(This should have been posted in May, 2013)
What I'm trying to do is write a "background" story, that shows how this whole Swarm Universe mess started. Using that as a framework, I want to describe various things like how the two-caste system got started, what the ships look like, how a replicator works, etc.
Most of the author's group are very supportive. This isn't a story I'm writing. It is really more like a committee that is deciding things. I'm just the scribe that write it all down and maybe pretties it up a bit so people will read it.
My working title is "First Command", as I'm trying to tell it from the viewpoint of the guy who gets chosen to be Earth's first starship commander. He is learning all this stuff, so I have an excuse to write about figuring out how it all works.