The creative process being what it is, I know that some people outline every last detail before they start writing, and if that works for them, more power to 'em. I can't outline and then adhere to it with any sort of fidelity, because I'm not capable of pre-thinking a story like that. When I outline first, I spend as much time revising the outline as I do writing text, which is no way to get the damned book done. If I force the story to adhere to the outline, the result is...sub-par.
You can say, "Well, you just outline in your head!" but an outline is composed of headings and sub-headings, and if you took the framework in my mind and laid it all out on paper, it would be nothing but headings.
Thirty-odd pages in, there's no sign of the shipping container being converted into anything other than on-site storage, but now we have the threat of interstellar war for the first time in three millennia along with rumblings of totalitarianism from the planetary goverment.
And this is as it should be.
Last night I quite unexpectedly found myself getting into the whole "war" angle of the story significantly ahead of where I had originally intended...but it fit. The scariest part is that it fell into place as if precision machined, dovetailing perfectly with what I had already written. I therefore know that--at least on some level--I am pre-planning some of these details.
The exact cause for the war is, as yet, unknown, both to self and characters. I have some ideas, though.