The Quick Questions About World Building Thread

I'm trying to give my Worldbuilding a full Continuity Reboot because it needs it - the old worldbuilding wasn't well-planned; but the problem is how to make my world interesting in a setting that's otherwise Like Reality, Unless Noted.

Alternate History is the main thing, although here I'm focusing on smaller, more local alternate history than anything huge like World War II; it's deciding what to focus on.

I've got my characters planned, but the world-building side isn't quite working as I'd planned, so any advice is appreciated.

But to give you a flavor of things....

The setting is the United Kingdom during the 1990s, then parts of the 2000s, before fast-forwarding to 2017-2018... in Anachronic Order for the storytelling. (Well, it also visits the U.S. and Canada too, or that's been considered anyway!)

It's a Thematic Series (if it can be considered one) due to there not being one main protagonist... the protagonist varies between eras.

For my first story, it's centered around a Londoner, her American and Canadian friends (a trio, well, Power Trio, all Girly Girl in behavior /aesthetic) and it's set in London (but not the center, instead North London and West London with one place that doesn't exist in Real Life; the town is unique to the story). I've used Americans and Canadians as two of the main characters to provide something different for this setting.

It's set in 2007-2008, more specifically March 2007 to December 2008, with a timeskip from December 2007 to July 2008, and there's flashbacks to 2001 and 2002 as well.

The main antagonist, Katrina, is Australian, and she's not a bad guy (well, girl) and not even evil; her job makes her a Punch-Clock Villain though (haven't decided what) and she will do a Heel–Face Turn eventually, and possibly become Fire-Forged Friends with the protagonists.

She meets them at a meal for expat Americans, Canadians, Australians/New Zealanders/South Africans in Kensington, London, run by a social group that has no counterpart in Real Life.

One interesting thing; there is some Status Quo Is God, but there are also some major changes too.

I guess I'm going through Creativity Leash right now, partially.

Edited by Merseyuser1 on Mar 18th 2021 at 10:06:07 AM

I suppose that my main question is this: what is the purpose behind having an alternate history? Why divert things, if the diversions are not interesting and don't lead to interesting things?

Conversely, one approach to making an interesting alternate history might be to come up with diversions that are either interesting in and of themselves, or that lead to interesting things.

In the latter case, you could potentially work backwards: come up with an interesting consequence, and then figure out what change to history might enable that.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Mar 19th 2021 at 2:01:40 PM

This is merely a question about personal preference and what you would do.

I'm developing a fantasy world based on the Bronze Age, and while I'm trying to take from various real world culture for inspiration, I'm also trying to avoid Fantasy Counterpart Culture, and so I'm doing a little mixing and matching.

My setting takes heavy inspiration from Greek mythology, mostly for the creatures, but the actual cultures and civilizations that I have in my world so far have more of a Mesopotamian flair. Would it make more sense to keep the culture as close to the Mycenaeans as possible, to fit with the Greek mythology theme?

Edited by Count_Spatula on Apr 29th 2021 at 2:03:00 PM

Would make sense, but there's nothing stopping you from mixing and matching if it matches the world's vibes. I've actually been working on a D&D setting with a friend where the Warforged are a revived ancient civilisation whose aesthetics are a mix-and-match between the Mycenaeans, the Neo-Assyrians and the Scythians, plus a healthy dose of inspiration from Endless Legend's Broken Lords.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Apr 29th 2021 at 11:07:08 AM

To my mind, I think that it would likely depend on just how closely the inspiration hews on either side.

If the elements—be they creatures, deities, myth-plots, architecture, other aesthetics, or whatever—are particularly close to those of a specific culture, then it might feel inconsistent to mix cultures. (Unless such mixing is the point, of course.)

Having Gilgamesh wander through ancient Mesopotamia, and then suddenly come upon the Lernean Hydra (and nowhere near Lerna) could perhaps be a bit jarring.

To be clear, however, by "particularly close" I do mean very close, to the degree that "Fantasy Counterpart Culture" might be applied.

Conversely, if the inspiration is more distant—if you have creatures like those of Greek myth, or a story and protagonist that mixes bits of Heracles and Gilgamesh together, or suchlike—then I think that the mixing could well work.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Apr 29th 2021 at 11:20:43 AM

Got an exoplanetology question: How warm is a planet with an atmosphere but without many greenhouse gases with a mean instellation of 250W/m2? It's surprisingly hard to get an answer to this question and I am not certain that the Stefan-Boltzmann law applies if the radiation goes through an atmosphere.

Edited by SeptimusHeap on May 18th 2021 at 10:53:03 AM

IGNORE THIS! I belatedly realized that this probably merits a thread of its own.

Edited by MarqFJA on Jul 14th 2021 at 10:36:15 PM

What would be needed for Japanese to become one of the popular choices of second language to learn around the world by, say, the latter half of this century?

Japan develops a massive trade network like Britain.

So imagine if instead of kicking off the Imjin war, Japan went south, conquering and raiding Chinese ports and eventually seizing control over the Indonesian Straights. After that they trace the Asian coast northwards until discovering the Bering Straight and thus Alaska. Meanwhile, Japanese governors hear about Australia from the locals.

So Japan has a complete lockdown on Pacific trade as well as access to the west coast of North America. This makes them a massive trade empire before Britain is even a thing.

You misunderstand. I'm not talking about changing the past to obtain a particular outcome by the present time or near future, I'm strictly talking about what needs to happen in the near future to achieve said outcome within the time frame that I had given.

Edited by MarqFJA on Aug 18th 2021 at 5:20:44 PM

You're going to need a massive benefit for learning Japanese. It's not a romance language so non-asians are going to have trouble learning it. Chinese and Koreans still hold grudges from the Japanese empire so they'd be loathed to study it.

Honestly, I don't know how'd you pull it off.

Well, I had looked up Wikipedia's article on Japanese language education, and according to it, the Japanese language had skyrocketed in popularity after Japan's economic bubble in the '80s and the rising popularity of Japanese popular culture (anime, manga, video games, etc.) since the '90s. Coupled with further insights from pages like this list of 10 reasons for learning German and this list of 8 reasons for learning Japanese, I'm tentatively thinking of a scenario revolving around the following primary factors.

1. Japan experiences an economic resurgence that finally ends the Lost Decades, drawing unpercedentedly large amounts of foreign investment while simultaneously catapulting Japanese corporations back to a leading position in the international economy. Some of the smaller non-Japanese businesses, seeking to stay competitive with larger and more dominant ones for partnerships with Japanese counterparts, make a point of conducting their communications with the Japanese in their native language as much as possible, rather than be complacent with the expectation that the Japanese would learn the local lingua franca; this starts a trend where Japanese companies give preferential treatment to foreign companies that demonstrate a willingness to conduct business communications in Japanese extensively, even to the point of spurning potentially more lucrative deals with some of the largest corporations.

2. The aforementioned economic revival attracts more tourists to Japan, many of whom would likely learn at least some Japanese to make things easier for them, while also spurring growth in tourism by Japanese citizens themselves due to more widespread financial security, creating a market for Japanese-speaking tourist guides.

3. A surge in scientific and technological innovation puts Japan at at an unpercedentedly strong position within the scientific community. This has a multitude of effects, from reviving the already large but stagnant Japanese publishing market with an influx of heavily sought-after academic literature, to a rise in foreign students seeking educational opportunities at Japanese schools and universities.

4. Japan's cultural exports — from cuisine and martial arts to anime/manga and other forms of pop culture — experience a boom in their already high global popularity, and with it a similar increase in Japanophiles learning Japanese.

5. A series of successful government measures to combat the persistent population decline synergize with the revitalized economy, leading to a population explosion. Besides compounding the effects of many of the other factors, many members of these new generations end up forming large expatriate communities as they pursue the opportunities opened up by Japan's economic boom.

6. Learning Japanese is a good stepping stone for learning other East Asian languages that it shares similarities with, especially Korean and Chinese, as Japanese and Korean grammar are very similar and Japanese's kanji writing system was largely adapted from the Chinese language.

Would it be too outrageous to build a space colony solely to grow coffee?

You mean colonize an entire planet for a single crop? It would seem odd. You'd be running dangerously close to Space Opera clichés like Single-Biome Planet and Planetville.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 21st 2021 at 7:02:31 AM

I was thinking more of an orbital habitat. Something you can climate control because Arabica beans are terribly picky.

Oh, that. It's not totally implausible. Soil conditions would be a concern though. You can't just ignore nutrient depletion and crop rotation because you took your farms into space. Can you grow good coffee beans hydroponically or aeroponically? Those are much more efficient in their use of space, water, and nutrients.

The real problem is transportation costs. Coffee is a bulk good, and even with fully and rapidly reusable rockets, getting tons of it from orbit to the surface is not cheap. This naturally leads into how advanced your propulsion technology is in this universe. If people are taking space taxis down to the surface for coffee and donuts, then it's no big deal.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 21st 2021 at 7:51:13 AM

Right, right. So it's going to need constant fertilizer shipments and agricultural specialists. Thankfully, coffee bushes last for decades so crop rotation shouldn't be necessary. Fertilizer might be a problem as natural fertilizers might not be available and making synthetic fertilizers is energy intensive.

So the context is that extra-solar colonies often wouldn't have access to arable land. Lots of the food would need come from indoor farming and aquaculture. However, coffee plants grow to about 3.5 meters tall and prefer both high altitudes and temperatures. Not ideal for hydroponics. We also can't expect highly trained technicians and engineers to simply abandon their love of coffee either.

Edited by Belisaurius on Aug 21st 2021 at 8:15:52 AM

I assume the scenario in my previous post isn't far-fetched?

Heck, if you want to get a little bit dark, you could postulate that climate change has driven crops like Arabica to extinction so that they can only be grown in orbital habitats. That would make growing them there quite profitable.

@Marq Most of Japan already takes English as a second language and that's a far more common lingua franca. If you already speak english there's very little need to learn Japanese.

To be honest a lot of those points are kinda based on false assumptions in the first place.

The whole "low birthrate" thing is largely a scapegoat the LDP just likes to use to blame whatever their current failings are on.

@Belisaurius: The cost of transportation to and from a planetary surface might be aided if your setting has "space elevators"—especially as the sending down of beans might provide energy to aid in the raising up of fertiliser.

Then what would you guys suggest?

First off, what do you want to do and what kind of limitations are you working with?

I want to justify a bunch of teenaged characters from all over the world having varying levels of fluency in Japanese so that they can at least hold basic conversations when they eventually travel to Japan. The thing is, I can easily justify it for a handful of them, because they are directly affiliated with a multinational organization with wide-reaching influence, and a combination of both said organization having access to certain classified knowledge and circumstances outside their control leads them to know that said handful are going to be needed in Japan, so the organization would naturally have them go through Japanese language courses (whether through simple persuasion or making it a compulsory part of their courses) in order to be able to do what they're supposed to do; the other characters, however, are just close friends of those select few that have little to nothing in common between them, and while the plan is to have them follow their friends to Japan either at the same time or later on, the organization has no real interest in "wasting" their resources on those characters as they deem them "unnecessary" at best and "liabilities" at worst.

Now, you may say "Just use the fact that English is a common choice of second language in Japan", but:

1. What exactly are you basing this on?
2. English is quite difficult for most Japanese people to learn, and since most of the Japanese characters that are going to be interacted with are in junior high or high school, it would be implausible to depict them as being more or elss fluent.
3. There's already a resistance to English education in Japan due concerns over the perceived aggressiveness and individualism in English as a language (contrasting with Japanese being the polar oppposite) may lead to "Westernizing" the Japanese language and take away its distinctiveness (reminds me of some criticisms of Modern English over being a linguistic "chimera").