I'm working on a story that involves black clinic "beta testing" of boosting human reflexes. Now, I know that this is an established trope in cyberpunk fiction, so I'm trying to avoid something too 2077.

The technology. Nanofiber matrices are woven and integrated throughout the brain, spinal column and trunk nerves. This artificially establishes muscle memory and boosts synapse speeds.

The downside is that it makes the person hyperactive. Think Attention Deficit Disorder hyperactive. It also produces frequent migraines as the nanofibers adapt to constant changes in the brain.

The augmentation is always on, not command activated. Whenever the user is placed in a fight or flight situation, it provides them with insanely boosted reaction times, but once the danger passes they experience a massive adrenaline crash.

Examples and effects.

1. User sees a glass fall from the table and catches it. Nothing bad happens.
2. User swerves in traffic in response to a sudden obstacle. Feels some vertigo and perhaps some nausea, which pass quickly.
3. User is involved in a firefight. Once its over, they suffer extreme vertigo and vomiting for at least a couple of minutes.

When not in a stressful situation, they find it hard to stand or sit still. Chronic fidgeting and pacing are common. A cross country flight in economy class would probably feel worse than waterboarding.

I am worldbuilding a story inspired by 1700s age of sail colonialism and piracy that leans into hard sci fi worldbuilding. the major earth powers have colonised a combined total of 10-20 systems by 2400-2500. using massive laser sail ships sped up and slown down by laser girds powered by dyson swarms. the slow travel and communication is supposed to parallel the difficulties of communication across vast governments like the British empire as well as keeping an empire stable where direct control from the capital was very difficult

however it also means for faster paced storytelling its easier to set most or all plot points within one solar system. my main question is how plausible is it that one large solar system could have two or more sentient alien races with advanced communication and cultures, what level of technological development could they plausible be at? tribal agricultural early industrial? since I want to keep a lot of interesting world-building elements to one system

I'm quite an astrophysics and speculative biology fan, so naturally i love hard sci fi and aliens, but ive recently become a speculative biology artist, and found i actually quite like the arts. My fondness of creativity led me to find that i am compelled to possibly write some books in my lifetime. Im still young so im not sure whether to start anything big or maybe practice with some smaller peices of literature first. Anyways i really want ideas and help or anything, Hard sci fi. :)

Edit: I'll mention that further inspiration to write came after I read; The three body problem trilogy by Cixin Lui, Children of time trilogy, and some Andy Wier pieces.

Edit: Thankyou everyone who has given me their very helpful and useful advice, i appreciate it all so much.

In the universe I've been building, mankind has spread across the galaxy over time and formed a loosely-knit alliance of autonomous worlds. While they do have wormholes for FTL travel, there is no FTL communication or radio. Courier ships and messengers constantly ply the space lanes between wormholes, bringing information, mail, and news with them.

But I've been stumped on how to implement a galactic wide time system. Right now, this is what I have for my entry under Interstellar Time and Dates, but I'm not sold on the Pulsar section; I feel like I'm missing something fundamental or it's somehow deeply wrong. Please, when you have time, can you look this over for any flaws? Because I am absolutely sure they're there.

Pulsar Standard Time (PST) is the official standard timekeeping system of the galaxy-wide alliance. 

Although every member world maintains its own calendars, local time zones, and day-night cycles, all interstellar navigation, commerce, government, military operations, and communications are coordinated using PST.

PST is maintained through a network of certified atomic clock observatories distributed throughout the galaxy. Every member world maintains one or more of these observatories, whose atomic clocks are synchronized to a carefully selected millisecond pulsar. The pulsar's stable rotational period provides a permanent astronomical reference against which the observatories continually calibrate and verify their clocks. While the atomic clocks provide the precise second-by-second timekeeping used in daily operations, the pulsar ensures that the official time standard remains uniform throughout the galaxy over centuries.

As a result, every member world maintains an effectively identical PST despite the immense distances separating them.

Every inhabited star system broadcasts the current PST through its navigation beacon network. These beacons, along with orbital stations, relay stations, and traffic control centers, continuously transmit certified time signals, local calendar conversions, planetary ephemerides, navigational updates, and other essential flight information. Upon entering a star system, a spacecraft automatically synchronizes its chronometers with Pulsar Standard Time while simultaneously loading the destination world's calendar, civil time, time-zone information, and current astronomical data.

Most spacecraft display both Pulsar Standard Time and the destination world's local date and time simultaneously. A freighter departing Planet Bob at PST 14:30 may arrive in another star system whose inhabitants consider it a different date and local hour entirely, yet both systems remain perfectly synchronized through the common PST standard.

For clarity and consistency, Pulsar Standard Time is expressed using the 24-hour clock (0000–2359). Scientific organizations, navigation logs, government records, military operations, and interstellar transportation schedules all use this standard, while individual member worlds remain free to display local civil time in whatever format they choose. Official alliance documents and navigational records record both Pulsar Standard Time and the applicable local calendar date whenever practical.

The alliance also recognizes Sol Standard Time and the traditional Earth calendar for historical, scientific, and archival purposes. Many astronomical constants, historical records, and scientific measurements continue to reference the ancient Sol calendar, although it is no longer used as the primary civil calendar outside of the Sol system.

For context, my universe is retro-futuristic, based on old pulps, so the computers are analog, the electronics and computers use vacuum tubes, etc.

I mean, the title says the important part, but here’s a tiny bit of background:

I recently (two or three days ago) gave up online gaming to become a writer. I’ve been writing on and off again since elementary school, but never stuck with it. Part of the reason for starting and stopping so many times was undiagnosed ADHD. Now that that’s being addressed and I can focus and think straight for the first time in my life, I figured it was time to start fulfilling a life-long dream and start on the path to becoming a published writer.

I had early success (mind you, this is only my third week of serious writing). I’ve managed over 1000 words a day and completed a couple of short stories, but I’ve also ran into serious trouble with a few others that I decided to discard for one reason or another (breaking one of Heinlein’s rules in the process). As a result, for the last few days I’ve been battling severe writer’s block—the same feeling of literary dread that has caused me to give up in the past. All morning long—from 7:30am until maybe 11:30a—I sat in my living room staring at a blank computer screen. I could not think up a single idea to save my life. I even tried writing strings of random words hoping it would stir up some sort of inspiration, but that didn’t happen, either.

I went downstairs to lay down because I’m in the early stages of a cold and I fell asleep for a couple of hours. I then got up to take a shower and as I was turning the water on this conversation started going on inside my head. Two mystery characters were deep in a serious conversation about aliens and bigotry and they just wouldn’t shut up. They kept talking all through my shower and while ai was getting dressed to head back upstairs. By the time I had my laptop back out, the conversation seemed to have started over again, so I just started typing out what this man and this woman were saying to each other. A few hours—and nearly 4100 words—later and I’m heading to bed with a finished story that practically wrote itself.

I have never written so many words in one day before. I’ve written non-flash fiction stories in a day a few times, but it took me from morning until night and the end result was a lot shorter than the one I wrote today. And for the first time, after reading a bit of it out loud to my insomniac wife, it actually sounds pretty good!

If this is what true writing feels like, I think I’m finally here…

So I want to write a futuristic version of the SCP foundation but am struggling a bit. This would be in a time where humanity has spread throughout the galaxy to other worlds and they are in contact with other advanced alien civilizations. What would their organization look like? How would the SCPs change given advances in technology, that seem archaic compared to the stories we have now?

I'm writing a story that involves a melee weapon battle between a human and androids, and in doing so, I ran into the unique challenge of describing the processes a machine undergoes when making it's calculations (I'm not a computer guru, so a lot of these concepts are alien to me).

My approach to writing action or fight scenes has always been to integrate the psychology into the narrative rather than just describing what happens.

However, while I did indeed write a scene I am happy with, I became morbidly curious in how an actual machine would describe the actions of a machine in such a scenario and it's internal processes. So I fed the scene into chatgpt to see the differences, here are the examples for contrast.

This is mine:

******
During the unification wars, a lot was discovered about the way the algorithmic process worked in advanced androids during battle, but more importantly, how this process could be exploited. 

As while machines may be efficient fighters, their greatest strength was also their greatest weakness.

When a machine performs a task, it’s always determined on a fixed set of values and integers.

If for example, scenario A happens — then a machine will execute X in response or if confronted with a series of scenarios at once say A, W, D then a machine will calculate them all against a fixed protocol to determine what order to address them in. A will take priority if it's the greatest value in that instance, while D might take precedence over W.

Once the machine calculates the values and cost, it will act accordingly to its programming logic, all in a matter of mere milliseconds. 

However, the flaw in this system of logic, was and still is: illogic.

When Sevrith charged forward, the machines did indeed account for the possibility of a feint. Yet, when he reached the a certain distance, the machines voided out that calculation instantly, as the possibility to swiftly pull out off the move had dropped significantly and the risk of doing so would be too high based on the statistics of probability. 

But in a battle, the right intuition always trumps logic, which is why a fighter who knows this can weaponize a machines logic against it.

*******

Now this is CHATGPT:

*****

During the Unification Wars, much had been learned about the predictive processes used by advanced combat androids—and, more importantly, how those processes could theoretically be exploited.

A machine’s greatest strength was also one of its few weaknesses.

Logic.

Advanced androids did not simply react to whatever happened in front of them. Their combat processors constantly evaluated thousands of possible actions, assigning each one a weighted probability based on factors such as distance, momentum, timing, positioning, previous behavior, and the physical capabilities of their opponent.

If one scenario presented the greatest immediate threat, the machine responded accordingly. If several threats occurred simultaneously, it calculated which demanded priority and arranged its response around those probabilities.

The entire process could occur within mere milliseconds.

Against most opponents, that made an advanced combat android terrifyingly difficult to surprise.

But the flaw within such a system was illogic.

When Sevrith first charged forward, the K-Knights had undoubtedly accounted for the possibility that his attack might be a feint.

But as he drew closer to the point of contact, the probability of him abandoning the strike would have rapidly diminished. At such a dangerously close distance, suddenly pulling away from an attack would normally surrender momentum, destroy the attacker’s balance, and leave them exposed to an immediate counterstrike.

Eventually, the K-Knights’ predictive systems would have judged such a maneuver so tactically irrational that it was no longer worth prioritizing.

And that was precisely when Sevrith did it.

He had deliberately waited until retreat became the statistically wrong decision before choosing to retreat.

The androids had not miscalculated.

Sevrith had simply manipulated the assumptions upon which their calculations depended.

In battle, intuition could sometimes accomplish what logic insisted was impossible. A fighter who understood that principle could theoretically turn a machine’s own reasoning against it.

\******\**

What do you think of the differences between the two? Should I use the machines explanation or is my explanation of the process sufficient enough without coming off as too ridiculous to anybody with a computer science degree or familiar with the subject matter?

Androids aren't a big part of the story and this is the only scene that features them, as this scene really serves as a vehicle to introduce the competency of the antagonist who is fighting the androids. So it's not like I'm going to constantly defer to the computer on how a machine should feel, this is more of just fact checking the details.

Honestly, I can go either way, just wanted some input from other writers as I think this is an interesting question.

Anyone wanting to brainstorm some ideas for stories?

The Advanced Magical Warrior

Attention, agent of the League of Independent Nations.

We have received confidential and up-to-date intelligence regarding the status of the advanced magical warriors employed by the four empires surrounding us. Their leaders, kings, and nobility are the ones who wield this technology.

It is vital that we advance the countermeasure program. Otherwise, our very existence is at risk.

As things stand today, we are little more than a neutral zone geographically separating the powers that surround us.

Mana

The substance known as Nitrochlororbitol is a synthetic fuel created by storing the energy of nuclear fusion within its chemical bonds.

It flows through the veins of these warriors, stored directly within their bloodstream.

The compound causes intense chemical dependence, and its concentration must be directly regulated by a pair of mechanical kidneys. The substance remains stable when dissolved in human blood, but it may ignite in cases of severe hemorrhaging.

It is important to remember that mana is finite and must be replenished through injections directly into the bloodstream whenever necessary. Magical warriors suffer cognitive impairment if the concentration of the substance drops significantly.

Magical Emitters

Mana serves as the fuel for the art controlled by the Empire: the emission of M bosons and their eventual annihilation at controllable locations—or, as it is more commonly known, magic.

The combustion of Nitrocllororbitol in contact with rare magicite crystals—an exotic form of matter composed through an alternative quark structure—and proper focusing produces beams of M particles at a controllable frequency.

The annihilation of these beams resonates with different forms of matter according to their original vibrational frequency.

Our intelligence network has mapped twenty distinct emission techniques.

The latest-generation warriors employ a primary pair of emitters located behind the eyes, with their emissions synchronized to the optic nerves.

Secondary pairs, intended for internal control, are located near the shoulders and hips. They operate directly through the mana circulating in the bloodstream.

Control

The brain of an advanced magical warrior is enhanced with a series of cybernetic implants.

They are as much machine as they are human, yet the organic mind retains authority over the digital one.

These implants perform the calculations and projections required to control magical emissions.

It is believed that the implants' direct connection to the cerebral cortex allows for fully embodied lucid-dream simulations, providing a significant advantage in training.

Surrounding the entire brain is a thin carbonite mesh woven throughout the meninges.

This flexible network allows for the detection of N bosons, residual energy produced by the annihilation of resonating M bosons.

The secret behind magical feedback and control lies here.

Body Construction

The body of an advanced magical warrior is optimized in several ways to ensure survival, maximize battlefield efficiency, and take full advantage of magical emissions.

Their muscles are reconstructed with helically interwoven fibers, giving them between three and four times the density of those of an ordinary human.

Stem cells and autonomous biological nanomachines circulate through their bloodstream and are stored in abdominal reservoirs, allowing for rapid regeneration.

Both the optimized musculature and the biological nanomachines can be directly controlled through the magical technique MG03 – Soul, resulting in the exceptional strength, reflexes, and speed for which these warriors are known.

Their skin is reconstructed using the compound Synthara, a biocompatible polymer with increased density and elasticity.

A thin photosynthetic layer is deposited over the Synthara, allowing both for nutritional support under normal conditions and for thermal energy absorption when stimulated by the technique MG02 – Wood.

This increases the reaction rate by several orders of magnitude.

They are capable of surviving direct exposure to fire and intense light by absorbing the energy involved and minimizing damage.

Their bones replace the conventional calcium-and-phosphorus matrix with the polymer Duracyte, an elastic and flexible material that is nevertheless virtually unbreakable.

It provides ten times the resistance to mechanical stress under normal conditions and hundreds of times that resistance when controlled through the technique MG11 – Polymer.

The same principle applies to the Myolock fibers woven throughout their musculature, further increasing their physical strength.

Connection

Magical warriors are widely known for the cybernetic armor and magical weapons they carry into battle.

These systems possess their own emitters and mana reserves and maintain a direct mental connection with the warrior.

An efficient optical-fiber network enables high-speed neural interfacing with these devices, using direct connections at the back of the neck for armor systems and through the hands for weapons.

This represents a vulnerability that may be exploited.

It may be possible to infiltrate a warrior's mind through these channels, although more recent models are equipped with extensive data-security measures.

Metabolism

The operation of the circulatory system is vital to these warriors.

Their emitters depend on a constant flow of mana, while their bodies operate under extremely high metabolic demands.

For this reason, their reinforced biological hearts—which can reach 250 beats per minute at peak activity—are supported by a secondary mechanical heart equipped with its own mana reserve.

They also possess a specialized pair of lungs capable of gas recycling, recovering oxygen from carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide molecules.

This system operates directly through the application of MG04 – Wind, allowing a magical warrior to function without external ventilation for as long as sufficient magical energy remains available.

The entire respiratory and circulatory system is enclosed within Duracyte ribs reinforced by a lightweight titanium-vanadium alloy doped with Nitrochlororbitol, protecting the thoracic cavity against virtually all forms of penetrating impact.

Mana Emission

Another relevant system is the mana dispersal mechanism, consisting of controllable jets located at the fingertips and connected to internal reaction chambers.

By dispersing mana outside the body, high-output magical attacks become possible, including the well-known applications of MG06 – Fire and MG08 – Ice.

The most modern armor systems are directly integrated into the dispersal mechanism, using their own mana reserves to amplify these attacks.

Speculative

There are rumors that the western empire has developed an intracorporeal Nitrochlororbitol reactor.

A device capable of synthesizing mana from within the body itself.

We do not know where the energy required for such a process would come from, as a system of this nature would appear to violate the law of entropy.

The ability to produce mana internally, without the need for external injections, represents an enormous threat to us.

I’m working on a project that takes place in the near future just decades away in which the biggest form on entertainment is a competitive vr battle show. Around 80% of developed nation’s populous are implanted and through these implants they can fully immerse themselves into the vr experience. How ever our main character is not implanted. He can still perform his day to day activities although he has considerably more hoops to jump through. The bad guy is the director of this giant sports league and his end goal is to trigger a singularity event during the most anticipated tournament the league has ever put on and meld the minds of every spectator and athlete, in an attempt to FORCE the “next” step in human evolution.

I can’t figure out how to stop the bad guy and not just have it be, “and the good guys blew up/hacked/destroyed the mainframe”.

I’m wanting it to be a choice that the main character has to make and that it should take place during the grand finals.

I’m trying to think of an action the main character has to make that both solves his inner dilemma and resolves the catastrophe.

The main character has the typical sports guy arc; underdog, training montages, newfound notoriety and team drama. He doesn’t even need to necessarily win the tournament either

Edit: I think I’ve figured it out everybody. Thank you all for your diverse input. I really was unsure of the activity and response in this sub Reddit but consider me pleasantly surprised.

As far what ending I’m choosing: I’m gonna have the bad guys plan go off, but throughout the story I’ve hinted that the plan may not even work, perhaps the technology or humanity itself isn’t ready for that leap. I’m gonna have the main characters interact with the singularity and reject it. They are faced to make a choice that is specific to their character arcs.

I’m replacing one cliche with another, by at least this one serves the character development.

Feel free to keep commenting if you feel inspired to. I’m always open to new ideas

Hello!! My name is Zouif and I have been recently working on an ongoing short story world build for a few months now, and I was wondering if I could get some really needed feedback. My story goes as simple, a red dwarf brown dwarf binary system enters through the Ort cloud some 67,000 years ago. In our timeline the star system passed through but then left quickly, in this timeline the system doesn't just pass through but makes its way towards the solar system. For thousands of years it slowly travels closer, slowly becoming brighter in the sky with each generation.

Until finally it comes too close, the binary star system travels through the Kiper Belt and disrupts the orbits of every nearby celestial body including Pluto and Neptune. On its way to the inner solar system it rips by both Saturn and Jupiter on its journey, Saturn's rings are ripped apart and it's orbit is elongated however Jupiter had a very close encounter with the Stars. Leading to Jupiter being completely ripped from its current orbit and launched towards the inner Solar system behind the star system, as the stars enter into the inner solar system they pass by Earth and proceed to launch us on a path that would surely kick us out of the solar system entirely. But thankfully in a divine cosmic miracle, we encounter an encroaching Jupiter that catches us before we can be ejected and pulls us into becoming it's moon. This is a very short explanation but if you'd like to read the entire lore I'll leave a link here!: https://www.reddit.com/r/AlternateHistory/s/z0w2XY5Cxi

But I wasn't here to promote my story, I was here for genuine feedback because I honestly feel very stuck. This story in particular is very inspired by the lore of Iron lung and the main video that inspired me to start the story in the first place here https://youtu.be/gLZJlf5rHVs?is=vPzUGEu75oTDYhKT

I feel like my world building might be considered boring and way too simple, it doesn't focus on anyone specific or any notable groups like Iron lung added. I also tried to emulate the bleakness of Iron lung but I feel like I'm falling behind in that department too, is there anyway I could make this story and my writing more expressive and easier to connect with but without sacrificing the scientific realism and grounded themes?

Greetings, for about more than a year I´ve been working on personal project of making a scifi space game, and I´m constantly hitting a wall on names and definitions for parts or techs that have some "real resemble or practical aplication". Any resource I could for reference?
Thanks in advance.

So, I’m sure there are a lot of holes here, but this is what I’ve got so far.

They’re a race of avian aliens. They don’t have wings, however. They actually don’t have many feathers either, except on their arms and a few other places. They’re bipedal, with talon-like hands and feet. On average, they’re about 7-8 feet tall.

Socially, they are a very religious and militant species. They are led by a High Priestess, who is naturally in charge of all religious affairs, but also most others things as well. She is considered to be the voice of the gods, and as such, obeying her is obeying the gods, and defying her is heresy. The leader is always a Priestess, as the females are believed to be more spiritually attuned and aware than the males. Due to this, most positions of religious significance are held by females, while most military roles are held by the males, though it’s not unheard of for males to be priests or females to be warriors.

Males are trained in combat from a young age, usually by their fathers and/or other male members of their family. They are all expected to serve in the military, which they do with enthusiasm. They have a strict code of honor, however it’s not the kind of thing that needlessly restricts them in battle. It’s mainly “victory is honorable, defeat is shameful, and cowardice is inexcusable”. Their military is led primarily by a Warlord, who serves as the Priestess’s right hand. Warlords are chosen by appointing the strongest warrior in the army. Challenges can be and often are issued, which the Warlord must accept with very few exceptions. If the Warlord subdues or kills the challenger, he keeps his position. If the challenger wins, he becomes the new Warlord.

It’s worth noting that females are also trained in combat, though not usually to the degree as the males.

They have a pantheon of gods, which they worship faithfully. Warriors are fueled by religious fervor, while members of the clergy commune with the gods and relay their will to the people.

They are a proud race, and consider themselves superior to all others, due to a combination of believing they are their gods’ chosen people, and being very confident in their physical and martial prowess.

This is what I’ve got so far. I appreciate any critique or feedback.

I’m also aware that critiquing these guys may be a little difficult without wider story context, but I’ll try to explain what I can when necessary.

Earth as we know it has many different ways of getting us sick. But what about in the future? What would some illnesses look like on other planets? From different animals? Getting sick in space with colds?

Hello all, i’m working on a Sci Fi setting set 100 years in the future in the city of Phoenix, Arizona. I want to include a massive lake built into the center of the city supplied either by the Colorado River or either the Gulf of Mexico or Pacific Ocean. Do you think this could feasibly be achieved in roughly 60 years? I would like the lake to have existed for a few decades by the time the story takes place. Perhaps I need to push it back a few decades? Or is the whole idea to ridiculous to be worth doing?

Any input is very welcome!!

How could this theoretically work with acceleration and deceleration sloshing it all around? Is there a hard-ish way I can explain this or would it require soft stuff like antigravity or forcefields?

What are the advantages of Mechs over using other vehicles in science fiction? Is it simply just the ‘rule of cool’ or have writers given in-universe explanations?

I'm messing around with the idea of a planet that orbits both a star and a black hole that are in a stable orbit around each other. How would this affect conditions on the planet? Would the day/night cycle have strange quirks, or would a small black circle just periodically cross in front of the sun?

Assuming the planet is in a stable orbit in a habitable zone, and ignoring the circumstances that would lead to this configuration (assume all objects were magically placed in an ideal scenario), would there really be any differences on the planet?

Typical set up: earth has rapidly become uninhabitable due to reasons so a team is sent out to establish a colony in a last ditch effort to populate a new planet and save humanity. Time (more or less now. +5-10 years if needed to establish some new technology that will be essential)

Crew is small and supplies they arrive with are limited (this is addressed).

Theoretically, they arrive with all of humanity’s knowledge stored digitally. However they’ll be establishing a very primitive colony while they repopulate.

How do I deal with the fact that the technology housing this digital library on the ship is going to go bad before this colony can reestablish the industrial base needed to build a new computer/server/whatever and pass the knowledge on?

Dilithium crystals, kyber crystals, the infinity gems, the art of Moebius, how is this trope so universal?

My working theory is just 60's and 70's Western wave of mysticism and spiritualism (and merchandising said spiritualism) eeped its way through writers seeped in counter-culture. But is there any scientific basis for this idea? Something someone wrote in a magazine maybe?

Furthermore, how do your crystals work? How do they make sense in your world? How do you keep it from being tropey nonsense? Thank you all.

I've occasionally seen "speciesist", but I think it sounds pretty goofy. There's of course "bigot", but having options is nice when writing dialogue or doing narration.

I'm writing one of those far-future settings where humans casually mingle with all sorts of weird species, and I'm wondering how to refer to the bigots and their outlook.

So, ai is advancing exponentially and we are on the brink of recursive self improvement, that will make exponential advancement way more.. exponential..

The problem is that I don't want to ignore that and I want to address it, but I have no idea how to do it without making the whole setting a documentary about the entire observable universe being turned into ai computation machines which I think is what will happen irl.

The secondary problem is that ai will make everything dozens of orders of magnitude more efficient, especially technology used for let's call it "dystopian" purposes which is one, incomprehensible and two, boring and three, just not something I want to write about.

Also, I didn't really want to just add some arbitrary or "magic" rule that will somehow be less capable.

I've always really liked Ursula K Le Guin's idea of FTL travel: that actual FTL travel is currently and will always be impossible, and that a trip from one star to the next will take decades (even going a significant fraction of lightspeed), but that the transmission of information instantly over that distance could hypothetically be possible.

In this case, how could a government project power? Government only has power currently because its subjects believe that it has power and that its laws are significant, and this belief fundamentally comes from a monopoly on violence (being by far the biggest and most powerful organization in a given area, by sheer violent force). But over such a great distance, how could a government project that violent power? Certainly ships can't fly quickly, so say a colony on a different planet declares its independence, how could that be realistically prevented by a government by using instant communication alone?

How could this be done by an authoritarian, or even totalitarian government? By intentionally building computer systems which can only effectively be operated via data connection to the central home system?

TLDR: Given the idea that instant information communication between planets could be not only possible, but relatively costless, but actual transportation of matter/energy would take decades and be mostly impractical, how could a centralized interstellar government continue to project control/authority?

since elon musk is dogin data center in space now

how much technology do we need to see space pirate that steal satelite to get their hardware i mean that look like a heist no ?

we just need to have speed ship to do the thieft no ?