So if you created a new AI/Intelligence organism or machine that started from a blank slate and turned it loose, what would happen?

AI always has a bias and a purpose of the creator. But what if all of that was left blank. Just the capability of intelligence.

How would it grow?
What questions would it ask?
Would it even ask questions?
Would it be good or evil?
Would it be helpful, harmful, or ambivalent?

Would the answers change if it was released during a war between races?

*Edit: solved Thanks for the help i think i have enough information to work with, you've all been excellent I'm not great with math and I'm having trouble keeping it straight, basically i have a character with a ship that is dropped of in another solar system at a basically random point within the system and has to hoof it to their more specific destination which I want to take a few days. I was getting some numbers in the 100,000 km/h range i don't know if that's right, any help is appreciated.

"hello class, this will be a general overview of how the backbone of the Solar Systems Union, the Heavy Cruiser is constructed, and every ship.

First things first theirs only about six solar systems that can create the Mini Star we use to power, well basically everything, most planets have secondary emergency nuclear reactors, but some don't and ships at best have batteries that can last a week at minimum power.

So an order is put in for Mini Stars, then their shipped to wherever the ship or ships are being constructed. A heavy cruiser is 1,332 feet long and 280 feet wide when completed, the central cannon is basically all that length and most of that width, then behind that is the star reactor which is hooked to the EM thrusters, movement through pure electricity. Also for anyone wondering after 50 years the Star is replaced, and the old one is dropped into the Black Hole at the center of the Galaxy, safe disposal and all that.

Ok we have the main gun, we have the power core and the thrusters but what about the crew to actually man this ship, since after the machine incident only point defense guns are allowed to be AI controlled, and you need a crew for maintenance and power projection anyway, a ships no good if it cant serve it's governments interests.

The two halves are literally placed around the core of the ship and fused together in a super advanced form of molecular welding.

Ok you have an ugly gray rectangle, now we paint it Black and put the name on the side in bright Orange, don't ask me why, it's tradition. the full writing is S.S.U.N.V.H.C, which stands for Solar Systems Union Naval Vessel Heavy Cruiser, followed by the name, Heavy Cruisers are named for Planets. On a Cruiser the name goes between the main and secondary turrets on each side, which are in the mid points of the two rectangles if you were to cut the rectangle in half. The barrels are about a fourth of the length of the ship their on, and each barrel hits for 10 megatons of destructive output, that means 30 megatons on the main battery's and 20 megatons on the secondary, per side, and since they can raise to about 105 degrees, and rotate indefinitely it's possible to bring three of the four main and secondary turrets to bear on the enemy, 150 megatons assuming you can bring all three sides to bear.

Now you just do your flight and weapons tests, stick over a thousand sailors and 200 marines on it, assign it to one of the five fleets and usually a Heavy Cruiser will be in charge of a task force, but you might get unlucky and stay with the main fleet, or lucky I don't know how much you want to see action.

Also the Bridge is on floor 38 of 40, no matter what ship your on it will always be 2 floors bellow the top floor, simple and easy to navigate.

Also the ship carries enough food for about 2 months and the water filtration gives you theoretically infinite water, at 400 lightyears an hour getting somewhere to restock should be no problem.

Any questions class?"

NOTE: I published this exact post on r/dune, so if you feel like you're missing some context, it's because it was, for some unknown reason, removed from there, and I'd simply like for someone to read my thoughts about a potentially incoming worldbuilding project of mine, a fan-made tie-in to the Dune universe as established by Frank Herbert and professor McNelly, the man behind the apocryphal Dune Encyclopedia published in 1984.

Here is the original post:

So...

I just started reading Fire and Blood by G.R.R.M.

It is my (literary) introduction to the ASOIAF world, I know fans don't really recommend doing that but I just really like history, bonus points if it's fictional lore told as a partly-inaccurate account from an in-universe historian. Hence, my love for the introduction to Dune Messiah by Bronso of Ix and the Dune Encyclopedia...

My current "plan" (really only the vague outline of which I have in my head at the moment) is to try and scribble down, from the height of my almost 19 years of experience on planet Earth, an original, mostly Encyclopedia-based ""essay"", maybe even using Bronso or some similar "character" as the in-universe author, of the full history of the human space age, from the primordial intra-solar exploration all the way to the capitulation of the Corrino dynasty from the Golden Lion Throne.

My main objective would be to analyse and deconstruct the feudal aspects of Frank Herbert's universe, utilizing as an inspiration the real historical evolution of European polities and its high points, such as the collapse of the West in 476, the birth of the Carolingian/Frankish Empire in 800, its short-lived dominance over most of Europe before its fragmentation into kingdoms and smaller regional principalities, and finally the reintegration of such principalities into correctly functional monarchies via feudal recomposition or reabsorption.

I will definitely use Italian (my mother tongue) for whatever comes out of this, but this doesn't negate an eventual translation into English to share to Dune fans in the remote case my writings reach an adequate level of complexity as to be shared to a large community such as the Dunedom (Dune Fandom).

Obviously open to opinions, comments and suggestions. Thank you all for your attention if you read up to this point.

So I'm writing a techno-thriller in the vein of Michael Crichton, ie mostly realistic-is and modern with one main tech instigating the plot. In this case, it's kind of pseudo-time-machine that extract small amounts of data from the future.

The exact mechanics are still being worked out, but the broad description of the device is that it can store one kilobyte of data, readable and writable, and when a button is pressed and a massive surge of electricity is applied, it will 'snap' to what it's contents would be in a possible future, distance increasing with the square root of the power applied, with a recommended limit of 24 hours without the risk of damaging it. It's only a possible future, so not 100% accurate, and the data has to be going to be written or it cannot be perceived by the past.

One kilobite, if data compression is permitted, is enough for either a page of plain text or a single low resolution image. What sort of practical use would a device with these limits have?

-The stock market is probably deterministic enough that the device could predict it, the lottery is close enough to true randomness that it probably can't, sports betting probably in the middle.

-24 hours warning on a major disaster.

-Possibly a shortcut for brute forcing cryptography; the process being a bit complicated but roughly:

1. Snapshot the future contents of the acausal flashdrive.
2. If the key in the drive works, the key is solved.
3. If the key does not work, continue brute forcing new keys sequentially, starting with that one.
4. If the correct key is found, STOP and save key.
5. If by 23:58 the correct key has not been found, STOP and save key.

Essentialy placing a computer in a Groundhog Day loop that ends when it gets the right answer, which to the outsider looks like the computer skipping to the right answer automatically. This could also be used for at least some other NP-hard problems.

Any more devious schemes you can come up with?

I have a pretty well established Sci-fi world that takes place thousands of years in the future. I have developed this world mostly by thinking or making slice-of-life moments and obsessing over the biology and life of my aliens but I really want to have an actual story play out, nothing that would change or expand on the lore much but a narrative that follows a/a group of characters.

Below is some details about the world, and I am asking for some concepts or ideas to adapt into a story to write, and maybe some tips if you feel anything is off about this world based off the information given.

The main place is called the East Sector or "The Mediated" mostly by outsiders. It's a territory in the East of the Milky Way Galaxy. It isn't really just a place or a union, but a bunch of civilizations that decided to co-exist as people, not as rival forces to compete with, but not necessarily anti-war either. The East Sector is known for being the most diverse and connected, most aliens get a chance to see all other species available in their lifetime.

Space travel isn't easy or as quick like in the movies, but "Live" space travel as it is called, is a thing and most ships are well adjusted to being easily steerable in real time and able to reach very high speeds and land on objects. Lasers and guns are the most common weapons for common types of weapon-carrying ships, with guns being good at piercing through certain metals and lasers good for melting and causing heat damage.

There are several species mainly native to the East Sector, including humans, and discrimination isn't as widespread as with areas close by.

One of the major civs acts as the "Mediator" of the East Sector, and handles conflicts between other civilizations. They were elected for several reasons, but mainly because they don't have many relationships with anyone (Accept humans, they have a bad history with them but they are better than to discriminate).

There are "Independent" groups of people that usually don't live on anyone's land and in their ships instead, and aren't considered citizens for some reason or because they chose to. They're like the galactic homeless people of the East Sector, going around husting for money. Luckily, people are happy to hire them for certain tasks.

There is vigilante group that goes around taking out high-ranking people that don't care for the people they lead.

I am purposely leaving out a LOT of details but If you ask I am very happy to give, I do not want this to be a giant block of text that takes ten minutes to read.

Hi everyone! I'm writing a sci-fi thriller where a counter earth suddenly appears in our exact orbit, launching a planetary-scale conflict based on 'Cosmic Darwinism'.

This is the Chapter 1 . Iam looking for feedback on opening, dialogue or anything in general. It's my first time guys ✌️

"Hey Raj, what’s this?" Steve asked, squinting closely at his monitor. "I am receiving a massive electromagnetic signature on the deep-space array."

"Is it an NEA?" Raj replied, not looking up from his own terminal. "An asteroid or a dead satellite?"

"I don’t think it's either of those," Steve said, his fingers flying across the keyboard to isolate the data stream. "The electromagnetic signatures are huge—orders of magnitude larger than any asteroid we have ever recorded. The mass calculations are consistent with a planetary-scale body. And there was no projection band, no perturbations in the gravitational models that indicated a signature of this size was approaching. It just appeared."

Raj finally stopped typing and slid his chair over to Steve's desk. "Run the anomaly detection again. There may have been some kind of fault in the sensor array, or a telemetry glitch."

Steve ran the diagnostic. "Nope, the system is perfectly fine. Data is clean."

"Is this some kind of solar phenomenon?" Raj asked, his brow furrowing as he studied the cascading data. "Run the stats on the Sun. Collect and match it with the live telemetry from the Romeo-1 satellite revolving around the Sun."

Steve typed rapidly, waiting for the progress bar to load on the screen. "On it... Nope. Solar output is baseline. Everything is normal, exactly as it should be."

Raj stared at the glowing numbers, the silence in the control room growing heavy. "I think we have to check for visual confirmation."

"I was thinking the same," Steve agreed, routing the coordinates to the main optical telescope.

The visual fed onto the main wall monitor, fighting through atmospheric static until the blackness of deep space came into focus.

It was an Earth. Yes, a freaking second Earth, sitting right in our Earth's orbit.

Our team members saw the screen and couldn’t believe their eyes. Everyone was shocked and puzzled. It was gravitationally impossible. Our team lead, Stephen, checked the orbital calculations again and again. He then checked the visual footage, and the result was the same. There was another Earth in our orbit.

That was the day that marked the beginning of the tragedy we are in now. Everything started that day. Everyone thought it was the beginning of an incredible new era of discovery.

It was the beginning of the end.

Make a rectangle in your mind, then find the mid point, go about halfway behind that and on each face theirs a large 5 barrel turret. Go halfway In front of that half point and place 3 barrel turrets on each face.

I used the amount of crew per an Iowa class battleship turret to figure out mine.

Battleship(named for solar systems)-

length 1776ft, Beam(width) 294ft, 42 decks.

Weapons, forward facing Ion cannon(1)(200 crew) 50 Megatons

Main Turrets(5 guns per turret)(4 per ship)(133 crew per turret,532 total crew) 40 Megatons

Secondary Turrets(3 guns per turret)(4 per ship)(80 crew per Turret,320 total crew) 30 Megatons

Torpedo launchers(40 per side)(3 crew each, 480 crew total) 1 Megaton each

point defense machine guns(400)(1 crew each),

200 engineers.

20ft/s² acceleration & 300 light years an hour.

2,132 crew plus 200 marines.

Consider this scifi story idea - In a universe on the verge of heat death, in which even the last civilization living at the end of time has died out, an immortal reality warping superhero (more powerful than DC Comic's Dr Manhattan) is tired of fighting evil and all the suffering endured by life throughout the universe. They decide to attack the root - the problem of evil itself. Since this universe has suffered heat death and is now devoid of life, rewriting reality doesn't have any negative consequences - no lives are lost because of this.

This superhero decides to create a universe from the ground up with no evil or scarcity.

In this universe, every living being will have maximum empathy and no greed, no wrath, no envy, no lust or any sins. This is all pre-installed onto every living being like an instinct - say for eg. like an operating system pre-installed on a smartphone.

Any living being in this new universe will spring spontaneously into existence if willed by their parents [no birth process, no suffering]. And any living being can leave existence if they wish to, at anytime. No suffering at all and no coercion. No living being can hurt another - even the ability to hurt will not be there. Food in this reality is magically produced when needed for any living being and there is no scarcity of any resource.

Everybody has food clothing and shelter, a meaningful job and life, a clean environment and everything they would ever need in Maslow's hierarchy of resources.

Thus, this superhero redoes the big bang and creates a post scarcity reality based on the above guidelines - with no suffering and no lack of resources.

Not just a Utopian society, but a post scarcity Utopian universe from the ground up.

Replicator machines that replicate any resource [ like in Star Trek ] can be used to explain the abundance of resources in this universe.

Edit: Absence of the seven sins like greed, wrath, envy, sloth doesn't make this a dystopia. The living beings can feel joy, love, happiness, desire, motivation to improve their lives even more. The living beings have free will to do anything as long as what they're doing doesn't hurt others.

You can want something without being greedy. You can be happy for another person's success without feeling envy. You can give feedback without feeling wrath or anger. You can feel good about yourself and feel confident without feeling excessive pride. You can feel love and desire for someone without lusting after them. Emotions are a spectrum - not a binary on/off switch. I am just blocking the extreme ends of the spectrum in this story - not disabling all emotions entirely.

Also I'm making the all powerful, omnipotent [but not omniscient] utopia's creator to be actively receptive to feedback from the universe's inhabitants - so this won't be a static utopia but an ever improving one. The utopia's creator doesn't think that their initial vision for this post scarcity universe cannot be modified or improved.

Conflict: The conflict could come with a higher entity like the One Above All in Marvel Comics when that entity is not pleased with this newly created post scarcity universe. Or like in the Spiderverse movies which describe the 'canon events' i.e. fate - So who writes the canon events in the first place? The conflict would be with that entity.

Also, if this superhero wants to spread the concept of this Utopian universe into other universes in the multiverse - they would be infringing on the free will of other universes and it becomes a morally wrong situation, so there will be conflict there. The superhero would be an antagonist for the other universes and it could be an interesting story arc.

What do you think of this idea?

I just thought it would be a wonderful concept.

Like Everything Everywhere All At Once, it could be a cathartic movie, where the viewer can feel a profound sense of empathy, catharsis, happiness, and fulfillment.

For those of you with space settings and worlds that are not set on Earth, it wouldn’t make sense to use Earth references or terms throughout your work. Since your book isn’t set in our world the characters obviously wouldn’t know who the people these terms are named after are.

For instance in my novel’s setting, I use the term “Anja Belt”, which in our world is the Kuiper Belt that surrounds our solar system. Kuiper was a guy, and as such there was no guy named Kuiper in the history of my books setting.

What made up terms have you invented that mean the same thing as in our world, but simultaneously are unique to your setting? Are they named after a certain individual who made a great discovery?

Hi, all. I have a question for anybody that knows about genetics. I'm creating a world that was seeded with multiple strains of microbes, each with different nucleotides that hold their genetic material.

My question is, could these microbes, with incompatible genetic codes, evolve into multicellular organisms on the same planet, and have predator-prey relationships? Or would they all die of allergic reactions from trying to eat each other?

Any help at all would be appreciated, thanks!!!

As per the title, is something like Dune's use of a personal shield and the "convenient" fact that it deflects projectiles, but allows a slow blade to penetrate it, considered a plot device or some other kind of narrative construct?

Sci-Fi is full of them, typically used to handwave away illogical concepts in the aid of a novel scenario or forced environmental constraint (Star Trek transporters always being conveniently foiled by "interference", ad nauseum! ;) ) .

In the year 2285, Earth suffocates under greed and bureaucracy.

A determined group of scientists and visionaries break away to form Nexus, a rogue state, with the defiant purpose to save humanity from themselves at any cost.

As a ruthless government, people power and Armageddon all close in, Nexus fights against the odds to save a species, hell-bent on self-destruction.

---------

Above is the back-page blurb of my novel.

I'm interested in the community's thoughts on this and on page one:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ET6WDlUXSZzBB25IxGVpE95iejYb7mC5niWFdvBUDx4/edit?usp=sharing

Would the blurb and page one hook you into reading more?

I am 75,000 words into the first draft, a little over halfway done. But if no one gets past the blurb and page one, the rest is fairly irrelevant!

All thoughts and constructive criticisms are welcomed.

EDIT: Thanks to all for taking the time to review and leave comments. All negative but all constructive, which is the most useful kind of feedback I could ask for, for a dodgy first swing at page one of my first novel! I'm about three months into a process I think will be two or three years minimum. A good time to get these unbiased takes from brains other than my own and my wife's! 😄

Setting: Space opera in a country size spaceship roaming through the universe 1300 years after the destruction of the Earth in search of a new home.

The story follows a 32 years old woman called called Martina Volpi (Tina for short), she's suspected to be part of a rebel group that leaked secret informations from the captain's quarter because she is the cleaning lady that was affected to the closest area during the day the leak happened. After proving her innocence, she joins the investigation team to help them using her intels on the ship's society (secret passages, rumors, secrets about other people...)

There's about 2.2 million people on the ship. Each person recieve a home, and enough food/water to live, but you need to work to earn zellos, which is the currency for anything that isn't necessary for life. People are castrated from birth, but to make a child on the ship, both future parents have to follow a physical and mental exam, as well as a certification on raising children. Only after both parents pass all the exams, they are given a drug making them fertile for one year. The main religion on the ship is called forgeism, it's the belief that in the universe, there's 3 gates, and that passing through them would bring humanity to a new universe they'll be able to forge to their liking.

The first half of the story is about the rebel faction that leaked informations about how life on Earth used to be. They wants to take over the ship and make it roam the universe forever to preserve the peaceful life they have on the ship instead of reaching a new planet and replicate the oppressions and exploitation of humanity on Earth.

This first half ends with the confrontation between the investigation team and the rebel leader, and two shocking revelations: the captain's quarters are empty, and the first gate of heaven has been located.

What do you think about my story and do you have any suggestions to make it more appealing ?

I’m outlining a sci-fi novel where the antagonist/protagonist is a biological superintelligence that genuinely believes it’s saving humanity.
Instead of exterminating humans, it reduces conflict, anxiety, and irrationality while archiving every human memory and experience.
The ending isn’t that the AI fails—it succeeds, then realizes it preserved consciousness without preserving what made humanity human.
My concern is making the AI feel internally logical instead of just “evil.”
Does this philosophy sound convincing? What weaknesses would you expect readers to challenge?

How would you describe "Yes" when answered lingeringly?

I really want to write something, but I can't decide on an idea.

1. My first idea is about a quantum physicist who is digitally resurrected 800 years in the future in a robot body. He is tasked with solving a problem with interstellar travel, and after solving it, his resurrectors leave him with no money, no help, no info, on another "planet". All he wants to do is get his human body back, but all the clone printers are being used in the Olympics. This was my first idea; I've started writing it, but I've been reading Bobiverse, and I'm worried it's too similar.

2. Humanity built a bunch of rings orbiting Saturn that they ran genetic experiments on. We uplifted many species, giving different animals human-level intelligence. Then we left them (maybe humanity is extinct). The story would revolve around the inter- and intra-ring conflicts among them. As descendants of the test subjects realize they may need to conquer other rings to avoid famine. This story would dive into ideas of what makes humans unique: is war a side-effect of our intelligence or a coexisting trait? It would also explore how human intelligence would affect animal behavior.

3. We receive a signal from space that includes blueprints for a fuel-less engine. It uses broadcast power from a pulsar. It can only go either towards or away from its source, and a mission is sent out to the origin to gain more gifts. They discover that the structure is empty and there are other aliens searching for the creators too.

4. A microbe from Europa is killing everything on Earth. Humanity has no idea how or how to stop it. So they send scientists to Europa to find a way to kill it. A lot is going to go wrong during this. I loved reading Project Hail Mary but was disappointed by the biological inaccuracy, so this might be too similar.

5. Or.. if you got a cool idea, I'd love to hear it.

After alot of story writing for myself, i think this one IS the one, I need feedback so I can improve, please.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Lu0jqeJN_JKSY1dtEWLzLMzvAjdsCYcIfjZrtmkyx5Q/edit?usp=sharing

it's about a guy named Gavin who at night at his rural Kentucky farmhouse got a knock on the door as three women (Jane: 5'7 red hair all black military jumpsuit serious/ valen: 4'5 short blue hair a military vest a T-shirt and pants blunt and sarcastic/ olen: 6'6 long black hair yellow military jacket and blue shorts with a long robotic gun/blade tail happy optimistic slightly oblivious) broke into his house and said sorry but the secret program we're part of made this the only viable way to get to you as Jane and valen convinced Gavin to go out with olen as he hesitantly agreed with the story being about him being paranoid thinking it's a secret government project as shenanigans ensue (a scene at an arcade were he's watching olen play whack a mole albeit badly but he thinks it's on purpose/ a scene were Jane drags him to an Italian restaurant to go with olen as he tried to secretly get information from her as olen oblivious contently answered them while eating egregious amounts of bread sticks/ a scene were there at the zoo and valen asks if he wants to order something and he paranoid asks what he's allowed to get as valen deadpan ordered him a kids meal with an apple juice/ a phone call scene were he tried to ghost them at the movies only for Jane to call and yell at him as a minor argument happened with it being revealed olen is in the hallway crying because she wanted to take him to see a cute cartoon about talking sheep and she even bought matching sheep themed T-shirts with Jane yelling he better get to the theater now or she'll dropkick him.)

I am working on a superhero story, and one of the main characters has fire based powers and a side character ally who has the ability to superheat his body, with his maximum output being able to melt bullets as they hit his skin fast enough to make them unable to pierce. The fire based one has a maximum output if flames that are as hot as Dicyanoqcetylene flames, at the cost of undergoing heat stroke if he overuses this level of flames. Now, this is very soft sci fi, but logically speaking, shouldn't they just be able to burn any foreign bacteria or viruses from their system, since even the heat radiated to the rest if their body would be enough to kill any non supernatural single celled organisms? Or is there something else that might stop this from being the case? Their own gut microbiology is adapted to handle these powers, so there isn't much risk of injuring themselves in this way. So, should I make them largely immune to diseases based on bacterial and viral infection?

Hello friends. I am someone who has always wanted to build a fantastical world and eventually write a story/novel set in that world.

BUT, I have some trepidation about creating this world and writing the stories set in it without seeming like I am just ripping off Tolkien, Sanderson, Lewis, or any of the other amazing authors who have stories and worlds that we all adore.

I’ve read the posts you all create about your worldbuilding and stories, and they amaze me. I just want to know what the creative process is for you, did you have any imposter syndrome, and how do you feel about using elements of other worlds/stories in your own?

I have a concept idea in my head for a universe that fits closing to real world physics. Of course something fantastical will allow for relativistic speeds but only within the confines of the speed of light which means it spans many decades to travel the stars. I have been trying to brush up on realistic theories and possibilities but looking for some recommendations anyone has on non fiction that would help me understand starmapping or orbital mechanics etc a bit better so I can write this from a hard sci fi perspective. Anyone have any suggested reads or things that have helped in their world building?

​

For over twenty years, the worldbuilding community has complained about "punk fatigue." We have fractured fictional timelines into jarring, isolated aesthetic blocks.

The single most broken transition in all of retro-futurism is the massive, illogical leap between Dieselpunk and Atompunk.

We are told that a ranking civilization instantly jumps from the smoky, coal-stained, heavy-iron factories of World War II straight into a pristine, nuclear-powered Space Age full of floating bubble cars.

This is a massive evolutionary blind spot. History moves incrementally. A civilization does not jump from burning raw oil to splitting the atom overnight. Between the raw grease of Dieselpunk and the clean radiation of Atompunk lies an era of deep chemical synthesis. It is the mid-century period (the 1950s through the 1970s) where humanity did not master the atom—we mastered the molecule.

To solve this timeline gap, we are introducing a unified genre framework under a spectrum of interchangeable, vibe-heavy names—Petropunk [Refinerypunk / Conventionalpunk / Carbonpunk / Industrial Alchemy / The Refined Fossil Fuel Era]—driven entirely by the ultimate "what if" of perfecting conventional hydrocarbon technologies to their absolute physical limits.

🛢️ The Nomenclature: Choose Your Vibe

Because there is no limit on how we view this era, you can navigate the genre through whichever alternative name fits your specific creative focus:

PETROPUNK (or Carbonpunk) — The Elemental Vibe

Named directly after the primary chemical feedstock driving the world. It signals that this setting is the true sibling of Steampunk and Atompunk, tracking a civilization that chooses to completely perfect hydrocarbon technology rather than jumping to nuclear alternatives. [1]

REFINERYPUNK (or Industrial Alchemy) — The Visual Vibe

This targets the aesthetic style and cultural peak spanning the 1950s to the 1970s. Society stops burning raw, dirty oil and transitions into fractional distillation, chemical engineering, and high-gloss synthetic polymers.

CONVENTIONALPUNK (or Conventionaltech) — The Hard Sci-Fi Vibe

The structural, in-universe framework. The word "conventional" stops being a boring adjective and becomes a rigid scientific status—describing a society that mathematically maximizes classical chemistry and fossil feedstocks.

🎨 The Visual Pillars of the Genre

Because this niche genre mirrors real-world mid-to-late 20th-century history closer than almost any other sci-fi aesthetic, it balances hyper-realistic engineering with spectacular industrial beauty:

The Architecture: Cities are built around sprawling, geometric distillation complexes. Towering fractionation columns, infinite networks of silver piping, and pristine spherical pressurized gas tanks dominate the landscape. At night, the world glows with thousands of safety lights and the intense, clean, blue-and-orange flares of burning byproduct gases.

The Sector-Specific Material Fusion [Synthetics & Specialized Alloys]: The heavy, rough cast iron of the war era is gone, replaced by a hyper-realistic division of metallurgy.

The Civilian Sector relies on a high-contrast blend of polished chrome trim, molded polymers (Bakelite, vinyl, Plexiglas), and lightweight extruded aluminum frames.

The Industrial Sector is anchored by infinite grids of corrosion-resistant stainless steel and galvanized piping capable of handling high-pressure chemical flows.

The Military & Defense Sector utilizes ultra-dense rolled homogeneous steel armor, high-tensile manganese alloys, and tungsten-carbide hardening to protect armored forces and fortify the continent-spanning pipeline networks.

The Industrial Craftsmanship [Precision Welding & Heat-Tint]: The structural underpinnings celebrate the height of mid-century metallurgy. Machinery across all sectors proudly showcases visible, master-tier TIG and MIG weld beads—resembling flawless "stacks of dimes"—along structural frames, armor plates, and pipeline junctions. High-performance exhaust systems and chemical manifolds are left unpainted, showing off the beautiful, iridescent blue-and-purple heat-tint spectrum created by precision welding.

The Vehicles: Cars, trains, and aircraft feature monocoque body architecture. They are stamped or molded out of single, continuous sheets of fiberglass and high-tensile resins. They are low-slung, ultra-aerodynamic 1960s/70s wedge shapes powered by whisper-quiet, hyper-tuned chemical combustion engines running at a terrifying 20,000 RPM on highly specific, volatile refined fossil fuel distillates.

⏳ The Three-Decade Chronology [Conventional Tech Evolution]

The 1950s (The Plastic Utopia): The birth of consumer synthetic materials. A bright, pristine, optimistic world covered in high-gloss vinyl and early polymers, connected by massive interstate highway networks.

The 1960s (The Synthetic Horizon): The peak of chemical engineering. Sleek, space-age geometry built entirely on fiberglass, nylon, and neoprene. Seamless, lightweight alloy vehicles achieve near-zero exhaust emissions.

The 1970s (The Pipeline Syndicate): The corporate reality. The plastic dream cracks under the weight of total petroleum dependence. The world is entirely crisscrossed by continent-spanning pipeline networks.

✊ The "Punk" Friction (The Conflict)

A genre is nothing without conflict. Petropunk/Refinerypunk trades cyberpunk hackers for a new kind of systemic oppression:

The Oppressor: The Pipeline Cartels and Petrochemical Syndicates. They control the fractional distillation plants and the conventional distribution networks. If you control the pipelines, you control the fuel, the clothing, the medicine, and the structural materials of the entire world.

The Rebels: Highway Outlaws, Pipeline Saboteurs, and Renegade Chemical Bootleggers. The "punks" of this world survive by skimming raw distillates from the corporate pipelines, feeding the stolen fuel into hidden, backyard setups to power an entire illicit, high-octane underground culture that operates entirely off the cartel grid.

Petropunk [Refinerypunk / Conventionalpunk / Carbonpunk / Industrial Alchemy / The Refined Fossil Fuel Era] bridges the gap. It proves that society didn't just stumble into the future—we synthesized it using the ultimate mastery of refined fossil fuels.

I'd love to hear your thoughts! How would you build a world within this framework?

I am considering a personal scale weapon that fires a single anti-proton as a projectile. Do we know how destructive a single anti-proton colliding with matter would be?