Hello!

I was just suggested this community and, judging from other posts, it looks like there's no issue doing some self-promo?

I've been writing a space opera romance that has over 5 books completed, it's heavily inspired by Mass Effect and Star Wars Kotor 2, but it marinated in my head for over 15 years before I started writing, so there's a lot of influence from various things.

If you'd like to check it out, a lot of readers say the prequel, Battlefield Heartsurgery, is the better place to enter the overall universe. I affectionately refer to the two characters in the prequel as Dr. Best Friend and Jane Wick the Doom Slayer. It is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GT8M9KMB/ref=cm\_cr\_arp\_mb\_bdcrb\_top?ie=UTF8

The main series, Cradles of Gravity, is currently available free on Royal Road but will be moving to Amazon soon: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/151363/cradles-of-gravity-a-space-opera-romance

Hope some people here enjoy it!

How's it going, I have often tried to explain to non-space opera fans what the genre really means. I always find it difficult beyond you know it when you read it. There seems to be quite a diversity in what I would call a space opera.

If you had to define it in a couple of sentences, how would you describe it?

Multiple POV's, grand space politics where many different characters decisions impact each others. Or something else? Does it need to be 'hard scifi'? Are the characters more defining or the setting?

I got tired of sci-fi empires that are just "the Emperor says jump and it happens." So I spent way too long working out how my empire the Roman Imperium, from my series The Long Vigil actually governs a few hundred thousand light-years of territory without collapsing into either total anarchy or total micromanagement. Sharing the framework in case it's useful to anyone building their own.

The core idea: authority is delegated, not flat. The Emperor sits at the top, but nobody below him is just an administrator every rung down the ladder is its own semi-sovereign power center with real teeth and real limits.

Sectors aren't all the same

Space gets carved into Sectors, and there are three flavors:

• Direct Imperial Domain: one sector, Sol, run by the Emperor personally. No Viceroy. Overlapping watchdogs everywhere. This is the seat of the Throne, so it's governed like it maximum control, minimum delegation.
• Viceroyal Sectors: the standard model. A Viceroy rules in the Emperor's name over a stable, developed region. Real power, but not sovereignty; they can't override an imperial decree, and the High Council is always looking over their shoulder.
• March / War / Special Administration Sectors: anywhere instability (war, rebellion, ecological collapse, a frontier that hasn't been tamed yet) breaks the normal model. These get run by military commanders and emergency appointees instead of a civil Viceroy.

The chain of command under a Viceroy

Below the Viceroy, each sector has seven standing offices, each with a hard lane:

• Chancellor: bureaucracy, records, decrees
• Marshal: ground forces, internal military crises
• Admiral: the fleet, trade routes, orbital defense
• Provost: internal affairs, anti-corruption, political security
• Treasurer (Fiscal Prefect): taxes, production quotas, the money
• Preceptor: the state religion, doctrinal unity
• Herald: noble legitimacy, inheritance disputes, bloodlines

It's basically checks and balances for a monarchy: no single sector official controls the money, the army, and the law at the same time. The Viceroy is powerful, but they're powerful inside a structure designed to make a coup logistically annoying.

It scales down, too a sector then a System (run by a Signoria, a council led by a First Signore) then a Planet (a Governor, or in weirder cases a Noble House, a Military Governor, an Industrial Prefect, or a Charter Prince, depending on what kind of world it is).

And the whole thing flexes under pressure: in peacetime, civil governance leads and the military supports it. The second a sector tips into crisis, that flips; the Marshal's authority expands, and the legions can override local rule until things stabilize.

Anyone wanting to grab an ARC copy of Book 1 of my upcoming series 'The Space Pirates', it's now open for download for free before launch. Information on it is below if you are interested.

Space Opera. Hard-ish science. Comedy. And it has Space Pirates as the sort of good guys for once!

🏴‍☠️ They were Pirates. Space was an accident. 🏴‍☠️

What happens when you take Eighteenth century pirates. One very unfortunate alien.

An interstellar vessel with inadequate security and a grudge.

The result is galactic history.

Not Your Average Space Opera.

When a crew of Stuart-era pirates wake up aboard an alien spacecraft, they don’t have a crisis of identity. They have a ship. They take it. The universe, it turns out, is broadly unprepared for this.

A comedy series played completely straight. Nobody winks at the camera. The pirates think this is all perfectly reasonable. The galaxy disagrees and with mounting alarm.

Sinead "Sin the Bold" Boland has been called a thief, a traitor, a menace to shipping lanes. Nobody's ever called her a collectable — until an intergalactic smuggler hauls her crew off their own ship (along with the Royal Navy frigate chasing them) to sell to a dictator who collects sentient species like trading cards.

There's one problem: the smuggler stole the ship he's using, and never checked whether it had opinions about kidnapping. It does. As soon as it finishes a mandatory software update.

An ensemble-cast, comedic sci-fi adventure for anyone who thinks space pirates have gotten unfairly bad press. If you are fans of Science Fiction like Jamie McFarlane, or Julia Huni's Tales of a Space Janitor, this should be right in your lane. Warning! -> Not as funny as Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett.

📖 AN AYE FOR AN AYE — Book One

🔗 ARC download: https://thespacepirates.net/

Would love your honest feedback before launch — happy to answer questions in comments.

Launching on Kindle/KU on 1st November 2026.

Reviews on Goodreads or Amazon would be greatly appreciated.

Relevant Information for ARC readers...

53,000 words. (Approximately 1.5 - 2 hrs reading time according to Kindle).

Relevant Keywords:

pirates hijack alien spaceship

18th century pirates in space

female pirate leaders

found family space crew

space pirate adventure

funny sci-fi space opera

As an author of a space opera, I’d love to post some of my chapters, characters and lore codex’s here to get my targeted audience’s feedback and opinions before the official launch of the book series, I didn’t think there are any rules against it, I’m just trying to gage some interest before I start posting.

PROLOGUE

The First World

The first Imperial soldier Lena Marris ever saw was carrying a crate of medicine. He came down the landing ramp with two others beside him, boots dark with rain, rifle slung low across his chest, one gloved hand locked around the crate handle. He was younger than she expected. Not a boy, but close enough that she noticed it before she noticed the armor.

Behind him, the sky over Harrow Vale was full of ships. They held position in disciplined layers above the valley, matte-black hulls half-veiled by rain clouds while smaller craft moved between orbit and ground at fixed intervals. No panic carried over the landing field. No open-channel shouting. The ships looked less like an invasion than a system already at work.

The town gathered at the eastern road because there was nowhere else to stand. Harrow Vale had one landing field, two grain silos, a clinic with half its roof sealed in plastic sheeting, and a council house that still flew the faded green flag of the Cooperative Authority. The flag had not meant much in years. It meant enough that no one had taken it down.

Lena stood near the clinic steps with her daughter pressed against her leg and her son tucked under her arm. Elena was six and old enough to stare. Tomas was three and afraid of the ships, the rain, and the silence his mother kept forcing into herself.

The Imperial soldier reached the first waiting medic and set the crate down. “Antibiotics,” he said in clear trade English. “Burn dressings. Fever reducers. Field sutures. Inventory seal is intact.”

Rena Vosk, the clinic’s senior medic, stared at him as if the crate might vanish if touched. “For us?” she asked. “For the clinic,” the soldier said. “Under provisional relief authority.” Rena looked past him toward the other soldiers moving down the ramp. Some carried weapons. Some carried crates. Two wore white armbands marked with a red staff and serpent. Another carried a sealed register case, and Lena found herself watching that one longer than the rifles.

Food could save a town. Medicine could save a child. Registers meant someone intended to stay.

A woman near the road began to cry when the second crate opened and the medicae officer showed Rena the fever strips. Two weeks earlier, fever had taken seven people in the western workers’ row. Three had been children. The old council had sent requests up the chain until the chain ended in a dead relay station and a clerk who never answered.

The Imperial medicae officer knelt in the mud before a coughing boy and checked his throat by hand. That was when the first cheer came. It started small, embarrassed by its own need, then spread through the front of the crowd. A few people raised their hands. Someone shouted, “Thank God.” Someone else shouted, “About time.”

Lena did not cheer. She kept watching the register case.

A man in a dark field coat stepped from the second landing craft. He was not armored like the soldiers. His coat carried a silver badge at the throat and a narrow red stripe down the left sleeve. Two armed legionaries followed him, not guarding him from the town so much as making clear what he represented.

He stopped at the foot of the ramp. “People of Harrow Vale,” he said. His voice carried through the rain from the speakers mounted on the landing craft. “My name is Prefect Lucan Ors. I speak under authority of the Roman Imperium and the Reclamation Mandate of Emperor Marcus Aurelius Draconis. This settlement is now under provisional Imperial protection.”

Some in the crowd straightened. Others looked at one another, unsure whether they had just been rescued or claimed.

Ors let the words settle before he continued. “Medical relief begins now. Food assessment begins before nightfall. No resident who complies with registration and lawful order will be harmed. Weapons above household class are to be declared to the landing-field office. Militia personnel, council officers, and security volunteers will report for status review. Local worship and custom will continue unless tied to coercion, unlawful confinement, trafficking, or hostile action.”

The cheering thinned as people began to understand the shape of the offer. Lena felt Elena’s fingers tighten in her coat. The Imperium did not sound angry. Not cruel. Worse than cruel. Certain.

Councilman Eder pushed through the front of the crowd, rain running down his bald scalp and into the collar of his formal coat. He had worn the coat for authority, not weather. It clung to him now.

“This is a recognized Cooperative settlement,” Eder called. “We have petition rights.” “You do,” Ors said. “You cannot simply place us under foreign jurisdiction.” “We have.” A murmur went through the road. Ors let it pass. “Your petition will be recorded after census intake. Your council records will be secured today.”

Eder’s face changed at the word records. Lena saw it. So did the prefect. The soldier who had carried the medicine crate stood beside Rena now, helping unload the clinic packs. He had taken his helmet off. Rain flattened his hair against his forehead. A little girl from the workers’ row held up a strip of cloth from her burned hand, and he crouched to look at it before one of the medicae officers waved him back to the crates.

He smiled at the child before he stood. The shot came from the council house. It cracked across the landing field and struck the young soldier just below the throat. He fell backward against the medicine crate, one hand closing around nothing, blood spreading over the dark armor seal. The child with the burned hand screamed. Rena dropped beside him. The second shot hit one of the armed legionaries in the shoulder and spun him half around.

The Imperial response took less than three seconds. No one in the landing field shouted. No officer asked where the shots came from. The legionaries already knew. Six rifles rose as one. Two more soldiers moved in front of the medicae officers. A drone lifted from the rear of the landing craft, turned toward the council house, and marked the upper window with a hard white light.

Prefect Ors looked toward the window. “Return fire authorized,” he said. The upper floor of the council house shattered. Glass, wood, and old green paint burst into the rain. The gunfire from inside stopped. A third shot went wild through the roof tiles. Then the drone fired once, and the room behind the window flashed white.

The crowd broke. People ran toward the silos, the clinic, the drainage ditch, anywhere that was not the road. Lena grabbed Elena with one arm and lifted Tomas with the other. Someone slammed into her shoulder. She nearly fell. An Imperial soldier caught her by the elbow and pushed her behind the clinic wall.

“Stay down,” he said. His voice was not angry. That made it worse. Lena crouched with her children in the mud while the landing field became soldiers, weapons, and calm orders. The wounded legionary was dragged behind the ramp. The young soldier by the medicine crate did not move. Rena kept both hands pressed to his neck until a medicae officer pulled her away and took over.

Prefect Ors walked into the center of the road as if the shots had only changed the order of work.

“Council house,” he said. “Secure anyone left alive. No fire unless armed resistance continues. Clinic remains open. Census team holds position. No civilian movement beyond the eastern road until cleared.”

Councilman Eder stood frozen near the ditch. Two legionaries reached him before he decided whether to run.

“I did not authorize that,” Eder said. “I did not—” “Then you will help us identify who did,” Ors said. Eder looked toward the broken council house. The old green flag had come loose from its pole and hung against the wall in the rain.

The medicae officer beside the fallen soldier removed her gloves slowly, careful not to smear blood across the seals. She looked at Prefect Ors and gave a single shake of her head.

The young soldier had carried medicine into Harrow Vale and died before anyone learned his name.

Lena held her children tighter. Elena was crying without sound. Tomas had buried his face in Lena’s coat. Around them, the town waited for punishment.

Ors did not order executions. He did not burn the rest of the council house. He did not call them traitors. He opened the register case instead.

“Begin names,” he said. A clerk stepped forward, pale but steady, stylus already in hand.

Ors looked over the road, the clinic, the shattered window, the dead soldier, and the people crouched in the rain. “This settlement remains under Imperial protection. Medical relief and food assessment continue. Weapons declaration is now mandatory within one hour. Anyone hiding armed personnel will be treated as an accessory to hostile action. Anyone who comes forward before the hour expires will be treated as a protected witness.”

No one cheered now. The Imperium had brought medicine, law, soldiers willing to die for strangers, and officers willing to turn a building into splinters before a crowd finished screaming. It had come to save Harrow Vale, and Lena understood, with the clerk standing in front of her and the dead soldier lying beside the open crate, that it meant to own the saving.

“Name?” the clerk asked. Lena looked at the dead soldier. Rainwater ran through his blood and carried it in thin red lines toward the road.

“Lena Marris,” she said. The clerk wrote it down. Above Harrow Vale, the ships held position. Six months earlier, in the Hall of Concordance, the order that brought them there had been spoken aloud for the first time.

https://preview.redd.it/zau921ys5eeh1.png?width=2048&format=png&auto=webp&s=20279d2218dacc36b1b52a45489391f9c527f02a

Would anyone be willing to give my new 45,000 word comedy space adventure a read? I'm looking for feedback and reviews and figured it'd fit in perfectly here.

A classic British absurdist space romp for anyone who's worn out their copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide - with a dash of Red Dwarf and a healthy dose of The Office (in space).

An incompetent crew, captained by the paranoid ego of Arbuckle, is set on a course to find a mythical planet that no one thinks exists (and soon won't). Along for the ride are Lily, the actual brains of the operation, who has more history with this part of the galaxy than she's letting on, and Steve, a super-anxious cat-pig-humanoid creature who becomes a biological weapon whenever his anxiety wins out (which, naturally, makes him even more anxious).

Together, this crew battles space pirates, space rats, alcoholism, a corporate spy literally named [REDACTED], and mostly Arbuckle's ego. Along the way, they evolve into a found family of misfits, high-class French fashionistas, and Arbuckle himself somehow becomes the favoured wife of a space harem. All while fleeing their employer and being watched over by the greatest threat to them all:

Glen from HR.

A comedy built to spring back on itself. Read it once for the laugh, and again for everything you missed.

Leave me a comment or fill out this form -  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd7sLTNokvPHrwNgC3Sef-NDeQgF3W3uXha51x1aTyzKwoedA/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=103364542995671365902

Thanks all. I hope you enjoy the read. I’m looking forward to hearing your feedback.

Hello and welcome. Here we can talk about the characters, protagonists, antagonists, factions, aliens, the technology, weapons, magic (arcana), natural powers, inspiration and ideologies or more about my book.

For my main characters, I was heavily inspired by the visual design of nier characters from the video game series mixed with warhammer 40k esque style and design. I have created the perfect blend of masculine cybernetic utilitarianism mixed with renaissance Baroque styles to create characters such as Farron and Lillyanna, Tyrium. Farron is the highly dogmatic, battle hardened space marine/knight who wields both magical/powered lances, swords, axes and hammers and assault rifles, chainguns, powerful energy weapons. Farron is also a strong father figure outside of combat operations and civilian work, forced labour (when the Brittanic Sovereignty enslaved his race of humanoid giants called the Faiynn whom are just slightly taller than humans) outside of his duties, he is a loving man who tends to his wife. Friends and family. He was also a very well known craftsman and scientist, scholar before the Britts had attacked the first Faiynn planets. Now he is a man hell-bent on revenge against the Brittanic Sovereignty and their fascist party which are actively trying to exterminate the Faiynn peoples as so that their race can dominate the stars. Farron who has had hundreds of years of combat experience uses his wide variety of spells, natural super powers, his deadly arsenal of weapons and his power armour to crush slaughtered enemies on the battlefield such as Brittanic knights, infantry, alien horrors and in one of my later books, evil space elves who also use similar technology as the Faiynn.

Farron’s wife Lillyanna is also a Faiynn thus she lives for 10000 years as they all do. Before she became a mother or before the occupation of their homeland by the Brittanic Sovereignty. She was and still is part of a power all female military league that is designed to fight head on assault style battles and clandestine special operations behind enemy lines. Her military order fights alongside their all male equivalents. Their are virtually hundreds of thousands of Faiynn military orders and legions across different star systems and planets. Lillyanna was an assassin type warrior similar to A2 from the nier games. Whilst flesh and blood and not and android from said other franchise, Lillyanna wore a cybernetic catsuit which has the same sophisticated characteristics and abilities as heavy Faiynn space marine power armour does but her Cyberwolf catsuit was designed for a more lethal assassination attacks and viscous stealth warfare whereas her husband uses his heavy, bulky power armour for total obliglteration of enemy heavy troopers, tanks and mechs, or robotic enemies deployed by various enemy alien or human factions. Outside of war and combat, Lillyanna is like royalty so she did a lot of entertainment related work as well as administration stuff that nobles do. She was forced to work as a caretaker and personal maid for a female Brittanic noble who was relatively nice to her as opposed to the cruel Brittanic chiefs and governors who pushed Farron around.

Tyrium is another supporting character who I initially did not intend to become a big character but I just liked his character and that he was this cute femboy so I continued to write him as like Lillyanna who in this book does not mention her military status or history much. Tyrium is on the same family as Pollyanna thus shares a lot of features as she does such as long flowing white hair, pale white skin, and blue eyes. He also is the catsuit clad assassin archetype but his military order are fully designed to be stealthy night prowling ninjas clad in all black cybernetic nanite woven catsuit and stealthy, slim and sleek in design power armours, mechs and war machines.

The three characters I have mentioned above are all magic users and thus they have their own unique powers, spells and abilities. For example Farron can throw spears made of arcane energy called silverite that impale and explode in enemies. He can also cast various evocation spells to destroy enemies such as silverite lances or death sphere. Lillyanna can enhance her speed and movement, she can summon swords similar as Farron. She can coat her self in a magical substance from another realm that is made out of a flowers fluid to go invisible. She can also enhance her muscle size to better wrestle down and subdue opponents such as tough cybernetic enhanced vixen warriors or the black rose elite of the Brittanic Sovereigny who basically female super soldiers from their faction. Tyrium is fully stealth based thus he goes invincible, summons shadows of himself to confuse or outflank enemies, summon subdue enemies with non lethal moves. He can summon two dark arcane shadow daggers to quickly eliminate enemies at any time. Many Faiynn who are well attuned and have mastered their magic use destruction staffs or other magic casting items.

The current antagonists in this book is a demon lord called Dagthos, the Brittanic Baroness and the alien hive queen alongside the calamities who are killed by the Silver Soldier. I am withholding his real name but I do have it written down. It is a very long ancient name from the antediluvian era which occurs in my books universe on earth.

My favourite villain that I have written is the Baroness Chloe Harris who is a real sadist, she is like the type of woman that sticks a knife inside you laughs at you with pleasure as she does it. She is a control freak as well as someone who is extremely rude, takes pleasure in harming or seeing the suffering of others and she personally believes that she is the good guy by doing her duty and killing the Faiynn who are seen as inferior aliens or as terrorists by the Brittanic Sovereignty who need to be crushed so that their nations can be pure and untainted by non human, non white European blood. She is the epitome of evil. She is like a mean girl cranked up to level one hundred thousand in terms of her cruelty, abuse and narcissism.

The other villains is the demon lord and the alien Azuix hive queen who are both bad in their own ways. They are both monstrous alien and demonic enemies who are totally different from the human empire. The humans of the Brittanic Sovereignty do however worship the demons of the nine hells. That is one of their main sources for their magics.

The Faiynn Empyrinate is a democratic theocracy whereas the Brittanic Sovereignty is a monarchic fascist nation. The two empires are the polar opposites of each other. The Faiynn prefer religion whilst the Britts prefer nihilism. The Faiynn Empyrinate’s colour scheme is white, silver blue and ivory. The Brittanic Sovereignty is red, white, black and blue. Both factions are technologically and militarily advanced as both sides possess star fleets, galactic level industries and deeply sophisticated technologies. The Faiynn are more advanced and have access to better technologies.

Lots of inspiration came from hundreds of different other settings and titles from both gaming and books. Warhammer 40000, wolfenstein and doom, Tolkiens works and dune have heavily given me a lot of inspiration albeit I am not very fond of dune nor have I read much of it due to time constraints.

But yea. Do let me know of your thoughts and feedback. Being a new author with neurodivergence is really difficult. I hope you enjoy my works and I wish to expand further as I have written 1 million words across ten separate books. Tenth one is in progress. I also like to do traditional pencil drawings here and there for cover art or world building designs.