cliffc999 I hope you don't take this the wrong way, you write what you want to write and all that, but this felt like a... not so great turn to me. I'm not saying to re-write this or anything, I'm just getting my thoughts out there. I just have some reservations about this update.
Like the PhD power thing, why was that selected? Why does it matter if the older researchers don't respect her? Wouldn't that just add an interesting conflict? It wouldn't have to be multiple chapters worth, just a few snippets of people looking down on her or doubting her would be enough. Even then she's not dealing with research funds, what she needs is construction funds. The PhD power thing just kind of feels like a power up to make the mc sound great but doesn't actually add anything. She's already impressed everyone with the purse strings. Even if the funds she needs to build her devices costs as much as a military jump drive at this point it really doesn't matter. To the genius patrol all they have to do is grant her the budget she needs or use their connections to get that budget. To the politicians and generals they've already missed out on the last several billion dollar idea. No way they won't try to cash in on the next one.
So the PhD powers stood out to me as very odd and unnecessary.
As for her teleportation.... that kind of... uh... kind of felt like jumping the shark? I get the person who did it is canon and these are within their canon abilities, but shouldn't these things be built up too rather then just dropped on readers in a single paragraph?
Like, okay, imagine if Sophia built her FTL communications device. She's riding high, her name is well known throughout those in the-need-to-know. Her work is so revolutionary that her jump-9 ship is immediately approved. The thing is built. Maybe its done in a single chapter with the chapter being a series of snippets jumping from point to point, to emphasis just how fast things are going and just how good Sophia is feeling about all of this.
(Because my big take away from this update was that you were tired of writing about Sophia building up in the Terran Confederacy, so a fast chapter is likely what you want)
The first jump using her new ship is activated or maybe they already had a test jump, the one that grabbed the "abductor's" attention, making this the first manned jump. That doesn't really matter, what matters is that Sophia is on the ship and then
BOOM! the ship "misjumps". There is an instant crash in emotions as all her progress and dreams come to a halt. Sophia knows they haven't misjumped because she has her blackbox computer and the forge to tell her otherwise. She knows everyone is missing eight days of memories, but to everyone else the ship just had a misjump, the drive is completely dead, and they're in obit around an unknown planet with unknown stars.
People possibly resent Sophia as the inventor of the drive that got them in this mess (maybe someone discovers sabotage maybe not) but whatever the case someone has to take command. Perhaps Sophia thinks the current options are idiots or dangerous or maybe she thinks she can do better, whatever the case may be nobody is going to listen to a young women who's only credentials is being the scientist who got them in this mess in the first place. Meaning if Sophia wants to have any sort of say in how things are done or direct this sudden group of castaways she has to "go on adventures" and "get into conflict" in order to earn peoples respect and keep it.
Who knows, maybe she discovers she actually enjoys being an action hero after several firefights and keeps on doing things like this even after its no longer necessary. So that way your character remains an adventure character even after things settle down and her authority is established.
Or maybe everyone dies in the "misjump" and she's the only survivor, meaning she has to survive on her own.
I hope this doesn't come across as me telling you how to write your story. Rather this is me showing an example why this chapter felt so sudden to me. I get what the "adversary" did was abrupt and it was supposed to feel abrupt, but... that still doesn't stop it from feeling unnatural as a point of story progression? As I was reading I could almost see your hand just plucking Sophia out of one story and then dropping her into another one, instead of it feeling like a turning point or twist in the plot.
