Sharrukin's Palace

September was a reasonably successful month. I hit all my top-priority milestones, even if not many of the lower-priority items made much progress. In particular, I really want to get back to making progress on the Human Destiny setting, but somehow other items keep rising above that on the priority list. Unfortunately, I suspect that’s only going to continue.

A note for my blog readers: you’ll notice that I don’t update this blog very often, two or three times a month at best. Most of my day-to-day blogging is happening on Bluesky instead, and that’s likely to continue as long as that platform remains viable. If you’re also on Bluesky and haven’t followed me yet, find me at https://bsky.app/profile/jfzeigler.bsky.social.

Here’s the tentative plan for October.

University Studies

The new academic year at the Open University is officially open, and I’ve gotten started on both of my courses. At the moment, I’m actually ahead of the pace on both, although it’s only been a week . . .

Objectives for October include finishing Topic 1 and the first graded assignment for my astronomy course, and finishing units 1-3 and the bulk of the first graded assignment for my mathematics course.

Therapy Writing (Fan Fiction)

I finished “The Stern and Direful God of War” with a day or so left in September. That turned out to be the longest of my Star Trek stories so far.

I haven’t started the next story yet, although I think I’m starting to converge on what that’s going to be about. I’m thinking of writing the occasional “back stories of the main characters” series, set in the same version of Trek continuity but not in the same timeline.

The objective for October is to complete a new Lower Decks story. This is likely to be a lower-priority item, though.

Architect of Worlds & Conductor of Cultures

In September, I mulled over the “Cultural Evolution Game” for Conductor of Cultures, taking into account the first round of playtester feedback. I was also wrestling with the problem that the game, as designed, was too specific to human-like cultures – that is, sophont species that fit the “terrestrial omnivorous mammal” default.

Late in September a different structure for the game came to me, and I’ve started a major overhaul and redesign to fit. That’s likely to be the big project for at least the first half of October.

The objectives for October are:

• Complete the overhaul of the Cultural Evolution Game and submit that to playtesters for trial run
• Begin writing supplementary material for the revised Cultural Evolution Game
• Contribute to the initial design for other portions of Conductor of Cultures
• Begin researching and drafting a new edition of “Abbreviated Architect of Worlds for Traveller“
• Reconstruct a formal errata list for Architect of Worlds, so readers can see what’s been fixed in each minor-version release so far
• Continue to collect research for a potential second edition of the book, and make occasional world-building posts to this site based on that new research

The Human Destiny Universe

I (again) got essentially no work done on the Human Destiny setting this month, so the outstanding objectives for this project are unchanged. if at all possible, I do intend to make another attempt at the first two items on this list this month.

The objectives for October are:

• Build a revised map for the “Human Protectorate” region and release that to Ko-fi
• Produce a one- or two-page document that describes typical starship designs and mission profiles, and release that to Ko-fi
• Re-work the spreadsheets I have modeling the exploration and colonization of near-Sol space, now based on FTL assumptions
• Revise existing “Atlas of the Human Protectorate” documents to reflect the reappearance of FTL in the setting, and release the new versions to Ko-fi
• Resume producing new documents in the “Atlas of the Human Protectorate” series (most likely starting with the Alpha Centauri writeup) and release that for patrons to Ko-fi

Upcoming Conventions

I made good progress on work for Philcon 2025 in September. In particular, I’m signed up to deliver a seminar, two RPG sessions, and possibly several other panel appearances. I finished drafting the seminar in September, and put together a complete Star Trek Adventures scenario for the gaming track. So the only remaining objective for October is to compose a Dune: Adventures in the Imperium scenario for five players, to be run at Philcon 2025.

Re-publishing Earlier Fiction

I think I came to a realization regarding the notion of republishing my original fiction . . . which is that I’m probably not going to do it.

Well, that’s a bit extreme. As time permits – which probably won’t be until after Philcon – I plan to take down the two or three items I’ve published via Amazon KDP and similar avenues. I’ll probably subject those to an editing pass, and republish them either through my own resources (this blog and Ko-fi), or via sites like Royal Road or Wattpad. The goal is to best find an audience, of whatever size, for each piece.

I’ve come to the conclusion that in the current environment, I have no hope for ever publishing any of my original work through the traditional channels. Not least because those channels are collapsing in real-time while we watch, caught between the so-called “artificial intelligence” bubble and the descent of the United States into authoritarian fascism. Which doesn’t mean I plan to stop writing original work, but it does mean I’m not going to go into that with any expectation of ever making a penny. Any given original work I come up with is going to be put on a case-by-case basis where I think it’s most likely to find any audience at all.