The Quick Questions About World Building Thread

For making a fictional city/town, does the name need to have a meaning. For instance in the case of a Japanese town/city or an English-speaking African country?

I don't think so, but I think it does have to be consistency with the language or naming conventions of the founders. It does depend on if you want the name to be symbolic or not.

edited 20th Mar '17 8:25:59 PM by MorningStar1337

Right. I'm doing a foreign legion set in Africa in an English-speaking country and I just wanna make sure I'm doing the right thing.

What difficulties could a being with three fingers (two plus a thumb) in each hand find when it comes to playing music? What type of musical instrument would be better suited for them? The hands are a bit like bird talons, for additional information.

A character with only two fingers and a thumb would probably not be able to play most instruments. Woodwind instruments have multiple keys that need to be depressed to play notes, and you need to have at least three fingers, I'd say. Trumpets have three valves. You can't play trumpet with just two fingers. Other brass instruments will likely be the same. Piano is out of the question. Any complicated piece of piano music requires a full set of ten fingers. Although, there may be music written for amputees and other people who don't have fingers on their hands or hand because of a birth defect or disability. I just don't know anything about it, but I'm sure it exists.

This really leaves your character with percussion instruments. Anything with sticks, mallets and tines only needs a firm grip.

Traditional/primitive flutes can be played without any special keys, but since most of them are meant to be played with two hands and about eight holes, they'd need SERIOUS speed and agility.

How many gods would you consider 'too many'? Note I'm talking gods with heavy characterization here, not just hordes of flat characters.

usually gods are a fundamental part of a setting— meaning they're largely responsible for shaping it

in which case any number of gods is fine, as long as you can keep em straight, and its not being shoe-horned into whatever you're writing, creating a convoluted mess.

edited 2nd Apr '17 11:33:33 AM by Tarsen

There isn't a too many. You don't have to show them all, but there can be millions of gods (just ask Hinduism).
What the audience sees, depends on what you want to do with them. If there's a great cosmic conflict, well 40K has 4 nearly almighty gods that feed off all human emotion between them. The ancient Mediterranean and Akkadian and Egyptian civilizations had dozens of gods (that we know of) that corresponded to certain jobs or talents (writing, farming, water, war). Others have local gods that can also be divided up into different jobs and who may completely unknown outside a particular valley or even household. (You'd get something like Japan's kami).
You can give your character a unique patron god and have her meet myriad others on the way to the market. It just depends. And the nature of the gods will be effected by the scale. You'll have a hard time writing thousands of equally almighty gods, and, OTOH, one more or less mundane god (a la my setting) can give loads of interesting questions to work with. (She's essentially human, why do they worship her? at the top)

Ugh, I see. Gonna have to give the matter some more thought, then.

On another note, is there any reason to have glasses/spectacles in a setting where sight-augmenting Electronic Eyes are commonplace?

is the process painful? traumatic? uncomfortable? does it cause anxiety?

then theres gonna be people who stick to glasses.

i for one, cannot bring myself to wear contacts, and i would never get laser treatment.

• A general distaste for "tampering with nature"? Possibly, but not necessarily religious in origin. Glasses or contacts can be justified as simply using a tool, but surgery or permanent augmentations are more difficult to justify that way.
• Personality trait— they want to be regarded as edgy or eccentric, or just want to stand out. Or for conspicuous consumption: any poor schnuck can get augs, but " I can afford to pay a specialist to determine my prescription and an artisan to make the glasses. And I can do it whenever I want."
• medical oddity — an allergy to something that is either an intrinsic part of the augs (and can't be substituted) or for a medication used during the surgery or recovery period. Or a vision issue that there are no augs to fix.

• Glasses are often considered cute and/or sexy. Electronic Eyes are a much less common fetish. Of course you could wear Purely Aesthetic Glasses over Electronic Eyes but if you are already planning on wearing glasses whether you need them or not there isn't much need to worry about your eyesight.

• Depending on how different the Electronic Eyes look compared to normal eyes the aesthetic appeal of the eyes themselves may be considered to outweigh the practicality of Electronic Eyes.

edited 8th Apr '17 5:31:48 PM by kamiryu

In a reversal of "anyone can afford augs," I'd suggest that the electronic eyes are too expensive for the lower/middle classes, but the upper-middle class and the elite LOVE showing off their wealth with fancy augmentation?

Plus, it's REALLY easy to just take your glasses on and off if you don't need them, like if you're an actor where a) you don't always play characters with glasses, and b) the lights/camera angles really need a clear shot of your face, or if you're involved with water like swimming/sailing, or in a trade where you need to swap glasses out for safety-goggles or helmets. You can't take out cybernetic eyes.

...Unless you CAN, in which case "I can't afford augs" or "it's more practical to wear glasses" is perfectly reasonable.

edited 8th Apr '17 9:53:02 PM by Sharysa

On the other hand, cybernetic eyes would not interfere with safety goggles, might not be noticeable (or could be fixed in post), and I sure hope they're water-resistant. I don't really see a situation where you might need to remove them.

Still, bio-augmenting your literal eyes is SO MUCH more finicky with the operation + recovery time than just getting your eyesight checked and ordering some glasses.

Wow, all I expected was "naw dawg, except for fashion purposes". Thanks a bunch for all the input, you've given me much to think about!

might i ask, is the idea of people using DJ-ing in a weaponize shonen way been done before as a concept?

edited 17th Apr '17 7:54:04 PM by ewolf2015

Not that I've heard of, but there's too many shonen to know for sure.

Is it at all plausible for giants to evolve into normal-sized humans? You know, through a gradual decrease in available food and some-such.

well, real life giants- that is, really large people, tend to have a whole host of health issues as a result of their size.

a change from the environment that made their giant size more acceptable would do it, i think.

A reduction in available food is more likely to cause a lengthening of the growth period than a reduction in size. Doubly so in a cold environment where gigantothermy is important.

Insular dwarfism is a thing, so yes.

How do you think superpowered criminals would be dealt with when their powers don't rely on external factors? For example: a supervillain who can create (normal) plants out of nothing and accelerate their growth. Another supervillain can create clones of herself, again ex nihilo, that vanish into nothing when killed. A non-example: a supergenius who requires resources to build sci-fi gadgets.

There are enough supervillains around as the plot demands, although few if any of them aim towards global domination or destruction. The worst of the worst work for the Mafia, or have one of the gangs working for them, or are independent mercenaries, assassins, spies and thieves. The closest handwaving this would have, if required, is that the world is still recovering from a World War many years ago (the setting isn't supposed to be the Cold War, but with superheroes, so that's a reasonably-sized "if").

There isn't any kind of super-technology that can be mass-produced to negate the superpowers of specific people as the plot demands, and also the setting isn't anywhere close to dystopic enough that death penalty to all supervillains would be the answer. If you think that's the answer, assume they're keeping supervillains alive in the event the Godzilla Threshold is crossed. Think giant monsters, evil Superman and/or nukes.

One of the ideas I had was "underwater solitary confinement", but it sounds a little convoluted and doesn't work for every villain.

By the way, superpowered individual registry isn't taboo in the setting. Governments usually aid juvenile superpowered individuals and their families even in non-welfare states, if only out of self-interest. In North America and Western Europe superpowered individuals that become superheroes can usually: volunteer to do superheroing independently, work for the government, or work for private organizations.

Presumably the government would have developed some form of depowering thing or other for reasons.

Okay, I guess I can decide whether or not that's true, and then decide what are the consequences :| But do you have any suggestions how would that work? I mean, it can't be something too simple or else people would be using it all the time. Also, it can't be permanent. Look, I'm just think making it simple or permanent would be too boring and go against the concept of having superheroes in the first place.

I suppose just "handwave" it and never try to explain how superpowered prisoners are... well, kept imprisoned is an option too.