It’s actually kinda hard, if you want it to not be nonsense. And then you have to make it exciting.
I’ve thought about having alignment going on as a subplot in a conventional adventure story—woven in every few chapters—and emphasize at the end how meaningless the more-conventional story was in comparison to the alignment work.
In terms of time-loop stuff, I think a protagonist who is demonstrably not smart enough to do the alignment work himself, and must convince the world’s geniuses to work on alignment every loop, might be grimly amusing.
I thought I came across one a few years ago, though it might have been a different x-risk. There’s an alien civilization that’s discovered that’s dead (and ‘one of their ‘sciences’ killed them off).
The Number is kind of an alignment novel, but you only see that late in the book. Arguably the Crystal Trilogy is a mis-alignment novel. Oh, and of course, there’s Friendship is Optimal.
“I’d probably suggest writing a novel first.”
It blows my mind that nobody (?) has written a sci-fi novel on alignment yet.
It’s actually kinda hard, if you want it to not be nonsense. And then you have to make it exciting.
I’ve thought about having alignment going on as a subplot in a conventional adventure story—woven in every few chapters—and emphasize at the end how meaningless the more-conventional story was in comparison to the alignment work.
In terms of time-loop stuff, I think a protagonist who is demonstrably not smart enough to do the alignment work himself, and must convince the world’s geniuses to work on alignment every loop, might be grimly amusing.
I thought I came across one a few years ago, though it might have been a different x-risk. There’s an alien civilization that’s discovered that’s dead (and ‘one of their ‘sciences’ killed them off).
The Number is kind of an alignment novel, but you only see that late in the book. Arguably the Crystal Trilogy is a mis-alignment novel. Oh, and of course, there’s Friendship is Optimal.