Starwalker is a Web Serial Novel in the form of a blog by Melanie Edmonds. Starwalker is the name of a ship with an experimental drive. The blog is written by the ship's Artificial Intelligence.
You can find it here
Tropes:
- Brain Uploading: Cerebral implants allow this to happen. It's how engineers examine the ship's computers. However, In the case of Starwalker it results in the brain of Danika, the ship's pilot, merging with the AI of the ship to produce a SpaceshipGirl.
- Everyone Can See It: A lot of characters have noticed that Starry and Elliott mean a lot to each other but both of them show Selective Obliviousness when someone tries to bring up the subject.
- For Science!: The reason Dr Cirilli created the star step drive. Yes, it allows quicker travel through the universe but it has the side effect of Star Killing.
- Gone Horribly Right: The new drive works perfectly. It can modify the gravity around a star to open a door to another star by going outside the universe. This has two effects: It turns the drive into a time machine and it damages the stars it flies through.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: The star step drive has the unfortunate consequence of destroying stars and, by implication, entire systems.
- Graceful in Their Element: Starwalker is a pilot and a ship. She can pull miracles in space but is awkward in an atmosphere.
- Heroic BSoD: Starwalker (aka Starry) experiences this when the implications of the Stable Time Loop act as a Logic Bomb.
- Just Think of the Potential!: All of the Starwalker crew (including Starwalker herself) in the early days of the experiments of the star step drive. See For Science!.
- Kiss Me, I'm Virtual: Starry and Elliott when he's downloaded himself into her vitual world.
- Logic Bomb: The implications of the Stable Time Loop act as this for Starwalker (aka Starry). This leads to a Heroic BSoD.
- Multistage Teleport: Starships do this as they travel along FTL lanes, both to accommodate their warp engines' recharge cycle and also to make sure the lane segment ahead is clear of navigational hazards.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Rare, justified example, given that Starry is part human.
- Spaceship Girl: The ship's AI Starwalker (aka Starry). She uses a holographic avatar of the woman she used to be. AI ships are common in the story but she's unusual in having a personality.
- Sapient Ship: The ship's AI Starwalker (aka Starry). She uses a holographic avatar of the woman she used to be. AI ships are common in the story but she's unusual in having a personality.
- Shipper on Deck: Bit after observing Starry and Elliott's behavior in one of the later episodes.
- Space Pirates: Starwalker is attacked by pirates. This is one of the key events in the StableTimeLoop.
- Stable Time Loop: Starwalker's drive allows her to travel through time. This gets the attention of some SpacePirates who take over the ship. They force her to use her drive to go to the Solar System. Using the ability to travel in time, Starwalker gets them to the appointment 40 years early. They return to the present. However, the ripples of their passage causes strange measurements to be made of our sun. This gives Dr Cirilli the idea that a star step drive could work. In the "present" they meet the person who hired the pirates. She turns out to be the avatar for our sun. She hired the pirates to end the Starwalker experiment because the star step drive has the side effect of StarKilling.
- Star Killing: The side effect of the star step drive. It doesn't help that it turns out that stars are alive and sapient, too.
- Super Prototype: Starwalker was built to test a new drive system
- Unusual User Interface: While controls exist some people have cerebral implants to access computers and holograms are used by the computer to display information (and as an aid to input).
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The Woobie: Starry. On a meta level, Starry goes through so much crap and has so many things happen to her that causes her confusion and Angst, that the majority of the chapter pages have at least one commenter emoting giving Starry a hug. - Wrong Side All Along: Starwalker and her crew find out that the person who hired the Space Pirates was the avatar of our sun who didn't like be used as a doorway 40 years ago (see Stable Time Loop) especially as using the star step drive shortens the life of stars. The crew realise that the star step technology is something that man is not supposed to know (especially as some people would probably look to optimize its destructive potential). They decide to rebel against the project, do what they can to heal the stars and destroy all the copies of information that exist about the project.
