@maxthefox@spacey.space
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

maxthefox

@maxthefox@spacey.space

Beginner hard science fiction writer and science enthusiast.

My identity and beliefs: female/cis/bi/furry. Non-specific Progressive Protestant Christian. Market technosocialist. Anti-crypto/NFTs. Neutral on AI.

Discord: @maxythefoxy

------I wrote two sci-fi novels, check them out!
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/73240/stardust
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/74149/stardust-marathon

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ZachWeinersmith, to comics
@ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social avatar

AI
http://smbc-comics.com/comic/ai-12

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@ZachWeinersmith @nyrath @mynameistillian ikr. As a writer who started writing after the whole "AI war" started, there was never a time where I felt, "oh no soon there will be no point in writing because a robot will be able to do it".

AI writing especially without heavy guidance involved (might as well write it yourself at that point) just lacks that certain something. Dunno what but I can tell it at a glance.

nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

Derek Lowe's "Things I Will Not Work With", a series about insanely dangerous chemical compounds.

In this episode, The Higher States of Bromine.

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/higher-states-bromine

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath @Sevoris @michael_w_busch @klausman Actually, FTL comms would only further remove the need for organic crew, because then someone in the control room could just calmly pilot the drone or whatever. A boring future.

That's why my world has FTL travel (which works only outside of star systems) but no FTL comms.

maxthefox, to writing
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

The fourth chapter of Stardust: Labyrinth is out! After the minor setback in the third chapter, the group ventures deeper into the eponymous labyrinth, and the sheer scale of the complex becomes apparent...

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/85822/stardust-labyrinth

#Writing
#amwriting
#WritingCommunity
#WritersCoffeeClub
#books
#sff
#WritersOfMastodon
#scifi
#sciencefiction

arstechnica, to random
@arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar

In the race for space metals, companies hope to cash in

Mining asteroids could reduce the burden on Earth’s resources. Will it live up to its promise?

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/05/in-the-race-for-space-metals-companies-hope-to-cash-in/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@CartyBoston @arstechnica It'd seriously reduce the cost of metal, which would make plastic less crucial, making fossil fuels easier to transition out of smoothly.

But as I said in the other post, the government needs to get the ball rolling, not the corpos. Corpos won't do it for the reason I said: makes more money to keep metal prices high.

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@michael_w_busch @CartyBoston @arstechnica

  1. That's assuming current propulsion technology. I agree it's not particularly viable with current tech.
  2. More importantly and less handwavingly, what if the asteroid is first sent to orbit of Earth and mined there?
  3. We will eventually run out of rare earths in the not-overly-distant future.
maxthefox, to writing
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

The third chapter of Stardust: Labyrinth is out! After the tense situation from Ch.2 is resolved, the heroes finally reach the ruins. What they find inside, and what they have to do, is not quite what they expected. This will be an... interesting mission.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/85822/stardust-labyrinth

pluralistic, to random
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

Fun fact: "The Tragedy Of the Commons" is a hoax created by the white nationalist Garrett Hardin to justify stealing land from colonized people and moving it from collective ownership, "rescuing" it from the inevitable tragedy by putting it in the hands of a private owner, who will care for it properly, thanks to "rational self-interest":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions

1/

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@pluralistic @mynameistillian And things like this will keep happening, and happening, and happening, with every new tech in ways we cannot foresee right now, until capitalism is either well and truly crippled or, preferably, ended outright.

(btw @nyrath might want to see)

Hcobb, to random
@Hcobb@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath What's the proper size for the hero ship in a movie, TV series or RPG?
99% of the crew of the Enterprise seem to do nothing ever, not even react to the half-human.
In the three Star Wars movies the Millennium Falcon seems more a setting for interludes rather than part of the plot. As soon as the rookie gets the keys to an X-wing he's outta there. (In diapers?)
Traveller has two types of ships, depending on the types of missions the gamers are in to. With few if any NPC crewmembers.

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@Hcobb @nyrath I'm comfortable with 4 to 7 characters. Any less and I begin feeling like I'm playing with a couple of action figures. Any more and half the cast does nothing in a given scene.

In Marathon, the ship has 25 crewmembers, but the story follows the 6 officers, sometimes taking attention to the ensigns. 6 is the sweet spot imho, if you make them distinct.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

5/8: When writing technical or scientific detail, how much is plausible vs imagined?

Correctly depicting the background details in an SF/F story makes the utterly imaginary conceit at the heart of the story more plausible—it gains believability by being presented in a realistic context. (The best present-setting SF should leave you unsure how much, if any of it is imaginary.)

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@cstross @nyrath Verisimilitude > realism, tbh. You can have silly things like dozens of alien species in a small region of space, you can have easy FTL, you can have easy genemodding.

But what you HAVE to do is to make these things act as if they were real, within the context of the world. That's what makes a story believable.

I don't mind if the spaceship is powered by unicorn farts. Just take into account the logistics of an unicorn-based stellar economy. /hj

(btw @mynameistillian)

maxthefox, to writing
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

The second chapter of Stardust: Labyrinth is out! After sorting out some issues and being faced with the discovery of the ruins, the five archeologists depart towards the planet in their landing craft. The planet turns out to be less tranquil than it seems...

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/85822/stardust-labyrinth

ZachWeinersmith, to random
@ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social avatar

So there's a lot of kvetching, from myself included, about how the modern internet has gotten worse, usually due to a combination of SEO, social media gone evil, and the prevalence of money as more and more of a guiding factor in tech.

But of course the old internet had the problem of being fairly boring. The interesting question is how to get a third way. I've heard a few proposals:

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@ZachWeinersmith @nyrath I want UBI so that artists and writers can comfortably make niche stuff that they and their friends like without worrying about not being able to make a living off it or having to work a day job in addition (resulting in less quantity and probably less quality).

rn my webnovels are free but I write them in my spare time, not ideal but what else can I do...

nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

The word on the street is that the computer game Kerbal Space Program 2 might have died aborning.

The publisher said it was going to fire employees and cancel projects in order to save money. So far the Kerbal team has lost seventy workers. Including the Kerbal community manager.

I hate this timeline.

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath It's hard to make a sequel to one of the best games of all time.

They went even more ambitious... and just crashed and burned. Icarus.

maxthefox, to scifi
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

Launched my third book! In 2234, a multi-species expedition explores a 'glass planet' in poorly-charted space. Iraklijs the human and his alien comrades uncover a precursor installation full of riches, secrets, and dangers, altering understanding of the Silent Empire, and perhaps the whole central Oval. Basically dungeon crawl, best read after Origins or Marathon for context.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/85822/stardust-labyrinth

nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

An old classic "what if" question is What scifi novel or movie would you like to live in?

Adult me is skeptical of most of them, they all have drawbacks.

Child me instantly knows my heart's desire.

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath My own... even though I'm obviously biased it's a pretty alright future. Essentially democratic socialist economy, around 65% post-scarcity, universal morphic freedom, the alien cultures are actually varied and deep. Would still be a writer but with more free time.

I actually wouldn't want Star Trek because frankly the aliens there look and act boring and cosmetic genemodding is banned (again am biased).

Wouldn't mind the Culture, yea. Seems like the best of both worlds.

elizabethtasker, to random
@elizabethtasker@mastodon.online avatar

From worlds where stars do not twinkle, to lands where you must outrun the sun-rise to survive, "Alien Earths" by Lisa Kaltenegger is packed with truly delicious visuals of what we might find on the surface of an exoplanet.

Kaltenegger gives a personal account of what it's like working at the cutting edge of uncovering the nature of these alien worlds, with many amusing anecdotes such the perils of interdisciplinary work!

My book review is here in Science Magazine 🔗! https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado1465

Computer graphics visualisation of a planet seemingly made of glass. The text is an anecdote from "Alien Earths", saying: "When geologists talk about glass, they mean a cooled magma. When astronomers talk about glass, we mean the see-through material that comprises the vessels we pour liquid into. When I called it a 'Cinderella glass-slipper planet' the geologists understood what the astronomers were thinking. A lot of teasing ensued."

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@elizabethtasker @nyrath ...strange that I see this on my feed right as I start writing a story set on a "glass planet". Whew.

maxthefox, to sciencefiction
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

My first book, which used to be highly janky, has been de-janked as much as I could. It's still the first long-form writing I ever did, so the quality is definitely not as high as Marathon, but it's very readable and the premise is rather unusual. It's not military sci-fi unlike Marathon, rather it's about a space road trip that ends up stumbling into a conspiracy.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/73240/stardust


nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

Old 2018 article about the danger of farts in space suits.

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/farts-an-underappreciated-threat-to-astronauts

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath This kind of thing normally doesn't get much research because of researchers' embarrassment at potentially being known forevermore as "the person who wrote a paper about astronaut farts".

nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

New Moon: Lutecia in orbit

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/9xLWN

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@isaackuo @sudnadja @RogerBW @michael_w_busch @nyrath To me hard sci-fi means verisimilitude. You can have aliens, you can have semi-casual interstellar travel, you can have sapient AI... but only as long as those things act in a consistent and well-thought-out manner that "feels" real instead of just a story device or rule of cool.

It's a function of how much research the author did and how well did they apply it.

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath @isaackuo @sudnadja @RogerBW @michael_w_busch I solve this with a Starguard looking at every ship's thrust vectors in inhabited systems and being ready to either shut off the engines or blow up the wannabe terrorist.

Are this kind of control-transponders an invasion of privacy? Yes. Are they necessary for interstellar trade to be safe? Also yes.

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@tkinias @isaackuo @nyrath @sudnadja @RogerBW @michael_w_busch Yeah, what I mean by self-consistency is also consistency with the real world... but it doesn't mean meticulously calculating everything.

I have zero interest in mathing out every transfer. I might make some ballpark estimates if it's important but for routine stuff, nah I have better things to spend time on. Such as actually writing the book.

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@isaackuo @tkinias @nyrath @sudnadja @RogerBW @michael_w_busch Dark Forest is, these days, waved around as a banner by people who desperately want an outlandish scenario to fear, because they don't want to fear actual, real issues. Or to excuse their human supremacist daydream fantasies. Or both. Red flag for me when I see someone unironically trotting it out.

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@isaackuo @tkinias @nyrath @sudnadja @RogerBW @michael_w_busch And it doesn't even work out, realistically, unless you have only two civilizations around. Because if there's a third, they will see you launching the kill vehicle at the second, and in turn launch a kill vehicle at YOU, because obviously they are gonna be next in your genocidal rampage.

This makes the game theoretic best move to NOT shoot but do literally anything else, because shooting is likely chance of death.

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath @tkinias @isaackuo @sudnadja @RogerBW @michael_w_busch I'd consider your site a "source aggregator", or really a "further digging direction guide" tbh. Still it's a very important niche because often good research sources are hard to find especially for obscure topics.

nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

Boy, my 12 year old great-nephew just made me feel totally inadequate.

Apparently he listens to podcasts while simultaneously reading technical books on totally different topics. His father (my nephew) has given him tests and his comprehension of both cast and text are excellent.

As a drawback, he does suffer from severe ADHD. His mental world is like he is surrounded by falling scraps of book pages, and he has to read each one before they hit the ground.

maxthefox,
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath Wow. Meanwhile I can't write or code or play chess (or anything else that needs lots of concentration) while listening to music with lyrics. Much less something I'm REQUIRED to pay attention to, like a podcast! At least music isn't useless if I mentally block out the lyrics.

maxthefox, to writing
@maxthefox@spacey.space avatar

#WritersCoffeeClub #Writing April 6: Lessons from past projects that I'm using in my WIP

Lessons from the first book: don't give the characters ridiculous accents that are spelled out phonetically, have a goddamn plan, give the characters ways to get the information they need without blind luck

Lessons from the second book: set a longer deadline, keep the tone more consistent, find premises that don't involve the characters spending the whole book in one small spaceship

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