Creative Prompts

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I've been developing a speculative theoretical framework called RUFT (Relational Universe Framework Theory), investigating whether physical reality can emerge from a more fundamental structure of distinguishable relationships.

The central hypothesis is that space, time, matter, and physical laws may not be fundamental, but instead arise from stable patterns of information-preserving interactions.

1. Distinguishability as a Foundation

Two physical states are operationally distinct only if some possible interaction can distinguish them.

This suggests that physical identity may be fundamentally relational rather than spatial.

2. Emergence of Spacetime

RUFT proposes that stable information transfer and persistent relational records could generate effective causal ordering and locality without assuming an underlying spacetime geometry.

Under this hypothesis, space and time emerge from the organization of relationships rather than existing as fundamental backgrounds.

3. Physical Laws as Stable Structures

The deeper hypothesis is that physical laws may correspond to robust mathematical structures that remain stable under relational dynamics and coarse-graining.

Rather than assuming geometry and causality, RUFT attempts to investigate their emergence from more primitive constraints.

4. The Fundamental Question

If physical reality emerges from distinguishable relationships, what determines which relationships are physically realizable?

Could consistency, composability, and information preservation constrain the possible laws of nature?

The ultimate question is whether the structure of physical reality can be derived rather than assumed.

RUFT remains speculative. The next step is computationally testing whether locality, causal structure, and effective dimensionality emerge from initially non-spatial relational networks.

I'm interested in criticism from researchers familiar with quantum foundations, causal sets, information theory, and emergent spacetime.

Whenever you run into a problem while writing, where do you usually look for inspiration?

Do you turn to real-world history, philosophy, politics, or human psychology? Do you look at how other authors handled similar situations? Or is Reddit your first stop? 😅

Personally, I tend to look at the real world first, especially history and human behaviour. There's so much strange, fascinating, and sometimes downright absurd stuff that actually happened that fiction almost feels tame in comparison.

But I'm curious about how other writers approach this.

When you're stuck on a character, plot, or worldbuilding problem, where does your mind go first?

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"Two centuries. Two hundred years of war, never-ending, every day bringing new atrocities, every day showcasing who was doing what to whom. The bodies never ran out; weapons seemed infinite.

Escalations increased amidst outcry, blame, finger-pointing, anger, and despair. After so long, the original reason for the war was twisted beyond recognition, but it continued anyway. Propaganda from both sides was constant, trying to pull at heartstrings and rally the masses. How were there any masses left?

'We have destroyed their main defense; it will all be over in two weeks.'

'Our main defense is perfectly secure. I am recording this video from inside it now—do not listen to the lies.'

On and on it went. Missile after missile, drone after drone. Refineries hit, ships sunk, civilians dead by the millions.

Two hundred long years."

"Will it ever stop?" a small voice called from the back of the classroom.

"Maybe, one day," said the teacher. "It was decided over a century ago to just let the internet do its thing—let the AIs and the bots carry on doing what they were programmed to do. They aren't even aware anymore that it's a closed-loop system. They just keep waging the war they were told to start."

A bell rang in the distance.

School was finished for the day.

For forty years, George carried a brass key that opened nothing he owned, and tonight it was lost.

He returned to O’Malley’s where the bartender dangled a key as if George disappointed him. It was a steel key, not a brass key, and its teeth were sharp rather than worn.

George thanked the bartender and walked home past his father’s old house whose lock this key also did not open and paused there to put the key in his pocket.

(Note: the exercise challenge was to write a story in exactly 80 words)

Be it for a classic mentor and apprentice tradition like knights and squires following noble traditions or wizard and apprentice following more meritocratic ways. Or is it like more like mass compulsory education with talent being singled out for further advancement or is it cuthroat backstabbing conscription with only the strongest being worthy of advancement.

For example in my Infinite Horizon universe, an interstellar sci-fi setting, on the the military side of things there is the "Fleet", the "Armada" and then there is the Lighthouse keepers a more techno-scientific insitution.

First the Lighthouse keepers are critical in maintaining and expanding humanity FTL station. To do that they need the best and brightest, so they have teachers in most schools keeping an eye out for gifted children to recruit into their own advance Lighthouse school, parents and the child can refuse but it is considered a great honor. However getting into Lighthouse school is not the end all be all as kids can dropout or be rejected as the program gets more challenging. Dropping out or failing out of Lighthouse school is not considered shameful or dishonorable (it is a hard and gruelling program) however there is occasional discrimination between the gradutes and dropouts and even between dropouts ("you suck you dropped out 5 years in, I made it to 9 years before being failed out"). Although not a hard tradition sometimes Lighthouse teachers become mentors to the kids they pick out following their progress and careers lending help when needed.

The Fleet is your classic Lawful Good space defense force mirroring our modern western militaries with recruiting only volunteer adults and letting people choose their roles within the fleet after they prove their proficiency and have the appropriate qualifications with a scattering of private contractors amongst them. Unsurprising the Fleet is called the shield of humanity.

The Armada on the other hand was created as the sword of humanity, in secret, in response to the Auriga crisis (tldr oh shit we're not alone, aliens exist, we lost a colony to a dead alien civilzation anything can be out there). The Armada can be described as Chaotic Goodish with them recuiting specific people secretly as needed and an entire planet Laconia (iykyk) as a breeding, training and recuitment grounds for the rest of their personnel.

The mandate of Laconia is to bring out the best(or worst) of humanity to neutralise threats to humanity (in contrast to the Fleet who is tasked to defend humanity). This mandate encompasses genetic enigineering, bioengineering augumentations and most interestingly of all from birth conditioning and brainwashing.

The problem is or rather the policy is that it is better maintain a diversity of upbringings lest there is key weakness in a monolithic program and there is strength and adaptability in variety. Add to that the uncertainity on what kind of upbringing/training works, Laconia is effectively an unethical exprimental psychologist wet dream.

So in the different corners of Laconia there individual kids being raised by ultra loving parents that they want to protect, to kids being raised by unloving parents that they desparately yearn approval of, to groups of kids raised to be in cutthroat competition with each other or groups of kids being abused so much they have to work together and rely on each other to overcome the adversity and so on so forth all arcoss the planet. These kids are not only being trained to be military personnel for the Armada but also be to scientists, engineers, spies and politcal leaders that infiltrate into common society.

Some of my stories have been about these characters with these backgrounds coming together and interacting with each other with all sorts of shenanigans and drama. For example

-The unloved daughter, trained and engineered to be a harden supersoldier discovering her loved sister, an aspiring influencer, who grew off Laconia >!the plot twist is the Laconia program is not restricted to the planet and them meeting up was part of the expriment!<

-A Brotherhood of abused boys rescued/escaped from Laconia on path of vengenance for the small colony who welcome them in and hid and shielded them against conscription. >!meanwhile unknown to them (being in a backwater sector) a civil war is being waged between anti alien and pro alien factions of the Fleet!<

-A classic buddy cop duo of a low self esteem Lighthouse dropout and a gung ho Fleet officer running around trying to solve problems and making messy mistakes(and learning from them). >!meanwhile they are being used as proxies by the Lighthouse keepers (via the dropouts Lighthouse mentor and guidance by a secret AI cult) to shutdown and disrupt scientific and technical research that the Lighthouse prefers to keep a monoploy on!<

I always believed that magic could affect every day life for the common people, if it was established enough. I could expect industrious individuals to capitalize on this and create an industry where they can produce such items for the populace. Naturally, there are common objects and more refined ones for those with deeper pockets.

Here are a few from my world of Athil Vestra:
* Water jug - taps into the chaos plane, specifically the realm of water to fill on a simple tap against it.
* Cleansing cloth - used to wipe oneself clean; a little flick an is no longer soiled.
* Warming towel - always warm and soft to the touch.
* Warming bowl - used to heat up food - specifically soup.
* Frost box - low temperatures from cool to freezing to help food last longer.
* Cooling shade - a parasol that not only blocks the sun, but also emits waves of cool air.

Beyond this there are more advanced magical items, objects, and craft to enhance the qualities of life.
Road resurfaces are one. Utilizing the effects of Move Earth, they can fix broken or sinking roadways and return them to a state of flat and smooth once again. Simple, yet incredible for ease of travel through a city.
Magic is a tool - use it wisely.

Tell me, does your world have such things?