With so many people stuck inside, video games are blowing up. Not just playing them either; watching people play them is growing more popular by the day. And Facebook wants in on the action.

They join three other big players in the market for video game streaming: Amazon (Twitch), Microsoft (Mixer), and Google (Youtube).

What happens if the lockdown exists long enough for live sports leagues to go bankrupt? Could e-sports take off, drawing the huge crowds and gambling from before?

This could bring about a Ready Player One-style book about a gamer who rises to prominence by being good at that particular game. It could be about their struggles outside the game and how they can save their loved one (mother maybe?) if they win.

Or, there could also be an event that every platform would HAVE to stream to their subscribers?

The stakes would need to be high. No higher stakes than human life. So, if there are lives on the line, could this be a Hunger Games type stream? But that somehow is controlled by humans? There’s a movie called “Gamer” where death-row convicts have their minds controlled by human players. Of course, the winner gets to live in the end. Another version of this could work.

Another form of high stakes could be the love of the country. If war was decided in simulations the streaming platforms would have to show everyone what was happening. BUT there could be a partisan split among the broadcasters depending on which presidential candidate they back. In the end, it could be discovered that there is no war, that it’s just a made-up scenario to keep people foaming at the mouth and ignoring the state of the world around them. What they thought were real humans turned out to be the characters in video games, to be tweaked and brought back for the next “war” the country has to engage in.

A canoe displayed during the 2019 Nebraska State Fair wasn’t made; it was grown.

Well, partially. An outer shell made of mycelium-which normally grows underground- was grown around a standard canoe skeleton and then dried. It’s both durable and waterproof and grows mushrooms after it gets wet.

What if using mushrooms as a building material was a standard?

This could create all sorts of interesting homes, ones that provide food in addition to shelter. It could be an Avatar-type fantasy world, one where the humans/humanoid creatures lived together with the world around them. 

Bricks could be made of the dried mushrooms and furniture could be grown.

Mycelium is known as nature’s world wide web because of the way they can shuttle nutrients between trees. What if there was a way humans evolved to take advantage of this property to send communications with the world around them? We have the internet now, this would be an internet of physical spaces. 

It reminds me of a feature of the past world in The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin. The world she created had transport vehicles that could communicate with the drivers and buildings all connected through crystals. It was fascinating and this could be sci-fi, -instead of fantasy- way to bring this world into existence.

The story itself could take the shape of two competing ideologies, similar to a struggle between Native Americans and the encroachment of their way of life by pioneers. Except in this version of history the Native Americans use their connection with the Earth to win, creating a symbiotic future for their land. 

The first book in the series could be about a small family. One of the parents, maybe the father, wants to keep connected to the mushroom roots that span all their physical spaces, and the mother wants to abandon and adopt the new way of life. The two-three children find themselves torn and the story could follow their attempts to maintain a normal life while their way of life is threatened. It would end with one of the parents either dying or leaving, whichever one wanted the new way of life.

The second book could cover the family’s journey to a larger society that still believes in their connection with the Earth. Except this larger society has better abilities and can do more with their connections. They delay the onslaught.

The third book could be one of the children becoming a leader of maintaining their way of life and another child could be pushing for radical measures, like taking the fight to the enemy. They come together when their third sibling dies, making an alliance that comes to a tenuous agreement with the encroaching pioneers.

If the three books did well, up to five books could be a part of the series.

Police in London have been dealing with an interesting problem while the country is in lockdown: how to keep people from leaving the city to go to their second homes.

They have begun looking for luggage during traffic stops to catch people traveling while the stay at home order is in place. But people have caught on and have used an interesting way to bypass traveling with luggage: they ship their stuff.

What if this government enforcement escalates, turning into a complete surveillance state?

Your phone can already track your information. There’s news that Apple and Google are teaming up to create an app that warns users about their proximity to those who have tested positive for COVID-19. It’s not too far of a stretch to have the police take over this data and use it to identify individuals who travel further than the average distance to the grocery store or doctor's office.

Taking it one step further, closer to 1984 territory: what if the thought of traveling was punishable by law. Our phones already have front cameras… what if these were used to determine who was planning to step out. First, it would show up as a redistribution of police forces to those most likely to travel, then the thought itself could be punishable.

The problem with large story worlds is making them small and personal, something a story can be written about. 

The 1984 love story model works, but for this one, I think it could be useful to take the role of the cop. At first, he’s stopping everyone and does great at his job. He meets a young man who reminds him of himself then discovers he’s been able to deceive the devices and travel. The cop follows him and discovers he’s helping his mother. And that there are others like him.

He turns in the young man he followed. Then he decides to check on the mother, only to find her dead. Guilty, he breaks out the young man from jail. 

In the second book there could be a development where the cop is in charge of investigating the group but then helps them escape, and the third could be the group helps the cop go underground.

Smithfield has closed down its factory after approx. 300 employees tested positive for COVID-19 to protect their employees. They are one of the largest producers of meat in the United States, particularly pork, and are credited with producing 18 million servings of food per day.

What if more factories shut down, creating specific food shortages across the country?

This could bring about the menu from classic post-apocalyptic worlds where everyone eats the same processed foods. Maybe this brings about the creation of a drink that meets all human nutrition needs, like Soylent or the porridge from “The Matrix.”

Another way this could go would be to use insects for food, assuming the processing of them requires less human involvement. I haven’t done any research into this but it seems easy enough to create a process that would minimize the need of human workers, especially if it’s a necessity like during a pandemic. Within a story, it should be easy enough to come up with a feeder-like machine that forces grasshoppers into the processing machinery. Most people aren’t familiar enough with industrial food-processing and as long as it’s believable there shouldn’t be too many negative comments/reviews.

This creates the story world, what would the actual story look like?

I’m thinking this could be a solitary man, living alone in a large city, who meets a talking cat. Something with a heavy Murakami influence. The cats all adopt humans and are responsible for getting them to meet each other. Most cats don’t bother telling their human they are leading them to a potential friend but the cat who has adopted the lead character of this story tells him because otherwise, he won’t get out of his routine. 

The friend turns out to be a young girl who is obsessed with anime. She has problems with her parents and with school and together they form a sibling-style friendship. Throughout the story, they have to figure out why the main character’s job wants to promote him even though he is happy where he is. 

The girl becomes horrified when she finds out the man works for the company processing all the insects and he tells her he has no choice. The story ends when the girl gives up her moral ground and accepts her role in the cog of society. This wouldn’t have a happy ending. 

It could be a series through the cats. Pick another two individuals and similar themes of alienation and loneliness because those are the types of people who would be drawn to communicating with cats in the first place.

People want to raise hell about the government taking their guns… what about taking their fighter jets?

Don Kirlin, the owner of Air USA, added to his collection when he purchased 46 more fighter jets from the Royal Australian Air Force. His company is one of the few who provides the Air Force with “adversaries” to help train U.S. fighter pilots.

Turning this into a story: what if there was a guns-for-hire group of fighter jets and pilots? Think “Top Gun” meets “The Expendables.”

Each book in the series would follow a similar script to the classic ‘80’s action movies: they think it’s going to be a simple job until they discover the whole world is at stake.

OR, they just want to do their job until it becomes personal. Maybe a family member is kidnapped (like in “True Lies”).

The hard part would be to make the stakes big enough to require the jets in the first place, but this could be the last resort option, like when the power rangers form up to make Megazord.

Maybe a better show to use as inspiration would be Captain Planet. The fighter pilot group could blow up dams, illegal oil drilling, etc. after they uncover plots to destroy the environment. 

Each book in the series would be standalone, with returning memorable characters. In theory, there could be multiple groups like this, from different countries, and the alliances and enemies among the groups could play a role in future books.

For me, there would be a good bit of research into planes, flying, and pilot interviews.

Tesla has adapted the technology from the HVAC system in its cars to create ventilators for COVID-19 patients to use. They hope to mass-produce the ventilators at its gigafactory in Buffalo. 

I’ve written another story idea about companies pivoting to create new technologies in response to the pandemic but this news inspires a different story idea, one about an engineer in a hard sci-fi novel/series.

What if the best ventilators were reserved for those who could afford them? 

The article also mentions Tesla’s purchase of BiPAP machines, an alternate form of a ventilator that uses a mask instead of tubes inserted into airways. Both machines alternate between inhalation and exhalation.

If the rich lay claim to all the ventilators, the less effective BiPAP machines would be used by the middle class? Taking this a step further, what if the poorest people were left to fend for themselves, without access to either type of machine?

There is a very common machine that many people use while sleeping called a CPAP machine. Instead of alternating between the inhalation/exhalation, this machine only pushes air. What if a young person in poverty, desperate to save their parents, figured out how to use two CPAP machines to create a ventilator? They could 3D print the necessary parts. 

Of course, this implies they even have access to such a machine. Supposing they did, but they needed to save someone else? The problem boils down to keeping meat balloons inflating and deflating long enough for the body to clear the fluid in the lungs. 

This is where the research would come into play, which would put this story idea firmly into the “hard sci-fi” category. With some alternating fans, masks, maybe tubes, the future engineer and hero of the story would solve the problem and make their findings accessible to the masses, generating a cult-following. The story itself would follow the hero’s quest to find the necessary parts, similar to “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” when a group of the resistance is tasked with finding a way to disable the tracking device.

The end of the book would be the triumphant return with the correct parts and saving the loved ones. To turn this into a series, at the very end of the first book there could be a scenario when the ventilators malfunction because they are all computerized, leaving the low-tech option the sole way to save everyone. The second book could be about trying to gather enough materials to save everyone while one person/group is determined to hold onto all of them. The third book could be about using the engineer’s skill to solve another problem, maybe a space-faring issue for astronauts.

Seismologists around the world are seeing less seismic noise in their measurements since humans have reduced their travel because of COVID-19. No cars, no trains, no buses, no planes… without these things, it’s now possible to detect smaller seismic events.

Let’s turn this into the beginning of a story. What if the early warnings of a massive earthquake were now able to be detected beneath a large city? Normally, the minuscule readings would be lost amid the chaos generated by humans.

The story could chronicle the efforts of a lone scientist to convince the authorities to evacuate the city. He could show them the canary in the coal mine and the authorities ignore him. The middle of the story could be about his demise in society and have him end up homeless, everyone thinking him crazy. The false ending could be that the date that he predicted the earthquake comes to pass without any event, shaking his confidence. The end of the first book could be the earthquake, the second book could be about leaving the old city behind, and the third could be about setting up a new city where scientists are given the authority in society.

Alternatively, what if the authorities believing the scientist, were able to gather further proof of the impending disaster and chose to evacuate the city? It could alternate between the scientist’s viewpoint and the point of view of a small child who is forced to leave their home. It would turn into an immigration tale and bring into it a lot of what modern-day immigrants deal with when trying to enter the United States. The second book could be about them scraping together a life and family as a young adult, and the third could be about them leaving the comforts of their new life and going back to help immigrants who are escaping from another disaster/government. Going back to the news article, it seems that seismic monitoring stations beneath cities, useless most of the time, are now finding relevant data. The article also claims the Earth’s crust is moving a little less because of the reduction in human activity. If this is indeed the case, there would be less chance of an earthquake in general which bodes well for a world already on lockdown because of the Coronavirus.

The virus behind the COVID-19 outbreak has been found in human feces, meaning the prevalence of the virus in sewage could map the density of current and future outbreaks. 

Creating a story from this: what if researchers find more than they expected?

One, it could be a higher incidence of the virus in the population. With testing in the United States far from widespread nobody has any idea how many carriers aren’t displaying any symptoms. If the research into the sewage tells us that almost everyone is a carrier, how might that change our response?

In the story, I wouldn’t use the exact virus responsible for the global pandemic. Alternatively, there could be a substance inside the sewage system that was introduced by the government to control the population. Maybe it’s something that affects fertility rates or mind control. Similar to MK-Ultra, when the CIA dosed water with low doses of LSD in an effort to control people’s minds, or the program that adds fluoride to city water sources, which some people claim lowers IQ  in addition to being an attempt by the sugar lobby to allow my people to eat candy by limiting the incidence of cavities. 

If these were found, the story could come from the one whistle-blowing scientist’s attempt to disseminate the knowledge while coming under attack from the government. The first book in the series could be a thriller, where they are just trying to stay alive, and it could end when they find an isolated rural community that not only believes them but has steps in place to overthrow the people in charge. The second book could be about the scientist helping advance their cause, and the third could be the realization that the isolated group is going too far and the scientist’s attempt to stop their plans for new world order. 

Going back to the news story, the company hopes to map the incidence of Coronavirus as a way to track infection rates, since testing in the United States has been slow to implement. By mapping the incidence of the virus in the sewage throughout the United States the group hopes to identify outbreaks before patients show the associated symptoms.

In an effort to limit the amount of person-to-person contact, the state of New York has suspended compost, clothing, and electronics recycling because of Coronavirus. Trash collection and standard recycling (glass and plastic) will continue as normal.

But what if the virus was more infectious and led to the suspension of trash/recycling collection altogether?

This would lead to a society where everyone has to dispose of their own waste. Small, privatized waste collection would separate the wealthy from the lower class, creating a stark difference in living conditions between the two. 

If the collection was truly impossible, a city like New York would soon be overflowing with trash. I’m thinking of Wall-E, but with the humans still living on the planet. This would be a world where limiting waste production would be highly valued. 

The easiest way to get rid of the waste, in both scenarios, would be to burn it. This would create a world where small fires are the norm. 

The story could be about a child who escapes from an out of control fire, similar to a bush fire. After the fire, they wake up in the hospital, under the care of a monk-type figure. Similar to Luke Skywalker when he lives with Yoda. Then, he leaves to go find out if his parents are still alive. The first book of the series could be his acclimation to his new world and his journey back to his old home. During the course of the story, he discovers the fire was set intentionally by someone who wanted the land he used to live on and at the end of the first book he finds out his parents didn’t survive. Maybe he finds a necklace/dog tag in a mass grave or among the ashes. 

The second book could be a battle with the group who wanted the land, and in the third, he takes down the group and sets up a new society. The series could go on from there, discussing the navigation of the challenges presented by the resultant power vacuum. Maybe after the first three books, he grows into a position where he’s in charge then accidentally is responsible for a large fire, which creates the same story once more. 

No way I could get away with making the dad still alive and in charge of the group who started the first fire, like Darth Vader. It would be too obvious.

Back to the news story. The programs New York suspended all required people to drop off the goods to be recycled at a facility, so by limiting them, the governor hopes to keep the amount of contact between people to a minimum. The services still available are the collection services.