The Oxygen Commons

What if innovation required sacrifice—and no one asked permission?

Two and a half centuries after humanity settles a distant exoplanet, the atmosphere that keeps its people alive is revealed to be the product of an ancient bargain. Elevated oxygen levels once accelerated cognition and innovation, allowing the first settlers to survive an unforgiving world. The hidden cost was time itself.

When suppressed records surface, the planet is forced into a reckoning. Some argue that brilliance is worth shorter lives. Others insist that no generation has the right to inherit a decision it never consented to. As political authority falters, the most fundamental infrastructure of civilization—air—becomes negotiable.

The Oxygen Commons is a hard science fiction novel grounded in real physiological tradeoffs, governance theory, and speculative evolution. Eschewing dystopian spectacle, it explores how societies manage shared resources, how power disguises itself as stability, and what happens when transparency replaces control.

This is a novel for readers who value:

• Thoughtful, idea-driven science fiction

• Ethical and political complexity

• Plausible future science

• Quiet but irreversible consequences

There are no easy answers here—only chosen ones.