World Building Challenge Me to Build Something

[trailwalker]

I am looking to build some sort of world and hoping to have people follow along and provide feedback. I have a few rough ideas in my head with 2-3 sentences describing each "universe" below. Please vote in the poll accordingly.

Space Opera
Always a devout fan of science fiction, I want to build a universe exploring the fallout of a schism in a zealous theocratic interstellar empire. I want to take the approach of hard science and create a very intricate opera that follows a couple of characters including a turncoat official, a merchant, and a historian as the main three characters.

Soldier's Diary
Similar to the Space Opera, I would like to explore the perspective of a soldier fighting on the front lines of a war and watching them progress through a campaign, or several. To keep things interesting, and because I've played a lot of Helldivers 2 recently, I would like to see them live through a galactic/interstellar campaign. Maybe swap perspectives between castes (ex., enlisted vs. officer corps).

Arctic Apocalypse
Less of a creative exercise, more of a "how well can I imitate Cormac McCarthy." I have always had a fascination for the most austere environments possible to live in. I don't have a reason why the world would be frozen over, but I would love to learn about how someone might survive in some twisted bastard child of "The 100" and "Frostpunk."

Political Drama
Inspired by Suzerain's new DLC, I want to try and write a political drama in a completely fictional world. I am thinking fictional world, early modern period. Think somewhere between 1700 and 1935. Sort of arbitrary dates but I think that the lack of information in those days allowed for a lot of smoky backroom deals which made political intrigue so... intriguing.

Wilderness Survival
Just a dude trying to survive in the wilderness and coping with it.

Please feel free to recommend some other ideas if you may. Whatever you might find interesting. I just haven't wrote in so long and would like to practice. Plus I am a social being.

 

[Idea]

Arctic Apocalypse sounds by far the most interesting and unique, especially with some speculative ecology/biology mixed in. Survive the cold with odd creatures and plants adapted to it.

Personally 'hard science' and space opera seem pretty incompatible to me. Such a setting isn't impossible, but just to enable the space travel that distinguishes the genre you probably need to break some basic rules, not that I'm an expert. With the nearest stars being light years away it's rather likely that if you don't somehow break the light speed limit any travel between stars is a multi-generational affair, even one-way. The alternative is using some obscure theory based on quantum mechanics or something, but most likely any technology you come up to access those will likely either require tech that interface with something we can't even imagine interacting with yet (not realistically anyways) or require such immense amounts of energy as to need unobtanium.