Young Writers Society

I liked science fiction and Pokemon when I was a child, and and there is a story idea that is stuck in my head for a year. It is about how faster-than-light (FTL) traveling made English the global language. I didn't think of the names yet because I'm bad at names.

I found many science fiction are scientifically inaccurate, so I wanted to create a hard science fiction where space physics are accurate and characters must use science to solve some problems. The only law of physics may be broken is FTL travel and monster summoning through wormholes. The monsters are not cute psychic beasts or inanimate objects, but they are actually augmented animals from various planets. My story also explores the implications of faster-than-light travel, because a FTL technology must have limitations. I add some details about FTL not to make useless technobabble, but for interesting resolutions for problems. In addition, this story will make the Pokemon and Digimon or what-mon fans rethink when they want these monsters to be real. Battling monsters comes with generation gap and protest groups

Some traits I want it to be:
- Hard science fiction
- Military science fiction: how the monsters are used as tools of war
- Political science fiction: the story of a micronation becoming a nation


Traits I want to get away from:
Romance (except an event that has long-lasting effect on the characters)
Space opera (no space fighters, no sound in space, FTL comes with limitations, many ground combat)

Themes I want to explore:
Bioethics (do the monsters feel pain? is pain eliminated? is the monster crying inside?)
Free will
Bias of textbook history

The reader will learn about:
How space combat works
Some real science
How to build a nation
Alien languages

Setting:
There was an alien race who has a culture of using animals as servants. They augmented the animals to create monsters that can survive in extreme environments and obey its owner absolutely. They also created a network of wormhole gates and the convenient storage and deployment of monsters. Later, they tried to add sentience into these monsters, and it went wrong and became a threat. Their gate was cut off and the sentient monsters spread around the gates to terrorize other lifeforms. These sentient monsters are called roamers.

The second alien race followed the first alien race's legacy of gates and monsters, and they recognized the threat of roamers, so their mission is to protect other alien races so that the roamers will not abduct them and convert them into new roamers. They discovered the solar system, which has a gate, and observed the Earth.

It was 2090s on Earth, and World War III was breaking out (I need to work out the causes, but I have one idea: fascism in America), the aliens ("observers") armed one faction with summoning monsters, and ended the war. Because the summoning monsters receive commands in an abstract language, so translation is required, and the aliens worked out a mobile phone-like device, which can generate the wormhole to deploy and withdraw monster, with a translator to convert English into a monster-understandable format. It multiplied the importance of English.

After the war ended, many countries signed a treaty so that reverse engineering of the "phone device" is illegal. To protest these laws, an ocean colonization experiment turned into a micronation.

In addition, the post WWIII China underwent some reforms including abolishing Chinese characters and integrate into the "world culture". The latest generation of youths and adults under 30 are the ones who received these phone devices, and with influence from the films and TV shows, they began dueling each other with the monsters. To promote independence and financing skills, the parent leaves the child alone in his house after the child turns 14 or 15, only contacting the teenager and sending him/her money. For the teenager, this parenting style killed filial piety and for parents, this promoted workaholism through disconnection from the children, but the distance of parent will make duels happen more often.

Story:
Aside from WWIII, the reader is not given anything about the alien races and the working of the monsters. A subplot is to explore the inner working of the "phone device".

The main character is a Chinese high school student who fought in World War III. He has dreams including going to that micronation, taking spaceflights and winning tournaments. There is a sidekick who is traditional, and hates cultural destruction in the name of progress and believes monsters should not be used as tools of war but as pets.

Later, he tries to see an alien with his own eyes (fought the roamers a few times, but could not take any evidence), and fought in tournaments to increase his rating to pass the bar to get into the micronation. After a sudden earthquake, he was accepted into the micronation as a refugee.

He integrates into the micronation's culture and became loyal to it, and he joins the elite operatives of the micronation. Some subplot about building identity through helping a helpless country. One day, the roamers attacked the micronation and the alien race that observed the Earth tried to help the micronation. The "observers" fought the roamers, and told how they manipulated the tide of war during WWIII. The micronation's leader wanted the observers to help the micronation become a nation, but the observers told the truth about the roamer threat, and they said if they can hire some humans to fight off the roamers, they can help them build a nation in return. 100 people including the main character hopped into their starship and began their journey.

Then, the story is about living in the alien world and getting through some diplomacy, then it is fighting the roamers, and reopening the gate to the alien race that created the roamers. Near the end, the characters learn about the truth of the working of monsters and they state their opinions on using monsters for battling. I want an ending where the micronation fights off roamers on Earth conventionally, then promoting a different treatment of the monsters, maybe achieving recognition by changing how people should treat the monsters.

I don't know if this is Pokemon + Mass Effect. The "Pokemon" part is not very questionable due to the mechanics and implications of monster deployment. since the gate network is like Mass Relay in Mass Effect and the roamers are like Collectors. I don't think this is a ripoff since I am exploring the implications of the genre of fighting monsters. Also, I think the story plan of only fighting off roamers seems to be too mundane and they should do more stuff with the aliens and adding more details at the difficulty of interacting with the aliens due to the cultural differences.

I mainly want a clearance on originality: If you think readers will complain it is a complete ripoff, I will scrap this idea.

I think perhaps you're looking at things a little too simply.

Problem #1: Scientific discovery. There are things which twenty years ago where hard science, and have since been proven wrong. Some are beliefs that are rooted into our culture and some have been revolutionary advancements. For example, did you know earth has one moon, or at least it did in the 60's. Then in the 80's it had two. In the 90's it only had one, the other is just a satellite. Then just recently we discovered that we have multiple moons that come and go as they please. They don't orbit permenantly, which causes us a big problem because we're here putting a rift between the tradition notion of a moon and a strictly scientific one.

It'll be near impossible for you to write something scientifically accurate (which means learning a lot of stuff and staying on top of recent discoveries) and focus on writing too. Even then, a simple scientific concept could have been completely turned on its head by the time you finish writing your novel, especially with the recent discoveries being made in quantum physics.

Problem #2: Learning it all. If you have a really, really good teacher they might be able to explain things very simply and broadly, but you need to find a really good teacher, and even then you won't be able to use your facts freely because you won't understand the why, you'll only know the what. I think to pass off a convincing hard science fiction you need at least three years of academic study. Smart people read hard science and you need to be five steps ahead of them.

Problem #3: Technobabble and Infodumping. Technobabble shortens big explainations into single words or phrases. If you don't use technobabble you're probably going to infodump, or lose your reader completely.

Problem #4: Teaching your reader science. The human mind is interesting in the way it works. When we learn something we learn it all as truth, and then another part of our brain analyses it and tells us it's a lie. When we become totally engrossed in a good novel the reason our heart races and we laugh and cry is because we're absorbing the information as truth. The moment we stop reading we acknowledge that this is all fiction.

When you're writing fiction your reader is either going to conciously analyse it and probably not enjoy it so much, or treat everything as fiction, which is most likely given that aliens are involved. In order to learn the reader would have to disect and separate truth from fiction, and that's not too likely.



Most people who write hard science are either scientists already, take it as an extreme hobby, or hire someone who knows what they're talking about to do all the sciency stuff for them. Also on the issue of avoiding romance and space opera, these are two massive markets that you're cutting out of your novel here.

As for the idea itself, go for it! I always like a challenge, and when people give me a list of issues I become even more determined to overcome them. Every story has already been told, it's about how you tell it that matters.

I would like to second what Tenyo said about how difficult it is to write truly "hard" sci fi. Most of it boils down to how science likes to evolve. Another thing I noticed is your obsession on exactness: readers, as Ten said, believe things to be the truth as they read them. They'll just accept your world works that way, without you needing to go on about how it works. Going into that detail will likely alienate your readers, as they'll either poke holes in your logic or it'll fly right over their heads.

That isn't to say you can't make the science in the book plausible. That richens sci fi (and fantasy) tremendously. But that does not mean you should put every little piece of your notes in the story. They are notes for that exact reason: you know them so you don't break your own internal logic, but all readers have to see is the results. I'd highly suggest keeping them out.

When I was reading The Time Machine for school, my English teacher flat-out skipped the hard sci fi portion of the book and had us focus on the story. That's what most readers do: they just want a story. And I didn't feel the plot was at all compromised by not knowing the science behind it.

Which brings me to the reason why you're writing this story. You have a list of what the reader will learn about. I am troubled by the word "will."

As soon as you insist on a moral being in a story, it is far too easy to put the moral first. Characters become cardboard mouthpieces for the author's views. There is a very clear "right" side and a very clear "wrong" side. So long as character agree with the author's views, they'll be right no matter what. Very easy to make a Mary Sue with those goals in mind, because one definition of a Sue is they don't make mistakes and are always in the right.

It's also boring to read about nothing but morals and values and what's right and wrong. People pick up stories, not philosophical essays. Put your story first and try to shove any morals you want to teach well out of your mind when you write. If you write the story well, people will get the morals out of them anyway.

Onto your sociocultural stuff.

The first thing that jumped out at me was the year. Dating a year like that, within a century (ie- within your reader's lifetimes) is a fast way to get readers thinking about how plausible the story is. My personal suggestion would be to bump the year forward, or not even specify it, so we can just imagine what sort of twists and turns science made.

Also, this:

In addition, the post WWIII China underwent some reforms including abolishing Chinese characters and integrate into the "world culture".

Please tell me why in God's name China destroyed its 3,000+ year old writing format? And the 3,000 year date is only for modern Chinese writing. There are some early forms of writing from China that date back to 6600~ BCE— ie, over 7,000 years ago.

Tradition steeped people do not simply get rid of their traditions. I would suggest fleshing this out a lot more, if not completely getting rid of this setting point, for it to make any sense.

Then there is also your cause of WWIII... which you've already said you're going to flesh out. I would really flesh it out. I'm not sure that would be a strong enough cause to start a full on world war. Look at what caused WW I and II to start before you start considering causes for WWIII. Also, please consider that any world wars in the future are likely to involve nuclear power. This will drastically impact the world, from environmental to even what's left once it's over.

I am also noticing a lack of technological advancements, and any strong predictions for future world powers. Your use of China makes me wonder if you know about how it is currently facing a city debt crisis. While the country is "only" nearly a trillion in debt (about 949 billion), its cities are far worse. While the urban population is swelling, the cities aren't receiving extra funding from the country to compensate for this extra strain and are therefore borrowing from the banks. The cities are quickly approaching where they can't pay this off. Not to mention the rampant corruption in the production sector that makes it nearly impossible to invest in the country and its rather unstable labour practices.

Look at countries in detail before deciding which is the most likely to end up as a world power in the future, instead of just how they rank on the world debt clock. A country could look like it's doing fairly well, but when you look under the facade it projects to the world, you could find some nasty little secrets. And these little secrets can become cracks that will topple the country over within any given period of time.

Study history. Find out what caused world powers to emerge from a place that won't change, because humanity tends to make the same mistakes. While the technology evolves and social structures change, the root causes for things tend to all boil down to the same things. The adage "Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. Those who study it are doomed to know it's repeating" is very true.

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As for your plot itself, I don't find it much of a rip off on anything. Conventions are constantly broken down and reconstructed throughout history, and as you write you'll carve out your own little niche in whatever genres/subgenres you're writing in. There are very few, if any, original ideas left. It's all in how you write them.

Focus more on getting internal logic correct, and projecting how you think our world will look in the future. I've given you some starting places already, and as you write you'll probably find more places that you need to dive into research. Since you had set out to write a hard sci fi, I'll assume you're not research shy. Just, please, do not neglect socioeconomics as part of your research. While math and science tend to make what we use in day to day lives and help us understand how the world works, socioeconomics determines the world we live in.