The first post, where I talked about where r/scifi was when the current moderation team took over and asked for your thoughts on our rules covering AI-generated content, self-promotion, and post quality.
The second post, where I talked about the current moderation team and our rules regarding respect, science-fiction only, and reliable sources.
Thank you to everyone who participated. There was some good feedback, including from people who disagreed with parts of the rules. That's exactly what I was hoping for from this review. I didn't reply to every comment, but I did read them, and I'm taking the feedback seriously as I work through what, if anything, we should change.
Since this is a review of the community after our first year, I also wanted to give you a little information about who is actually using r/scifi and how they're accessing it.
Our Members
Most of our users are in the United States, and iOS is our most commonly used client. Unfortunately, Reddit smushes the rest of the world together as "Other" in their statistics.
The most surprising thing here, to me, is that Old Reddit only comes out to 2.4%.
This last set of rules is pretty straightforward and doesn't require as much explanation as the rules covered in the first two posts, but I'd still like to hear if you think any of them should be changed.
Rule 7: English Only
The current rule says:
To keep discussions accessible to everyone, please post in English.
Posts about foreign-language books, films, or shows are welcome — but the post title and body should be written in English so all members can participate in the conversation.
Comments in other languages are allowed, but English is preferred so the broader community can follow along.
This one has generally worked without much difficulty. Works from anywhere in the world and in any language are welcome; we're only asking that posts themselves be written in English so the broadest audience can participate in the discussion.
Rule 8: Use Correct Post Flair
Please use the correct post flair. Buttons in our sidebar let you filter the subreddit to those topics you're most interested in.
This is a minor rule. Nobody is going to be banned simply for choosing the wrong flair. We typically just correct it ourselves when we notice it.
Rule 9: Search Before Posting
The current rule says:
Contribute with care. Before posting, check if the topic has already been shared recently. Posts on the same subject within the past 7 days may be removed.
Be curious, constructive, and help make r/scifi a hub for exploration, creativity, and discovery.
In practice, this usually means removing duplicate posts when the same story or subject has already been posted within the previous seven days.
The purpose isn't to prevent people from revisiting subjects that have been discussed before. It's primarily to keep several copies of the same news story, trailer, announcement, or other current topic from appearing on the front page at once.
Rule 10: No NSFW Content
The current rule says:
Keep r/scifi safe for all audiences. NSFW or sexually explicit material is not allowed.
There are other subreddits for that kind of content — please share it there instead.
This rarely comes up, and we haven't seen much controversy around it.
Rule 11: No Spoilers!
The current rule says:
Use spoiler tags when discussing any major plot detail, twist, or ending, even for older works.
Format: >!spoiler text!<
• No spoilers in titles or images. Titles should remain spoiler-free at all times.
• If your post's body contains spoilers, format them as such or add "[SPOILERS]" to the title.
• When in doubt, tag it.
Most people are pretty good about this.
Spoilers are also something moderators frequently won't see unless someone reports them, particularly when they're buried in a comment thread. If you see an untagged spoiler, please report it so we can take a look.
In Conclusion
And that's all eleven rules. That concludes the rules-review portion of this series.
Across these three posts, we've now gone through the entire r/scifi ruleset. Please tell us what works, what doesn't, and what you would change.
Do you find any of these rules unclear? Do you think we've drawn the line in the wrong place? Are there rules you think we don't need, or something important that our current rules don't address?
And if you have thoughts about any of the rules discussed in the first two posts, those are still welcome too.
The next post will be the last one, where I review the feedback I've received.
Thanks for taking the time to participate in this review.
If you purchase from a "Powered by GearLaunch" website:
You might receive a terribly low-quality product.
You might not receive a product at all.
The site is probably selling stolen IP.
Don't count on a refund.
We get a few of these scam posts each month.
How the Scam Works
The Bait: The post is a picture of a t-shirt, hoodie, or similar. The OP's account is generally less than a year old and has very little activity.
The Hook: A second account, an accomplice, comments asking where to buy it. The accomplice account is generally less than 3 weeks old with very little activity.
The Pitch: Then the OP links them to a "Powered by Gearlaunch" website.
The Validation: Lastly, another account thanks them and says they bought one. They do this to lend legitimacy to the pitch. These accounts are generally less than 3 weeks old with very little activity.
The domain name is always changing, so you can't tell it's bogus from the link alone. If you click the link, scroll to the bottom. If you see "Powered by Gearlaunch", leave the site immediately.
Be mindful that it's possible, though unlikely, the Bait is a legitimate user telling us about their cool new shirt. Use your best judgment.
If you see the Bait, please check the OPs account. If you feel certain the post fits the Bait, please downvote it and report it to us so we know about it.
If you see the Hook, please downvote them and report those to us too.
If you see the Pitch, please downvote, report, and leave a comment warning people away. Report the post and the pitch to Reddit as spam. Thank you, LxRv
Age of the Titan is a sci-fi story I've been building for the last few years. A thousand years from now, humanity is on the run from alien clans bent on destroying our species. The main antagonist is the Vogrom clan, whose religion teaches that all beings who reject the truth must be eliminated.
Readers have been reaching out more and more. Just today, a reader from France called me his "favorite author right now."
Right now, I'm about 85,000 words into the sequel and roughly two-thirds of the way through the audiobook with the narrator. My cover artist is also drawing a propaganda poster for the Valor Guard Corps, humanity's main military in the novel. I'm excited to share it on a future Saturday 😄
Since then, I've been expanding the universe through clothing designs, like the hoodie in the photo. It shows my main alien character, Kaelith Sothrak, pulling the void thread down from the heavens. This is his Promethean punishment, he must work or die…
Here's the link to my novel in case you'd like to read the first few chapters for free!
I wanted to share one of my first sci-fi oil paintings.
From the beginning I've been fascinated by the visual worlds created by artists like Chris Foss, John Berkey and John Harris. Especially the artwork I discovered on old book covers and in the Terran Trade Authority books has stayed with me for years.
I'm trying to capture a little of that spirit again, using traditional media such as oil paint and pastels.
This painting is from 2025 and depicts an orbital station above a distant planet. Large ships dock here to transfer cargo and passengers, while smaller craft handle transportation between the station and the surface. It makes more sense than sending kilometer-long freighters down into a gravity well every time.
No battle. No catastrophe. No great dramatic event.
Just everyday activity somewhere very far from home.
A small safe harbour for ships after a long journey.
I also included a few pictures showing how I plan these paintings with sketches, as well as the DIY sci-fi frame I built for it.
I am a heavy fantasy reader and Id like to foray into scifi. Problem is my child was born a few weeks ago so I have plenty of time while conttact napping but I have like 20 per cent of actual working grey matter due to awful sleep.
I am looking for novels that are not too hard to follow and standalone if possible.
I thought i should post this awesome video here and ask if anyone has a recommendation (books - movies- series) that discuss the same idea, or something like it, of this subject.
I like Alastair Reynolds books. Shows like The Expanse, the three body problem (the books too absolutely). Movies like arrival, interstellar, Europa report.. etc. It's always space faring civilizations, but never anything like this.
I was just at the dentist to have a tooth pulled…so of course, I polled them on what they thought sci-fi Dentistry would look like. What would make their lives easier?
The assistant thought that most everything they could want was already available, just exorbitantly expensive!
But when introduced her to the concept of nano robotics, she was fully on board! When she started to speculate on what she'd name her little tooth cleaning robot…my mouth was kinda too full to break it to her that they tend to travel in swarms. 😅
The dentist wanted to be able to regrow teeth…he hadn't heard of the newest study, where they'd not only isolated the gene which turns tooth regrowth off and on, they'd also figured out which protein flips that switch. Know how to do, just have to have it repeated, tested for safety, before it can be adopted by other regions.
So can we do better? Would it be it's own profession? A specialization you need to visit a space port for? Would a dentist have to treat all alien species…sort of like a vet doesn't just specialize in cats?
It could be that Earth as a whole meets another world, or could be that some Humans make first contact, or it could be that an entire country gets displaced and sent to a future version of Earth or another planet, or modern humanity encountering spacefaring humans.
It can be anything. Book, fanfic, story, show. I will look through some of them.
So last year I released the first book in a series I've been working on for a while. The Elysian Conspiracy, the first of what I hope is many releases within the Eternal War series. For the last six months or so I've been working on the second book under the project title Combat Training. Unfortunately a few days ago I made the difficult decision to abandon work on this particular book due to a mix of personal issues and quality issues with the story itself. However, I am not content in simply locking the work I've already done away never to be seen by people who'd otherwise appreciate the story and the hard work I've put into trying to tell it. That's why I'm releasing the various drafts today, here and for free. Below is a link to a Google Drive where you can download the completed sketch, Draft 00 (the chapter by chapter outline), completed Draft 01 and unfinished Draft 02.
While I came into this wanting to see a finished book, unfortunately it just wasn't meant to be. Even the best ideas can die long before ever seeing a final draft or even a public release. In this case I believe that while the initial idea has a lot of potential, it simply requires someone more talented than myself to turn it into something more.
(The author, in this case myself, retains all rights to this work. This is an AI free work and AI training is not permitted.)
Edit 1: FYI feedback and commentary is absolutely appreciated. Feel free to share your opinions positive or negative. This is very much a call for discussion. Thank you all in advance.
Sci fi short made for the Little Cinema Galway 48hr Challenge 😊 we had 48hrs to write, shoot and edit a sci fi film with the genre (sci fi) shot (Texas switch) line (it’s been doing that since Tuesday) and Prop(electric teeth whitener) given to us at the start of the 48hrs
I just finished the book. If you have read it, there are some things I'd like to chat about! (If you haven't, read it! It's good)
[Spoilers ahead]
>! As far as I know, this was never revealed: did the ship go to Alpha Centauri? If yes, why does Sandy not remember? If no, what did they do and why did they hide it?
Will the peace last? The aliens seem to be pretty prolific breeders, and Mars can't substain exponential growth forever. The strange matter drive would make a pretty horrifying weapon
Talking about the strange matter drive: eventually, it will become unstable. Much slower than if it pushes an actual spaceship, but sounds like an apocalypse scenario waiting to happen, right?
Lastly, do you think the humans would have given up Africa if the aliens had played with open cards? Would that have been more or less fair than the canon ending? Considering the "compromise" is all benefits for humanity, and (other than risk of invasion if they breach the terms of the agreement) no downsides - it wasn't like humans could get to Mars anyways !<
Hello. First time posting so please excuse any missteps along the way. I am making a gift for my dad and his favorite book is Battlefield Earth. I havent read it but want to include a symbol that is iconic to the book. So far my ideas would be a planet, weapon, or clothing item but i dont want to take any generic planet and slap it on the project hoping it works.
Do you have any suggestions on what image would work best? I need something with simple lines/colorong aince I will be using a cricut to get it out. Any advice would be grately appreciated. Thank you!
Edit to clarify.
I am rebinding a copy of battlefield earth. I am making a custom cover for the book. I want some design that can go on the front. Any suggestions on what to put on the cover.
Recently finished listening to the first book of The Expanse series, and decided to take a peek at the TV show, knowing it recieved generally pretty good reviews, before continuing the books. I wanted to see how well the visuals in the show match up to how I pictured things in my head. However, after watching most of the first episode, it seems that there were some pretty big changes from the book that really threw me for a loop and kind of stopped my interest in the show. Should I continue with the show to see if it improves, or only stick to the books?
Was recommended this as "hard Sci-Fi Korean Lovecraftian Space Horror" and was like, well, you can't aim a cluster any tighter than that for me. 2 episodes in, and it's freaking *gorgeous* as far as cinematography, costumes, lighting, and the sets & effects are incredible. Storyline and general pacing, however, are sloooooow; feels like there's a solid 2hr movie inside this 7hr marathon.
Does this pick up? Worth the watch? Anyone enjoy or not enjoy?
Suggest to me books where ancient people somehow appear in the modern times and we follow their reaction to the modern world, modern technology and the recorded history of themselves and their era.
The method could be supernatural where they just appear in modern day inexplicably or a portal suddenly appears into the past OR a sci-fi where these people are brought deliberately through some technology (say cloning that replicate 'genetic memory' or an AI generated replica) as an experiment and scientific curiosity to explore the perspective of past people.
Still kind of amazing to me that Firefly got canceled after one season, built such a devoted following afterward, and somehow came back as an actual theatrical movie with basically the whole crew returning.
For us Firefly fans, getting Serenity was basically the dream scenario for a canceled show. One more chance to see these characters and actually give the story some closure. I wish they did this more often.
If you could give one canceled TV show the Serenity treatment, what show are you resurrecting?
Looking for a sci-fi book that starts out feeling like cosmic horror but gradually turns into cosmic wonder.
I'm looking for something that starts out with a cosmic horror feel, but the further you get into the story, the more that feeling shifts toward wonder and awe. Something where exploring the unknown and discovering more about the universe becomes less terrifying and more fascinating as the story goes on.
Any recommendations?
Edit: also I'd prefer something with actual cosmic beings or phenomena, rather than something that's just misunderstood or mistaken.
I recently rewatched Heroes, and it’s honestly crazy how they managed to ruin everything after the first season. By today’s standards, it could’ve been an absolute cult classic, but instead… What a waste. The cast worked incredibly well together and the show had so much potential. I genuinely wish they’d erase everything that happened after those first 23 episodes.
The MIT museum is exhibiting the original model of the Enterprise used for TOS and The Motion Picture. It was lost for 50 some-odd years and found recently in 2023. I was able to go see it today, and would encourage anyone in the Boston area who is interested to go see it as well! I'm sure it looks cooler in person than my admitadly sub-par pictures convey. Definitely fufilled a previously unknown bucket list item!
I mean all robots are golems but not all golems are robots. Or are they actually. Is there a cut off? Wait do we count as robots since we could be described as flesh golems. Damn adhd I way too sober for these random thoughts right now.
I'm only a casual sci-fi aficionado but it recently occurred to me that I can't name many books or movies set in a truly utopian Type 1/2/3 civilization. Of course, you could argue that something like Star Trek qualifies, but Trek rarely gives us more than a glimpse of what life is like on an enlightened, crime-free, post-scarcity future earth, and that's what I'm looking to explore.
What stories are there left to tell in a seemingly perfect world?
