Over the last few months I’ve been doing something I didn’t expect: writing short stories to test the foundations of my second novel. I didn’t start with a plan, just a question that wouldn’t leave me alone.
What kind of mineral could exist in this universe that people would fight to control, trade across star systems, and rely on to survive space travel?
That question began as a scribble in a notebook. Then it became a paragraph. Then a scene. And before I realised it, I was writing entire short stories just to see how the idea behaved when I pushed it into different corners of the world.
That’s how Kethrite was born.
It started as a simple thought experiment: a mineral ore that could be folded into other metals during smelting, the way iron becomes steel. But instead of strength or flexibility, this alloy would absorb and deflect energy pulses, everything from a star’s radiation burst to a directed‑energy weapon. Not perfectly, not magically, but enough to matter. Enough to change how people travelled, traded, and survived.
And in a place like Plumari Prime, already destabilised by Lycergus’ overthrow and Darius’ arrival, a resource like that wouldn’t just be valuable. It would be combustible. Everyone would want a piece of it. Everyone would have a reason to lie about it.
When I took the idea to Reddit, the responses were… mixed. Some people skimmed a paragraph and leapt straight into criticism, eager to prove how clever they were by pointing out “flaws” already addressed in the text. Others were genuinely constructive, asking questions that helped me refine the logic and consequences of Kethrite.
That contrast taught me something important about my own writing philosophy.
I don’t want a universe held together by a mysterious device that solves every problem, the sci‑fi equivalent of a sonic screwdriver. I want a world that feels like it could exist. Not real, but plausible. Not scientifically perfect, but internally consistent enough that a reader’s imagination opens up instead of shutting down.
Kethrite became my test case for that approach. A small detail that ended up revealing a lot about the world.
Those experiments eventually grew into a short serial I’ve been developing behind the scenes: The Kethrite Broker. It’s where I’ve been exploring the domestic side of Plumari Prime, the markets, the power struggles, the ordinary people trying to survive in the aftermath of political upheaval. It’s only a small facet of the upcoming novel, but an important one, and writing these stories has helped me understand the world in a way planning alone never could.
I’m close to finalising the novel’s structure now, and these short stories have become the scaffolding beneath it. They started as tests, but they’ve turned into something I’m genuinely excited to share.
If you enjoy seeing how these little worldbuilding threads shape the larger universe, I’ll be posting more as I get closer to launching The Kethrite Broker on Royal Road.