Prompts for Rational Fiction Fest 2022
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The machine eats and grows. Nothing can stop it. And perhaps nothing should, from the utilitarian point of view?
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The sleeping god awakens at the end of time, when entropy claimed almost everything.
There's nothing left... or is there?(The meaning of "god" is up to interpretation)
Claimed By
- gabofiction
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The Book of All Skies - Greg Egan (Del/Original Characters)
Nobody drops a prototype portal into the mantle of the only planet they have left. What happened to the rest of humanity? Where did they go, and why?
Alternatively: what chain of seemingly-sound logic could lead to testing a prototype spatial distortion on humanity's only home?
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Understand - Ted Chiang (Leon Greco)
A man with four injections of Hormone K is a nation-state unto his own. The trial was more loosely policed than in canon, and more than just Leon Greco gained cognitive critical mass - many more. Is a world populated by such people going to tend to world peace, or - more likely - will it afford ever more devastating conflict?
And what of all those left behind?
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The Tower of Babylon - Ted Chiang (Hillalum)
Hillalum crawls up through the Vault of Heaven, only to find himself climbing up through the earth - and comes to a startling realization.
The Tower of Babylon need not have a beginning, or an end. The structure could be rigged to drop a single boulder in an endless loop, providing enough potential energy to displace all the world's oceans. And that would be a minimal benefit. Surely, minds greater than his could exploit this boon further.
He has to get back to the construction site, and tell the builders of what he has learned.
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Pengu was the guardian of the dragon siblings. Their guide, their teacher, and surrogate parent.
And - Sisu had never been the brightest girl. But Pengu had a job to do by his family, and circumstances were not a sufficient excuse to give up. Where Sisu had trouble implementing complex reasoning, Pengu gave her rules to follow - heuristics, he called them, though the term meant little to Sisu.
Nevertheless, as Jagan grew in confidence, Amba's magic flourished, and Pranee became a dancer of unparallelled skill, Sisu also followed her brother's guidance.
The rules were simple. Some read thus:
Be kind first; be angry second.
Better to record and forget, than to try to remember and fail.
A soul once poisoned by treason can never be healed.
Waking up in an empty desert, Sisu could only hope that Pengu's rules would continue to hold even beyond the end of the world.
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Pick a season and a monster from the Upside Down place. How would you have prepared and acted to confront it? As an SI companion to the main cast, or one of them (optimization of L's psychic power and mundane tools/strategies are both equally welcome)
For example - a nice blowtorch, home made thermite grenades, or even basic body armor (rigidly plated to protect against constricting vines etc) would have been helpful to the S4 old group who attacked V... SMH
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It is he, Potato-kun, the generic, average, dark-haired, bland, absolutely devoid of any distinguishing characteristic or personality beloved interchangeable protagonist of every harem anime ever! He wants to just go about his day. Unfortunately, the Plot has other designs for him.
If he goes to school, half his female classmates fall for him and fight over his attention.
If he tries a part-time job, his boss will be a woman, and inevitably she will hit on him, age differences be damned.
Succubi, ghosts with pent-up sexual desires and clumsy vampires, all cute as a button, haunt him, mostly trying to seduce him rather than scare him.
Animals, plants, even inanimate objects that he owns might randomly anthropomorphise into hot anime waifus seeking his company.
And the less said about his sister, the better...
Tell the story of poor Potato-kun, protagonist of all harems at once, and the unfathomable horror of trying to exist as a normal boy in a universe whose sole purpose is to make you the central focus of trite and overdone sexy hijinks.
Claimed By
- cthulhuraejepsen
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Whenever a genin asks about chakra, they receive the same stock answer. "It's made by combining the energy of the body and the mind." Few are trusted with the knowledge of the true nature of chakra, and all the techniques derived from it. Chakra is produced via dramatics - the more extra a ninja acts, the stronger they become. All else being equal, the ninja with the saddest backstory wins. Tragedy goes hand in hand with power.
Any character is fine - the 'Creator's Choice' tag wasn't letting me submit the prompt, so I picked the first option. Any story with this premise would be interesting, but if you want an extra suggestion - write a character discovering this midfight, and taking advantage of it to win when they really shouldn't.
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"I was thinking about that thing you said about the universe. Going where the universe takes you? Right on. I think it's a cool philosophy."
Instead of vanishing into the Alaskan wilds at the end of El Camino, Jesse Pinkman glimpses a travel brochure, and on a whim, decides to find a nice, quiet life in the Lake of the Ozarks.
Unfortunately, soon after he gets there, a new family moves in to Buddy Dieker's house next door. And life become anything but quiet.
A crossover that attempts to imagine the events of Ozark with a jaded and traumatized Jesse Pinkman as a member of the cast.
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Kirito was chosen to be one of the one thousand beta testers for the closed beta of Sword Art Online, the first ever Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (VRMMORPG) for the NerveGear.
Minutes after the games full release, the entirety of the player base finds themselves teleported to a strange town. The game’s creator, Kayaba Akihiko, begins to deliver a welcome message, but he is cut short, and his projected avatar fades from the sky. The sky darkens and an animated cutscene plays.
"The fallen leaves tell a story..."
Welcome to Elden Ring Online.
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The aether exists. Accessible by a fourth-dimensional rotation, the aether field permeates all of reality and flows in one direction. Using aetheric sails and anchors, humans can explore the planets, and possibly the stars.
But the aether field is constant, flowing only in one direction. But what lies upstream? After an alien artifact drifts downstream through the system, an expedition is sent out to sail against the current to find the source of the aetheric flow.
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You are part of the only secret diabolical corporate cabal on Earth. You interview demons for product advice, and then pass that advice on as if it were your own corporation's consumer research.
You see, your company discovered a long-lost demonic sigil that turns any gathering of items above it into the avatar of that collection. As long as the items are similar enough, they can summon a demon whose power is proportional to the number of items.
For example, your company has summoned and dispelled a sock demon with twelve hundred pairs of socks. The interview was enlightening, and the resulting new product offerings of socks with varying ankle angles and customizable temperature fabric has proven a great success.
Then you summoned the tire demon with ten thousand old tires. Thus you found a new way to recycle tires and a new ridge pattern that was appealing to consumers, by asking that demon questions about tires. That the recycling method produced toxic gas--resulting in one wrongful death lawsuit--was a wakeup call.
Your company has, of course, put a moratorium on any experiments with electronics.
However, the next summoning you've been instructed to do has hundreds of thousands of mundane items, and you are scared. Surely a demon of great power, even over an innocuous domain, is going to be dangerous?
(Feel free to change the specifics if you don't want tire demons to be part of the backstory, for example. Or to write about any aspect of the ability to summon the avatar of a pile of arbitrary items.)
Claimed By
- monistowl
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A college student accidentally summons a demon. How will he use and abuse this newfound power, and will he even survive that long in the first place?
An original work; and my first attempt at creative writing, I hope you all enjoy it!
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An Elite soldier tries to come up with theological reasons to allow himself to use human weaponry, despite the inherent dishonor--and then he makes arguments to other members of the Covenant to excuse his heretic behavior. Perhaps he also makes an argument for treating Grunts as more than cannon fodder, and perhaps he deals with the cognitive dissonance of caring deeply about his religious honor even as he compromises to be more effective in war.
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Drosselmeyer talks about the difficulties and nuance of using his magic to create a mechanical vessel for himself and obtain immortality. (Spoilers: His magic causes any story he writes to become reality, but perhaps not in the way he intended. He made a mechanism to write stories about himself with the same magic so that he would never die. Now he is the story-writing mechanism.)
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AI-generated art is widespread and extremely popular. In fact, any person can request a custom-tailored TV series, book, or video game for their own enjoyment.
There is someone who enjoys playing video games made for other people: mostly their friends, but also strangers who share the games with them. What do they get out of playing those perfect-for-someone-else games? Why do they avoid playing games optimized for their own enjoyment?
Claimed By
- Robert_Barlow
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Write a story where the final line changes the meaning significantly enough that the entire story is worth rereading with an alternate meaning apparent.
This is a difficult challenge. The idea is *not* that the context is confusing or unknown during the first read--it's that the first read and the second have clear and distinct meanings.
For example, the relationship between two characters seems to be one thing, then is revealed to be another that changes the context of their interaction.
Claimed By
- eniteris
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Patchouli Knowledge, a witch of over one hundred years, spends all of her time locked in a library in order to do magical research. She has made herself immortal, and yet she secludes herself to the detriment of her health.
What is she researching?
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In a far-flung future, anyone who is anyone uses neural implants to command the technology around them. An oddball group of students learn how to use these signals to dive into a virtual reality constructed from the minds of other people on the network, and have to reckon with the disconnect between Map and Territory. Using this technology, can they change the world for the better?
Claimed By
- eniteris
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A group of people are unfortunate enough to be the first to stumble across a new Dungeon just outside of town - or at least, the first to see it and live to tell about it. They have to recall from memory what Dungeons are and how they relate to the ecosystem. Why do they have entrances? Why do they provide loot? What are really are the monsters that live inside of them? And is it sane to go anywhere near something so dangerous?
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A baker, a brewer, a hunter, a priest, a smith, a soldier and a child walk into a dungeon - it sounds like the setup to a bad joke. But this is deadly serious. A man has gone missing, and the villagers of Gulden aren't going to stand idly by. Not when there's lives to be saved and gold to be earned.
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