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The Science Fiction Short Story Contest

by BlackAdder

Rated: 18+ · Message Forum · Contest · #2140378

A contest inspired by the serious need for more good sci-fi

Banner Created by AE Wilcox, Sponsored by eyestar-

Welcome back to the Science Fiction Short Story Contest, where each month will offer a new and broad prompt for a science fiction story. Here, you can bring your hopes and fears about science and technology to life.

The Rules ▼

What I'm looking for ▼

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and good fiction means different things to different people. Therefore, it's only fair to explain what good science fiction means from the perspective of the contest.

First, science fiction is fiction, with all the elements of fiction. It should have compelling characters, who act and drive events - or witness them. In speculative fiction, the characters may be human beings, animals, robots, civilizations, or entire worlds. Characters provide perspective and connect written events to our own feelings and experiences. Good fiction uses real and expressive characters to connect speculative ideas to us, the readers.

Characters in a story experience change. They do not exit a work as they begin. Sometimes that change is a struggle, and sometimes a moment of beauty. In science fiction, the agents that cause this change are those we experience daily - but also forces too strange or too large for us to encounter in our own lives. Science fiction is speculative fiction, the story of how a new technology or circumstance that is actually possible might play out in our own lives if let in. Sometimes, science fiction incorporates elements of the fantastic, but the best science fiction does not. It does not cheat but tells us what might be possible somewhere, somewhen, that might move us, that we might learn from.

Therefore, in judging a science fiction contest, I am looking for:
1. Expressive and readable writing, with passable grammar.
2. A plot. There should be a progression or conflict that is resolved within the length of the story. Ambiguous or implied resolutions may work but should be considered a risk.
3. Meaningful characters. It is through empathy with groups or individuals that we are connected to ideas in speculative fiction, and it's through seeing their effect on people that we best understand them.
4. An interesting speculative premise - time travel, new technology, aliens, new physics, robots, AI, genetic engineering, monsters, etc.
5. An interesting setting
6. Science. In science fiction, it's best if the speculative premise is actually possible, and even better if there is some scientific support for the possibility

That said, many of the stories I've enjoyed the most or learned the most from have been surprises. I've enjoyed the contest entries so far, and am looking forward to great things to come!

September Prompt: Rot
In honor of the home repairs I've been engaging in for the last few months (actually, mostly paying experts for), in September any science fiction short with rot or decay as a theme will be accepted as a valid contest enry. May the most decayed and putrescent entry win!

Donations:
48K GPs: Jeffhans

-- Thanks for your support!
10K GPs + banner sponsorship: eyestar~*

-- Thanks so much for the support and for linking me up with A E Willcox

. The banner is awesome!
50K GPs - Sum1

-- Thank you to a sci-fi fan!
385K GPs - Anonymous. Thanks so much for supporting the contest!
50K GPS - Bob'n Around

Thank you so much for supporting the continuation of the contest!
50K GPS - D. Reed Whittaker

Thanks so much for your donation!
10K GPS - Kellie Burke

Thanks for your support!
25K+ GPS - brokenpen Thanks so much!
50K GPS - Nixie

I much appreciate the support!
200K GPS - jdennis

Thanks for your sponsorship!
50K GPS - Spring in my Sox

Thanks for your help!
25K GPS - Graywriter square dancing

Thanks for donating!
50K+ GPS - LightinMind

Thanks for your repeated support!
307K GPS - Simple Fundraiser donation - "The Simple Fundraiser is OPEN again"

[E]. I'm truly touched. Thank you all!

August Entries:

Play God

(13+)
I played god once in my life and that is not something many of us can say
#1894412 by Josh T. Alto

STATIC

Relic

(13+)
Oh, what a tangled web we weave.
#2301870 by Words Whirling 'Round

The Fire Dragons

(13+)
The secret lab - supersoldiers.
#2301763 by LightinMind

SpaceHorrors: “How Do They Die”

(18+)
DeathBringer can die. The big question is how can the GeOns do it?
#2303432 by PureSciFi

May Winner:

Tree

(E)
A sentient plant considers its fate
#2296303 by BrokenPen

May Entries:

"Getting Too Tall to Be a Giant Too" [18+]
"No Horizon" [13+]
"Tree" [E]

Recent Prompts: ▼

August 2023 Prompt: The Secret Lab
Not all work can happen in the light - sometimes, great an dterrible things are developed by teams or individuals working in obscurity, or even in hiding. Many such secret labs have worked their way into common knowledge today, or even urban legend. Most people have heard of Area 51, The Manhattan Project, Bletchely Park, Lockheed Martin's "Skunk Works," and so on. This month, let's explore the possibilities of secret research - whether it be done by a government agency, a large corporation, or a mad scientist. Who will (quietly) change the course of the world?

May 2023 Prompt: Limitless Growth
Every living thing grows, and every community of humans (or creatures) grows until it reaches the carrying capacity of its environment. But this month, share your tale about what happens when you get too much of a good thing. Did the carrots grow too tall, the empire too big, or did that healthy community become a cancer...?

April Prompt
April Showers!

James pulled his hood tighter over his head as a sudden gust of wind sent a spray from the falling rain into his face. It was always this way in what they called April here. Neither the smaller, paler, moon visible ahead nor its larger sister set the calendar. Instead, the inhabitants of Bright Hope kept the old earth calendar with an extra odd-sized month tacked on. April might have been a naturally rainy month, but James didn't know for sure - the colony's minders never left such things to chance. Up above, an old-fashioned cloud-seeding drone made sure that James's walk in the part was a wet one. Some people filled their exercise requirements indoors on days like this, but he had paid to settle on a colony with a breathable atmosphere and an open sky. James refused to be cheated out of the outdoors.

That was why James was the only one to see the bright red streaks in the sky with his own eyes.

"Holy - "

He cut off. Those were showers, alright, but not rain showers. He didn't know if those were natural meteors or an assault from the bugs. Either way, today had just gotten a lot worse.

March Prompt:
What combines magic, High Technology, Evil corporations, Dystopian governments, Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, and Dragons?
On the bleeding edge between over-the-top science fiction and over-the-top fantasy lies - Cyberpunk! It may be getting crazy out there in the real world - this month's winner will explain how crazy is just the beginning!

February Prompt: Lost in Space

From the Robisons to L.E. Modesitt's "The Fall of Angels," in movies, books, or computer games such as Rimworld or Stranded: Alien Dawn, being lost or shipwrecked is a common trope of science fiction - and fruitful ground for the imagination. Whether your character is truly lost or just stranded (as in Andy Weir's "The Martian"), how are they surviving? And are they ever reaching home?

January Prompt:
Time Travel!

A staple of science fiction, time travel can be a clever way to mix the fantastic and the familiar - or it can be where plot goes to die. This month's contest theme is time travel, but with a caveat: time loops are impossible because you can't visit your own past. At best, you can travel to a parallel universe that has quite caught up to the timeline in this one. But that one you can change!

"You can't change the past, Charles. At least, not your past. But it doesn't mean you have to stay here. Here, humanity will the price for its shortsightedness, its hubris. You can't save us all. But you can make sure there's a world somewhere that doesn't have to, and I'll take some comfort in that."

The brown-haired young man shook his head. "Why me? I'm still in school. Shouldn't you choose someone with a little more experience to save the world?"

The middle-aged man's cheeks crinkled as he smiled. "I told you: we can't save the world, not this one. But if there's a chance that anyone could see a world with more hope, well I'm just selfish enough to want to send my son. Even if there were time to recruit someone else for my little project. But the news has been wrong - there's no time left even to talk about it. I only wish there was more time to prepare. Step in the chamber, and know that I love you."

Charles warily looked over the glass and metal capsule. It was something like a beached personal submarine and something like a steampunk mining pod. "I - when are you sending me to, Dad?"

"New York, in about 2025. That should give you a few years before it all happens. The alternate timeline should fork off immediately. Or, if some of the theories are correct, it's already there, and I'm just sending your consciousness into it. Either way, it's time to go - now!"

Charles sighed, and stepped inside. Tears had begun to streak down his father's dusty face. "I love you too."

Everything faded into a blinding white light, and then it began.

December Prompt:

It's the end of the world as we know it... so what happens next? World-ending (or near-world ending) disasters are foreshadowed by films such as Armageddon, Deep Impact, a plethora of Zombie movies, and in dozens of books and games. Will we hide underground as in "Wool" or the "Fallout" series? Will we desperately send people to space after all? Or will the destruction be as total as in Horizon Zero Dawn?

The big asteroid is coming and we can't deflect it. So - what does a technologically advanced earth do? The winning entry for December will show us what lies ahead...

Jared's face twisted in a sneer. "What do you mean we can't do anything about it? We've cured cancer! We've created virtual world where we live 100s of years! We defeated AI! Crime is a novelty for people who spend too much time searching news sites! You're saying we can't knock one asteroid off course? Space agencies first proved they could do that with Dart back in 2022!"

Quy's own avatar shrugged uncomfortably. "This one's big, it's coming fast, and it's not icy. Our non-proliferation treaties said we couldn't put weapons in space, and we didn't. I'm surprised you know about Dart: everyone else seems to have forgotten space entirely, including the failed mission to Mars and how the Earth First movement scrapped all but the lightest and most rudimentary asteroid mining ships. We don't have anything in space big enough to move a rock that's kilometers across, and the closer it gets the harder you'd have to hit it to make it miss. We don't have time to build something big enough soon enough to intercept it. It'd be easier to send people to Mars than that."

"How did we not see this coming earlier? They're predicting impact in less than three months?"

Quy's face, obscured by her ninja mask, turned downward. "Somebody messed up, I guess. But it's a dark object and space is big. We can't stop it. I guess the only question is: what else can we do?"

November Prompt:
Aside from an uptick in work, one of the things stealing my time and attention in the past month was a computer game called Terra Invicta. In an interview, Stephen Hawking said, "If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans."
Neil deGrasse Tyson commented that aliens have probably already found humans, but have good reason to keep us from seeing them. Most scientists agree that if humans were to end up in a fight with aliens any time soon, the aliens would win handily. This presumes, of course, that sapient life exists elsewhere in the galaxy, or elsewhere in the universe: as of now, an entirely speculative concept.

In science fiction, conflict with aliens is a staple. In George Lucas's Star Wars universe and Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek universe, some aliens are hostile, but most are friendly can be met on something like equal terms. Written fiction and computer games tend to be a little bleaker on the topic. In David Weber's Safehold series, a star-spanning empire of humans is wiped out, but not before founding a hidden civilization whose chief religious tenet is to avoid achieving the kind of technology that would attract alien eyes. In Brandon Sanderson's YA novel, Skyward, human beings are notoriously aggressive, and so are corralled into a few preservation areas where they endure constant conflict to keep them from re-founding a threatening and militaristic empire. Harder science fiction, as written by Arthur C. Clarke, makes aliens inscrutable, beyond us, and mostly benevolent.

But in the game Terra Invicta, the aliens come to "domesticate" earth, a planet that is threatening to grow out of hand. Earth, rather than uniting against the external threat, spends most of its resources on internal conflict. And yet - if the player is savvy enough (and doesn't choose a faction that sides with the aliens), a long and difficult road to victory is available. Despite the ongoing change in climate and energy crisis that threatens human earthbound economies.

But they're all wrong, of course! This month, your entry can tell us how human encounters with aliens will *really* go!

TLDR: November's Prompt: write a short story explaining the interaction between human societies and aliens.

October 2022 Prompt
One of the most common and fruitful themes within Science Fiction is speculation the nature and application about Artificial Intelligence (AI). From stories about mechanical men and the Three Laws of Robotics to the dark fantasies of Westworld or Ex Machina, we have constantly wondered what our interaction with AI would look like, and what capabilities it would have. In this category, science is quickly racing to meet the fiction. Ray Kurzweil is holding fast to his prediction that large language models will pass the Turing Test in all respects by 2029. However, some believe we've passed that threshold even today: Google engineer Blake Lemoine is reputedly seeking legal representation for chatbot LaMDA, to win it rights as a person. Kurzweil, Elon Musk, and many other influential figures in the tech industry tell us we are fast approaching the singularity and that the best way to remain relevant as human beings is to interface directly with AI - to place it within our brains. Jon Scalzi, in Old Man's War, gives us one vision of what that would look like, in a dark and militaristic future where Humanity fights for its place among the stars.

This month's prompt: share your story about human-AI interaction. How will we deal with AI? How will we include it in our lives - perhaps within our own minds?