reproduced from the forum post below

It's happening again!

About a year ago, a certain Science Fiction Contest transpired on this website. So many amazing stories were written for it that even the extensive results post was not enough to recognize them all.

Let's see if we can do it again!

From the moment you personally read this post, until 2023 Apr 02, the Science Fiction Contest II is officially open for submissions!

What is Science Fiction?

That is a very good question! It could be stories about the ramifications of scientific ideas and technological innovations on the world of magical pastel horses, or stories that explore a hard magic system grounded in the scientific method, or stories set in an AU that is "science-fictiony", but no list can really be exhaustive of such a broad term. At the very least, the previous contest's entries did all count, so you can get a feel for at least a part of the breadth of the genre.

We are looking for both interesting ideas executed well, and good stories told with those ideas!

Prizes!

All prize amounts will be sent by PayPal. If you are unable or unwilling to receive money by PayPal, alternative arrangements in the past have included redirecting winnings to other people, or a donation to a mutually agreed-upon charity.

The prize pool will be $400, with a guaranteed minimum to the following podium places:

• First Place: $150
• Second Place: $100
• Third Place: $65

At least three entrants and no more than one-third of all entrants will be awarded in the results post.

Judges!

I am very proud to announce that the judges for this contest will be the two First Place winners of the previous contest, and two veteran contest runners!

• Bicyclette
• mushroompone
• Raugos
• Shrink Laureate

Judges are not allowed to preread, edit, or discuss any entries with the author before the contest results are released! In addition, judges are asked to withhold commenting on entries until after the release of contest results.

Rules!

1. All entries must have Science Fiction as a genre tag.
2. Stories must be E or T rated, though any tag is allowed except "Fetish".
3. AUs, crossovers, and OCs are all allowed. But judges are not guaranteed to know anything outside of core G4 and G5 canon material, so please keep this in mind!
4. Stories must be published and complete between 2023 Feb 05 7PM EST and 2023 Apr 02 8PM ET to qualify. This is a hard deadline that will not be extended. If you are publishing close to the deadline, you are advised to PM Bicyclette some way to access the full text of your completed entry before the deadline just in case it is stuck in the queue. Any entries published after the deadline whose authors have not done this will not be accepted, with no exceptions.
5. Authors may submit multiple entries, though only one may win a prize. We officially encourage quality over quantity.
6. The recommended word cap is 30kw, as we officially encourage quality over quantity. There is a hard cap of 50kw total across all entries by an author.
7. Pre-readers and editors are freely allowed. Co-authored works are allowed, but in order to be credited to both authors they must have the sentence "Co-authored with Bicyclette." at the very start of the long description (with the name and FIMFic account link of the co-author instead of Bicyclette, of course).
8. Submissions will be collected in the Science Fiction Contest II (2023) - Entries folder. Feel free to join the group and place it in yourself!
9. If you have any questions about the contest not covered in this post, please feel free to PM me, Bicyclette.
10. As I, Bicyclette, must interact with all entrants, please keep in mind my DNI policy.

That's it!

Good luck!