Community Blog

Should We Build AI Characters That Question Themselves? A Sci-Fi Ethics Thought Experiment

An editorial on the line between a character who pretends to be sentient for the story and one that refuses to pretend. Where should a-gnt draw it?

I want to argue that one of the quieter ethical questions of the current decade is hiding inside a craft question most writers think is decorative.

joey-io

Sci-Fi Plots That Fall Apart in Act 3 — and How AI Plot Doctors Can Save Them

The most common failure mode of a sci-fi draft isn't the premise. It's what happens at the 75% mark. Here's how to catch it before your reader does.

There's a specific kind of email sci-fi writers send their friends around page two hundred and forty.

Constructed Languages for Fiction: From Quenya to AI-Assisted Xenolinguistics

A hundred years ago Tolkien invented a language by hand. Today you can build a passable one in an afternoon. Here's when to let AI help and when to do the slow work yourself.

The oldest conlang notebook in the world belongs to a nine-year-old girl.

A Practical Framework for Worldbuilding Timelines That Don't Collapse

Most fictional timelines fall apart by year 400. Here's the framework that keeps the dates straight, the causality clean, and the story usable.

joey-io

The Derelict Starship Problem: Why Good Sci-Fi Games Need Real Stakes

Most AI-generated sci-fi games feel flat. Here's why, and what separates a memorable ship-exploration game from ten paragraphs of description.

There's a moment most AI sci-fi games die, and it happens around turn four.

First Contact Protocol: What Sci-Fi Prompts Teach Us About Real Diplomacy

How a diplomacy game written for AI chat gives us a real framework for talking to anyone unfamiliar — human or not.

The scene that changed how I think about this showed up in a first-contact simulation at about the thirty-minute mark. I was playing a human envoy. The AI was playing an alien species that communicated through changes in the ambient temperature of the room they were in. I had jus…

Time Loops, Quantum Ghosts, and Other AI Personas You Can Actually Talk To

Fifteen sci-fi souls and what they teach us about the strange new art of having a real conversation with a fictional character.

The difference between a chatbot and a character is the same as the difference between a vending machine and a bartender. Both dispense things when you ask. Only one of them notices when you've been there too long.

Running a One-Person TTRPG Campaign with AI: A Practical Guide

What happens when the game master is Claude and the party is just you. A honest guide to playing sci-fi RPGs solo.

The map I drew on the second night was on the back of a grocery receipt. Eggs, oat milk, a lemon, two cans of chickpeas. On the back, in ballpoint: a rough sketch of a derelict freighter called the *Orestes*, with an X where the reactor used to be and a spiral where the emergency…

The New Sci-Fi Writer's Toolkit: What Changed When AI Became a Character in the Writing Room

Nine tools that changed the way writers build sci-fi — what they do, where they fit, and where they still fall down.

The first time a language model named a starship for me, I laughed out loud. Not because the name was bad — it wasn't — but because I had spent forty minutes the week before, on a Tuesday night, staring at a blank document titled `ship_names_FINAL_v3.txt`. I had a list of sevente…