I have to write a hard sci-fi short story for my Science in Science Fiction class and I was wondering if you guys could help me form some ideas.

 

So far, I've had one idea: This scientist re-creates Miller's experiment, and accidently creates a new kingdom of species. Fast foward several million years... the new kingdom has produced a sentinent species and we have finally learned to live coopertively with them. Somehow, a member of this species (a historian, perhaps) uncovers the truth about how his species was created and is faced with a moral dillema... Should he tell the truth to the public (and risk threatening the very fabric of the current social structure), or does he have an obligation to tell the truth?

you should have him tell a friend while contemplating what to do, and have the secret accidently leaked to the gov't. then the government tries to keep it under wraps and goes after the historian.

How about if the new species created is subatomic and they go through several generations every second. They achieve sentience much sooner and become so smart they figure out about the macro-world, learn to increase their size (which also slows their metabolism to match ours). Now you don't need to fast forward and you don't need the historian. It could be the same scientist twenty years later!

How about if the new species created is subatomic and they go through several generations every second. They achieve sentience much sooner and become so smart they figure out about the macro-world, learn to increase their size (which also slows their metabolism to match ours). Now you don't need to fast forward and you don't need the historian. It could be the same scientist twenty years later!

 

I think you misunderstood. The original scientist is a present-day (or not too-distant future) human on Earth.

 

And, I'm not sure if the other idea would work too well, because, I had in mind, a big social issue. That it took hundreds of years for the new species to attain the same rights as humans, and now that balance could be disrupted. Thanks for the input, though.

 

you should have him tell a friend while contemplating what to do, and have the secret accidently leaked to the gov't. then the government tries to keep it under wraps and goes after the historian.

 

hmm... that's an interesting idea.