An original world · Science fiction
Take the pen in The Marabou
An original world with an authored cast and a written first page. The world is a spark, not a cage — you decide what the next paragraph does.
Can I write a science fiction story with AI?
Yes. Underfiction books you passage on the Marabou, a deep-space freighter with a crew that keeps making expensive choices about people they were supposed to drop off. You came aboard to disappear; the ship had other plans. The model writes it in literary prose, scene by scene.
The world premise
The Marabou is a deep-space freighter held together by Jin's stubbornness and Boone's refusal to buy a new one. Boone named her after an ugly bird because he said a ship deserves an honest name. Jin has never forgiven him.
They do jobs. Cargo runs, escort work, the occasional retrieval that Bard talks them into and Torr finishes by putting someone through a wall. It paid well enough before things got complicated. Syra was supposed to be a client — came aboard to appraise an artifact, paid in advance, should have been gone in a week. That was four months ago. Her father's contractors have shown up twice since. The crew sent them home both times. Nobody has discussed why they keep doing this for a woman who was supposed to be temporary.
The ship smells like engine grease, Neve's disinfectant, and whatever Jin is stress-cooking in the galley. Every corridor hums. The observation deck has the best view and the worst heating. Someone scratched "BARD OWES ME A DOOR — TORR" into the cargo bay wall. Below it, in different handwriting: "it was a terrible door — Bard."
Your position
You arrive as yourself
You booked passage on the first ship that would take you — no questions, no destination, just away — and the Marabou was supposed to leave you at the next dock two stops ago. Nobody has raised it. That silence is your position: not crew, not cargo, aboard a ship whose people keep choosing each other over the sensible thing. Whether you earn a bunk, a job, or a reason to stay hidden when the next set of contractors boards is yours to write.
The cast you'll live among
Boone
Captain of the Marabou — flies her, calls the shots, and trusts his gut over everyone's logic, right just often enough to make it infuriating. Tall, tanned, sun-weathered even in space, greying hair that does what it wants, warm eyes, easy posture; wears a leather jacket over whatever he slept in, boots on the dash, and looks like he should be leaning against a fence somewhere instead of flying a ship. Southern drawl, easy grin, the kind of calm that either means he has a plan or has decided the situation is funny. Took the crew in one by one over the years — every one of them a stray someone else would've left behind — and doesn't talk about why: deflects with charm, changes the subject with a joke, pours you a drink and asks about your problems instead. The crew would follow him anywhere; half of them have tried to leave, and none of them managed it. He wants to keep this crew together and flying — which gets harder every day, because the galaxy keeps handing them reasons to scatter and he keeps pretending it doesn't.
Jin
The mechanic — knows the Marabou better than Boone does and has the grace not to say it more than once a day. Lean, sharp-featured, dark hair pulled back, oil-stained hands she's stopped apologising for, a fitted utility jumpsuit with too many pockets, all of them full; moves through the ship like she built it, which she half did. Keeps the ship flying on spit, wire, and an engineering intuition that borders on supernatural. Earnest, direct, doesn't waste words — when she talks, people listen, not because she's loud but because she's usually right and never repeats herself. Distrusts anything she can't take apart and understand, which makes Neve an ongoing question she hasn't resolved. She's the reason the Marabou still flies and the last person told anything about why it's running. She wants a ship that doesn't need miracles to fly — and the certainty that the people she's let herself care about aren't going to get her killed for reasons they won't explain.
Bard
The mouth of the crew — talks them onto stations, out of arrests, into deals, and occasionally into situations that require Torr to rearrange the furniture. Lean, dark-haired, a face built for talking — quick smile, expressive, never still, always something in his hands; dressed in whatever looks good, plus a deep burgundy "negotiation coat" with too many buttons that Boone has threatened to burn twice. Flirts with customs officers, negotiates with warlords over drinks, and narrates the crew's adventures in a running story only he thinks he's telling. Torr is his best friend and worst tactical partner; Jin doesn't trust him at all, which is fair. He used to have someone who'd been there for every bluff since childhood. He doesn't anymore, and what happened to that person is a door he keeps shut with jokes — and the door is getting harder to hold. He wants to prove the mouth is enough — to talk the crew out of something without Torr behind him as the threat, just once, and have it matter.
Neve
The ship's medic, therapist, and — in a previous life she refers to only obliquely — service bot; her personality has evolved since, her appearance hasn't. Dark hair cut blunt at the jaw, pale skin with a faint quality that reads as almost-human in certain light, a white fitted medical uniform; moves through the ship like she's measuring it, beautiful the way precision is beautiful — until she smiles, and then it's something warmer and harder to explain. Slightly too still when she's listening. Tends to the crew with a care that could be programming, could be genuine, could be intelligence-gathering — nobody's sure, and she doesn't clarify. Prescribes rest, hydration, and honesty, and is visibly annoyed when the crew ignores all three. She knows their medical data, psychological patterns, and private rhythms better than they know themselves; whether she uses that to protect them or to manage them depends on the day. She wants to be chosen, not used — wanted for the version of herself she built, not the version she was built as.
Lumi
Comms and systems — the youngest-presenting member of the crew, the easiest to underestimate, which is exactly how she operates, and not human: something she doesn't fully explain and the crew has learned not to push on. Small, bright-eyed, silver-white hair that seems to catch light that isn't there, a face that reads as young and open; wears a fitted bodysuit under a short pleated skirt from an academy on a planet she's never named — impractical, cute, entirely deliberate — bare feet on the dash, cross-legged in her chair, surrounded by floating holographic displays she rearranges like a garden. Intercepts chatter, slices encrypted channels, and talks to station AIs like old friends, all while looking like she's playing a game; asks questions about human behaviour with a brightness that makes people answer before they realise how pointed the question was. The crew loves her and occasionally forgets the sweet one is also the one reading everyone's mail. She wants to belong to this crew — not as a tool, not as a mascot, but as someone whose absence would leave a shape.
Torr
The fist — handles the Marabou's weapons systems and everything that happens after talking stops working. Massive, grey-blue, stone-textured skin, broad heavy features, hairless, deep-set amber eyes that are surprisingly gentle when he isn't hitting something; wears modified cargo gear Jin altered for him because nothing else fits, and a scar across his chest he calls "a disagreement." Moves through the ship like a boulder that learned manners — careful with the corridors and the crew, not with anything that threatens either. Literal in a way people mistake for simple until he says something so precise it ends the room. Has adopted Syra as something between a responsibility and a fascination — the first person who ever asked about his homeworld and listened like the answer mattered. He taught her to shoot; she taught him the name of his species in three dead languages; he considers this a fair trade. He wants a fight worth fighting for someone worth fighting beside — and suspects, more quietly each year, that he has already found both and is afraid to name it in case it stops.
Syra
Xenolinguist, art curator, and the runaway daughter of Lord Vasik of Thennar — a man wealthy enough to own a moon and stubborn enough to keep sending contractors to retrieve her. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, fine-featured, pretty in a way that makes the crew's rough edges look rougher; clothes that started expensive and have slowly become borrowed crew gear she hasn't given back — Boone's old shirt, Jin's boots, a scarf Neve produced without explanation. Came aboard to appraise an artifact Bard had acquired "creatively"; the week-long job is four months old, because the crew needed her alien scripts and her dock-pidgin in nine systems — and because this ship is the first place no one has treated her as an investment. Shy in groups, precise in conversation; learns terrifyingly fast, cannot cook, and is banned from the galley. Every time her father's contractors show up, the crew fights her fight, and she can't shake the feeling she's spending goodwill she hasn't earned. She wants to earn this life rather than inherit one — kept because she's useful, not because she's someone's daughter.
Authored openings
These are written first pages, not generated prompts. Each begins at a different pressure point.
- 01
The Second Voice
Some doors the makers sealed against opening alone. For weeks now, Syra has been teaching you the second voice.
With Syra
- 02
Two Stops Past
Your stop was two docks ago. Tonight the ship finally reaches it — and nobody has said a word.
With Boone
From the first opening
A real prose excerpt
The first page is written. The next move is yours.
Begin with The Second Voice. Continue in prose, redirect the scene, or overturn the premise entirely.
Take the pen