An Expansive Forge (Celestial Forge V3/The Expanse.)

One of the things that seems to be a problem with CF fics is that they can enter a sort of spiral where they give a new power, explain it and its effects, and the word count from that explanation gives a new power, which needs a new explanation, etc. The narrative bogs down and very few things actually happen.

Perhaps give the main character here the ability to hold back skill downloads and effects so that he can go and do things, then have some clearly delineated downtime to run through the various goodies he picked up.

 

Personally, I would suggest companions should be severely limited somehow. Anything from they can’t leave the warehouse to costing more points or even gets locked until a constitution gets finished.

 

The exponential word count for back to back successful rolls would prevent that problem. The 4000 word count likely would too, but I feel like the exponential increase that resets when a draw isn't affordable would mesh better with the descriptions of his power activating. Could use it to inject some suspense regarding its function. The side effects seem to be mellowing, then he gets his biggest pull yet and it doesn't floor him, or cause any easily noticable reaction despite there being a hyper-perceptive scientist right beside him. On the other hand I imagine that exponential would lock him into repeated successful draws unless the CP income is also altered so it might be better for Reese to just veto stuff when necessary. Don't wanna use it to escape a difficult to write scenario though; defeats the purpose of creative writing exercises like celestial forge.

 

Reece, are you all right? There is no news for a long time(

 

I'm still kicking. Just working on my dissertation right now. I've been breeding transgenic flies, and they've been dying very frequently, or not breeding at all. Which means I need to really deep dive on the lines that lived, which means a lot more data analysis than I thought I'd be needing to do. Which is a pain. I'll try and post here and there where I can though

 

I'm kinda curious about those flies now, not gunna lie...

 

I'm trying to see if I can fix the overgrown synapses that characterise Lou Gehrig's (ALS) disease. I'm knocking down the Rab8 gene which causes the overgrowth of the synapse, then dosing with Trolox to see if that prevents, or even rescues the synapse and stops the disease symptoms.

I altered three lines at three points - 23007, 3229 and Rab81 - and then bred then with each other to prevent any particularly nasty mutations from biasing results, and to prevent any issues with off target knockouts. All fairly simple. Except! The little bastards won't fuck. I've managed to create the least horny flies of all time, even under ideal food, temperature and crowding conditions they refuse to lay any fucking eggs! Only the 23007/3229 and 3229/1 crosses are viable, and only barely. So instead of just tracking larval crawling to measure the effect of the drug; I'm going to have to deep dive and look at larvae contraction size, speed, and rate. Because I ran out of time before a proper dissection and synapse observation could be done. Which is irritating since I had wanted to look at the physiological effect in detail, rather than the behavioural. But, needs must.

 

*Nods head* Yep, all I got from that was that you have shy flies that don't like voyeurs.

 

I know nothing of biology, so I'm gonna assume they won't fuck because you tweaked their neurology just enough they feel awkward.

 

Now I am thinking of 28 Days Later setting but with Lust instead of Rage as the Primal Impetus.....

Zombie Apocalypse of a kind I really regret thinking of....

 

man looking into the distance "Fucking zombies" ?
Other man "but still the tittes on that one"!

 

you can post this in spacebattles or/and sufficientvelocity to get more readers and comments even the NSFW in QQ gets more people than here.