this post explores the importance of getting little details right, consideration of the audience in the inclusion of such details, and the role of science in, well, science fiction.
Self-Assembly and Repair for In-Situ Resource Utilization
This review will address the state of the art in self-assembly and self-repair technologies and understanding, with an emphasis on applicability to a durable space presence and space resource extraction and utilization.
Character Consistency
Change is hard. There’s a reason “change management” is an entire field, one in which many organizations repeatedly fail. In that sense, an effective character arc can be thought of as a novel-length project in character change management.
Galileo’s Notes on Ptolemy
Copernicus and Galileo, who are credited (perhaps in slightly overstated fashion) with entirely recontextualizing our place in the universe, are thought of in this way, but the reality is that most seemingly revolutionary thinkers were less people who ran in a different direction from everyone else, and more people who saw the trail ahead more clearly and could take the next few steps for us.
Gradations of Omniscience
These terms we use – first person, second person (please don’t use second person), third person limited, third person omniscient – are an easy shorthand to describe how we are choosing to approach narration in a given piece. The more I work with different approaches to viewpoint and storytelling, though, the more important I think it is that the description come after the choice of viewpoint.
Continuously Quantum Reality
In a recent essay from Quanta Magazine, “Are the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics Beginning to Dissolve,” Ball argues for a resolution to these seeming contradictions proposed by Zurek in a recent book called Decoherence and Quantum Darwinism.
Reaching for Words
I am more aware of the words I am choosing, I think about the writing itself more with each sentence, and that is a problem. It makes me more aware of the gap, makes the gap between the story I want to tell and what seems to be appearing on the page loom larger.
Addendum to “Trapped in Silk Slippers”
While the focus of “Trapped in Silk Slippers” is not the NSS, and I do not think the failure to reference the new NSS drastically affects the post’s central arguments, I do want to take a moment to examine the 2025 NSS, partially in the context of my previous post, but also as an interesting document in its own right.
Some Thoughts on Character Death (And Resurrection)
We can all agree there are fates worse than death, but death can still be considered the “ultimate” consequence because it is, at least under normal circumstances, final.
International Law and Moral Relativism
International law is increasingly twisted by moral relativism to protect dictators, terrorists, and other euphemistically-named “bad actors,” while constraining, censoring, and punishing democratic, law-abiding nations.
IGC Publishing 