1. Introduction
2. Types of Technology
   1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics
   2. Futuristic Transportation and Propulsion Systems
   3. Advanced Energy and Power Sources
3. Plausibility in Technology
   1. Ground the Technology in Scientific Principles
   2. Limitations and Trade-Offs
   3. Show the Development Process
4. Integration into the Narrative
5. Writing Exercise: Integrating Plausible Technology Into Your Story
6. Conclusion

Introduction

Technology is one of the key components in speculative fiction that can define a book or an entire series. The amazing thing about technology is that it can come in so many forms that authors have a variety of options. Your decision on the type of technology key to your speculative fiction story will change many aspects of your book/series. With these options available to you, it can become challenging to know what technology to use.

When a technology doesn’t fit into a story, it seems a lot like the author forced the puzzle piece to fit a mismatched jigsaw puzzle. Making your technology plausible and integral to your story’s world will make the difference between confused readers and a compelling narrative. With your previous steps of world-building so far, and basic technology builds, let’s work through making your technology slide into your compelling narrative.

Types of Technology

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics

Humans are fascinated by Artificial Intelligence and robotics and often include them in science fiction stories. While there is plenty of fear around these technologies, the positive implications are endless. If you remember back to a previous post, our yes, but model is a tool often used in conversations around AIs and robotics. Everything from I, Robot to Terminator, answers that yes, but statement with their own conclusions.

When using AI or robotics in your stories, you’ll want to make sure it matches the world you’ve developed so far. Or you can make small adjustments to your world if you realize it’s going to become an aspect of your story. I’ll talk more about story integration in a later section. So what are your considerations with AI and robotics and their place in your story?

AI is a great asset when you want to challenge what it means to be human, or you want a character/entity that can learn, adapt, and potentially develop its own motivations beyond base programming. Often these characters begin as rigid and programmed that transform with the characters they interact with. Think about Skippy from The Expeditionary Force series. He begins with so many restrictions, but as the books go on he breaks free from his original restrictions, both capabilities and human-like qualities. Be ready for the AI to become an essential part of your story, even if it starts as a sub-plot. For some reason, the idea of the AI growing and learning is often more interesting to readers than if they were a human character.

Robotics stories offer more task-oriented machine characters that remain true to their programming. While this can be frustrating to the characters, it gives the readers a reassurance that they don’t have to expect the robot to grow a conscience. Robotics, for the purpose of your stories, can be used to enhance, replace, or work with the people and tasks of your story. This frees up space for your characters to fully develop, as they can safely rely on other tasks to be taken care of. A character going through a daily grind isn’t as interesting, especially when they’re stuck with mundane tasks like folding their laundry. Or your character may be disabled and need robotic attachments to move and complete tasks. Factories need workers and automation is a great way to save on those insurance policies. Robotics is another great aspect of science fiction that can add depth to your story. Use robots to aid and frustrate your characters and storyline as their programming parameters remain rigid.

Futuristic Transportation and Propulsion Systems

Another type of technology played with by many authors is futuristic transportation and their propulsion systems. These technologies allow for new challenges and opportunities for your characters to face. Transportation is a key factor in any story, because how your character gets from one place to another will change the conflicts they face in the plot. You may even be able to make it an internal struggle to use certain means of transportation.

Futuristic Transportation

1. Hyperloop Networks: Imagine a world where passengers are transported at incredible speeds through low-pressure tubes, drastically reducing travel time between cities.
2. Anti-Gravity Vehicles: Introduce anti-gravity vehicles that hover and soar effortlessly above the ground, offering a new dimension to urban and interstellar travel.
3. Fusion-powered Starships: Delve into the realm of intergalactic travel with starships powered by advanced fusion reactors, enabling journeys to distant planets and galaxies.

Propulsion Systems

1. Electromagnetic Propulsion: Explore the concept of electromagnetic propulsion, where powerful magnets propel vehicles at unprecedented velocities, revolutionizing the way humans traverse the world.
2. Ion Thrusters: Incorporate ion thrusters for spacecraft, utilizing electric fields to accelerate ions and propel vessels through the vacuum of space with remarkable efficiency.
3. Warp Drives: Push the boundaries of space-time with the theoretical warp drives, allowing ships to navigate the cosmos by bending the fabric of space itself.

These are just some of the most common technologies used in fiction. Don’t be afraid to explore your own concepts that might one day revolutionize how people look at travel.

Advanced Energy and Power Sources

Depending on the technology you’ve selected or created based on the above sections, you’ll need to have a energy or power source to match. If you’re working on a harder sci-fi/fantasy novel, your alien species will have to have a more logical energy or power source. Don’t worry though, because it can be as simple as creating a new compound unique to the world, and that runs everything. An Alien species would know only their power source, and most of their sciences would develop around that energy provider. The greatest challenge is staying true to the limits of the energy or power source.

Advanced energy means using new and sustainable technologies to protect the environment and be more efficient. Advanced energy solutions in our world comprise renewable energy sources (solar, wind, hydroelectric power), energy storage, advanced grid technologies, and energy efficiency measures. The alien society may have come up with energy solutions that perfectly match their resources, environment, and geography. Look for advanced energy technologies like the Dyson Sphere in The Three-Body Problem series or The Holtzman effect in Dune.

Power Sources encompasses the means by which energy is generated to produce electricity, heat, mechanical, or other forms of energy. Traditional power sources include coal, natural gas, and nuclear power. Power sources are the raw inputs for generating electricity or other forms of power for your alien society. Your readers will expect a basic understanding of how your advanced energy is harnessed and implemented. The power source for a Dyson Sphere is a star, while The Holtzman effect uses zero-point energy.

Plausibility in Technology

The difference between a good sci-fi book and a bad one can often be linked to the implausibility of the technology depicted. When crafting a sci-fi narrative, your story should maintain a sense of believability and coherence in the futuristic or advanced technology created. Plausibility not only enhances the reader’s experience but also lends credibility to the world-building efforts of the writer. The effort you put in will be obvious in the work you put out. Readers will either recognize it for what it is, or know that something’s off. Either way, you’ll have less than happy readers. So, how do you keep yourself from falling into implausibility?

Ground the Technology in Scientific Principles

Nobody’s expecting you to be an expert, but they do expect you to deliver on your promises. If you’re touting your next sci-fi as a hard sci-fi then you need to be ready to put in the research and find some sources on the technology you’re going to introduce in your novel. The fact isn’t that readers are rude, though some are less than nice, but the fact remains that hard sci-fi readers expect to read about scientifically based technologies. This goes to the rule of consistency with hard magic systems as well. Check out some of my previous articles on these topics: Hard Sci-Fi and Magic Systems. Land Speeders are most comparable to cars or personal transport systems, and air speeders could be likened to helicopters or small aircraft. Even though these systems have their own power and rules, you’ll find many similar functions in the similar vehicles. Those minor similarities are enough to make someone believe and keep your readers engaged to fly across open planets on the ground or by air.

Limitations and Trade-Offs

Everything has a cost. Even the most powerful weapons are indestructible until technology advances.

Limitations and trade-offs are a key component that readers are once again not always fully aware of. Just like in the action movies, where the bullets in a handgun last longer than those of a rifle can make for great entertainment, but it makes the shoot-out less real. In your story, your technology will have its limits or trade-offs, and it’s important to keep yourself from falling into that rut of no limits. The limitations can arise from how things are powered, what they can be powered by, and other required parts for full use.

Before creating new technology, consider the limitations of the tools and environment it will be used in. When writers establish specific boundaries and consequences, they can push the limits of what is possible. Ethical concerns can limit what a software can do, and sometimes a technological system needs to make compromises to meet certain goals. These constraints and trade-offs enrich the technological advancement, rendering the process more compelling for the users.

There are many examples of these principles in science fiction novels, and what follows are just a few. If you’d like to share some of your favorites, add them to the comment section of this post!

• In “Dune” by Frank Herbert, the Holtzman shields can’t stop slow-moving objects used in hand-to-hand combat. This is a great example of where the flaw is shown in the technology early in the story, and later is used to the Paul’s benefit.
• “Nureomancer” by William Gibson explores virtual worlds like cyberspace and the matrix, which can be amazing, but also dangerous due to potential brain damage from feedback loops or viruses.
• In “Accelerando” by Charles Stross, wormholes allow for faster-than-light travel, but they are expensive to use and can only be used once.

Show the Development Process

One last way to solidify your plausibility is to show the technology being developed. It’s unnecessary for everything to make perfect sense, as long as the characters ask good questions to deepen their understanding. This will also benefit your readers. The best example I can think of is Jurassic Park by Micheal Crichton. While the book and the movie portray the initial briefing slightly differently, they both keep the key aspects. In the visitor center they go through a tour where they re-establish the basics of DNA, how they found the Dinosaur DNA, what genes they spliced, and then the result. I love this example not just because it’s an iconic story, but because Micheal Crichton laid a great foundation for writers to learn from.

1. Start with the Known
   • If you’re starting with basic scientific principles, then that is the best place to start. Teach or re-establish your character’s knowledge of the accepted scientific principles.
2. Introduce Experimentation
   • Everyone imagines scientists experimenting with the known to find out the unknown. Show the way your scientists have tested the known variables with unknown variables.
3. Show the Results
   • Make sure the two previous steps realistically lead to your results in the final sequence of this new technology.

The great thing is, if you do this well enough, you’ll only need to show the process for one technology. Why? Because you’ve established the capabilities and scientific beliefs of your world. Your readers are more likely to say, okay, I believe that such-and-such was possible, so why not this-and-that? Making your technology plausible helps keep readers engaged and improves your book.

Integration into the Narrative

You’ve invested a lot of time exploring different technologies for your book. Now, how do you integrate them smoothly without overwhelming the story?

Continuing to use the example of Jurassic Park. Dr. Grant, the main character, knows a lot about dinosaurs through paleontology. However, creating actual dinosaurs required more explanation. One way to integrate new technology into your novel is by having your main character learn about it before it’s fully introduced. Most readers enjoy learning, as long as it doesn’t feel like an info-dump. The goal is to build enough of an understanding to serve the plot and character development.

Each new technology can’t be just because it’s cool, it must fill a need for that character, world, or plot. This idea aligns with the concept of setup and payoff. A technology being introduced early in a story and turning out to be crucial for the character to solve the plot and their personal issues is one of the most satisfying things. Why is this so satisfying to readers? Because they realize that every detail you include in your book will come back as important. Most readers won’t pick up on the initial setup until the payoff occurs.

By incorporating minor details in the beginning of your story and then using them later on, you can effectively use Chekhov’s Gun theory. In Jurassic park, they use frog genes for splicing and claim all dinos are female. No natural reproduction should occur. But it turns out that some species of frogs, the African bullfrogs in particular, can change sex in a single sex environment to ensure reproduction. Hatching dinosaur eggs and baby demons from them introduces true chaos in a controlled world. It’s moments like this where your readers will re-read your book and kick themselves for not seeing it before.

Writing Exercise: Integrating Plausible Technology Into Your Story

1. World-Building:
   • Revisit the world you’ve created for your story. Think about how advanced your technology is, the resources available, and the scientific rules that shape your world.
   • Brainstorm 2-3 types of technology that could exist in your world based on its unique characteristics and constraints.
2. Technology Development:
   • Choose one technology you brainstormed and flesh it out.
   • Following the guidelines from the post, ground your technology in scientific principles. Find scientific ideas or theories that can back up your technology.
   • Establish the limitations and trade-offs of your technology. What are its weaknesses or potential drawbacks? How might it impact the characters or the world?
   • Write a scene depicting the development process of your technology. Show your characters experimenting, encountering setbacks, and ultimately arriving at the result.
3. Narrative Integration:
   • Identify a specific plot point or character arc in your story where the introduction of your technology could be pivotal.
   • Write a scene where your main character learns about or encounters the technology for the first time. Present the information about the technology in a natural and engaging way, without relying too much on exposition or info-dumps.
   • Come up with a situation where technology is introduced at the beginning of the story and later becomes essential in resolving a conflict or influencing a character.
   • Use Chekhov’s gun theory by subtly introducing minor details about the technology that will become important later in the story.
4. Reflection:
   • Evaluate how believable and coherent your technology is in relation to your story’s world.
   • Find areas where you should explain more, simplify scientific concepts, or make adjustments to improve the credibility of your technology.
   • Get feedback on how well your technology fits into the story by sharing it with others, like a writers’ group or critique partners.

Remember, the goal is to create a compelling narrative where the technology feels like an integral part of the world, rather than an implausible or forced element. By using science as a foundation and incorporating it into the story, you can make your science fiction or fantasy world more engaging for readers.

Conclusion

When adding technology to your sci-fi or fantasy story, it’s important to balance creativity and scientific accuracy. By following the steps outlined above–establishing the scientific foundations, exploring limitations and trade-offs, depicting the development process, and seamlessly weaving the technology into your story’s fabric–you’ll be well on your way to crafting a compelling and believable world for your readers. Remember, the key is to treat your technology as an organic element, serving a purpose within your narrative rather than merely existing for its own sake. Enhance your writing by crafting a believable world, doing thorough research, and smoothly integrating your story.

Previous Post: Alien Species Design Part 1: Biology

Next Post: June Newsletter

Next Writing Post: Writing Time Travel Stories: Paradoxes, Plot Holes, and Plausibility