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Need help with samurai themed world.

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Fozi I mean, seriously. from Uruguay Since: May, 2011
I mean, seriously.
#1: May 7th 2011 at 8:06:53 AM

So here's the deal, I'm making a comic which is located in this sort of feudal Japan. Given the fact that I don't want the comic to be a case of Did Not Do The Research, I've tried to incorporate some historic details, for the sake of visuals and concept only, given the fact that this universe is completely alternate from our own, so in theory, I can do whatever I want without breaking the Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

I've detailed in stuff like armors (in basic structure) and architecture of feudal japan, but heres the problem, I've got other neighboring countries, which, not that I realize and much to my dismay, function on an entirely different culture and technology (steampunk in a case).

So how can I justify these radical differences between countries that have been right next to each other for a pretty long time without them being influenced by each other?

Now why would you post something like that?
blueharp Since: Dec, 1969
#2: May 7th 2011 at 8:57:47 AM

Deliberate isolation?

Magic walls that just came down?

If you wanted to go to the D&D hollow world route, the immortals (gods) who created it made a magic spell so people naturally stuck with their original cultural paradigm.

Fozi I mean, seriously. from Uruguay Since: May, 2011
I mean, seriously.
#3: May 7th 2011 at 9:47:41 AM

No, I was more thinking of a semi-realistic world (you know, up to what I can), I mean people in this world relate just as we do, but due to storyline issues I need them to be apart, or It'd be just a hot mess working solely on the rule of cool, and I really don't want that.

I am thinking in natural barriers, but due to the steampunk tech in one of the adjacent countries, mountains and swamps just wouldn't cut it... About the gods thing, there are some sort of elemental spirits in this world, but I still haven't really decided their role...

Now why would you post something like that?
Clarste One Winged Egret Since: Jun, 2009 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
One Winged Egret
#4: May 9th 2011 at 2:53:25 AM

Isolation is a good one, and suits Japan quite well. The fictional country in question sealed the borders, cut off trade, and criminalized whatever foreign artifacts or ideas managed to smuggle their way in. Do this for about a century and it's possible to fall way far behind in technology. You'd need longer for culture.

As for natural barriers... Japan is an island.

edited 9th May '11 2:55:15 AM by Clarste

RalphCrown Short Hair from Next Door to Nowhere Since: Oct, 2010
Short Hair
#5: May 9th 2011 at 5:45:34 AM

Is it possible that these other cultures do influence your Feudal Japan setting? That would give you license to change anything you wanted. You wouldn't have to adhere to the history, so nobody could complain you hadn't done your homework. Your setting would make more sense if the various countries did interact. Best of all, you'd come up with something new and fresh.

So, first big question. Why are samurai necessary in a steampunk setting? Maybe, like China, they have gunpowder but never thought to weaponize it. Without a better alternative, the sword is still the weapon of choice.

Under World. It rocks!
annebeeche watching down on us from by the long tidal river Since: Nov, 2010
watching down on us
#6: May 9th 2011 at 6:05:12 AM

In my Germanic steampunk thing, I just make steam technology a luxury for the minority. If you go far enough out into the countryside away from the metropolises, you will find people living just as if they were in the Viking Age.

In real life: Go to Peru and travel out, far out into the countryside where people don't speak Spanish but a native Peruvian tongue, wear a traditional dress (the women wear Nice Hats), and farm using the same agricultural techniques that they have been using for thousands of years before Columbus. Also, in Poland and most other places in Europe, it's still normal for farmers to use horses for farmwork.

edited 9th May '11 6:06:30 AM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.
MadassAlex I am vexed! from the Middle Ages. Since: Jan, 2001
I am vexed!
#7: May 9th 2011 at 6:51:54 PM

^^ Early firearms were unreliable, inaccurate and were stopped by heavy armour on a fairly regular basis. It's taken hundreds of years for swords to be replaced entirely on the battlefield.

See the European Renaissance for a time period where firearms and more conventional melee weapons coexisted in war.

Swordsman TroperReclaiming The BladeWatch
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