End of act 0 ("Welcome to the Galaxy") - 21/4/25

Well there we go - that’s officially the end of the prelude / act 0 / “Welcome to the Galaxy”. The Solar Ascent is still far from fully staffed - or from even having a full bridge crew - but Dustin and co now are officially ready to start facing some actual plot happenings. Don’t expect things to suddenly speed up though - this is still very much a slow moving point in the story while other forces are acting “off camera” so to speak.

So, what should you expect in act 1 (tentatively titled “Gathering clouds”)? Well, for one I expect it to be longer. Act 0 runs to a smidge over 86k words, not counting the interludes. My buffer of written chapters for act 1 hasn’t even hit the first major incident and is already up to about a quarter of that total. We’re going to see the introduction of the actual plot, along with (if things go according to plan at least…) the completion of Dustin’s initial mission giving humanity the chance to start doing that whole exploring thing we’re so fond of.

There’s individual playtime for Dustin with each of our three crew coming up in a bit, as well as a chance to see just how capable Dustin is getting at being a starship commander. And (this IS a harem story) there’s more characters coming to join the group; asides from new people that Dustin ends up sleeping with there’s also a few others that may or may not join the crew to help relieve his concerns that he’s going to end up having to date his entire staff!

As always, thanks for reading!

And finally, because this is a lot of non story words, here’s the current staff roster for the Solar Ascent with everyone’s full names as well as who’s covering the major staff roles that are currently empty:

Captain / Earth Ambassador: Dustin Smith

Chief Science Officer: Meli’a Venn

Chief Engineer: Rye Steamtender

Senior Communications Officer: Emely Val Smith (formerly Val Motea)

Chief Security / Gunnery officer: Role Unoccupied, covered by Dustin

Lead Pilot: Role Unoccupied, covered by Sola

Sensor control: Role Unoccupied, covered by Rye & Meli’a

Primary Physician: Role Unoccupied, covered by Meli’a

Senior Culinary Technician: Role Unoccupied, covered by automat pre-packaged food

Senior Botanical Sciences, Biological Sciences, Geological Sciences officers: All Roles Unoccupied, covered by Meli’a