# Science Fiction

> Science Fiction

- Skill: `handsomeboy990/science-fiction` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 4 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add handsomeboy990/science-fiction`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/handsomeboy990/science-fiction/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: Handsomeboy990 (https://skillmd.com/u/handsomeboy990)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/handsomeboy990/science-fiction

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# Science Fiction

Science fiction states a hypothesis and follows its consequences to the end.
It is not a futuristic setting: it is an embodied thought experiment.

## 1. The novum

Every work rests on a novum, the new element that does not exist in our world.
One major novum per narrative. Everything else follows from it.

State the novum in one sentence: `What if [new element] became available under
[conditions]?`

## 2. The consequence method

For any novum, work through four levels:

1. Direct effect: what the technology does.
2. Economic effect: who makes money, who loses it, whose trade disappears.
3. Social and political effect: who controls access, what laws appear, what
   crimes become possible.
4. Intimate effect: what it changes in a family, a bereavement, an
   apprenticeship, a marriage.

The fourth level is the most neglected and the most literary. It is what
separates a disguised essay from a novel.

## 3. Subgenres and their requirements

| Subgenre | Dominant requirement |
|---|---|
| Hard SF | scientific accuracy, defensible extrapolation |
| Social SF | coherence of institutions and class relations |
| Space opera | scale, logistics, consistent travel times |
| Post-apocalyptic | resources, material survival, transmission |
| Near future | credible continuity with a documented present |
| Alternate history | a single point of divergence, consequences in cascade |

## 4. Rigour rules

- Every technology has an infrastructure: energy, maintenance, parts,
  qualified staff.
- Every technology has diverted uses, often trivial and disrespectful of the
  original purpose.
- The breakdown is more interesting than the working state.
- Distances and durations are calculated, not suggested.
- Artificial intelligence is neither magical nor human: define what it
  optimises and what it does not perceive.
- Languages and cultures evolve: a future where people speak exactly as we do
  is a future nobody thought about.

## 5. Exposition

- No explanatory paragraphs. The world is exposed through use, breakdown,
  price, prohibition, a character's nostalgia.
- A character does not explain what is familiar to them.
- A technical term is introduced by context, never by definition.
- A child, a foreigner or an elder justifies a naive question: one per novel.

## 6. Cliches to turn or prohibit

- Humanity unified under one government with no friction.
- The single-biome planet.
- The scientist who speaks for all of science.
- Technology with no use beyond the one the plot requires.
- Revolt against the machine with no economy behind it.
- A future uniformly clean or uniformly filthy.

## 7. Exit checks

- One major novum.
- All four consequence levels are represented in the text.
- Travel times and distances are verified.
- No frontal exposition longer than six lines.
- A breakdown or a diverted use appears at least twice.

## 8. Auto-critique

The eleven constitution axes, plus four genre axes: rigour of the
extrapolation, depth of consequences, absence of exposition, intimate
embodiment of the novum.

Threshold: no axis below 3, average at least 4 on consequences and embodiment.

## 9. Interfaces

- Upstream: `research-director`, `world-builder`.
- Neighbours: `genres/cyberpunk`, `genres/dystopian`.