An Indonesian submarine in the Bali Strait got permission to dive then went dark. There are 53 crew members on board, and estimates suggest they have enough air for three days.
The submarine, built in 1977, was performing a military exercise when it lost contact with the mainland. Initial theories are that the submarine dove too deep.
Turning this into a story would be pretty straightforward. The stakes are high—many lives are on the line—and there’s a time element already involved.
But what if someone didn’t want them to be found?
There would be two sides to the story: the captain of the submarine and a female analyst on the ground. The story alternates chapters between the two viewpoints.
The captain’s story would be about survival, maintaining order on the submarine, and dealing with the challenges involved with a leaking submarine. He knew about the depth restrictions and didn’t authorize the sub’s descent lower than the recommended level.
Throughout the story, he tries solving the mystery of who, how, and why someone on the mainland overrode the sub’s controls and plunged them into the depths.
It turns out there’s someone on board who tried blackmailing the admiral when they found out he was stealing money from the military budget. The Indonesian military’s equipment is ancient—there’s never enough money for upgrades, and we find out the admiral lives in luxury on the nearby island of Bali. The crew member was demoted from his position close to the admiral and sent onto the ship as punishment.
On land, the analyst discovers the discrepancy regarding the ship’s descent. After he’s dismissed by his superiors, he investigates who could have authorized the maneuver, finding out that the admiral’s the only person who could override the captain’s control.
The analyst then looks for any reason why the admiral sank the craft. In the beginning, she believes he did it for the good of the Indonesian Navy, garnering goodwill and potentially getting a replacement craft. An offhand remark from her husband, a fellow military member, when talking about a couple they’re friends with, about men doing anything to not get caught, inspires her to look for personal motives.
She discovers two people had past service with the admiral—the sub’s captain and the demoted crew member.
The captain and the admiral were former friends who stopped talking after the admiral received a medal for a military confrontation both were involved in. There’s been a persistent rumor that the admiral killed more people than necessary, and the only person who would know the truth is the captain.
With a potential motive for the captain, she investigates the crew member and discovers he took care of the admiral’s accounting. She looks into the numbers herself and finds out what the crew member tried using for blackmail.
The story comes to a head when she realizes the admiral’s commanding the search party to avoid a particular area. She goes behind his back and convinces a search vessel to comb the area, finding the submarine.
The submarine is recovered in time, and the crew lives. The admiral pays the analyst a visit in her home when the husband’s sent away on temporary duty at another location. He knows she’s discovered his secret, and she shoots him after a confrontation.
Further books in the series could take inspiration from various Jack Reacher novels, thrillers with international implications with the female analyst as the main character.
Elon Musk’s company Neuralink released a video showing a monkey playing Pong using only his mind. As an incentive for playing the game, the monkey sips a banana smoothie while playing.
Neuralink hopes the tech will one day allow paralyzed people to use their phones using their brains alone. The monkey in the video has two devices installed into his brain, which measure his brain activity and translate it into actions.
Musk envisions humans controlling robots with their minds and potentially one day uploading into a new body after death, similar to many sci-fi novels.
Considering I’ve already written a book about uploading consciousness into another body, what about a story about a more immediate use of thought-to-action technology?
Think about voice-assistant tech on your phone. One day soon, these will be seen as archaic.
Instead of talk to text, what about think to text? Combine that with a simple messaging app, and instantaneous, non-vocal communication becomes the norm.
The story is about a group of high-tech soldiers who train and function as a single unit thanks to their instantaneous communication. The story opens with them infiltrating and clearing out a group of neo-nazi terrorists in middle America, aided by a state-sponsored hack of the thought-messages being exchanged within the compound. Because of their edge, the soldiers make quick work of the assault.
It’s discovered that the terrorist bust was a proof-of-concept. Soon, the soldiers are on their way to the middle east. Since the thought-messaging isn’t available there, their work isn’t as easy. But, with their advanced tech, they still make a clean entrance and escape.
The third assignment takes place in Southeast Asia. The soldiers find out that the terrorist cell they’re infiltrating, who is wanted for drug distribution, has the thought-messaging, but the state can’t hack into their communications. The state wants them to stay in the area and find the big fish responsible for both the drugs and the advanced technology.
The soldiers work their way up the ladder and eventually take down the boss in a massive raid. When they inspect the body, they realize that the “boss” was controlled from afar by an earlier version of a soldier left for dead in a failed operation.
The second book would detail how the soldiers chase down the rogue soldier in cities across the world, and in the third book, we see divisions within the group of soldiers—some no longer trust the people giving them orders.
Other books could introduce the concept of uploading into a new body, similar to “Universal Soldier,” and following plotlines from the movies.
Scientists have discovered the genetic mutation that causes an entire line of French rabbits to walk on their forelegs. The affected gene causes an issue with the spinal cord that inhibits coordination between the forelegs and hind legs—when the rabbits want to move fast, they have no choice but to perform a handstand.
The gene forces the over-flexing of the hind legs when the rabbits move quickly, but they can walk on all four when moving slowly.
The gene in question also often causes blindness.
What if a group of these rabbits in a traveling carnival had another genetic mutation: a taste for blood at night?
I read dozens of Goosebumps as a kid. Mix it in with Something Wicked This Way Comes for a new children’s horror novel.
Two best friends in a small town visit the carnival during the day and see the rabbits doing handstands. They talk with the trainer and think something about him doesn’t seem quite right.
They go home and tell their parents about their worries, but their parents don’t believe them. Convinced they need to take action themselves, they sneak into the carnival at night and witness the trainer feeding the rabbits blood.
A local blood bank reports a break-in. The friends tell their parents but are again dismissed.
They revisit the rabbits during the day and find them tranquil and serene while performing. They try jumping the fence and are caught by the trainer, who takes them to their parents. One set of parents invites the trainer over for dinner as an apology.
The second friend, not at the dinner, visits the rabbits. They attack when they smell his blood. He gets away without killing any of them and reports to his friend later that night after the dinner has ended.
The pair go back in the dead of night. The trainer sneaks up on them from behind and says, “They haven’t had fresh meat in a long time.” One of the friends blinds the trainer with his flashlight, and the stumbling trainer accidentally releases the rabbits.
The rabbits escape their cages, and the children run, not stopping until they get home.
The next day, people all over town are looking for their missing pets. The trainer gets the rest of the town to help look for his escaped rabbits, who are docile during the day. Both friend’s parents make them participate in the search. They end up finding a rabbit and, despite their fear, pick it up. When nothing happens, they return it to the trainer with the agreement that he’ll leave if they can find all the rabbits.
Collectively, the town brings back the rabbits and enjoys one final night at the carnival. The rabbits, satiated from the town’s pets, sleep through the night, and the next day the carnival leaves the town.
Nobody sees the lone rabbit hop walk away on two legs at the edge of the field where the carnival stood.
A high-speed train filled with people leaving Taipei for a long weekend derailed after hitting a construction vehicle on the tracks.
The train’s first four cars absorbed most of the damage, crumpling inside the tunnel. The train had eight cars total.
Reports have the total number of passengers as nearly 500—of those, 48 have died and over sixty injured.
Turning this into a story, what if there’s an assassination target on the train? The kicker—they haven’t committed the crime yet.
A mix between the movies “Source Code” and “Minority Report.” The target? A young man who hacks the infrastructure of the United States in the future.
The story kicks off with a female Taiwanese agent on the train observing the target and charged with their protection. They know an upcoming attempted assassination will take place, but they don’t understand why or how.
Then, the train derails in the tunnel, and the young man is killed.
After the first chapter, the story goes back in time to the events leading up to the train’s derailment. The agent is explicitly chosen because they already know the target, having dated in the past. The target is particularly reclusive now, and the female agent shows back up in their life, trying to uncover why they’re a target in the first place.
The Taiwanese agent doesn’t know why the young man is a target because Taiwan doesn’t have access to the time technology. They find out because of a mole in the program.
The accident is portrayed again, this time with more emphasis on the relationship between the target and the agent. The agent survives with injuries while the target is killed.
After her recovery, she strikes out on a mission to discover why the target lost his life, despite her own government telling her the case is closed for diplomatic reasons.
Turns out, the mole is a high-ranking diplomat that doesn’t agree with involvement in foreign countries by the United States.
The agent deals with threats against her own life, eventually becoming paranoid about every action she takes.
She survives an assassination attempt, and her resulting unwillingness to leave her house effectively provides the same outcome the United States wanted in the first place.
Then, she receives anonymous intelligence—from the mole—that points to the man pulling all the strings in her own country. It’s her boss.
She convinces him to meet her in the train tunnel, still closed for repairs. There, she kills the traitor and walks away into seeming peace.
The sequel could be about how she’s become the force within Taiwan that does the United States’ bidding, but this time it’s through the mole—a separate faction in United States politics. She succeeds in stopping the other faction’s plans for another assassination.
The third book would have her discover that the “mole” was a farce from the beginning, causing her to question her role in the entire operation.
Other books could see her disavowed from Taiwan’s government forces and highlight what happens when Taiwan gets a hold of the technology themselves—she becomes the first in a series of time agents.
