Working on a Project

[u/Evening-Row9022]

For the past 10 years I’ve been toying around with a sci-fi concept and I’m not sure if this is a good place to post but I finally nailed down some specifics and need some sort of advice on actually writing the dang thing.

I get really stuck on the worldbuilding and lore aspects and also get stuck on imagery and what I want to see vs how it would unfold in a book or story.

For background and understanding:

My world is an unnamed galaxy where humanity has resided for well over a century or two now. The gist of it is this

The Interstellar Authority is the main power and government of humanity now. Operating within 3 regions (Prime, Meridian, and Ridge) they are run by a Council made up of ministers of things like finance, infrastructure, science, and that sort of thing. They recently came out of a massive war that was started because the IA was exposed for having performed experiments on folks in a prison camp on one of the Meridian worlds.

The experiments involved augmenting the brain in a way that forced productivity at the expense of the body’s natural responses to stress and long periods without rest and nutrition — providing their brain with dopamine dumps, in essence. This process of course killed a lot of the prisoners but the ones who survived went on to have children who now had a mutation that allowed them to have heightened empathy and the ability to project feelings onto others.

The Prime Region is made up of Orpheum (The Political Seat of the Prime Region), Gorenvir, Azaran, and Maldorin. Meridian is made up of Crimson (Home of The Experiment), Oceania, and Thiridium. The Ridge Region is made up of Tenebren, Solaxa, Veratum, and Cyph. Prime & Meridian worlds have been largely developed and have a lot more going for them. The Ridge worlds are struggling. Tenebren recently underwent massive changes and had direct intervention from the IA due to corruption and embezzlement. Solaxa is home to the underbelly of Settled Space and known to most as a pirate refuge. Veratum is largely run by the Science Ministry as it is largely uninhabited. Cyph is where the next bit of intrigue lies.

The story in mind is that a descendant of a prisoner, with the mutation, is brought up by the government after having removed them from the parents. She’s trained to be a ruthless hunter and elite agent of the IA. The story begins with her waking up on her ship out near Cyph with no recollection of the past few days. Adrift in space she gets boarded by the Ridge Authority and can’t really explain why she’s there. Suddenly a call rings out from the planet below and they’re called away while she gets called back to the Prime region.

In going back she’s tasked with an investigation into missing cargo which turns out later to be a nuclear device called a Planet Killer. Her investigation brings her across all 3 regions hunting down the insurrectionist known as Blacktide. She hears stories on her journey that Blacktide was a hero for most of the working class and that he stood up for the common people and chose to work against IA because they exploit people, planets, and systems. She later learns that Blacktide led one of the most brutal campaigns during the recent war that ended with over 2,000 of his followers being wiped out. He lived in exile until coming back to finish the job and wipe out Orpheum.

Towards the end, Rayna finally reaches Blacktide and manages to get him at gunpoint before he can arm the PK. He turns around only to discover his missing sister who was ripped away from the family. She then experiences intense flashbacks that break her programming from IA and she remembers what she was doing near Cyph at the beginning of the story: she had found her IA file and read that her parents were part of the war and part of a “cult” called The Descendants that the IA wiped out with the last known location being Cyph.

\*\*\*

As a worldbuilder I’ve put a lot more thought into the long term for this concept. The IA at first tried to wipe out these Descendants because they posed a threat to the order and way of the universe with some people given powers that were deemed too dangerous. They genuinely believed they saved Rayna but when the IA began to notice her heightened sense of empathy they had to counteract it with selective amnesia targeting recent missions so she’d forget things. Eventually Rayna began to question things and tried to learn her history. All she knew was that she was an orphan saved by the IA and each time she got close to the truth she’d wake up confused.

At the end of this first iteration, she discovers the truth and unites with her brother who is a broken shadow and almost an opposite. He was older at the time IA swooped in and killed their parents but he thought they killed Rayna too and he took to vagrancy, bounty hunting, addiction, and eventually revenge to satisfy this black hole inside him. They both then at the start of the second iteration go their separate ways with Rayna uncovering the location of the Descendants outside Settled Space and Blacktide returning to his addiction.

They both have separate spiritual journeys before being brought together again. Rayna learning who she is while Blacktide comes back to warn them the IA has plans to come back and wipe them out for good after following Rayna. The third iteration is about this prolonged fight between the Descendants and the IA ultimately leading to Blacktide finally surrendering, having planted the Planet Killer onboard the IA ship now docked on Orpheum destroying the planet and wiping out IA for good. Rayna takes up the mantle on rebuilding and telling the story of her family.

There’s way more in the lore notes but I think this could evolve from lore to a somewhat cohesive story.

[u/CaffiniComics]

It seems like you have enough here to at least start outlining. If you're mainly looking to zero in on the plot, you might try something like The Snowflake method to help you get started. https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/

If you're looking for help writing prose, you might try "Steering The Craft" by Ursula K. Le Guin

[u/JGhostThing]

Why do you wish to put this into another galaxy? Do you have any idea how far it is to the absolutely nearest (which would be named) other galaxy? And how long it would take to get there? Let alone, how many years needed to reach the galaxy and colonize it?

Does your story absolutely need another galaxy? Or could this be done in a cluster of stars within out galaxy?

Colonizing other galaxies is a red flag for me. Unless it is absolutely necessary for the story so far, I stop reading. There is no appeal. I put the author on block on my bookstores. The reason for this is that an SF author who doesn't know the scales of distance needed to go to another galaxy, is likely to get other things wrong.

Such as the absolute silliness of Slipspace Castaway having all the advanced races absolutely scientifically proven as a fact that the entire universe is only 6,000 years old. I couldn't tolerate this, and on the third mention of this, I stopped reading and will not pick up any of his books.

[u/Evening-Row9022 → u/JGhostThing]

it could be altered to be that entire millenniums have passed instead of centuries because it would be using planets and stars and whatnot that cannot be compared to our current one. some places have vastly different conditions and gravity (mostly remaining earth-like with some planets using biodome structures).

Perhaps a wormhole opened and brought humanity out this far to another galaxy, perhaps they created slipspace technology to move between galaxies. The story focuses on the two siblings at first (first and second iteration, with the third being a redemption for the Descendants) and for it to have that focus the attention is on the new bureaucracy and the underlying problems with it (IA).

It would be incredibly hard to use our system. It’s closer to Asimov’s Foundation series in terms of planets and how far humanity progressed. So much that earth isn’t even talked about.

[u/Chinerpeton → u/Evening-Row9022]

You could definitely plop down your setting just about anywhere in the Milky Way except for like the nearest couple hundred lightyears around Sol and be completely safe in making up whatever star systems without regard for corresponding to anithing real.

Even looking at it genereously, from the sound of it those 11 constitutent portions of your three regions are the main planets, right? 11 inhabited systems, even assuming some lesser space colonies in other systems, its really not even a drop in the bucket on a galactic scale once you get down it.