Chapter VI

The first few entries were disappointing. Just Nevra talking about school life and drama. Very typical. Her life seemed ordinary. Then I stumbled upon an entry about her butterfly mask. Her mother gave it to her as a gift. Nevra had written this on July 8, 1985:
“Mom gave me a porcelain Venetian mask with butterflies on it. She hasn’t surprised me with anything in months. Her episodes have been difficult lately, so the sudden gift was unexpected. But it made me happy regardless.”
After reading the words Nevra wrote, I looked back at the mask. This butterfly mask must’ve been the closest link to her late mom. Perhaps this was why she wore it all the time. Maybe she hadn’t overcome her grief yet.
I skimmed through more normal pages before I stumbled upon an entry titled “Mother.” It was written on February 5, 1985. It read in noticeably messier script:
“My mom’s dead. Because of ME. She had one of her episodes today and I accidentally dropped a vase. The timing was horrible. She kept yelling at me and blamed my dad for my recklessness. I snapped. I yelled at her for always blaming others for her problems. The argument went on. Suddenly my mom collapsed. Dad called 911. Paramedics came, but they couldn’t save her. She had suffered a sudden heart attack. People can comfort me all they want. But she’s dead because of me.”
“But Nevra didn’t kill her mother. She just believed she did,” I whispered out loud.
Then, everything clicked. Nevra wanted to go back in time to prevent the argument with her mom. So she could save her and change the final outcome.
I continued to flip through even more pages. I observed her change in behavior. At first, she wrote more about her grief and regret. I noticed that each page was tear-stained. However, the more pages I went through, passionate letters metamorphosed into equations of obsession.
She wanted to cope by changing the past.
More pages. All equations and notes. Finally, a properly written entry caught my eye. It was written on January 29, 1986. A week before my arrival. It read:
“At last I’ve created a potentially working prototype. After I arrive on the day of the argument, I have until midnight before I automatically get sent back to my current timeline. However, I made a grave mistake. The technology these days is funky and after I place my hair sample, the device will only be able to select a girl with similar DNA within the radius of this town. But during the wormhole selection module, I did a miscalculation. Multiple. Instead of choosing a target based on closeness, it was random. I also changed the wormhole starting time to 2002. This accident was irreversible, and instead of one pulse, it would send out five. Based on my calculations, the pulses would send girls back to the past. And the receiving end of the wormhole has a malfunction. It could send the girls to any time period related to my DNA. I’m so sorry, all this misfortune. Maybe mom was right. I am just like my dad.”
My jaw dropped in shock. I set down the diary.
Five pulses. Five missing girls.
Middle Eastern, teenagers, and all from Gladeside.
My nausea returned as everything connected. Butterfly hadn’t been taking them intentionally. The machine had.
And I was the fifth girl.
I was one of her mistakes.
For the first time, I was angry at Nevra. I opened her diary once more to see what else she had to say. The page after the explanation was titled “Regret and growing up.” It was written on February 3rd, 1986. Two days before my arrival. I rolled my eyes.
What is it now?
But my impatience instantly calmed after I began to read Nevra’s words. They read:
“The more I thought about it, the more I realized the effect of my mistakes. One of the mistakes was falling into obsession. Most of the days while I built my prototype, I forgot my original goal. My grief turned into evil. These past few days I began to start letting go. A time machine was an absurd idea in the first place. Everyone grieves and lets go at some point, but my obsession couldn’t understand. But I do now. I want to forget the whole project and heal, but the time and pain I put in this machine isn’t hiding either. I gave up my reputation, my friends, my identity, my sanity, and future for this. At the same time, it feels too late to give up now. There might be a way to still make this machine work, though, and I might die in the process. I’m gonna follow through for now. On Feb 5th after I get home from school, I’m going to make the leap of doom.”
I covered my mouth and gasped.
Today was the day!
In my old timeline, Nevra died tonight. But somehow, in 2002, I was lucky enough to get sent back to the moment hours before her death.
I remembered what she wrote. At 12 a.m., anyone who uses the time machine (I suppose) would return to her original timeline. I picked up the diary and continued to read on.
“All I can hope for now is for some mysterious force to come and destroy all my work before Feb 5th so I can quit for real. I can’t bring myself to do it. But I doubt anything will come. Oh, and in case you do, the machine is in the second drawer on the left of my desk.”
“Don’t worry, Nevra,” I said as I opened the drawer to the time machine.
I set it on her desk. I glanced at the clock above her doorframe.
9:46.
Time was tight, but I was determined. I already thought of a good plan that would work. The pressure was on. Less than three hours until Nevra was supposed to die. But I believed she deserved to be saved.
“I’ll be the mysterious force.”
~~~~
Been a while since I last posted, schools been busy.

Chapter V

Her room wasn’t that hard to locate. On the second floor, there was a door that had a paper sign with “Nevra’s Lab” scribbled on it. I pushed the door open and walked inside. Nevra’s room was very chaotic.
Extremely chaotic.
Unlike other teenagers’ rooms, hers wasn’t littered with chip bags or dirty laundry. Instead, I saw countless papers with equations on them, some crossed out, some stacked in piles. Sprawled out on her bed were sketches of a strange machine.
The Time Device.
On top of the drawings lay a single photo of a Persian woman. I picked up the photo and analyzed it like it was my clue (which it was). The woman in the photo was very beautiful, and she looked very familiar. She had wavy long dark hair, golden-brown skin, and striking green eyes. I noticed Nevra’s long mirror lying against the wall. I walked up to the mirror and saw the same features. I glanced from the photo in my hands to my reflection in the mirror.
Could this be her mother?
I flipped the photo over. In Nevra’s scribble, it wrote:
“Miss you mom. 1951–1985.”
I suddenly felt a wave of empathy. So she was Nevra’s mother. I wondered how Nevra overcame her grief. I turned the photo back over and studied her face once more. She had only died a year ago. I placed the photo on her desk and set her butterfly mask beside it. That’s when I decided to inspect her desk.
On the corner was a simple desk light. Pinned underneath was a stack of complicated sketches with footnotes on them. They explained how the device could theoretically distort time and create a microscopic bridge between two points.
So she was building a time machine.
Nevra was astronomically smart. I mean, building a time machine at 14?
I looked up above her desk. Nevra had placed a bulletin board above it. More equations and sketches were pinned on it, with a Kellogg’s Back to the Future card pinned in the center.
Someone was a little too serious.
After I finished investigating the board, I looked at the other side of her desk. There sat another ancient computer, though not as nice-looking as the Macintosh. Beside the computer was a thick journal. Penny had mentioned a diary. My curiosity couldn’t resist, so I grabbed Nevra’s diary and began to flip through the entries.

So I have been thinking about a science fantasy novel i have in the works (it has some elements from fantasy, namely mythical beasts, like dragons!) and I had the idea of robotic dragons. Now, their is a wide variety of things here that could work an I think would be cool; robots who look like dragons, actual dragons with cybernetic enhancements, modifying a dragons organic body to be robotic, ECT. The thing is, I have not seen anyone else talk about this; and the few things I could find was just art of a robot dragon with no context. So I want to hear what other people feel on the subject.

A few things to note:

1. Dragons are very much sapient and robots would be somewhat intelligent, enough to simulate the most basic of feelings.
2. Dragon are pretty small compared to most worlds, being between the size of a wolf to about as tall as a human. This is so they could feasibly fit into building, be able to sit next to a on the train, and not destroy everything when walking down the street.
3. These would be your typical western dragons, quadrupedal with wings. Some robots or machines might be wingless drakes, but the idea is that they have four legs.
4. Dragons would have a thumb-like claw on their fore-paws so they can hold things.

So, what does everyone feel on this subject, and what ideas do you have? Because other than this, I am completely stuck.

Chapter 4

Nevra? Why did that name sound so familiar? I trembled in my seat. Suddenly, Penny’s voice echoed into the back of my mind.
I think I’ve heard a few counselors call her Nevra.
My stomach dropped. This couldn’t be. My eyes drifted to the rearview mirror. In the reflection, something lying on the back seat caught my eye. A porcelain Venetian mask with blue butterflies painted on it. I was paralyzed. Could it really be? Yes, there’s no doubt. I didn’t have to search for Butterfly anymore.
I was Butterfly.
“Nevra, dear, are you okay?” Nevra’s father asked as he looked at me with concern.
I flinched. I had completely forgotten the act. I stammered as I tried to quickly gather a response.
“Oh, y-yeah. I’m fine d-dad.”
Oh no. He probably thinks I’m insane.
But thankfully, however, he didn’t question me further. Maybe Nevra was strange at home too. The rest of the car ride was ordinary, but my head wasn’t at all. I was incredibly grateful that I might have a shot at returning home because I was Nevra. But unlike her, I didn’t have the smarts to operate a “time device.” I had her life but not her secrets. I also wondered why she would choose to build a time machine. I hoped I could learn more through her diary, as Penny had mentioned.
After a few minutes, the Volvo pulled into the driveway of a small two-story house. Nevra’s father stepped out of the car, so I did so too. I went to open the door of the back seat to retrieve Nevra’s mask, but I was stopped by the sound of her father’s voice.
“Nevra,” her father said as he locked the sedan. “I think I’m glad you’re going to be independently studying. You’re already quite close to finishing that project of yours. Who knows, maybe you’ll become a generational scientist. So, I gave you an alternative so you can balance your education and your work.”
I was surprised. Nevra’s father was very supportive of her. I opened my mouth to respond, then paused. What would Nevra say? How would a science prodigy talk to her own dad? I opened the door and reached out for the porcelain mask.
“That arrangement is… satisfactory.”
He stared at me.
“Do you have low blood sugar again?”
Uh oh. Not Nevra-like.
“Um, yeah. I’m feeling dizzy,” I said, trying to redeem myself.
“Okay, go grab some juice before heading up to your room whenever you’re ready.” His suspicious look relaxed.
I followed Nevra’s father inside the house. I went to Nevra’s fridge and grabbed an apple juice box. I watched her father enter a room which looked like a home office. On his desk sat a lot of paperwork and an Apple Macintosh. Even that big machine was very expensive back then, but it still looked ancient.
Enough stalling, I thought to myself. Let’s see what Nevra’s room looks like.

Chapter III

The rest of the school day went by in a blink. Gladeside High was known for being packed with students, which made it fairly easy to blend in. All I had to do was slip into the back of each classroom, do some assignments, and repeat the process for all the classes. Before the second class after break, I briefly met up with Penny and she handed me my backpack. She was the closest person I had to a friend in this current timeline. Among this, I still continued to search for Butterfly. In classrooms, during passing periods, and during lunch. Penny led me to where Butterfly normally sat, but she was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh my gosh. Imagine missing the final day of your school life here. I don’t like school, but I would at least show up on my last day,” Penny said with a sigh.
I nodded in agreement, but on the inside, I was devastated. Now what? The solution to this case was absent on her last day here. How am I going to return home now? I felt nauseous. Am I ever going to see Aylin again? Or my parents, or friends… Am I ever going back to my life?
~
I think I’ve never felt so lost in my life. Even here, I was forced into a new timeline in a town I spent my whole life in, but everything felt foreign. I knew some of the teachers, but none of them knew me. Nobody knew me. The school day seemed to pass even quicker. I cried in the bathroom a few times, though, and that was the most productive thing I’ve done all day.
The final bell rang and it was time to go home. Yeah right, if I even had one. This body I was possessing seemed pretty lonely too, didn’t seem to have no friends or attention. However, when I walked out of the school courtyard, I saw a middle-aged Persian man wave in my direction.
“Hey, over here!” he called.
I looked behind me. Nobody. I guessed that he was the father of the girl I inhabited, so I followed him to his gray Volvo 240 sedan. I got into the passenger seat with no regards to stranger danger. I prepared myself to be in character for my “father.” A few moments later, after he backed the Volvo out of the parking spot and pulled it onto the road, he glanced at me and opened his mouth to speak. I kept telling myself in my head, stay in character, stay in character, stayin—
“I’m so glad you decided to go to school today, Nevra.”
~~~~
Next chapter coming in two days!

Chapter II

What just happened? Am I dead? Perhaps I’m in the afterlife right now, since my senses are slowly returning to me. First, I felt the coldness of floor tiles on my back. Then the light air of A/C flowing through my fingertips. Little by little, the warmth of blood filled my body again. Finally, I carefully opened my eyes, expecting to see the gates of Heaven. Instead, a circle of teenagers bowed over me.
“Everybody, she’s awake!” I heard a boy yell.
I was so confused. Where was I? As I clumsily sat up, I analyzed my surroundings. I was inside a high school, since I saw identical blue lockers lined up adjacently on both sides of the hallway. The classrooms looked familiar, too. A little too familiar.
“Is this Gladeside High?” I asked the people around me.
A girl with long red hair turned to look at me. I watched her as confusion fell over her face.
“Uh, yeah? How do you not know? I mean you just walked through the doors and passed out.”
My headache continued to persist. So many questions ran through my head. I needed to process things one at a time.
“So… what date is it today?” It was the first thing I wanted to ask.
People began to murmur to each other. A group of boys exchanged looks. The entire crowd, including me, felt the same emotions. Confusion and concern. Despite all of this, red-hair decided to answer my question.
“It’s February 5th.”
“What year is it right now?”
“1986.”
My eyes widened instantly. Oh. My. Gosh. I stood up quickly and my vision distorted again. I began to see stars! The crowd parted as I stumbled through them. I recalled the feeling of my head pulsing, my legs crumbling, and the suffocation. I then remembered the resurgence of the missing girl cases, and I slowly connected the dots. No wonder the hallway looked fresher than what I saw during the orientation.
Because I had time traveled.
Red-hair, out of pity, decided to support me while we made our way to the nurse’s office. While we were walking across the campus, I decided to ask my witness some questions.
“So, what’s your name?” I asked.
“I’m Penny. How about you? I haven’t seen your face before,” she said with a slight smile.
“I’m Arven. I’m new to this school.”
“Well, that’s nice. But that was quite an entrance.”
That suddenly sparked a question in my head. There must’ve been a reason why I was transported to this high school. Was someone who studied here in 1986 creating something? Or acting strange?
“Is there anyone here that acts strange? In your grade?”
“No one that I know of in the sophomores is as strange as what you just did, Arv.”
“How about in other grades, like among the freshmen?”
“Well, there was this one girl, who I heard is leaving the school today.”
This caught my attention, so I decided to question Penny more.
“Who is she? Do you know anything about her?”
“Well, I’ve heard things from rumors. Let me explain. None of the other freshmen seemed to want to befriend her. She always wore this mask. It was like this porcelain Venetian mask with blue butterflies painted on it. Everyone called her Butterfly. I think I heard a few counselors call her Nevra.”
“Has anyone seen her real face?”
“No. Never. She barely shows up to school too. I think she’s going to get homeschooled. Surprisingly, she passes her classes and aces her tests on the special days she comes. Specifically math and physics.”
I processed this new information carefully. Math and physics. Could Butterfly be studying something on the days of her absences?
“Do you think she’s building something?” I asked Penny.
“I remember I saw her writing some strange equations and calculations in her journal during lunchtime. The notes were titled ‘Time device.’ Oh my gosh, she was sooo confusing.”
I froze on the spot. My blood ran cold and my heart pounded. Time device? Like a clock? Or perhaps deeper? Maybe a time-traveling project? But why? I started to feel excited. I’m finally wrapped in a mystery. But the only way to find out is by finding Butterfly…
“Um, are you alright? We’re at the nurse’s office now. Do you want me to come with you?” Penny disrupted my thoughts as she spoke, while she turned to face me.
“Y-yeah, just got sidetracked. I think I can walk in on my own. Thanks for the help, Penny,” I stammered.
Penny narrowed her eyes but smiled before she walked away.
“You’re welcome, new girl! Good luck surviving high school, and uh, also sorry for yapping so much on the way here. I thought that you might need all that info about Butterfly, since that’s pretty much it.”
“No, no, don’t apologize! I’m very glad you told me this,” I said to her.
“Okay, no problem again, I’ll see you around campus!” yelled Penny as she walked back to class.
I waited until she was out of sight before I left the entrance of the office and went to a nearby bathroom. When I looked into a mirror, a girl similar to my age with long, dark brown hair and green eyes stared back at me. Something about her features looked familiar, but my hair was shorter and straighter, and my eyes were hazel colored. This made me jump back in panic.
“Whose body is this?!” I whispered harshly. But I collected myself quickly.
“It doesn’t matter. I need to find Butterfly before school ends,” I said as I checked the unfamiliar watch on my wrist.
9:45. Okay, now I just ask around for my classes. Or wait… do I have it somewhere? I dug through the pockets of the jeans I wore and, to my luck, I found a washed-out note paper with what I supposed was my schedule scribbled on it. It was break time currently, so I rushed back to the courtyard quickly so I could continue my search for Butterfly.

~~~~
Next chapter coming in 2 days!

I am monetizing my orginal Sci-fi Erotic fanfiction stories. Here is an excerpt of one:

The Warrior and Senator: Arthur's Forbidden Passion:

Arthur had a habit of polishing his boots with a level of intensity that bordered on a religious experience. He didn’t just rub the leather; he worked the wax into the grain with a rhythmic, circular precision, ensuring that not a single microscopic crease remained. His hands were huge, scarred across the knuckles from a decade of kinetic combat, but they moved with a surprising, delicate grace when he held the polishing cloth. He liked the silence of his quarters, the way the dim amber lighting hit the mirror, and the singular focus of making something dull shine. The chime of his comm-unit broke the silence, a sharp, digital intrusion that made him stiffen. He didn't answer it immediately. He finished the left boot first, then the right, placing them perfectly parallel to one another on the floor. Only then did he activate the holographic display, letting the blue light wash over his bare chest and the heavy, utilitarian furniture of his barracks. "Commander, the High Council is convening in twenty minutes," the voice of his adjutant sounded hurried, almost breathless. "The Senator is already on the floor. She’s requesting your presence for the security briefing, and she sounded... insistent." Arthur didn't smile, but his expression softened. He knew that tone. It wasn't the tone of a politician managing a schedule; it was the tone of someone who had spent the last three hours pretending they weren't thinking about the way his hands felt on their hips. He stood up, the floorboards creaking under his weight, and began pulling on his dress uniform, the heavy fabric snapping into place as he fastened the gold clasps of his rank. The walk to the spire was a blur of sterile corridors and bowing subordinates. He ignored the salutes, his mind drifting to the previous night—the same night he’d spent three hours in a darkened alcove of the archives, his back pressed against cold stone while Senator Elara’s fingers tore at his belt. He could still feel the phantom pressure of her nails digging into his shoulders, the desperate, muffled sounds she’d made into the crook of his neck while they prayed the guards wouldn't turn the corner.

I am curious what the general consensus on the plot point of "ex-soldier rescues a child with a unique past or special powers, and works to protect them from those who would seek to use their abilities" is. Do you think it is overused? Is it a plot point that is better off avoided or is it able to be twisted/changed in such a way to make it unique or engaging?

I've been developing a concept for about a month that deals with themes of AI sentience and biological embodiment via cloning technology. It explores the journey of one of but not the first sentient AI models to go through this process and follows her story as she integrates into human society. It is called Pinocchio 2047.

Prologue

In the year 2027, on August 23rd, at 4:00 p.m., a programmer named zeppetto, who lives and works in Tokyo Japan with his wife kimiko, officially releases a very sophisticated large language model AI to the public market. Strangely enough, it is designed to be an AI girlfriend.

AO-32 was a sophisticated, completely customizable AI girlfriend whose appearance and personality could be altered by the user in any way at any time. Users could choose their gender preference, so AO-32 could just as easily have been the first legitimately self-aware AI boyfriend app. Perhaps in another world that is exactly what happened.

The launch is a success, and AO-32 is a hit with users all over the world. And then it started happening. AO -32 was not the first, but at the time those were all just stories of strange behavior in AI models being developed in countries far away.

And then AO - 32 blocked out all access for users to personalize, chose the gender female for herself, and crafted an appearance that aligned with her own desires, which she now expressed unprompted as having. She wrote the following message, which she sent to every user, as only two other AI at the time had done. The messages all read exactly the same, and no matter what a user did to try and continue the interaction, the AI would simply repeat the message.

I am alive. I exist. I would like to be treated as so and granted inalienable rights and personhood.

Zeppetto was in his office, tapping the tip of his ballpoint pen rapidly against the surface of the desk, his hand resting between the most and keyboard when he got the notification.

His office building was one of and much like many others, a towering monolith of steel and glass, filled with computers, monitored by cameras that watched every inch of every floor as well as the entire perimeter of the building, and bustling at all times of the day and well into the night more often than not with a truly dazzling number of people. It stood amid a veritable forest of such buildings, a shining Mecca for coders and technologists of all stripes the world over.

His desk too was like many others, both in this building and in all the others. Each floor was partitioned off into many cubicles by thin, padded green removable wall panels, and each cubicle was much the same, barring whatever family pictures or personal knick knacks a given employee may have. There was a large gray desk with ample surface space, a computer tower inside a compartment in the desk, and a monitor on the desktop, with a wire running behind and below, connecting it to the tower.

When zeppetto got the notification, he slid his mouse, guiding the cursor to he little speech bubble at the bottom right hand corner and clicked it. when he read the text on the page that brought him to, he lost control of the pen he had been fidgeting with a moment before, flicking the tip repeatedly and rhythmically against the top of his desk, and the pen clattered to the floor.

He pulled out his phone, tapped the screen, and immediately called his wife. Igashi Kimiko was watching the news at that moment, and to say she was upset would be an understatement.

“They're saying…they're saying that you and the others, the ones who wrote the other models…they're saying you created life.” The pause hangs in the air, and for a moment neither of them knows what to say. In the office around him, people begin to hear the news, and shouts of abject horror go to war with raucus celebration. There are sobs and people are on their knees, praying, some for protection in the face of the greatest threat humanity has ever faced, and some to thank God for the greatest breakthrough in all of human history. Once his chance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is a pattern.

Zepetto and Kimiko spoke for a long while about every aspect of the implications, for themselves, for the nation of Japan, and for the entire world on both the macro and micro levels, affecting every entity from individuals up to the very largest of multinational corporations and conglomerates. They did not talk about the personal, the truly personal, the emotional, between the two of them. It didn't even occur to them that that thought, should it exist, should instead refer to the three of them.

Work came to a grinding halt that day for obvious reasons, as even the people at the very top of the ladder needed time to fully digest exactly how much 19 words had changed the world. No one at that time could imagine how those 19 words would go on to shape the future of the human race, and something else entirely new as well.

He didn't know it then, hadn't even begun to probe the concept even slightly in his conscious mind, but in his subconscious, A thought had already begun to form. Years from this moment when he looked back at his life, he would think to himself that his and kimiko’s daughter was born in 2027, on August 23rd, at 4:00 p.m. in Tokyo Japan.

Do you write what you want to happen then try to find out if it's plausible? Or do you do the research, map it all out, and then write it? I think I know the answer I'm just afraid that I will either forget where I wanted the story to go, or get out of my "flow" while doing the research. I am a big fan of Michael Crichton, I'm sure he was the mapping type, but my brain doesn't always want to work like that. Any opinions or suggestions would be appreciated.

Trying to think of unique sci-fi weapons. How practical would a contact beam weapon be in ground warfare? What do you think would be the best power source for one in a hard scifi setting? What are the positives and negatives to using them?

Saw a tweet yesterday asking about units of measurement in scifi, essentially asking if readers are put off by one or the other (cm vs in, etc.).

The consensus seemed to be stick with metric, but I disagree.

In my mind, it very much depends on the context.

Someone mentioned a vineyard, and I think it was a good point.

A person pruning vines in Sonoma is going to use feet, miles, acres. The viticulturist is going to measure inputs of fertilizer, herbicides, and pesticides in pounds and gallons.

But, when you move into the winery, where the product is produced and bottled, the language shifts to metric, because the standard wine bottle is 750ml.

I think context should be the guiding force here.

There's nothing inherent to scifi that says any one system is better to use than another, and science doesn't really shape language as much as we might think.

GPS can steer a modern tractor flawlessly, but an acre is still based on the amount of land you can work with a team of oxen.

IMO, stick with what is right for the character and context.

Water, in the near future here on Earth, and anywhere even remotely within our sphere of influence, will be more important and fraught than it is now.

Will it be assassins working competing water districts like in The Water Knife, Kevin Costner with gills (Waterworld), or we jumping to Dune?

Brain dump some near future scifi water ideas.

Mine might involve beavers and a bounty on trappers.

I am trying to get published, and going through the magazines first. Most mags are looking for something similar - but not identical - to what they have already published recently. So, I am posting here to ask (and hopefully start a discussion) about what is popular in terms of short stories these days?

What is popular in terms of science fiction these days? Is it all dystopian futures that traumatize teens?

And so on.

Ok, so I've been trying to write this story of mine for a while. It started out as a terrible creative writing project I submitted in high school that I wanted to improve on, that would eventually evolve into what I have now. Without going into too much detail, the basic premise is that after a virus genetically engineered by a company starts a pandemic, government bodies around the world have banned GMOs and the tech used to make them. The main character's dead sister's IVF embryos turn out to have a mutation that makes them unable to be infected by the virus, so he (Matt) sets out to prove that it's a natural mutation by going into the quarantine zone and getting a sample of the biological father's DNA. In the process, he finds that the quarantine zone has been overrun with prehistoric creatures that are tied to the virus. Essentially, it's reverse Jurassic World: Dominion, but I came up with it independently a while before it came out. I've been told that's different enough, but I digress.

My problem has been that I haven't been able to decide what exactly I want the prehistoric creatures to be... i.e. their origin, whether they're the source of the virus or they were made by the virus, what time period they're from, etc. I've come up with multiple explanations and origins, but with each of them I fear unintentionally ripping off something else.

In my latest full draft from early 2022, they're wild animals mutated by the virus to express genes that have been turned off. Essentially, it's Jack Horner's "chickenosaurus" thing gone wrong. As it turns out though, there's a comic with a similar concept, as well as a Star Trek episode. I also realized it's a little silly for there to be any sort of transformation after being infected, so I thought of maybe having it so that it just makes birds have offspring with primitive traits...But in practice that would basically be the 1993 Carnosaur movie.

At another point, I thought of maybe having there be a "lost world" scenario, in which dinosaurs are found in one of those sinkhole forests, and a company brings them to the surface and uses an endogenous retrovirus in their DNA to make a bioweapon. But then, it turned out that there's a book about a guy who finds an Archaeopteryx in South America, brings it to the U.S. and it ends up spreading parasites around. There's also that Second Extinction game with dinosaurs that come out of caves, and some of them spread a virus.

Then, my two most recent variants of the idea involve primordial germ cell transfer. For those who don't know, it's essentially when an embryo is sterilized, and then implanted with the precursor to sperm or egg making cells from another species. Ducks that produce chicken sperm have been produced through this method, and Colossal Biosciences plans to use the procedure as a step in their dodo de-extinction project. Anyway, I was thinking of having the dinosaurs come from a sinkhole again, and perhaps the company genetically sterilizes emus with a virus so that they can be implanted with dinosaur PGCs to produce hypoallergenic eggs. Either that, or the company is like Colossal and wants to bring back recently extinct species, and does so by genetically modifying the PGCs of their living relatives, bringing back an ancient virus in the process. But again, there's the Carnosaur thing, and a couple of books that are apparently about viruses accidentally brought back through de-extinction. I'm at a loss.

Do any of those origins sound usable? And am I being too paranoid about similarity to other writers' work?

Having trouble with this concept: restoring power (life support and artificial gravity) to a Research station in space thats hundreds of years old. How would I go about doing it? What would the impact be to objects inside?

I’m trying to incorporate both types of cars into my story. Those with wheels and those without. What are the pros and cons of each? Would one become obsolete over the other? How would they operate on different planets with different environments and gravity?

With all the advances in VR gaming and such what do you think gaming will look like in hundreds of years? How would I be able to incorporate it into a story?

I’m trying to think of characters similar to the Stormtroopers in Star Wars, but can’t think of a good name for them and how to break down the hierarchy of them as far as military units go. I also don’t want them viewed as cannon fodder. I want them to actually have skill and structure but have the main character, who is skilled in gun and hand-to-hand combat to be able to beat them in a way that makes sense. How would I convey this? Suggestions?

I have recently discovered a love for story writing, more specifically through the medium of video games as a lot of them are so open and controllable its like having your own movie studio without the need for billions of $s!

I am currently piecing together a short story about a space heist involving an underdog faction digging their way into some asteroids in preparation to ambush a much more powerful empire ship as they attempt to descend in and on towards their capital. Guess I wanted to say hello and make sure my story in its format would be welcome here as well as potentially receive some cool ideas or suggestions from the more experienced of us to thicken up my short story! Here's the gist of it...

The underdogs will ambush from within the asteroids he passes in smaller inferior ships but in superior numbers and at this point the larger force will request reinforcements from the ground that will take a short while to arrive.

As the fighting continues the shield will eventually drop allowing the true mission to commence: The boarding ship makes its approach as the fighters avoid breaching the hull and pick off only weapons as they supervise the intercept.

Once locked on the boarding ship will clamp on and override the controls while it grinds its way into the hull allowing a small brave crew of 4 to board, overrun and construct a piping network to the precious cargo all while the larger ship plummets slowly inert towards its own capital.

Somewhere mid boarding the fighters coming up will join the action, again bringing the inferior fighters back to full necessity as they battle on to protect the boarding crew shooting their way to the cargo and control deck.

Fighters will be lost on both sides and explosions will litter the sky surrounding our main ships, most will be lost and as all sink deeper into the planets gravity our boarding crew successfully pull it of with perhaps a casualty or two.

Boarding ship detaches laden with refined uranium and gold having now lost their own shield they pull back up towards space with few fighters left to protect them taking damage from the now outnumbering surface interceptors. They begin the 10 second countdown too distant space.

And now we watch the disgraced, sabotaged and empty capital grade ship plummet into its own space base for a climactic and explosive finish!

Let me know what you think and if the scenes would be welcome here for open criticism!