Just looking for ideas for a sci-fi drama I'm working on.

[Black Noise]

Hello.

I'm working on a science fiction story.
It's gonna be a rather broad and epic space opera saga although it'll start with a smaller scale drama as a prologue.
Without going into much detail about the setting and what's going on - one of the main characters is a psychic with astral projection abilities who has never set foot on a planet before
and found herself stranded on one where she journeys all the way to the capital city which houses the planets one and only space elevator but passes out from exhaustion upon arriving,
so she is taken by ambulance to recover in a hospital.

Meanwhile she wanders the city in her astral form and having never experienced city life before, she curiously follows and observes a group of friends.
Two of them are main characters as well. One of them, a boy and his mother are staying over at another family's of whom the other main character is their only daughter.
And that family in question happen to be Christians, or at least my setting's equivalent to them.

One night, the Astral girl gets too curious and possesses the other girls body while she's asleep and snuggle next to the boy and much of the drama
involves her getting possessed by her frequently as the Astral girl becomes infatuated with the boy.

And here I'm finding a problem...
I think we are all aware that the occult is a big no-no (and it does become a major plot point in my saga) but I don't think I ever
heard of Christians getting possessed, by demons or otherwise thanks to the Holy Spirit's protection.

I mean I sort of wanted that girl to be a Christian in order to represent Christian viewers watching what apparently seems to be a non-Christian sci-fi and
be a moral confidante to the main characters as much later on in the saga, the story begins discussing existential and spiritual issues (Sort of akin to the likes of Evangelion).
And maybe her getting possessed by the Astral girl would serve to make her doubt her faith in the long run - as her character development will involve a genuine struggle of faith.

And the Astral Girl herself, if you're curious, will get a sympathetic and redemptive development as well - starting with realizing how possessing the Christian girl is distressing her and her friends and beginning to make the effort to interact with people in her own body.

So what do you guys think of this?

[IPv4]

Not my cup of tea.

edit: just to clarify: I dont mind if she posses bodies.

[Davidizer13]

If you're worried about the supernatural elements of your story, why not make it something non-magical? The rest of your setting seems to be heavier on the sci-fi, so you could say it's nanomachines, or make it cyberpunk and talk about brain-uploading or some other weird transhuman thing. Use Clarke's Third Law to your advantage - "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

But there's a little bigger issue to take into account. I know you said this is just a prologue or a side story to some bigger plot you're working on. But there's not much in the story that couldn't be done if it wasn't part of that bigger plot. What value does its connection have to the story? Making another story you haven't written isn't good enough, because I'm not reading that story, I'm reading this one, and everything you've described that's really going into the story could be done in the present day, or in Arthurian fantasy, or some other world (with a few tweaks and word changes, of course). Your setting doesn't seem to be bringing much into your current story, and that's a problem, because no matter the setting, above all, your world should always serve the needs of the story. Plan your story first and what you want to say with it, and then use that to govern the elements of your world.

[Black Noise]

But there's a little bigger issue to take into account. I know you said this is just a prologue or a side story to some bigger plot you're working on. But there's not much in the story that couldn't be done if it wasn't part of that bigger plot. What value does its connection have to the story? Making another story you haven't written isn't good enough, because I'm not reading that story, I'm reading this one, and everything you've described that's really going into the story could be done in the present day, or in Arthurian fantasy, or some other world (with a few tweaks and word changes, of course). Your setting doesn't seem to be bringing much into your current story, and that's a problem, because no matter the setting, above all, your world should always serve the needs of the story. Plan your story first and what you want to say with it, and then use that to govern the elements of your world.

I'm very sorry about that.
Actually, there is a reason the setting is science fiction but I made this thread only to get help on a particular part of the plot,
not get feedback on the actual project as a whole. Again, I apologise for not giving a full context for the setting.

But yes, I will think about your feedback - planning the story first then working on the setting, that is because sometimes
I feel I might be getting ahead of myself anyway.

[Thunderscream872]

Interesting concept.

If you don't want elements of the supernatural in there, then I would go with what Davidizer13 said and do it through technological means. Though, I don't think that's the only alternative. You could always go the route of having it be someone's "super power" or having it be like an alien ability or something like that too.

As far as your setting goes, I think its fine the way it is for now. I find the best way to write sometimes is just to adapt your setting to your story as you write the early drafts. When writing the first draft, allot of it is gonna suck, and you'll make tons of changes to it in the second draft; but sometimes it's important to just go with what you have, and make changes (to story, setting, characters, etc.) as you're writing. You learn as you write . Just make sure that everything is coherent and consistent in the final draft--that's really what matters.