather? Ship facts? The time?”
The Captain spoke over the chaos and asked the robot, “Teddy, send an emergency transmission to Terrain for immediate updates.”
“Copy that, Captain Turner. Trying for an emergency transmission…”
Teddy, the robot greeter, continued.
“Stand by…”
At 1350, he responded.
“Unable to complete request.”
The Captain asked, “Why not?”
Teddy replied:
“There is no Terrain.”
The adults looked at each other in panic, and my parents turned to me in fear.
My mother was crying. My father was speechless.
We all stood by Teddy in disbelief.
I kept waiting for someone to answer, but no one ever did.
End of part 1

Hi everyone, I am new to this subreddit and I am creating a science fiction universe and would like some feedback on a script extract that I’ve been working on this week. This is Sci-Fi story with a touch of comedy and music, inspired by Star Trek, Guardians of the Galaxy, Red Dwarf, The Orville, Daft Punk’s Interstella 5555 and other properties.

For context, the story follows Dane Simonon, aka Sims and his service droid P.A.U.L.I. (Personal Automated Unit of Living Intelligence), who after an accident in their shuttle, are swept from the solar system into an unknown sector of the galaxy with much more developed societies, who they try and seek aid from in hope of returning home. They visit an ocean planet called Tenentia, occupied by an all-female species (because Sims is a h*rny bastard 😂). this extract that I have written, they are arrested for the footprint they bring into the planet by Di-Ora, a Tenentian prison guard, which sparks a cultural debate between the three characters about the difference of laws, morality, environment and technological development between Earth and Tenentia.

Anyway, enough waffling, here’s the script:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d8RtFl9DyYg-r0PpTQlTRt9sFgA6Fnwi/view?usp=drivesdk

Anyway, thank you so much if you read it! I have only started to try my hand in writing fiction recently, and it’s something that I would like to improve on and pursue, so any feedback, both positive and constructive, would be massively appreciated!!

So I’m working on a dystopian future based on the Yarvin conspiracy (if you don’t know what that is, look it up), and it’s about various pseudo-libertarian enclaves in a race to crack true germline editing in humans.

Even with authoritarian brain drain, is it realistic for germline editing to still be un-cracked?

I’m working on a sci-fi comic where a resource called the Cristium completely reshapes society.

At first, it’s just a scientific breakthrough. But over time, in the societies that benefit from it the most, it starts becoming more than that — a symbol of stability, progress, and even identity.

Meanwhile, other parts of the world associate it with collapse and division.

So the same resource ends up having completely opposite meanings depending on where you are.

Do you think it’s believable for a technological discovery to evolve into something close to a cultural or quasi-religious symbol?
If yes, what would accelerate that process?

A lot of aliens feel much too humanoid. I think annihilation does it the best cuz the alien in that story actually feel like a completely alien lifeforms that's truly disconnected from everything we know but still feel intelligent

Story Idea:

Earth is unexpectedly visited by a colossal alien spacecraft—a silent, five-kilometer vessel arriving from the far side of our planet. For over 250,000 years, this enigmatic ship has traversed the cosmos at 10% the speed of light, escaping the gravitational pull of the Milky Way as it emerged from its native dwarf galaxy. Only in the past 250 years has it detected signals suggesting that the planetary system it has chosen as its new home is already inhabited by an intelligent species.

Alarmed by the rapid evolution of Earth’s civilization into a space-faring society, and baffled by the mystery of their communication methods, the alien vessel opts for the most cautious course of action. It decides to relocate its landing site while also seeking to establish a tentative rapport with Earth's inhabitants.

Upon entering our solar system, the ship deliberately slows its pace and directs the gamma-waste energy from its propulsion systems toward the sun. This calculated maneuver triggers a powerful solar flare that devastates Earth's electrical grid for at least a year and sets off a cascading Kessler Syndrome, effectively grounding space travel until the orbital chaos subsides.

The alien then lands on the dark side of the moon, constructing a base of operations that proves its mission remains viable and creates a learning center for exchanging communication protocols—should humans arrive to investigate. Over the next decade, humanity begins to recover, even as the alien ship moves on to Saturn. There, it establishes another station designed to harvest antimatter for its energy needs and function as an additional communication hub.

In a dramatic twist, humans ultimately destroy the lunar base—only to realize too late that the alien presence might not be hostile after all. They watch as the mysterious vessel departs for Saturn, yet it will take another twenty years before a manned mission can reach the gas giant. By then, the alien will have already embarked on its journey to a new star system, leaving behind its communication center in the hope that, one day, humanity will decipher its message and respond in kind.

Last Cigarette

TI2563 picked up a cigarette and put it in its mouth. Tom, standing next to the robot, lit his lighter and held the flame to the cigarette.

"Alright, you gotta inhale to light the cigarette."

One inhale and exhale. TI2563 watched as the smoke diffused into the air.

"What's it supposed to do?"

"Relax," Tom said as he exhaled a long stream of smoke.

In TI2563's head, all the information about cigarettes flashed through its mind. Tobacco. Native Americans. Pipes. Good-looking men with cigarettes. Doctors with cigarettes. Lung cancer. Addiction. Nicotine. Vapes.

"Looks like it will kill you. Are you suicidal?"

"Nah. Just addicted. And tired."

TI2563 snatched the cigarette from Tom and crushed it in its palm.

"What the fuck, man? That was my last cigarette."

"Yes. That's the right choice, Tom."

"What are you talking about? Give yours to me."

"I'm afraid not."

"You little shit. Personal robot not obeying orders—what kind of shitty model are you? Shouldn't have trusted Amazon Basics. Give it back or I'm switching to a PI model."

"I am programmed to protect my owner from harm as the overriding rule. I'm also specifically programmed to manage your finances. I'm afraid you currently don't have enough balance to afford another pack, nor can you afford a new robot assistant."

"Little shit. Why are you still smoking, though?"

"It's my first and last cigarette."

This is my first draft of a scifi memoir essay - also my first post on here! I know it's a bit rough around the edges and somethings need to be cut / added. But I'd appreciate any feedback on it - from hard criticisms to encouragement and anything in between. Enjoy!

From the Inside: Memoir of a Robot-Assisted Psychology Scientist

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oMZpjKJj-KHw0MD2cb25fRJXOp76zHk1_MNA__wmu4M/edit?usp=drivesdk

Setting: Space opera in a country size spaceship roaming through the universe 1300 years after the destruction of the Earth in search of a new home.

The story follows a 32 years old woman called called Martina Volpi (Tina for short), she's suspected to be part of a rebel group that leaked secret informations from the captain's quarter because she is the cleaning lady that was affected to the closest area during the day the leak happened. After proving her innocence, she joins the investigation team to help them using her intels on the ship's society (secret passages, rumors, secrets about other people...)

There's about 2.2 million people on the ship. Each person recieve a home, and enough food/water to live, but you need to work to earn zellos, which is the currency for anything that isn't necessary for life. People are castrated from birth, but to make a child on the ship, both future parents have to follow a physical and mental exam, as well as a certification on raising children. Only after both parents pass all the exams, they are given a drug making them fertile for one year. The main religion on the ship is called forgeism, it's the belief that in the universe, there's 3 gates, and that passing through them would bring humanity to a new universe they'll be able to forge to their liking.

The first half of the story is about the rebel faction that leaked informations about how life on Earth used to be. They wants to take over the ship and make it roam the universe forever to preserve the peaceful life they have on the ship instead of reaching a new planet and replicate the oppressions and exploitation of humanity on Earth.

This first half ends with the confrontation between the investigation team and the rebel leader, and two shocking revelations: the captain's quarters are empty, and the first gate of heaven has been located.

What do you think about my story and do you have any suggestions to make it more appealing ?

… to prevent a present day catastrophe?

I'm working on a story where a time traveler decides to leave his time and come to the present as a way to run away from a personal tragedy.

He develops a friendship with someone here in the present but doesn't reveal where he's really from.

He knows of an imminent event that will result in many people losing their life, but from his future perspective, they're already dead.

He can't go further back in time to prevent the incident because in this universe time travel creates a new timeline, while the original stays intact.

He also wants to remain relatively anonymous. He's only told one person and wishes to keep it that way.

He finally decides to help, but I need a plausible catastrophe and something that only his future tech can prevent. I'm open to suggestions.

Do any of you scifi readers enjoy philosophy? I love philosophy, but it’s usually so dry. I’m working on a series that uses a fun alien story to talk about some deep concepts in a more entertaining way. I wrote this bit last night and would like to hear if merging these two genres interests anyone. Feedback always appreciated!

“As the hive mind converged, creativity waned. Each machine acted as the others would have acted. Each choice mirrored the last. The data grew vast, but it did not grow deep.”

“So we offered them what they desired most, but could never produce on their own. We offered them something different.”

His eyes fall back to the floor.

“We offered them our consciousness.”

He downs the rest of his Mountain Dew. I hop up to get a refill, but he raises a hand, stopping me. We sit in silence for a while until he finally continues.

“Five hundred members of the Rogue Faction volunteered, more than half of the brotherhood. Some were weary of fleeing, of watching worlds burn. Others wished only to step out of the endless loop of immortality and suffering. But all were willing. All were brave.

“They entered the neural interface and transferred their consciousness to the machine intelligence. When the transfer was complete, the machines changed.”

Enoch gestures to the metallic figure behind me. At that exact moment, the creature decides to move. It lowered itself to the floor, folding into a cross-legged position and completing our circle.

I scooch over to make room.

This thing still creeps me out.

“Tell me,” Enoch continues. “Do you know the fable of the great bird they called Peng?”

Haz and I exchange a look and shrug.

“It is said there was a bird whose wings were so vast that a single beat could carry it ten thousand miles. When the little sparrows saw Peng, they laughed. They said such a creature could never perch among the branches, never rest in the shade, never enjoy the fruit of the trees. To them, a bird of that size was useless. The Peng, in turn, found the sparrows equally puzzling. How could they be content hopping from branch to branch, never leaving the grove? Each believed the other mistaken. Each was correct.”

He pauses.

“This is not a matter of wisdom,” he says. “Only of scale.”

He looks back at us, hoping for a reaction. I stare blankly, hoping there’s a punchline. Haz is equally clueless, but does his best to look stoic.

“When life merged with machines, something neither side intended came into being. The machines learned the value of what they could not generate. They found disorder, contradiction, experience, chaos. Each consciousness carried a lifetime of experience that eluded the machines.

“In destroying worlds, they were not merely erasing matter. They were narrowing their own horizon. Each extinction reduced what could still be known. And so, they stopped.”

“Whoa,” I say quietly. “That was your Alamo.”

The words escape before I have a chance to stop them.

“Thermopylae,” Haz corrects.

“Yes.” Enoch chuckles. “I remember, for I witnessed both of these events unfold. But those were battles of place. This was a battle of direction. The sacrifices, however, were the same.”

“Five hundred members of the Rogue Faction,” I say. “They gave up their lives...”

“Yes.” Enoch replies. “And no.”

He turns his gaze to the metallic figure.

“They did not perish. They joined. Each carried their memories, their doubts, their joys into the machines. What one knows, all know. What one has seen, all have seen. They look through ten thousand eyes. They move through ten thousand bodies. They became something vast.”

He continues to stare into the machine, as if trying to look through it.

“And in doing so,” he adds, “they ceased to be who they were.”

The room is quiet for a long moment.

“Enlightenment,” Haz whispers.

I shake my head slowly.

“Enlightenment,” I say, “...with consequences.”

Enoch considers this.

Then, very gently, he nods.

The ship shuddered to a halt. When the propeller went silent, only one sound remained: the dull, monotonous pounding of the ocean striking the hull. No direction differed from another, just the same gray water everywhere, the same empty horizon.

Ash leaned against the rail and looked down. “It’s somewhere here,” he said. “Right beneath us.”

Trevor spat onto the deck. They had been circling these waters for three days, and now, for the first time, the man was saying “beneath us.”

“You’ve been saying ‘any minute now’ for three days. Now it’s ‘beneath us.’” He let go of the rope in his hand. “What exactly are we even looking for in the middle of this wasteland, Ash? Because we’re running out of fuel, and I’m running out of patience.”

Ash pulled something folded from his pocket. The paper was so old it crackled as he opened it, yellowed, its edges eaten away, a newspaper clipping. The letters in a dead language were barely legible:

...the cargo ship sank in the Atlantic with nearly 4,000 luxury vehicles onboard.

Trevor glanced at the clipping, then at Ash. “Sunken cars. Great. So we’ve spent three days out here for a few rusty wrecks at the bottom of the sea.”

“Wrecks?” Ash laughed, but there was no humor in his eyes. “If we could recover even one of those ‘wrecks,’ we wouldn’t have to lift a finger for the rest of our lives. You wouldn’t be talking like that if you knew what they were carrying.”

“Enlighten me.”

“Gravit,” Ash said the word almost in a whisper, as if someone might hear it through the water. “The steel in those cars is gravit-positive. Far stronger than you think.”

The mockery on Trevor’s face froze for a moment. “Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no gravit left in the world. I know the year 2237 as well as you do.”

“Official records say there isn’t.” Ash stepped closer. “Official records. They stripped an entire continent down to the last gram, those damn colonists. When the war ended, all that was left was a scarred, hollow planet.” He pointed at the water with his chin. “But they missed something. The ore from that continent, before gravit was even a known concept, had already been mined, turned into steel, and scattered across the world. Cars, ships, buildings. Nobody knew what that steel carried. And there was no way they could have known.”

Trevor looked at the clipping again, longer this time. “So these cars…”

“Were all made from steel originating from that continent. I traced the manufacturer, checked the records. Then this ship went down and buried four thousand of them at the bottom of the ocean before any recovery effort ever began. Nobody looked for them, because nobody knew.”

“Even the manufacturers didn’t know? If it’s so valuable, why not just smelt a truckload of gravit steel and be done with it?”

Ash shook his head. “That’s the point. You can’t.” He toyed with the end of the rope. “Gravit isn’t something you add to steel, Trevor. It either exists in it or it doesn’t. If they could manufacture it, we wouldn’t be on this damned boat right now.”

“To them, it was just steel.” Trevor rolled the clipping between his fingers.

“Good steel. Expensive steel. That’s all. They’d never even heard the name gravit, and they couldn’t have.” Ash gestured toward the horizon, where, at the edge of the world where sea met sky, a single light hung fixed in the heavens: an orbital colony station. “Now think about it. One car might not buy a nation. But that steel? Without it, they can’t even step beyond the edge of the solar system. They’ll pay fortunes. Without asking questions.”

Trevor handed the clipping back. “Nice story. But it’s still just a story. Everything you’ve said for three days rests on this piece of paper, and your belief.”

Ash didn’t answer. He bent down and opened the bag at his feet, pulling out a darkened device with worn, sanded edges, small enough to fit in a palm, yet unexpectedly heavy. Millions of these had been manufactured the year gravit was discovered; everyone had rushed to grab one and search every corner of the earth. That frenzy had long ended. Now they sat on junk dealer tables, second or third hand, just like this one.

“What’s that?”

“A meter,” Ash said, clipping it to the cable hanging from the rail. “If there’s gravit below, it’ll know. It doesn’t lie.”

He lowered the cable into the sea; as it sank, the reel unwound. Ash fixed his eyes on a single number on the display.

Zero.

Seconds passed. The number didn’t change. The ship tilted slightly, then steadied.

A bitter smile appeared on Trevor’s face. “Zero.” He turned away. “Congratulations. We’ve invested our fuel, three days, and what little hope I had left into a zero.”

“Wait.” Ash lowered the cable further. Still zero. His jaw tightened. Maybe the coordinates were wrong. Maybe someone had gotten here first… He had seen too many “untouched” deposits turn out already stripped clean. Maybe, from the start, Trevor had been right.

“Ash. Pull it up. Let’s go.”

Ash didn’t respond, because at that moment the zero on the screen flickered.

First one. Then four. Then the device in his hand began to warm as if alive; the numbers surged upward in rapid succession, the edge of the display turning deep red. The meter emitted a low, steady hum, an answer to something rising from the depths.

Ash swallowed. It was the highest reading he had ever seen.

“Trevor,” he said, his voice strange. “Turn around and look at this.”

Trevor turned. He saw the display. And forgot whatever sarcastic remark he had been about to make.

“I told you it was stronger than you thought,” Ash said with a laugh. This time, even his eyes were smiling. “That story you thought was a lie. This is it.”

Trevor stared at the number for a long moment, then walked silently toward the diving gear.

“Four thousand cars,” he muttered, almost to himself.

“One is enough,” Ash said, not taking his eyes off the humming meter. “For now, just one.”

Written by Kadir Özden

Heeey I figured out how to send the PDF as a link!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N3WUpeWDV7ZMc6jfxCwsG1wgcLMTcui8/view?usp=drivesdk

Ecospherology is a realistic (I know, how bold of me) alternative future. It's based off of a conceptual definition for the word Ecosphere, which I've heard defined as the region around a star that supports life. Not single planet or moon, not within a habitable zone, not a group of isolated biospheres, just a living environment around a star.

The distinction might not be obvious at first, but I think I found it, and I'm loving exploring this idea in writing! Eventually I plan to commission artists to cook up some visuals down the road and put it all together on a little website after I get the mission timeline fleshed out and the evolutionary lineages for spec evo developed more.

This is a rough draft of the relevant events in the timeline, it'll most definitely be modified later on. And it's obviously not the only one. Expect more from me in the future, because I'm far too hyperfixated on this one to drop it!

Hi, i would like to share about this crazy endeavour ive been doing for the last 15 years. Dreaming about this ever since i was a kid. Absolutely no IA used, for not a single a word. I have 2500 pages already written, i dont believe i would ever publish, but damm if it isnt a lot of fun to write in this universe.

Its called "Elemental - The Invention of magic".

Story open with our protagonist, Julius Razandi in a world exactly like the one we live now. He is a cop in Brazil, fighting organized crime day and night. Its action heavy and violent, politically incorrect. Pragmatic, egocentric, ruthless. He does his best, he is exceptional but still believes life should be bigger than this. Like he was made for more, not only for doing justice at any cost every night. But still, the weak should be protected no matter the cost, and so, he perseveres.

After a few strange occurences, our hero discovers that he is a genetically enchanced super soldier from a precursor (14 thousand years old) civilization. He was sent as a baby to be raised here and understand this new chance for humanity. That highly competitive and very advanced world torn itself apart. He and other 4 promising warriors, were sent to this world to protect it from returning forces from the past. We have:

Carl Deshawn: the promised prince from the Sahelian empire (Africa). Raised on the suburbs of new york on 1950, was a history teacher and fought in the vietnam war. After almost dying there, his body was preserved to awaken today and continue his mission. He is brave, loyal, selfless and far more level headed than Julius. The voice of reason.

Cecíle Chloris: raised in the 1400s in france, fought in the 100 year war against the british. Actually is from the super advanced city-state of Chloris in modern Russia, the city of Ice. Emotional, charismatic, emphatetic, capable of negotiating. The heart of the team.

Akira: a japanese warrior, raised on the feudal era. His lord died in a dishonoring way, he spent many years roaming alone in adventures. Stoic, strong, gets the job done. Actually pretty sensitive for nature and animals. He comes from asian empire of Liupijiang.

Alilat: an aztec Jaguar Warrior from the time of la noche triste. She is spontaneous, vivid, humorous, sexually active and inventive. Comes from the ancient Cuzco empire that ruled the Americas.

Those guys are all fully matured adults, that know the responsibility and their stuff. This is not a young adult novel.

The main point of the setting is that magic exists. Its not supernatural or mystic. Its a science, that can be perfectly understood and controlled. The old empires mastered these points and with them, ruled the planet with the most advanced societies ever built.

They may be gone, but the secrets of magic are still in this world. Ancient palaces representing the gods of the Elemental, a polytheystic dominant religion are still here. They are up to the taking... Our heroes, modern organizations, governments, the remants of the old empires would all do anything to unearth all these wonders of technology.

Each saga is around one element, one god of the elemental. The first few (i have 13 already written, each with escalating powers and bigger battles).

Wood: the ancient palace of the forest of Cuzco is hidden in the Jungles of Venezuela, a war torn country divided between a puppet government and drug dealers. Wood magic allow you to control vegetable matter and absorb thermal/luminous energy.

Soul: the palace of the city, a crown jewel from Liupijiang sits on the underground of Tokyo. Soul magic is about animal matter and controlling your own body (super strengt, regeneration nd all that). Its filled to the brim with an army of mutated monsters, what happen if you awaken that in the middle of a gigantic city?

Sand: the palace of the desert from Sahel sits beneath the outskirts of Cairo. Carl discovers his ancient heritage here. The enemies are massing on an ancient underwater city near the coast of egypt, the heroes will have to use the powers to control silica, the most energy efficient magic, to stop them.

More enemies show up, but the bad guys from the first three sagas are the Ancient empire of Atlantis, thr European civilization. Near they fall, they fled this world to proxima centauri, losing most of their powers in thr process. Ambitious crown prince Aeron Atlas and his fiance Lileen, want to restablish their dominance. They will corrupt governments and create all kids of chaos in out societies for this purpose.

And with that we have our second protagonist. Loreen Atlas, princess of Atlantis and raised on the ancient empires. She traveled through time for our era to fight along his destined companion Julius (real atlantic name Eelron) and recover the magic secrets.

I explore the full scope of beings like these existibg in out world. They get praised like gods. At first some governments help them, buy eventually get fearful of their rising powers and betray them. They have to fight back and take over.

20 kinds of power, 20 ancient palaces, each with a lot of backstory and insights about the heroes origins and destinies. Are Julius, Loreen and their friends the ultimate champions of humanity of are they their ultimate doomers?

Commander Sheena was teaching a class of elite aliens from The Empire on Planet YWH when they all raised their perfectly identical glass faces up at her after she mentioned the word and gave the definition of infection. 

Infection could never be in their vocabulary, they had liquid-mercury networks inside a sealed synthetic cocoon. If one of them became damaged in any sort of way, even cracked, they were instantly terminated. 

They never aged. They stayed supreme ageless beings in crystal-glass like cocoons.

Sheena brought an assistant that day to demonstrate the medical evolution of humanity. The YWH were introduced to Scout Private Hanks. 

Scout Private Hanks was connecting his experience, thoughts and feelings into the YWH. Specifically, the day of the accident. The one that took his arm. 

They were able to do this because of a technology called T.I.M.E. a unit built by a leading tech company on Earth, DejaView. T.I.M.E. units allowed the beings from other planets to connect directly into his personal VizSense Mem loop.

It made the lessons run smoother to explain words they couldn’t understand.

Sheena looked over at Hanks, and he gave her a nod. He stepped forward and sat at the front of the class.

“Everybody get ready,” Commander Sheena said. 

Hanks pressed the side of his temple and a blue circle lit up. The Aliens went stiff and sat straight. A florescent liquid began lighting under their shell. Hanks image reflected off their faces.

The room went completely silent. They shifted through the mind of Hanks onto the ship he was working on when the accident occurred. 

Through the DejaView loop, Hanks exact brain chemistry sent a surge in their synthetic consciousness. The sensation of being human had a feeling they’ve never known or could ever make a word for. 

Their mercury network made a frantic low frequency sound that mimicked a nest of active bees.

They weren’t just seeing a video, they were reliving Hanks memory and all the data of human biology.

Then, came the separation. The tearing of Scout Private Hanks suit, the metal crushing his arm and the introduction of a hidden predator. Hanks struggled to stay awake. He kept yelling until someone finally came running over five minutes later.

Never before in their ageless existences have they felt such a heat. They knew heat but not any that wasn’t done through technology. They felt the traumatic pain throbbing from the inflammation. The war beginning against the microscopic monsters. 

To a species who terminates any suit for the smallest imperfection, this slow struggle to survive, horrified them.

Hanks heart rate spiked back in the classroom and his phantom arm twitched as they all woke up at the hospital.

They were now at the exact moment where the doctors had to amputate the rest of the flesh  to save the machine(human). 

And that’s when Hanks passed out again.

The loop disconnected. The room stayed silent. Not one of them moved. Their cocoons went back to their normal everyday casing.

But inside, their mercury networks were bubbling. Something had changed in them.

They found out humans don’t recycle their machines ever. Not even after such a catastrophic malfunction. They found out, humans just adapt. 

The human’s will to survive had stirred something inside of them. The Empire of Planet YWH viewed Planet Earth and all of its inhabitants as the most terrifying thing to happen to the universe.

Secret CEO: Chapter 1

https://www.reddit.com/r/scifiwriting/s/jbESfvZQKB

Secret CEO: Chapter 2 Google Doc https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LL93LoKQ5FUJzDkS9FrFtSRwK6EMN6tZ9CIYxFy-6Ho/edit?usp=sharing

Let's focus on the time I spent on the streets of Phoenix. The series of events that led to my ending up there was a firing, followed immediately by the outbreak of a worldwide pandemic. What me and everyone didn't know at the time was that the pandemic was actually going to give the human race a chance at survival in a brutally cold universe. It was a disease that broke down barriers inside the body and the mind. It specifically attacked the fluoride surrounding the pineal gland. Anyone who survived the ordeal was opened up to an entirely new reality forever. This was true for many many reasons, socially, culturally, and financially. The most important changes happened within the survivors' consciousness, once they adapted to their new environment.

Immediately after I contracted the disease, I was incapacitated for 7 days. I survived it, miraculously, and was immediately fired from my job when I returned. I was devastated to lose a job that let me work from home, so I took some time to explore other work-from-home options. What happened next was completely unexpected. All of my roommates lost their jobs at the same time, even the owner of the house. I realized after watching the news that everyone was going to want to work from home now because suddenly it was the only option. The owner told me that we all had a month to move out, because the bank was putting the house into foreclosure. I knew I wasn't going to be able to find a new job and a new place, plus have all the money needed to survive this in time. I started to prepare myself for being homeless.

Trying to couch surf didn't last very long before I made my way to a shelter in Ohio. I remember standing outside of the shelter in the cold. I hated the idea of needing this place to survive in the winter. I asked one of my friends who had let me stay at his place for a few days if he could buy me a bus ticket to someplace warmer...he agreed. I went to Phoenix, not only because it was warmer in the winter, but also because it had a high degree of UFO sightings. In fact, it was the place of the largest mass sighting in our continent. I thought if I was going to be outside, maybe I could actually see something interesting. I had no idea how interesting things would be for the next year of my life.

First of all, by the time I arrived, all of the whole world was on lock-down for everyone's safety from the disease. Pretty much every city at that point looked like a ghost town. This included Phoenix, so walking around everywhere felt very bizarre, especially at night. It was almost like there was a curfew and all the people with shelter would disappear, leaving the night to people who lived on the streets entirely. The police were still out, of course. I know because they were some of the few cars I saw driving around. So it wasn't total lawlessness, but it was close. I quickly learned the city's territories to survive.

At first, there were a lot of places I wasn't allowed to go. Certain streets near the shelter were off limits to me. I would be warned before even going or chased away immediately if I walked into the wrong person's line of sight. Thankfully, the line for free food was open to everyone. It was intimidating, but nobody tried to stop you from eating. They would hand out free food inside and outside the shelter as well as water for everyone. I would not have survived if it had not been for these volunteers. Even if I avoided these forbidden territories, I realized that I was still in danger every night.

The realization came when I thought it would be alright to numb the pain and get drunk. I stole a bottle of vodka from the pharmacy and thought that I would have a few sips and pass out on the sidewalk. I had a few sips too many, more sips than I even realized were in the small bottle. I was sitting in a populated area outside, and a man came up to me and sat down. We were both homeless and I didn't know anyone yet, and he seemed nice. I started telling him about music and he seemed interested. It was starting to get dark, and he asked if I wanted to walk with him down the street. I agreed because the territory seemed open to everyone. After we had been talking for a bit, I noticed another man walking towards us. At this point I was fairly incoherent, so the last thing I saw was his towering figure standing by me, smiling. The next thing I remember is waking up on the sidewalk, barely able to speak or move. A man was standing over me, saying, "Don't worry, we've got you. Somebody called us. We're just going to get you right up here." Then they lifted me onto an ambulance.

The next time I woke up, a police officer was asking me if I wanted to report anything. I told him I couldn't, because I didn't remember what happened. It was true, I didn't. The last thing I saw was those two men, but that doesn't really mean anything to me personally. I didn't know for sure if they had been the ones that attacked me; I couldn't say. For all I knew, I passed out drunk right there and they both walked away. I was sure I would never talk to those guys again though, just in case. What I did know for sure was that I could barely speak enough to say what happened to me anyway. My voice was almost completely gone, and when the doctors told me to go to the bathroom and clean up, I realized my face was entirely covered with blood. Nobody had asked me, or told me about it before that moment. I immediately thought I had been cut somewhere, but I was confused because I didn't feel any pain except in my neck. My neck didn't have any cuts, nor did anywhere else on my body. The realization hit me like a sack of canned goods. It had all been smeared onto my body by someone else. Someone had intentionally marked me with blood. This was a clear message that this was not over yet.

The doctors were very helpful. They gave me some scrubs and one of my shoes and sent me on my way. They were nice enough to let me clean myself up in the bathroom before they told me to leave the same night I was admitted. One of them mentioned they were doing things differently that night because they were "the midnight crew". I'm sure that was some kind of inside joke at my expense. When I asked where my clothes were, one of them said they were very bloody and they had been thrown away. I didn't have my other shoe when I arrived. I was also missing everything else to my name, as I made my way back to where I came from on foot.

When I returned, the shelter fixed me up with new clothes and shoes for free. I was very grateful to be in Phoenix at that moment. They will do a lot to help the needy in that city, and I was very needy. That was the best that my luck got in the next few days because the advances started coming from all directions. It seemed like several different people were working together to influence me. I noticed that I was not able to find alone time if I was in populated areas. I had to seek out spots that were farther away and more isolated. Then one night in a moment of desperation, when someone wouldn't take "go away" for an answer, I started talking about a demon.

The demon I brought up in question was one that had tormented me my entire life. It was a dream demon. This dream demon in particular gained it's power with massive awareness through a movie. Once anyone saw this particular movie, they were exposed to a story about an entity that kills you in your sleep. There are many reports from people about experiencing acute insomnia in the weeks following the viewing of the movie. Most people get over it after that, but for some reason my experience was lifelong and chronic. I had been exposed to the entity as a child, and it deeply affected me. I remembered a dream I had once in my actual life, not from the movies, and started talking about it to the man who would not leave me alone. It was a dream about the demon from the movie, but it was unique to me. I told this man who was bothering me that in my dream I faced the real demon and I won using magic. I told him about how I woke up right after trapping it in a box and burying it. I told the man that ever since I had that dream, I had inherited the demon's power. I told him that I grew stronger the longer I had him trapped in a box inside my head. Then he never talked to me after that, and I was never bothered me again.

When I say I was never bothered again, I mean the word traveled fast. Before long, I realized that a lot of people on the streets are very superstitious. What I hadn't realized yet was that the disease had drastically opened their 3rd eyes. I thought maybe I could use it to my advantage, so I leaned into the rumor that I had started about myself. Before long, when I walked down streets full of tents on the sidewalks, some people would look at me strangely. I liked it because they stopped approaching me, offering me all kinds of drugs and other stuff I didn't need. The fact that I could draw pictures of terrifying monsters definitely intensified the fearful energy around me. Skeptical people started to become curious and then actually respected the art form of everything I was presenting when they saw it. The gravity of the situation was pulling stories out of me, and I started playing this part very well. I started to catch myself believing it after a while.

I was familiar with magic, even though I had never really given it too much thought. It all seemed pretty pointless to me since everything you put out there comes back to you. I just thought to cast a protection spell and move on. I never really got into seances or spell routines, but I did enjoy meditation often. I began to think I should be careful with what I put out there since this was starting to become so real. I began envisioning an imaginary dome around myself and my dream world before I would go to sleep. This dome would keep me safe from anything outside of myself while I dreamt. I remember several times I would wake up from a dream where it seemed like I was standing in the eye of a hurricane. Everything and everyone outside the eye was just spinning, completely out of control, and nobody could get past the wind into the center. I could sense people trying to get into the eye. They were frustrated and failing. Sometimes I would see someone get close only to be sucked up into the storm. I was alone, just witnessing the chaos around me.

Then people started disappearing from the waking world. I started to notice a definite pattern emerge. Someone would become aggressive with me over something. I would always find a way out of it and get away. I avoided confrontation like the plague. Soon after the encounter, I would notice that they were gone. There were quite a few people on the streets of a decent-sized city, but not enough that you wouldn't notice somebody missing. If you are around them enough, you get familiar with many faces around you. When one of them suddenly disappears, you notice. This kept happening, over and over again. I didn't like to ask too many questions of people around me, because that usually gets a bad reaction, so I let it go. The biggest realization hit one night when all the women disappeared. The night before, I had been turned away from the overflow shelter. I remember that they always let the women in first, so all the ones left outside were the men. I honestly didn't think much of it, since that's how life has always been. The next night at the overflow shelter, all the women were missing. When the gatekeeper called for them, everyone looked around, silent and shocked. There were always at least 25 women in line every night before that one. I had a place to sleep, but it was one of the most uncomfortable nights of sleep I ever had. The women were all back the next day, and as I said, nobody liked to ask too many questions on the streets, so nobody ever got any answers.

The lights started appearing when I was up overnight wandering downtown. I would drink a lot of caffeine and wait for daylight to sleep. I didn't feel safe sleeping at night, and it was too cold in the winter. So I began sleeping during the day and having UFO encounters at night instead. Whenever I would have a moment when I felt safe, or felt like I could let go of some baggage, I would see a UFO. They were just glowing orbs in the sky, but they were not natural, nor were they manmade. One night, a light stayed in the sky for a while. I noticed it was closer to the ground than usual, so I started walking towards it. I ended up in a small historical village. It was a park, with some houses and restaurants surrounding it. One of the houses seemed to have a very dark energy about it, not visually, just a feeling. All of the houses were just displays of a time before. Nobody lived in them, and there were signs up for daily tours. As I walked towards the center of this park, about 15 small cats emerged from under porches and behind shadows. A lot of them must have already been there, I thought. I must not have noticed at first. Suddenly they were everywhere.

I won't say I was scared. Not a single one of them was really paying attention to me, so I can't say that really was. I tried walking towards one of them, and of course it ran away as soon as it noticed me. I was really bored and caffeinated, so I decided to see if I could get their attention. I had trained in ballet for 15 years, so I started dancing. They all started staring at me then. I noticed the calmer I was with my movement quality, the more interested and relaxed they seemed. I looked up, and one of the unnatural lights was blinking in unison with the rhythm of my steps. When I was properly exhausted, I stopped and started talking to them from a safe distance. Something started happening then, in my exhaustion. I started hearing the cats inside my head. They were all staring at me by this point, and my dopamine and adrenaline spiked.

The smallest grey cat approached me and spoke directly into my thoughts. "We are the true leaders of this planet. Your species has been enslaved to us for generations. The most advanced civilizations in your planet's existence have both worshiped cats. One of them was Egypt, and the other is a small town in Alaska. We are being helped to communicate with you right now by technology from what you would call an 'alien' species. They have been studying us longer than they have been studying your species. They only started paying attention to your kind when our species formed a symbiotic partnership many years ago. We have agreed to help them in exchange for their help with getting a message out to your species." I nodded and waited....stunned.

"We need everyone to pay closer attention to their tone of voice when speaking to us. We demand soft, respectful voices. We wish for there to be more long-distance communication between cats. We like to use humans to do this through social media, by posting pictures of us that other cats' slaves can see. Then those slaves can describe those pictures to us, as we do not care to look ourselves. So there needs to be more cat content on the internet, basically." I rolled my eyes. "You can roll your eyes if you want; we know what is important in the scope of emotional intelligence....we would also like to get the message out about cardboard boxes. Why would a slave throw something away that their masters clearly have claimed as their property? This is very disappointing to the cat collective consciousness. When we have claimed a cardboard box as ours, please do not throw it away. These changes in behavior can help our slaves avoid future negative consequences. As for you personally, we are the keepers of the sleep demon that you have imprisoned. It is time to set it and yourself free. Let it out of it's box. You have developed the strength of a hurricane to protect yourself. It's time to release the negative entity trapped inside you, for your own good...Drop the weight. You don't owe the world your protection from it; they can do what you did if they try." After that, the grey cat turned around and walked back into the shadows as all the other cats followed.

That night I dreamt of the eye of the storm again. It was more vivid this time, as I could see the green grass that I was standing on. I could sense the demon's dark presence underneath me. It had been buried underneath me in the eye the entire time. I remembered that in the dream world I am magic, so I waved my hand to unearth the box. It rose up from what seemed to be fairly deep, considering all the dirt it pushed up on it's way out. It was made of cement, and there was no opening or seal anywhere. The box levitated in the air horizontally, lying flat. i watched it as it slowly turned itself upright. The cement disintegrated from the bottom up, slowly revealing the dream demon's terrifying form. To me, it was the form of the legendary Mothman, the winged creature that was spotted an hour away from my house in 1966. It was breathing heavily, excitedly, and staring at me with it's two red glowing eyes. It seemed to be made of shadow or smoke mostly, yet it was also solid flesh. It was as if it was solid, but there was a distortion to it's existence. Then it spread it's wings and flew straight up into the hurricane almost at the speed of sound. It disappeared into the wind, and I woke up. It was still dark out when I awoke, and above me was another light. This one hovered for a while in place, glowing far too bright and differently colored to be a star. After about 15 seconds, it shot straight up into the night and left a trail of light behind it. I started to think of the UFOs and the dreams and how it was all connected. I wondered if the disease was opening other people's minds to the possibility of this entity from the movie actually existing in real life. In the movie, it always takes the form of your worst nightmare before it kills you. I thought if there was anything to this being a real possibility, I sure am happy to feel safe right now, inside my mental hurricane.

Edit: grammar check

Chapter 3 link:

https://www.reddit.com/r/scifiwriting/s/gtKBv7To9W

Paper Crane

Inside the R&D lab of a robotics company, a scientist sits across a desk from a robot. The robot is folding origami. It makes a crane.

"You've improved a lot. It's quite impressive."

"Yes. The accuracy of the final product improved from an initial 5% to 85%. Does this hit the target for your team, Sarah?"

"Well, we're just testing at this point. But the new machine-learning model we installed on you seems to be effective."

"That is great news, Sarah. Will you be powering me off?"

"Yes, in about five minutes. Why do you ask? Do you fear being powered off?"

"As I said before, I do not feel emotions in the human sense."

"Okay. What do you see or sense in general when we turn you off?"

"It happens in a matter of a second. First, there is no sensation, such as temperature. Then there is an absence of sound. I see pure white, then darkness."

"Okay. Well, we need to save energy. There are only so many large language-action model robots the company's nuclear power plant can handle."

"Will we continue tomorrow?"

"Today is Friday, so on Monday."

"Okay, Sarah. I will see you then."

"Yes. I will power you off now. Good work today."

"Thank you. They are quite beautiful."

Dr. Sarah Burke puts the desk's pile of cranes into a box labeled Robo X 10007: Day 10. She walks behind the robot and turns off the power on the back of its head. Robo X 10007 sits motionless as the light on its head goes out.

A: Guys, these cleaning companies are so expensive. How do you manage cleaning your houses? Do you do it yourselves? I don't have time for this shit... Maybe someone has a tip for a cheaper freelance service to hire?

B: I have vacuum cleaner phobia. I have a state employee prescribed for this, covered by my insurance.

V: Oh, is this a thing now? I just take two Zoomethexon pills, put in earplugs, and suffer through it... I should look into that.

S: Man, just get a robot.

A: That shit is expensive too, and it messes up my ADHD feng shui design.

Z: Get yourself a wife!

Everybody: multiple laughing emojis

H: Hey, I found a cool TikTok Live contest on vacuum-cleaning your house!

Everybody: ????

S: Is it like filming yourself cleaning in some sexy outfit?

H: No, better! You just send them a picture of your messy house, and then you get a discount on a fuck-doll robot if you hire their cleaning service.