: Re: The role of inexplicable events in hard science fiction The modern world has few true mysteries, among them the fate of the Roanoke colonists and the crew of the Mary Celeste but do such happenings

In settings with locally instantaneous communication and ubiquitous forensics using techniques we'd recognise but with equipment of far greater sensitivity is there any room left for not being able to explain odd happenings?

What you are describing is commonplace in modern SciFi. Recently (starting in the 90's / 00's?), nano-technology and the like has been pretty standard fare. Minds are "uploaded", people augmented, all-knowing A.I.'s fly around, etc.. Almost every book still contains a healthy amount of mystery.

The good thing about the universe is that it is not only big, but also deep. Especially if you thankfully limit your technology level to what we'd recognize - which means it's not much, really - we still will not be able to read the intention in a human's brain (at least not without them noticing). There still can be human-centered plots galore, involving mad or bad people (e.g., Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon series).

There still can be random events. Quantum theory tells us that no matter what, it will never be possible to predict or measure everything.

Beyond that, you can achieve anything with aliens and/or advanced physics. Don't only think in terms of little green men from Mars - look at books like Dan Simmon's Hyperion, or Peter Hammilton's Reality Dysfunction or Void series. They have all-powerful technology, but there's always something to be found at the edge.

A good contender to restore some mystery is any kind of conflict/war - where each party employs technology to lessen the "all-knowingness" of the enemy.

Finally, while we may be technologically advanced enough, any individual human might still have a closer field of view, if you wish. Only because we know how to know everything does still not mean that everybody individually knows everything. You can have your technology live more in the background of your story - grab any bored teenager who seems to know everything, and let them discover something new...

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: Re: The role of inexplicable events in hard science fiction The modern world has few true mysteries, among them the fate of the Roanoke colonists and the crew of the Mary Celeste but do such happenings

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: This is not different from what happens in the real world. You could solve your problem like we do in actual development - by being test driven. I.e., make the test a significant part of

: Is there a format to write a good treasure hunt story? I'm writing a story for an Indian movie that revolves around a bunch of estranged siblings, who come to live in their father's abandoned

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