The one thing that bugged me early on in the setting was when I went to the trouble of trying to create an interesting early problem to solve - a mark gets pushed too far and stabs Lou - and it's handwaved away in the next post by the application of a deus ex machina from another series. I guess I've been sour since then but it just sort of boiled over recently.
You can have some really interesting problems in Fenspace. Handwavium lets you have the interesting problems - it doesn't make them go away. That's not fun. It sounds rediculous to call Fenspace more grounded - but it sort of is. There's more consensus and care and it seemed more collaborative. And the egregious stuff was quickly quashed (The Adamantine Rapier. Or stealing the Intrepid.)
Your society has a War. Your Society gains the followup consequences. Veterans being one among them. What do they do? (It's a struggle)
Gender-Bender biomods are common. What happens when you get one? (Support groups for that too! And everyone's different)
You have a common engine core that runs on uranium, what happens when it gets tinkered with. (A blue flash and a nasty surprise)
You tinker with nuclear materials and accidentally discover how to make a nuclear weapon. What next? (A final understanding of Oppenheimers quote)
Why would somebody really want a nuclear weapon in space? (Because it's valuable to terrorists who will pay a lot of money to give a city some canned sunshine)
What's the real existential threat? (Freaking the mundanes. For the most part they're happy playing cultural imperialist - for fear they'll spark an actual imperial effort they'll loose)
What happens when you're the same person you were ten years ago, and your partner changes? (The relationship ends - but not with any acrimony)
It's not gritty to push a ball and have it hit something and then more balls go skittering around. It's just normal.
You can have some really interesting problems in Fenspace. Handwavium lets you have the interesting problems - it doesn't make them go away. That's not fun. It sounds rediculous to call Fenspace more grounded - but it sort of is. There's more consensus and care and it seemed more collaborative. And the egregious stuff was quickly quashed (The Adamantine Rapier. Or stealing the Intrepid.)
Your society has a War. Your Society gains the followup consequences. Veterans being one among them. What do they do? (It's a struggle)
Gender-Bender biomods are common. What happens when you get one? (Support groups for that too! And everyone's different)
You have a common engine core that runs on uranium, what happens when it gets tinkered with. (A blue flash and a nasty surprise)
You tinker with nuclear materials and accidentally discover how to make a nuclear weapon. What next? (A final understanding of Oppenheimers quote)
Why would somebody really want a nuclear weapon in space? (Because it's valuable to terrorists who will pay a lot of money to give a city some canned sunshine)
What's the real existential threat? (Freaking the mundanes. For the most part they're happy playing cultural imperialist - for fear they'll spark an actual imperial effort they'll loose)
What happens when you're the same person you were ten years ago, and your partner changes? (The relationship ends - but not with any acrimony)
It's not gritty to push a ball and have it hit something and then more balls go skittering around. It's just normal.
I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.
One day they're going to ban them.