Welcome to the Mastermind Season 9 Submission Thread! If you wish to participate in this season, please make sure you have an account first. Then, respond to the following writing challenge prompt.
Writing Challenge
Suppose that humanity has evolved enough to thrive in an intergalactic civilization. Our species has somehow found a way to travel and communicate with each other across intergalactic distances without being affected by time dilation. However, not all planets in our Milky Way Galaxy, which are referred to as the “dumper planets,” have access to these newest cutting-edge technologies. On one hand, the “dumper planets” are plotting to reverse-engineer these technologies without testing them under the supervision of the galaxy’s most skillful scientists and under controlled environments. On the other hand, the Galactic Council has been warned about this situation and is plotting to destroy all the “dumper planets” before these technologies are recreated. Imagine that you live on one of these “dumper planets” and are warned about the incoming intergalactic conflict. You are then selected to represent these planets and are asked to negotiate with the Galactic Council to avoid an intergalactic war.
Your challenge is to write a persuasive speech outlining how the “dumper planets” and the rest of the Milky Way can come to a compromise by allowing all planets to have access to the same cutting-edge technologies. In addition, your speech should propose how technological inequality between planets can be avoided in the future so then intergalactic conflict would not escalate and cause war.
Once you have completed the challenge, please reply to this submission thread. In your reply, you must include an attached file to your submission. Your attached file must be a PDF or a Word Doc.
Replies to THIS thread will close on Saturday February 1st 2025 at 11:59pm EST.
Please give the judge(s) at least two weeks after the due date to process and return the feedback and scores. Once the scores are finalized, the results thread will become available. Scores are assigned based on the following marking criteria:
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Every submission must be fully written in English.
Plagiarism or any use of generative AI technology is strictly prohibited and will result in immediate disqualification.
In your reply to the Season Submission Thread, your submission must be attached as a PDF or Word Doc. The maximum file size is 500 MB. We will not accept links to Google Docs.
You can submit your response any number of times before the deadline but we will only grade your most recent submission. If possible, please delete your previous submissions from the same season so then we can identify which file we want to grade.
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The submission(s) with the highest average will win the 1st place $100 USD prize. The submission(s) with the second and third-highest averages will receive a $50 USD prize each.
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Good luck, have fun, and let your creativity flow!
Made it on clutch time ~ I hope that it evokes emotions but it's not that deep. just literary. I tried various mechanics for this season.
Took me a bit to get started but once I figured out my direction I had a blast writing this. Good luck everyone who enters! Long live Carbora!
It was a tricky prompt since you asked us to write “a persuasive speech”. I’m hardly believe that in a real situation I could represent the entire planets when their existence is at stake 😄
Here the result: