The Quick Questions About World Building Thread

They're not going to be able to generate sustained thrust. The specific impulse of bombardier beetle blasts would have to be pretty low, and that's a sentence I never thought I'd write.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 18th 2019 at 11:44:46 AM

What about bombardier beetles that have managed to evolve cold fusion engines within them and fuel it through solar radiation (or ingesting fucking plutonium IDK)? Then you could Epstein Drive your way around the place.

"evolve cold fusion engines within them"

My brain just died a little.

It was slightly facetious, but I don't know how hard on the scale we're going here. I mean, Warhammer 40,000 has FTL organic ships in the form of the Tyranids, and their FTL is accomplished by "harnessing the system's gravity to create a corridor of compressed-space through which Tyranid vessels can travel towards the system at a swift rate" if that helps at all.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Nov 18th 2019 at 5:18:53 PM

In other words, Space Magic. I've said many times that I've got no problem with using this in a fictional work, but if you ask how you can scientifically justify it, I'll give you my best answer, which is that it's BS.

Heck, one of my favorite sci-fi series, the Uplift Saga, features aliens that can traverse space by, in effect, wishing so hard that they break reality. Don't sweat the justification if you have a cool idea.

Now I know you're trying to trigger me.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 18th 2019 at 12:34:19 PM

What if they were genetically engineered rather than evolved?

My favorite SF show is Stargate, where the gates form artificial wormholes that are essentially just magic 2D puddles that teleport you vast distances. Starships use the hyperdrive, which is an alternate dimension and that achieves FTL. The series never really delves deeper into it than that.

In other words, you could just not bother explaining how it works.

Re: Evil EU alternate timeline: i don't think the concept works. The notion of a european union is quite new. Many have tried to unify europe, yes, but this was always based on anything else. The Romans simply called it the Roman Empire, the germans called it the Holy Roman Empire, the french simply called it the French Empire, and the nazi's then tried to establish the Third Reich, IE the third empire. And since the nazi's loved ripping off anyone and anything for the slightest shred of legitimacy, it certainly wouldn't be called the "european" anything.

In addition, specialization is also fairly recent because, well, war has changed. In a world where the Nazi's gave everyone superpowers, i imagine tensions with the US would still be high. And after two hyper-nationalist World Wars, there certainly would be no appetite for unification. Not unless it was by force from the Nazi's.

I... didn't mean European Dominion to come out as evil. Or, at least pure evil like Nazis. It was meant to be a lighter shade of grey at worst.

Let me explain more about European Dominion, so I can (attempt to) clear up the misunderstanding (for which I am fully responsible).
Sure, the Autarch has absolute power, but each member country retains its autonomy. They have their own governments, are allowed to speak their own languages and even have armies of their own to protect their territories. Freedom of speech is also allowed and propaganda is not used. In practice, Dominion is very close to The Federation (or at least I hope so). Member countries however do share the same currency and each country provide troops to one Dominion Army.

While the Autarch has absolute power as I mentioned, he rarely intervenes in domestic affairs of member countries. The Autarch is expected to let countries develop themselves, but sometimes divert some funds to aid. However, if the government proves to be too incompetent or worse, corrupt, Autarch can in worst case scenario disband the government and issue a new election in the country. The political party that was removed from power cannot participate. But, before he can do it, Autarch must first show the evidence to the Senate to justify his actions. This only happened once, with Poland.

I understand why would you think the Dominion is basically an Evil EU. I want to think of a plausible reason why would people want an Unified Europe, with an absolute ruler in spite of what The Third Reich tried to do. Even In-Universe, there are critics of the Dominion who bring up the Nazis as the reason why they're so skeptical about it. The Autarch and the Senate take that criticism to the heart.
The only people that may have it hard or face some sort of discrimination are Parahumans. People are rightly afraid of their powers (as some of them can be quite devastating) and they have to face rather strict upbringing. But, they rigorously train them to master their powers, so they wouldn't accidentally hurt anyone with them, including themselves. The current Autarch sympathizes with those who criticize such harsh treatment of Parahumans, as he too have powers and went through such training. The Autarch works hard to improve the situation of Parahumans.

Maybe I should rethink the concept further. Should I start a new thread or is there an appropriate one where I could discuss the Dominion? By the way, did I contradict myself when talking about The Autarch?
And, I must admit, the idea of countries having military specialization was inspired by Warhammer 40.000 Imperial Guard Regiments, like Tanith First-And-Only, Valhallan Ice Warriors or Armageddon Steel Legion.

Well in reality most countries don't really do the whole specialization thing, that's just a fun genre convention.

There are differences in design and doctrine based on history and geographic location but nothing as extreme as you see in most fiction.

Especially not between European countries because of the whole NATO/Allies thing, everyone fell together pretty quickly.

Europe is also not *so* different that you can radically specialize. Other than defensive/offensive tactics, navy vs army, that sort of thing. But if you wanna do it, go for it. Part of the fun of fiction is to, well, have fun with fiction.

I am having trouble reconciling the idea of an autark with absolute power vs the Dominion being a federation. The thing about power is that generally, the one who has it is expected to wield it. Or to explain it more simply, whoever has responsibility has power, but who has power has responsibility. Unless you're going for more of a US style, where the government technically has a lot of power but the states rarely let it wield that. But then it's not absolute power. Cause it's good to emphasize just how absolute absolute power is, you'd be above everything, even the law.

I also have a really hard time seeing this model arise, especially from a nazi era. The british were famously "with europe but not of it", and after the Nazis, they especially disliked it. Joining the EU didn't go smoothly and leaving it now doesn't go smoothly. That's really just one one nation with one issue.

It seems to me like everything would go a lot smoother with a total Nazi absence. Germany rebuilt after WW 1, the bruised and war-weary nations would be far more amenable to a more peaceful international cooperation, etc. The hypernationalistic bent of fascism wouldn't poison the idea of giving up sovereignty for security and cooperation, the war wouldn't poison the idea of a more united europe.

It's also good to be reminded that the whole unethical experiment thing doesn't really require nazi levels of evil to work. Famously the US had no issues with secret unethical experiments either, and many Nazi scientists ended up on an american payroll after the war.

Edited by devak on Nov 18th 2019 at 10:22:21 AM

So, it would be better if the Dominion was founded after WWI? It could be interesting, but I would have to decide WHEN the superpower-giving plague would hit. And, who would be responsible? USSR, wanting to create Super Soldiers to finally end European resistance, but release it due to an accident or sabotage from the Allies? Or, perhaps make Germany do it? Not Nazi Germany, mind you. The desperate German scientists, wanting to turn the tide of war in the Allies favor, but having released the plague due to an experiment gone wrong?
While this can be turned into something interesting, eliminating Nazis would bring me a bit of issues, however. Mainly, the Holocaust, foundation of Israel, USA nuking Hiroshima (they didn't nuke Nagasaki, as Japan surrendered after the first bomb, as mainland Japan was already ravaged by the plague) and most of the Cold War still happen.
The only solution - I would have to go for Red Alert route and make the USSR the instigator of WWII (no Tesla coils or time travelling shenanigans though). Make them commit Holocaust or something similar to it. With the plague and the emergence of Parahumans, plunge the world into chaos. Make the war end with a stalemate, resulting in a Cold War. Have USA and Japan still fight, but as a separate war (because, there is no way USSR and Imperial Japan would join forces).
And here's more important part - setting the foundation for the Dominion. European countries of Western Bloc form alliances out of anticipation of another USSR attack and to better deal with more Parahumans emerging. Eventually, it would give birth to European Dominion.
devak, you gave me an awesome idea. If I can work out the details, perhaps I could make one hell of a universe.
Last question. In this altered history, should I kill off Hitler (by having him executed for the attempted coup) or have him never got involved with politics in the first place, instead him becoming an artist?

Edited by ArcticDog18 on Nov 18th 2019 at 12:43:49 PM

Unless it’s really critical to the story, I’d probably leave all the Holocaust/Hitler stuff out. Historical revisionism regarding Nazis is a sure fire way to piss people off.

So I want to have a setting that is in a completely different galaxy from our own, but still justify having humans living in it.

What are some possible justifications for this?

I know I can handwave it and it doesn't stop Star Wars from having humans in a far away galaxy, but I'd like at least some plausibility and explanation in my setting.

Considering humans exist in almost every single Fantasy world, you really don't need to justify it at all and chalk it up to Willing Suspension of Disbelief. People tend to ignore these things in favor of the story. If you really want to justify it, you could just say that the human form is ideal for intelligent life or something like that.

Edited by DelphineTheDelphox on Nov 23rd 2019 at 8:22:29 AM

Panspermia combined with wormholes. Go nuts.

Or perhaps an abduction scenario, with aliens having taken ancient humans to this other galaxy before disappearing for some reason.

I'm working on a vampire story where clans are determined by their progenitor. A progenitor is a vampire who gained their abilites by making a literal Deal with the Devil instead of being infected by another.

While some strengths and weaknesses are universal for vampires, such as gaining nourishment from blood or being weakened by sunlight, others are unique to each clan. For example, the Dracula Clan are masters of hypnosis, but are harmed by religious artifacts and sanctified objects, a reflection of the fact that Dracula was extremely charming and charismatic but had an absolute hatred for God and religion as a whole.

Now, in this story, the very first vampire was a neanderthal from several millennia ago. See here. He was so barbaric in life that Lucifer actually used him as the building block of future vampires, such as drinking blood and having incredible strength. I'm thinking that for this clan, the vampires have far greater strength than even others of their kind, reflecting the incredible strength of neanderthals.

Here's my question: What would be a good weakness for the original vampire clan? (Name pending.) Fire's already a univeral weakness, so I can't go with that one, and silver is already taken by another clan. Garlic is just stupid, so I'm not even bothering with that one. Could anyone please offer some suggestions for a good weakness?

Edited by DelphineTheDelphox on Nov 24th 2019 at 11:33:17 AM

Maybe thunder and electricity? Your neanderthal may have hated storms.

(I suspect neanderthal super strength to be a stereotype; but who cares).

Hm. I think I know a way to make that work! Thanks!

Honestly if he's the original vampire, i'd go with solely the universal weaknesses. Make them worse, perhaps, where other Clans diluted their weaknesses by creating new ones.

Also, religious objects are already handwave-y in terms of vampire weaknesses, so why is garlic stupid? It might even be a funny thing if it's that clan's weakness simply because the original was allergic to it.

So in my upcoming work there is a magic system wherein the users use a type of mana crystal that each user can only use one type of. Each type of crystal is a different color to represent the kind of power it grants.

So far I have decided on the colors blue, brown, green, red, and yellow. I'm having trouble deciding what colors do what, but am leaning toward it being elemental in nature.

Edited by sifsand on Dec 4th 2019 at 8:20:09 AM

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy worked on a similar system with eco, where each eco provided different benefits.

• Blue eco gives the wielder a boost of energy so they can move faster, and it's capable of powering long-defunct machines. In subsequent games, it's used primarily as energy.

• Red eco makes the wielder stronger, and it's used mainly to power short-ranged weapons in subsequent games.

• Yellow eco lets the wielder shoot fire balls from their hands, and is the main source for all long-ranged weapons.

• Green eco can heal the wielder and cure unhealthy plants, and is universally used for first aid.

• There is no Brown eco, but Dark eco is a primarily harmful substance that can kill or mutate whoever touches it. It's usually kept locked away, but can be used in explosives.

Not saying you have to use this system, but I thought it might provide some inspiration.

Do you have any ideas yet as to what powers you want to have available? Do any of the powers affect the plot? And are there any themes (narrative or visual) that you want to maintain?

I mentioned I was leaning on it being elemental in nature. As for how it serves the narrative, half of the plot is centered on it since it's not only a source of power but also a valuable resource.

You could go with stock elements and just have each crystal grow in a place with a strong connection to that element, and wielding the element can only be done by using up said crystal. (or crushing and sniffing it).

E.g. blue crystals represent water and only form during a full moon.

Edited by devak on Dec 5th 2019 at 7:11:43 PM