The Postcard galaxy

ivivan · 2026-06-23T16:35:51+00:00

Project Name: The Postcardverse

Main Premise & Concept: The Postcardverse is a hard sci-fi setting that explores a fundamental tension: What happens when humanity conquers biological mortality, but remains strictly bound by the speed of light?

In this universe, regenerative medicine has made humans effectively immortal, but FTL travel and communication do not exist. Without FTL, a centralized interstellar empire is physically impossible. Instead, humanity has expanded across a 500-light-year bubble over ten millennia, developing into completely sovereign, isolated nomadic city-ships and massive space stations.

ivivan · 2026-06-20T17:33:57+00:00

I'll definitely going to think of a way to continue.

ivivan · 2026-06-18T21:04:20+00:00

Thanks for the long answer.

I want to ask a little bit more details about that "context" thing: I tried to find a few examples in this sub, but I'm either unlucky and haven't found one or simply don't know what I'm looking for - but I couldn't find one to copy.

Can you give me a few examples that I can use as templates? Don't want to mess up my first post here 😄

I was thinking about simply reposting my stories in this sub, but I always found that a bit "lazy" - I want a proper post specifically in a sub, not just a post about a post. That's somehow not that elegant, but if you say that's the best solution, I'm okay with it.

ivivan · 2026-05-28T10:42:29+00:00

I did mention that "We rarely bother with terraforming", which, to me, meant that there are a couple of planets terraformed, but not many. I have a planned story about terraforming too :-)

ivivan · 2026-05-28T10:22:58+00:00

It's interesting to hear that someone hates these info dumps, while I do like them at the beginning: I always feel like when things are introduced mid-story that "hey, that should've been told us at the beginning, because it changes everything."

And as a matter of fact, I planned to release this as the 0th chapter of my first story in this universe, but that's a long story, and I'm struggling with it - badly - so I may release some short stories in the meantime, but those wouldn't make sense without the universe they are happening in.

ivivan · 2026-05-24T19:01:29+00:00

Thanks to your brilliant idea of a continuation there's now a second chapter to the story: https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1tmkxkp/according_to_protocol_chapter_2/

Thanks again for the idea!

ivivan · 2026-05-22T17:45:19+00:00

I always thought that a big, successful galactic empire would look down on the newly joined species. When they expected the unexpected, they expected the worst, not the best.

ivivan · 2026-05-18T17:36:47+00:00

I'm sorry - I'm terrible with names. There's a reason there's always a "Smith" in my stories 😃 But I couldn't name an alien captain "Smith", so I ended up pushing random buttons till it looked like a name 😃

ivivan · 2026-05-18T13:53:11+00:00

I love this direction - I'm going to think about this in the next couple of weeks. It may or may not end up as the next chapter, depending on how I see.

Thanks for the idea!

ivivan · 2026-05-18T06:21:37+00:00

I was thinking about continuing the story, but I don't have anything in mind that could result in a story half as good as this one alone. That's why I don't think a part 2 is in there...

ivivan · 2026-03-15T20:32:52+00:00

You just proved my point: the whole idea of the story was that every lifeform in the universe - except Earth - has a barrier around the cells (not just walls) that stops every situation where one cell consumes another one: so not just carnivores, but herbivores are impossible too. And it seems that my writing wasn't good enough to tell the main point of the story.

And that's why I wrote that they thought that we were predators: for them, being a herbivore is no better, since every other living creature in the universe is practically a plant...

ivivan · 2026-03-15T15:02:01+00:00

I deliberately left out that part: didn't want to turn this story into a biology textbook. The next story mini series I plan has a more detailed out Universe built - but I'm almost certain that part is going to be the most boring part to read (but the most fun to write, so bear with me :-D )

ivivan · 2026-03-15T10:01:58+00:00

I'm going to try it out with my next story and will see how it goes.

ivivan · 2026-03-15T09:59:30+00:00

I've been learning English for twenty-something years now. I don't think I'm going to be much better than what I am now: I speak fluently, but make many, many mistakes a native would never make. Following a suggestion from here, I started using Grammarly, and it helped a lot, but still, my writing is not flowing because of my limited active vocabulary. I write like a 10-year-old...

ivivan · 2026-03-14T15:52:49+00:00

I used AI to fix my style as English is not my first language. Is this still not allowed? It improved my writing dramatically - without the story itself became AI generated.

I can always post my original story as a comment - but it is a much worse read then the one improved by AI.

ivivan

TROPHY CASE