Thread 24653333

I love hard science fiction
I am not smart enough to write accurate hard science fiction, any solutions?

>>24653333 (OP)
Just research the topic you're writing about, can't be that hard.

Please stop reading Branderson. You have no obligation to explain the technicalities of every little thing that deviates from our world. What are you trying to explain? Why does it need to be explained?

she looks weak to ear-touching

>>24653340
I'm a greg egan fan, and other HIGH concept stuff in sci fi...I'm sadly not a mathematician or anything like that.
>>24653338
>can't be that hard
It's beyond hard, I might have the idea, story wise, but the details, impossible

>>24653349
>impossible
Then why the fuck did you make this thread ? Skill issue.

>>24653349
Preptime

I consider going to fantasy, no one cares if shit makes sense there
>>24653351
>>24653352
Do you know greg egan? Go look at orthogonal, the math behind it, I cant even build that
Cant build a conceptual world based on alternate well...all, if you cant even get the real one like that

>>24653333 (OP)
>I am not smart enough to write accurate hard science fiction
>accurate hard science fiction
No such thing.

Hard sci-fi is not about accuracy, it's about using technical shit you like the same way space opera uses tropes. It doesn't have to be accurate whatsoever, you just have to be anally, autistically technical about it.

Peter Watts and Greg Egan are considered the top contemporary scifi authors and they write about fucking vampires and N-dimensional AI lifeforms respectively. What tf is "accurate" about those?

>>24653349
>I'm a greg egan fan
Then you should know that Greg Egan is not smart, he's a massive brainlet with a math degree who really rally wanted everyone to know how much he hates sex and was confident enough to go after this goal through writing.
(this is not a bad thing, I am also a fan. It's just that it's a hard fact of reality that he's fucking retarded)
If he could do it, so can you. You have to learn how hate human sexual intercourse really hard if you want to fully imitate his aura tho.

>>24653358
>Go look at orthogonal, the math behind it, I cant even build that
You can. It's fucking easy breh. You're just intimidated by whatever you come up with being "wrong".

Any math, physics or biology undergrad can find a about a thousand things wrong in the Orthogonal trilogy. It's about as accurate to contemporary sciences (of which Egan is only somewhat kinda tiptoes-level fluent in topology mathematics and that's literally it) as Verne's From the Earth to the Moon is to contemporary rocket science. It's just that much fewer people know shit about topology now compared to rocketry, and Egan jas the necessary artistic cojones to say "well that's like your opinion man, I'm the artist I see it that way go fuck yourself". Which is how it always works anyway.

>>24653333 (OP)
Writing hard sci-fi isn't about intelligence. It's actually the less intelligent brand of science fiction, since it relies invariably upon droning recollections of scientific trivia that has no actual bearing on the story but exists to give the reader some nebulous impression that what they're talking about might some day be possible.

If you want to write hard science fiction, simply study whatever the subject is. It is not difficult to achieve a passable literacy in whatever the subject is, you can even go ask a machine to dumb it down for you so that you can get the important stuff toegether.

In relaity though hard sci-fi is gay as fuck precisely because it leans on lectures about the technology in place of actual storytelling. Half of these are like if some guy telling you his life story stopped to explain how an internal combustion engine worked in studious detail right as he's getting into a car to go visit his dying son. It's immensely tedious and I advise you against it.

>>24653333 (OP)
make shit up. I invented my own completely made up "math" for my hard science fiction novel. I felt silly but I had fun doing it. Go for it.

>>24653333 (OP)
If stemlords were as afraid of reading literature as wordcels are of learning mathematics, we’d be in real trouble

Just... learn the math and physics, you lazy shit.

>>24653725
I tried I cant. I cant do it at all, I couldnt do it. Im not as smart as Egan.
>>24653546
I dont like the lecturing type of science fiction, I like the high concept strange emergent stuff.
>>24653470
>>24653455
>>24653546
But I just can't learn it, no matter what I do, I am prevented from joining and adding to that I love...

>>24653777
What do you want, pity for being stupid? Consolation for laziness? You’ve decided you can’t do it and yet you burden us with this thread. Watch some Khan Academy videos and shut the fuck up

>>24653784
>>24653784
I'm moving to fantasy land where I dont have to worry about it

>>24653777
>I tried for a month I can't :(

>>24653810
Yeah I can't, worldbuilding is a huge waste of time btw

OP here, should I use chatgpt to help me do the math for me?

OP HERE
Should I USE CHATGPT TO DO THE MATH FOR ME?

>>24653777
What...? The science you need to learn is barely an undergraduate degree's worth, and any retard can get a bachelor's degree in pure mathematics and physics (separate). If you can't do that, write what you know, which is not mathematics. No one wants to read a moron larp at being a scientist.

>>24653846
I am going to fantasy land didnt you hear, I am anti science now
Evolution isnt real, science isnt real

>>24653819
I mean so is writing sci-fi so you may as well just scrap it all

How old are you OP ? What gender are you OP ?

im crying. i cant do this
>>24653962
20s
>>24653946
im thinking about it

Besides, to write /hard/ sci-fi that's actually interesting enough, you need to study up to algebraic topology/geometry in mathematics, and through special (easy) and general (very hard) relativity in physics, obviously doing statistical mechanics and up to graduate QM and QFT on the side. If you can't do that, your work will come across to the reader like you're showing off by reciting the Pythagorean theorem and Kepler's laws—infantile and unprepared.

OP HERE
AM I RIGHT TO GO AND WRITE FANTASY INSTEAD

>>24654001
Just write something that interests you and you can sustain a writing pace on. If you're not experienced with writing, do some short stories, first; pick a little premise and then expound upon it for ten, fifteen pages. You'll get an idea on what works.

>>24654010
No, Ill never be like my idol greg egan and that makes me sad. i read mostly hard science fiction if its fiction....Ill never be like watts or egan, maybe I should commit suicide
im thinking about burning my copy of my fav books from them, im crying

i consdier suicide again

disregarding op being a "howie"-type loser it's important to remember that william gibson was a hippie who wrote all those cyberpunk novels about hacking without owning a computer or an ounce of technical knowledge, and the response of actual computer nerds wasn't to laugh at him for being wrong but to larp like what they actually did WAS similar to his fantasies. it doesn't have to be true, it has to be appealing, and then people will pretend it's true. dorks love greg egan because they want to believe they will digitize their brains and live forever as cyberspace libertarians or whatever. it feels good to pretend that's true and the fake science just makes it easier.

>>24653838
CHATGPT is a good way to get broad informations but keep in mind: it will ALWAYS try to answer your questions even if has to lie for it.
So dobble check what ever thing you have but math is often a save bet. Computers that bad at math only have bad input.

and to your overall struggle to write hard scifi:
You don't have to write a paper for Nasa but a compelling story. You can for the sake of the story leave or add things that arnt real solong you stick with this change forever.
Want your hero not waist 30 years between the stars? FTL travel thanks to pandora's drive. Just dont open it!
Want a world ending tech the hero have to destroy in time? Keep in this case the story simple becouse space is overall a simple afair and nothing ever was more epic then a falling rock from the sky (aka asteroid magnet)

Like to tell us what kind of scifi story you had in mind?

>>24654038
>>24654028
as a man with no real retirement plan myself i understand but highly advise not to.
Do not think "you are not" better think "you are not YET" and work and improve on it.

>>24654088
>>24654052
>>24654052
>>24654096
i dont care, its all fake

>>24654098
pardon?

>>24654124
I think Ill give up

>>24654128
good

>>24654130
No one cares, reading is a dead thing

>>24654088
Not exactly /hard/ sci-fi if you omit all the details, is it? And to fake it well, you have to know it. If you start making shit up with a middle schooler's understanding of mathematics, you'll be laughed at by anyone who graduated high school.

>>24654128
Concur, good. Only those who actually have something to write about should write.

>>24654133
good

>>24654140
>>24654138
No one cares, I am not reading anymore, life has other things to do, reading is boring.

>>24654143
so leave already

>>24654143
Your flippant treatment of writing shows that you'll never commit to anything and will only keep jumping from one thing to the next, wondering why nothing seems to be right for you, until you die. Good luck with the regret in 15-25 years.

>>24654149
>>24654152
im flippant about everything, life, its all shit who cares

>>24654152
>>24654138
>>24654140
>>24654096
>>24654088
Many authors know jackshit and they can write just fine, so why not me? what should i do?

>>24654192
Quality howie-posting. Didn't you already give up? You could do that.

>>24654128
give up writing or life?
one is okey the other just bad.

>>24654138
>Not exactly /hard/ sci-fi if you omit all the details, is it?
Good story are not read by the reader for being a manual how to build near future stuff but for being good storys.
Science fiction is about the fiction of science. Hard ones just dont bend the rules for the plot.
Depending WHAT you want to tell you can get away by keeping all details simple.
Example: Man on a spaceship investigating a murder.
All you as a writer need to know is how people die in space and how to make this a compelling story.There's no need to mention the workings of the spaceship's propulsion or the details of the oxygen filter. They are what they are, unless it's important for the reader to know how they work.
So what is your hard sci fi story idea? we can brainstorm some good start together.

>>24654192
for start you could lay down what you manage to write so far. Clipnotes, brainstorms, general feel and idea of the story you want to write.

>>24654201
>>24654205
>>24654211
give up on life and no i dont want anyone to mock my ideas, i know stuff just definitely not any math

Inexplicably, Howie has bred and multiplied. Gentleman — we are approaching an endemic.

>>24654213
i think your depresion is outside of the scope of /lit/ and if you fear you ideas being mocked... then its okey to think that way. Its just harder to help your writing if you look yourself up like that.
Also not every hard scifi story need math. Just write in a way where the reader is not required to know.
Like i said; you dont need to write a paper for NASA. The idea of "smoke and mirrors" applies to writing too, you know.

>>24653333 (OP)
Isn't hard science fiction just erotic science fiction? Or have I been misled?

OP HERE, why cant I do this?

>unrelated anime image
>single sentence bitching and moaning about how hard it is to do things
At least try to be a little more subtle. Are you going laconic on us? Your threads and replies used to have so much more convincing depth to them, but now this is just sad.

>>24654499
>OP HERE, why cant I do this?
i like to help but you seen to be fine or not wanting my help.

>>24654638
why wouldnt i want your help?

>>24653333 (OP)
Write soft science fiction instead the fiction part is a portal to write whatever the fuck you want. Ooooo its a le fungus that only survives on cum and since it's our only source of oxygen left because of le happening our replacement rates are dwindling to the point that we cannot sustain the cum funguns anymore whatever will we do now.

>>24654657
but i like hard sci fi mostly

>>24654676
Get a better brain I guess. Learn some physics and shit.

>>24654679
Why should I? I tried but couldn't.

>>24654685
Okay, then sit here and cry about it on the internet I guess. I am out of ideas champ.

>>24654690
Any solutions? Should I move into another genre that's easier?

>>24654694
Fuck you, I gave you a solutions you pulled your nose up at it. This is a (You) problem now. Good luck.

>>24654707
>just get a phd for your novel bro lol

>>24654710
I hate swallowing the bait, but if you want to write a hard sci-fi novel, you better know math and physics at a minimum to a level of a masters student.

>>24654724
Ive abandoned my love for hard sci fi, I got rid of the two physical books I had for that!
I am into soft science fiction now.

I have abandoned my love for hard science fiction, I threw my copy of blindsight into the trash alongside the other books! I might be unable to enjoy and join the genre I liked the most...I am looking to go into fantasy and soft sci fi as a reader and maybe even writer now.

>>24654747
And I have to say I have been a bit more impressed with your attitude and your ability in this situation and the fact you are not in a good mood and you have been a good listener to the other side and you are a very nice guy I have been a great influence in my career I am a good listener I have a good attitude I have been very nice and very good friend to my friend I am a great

>>24653333 (OP)
>not smart enough
Your main issue probably isn't intelligence but knowledge. Read some textbooks and academic papers. Then you will at least be able to use real jargon in context.

>>24654793
One of us has brain damage.

>>24653333 (OP)
Make your protagonist a Bushman or a Sentinelese encountering civilization or something.

>>24654815
Is it possible that the first time you have seen the sun in your life and you are now seeing it in your dreams or in your dreams and your dreams or dreams and you are in your mind

>>24654849
But then you have to avoid an omniscient narrator, or you'll have to know your science, again. If we're ignoring that this is a howie-post. Being subtle about hard science is probably even harder than being explicit. Hard sci-fi cannot avoid the science, because what makes it hard is that the central premise is built on top of it, not around it. It's like writing a novel about F1-racing without ever having followed it at all.

Hard sci-fi fucking sucks anyway, count yourself lucky

>>24654724
not even that
simple noar story in a lab coat would do the trick.
Random wiki article about some tech, tailer a stroy around it and go!

>>24654646
>why wouldnt i want your help?
then why would you ask for help?

>>24654913
>tailer a stroy around it and go
Yes everyone should take your advice

>>24654913
That's true. You don't need to know /all/ of mathematics and science to write compelling hard sci-fi, you just need to come up with a premise built around at least one concept. Egan's Dichronauts is built entirely on the notion of a hypothetical spacetime metric. Sure, it carries very complicated consequences, but it doesn't have to be like that. You could write a novel where... the universe is partitioned into sections and those sections follow a modified, three-dimensional variant of Conway's Game of Life on some threshold mass value. That'd also be... actually extremely complicated, but it's true you can do pretty much anything.

Maybe I should say that instead of "realistic," what hard sci-fi is, is expositional on a scientific concept. Maybe the distinction isn't all that important.

bump

>>24654487
>Or have I been misled?
misled

>>24653333 (OP)
https://moonquillnovels.com/book/anomaly

because some people related they read hard science fiction.

>>24655463
The horrible writing in the synopsis already turned me off considering it seriously. Come on? Learn to write. The solution? Not writing statements like? this all the time. The loss? Not very great.

>>24655463
>>24655505
Tina and Howie interact! Worlds collide! Is this a match made in heaven? Or nuclear fission? Find out soon, after a message from our sponsors.

>>24655463
>Welcome to 2047. Soon, to become 2048.
I’m glad to see the passage of time is still working correctly in 2047.

The hints of a secret military mission? The hero pilot that pulled this off, was a decorated former combat pilot? The story wrote itself. With no selfless hero to interview, the media would rush in a herd to the widow and kid. Flashing "hero pilot's wife" under her teary eyes. Everyone would know who she was. And if the insurance company tried to steal the huge life insurance policy Ben had for his wife and kid? There would be hell to pay.


Why, Ben hadn't committed suicide. He had given up his life, knowing he had a terminal condition... and made his last bit of healthy life count. The story was too big, and too good not to run with and get all the mileage the media could wring out of it. Ben-hog, the hero pilot. His mysterious G-ride passenger. Some unknown research professor from a research university with him. They wouldn't know how, but those two had given their lives and somehow made the scary thing disappear.


Experts were all over talk shows and interviews. It was a four dimensional object, and we can't make one. We didn't even know they could exist. It almost has to be alien advanced technology. And? On some secret military mission... the hero pilot, and the hero research professor... had somehow destroyed it.


The military would wipe its brow and breathe a sigh of relief. The space station corporation? Would wipe its brow and breathe a sigh of relief. The public? Would wipe their brow and breathe a sigh of relief. If an alien invasion had been about to appear out of that thing and take over earth easily with their advanced technology? We were all safe now.


But the time for planning and taking the easy guesses at what everyone would think, know, and therefore do afterwards? Ben's rule was paramount. Focus on one thing. The mission. Its easy, but you focus on it all the more.

>>24655712
>Ben-hog

"Yeah. I've had a good life. I honestly can't complain. Wife and kids. Great family life. Good pay and benefits. My job? Its a roller-coaster ride. Joe? Not bragging, but... for a little while there? I had a good run. I honestly thought I had it all."


Joe smiled back.


"You do have it all."


"Do I?"


"The hell you even missing out on. You did it all."


Ben smiled and shook his head gently.


"They do say. If you don't have your health? You don't have anything."


Joe looked away politely.


"Yeah."


Ben went on, chuckling.


"All the experts. What do they tell us? Don't smoke. Don't drink too much. Eat right. Exercise regularly. Don't get overweight. Look at me. I did all that, like a religion. Now look at me. Turns out it was all a bunch of bullshit. I could have smoked like a chimney, and it wouldn't have touched me one little bit. I'm barely over 40. I should have enjoyed the occasional slice of cheesecake."


Joe couldn't say anything, so he said nothing. It was all rhetorical.


"I hope they have beer and cheesecake where we're going, Carp."


Joe finally could face him and look him in the eye on that one, with a grin.


"I don't know, Ben. But you know what? We're going to find out. They gotta have something."


As check out time came, Ben smiled and let Joe enjoy new timer fun with low gravity. Getting to pick up heavy objects, amazed at the extra apparent strength it gave him to be in low gravity this high up.

"88! 88! We have you tagged on flight control now. Respond, 88!"


Ben smiled.


"Station one? This is 88."


"Ben? The hell's going on! Why are you near the bogie? What happened to communications, we lost your transponder. Do you have systems back? Ben!"


"Station one? Clear the channel. This is important."


"Go ahead, 88."


"Tell my wife I loved her. You guys are about to find out? I was getting grounded soon. I went terminal. Nothing I can do, nothing they can do for me. I love all you guys, and I loved this job. Greatest job in the whole world, and off of it."


"Ben? What the hell are you doing. Get away from the bogie!"


"Station one? Steve can fill you in on what's really going on."


"Ben? Which Steve! We have thousands of employees, on the ground and up in the air! You know how many Steve's there are? Which Steve!"


"Steve, ground security. On flight check out."


"Ben? What the hell are you doing..."


"Station one? I was a combat pilot. My passenger? Has something he thinks can shut the bogie down. As a combat pilot? You carry the fight directly to the heart of the enemy. You show them, that they can be touched. Station one? I'm a dead man walking. I'm going to take bogie with me."


"Ben? Don't do this..."


"Station one? 88 is a new call sign. This is now Air-hog 1. I'm starting my attack run now. Sit back and watch the show. Do me a favor? Tell the boys I flew with, that I said it. Air-hogs forever. We die with our boots on. Rain hell, and paint the devil on the ground... over and out."


Ben flicked the communications off.


"Well, Carp. Was that a little too... over the top?"

"No, no. Very... retro action movie. I liked it."

"You ready Joe?"


"As ready as I'm ever going to be. Hit it."

Ben backed up, then turned around slowly and got stationary. He flicked transponder ID back on. He took a long run, firing all rockets straight. He picked up speed. Just before the last orbital shuttle delivery, he had the rockets reloaded. They had wasted some fooling around playing while working. Letting Joe have fun when no one was around. It had been deliberate, he had wanted an excuse to have full rocket fuel just before he did this.

He just headed straight, dead on and squared up to the black anomaly that had recently grown in size to its biggest dimensions yet. Little adjustments to keep on target. He hit the "bogie" at full speed.

Joe had assured him, it would get bigger at 3:30 in the morning, their ground time. It had. And, at 4:00 am? It would close and disappear.

When they made contact? Orbital shuttle 88, which had reassigned itself as "Air-hog 1"... simply disappeared off of radar. The transponder, that added an ID next to the screen blip the traffic controllers watched? Both blip and ID winked off instantly.

They disappeared shortly before 4:00 am. The anomaly everyone was so nervous, curious, and scared of? Disappeared within seconds of 4:00 am.

Eventually, they decided to go in for a glide path landing.


"I hope they have oxygen down there."


"They said their atmosphere was almost identical to ours. Slightly more oxygen, slightly less nitrogen, but otherwise about the same. You don't kill us getting down? Pretty sure we can breathe. Pick a spot to land near something, would you? I don't wanna hike for months all over creation."


"Again. I don't have a map. And... a glide path? Is a one shot deal. I don't wanna crash land in some city, and smash shit all to hell, killing people like a meteor coming in. We'll probably survive it? But I don't think we'll impress them much that way."


"You? Pilot. Me? Passenger. What do you think."


"No pun intended, but... I wing it."


"Funny. Go on, do your thing."


"Okay. It'll take a while, but... remember the cover over the red button I showed you? The emergency button."


"Yeah."


"Remember to hit that, before we... land."


"Were you about to say crash, and you changed it at the last moment, to say land?"


"No. Yeah. Joe, I told you. Glide path landing an orbital shuttle? Is an emergency landing. Its... technically a... controlled crash, more than a... landing, as much as you would think of it."


"You once said... decent landing. Relax, I got this. Now? Its not a decent landing, its a controlled crash. When do I get the truth, we're coming in like a meteor on fire."


"I'm not going in like that. Atmosphere density affects glide and flight characteristics. You said slightly higher oxygen? That will make the rockets more powerful, and the fuel last longer. The engines adjust the rockets for it. Gravity? Is another wild card. If this planet is bigger? It probably has higher gravity, which will not help."


"Just go in for a decent landing... controlled crash... meteor with flaming wreckage... just do it. You told me we get this far? Relax, you got this. I'll relax, you? Show me the I got this part."


Ben gave a running commentary as he came in and headed for what looked like anything flat.


"Ben. Would ditching in water be good?"


"Optimum, really. I could come in really hot, and we'd just bob like a cork as long as we had to. Thing's designed to stay upright and float forever. Just don't know how long we'd float before someone located us. Reasonably flat land would be not as gentle? But... you can get out and look around for civilization."


"I'm relaxing. You, do the I got this."


"Yeah, yeah. Who's the comedian now."

>>24653333 (OP)
Pair up with a nerd who will math-check you

>>24655712
Dios? Mio.

Holy? Kek.

I cannot? I believe.

Hope in my own writing? Redeemed.

Thank? You very.

>>24656398
Hi.
Yes, this is several writing proiects back.
I used to write free, worry about editing later. Ad yes I developed a number of bad writing habits. As I got tired of editing the same things over and over again, I slowly stopped.
Here, you see the "?" too may parenthetical questions.
Next time it gets an editing pass, most of those disappear.
Of course if thats all you got to complain about... its not like another editing pass doesn't fix things.

>>24653349
>I'm sadly not a mathematician or anything like that.
Nigga you can TEACH yourself math

>>24656672
You should read more, Tina. Watching you write is like seeing a car repeatedly crash into a steel pole. You can just drive around. But no, you keep doing the same thing and hope something changes. Oh well.

>>24653333 (OP)
>claims to like something
>admits he is not smart enough to comprehend it
You are a dumb normalfag and should kill yourself

I love science fiction.
I am not creative enough to write anything. Any solutions?

>>24657454
Build a house tall enough to reach space and then write

>>24656398
If any value remains on this board, it is hope through disgust. Thank you, OP.

>>24657441
>You should read more, Tina. Watching you write is like seeing a car repeatedly crash into a steel pole. You can just drive around. But no, you keep doing the same thing and hope something changes. Oh well.
glad you get some entertainment out of it.
To me there's two main components. There's the story itself. Plot and characters. Then proofing/editing is another thing entirely. I'm actually getting happier with the story itself now. Leaving me to come around the horn with my editing. I'm getting done with a few things and I plan on making a big editing push this fall and winter. As in, I go back and edit *everything*, to the specs I edit to now. But your critique is valid.

The writing in this thread isn't mine.
>>24657493
That isn't me

>>24653777
>I tried
Have you tried taking a community college class on the subject?
Reading a textbook about it?
Regardless, I'm afraid >>24653546 is right.