The government or governments establish a public corporation, for example the Federal Reserve is such a corporation. Each citizen receives 1 share in that corporation, that share is non-transferable it pays a weekly dividend which is an equal share of its profits to every citizen. The corporations profits are tax deductible contributions from other corporation. Each corporation contributes 10% of its profits to this corporation and the government receives taxes on revenue for the remaining 90%. The public corporation then collects this revenue and after deducting expenses and then it writes a dividend check to every shareholder which is every citizen of every participating nation.

You wake up alone on a research station orbiting a black hole. Your task is to measure it, build a descent capsule from the station's remaining materials, and find out how far you can go.

A big part of the game is engineering the descent. Hull materials, shielding and engines come with different trade-offs, and you need to plan your trajectory around radiation and thermal anomalies while collecting measurements and studying the region around the event horizon.

For gravitational lensing, I use a closed-form fit to exact Schwarzschild light deflection. Rather than ray marching, each pixel's view direction is bent before a single cubemap lookup, which makes the effect roughly as cheap as a skybox.

The interesting question for me was where to draw the line between established physics and speculation. The exterior simulation is based on Schwarzschild physics, while the journey beyond the Cauchy horizon becomes a speculative interpretation informed by published research on mass inflation and black hole interiors. I'm not presenting that part as established physics.

The game is called Event Horizon Research, releasing November 4:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/5260090/Event_Horizon_Research/

I'd be particularly interested in what people here think about the engineering side. If you were designing a one-way research mission toward a black hole, which physical constraints would you prioritize, and what measurements would you want to collect before crossing the horizon?

P.S. Generative AI was used for some visual assets, audio and parts of the code, all reviewed by hand. The physics model and game design are my own work, developed from published astrophysics research. The same disclosure is on the Steam page.

tl;dr: It's a white dwarf with a lot of sodium and calcium poisoning, which results in a lot of green peak spectra. WD J1330+6435, 280 light years from Earth in the Draco constellation.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/16/science/green-star-discovery-scli-intl

https://www.sci.news/astronomy/white-dwarf-colors-15134.html

https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.18966

Human history is vulnerable to time. We are living on a vulnerable planet. Hence, it is difficult to preserve our history in case of any catastrophe.

To solve this problem, we can build a cosmic time capsule that protects human history by sending our digital archives like AI written text and historical records into space using light.

Because light does not age while traveling, beaming these thoughts to the Moon and back lets that data skip forward in time, while sending it deeper into space can delay its return by years or decades. 

We can start by testing this laser link between Earth and the Moon, and once that works, we build a permanent storage vault on the lunar surface.

Right now, the technology exists, but nobody is connecting the pieces. NASA uses lasers just to stream videos from deep space, and other groups leave static storage discs on the Moon. 

This plan combines space lasers, relay satellites, and a permanent storage vault on the Moon into one connected system. That is, creating an automatic backup for human history.

It keeps our collective memories safe on an untouched world so that even if Earth suffers a disaster, our history skips through time unharmed and stays ready for future generations to recover.

(The idea came out of a brainstorming session with an AI. Anyone interested in building this is free to build it)

The south pole is the target largely because shadowed craters there are thought to hold water ice. Each option depends on the others: mining needs power, power needs delivered hardware, and frequent landings kick up regolith that can damage nearby equipment. If you were sequencing the first few years, what comes first and why?

Want to read great stories by the newest sci-fi voices FOR FREE? I compiled a list with some of the best sci-fi available right now on Royal Road, divided by categories. Check them out!

For those not familiar with the platform, Royal Road is one of the most popular free web serial sites. It is mainly LITRPG-focused, but there are lots of good sci-fi there as well. Some of the authors you see topping Amazon’s best-selling charts in sci-fi started there. Matt Dinniman, for example, first published Dungeon Crawler Carl on Royal Road before it became a worldwide success.

Stories on Royal Road are published as serials, so each of them gets a publishing status to help readers know what to expect before they start reading:

COMPLETED: the full story is available on Royal Road for free.

ONGOING: new chapters are still being posted on a regular basis.

HIATUS: the author stopped posting new chapters for a while (to write the next book in the series, for example) but the story is not completed yet.

STUB: the story was once published in full on RR but now has been self-published somewhere and can no longer be entirely available for free.

INACTIVE: the author stopped posting on a regular basis but hadn’t marked their stories as completed or in hiatus.

DROPPED: the author gave up adding new chapters, but the story is not complete.

A NOTE ABOUT AI ON ROYAL ROAD: AI has been a hot topic on Royal Road, as much as in other creative spaces. Royal Road accepts AI-assisted and AI-generated stories so long as they are tagged as such. Some of the stories linked here have those tags, so if AI isn’t your thing, just skip them. BUT PLEASE, IF YOU WANT TO PROMOTE HUMAN-WRITTEN STORIES, DO NOT TREAT ALL STORIES ON ROYAL ROAD AS IF THEY WERE WRITTEN BY AI. You will harm human authors who have spent months (sometimes years) on their stories, which is the opposite of what you want.

AI covers, though, don’t need to be tagged. You may agree or disagree with that stance, but, before jumping to conclusions, please remember that all stories on RR are posted for free. Not every author can spare a few hundred dollars to hire a designer for their cover with no hope of recouping that cost. Most authors do get a human-designed cover when they self-publish those same stories on Amazon or other places.

And finally, the list:

SPACE CATEGORIES

First Contact:

• OPERATION NEW WORLD: A first-contact epic in a TV series format (ongoing)
• Here Be Dragons: Book 1 of the Emergence Series (inactive)
• The First Fifth (ongoing)
• Cloneborne: Mahou Legacy Kuron Uchuu Story! (ongoing)
• The Right Scales: An Informal History of Draconic Spaceflight (ongoing)

HFY:

• High Ground [Military HFY] (ongoing)
• Grass Eaters [HFY] (stub)
• The Best Defense (near-future HFY) (inactive)
• Astra Inferna: Upward Bound (ongoing)

Military Sci-Fi (also see mecha):

• Grass (ongoing)
• Void Scars (ongoing)
• Two Worlds (inactive)
• Quod Olim Erat (stub)
• Digital Marine (inactive)
• Human Altered (inactive)
• The Li-tech Chronicles (ongoing)
• Barbarians (completed)
• Birds of Prey  (completed)
• The Autumn War  (completed)
• We Don't Start Fights: Theseus Protocol  (completed)
• Operation: Falling Skies (completed)
• Universal Lady Justice Aya (hiatus)
• Logistical Mandate (ongoing)
• Wings Beyond Resonance (ongoing)

Space Opera:

• A Mostly Beautiful Universe (ongoing)
• An Optimist's Guide to Galactic Failure (ongoing)
• Just a Little Further (ongoing)
• Between the Black and Grey [Space Opera, Adventure] (completed)
• Shepherd Moon (completed)
• Grand Design (completed)
• Song of the Void (completed)
• The Space Legacy (stub)
• First Contact (completed)
• A Theft of Stars (completed)
• A Guide to Becoming a Pirate Queen (inactive)
• A Blade Among the Stars (completed)
• Flights of the Addax (completed)
• The Privateer (stub)
• Empire's Son (inactive)
• Medusa's List (completed)
• Tales From the Terran Republic (inactive)
• The New Species (completed)
• [Cryoverse] The Last Precursor (completed)
• Rise (completed)
• A New Eden (stub)
• Dandelion (completed)
•  Darkworld: Earth (completed)
• ACCISMUS (completed)
• Hopper (completed)
• Tech Scavengers (stub)
• Kitty Cat Kill Sat (stub)
• Endeavour (completed)
• Horizon Saga (completed)[/url]
• Burning Stars, Falling Skies (completed)
• The Last Human (completed)
• The New Era (completed)
• The New Threat (completed)
• Phantom Star (inactive)
• Nova Wars (ongoing)
• Horizon's Edge [Space Opera/Sci-Fi | LitRPG] (ongoing)
• The Shape of Surrender (ongoing)
• Past the Redline (completed)
• Three Strikes & Black Skies (hiatus)
• Ascendium (ongoing)
• Mortal Protection Services [Sci-Fi, Comedy, Horror] (completed)
• Destiny Among the Stars - [Completed... for now.] (completed)
• A Pioneer's Blood (ongoing)
• S.P.E.C.T.O.R - [A Sci-fi space adventure with fantasy elements] (ongoing)
• Cradles of Gravity: A Space Opera Romance (ongoing)
• To Conquer The Stars (ongoing)

TECH CATEGORIES

Cyberpunk:

• Demon Era - A Cyberpunk Revenge Epic (ongoing)
• Aletheia Universe: The Future History [Hard Sci-Fi / Cyberpunk] (ongoing)
• Cherno Caster (stub)
• Memento Mori (completed)
• Cyber Dreams (stub)
• SYNTH (inactive)
• Paradise City: Dark Side of the Moon (inactive)
• Outbound (completed)
• Piscium (completed)
• A Tale of Gold Leaf (completed)
• Whispers in the Fog (completed)
• Where the Sky Ends (completed)
• Aquila (ongoing)
• Moonwalker, Earthbound (hiatus)
• Narcodome (completed)
• Shattered Glass (ongoing)[/url]
• Resonance Zero [Time-Bending Cyberpunk Progression Fantasy] (ongoing)
• Moon Lighters [Psiberpunk / Heist / Progression Sci-Fi] (ongoing)
• Kei Stone is Dead (inactive)

Engineered life (genetically engineered or technologically engineered, like robots or cyborgs):

• E-UNIT: The Blue Angels of Death (ongoing)
• Soulless (Apparently) (complete)[/url]
• How Very Logical. (TFP SI.) (completed)
• Hive Minds Give Good Hugs (completed)
• Code Name: Team Wingborne [Illustrated Team-Based Tactical Action] (ongoing)
• You’re Not Supposed to Be Here (ongoing)
• Apex Biomass [Biological Engineering LitRPG] [Book 1-complete] (ongoing)
• To Run Again (completed)
• Valice Trilogy (still posting but story complete)
• Expressed (ongoing)
• The VocaLords - Season One (complete)

Mecha:

• The Suit-Maker (complete)
• A Super Robot Story (inactive)
• Paladin (inactive)
• The story of how a Cultivation Universe was Conquered by an Interstellar Weapons Platform (inactive)
• Stardust Rising (complete)
• Lions of Steel (inactive)
• Caledon's Fall (stub)
• The Crystalline Initiative (completed)
• Terminal Fleet (ongoing)
• Defender of Asphodel [Yuri, Prison, Mecha] (ongoing)
• Ten Thousand Fleets (ongoing)
• The Asgar Chronicle [Alien Invasion - Sci Fi - Mecha LitRPG] (inactive)

Sci-Fi VRMMO:

• The Gam3 (completed)
• Into the Black (completed)
• Black Space (inactive)
• [Bound by Code] - The Girl with the Fishbowl Head (complete)
• My Pocket World Alters Reality (ongoing)
• Digital Breaths (ongoing)

Steampunk:

• The Voices of the Unspoken (ongoing)
• Fantasy World Epsilon 30-10 (completed)
• The Lunarian [Classic Horror, Steampunk, Monster Hunter, Historical Fantasy in the Gilded/Victorian Age] (ongoing)
• The Asteria (ongoing)

VIBES CATEGORIES

Cozy Sci-fi (the opposite of dystopian):

• Definitely Not Evil Plans (ongoing)
• An Unexpected Guest (ongoing)
• The Earth-ward Journey of a Foxy Alien [Hard Sci-fi] (ongoing)
• Omniscient: John the Genius [Alt-Hist] [1984-1990s] [BOOK-5] [NO STUB] (ongoing)

Dystopian (including Post-Apocalyptic and Survival):

• Icara's Flight [Dystopian Science Fiction, Female Lead] (ongoing)
• The Three Horsemen of New Beginnings (inactive)
• Prophecy Unfolding (completed)
• A Tinker's Damn (completed)
• Last Shadows of a Booming Sky (inactive)
• Earthbound (completed)
• The Bridge, a Science Fiction Survival Story (inactive)
• The Reaper's Legion (inactive)
• Staying Human (completed)
• Post Human (completed)
• Return to Sol System (inactive)
• ShipCore (stub)
• Last Stand Against The Wave (completed)
• Escape From Persephone-4 (completed)
• Sigma 16 (inactive)
• ASHES (inactive)
• Incursion Protocol (inactive)
• Amongst the Stars of Cygnus (hiatus)
• Of Men and Dragons (completed)
• Of Men and Spiders (completed)
• One Hell Of A Vacation (completed)
• Iron Veil (inactive)
• Out of Space (inactive)
• Meat (Inactive)
• 139 Years to the End of the World (completed)
• Whimpers of the Light (completed)
• The Hollowing: A Post-Apocalyptic Adventure (completed)
• Necroepilogos (inactive)
• 12 Miles Below (stub)
• To The Far Shore (inactive)
• Neon Dust (stub)
• Myth//OS (hiatus)
• Warp Riders Book 1: Deep Space Boogie (ongoing)
• Facade: The Girl who will Destroy the System (ongoing)
• ASGARDIUM. Phase One. Lorphotiliad Invasion(completed) 
• ASGARDIUM. Phase Two. Heartache(ongoing) 

SCI-FI + OTHER GENRES

Sci-fi Comedy:

• Washing Weevil Conquers the Universe (ongoing)
• QueerSpace (complete)
• Ludo Brax: Intergalactic Gig Worker [Book 1 Complete] (hiatus)

Sci-fi LitRPG:

• The Haven War (ongoing)
• The Space Time Continuum (Book 1 complete!) Satirical LitRPG Sci-Fantasy (ongoing)
• Deeper Darker (inactive)
• Voidborn - A Sci-Fi LITRPG (stub)
• Systema Delenda Est (completed)
• The Call of the Hollow Men (completed)
• Engineer's Odyssey (completed)
• Aura Overload (ongoing)
• Hyperion Evergrowing: A Monster Evolution LitRPG (Inactive)
• Dungeon Planet: The Healer Always Leaves Alive (inactive)
• Talent Beyond Limits (ongoing)
• Core Dump [Dungeon Core, Sci-fi, LitRPG] (ongoing)
• System State [LitRPG + Mana Cultivation] (ongoing)
• I Just Wanted To Retire in Asgard (Soft LITRPG & OP MC) (ongoing)
• Unbowed: Starting as an F-Rank Archer in the Apocalypse [LitRPG, Progression] (ongoing)
• One World Won't Do (ongoing)
• Gods Online: Sovereign of the Divine Herd [LitRPG | OP Female Lead | Beast Companions | Alchemy] (ongoing)
• As the Villain, Shouldn't There Be a Limit to My Power? (ongoing)
• Reverse Engineered Magic [Title/Trait collecting, battle grinding, post-apoc system apocalypse] (ongoing)
• The Otherworld Armor Engineer [Sci-Fi LitRPG] (ongoing)
• Get An Infinite Upgrade System From The Start (ongoing)
• WorldFall Protocol: Convergence (ongoing)
• The Ascension: Season 23 (ongoing)
• Nova: Log (ongoing)
• My Big Goblin Space Program (stub)
• Perfect Ten (ongoing)
• Stray Cat Strut (ongoing)
• Asteria Squadron [LitRPG, Apocalypse, Romance] [Vol 2 Complete] (ongoing)
• Secrets and Starships (ongoing)

Sci-fi Mystery:

• Twenty Minutes Into the Future (inactive)
• The Scuu Paradox (stub)
• Azazel's Universe (inactive)
• REND (completed)
• Murder on the Stellar Schooner (completed)
• The Cassandrian Theory (stub) 
• Fractal Contact (completed)
• Hard Luck Hermit (completed)
• The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere (ongoing)
• Sin & Grace [Space Opera Mystery] (ongoing)

Sci-fi Romance/relationship focus:

• Synth (hiatus)
• How Do You QA Test a Tsundere Android!? (completed)
• Song of the Depths (inactive)
• Coeus? (completed)
• Snipe (completed)
• The Last Man Standing (inactive)
• Bridgebuilder (hiatus)
• DOTS (completed)
• C.A.R.O.L.I.N. (complete)
• Ivil Antagonist (stub)
• Early Adopter (completed)
• Stars Dancing [Telepathy⬩Psychics] (completed)
• Windowshopping [Comedic Romantic Tower Climb] (completed)
• Princess of the Void: An Alien Abduction Romance [Vols 1-5 complete] (ongoing)
• The Age of Spring [Multiple POV Dystopian drama] (ongoing)
• Humanity's Game [Sci-Fi | Romance | Slice of Life | Action] (completed)

OTHER SCI-FI

Fanfic:

• The Voyager (inactive)
• Consume the Force: A Star Wars Fanfiction (completed)
• The High Lords Send Murder (inactive)
• The Brink and Back - Tinker of Fiction (ongoing)
• Stranded in a Magical World with my Lightsaber (completed)
• Value Loyalty Above All Else [Star Wars] (completed)
• Dial (Ben 10/MCU SI) (completed)
• Ghost in the City: Cyberpunk Gamer SI (hiatus)
• Sublight Drive (Star Wars) (hiatus)
• Lost and Found (Warhammer 40k SI) (ongoing)
• Bite the Stars [Stray Cat Strut X Warhammer 40K] (ongoing)
• Stupid Rock Lady. (Steven Universe Pearl Self Insert) (ongoing)
• A Young Girl's War Between the Stars [Youjo Senki/Star Wars] (ongoing)
• System Override (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners) (hiatus)
• Teddy Bears on Brigade [A SCS Fanfiction] (ongoing)
• Herald of the Stars - A Warhammer 40k, Rogue Trader Fanfiction (ongoing)
• I Died Human. I Woke Up a Dinosaur (ongoing)
• Once again into the Fray (Star Wars Gamer OC - SI) (ongoing)
• All-Star Ōtsutsuki (Invincible/Naruto OC-SI) (ongoing)
• Warhammer Fantasy: The Magus of Iron and Steam (Fantasy /Kingdom Building) (ongoing)
• Warranty: Repairs Across the Multiverse (ongoing)
• Shinobi (An SCS Fan Fic) (ongoing)
• As the White Spider-Man in Earth-76 with the Spider-Man System (ongoing)
• Meteoric Prospects [SCS Fanfiction] (ongoing)
• Primarch of Fire and Blood (Game of thrones x 40k) (ongoing)
• Marvel: My Starter Pack Came With a Galactic Empire (ongoing)
• Lost Change (ongoing)
• DC: I am Bruce Wayne (ongoing)
• Cyberpunk RED : Ruler of Night

Super-heroes

• The Perfect Run (complete)
• The Power of Ten Book Four: Dynamo (completed)
• Super Minion (inactive)
• Super Supportive (ongoing)
• Jett Fulgen [Superhero LitRPG] (ongoing)
• The Perfect Run: Bad Runs (inactive)
• Superheroes and Magic Invasions [apocalypse litRPG] (completed)
• The Legion of Nothing (completed)
• Are You Even Human (hiatus)
• The Rise of Celestia (ongoing)

Time Travel/Time Loop

• The 90's Kid [A Cozy-Comedy Time Travel Adventure] (ongoing, main series complete)
• Another 90's Kid [Time Traveling to Make a Rock Band!] (ongoing)
• Displacement Zero (completed)
• A week in the life of (completed)
• Vell Harlan and the Doomsday Dorms (completed)
• Re:Cursed (ongoing)
• Mori Vortex VI: The Retry Knight [Timeloop LitRPG] (ongoing)
• The Butterfly Manifesto (ongoing)

You're most likely to be familiar with the "Aerogravity assist" idea, which is a variation on the gravitational assist. I want that, but run it in a cycle in perpetuity. Also, I want the orbit to generate its own energy.

Some literature out there comes close to this, but the aerocycler thing is mostly my own invention. The writing is my own, but I couldn't have figured this out on my own (I tried last decade, I failed), but now we have these new AI things to help...

Didn't know if the Hard Science or Speculation or Meme flares fit better, but since it's about future space human laws or something, here you go.

Basically, I don't think that breaking apart an entire planet is NECESSARILY a great idea. Part of it? Probably safe. Especially when said planet has no life. But I would think it'd be more like a surgical operation; removing mercury from the solar system, to me, is kinda like if you were to amputate a couple of someone's toes. Probably won't cause a lot of damage, but the planet is linked to others, probably in ways we aren't aware of yet.

Levels of restriction, rationally thinking, should follow a trend like this:

Systems where one of the worlds has life, just don't mess with any of the significant celestial objects. You wouldn't disassemble the moon, that's a horrible idea, so why would you disassemble Mercury? Likewise, if there were life on Europa, don't disassemble Callisto. Normal mining would obviously not be an issue, but if we're going to still be mining this world for thousands of years, how about we call it quits after 1% of the world's original mass is extracted. Seems fair, yeah?

Of course, systems without any life aren't as urgent to watch out for, but at the same time, we don't know all the ways in which abiogenesis gets kicked off. You go to another star and see an airless, waterless planet 0.7 Earth masses and think, yeah, this should be fine. Little do you know, microbial life has started on another frozen planet in the system, whose orbit is kept stable by this dry inner planet, and you haven't checked that ice world for life yet. Removing this planet causes the outer planet to lock into a new resonance with the outer gas giant you've been completely ignoring since it has no moons, and now the ice planet is making repeated dives towards the star, whose flares irritate the life there repeatedly in a severe mass extinction. But hey, at least you get to build 50 octillion new billboards!

What are your thoughts on celestial disassembly?

Some people are saying if you can stay alive for the next 5 years, you might very well live to be 800 years old! What would that mean? Lets suppose its 2032 and the breakthrough happens. Will we live to see Mars Terraformed, is 800 years long enough for that to happen?

I know people hate it, but Avatar has to be one of my favorite film series. I love the hard sci-fi aesthetic of the technology, and the concept of humans transferring their mind to a lab-grown body to explore a lush world.

It led me to thinking about the concept of us designing new species of human adapted to alien worlds (or paraterraformed colonies with different gravity), and then using ”mind transfer” technology à la Avatar to control those bodies.

So, I ask, how might a new species of human adapted to an alien world’s conditions look? What interesting traits might we give them? I’m talking adaptations to new temperatures, surface gravity, atmospheric composition, local biochemistry, etc.

With some Type II engineering we could construct a planetary system consisting of 10,000 Earthlike planets orbiting at a distance of 163 AU. Each planet would take a year to orbit Sagittarius A and would have Earthlike axis tilts to produce seasons. Travel times between planets with fusion torch rockets would be a matter of days. Communication at light speed between planets would be about 426,000 seconds for planets on opposite sides of the black hole. An artificial photosphere would be constructed around the black hole to block radiation and retaliate visible light, this photosphere would be 163 solar radii in radius to produce a natural sunlike disk in each planet's sky.

Our Future is Kind is a collaborative guide to building the future one kind act at a time. 25 leaders, educators, innovators, and changemakers authored it. Publish date: November 13, 2026, World Kindness Day.

Learn about the book: https://www.ourfutureiskind.com/ofikbook

Join the Launch Team and get a free Advance Reader Copy: https://www.ourfutureiskind.com/earlyreaders

Come to the Launch Party! https://www.ourfutureiskind.com/ofik-launch-party?SQF_HIDDEN=MichaelNeece

Building the right future is important, and this book digs into 25 personal stories, 25 strategies, and helps readers revive their sense of agency to build it together. Join us!

I keep thinking about where cryonics and AI are heading. If a person can be preserved and brought back, or their consciousness re-created, then a leader would never have to step down. They could hold power through death and come back, with an AI version of them filling in until they're revived.

Once the technology exists, it feels almost inevitable that someone tries this. There's a term for it: contocracy, a system of government by one person whose supreme power follows their consciousness across substrates, through death and re-creation, and never passes to a successor. The ruler is called the contocrat.

The part that gets me is "never passes to a successor." There's no next election and no next ruler to wait for. Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about that. Would you ever live under one?